Kim Richards on racism in the gaming industry

We spoke to Kim Richards, also known as NanoSounds and Yogscast Kim, about her work as a gamer, Twitch streamer and content creator.

Interview by Mai-Anh Peterson

You’ve been a producer, journalist and a professional gamer, to name a few of the different ‘hats’ you’ve worn. What’s your experience been like as an ESEA woman moving in those spaces?

That's a really big question. It's been interesting, hard, great at times. I'm in a better space now, being a content creator. Having my own channel and my own brand as Yogscast Kim/NanoKim, I've become more confident, talking about my South East Asian side and my Malaysian roots and branding my channel and my image around that. I have little Chinese dragons on some of my channel banners and back in my Minecraft YouTube videos, we built a little noodle bar, which I based off Hawker stores in Penang. People seem really receptive to that, and they seem a lot more discerning, understanding that I'm Malaysian, not Japanese or Chinese. 

I will say that in the past it has been more of a problem, particularly when I was a games journalist. While there were no outright profiling situations, there were definitely some weird things. I would always be given the Japanese games to play and preview and review because it was automatically assumed that I would a) like them and b) know everything about them. And I didn't. I did know Final Fantasy - that's the main series - but there was this automatic assumption that that then meant that I knew all JRPGs [Japanese role playing games]. 

Then when I started as a content creator and first stepped into the spotlight, I got a lot of racist abuse, a lot of slurs about all East and South East Asian countries (but it’s the internet, right?) including a lot of Japanese slurs. I even once got asked if I smell like raw fish.

Things got a little strange recently. I started a show with a couple of other people called High Rollers D&D, where we played Dungeons & Dragons every weekend, and there was a phase a couple of years ago when Brexit was really gaining ground, so there was a wave of political talk about immigrants. There was this specific phrase that kept coming out in public discourse: ‘foreign nationals’. I started seeing a bunch of comments coming up on our YouTube channel questioning where I was born, calling me a ‘foreign national’ and telling me to go back to where I'm from, which is funny because I was born in Farnborough in England.

Going back to my early days in the Yogscast, we used to play a lot of multiplayer games and there was a period of time where, whenever I was on a main channel video, I would get most of the hate comments. The comment that always stuck out for me was people would say that they couldn't stand my shrieking voice, which is hilarious because, if you know the Yogscast, several of the guys in it are known for having very high-pitched, loud screams and laughs. There was even a recording where I sat down and I basically said nothing the entire recording. I didn't laugh, screech or shout. I didn't raise my voice once. I was speaking in a very flat, neutral tone. Yet there were still comments about my shrieking voice, about my screaming, how shrill I was. And there were a few comments saying, ‘oh, it's like my sister, she’s so annoying’ and I wonder if there's something in that: young boys who couldn’t stand their sisters, and my female voice was triggering that in them.

It’s literally latching on to the nearest target, and I was the only woman in a group of guys playing a video game. These guys are very popular, so I think there was a part of the audience who wished they were the ones playing these games with these famous guys. And then there I was, being a bratty girl who’d taken their place.

The gaming industry has been problematic in the past in terms of its representation of ESEA people/characters/cultures. Are things changing? What would you like to see more of?

People always say, ‘we need more representation. We need more women. We need people of colour. We need more LGBTQ representation.’ And it's hard because you're trying to bring that, but also, equally, you experience bad things because of that. Certainly there have been lots of social movements that happened in my time as both a journalist and a content creator. 

A lot of things that happened off the back of GamerGate. #Metoo happened, which exposed a lot of bad things, both in the gaming industry and the games journalism industry. Recently, I've been doing lots of fundraising streams for End the Virus of Racism, and I've been trying to get some other people in my network to help out as well. One question they asked was, ‘oh, is there a game that we can play that’s by ESEA creators, or is there a game with a genuine, well-represented ESEA setting?’ And I was like... there really isn't! 

“But I do think representation is slowly getting better, especially in the indie gaming scene, for women, for LGBTQ people and for people of colour as well.”

Dungeons and Dragons has been very interesting because there was a recent movement where a group of pissed off ESEAs basically decided to sit down and go through some of Dungeons and Dragons older modules, one of which is called Oriental Adventures. It was written in the 1980s by two very white Americans and there are aspects to it that are fine and then there are aspects to it that are really gross and that pick and mix ESEA cultures. So the group got together and read through the module and talked about things that were brought up. This gained some traction and they gained a lot of hate. 

