1699: A Note to Anyone Following Me on Twitter, Facebook or Google+

Posts that essentially boil down to “I’m Leaving [insert site name here] And Here’s Why You Should Care” are the very worst kind of egocentric narcissism, as most of you probably know. This is because they usually amount to someone attempting to attract attention to themselves flouncing off in a huff after they feel they’ve been slighted, only to return a week/month/year later to repeat the cycle anew. If you’ve had the patience and willpower to follow Fez developer Phil Fish over the last couple of years, you’ll have witnessed this action firsthand.

And yet here I am making a largely similar post, and not for the first time. I shall try and keep the egocentric narcissism to a minimum, however — though I’m making no promises.

This post is about two things: 1) why I don’t intend for Twitter, Facebook and Google+ to be part of my daily routine any more, and 2) how you can reach me if you’d still like to talk to me online — because despite the things I’m going to say under heading 1, I can’t deny that I’ve made a lot of good friends across all three networks over the years, and it would be a shame to abandon that completely.

To begin at the beginning, then. There are a lot of words ahead, but I would appreciate you sticking around to read them — particularly the last section about keeping in touch.

Don't worry, there will be pictures. They'll be irrelevant pictures, but there'll be pictures. — Don’t worry, there will be pictures. They’ll be irrelevant pictures, but there’ll be pictures.

Why I don’t intend for Twitter, Facebook and Google+ to be part of my daily routine

Those of you who have been following this blog recently will know that I decided to subject myself to a voluntary social media blackout this week. Specifically, I logged myself out from Twitter, Facebook and Google+, deleted the relevant apps from my phone, ensured that anything that might bug me with notifications from them was well and truly switched off and finally settled down to a week of peace.

It’s now a week since I started that blackout, and the time at which I decided I was going to review whether or not I needed social media in my life any more. And the conclusion I’ve reached is that I don’t think I do. I opened Twitter earlier today to see how I felt, and felt no urge to scroll down to see if I’d missed anything — I closed it straight away without even scrolling off the first page of tweets. I didn’t even feel the urge to open Facebook or Google+ at all. I have broken the “habit”, it seems, and I don’t feel like I “need” to develop it again.

Because it is a habit. It’s compulsive behaviour — at least it was for me. You may do it yourself without realising it; you reach a quiet moment in the day, and out comes the phone or up comes the web browser, and you do your “rounds” of your social networking sites of choice. You scroll through the reams and reams of content the millions of members of these sites worldwide have made, rarely taking anything in, rarely stopping to appreciate, say, the composition of a photograph on Instagram, or the witty headline that someone came up with for a news story on Facebook. It’s page after page of noise, little of it meaningful, all of it vying for your attention with equal fervour. And yet still around and around and around you go.

Some people deal with this noise better than others. Some people can discipline themselves to set aside a little bit of time to check their networks, then put them aside for hours or even days at a time. That can be a valid strategy, but with the speed at which modern social networks move, if you’re not there when something happens, your contribution to the “discussion” — and I use that term loosely — is likely worthless, since conversation will have moved on by then.

This matter of “discussion” is worthy of consideration, so let’s ponder that a minute.

The approach most people tend to take to discussion online.

One of the things that drove me to start my week-long blackout a couple of days earlier than I intended was the whole #GamerGate thing on Twitter. For those who don’t follow the video games field — or those who simply aren’t on Twitter — in simple terms, this was an argument between video game journalists (particularly those who err on the “feminist” side of the sociopolitical spectrum) and those who self-identify as “gamers”, i.e. people who play, enjoy and are passionate about video games and would rather not be told they’re awful people whenever possible.

I don’t really want to get into the details of the events surrounding #GamerGate as that would be long, tedious and, more to the point, has already been summed up in a great amount of detail elsewhere on the Internet. (As always, note that there are two sides to every story — something that both sides on this particular argument have been guilty of forgetting.)

