I wrote something showing my appreciation (very) shortly after a kidney transplant.
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I would also like to say how thankful I am for your words of support - the IC community is a real hidden gem full of kindness, hilarity, and interesting and interested people with a common appreciation of videogames that reaches well beyond surface engagement. Similarly, I would also like to specifically extend my thanks to @exodus for hooking me up with his buddy - I really didn’t expect to get anything like that offer of support when I posted.
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I’d like to add a thanks for Insert Credit existing in the first place too. By that, I mean sincerely thanking Brandon, Jaffe, Tim Frank, Esper, Vince, all the IC alumni and contemporary guests for making IC what it is and bringing it to life. The podcast has been a regular fixture for me, relistening to old episodes regularly over the last year or so, and the forum is beyond a haven that defies the individualistic, toxic, click economies of social media. It is a rarity of the current age. I sometimes feel that once a community becomes successful that it’s easy to forget the work that was put into it in the first place to make it a success, so thanks to everyone involved.
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Bottom line review: Insert Credit is for interesting people interested in interesting videogames.
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Wow, I’m high. Some of those sentences are several in one mushed together.
I'd like to add an addendum too.
- @exodus buddy and I still correspond every few weeks.
- I was going through some extra shit at the start of the pandemic in that, generously speaking, my then housemate wasn't being especially careful when he went outside and I ended up living in my sister's spare room for the best part of a year until I had my first vaccine jab. That coincidentally was roughly when I rediscovered the podcast and joined the forum, and it helped me get some sort of semblance of being part of a community again.
- Fast forward to October last year and I was told that I needed to start dialysis. Without going into the details I got through those four-hour, thrice-weekly sessions by listening to back episodes of the podcast and almost exclusively dinking around on the forum. By the time I'd reached my transplant date I'd pretty much worked my way through the entire backlog.
- Elsewhere it's probably worth giving a shout out to the microcommunities such as the fighting games one and the STG one. There's something satisfying about being part of an overall small community that has members with an incredible depth of knowledge on genres and certain games.
- Off the back of the above point I'd add that the wealth of recommendations that people make here and the sheer goofiness and variety of what people are passionately extolling the virtues of is a real joy. I've enjoyed some real good stuff thanks to the folks here.
- Personally, I'd also like to show my appreciation for everyone getting involved in the What's in the mail? thread. It's super cool to see all the stuff that people get. I enjoy seeing people's different libraries of physical media when I go visit them and the thread scratches that itch for the particular part of my brain that enjoys getting a glimpse of people's tastes.
- It's only really occurred to me just now that I've spent some part of almost every day since joining the forum either posting or reading here, up until this week anyway. By pure fluke I started dating someone this week and it's going extremely well but it's the first time I've barely read anything here for a few days in a row (I did visit to see what was up but I barely read a thing). That doesn't sound so great but essentially I'm saying that being part of a healthy community, that's kept me in touch with like-minded humans, has kept the social part of my brain intact and given me the confidence to go out and rebuild my life.
- I also want to add the rightful praise for @Syzygy's hard work here. Happy to contribute to a six-pack fund.
- Finally I'd be remiss to say that there aren't many communities that would pull together to help out at a moment's notice to help get the Bundle for Ukraine off the ground. It still amazes me how everything was pulled together so quickly and tightly, and I have to also thank everyone that picked up my slack when I fell ill for a few days during the vetting period.
Y‘all are amazing folks. As others have said it’s great to have a non broey, non git gud place to to talk about games on the internet when most places to talk about games on the internet are incredibly toxic.
Y'all have pretty good taste in movies and music too
I‘m really new here. Thank you, everyone, for being incredibly nice and welcoming. I like that I can ask questions and the people who reply know that not only am I looking for information, but discussion. I think it’s much more fun to go to a community and ask questions than it is to go to Google and find the answer in less than a minute.
The other thing I enjoy is the people here like the games they play and discuss. It doesn't matter if it was made by one person or a corporation; if it's good, it's good. If one person finds it good and another doesn't, they appreciate each other's opinions. It's like everyone leaves their baggage at the door and just chills and talks about entertainment.
I also am thankful for this community! I really had no idea whether it would work out, and it worked out much better than I‘d planned or hoped. I’ve managed to get help for not only the Ukraine bundle but also Hyper Gunsport playtesting and other small projects. Not that I want to use this place as a workboard or whatever, what I mean is that I could only get people to work with me on these things if I trust them, and being an active part of this community means there‘s already a strong baseline of trust. That’s really hard to find! I could just send my game to people and trust that they would not share it, and also give good enough feedback to be useful.
