Growing Black Girl Gamers from a safe space into a progressive space
James Batchelor
Editor-in-Chief
Tuesday 12th April 2022
It started with a Facebook group.
In 2015, content creator Jay-Ann Lopez had been running her own channels on both YouTube and Twitch, raising her profile considerably, and yet she felt "very lonely, and also very ostracised at the same time."
"This was due to a couple of things," she tells GamesIndustry.biz. "First, not seeing many black women gamers. I knew they were out there, but I just didn't know where to find them. And then, second, because of the racism, sexism that you get when you play online games."
Lopez created a Facebook group, Black Girl Gamers, and invited a few Black women she'd encountered on Twitter. These early members became the first "mini-management team" for the group, but have since become lifelong friends for Lopez. As this group grew, it transformed into a company with part-time employees, and Lopez as the CEO. The initially small Facebook community now stands at over 8,000 people, also gathering on a Discord.
"I look at the diversity reports of every company, every year. Some of them don't even have them, and they need to, especially the big companies"
More importantly, Lopez says it has turned "from a community into a community-powered business," running everything from events, mentorships and workshops, consulting, sponsored content and even talent brokering -- pairing Black influencers with brands from across the business of games, but also beyond (including Netflix, Buildbox and makeup companies such as Anastasia Beverly Hills).
We're speaking to Lopez on the day of the Ensemble 2022 photoshoot, where she reveals a fellow member of this year's cohort was surprised to find Black Girl Gamers had been running for nearly a decade.
"He thought
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