But Wizards of the Coast (the company who own D&D) actually came out and supported these guys and said they did not support the abuse that was going towards them. They did a press release where they apologised and then they pledged to do better, not just in Oriental Adventures, but in a whole bunch of their adventures where there are perhaps problematic racial and gender representations. One of the things they did recently was hosting a weekend-long online convention celebrating the new product that they've got coming out. They invited Asians Represent (a podcast formed by some of the original guys behind the movement) to hold a panel at the festival talking very openly about this - and that was amazing. I thought that it was really good to see a company recognising its failings. And for a product that is 20-30 years old, talking about it, and then inviting the people who've critiqued them to come on that platform and talk about it further - that's something to watch. We're still in the kind of the ‘we will see’ phase, but given the things that they have been able to change immediately, they have actioned that. So I'm hopeful.

These days you’re very active on Twitch, with a following of around 50,000, and you’ve been able to use your platform to do some absolutely fantastic fundraising for the End the Virus of Racism (EVR) campaign. Have you been able to open up a dialogue with your Kimmunity, and are there ESEA followers who’ve found your sharing helpful?

When I did my first fundraiser for EVR, I was very nervous because I myself have had a very complicated relationship with my identity being mixed race. I would definitely say, going through 2020, seeing the rise of Black Lives Matter and the conversations that it brought up, and then finding EVR, besea.n, and the media petition, that the conversations I've had in the last few months have really helped me resolve a few things about my own identity, who I am, and being mixed race and how valid I feel talking about that.

I was standing up and saying: ‘this is who I am and this is what I believe in and I need your help’. As someone with a predominantly white audience, I was very nervous, but there was actually no questioning whatsoever. I've had members of my community ask me, ‘can I do a stream for EVR?’ And it's funny, right? Because they almost feel nervous, wondering if they’re ‘allowed’. But of course they’re allowed! Charity is charity!

“As for ESEA followers, we've had Malaysian fans come out for conventions and come up to me and say ‘Kim! Number 1: we brought you some Milo (thank you). Number 2: It's amazing to hear your voice and to see you and to hear you talk about your Malaysian life and influences.’”

I feel like that side of the community is still quite timid and quite quiet, but I've definitely seen people come out, especially since I've been very vocal about my heritage and about EVR this summer. And I even had another streamer, Alex Vo, who's Canadian Vietnamese, and he did a fundraiser for EVR as well, so that was amazing. It was an absolute pleasure to kind of spotlight him and drive some attention towards him because we need more ESEA streamers.

As we’ve discussed, you’ve got a presence on various platforms and a large number of followers. Do microaggressions or racist incidents ever arise between your followers or commenters, and how do you deal with that?

One incident I'm thinking of recently was actually in the High Rollers community. So our video went up for the show that we did for D&D, and one thing D&D wanted was pronouns on everybody's nameplates during the whole weekend because we had a lot of different pronouns. We had a lot of gender neutral, non-binary players as well. And so D&D did the awesome thing of making it standard that everyone had their pronouns clearly displayed during the whole weekend, so that was hardcoded to a video which we put up on our YouTube channel and we had comments saying ‘why did they do that? What's the point?’ Especially because for us at High Rollers, we all identify as our biological gender. 

I was monitoring this conversation and I saw that gender fluid and non-binary people came into the comments and explained their experience with it and why they identify the way they do and actually, it de-escalated. If it hadn't, I would have probably stepped in and said, ‘you need to calm down, you need to respect the space, listen before you react’. And generally, that's kind of the approach I've always tried to take - seeing where the conversation is going and stepping in when I need to. 

Generally, in my experience on my YouTube channel, it's been pretty respectful. If someone has come in with a microaggression or made a mistake or been purposely aggressive, there have been people who very calmly come in and talk about it. I've experienced that myself on my Twitter, especially some of the hot topic issues that I've tweeted about recently, I've had people be very aggressive, and I've had fans come in and help me very calmly take it to a place where we can have a mature discussion about it.

As we both know, anti-racism work can be exhausting and triggering at times. How do you create safe spaces and look after your mental health while carrying out your activism?

