Jay-Ann Lopez is passionate about her video games. She’s currently very into Spellbreak—a multiplayer action-spellcasting game where players can wield fire, ice, toxic objects, poison, and stone. Her “wind-down” game is a calmer one, Spiritfarer, and she’s looking forward to gathering some friends to play Apex Legends season seven with her as well. Yet, as a Black woman, Jay-Ann is not who most people think of when they think of a gamer—which is precisely what she’s trying to change. There are countless women of color playing video games and looking for community. So she took it upon herself to make it happen and founded Black Girl Gamers.
For the Record spoke to Jay-Ann about creating space for Black women gamers, the representation that is yet to come, and the music on her Start Select gaming playlist takeover.
In 2015 you founded an online community called Black Girl Gamers. Can you tell us about the need that you saw for such a space?
It wasn’t a need that I saw. It was a need that I experienced. I’ve been gaming from a young age, but during that time, there were a couple of things that I experienced that led me to start Black Girl Gamers when I was in university. The first experience was not feeling represented in games. Another was just that lack of visibility for Black women who game. A lot of my friends that I was gaming with were white men. Eventually, I’d hear a sexist joke or a joke that is based in African-American vernacular English—and I’m not even American.
I tried starting my own channel. I then abandoned that, because I was like, I’d rather ‘do for everyone’ than just ‘do for myself.’ Now it’s taken off. We have 7,000 women in the group globally; in America, the UK, Asia, Caribbean, Europe. Wherever you think there’s a Black woman—she most likely games.
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