bite sized: take a breather

Hey guys, it's Nate and it's time for another bite size. So I'm gonna try and keep this one kind of short again. But we all know my proclivities and my inability to be good at brevity. In fact, the only thing I'm good at in regards to brevity is probably being good at being bad at it. But that's neither here nor there. I just wanted to take a minute here. You know, we're, we're sort of, we're a little ways out from the Switch 2 and the release of the Switch 2 and I need to sit down with Josh and we want to schedule something. We have some friends that we want to have on to talk about that and just sort of talk about our thoughts a few weeks out from the, the launch and what we're, you know, our thoughts on it. Not immediately because I think everybody's kind of done that, but a little ways out from it. So I got to get that sort of lined up and on the docket. I've got to get some other things I actually need to get. We've got to do the recap for the what is your question segment actually. And I'm thinking about doing a little bit of a rebrand on that instead of just doing that. I also thought is like maybe what is your question or comment? And sort of throwing in like best one liner kind of thing. Know that I noticed. Anyways, just a thought. Hey, if you hear this and you have thoughts in regards to that, feel free to let me know. You know, let Josh know. Let, let Josh and I know and the link tree and all that. But that being said, so what I really, the, the, the, the focal point of this bite size is really, I wanted to address something and maybe I'm just a little more aware of it because I haven't been. I'm not terribly online anymore and most of the time I just, I kind of lurk in the, the breakdowns discord server or TRG's discord server or you know, so I'll just check my Facebook and see if any of my friends have written on my wall. And most of what I use Twitter for actually now is just looking at different conversations about Marvel Snap. But occasionally I get into online spaces, I check out threads or I go into Instagram or even on Twitter when I'm not scraping for ideas for Snap. And I do a little bit of doom scrolling every once in a while, or maybe doom scrolling is the wrong term, but I kind of roll through the feed and see what's going on there. And I've just noticed an upt, and I was actually pretty aware of this leading up to the launch of the Switch 2. That's kind of what kicked this off. But it's this trend to just be negative. There's a trend online where I think that we've just been a lot more. We're a lot more inclined to just kind of be cynical or pessimistic or even just downright like, sort of, like, nasty. Like, you know, not even just, like, I don't like this thing or I'm suspicious of this thing, but, like, oh, no. Like, I act like I hate this thing and I'm going to sort of, like, spew out tons of venom and the. I have a couple thoughts on that. I'm not sure that it's healthy. You know, first off, it is kind of. I do think that you engage in sort of a feedback, a behavioral feedback loop. And I think actually social media does encourage that, where the sort of the most outrageous and the most negative and controversial things sort of do seem to garner the most attention. And as such, like, we sort of, you know, and again, we. We feel reinforced in sort of whatever. And whether it's like somebody's kind of attacking our position or whatever, or. So there's a thing there. But I also just think that it's not good for, you know, dare I say it, the soul to be. To be so negatively oriented, to be so sort of focused and driven towards hanging out in sort of like, nasty headspaces, to sort of look at everything that's wrong and focus on that to the exclusion of actually looking at what's good. I'm pretty sure it's Philippians 4. 8, or maybe it's 4:18, but it says, you know, it's a passage where it says, you know, look towards, you know, if something is worthwhile, if it's excellent, if it's good, if it's, you know. Actually, you know what? I'm just going to look it up while we're here. Like, you know, and you guys are probably, oh, this is amazing radio slash YouTube. And I'm like, yeah, well, I'm. I'm. I'm just kind of riffing here. This is free form. And so. Oh, it. It's Philippians 4. 8. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just. Whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Okay, now that. That's a passage. So it's, it's. Honestly, it's, it's probably telling, you know, it's. I think there's a way that you could say it's, it's directly sort of challenging the believer to look towards the good things that God has done on their behalf, Salvation, the grace that he's poured out on us. But I think as a general rule it is good for people to look for beauty. It is good for them to look for good things and to dwell on those things and meditate on those things. It's not to say that we ignore the negativity. It's not to say that we just sort of pretend wickedness or evil are, you know what, like that, that these, those things don't exist. Right. I don't think we're, I don't think you have to embrace this sort of, this. You don't have to be blind to those things. You don't have to pretend they don't exist, but rather you're, you're meant to. And I think people in general are meant to look for the good, look for the good things and to look for, you know, and to, to sort of focus on, on things that encourage and foster joy and hope, you know, peace, patience, kindness. You know, then I'm talking about the, the fruit of the spirit there. But like we are supposed to really meditate on and dwell on. And I don't think that social media helps us. That. And I, and again, like one of the, the ways I've seen is just even some of the conversations just games and developers and you know, and, and, and hardware and whatever. There's, there's always something and it's, it's uniquely sort of observable in gaming space. Because if I'm being honest, I think a lot of the, the gaming enthusiast space is pretty spoiled and kind of entitled. You know, I don't think there's any one