Gamer Dent

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About

Gamer Dent or Headset Dent refers to a phenomenon where a headset leaves a temporary impression on a person's hair and skin after being worn for a prolonged period of time. Livestream clips of various streamers, including Tyler1 and TimTheTatman, discovering and examining their dents repeatedly went viral, with the Gamer Dent being referenced in memes and online discussions.

Origin

While it is likely that the phenomenon was noticed earlier, "gamer dent" did not enter online discussions until 2018, when on January 13th, Redditor shimylogo posted a still image of streamer Tyler1 with his headset off, a minor indentation visible on the top of his head. The post (shown below, left) received over 300 upvotes in the /r/loltyler1^[1] subreddit in six months. On January 6th, 2019, Redditor UnhealthySloth posted a edited version of the image, with the dent made more prominent. The post (shown below, right) gained over 500 upvotes in the subreddit^[2] in six months.

Spread

On January 13th and March 4th, 2020, clips of Tyler1's gamer dent were shared in the /r/LivestreamFail^[3]^[4] subreddit, gaining over 1,000 upvotes and 1,400 upvotes in three years (both clips since have been removed).

On November 5th, 2020, YouTube^[5] user Discipline Dopamine posted a video of Tyler1 noticing and quicky covering his dent that gained over 11 million views in three years (shown below).

In 2020 and following years, multiple videos of streamers noticing and examining their dents, often after being encouraged by chat, went viral on social media. For example, on April 20th, Redditor DeathOnTwoLegsYT posted a clip of streamer TimTheTatman examining his dent which received over 2,200 upvotes in the /r/LivestreamFail^[6] subreddit in six months. On April 21st, Redditor Soap4U reposted the clip to the /r/WatchPeopleDieInside^[7] subreddit, where it gained over 90,200 upvotes, and on April 22nd, TimTheTatman uploaded the clip to his YouTube^[8] channel, where it accumulated over 310,000 views in three years (shown below).

"You have a dent in your head from your headset." No I don't. No I don't! Wait a minute… Wait a minute? Is there a dent in my head?! […] Dude! My head has a dent! Oh no!

On June 5th, 2023, gaming news X / Twitter^[9] account @dexerto posted a clip of streamer curtosslive discovering his gamer dent while shaving his head on a livestream. The video (shown below) received over 52.4 million views, 11,000 reposts and 82,600 likes in three months.

On June 10th, 2023, esports YouTube^[10] channel theScoreesports posted a compilation video of several streamers reacting to dents left by headsets, which gained over 4.2 million views in three months.