Video Game Schizophrenia in Young Adults

An 18-year-old male human is staying in my house right now. He is very shy around humans, and hasn’t been able to find a job, but doesn’t try very hard. He has no interest in acquiring a car, but has a Smartphone that costs about $100 a month to maintain.

He’s not a bad person at all. He’s good to my animals and has a sense of humor if the joke isn’t too complicated. There’s a lot of work to do around here as I try to prepare for whatever life’s next chapter may be, and I can ask him to help rip up old carpeting or move furniture. The problem is asking him to do anything harder than that.

He is a video game addict. What’s amazing is the change of personality when he’s facing a screen instead of a real person. At first I thought the raucous laughter and swearing was good because he seemed to be having fun…now, after two weeks of it, it’s depressing.

He’s on the phone often but not to look up words, read the news, find out what that weird frog in the yard is, or even talk to somebody. All of his energy is directed toward something that’s not real.

How utterly, totally different he is from me when I was 18. He’s not motivated or proactive or curious about life, books, people, travel, or current events. Imagine having the contents of the Internet at your fingertips at any time, and not using it to look stuff up. We had libraries and books and crappy jobs and junkers and were bursting with adventure even if we had to hitchhike—these kids have World of Warcraft and Facebook and texting. Nobody held our hands or paid our bills (at least not mine). I don’t know how to talk to him or what to say. I can’t stand baby talk and have an extremely difficult time dumbing myself down, but each attempt at conversation has to be prefaced with “do you know who … is? Do you know what a … is? Have you ever heard of … ?”  It’s so exhausting I’ve given up. I don’t think his vocabulary is more than a few hundred words. He is also so inarticulate I have to ask two or three times for him to repeat himself.

An excess of video gaming takes a socially awkward person and polishes them until they are completely disabled. It discourages personal growth and enables unworldly kids to remain that way for the rest of their lives. No new life experiences are required, no further knowledge of the world is needed to advance your online character—only more hours in a dark room in front of a vivid screen. In spite of the laughter, it’s very, very sad.

Vacations or road trips or any activity that costs money are no longer a part of my life, and I’m very sorry that I can’t help him explore the area here. But the world outside my door holds much fascination if observed closely. I can’t make another person see it, and I’m tired of trying to explain everything. Because he doesn’t have a car and mine has a standard shift which he can’t drive (of course), he’s stuck in the house. But it doesn’t seem to be an issue because he’s not interested in going out. An 18-year-old without a car is like a fly with no wings.

Whose “fault” is it? Anybody’s? I don’t think so. It’s an aggregate cultural blight, fed by genes, parents, advertising, peer pressure. I was not immune to peer pressure, but my mother was a freak and a loner and absolutely would not allow us to have anything that would have helped us fit in (though we were all long gone by 18). Is this bad or good? Is it the reason I’m such a misfit today? Maybe, but I’m a damn self-sufficient one. This kid is headed to college in the fall to study a subject that couldn’t be more unrealistic for his personality type and future employment. I am sad and embarrassed for our culture, and just about all cultures everywhere.

Bullying Comes of Age

I grew up with bullying. At a young age I learned to see it coming but was powerless to stop it. It came in particular from members of my own “family.” I put this in quotes because these people are no longer any relation to me in any way. Later I chose boys who bully girls. I thought that was the way it worked.

Over the years I learned that bullying is a lifestyle chosen by antisocial people with empty lives and too much time on their hands. No real friends, no enjoyment of the small things, no compassion.

Children and teenagers are most susceptible to bullying because they have little power to fight back. Many kids who are bullied do not report it because whether an adult believes you isn’t the issue—kids know the price of telling means life will get worse. Complain and your pet cat disappears. Later the bully taunts the victim with what they did to it. Many parents are clueless as to sibling bullying, or they may see a bullied child as “overly-sensitive.”

In the old days, bullying was done in person, on land lines, or by mail. Today’s technology makes it much easier. Witness the trolling and personal attacks on comments sections of political blogs. Party-line liberals and conservatives consistently use the words retard, fascist, imbecile, moron, paranoid, ignorant, subhuman, racist. I read comments to learn—but all I’ve learned is that there is precious little productive exchange of ideas. And, it’s really, really boring.

Both liberal and conservative blogs tend to be snide and sarcastic. Any questioning of their views results in a hard slap with fanatical rhetoric. They welcome your questions as an opportunity to unload more blah blah blah. Not once have I asked a question and received an answer that specifically addresses my question in a rational way. Just more fundamentalist bullshit, cut and paste from a numbered menu.