Suffice to say, however, that #GamerGate brought out the very worst in a lot of people. It brought out some of the most unpleasant trolls the Internet had to offer, who, predictably, went after a number of people who — let’s be honest here — often court controversy to make a point. On the other side, those loud-voiced members of the press and their numerous sycophants continued down a path that I’ve been unhappy to see them proceeding down for the last year or two: belittling, ridiculing, publicly shaming and even outright insulting the very people they are supposed to be writing for.

Whatever fair points both sides had — and make no mistake, both sides had fair points — were lost amid the noise, and discussion never got anywhere. It was frustrating to watch; I tended not to participate as much as possible as I learned a while back that any attempts to call for moderation in such matters tended to result in accusations of “tone policing” — which, ironically, is itself a form of deflection attention away from a point being made — rather than genuine attempts to calm down and discuss things like rational adults. And thus nothing was ever resolved.

As I said above, different people deal with different things in different ways. My frustration with these endlessly circular arguments — in which no-one was really listening to anyone else and in which any fair points were inevitably lost in all the blind anger and insults being thrown in both directions — manifested itself as anxiety, stress and depression. I was genuinely afraid to contribute to these discussions for fear of attracting the wrath of one, the other or both of the angry mobs involved. And it was having an effect on my mental health.

If you can take yourself out of a situation that is causing you problems with your mental health and not cause yourself further problems, you should do. So that’s exactly what I did. I extracted myself from the whirling miasma of rage, quietly slipped away for a while to reflect, contemplate and heal — and now, here I am, a week later, with no desire to jump back into the fray.

This isn’t to say that Twitter, Facebook and Google+ are nothing but whirling miasmata of rage and other negative emotions, but frankly, the other stuff there has seemed of little value to me for some time, too. There’s only so many “You Won’t Believe What Happened Next!” videos you can take seeing before you just don’t care What Happened Next; only so many “adorbs” pictures of cute things you can see before you never want to see another squirrel again; only so many baby photos you can scroll past before your only reaction to a friend enjoying a new addition to the family is… well, nothing.

It’s all noise to me, in other words; an overwhelming swathe of constant content; a never-ending stream of consciousness in which meaningful life events are ascribed equal importance to a video of a cat drinking water from a squirt bottle. I don’t need that. I’ve always been one for social anxiety, but right now I’d rather hear important things from the lips of the people involved rather than read it on Facebook or Twitter; I’d rather actually hang out with friends than hope I get more than a couple of “Likes” on the picture of the bag of chips I’m about to eat, or a couple of comments on a post I made about how much I’m enjoying Tales of Xillia 2.

I’m not saying there’s no place for these sites in society at all — clearly a lot of people get great joy, excitement and enjoyment out of them. But for me, their value has dwindled significantly over the last year or two, so it’s starting to make sense to cut them out of my daily routine and instead seek other means of staying in touch with the people I actually care about.

Which brings us neatly on to the second part of this post.

Well done for reading this far. Have a cake.

How to stay in touch with me

I’m not retiring from the Internet altogether. Rather, I’m being more selective with how I communicate and with whom. Consequently, I’m focusing on ways of communicating that allow me to take more control over my online presence, and which are more inherently personal than just shouting into the void of social media.

Note that I’m not closing down my Twitter, Facebook and Google+ accounts — they’ll be used to broadcast these blog posts — but I won’t be actively checking any of them, so please don’t @mention or comment via any of those means if you want a reply from me.

