T w e n t y S i d e d
So, dad would be 51 today. Last year today he said this:
“The running joke is that every year I make a birthday post about how I’m getting old and I’m going to be dead any minute now. I try to find some sort of humorous way to joke about death or aging and then maybe follow it up with a sarcastic remark about Half-Life 3. It’s a funny traditionFunny according to the standards set on this site, anyway. YMMV. but I’m just not feeling it this year. So let’s have a serious conversation about my health. “
Well, he said a lot more than that, but copy-pasting the whole post word-for-word feels like a lot.
Here’s something you’re about to hear from me a lot; grieving for a funny person is hard. It might be why, despite leading the charge for wanting usMy mom, my two brothers and myself. to keep up the site…nothing much has happened so far.Well, nothing from me or my brothers, my mom is absolutely getting shit done Don’t get me wrong, we’ve moved across states, dealt with funeral arrangements, and all those other little things you don’t really consider until someone dies…At the time of writing this, when you Google ‘what happens to your Steam account when you die’ you get hilariously, satirically, wrong information. So this is why my collage profs didn’t want me ‘just Googling it’.
.
We’re busy, but, I’m also half-bedridden, bored, and wanting to make some sort of content. Why can’t I just sit down and get something done? Well, besides the obvious ‘my dad died’ excuse, there is a bigger issue here. He was funny, and I like to think he raised me to be funny too. And grieving for someone funny is hard, especially in public. And I don’t know if any of you noticed this wild idea, but the internet is a pretty public place.
It’s one thing when Aunt Janet sees you cracking up laughing at a funeral, she’s cranky, but whatever. It’s a whole other thing to put it on the internet, forever.
There is a certain finesse to it, when is it time to look solemn? When is it a good time to crack your ‘he liked to write humorous content for his birthday, I hope he’s ok with my post–humorous content’ joke? Get it? Posthumous? (The answer to my rhetorical there is never, FYI. Don’t crack that joke.) Besides, I’m not a columnist like he was. I’m at best the highly-online-nerd he was himself in his twenties. Due to the laws of the universe, he had some years on me, years he spent learning to create content for this audience.
So he dropped the mic, I picked it up and looked around at his group of varied PC gamer communities…Sue me, it feels a little wrong to just lean in while we’re still planning the funeral and go ‘Hey guys…you wanna watch me…livestream The Sims 4?’ Yeah, maybe not.
Is it the time to mention I’m very gay? He never mentioned me much, mostly to protect me from the horrors of the internet. But, uh, I feel like if I’m going to be trying to be making content over here we should probably get that out of the way. So, hi Internet, I’m Shamus Young’s oldest child, Bay, a currently 24-year-old they/them bisexual with two happy life partnersBit novel, I know, but is it any shock that such a off-the-beaten-path guy raised an outside-the-box kid? . I hope you all like rhythm games, The Sims, and Animal Crossing. I’d crack a joke about disappointing all of you like I disappointed my father, but he was actually pretty supportive, so there goes that bit, oh noooo?
In all seriousness, it’s been feeling like a lose-lose. Either I make content like he did and feel like I’m forever in his shadow, or I make my own stuff and ruin a legacy almost as old as myself. But truthfully, outside of a bubble of self-doubt, it’s more of a self-sufficient biome. If I make content and it doesn’t appeal to anyone, I eventually take the hint and leave it alone, letting his site stand on it’s own or with more serious reflective, content. If my content does appeal to someone…Well, I don’t know, I suppose I…make more?
Happy birthday, Dad. Hope I do anything right by your hard work here, and, if not, that you rolling in your grave is pretty fun for you. Seems enriching, at least?
Footnotes:
[1] Funny according to the standards set on this site, anyway. YMMV.
[2] My mom, my two brothers and myself.
[3] Well, nothing from me or my brothers, my mom is absolutely getting shit done
[4] At the time of writing this, when you Google ‘what happens to your Steam account when you die’ you get hilariously, satirically, wrong information. So this is why my collage profs didn’t want me ‘just Googling it’.
[5] Get it? Posthumous? (The answer to my rhetorical there is never, FYI. Don’t crack that joke.)
[6] Bit novel, I know, but is it any shock that such a off-the-beaten-path guy raised an outside-the-box kid?
