Something I thought about when I first joined the Giantbomb community, is "What would become of Giantbomb twenty years later, without Ryan or Jeff or Everybody"? The conclusion I came up with was, and no offense to others, "as long as Ryan and Jeff were still with Giantbomb, everything else is changeable". It's like if Roosterteeth got rid of Gus, Geoff and Burney. Up until five hours ago, I was patiently awaiting Ryan's tales of the honeymoon, flight jokes and perhaps a picture of the bride and groom (like what Patrick did). Instead, we all know what happened. It created a hole that few, if any, could fill. If Ryan's absence was a black hole, it would suck up the entirety of existence within a blink of an eye. His and everyone else's spot on the Giantbomb crew is so important to my everyday life, I often listen to podcasts twice, or watch old episodes of TANG, perhaps even watch old classic gaming marathons. The craziest part of all of this is I never even met the man.
I teared up, I was hit with "Oh my God he is actually gone" about every 5 minutes, just like if he was an actual guy I hung out with everyday. And the truth is that life, just like Giantbomb, will go on. Someone will fill that hole. Sure they might not be the hilarious, sweet, analytical podcast conductor with incredibly vast vocabulary, like he was, but we'll be just as inviting to them too. We are Giantbomb. If our grand and sweeping response to the death of someone many of us have never even met, isn't head turning, I don't know what is. Perhaps that speaks more to the men we actually follow than it does us. All I know is, tomorrow is another day; for video games, for fun, for happiness. Ryan Davis lived that way for most of his life, so do many of us. Why should we stop now?
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