# Lessons I Learned in Archiving All My Work I learned a lot in the process of archiving all my work for this [[The Max Frequency 2024 Redesign|2024 iteration of Max Frequency]]. I started in November 2023 or thereabouts. Going through all my online presence over the last decade opened my eyes. I found long lost articles, reviews, and podcasts that I was able to preserve and republish. I found old opinions that have changed during the intervening years. I recognized patterns—phases really—in obsessions that compelled me to immerse myself in topics. Along the way, I also found words of encouragement that resonated with my mission. So here is what I learned along the way, alongside some of that encouragement. If there is only one tidbit you take away from my archival journey, please take this: Own your work. Preserve and defend it. Whether it is public or private, own it. Let's dig in. The exciting finds were those long lost articles and podcasts. There was stuff I forgot about in it entirety. A bulk of these finds were blog post from my IGN Blog. The company nuked all the blogs out of existence seven or so years ago. At the time, I was a tiny bit sad, but took no action to backup my writing. What I remember was I used IGN's bog platform to start publishing online. I think it was a few months before just creating [[Go Left Gaming's About Page|my own blog]] on Wordpress. I was answering the call to start building up work so I could work for IGN someday. So I wrote a handful or reviews, impressions, and the like. I don't think I have a complete list. I'm not sure where they'd all be and I could only get so deep with the Wayback Machine.[^1] In writing this chunk right now, I remembered getting called out for some article and wanting it to be run on the homepage by then community manager Sean Allen. I saved a screen shot and called it "MOTIVATION." I was whole hog into IGN during those early days, after all, *they* were the goal. I don't think anything ever came from this inquiry though. I'd get on the IGN homepage someday though, just under the guise of a guide writer. ![[130130_Motiviation IGN Blog.png]] I found these four posts: - [[How Far Cry 3 Pulled Me Into First Person Shooters]] - [[Sly Cooper - Thieves In Time Review]] - [[Top 5 Unforgettable Game Introductions of This Generation]] - [[The Infinite Question - Does a Game's Story Outweigh the Mechanics]] I remember clear as day writing the Far Cry piece on my iPhone in the Pages app. I thought iCloud sync was so cool then. I remember the "Top 5" story and stand by my takes there as those games having some of the best introductions, but it was no doubt fueled by recency bias since I was still playing generational catch up on my PS3. I forgot about the other two entirely. It felt good to salvage them from the Wayback Machine and find older writings than I previously had. --- > [!quote] > "...if you start writing for other people, which is the heart of what a blog post really is: it’s you trying to entertain yourself and trying to entertain just a handful of other people, you’re going to go really much farther than trying to satisfy the robot.” — Nilay Patel A few weeks ago now, I listened to Nilay Patel of The Verge be [interviewed on his own podcast](https://www.theverge.com/24087834/hank-green-decoder-podcast-google-youtube-web-media-platforms-distribution-future) by Hank Green. It was a sort of preaching to the choir interview for me, where Nilay was the pastor and I'm out here singing the praises. I pulled a few quotes from their chat (we'll see if more pop up below), but this one pairs nicely with my aforementioned drive to be a writer for IGN; aka the robot.[^2] My drive at the start of blogging was to get a job writing about games. I wanted to head out west and be one of the folks that previewed and reviewed games; to share what I was passionate about with others. Now, that may sound like the front half of Nilay's quote, but I was looking through was the "get a job at IGN" pair of glasses at the landscape of writing about my interests and passions online. I thought I needed an outlet like IGN to do that. In my quest to "make it," I realized who the real master was. When writing guides for IGN or news at DualShockers, everything was padded and packaged for SEO: Everything was for the robot. And that broke me down. All I wanted to do was write reviews and opinions, not guides for the [McDonald's Monopoly game](https://www.ign.com/wikis/mcdonalds-monopoly-game/).[^3][^4] This led to me stepping away from *everything*. I stopped writing for outlets. I stopped podcasting. I took a hard reset. I came back when the siren's song was too alluring. This time though, I realized I don't need an outlet. I can be my own. I can write for myself and an audience that is curious about the same things I am. I didn't need to satisfy the robot. > [!quote] > "Yeah. And the last platform on the web of any scale or influence is Google Search. And so, over time, webpages have become dramatically optimized for Google Search. And that means the kinds of things people write about, the containers that we write in, are mostly designed to be optimized for Google Search. They’re not designed for, 'I need to just quickly tell you about this and move on.' Our little insight was, 'Well, what if we just don’t do that? What if we only write for the people who come directly to our website instead of the people who find our articles through Search or Google Discover or whatever other Google platforms are in the world?' And so we just made these little blog posts, and the idea was, if you just come to our website one more time a day because there’s one more thing to look at that you’ll like, we will be fine." — Nilay Patel --- Some other big finds were podcast-related. I found some episodes of a *very* short lived show dubbed *[[The Game Boys]]*. It was the podcast I tried to have for Go Left Gaming. I reunited the guys from [[But Our Princess is in Another Castle|my first show]], but it wasn't the right time or formula. I had the audio files for the first two episodes, but I completely forgot that the show ran for *four* episodes. I was able to find the show notes and audio files for each episode and save them. Now they are hosted on YouTube in an unlisted fashion for you fine folks to listen to at your discretion. The much bigger find wasn't even my find. One of said guys from [[But Our Princess is in Another Castle]] – Rocky Ankeny – still