All About Change - Bugha - Navigating Fame, Fortnite, and Family

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

Kyle, also known by his gamer tag Bugha, started playing Fortnite as a young teen. He soon realized that he possessed exceptional skills and began competing. In 2019, at the age of 16, he entered the Fortnite World Cup and defeated 99 other players. However, the pure joy of that fame was short-lived when trolls hacked his phone, and Bugha had to learn to deal with online hate. He was also a victim of "swatting," a dangerous prank where someone falsely reports a serious crime to emergency services, causing a SWAT team to be dispatched to the victim's location.   Kyle and his father, Glenn, joined host Jay Ruderman to talk about the challenges and triumphs of being a young professional gamer. Kyle opens up about the pressure of online harassment, as well as the importance of managing his mental health in the face of trolls. Glenn shares how his and his family’s unwavering support and guidance have been integral to Kyle's journey. Jay, Bugha, and Glenn also get into how they navigate the complexities of fame, as well as Kyle’s philanthropic efforts to help lower the barrier for entry to video gaming.   Episode Chapters (00:00) Intro to Kyle (Bugha) and Glenn (01:19) Bugha’s Early Gaming Days (03:55) Bugha Discovers Fortnite (07:54) Winning the Fortnite World Cup (10:49) The Challenges of Fame (19:47) Mental Health: Coping with Trolling and Swatting (26:52) Daily Routine, Burnout, and Future Ambitions (34:14) Philanthropy: Using Fame for Good (37:11) Conclusion and Credits   For video episodes, watch on www.youtube.com/@therudermanfamilyfoundation   Stay in touch: X: @JayRuderman | @RudermanFdn Instagram: All About Change Podcast | Ruderman Family Foundation LinkedIn: Jay Ruderman | Ruderman Family Foundation To learn more about the podcast, visit https://allaboutchangepodcast.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ladies and gentlemen, there's no way anyone beats him, your Fortnite World Champion, Bouga! Kyle, known by the Fortnite gaming community as Bouga, rose to fame after winning the Fortnite World Cup in 2019, but his father, Glenn, describes the sweetness of that victory as short-lived. The day Kyle won the World Cup, his phone was hacked and everything was, you know, like his ID and everything. I mean, they just went after him right away. While the hate online and trolling that Kyle received was frustrating, he tried to keep

his attention on his supporters. All these people supporting you, these are the people that you really need to focus on and give your energy to. And you know, me being young, I wasn't able to shift my mentality that early. Kyle's family has been tremendously supportive of his unconventional career as a professional gamer.

As his father, Glenn, tries to walk the line between being his fan and being his parent. My number one concern has always been his safety above and beyond anything else. Kyle and Glenn, thank you so much for being my guests in All About Change. I really look forward to this discussion and welcome. Thank you for having us. Yeah, thank you. So Kyle, let me start with you and ask you, how young were you when you got into gaming?

And what were the first games that you remember playing? Oh man, I got into gaming really young. I mean, literally when I was like a toddler, I was just playing any types of games that my dad would kind of throw on there. Some of the earliest ones I remember though, I feel like you could, I feel like you remember them better than I do honestly. I remember like the Call of Duty's growing up. Do you remember your first one? No I don't. So it was Mario Kart balloon battle. Oh okay yeah see those are the ones. Yeah I forget about like those types of things, the little ones. You're a little terror with those balloons. And Glenn, you're also a gamer. I mean, what was your interest in getting Kyle involved so young in gaming?

Cause was it your interest or did you think it would be something good for him? It was a little bit of both. I mean, I grew up, my father was the first one to have an IBM computer with the 15 foot floppy drives for work and Apple two CEs and everything else when we were growing up. So I kind of was always into that as a child. Right. It was always been my passion. I've always liked

gaming. I thought that gaming is a good way to bring some people together. It gives you something in common that you can, you know, have to chat with about. So I always thought it was kind of cool to play the little Mario cards or something little with him. And that would way would give us a little bridge to kind of talk to each other about things, you know, like break the ice, maybe. Did you guys used to play together? Oh, all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we would I mean, we would just play, you know, and then he got he kind of got into the more the little bit of the first person shooters where

where we're playing the Call of Duty. And then I do remember one of the biggest games that he used to play was the Grand Theft Auto. Now that's a that's a game that everybody would say, my god, why would you let your child play Grand Theft Auto? Because there's a lot of craziness in it. However, he wasn't in it to play any of the missions. He just basically wanted to ride. It was San Andreas and he wanted to ride the motorcycle around town and drive the cars around town.

