On a brisk evening in Manhattan, a first-year college student lounges in his dorm room with a gaming headset on. In his hands is an Xbox controller, his eyes trained on the glowing TV screen as he banters with friends over a FIFA soccer match. It could be a scene from any college campus – except that the student is Barron Trump, and just outside the door stand Secret Service agents, ever vigilant. For a few hours, as volleys of digital soccer balls streak across the screen, the youngest son of the U.S. President gets to feel like an ordinary teenager hanging out with buddies. In the virtual world of online gaming, Barron has found a precious slice of normalcy amid an otherwise highly scrutinized college life.

Barron Trump, 19, is a first-year student at New York University’s Stern School of Business​hindustantimes.com. But he’s hardly a typical freshman. As the son of the sitting President, Barron’s every movement on campus is shadowed by an entourage of Secret Service agents assigned to him “around the clock, every day, all year long”​tmz.com. Classmates have grown accustomed to the sight of the lanky 6-foot-plus young man whisked in and out of lectures flanked by agents and driven away in a black SUV motorcade. Unsurprisingly, this constant security presence makes blending into college life nearly impossible. “He hardly exists (on campus),” one NYU student quipped of Barron’s ghost-like campus presence​tmz.com. Barron typically sits in the back of large lecture halls like his economics class with agents in tow​tmz.com, and he doesn’t linger around after class to toss a frisbee on the quad or grab lunch at the dining hall. “It’s difficult for him to live the typical life of a college freshman,” a source familiar with his situation explained​tmz.com. Although he’s not spotted at dorm parties or chatting on the plaza, those who have met him say he’s “chill” and friendly in the brief moments when he does cross paths with other students​tmz.com. Still, Barron’s deliberate low profile – born of necessity – has led many classmates to dub him “very mysterious”, the kind of figure who inspires curiosity precisely because he’s so seldom seen hanging out like a normal kid​hindustantimes.com.

A Freshman Under 24/7 Watch

Living under 24/7 Secret Service protection brings unique challenges to a college student’s daily routine. Barron cannot simply wander from the dorms to the library or join a pickup basketball game at the gym without a security detail planning and monitoring every step. Wherever he goes, eyes follow – from gawking peers sneaking phone pictures to the ever-present gaze of agents and media. Early in the spring semester, headlines noted when Barron was “spotted on NYU campus for the first time since the inauguration,” highlighting how unusual it is to catch even a glimpse of him strolling in public​foxnews.com. For Barron, who enrolled at NYU in 2024, this hyper-visibility is a double-edged sword: he is instantly recognizable due to his family name (and the fact that he now towers around six-foot-seven), yet he must remain as unobtrusive as possible for his own security.

Indeed, NYU students soon learned that if you see a cluster of men in earpieces near the doorway of a lecture hall, Barron Trump is probably slipping inside or out. He’s escorted swiftly between classes and a secure vehicle, seldom pausing to chat. One student in his class described how Barron usually keeps his head down and moves quickly to his next destination, making it “like he’s not really there” to most observers​tmz.com. In quieter moments, classmates have noticed the two agents who sit in on his lectures – dressed inconspicuously in student attire – and the subtle choreography it takes for Barron to attend a study group or use the library. It’s the kind of constant caution that can make forming spontaneous friendships or participating in campus activities feel daunting. As one insider put it, having Barron in a group project means getting used to an extra couple of stern-looking gentlemen waiting outside your study session. Little wonder the young Trump had to find creative ways to socialize beyond the glare of public scrutiny.

The ‘Gamer Tag’ Workaround

Barron Trump has turned to video games and online chat platforms as a lifeline to his friends in college​timesofindia.indiatimes.com.

For Barron, the solution to his social dilemma came through a familiar hobby: video games. An avid gamer since his early teens, Barron realized he could leverage gaming platforms to stay connected with new college friends without having to swap phone numbers or meet up in person too often. According to insiders, he initially asked some of his NYU pals to join him on Discord, a popular chat app for gamers, and more recently “he has added it to his repertoire” to communicate via his Xbox gaming console​timesofindia.indiatimes.com. In other words, Xbox Live and Discord have effectively become Barron’s private social network at NYU. “It’s his communication platform of choice,” a source told Page Six, emphasizing that Barron deliberately avoids traditional texting​hindustantimes.com.

Why the need for this unconventional method? In short: security and privacy. Barron is forbidden from handing out his personal cell number to most acquaintances – even friendly classmates – because of the enormous risk that the number could leak. “It creates more trouble than it’s worth,” one confidant explained of the dilemma​hindustantimes.com. If Barron’s phone number got out, “a million people would be calling nonstop. You’d have to change the number constantly and it’d become a merry-go-round”​hindustantimes.com. The last thing the Secret Service or the First Family wants is Barron’s phone blowing up with strangers’ calls or messages. By contrast, chatting via Xbox or Discord under a screen name offers a layer of insulation. Only those whom Barron personally invites into his online circle can reach him there, and there’s no phone number to be leaked or traced. As an added bonus, these gaming platforms allow both text and voice messaging, so they function much like any messaging app – but with pseudonyms and closed groups that give Barron far more control over who can contact him​timesofindia.indiatimes.com.

