Hope!? Despair!?

Despite being primarily a children’s game, Roblox has evolved into a sort of emergent civic theatre for kids online. The game is now where thousands of children go to process major world news events through highly intricate role play. These simulations are how many young people experience news events, representing a shift towards more participatory forms of media.
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This is not the first time Roblox has gotten political. In 2020, teenage Roblox users replicated the wave of protests against racial injustice and police brutality following George Floyd’s murder. Roblox users have also protested Israel’s assault on Gaza, staging pro-Palestine virtual protests in the fall of 2023.
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In-game activism also isn’t an entirely new phenomenon. Even before Roblox, children mobilized in other game-centric communities. In 2016, Club Penguin users protested Donald Trump’s election. Some kids used their avatars to express political dissent at a time when they weren’t even old enough to vote. Players in Animal Crossing and Roblox also staged protest events pushing Hong Kong’s pro-democratic movement in 2020.
Roblox boasts about 85 million daily active users globally. In December 2022, more than four in ten Roblox gamers were 12 years old or younger, and 60% of users were under the age of 16, according to data from Roblox.
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I predict that digital protests will also have greater offline political impact as the digital realm increasingly becomes default reality. And it will be interesting to see what effect digital political expression in games like Roblox has on young people as they develop their nascent political ideologies.

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