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2023 may not feature the pandemic, but the world still hasn't stopped ending, has it? (Patreon)

Published:
2023-07-11 22:18:47
Imported:
2026-06

Content

Every year now.
Floods. Heatwave. Wildfire. Smoke. Snowstorm. We had a threat of baseball sized hail here the other week.
It's getting fuken wimdy out there.

Only unlike 2020-2022, the internet isn't safe either.
Twitter's toast. Meta's an embarrassment. News sites are pay-walled. Blogs are needy children with pop ups. Googling 'whatever you want to find out + reddit' was about the only reliable way to get information and then reddit shot itself in the foot. And even alternative search engines that bypass the page infinite stream of ads on google still can't differentiate between accurate information and auto-generated content that may not remotely be accurate.
Auto-generated, not artificially intelligent. There's nothing intelligent about it. 

And AG stuff is in every domain. Text. Deepfake voices. Art. Good heavens above the fucking art. One of my favorite music creators, a self-made woman whom I have deeply admired for the entirety of my adult life, is now wrapped up in some AG art bullshit.
The technology is important to progress but this is fucked right now. 

The entire world feels like it is melting down. 

I feel like there are exactly two spheres of existence in my world right now. There is our community-- you all, the people around us, real person-to-person connections-- and beyond that, sludge.
Pure, all-adulterated grade A toxic sludge.

Discord is a goddamn bastion. The username transition may not have been perfect, but all things considered, it is a prime saving grace right now. I hear forums are on the up too. I can't imagine them getting back to circa mid-2000's status because people are sick of making accounts for stuff, and I'm sure any day now AG bots will be there too. But Reborn is plenty well-equipped for a swing back. 

Thankfully, Patreon isn't on fire. I have no reason to think it will, but if that someday changes, you will always be able to find me around Reborn. That is our website, paid for and entirely maintained thanks to you all. Bless you all. I think we have tools that we could replace Patreon if we somehow needed. Stay close to home.


Sludge.

Tumblr is okay still. Getting worse, probably. Tiktok is a fun platform but if you scroll too long on there you -will- corrode your attention span. It feels like a fantasy horror artifact-- the Great TikTok Orb will bring you peace and joy, but ponder too long upon it and you will become covetous and forfeit your immortal soul. Everything wants your attention. Even when it's free, it just wants more and more and more of your attention. This site wants to send you notifications. Subscribe to our feed. Subscribe to our channel. Subscribe to subscriptions.

Back to earth.
-I- am fine. You all have helped me stay fine and I am eternally grateful for that.
But self-pressure aside, it is difficult for me to feel like posting regular updates here is even meaningful. When I do not have Big, Notable Announcements, or like actual Tangible releases and updates, I feel like I am just contributing to the sludge. I barely have time to read the posts of all the creators I support here. Sometimes it feels less like offering something in return and more like asking for attention.
I might be wrong about that. I would like to hear how you all are feeling.

Personally, I have a lot of respect for Silksong's approach. Now, I know the memes. I'm waiting there with everyone else. There's rightfully no trust in the games industry these days, so I'm prepared to slurp these words up and eat them if that game turns out to be bad.
But IF Silksong is good, if they are putting in the real and honest effort everyone wants them to, then I think Team Cherry has a hell of a PR strategy in going completely dead fucking silent for seven years, keeping their heads down, and just getting the shit done.
I hope beyond all else that that game turns out well, not just because HK is a hell of a game, but because that will be one count of gamers witnessing developers putting action over pomp and circumstance despite all pressure to the contrary. I think that could be healing to our culture.

 

Really what I've found is that there are two wolves inside me. One wolf wants to give you all the entire play by play. Regular updates, status bar stuff, stream every single thing I'm working on, the works. The other wolf wants me to pull a Walden, move to a cabin in the forest with no internet connection for three years, and come back to you all with some kinda banger out of nowhere. 

Both wolves have fought each other to the point of exhaustion, and they are currently sleeping. One's head is resting on the other's back, it's kinda cute tbh


When I stopped posting and stepped back from active development a few months ago, I talked a lot about needing to figure out my feelings on things. How to tell when I'm doing something because I ought to versus because I want to. So on.

I'm slowly getting there. I had the experience of being shown what the end point looked like. It is a work in progress and not going nearly as quickly as I'd like. I've gotten occupied myself in some other projects-- things that could eventually go somewhere. For the sake of not setting expectations on myself, I will be feeding the wolf that suggests I not talk about them. Those impulses have been good points of contrast, though. Starlight feels heavy. Reborn is covered in dust. Actually, everything is a little bit heavy.

I can't not create but I want to make sure I do so in a way that is fair to you all in upholding the trust you've put in me. I have doubts as to if the pace that matches my feelings will be fair. For now, I will keep finding out.

Thank you for trusting me enough to let me do this.


I would love to hear how you all are doing in the current climates (both literal and online). Everything is bullshit, all we have is each other. Let's learn to grow our own food indoors. 


Comments

Noivy

I feel the same thing about everything you said about the State of The Internet. Almost every major site bloody sucks and Information is too often gated behind Everything. It is a bit easier to be able to sign up to a site using a single google account, and that usually lets somethings be accessed without too much hassle, but at the same time the sheer amount of undistilled sludge makes me Not Want to Bother. Everything is trying to push the same clickbait ads, or copy paste low effort asset flip mobile games. I never thought I would *ever* get nostalgic for the old TV and Radio advertisements that were part of the 90s and early 2000s Saturday Morning Cartoon Experience, but here I am. I have also become thoroughly jaded with online hype culture, your talk of Silksong puts it great and largely aligns with my own thoughts. I'd rather have nothing, and just get a release announcement with said release 3-6 months after the announcement and then cut it there. Tears of the Kingdom did roughly the same thing, with a Few Trailers between it, but the Real thing there was that that game was pushed back an entire year and it's basically one of the best games of the last several years on many metrics. The most recent nintendo direct also was imo one of the best announcement chains out there because quite a few of the big things (especially SMRPG and SMWonders) had absolutely no hints prior to the announcements. Maybe its because of the pandemic that many people Crave a Feed of Constant Content to Consume. Now that said pandemic is "over" IRL has been more enticing but that has its own issues that are just as if not more stressful for me, but I have been trying to escape the work cycle (three week vacation in September and there's a convention on the first weekend woo), go outside and just Experience the World again and I'm finding it to not be as bad as the shitty internet makes it out to be. theres just issues getting in the way and actively making it Harder to enjoy (death to the american health insurance scam).

Hachilio Murray

Well, it's hard right? I find myself disconnected from social media and forums, instead insisting on in-person meetups and direct messaging/calling. It takes a moment to get over the hurdle of making a friendly call, but it's infinitely more gratifying than a like on your facebook status. If we discard our interactions with the algorithms and the ad-streaming, we notice that people are still exactly the same friendly bunch that want to have fun and friends as well. This is your patreon to run as you wish. Since you ask, I enjoy more frequent, smaller updates. The excitement is a look into the creative process, even if it is unfinished. But you don't have to share if you don't want to, I support your Patreon as you create a product of inspiration, theme, and quality that I don't find elsewhere.