June 5, 2025 • 59 mins
What happens when a random name generator gives you a tag… and it sticks for life?
In this episode of Gamertagged, we meet Dilutedspine — a Twitch streamer, lo-fi creative, and unexpected empath whose digital identity was forged in a garage and evolved across sci-fi, StarCraft, Tarkov VoIP, and therapy streams.
🎮 We unpack the tension of being “too nice for the internet,” his shoutcasting roots, and the mythos of Vape Foot — a cursed ritual born in chaos and carried by Twitch chat.
It all leads to the ReRoll segment, where we co-create the official Dilutedspine trading card: cyborg limbs, vaporwave armor, and yes… a foot that vapes.
🎙️ Guest: Dilutedspine
🎧 Hosted by: Scarto46, Ryanocerus
🛠️ ReRolled by: The Crew at Gamertagged Studios
🌐 Discover more episodes, trading cards, and digital identity stories: linktr.ee/gamertagged
Gamertagged is a podcast by Gamertagged Studios.
Digital identities. Real stories.
We explore the stories behind gamertags, usernames, and online personas—through interviews with gamers, creators, and the people behind the persona.
Want your own card? Share your story. Join the community.
Find everything here: linktr.ee/gamertagged
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dilutedspine (00:00):
put an Irishman from Boston on and made him grow
potatoes Like come on, irishpeople love potatoes.
Ryanocerus (00:10):
I know they're preparing for a second family.
They're getting ready.
Scarto46 (00:16):
Game attack known across lo-fi airwaves and twitch
timelines as diluted spine,this tech savvy tactician lives
(00:38):
at the intersection of vaporwavesystems and story.
Today, on gamert, we dive intohow a Gamertagged became a
persona, one shaped by proximity, voice over IP in Tarkov,
vapor-coated aesthetics and thequiet power of staying weird.
Hey, welcome, deluded Spine.
Thanks for coming on toGamertagged, hey how are you now
?
I'm good now.
(01:01):
Now is really odd.
Ryanocerus (01:08):
Hey, how are you now ?
I don't know.
I'm glad that you were the oneresponding to that, because I
was like I don't know, how isanyone responding to that.
Scarto46 (01:20):
I was just talking three minutes ago, and what do
you mean now?
Dilutedspine (01:24):
It's like a greeting.
Have you never seen Letterkennybefore?
I guess not.
What is Letterkenny?
It's a Canadian comedy to show.
It's like Shakespeare, butCanadian Hicks.
Basically Okay, All right.
Well, that's cool.
Scarto46 (01:41):
Hey, yeah, I'm sorry, I wasn't ready for keeping it
Canadian.
I'm good now.
Thanks for asking.
Also joining us tonight is ourco-host in our rotating chair,
the Rhinoceros.
Ryanocerus (01:54):
My chair, in fact, is not rotating tonight.
You're welcome.
Scarto46 (01:58):
That's good, because it squeaked most of the first
episode, so it's good that it'snot rotating.
Ryanocerus (02:03):
It squeaked the entire episode and I didn't
realize it squeaked until Ilistened to the audio from the
episode.
Scarto46 (02:07):
Yeah, it was pretty solid, but it's.
You know, we iterated, we madedifferent choices, we edited out
what we could.
Ryanocerus (02:14):
Maybe no one noticed .
Someone's going to go back andlike really listen to it now,
just to find mature squeaks likesend you all the time markers.
Well, I hope that's you that'sgoing to go back and do that.
Dilutedspine (02:28):
I already sent that in.
Scarto46 (02:31):
So look, tonight we're talking to Deluded Spine.
We're going to work through acouple different components of
the show, right?
So we're going to start offtalking about the origins of
that name Deluded Spine.
So, starting at the beginning,where did the tag diluted spine
(02:53):
come from?
Was it a joke moment or like?
Dilutedspine (02:55):
a myth you made real like, because it's kind of
a crazy name, right like.
I can tell you exactly the likeyear, the place I was at,
literally where I was sittingwhen I came up with that name.
It would have been 2007,.
Like October 2007.
I was visiting.
Well, I wasn't visiting, I washanging out at my friend Mara
(03:15):
Jack's house that's his handleand I didn't have internet at
home so I would bring mycomputer to his house.
He had internet.
He went to school with me.
I grew up in the sticks.
He went to school with me, buthe lived in town and his mom
would bring him out because sheworked in the town that I lived
in, and so he went to schoolwith me and that's how I knew
him.
And I brought my computer intohis house to have internet
(03:36):
access, because I had gotten theorange box and was setting up
steam and you had to have aninternet connection for that.
And so I brought my computer inand I was setting up my Steam
account originally and it wantedme to make up a username and I
didn't know what to put and Iwasn't going to use what I had
been using.
So I went on Google andsearched random name generator
(04:01):
and, I'm sorry, random wordgenerator and just ran it and
pick the first two words thatcame out of it and that was
diluted spine and that's howthat came to be so like this is
in a time period before therewas a gamer tag name generator
or give me a fantasy namegenerator kind of situation yeah
, I mean, this was, you know,2008, like 2007, 2008.
Yeah, it was very early on like.
Scarto46 (04:22):
So you still rocking dial up at this time.
Like you said, you didn't haveinternet at the house at the
time.
Dilutedspine (04:25):
Yeah, At my actual house I was living at.
Yeah, I was out of high schoolat the point, but I hadn't moved
out yet to live in a major city, and so, like I only had dial
up, and so that was go to hishouse, set up PC in his closet,
and cause, his closet was likehis bedroom was like a garage
that was converted into a roomand the back of it was like a
storage closet, and so I wassitting there and then he had
(04:45):
his desk and we would just playgames together or whatever, and
that was that was how that cameto be.
I was sitting on his floor withmy computer on like a coffee
table in front of me, and that'swhat.
That's how it happened,literally two words.
Scarto46 (05:00):
So like, diluted, like you can, it is something that
is soluble, right, like you candilute it.
And then spine, which, like,could have a bunch of different
definitions, but I assume inyour head you were thinking like
, uh, your spine, like yourskeletal spine no, it wasn't
even that deep.
I was just like this soundsgood and that's what I used, and
(05:21):
you're just like in a headspaceof like I like letters and then
I just give me two words andI'll use that and I didn't think
it was gonna stick or anything.
Dilutedspine (05:28):
It just like and now that's like so diluted has
become like everything.
Now where I like if I build anew pc, it's diluted gaming pc
or diluted pc.
My, all my server stuff, likein my home lab for messing with
computers is like diluted DCOone, diluted hypervisor, diluted
hypervisor two or what all it'sall become like.
(05:50):
It's all encompassing.
Now everything gets nameddiluted and then whatever it
actually is for the most part solike.
It has become like just arandom word picked out off of
the top of the list, like becamelike censored in my whole life.
Scarto46 (06:06):
Have you ever?
Yeah, that that's, that'sinsane, I mean.
But have you ever had this?
I mean, this is how it worksfor everybody.
Right, like it became a thingthat you are right, it's totally
, I totally get that, um, I mean.
But, like you know, I've hadthis trouble before.
Like mine's a scarto 46, right,and so the numbers at the end
for me kind of came in theaspect of like all right, well,
most times when I type in scarto, um, it's not available.
(06:29):
I, in whatever game I'm tryingto play, you know.
So I got really used to likeall right, well, I need to put
numbers on it.
So scarto 46 is just like anatural thing.
That kind of happened over time.
Right like, I just kind of Icouldn't put in the word.
Have you ever had thatchallenge when you're like
trying to like sign up forsomething or like cause it's
very unique?
Right Like I've never metanother diluted spine.
(06:50):
Like I don't.
I couldn't imagine there beingan enumeration of like.
Oh yeah, that's diluted spine10,000.
Right, like that's probably avery singular type of.
Dilutedspine (07:00):
There isn't.
It is always available, and theonly time it's not available is
when I go to sign up forsomething that I already signed
up for and didn't realize I hadan account already.
That's the only time I'll getlike, hey, this is in use.
Scarto46 (07:11):
That's amazing, that's that's crazy, dude.
I mean I can't imagine whatit's like to have a name that's
so singular like, because I'vealways like run into that
problem.
So I mean, so we I'm gonna likeswitch gears a little bit, but
we were kind of just talkingabout this, but, like, at what
point did like diluted spineshift from being just like a
username you picked off a randomword generator to like
(07:33):
something and something that youwere wearing to play orange box
on steam Right, to like a thingthat fit you Like what?
Is there like a moment in yourmind where that like sticks out?
You like what?
Is there like a moment in yourmind where that like sticks out?
You're like yep, this is themoment where people started
calling me deluded in real life,for real all the time.
Dilutedspine (07:51):
Um, I don't know about, I think maybe people
there were people that call medeluded because of like skype
channels that I would be in solike back in the day for folks
that I don't know.
The discord didn't exist.
You could use like team speakeror something like that, but you
had to host a server for it.
