How Did We Get Here? A message in a bottle...

 I watched a documentary/biography the other night.  I think it's probably partially an autobiography.  But it was about a YouTuber that goes by the name JackSepticEye.

His story is one of those feel-good stories, about someone doing something they loved and finding their way to a better place, in the sense of financially, mentally and even spiritually.  I didn't know much about him at all.  

I found this guy surfing around on YouTube.  My daughters would watch other people playing video games, and oddly enough, the noises they made and hollering they did used to really get on my nerves.I happened upon him doing some collab work playing a game Among Us about a year after the pandemic started.  The popularity of the game had already ebbed, but listening to him play and interact with these other people online was so reminiscent of hanging out with a large group of friends in my younger years that I continued to listen and be amused.

So I've been following this gentleman's posts for the past six months, watching older videos and more recent ones.  He seems to have several of the ADHD traits, seems to try to put a positive spin on things and just seems like a really humble guy, which I appreciate.  I've branched out and started watching a few other streamers, but I always seem to come back.

Watching the movie he put out called "How Did We Get Here?", he told his personal story, his journey of basically where he is today.  It kind of put what he did into a different perspective.  

When he began the streaming, he lived in a small cabin out in the middle of nowhere.  As he said, it was him 'shouting out into the void'.  

That, my friends, is a part of depression that a lot of people either relate to or don't understand at all.

He was isolated from everyone at this point in his life and he says it was the hardest time of his life.  For people who are chronically depressed, that's a continual - the 'shouting into the void'.  There is some strange aloneness that, even if you are actually surrounded by those that love you, there is a feeling of loneliness or at least, great distance.  His story, why he has such a following, I think is because people feel relatable to his experiences.

It makes me think of the whole concept of the words 'parasocial relationship'.  That phrase I have heard often thrown around recently, but it is within the past few months that I've ever really heard it, so I read up a little on the term.

Not saying that this Sean guy isn't a good person, or wouldn't be a fun person to hang out with.  But it seems like when people show their authenticity, that those that don't really know them, people with that develop a 'parasocial relationship' with them, seem to have this sense of entitlement that goes along with it.  As a 'celebrity', those that follow the 'celebrity' aren't entitled to know every aspect of that person's life.  They're not entitled to give their opinions or have their opinions heard in regard to what someone thinks they should do or say or not.  While the entertainment makes us feel good, it is because the person of talent has decided to share their talent in the efforts to make people feel good.  They want to entertain.  They want to be a center of attention, at least for a time.  But they owe nothing, they give because they choose to, and no matter who they are, they do not really owe any explanations for their choices in life.

I suppose the idea of the whole entitlement in regards to someone in the spotlight has always baffled me.  I have never been a 'fan' of anything, but I've liked a lot of things.  Fan roots in the word 'fanatic', and the definition of fanatic is a person filled with excessive, single-minded zeal.  I guess the idea of being lumped like that never appealed to me either.

Take it however you like, the small movie he and his collaborators put out is a heart-warming, feel-good story of overcoming and rising.  I enjoyed it and I wish him the best, even as I go back and watch his antics in his older videos.  But I do see, looking at the older ones now being broadcast from the cabin out in the middle of nowhere, the longing for human connection and the message in a bottle.  The whole, Is there anybody out there? 

No matter how alone you feel, there is someone out there listening.