Dear JackSepticEye.
I Hate You.
You are one of the worst role model & influence over kids.
I know, you didn’t ask for kids to watch you. But they do, after all, who are games targeted at? Don’t say, adults, it’s also kids.
A lot of kids.
In the YouTube gaming environment, there are tonnes of creators who swear, but my kid only wants to watch you swear.
I Also Love You.
I love you, you make my child laugh.
Real laughter. I actually thought my child was void of that emotion until you came along, for that I hate you.
I’m just about to tell my son to get your green haired angry leprechaun voice out of the house, but then I hear his giggling.
He’s usually not laughing specifically at the swearing. He is laughing because you are hilarious overall. He is laughing because he sees himself in you.
He is laughing because you are YOU, with your green hair against your Irish complexion. You are everything that I got teased for in high school, and now thanks to you guys like you, it’s cool.
Maybe I’m grumpy because I want my son to realise that green hair and high-pitched swearing won’t get him anywhere in life.
But then you come along, with your 14+ MILLION YouTube subscribers and completely defeat my reasoning of what creates success.
Thanks to entertainers like you, I am forced to let go of things that have been instilled in me by my own uptight parents.
You prove how I really feel about life but I’m too scared of being socially judged to really unleash the way I would ultimately prefer to parent my child.
You show me that deep down, I am trying to avoid sanctimonious mothers and their judgemental views, or just everyday mothers – who wouldn’t dare let their children watch your videos.
Maybe I’m angry because, despite all of that blasphemy, You are always smiling. You are funny and kind to your fans.
I saw you thanking them for Fan Mail and you didn’t call anyone a fuckface or a bastard in that one. I watched you and I thought… If my son turned out like you, I would be proud.
You were saying how some of the items and experiences with fans have made you “so happy” and you loved them.
My son doesn’t know happy often, but he is happy when he watches you.
You make him happy, I love you for that. You see what you are doing Jack, you are fucking this parenting thing right up.
I’m trying to tell my kids you are bad. They shouldn’t watch you. But then I watched you….and I laughed….and I am a grown-ass adult who is meant to be responsible.
Your advocacy for mental health and honest videos have changed my approach.
I don’t know what to do anymore Jack. This parenting thing is so hard and he just loves you so much.
As a creator, I understand the language part of your expression.
One day, I saw how you deal with hate comments -some of which are borderline online bullying and abuse. Suddenly, I don’t care anymore if he watches you.
I see the bigger picture.
I have the opportunity to teach him it’s not always what you say, it’s how you say it.
I asked my son if he noticed that even though you swear a LOT, you don’t do it to deliberately hurt people’s feelings. You make people laugh.
He descended into deep thought and I hope he understood.
I went from hating you, to wanting to thank you.
I went from hating you, to becoming a fan. I went from hating you, to actually WANTING you to be a part of my child’s life.
P.S. I’m sorry for how I felt earlier…..
This was awesome. Also I felt the same. When I watched Jack first my initial reaction was loud, swears and frankly off the wall!!
And then as I watched more and more of this bizarrely addictive energetic guy I realized that he is actually a really intelligent and decent guy. He does curse in games but in a funny and almost naive child-like manner.
But when he goes onto serious topics, he is really inspirational and takes things to heart. Like I was watching a videogame he was playing about a “dating simulator” and it was provocative and creepy and Jack was the one rooting for the female character to stop talking to this strange man in the street and call the police. He is really respectful about how he talks about women and I can tell he is a really well-raised individual. His gentleness and child-like naivety is also really unusual for a 28 year old guy and Jack often gets called gay for it but I think he is the son in law every parent would be happy to have because he would treat their daughter right.
And even his recent video speaking out against Logan Paul’s video of the suicide forest and his attempts at a charity livestream to try and show people how to spread awareness in the correct manner, all of these things are really positive.
His journey is also really inspiring. People can relate to him because he was the odd college student who was a nerd, lonely, had no friends and no concrete idea of where he wanted to go in life and he started to make YouTube videos of himself playing games as a form of escape and to meet people. Back then you could see how sad and depressed he was. But he has come such a long way. People believed in him enough to help him in building a professional brand and now this lanky pale Irish kid who spent days on end alone in his room is getting to tour the world and play video games with Ryan Reynolds.
Perhaps not everyone can be Jacksepticeye but we can try and learn from him and his outlook on life to show that no matter how bleak things look, things can turn around if you just keep looking for your escape and doing what you love,