During your young adulthood, the only thing more inevitable than acne is the three-week Minecraft-playing phase you’ll undergo at least once per year. For me, the game once again infiltrated my computer following the release of the 1.21 update this past June—the internal peace I gain from mining the same cobblestone blocks for hours on end is something years of therapy can’t even begin to rival.
It all started when one of my best friends and I started a joint survival world through the Hypixel server—a free-to-play, public Minecraft world home to a multitude of mini-games (even writing out the server name gives me vivid flashbacks to my early teenage years). I would stay up late into the night trying my best to recreate my Pinterest board’s aesthetic designs in the game, then wake up in the morning and continue the endeavor with my breakfast right beside my keyboard. My productivity was truly unmatched.
Returning to the game always induces a flood of nostalgia—I think back to the hours upon hours I used to pour into the game as a kid while playing with my cousin and the way those blocky, virtual worlds connected my real world to my cousin’s, despite us living in different states. I even remember throwing a Kardashian-level tantrum when my dad began enforcing a Minecraft limit of no more than three hours a day—which, looking back, was arguably for the best.
But the game seeped into my life even outside the realm of the program itself. From the ages of eight to twelve, my YouTube feed consisted solely of The Ellen Show clips (a story for another day) and Minecraft YouTubers. My gateway drug was Stampy’s Lovely World, which followed an aggressively British Minecraft player who would build various mini-games and structures inside his “Lovely World.” At the beginning of each episode, Stampy (an orange and white cat whose design is forever cemented into my brain) would shout out a fan by placing their name in his “Love Garden”—an accomplishment just above a Nobel prize.
Later on, I discovered the wonders of PopularMMOs and GamingWithJen, an online couple named Pat and Jen who would experiment with mods, games, storymode maps, and more. While other kids were curled up watching Disney and Nickelodeon (although admittedly I did my share of that as well), I was propped in front of my family’s desktop computer watching these playthrough-style videos with the concentration of a surgeon.
The day Pat and Jen got a divorce was the day my childhood died. Still reeling from the death of their cat, I remember watching intently as they awkwardly explained their failed marriage to a YouTube audience of barely-showered preteens and avid Minecraft followers. Turns out Pat has since been arrested for a multitude of crimes (including assaulting a police officer, probation violations, and trespassing during a Jacksonville Jaguars NFL game), and even now, I gasp when reading the articles and judging his mugshot.
Throughout middle and high school, while I navigated the move from Minecraft YouTube to Netflix, I still found myself drawn back to the game. I continued playing with my cousin and later also found a friend group of Gamer Kids ™ to supplement my adventures. Whether we played Murder Mystery, Build Battle, Bed Wars, or Sky Wars, Hypixel became the ultimate meeting spot for our afterschool hangouts.
The game—while undoubtedly still a meme—has served as a common thread and conversation starter with so many people in my life. Even now at Brown, I remember voraciously running through a Bed Wars arena during a late-night Mock Trial social event.
In a similarly sentimental domain, I raise the subject of Minecraft: Story Mode. Released as a collaboration between Telltale Games and Mojang Studios in 2016, this choose-your-own-adventure style game allows players to navigate the world as the character “Jesse.” The plot of the game’s first season follows the reconstruction of an old group of heroes known as “The Order of the Stone” (composed of Gabriel the Warrior, Ellegard the Redstone Engineer, Magnus the Rogue, Soren the Architect, and Ivor the Potion Brewer and Enchanter).
The team bands together to defeat the Wither Storm—but not before killing the game’s most beloved character, Reuben the pig. Reuben’s death forever remains one of the deepest, most impactful plotlines in all of cinema. Imposters like The Notebook and Dead Poets Society could only dream of evoking that same raw, human (and pig) emotion.
I tried rewatching the scene as part of my in-depth research for this article, and I had to throw my phone aside for a second to regain my composure. The number of edits set to depressing TikTok audios was honestly quite overwhelming, and I was forced to scroll through Trisha Paytas compilation videos as a palate cleanser.
Another interesting lesson from my Minecraft days is the distinction of different archetypal players, whether that be the miner, the redstone inventor, the builder, etc. You can truly tell so much about a person’s personality by the role they take on in a Minecraft survival world—the information is arguably more useful than their MBTI. If you were the “aesthetic builder” archetype as a kid, you most likely have a multitude of saved Pinterest boards amidst your organized, color-coded laptop home screen, and there’s a very high chance you’re now concentrating in the humanities. On the other hand, the “crazy builder” archetypes—a.k.a. those who made Brutalist-style kingdoms and loot farms—are likely now majoring in some sort of STEM (I don’t make the rules, I just know the facts). If you were one of the kids who would break into servers and blow everything up with TNT. . .you're likely just as horrible and evil a person now as ever.
All in all, no matter the archetype, I've connected with so many people through a shared love of this game. Whether in the fleeting, comedic moments of a server chat or the lifelong memories I’ll cherish of me and my cousin frantically running from mobs and building luxurious bases, Minecraft holds so much nostalgia for me.
So, for anyone who hasn’t reentered their three-week Minecraft phase in quite a while, I urge you to pick up the controller, play the YouTube video, or even just download the app once again. No matter how long it’s been, it’s something I don’t think I’ll ever grow out of—and that’s completely fine by me.