A Star is Born
Remember the superhero MMO from 2009? Neither does anyone else. It was dumb. So dumb I was compelled to write this.
Bethesda’s Launcher is Everything You Expect
From the company that brought us Fallout 76 comes a storefront / Steam competitor. It's a work of perfect awfulness. This is a monument to un-usability and anti-features.
Civilization VI
I'm a very casual fan of the series, but I gave Civilization VI a look to see what was up with this nuclear war simulator.
Shamus Plays LOTRO
As someone who loves Tolkein lore and despises silly MMO quests, this game left me deeply conflicted.
Quakecon Keynote 2013 Annotated
An interesting but technically dense talk about gaming technology. I translate it for the non-coders.
Bay, I enjoy your voice so far and I, for one, will be happy to give you a chance to entertain and inform me.
I agree. :) I think you’ve picked up the knack for Shamus’ witty, self-deprecating style of humour that I enjoyed. That said, you definitely don’t need to feel like you have to do this FOR us. Feel free to experiment, branch out, find your own style. It may be to our tastes, it may not, but you owe us nothing. We’ll always have the memories and the saved discussions of the time we had with Shamus. It will be enough.
Honestly, this was a great post. Its definitely a challenge. And so far I like what I’ve seen from you.
Hi Bay! I’ve not written much, but I’ve been around for years. I don’t think you could have disappointed your father, unless it was by not trying. And choosing to not engage would be trying and therefore all good.
I am a dad of three, and they are all different people. I wish them the best and aspire to be a good dad. I hope I’m better than I sometimes fear. Find yourself, express yourself. If you wish to talk to the void, we will listen. Some might fall off, others will come to.
And I know about the body. It should be seen, not felt. Not all the time at least. Arthritis can go fishing.
The monkeys are listening…
How about you do whatever the hell you want? You don’t *have* to do anything, you have no moral obligation to post. If posting stuff sounds like fun to you, go for it and we’ll be delighted to have a read, but I don’t think anyone *expects* it from you.
I laughed at post-humourous, even if nobody else did!
It was a bit funny, yeah. ^^
Thirded.
I’m chuckling at potential horrible coffin jokes now.
“They’d be rolling in their grave, if we’d gotten them one with enough space for it.”
I laughed at “post-humorous” as well.
It’s a good “dad joke/pun”. If it helps, I’m a couple years older than Shamus, and I think he would have laughed-groaned at that, too.
I’m sorry for your loss, and sorry I can’t hear a voice I’ve heard for over a decade. Good to see you guys are carrying on the tradition, and I will keep checking in.
Thank you
I think the legacy will stand on its own, so you should just focus on writing about your thoughts, or whatever you want the direction of your content on here to be. Best of luck!
Welcome, Bay. For all I knew your father through only this website, as a near-peer to him in age and a parent myself, if you’re doing things that make you happy, I think he’d be proud of you.
“Your dad would be extremely proud of your footnote game” is a very strange thing to write, and yet I think it’s true.
Do what feels right, when it feels right. But above all, take care of each other, and yourself.
Is it weird that, despite hanging around for too long to try to count, I saw the image footnote 4 and thought “huh, didn’t know these footnotes could do that”?
I’m genuinely glad to meet you, Bay! Honestly, reading this was really heartwarming for me, because it’s clear you love him and it’s clear that his spirit lives on in you. We’ll all be here for you. :)
Nice to meet you, and please continue. It really looks like you’re on the right track for it to become a win-win instead of a lose-lose.
Holy crap, I can barely fathom having one. And you’re only 24? Please share your secret witchcraft with us.
So… I’m kind of morbidly curious now. Does anything special happen at all, or does Steam just assume you stopped logging in and blissfully keep your data untouched?
Pretty much nothing happens. Steam just lets the account sit there, it’s pretty much up to the family who gets it. You can pass it on to someone as an inheritance, or just let it collect dust. I suppose you could also delete it, but that seems like burning money. We’ve turned it into a ‘family account’ since he owned nearly a thousand games. I do kind of wonder what would happen if it got listed in someone’s official will? But, likely it would just be the giving of passwords just like the unofficial version.
The internet has made death very strange since much of the things someone ‘had’ can be in a digital space. This site itself is pretty good evidence of that.
After the reading of the will, is there a ceremonial transferring of the passwords? Does this mean that LastPass, 1pass, et al will become like escrow agencies?
