Hi there, I’m Elwood! I’m a major collaborator on many of the projects found under the Entropic Domain umbrella, from the more expansive MEGA and [oscuro] documentary projects to smaller productions like Dead Game Review.
My focuses are writing, research and quality assurance, originally this was in a supportive role for projects initiated by my friend Massi (Cheecken) but I’ve now started to write productions and articles on my own initiative and have taken up a presenter role through narration, starting with our documentary series MEGA: The Ukrainian Divide.
Most of my projects touch on major social issues like geopolitics and media literacy, but I also like to take things down a notch and look into video games sometimes too, whether that’s retrospectives on games that saw the light of day or reflections on games that never quite came to be!
I decided to join Massi on this platform he’s made for a simple reason: Freedom. Mainstream media platforms today are owned by big companies, like Google with YouTube, and they get to dictate what content goes on their platforms, usually this isn’t too noticeable, most content can be found on there freely enough, but the company can still decide to get rid of your content or make it hard to find for whatever reason they want, with no accountability.
I wanted a platform where I can say fuck off to that, where no corporation is able to decide the boundaries of acceptability, where I can write whatever I want without having to think about how some algorithm or content moderation system will interpret it, my thoughts, unfiltered, on my terms.
On top of the freedom to write, freedom to access is another key part of this, most media outlets today are heavily monetised, they usually follow one of 3 models: A total paywall where to read any of the content you have to subscribe, a partial paywall where you have to subscribe for most material but you get some portion for free (or a certain number of free articles per month), or an ad based model where the site is clogged full of advertising that’s shoved in your face.
I hate all of these models, the first 2 would make my work much less accessible which defeats the point of it, I want my work to be read and to be as easy to reach as possible, the third is obstructive and I find it counterproductive, burying the site in ads that get in the way of the actual content is again a problem for accessability, but it also creates resentment, if your brand is in the way of what I want to see, I’m not going to be interested when you stick it in my face, I’m going to be angry.
I want something that’s accessible and not adversarial, but I’m not naive, these models are designed to make money from you, directly or indirectly, companies aren’t going to sacrifice that to make the best user experience possible, they need to profit or at the very least break even to exist in the long run.
But here it’s not up to them, we embrace the fact that what we’re doing is unprofitable, money goes into the website for upkeep, nothing comes out in return, because you aren’t our product and neither is our content, it’s just us sharing what comes to our minds.
So while this might be a niche platform it’s one with an important purpose, and I hope you’ll get something out of it too.
For a list of all of the articles I’ve written or contributed to, click here!