It’s hard to believe it’s been a year. The summer of 2013 was overall a pretty shitty time for me. It kicked off in June with a friend of mine dying to Leukemia. He was only eighteen, and he was genuinely one of the friendliest people that I had ever met. Before that I had never really dealt with death before – my grandparents on my mother’s side are both still alive and kicking, and my father’s father died before I was born. Hell, my grandaunt is in her late nineties and still going strong. This was a new fight, and the first punch hit hard. I remember coming home from school that day, and opening up facebook to see the status of his sister eulogizing him. I just sat there, mouth agape, unable to comprehend what was happening. That day I just felt… alone. I felt like I was stranded in a desert, with no one to help me. Death has always been a difficult thing for me to grasp. I’m not religious in any way; I am an agnostic atheist, so the concept of an afterlife is lost on me. At the same time, it’s hard for me to comprehend the state of not… being. Until that point, the concept had never hit me in the face as hard as it did that day. Someone who I had met and spent a good amount of time with… wasn’t here anymore, and would never be here again.

I remember being very aloof for a couple weeks. I’m not the kind of person who likes to talk out their problems – I like to think them out on my own time. I kind of appreciate the fact that school was in its waning weeks at the time, and exams were looming their ugly heads. The pressure sort of took my head off of all that had happened. So summer came around, and the shock value of losing someone had worn off. I had begun doing volunteer work at a local Boys and Girls Club (I don’t want to make myself seem righteous; I was doing it to qualify for a program). I remember July 3^rd 2013 very well. It was a Monday, and the day after my little sister’s birthday. I had been up late the night before – it was summer, after all – and I had just gotten home from volunteering. I got some take-out from a Chinese place, and was about to settle down in my bed and eat my rice. I remember this specifically: as I got into bed, I out loud to myself: “Hey, everybody it’s Tuuuuesday…” I don’t know why I said this - it wasn’t even Tuesday for chrissakes, but for whatever reason I did.

I booted up my laptop and opened up Giant Bomb and… couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I was feeling the exact same way that I had felt a month ago. Alone.

It’s strange, here was a man that I had never met, and for as long as I knew of his existence, lived on the opposite side of the country from me… yet here I was, on the verge of tears. I never met Ryan Davis, but feed me to a pack of wolves if it didn’t feel like I knew him.

I’m not going to lie, I’m only sixteen. Still not lying, I’ve been following these fuckers since I was nine. I remember being in elementary school, and loving Gamespot. The content that they created was just leaps and bounds more entertaining than any other site at the time. I can guarantee you I was the only nine year old in the area that tuned in every week to spend forty minutes watching On the Spot, or a couple hours to listen to a Podcast where people talk about video games. Ryan and Jeff were always my favorite personalities. I always felt like they had such good chemistry, and that they were genuinely friends, not to mention they were funny as hell. Every week I was listening to these people talk about what I loved, and each week I watched them play games that I really wanted to play one day, each week I would count the minutes to On the Spot so I could watch live. I remember being distraught after Jeff’s firing, and Ryan, Vinny, Brad and Alex’s subsequent departures. It felt like my world was falling apart – it was like my favorite show was getting cancelled. Then I saw a comment on some Gamespot review… a comment that told me that Jeff and Ryan were making a new site… a site called Giant Bomb, and I never looked back.

Ryan Davis is part of something special for me. He is part of a crew of people that have supplied me with hours upon hours of entertainment for just under half of my life. His time with us, and his hours on camera will be something that I always remember, and that I will always cherish. His death hit me harder than anything else that has ever hit me, and I’m not sure if I’m over it yet. I never knew him - nor do I know the rest of the GB Crew - but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t feel like I did.

Rest in Peace, Ryan T. Davis 1979 – 2013

Best of luck to the Giant Bomb Crew, and the up and coming Giant BEast crew. Keep doing what you’re doing.