My Love for the Halo Universe
Sharing my deep passion for this video game franchise shaped my life.
Nearly a decade ago, I created an Instagram account. I share screenshots (in-game photography screenshots) from the Halo video game franchise. I created the account because of my deep love for the franchise. Over time, I grew a social media following that grew up to 24,000 followers on Instagram and over 10,000 followers combined on a few other apps. It has been so much fun growing this following. It has also played a key part in my pursuit of a degree in social media marketing.
Halo has been a major part of my life. Ever since I was 14 years old, I became enthralled with the franchise, especially the games that were created by the franchise’s original developers, Bungie. The loveable characters, the deep lore, and the high stakes of saving humanity against a bunch of zealous genocidal aliens have captivated me since the game came out.
The Halo screenshot community is a very small niche within the overall franchise community. Starting with Halo 3, Bungie created a content creation feature called forge and theater modes where you can create gaming clips, machinima (video game movies), your own maps, and screenshots to share with other fans of the game. This community had its heyday back in the late 2000s and early 2010s when people would create mindblowing content and share it with other people.
So, nearly a decade ago, I decided to create an Instagram account. I created nearly 15,000 screenshots from every game. Creating screenshots was a great way for me to decompress after a busy day or work or school. All of my screenshots are unedited. In the Halo screenshot community, it is considered taboo to edit screenshots. All of the “special effects” are in the games, using different assets. There is a lot of curiosity, experimentation, as well as trial-and-error. It can be irritating at times, but words can’t adequately express that rare moment when I take a shot that leaves both myself and my followers in awe. Throughout my time doing this, I have been featured by the franchise’s social media apps on multiple occasions.
In recent years, my following has dwindled significantly. Instagram algorithms constantly change which has led to the decline. I have struggled to keep myself motivated to continue sharing my screenshots since I thought maybe my content wasn’t interesting or engaging. I have taken long breaks recently due to burnout and the lack of engagement. Then I had an epiphany. I realized that I didn’t care anymore if I didn’t get enough “likes” or “comments” or followers. I went back to my roots, which was to share screenshots for the love of the game. Whether I had 20 followers or over a million, I didn’t care. I didn’t create this type of content to be validated by other people. I created it because it was therapeutic for me and it was a lot of fun. I still create screenshots, just not as often since I have more important things to do with my life. But I will say, thanks to this experience, this passion project of mine helped me to find a career path in social media marketing, where I now create written blog content for a few nonprofit organizations.
