Ingame

Ingame: Young boys open up about life struggles and mental health in Fortnite. Many young boys in Norway struggle with poor mental health. One in three fail to complete their education by the normal school leaving age, and twice as many start claiming benefits immediately after leaving school compared with 10 years ago. Suicide is the most common cause of death. The organisation Mental Helse Ungdom (Mental health for youth) believes this is because they do not talk about their problems. Ninety six percent of Norwegian boys aged between 9 and 18 play computer games. When they are not gaming themselves, they watch others play on YouTube. Mental Helse Ungdom therefore decided to set up Ingame in partnership with the Norwegian advertising agency Hausmann. Ingame is a panel program on the inside of a computer game, where boys can talk anonymously through their game character. Together with two of Norway’s most popular gamers, Noobwork and Niklas Baarli, the boys played Fortnite, whilst being able to talk about things that were important to them, such as body image, friends, divorced parents, self-image and loss. This resulted in five episodes on Noobwork’s YouTube channel. Without any promotion budget, Ingame has attracted a huge amount of attention in the Norwegian media and on social media, helping to place the mental health of young boys on the agenda. Digital advertisement created by Hausmann, Norway for Mental Helse Ungdom, within the category: Public Interest, NGO.