divabot

Sociology (and probably any other social science field, really) is always slightly behind the curve, as it takes years to produce proposals, acquire funding, collect data, perform analysis, and publish. By the time you get something published, your work is always going to be a few years old. On a related note, it may take a while for scholars to figure out that there is a new subculture out there that they need to pay attention to. Back when I was a Sociology Master student (back in the mid-2000's), I was surprised at how little there was on video-gaming/MMO culture, which, by that time, had blossomed into a full-fledged subculture (with conventions, specific musical artists, media outlets like Penny Arcade and such, etc.). I haven't really checked to see if there has been much in the way of scholarly research on the topic since then.