You know, and I used it as, and I actually used it as a learning platform because I was explained to him that you can't do this in real life. If you go out and you get hit by a car, you don't come back, you don't respond. So I kind of always have used gaming with him for me as an inroad to have conversations with him. I see. And Kyle, when did you first get into Fortnite?

When was that introduced to you? So I got into Fortnite probably when I was early 15, freshman year of high school. I got into Fortnite, actually maybe even a little bit before that I think, maybe even eighth grade. But yeah, I was 15, still playing now, about to be 22 in this year. So it's been a while. When did you know that you were good? When did you know that you had skills that were superior to maybe friends that you were

playing with at that time? Yeah, so I mean, growing up, I would always play video games amongst like my friend groups and I usually was a lot better than them. I would also just play competitively online, just like multiplayer games. And I was usually the youngest kid in the lobby and I was playing against a bunch of older guys. Everyone would call me like, the young little prodigy in the lobby,

like this little kid just running around, just being really good. So I guess things like that kind of made me understand that I was pretty decent at video games. But up until Fortnite, that's really when I started getting, you know, especially good at something. And then just kept going up and up. Glenn, when did you realize that, that, that Kyle had sort of exceptional skills in gaming? Well, he's still got to get up to my level, but...

No, um, one of the things I realized is honestly, um, when you were talking, I was thinking about that is when he was younger, we always, we always had rules that you had to be in some kind of a sport. You know, I wanted him to not just be in the house sitting there playing video games 24 seven, I realized that there's in the world out there, there's a lot of other stuff. So Kyle played soccer. He also played hockey. And he played basketball, but he played these sports. And I noticed, especially with the, the soccer and with the hockey that he, he

has an ability to see the field. Uh, but I started knowing he was pretty good. Um, when gosh, I don't know, probably like five or six years old, to be honest with you that he that he had, you know, all kids when they're young have good hand eye coordination. I mean, you know, that you raise them on there, you can go to your neighbor right now. And that little kid is going to probably be much better than it is then than we are. But, you know, it's just,

it's like anything else in life, I just think, if you have a passion for it, and something that you want, you just got to basically tell yourself this is what I'm gonna do and I'm gonna make sacrifices to get there and you know you're gonna have to do that. If you do anything half-butt it's not gonna work. So Kyle can you describe, I mean I know a lot of people, my kids play Fortnite, I know a lot about it, but describe Fortnite to listeners who don't even know what it is. Yeah so alright so pretty much Fortnite is what they would call a battle royale but describe Fortnite to listeners who don't even know what it is. Yeah, so, all right. So pretty much Fortnite is what they would call a battle royale.

There are 100 players and you are all on an island. And the objective in the mission is to pretty much be the last one standing. So throughout the game, there is a storm or a zone that closes in all the way down to a very small point and you just pretty much need to be the last one standing and the ways to do this you can run around you can fight other people you can hide you can use strategies you know whatever you're more comfortable doing but yeah that's pretty much just what Fornite is. But no game is ever the

same that's one of the benefits of that game. Yeah, it changes each game. It changes every game because there's a hundred different people and different POIs and Fortnite itself is always changing. Every week they add new content into it. So it doesn't get stale. And how do you choose the name Booga? So the name Booga is a nickname that my grandpa gave me when I was like a little baby.