So a lot of the guys I playedgames with there was like five
or six of us would playstarcraft 2 and like the early
(08:14):
2010s and I was deluded spine inthere and they would call me
deluded.
Um, but I think it really didn'tstick as like a persona and
it's not really a persona, it'sjust because, like I am my
authentic self, like both onlineand in person.
Like it's the same person.
There's not like a character orsomething, um, but uh, I think
when in like late 2012, early2013, when I started getting
(08:36):
into streaming and startedgetting involved in like
professional starcraft 2 stuff,like briefly for about a year, I
did like shout casting, likeamateur shout casting for
matches, and that was when itlike kind of stuck.
Now it was on liquipediabecause I was on a casting team
and so like there was some likedocumentation officially saying
like this person exists asdiluted spine, works with
(08:57):
planning, casting, like etc.
Etc.
Um, and that's kind of when itstuck with like early 2013, when
I was like starting to streamand stuff.
I think it's when it reallybecame like a real thing.
Scarto46 (09:06):
Dude, I have to ask like OK, so shout casting was
not like a thing.
I thought where we would go inthis conversation and so like,
could you?
Ryanocerus (09:18):
give us know what that is.
Scarto46 (09:20):
Yeah, what is shout casting, and could you give us a
sample of shout casting?
Dilutedspine (09:28):
is yeah, what is shout casting?
And could you give us a sampleof shout casting?
Uh, I mean, so for me I waspaired with the guy who was
running this.
Um, this like so shout castingfor starcraft is like the way I
was doing it with these guys wasyou would watch replays of like
tournament play and then youdialogue over it.
So like there was shout castingwhere you could do it live, but
I was never going to liveevents to do it um, and back
(09:51):
then you didn't really have thelike kind of how today, after
the pandemic and stuff, thingscan be organized remotely online
pretty easily.
Like that really wasn't a thingin the pro scene for starcraft 2
, especially for the us scene.
It was mostly watching replaysand then me and this guy Shaft
would talk about the gameplayand so I was color commentary
where I would like shit talk andlike I would do light analysis,
(10:15):
like I still knew what wasgoing on, but I wasn't like
hyper technical on strategy, butI could tell when somebody
botched something and I wouldlike dog them about it from the
casting table.
Essentially, traditionally youwould be doing it like live in
person or live like as atournament viewer and there was
some opportunities for that.
But by the time I got to thepoint where I would be able to
(10:38):
maybe run casting for eventsthat were being held online, I
was kind of getting serious inmy career and it was.
It was getting to the pointwhere it was eating up a lot, of
, a lot of time and I didn'thave the time to deal with it
and also like workprofessionally.
So I kind of cut that out, soyou were.
Ryanocerus (10:52):
You were Jerry the King Lawler.
Yeah, that's where I was,pretty much Jim Ross.
Scarto46 (10:57):
So like for you all right.
So shout happens, boom, yourname is becoming more of a thing
that you associate with andpeople are associating that with
you in a much broader way.
But like I mean you know I'vebeen engaging with you
previously A lot of people justknow you as diluted like or
(11:18):
diluted spine Like.
Actually, most people that I'vemet who know you on the
internet only refer to you thatway, like they actually have no
idea Like, even if they actuallyeven know your real name, they
actually only call you deluded.
You know what I mean.
So like.
So it like started to fit, Iguess, in this like origin story
somewhere around shoutcastingand engaging with a larger
(11:42):
internet community than justyourself or your friends.
Right, like from high school.
Dilutedspine (11:47):
Yeah, exactly, and and even my friends from high
school, like online, will callme diluted, like my best friend
calls me diluted, when we're indiscord together, even though,
like, we see each other inperson like three times a week
or whatever and do stufftogether all the time, like it's
still like I'm still deludedonline.
Um, and I think that part ofthat too.
Like we talked, I mentioned thepandemic earlier.
(12:08):
Like part of, I had nodifficulty in the pandemic when
it came to like not socializingexternally of the house, because
I spent so much time in theseonline communities as me, you
know, hanging out with peopleand like it was just, oh, I do
that twice as much now, insteadof going out of the house two
days a week or whatever.
Scarto46 (12:28):
So, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean like so.
So we, we, you kind of talkedabout this early on, whenever
you were talking about umgetting started with you know,
your friends and like um kind ofearly stages of the internet,
Right, and like I mean you,you've been on the internet like
(12:48):
your whole life, right, like, Ithink, rhinoceros, talking
about this early on, like we allkind of grew up around this
thing where it was totallynormal for I actually didn't.
Dilutedspine (12:55):
That's the crazy part.
Like I didn't have, we haddial-up.
I didn't have internet until2009, when I moved into town.
Basically I had internet atwork where I was working, but I
didn't really game online.
I didn't have much of an onlinepresence until 2009 when I got
my first apartment, so like thatwas that was, so I was actually
(13:15):
offline like terminally mywhole childhood.
Basically we did have dial-uptowards my teenage years, but I
just it was such a hassle to useand it didn't really it didn't
work well when internet in 2008was already like moving on to
DSL and so like websites werenot performing on 56 K modems at
all, so like even normal shitwouldn't load so well like,
(13:37):
where did this?
Scarto46 (13:38):
so when you you're on the internet, you're you're
diluted spine, right.
Your, your diluted spine, right.
You're like kind of in thattime period, like where, where
do you start?
Like, how do you go about theprocess of like getting a better
perspective of yourself?
Cause, for those people who maynot know you, in general, right
, like, you're perceived as aperson who's a pretty chill
community person who likes toengage engage with different
(13:59):
types of communities.
You're very diverse in like howyou, how you work through that
stuff.
You're a person who contributesback to charities.
You're a person who ispassionate about supporting
gaming charities who are givingback to children, and like all
this stuff that you are likekind of comes out of this time
period of you like figuringyourself out in this big
(14:21):
Internet space that's kind ofgrowing around you, like in your
apartment years, right, like,what's that process like of like
getting a better perspective ofself from the digital universe,
I guess, right.
Dilutedspine (14:35):
Um, I think it.
I think like my personality.
I grew into who I am because ofit.
Right, like I was, I was notnearly a social in person.
Like I was very awkward and,like rhino can speak to it, he
knew me back then like was, yeah, well, you then, but but uh, I
(14:59):
was like weird to talk to anddidn't know how to handle people
.
And then, like started spendingtons of time playing games
online.
Mind you, it was like halo andcall of duty, lobbies and just
like obscenities being screameda lot of the time.
But like that, that constantinteraction online like forced
me into like not an onlinepersona, but like I as a person,
(15:23):
got a ton of cycles talking topeople and like and working with
people, and I've always been a.
I always thought I was anintrovert, but apparently
everybody thinks I'm anextrovert.
Maybe I just like to be at home, so maybe I'm just a homebody
but also extroverted.
I don't know.
But I think a lot of that cameout of like talking to people
online and get like I'll hopinto discord and talk to total
(15:43):
strangers.
I've been playing games withtotal strangers and like our
local city discord just becausethey're on and they're playing
something I play Like.
I don't know if that's normal,but that's kind of what I do,
like I'm not, I don't need to dothat, it's just fun for me to
go like meet these people andlearn about people and stuff and
I think that's reallyinteresting, right.
Scarto46 (16:03):
Like, do you sort of like in life, do you describe
yourself as an introvert, like,so, like put them side by side
like you in life and yourdiluted spine persona Is one of
them an introvert and one ofthem an extrovert and like how
they engage and do they engagedifferently.
Dilutedspine (16:22):
I thought they were both introverts, but
apparently I'm not an introvert.
Ryanocerus (16:25):
according to my wife and according to my friends, I
Apparently, I'm not an introvert.
Dilutedspine (16:28):
According to my wife and according to my friends
, I would say you're anintroverted extrovert.
That works, yeah, that thatthat makes sense to me but
that's like yeah that's likeboth real life person and and
online, though Like I'm the sameperson between the two
environments.
Like I don't really I don'tcontext switch in any meaningful
way between online and offlinespaces.
Really I don't context switchin any meaningful way between
online and offline spaces.
Ryanocerus (16:45):
so you said you got your first real internet in 2009
, um, and that's uh.
I was doing some uh back backof the napkin math here.
Um, because diluted spine and Iwere roommates in 2009.
Um, so I'm guessing that thatfirst internet was when we lived
together oh yeah, that was thefirst time I had ice be internet
(17:06):
.
Yeah, it was when we moved intogether and that internet
wasn't even that good, I mean,it was decent, it was 1.5
million down, I remember.
I was so excited.
Dilutedspine (17:15):
I was like wow, I could watch YouTube, I mean, and
that was 2009, so that wasprobably.
Ryanocerus (17:19):
I mean, we had, you know, four of us living in there
.
We had, we each had our ownconnection, we each had
connection and we each were, youknow, gaming it.
You know, often at the sametime as and I don't think we
ever ran it ran into any issues.
