My name is Adam Dorsey and I'm a writer and filmmaker. This is where I pretend the internet is still good. You should follow it on tumblr or your rss feed.
I like comedy, videogames, and making cool stuff.
What are you supposed to do when someone asks you to “prove” that feminism isn’t a massive conspiracy theory in a country where we’ve only had 39 female senators in the nation’s entire history, and 20 of them are serving right now? What kind of a stupid fucking question is that?
Lindy West, from Sexism Fatigue: When Seth MacFarlane Is a Complete Ass and You Don’t Even Notice. If you follow me on Twitter, you know how upset I got from Seth MacFarlane’s gross turn as Oscars host. If you’ve ever quoted Family Guy around me, you know my history with that show. I loved it… before it got cancelled. Then it stopped being satire and just started circling the drain. Then he became the highest paid man in television, with the freedom to create whatever he wanted to create, and he used that freedom to make the same show three times a week, which was just a potty-mouthed, less funny version of The Simpsons anyway. Seth MacFarlane is the greatest example of wasted opportunity and wasted creativity, and Sunday’s Oscars were just more of that, with an extra dose of kicking women, people of color, gays, and Jews down several notches for the cheapest of laughs. Unacceptable.
Here’s an article by Lindy West where she rewatches Reality Bites as an adult, and points out all the worst lines of dialogue.
I’ve watched the movie Reality Bites more than I’ve watched any movie in my entire life ever. There was a period post-college, when I was sleeping on my ten-year-old nephew’s floor in Seattle, working at a Hollywood Video in Burien, and I would come home every day and watch Reality Bites. I don’t even know why. Like Lindy West, I loved it and hated it all at the same time. I wanted to be these people who I hated. I wanted to be able to say this stupid shit and believe it and somehow not know that it was stupid.
I still name characters in RPGs Lelaina sometimes.
I keep track of the movies I watch with a Google Calendar. I mark down when I saw the movie, where I saw it, who I saw it with, and whether I’d seen it before. Here are some facts about my movie viewing habits in 2011:
I saw 122 movies in 2011.
I saw 7 of those movies twice in 2011 - Scott Pilgrim vs the World, The Brothers Bloom, Midnight in Paris, Attack the Block, Halloween III, The Social Network, and Splice.
44 times I had already seen the movie at least once before.
I saw 40 movies in theaters and 89 movies at home.
I saw 39 movies by myself and 90 movies with friends or family.
Pretty cool, I guess. For comparison, in 2010 I saw 106 movies. And for those curious, here’s the list of all the movies I saw last year, in the order I saw them.
Great article about the trailer to the new show “Selfie.” As a writer, I find the shortcuts the show makes based on society’s shared understanding and judgment of selfies to be very interesting. The pilot of the show works because it can utilize those shortcuts in the first five minutes, and then sort of get on with the show. Unfortunately, those shortcuts are problematic in what they say about women, and they enforce troubling patriarchal paradigms of what women should be.
That said, I think the show is really cute, I want it to succeed, and I hope the writers are reading these think pieces and thinking about how their show could confront some of these issues head on. If you’re going to update My Fair Lady, then you can’t ignore its problematic ideas, you need to acknowledge them, and then replace them with more modern ones.
NOTE: I am currently doing contract work for the studio that produces Selfie, but my work has nothing to do with the program or the network, and these words do not reflect the opinions of my employer.
And so one more obvious theoretical question for this particular view of the future that seems to be quite popular right now, in which we have circled back to TV via the internet or apps or social media or even TV itself: Wasn’t the internet supposed to be BETTER, somehow, in all its broken decentralized chaos and glory?
Great article about how publishing content directly to apps and social networks may soon replace most websites. It’s an article that’s both exciting and heartbreaking, despite it’s awful title.
It was crazy. I was at a party—I’d never met her—and she was like, ‘Come sit down.’ So I sit at her table and talk for ten minutes, and she goes, 'I think it’s time for you to leave now.’ So I say, 'January, you are an actress in a show and everybody’s going to forget about you in a few years, so fucking be nice,’ and I got up and left. And she thinks that’s funny?
The guys over at William Morris put this together as a joke for their quarterly meeting, and it wasn’t supposed to get out, but well, here it is. If you’re not aware, frozen yogurt spots like Pinkberry are more prevalent down here in LA than Starbucks. Most of them are open until 2am, and they’re delicious. Also, I don’t know if you’re aware, but Hollywood is making some shitty movies, and people are going to see them because they like to pay an extra two bucks for 3D. Bleh.
What Zach Braff makes is essentially whitesploitation films, movies aimed directly at the suburban lizard brains of slightly disaffected honkies who will never know true trouble, just the nagging sense that things should be easier for them than they already are. And in the decade since Garden State we’ve kind of outgrown that.
