My Story
When I sat down and thought to myself, “What will be my first Disorganization XIII rant?” a lot of options came to mind. See, I write for a living, game reviews specifically, so writing for me has become this odd web of style guides, cliché endings, and shameless advertisements. Needless to say, I enjoy it tremendously anyway. I love my job, my boss, and my work, and every so often I get to sneak in a reference to the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Cthulhu and it makes it all worthwhile. Not to mention, sometimes a game is so bad that my boss doesn't care if I call it a “gigantic steaming pile of donkey shit on wheels.”
But the point is, this is the first time in a long time, that I've been able to write without guidelines (or, for that matter, personal regard for grammar, spelling, and punctuation) and I found it a bit disturbing. What was I going to write about? Was it going to be game culture? Some specific game strategy? Was I simply going to take the easy way out and write about Kingdom Hearts speculation as my cohort Rob (# ω) is going to do? There were so many options, and I didn't know which one to pick. I wanted to write something profound. Something different. Something that grabbed you at the beginning and really made you think, and considering that I think I have been counterproductive thus far as I have bored you for two paragraphs talking about the writing process. But what the fuck, right? It's called a rant for a reason.
So then it hit me. I mean the bus… it came right around the corner and hit me. But after I got out of the hospital, I finally had an idea. I'm a gamer in the gaming business. Everyone who came up to me after our panels at the many conventions we kicked major ass at asked me the same thing “how did you get where you are?” They wanted to know how out of all the options in the world I ended up being a games journalist and professional convention-goer. So, what better time to tell my story? Move over, Tidus, this is my story, and unlike you I do exist (I think).
I remember when being a games journalist was just a far off dream for me. You know, its one of those fantasy careers that you would love to do but you never really thought you would end up there. I mean, you go to college, take classes in some bullshit subject, and then you just fall into a career, right? At least, that's the story for most people. A very widely known study that I just made up shows that 90% of people don't have a career in the field they originally set out to have a field in. People who studied to be scientists become business analysts, psychologists become salesmen, heck some unfortunate high dreamers simply never got anywhere and had to settle for store manager. (No, I don't have statistics for that, if I wanted to find them I'm sure I could, but I'm lazy, so fuck off and keep reading.)
And I mean, it sucks, I know it sucks. The economy is in the shitter and you need money to get by. Several of my fellow Disorganization members had problems finding jobs (mostly due to the fact that everyone and their mother wants experience but no one is willing to give you that first job that gives you experience) and, hell, some of my greatest friends and family still can't find jobs even with years and years of experience. Everyone needs to do something, everyone needs to work, and everyone tells you “do anything now so you can work your dream job someday,” except that someday never comes. I know I was staring down that long corridor of mediocrity not too long ago.
I worked my ass off in college, and by that I mean I rarely went to class and partied most of the time. Whatever, I still got As mostly (some of them looked surprisingly like Cs but I know they were just curvy As) and now that I am out I have stories about 10 hour pillow fights and role-playing games that lasted a week so I definitely don't feel my college experience was cheapened. Anyway I had a good grade point average, a lot of extracurriculars, was the president of many clubs, and even helped contribute heavily to special interest education.
I thought about going to grad school, but it really wasn't an option. See, I didn't come from a very well-to-do family. I have a brother and sister, both of whom were planning to go through college as well, and only my dad worked while my mom raised us. When it came down to it, my dad's salary simply wasn't enough to pay for my college tuition, and try as I might, no scholarships came my way, so in the end I had to pay for most of my college education through loans. After my senior year I was already 60,000 dollars in debt, and I didn't even have a car to get me from place to place. When the time to take the GREs came along, the fact that I couldn't find anyone to shuttle me off to a testing center really hit home hard. Here I am, 60,000 dollars in debt, and I can't even get around on my own. Why am I putting myself in more debt to go to grad school, when I still don't know what I want to do with my life?
