Ben Kuchera
@BenKuchera
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20 year veteran of game journalism. Comms, marketing, writing, and editing pro. Has a pretty solid record collection. Former blue check.
Ohio
Joined April 2008
Twitter had the best influencer program in the world. The company created an incentive structure where the most famous people on the planet created content on the site, daily, for free. Destroyed in one day because the new owner thought Stephen King should pay to write for him.
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And now no one wants the check, the new owner is forcing celebrities to take them for free even though they don't want them, and the people paying for them are complaining about how bad they are in their new promoted posts. Blue checks are paying to say they regret paying.
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I'm mostly here because there's never been a time when someone spent billions of dollars to not listen to everyone and pick a fight with an entire service they own by degrading service and constantly changing features. Kendall Roy is breaking down in real time, but it's real life.
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I'm not celebrating; Twitter has brought me a lot of angst but also just as many opportunities, and that utility is mostly gone. The current system is bad for advertisers, bad for subscribers, bad for users, and dangerous for celebrities. Why stay?.
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Modern life is just billionaire after billionaire telling you the sub is completely safe and rules are stupid, only to then ask for support and understanding when the sub immediately explodes. Twitter is just this week's submarine.
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@ChatterBox_Muse Yep, any way you slice it the celebrity tweets were always some of the most popular tweets on the platform, and they were getting the writing and images for free. I manually removed my blue check because I was nervous Twitter wouldn't do it themselves yesterday, it's too toxic.
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"They'll get tired of not writing." .Writers? ."They're not used to being unemployed this long." .We're still talking about writers, right? ."They will want to work." .Have you ever met one? ."At some point it becomes self-destructive." .THAT'S THEIR ENTIRE THING.
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@Cyber_Tom_00 Yep, it's chasing away celebrities, media organizations, advertisers, and brands. The blue check has been made toxic (I removed mine manually after Twitter couldn't the first time) and spam from accounts we don't follow has increased. The current plan is hostile to most users.
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@docmartincohen @StevePeers You're participating in the argument you'd like to have instead of responding to any point I've actually made.
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Have you ever sat down and really thought about how logistically impossible Rock Band was as a product? Every detail of its core identity was set to hard mode. Big boxes? Absolutely. Inventory management? Impossible. Legally complex? Let me tell you about music rights.
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@Papapishu That ending speech was both objectively bizarre from a parent and completely warm and believable in the moment. I still love that movie so much.
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@ChatterBox_Muse I agree that most of the content on Twitter is shallow, so is most of mine! But in terms of raw numbers celebrity content was a huge strength of the service, and now they're being charged to create value for Twitter, while people who buy blue checks spam our feed. Everyone loses.
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@johnnybling123 @FilmUpdates They would probably say "Amazon makes that much money every two seconds, it's important to remember who we're negotiating against and not let people turn us against each other." Other workers succeeding are not your enemy, management structures keeping you from doing the same are.
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@BigDiff7 Remember that he didn't want to purchase the company and was forced to by the lawsuit. All of this was more or less accidental.
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@Cyber_Tom_00 The argument about the owner of the platform defining the labeling of the media outlets he personally dislikes is all over the internet, I'm not interested in arguing those talking points again. What analytics are you watching to track usage patterns?.
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@rob_sheridan I'm still obsessed with the SQUID hardware from the proto-VR '90s classic Strange Days. I want to plug a modern headset into something that looks like this so badly.
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@FacileTalk Yep, that system worked. Now for-pay accounts are elevated, so my feed is filled with blue checks complaining about the service, and media outlets and celebrities are making it clear they're not paying, even though they're being forced to have the blue check. Everyone loses.
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It was an online game played with proprietary physical controllers tied to selling songs the company didn't own through storefronts the company ALSO didn't own across 9 platforms, supporting solo players that may turn into groups of players in real time. No sweat at all.
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When I was in a depressive state, I told my doctor I didn't expect the ketamine to help. Nothing will help. I was in the pit, because I was worthless. If you know, you know. The she said something that changed my life: 🧵.
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@thomashawk Ironically enough engagement with this thread was enough to put it in people's For You recommendations. The idea of spending $8 to get something I already have while also losing engagement due to hostility people are feeling over the checks makes zero sense.
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@charleswayne13 Yes. The owner of Twitter had to pay for the blue check himself and isn't letting King get rid of it because it's too embarrassing to have vocal celebrities losing their check because they won't pay. I removed my own blue check manually the last time Twitter failed to do so.
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I'm going to weigh in on the Starship Troopers discourse, heaven help me: . Starship Troopers absolutely rips and you should go watch it. Seriously, that movie is gold, go crank some Mazzy Star, fall in love with Dizzy, and enjoy Doogie Houser cosplaying as a Nazi. It has it all.
