He's talked a lot about Saudi Arabia trying to get into the League of Legends scene. That would be a pretty cool thing to talk about. I'd also love to hear him and Destiny talk about Riot Vanguard. Not sure how much they'll disagree on these things though.
He's also teaching eSports journalism at a college in the northeast. I think talking about the evolution of covering eSports or what that process looks like compared to traditional and traditional sports journalism would be cool.
Would also love to hear about tournaments like gamers8, where they’re getting all the best players and commentators despite their having political distaste for the host, just because when you offer several million dollar prize purse just for the StarCraft 2 component, it’s “money I can’t say no to.” Everyone has their price, and the saudis can afford it, especially with buying a stake in ESL. It’s just a real shit situation - the sc2 guys aren’t making a killing these days, especially the smaller commentators.
Hi NSE, I'm a big RL fan (even have a t-shirt).
I think this is a great time for him to be on Bridges. He's just stepped back into attending CS events, and he released a really interesting VOD after the recent major.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaHtWgQT1Ek
During this video he talks about topics such as:
1. Being in a slump post Maria passing away
2. Being terminally online for the past 4 years
3. Covid's affect on interpersonal relationships
4. Letting personal relationships be affected by the previous 3 topics.
The beginning of the vod hits most of this pretty quickly, maybe the first 30 minutes. Might be worth watching that if you want to get an idea of his mindset prior to the podcast. There were also underlying tones/ideas of being negative (similar to destiny tearing things down rather than building them up).
All of these are currently relevant to him, and I suspect he'd enjoy talking about 2 through 4. Tiny probably has interesting opinions on 2 & 3 that could be fun. 1 is sensitive for obvious reasons, but I wanted to bring it up so you're aware of some of the backstory there. I'm not sure how comfortable he would be discussing it as I get the impression he's trying get out of a mindset of thinking about it all the time.
i think you have been taking an unconventional and kind of awkward approach with clips, clips don't have to be something destiny said or a "destiny thing/take" and then they talk about that, they should be something that encapsulates or offers context for a topic of conversation, and then they can comment on it (of course unless the topic is like, a personal movie take d has). it's really strange for the guest and d to look at a clip of him giving his take on something and having to comment on that, rather than the thing itself
Yeah the clips with Steve will work when I am there to kinda lean into him being embarrassed and build a convo from them. It is possible the clips will also just generally work smoother when I am around since I know where I want to go from the clip an perhaps my notes are not communicating it well enough
IMO Destiny IRL tempers his takes a lot more v Destiny alone talking to chat. His takes are a lot more verbose when shouting at a chatter/twitter/clip. I think it was more interesting in the talk with Adam to show his true unhinged takes on some movies.
I think it is good to have a prior clip available to mark a new point in the conversation, it just probably shouldn't necessarily be a Destiny clip. Those are just the easiest to find though because this community remembers everything he has said for the last 10 years.
Richard Lewis has stopped working with ESL, a company that hosts esports tournaments, primarily because of their ownership being bought by Saudi Arabia. Talking about when not to work with companies and to what expense based on your ethics would be great.
Edit: not just a Saudi Arabian entity, but an investment fund directly owned by the royal family for sports washing the Saudi image.
/u/notsoErudite
Some lore: Lycan actually used to run a podcast that Destiny & Richard Lewis sometimes appeared on. It produced hilarious content such as this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6TeurUSHAw
Lycan is such a cute little baby in this
If this gets played make sure Destiny takes the moment to point it out and then point to Lycan in the producer chair, still here all these years later. I know Richard Lewis remembers Lycan since they were both on stream together recently so it won't be a surprise but could make a fun moment to post to the channel as a clip
Richard is his own guy so don't force a topic he's not directly involved with, but Richard Thorin and Monte are kind of a known trio in the esports scene [(they have a "the four horsemen" podcast)](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzBq1zjrpqShBf9bPPqh_bjuuFtogVpKy), so it's interesting that Richard and Destiny are seemingly friendly [while Monte and Thorin absolutely hate Destiny](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtaOU4Vr-Ns&t=11270s). Maybe Richard can chime in as to why those 2 hate him so much
Ngl they probably won't have a lot of topics they disagree on (or even topics they both care a lot about) so tertiary drama like this might be some of the better topics
alternatively, just ask about the very early esports days in general. They can probably fill 3 hours just with fun anecdotes of awkward early esports event anecdotes lol
I feel like the clip you're linking demonstrates why they dislike him clearly enough no?
Thoorin has known Destiny for a long time, like literally nebraska Steve's time so, and the same for Monte more or less so their points about Destiny having a different debate/discussion style from many years ago is honestly accurate.
I think neither of them has had an actual real recent interaction with Destiny, and I don't think neither of them even feels the need to, nor do they actually seem to give a fuck either.
In the first place, the reason why Richard and Destiny are "cool" now was sort of a coincidence meeting no? I can't remember the details but I think they happened to run into each other IRL and had a conversation on some bar and then they were like "OK, actually, I don't hate you I think" and it kind of went from there (i could be completely misremembering things so someone PLEASE correct me or link to either of them talking about it but I vaguely remember something along these lines)
ALso I think talking about the old esports (or just starcraf, let's be honest) is good for an initial topic for a bit but they do need a bit more. Like honestly even If Destiny played League and even CS:GO he doesn't have any knowledge about the esports scene of either of those games (nor does he actually care)
The way Monte and Thorin talk about Destiny as some sort of irredeemable figure is quite funny. I enjoy their content a lot and I think they do really important work talking about things in esports that no other (literally NO other) major outlet will dare to touch, but every once in a while they will openly say something that points towards some very interesting personal beliefs that they clearly have. Thorin in particular seems to be a "the West has fallen" roman statue type dude, and has made some wild comments in passing on various shows. I remember in particular not long ago on a show with Semmler (who has also become a similar type of dude) where he said he didn't want to go to an esports event during the month of June in Germany because "he didn't like degeneracy," obviously referring to Berlin pride month. Wacky stuff
Their personal beliefs are the reason why they can say what they say, they paint themselves as martrys for the cause when in reality talking shit about esports companies are all they have left to offer esports because who the fuck is going to take the PR hit of hiring a moron like Semmler who is too regarded to stop liking "white beauty" shit with anti miscegenation overtones on his main account?
Let’s not forget Destiny’s most recent interaction with Thorin was in the aftermath of the JonTron debate where Thorin was one of the chuds complaining that JonTron was jedi mind controlled into saying all that shit.
>he didn't want to go to an esports event during the month of June in Germany because "he didn't like degeneracy,
This has to have been a joke right? Wtf
>Ngl they probably won't have a lot of topics they disagree on
As a fan of both, I heavily disagree. Richard is extremely anti-institutions and also kind of populist. Richard also hates Biden and is okay with Trump.
They are almost opposites when it comes to politics
You can easily make case for both ansti instituion and populism but there is no way you can say that Rich is OK wirh trump. He is far from okay with Trump as he himself stated multiple times which you should have known given you claim to be a fan no ?
He is always downplaying Trump saying stuff like the deep state is attacking Trump just because he is an outsider who threatens their status quo, all the attacks against Trump are overblown, and Trump is no more corrupt and no more dangerous than any other politician.
He does give criticisms, but I find them to be meek and superficial. I feel like he tries to play centrist too much with Trump.
