Welcome to Wikipe… my abode! Who am I?`What is my story and where am I heading? Find it out here, or check out my resume for work experience.
Benedikt "Ben" Staege Abode
I’m Ben, a creative bloak with a passion for bringing ideas to life. From photography to graphic design, video editing to motion graphics, I thrive on exploring different forms of digital expression. My journey began with a love for gaming and evolved into a career where I craft digital visuals content and tell stories. With experience in logistics, process optimization, restaurant, and content creation, I blend structure with creativity to make projects come to be. Whether it’s through my YouTube channel or social media channels, my goal is to create, experiment, and push the my boundaries.
Over the years, I realized I needed a space to showcase my work, something that reflected my personality, energy, and creative mess. That’s how “Ben Abode” was born after a lot of trial and error. It’s not just a portfolio; it’s an extension of who I am and my space for it. A mix of chaos, playful, gaming and design that captures my approach to content creation.
Stats:
– Full name: Benedikt Staege
– Born July 1992
– 193cm tall (6.3f)
– Language: German, Swedish & English
Useless skills:
– Can solve Rubiks cube in 1 minute
– Can count to 1023 with 2 hands
– Can juggle 3 balls at the same time
Story time - so I moved a lot and..
According to my highly professional calculations, I’ve relocated every four years since birth—and moving to Sweden didn’t break the cycle. From the big city-life of München to the deep woods north of Stockholm, where buses ran five times a day (if you were lucky). Then, off to a small suburb south of Stockholm—only to return to those same northern woods four years later.
No driver’s license, no job prospects—just me, the trees, a camera and a whole lot of Minecraft. Like many at the time, I started my first YouTube channel, diving into the blocky hype back when Yogscast was all the rage. But what finally pulled me out of the woods wasn’t a “normal job” or the “influencer-dream”. Nope.
My first step into the “real world“? A one-way ticket to reality TV—welcome to Arga Restaurangen.
A job via TV-show? You're joking..
When they told me, “A camera crew might drop by,” my first thought was, Yeah, right. Like they’ll find this place out here in the middle of nowhere. Oh, how wrong I was.
Next thing I knew, I was cast, interviewed, and temporarily living in Stockholm to shoot the show. It was an incredible experience—working with brilliant people, getting a taste of both sides of the camera, and nearly breaking my knuckles in the first episode (don’t ask). If memory serves me right, I even did a 2-3 month internship at the TV station after filming wrapped.
Storytelling really started to fascinated me, so stepping into that world—both on-screen and behind the scenes—was nothing short of amazing. And as a cherry on top, I landed a job at the restaurant afterward. Next challenge? Finding a place to stay.
The Moving Saga Continues
Note to self: Never stop moving—but maybe stop changing homes so often.
Having a job in Stockholm while living in the woods? Yeah, not ideal. So I did what any logical person would do: bounced from room to room, living out of a backpack in overpriced rentals that could make Burj Khalifa’s penthouse seem like a bargain. After a few months of nomadic life, I finally settled—sharing a cozy 24 sqm one-room apartment with someone who’s now one of my closest friends.
By now, I had already sharpened my creative skills, taken on small freelance projects, and dived into HTML and CSS to style blogs. Looking for new adventures, I landed a six-month desk job. Started as a phone support rep, but thanks to my growing skill set, I quickly transitioned into a web/content admin role. But as time passed, the job ran its course. I had seen most of Stockholm, “done Stockholm,” and was ready for a change. The goal? Gothenburg. But at 23, I figured—why not take a detour?
So, with a two-week notice, I packed my bags, moved across Sweden, and started studying at Jönköping University.
The Non-Academic Student
Tried as I might, traditional studying just wasn’t my thing. Memorizing facts, cramming theories—I wasn’t built for it. I spent about two-three years at university, diving into hardware programming and network architecture, but neither really clicked.
Before I even set foot in Jönköping, I already knew what I wanted to do, to tell stories and create content. So trying to force myself to convert IP addresses into network masks or write code that made an LED screen blink in Morse code? Yeah, not my forte. I’ve always learned by doing. Try, fail, analyze, adjust—repeat. That’s how I picked up most of what I know today, and that’s how I’ll keep learning.
But was it all a waste? Absolutely not. Moving from Stockholm to a completely new city was one of the best choices I ever made—a real adventure. The people I met, the friendships that formed, and the experiences we shared? Unmatched. To this day, I still have great friends from that time—including one who even had to show me where my own apartment was (thanks, buddy).
The Next Move (Again)
There was just one problem: No longer being a student meant I couldn’t stay in the apartment. You know what that means—time to move again.
Finding a place wasn’t easy, so I had to widen my search. Enter Nässjö, my next stop for about 6-9 months. Living there was… an experience, to put it mildly.
