famousmortimer
Banned
(Audio Version)
So a couple weeks ago when I was writing up the article about CoD being 720p I said on twitter that I had some huge news and that it was coming soon. This was silly, it only caused me more stress and in the end I wrote a rather awful group of words that I called a post. But while I was overwhelmed and trying to edit it I deflected on twitter to my wife, whose name is Arnee (pronounced Ar-nay... like Renee) aka @dangerwife.
My wife is a lot more fun than I am. The "xbox mafia" was calling her fat, a tranny, etc... she thought it was hysterical. She kept responding super nice - her expert version of trolling. There were people asking her legit questions about what I was writing and she answered to someone "Microsoft doesn't care about you, they just think of you as a number." Not the most hard-hitting industry insight, but hey - she plays God of War, Demon's Souls, Galaga, and Candy Crush Saga. That's her entire videogame existence.
Somehow Chris Charla, who was a part of Next Gen Magazine in the late 90s, caught wind of this. He responded to her that Microsoft does care about their customers and making games for fans is why they get up in the morning. I'm not exactly sure what happened in the conversation but in the end he said he was going to send her a postcard to prove it (meanwhile I was telling her "OMG OMG TELL HIM I LOVED NEXT GEN! OMG!").
Less than a week later...
It's Mrs., Chris... don't get any ideas
So my wife, being the happy/excitable person that she is hops right on twitter and shows the postcard and then tags Adam Boyes (@amboyes) playfully as a "well MS cares about me, do you?"
Adam sent me a PM asking for our address almost immediately. He sent a lot of stuff. I won't get into that (or what I'm doing with it) as I don't think it fits into this story (if you care it's in my next podcast). But included were letters to both of us.
The one to me:
I don't know if he meant it as profoundly as I took it but the "unless you're being a jerk" part really hit home. Most of my adult/internet life I've been on the side of anonymous/semi-anonymous commenter. I've said rude shit to people I don't like. I've been overly hyperbolic about stupid shit. In the past few months I've been on the other side of that, having my wife called a tranny, being told to choke on, well, whatever - things are shitty on the internet. I've even received death threats. I was never that level of asshole... but being on both sides of how this works is really eye opening. I don't know if Adam was pointing at a specific time where I was a jerk or just giving the general advice of don't be a jerk but, and I know this is corny, but this is a very different world from the one I grew up in... and I'm only 36. Being a jerk has much, much more weight to it. And that's not who I want to be. I don't want to be the "annoyed gamer" or the "sarcastic gamer" or the "fuck everything gamer." I want to be the "happy freakin gamer!" That's more fun, right?
So Adam also writes a letter to my wife... the person at the center of this whole letter writing face-off.
Here is it.
The picture is Boyes and Charla. It's not all drama, folks.
So a couple weeks ago when I was writing up the article about CoD being 720p I said on twitter that I had some huge news and that it was coming soon. This was silly, it only caused me more stress and in the end I wrote a rather awful group of words that I called a post. But while I was overwhelmed and trying to edit it I deflected on twitter to my wife, whose name is Arnee (pronounced Ar-nay... like Renee) aka @dangerwife.
My wife is a lot more fun than I am. The "xbox mafia" was calling her fat, a tranny, etc... she thought it was hysterical. She kept responding super nice - her expert version of trolling. There were people asking her legit questions about what I was writing and she answered to someone "Microsoft doesn't care about you, they just think of you as a number." Not the most hard-hitting industry insight, but hey - she plays God of War, Demon's Souls, Galaga, and Candy Crush Saga. That's her entire videogame existence.
Somehow Chris Charla, who was a part of Next Gen Magazine in the late 90s, caught wind of this. He responded to her that Microsoft does care about their customers and making games for fans is why they get up in the morning. I'm not exactly sure what happened in the conversation but in the end he said he was going to send her a postcard to prove it (meanwhile I was telling her "OMG OMG TELL HIM I LOVED NEXT GEN! OMG!").
Less than a week later...
It's Mrs., Chris... don't get any ideas
So my wife, being the happy/excitable person that she is hops right on twitter and shows the postcard and then tags Adam Boyes (@amboyes) playfully as a "well MS cares about me, do you?"
Adam sent me a PM asking for our address almost immediately. He sent a lot of stuff. I won't get into that (or what I'm doing with it) as I don't think it fits into this story (if you care it's in my next podcast). But included were letters to both of us.
The one to me:
I don't know if he meant it as profoundly as I took it but the "unless you're being a jerk" part really hit home. Most of my adult/internet life I've been on the side of anonymous/semi-anonymous commenter. I've said rude shit to people I don't like. I've been overly hyperbolic about stupid shit. In the past few months I've been on the other side of that, having my wife called a tranny, being told to choke on, well, whatever - things are shitty on the internet. I've even received death threats. I was never that level of asshole... but being on both sides of how this works is really eye opening. I don't know if Adam was pointing at a specific time where I was a jerk or just giving the general advice of don't be a jerk but, and I know this is corny, but this is a very different world from the one I grew up in... and I'm only 36. Being a jerk has much, much more weight to it. And that's not who I want to be. I don't want to be the "annoyed gamer" or the "sarcastic gamer" or the "fuck everything gamer." I want to be the "happy freakin gamer!" That's more fun, right?
So Adam also writes a letter to my wife... the person at the center of this whole letter writing face-off.
Here is it.
The picture is Boyes and Charla. It's not all drama, folks.
