I wouldn't steal a car, but I would download a copyrighted picture of one and Photoshop it.

Ah, another year of making dumb Giant Bomb-related content, and some non-Giant Bomb-related content too (remember this for later). Last year, my list consisted of top 10 tweets according to Twitter Analytics, but I changed it up this year because I realized that the site ranks top tweets by impressions. So if a bunch of people saw my post but no one actually liked it, it would still be a top tweet, which is really dumb... much like the site itself these days. Hey-oh!

Before I start, I just wanted to note that this list wouldn't be possible if it weren't for those who shared my content over the year, especially those who have thousands upon thousands of followers (basically the Giant Bomb staff). So thanks, everyone, for supporting me... a thief!

That's right, if you've seen my stuff before, you would've noticed that I make remixed content. I take sources from different things and edit them together to create a final product. It's rare that I actually make something of my own. As I said, you support thievery! Piracy!

Anyway, here's the top 10. (If you want more context, each title links to the actual tweet. Twitter embeds are wonky, so I had to do a workaround.)

10. Dr. Jeff Grubbond

I certainly didn't see this one coming. It was a just quick and easy Photoshop to make Jeff Grubb look like Dr. John Hammond! All I did was add the Jurassic Park gate in the background, the mosquito-in-amber knob on the cane, and on Jeff's bag strap, a pin of a shirtless Ian Malcolm, which many of you know is a Hidden Mickey of sorts in my content (not really, I just wanted you to think that I'm a weirdo who puts shirtless Hidden Malcolms in my stuff for some reason).

9. BatGrubb: The Aniblighted Series

I'm really happy with how this one turned out. It was quite challenging. But part of the fun is coming up with an idea and seeing if I can make it into reality. I'm so glad Jeff posed this way too because if he hadn't, this video wouldn't have been possible. I guess I could've drawn him in this heroic stance, but that takes skill which I don't have. Plus, it's all about stealing for me, remember?

8. Presenter Jeff Grubb

When I kept seeing those tweets from The Game Awards featuring presenters for its upcoming show in a weird yellow-orange diamond design, I knew I had to use it in some way. Luckily, Giant Bomb @ Nite was happening, so it was the perfect fit. With a bit of Photoshop and slapping on a creepy-looking Jeff Grubb, we were good to go. I've never actually noticed, but what if that's his resting creep face?

7. LEGO Brickheadz: Giant Bomb (2023)

I suppose you can say that this and the other LEGO artwork I've done can be considered the only non-theft pieces. Then again, I did take inspiration from official LEGO designs and from others who've posted their own creations online. I told you I was a thief. This is the part where you should be saying something like, "It's okay, all creative work is derivative." And to that, I'll say, "Thanks, I'm stealing that quote too."

6. The Giant Bomb Couch: A Fictionalized Screenshot of Events

During Giant Bomb @ Nite at Summer Game(s) (for those who like adding an S there) Fest, three big things came out of it: Phil Spencer and Matt Booty showed up, Dan Ryckert retold his egg white story, and people finally realized how weird Mike Minotti is. I witnessed a few people wondering, "Did Phil Spencer see Mike's feet?" That's when I got the idea of getting the perfect screenshots and mashing them all together with Photoshop. What if Phil did see Mike's feet? What if Dan told his egg white story to Phil?

My favorite thing to come out of this would be the fact that Angelo Alcid, a senior counsel at Microsoft, quote tweeted it while saying, "those are my clients on that couch, yup." Was he just playing along with the ridiculousness of the fake screenshots? Or did he think those were real interactions? I guess we'll never know (unless someone asks him, I guess).

5. My Kids Are Not Poggers

When The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom came out, there was much talk about the new character, Addison, aka Sign Guy. When I saw Sign Guy's sign's design, a chill ran down my spigne as it remignded me of the divigne Paul Ryckert bumper sticker. That's when I knew a mashup needed to happen.

4. Kevinotti James Smirking

I've been living with this lie for three months now and I have to get it off my chest. I mentioned in my tweet that someone said that I "should make a Giant Bomb-related thing for that new Kevin James meme." That was a blatant lie to help with the meme. I'm a thief and a liar.

