Dance, Dance, Dance (Write, Write, Write) - An easy thing to ignore.

NOTE: These are my own, personal opinions and they will be stated in a direct, unflinching fashion. If anything I say offends you, feel free to inform me of it, but try and keep it constructive and on-topic. It is likely that this post will be somewhat personal, as that is after all, it's intent. I invite you all to discuss and debate in the comments section below.

Additionally, in regards to this specific blog, I'd like to ask the readers to keep an open mind. I'm tackling what I perceive to be a very difficult issue, one that's wide-spead across a plethora of sites, but particulary disruptive on Giant Bomb.

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I've spent an unhealthy amount of time on this site. It's hard to admit to that without making it a joke. I don't know how many hundreds, if not thousands, of hours I've spent on Giant Bomb since it launched, but it's been a lot. More than I want to consider. Hours of quick-looks, hours of UPFs, of Premium Content, of Endurance Runs, what kind of chunk of my life does that add up to? I feel like I'd panic if someone told me the percentage.

It seems like an arguement that I'm constantly laughing off, never pausing to consider. I'm watching quick-looks of games I'm not interested in because it'll kill some time over my lunch-break. I'll try to make it back for UPF, or Spookin' With Scoops, unless I have other plans or desperately need sleep. Making time for all of this has become so routine, so deeply ingrained in me that I've stopped questioning it.

I love this site, and I adore these people, in a way that's hard for me to articulate. Giant Bomb is to me, a safe haven in a lot of respects, somewhere I can retreat to. There are familiar faces, there's a sense of community. And it's always there. No matter what's happening in my life, no matter where I am, Giant Bomb will just keep on trucking, with the same kind of endearing stupidity occuring at, what seems like, every opportunity.

That's a fact that's helped me through a lot of tough spots in my life. Without going into any detail, I've had my fair share of issues over the years, and little enough to cling onto, so that this website provided comfort in it's own right. A video-game web-site. I'd laugh if I wasn't sure that a lot of other people felt the same way.

Infact, I'm fairly confident that we've all heard this a few times by now. Giant Bomb, you did this, and you did that. You pulled through by talking about naked cartoon pussy, and Brad falling down EVERY single well he ever encountered.

It doesn't ask anything in return. (Except for you to check out them Premium Offers, but let's be honest, you'd have done that any way.)

The site has helped me, time and again, yet I've never stopped to wonder if it's crippling me as well, if it's holding me back. Again, I have difficulty not simply shrugging that idea off, but the fact that I haven't asked myself that question worries me. What else might I have taken for granted, what other habits are too deeply ingrained for me to recognize I even have?

I look around over these forums and see the same faces, and where I previously felt comfort at the familiarity, I now can't help but to feel an inkling of despair. Not just for myself, but for others as well. And while that's certainly none of my business, I can't help but to give a damn.

There's been so much talk of late about newer members attending our circuits, mixing in our ranks, pissing in our drinks and misrepresenting what we're about. Folks who make us step out of our comfort zone, and realize there's assholes out there in the big, wide world. And while there's no agreeing with these "questionable elements", I can't help but to feel that introducing questions and change into our dynamic seems like the healthiest thing possible.

As I've already noted, I've spent a lot of time on the site, and I can't help but notice patterns appearing. People going out of their way to be overprotective about the site, about the members. There's really no saying "I disagree with the staff", or "I'd like this changed" without placing an order for mass disagreement at best, and a shit-storm at worst, via their defendants.

I feel like we've become a cult.

I know, I know, outcry, give it to me. To be fair, as far as cults go, it's pretty dang great, but this perpetual reverence for what is just a group of really nice, smart guys seems wrong to me.

The issue, as far as I see it, is that for us sitting on the other side of the screen, it's a one-way discussion. Be it the Bombcast, a quicklook, a review or what have you; the opinions and perspectives of the staff are very much isolated from the community, and so, a large portion of the folks attending the site simply listen. We get used to it. It's not a medium through which we can have a back and forth with the staff itself, but instead it is an established group of personalities with fairly strong opinions that remain consistent unless one of them proves the other wrong (which is a rare enough occurance). The community is an audience in this, and that's certainly no criticism towards the staff, they've invited us in for a glance into their world, and that's a wonderous thing by itself.

A natural by-product is that everyone is gonna' hear what the staff thinks, where-as the lone user very likely won't be heard. Any opinion we have will simply be over-shouted in the press of bodies. It's an illusion of participation that grinds down each individual opinion. With extremely rare exceptions, what the staff says will be what sticks with the listener.

