María Elena Arévalo, 81, plays Free Fire, a popular online video game, at her home in Llay-Llay, Valparaiso Region, Chile, on December 19, 2023 (Pablo Vera)
When a competitor of Free Fire, a popular video game, disappears online, the Mami Nena avatar of war breaks, it’s easy to imagine that someone behind the computer screen is an old Chilean aged 81.
María Elena Arévalo, an octogenarian who lives in a rural village in Chile, has adopted the virtual identity of Mami Nena, wearing a corto kimono, black gloves and black mascara.
Women with black and white hair who are on the delantal coast are installed in front of the screens to have a deadly weapon to fight on the virtual islands.
Your sweet voice and its publication on social networks, popular story as “abuela gamer”. Hoy sum more than four million seguidores.
Arévalo llegó al los videojuegos en 2020, before the release of soledad que la abrumó tras la mort de su esposo luego de 56 years de casados.
About 42% of 80-year-olds in Chile are alone, at least for their mental health, studying at the Universidad Católica de Chile.
At the suggestion of his first child, Héctor Carrasco appeared in the digital world at the age of 20. “Yo no sabía ni qué era un mouse,” Arévalo replied.
If you learn how to play the game, especially Free Fire, you will be excited. With her character Mami Nena, as the dice of her niece, she is conocida as a fierce rival who persigue has her opponents escondidos detrás de árboles y casas.
“No quería hacerle daño a nadie”, she evokes. Then with time the taste “seguirlos y matarlos”, affirma con una sonrisa.
We practiced it for several hours, three weeks, a year, until we got the necessary points to enter the “Heroico” league, and the second level is higher than the competitive level of the video game.
But I didn’t know that my husband and I took company in Free Fire, embodied in the sign that Mami Nena called Benito, as she decided.
– Abuela y nito –
Three years after starting my digital adventure in my house in Llay-Llay, a rural village 90 km from Santiago, the view is no longer a topic for her.
There are four million followers on TikTok before the popularity of this and 700,000 subscribers on YouTube.
With all their interactions, tips to improve in Free Fire and including the “Pase Élite” code, a benefit for the game that allows users to access exclusive rewards such as weapons, medals and medals.
In this rebirth of María Elena Arévalo, her denial was essential. “El me enseñó todo lo que sé. Sin él, yo no estária aquí,” he says with emotion.
“Siento que es like a best friend”, added el joven, que la compaña siempre en extra video.
As a great Free Fire player, we don’t understand how it works on mobile phones or computers. However, this is not the case.
It manages social laws, transfers online transactions and manages your unique trip to Chile.
Thanks to her existence in the game, Free Fire recognized her as one of the influential figures of the video game and took a trip to Mexico City in 2022, the anniversary of the brand.
“Todos los niños (jugadores) tell me that firmara autografos (…) Fue muy hermoso. El día que yo me vaya, me voy a ir con eso,” assured Arévalo.
– Líderes Mayores –
“Gamer abuela” is often activated in games due to scleroderma, a closed space that creates skin resistance. But no one retired.
“I’m happy to be here. Seguiré adelante hasta donde pueda,” confirmed Arévalo.
A passion that almost everyone in the world has. Among the Ukrainian team Young Guard, the game Counter Strike, they are integrated for about 75 years, or the Japanese Hamako Mori, 93 years old, the player of Mayor Edada in the world.
In Chile Mami Nen’ sigue cosechando éxitos. The Catholic University and El Mercurio newspaper recognized El pasado 21 de diciembre as one of the 100 Líderes Mayores del país por su rol en la reducción de los stereotipos generationonales.
“Nunca imagined me. Yo jugaba por jugar, por estar ahí, meneando el dedo”, festejó tras la ceremonia.
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