3. Kinda Funny Popping Off for Mike Minotti

Instead of taking the time to find it himself, or even asking politely, Jeff Grubb demanded his followers to find a Kinda Funny clip for him. Rather than doing the bidding of a man on a power trip, I decided to find an old clip of Tim Gettys, Andy Cortez, and Greg Miller going crazy over the announcement of Keanu Reeves in Cyberpunk 2077 and him actually appearing on the E3 (RIP) stage, and then replacing that footage with Mike Minotti showing his feet.

2. Dan Ryckert's Egg White Story

I forget when I first knew of Dan's egg white story, but when he retold it at Summer Game(s) Fest to people who hadn't heard about it before, I knew it would make for good content. It really looked like Mike Howard (SnowBikeMike) had his soul crushed while listening to the outcome of the eggs, so I knew I had to slap it into that classic Ralph Wiggum heartbreak meme.

1. The Game Awards Winners’ Speeches

So the title of this top 10 list wasn't just a clickbait joke! That's right, my number one tweet in 2023 had nothing to do with Giant Bomb at all. During The Game Awards, winners had their speeches cut short by having music played over them while "Please Wrap It Up" screens popped up. The screens weren't shown to the viewers at home, but pictures made their way onto social media. "What's something that I can steal and then put this sign into it?" Another classic Simpsons meme would be the answer.

And there you have it, my top 10 liked tweets of 2023. Again, thanks to those who knowingly shared content that I stole. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

So what's next for 2024? Who knows? Maybe I'll get the coveted title of Giant Bombfluencer. A man can dream. Or have nightmares if that were the case.

These are Kone's Tweets of 2022 (according to Twitter Analytics)!

Oh, what a year it's been. My artwork(?)/Tweets have been featured on Giant Bomb through The Community Spotlight, Retweeted by the staff, and have even shown up in some of their streams. I'm still waiting for my residual checks from Jeff Bakalar for showing this poster I made every time he plays Eternal Darkness. Just kidding, of course. Convert that money to Robux and give it to Dylan so he can delve deeper into the Roblox rabbit hole! (Why am I trying to destroy his family?)

It was fun to somewhat be a part of Giant Bomb's circle. Some would say it's more like me being a part of Sony's Spider-Man Universe trying desperately to fit into Marvel's Cinematic Universe and failing miserably, and that's a totally valid point.

Without further delay, here are the top 10 Tweets, which aren't really Tweets. They're the pictures/videos taken from the said Tweets because Tweet embeds seem to be broken on this site. (But if you actually want to see the original Tweets, just click on the title of each one.) How many more times will I say the word "Tweet" in this post? Place your bets. Or should I say, Tweet your Tweets? No, I shouldn't have said that at all.

10. CryptoBombs

Featuring the likeness of the staff at the time, including a soon-to-be-hired Jeff Grubb and a soon-to-be-never-seen-again Danny O'Dwyer, this CryptoPunks-inspired piece was created during the peak popularity of NFTs and cryptocurrency. Don't quote me on that because I know nothing about those topics. Although I do hear that other three-letter names related to this topic (FTX and SBF) are in big trouble right now!

9. Giant Bomb: Into the Meta-Verse (2022)

Mark Zuckerberg. I think we can all agree that he created something that changed the world. And by "something," I mean a Facebook post with a picture of a 3D avatar of himself, reminiscent of a Nintendo Wii Mii. And by "changed the world," I mean everyone dropped their differences for a day and collectively mocked him.

Feeling sad for him (not really, I just wanted to be part of the cool club and do something related to his post), I decided to give him some e-friends in the form of the Giant Bomb staff.

8. Grubb One Out

When I heard Tamoor say "Grubb one out," I knew I had to make something out of it. By luck, I had already downloaded a video of Jeff Grubb cranking his Playdate while looking like a huge creep, so it was fate doing its thing. Why did I already have that video on hand? Well, that's for me to know, and you to never find out.

I actually told this story to someone on the Giant Bomb Discord, that the best part of the gif, like I said before, is that he's actually cranking it (the Playdate). They reacted to it with a thumbs down emoji. I suppose they thought I was trying to make a joke about "rubbing one out" and "cranking it," but the story is totally true! I'm calling you out, ElectricBurgers!

7. Bombers of the Galaxy

I made this after watching the 2021 Game of the Year deliberations when Jan made a passionate speech relating Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy's ragtag team of misfits to his personal circle of friends as well as the Giant Bomb staff of yesteryear. It was a touching moment that needed a picture to screw it all up.