Ultimately, it becomes a war of attrition, how long is each individual going to shout into the storm, assuming someone will hear them? Following that up, what's the use questioning something if nobody's going to answer? It becomes very easy to agree with them, but as for disagreeing, what's the use if you're just gonna' get shouted down when you're wondering about the lack of content, or why one of the staff thinks so & so? It's hard to keep that up, especially if you mean well.

With so much conversing in these latest months of outside issues, of dividing up the fanbase between those who can be relied on, and those who can't, I feel that we've run headlong into a completely seperate issue altogether.

I'm certainly not claiming that there's no discussion going on, or that people aren't disagreeing with the opinions of the editors at times. After all, we're a bunch of free-thinking, and I like to think, smart people who happen to share the same interest. And my bringing, what I perceive to be, an issue to light isn't going to change a thing.

But at the same time, I think there's no denying the emerging us & them mentality that's eerily sitting on the sideline of every discussion on the site, breathing down our necks. I don't know about you, but every time I read a message that's critical of the staff, be it not having quick-looked a game or having done a bad job of showing off another game, etc, I know there's going to be another message that'll respond constructively as often as attack that first person, warranted or not.

And while it'd be easy to blame that on these rogue elements, or someone else, that'd be scapegoating. If anything, it's the people who care who are like to get involved in this capacity. They mean well, it's just an ugly form of prioritization.

All of this is, admittedly, dramatized, crafted into an issue well beyond it's standing, and I'm very aware that I'm going to receive a bunch of messages in which folks tell me to relax, not to overthink it, but that's exactly what this is about. Taking a step back, examining our devotion to the site, what that prompts us to do and say.

It's important to consider your own place, and your own opinion, and while a sense of community is beautiful and tremendous, we can't let ourselves become a hive-mind. Dictation will not benefit anyone.

I love this place, and there'll be no tearing me away for quite some time to come. I just wish I didn't know what people were going to say before actually hearing it.

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Thanks for reading. This was Do The Manta Ray, making himself supremely unpopular on the site (uh-huh) and being cool at your school.

Update in the Comments.

This is something worth thinking about, even if people might disagree on your post's finer points. The guys don't need us, or anyone, to defend them. They're humans, and they're perfectly able to handle criticism. At what point does our own fascination with personalities do ourselves, and ultimately them, a disservice? What's the divide between personality and demagogue? I just wish I could offer any sort of answer or response, other than that I'll definitely keep this in mind.

I write blogs very seldom on this site, mainly because I haven't got all that much to say about video-games other than that they're pretty neat, but once in a while, I'll find something I reckon is worth jotting down a couple of notes about, and then tying up with some sentimental flourish.

Reading back over the stuff I've written, I almost always like my work. (Considering I do it for a living, that part of my ego saves me a lot of heart and headache.) But I very rarely think that the points I made, at the time, still bears the same urgency that it did back in the moment. Not just simply because it doesn't occupy my mind in the same way, but because I've long-since reached a conclusion on the matter. That's, after all, one of the main reasons why I write in the first place, to figure my own thoughts and feelings out and neatly stack 'em along-side the rest of my now dusty anxieties.

This particular blog was written only a couple of months back, so maybe it shouldn't come as such a surprise that I agree with my sentiment at the time. What bothers me is that I agree with it more strongly now than I did then. Giant Bomb is a terrific place to be, yet I find myself increasingly dreading to look through the comment-sections of videos, or to read certain forum threads. Where before, I'd usually dip down after a feature to skim through the thoughts of the rest of the community and come out with a cheeky grin after reading some particularly bad pun, now there's often nothing but a bad taste left in my mouth.

A ton of misplaced anger and malcontent. Against everyone, against whomever. And this in comment sections for hilarity such as Metal Gear Scanlon, or a conversation about people who go "Goa Goa". You'd think we were on the internet or something.

Don't misread me here, I'm certainly not blaming this on the mods, who work hard to keep the place clean and friendly. There's certainly a lot of bright spots here still, and it's not as if the things I so enjoyed are gone, I just have to take them with a pinch of salt, that's all. I've just got a bad case of the "woe is us"s, it seems. I look around, and continue to expect that same old stigma around every corner, and wonder if there's some way to avoid a full-on collision. Other than looking away, I don't really know if there is.

It goes without saying that I don't want to have to do that, and that I'm worried about what's happening to this community I used to feel proud to be a part of. Site's changing, growing, and so is the user-base, growing pains are to be expected, but boy.. It continues to leave a bad taste in my mouth.

This is pretty much a pointless summary update of a summary on me being discontent about others being discontent, but as I've already made the point before, I feel like I can traipse on. I wanted to put my thoughts on the subject in order, so I wrote them down. Maybe you'll enjoy reading them, but considering I didn't enjoy writing it, I think we can agree that the odds are slim.

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This was Do The Manta Ray, going around in circles and being cool at your school.