Mohamud was a 17-year-old student in The Telling Room’s Young Writers & Leaders program and attended Portland High School when he wrote this essay, which explores his struggle with identity as a first-generation American. During his free time, he likes to play Counter-Strike and read internet forums such as Reddit.

Online and Offline

Who am I really? My life can be divided into two – online and offline. I am two different people in one. I was four years old when I got my first video gaming system, a Play Station 2, and my online identity began. My offline self took shape when I suffered my first traumatic event. I found my younger brother floating, dead, in a large fountain. My brother’s death and my PS2 – these two things have shaped who I am as an individual.

From the time I was four until I was 12 years old, I had an on and off relationship with gaming. Then, when I was 12, I got permanent Internet access and could access the entire gaming subculture. I was in middle school and struggling to fit in as a Somali-American pre-teen. I became more comfortable in the anonymous, online world because people did not know who I really was and I did not know them. It was easier for me to socialize online than in real life with my classmates or family.

The games I play tend to be shooter games – even though I have never in offline life fired a gun and am not sure I ever will. I like these games not for the blood and gore, but because they are “made for me” – they are quick-paced, relatively short (30-40 minutes) and are easy to learn but super hard to master. These generally attract white males. More racially diverse games are sports games, but there is less communicating going on – and I like the social aspect of being on a team with real-life people.

What does it mean for me to have an online identity? It means that online I am very competitive, loud, focused, confident and assertive. This is because I can be anonymous…no one can see me or hear me speak. Getting my first gaming system helped me unlock that inner me.

There were negatives too. I spent so much time online that I spent less time studying, and my grades suffered. Also, people feel freer to say things online than offline. They would say things like, “you are a stupid nigger,” or “u r a fag,” and other players would reply sarcastically, “that’s triggering me.” I’ve become used to the racism I face online. When someone calls me or uses the N word now, I don’t feel targeted or attacked compared with three or four years ago when I didn’t hear it as much. Most people also assume I’m a white male behind the screen, and therefore they make offensive, racially derogatory jokes on a daily basis. If I speak out against it, they ignore me, though I know that if they knew my offline identity they would be less likely to use it.

I began to “fit in,” both online and in real life, after a while. I made similarly offensive jokes while in middle school, and at that point, gaming was my life. It wasn’t until high school that I asked myself, “What is the point of all this toxicity? This is not who I really am.” My online identity had disconnected me from the real world, I realized. I use to be more active socially and I used to stand up for others, not take them down.

Ironically, it is when I am online and people cannot see me or hear my voice, that I better fit their stereotype of Somali people, because when I am gaming I am very competitive, loud, focused, confident, and assertive. When I am online, I do not think about my dead brother and I completely forget about being shy, which is who I am really.

What is my offline identity? The real life me writes this story today. When I was four I lived in Nashville, Tennessee, where I shared a bedroom with my brother Abdi, who at the time was two years old. Early one morning my dad left for work while my mother was still asleep. The front door was unlocked, and Abdi tried to open it. I told him not to, but he kept at it until he opened it and went outside. I waited for my mother to wake up to tell her, which was about half an hour later. When she was awake, I told her that Abdi had gone outside, and we both went out to look for him. My mother grew very scared, and it was then that I spotted Abdi, floating in a public fountain. My brother was taken to a hospital; when the paramedics lifted his limp, wet, dead body was the last time I ever saw him. During a month of preparations for his funeral I lived with cousins, and I hardly ever saw my parents. I was not allowed to go to the funeral, and I have never known what happened there. When I finally saw my mother afterwards, she was dressed all in black, and did not speak to me. And Abdi was gone, forever.

That single moment, when my four-year-old self saw my two-year-old brother floating in that fountain, has had more of an impact on me than I could have imagined. The way that my family and I have tried to deal with our grief and loss has led me to learn not to be very assertive or to talk much about my feelings, and even to hide parts of my life and to be very secretive.

That moment created some of the inner parts of me that still exist, but I have learned who else I can be, because of my more outspoken, assertive online life. I still live as two people, and I am not only defined by who I am from a personality standpoint, but also by physical characteristics. My offline persona is based on my life as a first-generation American whose parents are refugees from Somalia, and it so happens that I do not look like a “native born” American. I look like a person from Somalia, and because many people have stereotypes of what a Somali is they think that I must be very competitive and athletic, especially into soccer, and that I am loud and assertive and very religious. They also assume I have a lot of siblings.

Guess what? I am actually none of these things and I do not have a lot of siblings. When I was seven I started going to dugsi, a religious school, on the weekends. I was not Somali enough for the Somali kids, as I did not speak Somali as fluently as they did. Yet in public school, I was not American enough because I am not white. After my parents divorced when I was ten years old, I ended up living with my mother, who does not speak English well. She wanted me to speak more Somali. This caused me some identity confusion, because her friends’ kids would laugh at how I mixed my Somali and English, and in response I stopped speaking Somali.

At school, I made acquaintances with this one person in my English class. During the Syrian refugee crisis in Europe, much like the current debate about it in the United States, in class students were arguing pro (supporting the admission of refugees) and con (opposing admission). Arguments against were about safety risks. This acquaintance was someone who supported taking in more refugees and he decided to bring me into the conversation, saying that I was the prime example of a refugee assimilating.

One of the opposing students said, “Do you even know any refugees?” and the acquaintance said, “I know Ayub,” and pointed at me. But he was wrong, as I am not a refugee. I was born here. I am an American citizen. He assumed I wasn’t because of how I look. This upset me. He was using me as a point in a class assignment, not treating me as a person he really knew. He and others, even teachers, assume that because I do not look like them, then I must have come here recently. That is wrong, though I did not speak up then because I did not want to harm my relations with anyone.

Around a year ago, I decided to stop going to dugsi. The disconnection I felt there became too much for me. Similarly, with video gaming I have become uncomfortable with the constant racist and derogatory comments, and am shifting with whom I play and interact. I am moving from anonymity to reaching out online to people I actually know, and who know me in real life. In fact, this is starting to help me develop one identity, both online and offline. I am becoming more confident, assertive, and sure of myself in “real” offline work, while online I am less tolerant of negativity. I am becoming one Ayub – both offline and online, and I am with you on your screen and live here, right now.