Mike Fahey, 'The Soul of Kotaku', Dies At 49 (kotaku.com) 29
Mike Fahey, longtime senior reporter of Kotaku, has passed away at age 49 after years of health complications. In a post published today, current and former colleagues share their memories of "the heart and soul of Kotaku." Here's an excerpt, written by Kotaku's Editor-In-Chief, Patricia Hernandez: Most people know Mike's humor: the way he would slip into cartoon voices on a whim, how every conversation was like a poke to the ribs that tested your verve. The six-foot-six guy with a thunderous laugh was a magician, though, and his larger-than-life personality was classic misdirection. Behind every joke and every antic was a sensitive man who had lived many lives and seen a lot of shit.
Yes, this was the guy that reviewed toys and snacks for a living. He was also the guy that could make you go "damn" in a blog about Fortnite or Animal Crossing. Mike Fahey wanted to tell you about the dozens of keyboards he owned, to show you that he'd pinpointed the specific symphony of sounds that he heard when he pressed his fingers down on each individual key, curious to see if you could hear it, too. I suspect this was the same drive that made him want to tell you what he dreamed about during a coma. It's no accident that Mike was one of the first writers on the internet to really capture what made MMOs tick. All we have is each other, and Mike knew better than anyone that we often use video games to find connection. Even when he was being absurd and reviewing, say, a frozen dinner, he still wanted to find ways to make people feel less alone. With Fahey, even moments of crushing despair were laced with a hopeful laugh.
It's hard to write this, for a variety of reasons that may be obvious, but one of them is the heartbreak of knowing just how badly Mike wanted to come back and keep sharing his joy with everyone at Kotaku after eight months of being away. Between trips to the hospital, Mike kept telling me that he was sure he would come back soon -- that he needed to, because writing and playing games were one of the things that still brought him joy. But after years of fighting against health issues, some of which left him partially paralyzed in 2018, Mike Fahey has passed away at 49 years old, possibly due to organ failure according to his spouse. It's bewildering to write this, because by the time I started writing for Kotaku on the side while still in college in 2012, Mike had already been here for around six years. That was a decade ago. To say Mike is the heart and soul of Kotaku is an understatement.
For many readers, Fahey is Kotaku. He built this thing that millions of people read every month, as a part of a network that forever redefined what it was like to surf and read the internet. We take the idea of "personalities" as a given on the internet now, but Mike Fahey provided a blueprint for being a human voice in a tech-driven space. The drive to put a person at the forefront of everything is still in many ways Kotaku's north star. Fahey may be gone, but his spirit will forever live on in anything that we do. I said this to Kotaku staffers this weekend, but it bears repeating again: I want to think that somewhere, there's still an Xbox game superglued to a ceiling that will never come down. You can contribute to the Fahey family's fundraising efforts here, and scroll down further to read memories from colleagues current and former. We'll miss you, Mike.
Yes, this was the guy that reviewed toys and snacks for a living. He was also the guy that could make you go "damn" in a blog about Fortnite or Animal Crossing. Mike Fahey wanted to tell you about the dozens of keyboards he owned, to show you that he'd pinpointed the specific symphony of sounds that he heard when he pressed his fingers down on each individual key, curious to see if you could hear it, too. I suspect this was the same drive that made him want to tell you what he dreamed about during a coma. It's no accident that Mike was one of the first writers on the internet to really capture what made MMOs tick. All we have is each other, and Mike knew better than anyone that we often use video games to find connection. Even when he was being absurd and reviewing, say, a frozen dinner, he still wanted to find ways to make people feel less alone. With Fahey, even moments of crushing despair were laced with a hopeful laugh.
It's hard to write this, for a variety of reasons that may be obvious, but one of them is the heartbreak of knowing just how badly Mike wanted to come back and keep sharing his joy with everyone at Kotaku after eight months of being away. Between trips to the hospital, Mike kept telling me that he was sure he would come back soon -- that he needed to, because writing and playing games were one of the things that still brought him joy. But after years of fighting against health issues, some of which left him partially paralyzed in 2018, Mike Fahey has passed away at 49 years old, possibly due to organ failure according to his spouse. It's bewildering to write this, because by the time I started writing for Kotaku on the side while still in college in 2012, Mike had already been here for around six years. That was a decade ago. To say Mike is the heart and soul of Kotaku is an understatement.
For many readers, Fahey is Kotaku. He built this thing that millions of people read every month, as a part of a network that forever redefined what it was like to surf and read the internet. We take the idea of "personalities" as a given on the internet now, but Mike Fahey provided a blueprint for being a human voice in a tech-driven space. The drive to put a person at the forefront of everything is still in many ways Kotaku's north star. Fahey may be gone, but his spirit will forever live on in anything that we do. I said this to Kotaku staffers this weekend, but it bears repeating again: I want to think that somewhere, there's still an Xbox game superglued to a ceiling that will never come down. You can contribute to the Fahey family's fundraising efforts here, and scroll down further to read memories from colleagues current and former. We'll miss you, Mike.
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Slashdot... where nerds go to die.
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Well... yeah, in the past few weeks quite a few young (or at least "not yet old enough") geeks passed away. Anything going on that we didn't notice?
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It does belong on Slashdot (considering how many non-tech things get posted here), but a sentance in the headline describing what Kotaku isn't would have gone a long way.
It's a gaming journalism magazine, one of the more respected ones that focused more on journamlism than let's play personalities. (Not that I always dislike the whole let's play stuff, especially from the likes of Giant Bomb or Next Lander, but I'm very happy that proper reporting has a home in Kotaku).
Re:Never heard of Kotaku or this guy... (Score:4, Insightful)
"respected"
By WHOM?
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You have a VERY strange idea of what constitutes "normal".
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And yet Kotaku has been irrelevant since Gamergate. Sounds like the Gamergaters won there.
Wasn't that whole thing just a promo stunt by what's her face who's name I can't be bothered looking up how to spell?
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People who aren’t contrary cunts.
Re:Never heard of Kotaku or this guy... (Score:4, Informative)
Sure if you are interested in reading how Elden Ring failed the minorities because it doesn't have a sufficient black representation among NPCs, and how Blackguard Bogart is a racist stereotype...
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Re: Never heard of Kotaku or this guy... (Score:4, Informative)
Re: Never heard of Kotaku or this guy... (Score:3, Insightful)
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Don't worry. You haven't missed anything. Kotaku never did anything having to do with news, nor technology.
The picture (Score:3, Insightful)
Hope Kotaku's next (Score:3, Insightful)
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even if you set aside all the spin regression it's still a buzzfeed-grade click farm, i reckon all of gawker is
slashdot at its worst Under New Management (even Slashdot Beta) conditions didn't slip as low
but if the facetweet crowd is where the money is then i suppose It's Just Good Business
mocking suckers rarely gets them to wise up, smart thing to do is ditch integrity and sit across from them, sell the shovels sell the NFTs sell the essential oils sell the homeopathy sell your soul
An Entertaining Writer (Score:4, Informative)
His articles were well written and you could feel his personality in the stories he wrote. It didn't feel like he was just turning in an article on X by deadline Y, his writing had a lot of heart and soul (and humor). From the story, it seems like he was well liked and respected by his colleagues as well. I'll miss him.
Omaha named a street after him (Score:2)
Mike Fahey Street [google.com]