Occasionally I ponder about attempting to return to making social media working for me. I actually had a go recently; I hopped back on Twitter, switched my notifications to only show messages from people I follow and who follow me, muted everyone I still wanted to follow but who always seemed to be starting shit in the timeline.
For a while, it seemed to be working… okay. Not perfectly, but okay. Then today I happened to log in while Kirk McKeand from once-popular video game blog VG247 was lashing out at critics of his self-professed "extremely bad" interview with Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi.
I've stumbled across McKeand a few times, and every time I have, he's always come across as an arrogant, argumentative piece of shit who would rather insult people than admit he is wrong. This time around, he was being particularly obnoxious; while I thankfully didn't get anything hurled my way this time around (I somehow ended up blocked despite not actually speaking with him) I did happen to catch him insulting the appearance and gaming tastes of someone I'm acquainted with — one of those critics of his atrocious interview.
McKeand never seems to face any consequences for his behaviour, either; as a contributor to a commercial site like VG247, he should be held accountable for the way he interacts with potential audience members, but this never seems to actually occur. And he is by no means the only member of the current commercial games press who acts like this; he and his peers proudly brag about how many thousands (literally) of people they've blocked for dumb reasons.
Now, as a former member of the commercial games press, I know how much shit games journalists can get, and I know how frustrating and upsetting it can be to get dogpiled for something you wrote. However, acting like a high-and-mighty bully is not a good way to get over this or look like the bigger, better man. Spouting shit like "hur, you write about games you like to jack off to" is immature and inaccurate. Posting photos of people and implying unpleasant things about them is deeply unpleasant behaviour. In short, acting like Kirk McKeand does is not a way to get you or your publication taken seriously.
Seeing this whole thing unfold has left a deeply unpleasant taste in my mouth. I think we can call this tentative attempt to see if I can actually have a decent conversation on Twitter in 2019 an abject failure, and frankly I'm thiiiiis close from just deleting my account altogether to remove any temptation to try again.
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