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Remember, AI has no idea what it's doing. It's not learning anything, it's not teaching anything, it's not growing, it's just recognizing patterns and repeating them in a way that make sense to it. It's not finding insights, it's just remixing things it's read.
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Today I looked up the journal entry, and reader. It brought me to my knees. That literally wasn't me. I'm clear headed now, because I took the treatment in a responsible way. And I'm literally looking at the disease lying to me. THAT is the enemy. It is real, and it lies.
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@ParkerMolloy Even folks in the media sometimes have trouble believing how little traffic Twitter actually sends if they don't follow analytics themselves. There's just not a lot of value in the platform; leaving is going to look like the easier choice to a lot of media brands IMHO.
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Folks were like "the new @JasonIsbell record is ridiculously good" so many times I was nervous the hype was setting me up for disappointment. Friends, Weathervanes is so damned good. Can't recommend it enough. I've been streaming it and I'm about to head out to grab the vinyl.
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@ScottWamplerRIP Going to movies alone always feels like what I always thought going to church SHOULD feel like, although I don't know how to explain it better than that. It's good for the soul to just enjoy a story with zero distractions.
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Every time I feel existential dread about AI or climate change or anything else, I re-read Richard Feynman's thoughts on the hopelessness he felt after his work on nuclear weapons.
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I am not my depression. I am not my fears, and my depression, and my worst days. That is the disease. That is what I'm fighting. I'VE SEEN ITS HANDWRITING. And when it gets on top of me, I know how to knock it off. I've always known this was a disease. But now I believe it.
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Is everyone on Earth in the MCU just cool with the fact our planet nearly hatched a giant creature? Is that stone guy still just sitting there? Was this ever addressed, or is the current plan is to forget Eternals ever happened? Is it a tourist trap now?
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"You said you journaled during your previous sessions. I want you to get up right now, write in your journal that you honestly don't believe this treatment will help, and date it. We'll revisit it after you take the treatment, because that's a fucking lie, and we can prove it.".
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@realgallowspole @legalminimum So what's keeping you from believing you're enough? Your feed is absolutely obsessed with gender.
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CNN running an op-ed about how great it would be to die trapped in a sub is a wild decision
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Plus, and I can't stress this enough, at parties you get to say "after visiting the universal consciousness I have the neuroplasticity of a toddler," completely honestly. Go run for a few days, you'll start to like running! Remember when you were a kid and you just did stuff?.
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When I get a headache I take Tylenol. When I get so low I don't feel like I'm worth fighting for I take ketamine. They both work. Look up the research, the success rate is incredibly impressive. There's medicine that works for a common and often debilitating condition. Wonderful!.
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@paradoxrenders @robertkneschke "Breaking this law makes me money, so I should be able to do it" is not a great defense.
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Once you go back to reading a site where articles are written for people and not algorithms it's hard to return to the rest of the internet. This is the future, honestly. Or at least one version of it.
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@ChatterBox_Muse There is direct evidence that is actually now public, you can look at the analytics for each tweet in real time. We're in agreement: Engagement is crucial, and celebrities and media brands drive engagement. Whether or not we like the content is immaterial, it drove engagement.
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I'm really struggling with Max. I may cancel after the last episode of Succession. The service took the thing I cared about, a clean service with quality shows and movies, and turned it into what I was trying to avoid: the pit of basic cable.
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I once asked a dev why every game thinks it has to teach me how to jump and crouch in its first five minutes. "Every game is someone's first game," they told me. I thought that was a silly answer, because I was young. But damn, what a beautiful thought.
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@ArthurRoy1388 I don't think it's a pity, I think it's cool I don't have to pay for a check mark to have the same voice as you!.
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@carried_colonel @docmartincohen @StevePeers I think another big problem of the for-pay checks is that it misunderstands how people use the service. I'm not clicking on a tweet to read more, or to go through an essay, who the heck has the time? If you have a longer point please send an email or something!.
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This is your yearly reminder that even though it mucked about with the source material, Keanu Reeves' Constantine film was an amazing supernatural procedural.
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@jt4702 @Nina_Metz @Ilzairspar No, the executives take that away from them whether you pirate or not. That's where that argument falls apart.
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@ZeesterMeester I asked my trainer about this once, he was a bodybuilder, and he said a lot of folks who are super serious at the gym may be dealing with body dysmorphia of some kind with a side of self-loathing, and the food deprivation and joyless meals is part of it for them.
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Sometimes my mother comes to visit and my kids are like "look at this picture I drew," "look at this lego set I made" and I have to be like listen, your grandma drove a long way to get here, and she needs to see the new Warhammer minis I've been painting first.