Dilutedspine (17:30):
That's just well no that it's because each of us
had our own line oh yeah, we allhad our own modem in each of
the bedrooms, because that's howthe apartment like for that
college.
Okay, sure, sure, I couldn'tMind you.
We were in a college apartmentcomplex.
I did not go to college there,I was just a guy living.
Scarto46 (17:52):
We have seen the tag Deluded Spine across Twitch,
across Reddit, like even yourcreative work right and working
on designs.
So like what does it mean tocarry that same identity across
so many spaces?
Does it feel like a brand, orlike a signature, or like just
something else entirely?
Ryanocerus (18:11):
I'm super interested in your thoughts because I
struggled with this brandquestion a little bit.
Dilutedspine (18:17):
It's just a.
It's just a different way toname myself.
Like it's still I.
It has become a brand, right,because like you put it on
things you're putting yourselfout there and like especially in
the streaming space like.
But like it wasn't theintention to become a brand,
it's just once I started usingit, I unified behind that and it
just because of how my brainworks.
(18:38):
It's easier for me to just usethat for everything, at least
for the gaming side of it.
I mean personal accounts andshit, don't use that.
But like, at least for thegaming side of it.
I mean personal accounts andshit, don't use that.
But like, um, like for likereal life things, right, but
like anything, gaming andTwitter, reddit, all that stuff
is just that, because that'sjust convenient for me and
(18:59):
that's how it's always been, andso it.
It didn't really start out aslike a uh in my head as as a
brand, because it was allutilitarian.
When I made the name, I waslike, oh yeah, I needed a name.
Now I have this name, right.
And so it very quickly becamelike the solution for any
username problem for the mostpart and for at least for gaming
stuff, right.
(19:19):
And then it just kind of pickedup as an identity.
Scarto46 (19:22):
So OK, we're going to take a quick break and we'll
come back.
We're gonna do, we're gonnatalk more about uh, diluted
spines, kind of like persona andvibe and some streaming pieces,
um, and his experiencestreaming and some cool moments
he had, uh in tarkov, um.
So we're gonna take a quickbreak, come right back and then
we'll get into the next set ofthe podcast.
(19:44):
A lot about starcraft, likewhat was your uh, what was your
your?
Your main was it like, were youtoss?
Were you tearing?
I was pro, pro toss, yeah, protoss oh yeah see I was tearing.
Well, you had to have that, thatthat big tearing energy.
You know they got to do tanks.
I don't think I ever actuallywon anything because toss always
always destroyed me but orZergs because it took me too
(20:07):
long to build.
But that's when I gave up onstrategy games and decided to
like actually I don't know playgames on console and just jam.
That way I think Starcraftbroke me from wanting to play
more PC games.
Dilutedspine (20:19):
The last time I played console regularly was
when I lived with Rhino in like2009, 2010.
And after that I basicallycompletely moved to PC Like
totally.
Ryanocerus (20:28):
I didn't know what a Terran or a Tarnak was.
I didn't play StarCraft.
I played it like once or twice,but I think I was so late to
the game that I was just gettingmy shit pushed in and it was
not fun.
I have anger issues when itcomes to video games that I was
just getting my shit pushed inand it was not fun and I don't,
uh, I, I have uh anger issueswhen it comes to video games.
(20:49):
Um, so I don't, I don't, uh, Idon't.
I've learned not to play thingsthat make me angry anymore.
Dilutedspine (20:57):
I've I've witnessed ryan ryan rhinoceros
taking a controller by its cable, back when controllers were
cabled still an xbox controllerand like swinging it above his
head and smacking it into likeour concrete steps of our
apartment until it just exploded.
And then he came back upstairshe was like I don't have another
controller, can I borrow one ofyours?
Ryanocerus (21:20):
he's like I won't destroy it, I promise I don't
remember what even set me offthat much that's called duty
black ops.
Dilutedspine (21:29):
Man, that sounds always pissed you off sounds
accurate sounds accurate so Ikind of want to like all right.
Scarto46 (21:36):
So have you ever thought like what does a diluted
spine look like?
Like what is like?
What does it look like?
Dilutedspine (21:46):
I know, not really , because it's just me.
I just look at me seriously.
Scarto46 (21:49):
We know I actually have okay, so like on the
internet, right, like yourpersona.
Like you're into like cars.
You're into like wave frame, uh, waveform.
You're into vapor wave.
You're into like lo-fi stuff.
You're into Vaporwave.
You're into like Lo-Fi stuff.
You're into different types ofgames.
(22:09):
You're into Tarkov and Destinyand all kinds of stuff.
You're into like talking aboutrandom things on Reddit and like
I guess I can see like fromyour perspective.
Like why that?
Like, but what are?
Like when you think aboutvisualizing it?
Like what is it when you thinkabout visualizing it?
What is it?
Three words top of your headright now.
Dilutedspine (22:30):
How would you describe that Just?
Scarto46 (22:32):
descriptors.
Sure, just throw some words outthere.
Dilutedspine (22:34):
I'd say cyborg, probably hard sci-fi, and then
space.
Those are things that heavilyinterest me, probably like hard
sci-fi and then like space wouldbe like.
Those are like things that arelike heavily interest me and
what is what is hard sci-fi?
It's like foundation, you know,like hard, like hard sci-fi
(22:56):
okay, let's forget the hardsci-fi, let's just say sci-fi
and let's just say cyborg sci-fiand tactical doesn't look like
I'm looking up, I'm googling,I'm goog cyborg sci-fi and
tactical.
Ryanocerus (23:05):
Does it be like I'm looking up?
I'm googling?
I'm googling hard sci-fi.
Hard science fiction is acategory of science fiction
characterized by concern forscientific accuracy and logic.
Scarto46 (23:18):
Oh, okay, so like you're like an interstellar kind
of person.
Yes, yeah, you want your sci-fito be accurate.
Ryanocerus (23:23):
So like if you're an interstellar you're like an
interstellar kind of person.
Yes, yeah, all right.
Dilutedspine (23:25):
What's your sci-fi , to be accurate, so if you're
an interstellar, you're likeTarge yeah, exactly, I mean so
like think of, have you seen, uh, have you seen expanse?
Like expanse does a good job ofcapturing, like really the
realism of what space travelwould be like at that scale,
like the, the level of g forces,and like how to compensate for
(23:46):
them and how they're planningroutes through a solar system
based off of, like, the gravityof planet.
Ryanocerus (23:52):
I like the laser-focused finale You're more
the Martian and less Star Wars.
Dilutedspine (23:59):
Sure, but the Martian's pretty pedestrian in
the grand scheme of things.
Ryanocerus (24:06):
I hope the Martian guy's not listening to this.
Scarto46 (24:08):
He'll be upset.
Dilutedspine (24:12):
Put an Irishman from Boston on Mars and made him
grow potatoes like come on andirish people love potatoes, man.
Ryanocerus (24:22):
No, they're preparing for a second famine.
They're getting ready.
When we're starving in americaand ireland's just rolling like
scrooge mcducking into piles ofpotatoes, then then we'll see
who's laughing.
Scarto46 (24:35):
So like, are you like out there watching the NASA
channel Like all day, every day,not all day, but I do watch
that kind of shit.
Dilutedspine (24:43):
Yeah, Like I'll throw like the live streams on,
especially when they're doinglike space walks or something
like that.
That's like shit.
I'm really into that's.
I really like space stuff, Likestuff like that's why I said
that.
Scarto46 (24:56):
like sci-fi, like space kind of stuff is very much
like important to my persona.
So, like you do, here's what Iwant to know right, you, you
like, get the opportunity to dospace travel like you're out
there right in the expanse, ormaybe maybe you're not a cyborg
and you're like a person andyou're traveling with tars and
interstellar and this is thevibe you're in is on your ass,
like your name tag on your onyour astronaut suit.
Right, is that your real nameor is that diluted spine?
(25:17):
It would probably be.
Ryanocerus (25:19):
If he's a cyborg, does he need an astronaut suit?
He's not a cyborg.
We just established thecharacter sorry, I I mean there
were so many t words that weresaid I my brain just like turned
off if it's me, it's gonna bemy last name, right, like I
think that that would be.
Dilutedspine (25:34):
I don't think that's a persona.
I would use like it'll sayspine, yes, spine, yes, corporal
spine sergeant spine.
Ryanocerus (25:43):
So we get to your iteration even better.
Scarto46 (25:45):
Yeah, sergeant spine yeah um, all right, so people
centric, right, like one of thethings is you know that we, we I
think we all have an identitythat we know about.
On the Internet we play a lotof games.
I grew up in a world where mybrother and I I don't really
jive on single player games.
(26:06):
I never have.
I'm always for me in doing gamedesign and doing engaging with
others.
Even from the time, like when Iwas young, I wanted to be a
journalist and what I wanted todo was interview game developers
about why would you make thatthing and what are you trying to
say to people.
I was fascinated by thatbecause I wanted to understand
(26:26):
why someone would make somethingfor someone else to walk
through or create a space whereother people could engage with
other people in a way that theydesigned or created.
