#riprtd

[giantbombnonsense]

“Welcome to Disneyland. Here’s your smoked turkey.” @patrickklepek’s greeting to @Taswell and @Willsmith during the Kinect Disneyland QL. 

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The best

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In Memoriam: Ryan T. Davis

Ryan Taswell Davis was a writer and on camera personality at Giantbomb.com a video game and entertainment website that I have frequented for nearly 3 years now. The great thing about Giant Bomb is the people that work there. With such a small staff it’s easy to really get to know each person there and create a special bond with the people who allow you into their lives on an almost daily basis, whether that’s via the Giant bombcast — their 3 hour weekly podcast — or the myriad other ways they connect with their audience. Ryan Davis was the “host.” The guy who could light up the room with presence, and not just because he had all the lights and cameras pointed at him. His laugh, infectious, and he could seemingly relate with anyone you put him next to. Someone who was larger than life in every sense. All that and I never even met the guy.

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.

If anything, those who will read this most likely will have no idea who Ryan Davis was, he’d love it if you kicked back, fired up the grill, had a few drinks, had a lot of laughs, and blew something up on this spectacular Forth of July. Celebrate a life well lived.