Promoting Mental Health with Safe In Our World

Many of you may have seen that Kinetic Hosting just turned 6 years old! This is a huge milestone for us, and at the inception of it all, Kinetic was a Minecraft network. While our full story is featured in our previous blog post covering the anniversary, we're super excited to celebrate by announcing our partnership with Safe In Our World!

Since we started off as a Minecraft server network, we've been on all sides of the gaming space. One of the most powerful parts of video games as a medium is the ability for absolutely anyone, regardless of who they are or what their background is, to unite under a shared love for games.

Groups like Safe In Our World help take this a step further. Playing games doesn't just have to be a shared experience or hobby, but can be a tool to unite and uplift people all around the world. Every player you meet in a game online has their own uniquely complicated life with their own struggles, desires, growth, and background. Safe In Our World wants to help shed some life on the experiences of others, and break down the stigma surrounding mental health and marginalized communities.

Every gamer deserves to be able to to be safe in our world, and to be welcomed with empathy and respect as we all enjoy video games together. At its core, Safe In Our World provides resources to help both employers and players to strive for acceptance and support of the unique experiences of every individual, including:

• Identity: Sex, gender, sexuality, race, etc.

• Mental Health: Anxiety, depression, burnout, grief, and more.

• Disability: Mobility issues, tinnitus, autoimmune diseases, etc.

No list will ever be truly extensive, as every gamer has their own life, experiences, and journey through video games. There's no one box that every player can be put into, except one - we all enjoy and play video games, and can support eachother with that one shared love connecting us all.

For those that missed it, Safe In Our World had a wonderful celebration of some games uplifting and raising transparency in the queer/LGBTQ+ community last month for Pride Month, which you can find here. Or, you could turn your eyes towards staples in the community that you can play with your friends already, like through our Stardew Valley server hosting!

This mission isn't just limited to players of games, either. Safe In Our World wants to encourage the video game industry as a whole to #LevelUpMentalHealth by taking strides to ensure that workplaces are also inclusive and supportive environments for a company's team an their mental health. Kinetic Hosting is incredibly proud to make our first formal partnership with Safe In Our World, fully embracing our commitment to both our team (which has now grown to 15 people!), and all of those that have chosen us as their server hosting partner and trusted us with your communities.

We have always cared a lot about mental health and supporting our growing team in living their own unique lives both in and outside of work. That commitment made this partnership a super easy decision, and one that we are genuinely extremely excited for as we continue to grow into the future. We'd like to offer huge thanks to all of you who have supported us in our journey so far, as well as to the folks at Safe In Our World for partnering with us to promote and encourage better mental health both in and out of the workplace.