On the 22nd of July, I made a shitpost on the ReiNX release hype thread.
I spent 20 minutes crafting this, formatting it, coming up with jokes and punchlines to continue the running gag of the down-on-his-luck host of the world's worst show that never seems to stay consistent. I'd been seriously irritated by the stupid complaints on this thread, so I channeled this into a massive dramatic post, like I always did. Even as I conceptualized this thing, I knew it was pointless, it was barely on-topic, and my only hope for it was for it to be coherent and funny enough to get any mod who glanced at it to forget to remove it. It wasn't going to happen this time, and I knew it. I ctrl+a'd the whole thing and stared at it.
It had been a lot of work to put this thing together. It wasn't of the quality of my previous posts like it, but I'd gotten a huge amount of positive reception on those, so I paused. I decided: "Fuck it, I'll screenshot it and if it gets deleted, I'll send it to people who'll enjoy it." I hit the post button and took two screenshots and spliced them together, and showed it off to my wife, who was sleeping next to me and not too happy to be woken up for a dumb shitpost. She did laugh, though, so I got a little hopeful that it would survive. This was vain hope, and I knew it.
linuxares had removed it almost immediately, and labelled it simply: "junk". I looked at another tab I had open, stared for a moment at the post that was no more, then closed it. I got into my messages and sent it to a few of my friends, including Reisyukaku, who I'd become a casual acquaintance of in the past week. It was honestly kind of weird to think that, because I was just a random shitposter on the forum, I had no coding experience, I had no qualifications of any kind, but here I was talking to one of the people I'd really admired in the 3DS scene. It was almost a kind of "why is this person even talking to me still...?" kind of thing.
A few minutes after sending that through, I got simultaneous messages from a couple of people including Rei, inviting me to the private ReiSwitched Discord, which I distinctly recall being over the moon about. That morning, I had been contemplating what I even wanted from GBATemp, maybe a moderator position at some point, maybe just to give back to the people who I'd learned to respect. I'd always had a low opinion of myself and my prospects- I was known in the community as a well-meaning jokester at best- and the attempts I'd made to give something back until that point had been mixed successes at best and abject embarrassments at worst. I knew I was capable of doing something worth knowing about, but I simply hadn't found the spark, yet.
How did I become an acquaintance of Rei? I literally just sent a message and had a conversation. During the ktempkin drama, I randomly sent a message to him:
Rei responded. We ended up having a conversation that veered away from the ktempkin stuff. I made a conscious effort not to fangirl, and instead speak to him like a person, even though on the inside every time I got a message back it felt like I was talking to a real celebrity. It had always bothered me that so many people squealed and screamed at Rei's every post, so I figured he might be sick of that kind of response. Every reply was careful read and re-read to ensure I wasn't making a terrible error, that I wouldn't ruin my one chance to have a conversation with the Rei, the Rei that I'd followed on Twitter since he was doing hacks of Pokemon X and Y. It never happened. Rei was actually really cool, and I got a sense why this person had gotten so popular, not through achievement- although that was beyond question- but through force of character.
But it had been a week. Rei had been dropping hints about a private Discord server with trusted people, and people could not stop tripping over themselves to beg for a spot, for a beta build of ReiNX, to be one of the chosen few...! I just wanted to chat with this person who was so awesome, and I didn't join the chorus of voices, at least not initially, I was satisfied to be one of the beta testers. I sure didn't need to be in some fancy-pants chat with all the people I thought were super cool... Right?
When I finally asked, after several days, Rei asked if I even had a Discord, and that he hadn't asked because he didn't know what my Discord was. I made a new Discord for the occasion, since my old one was my personal account from years ago, and added him. I wasn't added to the private Discord, but I almost didn't mind, because Rei was responding way quicker now, and I could hold decent conversations without massive wait times between messages. I got mad with myself at this point, for feeling so entitled, for not just being happy to be talked to by this guy I had admired for such a long time, and eventually, I let it go. I went back to GBATemp and talked to Rei in the background, enjoying the lead-up to the release just like everyone else. Of course, you've already read how that story ended.
Once I joined this hallowed private Discord, I found myself surrounded me with unknowns, people I'd known vaguely from places, heard things about. Were these people suspicious of me, the newcomer with no relevant knowledge to creating custom firmware? Immediately, I began to regret ever wanting to be a part of this, because despite my well-spokenness and ease with jokes, I wasn't great with new people. It's been a week, and everyone has been very friendly to me, but even now I still feel a little on edge, so you can imagine how stressful those first few hours were, trying to fit in somewhere in the social hierarchy, trying to figure out where I stood.
I learned, to my delight, that the greatest currency amongst this ragtag group of people was to be sharp and quick with jokes, the more caustic, the better. Over the following days, I made friends that will last for a very long time, and that Rei, ironically, became one of a crowd of people who were just as admirable, just as clever and exciting. Over the last week, I have made mistakes, I have made strides. Failures and triumphs. I found myself admired by many like I'd admired the people I stood with, and struggled to handle it. The very foundation of my footprint on this site, the shitposting, has been toned back in favor of being more serious, and a credit to my new friends and colleagues. At least, in public, anyway. c:
Most of all, it became apparent that the timing of my invite hadn't been an accident, but simply due to the shitty meme I had very nearly given up on. At the time, I felt the work was wasted and made self-depreciating jokes that I had wasted 20 minutes of my life, but it couldn't be further from the truth. In the end, this shitty meme ended up making my life change completely in a matter of days.
