Musings

What inspires me to write?

I wanted to mention some of the works, writers, and experiences that have me bothering with updating my own text based website.

My biggest inspiration for bothering to blog about anything is the late Shamus Young. Shamus' massive breakdown of the Mass Effect series and where it went all so horribly wrong is one of my favorite things you can read online. Shamus wrote with a distinctive, conversational voice. I revisit the Mass Effect retrospecitve about once a year.

For the real, nearly complete life story on Mr. Young, he wrote up an autobiography. This covers his childhood learning to program, the highs and lows of the software industry during, and after, the tech boom of the 90's. I consider that to be one of the most fascinating times in history, so Shamus' first hand personal account of the whole thing is a genuine treasure.

Shamus passed away in June, 2022. His family and children uphold and make new posts on the website. Thank you for sharing so much with us, Shamus and family.

Another fabulous series I like to revisit every so often is The Life of Reilly, which is a long form (35 part!) analysis and breakdown of Spider-Man's infamous Clone Saga. It's written up by Andrew Goletz and Glenn Greenberg primarily, but almost every important voice from the 1990's Spider-Man office chimes in at some point. Storytelling, good writing, and behind-the-scenes info have always interested me, so discovering this was heaven!

This was an enormous inspiration on my own Spider-Man article. Even if you don't know the Clone Saga, this series will take you step by step with recap, commentary, and images to help you follow along. My work is a lot sloppier than this, and I don't have real connections to the comic book industry, but I can dream!

The last direct influence I'll mention right now is Jeremy Parish. Parish's work is almost nauseatingly extensive. I've linked his older Anatomy of Games site above, which is how I really started reading his stuff. The Mega Man 2 analysis delights me every time. I love Mega Man. The site now reads that this work is amateurish, which I guess is true, but only in the context that he's gone on to do full books since. He's also got a YouTube channel where he does much of the same thing, cataloging basically each and every game on Nintendo and Sega consoles. The mere thought of playing every NES game, even just the 50 or so in 1987, makes my head spin. But people really do that kind of thing out of passion!

Not in the mood for YouTube essays.

I watch my fair share of YouTube, like we all do, but I've really come to detest the modern, bloated, sensational video essays that are taking up the platform. I can't help but feel cynical about these. While I'm all for the reapprasal of media, opinion sharing, and hobbyist videos, the YouTube algorithim seemingly (it's changed a lot over the years!) rewards watch time over all else. Knowing that, I am certainly not interested in watching some 90 minute rant that I'm almost dead certain could be edited down into something more digestable. I really do enjoy deep dives, but the spectre of inauthenticity hangs over so many videos. I love deep dives and meal videos, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that people who make these videos are stupid, or wrong, but I just can't take them any more!

I have all the tools and skillset to make these kinds of videos, but I'd really just rather not for now. My writing needs developing, and making this website my own, filling it with my voice, has been fun!

If you wanna see some channels that I do like and consistently watch without a goofy Ugh!, here's ThorHighHeels and Hazel.Their videos, for me, land somewhere inbetween vlog, ramble, and video essay. A satisfying spot to be. They read as honest experiences and fond looks at things rather than something designated to be a YouTube video, if that makes sense. Those aren't the only channels I watch, but they're my most recommended if someone were to ask me.

See you next article!

-JPL