Here are the main ways through which you’ll be able to contact me in future:

This site. I post one blog entry here every single day, and have done for the last 1,699 days. Leaving a comment on my most recent post is a good means of getting a message to me. I’ll try and be better about replying than I have been in the past!
Email. Close friends probably already have my email address. I don’t mind sharing it, but I’m not putting it out in the open on this site. If you’d like to chat via email, you can start a private conversation via the contact form on my About Pete page and, assuming you’re not some sort of crazy stalker, I’ll probably get back to you.
Google Hangouts. For real-time chat, I use Google Hangouts almost exclusively. I don’t do voice and I don’t do video, but text chat is something I’m happy to engage in with you, assuming I know who you are before you just pop up saying “hi” and nothing else. If you don’t already know my Google Hangouts info, drop me a message via the aforementioned contact form.
The Squadron of Shame forum. Most of my “public” conversations — “broadcast-type” messages, I like to think of them as — will now be found over on the Squadron of Shame forum. Although the Squad was originally set up as a small but well-formed group back in the 1up.com days, the modern Squad is very open to new members, with the only requirements for membership being that 1) you’re interested in games, particularly those a little off the beaten track and 2) you’re respectful to other people’s tastes in games, even if they don’t coincide with your own. Come and sign up and say hello, since that forum is where I’ll be spending most of my online “social” time these days.
Final Fantasy XIV. If you happen to play Final Fantasy XIV and find yourself on the Ultros server, look up Amarysse Jerhynsson and say hello.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post; I appreciate it. To those of you that I’ve only interacted with on social media in the past: I’m sorry to leave you behind just as, in some cases, we’re starting to get to know one another (I’d like to give particular, specific shoutouts to @FinalMacstorm and @SonyofLastation here, both of whom I’ve very much enjoyed talking to recently) — but I hope you’ll consider staying in touch via one of the means above, and I hope you understand my reasons for wanting to eliminate stressful, anxiety-inducing and unnecessary noise from my personal life. To those of you who are already firm friends beyond the boundaries of social media — well, the same, really; I hope you’ll respect my decision here, and that you’ll stay in touch via other means.

Onwards to a brighter future, then: one largely free of pop-up notifications, pointless arguments and unnecessary stress. I’m looking forward to it very much indeed.

#oneaday Day 738: Diversifying

In a recent blog post, one Ben Goldacre described Spotify’s auto-sharing behaviour as “creepy” and called for greater transparency in opt-out procedures. While I don’t disagree that users should have the option of whether or not to share what it is that they’re doing, I do disagree with the good Doctor’s assertion that showing off your tastes to others is somehow “creepy” or “wrong”.

The reason I don’t find it either of those things is because of discovery. Spotify is built in such a manner that it’s easy to check out an artist or album you’re unfamiliar with in a risk-free environment. You don’t drop any money on the album directly, so if you wind up hating it, you haven’t lost out. And if you end up loving it, you can whack it in a playlist or star it for future reference.

Combine this ease of trying things outside of your usual comfort zone with social features and you get a powerful tool to expand your own tastes. Because music is an ever-present part of society these days — silence, it seems, is frowned upon by most people, particularly those of more tender years — conversations about what artists are awesome are less common than they once were in the age of buying CDs (and, heaven forbid, cassettes). Music is just there for many people — a disposable thing that people may well have a strong connection to but perhaps don’t always think to actually discuss,

What Spotify’s sharing feature does is allow you to see what friends have been listening to and, if it takes your fancy, jump right in there and have a listen yourself. I’ve discovered more than a few new favourites this way, and I’m certain other people will have been curious about some of my tastes too. I don’t have any objection to people seeing what I’ve been listening to and I’m certainly not ashamed of it. The same is true for Netflix, newly launched in the UK and nicely integrated with Facebook to allow you to share what you’re watching. On the whole, I’m much more inclined to pay attention to new releases if my friends are enjoying them rather than if they’re simply “critically acclaimed”. See: The Squadron of Shame

Goldacre suggests that people will make judgements based on what you have been listening to, and your playlists which, if you weren’t already aware, are made public by default. And perhaps people will — but the attitude I have always taken with personal taste is that it is just that: personal. If you’re the sort of person who ridicules someone else just because of what music they listen to, how they dress, or their appearance… I probably don’t really want to know you. Everyone is free to make their own choices with regard to what entertains them (unless, you know, if you’re into something fucked up and illegal) and so people should not feel ashamed or embarrassed to share what it is that they have been enjoying.

