A dattebow video essay.
First draft was closer to a self-help essay than a script, working through my own history with burnout, going all the way back to faking sick days as a kid just to stay home and play, then losing the ability to enjoy games at all for a while afterward.
The title sat as “the struggle of video game burnout” for over a year, which in hindsight was the problem. It stated the conclusion before anyone watched a second of it. Went back through it in mid-2026 as part of a wider rebrand pass and pulled the real title from a line inside the script, “then one day, I stopped.” Shorter, and it makes you want to know why rather than handing you the conclusion.
The old thumbnail was loud, red-and-white stroked text over a game screenshot, and it didn’t match anything else on the channel anymore. Rebuilt it around the strongest line I’d written and barely used: “I faked being sick, for this.” with a PS Vita entering from the side, screen showing Minecraft. Chose the Vita specifically because it’s named in the script and it’s period-correct for the story, a Steam Deck would’ve been the wrong device and also the third Deck thumbnail on the channel by that point.
This one and “How I fell back in love with games.” are meant to be read as a pair now. This script references that one directly, so the two titles and thumbnails were built to sit next to each other on purpose.