But in general it's just nice to have a place with likeminded folks to talk about weird stuff, enjoy @chazumaru's incredibly deep analysis of everything, recommend music and movies, and just try to appreciate culture in a non-cynical way that embraces what's good about creation. Which is funny because I feel like a lot of us are extremely cynical people, but generally don't want to be - it's the outside factors that bring that cynicism in. In a place where everyone is talking about what they enjoy, and especially why, it's a lot easier to leave that cynicism at the door.
i have no idea what my life would be right now without insert credit. it's genuinely difficult for me to conceptualize.
i really love that i get to be a part of what people do here. i think in life, to a pretty large degree, you get to decide for yourself what is important. for my own reasons, i have decided the kinds of conversations that happen here and in the show are important to me. i think every one of us is doing good work even just by lurking in this place, as i usually do.
everyone here just seems so on board with what everyone else is interested in. there's so much collaboration and anyone can take initiative on something and people step up to support it.
when i was like a decade younger and in college i read insert credit and lurked the forums and thought "woah these people are cool." and now i'm one of these people!! hopefully we can figure out the bot problem and enable new signups soon.
(this is also a good spot for me to thank @shane for always being excellent and generous in helping me with all kinds of issues with the site or feed over the years. shane you have always been so excellent, thank you)
I‘m in awe of the amount of thought and detail that go into most posts on here, yet there’s typically no intellectual snobbery. It‘s nice to have a place where I can post my dumb little thoughts amid others’ gaming theses and not feel any lesser.
@“esper”#p85188 when i was like a decade younger and in college i read insert credit and lurked the forums and thought “woah these people are cool.” and now i’m one of these people!!
Yeah. Huge cool people energy without the baggage that comes with that word. Y'all are legit cool AF.
@“exodus”#p85171 I think if anyone wants to give you something you can accept it! Frankly I should be giving you things!
Just gonna put it out there that, if nothing else, there were to be a [ko-fi ](https://ko-fi.com/) or a paypal link floating around somewhere to act as a tip jar for Syzygy and whoever else is operating and maintaining the forums, I'd be mightily well inclined to the tossing of a couple bucks in there
@“Herb”#p85194 yet there’s typically no intellectual snobbery.
This is one of the things I wanted most for this site and wasn't sure how to encourage or maintain. So often with people sharing real deep cut information there's a lot of gatekeeping - and in general there is a bit of a bar for knowledge and stuff but I really hoped people would be cool and inclusive, and I think it's a testament to everyone that, as incidentally gatekeepy as it can be (talking about niche subjects) it's not intentionally gatekeepy, with newcomers very much encouraged to contribute. So hooray!
@“exodus”#p85202 I like to think that the podcast really helps set the tone for that. I don’t know whether that rings true for other people (I know the forums date back much farther than the podcast), but it feels that way for me.
I‘m pretty happy with this forum. It helps keep me sane and gives me some camaraderie in a time when I don’t see as many friends as I‘d like to. I feel like everyone is pretty chill and I don’t have to worry about the bad internet poison getting in here. Even though there‘s a common thread I think there’s diverse viewpoints here that I enjoy seeing. Also, I barely even play any games! But I like seeing other people who are into them talk about it, and I like hearing about other cool things too. Thanks for providing a cool place to hang and make friends!
@“Danimal”#p85217 That was one of the main reasons I joined up here. Just understanding the duality of video games (or any subject really) is something I feel many folks don't see, let alone embrace, which leads to aggressive and toxic communities. I thought, “Wow - I wish I could hang out with these guys instead of living vicariously through this podcast.” Then I thought, “Wow - these guys are my age and thanks to the internet and their forum, I can interact in some way!” I was shocked by how much @“exodus”#3 @“Jaffe”#205 and @“esper”#11 were on here and genuinely engaged with people since I usually get the vibe that podcast hosts usually ignore (or possibly fear) their audience, but IC forums has proven to be genuine itself.
For myself, after having my son my activities with my friends dropped substantially, all but for a few very close ones just a couple times a month (which is probably for the best anyway). Combined with working from home full time due to the pandemic, having more online interactions became a better option. Growing up and living in rural Ohio can make a video game enthusiast feel pretty lonely. I just wanted to share things I find with other people and see if there is anything I'm missing from different perspectives - seems simple but it can be extremely disheartening when there are few avenues to do it. Of course, it's more about sharing information than showing off, and the people here really seem to get that.
I'm an introverted 36 year old from a midwestern wasteland and this is longest I've ever interacted with people I don't know personally on the internet. I've always had that voice that says "nobody cares" chirp up when I want to say something, but this forum has helped with that :)
@“copySave”#p85322 Growing up and living in rural Ohio can make a video game enthusiast feel pretty lonely.
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@“copySave”#p85322 I’m an introverted 36 year old from a midwestern wasteland and this is longest I’ve ever interacted with people I don’t know personally on the internet. I’ve always had that voice that says “nobody cares” chirp up when I want to say something, but this forum has helped with that
This hits close to home for me. All this perfectly describes me.
