My brother lost his family over a YouTube video, and I’m still furious at him—but I think he’s breaking.

My brother Joe was the one I’d refer to when people talked about good dads. Like, “Look at Joe—relaxed, patient, totally obsessed with his kid, knows all the Pokémon names, spends hours constructing Legos.”.

Then his marriage fell apart. I thought at first it was a fluke—a huge fight. He and Amanda have always had different styles, but they balanced each other out. She’s more structured, he’s more relaxed. He’s the one who’d sneak Jonah cookies after bedtime and teach him how to rig up a Bluetooth speaker before he could spell “Bluetooth.” Things like that.

It so happens that same looseness—the “fun dad” factor—was a contributor to what destroyed everything.

Their son (my nephew, Jonah) dropped the R-word at school. Threw it into a sentence like it was nothing. Teacher called home. Amanda was heartbroken. Joe, from what I gathered, kind of locked up. Said he had no clue Jonah even knew that word. Amanda asked him where he’d learned it. Jonah replied: “The keyboard YouTube guy.”.

That was the start of the end.

Amanda dumped him a few months later. And I get it now. It wasn’t just the word. It was what came after: Joe not taking it seriously enough. Not seeing the weight. She warned him—again and again—not to just blindly trust these content creators. To filter things. To actually watch what Jonah was watching. But Joe thought it was all overreacting. That if the video was about “keyboards,” it couldn’t harm anyone.

He told me that. “It’s keyboards, man. It’s fine.”

It was not fine.

Now he’s sleeping on some acquaintance college friend’s couch, working remotely in sweatpants, barely speaking in complete sentences. I visit when I am able. I bring food. I ask him how he is. He tells me, “I’m fine,” but he appears to be a man who does not even know the house that he is in.

He has a notebook. He’s constantly scribbling in it. I took a peek once (I know, I know), and it was just—quotations. What Amanda said. What he said. What words Jonah said. Dates. Sentences. Like he’s trying to build a time machine out of guilt.

And here’s the part I can’t remember: I am still angry with him.

Angry that he didn’t take Amanda seriously. That he laughed things off. That he treated “watching YouTube” like it was babysitting. That he failed to realize what being a father actually meant in those quiet, invisible moments.

But I’m also scared. Because he knows he failed. He knows he cracked something, and now he’s just sitting in the wreckage, not fixing it—just cataloging the damage like a museum curator of his own downfall.

I want to shake him. I want to hug him. I want to scream. I want him to be okay.

But mostly, I just want my brother back.

I know this isn’t my life to repair. I know Amanda had every right to leave. I don’t blame her.

But I miss the man Joe used to be.

And I’m afraid I won’t see him again.