culprit to blame. I think it's just sort of, there's a lot of different factors that work into that. But between things like subscription services like Game Pass and PlayStation Extra slash Premium just, you know, the fact that the, the, the price in gaming has remained fairly like low for quite some time. I think. Yeah. And just like I think in the west we live in a culture of abundance and so we're just. There are. We take as for granted and we look at them and sort of, we just assume that we have a right to those things where, you know, the fact is gaming is a luxury, entertainment is a luxury. And as Such, you know, it's not necessary. And I think that we've just sort of gotten messed up and I've talked about the, you know, we've gotten our priorities messed up. And to be fair, this is something that I kind of like drag this out and I beat on the drum a little bit. But like I said, I saw some of this, this when the switch is coming out, like the, just the, the outright hostility to the pricing of the, the unit itself to just sort of people just like YouTubers, just YouTubers making money off of just saying, well, you know, Nintendo's gonna screw you some, some way. You know, it's like, it's not, it's not. Hey. And like, listen, I think there is room for objective commentary that says, like, hey, here's the pros and the cons, this might not be for you. And, and sort of help you to make up your mind there. I also think that that's not sexy and that doesn't sell. And I. So there's this inclination to sort of. And it's YouTube. So, you know, they're. People are trying to game the algorithm and it's social media, so they're, they're trying to like, they're trying to sort of come up with these. Not clickbaity, but these, these tweets or these posts or these videos with titles that are going to get your attention. They aren't. And they aren't really going to like, help you think. It's just going to be confirmation bias. Right? So it's like if you. And that's what the algorithm does. The algorithm sort of says like, hey, this person, you know, likes this thing. They react in this way to these things. And sometimes it's going to feed you more to get like, worked up over, because that's what you engage with. Or it's going to just feed you a lot of what you've already. What you want to hear. And, and I don't think that that's really healthy. And I think that again, I think that the predominant sort of cycle, it sort of feeds you that the whole trend of all of this is feeding into negativity. You know, And I think there are reasons to be cautious and reasons to be thoughtful and reserved. Right. But I think, I guess what I'm getting at is this the reflex to just kind of almost be hostile to something because you don't like it, rather than sort of withholding judgment. I think that's unhealthy, I think, you know, and I'm not going to get too into the weeds on this. But I, I kind of look at Bungie and their current dilemma and the way that people are talking about Marathon, you know, and from what I've heard, like the people played it said there's a really good game underneath. There's, maybe it's not as fleshed out as it needs to be, but the gameplay is really good. Maybe it's a little half baked or undercooked, but like, you know, it's, it's Bungie. They make quality, really good feeling shooters and so, but there's this hostility and almost this desire for, for this to fail. You know, there's sort of a hostility to, you know, Sony's games as a service initiative where people just, they want to pile on. And while I get the disappointment, right, that like Sony under Jim Ryan's tenure, they made a lot of developer decisions that I think weren't great. Right. But that was also, you know, in some ways at the same time there was a lot of, like the, the PS5, you know, sold really, really well under pretty massive constraints. There was supply constraints, there was just, and then just, you know, we all like, we all remember when the PS5 was not on the shelves when you know, it's like they would be in stores and they'd be gone and scout, you know, the scalpers would just run rampant. So there, there, there is good there to be sort of weighed against. And granted I full disclosure, I'm not a huge fan of a lot of the creative direction Sony Studios took, but I also think there's an abundance of games to play right now in the market. Like, like if you are kind of sitting in the space and you're saying there's nothing to play, open your eyes. Like maybe, you know, sort of there is more than ever to play. And I feel like as someone who I'm not even in like games creation content full time and I've heard some of those people say like there's just too much. I'm, I'm over here as someone who sort of like games as one of my primary means of recreation and I'm saying the same thing. It just feels like they could, they could stop making video games tomorrow and I would have more than enough to play probably for the rest of my life. And that's, that's a kind of a great problem to have. I think that also sort of breeds a little bit of contempt, a little bit of entitlement. But like I said, it's not just one thing. It's this general trend to sort of Just if you don't like something, it's not to just sort of say, hey, the, the idea of the, it's reasonable discourse is not the, the reflex here. And it, I think this goes across the board. I, I, I mean I see it in sort of the sociopolitical commentary all over the place. You know, it's just, it's really hard to talk to people anymore and disagree civilly. And what's really weird is that in gaming, which is again, it's a pretty non essential thing like that, that divide is there just as much. I'm not gonna name names, but there's a guy that I follow in social media spaces, he's part of a group that I used to listen to a good bit of their content and he made just some really derogatory marks in regards to Trump supporters recently that again, just like, this isn't helpful, like, and it's, it's not like, I'm not trying to tell anybody how to, to live their life, but I think at the, the end of the day, like, I'm