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https://www.youtube.com/@PopCultureDetective/videos

Today, my gaming only prioritize casual and work related enjoyment. I find fulfillment in the diverse experiences gaming offers, shared with friends across various platforms.
My gaming journey has been marked by achievements across various titles, notably in World of Warcraft, where I consistently held high arena ratings throughout expansions such as WotLK, Cataclysm, and MoP in the brackets 3v3/2v2 as a rogue and death knight. I also maintained a big PvP guild throughout these periods. I don’t play retail WoW anymore, but I did play the HC mode in classic as well as normal classic on launch and enjoyed that a lot.

In Team Fortress 2, I was a good roaming soldier and scout as they were my mains, as well as being adept with Demoman. I also spent a lot of time pocketing with close friends who main medic which led to many fun evenings spent playing pubs.


I invested a lot of time at rocket jumping even after learning the necessary rollouts, mainly because it was fun to pass all jumpers academy maps. I also play Spy and Sniper at a decent level although no way near the way i can play scout or soldier :)
In Dota 2, I was a capable position 1-2 player with a high solo MMR using the old rating system. I attempted to push my rating for the last time in 2016 and haven’t played seriously or actively since.

I am part of the top 1. % that played Dota 2 in the first closed edition of the game in 2011.
Without actively aiming for a high MMR, I was able to reach the cap (high mmr) for killer in Dead by Daylight with my main hillbilly, nurse, and blight. I have also 4k’d several competitive teams when they were practicing between tournaments with various killers.
I also attained rank 1 as a solo survivor as well as for killer in the old ranking system.


Competitive gaming isn't part of my life anymore but it was a huge and important foundation of my early teenage self-esteem and self-confidence which contributed to what kept me going and, in many ways, got me to where I am today.
I am incredibly grateful for the things gaming did for my well being at the time. It also got me connected to so many incredible people and mentors that also played a big part of my childhood.


I administrated servers in Garry’s mod and played that a ton as a kid from around the age of 9/10-ish, being annoying in dark rp was a particularly fun thing to do growing up online! I also much later owned a pretty popular server in Left 4 dead 2 which still randomly (but rarely) returns for me and some friends for special occasions. I also kickstarted a lot of games that are big today such as Prison Architect and found a lot of other great games before they went viral. Good examples of this would be Minecraft and Sea of Thieves.


I've been actively engaged in Sea of Thieves since its alpha, earning Founder's Crew status and Year 1 Legend rank. Me and my friend also beat some of the best players in the game back when double-gunning was a thing although we preferred cutlass and or blunderbuss/eye of reach.

We also won almost all our arena games, but we always preferred the open world SoT.
We usually went 2/3 on a brig and beat full galleons, defeated alliances, and stole several FoTD as well as many other feats and intense moments. I have the brave vanguard title, day 1 patch as well as many other unobtainable items from this game.

I don't know why I felt the need to write all of this, but it felt good somehow. I see it as an expression of gratitude for what gaming did for my younger self and an insight that it could be crucial for anyone else going through the tough times of growing up. It can also be important for anyone, regardless of age, in finding their confidence or inner peace, depending on the person and their needs.

Take care of yourself, stranger, and know that you matter. Be good and be true to yourself; you're going to be okay. Sometimes we just gotta ride out the storm. This too shall pass