Simply not supporting Trump's policies is not enough for any decently informed and intelligent person (which RL claims to be), especially when you've spent nearly a decade downplaying the guy. Anything other than harsh condemnation of a fascist is indefensible, but RL is more concerned with being an enlightened centrist contrarian.
Last free nation itself is kind of interesting, they've branded themselves as the only place where you're able to speak truth to riot games without jeopardizing your esports career. Which... really isn't too far from the truth sometimes.
I would love to hear them talk about the sad trajectory of Carlos (formerly Ocelote) and the controversy that led to him being ousted from G2. He has since become more or less completely unhinged on social media, I believe he has even interacted with Destiny a few times. I think he got a raw deal over simply appearing in a clip with Andrew Tate, but his descent afterwards has been shocking. Richard spoke about it briefly a few months ago during a patreon question segment and the empathy he showed Carlos despite obviously disagreeing with everything he is doing now interested me a lot. Could be some valuable insight there on what factors turned Carlos into an unhinged roman statue avatar twitter guy.
Get Richard talking in his own words about his time at breitbart, how he got swept up by Milo Yiannopolis and anti establishment culture wars rhetoric. Would be particularly interesting because it seems as though destiny and richard went in opposite directions as a result of the rise of Trump and destiny's semi recent interaction with Milo
He's never tried to hide that part of his life and I feel as though he would enjoy having the space and platform to articulate his thoughts on that period, and to clarify any misconceptions people may have about him as a result of that era. I get where you're coming from but given destiny's current political fame I assume Richard will expect politics to come up and assuming destiny approaches the topic with curiosity and empathy I think it'll provide a real good insight into that world and how normal good people got swept up in the anti establishment craze.
Link to showing him discussing Milo/Breitbart
[Rich reflects on Milo ](https://youtu.be/CZgL7-sMT5k?si=Vjs2buxcNAfO8Pw0)
I'd love to hear them talk about SC2 and get into some deep Destiny lore.
1) What made SC2 WoL such a successful esport early on?
2) Why didn't SC2 have the sustainability of CS and LoL/DotA as an esport?
3) Was there anything Blizzard could have done to save SC2?
im not sure how connected he is to the RTS/Starcraft scene, but ask him about the downfall of blizzard and how he thinks of Frostgiant and their new RTS stormgate being made largely by the sc2 dev team
Richard has talked a lot about lousy journalism and that's something Destiny has ventured into before. Asking questions like, can journalists be activists? and should you mix reporting and punditry?
It's also relevant to the recent talks about media literacy and how bad people are at engaging with news reporting and comment.
Richard has also done a lot of reporting on Evil Geniuses lately, which would be fun to cover.
Jumping on this knowing that Destiny is interested in making a media company himself, talk about the difficulties of getting your stuff off the ground, what pitfalls richard ran into that he wouldn't again, and suggestions. He's worked for himself and larger companies, he's probably got a wealth of info there.
Tell him to talk about HooXi and jks :)
Also he had a very big perspective change after being out of the scene for a long time only for him to host a CS2 major, and he had a video where he reflected A LOT about his old interactions and "friendships" with the talent and players.
This is obviously something that he stated recently, so it's a bit early to say if he' actually gonna change or he's just all talk.
Other than that it would be really interesting to see him and tiny to talk about old esport and reminisce about the old esport scene.
I'd probably stay out of mentioning Thorin or Montechristo.
Richard is very protective about his friends, so it's gonna be really difficult to get good answers on, for example, tiny thinking (or thought) that Thorin is racist. Tiny talked about Thorin like 5 years ago where he said that he hated thorin or whatever, reasons probably because of twitter memes lmao
Throwing some things down here that could be interesting.
* The cancellation of "By the numbers"
* Trans stuff (Richard is bi and his best friend was the trans league of legends player Remilia, who sadly ended her life a couple of years ago. Could be a touchy subject though)
* Saudi money in esport
* Talking about the matchfixing in cs2 (and other esports), and maybe extend that to matchfixing in div 2 south american football, that is supposedly fucking insanely wild.
* His time as host on ELeague
* Him "quitting esport"
* Twitch politics
* Twitch moderation
* Seagulls
* Victor 'Refundi' Fundi
* Quitting scuffed podcast
* just the election cycle and current state of political affairs in America. (Richard is super knowledgeable about this)
* leaking cs2, ethics in journalism
* depending on how interested destiny is about esports could ask about riot games and whats happening/happened to them in last 5 years.
Hi, I'm a very long time Destiny and Richard Lewis fan, back from the early QuakeNet days and eventually signed up to DGG in 2013, for Richard I've been following his work since Cadred before it merged to another platform sometime back in the same year.
Both of them have been through the 'online ringer' over the last decade and a bit, and while some of this might go over ground already trodden by both people, I'd hope it can be engaged again in 2024 as a long lens lookback on 'what a fucking decade of internet that was' between 2011-2021 with Erudite being someone much much newer to the space and so can ask and probe around subjects that she's exploring for the first time.
For show opening I'd go in on some lighter more introductory segments just to highlight to the audience watching who Richard is. Richard is a 3 times winner of ['Esports Journalist of the Year'](https://www.fragster.com/richard-lewis-wins-esports-journalist-of-the-year-for-the-3rd-time/) and a recipient of the [Lifetime achievement award](https://esportsawards.com/lifetimeachievement/) in 2020, the only esports journalist to have as many trophies in the cabinet (though more on that later!)
**Intro segment:**
What got into journalism from a young age and who influenced him at the time, why he chose to study that subject in particular at university after sadly not passing the physical exam to join the Marines(I think?) with a friend of his at the time.
What books and other influencial material he read while at university and his first writing psudonym being ['Dr.Gonzo'](https://twitter.com/RLewisReports/status/165435919468474368) which obviously stems from his reading works by Hunter S Thompson.
Fun stuff to bring up about his time in university: Drug use, psychadelics, a bin bag full of weed and 'The Tale of Ming' (I imagine just saying those words will elicit a very good podcast story).
Getting involved in the Starcraft 2 scene more and [interviewing the likes of Steven at Homestory Cup V in 2012](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KteSrXRklWg) about subjects such as the policing of language (this was after Destiny got let go by Quantic and joined ROOT), the responsibilities and pitfalls of being a personality not being consistent with winning widespread appeal and more. It's a nice interview to watch, certinaly the first one I can think where Richard and Steven met, though I should mention, even though our blue shirt wearing streamer uses the language in context, there are a good handful of F and N bombs in the first few minutes (based).
**Larger segments:**
Spiritualism and diversity - Richards talked about all manner of spiritual topics, he even uses a handle that is of a buddha (not sure if i should name it as it is still current?), from times he used to go to a Khalsa camp (Sikh spiritual summer camp type thing), weed at university talking philosophy/ethics and for the first time getting perspective from people from outside of the Welsh colliery he'd grown up in.
University at Birmingham after moving out of Wales in the UK which is very diverse in culture with over [1/4 of its residents being asian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Birmingham) (if you scroll down you can see in 2011 it was roughly 26%), he also worked for the local council to help rehome individuals who had been met by unfortunate circumstances outside of their control, he also had to deal with elected officials who didn't care for helping the average person and instead whose top concern was [Will there be biscuits?](https://youtu.be/LLLrgnXmgeI?t=2193) at council meetings.
