Anonymous asked: Why do you talk about influencers as if you aren't one? The dumb name aside, seems like what you guys do these has way more in common with video game youtubers than stuff like IGN, Gamespot, Kotaku etc.

If you can’t take one look at the word “influencer” and hear the way businesses use it and not understand why one might want to poke fun at it then I don’t know what to tell you.

Being influential is one thing. I’ve been doing this for a pretty long time and have heard plenty of people say that they’re influenced by the work that we do. I take that influence seriously and try to do right by those people. That’s something that probably hearkens back to the way more traditional press outlets did things, even though we kinda straddle the line between traditional press and entertainment.

It also means that I’m not out here seeking brand deals and spamming #ad stuff all over social media. Even in the case of podcast ads I refrain from any kind of personal endorsement of those products, and we shoot down any game ads for the podcast. It means I’d rather not have “buy it now” referral links showing up automatically under my Twitch streams, because I don’t want people to think that me playing a game is an automatic endorsement of that game’s quality.

If you can’t see the difference between what I do and that other stuff then I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe we should just cash in and start loving every single thing that comes across our desks? I mean, clearly you don’t value the work we put into running a business that lets us stay away from that stuff, right?

I don’t begrudge anyone that’s out there on that path, but I don’t think it’s for me.