If you write about anything that is even slightly contentious, you are inviting trolls and bullies into your life. The stalkers who leave nasty comments have one thing in common—they desperately want to engage you in some dysfunctional mindgame, but they’ve already lost my attention long ago. I’m never mean to anybody because meanness begets meanness. If I’m mean to people how do I know they won’t go kick their dog? I want no part of this evil chain.

On WordPress, there is a “My Blacklist” option which I am now using. To enable, go to My Account, go to Settings (last icon down), and click on Discussion. Scroll down until you see “Comment Blacklist.” There is a space to type in the URL and IP address of the troll. You will never see or even know about another comment from them. Let them bring it on if it keeps them from kicking their dog or a family member. If they start e-mailing you personally, keep copies and report it to your internet provider and the police.

But What If Your Brand is Bogus?

Branding is hot

The trend of developing a ‘personal brand’ has been getting a lot of attention—like it’s something they just thought of. There is nothing new about it, except now there are many online services available to help you craft and market your personal brand. Some charge big bucks to bang out some edgy jive. A lot of the personal brand statements I have read are variations on the same theme, anagrams of a finite collection of all-purpose self-empowerment words. You know what they are—the same  words you put on your resume or job application—the crap we’re forced to write about ourselves that makes a sane person cringe. The more statements I read, the less meaning they hold; the more forced they sound, the less I believe in them.

Other services advise flooding your brand into the right directories, social media, forums, etc., with the content and frequency of each post carefully designed to reinforce your image. There are people who expend enormous time and effort to promote their brand. It’s dizzying, isn’t it? Who the hell has time for all this? What about life?

Go with the flow but obsession not necessary

With the current pathetic job situation and more people than ever competing for what crumbs are available, as well as more people trying to make ends meet on their own, you need more than solid work experience, a good resume, and respectable references. We’re told we need every weapon we can lay our hands on, every angle, every app. We are encouraged to regard ourselves as commodities and to strategically manage our images as if we were products. One brand-developing service promises to help you build meaningful relationships within your organization’s power structure, another advises that your clothing match your business card, stationery, and the background color of your professional photo! So where do you fit into this gaseous miasma?

Is your brand really you or did you make it up?

Your brand is supposed to reflect who you are as perceived by the world. So, can your brand be an invention hatched by your wannabe self? And if it is invented, can you grow into the persona you’re trying to create? I’m not talking about mean-people brands—any bully can easily maintain a negative brand if that’s what they are and have no aspirations to rise above it. But maybe, if people are putting some effort into maintaining an honorable brand, and sincere about living up to it—then maybe a heightened awareness about your image isn’t such a bad thing.

Do we all need a brand?

Your brand is about the business of you. You don’t have to be a high-level player to have a brand. Maybe, like lots of us, you’re just a refugee from something or someplace, trying to survive with a few shreds of dignity intact. We might not be CEOs of big corporations—but we’re CEOs of ourselves.

We are already branded

Every single one of us already has a brand. Would people describe you as unreliable? Forgets important stuff? Won’t shut up? Doesn’t listen? Interrupts? Doesn’t keep your word? Doesn’t tell the truth? Always has an excuse? Passive-aggressive? Business owners or employees who promote themselves as ethical, sincere, or hardworking will eventually be outed if that’s a crock, as well they should be, the posers.

Have you ever been kept waiting by someone who claims to be dependable, snapped at by someone who feigns friendliness, or lied to by someone who swears by sincerity? Ever been stood up, let down, stiffed, screwed?  No self-packaging hype or resume fluffing or inflated mission statement is going to change how people perceive you if you’re a phony. Your brand is built-in, so if it’s bullshit, eventually you’ll be exposed.

Create your own brand by example

So yes, a brand can be invented, but it takes effort to make it yours. You do have a choice in how you interact with the world—and, you should periodically assess your style to help keep glitches in check. If you really, really, don’t care about your image and want no part of this, do note that a brand will be assigned to you regardless of your level of  participation—and it may be one that’s less than flattering. The idea behind branding is you get to create the image, but it’s up to you to own it. Damage control is much more work, effort and stress than doing the right thing in the first place.

Branding for real people—be authentic

You could hire a personal branding expert to give you a makeover and then market you like you’re the next miracle eye cream. But I firmly believe that you, your brand, your resume, your reputation—the extract yielded when your actions are compressed—is about integrity and credibility in the face of whatever circumstances you find yourself in. If you’re a consistently thoughtful, responsible, and rational person because that’s who you really are, then that will shine through in all aspects of your life. And if that is the extent of your brand, I think you’re doing damn well.