He would call me like Booga Booga and I would laugh and I kind of sucked through and it's like a family nickname for me. So let's talk about in 2019 you entered the Fortnite World Cup. What was that like? Why did you decide to enter and what was your experience? Yeah, so I was playing Fortnite beforehand. I was about a year leading up until they announced the World Cup. And I mean, they announced it, the game was very fun. I was pretty good at it. There was a very large prize pool. And, you know, all my friends, everyone around

me was going to try to compete and try to qualify as well. So I was like, you know all my friends everyone around me was gonna try to compete and try to qualify as well so I was like you know why not I really enjoy the game I'm pretty good at it so let's just give it a shot see what happens and it's kind of just what I did I just put my head down I was playing pretty much every single day playing a lot of the scrimmages the practices leading up to it and I eventually qualified and made it to the big stage and yeah. I mean was that a shock to you? Did you ever expect to go that far in the World Cup?

I had a lot of confidence in my own abilities early on in Fortnite. I was very confident as a player. I thought I was one of the best players in the game very early and I mean I kind of expected myself to qualify, but winning, I knew I was gonna do good, but everyone understands that in order to win something, you need things to just fall into place and things to just happen.

Like you need certain things to occur. And I think I had the perfect mix of all of it and just ended up winning. Well, first of all, congratulations. And it was a nice prize that came with it. Glenn, how did you feel about Kyle entering the World Cup? Little bit torn, I guess, maybe. I didn't mind him trying.

But like any other parent, we honestly, we had discussions with this. And if I'm being blatantly honest, Like any other parent, we honestly, you know, we had, we had discussions with this and we, you know, um, if I'm being blatantly honest, I didn't have any expectations that he was going to win. Uh, you know, he was a 16 year old kid that just had gotten into it a couple of months prior to it. You know, I mean, and he had been playing it. I knew he was good. Um, but. You know, you're going against 40 million people, you know, you're going worldwide.

You're going against, you know against people that have been playing games for their entire lives. You had some of the biggest names at that time were even involved in this. And here you are, your first LAN event. We kept our expectations in check. I mean, I was happy for him. We were all excited about it.

You know, me and my wife, his best friend went with us to the World Cup. We had fun. We were running around the streets. But you know, I, I honestly thought maybe top 15, you know, that's where I realistically was thinking. And it's not a knock on him. It's just, you know, age, you know, going against people, being in the lights and seeing how he would deal with all that, you know.

So when you won, you're pretty young and all of a sudden you have all this success and popularity, how did that hit you? Yeah, I mean, being that young, I mean, they definitely just, it came at me very quick. It wasn't really something that I had the you know choose between it's kind of like it happened and I had to just face it and deal with you know everything that was coming after that so like all the talk shows you know hopping on interviews

doing those sorts of things they were all very new to me and I was getting used to them it was definitely very different at first, but you know, over time I've gotten used to them. You know, I don't mind any of those things at all now. At the very beginning, I guess it was just different because I wasn't prepared and I didn't really understand what people are going to ask me. And you know. So Glenn, did you have to scramble to sort of, you know, put things in place to protect Kyle at the time from, you know, this onslaught of you know attention. I Mean we tried I mean, you know the day Kyle won the World Cup

His phone was hacked and everything was you know, like his ID and everything. I mean they just went after him right away Yeah, so we tried to do what we could we used the the resources that we had available to us. And we made some calls to people with police department, things of that nature, and just kind of said, hey, this just happened, just letting you know in case we call or you hear about it or you know what I mean, just kind of tried to get out there with the authorities and see what options we had. More so a lot of was worried about a lot of people just,

was worried about people actually trying to come here and break in and do things of that nature. Right. So it must have been super exciting, but also a little bit scary at the same time. Yeah, because it's exciting for him. We were really excited for him because it was an opportunity that we know as a parents that, you know, doesn't come around, doesn't happen very often to many people at all.

