Today’s Blaugust writing prompt comes from Roger at Contains Moderate Peril, who asks:
“What type of content do you feel is severely underrated?”
And ima answer that, but first, I have to get something off my chest. SoMeOnE called me a curmudgeon yesterday! Is this what I’ve become? Is this just who everyone becomes, eventually? Am I just mad at the world, all the time?
No, of course not. I love the world and everyone in it. I have kids and a boyfriend I love. I have three cats who allow me to care for them. I even like most of the games I play.
I am a tiny purple thistle in a field of beautiful wildflowers.
But I really just have a problem with just one or two flies in this wonderful ointment we call gaming.
I used to play a mobile game called “Final Fantasy Brave Exvius“. Every so often, the Japanese devs and the English-speaking staff influencers (you will know them by their purple hair) would put out a video detailing the upcoming features and units. And I would watch, super interested in learning about these things. I would watch as they would discuss what they were drinking.
Not just them. Back in the EverQuest II days, the devs would do the same thing. Pad their content with information as to what they’re drinking. I used to listen to a lot of gaming podcasts. At least half of them would go on for a long, long time about how drunk they were or were not getting on whatever concoction they’d imbibed or were about to imbibe.
So here’s the underrated content I’d like to see more of:
If your video or vlog or podcast or post starts off with the words “How to X”, then I really would appreciate it if “How to X” was in fact the focus of your content. If you feel you must tell the world about how high you are, put out another video titled “How High I Am” so that those interested can just skip right to that.
There are plenty of YouTubers that are actually really good at this. Just in the Magic: the Gathering world, the Professor at Tolarian Community College — really good at choosing a topic and getting right to the point.
I don’t mind personal content, not at all. My blog is entirely personal content and is absolutely no help to you no matter your interest. But, when I am searching for information, and come across a post or a video that claims to have that information, I don’t want to see anything else. Just the facts.
And that kind of content, I feel, is underrated.
You’re my favorite curmudgeon . . . also my favorite tiny purple thistle!
I like to think I’m getting less curmudgeonly the older I get. I certainly delete more of my own snarky comments before I post them or re-write them to be more friendly and positive than I did even five years ago. I would seriously hate to read the kind of things I was saying in threads back in the mid-noughties.
And that would have paled into bland politesse compared to the way I used to “discuss” things in person back in the eighties and nineties, before almost all of my socializing moved online. So, no, I don’t think curmudgeonliness is necessarily a function of the aging process. Not that I think you’re a curmudgeon. Or that being a curmudgeon is a bad thing.
Curmudge away if it suits you, I say. Everyone enjoys a good rant.
Oh, ho ho ! I can’t even sign my own name now. (This will make sense when you look at your comments in moderation).
In 2002, I was working for a small company of about 20 staff. We got a new boss and he totally revolutionised our Monday afternoon meetings. His “super power” was being able to chair a meeting effectively. Hence, we stuck to the agenda, pointless digressions were politely curbed and any other business was still driven by a vague hope that it had something to do with what the company did. Three hours of rambling bullshit was transformed overnight into a tight and concise 45 minute meeting. If only game guides and online debates could be so efficient.