Steam passwords have to be put into a trust fund until the recipient’s eighteenth birthday when they can legally play Huniepop.
IIRC, Bay is the one that Shamus discussed HuniePop with, as the only other person in his family who played it.
You can use Family Sharing so that you can play his games from your own computers :)
It’s a little fiddly to set up but then you should each have access to his while library.
That raises the question, in the hopefully very distant future when all of you have died, what happens to the account then? Will it be passed down through the generations?
“This was your great-great grandfather Shamus’ video game collection. I now pass it on to you.”
I am 90% sure I remember reading a joke (on this website!) about Steam accounts being passed on to family, eventually putting somebody making a complaint/report to Valve into the position of having to claim to be a 120 year old man.
The Internet is a pretty public place, but I think the community here is pretty insular, and will become more now. I doubt many who have been here a while at least would see it crass to find the funny side in things or doubt your sincerity when doing so. I will happily continue to read anything that shows up in my RSS feed from this place as it has always been a source of enjoyment. And more content from a fellow gaymer can never be bad.
As a fellow bisexual gamer who is older than your father (I’m 55 years old), I fully support your engagement with this site in whatever way feels best for you.
I suspect that as time passes you will find a voice and rhythm that is uniquely yours, while still honoring the work that your father did.
As long as you humorously complain about something, it’s all good!
Nice to meet you Bay. It seems the sense of humour didnt fall far from the tree!
I’d be happy to read about your gaming experience
If there’s one thing that’s kept me coming back to this site for however-many years, its the fact that your dad didn’t focus on legacy. He made a funny thing that got him a lot of attention, and a lot of folks would have rested on that, or kept doing it, or tried to accessorize that to keep it going. Shamus dusted his hands, screwed up his face a bit at the bits he still wasn’t happy with, and moved on to new stuff. And he kept moving on to new stuff. Usually several new stuffs at once, in wildly-different directions. Finding out what new and interesting direction his brain had darted off in was the reason to keep watching.
So if you want to riff on his old stuff as a bit of a homage, feel free. If you want to turn the entire site into a shrine for heaping praise on Harry Potter fanfiction, that too will be a bit of a homage, because it’ll mean doing something new and different. I can’t promise I’ll stick around for ever, if your brain and mine don’t click, but I’ll definitely stick around to see what you come up with. Whatever you do, you shouldn’t let us old farts worry you; he’d be proud that you’re making stuff.
Bay, you sound like fun. Best way (IMO) to honor Shamus’ memory is to continue to celebrate the things he loved.
So be funny, queue up some Animal Crossing and stream away!
As a longtime partial follower of twenty-sided tale since the days of DM of the Rings (sorry to make everyone feel old…), I feel from your tone that you are both your father’s daughter and your own person.
I’m looking forward to reading and listening to what you guys want to share with the internet!
You’re not going to write like Shamus. Like, you *can’t*. I can’t, and I’m a decent writer, an uber-nerd and 46.
So: don’t worry about spoiling the legacy. We don’t expect you to be him. Which is good, because you can’t.
Congrats on the very gay, two life partners, etc. parts. I have three kids, oldest is 14, show every sign of continuing to be gay, gender-nonconforming, etc (okay, as far as I can tell — the youngest is 4, so pretty early to know that.) Maybe nerds raise a lot of those? I certainly seem to be.
But yeah, at best you can show us that Shamus raised somebody pretty cool. I assume he did. It’s very unlikely that Shamus raised another Shamus, or even a young Shamus in training. He was of his time, you know? Shamus-but-born-decades-later wouldn’t be Shamus either. That’s probably for the best.
In any case, good to meet you, Bay!
I just re-read all the Retrospectives while waiting for installations and compilations while working, and I came to the conclusion that NO ONE can. There are a number of people on the web and in the comment sections here who do similar things (Rocketeer and Bob Case did posts, Chuck Sonnenberg does similar things in video form, I do gaming commentaries on my blog, and so on and so forth), but no one had the interest or ability to do the long-form, nitpicky analyses that he did. It’s a shame that that sort of thing will be lost, but again given the examples there are perfectly good and interesting things that can be done that would keep the site going.
Yep. You’re not *meant* to write like Shamus, and you don’t need to either. Post what you’re happy with and be you.