6. Funko Bomb! (2022)

This is the third time I've made Funko Pop! versions of the Giant Bomb staff, and each time, it's met with confused boners, minus the boner part. At least I hope so. What I mean is that people are always torn between feeling disgust for the little guys but also wishing they actually existed in the real world. It always feels good messing with people's emotions.

5. Three Guys, a Girl, and a Jenga Game

Some people say Lucy's Jenga skills are out of this world. I would argue that it's the other way around. It's Jenga's Lucy skills that are out of this world. What does that even mean, you ask? I don't know. I just needed filler because I couldn't think of anything to say for this entry. I did think about using a gif instead of words here, but I've seen the reaction to that kinda thing on the Giant Bomb subreddit, so that wasn't happening. Not that I think people are going to have deep conversations about this dumb list or anything.

4. Giant Bomb - Last Resort

Throughout the years, I had heard enough "Last Resort" references from the staff that I knew I had to make an actual music video with them "singing" the lyrics. I had worked on this project for a while, so when Jeff Gerstmann left the site, I had to redo some of it. But in the end, I think it turned out great.

Special thanks goes to random people on forums teaching others how to mass download captions from YouTube. Without finding that information, it would have taken 10,000 times longer to find the spoken words for the lyrics. But I suppose admitting this loses its do-it-yourself appeal, so let's pretend I didn't use any outside help and that I watched through hundreds, if not thousands, of videos while listening intently until someone said the exact word I was looking for. Ah, movie magic!

3. Mike Minotti and the Statue of Tifa

Two things come to mind when you think of Mike Minotti: Final Fantasy and pervert. That's a joke. If you happen to be searching for information regarding Mike Minotti, please realize that he's not really a pervert. Well, not that I know of. I mean, I don't know him personally. He could very well be one. Anyone can, really. I would even dare to say that each and every one of us are, but we all just keep it hidden from others. (That was a nice save from a defamation lawsuit, if I do say so myself.)

In May of this year, there was much talk about a certain Tifa Lockhart statue doing the Jack-O pose. Exactly why I chose to make this statue life-sized for Mike to step on isn't exactly clear. That's just how my brain works! But what I do know is that it's gaming-related, and that's all that matters. I guess.

2. Human Shrek Jeff Bakalar

After hearing Jeff Bakalar utter the phrase "People used to tell me I look like human Shrek," I knew I had to bring the image to life. I had assumed the picture would provoke a negative reaction, but what I didn't expect was the number of people who actually liked it. Who knew messing up people's faces would bring such joy(?) to others? I should have made a mental note of this at the time because I did not expect the reaction I received from a recent post which happens to be number 1 on the list.

1. Beardless Jeff Grubb

Sneaking into number 1 in the last week of December is a clean-shaven Jeff Grubb. Upon seeing the shocked and upset responses from Jeff's followers after he posted a photo of himself with freshly cut and extremely short hair, I knew I had to add fuel to the fire because, as keddren from Twitter puts it, I am an "agent of chaos." What better way to traumatize people even more than to take away more of the familiar? (If only I could take away their loved ones.)

And there you have it. Thank you, Twitter, for your number crunching. Who knows if your analytics were correct or even real? I don't think the current person in charge knows either.

So what's next for 2023? Who knows? Maybe I'll just stop posting altogether and disappear into the wind. Am I being overly dramatic? Perhaps. But wouldn't that be something? Become some sort of urban legend? Cool! And then maybe one day you'll end up telling my story and you could be like Forrest Gump talking about Jenny Curran. "And just like that, he was gone." Jan, fade to black, please.

Thank you, Giant Bomb and especially Rorie! Finally got my replacement shir-

Note: I did this as a joke, but it turns out that some people actually like the mish-mash of all the new designs together. Now to convince Rorie to convince the artists that butchering their artwork for shirt #8 is the right thing to do!

While watching Hyrule Hustle, Dan came up with a title for Jess's pro strat of not moving while holding a bomb over her head. Jeff Grubb also supposedly cheated and ended up downing an apple. You had to be there.

Leaked concept art for Jeff Bakalar's Eternal Darkness series.

During the Nintendo Direct talk over, Nintendo showed the term "grub" while showcasing Splatoon 3. This is when Jan said, "I just need someone to Photoshop Jeff Grubb as the center option." This is what I came up with.

Face/Off re-imagined with Dan and Jeff Grubb 's gaming rivalry. "I can beat you on Peach Circuit for hours."

Jeff Grubb threw this idea at me on Twitter. This is what I came up with.