Today — after nearly three years of editorial service — is my last official day with io9.
Rather than wax florid and spin a rickety, sappy analogy concerning Frederik Pohl's Heechee Saga — as I initially planned — I will instead use the cast of Aliens to spin an even ricketier, sappier analogy as a paean to my coworkers and you.
● Annalee Newitz, you are Ripley. Your boundless enthusiasm and leadership got me into this racket, just as your zeal for flamethrowers kept me in line.
● Charlie Jane Anders, you are Hicks. You are io9's rocksteady constant, standing strong when the rest of the staff gets Cristal-spritzed in hydrosulphuric acid and starts griping. (You also share Hicks' penchant for Funkadelic, as expounded upon in Aliens' deleted scenes.)
● Meredith Woerner, you are Hudson. You are blithe, loud, and willing to jump on grenades. I am lucky to be your friend. (PS: I am Vasquez for the purposes of this analogy.)
● Robert Gonzalez, you are Bishop, because you are a frighteningly competent, stand-up dude with tzatziki sauce flowing through your veins.
● Alasdair Wilkins and Keith Veronese, you are collectively Apone, as he kicked the bucket early in the movie and we didn't hang nearly enough. Still, your respective stores of Doctor Who audio tape knowledge and granola bars kept me sane and not dead during Comic-Con. You both deserve tuxedos made of fancy medals.
● Lauren Davis, you are the surprise guest appearance of Carl Weathers from Predator, as Carl Weathers makes everything immediately more interesting.
● George Dvorsky, Esther Inglis-Arkell, Garrison Dean, Josh Wimmer, Hank Hu, and Stephanie Fox, you are all not Paul Reiser. Working with you was a pleasure, regardless of the internet gulf between us.
● Nick Denton, you are James Cameron, as you are a magnanimous commander who merely exiles his staff to bathyscaphes when they misbehave.
● Lux Alptraum, Kyle Wagner, Tommy Craggs, Dodai Stewart, Erin McGill, Kaila Hale-Stern, Brian Moylan, Julia Schweizer, Megan Gilbert, Rose Annis, Stephen Totilo, Chris Person, and Matt Hardigree, you are some of the people, past and present, who made Gawker Media a lovely place to work. (Somebody can also call dibs on Newt if they want.)
● And finally, the commenters. Without you, I would just be a shut-in proselytizing nonsense to the mailman instead of lobbing it into the world wide æther. You may simply be an elaborate hoax orchestrated by the Kree Supreme Intelligence, but I can live with that. To LightningLouie, 99TelepodProblems, Braak, Ruthless, Kaelath, Eridani, Celia, Yankton, Gods-N-Clods, and ManchuCandidate, and countless others — you are the motherfucking power loader of this operation.
Should you choose to delight in future vowel-and-consonant combinations by yours truly, see my mostly neglected Twitter account, this Tumblr I started a week ago, and Cracked, where I'll joining up as senior editor. Thank you for reading.
C.