In fairness, it’s entirely possible that there is the scope for cyber-bullying among schoolkids based on what they might have been listening to with Spotify, or the content of their playlists. But there’s the scope for cyber-bullying based on their photos, their status updates, all the other stuff that’s on Facebook, too. This isn’t excusing it. However, it does mean that Spotify itself isn’t some sort of creepy bully-magnet. As with all forms of social media and teens interacting with others on the Web, it’s important for parents to be involved and aware of what their offspring are up to. If it looks like causing a problem, they should be familiar with the options that are there to protect people — and Spotify has those options if, for whatever reason, sharing things does become a problem. But someone’s listening habits are public by default — and why shouldn’t they be? There’s nothing to be ashamed of there.

Perhaps I have a naïve view of social media and sharing information on the Web. But I just don’t see how sharing your entertainment consumption is particularly harmful. Sharing deeply personal information, yes. But the fact that you listened to the Lazy Town soundtrack today? For me, that’s the start of an interesting conversation, not something creepy.

#oneaday Day 708: Stupid O’ Clock

It’s, once again, stupid o’ clock in the morning, but this time The Old Republic isn’t to blame. At least, not directly — no, instead, this evening/morning’s lateness is due to the long-awaited return of the Squadron of Shame SquadCast.

The Squaddies are some of my most long-standing friends, and people I speak to in some capacity pretty much every day. I’d even go so far as to say that they’re probably the best friends I have, despite the fact that we’re several thousand miles apart and see each other face to face rarely — and in some cases, we still haven’t met in person.

From humble beginnings as a loose community on 1up.com’s message boards to a more organised “club” on the site and, eventually, cutting loose into the big wide world by ourselves, we’ve stuck together through thick and thin, through life’s big moments and its little pleasures. And between us, we’ve built friendships that have endured, remained strong through various adversities, and grown stronger over the years.

This, people, is the power of the social Web. It’s not about building a “voice for your brand”. It’s not about “engaging with your audience”. It’s not about “leveraging somethingorother”. And it’s certainly not about “monetization strategies”. It’s about socalisation, society, people. It’s easy to forget that with the amount of information we’re voluntarily bombarded with on a daily basis. We willingly subject ourselves to a barrage of stimuli from a diverse array of sources — some of which are real people acting with real honesty; others of which are real people holding up a façade in an attempt to be someone they’re not; others still of which are people acting as the voice of a brand, attempting to bring a face to the faceless corporate world.

Events which transpired today showed the potentially disastrous consequences of acting as the voice of a brand, not of an individual. Ocean Market(t)ing [sic] president Paul Christoforo descended into childish insults and poorly-spelled, poorly-articulated attempts to assert his authority and regain his credibility when confronted with an irate customer. The email exchange has, thanks to its posting on Penny Arcade earlier today, gone viral, and Christoforo has become the object of ridicule. It isn’t the first time this has happened, and I fear very strongly for Christoforo’s future job prospects after this debacle, particularly as so many employers are now taking social media “output” into account when considering applicants for positions. Don’t get me wrong, Christoforo was a dick, but is it really fair to potentially jeopardise his whole future over things that clearly happened in the heat of the moment.

Somewhere along the line, I believe we’ve lost our way with the social Web. We made the critical mistake of letting the marketers and businessmen take charge of something which should bring people together. Rather than situations like that which brought me and the Squaddies to each other, we get popular brands asking facile questions and the eager hordes responding in all-lowercase, thereby indirectly promoting the brand in question. We get people carefully guarding the way the represent themselves online so as to protect their personal brand. We get situations spiralling out of control, such as that seen with Christoforo and his customer earlier today.