Right when I got into games, mygetting into games was always
about engaging with other peopleand like just playing and like
trying to figure out, like howto do something together, how to
(26:48):
jam on a prop, and that liketranslated heavily into how I,
how I work, how I think, how Iengage with problems.
So my question at the end ofthis big statement is that a
similar way that you think abouthow you engage as diluted spine
with games or communities orwhatever um on the internet.
Dilutedspine (27:12):
Yeah, so every and this is even beyond just games
near it like everything is ahuman related system.
Right, because we've built allthese systems.
We interact with all of them,whether it's games, whether it's
work, whether it's likesoftware on your phone, whatever
, whatever.
Um, I think that people losesight of that and I try to keep
(27:39):
people grounded in that even,especially like in gaming
communities, like it's reallyeasy for folks to go into a
space and say some heinous shitand just act like those aren't
people.
On the other end, that you'resaying just the most obscene
garbage to, for no reason,people you don't even know,
right, like and so like.
(27:59):
While I do, while like onlinegaming, like is my, it's like 80
of my stuff, I, I of like mygaming activities, probably even
more than that, to be honest, II don't see how this world
would function for us if itwasn't like the people right,
(28:21):
and so it's really it's.
It's a constant struggle for meto like interact with strangers
and push them to like be better, even though, like it doesn't
really impact me anyway longterm, whether they are or not.
I just feel like society as awhole if you don't hold
everybody accountable and likepush folks to improve their way
(28:42):
they treat others.
Like you're eventually going tohave like constant degradation
of how people treat each otherRight and so, like games are
really.
It's really interesting becauseyou can get into a lobby and
play with a bunch of people thatare like really cool,
cooperative and likecollaborative and like are
cheering each other on and thenthe net, like Counter-Strike is
(29:03):
great.
At this Counter-Strike You'llplay a match.
There'll be some great playerwho's like helping the team,
bringing everybody with them,like treating the game as if
their interactions in the game,as if it is a society and like
we're trying to improve societyas a group, and the next match
you'll have the most toxic headwho's like bottom fragging, not
helping, and then also likebeing a shithead to everybody in
(29:25):
the same game.
10 minutes later it's yeah.
So it's really interesting howthe and that person.
You don't know anything aboutthat person and a lot of people
will just assume, oh, they're ahead, but that person probably
has a miserable personal lifeand like right, right, their
derived enjoyment is from makingother people miserable.
If you can like dig into thosepeople and get them to talk like
(29:48):
you'd be surprised what you canfind behind some of them when
you're not also just trying toshit talk directly to them.
Scarto46 (29:55):
You know like do you ever feel like you're engaging
with people on the internet andyou're using that personality or
that persona?
You have to help someonethrough a problem and you're
just.
You're a thing that they needyou to be.
Dilutedspine (30:07):
You're a person with your own thoughts and
problems and all those thingsright, but like you know, like
you're, you can also be a youknow, a support system for
someone or yeah, I mean, I'm anempath, right, so like that that
it's very easy for me to gointo a situation with someone
and try to figure out andunderstand where they're coming
from, even if they don't want totell me, right, or they aren't
openly saying that.
(30:27):
Like I've had enoughinteractions with people, like
because I've historically I'veworked in people facing roles,
even though I'm an engineer bytrade like all of my roles have
been talking to tons and tons ofpeople every day.
For the most part, up untillike the last five years or so,
I got more into internal stuff.
But, like I've probably hadconversations with I don't I
(30:51):
can't even begin to tell you Iwould talk to a hundred
different people a day in myfirst job.
That I did for like two years.
So, like you, you five days aweek, like 500 people a week
like that scales really quickly,cause it's, and so, like you
end up being keenly aware,especially after that much
repetition, of how people arefeeling about stuff.
(31:11):
You can read people and, like Iuse that in online spaces to try
to sometimes see where peopleare feeling about stuff.
You can read people and, like Iuse that in online spaces to try
to sometimes see where peopleare coming from and like and and
like, try to empathize with whyfolks might act the way they
are, as long as they're notbeing like there's a difference
between being like difficult andmaybe you're just
neurodivergent and people don'tunderstand that, and like you
(31:32):
need someone to help you likeknow how to act in social
situations, versus like I.
I often see where, especiallywith neurodivergent folks, um,
that you can tell.
I'm not a doctor, but you cantell.
Sometimes with folks like, oh,this person just doesn't know
how to socially interact, theyprobably have some kind of
neurodivergence.
People don't understand thatand they just like target them
(31:53):
or like, oh well, this guy'sjust difficult to deal with.
It's you can tell and then ifyou can work through that with
people, even if it is only for a10 minute period, like I think
it makes them feel better, makesthem feel like oh, maybe there
is like folks out there thataren't just gonna immediately
dismiss me because I'm difficultor whatever.
Scarto46 (32:10):
Right, like, do you feel like that's why you got
into streaming?
It's because you were trying tobuild a place like.
So you, you know, you you'dseen a lot of places where you
were trying to fit in and youwere trying to build a place
where other people could fit in,right like, because maybe you
know, in that concept, rightlike, maybe streaming is is more
like you being able to build acommunity or a place where
(32:31):
people can be part of thatcommunity it definitely didn't
start like that.
Dilutedspine (32:34):
it wasn't altruistic like that in the
beginning, but probably in like2015 2016, when I was further
into it, I started like doingdedicated days every week where
I just like talked to chatinstead of and like I didn't
play games, I would eat likechicken wings and talk to twitch
chat and I had enough viewersthat I could do that and I'd
have people pop in and like thatwas like probably my most
(32:57):
prolific time on Twitch wasdoing that kind of stuff and and
it was partially that like justtalking people through life
problems or whatever dumb shitlike that, like not like in any
serious way.
But yeah, it eventually becamethat.
Scarto46 (33:08):
So that's cool, man.
I mean like you were just justchatting before.
Dilutedspine (33:11):
Just chatting was a thing I don't do that stuff
anymore but because of the gamesthat I play, like tarkov.
I play tarkov on stream andtarkov has a lot of downtime, so
like you might spend 20 minutesin a row and 30 minutes setting
up for it, so you talk topeople while you're doing that
setup and that kind of leads tothe just chatting infusion
without you having to be in ajust chatting category, right?
Scarto46 (33:32):
so you ever think that like someone somewhere that you
talk to while you were eatingchicken wings on stream, like
you know, I mean, everything'sabout making ripples right.
Like you're, you're positivelyor negatively influencing people
with your actions, and so doyou ever think someone is out
there somewhere and they're likeyou know what?
That diluted spine person waspretty dope and they really
(33:54):
helped me with this thing I wasgoing through on this day.
You ever like, look at it thatway that your persona is like is
like that too.
Dilutedspine (34:01):
You know there was a few.
There was like there's a couplepeople that like there was this
kid that was getting out ofhigh school that I used to.
It was one of my viewers.
Actually there's a couple dudesI met through twitch that were
like they were like teenagersand trying to figure out life
and stuff and it was kind ofinteresting to talk to them and
be like hey, like I'm an adult,Like if you need an adult to
like blow shit through on Twitchchat, just tell me about it and
(34:24):
I'll like talk through seven.
So there was a couple of kidsthat I talked through stuff with
.
One of them I still talk to him.
He's like a full blown adult.
He's off doing like farmequipment it.
I also had a.
I had a viewer that would beg tosee me blow vape on my feet and
became like a became like asuper meme and that that same
viewer would like beg me towrite them love letters and like
(34:46):
ask me to like they would payme love letters, and I'd be like
no, he's like well, I'll payyou to blow vape on your feet,
and I'm like all right.
And so I did that and thatbecame like a huge meme on my
channel for a while, until Iquit smoking.
Ryanocerus (35:04):
So we could, uh, we could spend bits, I think like
the channel points to getchannel points and you can get
vape foot.
Dilutedspine (35:12):
I would like bring my foot up on camera and then
blow vape foot.
I would like bring my foot upon camera and then blow vape
through my toes it was the mostatrocious thing I've ever
witnessed there's probablythere's plenty of twitch clips
out there, yeah, but Idefinitely probably bought at
least one of those absolutelyman, uh, so you were you're
(35:33):
making, you're like doing realcontent creation then, right,
that was before.
Scarto46 (35:36):
Uh, was it only feats?
Is that what?
Uh, this was before?
Only finder, I think, is whatit was.
Yeah, uh, so over the like lastfew years, you've streamed 57
different games, right, you'veracked up thousands of hours.
You've talked about how youwere consistent with your
(35:59):
community.
You built a space for people.
Are there any moments thatstick out like in your head
about, like man, I just likethere's this moment that
happened on stream and I justwant to talk about it, like you
might have mentioned previously,like when we were warming up,
like, uh, a tarkov voiceoverthing.
Do you want to like set thestage of this and like how this,
this moment, happened?
Dilutedspine (36:12):
so, tarkov has historically did not have a way
to talk to people in the game.