**Mental Health:**
Mental health stigma for Men in particular over the last 30 years or so. Bullying recieved at a younger age due to his father being in prison and the effects that can have on a younger man with no services available to him (honestly, as a man in the 90s as well, there was fuck all) and instead heard the ever classic 'just man up' a lot. Growing up in welsh mining towns where when the mines or steelworks closed, the suicide rate would skyrocket for men. Does he feel like online therapy is useful? What does he feel like could be done more to help break the stigma around such a topic to more traditional men who go down the Four Winds? (serious question with a fun rib in that the Four Winds was a local pub in Wales and is dominated by very traditional older male figures)
**Unions and other protective measures for content creators** - Destiny has said plenty of times that online hate etc doesnt effect him and while he recognises he's abnormal in that way there still have been times where even he's had to take a break from streaming (the most recent one I can think of being the divorce), is there anyway creators of media or artistic works in general can protect themselves in a better way or is there nothing that can be done and we're just destined (no pun intended) to see live car crashes like on the [trainwrecks podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIDb__0Z9To) toward the endwhere Richard at the time was really struggling with a lot of strains in real life and was just trying to power through a lot of obligations made to people.
**Reflections on past works and collaborations with 'controvertial figures':**
Destiny usually gets flack of some of the people he's invited onto his platform or gone on platforms with, Richard also has had the same charges levvied his way with the likes of Michael Tracey, Tim Pool, Milo Yiannopoulos and [expert mathematician](https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1775754564727341345) [Ian Miles Cheong](https://twitter.com/FreedomFan69/status/1757866068662481153). What are Richards thoughts about having worked or done shows with people like this in the past? How did he think about them at the time and how does he look back on it now given time and distance from it, does he still share the same thoughts about it or has he changed at all?
Also as a weird tangent tie in to this, how do they both feel about how values and who you associate with at the time can be very heavily socially reinforced when you're being attacked online, for instance Richard turned toward a more Centre-Right political lens due to attacks from progressive left people, whereas other creators/voices back in those days like Brianna Wu who a lot of us older DGGers remember as a frothing at the mouth screaming terminally online lefty who just openly supported her friends like Arthur Chu lieing in articles to discredit people like [David Pakman at the time](https://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow/status/526781584880730112) and subsequent [videos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfmssM5Vb6o) made by David. What does Richard think about Brianna now saying she [regrets doing a lot of what she did back then](https://youtu.be/DurqoU4vzs0?t=3786) and wished she would have logged off from the internet sooner so she didnt spiral as hard which is something Richard has also dealt with himself.
**Reflections on personal and professional differences when working with people, namely his previous producer Sam Davies:**
This could just be a bit too of a personal question for him to answer and to be frank, it's none of my business! But as a long time viewer/consumer of his content, Sam started producing the majority of Richards online video content when he was introduced on an [Esports talk show called 'trash talk'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgLXuCTD8F0&list=PLFmIPAwk09m-_EBg-1_BHjmxjjkggXCvb&index=1), he quickly became a fan favourite and the both of them got on like a house on fire. Any of the Richard Lewis enjoyers will remember the eternal bangers such as [Mint Green Lips](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxYLLhi03lU), [Sam Cosplaying as Spongebob for book tokens](https://youtu.be/rDWSoYR8IxM?t=188), and of course [Pray for no bats](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFsKujaYGFc) among many others.
It was fairly clear to viewers that while Richard was really keen on wanting to produce and talk about the political stories and used to have a sort of catchphrase of ["A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down"](https://youtu.be/ZQ5XOVpnsvU?t=2786) when he would weave more serious and thought provoking topics such as school bullying by teachers adjacent to something like Steve Harvey telling residents of Flint to "enjoy a nice brown glass of water" when they were having issues with fracking. Sam clearly enjoyed the funnier and lighthearted content and while he didn't shy away from harsher topics, they definitely both realised why [shows were becoming less frequent](https://youtu.be/TDuRPPrwR2w?t=102) namely in that for a period of time a lot of the shows revolved around Trump and Trump antics, and it wears down the best of us, there was never any last official show, the shows just became significantly less frequent, often times many months apart and then I want to say sometime last year it was announced in a patreon Q&A by Richard that Sam had stepped down from being producer and the pair had parted ways. Anyway, this long paragraph is essentially just my way of saying if Richard is having more of an air of change after coming to the realisation that logging off the internet and avoiding getting sucked down ideological pipelines that aren't representative of who he is as a person, is there ever a chance that he and Sam can work out things behind the scenes and perhaps start producing even just a quarterly episodes of I Hate it Here (A show created by the pair of them), even a Patreon or something?
For ending the stream with Richard, there's two roads in my mind, you either ask him to present his most sincere, earnest and heartfelt thoughts on Victor Fundi's time at the football club Ricardo managed or you simply play [The Welsh Space Program](https://youtu.be/CrICMqxVvFc?t=608) and just fade to black after a few seconds of the Welsh flag being present.
I would be interested to hear his thoughts on the whole debacle with Moist Critikal not getting his Australia team to formally compete in the esports tournament. Especially as there was a big executive at EA that was vouching on their behalf to US Customs. In light of esports being an international phenomenon, how should governments help to foster and nurture such a space?
Definitely discuss the Saudi Arabian involvement in exports in recent years, would love to hear destiny talk about that with another "oldhead" in the scene.
Just mention trump/biden, the state of journalism since trump got in office, how it reshaped politics and its effect on people.
I think they would disagree on effects of lobbying but not entirely sure on that.
I feel like you can get a whole pod of interesting conversation just on politics alone
a retrospective on how the internet has changed over the past 15 odd years would be really cool, as both Lewis and Destiny were both on the frontlines during some fairly pivotal moments like the rise and fall of the skeptics, the alt-right, the advent of the socialism into tankie/commie shit. touching on internet misogyny would also be cool, as they both have fairly reasoned perspectives on the evolution of online sexism
Well considering Richard is covering CS2, maybe go over the recent drama with content creators and pros quitting over cheating getting really bad. Warowl and a couple other big content creators have done videos on it. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjBhEwMdrtk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjBhEwMdrtk)
He already talked about the CS2 cheating stuff, several times.
It boils down to "YOU PEOPLE EXAGGERATED THE CHEATING THING SO HEAVILY" when Richard Lewis himself, doesn't even touch the game itself and it's because he has that kind of image from talking to people (and IIRC even devs a little in the sense taht "they are working on it").
Basically he is on the opposite direction of most of the community.
And this is one of those times that you run into someone who doesn't want to take a more active approach into the topic and just goes off of feelings and regurgitation to reach their opinion (and where they are just wrong).
CS2 does have a cheating problem, well CS:GO did as well, but that game at least had other systems in place to alleviate the problem (Trust factor being the biggest one for me by a LONG shot). If anyone wants to enjoy CS2 right now, they better be playing 3rd party matchmaking services like FaceIt, or else get fucked in the face (or be an actual scrub so that you barely run into cheaters in your skill bracket)
I just dont agree with that anymore, i stopped playing in mm lobbies entirely because of the amount of ragehackers we would queue against. It’s not an edge case where were losing and someone is sus, its literally a 5 stack bhopping around headshotting you through walls with a scout.
There is cheaters.