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Kids are straight up barely allowed to exist in the US. They have no place to go. They're unwelcome in shops. Chased out of parks. Reported on Next Door for walking down the street. Stories like this are embarrassing.
Several children were caught breaking into one of the many Baltimore City pools that remain closed with their gates chained. The break-in was caught on Monday. Footage details the children breaking in, setting up "camp", and entering the water along with a scooter.
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@vicdeleon If you are a certain age you are always within three weeks of talking about missing drunken Rock Band parties, I've found.
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The guy who ignored every warning from every professional about the dangers of his sub and died when the sub did what everyone said it would do is not at fault. It's the ocean that did it. I can't believe this is real.
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The D&D movie is streaming, and I can't recommend it enough. It also has a cameo that made me laugh out loud when it was revealed, and then shit gets emotionally real very quickly. It has so many great shots, and the emotions land harder than you'd expect.
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If Twitter isn't already on the phone with DMX's manager getting ready for the new launch then no one over there is doing their job. Imagine a five second announcement with Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny. If you're rich and don't do the fun stuff why even bother.
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One of my writing teachers in college was a grizzled novelist with no illusions who asked who among us had made $1 writing. He told the folks with their hands raised they're some of the highest paid writers in the world and I'll never forget that one.
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@ChatterBox_Muse Do you believe the current structure of Twitter is set up to encourage and reward the creation of that type of content? How would you monetize that time?.
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The spokesbee for the local bees union has issued a statement saying "the police officer was no saint, having a history of aggression towards hives. Our drones felt threatened, and acted completely appropriately.".
An LAPD volunteer officer was stung dozens of times and lost his footing as he was assisting with the response to a bee swarm in Encino
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Bad guys: Here is a law. We are very good lawyers. Mike: I found a better law, at the last minute. I am the best lawyer. Me, watching Suits and knowing nothing about lawyers: Fuck, that guy is smart.
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Master and Commander is Fight Club for folks who have forgiven their parents.
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I'm watching Solo for the first time since the theaters and my hot take is Solo is good actually. Thank you.
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@synopsi Can you show me some examples? I'd love to learn what they're doing right with the algorithm to get those kinds of results!.
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Sounds like they can pretty easily afford to pay writers and actors more if they're willing to throw away $600k a week for no reason.
For big-budget projects like “Gladiator 2” and “Deadpool 3,” the cost of holding on to soundstages packed with sets and costumes runs about $600,000 per week, one media CEO estimated.
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So tired of people saying Margot Robbie was "cast" as Barbie. Robbie purchased the rights from Mattel in 2018. Her production company made the movie. She hired Greta Gerwig. No one made Margot Robbie Barbie, she DECIDED to be Barbie. Put some fucking respect on her name.
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@FacileTalk If you wanted to watch billionaires lose a lot of money and a service destroy itself in real time, I agree you're going to have a great time on the service right now. Whatever you believe, everyone seems to agree that Twitter is not working well at the present moment.
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The weirdest thing about getting older is watching the goofballs you grew up with put in positions of real, actual power and having it slowly dawn on you that everyone who runs anything is just someone's goofball friend. There are no adults. Pack accordingly.
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If you dislike enough ads you get to the point where this is the only thing they try to sell you and I can't tell you how much I love this website.
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"We're playing dress up, with our dolls, who are also spreadsheets." -My buddy describing Diablo 4.
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Do you have ADHD and sometimes feel like it's you against the world? Rejection sensitivity doesn't come from nowhere, and you're not broken. Researchers estimate folks suffering from ADHD receive 20,000 more negative remarks BY THE AGE OF TEN than their peers.
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"Guillermo del Toro's painting minis!"
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The idea of "screen time" is so silly. I'm painting, my daughter is making/playing with slimes, my son is being creative in a building game, and my other teenaged son is being a teenager. We're all just chilling, is the kid playing a game on a screen somehow different?.
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I needed a cable out of the endless box of cables. The box of cables was super helpful last night. The box of cables must be protected forever. If I needed one cable from it in a decade, I'll need another.
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The Steam Deck is wild because it acts like a console but you can hit a button and go into desktop mode and it's just a computer. Nothing is locked down, nothing is limited, Valve just kind of shrugged and kept everything open. There's not even bloatware. It's a delight.
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Do you remember when we called certain software "spyware" because it spied on you? Now that's just software again. It's assumed you're being watched and tracked, no matter what the program is.
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@LinusEkenstam Because I want to hear from people, not people-modeling software that's just remixing thoughts it got online without having any idea what's right or wrong. The rush to let machines think for us is so destructive.
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Unless someone is paying you to boost engagement you never actually have to rank anything. No one in real life will ever force you to pick a Mission Impossible movie to never see again. Star Trek and Star Wars have good things and bad things about them. Stop thinking in internet.