You only had character modelsthat could make hand signs, and
they had a lot of hand signswhere you like wave or shoot the
finger or whatever, like pointin a direction, but there was no
.
And there was like voice linesthat the game had, but you
couldn't just voip peoplebecause there are legal
(36:34):
requirements in the country ofRussia around.
If your software has voice overIP communication capabilities
in it, you have to record andstore all of those conversations
, and so Battlestate Games didnot want to deal with that for
the longest time and so theyjust didn't have VoIP in the
game.
I want to say it was 2021,mid-2021.
(36:55):
One of the wipes theyintroduced voice over IP, but it
was only proximity chat so youcould just talk as if you were
shouting at somebody nearby.
But it was awesome because PMCsand scavs, which are two
separate factions that kind of,fight each other in the game.
For those who aren't awarePlayer scavs, so player scavs,
(37:17):
so player scavs are supposed totry and kill the pmcs.
Take their gear, vice versa.
Well, we were in a raid rightafter this wipe and it was um,
me and three other buddies werepmcs and we came across a group
of scavs and you couldcollaborate with scavs like
their scav extracts for co-opand stuff like that but people
these are other other playersthat you met, players playing as
(37:39):
scavs that are supposed to beour enemies, right, and so we
start talking and we're on thismap called lighthouse that has
these bots that are reallydifficult to kill and then, but
they have a lot of good loot andthey're guarding this entire
water treatment facility and sowe collaborated with the scavs
and using voip and we ended upwith three separate four player
groups of scavs and four pmcsrunning into this fucking
(38:03):
extremely difficult area thathad just and and wiping all of
the bots with all the good lootand just like hanging out with
16 players total, which was justunheard of before in that game.
Like you didn't have 16 playersdoing the same thing together
in that game.
So it was like really cool.
I have a picture somewhere oflike a bunch of us that we they
(38:24):
all posed up around like a hilland everybody was standing there
like thumbs up, and like I gotthat, I screen grabbed that and
like I have a video of itsomewhere that I was supposed to
edit down and I just never gotaround to.
But it was like my first, likethat was the first time in
Tarkov where we got to justinteract with the general
community of the game in a waythat wasn't like a bunch of
(38:44):
angry assholes on Reddit orTwitter or whatever, screaming
about whatever thing they didn'tlike.
So it was really cool.
Scarto46 (38:51):
So like what kind of people find you right, like we
kind of talked about this alittle bit like in your
streaming days, and like your,you know, your community, you
build.
But like what kind of peoplelike connect to diluted spine,
like online, yeah, yeah yeah,like there's probably a certain
type of person that you're likeyep, this is, this, is my people
, right, or these are the kindsof people who find you a lot, a
(39:12):
lot of neurodivergent people,from what I can tell.
Dilutedspine (39:20):
Well, do you think it's because you're an empath
and like you're, because, like Idon't push folks away, that
like cause, like you know, somepeople will like not, just don't
have the tolerance for it ordon't understand it.
Right, like and so it's.
Scarto46 (39:28):
it's or maybe don't even have the language to even
understand.
Yeah, yeah.
Dilutedspine (39:35):
Yeah, to even understand.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and like Iknow, nowadays it's like like
people all are like, oh yeah,I'm on the autism spectrum,
they're all on the autismspectrum and that's probably
true, but like the, the, justthe neurodivergence in general
is like like my best friend islike he's got brothers who are
like nonverbal autistic.
Like like I've got so manypeople in my life that are in
that space, like guys I workedwith that people were like, oh
(39:56):
he's, he's so annoying I don'twant to deal with him.
Blah, blah, blah.
And it's just that they just hejust needed coaching.
Like I have guys that I've likecoached on like how to be in
social settings and how tointeract with people in a way
that's not going to annoy theshit out of everybody because
there's spent any time,especially people in our age
group.
Like nobody was spending time.
(40:17):
People were, but not like yeah,it wasn't full, it wasn't
understood as well as it istoday and people didn't have the
empathy to do it.
And I'm not saying that not,there are people out there that
are our age, that had parentsthat recognize what it was and
instead of doing the whole no,that's not real.
I don't believe that.
Blah, blah.
And then turning out this humaninto the world who like doesn't
know how to deal with anybody,can't handle like emotional
(40:40):
situations, shuts down and stufflike that.
Like those folks I get it, Iget how they got there and like
try to help people like thatthrough situations like that.
Like I think at least I hope,I'm doing that- Like it feels
like it anyone can do, right?
Scarto46 (41:00):
I mean, that's why I was asking the question earlier
about like you know, uh, like,do you perceive your persona as
like being a North star forpeople?
Because, you know, I think inthe times I've engaged with you,
you really are an empath, you,you really do like care about
people and you buildrelationships deeply with people
, or they, or I should saypeople, build relationships
deeply with you, right, yeah,they do.
And so, like I think that's avery natural thing and that's a
super cool thing, man, and it'salso really cool to like be
(41:23):
inclusive and respectful of likeeveryone, Like everyone's going
through something or gotsomething going on, Right, like
I don't know.
I'm with you on the wholemindset of like you can't live
in this world where, like peopleare different and you should
judge them for being different,and yeah, a lot of people think
you can just operate and operatein black and white, though and
it really just doesn't.
Dilutedspine (41:44):
That's not a human thing, and I think people want
to operate in black and white.
Ryanocerus (41:48):
It's easier.
Scarto46 (41:48):
Yeah, I mean if everything is like true or false
light, switch on or off.
Yeah, everything's easy, butthe world's a thousand shades of
gray.
There's no one that's the same.
Dilutedspine (41:57):
Everyone's all different.
That behavior doesn't bringsociety along with you, though,
either.
That's like the wholeindividualism thing we're like
well, I did this, why can'teverybody else do it?
Like, that type of likeattitude about stuff just
doesn't.
It doesn't translate to reallife success for society as a
whole.
Ryanocerus (42:11):
so it's been a really, uh, fun discussion.
Um, I know that scardo andmyself both know diluted pretty
well um, and have known him forquite a few years.
But I hope this was somethingthat you know, other people can
latch on to and, you know, getto know him a little bit through
this.
Um, we're going to roll into alittle bit of reflection and
(42:34):
then our re-roll segment.
Let's say you had one shot tore-roll your digital self, would
you keep your diluted gamer tagor would you craft something
completely new?
Now that we also know that thiskind of came from a random
generator, do you think youwould do something different?
Dilutedspine (42:55):
no, I don't think so it, it, it's so.
Uh, it's such a comfortablething.
Like I don't, I don't, wouldnever see myself changing.
I've had like randomly madejoke names and stuff on, like
steam or whatever, like champion, pizza nips or whatever shit
like that.
Ryanocerus (43:10):
Like you've seen some of the insane stuff that
I've had in discord, like uh,the pale, well, I believe was
one of them, was one of them,but yeah, I believe mine would
stay forever, like I don't seethat you would keep it the same,
but how do you know you wouldget the same random names.
It's kind of a oh, I see whatyou're saying yeah like, would
you would?
would that be your approach?
(43:31):
I guess would you say cool, Idon't know what I want this to
be, I'm just gonna get on arandom name.
I mean, they have, they havethose obviously still if.
Dilutedspine (43:38):
If it didn't roll off the tongue so well, I
probably wouldn't have stuckwith it.
But like it's it's short onsyllables, like really easy to
say, it's shortened easily, likeit was very it's a very
convenient name.
Like if it was I don't knowmeat sack blimp or something
like that or whatever, Iwouldn't have kept it.
Blimp is a strong ass game.
(44:01):
Put that one in the pocket, someguy you're gonna see in the
crucible and destiny too andhe's like clearly cheating too
you think that diluted spine iseasy to say and rolls off the
tongue and it's short I thoughtso yeah, diluted spine.
It's what?
Two syllables diluted?
No, I guess that's twosyllables and spine is one
syllable.
(44:22):
Right, diluted spine?
Scarto46 (44:23):
yeah, I think that's pretty easy three syllables I
guess my question is really allthe things you're involved in,
like design um car, all thestuff right hard sci-fi hard
sci-fi, hard sci-fi.
Would you partition your, yourlife, your engagement, by
building different personas?
Are you just like having them?
Dilutedspine (44:44):
all be one thing, it's all just one.
I would just do it all onething.
I mean I've done like carcontent on YouTube, not not like
seriously, just like vlogs fromconventions and stuff and
interviewing people and likeit's all just under that same
banner.
I don't see myself ever havinglike.
The only way I would see myselfhaving a different thing is if
(45:06):
I was presenting as like my reallife identity for something
like that's the only other way Icould see doing that.
Like all the other the, the,the directing like extra live
streams for like that wholegroup, all that kind of stuff
with the vaporwave magazine thatI did, like that was all.
Like that was all under dilutedspine, that was all never gonna
be under anything else.
Ryanocerus (45:27):
Like I would never consider not using that I think
you're a lot like me, whereasyou I mean, you have your
digital online persona, but likeit is you.
