The latest Bluesky update allows streamers to display their "Live Now" status directly here. The feature makes it easier to connect to social audiences across platforms: You can click a profile's "Live" status and be directed straight to their Twitch stream I hope this spreads more broadly

used to be like "ha ha how could people fall for snake oil" and now it's like "oh everyone falls for every kind of snake oil possible all the time including billionaires and politicians, just guzzling up snake oil at a horrifically alarming rate and vomiting out onto the rest of us" 🫠🙃

Had a fun time with @jordanwminor.bsky.social and others across @cnet.com, @pcmag.com, and @mashable.com talking about our favorite games of the year. I especially appreciate that this list isn't ranked

This is exactly the media writing I love, offering insight on the writer's relationship with the art instead of condescending and faux-objective analysis on why a story is "good" or "bad"

I love this, and had a ton of fun playing Lost Records "This indie studio is one of the best at demonstrating how to be soft in the hard world"

I'm doing this tonight at 7pm! Partly because I'm considering writing a follow up to Piccolo Is Black in 2026 and would be happy for the structure and accountability, partly just to hang with @nicolechung.bsky.social because she's good people Come join, it's free!

god YES. Obviously legitimate criticism is an art and so important, but too much of the internet is rage-for-pay and I hate it. (also Jordan I am playing Baldur's Gate 3 finally and I am OBSESSED)

Had a meeting with @jordanwminor.bsky.social and was proud of my name-twin

Post-game sadness in full effect

A lot of travel kept me away from this, but I can finally say it: Went Platinum in Hokkaido

Marathon day is truly the best of NYC. If you’re not running, you’re cheering

Gaming is so much fun if you ignore people on YouTube

“There’s been a second divorce.”

Is there a way to avoid retreading the “video games as art” discourse while acknowledging how uniquely internet-brained we are when critiquing them? So much of how we talk about games are in reaction to gaming culture—reactions that would sound ridiculous applied to, say, a painting, book, or movie

I have a defining childhood memory of my dad plunging the drain off a flooded basement, and when I asked him why he doesn’t stop he just said, “perseverance.” I still remember the moment the drain cleared May my daughter remember the Ghost of Yotei boss fight she watched me play until midnight

Gave this a listen, and I hope you do too. I could go on forever about how much I disagree with what they say, but not only is it an interesting topic, it comes from a place of wanting to make culture writing sharper, braver, and more effective at helping us understand and value art

Taking off, unsure of wifi. Either way, dinner soon to discuss in person please, @carolynmichelle.bsky.social and @jakesteinberg.substack.com! Happy to prove that a writer who avoids binary judgement of art isn’t craven by disagreeing to your faces and hearing your thoughts!

I don’t make often disagree with @carolynmichelle.bsky.social but if there’s wifi on this flight I might have the time for this one. For now, suffice to say that this take ain’t it (for me 😂)

I only want to talk about one thing right now #GhostofYotei

Related note... constant layoffs lead to awful employees. Everyone knows someone (or *is* someone) whose productivity was decimated for weeks, months, or longer after surviving layoffs. Hard to emotionally recover from it

It has been over a year since I was laid off and I have given career doomsday prep advice by request to at least a dozen still employed people.

I would love HR or payroll or tech support that wasn't me 🥺 Talking to some friends who have never been self-employed sometimes frustrates me because they seem to think that anyone who's not a "worker" is some fat cat CEO "capitalist." It's like: my dude, I would just like paid sick leave.

“do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” man i did not know when i fell in love with Creative Work that i would also have to take in their stepchildren, Social Media and Accounting, those little shits should be in boarding school

Sorta my dilemma as well, that I’ve written out and rewritten and not published but maybe should publish. I am grateful for an independent platform that I can still publish on. That being said, it was not my first choice—I dreamt of a stable newsroom job with good editors and a team to belong to

I cover one of the biggest stories in the country so when I got laid off in November 2023, I naively thought I'd land a full-time job. That quickly turned into "hm ok I can cobble together writing for a bunch of places" to "if I want to devote myself to this beat, I need people to pay me directly"

Is “thriving” the right word though? They more seem to be proliferating in step with the scale of industry layoffs. The more sunk ships, the more lifeboats in the water

Twice a year I text @lebassett.bsky.social with some version of "is any of this viable?"

This is my favorite thing I've read in the past week. We typically discuss the job market as it relates to those searching to land a job. But even those *with* jobs feel unsettled and disillusioned, and are planning a raft for when our ship sinks

Hi did you move your newsletter away from substack? drop it in the replies so people can find you and subscribe! I am big on rewarding good choices

The wrong way was seeing it at all lmao

In 2022, I wrote so much about TV/movies/games/comics that I burnt out. The pace and workload of a book, newsletter, and job sucked the fun out of it, and needing a unique and insightful take on everything became a chore. So I took a break 3 years later, I think I'm ready to come back

Everyone is caught up in the performance jakesteinberg.substack.com/p/a-normal-n...

New mural, bringing the total to three. I love my apartment, I love my friends, I love art made by humans

I’m always startled when I see how many push notifications people get. Easily my biggest productivity “hack” is to ban push notifications from everything except texts and maybe 1-2 apps (I allow it for Twitch streams) Choose when to give apps your attention, don’t help companies choose for you

At this point anyone still using X as a primary social network should just be shunned. You either a Nazi or not a serious person.

Please wish me luck

Latest video from @carolynmichelle.bsky.social covers Microsoft layoffs and her feelings about Death Stranding’s Sam and The Witcher’s Geralt, but most importantly, how much she hated The Super Mario Bros. Movie and liked F1: The Movie, which are both the right opinions youtu.be/zoxz-B7TfOQ

Last night I watched Higher Learning for its 30-year anniversary, and storytelling from the 90s is so different in some really interesting ways Also Michael Rapaport was there and I still remember him being a jerk and a woman telling him “you look like you wake up and die every day”

My cartoon in this weeks @newyorker.com

I’m one away from having seen every movie at my theater and three movies away from reaching their top rewards status halfway through the year

F1 is so much fun.

I just listened to @carolynmichelle.bsky.social talk about video games for one hour fifteen minutes and three seconds, and I’d do it again

Oh, this looks FUN. youtu.be/AzCAwdp1uIQ?...

Favor request! My biggest loss leaving Twitter is all the relationships I built there. As we rebuild here, I'd love an old-Twitter assist: I have a pitch for an animated sci-fi drama (think Severance, but animated adventure) and need a TV agent. Put me in touch if you know anyone?

Favor request! My biggest loss leaving Twitter is all the relationships I built there. As we rebuild here, I'd love an old-Twitter assist: I have a pitch for an animated sci-fi drama (think Severance, but animated adventure) and need a TV agent. Put me in touch if you know anyone?

Biggest commitment to a 3 second joke I've ever seen

My favorite but not-real category of skeets is people who left the city for the country and talk about the unexpected ways it changed their lives for the better

Turns out it links back to my profile on @jordanmcalhoun.com's Piccolo Is Black Memoir. The video is 47 minutes long. Godspeed. kotaku.com/piccolo-is-b...

A friend of mine sent me this video saying, "One of ur articles made it into a YouTube video I'm watching lol" and I can only ask how. youtu.be/Dl2vf04UCAM?...

I’m all for folks doing the blackout day! Let’s try every kind of activism! Everything is worth doing! I just don’t think you should give this dude that’s “organizing” it any of your money cause he’s absolutely a grifter.