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Comment by ulkesh | Hacker News Reader

I just watched this video today. The Amiga truly was ahead of the curve and sadly I didn't get to participate in 80s and early 90s computing much (I had a Commodore Plus/4 but that was it). Even now, I find that there is so much more to learn about that era.

The 8-bit Guy, previously The iBookGuy, has an enormous amount of retro-tech information, including a whole series about the Commodore line of computers. And he developed his own game for various Commodore systems (and also an MS-DOS game).

A little bit about him: https://www.the8bitguy.com/8bit-guy-about/

Great content, well-presented, and regularly produced videos. I find I look forward to his videos every month.

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I feel like any discussion of him must include the controversies: He seriously damaged a rare and valuable IBM 7496 workstation, on camera, while trying to get it to work.

Personally, I find his particular flavor of pro-gun ownership to be distasteful, in particular, happily being filmed wearing an assault rifle slung over his back while ordering food. I know that's not necessarily unusual in Texas, but I think he should be more aware of his global audience.

It’s a reminder that it takes all sorts to make a world. I think SV has an effect of homogenizing computing hobbiests into a single type of person.

The assault rifle over the back was definitely something weird but quite a bit of America is like that. Even the rare IBM destruction wasn’t that big of a deal to me.

What made me pissed was wearing the assault rifle on video while _mocking_ one of the parents of the Sandy Hook massacre. He has also said some questionable lines in his videos (like when he was surprised that the electrician who came to his house was black).

> The assault rifle over the back was definitely something weird but quite a bit of America is like that

Not really. Nearly everyone in my family has owned guns, including myself. We have family who hunt professionally. Several of us know people who concealed carry for legitimate self protection. Carrying a gun on full display is something you do because you have a specific purpose to use that gun. Doing so for entertainment is ridiculously unsafe under most circumstances and to the extent it’s part of American culture it’s a particularly toxic variant of that. But that’s a very limited subset of America. Most of our shitty gun culture is much more just plain American toxic culture generally

This. And also - maybe something to add that could explain his behaviour of showing force / guns on purpose. He was bullied a lot at elementary school - he was also the smallest kid in class. He mentioned this in one of his recent videos. (I am also a gun owner / concealed-carry license and located in EU).

Interesting. He is displaying obvious bully-like behavior: implicit intimidation, tension escalation, keeping others off-guard, blatant disregard for others' personal space and comfort. It seems like he learned all of the wrong lessons from being bullied. He learned that being a bully is good.

> (like when he was surprised that the electrician who came to his house was black).

I think he joked that Morgan Freeman came to his house, but yes, it was a bit tonedeaf

>I think he should be more aware of his global audience.

Why?

Why should the 8-Bit Guy, or anyone else, "be more aware" of an audience for which he creates interesting free content?

If people don't like his videos because of something that appears on his videos (or off screen, in this case), fewer people will stop watching them and maybe he will change his approach/message to cater to them. Or not.

If you mean that he should avoid triggering his audience, <https://gfycat.com/ImaginaryGrandioseAgouti>

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