It’s not all doom and gloom, of course; to imply that the world is going to hell in a handcart purely because of the presence of marketers is foolish. But it would do many people well to, once in a while, remember what the “social” bit of “social media” really means. Does it mean telling the faceless drone behind the The Sims Facebook account that your favourite colour is indeed green? Or does it mean striking up conversation, getting together, finding new people that you want to spend time with?

I’d opt for the latter every time. And now I need to go to bed before I pass out.

#oneaday, Day 66: The Time Has Come

I’m going to write this in something of a rush because I need to go to bed. But I’m not going to default on my blogging just for pesky tiredness’ sake! No, it might be a short, crap entry, but dammit if I’m not going to write on right now.

Anyway.

Tomorrow, I fly to Boston for PAX East. It’s strange to think that this time has finally come. When I think back to early in this whole “one a day” experiment and the things I said, wondering whether or not I’d be able to go, wondering whether I’d be able to get out of my job, wondering if I’d ever make it to the States to see my friends whom I only know by their Twitter avatars and occasional glimpses of embarrassing photos on Facebook.

Now, that fantasy is a reality. Well, it will be very soon, anyway.

There are two emotions in my head right now. Immense excitement… and nerves. Almost like stage fright.

Anyone who’s ever met anyone they’ve talked to online for a long period of time will know that the first face-to-face meeting is always the hardest. People are different online to how they are in reality, and however much you can protest that the way you write or chat online is your “true self”, the fact is that people will judge you when they meet you for the first time – subconsciously in most cases, but they’re doing it all the same. It’s that that always unnerves me – whenever I’m meeting new people for the first time, not just trusted and beloved online friends, but anyone. It’s a side-effect of the social anxiety that I’ve suffered for as long as I can remember, but I’m determined not to let it get in the way of an awesome time. And it doesn’t have to. I met my wife face-to-face long after we met online, after all. And yes, I probably was an awkward twat – still am – but that one worked out just fine.

The fact I’ve met some members of the Squadron of Shame before will help – especially given the fact that we got on well the last time we met and didn’t (to my knowledge, anyway) want to tear each others’ throats out with hammers by the end of our time together. I feel like I know a lot of the others very well already thanks to blogs, Twitter, Facebook, podcasts and all manner of other media that makes “Internet gurus” and “online entrepreneurs” drool with glee. So I think it’s going to be just fine.

Doesn’t stop me feeling nervous, but it’s not a sense of crippling anxiety. It’s more a state of wanting the “introductions” phase to be over so we can kick back with some beers and then hit the show floor of PAX East running. Because there’s an asston of stuff to see, and there’s a bundle of people I want to meet. Quite how everything will fit into those few short days I’m in Boston is anyone’s guess – but I’m going to make a damn good try of it.

So tomorrow morning at 8:40, I board a coach bound for DESTINY. That’s right: DESTINY. (Then I catch a plane which will take me the rest of the way to DESTINY. But the coach trip comes first.)

I’m clearly getting delirious. Time for bed, I think. Good night!

One A Day, Day 4: Blurring Realities

I bought a ticket for PAX East yesterday. I don’t know if I’m going yet (the twin barriers of not yet having a plane ticket and not yet having resigned from my shitty job currently standing in the way), but the sheer prospect of going and being able to meet my buddies from the Squadron of Shame – some for the first time, some for the second time – is enormously exciting. The age of the Internet has given us that curious phenomenon of the “friend-not-met” (thanks to Jenn Frank for educating me in the ways of FOAF some time back) where there are people out there whom you feel very close to despite never having seen their face outside blurry Facebook pictures or iPhone uStream feeds while they’re recording a podcast. You know, for example.