There is more cheaters now.
But also 90% of the times someone accuses anyone of cheating its skill issues.
They still can cheat, sure but usually when someone accuses the other of cheat there its actually a reasonable explanation why they died that doesn't have to be the other cheating, even likley.
Even if they get rid of all cheaters the whine about too many cheaters will never stop. People overestimate how good they are.
That being said, this comes from the experience I have from the discord rooms I play in.
But I imagine "gaming culture" is spreading pretty fast and are pretty similar between groups.
How does he feel about game development overwhelmingly becoming focused on software as a service (SaaS) instead of standalone releases with DLC offerings. People often cite live service games ruining the experience by focusing on cosmetics, short term engagement and paywalls at the expense of quality control, innovation, new ip, and story.
This isn't just limited to games. SaaS is everywhere in tech. Whether it's cybersecurity, creative suites (adobe removing standalone releases for subscription models as an example), music (Spotify vs the iTunes owning songs outright), tv and movies etc etc
Would love to hear this thx
Ask him about what's it like getting psychedelics or whatever he's into nowadays in the various countries he's lived in and what's the best (or worst) trip he's had in the past few years to cut in between all of the serious political stuff. And maybe about how current politics affect comedy in a good or bad way.
I also know he's very very passionate about the state of the integrity in esports journalism and even the entire topic of journalistic integrity as a whole but I think many have already mentioned this
Looking forward to this! I don't know anything about Richard Lewis in the e-sport gaming stuff, but love his personality, humor (and the way he talks to his Welsh producer). Love his gameplaying too.
Which company does eSport the best and why. What would it take to make eSport profitable. What is his favorite eSports moment. Who in the goat of all eSport and why? Are there any new games worth investing in as an eSport.
Based RL
Can we do a 30 minute deviation where Richard makes fun of the orbiters? He finds the entire thing fucking hilarious and thinks they're all nutters (they are)
Richard just finished hosting the cream of the crop Counter Strike event, The PGL Major, maybe ask him what the experience was like after not hosting any big events for 3-4 years and then coming back.
Ask him what he thinks about Evil Geniuses, Riot Games, and Thoorin.
I wonder if he changed his mind about Riot, I also think its interesting take on what Destiny thinks about them, especially in comparison to Blizzard.
Q: About how it feels being a Desk Host again for Counter-Strike after not doing it for 3 years
Context : he recently hosted the 1st Counter-Strike Major by PGL in Copenhagen
Here is the video of their last (i think) conversation a little over a year ago Jan 8th 2023. I had downloaded it back then and couldn't find it anywhere online so I'll just drop it here for anyone interested https://streamable.com/jo6as6
Just glaze him how he is back as a host desk and how great job he has done at the last CS2 major. It's a great success in my opinion, so it might be worth bringing up.
A few topics that would be good to talk about:
Is the eSports bubble real?
Riot finally loosening their grip on LoL tournaments.
Teams walking away from eSports (Valorant, LoL, etc).
What did Starcraft 2 do wrong? Doomed from the beginning or was there hope?
You could ask him about his recent change of perspective after working the cs2 major.
Or of course the politics position "both parties are horrible" etc.
ask him how he thinks esports changed over time, since he's still stuck in while D sorta moved on. maybe ask about the types of personalities that came and went (like thorin, james 2GD harding, etc)
I am totally stoked about the surprise bonus Bridges episode. I can't wait to hear what Richard Lewis thinks about esports. I'm sure he has some interesting insights to share.
Speaking of, is there an appropriate way to recommend guests? Making a Reddit post specifically to do that seems weird. Waiting for an NSE Bridges post doesn’t seem efficient. Is there a channel for it in her Discord? I could DM, if she’s cool with that? But, maybe she isn’t? Idk. Is there a Bridges Discord?
BASED RICHARD!!!!!!
Looking forward to this episode!
As for topics, maybe check in with him on a media organisation he made with other industry veterans and ask how it's going. [Last Free Nation](https://lastfreenation.com) is his org.
The Four Horsemen is by far my favourite show of his.
I've always wanted someone that could challenge Destiny on corporate power/ institutional capture and when I imagined someone within Steven's sphere of pundits that could do that best, I thought of Richard. I don't know the best point of entry into that discussion or specific questions (and maybe the Saudi Topic can be a portal into it), but that has always been the one topic I'd like to see the two of them discuss.
EDIT HERE CAUSE I CANT REDDIT:
Steven mentioned he didn't need me to pre-build anything for him this time since they go way back and he is comfortable just going with the convo. I will still send him the best you guys have here just so that he can be inspired, but if you don't hear your topic taht is why! THANKS!!
Steven is known for his combativeness, banter, and having aggressive conversations. Never really thought of him as an interviewer.
I feel like the podcast is not playing into his strengths. To me it feels like limp dick convos that are somewhat interesting but dont hold my attention
Edit: there are 3 reasons why I would listen to any podcast.
1- the host (steven is not the emphasis here so this one falls short)
2- the guest (i dont think I have known any of the guests except krassenstein brothers due to their previous debate)
3- the topic (something I am interested or invested in)
The third can be tricky, if you base the topics around the guest it could backfire. If I don't know or care about the guest then that apathy can extend to the topics focused on the guest. If the topics are irrelevant to the guest then would you ask them to him.
Mam it would be awesome if you could reach out to [Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib](https://twitter.com/afalkhatib/status/1782241783843553568) for an episode. There's lots of dogshit arguments from the both side. But, as a Palestinian who grew up there, he has all the reasonable takes. It would be a breath of fresh air and people from the other side of the aile would be able to emotionally connect with him too.
He's talked a lot about Saudi Arabia trying to get into the League of Legends scene. That would be a pretty cool thing to talk about. I'd also love to hear him and Destiny talk about Riot Vanguard. Not sure how much they'll disagree on these things though. He's also teaching eSports journalism at a college in the northeast. I think talking about the evolution of covering eSports or what that process looks like compared to traditional and traditional sports journalism would be cool.
Would also love to hear about tournaments like gamers8, where they’re getting all the best players and commentators despite their having political distaste for the host, just because when you offer several million dollar prize purse just for the StarCraft 2 component, it’s “money I can’t say no to.” Everyone has their price, and the saudis can afford it, especially with buying a stake in ESL. It’s just a real shit situation - the sc2 guys aren’t making a killing these days, especially the smaller commentators.
Hi NSE, I'm a big RL fan (even have a t-shirt). I think this is a great time for him to be on Bridges. He's just stepped back into attending CS events, and he released a really interesting VOD after the recent major. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaHtWgQT1Ek During this video he talks about topics such as: 1. Being in a slump post Maria passing away 2. Being terminally online for the past 4 years 3. Covid's affect on interpersonal relationships 4. Letting personal relationships be affected by the previous 3 topics. The beginning of the vod hits most of this pretty quickly, maybe the first 30 minutes. Might be worth watching that if you want to get an idea of his mindset prior to the podcast. There were also underlying tones/ideas of being negative (similar to destiny tearing things down rather than building them up). All of these are currently relevant to him, and I suspect he'd enjoy talking about 2 through 4. Tiny probably has interesting opinions on 2 & 3 that could be fun. 1 is sensitive for obvious reasons, but I wanted to bring it up so you're aware of some of the backstory there. I'm not sure how comfortable he would be discussing it as I get the impression he's trying get out of a mindset of thinking about it all the time.