This time around, I started working at the Intersport warehouse. Turns out, I really liked it—great colleagues, a solid routine, and, most importantly, a major shift in my life. I started poking around IT, asking how to work with the warehouse robots (ironic, considering I ditched network school) but IT didn’t need anyone back then. While working there, I kept developing my skills, and then—boom—opportunity knocked. Internal recruitment for the photo studio. Criteria? Know photography and Photoshop so of course I applied, and just like that, I was in.
Working in the studio was awesome! Over time, I got a new, fantastic photographer colleague, and I even managed the studio myself from time to time. On the side, I picked up that Super-User certification for the robots, wrote SQL queries to help my colleagues with master data (which, last I heard, they still use today), and occasionally played German translator when non-Swedish-speaking drivers came through.
Honestly? It was an incredible time—one I’ll always appreciate.
The Wind Changes
Then things started to shift. I loved my job and my colleagues, but I could feel it—I was ready for something new. I wanted to use and grow my self-taught skills.
Enter: The Mad Lad Irish Professor.
I don’t even remember exactly how we met, but somehow, this guy caught wind of my work—e-sports mascot logos, overlays, motion graphics, all that jazz. Turns out, he had a contact looking for a graphic designer for a gamification project. Color me intrigued.
I wasn’t 100% sure of myself yet tho. Imposter syndrome was real. But I had a decision to make. And just as I was considering the graphic design job, the IT guys at Intersport started noticing me too. They saw I had a knack for SQL, a solid understanding of basic programming (hello again, Python), and a decent grasp of network architecture (guess school wasn’t a total waste). Then came the real twist: Intersport HQ, in Gothenburg—my dream city—offered me an IT position.
Now that was a crossroads.
Life Decisions, Love, and Changes
When you hit a crossroads—one that could change everything—how do you choose?
Do I chase my dream of moving to Gothenburg, or do I take the risk, swallow my self-doubt, and stay? No dramatic pause needed—I stayed.
Since that experimental media class way back when, and the experiences from the TV-show I knew I wanted to work in a creative field. I wanted to make cool things, make people laugh, and most of all, tell stories. So, when the opportunity came, I grabbed it. I wanted to challenge myself, prove that I could use my self-taught skills, and finally say with confidence: I know my shit.
Was the job exactly what I expected? Hell no. But, damn, has it been a ride.
I started with a gamification project, designing the elements and shaping the visuals. Somehow, alongside that, I also ended up working on the company’s website, taking photos, making videos, learning 3D modeling, and even traveling around. How? No idea. Looking back, the past five years feel like a blur of events—some incredible, some rough as hell. There were moments when I hit the wall, moments when I didn’t get it yet, moments when I wanted to quit.
But even in the hardest times, I never regretted staying. Because staying led to something else—one hell of a brilliant relationship.
Life Shakes Things Up
At that point, life was at a high. I had a challenging (in both good and bad ways) job, a great relationship and overall, things were good. So time passed—nothing major, just living.
“Shit, I was a little idiot. You would have hated me. I was comfortable and arrogant and selfish on my knees. I liked being blind to everything because I was in love. And I thought for some reason that living for love was the most valiant thing in all the worlds.”
— Darrow, Morning Star by Pierce Brown
That quote hit me hard when I reread it. Because, yeah—I got comfortable. I stopped pushing myself. I got lazy with my own ambitions. And when life thinks you need a wake-up call, it doesn’t send a polite email. It swings a hammer.
Family struggles. Relationship falls. A bad call leaves me living with a roommate again (not terrible, just terrible timing). And all of it in the same damn month. Well, if life wasn’t subtle before, it sure as hell wasn’t now.
So I took time. Rested. Thought. Time to realign, move forward, and get back to doing what I love most—creating stuff, making people laugh, and telling stories.
So, here we are. A new chapter is on the horizon. The next stop? Gothenburg, early 2024.
Hello Gothenburg!
One year later
It took a while—a few years, actually—but I finally made it! From Stockholm, pit-stopping in Jönköping, and now, at last, landing in Gothenburg.
Why was this such a big deal for me? Why did I really want to be here? Well, it’s a cozy city, it’s got a great vibe, and hey—I can hop on a boat to Germany whenever I want. (Which, funnily enough, I still haven’t done since moving to Sweden… or have I?)
So there I was—new city, no close contacts, still the same job, and an entirely unexplored place ahead of me. Pretty much a life reset, if you want to see it that way. I had some social circles I could tap into, get to know folks, explore the city, and settle into my new life. But the neighborhood? That was something else—way more social than I was used to. And honestly? That was awesome.
The apartments were brand new, and everyone had just moved in. Through an internal neighborhood app, people would post things like, “Hey, we’re having a party, feel free to stop by—or just let us know if we’re too loud.” For someone as social as me, of course I joined in. And that’s how I ended up meeting some amazing people—including one person I had no idea would become my closest partner and make this past year absolutely incredible.