You're not, you know, putting,putting on airs or, you know,
even trying to be an actor ofany kind.
It's just like.
This is me like everywhere.
Dilutedspine (45:45):
Yeah, what you're getting right now is like
exactly how I act at work andlike in my personal life.
So like, yeah, it's, it's allme right, and so just it makes
sense to keep it under thatwould you change your legal name
to diluted spine?
No, I would not not that cool Ithink I've got a pretty cool
(46:05):
name.
Scarto46 (46:05):
To be honest, yeah, what about your middle name?
Dilutedspine (46:08):
yeah, sure, I'd consider that, but even my
middle name is like your middlename.
Ryanocerus (46:13):
You sound like a cowboy your whole name.
Dilutedspine (46:14):
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
I have a pretty cool name Ilike like real, real big energy
to it.
Scarto46 (46:20):
So all right, so so like what's next on?
Like the roadmap for dilutedspine.
Like where does this, wheredoes this name, your persona, go
from?
Here?
Are you new designs, new stream.
You're gonna like stream moreconsistently.
Like where can people likeconnect to diluted spine?
Dilutedspine (46:43):
I mean Twitch is going to be basically the only
place anymore, like I don't.
I stopped frequenting X orTwitter.
I don't have any like socialmedia anymore.
That's like a place to interactwith diluted spine as diluted
spine anymore, just cause, likeall of the social media out
there, it's just kind of gone toshit lately and I don't, I
don't really use Tik tiktok andthat seems to be like kind of
(47:03):
the main place.
Like I know that makes me soundlike a 30 year old boomer or
whatever, but like it justdoesn't appeal to me and like I
don't want to get sucked intolike that doom scrolling and all
that.
So I've just twitch is probablythe place to find me, um, which
is just diluted spine on twitch, twitchtv slash diluted spine.
Um, and I I have beenrevisiting streaming.
(47:24):
I took a long hiatus over thelast couple years.
I had some just didn't, wasn'tfeeling it and personalized
stuff going on and just like didnot have the energy for it
otherwise, um, I do stream likea couple times a month now, but
it is not the cadence I used tobe, which was like upwards of 20
to 30 hours a week on top of afull-time job, which was like
(47:44):
and I I like, I like yourstreams diluted.
Ryanocerus (47:47):
I I oh, you know the game content's great, but I I
always enjoy the just thehanging out and kind of just you
know shooting the shit yeah,that's kind of like connection
kind of thing is.
I don't.
Dilutedspine (47:59):
I don't watch streamers for their incredible
gameplay.
There are people that do that.
There are people that are therefor the highly competitive
watching someone that's reallyreally, really good at a game
play it.
They're not entertaining for me.
I'm trying to be entertaining.
It's supposed to be laughs andgiggles and stupid jokes and
vape foot.
For me, that's what's important.
(48:19):
On twitch and a lot of thestreamers I follow, it's that
kind of like.
Aqua fps is a great examplewhere he's just like this dopey
dude in his mid-30s who's likemediocre at tarkov but also
really sweet and like kind andfunny and like is not like
there's not any ego to it oranything, like it's just him
enjoying it and like being funnyand goofy with people while his
(48:41):
community is like heinouslymean to him, but like he takes
it on the chin and he's likereally good sport about all of
it and stuff.
Like he's a great example oflike the type of streamer that I
want to be and strive to likedo that type of like funny, like
easygoing stuff.
That that's not, he's nottrying, it's just he like
easygoing stuff.
That that's not he's not trying, it's just he's just naturally
like that.
Scarto46 (49:01):
So, yeah, yeah, man, it's all about connection.
That's what you're saying islike when you're, when you're
watching someone you like, wantto be able to identify or
understand or connect with thatperson and, like I don't know,
just jam with them right, likethat's kind of what you're where
you're coming from, exactly.
Yeah, yeah, well, cool.
So, uh, you can find diluted inthe future on twitchtv, slash
diluted spine.
We'll make sure we have a linkin the podcast for that and in
(49:25):
our socials.
But we're going to shift gearsand go into re-roll on re-roll.
We're going to take informationthat we have learned about
diluted spine throughout thispodcast your personality, traits
(49:46):
, roles, your favorite genresand worlds, signature, style or
vibe and visual inspiration andwe're going to feed that into
the machine, mystical machine AIand see if we can create an
image of what the diluted spinepersona looks like.
What does it look like?
You said yourself hey, Ihaven't ever thought about what
(50:08):
it looks like, it's just me.
So we're going to think aboutit.
Live together on the air andwe're going to insert this
information and you get twore-rolls so the rules of the
game diluted spine towards thisinformation and you get two
re-rolls so the rules of thegame Deluded spine.
We're going to make a first cutof this picture with the
information that we've gathered.
Then you have the opportunityto re-roll or stay where you're
(50:29):
at.
You only get two re-rolls andfrom this we'll make an official
gamer tag, trading card of yourdigital persona that you'll get
to see at the end.
So are you ready to play?
Yeah, of course I'm ready to go.
All right, cool.
Ryanocerus (50:43):
All right, so we've got your.
I took some notes while we werechit-chatting.
I did not add anything off thecuff here, so you're welcome.
Just some quick notes on justour conversations, key things
that popped out to me and justto kind of help us with the
description of what this cardwill look like.
(51:04):
So, personality traits I wrotedown extroverted, introvert and
random.
Um, you seem to, uh, you know,you're just interested in a lot
of things and, uh, you just kindof described that a lot
throughout this whole, uh,conversation.
Preferred roles uh, supportclass empath you said both of
those things multiple times.
(51:25):
Favorite genres and worlds um, Iwrote down chairs, canada
documentaries and nasa livestreams signature style
vaporwave design language andvape foot um, and visual
inspiration is cyborg, hardsci-fi and space yeah, okay.
Scarto46 (51:46):
So what we're gonna do now you can see the prompt on
the screen, right?
Yeah, I can see it.
Dilutedspine (51:50):
Yeah, okay so we're gonna take this no hold on
, I'm not looking at your screenshare.
Sorry, I thought you're talkingabout the other thing.
Scarto46 (51:57):
Okay, now I can see it yeah, okay, so so this we're
gonna.
We want to make sure you cansee the prompt and what we're
going to do with it, so we'regoing to take that information
that Rhinoceros just outlinedand we're going to bring that in
to our machine.
Here we go.
Are you excited to see whathappens here?
Dilutedspine (52:16):
Yeah, I haven't really messed with uh image
generation too much in gen ai,so I'm curious what this comes
up with I saw what it did tomine, so I'm real excited to see
what um I'm gonna have onesmoky ass foot or something.
Scarto46 (52:29):
I hope it's just a big I hope it's a big foot with a
face on it or something like agiant cyborg sitting in a chair
here's the cool thing about thisright, like, like we use Gen AI
to do this, because Gen AIknows literally nothing about,
we're feeding it traits and likewe're going to, from that, like
get a picture.
(52:49):
It could be of anything and itwill be totally unique to the
prompt we created in this momentin time relative to you, and
that's kind of a really cool,like weird, like interesting
thing.
So that's why we're doing itlike with Gen AI, cause, like
you know, someone could likedraw you, but if they, if they
draw you, I'd probably talk tohim.
You're like hey, I want to likecan you draw me a certain
(53:10):
picture?
I saw Right or whatever Right,or draw me?
And they're like they kind ofknow you, maybe Right.
So now you're going to get thistotally random type of vibe
that fits all those things whichI think you're already seeing
it come up on the screen.
Ryanocerus (53:25):
here I'm seeing pinks and purples for vapor
waves, so that's pretty open.
I see some smoke.
Dilutedspine (53:31):
Yeah, there is a smoke coming out of the mouth.
Ryanocerus (53:36):
There's smoke coming out of the mouth and on the
back of something.
What is that?
Dilutedspine (53:42):
I think it's the vape part.
I hope it's a foot.
Ryanocerus (53:48):
Got some stars there , nice oh space.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
Dilutedspine (53:53):
Ooh, I like the helmet.
This is a real strong start.
Yeah, this is pretty good.
Watch, it's just a big-ass footfor the lower torso.
Yeah, I think that's the one.
Ryanocerus (54:14):
He's in a chair.
Okay, it's a robot cyborgsitting in a chair.
He's in a chair.
Okay, it's a robot cyborgsitting in a chair.
One of his feet is a robot feetand the other one is on fire.
This is a vape foot, bro,that's what's going on here?
Scarto46 (54:31):
This is an incredible picture so you can reroll.
But you got to know that itcould totally redraw this in a
thousand different ways.
Dilutedspine (54:41):
I mean, I kind of like the, I like this.
I don't want to re-roll andthen lose access to this.
I think this is the one.
This is the.
Scarto46 (54:50):
Here's what we'll do.
We'll make this the one, but wecan roll and see what other
options there are.
Yeah, let's see what the otheroptions are.
