Gaming and Self-Control
The unlikely masters of discipline. Story by Yared McKaughan
-ing a video or something.” Joe admits that at first, he didn’t take his studies seriously, but this year, things have changed. He’s had to become an expert at setting his priorities and knowing exactly what he needs to do in order to keep on top of things. He admits that it’s hard sometimes, but he understands college is his backup plan, he wants to be a gamer. Joe started his career humbly. “I started to upload just clips of cool shots I made, but people didn’t like that too much”, remarks Joe.
BuddyRV after his team scores the winning goal.
“Busy, stressful, fun, exciting.”. These were the 4 words Joe used to describe his life. Joe, better known by his fans as Jamaican Coconut, is a multi-platform content creator with thousands of fans, so why would he use these words as representatives of his life? Well, Joe is also a student.
I just play as a hobby.” This is the story of most of his aspirations growing up, big dreams turning into things to do on the weekend.
A day in the life of a student is hard enough, so try to imagine working a full-time job while conducting your studies. If you can’t, here’s a breakdown of collegiate gamer life. In this case, He may be a streamer, Youtuber, and a TikToker, but he also Joe’s life. majors in computer science at “I wake up around 8 and eat Penn State. breakfast. I take the bus to “I built my own PC in 7th school because I’m only a sophgrade, I’ve been interested in a omore and have 2-3 classes a career but I also had dreams.” day. After school, I go to the Joe had many aspirations grow- gym and get a lift in. Then I ing up but they dwindled down get home and try to finish my homework, but sometimes I once he got older. “I used to play soccer in High School, now don’t and I go straight to edit22 GAMERLAND 2022
“Then I started making videos, like longer content with funny moments and things like that.” This is when his following started to increase. Since the start of his career, freshman year of college, he has gained 10,000 YouTube subscribers and 60,000 TikTok followers. But back to the question of why would he go through this every day? “I love my fans, when I went to the Winter Major in LA I got recognized and it was beyond surreal.” He described the out-of-this-world experience as rewarding and almost overwhelming. You can imagine how hard it must be to juggle school, a job, and other adult activities. The life of a content creator in school is very challenging,