Let me tell you, 60,000 dollars of debt isn't fun, not in the least bit. I didn't particularly know what I was doing when I was taking out the loans either, and since I didn't have anyone to help me along I the loan finding process I didn't get the best deals in payback. Directly out of college I was staring down the throat of a $600 bill every month. $600 going straight to my loans, which essentially was down the toilet. Do not pass go, do not beat up the old monopoly man on the way (I was gonna use the do not collect $200 joke but why would you collect money for paying bills?) So needless to say, I needed a job, and I needed one quick.
I always thought that when I graduated college finding work was gonna be a snap. I mean, fuck, all these other assholes have jobs too, right? Getting a job was just something you did after college. It wasn't like it was something that was big and complicated. You just eventually fall into something and then everything works out right? Well, as Lex Luthor would say, WROOOOOOONG!
Finding a job was the most depressing experience of my LIFE! In the beginning I started with just a few applications here or there, but I never even got calls back. Soon the applications started getting more and more frequent. I would start sending in 10, 20, 30 a week and then 10, 20, 30 a day! I scoured the internet, the newspapers, fuck ANYTHING to find ANY job that might take me! Eventually it was so tiring I could barely write cover letters anymore so I ended up using form cover letters (which probably hurt more than helped) and I couldn't rework my resume for the particular jobs I wanted to apply to either. I just kept sending out application after application hoping something would come in. I know most of you are thinking “well, his resume must have sucked” or “well, he was doing it wrong” or “gee, I could go for a peanut butter and banana sandwich right now” but let me stop you right there. I have it on very good authority that some people with master's degrees and prior experience are having the same problem now that I did then. So what chance did little old me, who had nothing but a bachelor's degree, a ton of debt, and a lot of videogame and anime experience have? Oh yes, and peanut butter and banana sandwiches are awesome, especially with chocolate milk.
Now I'm hungry… *gets self a snack* Anyway, now that that little bit of hunger driven ADD is out of the way, back to the story. For every 1000 resumes I would send out I would get maybe one callback, and it was never for a job I wanted. It was either for this absurd telemarketing job I would have to commute two hours into new York for to get like 9 dollars an hour, or commission work in a company that was proven to have stupid turnover rates all coinciding with the point where their commission employees were supposed to go full time. Not only that, but everyone was COMPLETLEY fake. It was all a mess of pre-rehearsed lines and bullshit terms that didn't mean everything in that snarky Bill Lumburg voice (the boss from Office Space for those of you who haven't seen the movie. Oh yeah, SEE IT!!!) that just made me want to leap across the desk and strangle the pompous asses with my own incredibly uncomfortable tie.
But you had to smile through it. For every line of bullshit they gave you, you had to give them an equally thick line of bullshit, and you had to work twice as hard, because you can be damn sure they have all heard it before. I have come to the theory that no one, NO ONE in the history of mankind was actually hired for a job based on their experience, resume, and requirements. No, people are hired for jobs because they can lie better than the next guy. In essence, if I can slip into hippie speak for a while, “they are all just looking for a tool of the machine, maaaaaaaaan”, and the more you can portray yourself as a soulless, lifeless husk of a person that will act as a machine and do whatever the master tells them to, well the better your chances. That severely hurt the chances for a crazy asshole like me, but greatly increased the chances for the true soulless husks out there to get employment. Those poor people, the ones who spirits have been broken to such an extent that they actually are just living machines, those are the people I feel sorry for.
About a year passed, and my money was dwindling, but I eventually found a job. I won't say where or with who but I will tell you that I hated it. I hated everything about it. My bosses wouldn't communicate and would constantly tell me different things to do. I would get yelled at daily. I had to sit in a little rinkydink office with no windows and I wasn't even allowed to close my door, so everyone around me was just staring at me all day every day. I made good money but I started thinking “is this really worth it?” Not to mention I was doing something I had a severe moral problem with, and you know everyone out there SAYS they aren't going to sell out but when you are staring down $600 loan bills its hard not to.
