Today, I found out that this streamer I used to watch (username: Reckful), had passed away through suicide early July of this past year. I know it was a little late to find out, but it’s been a while since I’ve been an active part of the gaming community. After I found out though, I fell deep into a rabbit hole of related suicide cases of twitch streamers/YouTube celebrities. I clicked through and through, finding news about all these young, beautiful, and successful people who decided that life was just too hard and took an early exit from their road towards old age.

Introspectively, I couldn’t help but contemplate the impact of social media, attention-culture, and screen addiction on humanity — it’s deeply troubling how much our global connectedness has accomplished the opposite of its goal and created more and more division within our societies and our mental health.

With that said, the point of this isn’t to bash social media or how this generation of people are raised — I think there’s plenty of that elsewhere. The purpose of me writing this is to try to understand for myself a bit how humanity could have devolved so drastically at our very cores.

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I’ve tried to leave my church that I am a member at many different times in my mid twenties. The reasons I gave were all varied, but ultimately the most critical point of contention for me was simply this: there weren’t any other people who attended our church in the same age group as me. For a long time, I referred to myself as a “bookend” at our church. The shelf would grow with more and more books, but it would never “pass” me. And as reasonable as I thought that was for wanting to find a new church, I was rebuked over and over by my head pastor. At the core of each message was a similar sentiment: the church isn’t supposed to be a collection of similar people with similar interests, beliefs, and backgrounds — it’s a collection of people who are wholly different, all seeking to love one another despite our different perspectives and shortcomings. We’re human in the end, and we can’t expect ourselves to be faultless and “perfect fits” for each other.

This is one of the few things that has stuck with me deeply for the past 5 years or so, and I can’t help but wonder if this is a critical sentiment that we’ve failed to understand as a society.

As we’ve become more interconnected over the past few decades — our abilities to come to terms with one another, seek different perspectives, and acknowledge imperfect situations has drastically deteriorated… and to me, it seems like a huge reason for why we’re all suffering so quietly in our heads. We’re all sort of seeking a “hivemind” for ourselves — where we can feel accepted, loved, and understood… but only by those who share our sentiments. Conflict and difference of opinion seem to have no place in this modern world… and it feels like an entire generation has failed to develop and mature with an understanding of this concept.

I saw this interesting video from 2008, when the then-presidential candidate John McCain decided to respond to one of his supporters’ worry about an Obama-led administration with respect — ultimately citing that though a difference of opinion existed, Obama was a “decent, family man citizen”. Politics aside, something that deeply saddened me was how foreign and out-of-norm this felt.

No matter how you feel about our current president — I think he perfectly encapsulates the state of our world today. He’s highly opinionated, incredibly insecure, and disregards differing perspectives. Our political climate is more divided than ever and I feel we’re always only one event away from internally collapsing as a society. And you might even sit there thinking: Yeah okay, but at least I’m not like Trump, I’m socially aware. I’m woke.

But really, are you? Can you honestly say you’ve sat there trying to understand the perspective of those people you deem to be ignorant without having a healthy conversation removed from all preconceived notions? Because I personally can’t confidently say “yes” to that…

So what am I saying through all of this? Honestly, I think the point I want to make is that we’re incredibly lucky to be able to talk to people from thousands of miles away at a whim. Technology has its benefits, and you could argue that they outweigh the cons. But I think we should make an active effort to listen, acknowledge differing perspectives, and respectfully disagree or banter when necessary. I think the more varied we are as humans in our relationships, knowledge, and perspectives — we can seek out a better tomorrow and serve each other in a more impactful manner. Maybe through those conversations and interactions, we’d probably learn that we’re ultimately more alike than we are different.

This was Reckful’s last stream before he tragically took his life.

“If you guys get lonely, you should talk to each other, maybe… and find some friends to play games with, if you play games. I feel like people are always too scared to [try to] meet others.”

I think he’s right. We’re all too scared to meet others, talk to people, and maybe be wrong. And that’s a really tragic thing about our world.