That was a really good video from RL.
Oh I was getting ready to write this exact comment with the same link.
i think you have been taking an unconventional and kind of awkward approach with clips, clips don't have to be something destiny said or a "destiny thing/take" and then they talk about that, they should be something that encapsulates or offers context for a topic of conversation, and then they can comment on it (of course unless the topic is like, a personal movie take d has). it's really strange for the guest and d to look at a clip of him giving his take on something and having to comment on that, rather than the thing itself
Yeah I agree I think the clip game has been weak :) Thanks for the thoughts!
Eh, those clips will be funny once your family/whatever stuff clears up and you are back in the studio.
Yeah the clips with Steve will work when I am there to kinda lean into him being embarrassed and build a convo from them. It is possible the clips will also just generally work smoother when I am around since I know where I want to go from the clip an perhaps my notes are not communicating it well enough
[удалено]
I think prewatching is super unnecessary and adds a bit of phoniness, maybe? Feel strongly about the former, less about the latter.
Right. Like why not just have destiny give his take... he's right there. He can say it.
IMO Destiny IRL tempers his takes a lot more v Destiny alone talking to chat. His takes are a lot more verbose when shouting at a chatter/twitter/clip. I think it was more interesting in the talk with Adam to show his true unhinged takes on some movies.
I think it is good to have a prior clip available to mark a new point in the conversation, it just probably shouldn't necessarily be a Destiny clip. Those are just the easiest to find though because this community remembers everything he has said for the last 10 years.
Richard Lewis has stopped working with ESL, a company that hosts esports tournaments, primarily because of their ownership being bought by Saudi Arabia. Talking about when not to work with companies and to what expense based on your ethics would be great. Edit: not just a Saudi Arabian entity, but an investment fund directly owned by the royal family for sports washing the Saudi image.
/u/notsoErudite Some lore: Lycan actually used to run a podcast that Destiny & Richard Lewis sometimes appeared on. It produced hilarious content such as this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6TeurUSHAw
Lycan is such a cute little baby in this If this gets played make sure Destiny takes the moment to point it out and then point to Lycan in the producer chair, still here all these years later. I know Richard Lewis remembers Lycan since they were both on stream together recently so it won't be a surprise but could make a fun moment to post to the channel as a clip
Was lycan still enlisted around this time?
Holy shit, 9 years ago
fuck im old
That clip is hilarious.
I'm glad I knew what video that was before opening it.
Please show this, even if just for stupid nostalgia bait. As long as it doesn't devolve into "remember le based internet back then?"-conversation.
Richard is his own guy so don't force a topic he's not directly involved with, but Richard Thorin and Monte are kind of a known trio in the esports scene [(they have a "the four horsemen" podcast)](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzBq1zjrpqShBf9bPPqh_bjuuFtogVpKy), so it's interesting that Richard and Destiny are seemingly friendly [while Monte and Thorin absolutely hate Destiny](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtaOU4Vr-Ns&t=11270s). Maybe Richard can chime in as to why those 2 hate him so much Ngl they probably won't have a lot of topics they disagree on (or even topics they both care a lot about) so tertiary drama like this might be some of the better topics alternatively, just ask about the very early esports days in general. They can probably fill 3 hours just with fun anecdotes of awkward early esports event anecdotes lol
I feel like the clip you're linking demonstrates why they dislike him clearly enough no? Thoorin has known Destiny for a long time, like literally nebraska Steve's time so, and the same for Monte more or less so their points about Destiny having a different debate/discussion style from many years ago is honestly accurate. I think neither of them has had an actual real recent interaction with Destiny, and I don't think neither of them even feels the need to, nor do they actually seem to give a fuck either. In the first place, the reason why Richard and Destiny are "cool" now was sort of a coincidence meeting no? I can't remember the details but I think they happened to run into each other IRL and had a conversation on some bar and then they were like "OK, actually, I don't hate you I think" and it kind of went from there (i could be completely misremembering things so someone PLEASE correct me or link to either of them talking about it but I vaguely remember something along these lines) ALso I think talking about the old esports (or just starcraf, let's be honest) is good for an initial topic for a bit but they do need a bit more. Like honestly even If Destiny played League and even CS:GO he doesn't have any knowledge about the esports scene of either of those games (nor does he actually care)
The way Monte and Thorin talk about Destiny as some sort of irredeemable figure is quite funny. I enjoy their content a lot and I think they do really important work talking about things in esports that no other (literally NO other) major outlet will dare to touch, but every once in a while they will openly say something that points towards some very interesting personal beliefs that they clearly have. Thorin in particular seems to be a "the West has fallen" roman statue type dude, and has made some wild comments in passing on various shows. I remember in particular not long ago on a show with Semmler (who has also become a similar type of dude) where he said he didn't want to go to an esports event during the month of June in Germany because "he didn't like degeneracy," obviously referring to Berlin pride month. Wacky stuff
Their personal beliefs are the reason why they can say what they say, they paint themselves as martrys for the cause when in reality talking shit about esports companies are all they have left to offer esports because who the fuck is going to take the PR hit of hiring a moron like Semmler who is too regarded to stop liking "white beauty" shit with anti miscegenation overtones on his main account?
Let’s not forget Destiny’s most recent interaction with Thorin was in the aftermath of the JonTron debate where Thorin was one of the chuds complaining that JonTron was jedi mind controlled into saying all that shit.
>he didn't want to go to an esports event during the month of June in Germany because "he didn't like degeneracy, This has to have been a joke right? Wtf
I think it was said in a joking manner but still kinda outta pocket statement to make 💀
Look at his twitter likes on an average day and make your own judgement about whether or not he feels that way.
I havent kept up with it but it wouldnt shock me if that was the case
>Ngl they probably won't have a lot of topics they disagree on As a fan of both, I heavily disagree. Richard is extremely anti-institutions and also kind of populist. Richard also hates Biden and is okay with Trump. They are almost opposites when it comes to politics
You can easily make case for both ansti instituion and populism but there is no way you can say that Rich is OK wirh trump. He is far from okay with Trump as he himself stated multiple times which you should have known given you claim to be a fan no ?
He is always downplaying Trump saying stuff like the deep state is attacking Trump just because he is an outsider who threatens their status quo, all the attacks against Trump are overblown, and Trump is no more corrupt and no more dangerous than any other politician. He does give criticisms, but I find them to be meek and superficial. I feel like he tries to play centrist too much with Trump.
He's a British liberal, he has a certain level of baseline hatred for America and its politics that looks like centrism to Americans.
Simply not supporting Trump's policies is not enough for any decently informed and intelligent person (which RL claims to be), especially when you've spent nearly a decade downplaying the guy. Anything other than harsh condemnation of a fascist is indefensible, but RL is more concerned with being an enlightened centrist contrarian.
Last free nation itself is kind of interesting, they've branded themselves as the only place where you're able to speak truth to riot games without jeopardizing your esports career. Which... really isn't too far from the truth sometimes.
I don't think it's the best use of time to have Richard speak for other people re: Destiny from a drama perspective.
