Loneliness is a condition that is fast becoming an epidemic in the country, with 82% of Australians saying Loneliness is on the rise.

According to recent study, 60% of Australians report often feeling lonely. Nearly all of us suffer from loneliness at various points in our lives. Loneliness isn’t just an upsetting or annoying feeling. It’s genuinely bad for your happiness and wellbeing.

“Beat Loneliness” is an important movement that brings awareness to the cause, facilitates new real-life connections through team activities, which – with time – can turn into new social networks for people who fight loneliness.

We worked with Australian Red Cross to develop an idea that aims to raise awareness on the issue of loneliness, and it’s simply called, ‘Beat Loneliness’.

Beat Loneliness encourages anyone who is a part of any kind of team activity (such as esports, roller derby, volleyball, soccer, netball, etc.) to jump online, register for a free sporting kit for their team, and rebrand their team to ‘Loneliness’. Then, every team that they go up against in a competition will be faced with the challenge of trying to ‘beat loneliness’. In the end, it doesn’t matter who ends up winning, loneliness loses.

Red Cross has formed an unlikely alliance with esports team, Legacy, to develop this project. Legacy was the first sporting team in Australia to rename themselves ‘Loneliness’, and called on any other teams or gaming groups to do the same.

The campaign launched at Australia’s biggest esports venue, where Legacy – now Loneliness – accepted challenges from opponents right across the globe. The competition quickly jumped to the front page of Twitch, with over 11,900 unique viewers streaming live throughout our two-hours broadcast. Proving that esports, like any sporting activity, can bring people together and beat loneliness.

Then we brought the idea to other sports, creating an online platform where any team in Australia could also rebrand to Loneliness, and get a free team kit to play like a pro. So far, 4,000 team kits were sent across Australia, with approximate 36,000 people playing to beat loneliness every week.

It's a long game, and we haven't beaten Loneliness yet. But in just the first few weeks of this project going live, over 4,000 Loneliness team kits have been sent to sports teams right around Australia who have been prepared to re-name their team to Loneliness. This results in nearly 36,000 people coming together every single week to attempt to #BEATLONELINESS at various clubs, venues, fields, pubs and courts Australia wide.

There are two common misconceptions regarding loneliness. The first is that it’s mostly the elderly who feel isolated and alone, which is not the case. The rise of loneliness across the globe is predominantly prevalent in millennial audiences. The second is that Gamers are considered loners and computer gaming isn’t social, whereas the actual fact is that Esports is one of the most social and connected communities among this audience.

As an essential part of the strategy, we decided to start the initiative with Esports – a billion-dollar industry with over 265 million players globally, and 4 million Australians engaging with it on a regular basis. We wanted to bust one of the biggest myths that gaming is a significant cause of loneliness. In fact, often the very opposite is true. Many people claim that esports has been one of the vehicles that have actually helped them connect with others.

Society has become lonelier as a result of structural and technological changes in our modern lives. Red Cross has interviewed a range of experts about the issue and scanned the key academic literature to build an understanding of the issue. From these studies, they found that loneliness relies on three things: not being seen; valuing loose connections, and the ease of inaction.

Red Cross then set three major objectives:

- Increase awareness and understanding of the issue, leading people to value personal networks and connections, then do something about it.

- Remove structural barriers that enable loneliness.

- Prevent the collapse of social networks that enable loneliness to thrive.