But the Squad are just that. I may be a couple of thousand miles away from them, but they’re my bros, my buddies, the legen-wait for it-dary ones, that sort of thing. Which is why the opportunity to potentially meet so many of them in one place at such a massive nerdgasm as PAX will be beyond awesome – even if podcast host Chris‘ revelation that “if someone threw a grenade in there, they’d wipe out the whole Squad” was somewhat chilling. Who would play Pathologic and then podcast about it for three hours then? (Of course, it may be your opinion that the world can do without three-hour long podcasts on the subject of Pathologic, but that’s a discussion for another day.)

It’s pretty awesome that the Internet, as well as being the home of ridiculous chavs like this, can also be the home of genuine friendships and new ways to stay in touch. I know that every time I sit down and listen to the Exploding Barrel Podcast, for example, it’s like I’m hanging out with Mike Minotti of Bitmob (as he now prefers to be known, formerly Tolkoto) and his brother AJ rather than listening to people I don’t have any real connection with. As time has continued on its way and the good word of the Squad has spread further and wider, mostly thanks to Twitter, we’ve picked up more and more people who want to be involved, some from other sites, some from other podcasts, some who are just awesome people.

And that’s pretty cool. That’s, as they say, some Web 2.0 shit right there. And I love it.

Obligatory First Post Explanation

Hello. Welcome to yet another attempt at a blog. This time I’m not relying on crappy, shit-arsed web hosts who don’t reply to my emails when I politely (and subsequently, less politely) enquire exactly why they have absconded with £30 of my hard-earned for another year’s hosting and domain name ownership. But enough about 4sites.com (who, incidentally, used to be fantastic, and just appeared to vanish off the face of the planet recently) – let’s not start this as a rant, as there will undoubtedly be plenty of time for that later.

If you’ve stumbled across this blog by accident, here’s the obligatory “hello, this is me, as if you care” post. That way you can decide whether or not you feel like sticking around. So let’s lurch right in.

My name’s Pete Davison. I am not the 1981-1984 incarnation of The Doctor, hence the title of this blog. In fact, I was born in 1981, giving my parents great joy in telling the story of my brother (games industry veteran John Davison, as press releases are wont to call him) apparently insisting that my parents gave me the middle names “Doctor Who”.

It didn’t happen.

I did, however, end up with two middle names, which has meant for the longest time I have been unable to enter all of my initials into arcade machines upon achieving a high score. I suppose as names go, things could be worse. I could be called Theophilus McShitface or something like that. Now that really would be unfortunate, although at least “TMS” fits on the Pac-Man high scores list.

Anyway, who am I? I’m a self-confessed geek. I love my gadgets, I love my video games and I love my board games. I also like hot girls in lingerie, but I think that’s something less of a niche market. I live in the UK and represent one of the last bastions of traditional Britishness, doing one hell of a Brian Blessed impression (with a beard to match if I haven’t shaved for a while) and constantly shaking my head at the rancid, disgusting, despicable state that this country is in.

I’m also in the process of attempting to emigrate, for reasons which are probably abundantly clear from that previous paragraph.

But back to the geekery. One of the main things I do is take part in legendary (well, in our minds, at least) gaming “book club” The Squadron of Shame over at 1up.com. We have a podcast and everything – see the sidebar for links to subscribe. The Squadron of Shame are a group dedicated to rescuing underappreciated classic video games from the bargain bins and playing the shit out of them before deciding whether or not they actually do belong in said bargain bin or in pride of place on discerning gamers’ shelves.

I also occasionally write for industry veteran John Davison’s new site, What They Play, a comprehensive resource for parents wanting to find out more about their kids’ favourite hobby. If you’re a parent, know nothing about video games and want to know if the latest Final Metal Gears of Halo game actually does have all the graphic depictions of interracial anal sex that the Daily Mail “reported” (and I use the term loosely) featured in it, What They Play is a great place to start.

So sit back, relax, maybe drop a comment or two (but be sure to comment responsibly otherwise the government gonna getcha) and enjoy.

If this is the only post on the page when you read this, you have reached the end of the potential enjoyment of this page. Please feel free to come back and visit later.

Auf wiedersehen.