Well … shit.
After a year and some changes, and I’ve never seen the beautiful faces of my colleagues in the Meatspace, I have to say goodbye to you too.
There was a time when I thought this would be my only chance. I had convinced myself that I was so poor in skills and talent that Kotaku would be the only place i would ever work and have someone peel me off the walls to get me to leave. When Stephen Totilo left I thought no one would ever risk me like he did, and I should do my best to make sure no one has a reason to let me go.
But by working here with my ridiculously talented colleagues and editors, I’ve grown so much, developed so far beyond that scared
For all my grief about leaving beloved friends, I am not sad. Today I gave a great gift, a sign that says, “It’s okay. You can leave.”
Back in November I wrote a blog about holes. I enjoyed writing this blog. I made the mission statement myself and was satisfied with this creativity. But for a fairly innocuous, tongue-in-cheek blog about trypophobia and why the Xbox Series X might not be my console of choice, I was experiencing the worst harassment I’ve seen in all of my years as a Black woman on the internet. For a week people emailed me with trypo trigger images for no other reason than being cruel.
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I survived this time. I can look back on that moment in amusement and laugh at the fact that I made some of you so angry that you took the time to send me so many damn emails.
Today thanks to the benevolence of Final Fantasy XIV Director Naoki Yoshida I was able to revive the spirit of this blog, write another about holes.
Another point of contention for my haters is when I write about black people who do things in video games. A few weeks ago I wrote a blog about Linda Guillory, a black woman from Texas who earned two Guinness World Records for her collection of vintage handheld slot machines.
The headline read: “Black woman breaks two world records for her huge vintage gaming collection“And once again people blew up something that should have been so benign.
After this blog I got in touch with Ms. Guillory and listened to her tell me her story, how she put together such a beautiful collection. Today on my last day this story is live.
I like things to be symmetrical. I like bookends. I was able to end my last day at Kotaku to write about the things that represent my time here. My favorite work was over black in the game. My favorite game that I discovered while working here is final fantasy XIV. What I didn’t like the least was this Holes blog. Today I miraculously found a way to write about all of these things, to close my chapter here, and to give my heart the punctuation it needs to move on.
I will miss you (some) Take courage that I’ll still be in game journalism, still the main thing is to be horny and write about black to do Black things in video games Black-Ily. Thank you for what you taught me, thank you for what you shared. I won’t say goodbye until later.
If I could sum up my time Kotaku in a single quotation mark it would be one of the overslept forever Paper Mario: The Origami King.
“This is what every bob ombre hopes for – a chance to change something for the better. To make an impact. “
I really hope I have it.
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