After three years (almost to the day!), my tenure at VICE and Waypoint is ending. I have something exciting lined up that I’ll be able to share shortly, but for now, this is goodbye.
When I started here in October of 2016, the world was a different place. A radically different place, geopolitically, and in the weeks leading up to the 2016 election, we… well, we launched a video game website.
Austin had just contacted me asking if I knew anyone in the market for a Managing Editor job at the new site he was building (it didn’t even have a Bazinga-worthy name yet), and I just about leapt off my desk and screamed ME, HI HELLO.
Waypoint, especially in its early days, was the most ambitious, special, thoughtful, fun, and WILD experience of my working life to date. We did a 60-hour workweek then a 72-hour launch livestream marathon extravaganza, and that energy, that belief that we were making something special, something earnest, and political, and thoughtful, and angry, and funny, and honest—and above all, caring—was infectious. That energy carried me through long hours, through daily videos and podcasts and writing and editing. Through early turmoil at a company positioned in a volatile, toxic media industry.
I still believe in Waypoint, and what we tried to do. On our best days, I think we moved the needle so to speak, or made a dent in some people’s lives. Enough to matter.
Here are a couple of things I’m most proud of from our time together. This piece on Observer and Cyberpunk in 2017, which, even two years later, feels, if anything, not harsh enough. This profile on Ben Burbank, a game developer whose family has survived two mass shooting situations, who never fires guns in games. This utterly batshit stream, where Natalie, Danika, and later Austin, and I all built Labo and… were just in the best, goofiest mood. The video reviews I cut together. This short video on Prey, to my mind the finest immersive sim ever made.
And now, to a few personal notes:
To Patrick: thank you for all the Horror discussions, especially this one, and for your patience, kindness, and reporting tips.
To Cado, thank you for appreciating my awful jokes and for your incredible work on the podcast, producing and working through all kinds of glitches, mishaps and FIVE STAR runtimes. And for being my Mario Party teammate.
To Rob, thank you for bringing some of our Idle Weekend energy to the podcast, for your humor, for the many, many times I sought your advice and asked you for sanity checks, and for every single second of be good and rewatch it.
To the friends who made Waypoint what it is, and moved on: I’ll be an alumna soon too. Thank you Danika for your humor and voice, for being an old Rhode Island Auntie with me. Thank you Natalie for being the easiest hire I’ve ever helped to make, for rolling with every change we threw at you with incredible grace, poise, intelligence and a sense of fun. Thank you Joel for protecting us so well from so much turmoil, for helping us GET SHIT DONE, for allowing us to do our best work.
And thank you Austin, for making all of this happen. We made something incredible, and special, and I can’t thank you enough for the opportunity and the adventure. We went through a LOT here, and I’m very proud of what we made.
I’m beyond excited for you in your awesome new gig, and though I’ll miss working with you, I know this is the best possible path.
To everyone who watched, listened, read, etc. anything I made here during my time: thank you.
I’ll be able to share some more news about what’s next layer this week. But for now, goodbye, good luck, be good and be good at it!
