Hey Paisanos,
Guess what? After six years, I am stepping down as Editor-in-Chief of Hard Drive. And no, this isn’t one of those “satire articles” you keep hearing about.
Maybe you don’t know who I am — perhaps to you, Hard Drive is simply a void from which funny little articles pop out several times a day, seemingly from an alternate dimension where everything revolves a little bit more around Nintendo villain Waluigi’s semen.
Well, my name is Jeremy Kaplowitz and the whole time Hard Drive has existed, I was one of the several white guys who decided what content was allowed on this site. In June 2017, Matt Saincome, Mark Roebuck, Mike Amory, and I started this site, and I’ve acted as its Editor-in-Chief since, well, today.
I wrote over 500 articles, I ghost-wrote god-knows-how-many articles, and I edited something like 5,000 articles. I wrote most of the dumb little tweets, I made most of the article images, and I co-hosted all of the ill-fated podcasts. I helped launch our presidential campaign, I ratioed some dipshit billionaire, I wrote several pitches for Hard Drive tv shows that no one will ever see, and I did a whole bunch of other stuff that I’m forgetting. And I’m extremely proud of almost all of it!
This isn’t to say I did everything — not even close. I’ve worked with so many incredible talented people, who I met writing for Hard Drive and now consider my close friends. Huge thank you to my boss Matt Saincome, who created this whole Hard Empire, editors Andy Holt and Kevin Flynn, and countless other writers who I am sure I will continue to work with in the future. Mark Roebuck, Kyle Erf, Camden—no no, I can’t start naming people, it’s gonna be a whole thing. Thank you, as well, to anyone who ever read something I wrote, even if you hated it.
So why am I calling it quits? Well, I’m really tired. We’ve done a lot of stuff at Hard Drive and we’ve built a great fan community, but running a website is tough. We’ve never been exactly financially stable and I think that it’s time for someone else to take the reins and bring some much-needed fresh blood into this video game hellhole, shepherding it into its glorious second form.
I know the site is in great hands. I’m very excited to see what Hard Drive looks like after I’m gone, making things I never could have thought up myself. And I’m sure I’ll still stop by from time to time to write a mean article about some video game exec who did nothing wrong except abuse a lot of people. Hell, maybe I’ll end up back here a lot and this whole thing will be just an embarrassing months-long unpaid vacation.
If you wanna follow what I’m up to, I’m sure I’ll announce it on social media. Here’s my Twitter (whatever it’s called), Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky, which I definitely expect to exist long into the future.
I also host a video podcast called Quorators where I read Quora questions and call them dumb. You can listen to it on any podcast app or follow along here.
And lastly, I made a web series for Adult Swim called The Hamlet Factory that you can watch on YouTube or “Max.”
Alright cool. Schedule’s all clear for Starfield.
— Jeremy