It was an opportunity for him to get his name out there and get a career going and, you know, become something that we weren't able to do. But it's also scary because he has a sister, you know, I have my wife, and all the sudden everybody being targets. Because the cash prize was announced and it was three million dollars and you know that's whenever that stuff is announced publicly everyone's going to come out of the woodwork. And it was, you know, you got to forget there's taxes, there's management fees, there's ownership fees, that I mean, you know, he doesn't get $3 million, but still, it's more money than he'll need for a while. Have you decided how you're going to use the money yet or has it just been set aside for

future education or something like that? Yeah, so I mean, pretty much right away when when we got the money, you know, we got an accountant, we got someone very good to handle the money and we pretty much just put it straight to investments right away. I'm not a big money spender. I don't really use my money for anything unless I need to. So, you know, I just sit back, play the video games,

invest my money and just let it happen. What advice would you give yourself, your younger self, now based on the experience that you've had all these years? Listen to Dad more. That's always a good answer. Honestly, advice, I'm not really sure because I feel like I did a lot of things in my career the way I wanted to.

I feel like I didn't change what I was doing based on what other people are saying or, you know, what they wanted. I was always just focusing on what I wanted in my career in gaming and, you know, I'm happy I sort of did that. I mean, I really don't know any advice I could give myself early on. I kind of enjoyed everything that happened and went on and I'm cool with it being that way. And Glenn, what concerns did you have like, you know, at this point in time where Kyle's going to become a professional video gamer and how do you support him at this time? You know, your life has changed as well as his life.

Yeah, to be honest with you, you know, my number one concern has always been his safety. You know, above and beyond anything else. I mean, when Kyle started this out, he was 16 years old. We've all been 16 years old. You know, he's 21 now. He's still growing, he's still changing. His mentality is still changing and learning.

His brain is still growing. So, you know, the only thing that I can do as a parent is try to explain to him from my perspective, from my worldview of what has happened to me in my life. Not necessarily a hundred percent the same for his life. Cause I didn't have fame and all that, but I tried to explain to him things that I've seen in the world and try to impart that knowledge to him. And it's hard because he doesn't live in the same world that I did.

One of the things I've always explained to him is, listen, it is weird for him because most of his friends are in college right now, getting ready to graduate. They're juniors or seniors or whatever it is. And here he is still playing video games. So to him, a lot of times he feels like he's missed out on a lot of things in life and he has to a degree. But if you take that flip side,

I try to explain to him that everybody going to college right now is vying to get an education to try to make some money out there in the world. You right now have the opportunity to make the money more than you're gonna ever have to do, you know, going from school for the most part. And then, you know, so you're earning your money now, and I've always tried to say,

you know, you've gotta be professional, even though you're not there, you're not mentally there, you're 16, you're 18, you know, you're 20, but you've got to have this adult mentality about your career, because this is those are the years where you're gonna, but you've got to have this adult mentality about your career because this is those are the years where you're going to make the money and it's got to last you for the rest of your life. Do you know what I mean?

So it's, it's always been hard like that. But, but what I do is I, I was more heavily involved when Kyle was younger. Um, and almost all aspects of his career, uh, with his deals, his management, everything going on. I have scaled that back as Kyle has gotten older. I've put in a little bit more responsibility on him. And I have kind of scaled back and I just pretty much handle a lot of his financial,

his billings, you know, if there's some coordination events that have to happen in the background, I kind of do that. But I kind of pushed up to him. He's 21 years old. You know, he's got to start learning. He's been learning. It's a different world. It's challenging. You know, he wants to have a normal life as well, but there's also the professional side. So there's a balance, there's a balance and he's going to make mistakes. You know what we made mistakes, right?

The problem I'm trying to do is make sure that the ones he makes aren't life-changing. Right. So Kyle, were you a good student and do you have any interest in the future of pursuing an education? Yeah, I would say I was a good student when you know when I tried. You know leading up to high school I was pretty good. My freshman year I was you know everything was good A's B's and then I guess sophomore year I was you know everything was good A's, B's and then I guess sophomore year I mean I started focusing a lot more on Fortnite. I still was getting good grades obviously just not like all A's anymore. But yeah I mean in the future I definitely you know I definitely could see myself having interest in something and whatever

that is I mean I could see myself taking some classes on or, you know, just anything. Um, I mean, but right now I'm not, you know, set on that. I, I, I'm not looking at that right now, but maybe in the future, I think I definitely would. I think for Kyle and for anybody else that's watching this or hearing this video or podcast, I think, especially if you're gonna be doing a career in e-sports or anything like that, I think some level of education and finances is a must.