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I remember getting my first "laser mouse" and thinking it was the coolest thing. My buddy got one first, we all went to gawk at it, and he explained how smooth it was and you never needed to clean the ball. We all piled into someone's car to hit up Best Buy; we were blown away.
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I didn't have "Maggie Mae Fish having a take on Tár is the thing that makes me sign up for a Nebula account" on my 2023 is Wild For Media Streaming BINGO card, and that's on me.
Can't find the Tár video? It's blocked almost everywhere. You don't have to miss out! You can watch it on Nebula for free with one view. Signing up gives you access to the whole series! Watch here:
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As I grew up and did more reporting on movies and pop culture, I realized that so many of my favorite early films (Tron, Rocketeer, Labyrinth, the list goes on) were huge flops that only found an audience with time. Scary to think today they'd just be de-listed and erased.
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Years ago I asked a buddy who worked with Disney parks if they could look up when attendance was lowest during the year. I found the week. I scheduled around it. Took the whole family. Space Mountain in front seat? No line. Then back seat. Star Tours until we saw every segment.
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I pitched the kids on seeing the D&D movie with me but it turned into them being desperate to play the game so we stopped by a hobby store for some source books. Also stopped by the record store. Also took a long walk. What I'm saying is it's been a good day.
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@carried_colonel @docmartincohen @StevePeers And I'm not trying to be dismissive, I'd love to hear what you think because people use the service differently and lord knows I have blind spots, but it's not really designed for long blocks of text.
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This BROKE my childhood brain. From the jump it screamed "this game has secrets!" and I was so excited about it, games felt infinite back then.
Mario 3 gets credited for a lot of things, but whoever at Nintendo realized that the "3's" shadow could double as a tanooki silhouette is an unsung genius
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This story drops a hell of a B-plot on you out of nowhere and reader, I was riveted.
This is why we MUST support our local news outlets!!! Riveting story with so many twists and details. And photos! Perfect headline, perfect length (LONG) — just a phenomenal job all around:
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541 days without taking a drink. I only look up the days on occasion, because now each small craving is met by my brain saying "You think this is hard now? Try it hungover and tired" and somehow it just doesn't seem worth it. Everything is better for me without alcohol.
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Want to hear something amazing? Megadeth's drummer, who also does session work, listens to a song with the drums removed for the first time, and then writes new drums and plays it live. The song?. Mr. Brightside. He had never heard it before.
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@thomashawk Yep, and the company is understaffed and he often changes his mind or just gives up. For now though the blue check is something that costs me money without any benefits and with some really big downsides. If you offered me $100 to take one I wouldn't.
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One of my kids described OK Computer as "music for churches that think they're cool" and I still haven't emotionally recovered.
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See, this is wild to me. The relationship between Twitter and media companies has become confrontational, so you're going to see a wave of memes making fun of the check mark or celebs stating they aren't paying for it. It's become toxic, in a single day.
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This is how you set up your film's world and get the audience into the right frame of mind in two seconds. This movie is masterful from start to finish.
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The answer to "why are the writers getting all the attention right now when so many creative industries are grinding people up?" is "because they unionized and stopped working." You can do it, too! You should!.
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I woke up this morning and was like "oh no, was that an overshare when it comes to mental health?" but then I saw how many folks DM'd or emailed to share their stories, ask questions, or just say thanks for being open about it. You're a great community and I appreciate you a ton.
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Always remember that Sinead O'Connor took on the Catholic Church's abuse of children head on, and never looked back. What did she say about it in her book?. "I feel that having a number-one record derailed my career and my tearing the photo put me back on the right track" . Amen.
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This is a very heavy moment, but the positive masculinity on the field was inspiring. Players weeping with worry, offering each other physical and emotional support. They're taking time to process what's going on. Remember what Mr. Rogers said: Look for the helpers.
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My kid: Wait, so what's an EP? . Me: Extended play single; a mini-album of between four to seven songs. Notable examples would be Jar of Flies by Alice in Chains or Broken by Nine Inch Nails. My kid: That was a sentence of completely random nouns.
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There is a discussion on Reddit about who the "average" Diablo player is, and the uncomfortable truth is the average player of any game is not on Reddit or Twitter.
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I'm having a generational moment with players upset that PC games seem to be getting worse lately. I came up when you'd edit values in game files by hand to get half your games to work. I understand the frustration completely, but holy moly things are SO MUCH BETTER now.
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I won't get dark, and people's beliefs are their business and I'm not trying to talk anyone into or out of anything, but I've never understood the "life has no point if you don't believe in a god" argument. Ever just enjoyed the woods, or a great record? Life is its own reward!.
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