Letsplay for the Lonely

I can remember adults thinking my friends and I were weird, or telling me in the lamest, most un-Will-Smith-esque way possible that they "just didn't understand" certain facets of popular culture, and me thinking, "that will never be me. I will never be so out of touch with the youth of our nation." My mom not thinking that Charlie The Unicorn was funny? Criminal. My teacher not appreciating me writing emo lyrics on my forearm? Tragic.

Fast forward to me literally only being 22 and barely older than most of the children I worked with, working in a K-9 school, and having absolutely no clue what in the hell kids of any age were doing, saying, or interpretive dancing like 99% of the time. They were "yeeting" and "dabbing" and fighting over who had the most likes on "musicly" and crying when rappers who I had never even heard of were in the hospital after drinking too much cough syrup and I was... lost. I was quite literally the youngest person on staff and I was STILL lost. So when the parents I also worked with came to me wondering how to relate to their kids, there was only so much information I could give before I said, "...and other than that, I'm also lost. Yeet, good sir." I did have one understanding up my sleeve, though. I was able to defend one piece of the strange world these teens and kids lived in...and that was Lets Plays.

Being married to a video game nerd, I was let in on the bizarre world of Lets Players long before I ever worked with kids. It is not the first nor the last time my husband's nerdiness has come in handy, but we won't get into that today. For those that may not be aware of this lingo (and given that my audience is mainly women my age or older, that is likely a good number of you), a "Lets Play" video is a video where someone streams themselves playing a video game; usually a shot of the person playing is displayed in the upper corner and the game they are playing is shown on the screen.

My husband first began showing me some popular Lets Players when trying to sell me on games he was trying to convince me to play or watch him play. He so desperately wanted to combine my love for horror movies with his love for video games to create his ideal date night: him playing horror video games and me watching him play video games and possibly being entertained by it. He would put on funny and entertaining videos of various young men with various pastel colours of hair playing through scary games while laughing, screaming, and making obscure pop culture references. The more of these videos I watched the more I seemed to be let in on and enjoying their running jokes, nonsensical and somewhat cringe-y as they were. I even found myself watching some of the videos on my own just to see more of a certain game, or even just for background noise; my husband worked away from home and it was nice to have laughter and silliness on in the background when I was feeling lonely. They really did keep me company and I enjoyed being a part of the weird little community of people who liked these videos, even though I was possibly among the older people in the audience.

I was meeting so many kids in my work who also enjoyed these lets players and their "company", and I understood it. I got their jokes, and I knew why they thought they were funny, and for the most part, the content they consumed by these creators was made with them as a young audience in mind, so it was age-appropriate. Yet there was such a problem with the enjoyment of Lets Plays at the time. The cranky old teachers eating tuna sandwiches in the lunchroom mocked the idea, "how is it fun to watch someone sitting there playing a video game? And they act like they know these people or something. I just don't get it-- it's stupid. It's all they talk about and it's not a real hobby." I stood there and shook my head, eating pad thai, thinking about how much less crusty these cranky old people would be if they watched Markiplier get jump-scared once in a while. Maybe they would do viral dances and yell "yeet" and do other cringe-y but relatable things that the kids could at the very least laugh at.

I began working with a 12 year old boy and his family, who at first was presented to me as "addicted to electronics", and I was being brought in to work with him and his family on the issue. As I got to know this family and this boy, it felt more and more like I was back in the lunch room, only now the boy was me with my pad thai and his parents were the crusty old teachers eating tuna. It turned out that these parents were not considering this boy addicted because of his frequency of using electronics-- they were literally just "concerned" because "he talks about these people too much and its ridiculous. He doesn't even know them." This boy was not addicted to anything other than the feeling of friendship and comfort he found in these videos. Due to him always being in trouble for having interests his parents didn't agree with, this boy didn't have a ton of friends in real life to hang out with. It's hard to make plans when you're grounded just for not liking Jeopardy and housekeeping. I saw so much more power in the online gaming community in this moment; power that I wish all crusty old people with tuna sandwiches could understand.

I will never forget that boy looking at me through tears and saying, "I know it's silly but it does feel like they're my friends. They're the only people I get to spend any real time with that enjoy the things I do. I'm not allowed to do anything else because I'm grounded all the time. They make me laugh. I know they can't see or hear me but it's just nice to know they're there, I guess. I just wish my parents understood that. Sometimes they've been the only reason I've hung on and decided to stay alive-- just thinking that one day when I'm older I could have friends like this."

Watching Markiplier play Five Nights At Freddy's and Daz Black scream about Silent Hill and Jacksepticeye play with and scream at Markiplier and Daz Black was no longer just a form of entertainment, it was a support and service being provided to the lonely kids of the world. I would never think that the young fans of these lets plays were just bored nerds, or video game obsessed. They're humans looking for a connection. Whether you like to watch hot girls eat noodles or people doing their makeup or dogs riding skateboards or dudes with fluffy cotton candy hair playing video games, or maybe even if you just enjoy chatting with an old friend on your landline about good tuna, we all like those things because they bring us joy and comfort. We can't punish the people younger than us for not having the same interests as we once did; perhaps we should try to understand why their interests are changing and what needs they're serving.

Ultimately, it's us that are raising these kids and shaping their needs: if our kids need to watch youtube videos of guys with rainbow hair to feel a connection, it might say more about us than them. We should be thanking the Lets Play community for what they do for our kids, honestly. So I vow to the Gaming and Lets Play community that I will spend the rest of my days shutting down cranky old people eating tuna who don't get it and don't try to.