You know, as much as it sucked they did give me quite a few allowances. I carpooled to work. I worked from home some days. Hell, I even got to go to a special convention (of course now with all the anime conventions I am doing that's not so special anymore.) Regardless, I hated it. HATE HATE HATED IT! If I could tell you what I was doing you would see why I hated it so much but I'm not about to toss anyone under the bus so that just has to stay a mystery.
The funny thing though is that no one, no one wanted to work there. One of my bosses wanted to be a sports writer, another co-worker wanted to manage a clothing line, another one wanted to write adverts for fashion and yet each of them just “fell in” to this job. It was the same story when I asked all of them “well you have dreams when you get out of college, but there comes a time when money is just more important. You just find something, and you stick with it because it pays the bills.” It was always the same thing. They wanted to do something greater and they got this job because “someday” they were going to do something greater, but that someday never ever EVER came.
Well, needless to say, I didn't last long in that job. Maybe it was because I genuinely disliked it. Maybe it was because there was a lot of disorganization (and not the good kind) in the upper ranks. Maybe it was just because honestly, the 9 to 5 workday scares the shit out of me. I don't know what it is, maybe my hair is just spiky enough that I have the wanderlust of an RPG protagonist, but the idea of staying in one spot, for 8 hours, every weekday, for the rest of my life is just absolutely terrifying to me. And I mean, fuck, some people tell me stories about how their bathroom time is counted, how they can't take phone calls while they are at their work desk, how the only thing they do is just work work work, lunch, and then work work work, go home, watch some TV and go to bed. I don't know… I mean… isn't humanity destined to do more? What kind of life is a life that repetitious? It may work for others but it just doesn't work for me.
Let me go off on a tangent for a while and say something about the current state of the economy. It blows. B-L-O-W-S blows. Not only is it hard to find a job, but since the demand for work is so high (and unemployment is so high) bosses can treat you as shitty as they like. You know how there used to be a back and forth relationship between bosses and employees? Like bosses always treated people shitty from the beginning of time, but they always treated you just nicely enough that you stuck with the job instead of saying “fuck this noise” and running out leaving the company in a shitty position. Now that simply isn't the case. Demand for work is so high they can damn well stick their cock in your ear for all they care and if you don't like it BOOM fired and they hire some other schmuck who WILL enjoy ear sodomy instead. We are no longer a workforce of the people, we are essentially a workforce of the least common denominator. So few people, especially in entry-level positions, actually are NEEDED to make a company run, and so they are mistreated horribly. It is to those people my heart goes out to. Because truly today is a day and age where you don't just work a shitty job until “someday” comes, because that “someday” is the day the economy gets better, and who knows when that will happen.
Anyway, getting off that tangent and out of “Rabble rabble rabble fix the usa” mode, the point is I got canned. But you know what, it was ok. It was a giant weight off my shoulders. I felt like I was finally free. Not only that but halfway through my employment at the sucky job, after my depression got so bad it was almost suicidal (and that's a whole other story entirely) I started looking for something else. But honestly, I asked myself “what the fuck can I do. I'm just a scrub who writes and plays games all day.” HEEEEEEEEEEEEY that was an idea. If I dusted off my old gradeschool journals I always said I wanted to review games for a living maybe I could actually do that.
It was a long shot, really. I didn't have much writing experience, but I had tons of gaming experience. I made clubs, organized tournaments, and I always had tons of opinions on whatever piece of crap the ext biggest gaming company was putting out. I majored in English with a specialization in Writing, so I mean, how hard could it be, right? Oh wait, I said this once before, when I was trying to get any other job. This was gonna be hard, VERY hard.
I did the only thing I could think of, I started sending off a portfolio of my writing, resume, and cover letter to ANY GAMING PUBLICATION I KNEW! It didn't matter how small it was, I just kept sending them out. None of them, ABSOLUTLEY NONE OF THEM had “now hiring” signs up. No one wanted a new writer, no one wanted any new employee. But I just kept writing and hoped someone somewhere would take notice of me.
