Heroes of the Web

Posted on April 23, 2007

Ever since Phil Hendrie went off the air, I’ve been casting around for something else to listen to on my daily commute to and from work; which has led me to dig around a little for good podcasts. (I’ve also written a little program to fetch and organize podcasts, to make it easier to keep them all straight.)

Since I’m a gamer, one podcast that I’ve enjoyed is 1UP.com’s Games for Windows podcast. It’s basically just the editors of Games for Windows magazine (the publication that used to be known as Computer Gaming World) sitting around shooting the shit about whatever happens to be on their plate that week.

If you like games on the PC, it’s worth checking out for that alone. But what really makes it stand out is a semi-regular segment they do called "Heroes of the Web". In the "Heroes" segment, they highlight and mock (complete with funny voices) an example of online dweebism gone out of control. For entertaining us all with their anal-retentiveness, the dweebs are crowned "Heroes of the Web." Since there’s a frightening amount of raging dweebism out there (especially in the gaming world, Lord knows), there’s no shortage of material.

To give you a taste of "Heroes", I’ve clipped out the segment from the March 27 GFW podcast and embedded it here for your listening pleasure. In it, they discuss something almost unbelievably pathetic: a Web forum dedicated to the bizarre fetishization of characters from the video game Sonic the Hedgehog.

You heard me. Ain’t the Web grand?

Anyway, here’s the audio (~7 minutes long):

If you like what you hear, you can get new "Heroes of the Web" in your MP3 player every week just by subscribing to the podcast.