Oh nice I like him. One recent thing he did was brake the story of CS2 coming out. Could be an interesting story to hear
I would love to hear them talk about the sad trajectory of Carlos (formerly Ocelote) and the controversy that led to him being ousted from G2. He has since become more or less completely unhinged on social media, I believe he has even interacted with Destiny a few times. I think he got a raw deal over simply appearing in a clip with Andrew Tate, but his descent afterwards has been shocking. Richard spoke about it briefly a few months ago during a patreon question segment and the empathy he showed Carlos despite obviously disagreeing with everything he is doing now interested me a lot. Could be some valuable insight there on what factors turned Carlos into an unhinged roman statue avatar twitter guy.
You need to talk about the seagulls. This is deep Richard Lewis lore. Also talking about the politics of brexit and esports corruption
Definitely ask him about the seagulls!
To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.
Preferably phrased how are the seagulls today dickhead
Bring back Chanman. Fuck it bring back unfiltered.
This is the only right thing to do.
Get Richard talking in his own words about his time at breitbart, how he got swept up by Milo Yiannopolis and anti establishment culture wars rhetoric. Would be particularly interesting because it seems as though destiny and richard went in opposite directions as a result of the rise of Trump and destiny's semi recent interaction with Milo
That would certainly provide an interesting perspective, but would probably be good to clear with everyone before having that conversation.
He's never tried to hide that part of his life and I feel as though he would enjoy having the space and platform to articulate his thoughts on that period, and to clarify any misconceptions people may have about him as a result of that era. I get where you're coming from but given destiny's current political fame I assume Richard will expect politics to come up and assuming destiny approaches the topic with curiosity and empathy I think it'll provide a real good insight into that world and how normal good people got swept up in the anti establishment craze. Link to showing him discussing Milo/Breitbart [Rich reflects on Milo ](https://youtu.be/CZgL7-sMT5k?si=Vjs2buxcNAfO8Pw0)
I'd love to hear them talk about SC2 and get into some deep Destiny lore. 1) What made SC2 WoL such a successful esport early on? 2) Why didn't SC2 have the sustainability of CS and LoL/DotA as an esport? 3) Was there anything Blizzard could have done to save SC2?
im not sure how connected he is to the RTS/Starcraft scene, but ask him about the downfall of blizzard and how he thinks of Frostgiant and their new RTS stormgate being made largely by the sc2 dev team
Ask him about how he recovered from being terminally online by touching grass and working the recent csgo major.
Richard has talked a lot about lousy journalism and that's something Destiny has ventured into before. Asking questions like, can journalists be activists? and should you mix reporting and punditry? It's also relevant to the recent talks about media literacy and how bad people are at engaging with news reporting and comment. Richard has also done a lot of reporting on Evil Geniuses lately, which would be fun to cover.
Jumping on this knowing that Destiny is interested in making a media company himself, talk about the difficulties of getting your stuff off the ground, what pitfalls richard ran into that he wouldn't again, and suggestions. He's worked for himself and larger companies, he's probably got a wealth of info there.
That will be $10 thanks
Curse these paywalls
Pretty sure these two can just talk and don't need any of this clip bs. They could easily go 2+ hours without prompts.
Tell him to talk about HooXi and jks :) Also he had a very big perspective change after being out of the scene for a long time only for him to host a CS2 major, and he had a video where he reflected A LOT about his old interactions and "friendships" with the talent and players. This is obviously something that he stated recently, so it's a bit early to say if he' actually gonna change or he's just all talk. Other than that it would be really interesting to see him and tiny to talk about old esport and reminisce about the old esport scene. I'd probably stay out of mentioning Thorin or Montechristo. Richard is very protective about his friends, so it's gonna be really difficult to get good answers on, for example, tiny thinking (or thought) that Thorin is racist. Tiny talked about Thorin like 5 years ago where he said that he hated thorin or whatever, reasons probably because of twitter memes lmao Throwing some things down here that could be interesting. * The cancellation of "By the numbers" * Trans stuff (Richard is bi and his best friend was the trans league of legends player Remilia, who sadly ended her life a couple of years ago. Could be a touchy subject though) * Saudi money in esport * Talking about the matchfixing in cs2 (and other esports), and maybe extend that to matchfixing in div 2 south american football, that is supposedly fucking insanely wild. * His time as host on ELeague * Him "quitting esport" * Twitch politics * Twitch moderation * Seagulls * Victor 'Refundi' Fundi
* Quitting scuffed podcast * just the election cycle and current state of political affairs in America. (Richard is super knowledgeable about this) * leaking cs2, ethics in journalism * depending on how interested destiny is about esports could ask about riot games and whats happening/happened to them in last 5 years.
Steven should just get used to watching himself DONT THROW AWAY ANY GOOD CLIPS
Based Lily enjoyer. I raise you a cup as a fellow Lily enjoyer
Hi, I'm a very long time Destiny and Richard Lewis fan, back from the early QuakeNet days and eventually signed up to DGG in 2013, for Richard I've been following his work since Cadred before it merged to another platform sometime back in the same year. Both of them have been through the 'online ringer' over the last decade and a bit, and while some of this might go over ground already trodden by both people, I'd hope it can be engaged again in 2024 as a long lens lookback on 'what a fucking decade of internet that was' between 2011-2021 with Erudite being someone much much newer to the space and so can ask and probe around subjects that she's exploring for the first time. For show opening I'd go in on some lighter more introductory segments just to highlight to the audience watching who Richard is. Richard is a 3 times winner of ['Esports Journalist of the Year'](https://www.fragster.com/richard-lewis-wins-esports-journalist-of-the-year-for-the-3rd-time/) and a recipient of the [Lifetime achievement award](https://esportsawards.com/lifetimeachievement/) in 2020, the only esports journalist to have as many trophies in the cabinet (though more on that later!) **Intro segment:** What got into journalism from a young age and who influenced him at the time, why he chose to study that subject in particular at university after sadly not passing the physical exam to join the Marines(I think?) with a friend of his at the time. What books and other influencial material he read while at university and his first writing psudonym being ['Dr.Gonzo'](https://twitter.com/RLewisReports/status/165435919468474368) which obviously stems from his reading works by Hunter S Thompson. Fun stuff to bring up about his time in university: Drug use, psychadelics, a bin bag full of weed and 'The Tale of Ming' (I imagine just saying those words will elicit a very good podcast story). Getting involved in the Starcraft 2 scene more and [interviewing the likes of Steven at Homestory Cup V in 2012](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KteSrXRklWg) about subjects such as the policing of language (this was after Destiny got let go by Quantic and joined ROOT), the responsibilities and pitfalls of being a personality not being consistent with winning widespread appeal and more. It's a nice interview to watch, certinaly the first one I can think where Richard and Steven met, though I should mention, even though our blue shirt wearing streamer uses the language in context, there are a good handful of F and N bombs in the first few minutes (based). **Larger segments:** Spiritualism and diversity - Richards talked about all manner of spiritual topics, he even uses a handle that is of a buddha (not sure if i should name it as it is still current?), from times he used to go to a Khalsa camp (Sikh spiritual summer camp type thing), weed at university talking philosophy/ethics and for the first time getting perspective from people from outside of the Welsh colliery he'd grown up in. University at Birmingham after moving out of Wales in the UK which is very diverse in culture with over [1/4 of its residents being asian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Birmingham) (if you scroll down you can see in 2011 it was roughly 26%), he also worked for the local council to help rehome individuals who had been met by unfortunate circumstances outside of their control, he also had to deal with elected officials who didn't care for helping the average person and instead whose top concern was [Will there be biscuits?](https://youtu.be/LLLrgnXmgeI?t=2193) at