This is an insightful article by Devin Faraci at Badass Digest that says all the things we all feel about Zach Braff. Definitely nice to collect your thoughts. I’m going to have to watch that new movie, even if it ends up being real painful. I’m also probably gonna have to rewatch Garden State. Ugh. I was so into that movie when it came out, but now it reminds me of everything I hated about myself then. I should probably watch it while simultaneously reading aloud the novel I wrote in college.
Here’s a funny article on Splitsider about what happens to social media accounts for tv shows after they get cancelled. The quick answer is “Well, nothing really,” but that doesn’t mean it’s not fun to watch someone drive by these fallen show car crashes and examine their final words to fans.
I have several friends who love saying that 2022 was a weird year for games and that no games came out this year, but that’s not really true. A wide-range of games downloaded on my wide-range of consoles, from the big huge ones that we all played and talked about to the niche ones that really connected with smaller audiences. Personally for me, after a couple years of unemployment and tough living, 2022 was a year where I had a lot more money to spend on video games than I had time to play them. Of my top 8 list, only two of them are games I “finished.”
2022 was also the year that I got a Steam Deck, which made the aging hardware of the Nintendo Switch even more apparent. Still, the Switch managed to get a game in my top 8, while the Steam Deck really allowed me dig into some of my backlog while curled up on the couch. I feel like the PS5 really hit its stride with exclusives this year, while Xbox shined with their varied Game Pass offerings. Anyway, below are my top 8 games of 2022, followed by the usual addendums, corrections, and contradictions.
MY TOP 8 GAMES OF 2022
8.Trombone Champ - I laughed harder at Trombone Champ than I did any other game this year. Just howling guffaws shaking loose as I frantically clicked the mouse button. It’s a rhythm game where you play a trombone. It’s hilarious. Highly recommend.
7. Marvel Midnight Suns - This is a late addition as this game only came out in December, and it’s a long one that at fifteen hours in I feel like I’ve barely dug into, but I’ve already had a good enough time hanging out with my Marvel superhero friends in my spooky Marvel house that it has to go here. Looking forward to really digging into this in January.
6. Vampire Survivors - Vampire Survivors is like $2 or something. All you do is move your little guy around, avoid dumb monsters, and pick up powerups that make you ridiculously strong until the next round of stronger monsters threatens to overwhelm you. It’s perfect. Even some of the clones that have chased its success this year are worth checking out. Some of my favorite gaming moments this year were getting incredibly overpowered builds in Vampire Survivors and laying waste to an ever filling room of weird bad guys, only to die at 29 minutes into a run.
5. Marvel Snap - Marvel Snap is too good. Even though it came out in the second half of the year, I may have spent more time playing it than any other game in 2022. No game lasts more than five minutes, there are loads of possible strategies, every match is different because of card matchups and random locations that severely change the game. Plus, even when I lose I get to level up my cards and make them shinier.
The game is insidious in the way it primes all of the joy in your brain to activate, but it manages to do that without also being insidious about microtransactions. Yes, it has $50 packages that amount to just a couple variants of cards you already have, but all gameplay specific unlocks don’t require real money purchases. Season passes are optional and cost $10, and yeah them being monthly sometimes feels a bit much, but I’m playing it so much that I’m happy to throw $10 a month at a it so I have even more numbers that go higher.
4. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 - I played all of Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and 2, and despite enjoying both of them a ton, they both had slow enough starts and sometimes troubling idiosyncrasies that made them difficult to recommend. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is different, it’s an instant recommendation to anyone looking for a complex, interesting JRPG. The characters and story are immediately engaging. Also unlike the previous entries, the side quests are significantly more interesting, giving real reasons to explore the huge world.
Currently I’m only (“only”) 40 hours in, and I’m guessing I’m about halfway through. I’ll be chipping away at it for a large chunk of 2023, and that’s a-ok by me. “I’M THE GIRL WITH THE GALL!”
3. Immortality - Immortality is the latest from Sam Barlow, modern FMV auteur, and this time he bites off way more than he should be able to chew, but somehow sticks the landing. It’s three movies worth of footage, with weird behind the scenes material to go with it, and all you’ve gotta do is watch it and try and make sense of what you’re seeing. Pretty quickly it gets a little Twin Peaks, but also always stays true to the genres the films within the game live in. It’s a spooky, voyeuristic ride that no film buff should miss. Also, it’s on Xbox game pass and on Netflix on your phone, so just play it.
2. God of War Ragnarok - I picked this up because I was supposed to. It’s the big PS5 release this year and my PS5 needs more games on it. I enjoyed the last one, but found it completely forgettable—Ragnorak is anything but. The writing and storytelling is just top-notch. I think the best way to explain it is that they truly respect every character in the game and give them all a ton of screen time. This does mean that the game balloons in length (I think I put in 45 hours or so), but it had me loving every weird dwarf, giant, and other mystical beast I met.