Dilutedspine (54:59):
I think this is the one Sitting in a chair.
All right, here we go.
Scarto46 (55:05):
That is incredible.
He's sitting in a chair posedup on some planet with the right
vibes, so Deluded Spine.
Do you feel like this?
Is this like a goodrepresentation of you now, like,
do you see your persona as thisthing?
Dilutedspine (55:22):
yeah, I think so, yeah, that that's a pretty good
representation of like you'regonna.
Scarto46 (55:27):
You want to plaster this on your wall.
Dilutedspine (55:28):
You want this to be a poster I mean, yeah, if I
had, I would probably put thatback behind me here.
It would be on the back end ofthe stream then.
Ryanocerus (55:36):
So I got you all right, let's, let's see, let's
see what.
Uh, let's see what it changed.
It looks pretty similar, so farI would keep it similar.
Dilutedspine (55:45):
Yeah, I'm surprised.
I expected it.
Every time I've I've done imagegeneration in uh in gemini and
it just like loses the plot soquickly when you try to change
something, so but it really iskeeping the theme in.
Editor Portabella here wantedto pop in and say that some of
the audio got a little wonkyhere, so to clear any confusion
(56:07):
the boys are now on their thirdroll.
Scarto46 (56:09):
I think we're going to Hold on.
We've got to.
Dilutedspine (56:12):
Oh, you want to re-roll it right.
Scarto46 (56:14):
Yeah yeah, yeah.
But what's going to happen hereat the end is you're about to
get a title and a backstorygenerated for Deluded Spine, so
that'll all go on your officialgamer-tagged trading card.
Dilutedspine (56:33):
And we called it too, that it was going to put my
foot in vape all right.
Scarto46 (56:43):
Now we've got some planets, some planets are
happening yeah oh yeah with the
Dilutedspine (56:49):
planet better little planets, yeah, that's
good.
Scarto46 (56:51):
so you have this, uh, this original re-roll.
It's got a little bit harderline, harder colors to it, but
then we edited and we put him ina Virko chair, which I don't
think there was a huge changemaybe a little bit of color
palette change in that, and thenthis is where we ended up.
Dilutedspine (57:10):
I actually think I liked the last one the best,
with the different helmet andstuff.
Yeah, all right, cool.
Scarto46 (57:15):
All right, so we've used all of our re-rolls, so
here's your final personaDeluded Spine.
Deluded Spine, a vaporwavesentinel, a neon-lit cyborg
empath, seated in stillness on aVirgo 9018 with a vape foot
glowing beneath planetary skiesCool, well, hey look, you played
reroll.
(57:35):
What are your thoughts?
Man, like you got to maybe makea crazy visual of the thing
that you've been living underfor the last 20 years I think
it's good to like.
Dilutedspine (57:46):
I haven't really thought about the whole online
persona thing that much and likehow it all kind of ties to
everything until we startedtalking about doing this podcast
episode and that's what it kindof started thinking more about
it.
So I think it's put like a lotof perspective into um, like it
does mean more, it meanssomething, and I never I don't
(58:07):
really think too much about itusually, you know.
So it's kind of cool to to getthat perspective on stuff.
I enjoyed it.
Scarto46 (58:13):
Yeah, man for sure, well, hey, thanks for joining us
on episode two of the gamer tagpodcast yeah, man, of course.
Thanks for having me for sureand ryan osiris, thanks for
joining as a co-host doing there-roll documentation making it
all happen.
This is scarto 46 signing off.
Thank you all for joining usfor the gamer tag podcast and
(58:34):
appreciate you.
If you enjoyed today's episode,hit, follow on your favorite
podcast, leave us a rating andshare it with someone whose
username has always made youcurious.
We drop new stories every otherweek featuring creators, gamers
, streamers and digitalpersonalities who shaped their
identity online.
Got a Gamertag story of yourown or know someone we should
talk to?
Visit our link tree or oursocials to reach out.
(58:55):
You selected your character tofind your tag and build your
persona.
Now come tell us your story.
This episode of Gamertag wasproduced by Gamertag Studios,
music by Ryan Osrus, editing andproduction by Isabella Sumner,
visuals by Opal and Ink Design,hosted by me, scarto46.
One tag down, a hundred more todiscover, discover.
(59:18):
See you next time, right here,where digital identities become
real stories transmission endinggoodbye.
put an Irishman from Boston on and made him grow
potatoes Like come on, irishpeople love potatoes.
Ryanocerus (00:10):
I know they're preparing for a second family.
They're getting ready.
Scarto46 (00:16):
Game attack known across lo-fi airwaves and twitch
timelines as diluted spine,this tech savvy tactician lives
(00:38):
at the intersection of vaporwavesystems and story.
Today, on gamert, we dive intohow a Gamertagged became a
persona, one shaped by proximity, voice over IP in Tarkov,
vapor-coated aesthetics and thequiet power of staying weird.
Hey, welcome, deluded Spine.
Thanks for coming on toGamertagged, hey how are you now
?
I'm good now.
(01:01):
Now is really odd.
Ryanocerus (01:08):
Hey, how are you now ?
I don't know.
I'm glad that you were the oneresponding to that, because I
was like I don't know, how isanyone responding to that.
Scarto46 (01:20):
I was just talking three minutes ago, and what do
you mean now?
Dilutedspine (01:24):
It's like a greeting.
Have you never seen Letterkennybefore?
I guess not.
What is Letterkenny?
It's a Canadian comedy to show.
It's like Shakespeare, butCanadian Hicks.
Basically Okay, All right.
Well, that's cool.
Scarto46 (01:41):
Hey, yeah, I'm sorry, I wasn't ready for keeping it
Canadian.
I'm good now.
Thanks for asking.
Also joining us tonight is ourco-host in our rotating chair,
the Rhinoceros.
Ryanocerus (01:54):
My chair, in fact, is not rotating tonight.
You're welcome.
Scarto46 (01:58):
That's good, because it squeaked most of the first
episode, so it's good that it'snot rotating.
Ryanocerus (02:03):
It squeaked the entire episode and I didn't
realize it squeaked until Ilistened to the audio from the
episode.
Scarto46 (02:07):
Yeah, it was pretty solid, but it's.
You know, we iterated, we madedifferent choices, we edited out
what we could.
Ryanocerus (02:14):
Maybe no one noticed .
Someone's going to go back andlike really listen to it now,
just to find mature squeaks likesend you all the time markers.
Well, I hope that's you that'sgoing to go back and do that.
Dilutedspine (02:28):
I already sent that in.
Scarto46 (02:31):
So look, tonight we're talking to Deluded Spine.
We're going to work through acouple different components of
the show, right?
So we're going to start offtalking about the origins of
that name Deluded Spine.
So, starting at the beginning,where did the tag diluted spine
(02:53):
come from?
Was it a joke moment or like?
Dilutedspine (02:55):
a myth you made real like, because it's kind of
a crazy name, right like.
I can tell you exactly the likeyear, the place I was at,
literally where I was sittingwhen I came up with that name.
It would have been 2007,.
Like October 2007.
I was visiting.
Well, I wasn't visiting, I washanging out at my friend Mara
(03:15):
Jack's house that's his handleand I didn't have internet at
home so I would bring mycomputer to his house.
He had internet.
He went to school with me.
I grew up in the sticks.
He went to school with me, buthe lived in town and his mom
would bring him out because sheworked in the town that I lived
in, and so he went to schoolwith me and that's how I knew
him.
And I brought my computer intohis house to have internet
(03:36):
access, because I had gotten theorange box and was setting up
steam and you had to have aninternet connection for that.
And so I brought my computer inand I was setting up my Steam
account originally and it wantedme to make up a username and I
didn't know what to put and Iwasn't going to use what I had
been using.
So I went on Google andsearched random name generator
(04:01):
and, I'm sorry, random wordgenerator and just ran it and
pick the first two words thatcame out of it and that was
diluted spine and that's howthat came to be so like this is
in a time period before therewas a gamer tag name generator
or give me a fantasy namegenerator kind of situation yeah
, I mean, this was, you know,2008, like 2007, 2008.
Yeah, it was very early on like.
Scarto46 (04:22):
So you still rocking dial up at this time.
Like you said, you didn't haveinternet at the house at the
time.
Dilutedspine (04:25):
Yeah, At my actual house I was living at.
Yeah, I was out of high schoolat the point, but I hadn't moved
out yet to live in a major city, and so, like I only had dial
up, and so that was go to hishouse, set up PC in his closet,
and cause, his closet was likehis bedroom was like a garage
that was converted into a roomand the back of it was like a
storage closet, and so I wassitting there and then he had
(04:45):
his desk and we would just playgames together or whatever, and
that was that was how that cameto be.
I was sitting on his floor withmy computer on like a coffee
table in front of me, and that'swhat.
That's how it happened,literally two words.
Scarto46 (05:00):
So like, diluted, like you can, it is something that
is soluble, right, like you candilute it.
