Blog #9: 2024: The year in review 2024
I suppose I could say the year 2024 has been a great year…but then I’d be lying. It’s been an interesting year. It’s been a year of massive change. It’s also been a year of tragedy and disappointment. This essay will discuss events important to me in 2024.
As well as my hopes for 2025.
The year of change
Calling this a year of change has been an understatement. This year has been wild and out of control. The real change began when Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League got released. The game got lambasted by players and critics alike. Since then, we’ve had games like Forespoken which have come out.
They’ve helped bring to light sketchy ideological "Consulting” firms. Organizations such as Sweet Baby Inc and Black Girl Gamers. I’ve talked about this in a previous essay and my thoughts on it are this. Contrary to what many think scam consulting firms are not anything new. No, they’re as old as human civilization.
What Gamergate 2.0 has done is show mainstream gaming has a serious problem. That problem is a twofold one. Now the first problem is of course the wokeness. This set of insane and bad ideas which have no meaning in what’s supposed to be entertainment. The original Gamergate was about ethics in journalism.
Gamergate 2.0 is about the fact the gaming industry got taken over by a bunch of political ideologues. The kind of people who want to shove their insanity down people’s throats. But as I said that’s only part of the problem.
The other part of the problem is this. How did these activists get into these positions of power to begin with? Well, the answer has come to light this year. Gaming like much of entertainment got taken over by glorified bean counters. People so intent on the bottom line that they’re willing to sacrifice everything. That includes things like ethics and respect for the customers.
All for what they see as the sweet temptation of ESG money. Now I’ve done some research on ESG so I can explain it some. ESG is short for Environmental Social Governance. It’s a politically based business model. What it includes are things such as Diversity Equity and Inclusion or DEI for short.
The premise of the model is to attract far-left investors to give money to said business. In the case of gaming, it sacrifices some important aspects. Things such as gameplay, good stories, and characters. Which is why ESG is proving to more and more be such a sketchy business model.
I admit I'm not a business or economics major. But I do have old-fashioned common sense. I know trying to lecture customers and look down on them is a great way to drive them away. If we started doing that at the grocery store, I work for we’d drive away all our customers in a hurry. And that’s what these Triple A gaming companies are doing by pushing this political stuff.
Now who a person votes for or what party they belong to shouldn’t matter when it comes to gaming. Nor should race, gender, or even romantic preference. All that matters is good characters, storytelling, and gameplay. This unholy alliance of activists and bean counters can’t see that. Hence why so many games this year have failed.
In an ironic twist a game like Black Myth Wukong rejected the corporatized nonsense. And thus, it's been making money. Gee I guess there’s something that one can learn from this. Such as it’s not a good idea to shove a corporatized political ideology down people’s throats. I guess all people want is to escape from the world for a while.
A shocking concept I know but there's more to this year of change than that.
At the beginning of the year candidate Donald Trump got locked in some nasty legal battles. The kind located in the states of Georgia and New York. Many in the media were saying this was it, this would be the end of Donald Trump once and for all. Oh, how the times have changed! As it turned up the American people weren’t buying into what was going on.
Evidence came out Fanny Willis and her beau were having talks with the Biden White House. And in New York it became clear Latisha James’ goal was to get a hold of Trump’s properties. All for the sake of her own personal gain. And as for Alvin Bragg that case proved to have some shady goings on too. It turned up one of the people helping was a former Biden DOJ member.
Because of which the pieces started falling into [place. Also, there was the effort by the DOJ to use January 6th to remove Trump from the election altogether. Some local activists even tried to remove him from the ballot in several states.
Yet, it became clear what was going on was blatant lawfare. A deliberate attempt by Biden administration proxies to get Trump out of the way. And for a while it looked like their plans would succeed.
But things turned around when everything about Fanni Wilis and her beau came out. Latisha James’ verdict got appealed. And the DOJ case started falling apart due to sketchy evidence. As for the activists they had their day in the Supreme Court. Yet the case was so bad even the most liberal-minded Justice voted against their efforts. Oof that's embarrassing to say the least!
As for the attempt to remove Trump from the ballot in several states, well that went before the supreme court…and fell apart right there. It also became clear the sins of the Biden administration were finally coming back to haunt them. Trump managed to win the Republican nomination despite all the lawfare.
What happened next was pure karma. In his first debate with Joe Biden, Trump destroyed him plain and simple! Because of which the Democrat donors panicked. They chose to replace Joe Biden with Kamala Harris. This move in the long run proved a total disaster.
Left leaning ShoeonHead pointed a fun fact out later. This was the same Kamala Harris that got trounced by Tulsi Gabbard in the last Democrat primary. Yet the donors chose to install Kamala to protect their control. Another case of this is not going to end well! And boy oh boy did that prove prophetic!
By the end of the campaign Harris' 1 billion war chest had turned into $25,000 worth of debt. Ouch, that’s awkward! It also showed Democratic leadership's lack of fiscal good sense.
Yet mainstream media continued to peddle nonsense. Things such as comparing Trump to Hitler and calling him a dictator. As a result, two deranged people tried to kill the president elect. Yet Trump managed to survive both attempts. Something many including me consider God intervening.
It became clear Americans weren't buying the nonsense corporate media pushed.
