This is farewell.

I started undergrad in August 2007, a little bit before Jeff Gerstmann and GameSpot parted ways.

I discovered Giant Bomb in 2011, about a month before I received my Bachelor's Degree.

I was updating a computer lab and actively dropping out of grad school when I learned of Ryan Davis' death.

I shepherded the Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run for its first few years before @thatpinguino stepped in to help out, and he along with @zombiepie and @arbitrarywater have subsequently become some of my closest friends in the world.

I started NamCompendium here, a blog that at one point had the attention of Jeremy goddamn Parish.

I was commuting to work when I learned that Alex, Brad, and Vinny were leaving. Brad left! It's funny!

Gerstmann got out of here around the time I was starting to realize that I needed to make some changes in my own life for my longterm mental health.

I remained here after the despicable manner in which Jason and Jess were let go, against my better judgement.

This has been long in coming, and I'll be honest in saying that I haven't engaged with much of the content generated by Giant Bomb staff in a good long while. But this is the end for me. This will be the last post in this blog.

If you want to keep in touch with me, I'd encourage you to find me in the Deep Listens community. We have a podcast, a Discord, and there will probably be some writing in and around that community in the future. But I'm not going to Bluesky, and I sure as hell am not going back to the site with the blue bird.

Really if you'd like to be in touch at all, shout at me where you can. I don't plan on deleting this account for the time being, but I don't plan on coming here much anymore either.

As to those who will be actively reanimating the dead husk of Giant Bomb, and indeed the handful of folks who will be around through the transition, I honestly wish you well. I stayed in a job to provide for my family for a long time, longer than was good for me, because I needed that stability. I'd encourage anybody here throwing bombs at the staff to consider how catastrophically expensive it is to exist in the United States, how one medical emergency is all that separates a lot of us from absolute poverty. I will also say that I hope you have good plans for when a certain Herbalife executive no longer deems you valuable and pushes you out the door, because doubtless that day is coming.

Grief is an emotional and cognitive response to loss and it involves work, part of which is accepting that someone or something has died. I need to grieve, and to grieve I need to accept that Giant Bomb is now dead.

Thank you all so much for letting me be in community with you for fourteen years. I will miss you, just as I have already been missing Giant Bomb for a while now.

Goodbye. Fuck Ryan Davis. GLHB. <>

P.S. I was at a little conference on death and dying this last weekend and learned of this song. Felt fitting to append here.