Jayson
Portrait with Ken Pao
Description: An image of a teenage gamer projected on a large screen in front of a crowd in a dim-lit space. The crowd is packed and people are cheering.
Portrait with Zachary Maxwell Stertz
“My mom bought me this game when it first came out on PS4. I have a whole different life in my game. It’s a whole different world. I have a lot of friends. One of my gaming friends is mute. She can’t talk. She’s a cool person. She loves anime. I love anime, too. I have another friend too. I look at him as a brother, because anytime I want to tell him something, he doesn’t judge me. He actually talks to me about it. And we have full conversations for a good two hours straight about it. And he’s one of those people that, if you tell them something, they’ll go on with you. They won’t laugh at you. They won’t criticize it. They just get it. We all have lots of things in common. That’s makes us all a good friend group.
Gaming touches me in a way that nothing else can. It’s the only thing that separates me from the rest of the group. I know everybody else has games, but I’m attached to mine in a different way. It’s the only way I can connect to people. I can express myself without having people being judgmental about it. I go inside a different dimension. I become a whole different person, sometimes angry, sometimes happy.
The biggest obstacle I ever faced was probably when my dad left. I had no male role model to look over me and tell me the right thing to do. And that was super painful because I only had my mom to keep me in shape, and actually play around with. When my dad left, that was painful for my mom to deal with. And I didn’t know what to do, because I was super little at that time. So I couldn’t help her in any sort of way.
In January, my uncle got hit by a car. I thought I was going to lose him, too. So I just thought for a moment, what if this happens again? Who’s going to be a role model for me? He survived.
The person I look up to the most right now is Mr. Coleman. He’s the Assistant Principal. He’s always telling me the right thing to do.
I want to be perceived as a person that people can rely on and look up to. If they wanted to tell me something, they could open up actually without having to hesitate about me saying something, or making fun of them.
My favorite color is red. It’s the color that fits in with a lot of colors. I mostly use red when I draw or paint. I want to start drawing my feelings out. But I don’t know how to draw. So I’m going to start practicing.”
Milwaukee, 2019