I’m more than happy to give content a chance, give feedback (if you want) and see how it goes from there. Looking forward to it.
It may be difficult right now, but instead of thinking of it as a burden to continue your father’s legacy, think of it as part of your inheritance. IF you are interested in getting into content creation (don’t feel you have to), you have a built-in head start of an audience that new content creators wouldn’t have. You should do your own thing, whether that is content in a similar form (but new voice) to what your father has done, or something different entirely. Some of the audience will leave because it doesn’t speak to them anymore either way, but others will stay, and eventually the audience will feel less like your father’s and more like yours. No matter what you do, your father’s legacy is secure. His content is still there, or even if this site were to fail, the Internet Wayback Machine is there. And YOU are still here, doing your best to honor him.
Typolice:
Should be “college”.
For what it’s worth, I look forward to seeing future posts from you and your siblings. It’s true – nothing is going to be the same as Shamus’ content.
But on the flip side, nothing is going to be the same as your content, too. It’s going to be utterly your own. And I, for one, am interested to see where it’s going to go :)
You know what? I’ll keep coming back for a bit, just for the Typolice comments and “Whole post on the front page, boss”.
Also, the chance to start the occasional pun thread.
Oops, you’re right. I could fix it, but I think I’ll just leave it for posterity this time.
Bold of you to assume they didn’t just mean their professors who taught them how to stick pictures and bits of paper on one another.
I always though post-hoummus was “after Mediterranean-style food”, myself. Nice to see you here, Bay, keep being excellent.
Whenever I get hungry I just ask my family to post hummus and it works out 7 times out of 11.
There may be more, but I see three big reasons to push to keep the site going and add new content:
1) To preserve all the content that’s already here that Shamus did (as I noted above, I just re-read all the Retrospectives so it’s still valuable).
2) To maintain the community that the site had that I know Shamus appreciated.
3) To provide some regularly updated content so that people don’t drift away from the site and so that the community doesn’t die off.
From this post, your content is not what Shamus would necessarily do, but it is in a similar style and tone, which would provide some sort of continuity of content that the community would appreciate. And if there are holes in the content that the community wanted which might cause them to drift away, as we’ve seen even with Shamus there are a number of people in the community who might be able to fill in. So I think that preserving the site is off to a promising start here, and would say that you don’t have to feel like you have to step in and replace Shamus completely and all on your own.
Lovely to meet you, Bay. You folks have been doing a fantastic job, and the site is definitely in good hands.
Hello Bay, happy to meet You :)
And, if I may add my few cents, wouldn’t making content your own way also be part of Shamus’ legacy, widening it rather than ruining?
Whatever You decide, after reading this post seems to me should You decide to write and stream, we’ll be in for some interesting content.
Just the title of this article made me smile, have a sad, think of all the long-running threads that make this place special, and be thankful they’re not going away even though they’ll be a little different now.
So, yeah, you’re doing just fine. Welcome, and thanks for sharing.
Hi Bay! Nice to meet you. Certainly excited to see what’s in store.
Anyway, my grandfather passed a few months back, and I certainly remembered him making me smile when everyone else was sad. Post-humorous absolutely gave me a smile.
P.S. – Footnote game on point. A worthy successor.
I’ve got no real frame of reference to know if this is what’s best for you as a writer or me as a reader, but let’s give it a shot and find out.
Good luck, Bay!
Bay, I’ve followed this website for almost 15 years, and I like to think I speak for everyone when I say that You and the rest of your family have our support. Don’t break yourself by writing something everyday, we can wait.
Whaaaaa? The Sims content instead of Fallout and complaining about DRM? How dare you? I’m leaving, never to return.
Kidding, of course. Anything you do will be fine. You’ll have a built-in audience here just by being Shamus’ kid, and I’m sure many of us will be interested in whatever content you release when you want to. No need to try to imitate your father’s style, and I’m sure he’d be proud of whatever you do.
That being said, if you need an idea… you mentioned Animal Crossing. I’ve never played any of these games but I’ve always been curious about them. Perhaps you could do a small description of what exactly you do in these games, how are they played, etc. as an introduction for beginners.
I’m a long-time reader who really doesn’t have much to say but still wants to be supportive so…
I’m not really a big fan of telling people “oh do whatever you want nobody will care,” because I feel that’s a sort of empty platitude when this is the internet and a segment of the population absolutely will criticize you no matter what you do. I don’t want to gaslight you into thinking the dilemma isn’t real.