Also, over the course of the year there’s been the rise of alternative media. Places like Substack are becoming more prominent. Independent journalists not tied to any corporation spoke their minds with no issue. Podcasts became much more prominent on the internet. Adin Ross, Logan Paul, Timcast IRL, and the Joe Rogan Experience played a big role in this election.
It’s amazing how sitting down with someone for a few hours and talking can do wonders.
Donald Trump and VP J.D. Vance they did that. Kamala Harris did not, and it cost her the election. So, despite all the setbacks and dirty tricks Trump still won the election. He won the Electoral college, the popular vote, and his party won both chambers of Congress. Okay yeah that's a mandate if ever there was one!
It leads to a lot of hope for the future. And the cabinet Trump is putting together looks like it’s going to give D.C. the long overdue shake-up it needs. And make no mistake Washington D.C. and the federal government need a shakeup. This out-of-control spending must get brought under control.
Many taxpayers in this country would like to know where their money is going to and what it's getting used for. Hence why many are looking forward to what DOGE has in store.
A year of tragedy
This is going to be the hardest part of writing this essay. Because now it’s time to focus on stuff in my own life. On a personal note, this year has been one of the hardest in recent memory for me. In May of this year my biological father died from injuries he suffered in a car crash in Arizona. Those who’ve read my article Learning from the Past on Minds know about what’s going on.
For those who don’t here’s a quick summary. The relationship between my biological father and I was a complicated one. Long story short I got subjected to verbal abuse from him. Though it wasn’t all his fault as he took verbal abuse from my paternal grandmother. The problem was in his efforts to escape her he became something as bad as her.
And I ended up paying the price. Yet while I can’t forget what he did I can forgive since I understand what he went through. It’s part of making peace with one’s past.
The second thing that happened is in late fall of this year my aunt, my mother’s younger sister, had to get committed. We had to put her in a foster care facility for the elderly. Years of alcohol abuse took a toll on both her body and mind. This is the third time the long-term effects of old demon alcohol have reared their ugly head in my life.
The first time was when it destroyed my paternal grandmother. The second time was with one of my stepbrothers. Alcohol abuse destroyed his liver and him! And this makes the third time. Things like this are a hard reminder of why my own decision to live a clean life was the right one.
And I intend to continue to live that clean life. The consequences of doing otherwise would be a disaster. The most alcoholic beverage I’ve had in the last few years has been some sake. And any good connoisseur of fine sake will tell you this. As a rule, most good sake doesn’t have much alcohol in it to begin with.
These two incidents have left me very much on edge. Because it brings up issues of mortality for my older relatives. Now some would say it’s pathetic to be afraid of losing them or even care about them. Those kinds of people don’t understand what it means to care about family members.
While my stepfather, Mom, and I have bumped heads the fact remains I respect and care about them. And losing them scares the living daylights out of me. While I have family and friends, and even a girlfriend losing family is something that scares me to no end. Often it scares me so bad it’s brought me to tears.
Family is one of the things that feeds the soul and not having family can hurt a lot. Which is one of the reasons I fear for the future. Yet, I also recognize I must continue this journey to greatness I am on. Because this is one of those things that gives me drive to go on in this life.
A year of disappointment
This year has been fraught with a fair share of disappointment. A lot of it has been due to events in my own life and troubles with some of my friends. As someone who has Asperger’s I can’t help but be sensitive to what goes on. While I have gotten the movie reviews up, I’d wanted to it’s been later than I’d expected. Even my review of Kumoricon went up later than expected.
And I won’t be able to put up my Day 3 Kumoricon pictures because they’re so blurry.
In December of this year, I attempted what I called “The 12 tales of Christmas challenge”. The problem was due to me having so much stuff on my plate at the time I couldn’t get on it until it was too late. I put up the stories but only by New Year's Eve Day, which is veery late! So, I’ll have to repost them on Minds and post them everywhere else next December.
This year has been a disappointment because it seems no matter how hard I try I can never get any patrons. To be fair I do have readers, and I appreciate them. and I have gotten a tip for my review of Idiocracy.
I appreciate that but it seems that no matter what I do it never seems to be enough. So, my decision for next year will be to concentrate on one project at a time and get done as fast as I can. Because next year I’m hoping to finish up the WIllowsbrook Chronicles and do some other stuff.
I thought the key to success would be to do more, but I'm thinking the real key to success is to take what I have and do better. So, I’ll try that for a while and see what happens.
My hopes for 2025
As stated, my hopes are to finish up my serial the WIllowsbrook Chronicles. That serial has been on delay for some time. And I’ve no desire to pull a George R.R. Martin. I want to finish this so I can move on to other things. I also have plans for three movie reviews.
Those reviews are Road to perdition, Spaceballs, and Cowboys vs. Aliens. I also plan to have a way to put out chapters of my sci-fi serial Clanless on a more reliable basis. I also have plans for taking my con reviews to the next level. What that is…well I’ll not say as I don’t want to jinx it. But if all goes well it will be great.
In closing this is my deepest hope. My one hope and prayer to God is for 2025 to turn out to be a better, happier, healthier, and more prosperous year. For myself, my family, and friends this is what I want. There’s been enough pain and suffering for those around me. We’re all way overdue for some good times and laughter.
And I hope 2025 and the years following bring those in good measure.
Thanks for reading this commentary, see you in the new year.
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