You need to understand the world around you and not just, you know, hey, I made a hundred dollars, I can just pocket that and go do what I wanna do with it. You know, you do need to save for the future and that's a hard thing for most people, but you need to take a portion of that money and put for most people, but you need to take a portion of that money and put it aside for taxes. You need to take a portion of that

and set it aside for everything else, because it isn't gonna last forever. We would love to say, hey, Kyle's gonna be in the limelight for the next 20 years. But the reality of that is it's not really there. And if you do make it successful, where Kyle has, you need to understand where your money's going

and who's doing what with it. So I think even if it's a finance class, just to understand the basics of it and investments and things of that nature, I think that's something that every kid should have. I think that that's very wise advice so that you know what's going on and you can hire the right people

to help you through the process. I'd like to shift the conversation a little bit to mental health. And Kyle, one of the unfortunate side effects of being visible and popular is the increased harassment and trolling that you received. And after, you know, 2019 2019 you were swatted while you were playing can you tell us what swatting is and and what that experience was like? Yeah so swatting is pretty much when there's somebody just from a random place around the world hops on the phone we'll call the police give them my

address pretty much and just say that I did a bunch of bad things and the police will come, you know, even SWAT team will come and they'll come out with guns and you know, their intention is to obviously have bad things happen to you. There are just, you know, some bad people all figured out, settled and, you know, we had contact with, you know, the people around us and Did that happen to you? Did the police show up at your house? And that must have been super scary. Yeah, I mean, like two or three times that happened. Obviously, the first one was probably the most severe like they came in, they didn't

really, you know, they had it happen before. So they had to come in and just, they came up into my room while I was playing. They had, you know, machine guns, got everything. I was just like, I was like, hold on. I literally told them, I was like, hold on, can I finish this? Because the police officer, the first one that I saw,

he was actually, I guess my school's police officer. He worked there as well, and he would always be in like the lunch room just standing around, stuff like that. So when I first saw him, I thought he was just coming by to like congratulate me or something. He was still in uniform. And I was just so shocked. I was confused.

But he told me like, no, you need to get off now. Like it was serious. I was like, oh, what? And then I kind of realized what happened. Shockwave into the flint knock, in the safe zone, doubling back another one, a valiant effort, he's gotta find a bead but he won't be able to do it. Ladies and gentlemen, game two goes to Skype. It was definitely scary you know walking out to the front yard you know all these people that have angles on you there's people surrounding your house to make sure you don't leave, like they have it down, they have it figured out, but it was definitely weird. It's a very dangerous situation actually.

Yeah. I'm so sorry for you and your family because that must have been horrific. Yeah, no, I mean, everything with us is good. There's some people out there, bad things have happened to them when SWATs get called and those sorts of things, which is so terrible, but luckily for us know nothing bad happened. And how do you deal with the trolling? The trolling so yeah definitely early on the trolling was a lot more massive you know as I first had won a lot of people were just you know as soon as you win there's going to be a lot of people that just insta-hate there's so many people they know nothing about you but they're just you know jealous and they're just going to be a lot of people that just insta hate. There's so many people, they know nothing about you,

but they're just jealous and they're just going to hate. But obviously with all those haters comes a lot of supporters and you kind of need to balance that out and just realize that these people hating, I mean, it just, you know, paying attention to it does nothing. Like all these people supporting you, these are the people that you really need to focus on and give your energy to.