So…FWIW I guess I’m personally not one of the critics and you can do whatever you want as far as this internet stranger is concerned? I’m being supportive?
Fellow twenty-something queer person checking in :) (they/she, asexual, 2 life partners)
I’m absolutely here for your rhythm games, Sims, and/or Animal Crossing content any time you feel up to posting it. (Especially Sims and Animal Crossing, which I play, but I’ve been coming to this site to read about games I mostly don’t play for over ten years so I’m pretty easy to convince to stick around for whatever.) Love your writing style (and jokes) so far!
You have my support Bay whatever else may come. I look forward to reading whatever you feel like putting up. Don’t need and don’t expect it to feel exactly like your dad’s writing because…frankly put your different people. But I’ve been checking the blog 3-4 times a week for nearly a decade and I don’t expect that to change now.
Hi Bay! Another 20-something queer person here to say it’s nice to meet you, and I look forward to whatever it is you want to make!
I’ll just echo some other sentiments around and say that nobody expects you to write like Shamus did, and I really don’t think there’s anyone who can write like Shamus did, but we’re here to see you do what feels right for you and come into your own voice as a creator. For my two cents, the best way to honor Shamus’ work here is to do your best to come into your own and create the content that’s truly yours, and I’m here to see where that goes.
Honestly, this is a good start. Self-aware, funny, and a dad-humor pun in there. Don’t want to fall into cliché by saying that it sounds like something Shamus would write, because at the end of the day I’m not the one to judge that and it’s not a metric this should be held to. Instead I’ll say: I like your writing style, and I like the idea of Shamus family “taking over”, and I like that you have no fear of ruminating through the process here – the “ruminating about how to ruminate about something” style definitely fits.
Griefing is natural and expected. But cut down on self centered whining. Just stand tall, don’t second guess Yourselff as a person You are. It will be fine, don’t worry.
Hi Bay, pleased to meet you (virtually) and even more pleased to read whatever you have the notion to write. Looking forward to more.
All the best.
BP.
also – I got comment No.51 on the thread “Ding 51” :)
Thanks for taking a shot at this Bay. We all miss your dad. Humour is my coping strategy and so I’m in for the pun-tastic posts and sims 4 content. :)
I understand not being sure what to do when you’re method of expressing grief or working through hard times does not line up with what is commonly acceptable. I share that morbid sense of humor that would make jokes at someone’s funeral, and moreso am just not equipped for how other people express grief or even try to show sympathy.
I’d like to think this community would be welcome and open to such things, though. After all, we followed your father, and enjoyed his sense of humor. Chances are, plenty of us share the same habit.
I’ll be following along and reading what you have to say.
Hi Bay,
I will echo the above commenters: do whatever *you* want. Shamus said: “I am a slave to my passions”, and this site is a clear result of that. So follow your passions, and the worst thing that can happen is that you have been doing something you have been passionate about.
As for me, I still visit this site every day. I will certainly stick around for Shamus’ posthumous writings, and I will probably keep reading whatever is posted on this site by other authors, including you, if it is interesting. Whether this site is a living memory or a static tombstone, it will always have a place in my bookmarks.
Hi Bay
I read this post to the end. I expect I will the next one.
At this rate, I’ll also read the one after that.
So, please keep posting and I will probably keep reading.
I don’t expect you to write like your dad, that would be weird, but if you write like you I expect it will all work out fine.
Glad to meet you Bay.
Your father didn’t talk about you or your siblings much, but on the occasions that he did, I always got the impression that it was not that he wanted you to be a specific kind of person to meet his approval, but that he wanted to see you get to be as much your own person as he was his. I think that’s an attitude more parents need to have. It sounds as if you’re well on your way to doing that, and I hope to see you flourish, in whatever form that takes.
I just want to voice my support. I am enjoying your writing and I hope you keep going. And if people find that you’re not like your dad, that’s ok, and they can “vote with their feet” and go somewhere else. I want to encourage you to keep expressing yourself and to keep refining your personal voice. Hang in there.
This really brightened my day. Thank you, and hope you and yours are doing okay. I do hope you continue to post — I really enjoyed this.
