I watched a few of the new official interviews with the remaining and current D&D team, and all I came away with was that anyone who works there wants to be a popular social media influencer.
Most of those who play live-play games want to be social media influencers.
I get the feeling it is less about the game and more about "them getting theirs."
Nobody reads blogs compared to other media types in the hobby; I never considered myself an influencer.
After a while, all these influencers start to look and talk in the same tone of voice, that strange candace where they ele-VATE their last syllable, while waving their hands in circles as they talk. Talking does not seem natural or relaxed; it is like they are struggling to stay afloat in the water, with all those jerky hand movements, and they are desperate for attention as they adopt an unnatural, alien inflection in their speech.
Again, they are so desperate for attention that they will speak in an alien tone of voice just to make themselves heard, and pretend to struggle in the water so your attention fixates on them. They adopt strange looks that seem fake, again, to get your attention and fixate on them. After a while, standing out in the crowd like this screams of "please like me" and desperation against a soulless algorithm, and I just feel sorry for them.
Compare this with a few in the OSR (and a few in the Dungeon Tube space), the game designers, and popular YouTube channels that run discussions, and they all sound like down-to-earth people. I can listen to them for hours without needing to be visually stimulated or hearing strange vocal quirks every 30 seconds, so I won't switch to my phone.
The hobby has an influencer problem.
The more I see it, the more I can't unsee it.
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