And you know, me being young, I wasn't able to shift my mentality that early So it was kind of hard but growing up and just kind of getting used to it that helped me a lot as well So when you're playing fortnight, are you seeing these negative comments come up? You know is there is there a chat going on during the game? Yeah, so if you decide to stream your gameplay You don't have to stream your gameplay But if I get on a service and you know stream and other people can watch me You know, they can write comments and I'll have the chat up on my side You know advice during tournaments probably don't have your chat up on the side because it just takes your thoughts away

And whatever you're thinking on the game. Yeah, but yeah, like there were times when I'd have the chat up I look over and there's people just they're just saying random things like you're bad this and that you know It's just a bunch of people just trolling and early on I really hated that like I wanted people to think that I was good At the game like I had this thing about me I wanted people to think I was good and I hated when people didn't like me for no reason But I mean over time I literally just understood that there's nothing that I can do, you know, for these people that are hating. Like they're just hating because it's just, you know, it's just them. But nothing prepared you. I mean, I mean you couldn't have been prepared for, for, you know, that

stream of hate coming at you and how did you deal with it? Yeah, no, I mean they're definitely, even if somebody is to tell me like, hey, a bunch of these people are about to start hating on you, you kind of need to ignore it. I mean, some tips might help, but I truly think you just have to experience it and just kind of let it settle with yourself. Like these are just comments on a screen. You know, try to separate those hate comments and try to look at them as just like bots or robots online.

That's kind of the way that I was doing it. And then all the real positive messages, I was connecting those with real people. So every message I saw that was just hate, I was like, okay, just another bot spam message and just tried to ignore it. That's a very healthy way of looking at it. One of the things I always think with trolling is that people don't really know you. They don't know who you are.

They don't know your family. They don't know. They don't know you personally. They're just, you know, randomly attacking. So, yeah, I wanted to jump on that because there was something that, that you guys were talking about. Um, so social media has been a blessing in a curse. Yeah.

And especially for a young person of Kyle's age, when we grew up, you might go to school, you might get picked on, somebody might say something stupid to you, but then you went home, you had the weekend, you had the nights, and then you went back to school and you had to deal with that again. With social media, that doesn't exist anymore.

There's a lot of kids that go to school, have issues, get bullied, whatever it is, and then they go home and people are still doing it on social media. They do it to Kyle as well. And people that play games, heavily, especially competitive, don't go outside and see the world like me and you do necessarily. He wakes up, opens up TikTok, opens up, you know, Twitter or X or whatever

you want to be, Instagram, looks at the feeds and sees people making comments and they're all just eight, you know, and that's his world. That's what he sees. And, and the reality is you, if you turn that off and go outside, nobody even cares. Nobody knows, you know, who you are and it's a different perspective. But when you're living in that bubble where everything is through social media, it can be very polarizing. It can be very demoralizing for younger children. It's very hard and I think from a parent's perspective, you also need to have the kids understand that social media, you know, what it is and

what it can be positive, but there's also a lot of bad people, actors out there that just try to bring you down. Right. And you can't really, you can't turn it off. You can't turn it off. You can't really control it. You just got to ignore it. Yeah. So Carl, walk us through your daily routine, your training process, and what are you doing every day? Yeah. So my daily routine, I mean, I wake up, you know, pretty early, like nine, 10 AM, uh, you know, I'll make some breakfast, relax for a little, hop on the game, just mess around a little bit, build.

I'll hop on, check out some YouTube, Twitter, just see what's going on in the community, those types of things. And then like throughout the day, I mean, I don't really have a set schedule, but you know, like sometimes if there's something that I can stream I'll hop on and stream it play it But around like 5 6 p.m. Is when scrims Scrims which are just you know scrimmages like practice Those go live. So around that time I kind of dial in sit down and just you know, just play and I play those up until I kind of dial in, sit down and just play. And I play those up until, you know,

they can run pretty late. Sometimes they'll run until like 1 a.m., 2 a.m. Those are like the late night sessions, usually when summer's in effect. But yeah, I mean, it's very simple. I kind of, now it's a little bit different than I guess when I first started playing. When I first started playing, every single moment that I had I kind of was spending like on trying to improve and getting better

But now you know, I've definitely dialed it down a little bit, but I'm still very You know active when it comes around tournament time. Do you ever feel burnout when you're playing? Do you ever feel burnout when you're playing? Um, yeah, I think burnout really comes with you not enjoying what you're doing Like that's kind of what I found when I when I wasn't enjoying the game much and was forcing myself to play I would find myself really burn out. I would you know, just not like it at all But when I can find myself in a friend group online You know and playing with them all day, you know, having fun talking to people, you know, I don't really feel burnt out.

