John J. Fennimore is an award-winning writer and scholar. He was born and raised in Milwaukee and is a graduate of the Media Studies master’s program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is intrigued by the commercial aspects of video games, the psychology of players, the infrastructure of virtual worlds, and the power dynamic between players and video game corporations. His master’s thesis explores the impact of cosmetic items on the gameplay and game design of Fortnite. Before coming to NC State, he worked as a contributor for the gaming, entertainment, and news sections of real-time information platform Heavy.com. His over four year career at Heavy was one of the longest in the company’s program and he contributed over 1,000 articles and gained over 11 million pageviews. He’s presented at the Midwest Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference 2020 & 2021, the DePaul University Pop Culture Conference 2019 & 2021, and Global Fusion 2019 where he won third place in the student paper competition. He is a member of the NC State chapter of the Rhetoric Society of America and is currently helping with Carolina Rhetoric Conference 2022. He published an article on the representation of hacker culture and hacktivism in Watch Dogs 2 in the Czech Republic’s Mediální studia. When he has spare time, he likes to ride bikes, walk among the trees, play video games, watch YouTube videos, and cook (he makes a mean aglio e olio). His favorite games are Hades, Bloodborne, Bayonetta 2, Nioh 2, Undertale, and Yoshi’s Island. You can follow me on Instagram at jackfennimore.