One of the specific attributes I always enjoyed when reading Shamus’ content was the straightforward, easy-to-read style of the posts, but also the analytical but jovial tone everything had. Pleasant, a little chuckle, brought smiles. It was “funny” but not comedian, laughing-out-loud LOL, guffawing funny… except when it was, when some metaphor or idea or offhand comment caught you out of nowhere.
Heh. This got me.
The entire tone is familiar, but distinct. It isn’t the same as Shamus, but it’s just as good. If this sort of content and referential humor with commentary is the standard, I’ll definitely keep peeking in here and so will many more.
(Also, footnote insertion is A+. I always liked parenthetical footnotes sprinkled throughout.)
I feel I should point out that you, Bay and your siblings are the beating hearts of Shamus’ legacy and the only part that truly matters. Obviously it’s not a unique achievement but he helped make *people*.
Whatever y’all choose to do is right.
I’m definitely game to read content from a perspective of console gamers and the challenges of it. Shamus always did a great job of highlighting the issues he ran into, but making a point, and not beating a dead horse.. My favorite part of Shamus’ work has always been the heavy focus on staying away from politics and controversy so the audience could focus on discussing what he was bringing up for the day. That’s so hard to get on the internet these days, as most places focus on the metric of engagement, whether good or bad. As long as the content put out has actual content, I’m happy to stay. Shamus always did a good job of making content from two things – what worked in a game/show/media, and what didn’t. It was another great strength he had as a reviewer.
You’ll want to get some housekeeping done with the web site, none of the current posts from you or Peter show on the main page. Also, I don’t think Shamus intended articles to be “Filed Under:” multiple sections. It may be good to add File sections for you and Peter (and Isaac?) so that it’s easier to figure out who’s doing what. It’ll take a while to figure out audiences and writing styles, for sure. In fact, it’s quite interesting to go back and read some of Shamus’ work from 2005-2012, it’s very different.
Nice to meet you, Bay!
Don’t worry about writing like Shamus. As long as his content is preserved, the legacy is safe.
You do your thing, build your own legacy. The best writing occurs when you write what you’re passionate about.
Looking foward to it.
Good luck!
Happy to meet you, Bay. I’ll be here for anything you care to create. Will it be like your dad, no, but that’s okay, because you’re not him. I’m looking forward to YOUR work, now. <3
EDIT: I hope that doesn't come across as pressure. That certainly wasn't my intent.
I know this is probably an odd thing to say, but to find out that Shamus has a non-binary kid and that they themselves are an excellent writer, is such a weird spark of joy in the suckyness that’s losing someone too damn early.
So far, for what it’s worth consuming his content for literally more than two thirds of my life, I think your dad would have been completely in love with your writing voice. It’s mostly parasocial, but I’d also like to think no one would have laughed more at your jokes about death and dealing with it, than he would have.
Standing in the shadow of someone else is hard. On the other hand, continuing this site as a family legacy seems like a long-term experiment Shamus would have been excitedly into.
So I may be late to this particular party because I kind of stopped visiting the site every day after Shamus’ death, and was quite surprised to suddenly see multiple posts by you. Gives you an idea how long I haven’t opened that bookmark, which by the way still sits at its prominent position in my bookmarks bar. (In my head that sounded like a much bigger honor before I wrote that sentence.)
And what can I say, I like you writing style very much already, and I am looking forward to coming here regularly for more.
I’ve also only been visiting sporadically since Shamus died, less and less frequently as time passed and the site remained static.
How pleased I am to visit today to find that there is new activity here!
Lovely to meet you Bay. I like your writing. I’m also really glad to know that you are a fellow member of the LBGTQIA+ community and that your family, and this community, is supportive :)
The years of muscle memory I’ve developed from pressing “s” + “h” + “ENTER” multiple times a day are preventing me from never coming to this site again, so I’m glad to see new quality content being added. I liked this post, chuckled a few times and was relieved to discover that Shamus’ brand of dark humour is enduring. Legacy software in modern hardware, I guess.
My condolences, and nice to meet you!
Nice, I hadn’t realised that there was new content, and a few month’s worth even. Glad I checked back in and that you’re continuing with new content. And life sims no less, my other half might be interested.
For better or for worse, it will never be what it was. Therefore… make it your own.
Although you wouldn’t happen to be a programmer, would you? ;)