According to sources at NYU, Barron only shares his gamer tag or Discord handle with a select trusted few – classmates he truly considers friends​hindustantimes.com. “He doesn’t give out his Xbox info just to anyone,” an insider stressed; it’s reserved for people he knows well​hindustantimes.com. Those friends know better than to broadcast his gamer identity. “It’s gamer bro culture, they ask each other for their gamer tag,” the source added, meaning in this generation it’s completely normal for college guys to connect first via online games​hindustantimes.com. In Barron’s case, it’s also a safeguard. Through this gamer-tag swap, he can safely unwind and socialize behind a username, free from the fear that someone might screenshot their private chat or add an unknown number to a gossip group. By all accounts, this workaround is working brilliantly. One student told TMZ that Barron had been casually asking fellow freshmen for their Discord usernames and Xbox gamertags so they could play together online​tmz.com – a request that might seem odd coming from anyone else, but in context it’s understood and actually welcomed by his peers. Suddenly, having an Xbox is the cool way to keep in touch with the President’s son.

Virtual Friendships, Real Connections

Once connected on Xbox Live or a Discord server, Barron comes alive in a way that’s hard for him to do in person on campus. In those virtual spaces, he isn’t trailed by agents or surrounded by whispering onlookers. He’s just “BT” (or whatever alias he uses) on the screen – another college kid yelling “Nice shot!” over voice chat during a game of FIFA. In fact, FIFA (the ultra-popular soccer video game now titled EA Sports FC 24) is reportedly one of Barron’s favorites; sources say it’s one game he plays regularly, unsurprising given he’s known to be a huge soccer fan in real life​tmz.com​tmz.com. “We hear one game he likes to play in particular is FIFA,” a student shared, noting that Barron often bonds with friends over friendly matches on the virtual pitch​tmz.com. It’s easy to imagine the scene: Barron, who played soccer during his high school years, controlling a Premier League team on Xbox while a friend from class plays as the rival team, both laughing and groaning through a headset as if they were just two roommates unwinding after a long day of classes.

Another title Barron is fond of is Grand Theft Auto V, part of the notorious open-world game series that many guys his age have grown up with. President Donald Trump himself let slip during a recent interview that his son is a big fan of the GTA games (as well as NBA2K basketball games)​hindustantimes.com. And back when Barron was younger, he even dabbled in mobile games like Clash of Clans to pass the time​hindustantimes.com. Now, though, gaming isn’t just a solitary pastime for him – it’s his social lifeline. Through cooperative missions or competitive matches, Barron can joke around and trash-talk a bit with his inner circle of friends, just like any other teenager, without the formality that people might show him face-to-face because of who he is. “He knows the people” he’s playing with, one source emphasized, underscoring that these are real friendships despite being conducted largely online​hindustantimes.com.

One might expect that communicating mainly via Xbox would make Barron feel isolated, but the opposite seems true. It has allowed him to build a camaraderie with classmates on his own terms. Instead of missing out on dorm chat groups or Friday night meetups entirely, he’s hosting virtual hangouts. As an NYU student told Page Six, this approach has become “more than just gaming – it’s how he texts and talks with his friends” in a secure way​okmagazine.com. On any given night, Barron’s gamer buddies might find a cheerful invitation popping up on their phones: Barron inviting them to join an Xbox party chat. There, in a private lobby, they’ll hear his unmistakable baritone (deeper than one might expect from his boyish face) joking about a professor’s hard assignment or celebrating a goal scored in FIFA. No Secret Service agent is monitoring those conversations line-by-line (though you can bet they’re somewhere nearby in the real world). For that hour or two, Barron can speak freely – peppering his speech with the same slang or memes any Gen Z college kid would use – and not worry that it’ll end up leaked online or in tomorrow’s tabloids. In that sense, his gamer tag has become his safe identity, the one place where he’s not “Barron Trump, First Son,” but simply a fellow gamer and friend.

Growing Up in the Spotlight, Longing for Normalcy

To understand why these ordinary moments of college life are so meaningful for Barron, it helps to remember how extraordinary his adolescence has been. Barron Trump grew up in the glare of the political spotlight, yet behind a shield of intense privacy crafted largely by his mother, First Lady Melania Trump. From a young age, Barron was kept off social media and made only rare public appearances; Melania was determined to let him have as normal a childhood as possible despite living in a gilded penthouse and later the White House. “Melania will keep her hand on Barron’s future as much going forward as she has throughout his early and current school years,” a family friend told People magazine, emphasizing how protective she has been​hindustantimes.com. That protective bubble meant Barron rarely spoke publicly (there are virtually no public recordings of his voice until recent years) and he learned to be wary of strangers’ intentions. Those instincts likely serve him well now at college, where he must choose his friends carefully. It also means that when he does find genuine friends, he values those relationships immensely – hence his commitment to nurturing them through any means available, Xbox included.