had and found the show's entire 32~ episode run. I only ever had one or two episodes left and all the show notes, but Rocky still had all the audio. That show is not available for your listening discretion, but it is now properly backed up on my computer and off-site. What a treat and thrill it was to get back my first shot at podcasting, like stumbling across old photos and a flood of memories coming in to wash over you and your nostalgia. --- > [!quote] > So what I was going to say is even though they're ugly and a lot of the content is what you're saying, just scratched out notes that kind of have no personal meaning or really relevance into the future. But that being said, I will occasionally, you know, flip through my college notebook from architecture class or whatever and it's just cool to like dip into the brain of a 20 year old or whatever. > > The 20 year old version of me and be like, oh, yeah, this is where my head was at. You know, this is what I was thinking. Like a kind of kicks me in the in the memory a little bit. Like I have kind of a bad memory also in general. And so that like it can work to revitalize some of those memories as well. > > But I would reconsider, especially the like daily journaling. Like you should maybe reconsider throwing those away if you're going to throw away your Panobook-type thing because it's just scratch notes from podcasts, like, I'm not too offended by that, but keep your journals at least. — Dan Provost[^5] from [*Thoroughly Considered* 107: Keepbook](https://overcast.fm/+FNoEjXCfg/49:01) > I'd say almost all of my writing and podcasting from the beginning and middle (and maybe even close to nowadays 😅) is the equivalent of chicken scratch for blogging and podcasting. Despite said scratchiness, there is value in keeping that work. It's a time capsule of opinions, techniques, and ideas. And there's value in going back and reviewing these chicken scratch notes. I just did a personal retreat and one phase was reviewing the quarter's journal entries. I've never journaled before this year, so I floored at the enjoyment I got out of this process. In just the past three months I've had ups and downs that I got to relive within the safe confines of a journal with the gift of hindsight. And I had the same process when archiving all my work for the [[The Max Frequency 2024 Redesign|2024 redesign]]. I found styles and ideas and opinions that aren't reflective of myself now; whether they've grown from those seeds or been completely uprooted. Either way, I had fun reliving those seasons. From the energetic days of hustling to "make it" to the furloughed days of 2020 when I (and everyone) had nothing but time on our hands, this whole site is a time capsule of me. Just like I say on the home page. > It's had different names and been published in other places, but it's always been demonstrably *me*. --- Most of the remaining tidbits I learned along the way were funny in that vein of "I can't believe I totally forgot that." Take for example, that the game *Inside* used [a human skull](https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/6/13190982/inside-game-soundtrack-human-skull) to record its soundtrack. How about when I wrote so much about the #Analogue systems to no longer own any of them?[^6] My favorites were my [[New Tenet Trailer Premiering in Fortnite|hot takes]]/stances on *Fortnite*. > But I cannot imagine that Christopher Nolan, [a huge proponent of shooting his movies on film](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtH6kiPbMBw) and releasing them in a 70mm IMAX film format, is rooting for his next blockbuster to have a trailer debut on a [virtual movie theater screen with 100 dancing avatars](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4lJlaP-2HY). That sounds like a terrible way to actually watch any video/trailer/movie. Or this one from my [[Learning the Lay of the Land – Silent Hill 2 by Mike Drucker and Boss Fight Books|review]] of Mike Drucker's book on *Silent Hill 2.* > when games today strive to be more than reaching a flag or being the last character flossing on the map... [[All I Wanted for Christmas were some V-Bucks|Now look at me]]. > I never thought I'd be asking "where we dropping boys?" in a serious manner, but here we are. I wager *Fortnite* will be a constant game this year for me. We'll see where it all goes, but I do know it won't be the same as when I started. I got a win the other night with the lads. I wish I had the budget to spend more in *Fortnite* for all this *Avatar: The Last Airbender* stuff. Today, I'd definitely try to carve out time to watch the *Tenet* trailer with 99 other dancing avatars. --- > [!quote] > "If anyone in Gen Z is reading this, remember: it's never too late to start a website. It doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to get a million readers. It doesn't have to change the world. All it has to be is a reflection on the past, a time capsule for the future — a document for the now. Your readers are out there, waiting. They'll find you." — [Jason Kottke](https://kottke.org/23/11/snarkmarket-turns-20) I'm not a part of Gen Z, but the encouragement still rings true. It is never too late to build your home online. Don't build it in the straw houses of social media or stick homes of mega corporations: Build it out of sturdy brick. Own the work and take solace in that fact it represents *you*. Look at this place; it's move neighborhoods a couple times, but the bones are solid. Max Frequency is a reflection of my past. After this effort, I know it is a time capsule for my future. It's documenting my life and interests and opinions right now. More will come and even more will change. People have found me, like you. I'm owning it. Are you? [^1]: Real time update (for me writing this at least): I may have found may original Pages documents where I wrote these IGN blog posts? *rubs hands* [^2]: Whose master is *the* robot—Google Search and SEO. [^3]: Yes, I was paid to write this. Actually, a pretty fun (and funny) gig. [^4]: Holy cow food was so much cheaper just *checks calendar* eight years ago. 🫠 [^5]: I think this was Dan. I'm, like, 95% sure. I even tried to compare their voices in older videos of talks. I struggled telling them apart. Very sorry if this was Tom. [^6]: All sold to afford the [[Switching Things Up – Extron Crosspoint Thoughts & Impressions|Crosspoint]] and the [[Rewiring - Preparing the Way for Tink 4K|RetroTINK-4K]].