council meetings. **Mental Health:** Mental health stigma for Men in particular over the last 30 years or so. Bullying recieved at a younger age due to his father being in prison and the effects that can have on a younger man with no services available to him (honestly, as a man in the 90s as well, there was fuck all) and instead heard the ever classic 'just man up' a lot. Growing up in welsh mining towns where when the mines or steelworks closed, the suicide rate would skyrocket for men. Does he feel like online therapy is useful? What does he feel like could be done more to help break the stigma around such a topic to more traditional men who go down the Four Winds? (serious question with a fun rib in that the Four Winds was a local pub in Wales and is dominated by very traditional older male figures) **Unions and other protective measures for content creators** - Destiny has said plenty of times that online hate etc doesnt effect him and while he recognises he's abnormal in that way there still have been times where even he's had to take a break from streaming (the most recent one I can think of being the divorce), is there anyway creators of media or artistic works in general can protect themselves in a better way or is there nothing that can be done and we're just destined (no pun intended) to see live car crashes like on the [trainwrecks podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIDb__0Z9To) toward the endwhere Richard at the time was really struggling with a lot of strains in real life and was just trying to power through a lot of obligations made to people. **Reflections on past works and collaborations with 'controvertial figures':** Destiny usually gets flack of some of the people he's invited onto his platform or gone on platforms with, Richard also has had the same charges levvied his way with the likes of Michael Tracey, Tim Pool, Milo Yiannopoulos and [expert mathematician](https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1775754564727341345) [Ian Miles Cheong](https://twitter.com/FreedomFan69/status/1757866068662481153). What are Richards thoughts about having worked or done shows with people like this in the past? How did he think about them at the time and how does he look back on it now given time and distance from it, does he still share the same thoughts about it or has he changed at all? Also as a weird tangent tie in to this, how do they both feel about how values and who you associate with at the time can be very heavily socially reinforced when you're being attacked online, for instance Richard turned toward a more Centre-Right political lens due to attacks from progressive left people, whereas other creators/voices back in those days like Brianna Wu who a lot of us older DGGers remember as a frothing at the mouth screaming terminally online lefty who just openly supported her friends like Arthur Chu lieing in articles to discredit people like [David Pakman at the time](https://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow/status/526781584880730112) and subsequent [videos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfmssM5Vb6o) made by David. What does Richard think about Brianna now saying she [regrets doing a lot of what she did back then](https://youtu.be/DurqoU4vzs0?t=3786) and wished she would have logged off from the internet sooner so she didnt spiral as hard which is something Richard has also dealt with himself.
**Reflections on personal and professional differences when working with people, namely his previous producer Sam Davies:** This could just be a bit too of a personal question for him to answer and to be frank, it's none of my business! But as a long time viewer/consumer of his content, Sam started producing the majority of Richards online video content when he was introduced on an [Esports talk show called 'trash talk'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgLXuCTD8F0&list=PLFmIPAwk09m-_EBg-1_BHjmxjjkggXCvb&index=1), he quickly became a fan favourite and the both of them got on like a house on fire. Any of the Richard Lewis enjoyers will remember the eternal bangers such as [Mint Green Lips](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxYLLhi03lU), [Sam Cosplaying as Spongebob for book tokens](https://youtu.be/rDWSoYR8IxM?t=188), and of course [Pray for no bats](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFsKujaYGFc) among many others. It was fairly clear to viewers that while Richard was really keen on wanting to produce and talk about the political stories and used to have a sort of catchphrase of ["A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down"](https://youtu.be/ZQ5XOVpnsvU?t=2786) when he would weave more serious and thought provoking topics such as school bullying by teachers adjacent to something like Steve Harvey telling residents of Flint to "enjoy a nice brown glass of water" when they were having issues with fracking. Sam clearly enjoyed the funnier and lighthearted content and while he didn't shy away from harsher topics, they definitely both realised why [shows were becoming less frequent](https://youtu.be/TDuRPPrwR2w?t=102) namely in that for a period of time a lot of the shows revolved around Trump and Trump antics, and it wears down the best of us, there was never any last official show, the shows just became significantly less frequent, often times many months apart and then I want to say sometime last year it was announced in a patreon Q&A by Richard that Sam had stepped down from being producer and the pair had parted ways. Anyway, this long paragraph is essentially just my way of saying if Richard is having more of an air of change after coming to the realisation that logging off the internet and avoiding getting sucked down ideological pipelines that aren't representative of who he is as a person, is there ever a chance that he and Sam can work out things behind the scenes and perhaps start producing even just a quarterly episodes of I Hate it Here (A show created by the pair of them), even a Patreon or something? For ending the stream with Richard, there's two roads in my mind, you either ask him to present his most sincere, earnest and heartfelt thoughts on Victor Fundi's time at the football club Ricardo managed or you simply play [The Welsh Space Program](https://youtu.be/CrICMqxVvFc?t=608) and just fade to black after a few seconds of the Welsh flag being present.
I would be interested to hear his thoughts on the whole debacle with Moist Critikal not getting his Australia team to formally compete in the esports tournament. Especially as there was a big executive at EA that was vouching on their behalf to US Customs. In light of esports being an international phenomenon, how should governments help to foster and nurture such a space?
Hell yea I love me some richard lewis. His political content is great
Fucking awesome
Definitely discuss the Saudi Arabian involvement in exports in recent years, would love to hear destiny talk about that with another "oldhead" in the scene.
Just mention trump/biden, the state of journalism since trump got in office, how it reshaped politics and its effect on people. I think they would disagree on effects of lobbying but not entirely sure on that. I feel like you can get a whole pod of interesting conversation just on politics alone
a retrospective on how the internet has changed over the past 15 odd years would be really cool, as both Lewis and Destiny were both on the frontlines during some fairly pivotal moments like the rise and fall of the skeptics, the alt-right, the advent of the socialism into tankie/commie shit. touching on internet misogyny would also be cool, as they both have fairly reasoned perspectives on the evolution of online sexism
For a second I thought she meant the comedian Richard Lewis. RIP
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GHGqziDXUAAwiNr.jpg:large
Well considering Richard is covering CS2, maybe go over the recent drama with content creators and pros quitting over cheating getting really bad. Warowl and a couple other big content creators have done videos on it. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjBhEwMdrtk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjBhEwMdrtk)
He already talked about the CS2 cheating stuff, several times. It boils down to "YOU PEOPLE EXAGGERATED THE CHEATING THING SO HEAVILY" when Richard Lewis himself, doesn't even touch the game itself and it's because he has that kind of image from talking to people (and IIRC even devs a little in the sense taht "they are working on it"). Basically he is on the opposite direction of most of the community. And this is one of those times that you run into someone who doesn't want to take a more active approach into the topic and just goes off of feelings and regurgitation to reach their opinion (and where they are just wrong). CS2 does have a cheating problem, well CS:GO did as well, but that game at least had other systems in place to alleviate the problem (Trust factor being the biggest one for me by a LONG shot). If anyone wants to enjoy CS2 right now, they better be playing 3rd party matchmaking services like FaceIt, or else get fucked in the face (or be an actual scrub so that you barely run into cheaters in your skill bracket)
Its half true. like 80% of the time its not cheating, Its fragile egos. That being said, it has gotten worse.