And you know what, someone did, but it wasn't what I expected. Like most sites nowadays, gaming sites simply allow any schmuck to write in with their opinions and they will publish it. See, most gamers are excited just to get their stuff on the net, so they will write for free. Writing for free means that most gaming sites or publications don't need to pay writers, and so they don't. The first site I ever worked for offered me jack shit. They said “we aren't in the position to pay you anything now but it will get your name out there and if we hit it big we may pay you later.” I didn't like it, but you know what I was desperate so I did it. Even though my money was dwindling even faster now, I was proud to see my name on professional written articles on the net.
Of course from there I continued looking to every other site out there because honestly, I needed to get paid. It took a long time but eventually, once someone saw I was on the net, I got another offer. It was small, I was getting paid 20 dollars an article (which is FAR below market value by the way, some other writers get 100, 200, even 500 or 1000 dollars an article in bigger mags or full time positions, and I was getting 20). The articles were few and far between, but I had some money coming in, and adding that to me selling off some personal possessions on paypal (I'll never see my original SNES copy of Super Mario All Stars again… sniff) I was able to barely slow down my money dwindling process.
From there it was just more of the same. It was a never-ending string of writing articles for peanuts while looking for someplace that will pay me some more money. There were a lot of failures. I was supposed to be a partner in a new company but the company went under. I wrote for international magazines, (which by the way did pay about 500 dollars per article, that was satisfying, woo money exchange rate) but that work was even fewer and further between and eventually just stopped coming as print magazines became less and less of a profitable medium (now that the intertubes were so huge). Hell, at one point I even juggled around the idea of starting my own gaming mag. But they all came up fruitless.
What I didn't realize, though, was that my portfolio was growing. See all the years of being rejected by temp agencies, supermarkets, heck even fast food stores had jaded me to the importance of a resume. Not only that, but I only started out with a couple school published articles and a few non-published game reviews. But every article I wrote, even for free or only 20 dollars, was more proof that yes, I can write.
Eventually I lucked out and found another place that offered me 25 dollars an article, and another place that offered 50, and adding these together I just about had enough to actually pay the bills every month without losing money. Soon I was finding places that offered 100 dollars or more and I was making market value, FINALLY WOOT! Still though, freelancing was tough and I always had to find ways to make yet more money. It was always a matter of scraping together the last few dimes, and it definitely wasn't glamorous, but for the first time in my life I was enjoying what I did for a living, which is more than most people can ever say they do.
While I was handling my own problems, I tried to do my best just to stay happy. I played in roleplaying games, had weekly smash meetings, and make sure to make it so that my lack of money didn't mean a lack of hanging with my friends. One year (and I won't tell you how many years back, your just going to have to live with the fact that Disorganization XIII has existed since the beginning of time), one of my Disorganization XIII cohorts asked me if I would like to do a panel at a convention. See, his friend had invited him to do the panel, but the only person who had as much expertise on the subject as he did was me (and yes we spent many a night talking about this particular subject, *wink wink* figure it out for yourself).
So whatever, I decided I was in. I had never really gone to cons very much before, and this sounded like it would be a good weekend. Besides a whole hour and a half where I can just talk geek to other geeks, what can possibly be bad about that! It was later revealed that this was all a scam to get my friend to go to his first con as well. The panel was just a lure to make the con seem worthwhile and boy howdy can I say it was worthwhile.
The day we had to do our panel was, astounding. I was wandering around the different anime rooms before panel time and I decided to check out our room. The line was STUPIDLY LONG! I mean you wouldn't believe it unless you saw it but it was going out the door, around the hall, and down the stairs. I was shocked. My friends were shocked. There were more people than the room could sit, and they were all there to see us rant! WOOHOO!
We had no idea what we were doing. We didn't have much of a plan. I mean, we'd talked about the panel before hand but it just became a huge question and answer session in the end with our absolutely phenomenal audience. That combined with my natural wit in the sense that I'm from New Jersey and thus not afraid to drop the f-bomb in front of an audience that was probably too young for it, caused the audience to be rolling in the aisles with laughter. (Oh, and my friends were funny, too.) They loved us, through and through, and our heads swelled bigger than [appropriate phallic metaphor].