It just feels like another day and doing something I enjoy. And that's honestly the key to, you know, gaming. Like you really need to find enjoyment in it. And you know, the people around you help a lot as well. Oh my God. enjoyment in it and you know the people around you help a lot as well. Oh my god bro what? So what are your ambitions in terms of Fortnite? What's the next you know step for you? What's the next goal? So the next goal step we have grand finals which are

pretty much the finals of all the qualifiers we've been playing over the past few months and In this finals you can make around 60 70 thousand dollars each from my region so I'm hoping to you know win take that home as well as qualify for the LAN event from this qualify for the LAN event from this FNCS Grand Finals. If you get top 10 in this Grand Finals, you'll qualify to the actual in-person event. So I'm shooting for that and obviously to hopefully win. Well, I wish you good luck.

Glenn, do you ever give Kyle any advice in terms of mental health, how to get himself balanced and deal with stresses that someone his age may or may not have to deal with I mean I'm probably not the best person how do you deal with your own mental health we'll save that for the after dark podcast no um, um, these people, majority of them that are the trolls are just jealous. Um, there are a lot of people that support him. Um, you know, but the best thing that I can kind of do is like I said, is just

support them and be there for him. And, you know, and I've, and I've had this conversation with them. Even recently, I said, you know, listen, you know, I'm, I'm going to call him out on things, you know, I'm not his a hundred percent fan boy and where I'm just going to say yes to everything, you know, but I'm his father and the deal is I'm not going to agree with everything he does in life. Doesn't mean it's not, you know, doesn't mean he can't do it. It's just, I want him to understand everything that I do and where I come

from is from a loving perspective. It's, it's from me wanting the best for my child and, and, and knowing that the world is not always a nice, fun, safe place. And, you know, when you're 21, the world's, you know, I can't, nothing will happen to me. I can't, you know, nothing bad will happen. This is, and we, it's just something that you got to go through. But, but I support him.

You know, I said, I do have some issues with certain things, but I'll support him. And anything he asks for, I, you know, I leave him be. And if he needs help, I, you know, jump in there and do everything I can for him. Yeah. Well, as a father of four, what you say resonates with me. And Carl, I think you're lucky to have, you know, Glenn is your dad.

He sounds like he's a super dad and he's there for you. So, you know, I'm sure there's tension, you know, every family has tension, but you know, he's, you're lucky to have him in your corner. Yeah. I mean, my wife and his sister are just as supportive, obviously, they just don't do the face, this stuff as much as I do. But yeah, I mean, he does have a huge family

that's around him that loves him and supports him. And I think that matters more than anything else because at the end of the day, when this is all over, we're gonna be the ones that are still there for him. Exactly. So Kyle, how do you balance your online life with your offline, your real life? Yeah, so I mean, I don't know.

I find a lot of enjoyment in my online life. I don't really do too much in my outside life. Like here and there, you know, I'll go to the gym, I'll work out, do those sorts of things of things but I mean I really treat this online thing like it's just you know my job my everyday hobby as well that's the one thing I find it you know it's a hobby but it's also my job so I find myself spending a lot of time doing it on both ends so yeah I mean I enjoy what I do and I guess the balance for me is just,

get out there a little bit, try to experience some things, but ultimately just stay locked in on this. And that's kind of just what I've been doing. So you're a professional. What advice would you give to all those people out there playing who are not professionals? And maybe, how would you recommend that they take care of their mental health?

