today, as part of my job, i was lucky enough to participate in a panel discussion with practicing Buddhist monk Shoukei Matsumoto (long story).
the general theme of the discussion was "how to be a better ancestor," but at one point, Matsuomoto-san stressed the importance of having strong friends, to "keep you sane." he said that these friends should be outside of your family, and outside of your workplace - a strong third community, is what he called it.
in my mind, i thought, i have friends, sure, but do i have a strong third community that helps keep me sane?
and then i realized that this here forum is that, for me.
so thank you, everyone.
i also thought it might be nice to have a thread for the times when people just want to say nice things about this here community. maybe that thread already exists, but if it does, i couldn't find it. as always, i place my complete trust in Syzygy.
Insert credit is, to me and at this point, straight up mental health and hygiene. This place gives me a space where I can be a human being surrounded by other human people, and where empathy and understandingness are not these weird mythological attributes folks somehow are starting to believe that belong entirely to the realm of fiction.
As things continue to spiral down into terribleness, this remains a place to be reminded that both good things and good people are still out there. So yeah, a strong third community to keep you sane sounds exactly right honestly.
It is hard to remember now when I am forced out into the world so much due to work. But that first year the forums re-opened was a real life line for me. I have no memory of what was talked about or who I talked with. But I will always remember I had someone to talk to.
I don‘t have any friends that live close to me and I run a three person company with my best friend and wife so I don’t have a lot of friend time with people outside of the people I work with. This sounds worse than it is. I don‘t need a lot of social interaction and I’m suffering from extreme burnout so I can't deal with a lot of interaction anyway.
Insert Credit is good because you can Get Online and talk to people/read stuff about things you like and about new things you are being introduced to without running into deranged psychos like on every other website. To be here you tend to be informed and cool rather than a reactionary gaming hot taker/covid conspirator/fascist so it feels like a place you can just come and hangout without The Fear you normally get with talking to people online.
This place rules and I'm always seeing good posts, discovering new things, seeing people enjoy things I also enjoy and having genuine laughs from the same names and same shapes as games thread.
In early 2020, a couple of fairly catastrophic things happened in my life. I'm not comfortable discussing them in such a public place, but it was a pretty bad time. Just as I started to get on top of things, the big obvious 2020 thing happened, further complicating matters.
At some point in April or May that year I was dicking about on the internet and somehow discovered that a forum I used to like (and a podcast that I later liked) were, unexpectedly, back. With very little to do during the day besides very grown up serious things, it was a welcome opportunity to talk about the hobby I didn't have much time to enjoy any more with a cool bunch of people.
In the years that _Insert Credit_ was away, my relationship with games changed. In the website and forum's heyday I was a teenager who liked games and reading about them, particularly on the more esoteric and weird side as I was _that kind of teenager_. A few years later, in the podcast's first era, I was an adult poking around the outskirts of the creative industries, very much using my powers for good but losing a little bit of enthusiasm for my hobbies in the process. While the site was away, I got myself a _real job_, using many of the skills I had picked up in my various failed endeavours to do something that was technical, creative and interesting, but separate enough from games and music that it wouldn't stop me from enjoying them again. I was well on the way to loving games at full capacity again by 2020, and the return of Insert Credit gave me an opportunity to extract yet more joy from my once-favourite-thing again, even if half the time I just post puns.
knock wood and maybe I just didnt see an instance of it happening, but yeah it's nice that almost no one here has gone internet-insane in 2 years and counting. I think the worst thing has been the vietnamese gambling websites, but those seem kind of fun tbh
If there's psycho shit going on I havent seen it which is also probably a testament to @"Syzygy"#279 . You got some way we can chip in and buy you a six pack or something?
@“yeso”#p84863 If there’s psycho shit going on I havent seen it
I have only seen one person suspended and a couple of threads closed off in all this time and all of those were very well deserved and sensible choices. +1 on inviting Syz to something nice, personally I have big amounts of unused keys for all kinds of games so @"Syzygy"#279 if you want any I can send some your way.
The breadth of knowledge on here is astounding, I have learned about and played so many games because of this place. Just having a place where people aren‘t only being reactive to video game news and new releases is a much different space than I’ve been on in 20+ years of forums lol. So truly thank you to everyone who posts here.
I wrote something up in honor of my 1000th post in the introduction thread that was along these same lines:
- Thanks to the forum I've met new people across the world, had fun getting to know them as humans a bit, played games with them on the internet, and even made some actual IRL friendships thanks to happy coincidence.
- Thanks to the forum, I've done a few live streams just because I thought it would be fun to share some things that I enjoy with the community.
- Thanks to the forum I've taught myself how to write medium complex NES chip tunes, have shared them with the community (and I didn't get teased!)
- Thanks to the forum, I've written several thousand words about how bathrooms and toilets in video games serve their setting and world building (and I didn't get banned!)
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@"billy "#p84841 This is a cool place.
+1. I'm sure that there is a strong selection bias for people who choose to participate in this forum, but it's a friendly supportive place.
I'm new here! This week has been hard/stressful. Being able to poke my head into the Insert Credit forum and read some threads when I can has kept me a float. So many thoughtful, knowledgeable, and funny people!
I had been thinking of posting something along these lines for a bit now! For the, the 2020‘s have been about disengaging with most social media and embracing my sole superpower, which is being a true natural introvert. I’m now down to only a handful of social links: an event-specific slack community, another video game centred community that‘s far from dead but that is much less active than IC, and this one, a place where I’m somehow at my least self conscious, especially when posting about whatever weird ancient game cruft is interesting to me at any given moment. I appreciate the general lack of dumb drama here, and the lack of ‘loudest voice carries furthest’ behaviour and know it all dudebros. So many video game communities are practically unbearable as a result of this stuff, but somehow IC has dodged almost all of it.
I'd be remiss if I also didn't mention how much I appreciate the work that the mods do here behind the scenes to keep weird spam bots at bay, and the general chill vibe most folks have, and especially the cool mini-community of STG enthusiasts.
so i‘m admittedly new here, i think i started in the day voeyuring at the GIA and years later basically went from kotaku to gaf to era, the latter 2 specifically because at the time, it was hard to find gaming spots online that took hard stances against the fuckery of gamergate - it’s shadow is still about in a lot of the remaining corners, especially some of the classic gaming ones. i hate it.
all that to say: haven't been here terribly long but this is a great and refreshing place, love y'all
I‘m pretty new here but I’ve enjoyed you all immensely. And I‘ve appreciated the kindness I’ve received as well.
I deleted all my social media accounts way back in 2016 and only really got back online last fall. One of the things I missed about the old days on the internet were forums, so it‘s been a delight to see that there’s at least one good forum still around.
Alex @Jaffe personally I think the best thing you do for the show is singlehandedly ensure to deliver on its entire premise every week and bringing on @espercontrol is maybe tied with that, but then again, I guess that isn't my decision to make, is it?