#riprtd

Well, Ryan Davis passed away on the night of July 3rd, 2013. When the announcement was made on July 8th, that next Monday, I found myself devastated and shocked and wondering how the passing of someone who I had never spoken a word to could have such a profound effect on me. I didn’t have much I could say, and all I could do was scroll through the comments of the article of this horrible announcement and see everyone’s shock. To my surprise I began to read hundreds, of responses mirroring my same sentiments. How could someone who I never even met have such a huge effect on me. Someone whose reach extended to the boarders of a small portion of a very specific interest group, that of video games and video game journalism. To see so many people come together on the Giant Bomb website and to also see that spill over onto Twitter and trend worldwide for a brief time really struck me. It didn’t matter that I had never met him. I had been allowed, along with so many others, in to the lives of the crew over at Giant Bomb that they all seemed like family at this point and they all seemed untouchable in their video game filled fantasy world. Ryan Davis is irreplaceable and his absence will be forever felt.

I didn’t want this post to be a downer, but I had also never written any sort of memoriam on this subject either so now there’s this. This event really taught me a lot about how the loss of someone can be all too effecting and how it’s possible to shine so bright that you can’t help but be a beacon of light in other people’s worlds.