I mostly get angry and then disappear off the Internet. I just need to have a digital detox, be offline, lock my phone in a drawer and be a blanket slug.

I've never really done advocacy work before. I've always been very vocal about LGBTQ advocacy and I've done a lot of fundraising for that. But this feels personal to me. This is the first time I've been so involved with a charity and with fundraising, and it really genuinely means something to me, and so this is probably the first time I've really gone through this and it has actually got to me. 

One thing that I've experienced this summer is meeting everyone at besea.n and EVR, and being able to speak up and share these things, and people just get it! For example if a microaggression has happened, having a group of people to talk to about it validates your experience. It's so good because sometimes you just don't know. Sometimes you wonder: Is it ‘cause I'm a woman? Is it ‘cause I'm mixed race? Is it because I'm South East Asian? 

You worry about being called hysterical or being a problem because then you start being shut out of things. You start being shut out of the groups at work. You start being shut out of the friendship groups. And that's always something that's hounded me through my life and I've put up with a lot of crap because of that. Because some of the things that happened to me, both sexism and racism, have come from people in positions of power, so I haven't said anything because a) I don't think anything's going to come of it and b) as soon as you say something you are labelled a ‘problem’ and then that's it. You just fucked your own career. I was silent for a long time because of that. 

You grew up in a number of different places and you’ve also travelled extensively as an adult. What has your experience been like travelling as a mixed ethnicity person?

I did a big cross-country journey in China with my white English dad and Chinese-Malaysian mum. Chinese locals would stare at me and stare at my mum, stare at my dad, stare at me, nod and then get on with their life. When I was in Japan with a white English friend in a fairly big town, this older Japanese guy came up to us and was adamant that I was Chinese. So in the end I was like, ‘Yeah, I'm Chinese. Bye.'

When I'm home in Malaysia, nobody seems to bat an eyelid. Penang especially has so many people and cultures, so nobody bats an eyelid there. Although when I hang out with my auntie's friends or other Malaysians, I get questions like ‘Do you eat spicy like us?’

I also have a fun story from America - which I love, OK, and I’ve had a lot of fun there - at LAX Airport. I had a Chinese visa in my British passport because my parents lived in Shanghai at the time, and the guy at customs looked at my visa, looked at me, and went, ‘Are you a communist, ma'am? ‘ I laughed, and he said, ‘Why do you think that's funny, ma'am?’ I told him I wasn’t a communist, and he said ‘Well, why do you have a Chinese visa then, ma'am?’ I made the mistake of saying that my family lived there, and oh, it was the tensest half hour of my life! They had so many additional questions, I also got searched. Apparently LAX customs officers are notoriously strict.

The worst experience I've had was in Germany for Gamescom, a big gaming convention. I was trying to get a taxi back to my hotel and the taxi driver looked at me, went ‘no Chinese’, shut his window and drove off. I couldn't believe it. But then the next taxi driver was a woman. She asked me if I was OK because I was just kind of standing there and I must have looked very shocked so she picked me up and took me back to the hotel. She said she was an immigrant from the Middle East  and she empathised with what just happened to me. So in a way, it was an awful experience followed quickly by a very sweet one, as this woman comforted me and offered to be my transport for the rest of the convention, so that I wouldn’t experience this again.

And finally - really important question- if you had to pick three cuisines to eat for the rest of your life, what would they be?

Straight up, Malaysian food. I would even go further to say Nonya Malaysian food, because that's my heritage. The whole culture of Nonya food was created to entertain all the merchants and get their money, because Penang was a port town. That’s my food for life.

Then I would say any cuisine that has deep fried chicken. I can’t lie, I could not live without deep fried chicken wings, buffalo chicken wings... *chefs kiss*. Can that be a whole genre? Yes? OK.

What would my last one be, though? Oh, my gosh. Probably Chinese dim sum. You can’t beat that - it’s tiny dumplings! Oh, I'm hungry. It's not dinner time! What are we having for dinner…?

Kim Richards is a content creator, Twitch streamer, producer, and scriptwriter. She is part of High Rollers D&D, the second biggest Dungeons & Dragons show globally. Follow Kim on Twitch, Patreon, YouTube and Twitter.