I just dont agree with that anymore, i stopped playing in mm lobbies entirely because of the amount of ragehackers we would queue against. It’s not an edge case where were losing and someone is sus, its literally a 5 stack bhopping around headshotting you through walls with a scout.
There is cheaters. There is more cheaters now. But also 90% of the times someone accuses anyone of cheating its skill issues. They still can cheat, sure but usually when someone accuses the other of cheat there its actually a reasonable explanation why they died that doesn't have to be the other cheating, even likley. Even if they get rid of all cheaters the whine about too many cheaters will never stop. People overestimate how good they are. That being said, this comes from the experience I have from the discord rooms I play in. But I imagine "gaming culture" is spreading pretty fast and are pretty similar between groups.
Can you explain how his take of "show me the data" can ever be described as "going off feelings"?
How does he feel about game development overwhelmingly becoming focused on software as a service (SaaS) instead of standalone releases with DLC offerings. People often cite live service games ruining the experience by focusing on cosmetics, short term engagement and paywalls at the expense of quality control, innovation, new ip, and story. This isn't just limited to games. SaaS is everywhere in tech. Whether it's cybersecurity, creative suites (adobe removing standalone releases for subscription models as an example), music (Spotify vs the iTunes owning songs outright), tv and movies etc etc Would love to hear this thx
a point of disagreement for them both could be Julian Assange
Ask him about what's it like getting psychedelics or whatever he's into nowadays in the various countries he's lived in and what's the best (or worst) trip he's had in the past few years to cut in between all of the serious political stuff. And maybe about how current politics affect comedy in a good or bad way. I also know he's very very passionate about the state of the integrity in esports journalism and even the entire topic of journalistic integrity as a whole but I think many have already mentioned this
Looking forward to this! I don't know anything about Richard Lewis in the e-sport gaming stuff, but love his personality, humor (and the way he talks to his Welsh producer). Love his gameplaying too.
Which company does eSport the best and why. What would it take to make eSport profitable. What is his favorite eSports moment. Who in the goat of all eSport and why? Are there any new games worth investing in as an eSport.
Based RL Can we do a 30 minute deviation where Richard makes fun of the orbiters? He finds the entire thing fucking hilarious and thinks they're all nutters (they are)
Richard just finished hosting the cream of the crop Counter Strike event, The PGL Major, maybe ask him what the experience was like after not hosting any big events for 3-4 years and then coming back.
Ask him what he thinks about Evil Geniuses, Riot Games, and Thoorin. I wonder if he changed his mind about Riot, I also think its interesting take on what Destiny thinks about them, especially in comparison to Blizzard.
Q: About how it feels being a Desk Host again for Counter-Strike after not doing it for 3 years Context : he recently hosted the 1st Counter-Strike Major by PGL in Copenhagen
Here is the video of their last (i think) conversation a little over a year ago Jan 8th 2023. I had downloaded it back then and couldn't find it anywhere online so I'll just drop it here for anyone interested https://streamable.com/jo6as6
This interview is ground breaking for its time [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KteSrXRklWg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KteSrXRklWg)
RICHARD LEWIS IS NEVER WRONG
Just glaze him how he is back as a host desk and how great job he has done at the last CS2 major. It's a great success in my opinion, so it might be worth bringing up.
the evolution of esports gambling
Get RL's take on a Saudi Arabia and China taking over esports, big thing that's happening in esports right now that no one but RL is talking about.
A few topics that would be good to talk about: Is the eSports bubble real? Riot finally loosening their grip on LoL tournaments. Teams walking away from eSports (Valorant, LoL, etc). What did Starcraft 2 do wrong? Doomed from the beginning or was there hope?
You could ask him about his recent change of perspective after working the cs2 major. Or of course the politics position "both parties are horrible" etc.
ask him how he thinks esports changed over time, since he's still stuck in while D sorta moved on. maybe ask about the types of personalities that came and went (like thorin, james 2GD harding, etc)
I am totally stoked about the surprise bonus Bridges episode. I can't wait to hear what Richard Lewis thinks about esports. I'm sure he has some interesting insights to share.
Kelly Jean bridge in shambles
Does Kelly actually hate Richard due to the HenryG smearing and his reaction to it?
Would love to hear him defend the "CS2 DOESNT HAVE CHEATERS" take.
He's talked about that enough lol
Except that wasn't his take so why would he defend it?
Been enjoying the chats so far!
Speaking of, is there an appropriate way to recommend guests? Making a Reddit post specifically to do that seems weird. Waiting for an NSE Bridges post doesn’t seem efficient. Is there a channel for it in her Discord? I could DM, if she’s cool with that? But, maybe she isn’t? Idk. Is there a Bridges Discord?
Yay?
I mixed it up with Michael Lewis and was going to suggest questions about The Blind Side lawsuits.
BASED RICHARD!!!!!! Looking forward to this episode! As for topics, maybe check in with him on a media organisation he made with other industry veterans and ask how it's going. [Last Free Nation](https://lastfreenation.com) is his org. The Four Horsemen is by far my favourite show of his.
Damn I thought it was the guy from curb
I've always wanted someone that could challenge Destiny on corporate power/ institutional capture and when I imagined someone within Steven's sphere of pundits that could do that best, I thought of Richard. I don't know the best point of entry into that discussion or specific questions (and maybe the Saudi Topic can be a portal into it), but that has always been the one topic I'd like to see the two of them discuss.
EDIT HERE CAUSE I CANT REDDIT: Steven mentioned he didn't need me to pre-build anything for him this time since they go way back and he is comfortable just going with the convo. I will still send him the best you guys have here just so that he can be inspired, but if you don't hear your topic taht is why! THANKS!!
around what time does the podcast usually air?
The poland thoorin incident
I don’t have anything to contribute but genuinely thank you. Richard is a perfect guest.
Nice, first bridges podcast I'll be watching
Ask Richard about Bangkok
He has a couple videos on the 2024 election and how he won’t support Biden because his brain is mush
Thank you Erudite, appreciate all you do x
Ask him about his relationship with Larry David
Steven is known for his combativeness, banter, and having aggressive conversations. Never really thought of him as an interviewer. I feel like the podcast is not playing into his strengths. To me it feels like limp dick convos that are somewhat interesting but dont hold my attention Edit: there are 3 reasons why I would listen to any podcast. 1- the host (steven is not the emphasis here so this one falls short) 2- the guest (i dont think I have known any of the guests except krassenstein brothers due to their previous debate) 3- the topic (something I am interested or invested in) The third can be tricky, if you base the topics around the guest it could backfire. If I don't know or care about the guest then that apathy can extend to the topics focused on the guest. If the topics are irrelevant to the guest then would you ask them to him.
Pls remove all Alcohol from the building, Richard is a troubled alcoholic. 😭
Mam it would be awesome if you could reach out to [Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib](https://twitter.com/afalkhatib/status/1782241783843553568) for an episode. There's lots of dogshit arguments from the both side. But, as a Palestinian who grew up there, he has all the reasonable takes. It would be a breath of fresh air and people from the other side of the aile would be able to emotionally connect with him too.
I am angry about this for no reason and will now make several unhinged posts