just, I'm, I'm really primarily concerned that this negative orientation is doing a lot of harm. I think, you know, I look at that passage where we are told to look towards beauty, to look towards excellence, to, to think about the things that are worthwhile and commendable, right? And we're sort of fixating on these things that we don't like or that are wicked or that are wrong. And that becomes like, that becomes, we zero in on that and we sort of like, I think that warps us. I think like too much time looking at those things and thinking on those things and allowing those things to, they just, it's not good for our, again, you know, dare I say it, souls that you are not meant to sort of dwell on unpleasant things. Like you, you should be able to go through unpleasant things, you know, through, you know, being a mature, you know, Christian or just a mature adult. Like, you know, hardship is part of life. But you know, I, I guess it's, it's just kind of one of those things that I was just thinking about and I've, I just wanted to encourage everybody out there to like, instead of re, reflexively sort of going to like the, the negative route and like, yeah, I have to like delete tweets all the time. I don't tweet most of the time because sometimes I don't have anything nice to say. You know, I used to call it the Thumper rule, you know, from Thumper, from Bambi, if you don't have anything, you know, Mama said, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. And I think that just the. The art of being able to dialogue with people and disagree with them civilly, like, we need to reclaim that. And I think some of that starts by just giving people and organizations the benefit of the doubt. Now, I'm not saying that you just have to, like, drink whatever Kool Aid they're throwing out there. Like, don't fall prey to hype, right? Be wise. At the same time, be optimistic. And I think, like, you know, be hopeful. Be somebody who wants companies to succeed, to do well, to make good games, to have good hardware, to be profitable, dare I say it, you know, because if they're profitable, that means they're going to make more stuff for you to buy and for, you know, more games, more hardware for you to buy and hopefully enjoy. And if you're not happy with what sort of the thing is, like, hey, with the state of. Of. Of things, then speak your piece, but also learn to be content with what you have, right? And I think, I guess what I'm kind of saying here is in video game space, like, and I want to challenge the listeners and the viewers of the Beat of the Breakdown to maybe sort of embrace a radical charity or optimism and sort of, when you are active in online spaces, be kind, be positive. Like, is it going to get the interaction? No. But I think it might do you good, and I think it might do the people that you're interacting with good. I'm trying to do that myself. Like, I'm trying. I'm not awesome at it, but I'm trying to. When, when I engage with these things, I am trying to put out, I'm trying to, you know, I'm gonna sort of like, get in, but I'm trying to put out a little bit of positivity. I'm trying to be kind and I'm trying to sort of foster some of that. Anyways, guys, like I said, I didn't. I just, you know, I. I had. This has kind of been bouncing around in my head for a while. And, you know, again, some of the commentary surrounding the launch of the Switch 2 and some of the pricing, you know, like, all of that. And again, just the general tone and tenor of what's going on in social media, I just want to encourage people to step back and just take a breath. Like, really just take a beat and instead of being harsh or unkind, find a way to be encouraging and I mean, now sometimes the best encouragement you can offer somebody is like, hey, don't do that thing. That's a bad idea. But again, I think when we give vent to our frustration, all it does is really. It just stirs up strife and it just. It sort of. It never really de. Escalates and everything just kind of gets worse and nastier and a little more heated and. Yeah, I just wanted to, you know, share that with you guys. Like, that's. That's something that I'm trying to do is just. I. I want to be. I want to be. I want my presence in online spaces and in real life to be salt and light. I don't want it to be salty. I mean, you know, I mean, I guess being salty is good, like with French fries and stuff like that, but, you know, too much salt, like, ruins a dish. And, you know, there is a point to which, like, you know, maybe you can dim the lights a little bit. We don't. We don't need to be nasty in the way that we do these things. And in fact, I think we're sort of. We are called to be a little more just charitable. I think we're called to be a little more gracious. And so I would just, you know, I'm. I'm. This is what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to just. When I do post stuff on social media, which isn't often, I want it to be something good. Like, I used to use this hashtag. Hashtag good things, and I want to just. And part of that was there. It's like, I want to say, this is something good. This is something to sort of. To delight in and rejoice in and. Yeah, so that's it, guys. Just. I sort of wanted to offer a word of encouragement to just like, maybe look away from all of the negativity and again, not to. Don't pretend like these things don't bother you or that they don't frustrate you, but handle that in a way that is marked by graciousness, that's marked by charity. I'm sure. And you know what? I'm sure that most of you are probably doing that anyways, but I don't really. Like I said, I didn't really have a ton. I went like 20 minutes on this. Just be cool. Like, be kind to people. And in video games, you know, in. In talking about video games and stuff, like. And it's okay for maybe you not to have an opinion. It's okay to maybe not say the thing that you really want to say, especially if all it's going to do is just stir things up, you know, be kind. That being said, you know, until next time, guys, be good, do the things, and I'll catch you later.