Later that night we were watching Avatar and getting drunk and we tossed around ideas for other panels, about different games, different animes, different aspects of geek culture, and of course the best idea of all: Spoiler: The Panel, which arose from a joke involving Zuko, his plot disease, and a White Wolf roleplaying book or two. If was only later during random Exalted games we played during the year that we decided that we were actually going to go through with it. It was difficult, and once again we had NO idea what we were doing, but after several days, weeks, months, years, decades, and millennia of work we had put something together that was reminiscent of a comedy sketch. The rest, as I am sure you have figured out by , is absolutely hilarious history.
Rewinding a bit though, we weren't ALWAYS known as Disorganization XIII. In the beginning we were just “Those assholes who did that panel” and for some reason we were popular. It was a random idea that a name would make us more memorable. No one was really good at naming people so we blatantly ripped off (and by that I mean didn't blatantly rip off, PLEASE DON'T SUE US) Organization XIII form Kingdom Hearts 2. It was recognizable and it really captured what we were trying to do. Unfortunately, it also was the name of another horrible youtube video and a webcomic, but we figured eh what the fuck. PLEASE NOTE: We are not the Disorganization XIII that did that horrible youtube video (the pitch) or the kingdom hearts sprite comic. We are, in fact, the funny Disorganization XIII. Those other people are dirty lying robot zombie communists, and I heard that they hate freedom, and cheese.
As the con years went on we got older, and our panels got more popular, but the con-goers stayed the same age. I mean sure there were absolutely awesome geeks in their 20s and 30s at cons doing all sorts of crazy shit like raving and playing concerts and of course doing all of the 18+ panels, but more often than not we just saw the young kids hanging around the cons and wondered “what are we doing here?” The answer was obvious, of course: “HAVING FUN AND KICKIN ASS” or something along those lines. Our odd brand of humor was accepted and became quite popular and the Disorganization name became so well known that cons started inviting us to perform, rather than the other way around, us begging them horribly for any sort of time slot. Also, you know, taking over panels where the original presenter didn't show up also helps. Nothing gets you in with the staff of a con better than saving their ass.
A presenter at the New York Anime Festival said something very deep once. He said that when you are young you go to cons, when you are old you make the cons. He was running Anime Parliament (which by the way was an awesome panel and you should go to it if you have the chance) and he was OBVIOUSLY older than anyone else in the room, including me. I mean I'm 23 now, but he looked, well, old, and balding (no offense, Anime Parliament guy).
So when someone came up to us to interview us for an article and asked “Don't you think its odd that 20 year old men are giving a talk about children's games at an anime convention?” our answer was clear. First of all, videogames and anime aren't “kid” specific at all. But second of all you have to do what you like in this life, and this was what we liked. See you don't have a whole lot of time in this world, so you have to make the time you have count, and if we wanted to be geek celebrities, even if it was just for one day, well what better time. That interviewer was also the first one to ever ask “how does one get into your line of business, how did you get where you are?” and I'll tell you my answer to her later.
Anyway time went on as time tends to do, and my job situation started to change as well. People started to hear about my exploits in Disorganization XIII and along with the rest of my portfolio, believe it or not I started to sound like someone who knew what he was doing! I wasn't, but I definitely sounded like someone who did! I hopped around a couple more freelance gigs and you know oddly enough, I really started to get a grasp for article writing. My style was starting to change, I was adapting to journalistic guidelines, I even was able to get my own visual assets. Soon my articles stopped sounding like “This game sucks” and started sounding like “This game unfortunately takes all the good elements of prior games in the genre and twists them into a bad mirror image in an attempt to satisfy its own artistic agenda. Oh, and it sucks.”
