Daniel E Conderman 
I’ve been online my whole career, but I don’t feel plugged into the internet the way I used to. I was there in the early days of the crypto chats, when nobody knew what Bitcoin was supposed to be. I was around when webcamnow.com first showed the world what strangers would point their cameras at in the middle of the night. I was on 4chan before it became infamous, and I remember when Reddit still felt small enough to be fun.
Eventually you reach a point where it feels like you’ve surfed the entire internet. You’ve seen the weird corners, the scams, the breakthroughs, the meltdowns—and your life outside the screen quietly sneaks back in. I haven’t been locked into a game for fifteen years the way I was before with MMOs. The spell broke.
But lately, I’ve found a new internet tour guide. His name is Asmongold.
He’s not some polished media figure. He started out a broke kid with a messy room, a mom on welfare, and a plan to end it all after high school. Then World of Warcraft came out, and after a year of grinding in Azeroth, he forgot about those plans. He started streaming in the most barebones way possible—sometimes literally asking chat for $5 so he could buy a sandwich.
Somehow, it worked. He never left his dirty room. He just kept playing, talking, reacting. Years later, here he is: still sitting in that room, still half-disaster, but now with hundreds of thousands of people watching him watch the internet.
And that’s why I love it. When I turn on Asmongold, it feels like getting inside dirt from the guy who never left the backstage. He’s been marinating in online culture for decades, so when some new internet drama erupts, he’s got context that nobody else does. His twitchy facial expressions, his running commentary, the chat scrolling by—it’s all part of the show.
I’ve got the old history. He’s got the present tense. Together, it feels like I’m back on the pulse of things again.
So if you hear about some new online circus, check if Asmongold has something to say about it. If he does, it’s probably worth listening.