"junk" indeed.
I spent 20 minutes crafting this, formatting it, coming up with jokes and punchlines to continue the running gag of the down-on-his-luck host of the world's worst show that never seems to stay consistent. I'd been seriously irritated by the stupid complaints on this thread, so I channeled this into a massive dramatic post, like I always did. Even as I conceptualized this thing, I knew it was pointless, it was barely on-topic, and my only hope for it was for it to be coherent and funny enough to get any mod who glanced at it to forget to remove it. It wasn't going to happen this time, and I knew it. I ctrl+a'd the whole thing and stared at it.
It had been a lot of work to put this thing together. It wasn't of the quality of my previous posts like it, but I'd gotten a huge amount of positive reception on those, so I paused. I decided: "Fuck it, I'll screenshot it and if it gets deleted, I'll send it to people who'll enjoy it." I hit the post button and took two screenshots and spliced them together, and showed it off to my wife, who was sleeping next to me and not too happy to be woken up for a dumb shitpost. She did laugh, though, so I got a little hopeful that it would survive. This was vain hope, and I knew it.
linuxares had removed it almost immediately, and labelled it simply: "junk". I looked at another tab I had open, stared for a moment at the post that was no more, then closed it. I got into my messages and sent it to a few of my friends, including Reisyukaku, who I'd become a casual acquaintance of in the past week. It was honestly kind of weird to think that, because I was just a random shitposter on the forum, I had no coding experience, I had no qualifications of any kind, but here I was talking to one of the people I'd really admired in the 3DS scene. It was almost a kind of "why is this person even talking to me still...?" kind of thing.
A few minutes after sending that through, I got simultaneous messages from a couple of people including Rei, inviting me to the private ReiSwitched Discord, which I distinctly recall being over the moon about. That morning, I had been contemplating what I even wanted from GBATemp, maybe a moderator position at some point, maybe just to give back to the people who I'd learned to respect. I'd always had a low opinion of myself and my prospects- I was known in the community as a well-meaning jokester at best- and the attempts I'd made to give something back until that point had been mixed successes at best and abject embarrassments at worst. I knew I was capable of doing something worth knowing about, but I simply hadn't found the spark, yet.
How did I become an acquaintance of Rei? I literally just sent a message and had a conversation. During the ktempkin drama, I randomly sent a message to him:
Rei responded. We ended up having a conversation that veered away from the ktempkin stuff. I made a conscious effort not to fangirl, and instead speak to him like a person, even though on the inside every time I got a message back it felt like I was talking to a real celebrity. It had always bothered me that so many people squealed and screamed at Rei's every post, so I figured he might be sick of that kind of response. Every reply was careful read and re-read to ensure I wasn't making a terrible error, that I wouldn't ruin my one chance to have a conversation with the Rei, the Rei that I'd followed on Twitter since he was doing hacks of Pokemon X and Y. It never happened. Rei was actually really cool, and I got a sense why this person had gotten so popular, not through achievement- although that was beyond question- but through force of character.
But it had been a week. Rei had been dropping hints about a private Discord server with trusted people, and people could not stop tripping over themselves to beg for a spot, for a beta build of ReiNX, to be one of the chosen few...! I just wanted to chat with this person who was so awesome, and I didn't join the chorus of voices, at least not initially, I was satisfied to be one of the beta testers. I sure didn't need to be in some fancy-pants chat with all the people I thought were super cool... Right?
When I finally asked, after several days, Rei asked if I even had a Discord, and that he hadn't asked because he didn't know what my Discord was. I made a new Discord for the occasion, since my old one was my personal account from years ago, and added him. I wasn't added to the private Discord, but I almost didn't mind, because Rei was responding way quicker now, and I could hold decent conversations without massive wait times between messages. I got mad with myself at this point, for feeling so entitled, for not just being happy to be talked to by this guy I had admired for such a long time, and eventually, I let it go. I went back to GBATemp and talked to Rei in the background, enjoying the lead-up to the release just like everyone else. Of course, you've already read how that story ended.
Once I joined this hallowed private Discord, I found myself surrounded me with unknowns, people I'd known vaguely from places, heard things about. Were these people suspicious of me, the newcomer with no relevant knowledge to creating custom firmware? Immediately, I began to regret ever wanting to be a part of this, because despite my well-spokenness and ease with jokes, I wasn't great with new people. It's been a week, and everyone has been very friendly to me, but even now I still feel a little on edge, so you can imagine how stressful those first few hours were, trying to fit in somewhere in the social hierarchy, trying to figure out where I stood.
I learned, to my delight, that the greatest currency amongst this ragtag group of people was to be sharp and quick with jokes, the more caustic, the better. Over the following days, I made friends that will last for a very long time, and that Rei, ironically, became one of a crowd of people who were just as admirable, just as clever and exciting. Over the last week, I have made mistakes, I have made strides. Failures and triumphs. I found myself admired by many like I'd admired the people I stood with, and struggled to handle it. The very foundation of my footprint on this site, the shitposting, has been toned back in favor of being more serious, and a credit to my new friends and colleagues. At least, in public, anyway. c:
Most of all, it became apparent that the timing of my invite hadn't been an accident, but simply due to the shitty meme I had very nearly given up on. At the time, I felt the work was wasted and made self-depreciating jokes that I had wasted 20 minutes of my life, but it couldn't be further from the truth. In the end, this shitty meme ended up making my life change completely in a matter of days.
"junk" indeed.
