#NerdsUnite: Confessions of a videogame journalist

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy John. We started talking on the twitter not too long ago, and then he reached out and asked if he could write for us regarding his journey through the nerdy realm. I was all DUDDEEE!! That's so raaaddd!! And now, here we are. Like right now, in real time, this is happening. Pretty cool huh? HIT IT JOHN!!! </editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's John Sollitto

Recently, a friend of mine from G4 contacted me about co-writing an article that we had come up with at lunch one day. It was just a silly idea of what we wanted a certain game to be, we got all worked up and nerded out about it for a long time. Then, the curtain dropped and my time at G4 was at ended, and I never thought about it again until he called me.

When he approached me about writing the article, I was really stoked because how often does a stupid idea you and your friend come up with become something you might actually get published? So we met up at the greatest think-tank of our generation, Starbucks, and got to working.

It wasn’t till later that night that I started to have those doubts. You know what they are. Those little doubts that creep up on you when you’re too tired to fight them off with optimism or strength of will. Those little doubts that go, “What if no one likes it? What if they HATE it? What if people hate me?” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve faced those doubts at night.

This is something everyone goes through, you know? I just happened to go through them at an age that really blew, but that meant I learned how to deal with them quickly. I was about 16 or 17 when I started writing for IGN’s City of Heroes Vault under a screen name (like ya do when you’re worried about people stalking you online). I had written an article talking about a new update to the game that fixed some of the graphics, added some new powers, yadda yadda yadda. When I published the article I walked away feeling good. Coming back to it about a day or so later there was a comment by someone saying that they thought the article was stupid, asking if this was what IGN articles had been reduced to, blah blah blah.

Now, I’m generally a calm man, I like to keep my cool. But when someone takes a shot at me or busts my balls, I’ve been known to get a little….agitated. So when this faceless piece of garbage criticized my writing saying that it was no good, I wanted to reach through the internet and pull his intestines through his nasal passages.

My ability to transfer my body into digital matter and then back again in another location is limited on a Saturday due to Mars being in the third house, so I couldn’t do that. Naturally I tried to kill him with kindness by saying that if he didn’t like what I wrote we would be happy to accept samples of his writing to see if he would be a good fit for our staff. As I expected, he never responded.

So a few years later, working on the Vault (facebook.com/GameCreatorsVault) we’re doing video interviews. My friend, Jim Rivers, offered to come down and talk to our viewers about getting hired in the industry. We were really thankful for him spending time with us to explain the process and what big companies look for when hiring new blood.

Sadly, some dickwad had to put his two cents in commenting on my friend’s weight and attacking his company. What the fuck is that guy’s problem? Someone was taking the time to explain the intricacies of the industry to students who were willing to learn. A truly educational and philanthropic endeavor. How can ANYONE be opposed to that, regardless of what company that person is from? It blew my mind. Still, I resisted the urge to Hulk out and kept my fingers away from the keyboard as to avoid typing obscenities under our site’s name.

Then we did our biggest video yet. It was with the creators of the Nuka Break web series and the writers of Fallout 1 and Fallout: New Vegas. Big big deal. Huge nerdout for me and some of our staff too. We put the video up and within a matter of hours it was getting all kinds of traffic. Buuuuut of course, there were the trolls. After half a day we had people here and there saying that our focus on the web series was stupid, our questions were dumb, our style of interviewing was awful, etc.

Strangely enough, I didn’t feel anger this time. Sure I got upset when they attacked Mark in his half of the interview, or when they took shots at Nuka Break. But what I realized was that these people were just griping to gripe. They had nothing else to do but they felt that their opinion was SO important that they had to tell us we were doing a bad job.

Now, here’s the thing. I don’t mind constructive criticism. It’s healthy and often times it really does improve the quality of your work. But when someone nitpicks for the sake of nitpicking, you really just have to ignore them.

Trolls are everywhere, in print, in broadcast, online, and even in real life. Don’t feed them by getting into fights with them, or telling them why they’re wrong. Just ignore them. If someone has something genuinely constructive to say, thank them and show that you’re not a high and mighty sort who doesn’t listen to others. Learning from your fans and learning from your peers is something you should never stop doing, and you will be better for it. I guarantee it.

Do I still have those doubts? Those little worries about whether or not someone will like my work? Of course. Does it keep me up at night? Absolutely not. Do I worry what MaStErBlAsTeRXX19247 thinks of my latest video after he calls us a bunch of “loser noobs who don’t kno anything about gaming?” Hell no. And when him and his troll buddies find you, and rest assured they will, you ignore them too. Or you can kill them and burn their bodies so they don’t regenerate as the Dungeons and Dragons rulebook suggests so you won’t have to fight them over again. But, you know, that’s just a thought.

#nerdsunite

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