Foursquare

Studies of “gamification,” a concept commonly defined as “the use of game design elements in non-game contexts,” tend to focus on the creation and production of games rather than the bodily experience of their players. Interactions between a gamified application’s “rules” and the activities of its players provide many moments of insight that are not apparent when focusing strictly on the game itself. Transgression is one such moment. Transgression, in this context, is polysemic, ranging from acts of hubris, deviations or departures, to the more traditional definitions of misbehavior, infringement and even mutilation. To explore moments of transgression, a study of game elements alone would seem to be lacking. Instead, pursuant to anthropological and cultural methods, a phenomenological approach may add a certain depth of description. Specifically, I explored a day of transgression within the gamified space created by the social media application Foursquare (2009). This investigation of transgression in Foursquare is based on a typical day in 2012, reconstructed from data collected during long-term participant observation.