Nytefyre

WWF. Especially during the attitude era. It was like 1998 through 2000 that nearly everyone was into wrestling, especially with what the WWF was doing and some of what WCW was doing with NWO. But, as the years piled on, it seemed like the flaws became more apparent. I look back at that period now and was like "...why did we like this again? and what from it did people want?". Because some people want swearing back, they want buckets of blood back, they want sex appeal back .etc

That was just car-crash television and I learned later that what both promotions were doing back then, were doing whats called hot-shotting. It's a wrestling term where you're booking things in a seemingly appealing matter that audiences want to see. That's what they were doing and it did honestly work for a long time.

If there was anything I'd want out of wrestling anymore these days, is competent booking and for matches to feel like and be big-fight moments. The cat is out of the bag for what wrestling really is, it's just about characters, smoke and mirrors and highly choreographed moves that when they look routine, stand out.

At least some of the video games were still fun.

This is going to require some story.

Sometime ago, I bought what was said to be an unused HP LaserJet M234dwe printer/scanner that someone bought for over $200 in 2021. I got it for $10 at a thrift store. Whether or not it was unused, that's anyone's debate (it didn't have the box so right away I was skeptical). What I thought was a great deal, in hindsight would later turn to be frustrating with a company that has long degraded from its simpler days.

I didn't know it already have a toner in it, which made me having to go find and buy another one a spared cost. So, about a few days ago, I went to try and get it to print. It wouldn't print. It'd just turn on, seemingly budge the paper inside and won't do a thing. I tried everything I thought I could, from using HP's bloated mess of an app they have called HP Smart (or HP Dumbingly Frustrating) to trying to work around the basics of making the printer work with Windows 10 with proprietary drivers.

Still wouldn't print a single page, both testing and just a demo page. So I call HP tech support and I had two rounds with them, both ending in unresolved cases. I was informed that because this machine is out of warranty, which I didn't care, and if I needed extended support, I would have to pay $20 for paid technical support. Additionally, the other option was to pay monthly for a newer printer.

Both options were out of the question for me, because the problem wasn't just because the printer wasn't printing, but also the HP shitty app couldn't be bothered to register my printer because there's some unknown connection timeout with their shitty cloud servers or something. So I took to the HP site to try and bring the issue there. During the midst of my frustration, I worked around what I could say about how utterly useless and careless HP is. That is what lead to the banning here in this image and I don't regret it.

This is what HP has degraded to, all this time. Moral of the story - get a printer that's not HP.

The problem with gatekeepers, is that their reputation is trashed by people who take it to the extreme. I still feel that gatekeepers in general are important to have for communities and fandoms. But the kind of gatekeepers we could use more of, are ones who're actually not just weeding out the fakers from the authentic types, but to actually educate a little about what a community is all about from being devoted to a basic fan.

I see too many times, people running around with wiccan stars and satanic symbols, but are only wearing them for cool-factor purposes. But if you came up to one of them to hold a brief conversation as to whether or not they even care of or know the meaning behind the symbols that they're projecting, more often times than not, they are largely using them because they looked cool to them.

Now as a gatekeeper in that position who is asking the questions, would it be wiser to actually educate them or just scream at them crazily? You could educate them a little and if the answers still boil down to "tee hee, I just think they cool anyways, I don't care" then you're permitted to brand them as bullshitters and an insult to actual people who take these symbols to heart.

You just don't simply want a lot of people misrepresenting and confusing something you care about, because it is damaging an identity at the end of the day. That's why gatekeepers are important to have around.

Boston Red Sox vs New York Yankees

These days, the rivalry isn't always as high-stakes, it's more like the history of the two teams are being used as an excuse for high ticket prices for both respective towns. But, it used to have had a lot of heat going through in the 2000s when players like Derek Jeter and Pedro Martinez were active for both teams.

2004 was the year the Red Sox really stuck it to the Yankees by still being the only team in the MLB post season, to come back from a 0-3 deficit, win the series and eventually sweep the Cardinals for a World Series in 86 years at that time.

And while it was still a great feeling, for the Red Sox to win a few more titles in later years while the Yankees currently is in a 16-year drought for championships. You still have to weigh in the teams as to which team honestly is more successful and is able to make moves the other team can't and even as a Red Sox fan, it still ends up being the Yankees. The Red Sox would need to win more titles than the Yankees to even contest the success rate of the Yankees. The Yankees do appear dominating every other season, including the current one, while the Red Sox either keeps squeaking in the Wild Card series or just outright not making the playoffs.

So what other rivalries, fiction or non-fiction, is still considered a rivalry, but it's so one-sided that it makes you wonder why it is.