Thanks for being my Neighbor, DToid

With all this so-called drama over the past few days, it has made me come to realize a few things. First, it's made me realize that this is most likely my last blog written on here. Second, it's made me realize a few things about me and site that I haven't put that much thought into before.

Now it's taken me a bit to write all of this, so I'm sorry if it's redundant by the time I post this, but I feel I need to get this out. I also tend to get lost in my thoughts and get more wordy that I need to be, so I've turned to Mr. Rogers, a man I admire greatly, to help get my true feelings through.



I suppose I started off as a bit of a troll. I would start drama just to entertain myself. But Ron and others somehow saw through that bad aspects of me and embraced the good aspects of me. Through that, I learned that what I was doing was ultimately not fulfilling in the end and that these people around me were in fruitful relationships while I was slowing alienating myself for a few minutes of shallow entertainment. And simply because my good qualities were embraced, I began to care about the site and the people on it. This of course led to very strong relationships getting formed and led to what I consider to be one of the greatest times in my life.

But I often wonder what my life would be like if DToiders wouldn't have pointed out my wrongs and embraced the good aspects of me. If I was simply dismissed as a "dumb 4channer" and forgotten about as I honestly believe that DToiders made me a better person not just on the site, but in life as well. And I fear that many others are missing out on the opportunities and friendships I gained simply because they come to the site to start drama for cheap laughs. In the end, I think you'll find they can be good people if you give them the time of day.



I don't know what Ron said or did to make life so difficult for the editors of the site to make his complete removal from the site seem necessary and I certainly wont pretend like I do. But when you removed him, you didn't just remove the memories of someone who hurt you, you removed the memories of a person who did a lot of good for and brought a lot of joy to the community. I go back at all of the "epic" posts we had, the times of real community togetherness and fun, and I don't see Ron. I see people talking to him, but I don't see him. And I sincerely mourn the loss of that.

It reminds me of when I was a kid and would often play in the attic with my toys. I don't know why I liked the attic so much, I supposed I liked the solitude or perhaps liked that I could make my Superman figure "fly" by throwing him across the room and not get yelled at for almost breaking something. But besides just my toys, the attic was where my mom stored everything she could hold on to. Scrapbooks, photos, old clothes, you name it. One day, I started building my Superman figure his own Fortress of Solitude out of Legos and stacked books that were laying around. But being young and naive, I failed to realize that one of those stacked books used to build Superman's fortress was a scrapbook made of pictures of my deceased dad. And being made of Legos and stacked books, is was quite unstable, and the house fell over and my mom's scrapbook was left laying on the ground.

Being the messy kid I was, the scrapbook stayed there for days. Getting walked on, Kool-Aid getting spilled on it, getting knocked around the place while I was running with a blanket taped around my neck. Eventually, it was practically destroyed. The photos were bent, the pages were stained. And when my mom finally saw what happened to her book, she was devastated. She completely broke down and to this day I have never seen her in the state she was in when she found out what I did to her book.

Now my dad was no hero when he was alive. He broke my mom's heart and died because, well, he did something very, very stupid. But her memories of him were important. And as I came to realize as I grew older, even though he hurt her and she resented him for it at times, she still cared about him and cherished her memories of him. Because even though he was gone - and perhaps her life was actually better without him - my dad defined a large part of her and her life.

She of course forgave me. I was a young and had a lot of learning to do. But if there is one thing in my life that I could do over it would be taking that book and putting it in a safe place. But I know I can't take it back, so I'll just have to take that experience as a difficult but important life lesson.



By starting off as a community based website, you brought some wonderful people together. But I also hope you understand that you gave yourself a responsibility to maintain those important connections between them. I've heard some editors claim that it's about the gaming news first, then the community. But I'm afraid they are wrong. Period. And that is the one thing in this post I will not budge on. I assure you that these hundreds of people didn't support you because you told them CliffyB made a new game with big guns or because you reported on what different kind of donuts Gabe Newell likes for breakfast, brunch, lunch and diner.

If you haven't realized it by now, your gaming website has made a large impact on my life. Perhaps more of an impact that anyone will ever realize. I've made some very strong relationships. And while some of those relationships ended and hurt in the end, I would never forget them because they made me a stronger person because of it.

So please think about that. I want you to be successful. I want you to become the leading name in gaming news. But please do not forget about the people you helped bring together.



This isn't so much a "goodbye" as it is a "thank you and I'll see you around" post. I have met so many amazing human beings through DToid and I will always love DToid because of it. But I just don't feel like I mesh with direction DToid is going and that's nobodies fault. I will continue to keep in contact with those friends like nothing has changed, but I will talk to them as a friend, not a DToider.

The last thing I wanted to do is get overly emotional, but I guess I kind of did. So I suppose it is best that I let my good friend have the last word.