The freelance gigs just continued until I found myself where I am now, a salaried employee (with a full time raise coming up soon) at a well-known gaming publication. I won't tell you what it is because I don't want this coming up on Google immediately with their name on it, as I haven't asked permission to tell this story (don't worry I'll plug them at live performances if you really want to know.) I work from home most of the time, but I still review games, troll the net for news, interview game designers, and do all other sorts of fun stuff. At this point, even the logistical stuff like design, and planning is fun, because man, I'm a game journalist for a living and that's hot. I basically still have to work the 8 hour work week, and its good for me to be around during the 9-5 hours, but I can break it up if I want, I can leave the house or office if I really need to, and days off are really very flexible and are handled very much in the “hey I need the day off” “cool have fun” sort of vein of dialogue. My boss is amazing, my co-workers are phenomenal, and the work is some of the most rewarding work I have ever done. When I get up in the morning I can look in the mirror and say “this is who I am, I am happy with my life” and that means something. Although generally when I get up in the morning I hobble out of bed, go directly to my office, and work for 4 hours before even getting dressed or showered, but that's because I'm a lazy bum.
All throughout this time, I also of course continue my work on Disorganization XIII matters. I've learned how to video edit to help us make YouTube videos, I continue to write new material for spoiler and the many other gaming panels we do, and I routinely do work on the website and on writing rants like this one. I still don't make a lot of money but who cares? I am rich in experience, and frankly rich just in my love of life. I have great friends I get to see and speak with often, that have my back no matter what. I have a job I like and of course I have Disorganization XIII and both are fueled by my utter drive of geek fandom. And I go to business meetings in my underwear, wearing a headband. Can't complain, ya know?
Of course, this probably isn't as amusing as you thought it would be, so let me give you the “Embelished version.” Ahem. IN A LONG TIME AGO IN A GALAXY FAR FAR AWAY THE GREAT GODS OF OLD DECREED THAT GREAT WARRIORS OF GEEKERY WOULD COME TO SAVE THE WORLD FROM REPETITIVE ANIMES, HORRIBLY DESIGNED VIDEOGAMES, AND MEDIOCRE WEBCOMICS. THESE HEROES WOULD BE DISORGANIZATION THIRTEEN. SOULS TEMPERED WITH SUPERHUMAN ABILITY, FORGED IN THE FLAME OF THE THIRTEENTH STAR OF THE GALAXY GEEKUS PRIME THEY FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT FOR GEEKS EVERYWHERE! THEY, THE SAVIORS OF ALL THING GEEK, WILL TRIUMPH OVER THE GEEKS NATURALMORTAL ENEMIES (Jocks, businessmen, parents, tom cruise) AND WILL MAKE THE WORLD SAFE FOR GOOD ANIME AND WELL WRITTEN VIDEOGAMES AND NOT-CONVOLUTED ROLEPLAYING GAMES ONCE MORE! AND INUYASHA REALLY DOES SUCK. TRUST ME ON THIS ONE!
But seriously, though, if I had any advice I could give you guys out there, it's don't give up. I know you have heard this before and it kinda makes this whole rant after school special-y but seriously just don't give up. I'm not going to say you can do anything or be anything you want, because that's not true. Like it or not, it is going to be a little difficult for a man with no arms to be the wolds best hand model. We are all dealt different sets of circumstances, and unfortunately sometimes the odds really are stacked against us, and if probability is worth anything that does mean people will go out there, chase their dreams, and fail, and that sucks.
Still though, you have to try. So many people give up saying “this is just what I have to do.” They settle down shoving their dreams in a little cardboard box, stuffing it away in their closet and forgetting about them. Let me tell you something: they are wrong. Because, honestly, you may chase your dreams, and it may not work out, and you may fail, but if you never tried, then you have failed before even starting, the race ended before it even began, Racer X was never speeds brother and so forth. Sure, there may be a 1 in a million or 1 in a billion chance you will succeed, but even so, it's better than 0 chance at all. Besides, the stories you get from simply trying are worth all the effort you put in by themselves.
OH that reminds me! I never told you what I answered to the first person who asked me how I got where I was today. The answer was simple. “Well I have to say I have great friends, a love of what I do, and the willpower to never ever give up. But mostly, I'd attribute it to my absolute terror of getting a 9 to 5 job.”