Gary* is a salt-of-the-Earth man I met while eating lunch the other day. He is exactly the opposite of most people I meet. He’s a conservative, a blue collar guy, and clearly one of those people whose first focus is his family.
He was at the open dining section and had mentioned something that was worrying him. I had to ask him what the deal was. He was doing well in work, and he had a great family with six kids. (I’m pretty sure that’s a whole schoolbus!)
It was his son, Clifford*.
He had two other sons — 13 and 18. Both of them were doing well. The young teen was a true vision of Johnny Football Star, while the older one had already started his own business as a contractor. They’re great kids!
Clifford, on the other hand, was the kid that both of his other sons said they did not want to be. Simply put, he went from being a football-playing A-student to the guy who never left his bedroom.
This is a problem I’ve heard of before.
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In the past, I’ve written about Broken Man Syndrome. This is a form of depression that I noticed gripping men where they start to self-isolate, refuse to do any work, and escape into the world of video games.
Men with this depression or “syndrome” tend to be very bitter and hateful towards women. At times, this can lead to them behaving in ways that are abusive and entitled.
Gary watched in perplexed horror as Clifford went from being a popular football star with straight A’s to a shut-in. Clifford insists he’s depressed, but refuses to get help. To Gary’s credit, he gave his son plenty of “come to Jesus” talks.
His son just wasn’t budging — no medical help, no therapy, nothing. He hasn’t filled out a job application in months. Clifford did, however, demand that Gary pay for a PS5 and help him foot the bill for rent because he “deserves it” while he’s getting on his feet.
Time and time again, I keep hearing particular themes about guys who fall into this trap.
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So, Gary and parents like him all tend to ask their kids why they aren’t interested in getting a job. The response is always the same: “I don’t want to answer to someone else. I want to be my own boss.”
That answer is followed up with inaction — or talk about playing more video games. In the case of Gary’s son, Clifford kept mentioning that if he just practices a bit more, he might become a professional gamer.
Boom. That was a concept I didn’t really think about when talking about Broken Man Syndrome. Most of the time, adults tend to get into video games as a form of escapism.
Escapism is easy to fall into and video games can isolate you. But, in small doses, it’s not that bad. We all need to escape. It’s the larger doses that worry people.
When you’re a teen, though, that escapism becomes more insidious.
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Most teen guys follow at least one Twitch streamer or YouTube gamer. If not, they know of professional gamers. These gamers are professionals who literally play games on camera for a living.
Those gamers make it seem so easy. They have adoring fans, girlfriends, and they get to be paid to play video games. It’s the life! So, it’s easy to see why a lot of teenage boys (and even older men) feel like they have a shot at being the next Markiplier.
The problem is, not everyone is a Markiplier or Pewdiepie. That stuff takes a lot of work and marketing. You have to have the right personality for it and you have to stream at least three times a week. You have to provide entertainment and be really, really good at gaming.
Most gamers are just meant to be gamers — casual players who escape into their games to blow off steam. The problem is that modern video games are designed to be addictive escapes from reality. You start craving that dopamine hit.
In other words, the potential career of being a Twitch streamer or pro-gamer gives younger teenage boys a way to explain away their addiction to video gaming. It legitimizes their addiction, much like how being a DJ can legitimize a coke addiction.
To make matters worse, teen boys are in a very fragile position. Too many gaming communities are starting to have toxic misogyny, damaging messages, and extremist ideologies as their backbone. This can and will fuck up a guy’s mind through prolonged exposure.
And there’s no wakeup call for teen guys who fall victim to this trap.
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In the past, teenage aspirational careers were things like being a rock star, rather than a pro-gamer. Rock bands and modeling shoots were social activities — so right off the bat, there was a healthier element to them that’s lacking in gaming.
The bigger thing these dreams offered was a reality check for most of the guys who pursued them halfheartedly. After a while, you’d stop meeting up with bandmates after you realized you never went to a recording studio. Suddenly, putting in a resume at a local job fair seems more attractive.
With streaming and gaming, that realization never hits because all the equipment you need is already at home. So that rude wakeup call that helps keep teens grounded? Yeah, it never arrives.
Video game addiction has other consequences that can fuck up your life.
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A lot of teenage boys start isolating themselves and showing signs of video game addiction, often to the point that it harms their social life. There’s now a known pipeline from gaming to political extremism too .
That’s where Clifford (and guys like him) start to parrot things like “I deserve it,” or start to believe that they’re entitled to women despite doing absolutely nothing constructive with their lives. That’s where the misogyny is coming from — the toxic communities that gaming is famous for.
Clifford is acting like a junkie with increasingly alarming viewpoints on life. There’s no other way to say it. And no wonder why he’s depressed! He’s isolated himself away from people who care about him, probably listened to propaganda that makes him feel worse about himself, and can’t understand why people are avoiding him.
For what it’s worth, I know not all gamers aspire to be streamers. Successful streamers are both lucky and incredibly hardworking. Oh, and they also have lives outside gaming because they know how bad zeroing in on gaming can be.
With all that said, I don’t know what would help Gary help his son snap out of the spell his gaming addiction cast on him. Short of evicting him and forcing him to sell his PS5, I don’t think he can do much else.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
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