About Me

I chose this video above to represent me because it exemplifies several different aspects of my life. The video shows several different clips of the popular YouTube channel VSauce taken completely out of context. This is so entertaining because Michael from VSauce uses many outlandish hooks or puns that make no sense at all when taken out of context in order to pique the interest of his audience. The channel VSauce is actually a good baseline representation of me and my personality because it is full of various cool facts about science, language, and all other kinds of topics. I actually really enjoy learning new things and I proudly call myself a nerd, so VSauce is a perfect channel for me. Even the wide variety of topics that VSauce covers reflects a part of me. I said that I proudly call myself a nerd, but more specifically than that I like to think of myself as a sort of “Nerd of all Trades.” I mean that I don’t have one particular topic that I like to focus the most on, rather I just like the concept of learning new things in general. VSauce provides a perfect source of learning in a greatly entertaining way and its many topics satisfy my many interests. This video in particular more fully represents me because it reflects the wild whirlwind of thoughts that go through my brain at any given time, but most especially when I am excited about something. Oftentimes I will say or do something that might seem completely random to other people, but to me it makes perfect sense because I’ve already had a complete train of thought or even full conversation go through my head about the topics that I randomly blurt out. The video goes through many clips of Michael from VSauce either blurting out or doing random things or connecting several different topics with a witty yet ridiculous pun. While I am certainly not as practiced an entertainer as Michael, my brain often thinks in the same way that his does and we both share the same love of and fascination with learning. Now, obviously, there is no single video that can completely represent anyone, but if I had to give a brief, honest description of myself to someone, this video would certainly jump to my mind. I am not ashamed of my nerd-iness in any way, shape, or form, and I would proudly flaunt it to anyone who wants to get to know me. Honestly there are many other videos that I could show to demonstrate my personality and interests, but this video also happens to be incredibly entertaining and that makes it very useful for showing off to other people. Now I do not have to squeeze all of myself into one video: I will next use an image to help show off the rest of my personality. As everyone knows, a picture is worth a thousand words, and I only need half that amount. 😉

Now that you’ve been thoroughly horrified by the drastic change of tone (and the lovely tentacled demon above), I think it is important to address one of the most important aspects of my life and my personality: video games. Whether you love them, hate them, or just don’t understand what the fuss is all about, the video game industry has easily been the fastest growing entertainment industry since the 1980’s, and I grew up on the stuff. I can still vividly remember my first time playing the GameCube all by myself; how cool it was to feel like one of my four older siblings. “Okay, Thomas, that’s all well and good,” I hear you saying, “BUT WHY IS THERE A HORRIFIC DEMON ON MY COMPUTER SCREEN!” Okay, you probably aren’t all that concerned about it, but that particular creature called the Amygdala from the game Bloodborne. For those of you who don’t know, Bloodborne is a game from FromSoftware who are the same developers as Dark Souls, a notoriously difficult video game, and that monster is one of the bosses that you, the Hunter in the image above, have to fight. He’s not even the most difficult boss in the game, or the scariest. My family got the game when my oldest brother went on a gaming spree before he went off to the Navy. He bought the game used from GameStop, meaning that someone else bought the game and then rage-quit before they finished it, and then he proceeded to play through the beginning until he, too, rage-quit. That’s how intense these games can be. Now I have to confess, I was never all that great at the game myself. All of my knowledge of the SoulsBorne series (the Dark Souls series, Demon Souls, Bloodborne, and some include Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice) actually comes from my younger brother, who has become an expert at the games and has personally bought the rest of FromSoftware’s products. He has told me all about the sheer amount of fascinating lore that is hidden in those games, discussed at length about the smoothness of the combat and gameplay mechanics, and on several occasions talked about which of the games he likes the best. All of this has led me to believe that the SoulsBorne series, and Bloodborne in particular, has some of the most incredible storytelling and gameplay of any game ever released, and the only thing keeping these games out of their much-deserved spotlight is the perceived difficulty of the games. This is actually unfortunate because anyone can learn how to be good at the game (even I was able to beat over half of the bosses in the game) and they’re definitely worth the play. Bloodborne especially has some of the most incredible world building and atmosphere I’ve ever seen in a game. It’s perhaps not as graphically stunning as Red Dead Redemption 2 or Breath of the Wild, but the blood-soaked urban streets, muddy, infested forests, and horrifying nightmare worlds the game forces you to trudge through all contribute wonderfully to the overall experience of the game. The game is able to amp up the “creepy factor” so much because it is heavily inspired by H.P. Lovecraft. Say what you will about the man, he was able to come up with some of the most vividly unsettling stories ever put to paper, but that’s a story for another day. As you can surely tell from this advertisement for Bloodborne, when it comes video games there is so much more than running around and beating up monsters or shooting bad guys. Video games are, in my opinion, the most dynamic art form in today’s society. When plays and, later, movies advanced on the visual beauty of traditional art by adding into it the storytelling of the greatest literature as well. Video games take this natural progression one step further by inputting the player themselves into the story. When you play a video game, you might not have control over where the story goes, but you still get the feeling of personal accomplishment for progressing the story yourself. That is why I love them so much.