Spotlight on Alexandra Orlando's YouTube channel

Alexandra Orlando, an alum of the Games Institute and a former Editor in Chief for First Person Scholar, maintains a YouTube channel for academically-oriented games criticism. When she's not working on video essays, she works as freelance writer.

Orlando's research interests include narratology, gender and esports. A chapter she co-authored with Gerald Voorhees about neoliberal masculinities in play in Counter Strike: Go Esports was recently published in the book "Masculinities in Play":

Masculinities in Play is a significant addition to the field of games studies making headway with both practical and theoretical approaches to many contemporary critical issues. The collection has writing from some of the best current and emerging scholars in the field so it is a must read!

- Alexandra Orlando

The videos Orlando publishes on her YouTube channel makes games scholarship accessible to non-expert and non-academic audiences while pushing the boundaries of what we expect for game studies. She examines gender in twitch streaming, the intersection between film theory and game cinematics, and East Asian game studies. She also posts scholarly criticisms of films, animation, and even kpop.

Her game-specific videos have looked at Kpop and eSports, sex games, Canadian Horror games, and the historical context of Hentai games. Orlando's most viewed video is entitled "Dissecting Sex Games on Newgrounds". The video received close to 5,000 views:

She also publishes video series on specific games, including Deus Ex and Warframe, allowing her to bring more in-depth games research to her channel. With her publication of the Warframe video essay series, Orlando stated:

I took care with this video to summarize and condense the assault of information out there on starting this addicting F2P game. I hope to take the same approach in upcoming video essays and other tutorials for this kind of complex content.

- Alexandra Orlando, from her blog

Outside of her own channel, Orlando is a regular cast member on the YouTube channel "SpoilerWarningShow" with over 6,500 subscribers. There, she shares her perspective on popular games such as Horizon Zero Dawn and Assassin's Creed:

To keep up with Orlando's work, check out her YouTube channel here, and her blog here.


  1. 2022 (13)
    1. December (3)
    2. October (1)
    3. July (4)
    4. June (1)
    5. May (1)
    6. April (2)
    7. March (1)
  2. 2021 (4)
    1. November (1)
    2. October (1)
    3. February (1)
    4. January (1)
  3. 2020 (23)
    1. December (1)
    2. November (2)
    3. October (1)
    4. September (1)
    5. August (2)
    6. July (4)
    7. June (5)
    8. May (2)
    9. February (3)
    10. January (2)
  4. 2019 (13)
    1. December (1)
    2. November (2)
    3. August (1)
    4. July (2)
    5. June (2)
    6. May (1)
    7. April (1)
    8. March (1)
    9. January (2)
  5. 2018 (10)