Unpopular opinion: I'm pretty disappointed in the direction that Giant Bomb seems to be heading

There's been a lot of excitement around Giant Bomb recently, and the fact that it is finally an independent website no longer shackled to a corporate overlord who doesn't understand it, controlled by the staffers who love it and have direct communication with the community and audience.

I understand why that's exciting. People want to see the old shows they love come back. They're hoping to see some familiar faces return and the current staff members lean into their strengths, whether that's Dan's chaos or Grubb's deep news sources. They are excited about creative freedom and the ability of the site to focus on content and its strengths instead of distractions like endless meetings and pitching ideas to completely clueless and disinterested management. They are frothing to see a Giant Bomb that can push the boundaries of personality focused games analysis, with fun shows, exciting specials, and an atmosphere of frivoloty.

I don't care about any of that. I come to Giant Bomb for one thing and one thing only.

Brand Safety.

I feel like brand safety is being almost completely ignored in all the excitement of Giant Bomb's newfound freedom. When I come to Giant Bomb I expect to see the brand safest coverage of the blandest games, presented in a colorless and inoffensive way. I like Giant Bomb to be the games coverage equivalent of lukewarm unflavored oatmeal cooked with water instead of milk. A bland nutritional porridge that threatens nobody and provokes no emotional or intellectual reaction. Basically just "content" with no personality or spin, nothing to threaten the brands I love so much.

I do not think that a Giant Bomb that is in the hands of the like of Dan Ryckert can be brand safe. Even though Dan has interacted with lots of brands, from WWE to Taco Bell, he has a brand unsafe attitude towards games and life in general. He uses language that is very brand unsafe and his focus on frivolity is very dangerous for brands, which might find themselves connected to hijinks and/or falderal.

Brands hate falderal, and so do I!!

Therefore I suggest the following changes to the front facing cast to maintain maximum brand safety and keep the site focused on the brand safety we all love.

Replace Dan Ryckert with a 26-year-old communications major who has no interest in gaming: Someone with some media training but no interest in games can provide the kind of upbeat, brand safe, contentless coverage we crave. They can read press releases and say positive things about all games, especially those that might provide future sponsorships for the site. Someone who has media training and maybe has done some PR work after college would be ideal. This would keep everything nice and brand safe.

Replace Jeff Grubb with a bald recently retired high school principal who hates kids today: Grubb's hair alone is brand unsafe. But even more brand unsafe is his focus on getting to the bottom of things and telling true and deeply sourced stories. A bald and contemptuous principal will keep everyone in line and probably won't even talk about video games. We all crave discipline and order and this would help with that.

Keep Mike Minotti but don't let him talk, and allow a rotating cast of sponsor brands to dress him in a brand appropriate costume each week: Enough said. This would also keep the spirit of the rotating chair (that never rotates) alive.

Replace Jan with a corgi: Everyone loves Jan. Everyone loves corgis. Corgis are brand safe. It's perfect.

Replace Jeff Bakalar with a bus stop rotating poster display: I've been advocating for this for years.

If Giant Bomb takes these few simple steps they can eliminate all the "fun" hijinks and falderal that they're talking about doing and maintain the site's reputation as the brand safest place to go to talk about video game brands and how much we love buying the branded things they sell. Giant Bomb can truly be an inclusive place for brands of all shapes and sizes, all types and subtypes. Let's keep the spirit of the new direction we all loved for Giant Bomb alive.

Let's keep it brand safe, people.