His father, President Donald Trump, has occasionally pulled back the curtain on Barron’s life in proud-father fashion – sometimes to the amusement of the internet. In one interview with Fox News, the elder Trump marveled at his son’s tech prowess, recounting a story of trying to turn off the teen’s computer only to find Barron had it back on moments later. “I go back, five minutes later he’s got his laptop. I said, ‘How’d you do that?’” Donald recalled, and Barron cheekily replied, “None of your business, Dad.” The President laughed and praised Barron’s “unbelievable aptitude in technology”​hindustantimes.com​okmagazine.com. That anecdote went viral, with many poking fun at the idea that knowing how to turn a laptop back on made Barron a tech wunderkind​okmagazine.com. Jokes aside, it’s clear Barron is comfortable with technology and perhaps far more fluent in it than his father – a typical dynamic for a teenager and a septuagenarian, to be fair. In fact, Barron quietly played a role in his father’s 2024 presidential campaign by offering tips on reaching young voters. He reportedly encouraged his dad to appear on podcasts popular with Gen Z and millennials, like shows hosted by YouTuber Adin Ross (one of Barron’s favorite online personalities) and comedian Joe Rogan​tmz.com​foxnews.com. His input didn’t go unnoticed. “Barron makes us all look so little. He’s really smart, very entertaining – he’s his father’s son,” recalls Lara Trump, Barron’s sister-in-law​hindustantimes.com. She noted that Barron would even call his father during the campaign with creative suggestions, like visiting a particular sports stadium to drum up support​hindustantimes.com. These stories paint a picture of a young man who is tech-savvy, observant, and engaged, even if he avoids the spotlight.

All of that translates into how Barron navigates life at NYU. He carries himself with a guarded reserve in public, but those who know him describe a funny, bright kid who’s passionate about his interests – be it global business classes or the latest video game release. “He’s got an unbelievable brain for numbers and tech,” one family friend said, “but also this dry sense of humor once he opens up.” It’s easy to imagine that humor coming out during a late-night Call of Duty session or a Discord chat about which campus cafeteria is best. Through a headset, Barron can crack jokes that would never fly in a formal setting, and he can listen to his friends vent about exams or relationships and respond not as a president’s son, but as a peer who gets it. In those moments, he’s building the normal college memories – just in a less-than-normal way.

Balancing Two Worlds

As the academic year progresses, Barron Trump continues to perform a careful balancing act between two worlds. In one, he’s a high-profile political scion: the tall young man in the blazer spotted occasionally with Secret Service agents, the subject of endless public fascination precisely because he’s so inaccessible. In the other world, he’s an online gamer known only to his small circle, a regular at late-night Xbox parties where he and his buddies celebrate each other’s wins and trash-talk over losses. This dual existence is unconventional, but for Barron it’s become the key to surviving – and even enjoying – college under unprecedented scrutiny.

He has learned to live with the paradoxes. He’ll never have the unfettered freedom his classmates do, yet through technology he’s finding freedom of a different kind. He can’t walk across Washington Square Park anonymously, but he can roam fantastical open worlds in Grand Theft Auto or score goals in FIFA without anyone batting an eye. He may not be able to join a huge group chat on WhatsApp (for fear his number leaks), but on Xbox he’s just a ping away from his friends. In a sense, the virtual campus has become as real to him as the physical one – a place where friendships grow, laughter is shared, and college life is experienced, albeit through a screen.

At times, his security detail and school administrators have had to adjust to Barron’s methods. There were likely conversations about secure internet connections and perhaps gentle reminders from agents not to divulge certain personal details even in seemingly private chats. But overall, the consensus is that Barron’s gaming outlet has been a healthy adaptation. It allows him to blow off steam and socialize safely, which is crucial for any freshman’s happiness and mental health. College is, after all, not just about classes but about forging relationships and discovering oneself. In Barron’s case, he’s discovering that he can be both the guarded First Son and the goofy friend who teases you over your terrible video game skills.

In a rare quiet moment on campus, Barron was seen smiling to himself as he scrolled on his phone – perhaps checking a Discord message from a friend or reviewing last night’s game highlights. That small, genuine smile encapsulated what those around him have come to realize: behind the heavy security and famous last name is an 19-year-old finding his way. His way just happens to involve a gamer headset and Secret Service earpieces coexisting in unlikely harmony. As he continues his studies at Stern, insiders say Barron is doing well academically and adjusting socially on his own terms. He’s proving that even under extraordinary circumstances, one can carve out ordinary moments – whether it’s laughing with friends over a video game or trading memes in a private chat.

In the end, Barron Trump’s college experience may be unorthodox, but it is also a testament to human adaptability. Give a young person an obstacle, and they’ll often find a clever workaround. In Barron’s case, that meant turning a hobby into a lifeline. With a controller in hand and his identity on screen distilled to a gamertag, he has constructed a world where he isn’t defined by security protocols or his famous family, but by how well he can lead a team to victory in an online match or comfort a friend with a joke. It’s in those virtual moments – guarded by anonymity, yet rich in genuine connection – that Barron Trump finally gets to feel like just another college kid living his life. And for him, that taste of normalcy is priceless​