"Mommy Baby"the gamer granny who is an expert in shooting "FreeFire"

( Spanish) – –There’s one… he’s going to the other area… yes!… chiuuuuu!

Amid gunshots, clicks and hurried exclamations, María Elena Arévalo, an 81-year-old homeowner, analyzes the movements of “her enemies”—as she calls them—through the computer screen.

At her home in the town of Llay Llay, 90 kilometers from Santiago de Chile, she wears an apron and turns on a fan to weather the intense heat wave that is hitting the southern country while playing “Free Fire,” a popular shooting video game. online where millions of players seek to survive on an imaginary island. There, María Elena has a character who wears a kimono, firearms, and a phoenix that accompanies her as her companion, whom she calls “Benito” in honor of her late husband.

“I started playing in 2018, around there. My husband died, so I was alone. I was just with my grandson, who lived here. He had all these things. Then he said ‘why don’t you learn to play, so that you don’t sit here?’ Why don’t you play?’” says María Elena, better known as “Mami Nena” on the internet.

After the death of her husband, with whom she lived for more than 50 years, “Mami Nena” says that she went into a deep depression. But the insistence of her grandson Héctor Carrasco, a 20-year-old university business administration student, ended up convincing her.

“I didn’t even know how to move the mouse, I didn’t know how to touch a key, none of those things. But he taught me, so it was like I no longer felt the pain,” says the grandmother.

With their grandson they began to play more and more, recording videos and content for social networks. And to the surprise of several Internet users, the skills of “Mami Nena” began to be noticed. “That’s what I found enjoyable about, because I was playing with someone else. There I felt better. And it wasn’t just one person, there were several people who played the game. Until I gave it to him, and I liked it,” says “Mami Nena.”

The popularity of the “gamer grandmother” began to grow in Latin America and throughout the world. Her YouTube channel, where she uploads videos of her playing and commenting on the games, already has more than 640,000 subscribers and more than 380,000 people already follow her on TikTok. In 2022, the company that created the video game itself decided to invite her to an event in Mexico City as an influential face of the “Free Fire” brand. She couldn’t believe it.

“I never imagined it, because I said, why are they inviting me to Mexico? There being so many other people. It just can’t be. But they invited me! I had a good time, so I’m grateful to Mexico. They were patient with me, they walked with me everywhere on my arm, because I was the oldest there, the ‘influencers’ were very very young, and I was the oldest,” says “Mami Nena” between laughs.

But the recognition did not end there. In December 2023, the Catholic University of Chile decided to name her as one of the 100 older adult leaders of the southern country, and they invited her to a special ceremony in Santiago. María Elena insists that she owes everything to her grandson Héctor: “It’s because of my grandson. If it hadn’t been for him, I don’t know. Maybe I wouldn’t be there too. Because I locked myself in my house, but with him, I went out, I started playing, I started doing other things.”

For his part, Héctor Carrasco says that his grandmother has taught him that “any person, of any age, can achieve anything they set their mind to.” “He has taught me too many things. And very important things,” says the student with a smile while looking askance at his grandmother.

María Elena says that she now plays much less than before due to scleroderma, a disease that causes the skin on her hands to harden. However, he insists that he cannot stay “doing nothing,” that for older adults it is important to “have a hobby.”

“They have to do something, even if it’s a game, any game, but they don’t let themselves be. Do anything, learn what you want to learn, knit, sew, do what you can do. As older adults, there are many things that can still be done,” Mami Nena emphasizes.

With an active mind and following the exercises recommended by her doctor, this “gamer grandmother” affirms that she will continue playing as long as her health allows. For her grandson, for her fans, but mainly, for herself.