That game length is also less painful because they keep the mechanics just fresh enough without changing them so you forget out how to play. Playable characters and sidekicks swap in and out regularly in ways that feel natural to the narrative, but also keep you adjusting your playstyle.
It’s a great game and it makes me very excited for whatever that team does next (but it doesn’t have to be another one of these, guys).
1. Elden Ring - Elden Ring is so much. It’s the game that finally made me understand the Souls games. It’s the first game since Breath of the Wild to give me a true sense of exploration and wonder in an open world. I had so many terrifying experiences of stepping into areas, seeing the grossest, scariest thing I’d ever seen, and running away as fast as I could. Then twenty hours later, I’d go back to the same area and lay waste to that silly ugly monster.
I didn’t finish Elden Ring, but I put about sixty hours in, loved it all, and hope to some time eventually be in the mood to return. Even if I never do make it back, those sixty hours set a new bar for open world games for me and reminded me that games can still surprise.
Games I played that didn’t make the list because they didn’t come out this year:
Code Vein - After playing 60 hours of Elden Ring over two intense months, I needed more souls-like action, but I didn’t want it to feel as “important” as Elden Ring.This is how Code Vein became my most played Steam Deck game of the year. I love it’s weird vampire anime bullshit. I love that the combat is difficult and souls-like, but I can also just button mash 90% of the time. Definitely recommend it to anyone like me who wants something souls-like but not quite a Souls game.
Fortnite - I’m still playing Fortnite. Sorry. Every new season they add a ton of new stuff and it’s a great game for my partner and I to play together. This year they even made the game look a bunch better. You can ride a pig around as Spider-Gwen and shoot a gun at Goku.
Destiny 2 - I played through Witch Queen this year, and it probably could’ve made my top 10, but then I also kind of burned out on the seasonal stuff a bit and chose to focus on other games. Sometimes I get a bit overwhelmed by all the inventory management, but Destiny 2 still feels better to play than just about any other game. Very excited for this the next big expansion.
Fire Emblem Three Houses - I finally finished this game this year! Fire Emblem still good! Turned out that maybe playing through 3/4s of the game on Classic Hard wasn’t the right thing for me, and in the last 20% I switched to Classic Normal and had a much better time. I’ve got that new one pre-ordered for later in January and I’ll probably take three years playing that one too!
Yakuza Like a Dragon - Like a Dragon is still great! I’m still playing it somehow! I’m probably not even halfway through. I still love it.
Games I didn’t play (or didn’t play enough of) but would like to:
Neon White - Neon White is good! I played two hours and really enjoyed myself and then never went back. See you in 2023, Neon White.
Norco - I played a good amount of Norco and loved it, but fell off when they added a mechanic that felt too complicated at the time, and unfortunately I never went back. Now I have to decide whether to a.) finish it even though I feel like I’ve forgotten what was happening, b.) start over, or c.) just save it for some time in the future when I can give it a fresh playthrough.
Tunic - I was really enjoying Tunic! But it was also a bit too hard for me and I fell off and never went back. Hope to return at some point.
Need for Speed Unbound - This game came out of nowhere, dropped with no fanfare, and after a decade of unexciting Need for Speed games turns out… good? I’m only like 6 hours in, but the racing is solid, the art-style and soundtrack are captivating, and the story is actually interesting? Best of all, it seems like an open world racing game with a vision, a reason to keep racing, and not just 100s of icons on a map. Excited to keep digging into this one.
Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope
Pentiment
Signalis
Sifu
Tinykin
Stray
Cult of the Lamb
Citizen Sleeper
Games that I’m sad I didn’t like more and might go back and play more/finish, or might just say goodbye to:
Overwatch 2 - Overwatch is still great when it’s great, but boy when you’re losing does Overwatch feel bad. The new characters and maps are fine, but the season pass progression and unlocks were pretty boring for me, and once I got my fill of More Overwatch I fell off. Haven’t even turned it on in season 2 yet.
Horizon Forbidden West - Too many things on map. Want to know what happens in the story, but too many things on map.
Pokemon Legends Acreus and Pokemon Scarlet - Did these… both come out this year? Did I buy and start both of them despite not really getting into a Pokemon game since Pokemon Emerald? Did I enjoy my first 5 hours with both of them a ton and then forget completely about them? Yup.
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So yeah, I think 2022 was a pretty good year in games, as I’ll continue to chip away at my favorites and the ones I didn’t get to. 2023 promises to be an even bigger year with the Zelda Breath of the Wild follow-up, Fire Emblem Engage, Starfield, and Diablo 4 being the games I’m most looking forward to. Beyond the big releases, I’m going to try to spend a little more time playing the games I already know I love, and I hope you will find time to as well. Happy 2023.