Well, as far as mental health, you know, just try to find yourself surrounded by people that, you know, you like and you have good friendships with and people that are supportive and, you know, not people that are just trying to tear you down. And I mean, just lock in on what you want, set goals for yourself and just try to focus on those things. Just try to ignore these outside gaming, you know, just things

that will throw you off and try to have a good time, set these goals for yourself and spend time with, you know, family and friends and online, offline, whatever that may be. Yeah, that's good advice. And I understand you have a dog and I'm sure the dog helps with your mental health also. Hey yeah, I have a little pug, her name's Zoe. She's getting old though, but yeah, no, she's awesome. Yeah, you've used your platform and popularity in terms of philanthropy. Can you tell us about some of the causes that you've supported and you know what the funds have gone to help people on. Yeah, so we've done gamers outreach. We have done some things where we have donated money pretty

much to these stations that go in hospitals for kids and they are able to pretty much just play video games when they're sick or whatever they may be going through and I find that you know that resonates with me because you know I'm a gamer and I love to be able to you know help these people that you know aren't as in you know a fortunate situation as I am and you know let them experience these things and let them have fun as well. I think one of the good things about being in Kyle's position is that he can use His platform to a degree for betterment, you know gaming is a very powerful thing. I grew up with gaming I've loved it my entire life. I think there's a lot of positives that are in it There are negatives in it

But I think if you're already susceptible to some negative aspects in your life, if you've got anger issues, yeah, certain games are gonna broadly bring that out more. But from a gaming perspective, I love the fact that Kyle was able to work with Children's Outreach where, like he said, we work with kids that have cancer, kids that have other kind of sicknesses

that bring a little joy into their life. They get to play video you know, video games. We were trying to go out and visit people, but the problem with COVID, all the hospitals were closed down during that time. Kyle did start a platform called, we worked with Five Below. It was a gaming, it was get into gaming. So it was an affordable, one of the barriers for gaming is costs. You know, to buy a nice high end PC, to buy a nice high end console, or to buy anything, It was getting into gaming. So it was an affordable, one of the, one of the barriers for gaming is costs.

You know, to buy a nice high end PC, to buy a nice high end console or to buy anything, you know, obviously there, there are hundreds of dollars, you got monitors, you got TVs, you got peripherals, a hundred dollars for controllers, everything else. So one of the things that we did is we partnered with five below and Kyle was spearheading, helping work the designs and the products that would bring low cost keyboards, mice, you know, things that and they aren't high end, they're not competitive, but they were $10 keyboards that would get kids into gaming. And, you know, it was a great success. And that's, I've always wanted him to, I feel like that's like where he is good at.

Yeah, no, just adding onto what he was saying, like, yeah, the product line, it was great. The entry-level products were very great. I mean, when I started out, I didn't have the most expensive gear ever. So yeah, those things were just good to be able to get back and help people. And that's truly what you know, what I try to, you know, use my platform

as much as I can, too, as well as, you know, play competitive. Well, first of all, Kyle and Glenn, I want to thank you for being my guests on All About Change. You sound like you guys have a super family, very strong, there for each other, which is so important. And, um, Kyle, I wish you a lot of success in your career as you move forward. Uh, but I want, I really want to thank you for speaking out about mental health and, and removing the stigma and bringing it forward and, and giving advice to people, you know, who are also, you know, into gaming and, and may not know how to deal with it. So thank you for your leadership.

And I think you're gonna be a great role model for people. Of course, yeah, no, thank you. Appreciate you having us on. Glenn's love and support for Kyle has given him the ability to pursue the career of his dreams and has shaped Kyle into becoming the positive role model that is a bright spot in the online gaming community. That's it for today's episode. Join us two weeks from today for my talk with Princess Noor Palevi.

Today's episode was produced by Rebecca Shasan with story editing by Yochai Meytal and Mijan Zulu. To check out more episodes or to learn more about the show, you can visit our website allaboutchangepodcast.com. If you like our show, spread the word, tell a friend or family member, or leave us a review on your favorite podcasting app. We'd really appreciate it. All About Change is produced by the Ruderman Family Foundation in partnership with pod people.

That's all for now. I'm Jay Ruderman and we'll see you next time on All About Change. All we want but not goodbye