And then spine, which, like,could have a bunch of different
definitions, but I assume inyour head you were thinking like
, uh, your spine, like yourskeletal spine no, it wasn't
even that deep.
I was just like this soundsgood and that's what I used, and
(05:21):
you're just like in a headspaceof like I like letters and then
I just give me two words andI'll use that and I didn't think
it was gonna stick or anything.
Dilutedspine (05:28):
It just like and now that's like so diluted has
become like everything.
Now where I like if I build anew pc, it's diluted gaming pc
or diluted pc.
My, all my server stuff, likein my home lab for messing with
computers is like diluted DCOone, diluted hypervisor, diluted
hypervisor two or what all it'sall become like.
(05:50):
It's all encompassing.
Now everything gets nameddiluted and then whatever it
actually is for the most part solike.
It has become like just arandom word picked out off of
the top of the list, like becamelike censored in my whole life.
Scarto46 (06:06):
Have you ever?
Yeah, that that's, that'sinsane, I mean.
But have you ever had this?
I mean, this is how it worksfor everybody.
Right, like it became a thingthat you are right, it's totally
, I totally get that, um, I mean.
But, like you know, I've hadthis trouble before.
Like mine's a scarto 46, right,and so the numbers at the end
for me kind of came in theaspect of like all right, well,
most times when I type in scarto, um, it's not available.
(06:29):
I, in whatever game I'm tryingto play, you know.
So I got really used to likeall right, well, I need to put
numbers on it.
So scarto 46 is just like anatural thing.
That kind of happened over time.
Right like, I just kind of Icouldn't put in the word.
Have you ever had thatchallenge when you're like
trying to like sign up forsomething or like cause it's
very unique?
Right Like I've never metanother diluted spine.
(06:50):
Like I don't.
I couldn't imagine there beingan enumeration of like.
Oh yeah, that's diluted spine10,000.
Right, like that's probably avery singular type of.
Dilutedspine (07:00):
There isn't.
It is always available, and theonly time it's not available is
when I go to sign up forsomething that I already signed
up for and didn't realize I hadan account already.
That's the only time I'll getlike, hey, this is in use.
Scarto46 (07:11):
That's amazing, that's that's crazy, dude.
I mean I can't imagine whatit's like to have a name that's
so singular like, because I'vealways like run into that
problem.
So I mean, so we I'm gonna likeswitch gears a little bit, but
we were kind of just talkingabout this, but, like, at what
point did like diluted spineshift from being just like a
username you picked off a randomword generator to like
(07:33):
something and something that youwere wearing to play orange box
on steam Right, to like a thingthat fit you Like what?
Is there like a moment in yourmind where that like sticks out?
You like what?
Is there like a moment in yourmind where that like sticks out?
You're like yep, this is themoment where people started
calling me deluded in real life,for real all the time.
Dilutedspine (07:51):
Um, I don't know about, I think maybe people
there were people that call medeluded because of like skype
channels that I would be in solike back in the day for folks
that I don't know.
The discord didn't exist.
You could use like team speakeror something like that, but you
had to host a server for it.
So a lot of the guys I playedgames with there was like five
or six of us would playstarcraft 2 and like the early
(08:14):
2010s and I was deluded spine inthere and they would call me
deluded.
Um, but I think it really didn'tstick as like a persona and
it's not really a persona, it'sjust because, like I am my
authentic self, like both onlineand in person.
Like it's the same person.
There's not like a character orsomething, um, but uh, I think
when in like late 2012, early2013, when I started getting
(08:36):
into streaming and startedgetting involved in like
professional starcraft 2 stuff,like briefly for about a year, I
did like shout casting, likeamateur shout casting for
matches, and that was when itlike kind of stuck.
Now it was on liquipediabecause I was on a casting team
and so like there was some likedocumentation officially saying
like this person exists asdiluted spine, works with
(08:57):
planning, casting, like etc.
Etc.
Um, and that's kind of when itstuck with like early 2013, when
I was like starting to streamand stuff.
I think it's when it reallybecame like a real thing.
Scarto46 (09:06):
Dude, I have to ask like OK, so shout casting was
not like a thing.
I thought where we would go inthis conversation and so like,
could you?
Ryanocerus (09:18):
give us know what that is.
Scarto46 (09:20):
Yeah, what is shout casting, and could you give us a
sample of shout casting?
Dilutedspine (09:28):
is yeah, what is shout casting?
And could you give us a sampleof shout casting?
Uh, I mean, so for me I waspaired with the guy who was
running this.
Um, this like so shout castingfor starcraft is like the way I
was doing it with these guys wasyou would watch replays of like
tournament play and then youdialogue over it.
So like there was shout castingwhere you could do it live, but
I was never going to liveevents to do it um, and back
(09:51):
then you didn't really have thelike kind of how today, after
the pandemic and stuff, thingscan be organized remotely online
pretty easily.
Like that really wasn't a thingin the pro scene for starcraft 2
, especially for the us scene.
It was mostly watching replaysand then me and this guy Shaft
would talk about the gameplayand so I was color commentary
where I would like shit talk andlike I would do light analysis,
(10:15):
like I still knew what wasgoing on, but I wasn't like
hyper technical on strategy, butI could tell when somebody
botched something and I wouldlike dog them about it from the
casting table.
Essentially, traditionally youwould be doing it like live in
person or live like as atournament viewer and there was
some opportunities for that.
But by the time I got to thepoint where I would be able to
(10:38):
maybe run casting for eventsthat were being held online, I
was kind of getting serious inmy career and it was.
It was getting to the pointwhere it was eating up a lot, of
, a lot of time and I didn'thave the time to deal with it
and also like workprofessionally.
So I kind of cut that out, soyou were.
Ryanocerus (10:52):
You were Jerry the King Lawler.
Yeah, that's where I was,pretty much Jim Ross.
Scarto46 (10:57):
So like for you all right.
So shout happens, boom, yourname is becoming more of a thing
that you associate with andpeople are associating that with
you in a much broader way.
But like I mean you know I'vebeen engaging with you
previously A lot of people justknow you as diluted like or
(11:18):
diluted spine Like.
Actually, most people that I'vemet who know you on the
internet only refer to you thatway, like they actually have no
idea Like, even if they actuallyeven know your real name, they
actually only call you deluded.
You know what I mean.
So like.
So it like started to fit, Iguess, in this like origin story
somewhere around shoutcastingand engaging with a larger
(11:42):
internet community than justyourself or your friends.
Right, like from high school.
Dilutedspine (11:47):
Yeah, exactly, and and even my friends from high
school, like online, will callme diluted, like my best friend
calls me diluted, when we're indiscord together, even though,
like, we see each other inperson like three times a week
or whatever and do stufftogether all the time, like it's
still like I'm still deludedonline.
Um, and I think that part ofthat too.
Like we talked, I mentioned thepandemic earlier.
(12:08):
Like part of, I had nodifficulty in the pandemic when
it came to like not socializingexternally of the house, because
I spent so much time in theseonline communities as me, you
know, hanging out with peopleand like it was just, oh, I do
that twice as much now, insteadof going out of the house two
days a week or whatever.
Scarto46 (12:28):
So, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean like so.
So we, we, you kind of talkedabout this early on, whenever
you were talking about umgetting started with you know,
your friends and like um kind ofearly stages of the internet,
Right, and like I mean you,you've been on the internet like
(12:48):
your whole life, right, like, Ithink, rhinoceros, talking
about this early on, like we allkind of grew up around this
thing where it was totallynormal for I actually didn't.
Dilutedspine (12:55):
That's the crazy part.
Like I didn't have, we haddial-up.
I didn't have internet until2009, when I moved into town.
Basically I had internet atwork where I was working, but I
didn't really game online.
I didn't have much of an onlinepresence until 2009 when I got
my first apartment, so like thatwas that was, so I was actually
(13:15):
offline like terminally mywhole childhood.
Basically we did have dial-uptowards my teenage years, but I
just it was such a hassle to useand it didn't really it didn't
work well when internet in 2008was already like moving on to
DSL and so like websites werenot performing on 56 K modems at
all, so like even normal shitwouldn't load so well like,
(13:37):
where did this?
Scarto46 (13:38):
so when you you're on the internet, you're you're
diluted spine, right.
Your, your diluted spine, right.
You're like kind of in thattime period, like where, where
do you start?
Like, how do you go about theprocess of like getting a better
perspective of yourself?
Cause, for those people who maynot know you, in general, right
, like, you're perceived as aperson who's a pretty chill
community person who likes toengage engage with different
(13:59):
types of communities.
You're very diverse in like howyou, how you work through that
stuff.
You're a person who contributesback to charities.
You're a person who ispassionate about supporting
gaming charities who are givingback to children, and like all
this stuff that you are likekind of comes out of this time
period of you like figuringyourself out in this big
(14:21):
Internet space that's kind ofgrowing around you, like in your
apartment years, right, like,what's that process like of like
getting a better perspective ofself from the digital universe,
I guess, right.
Dilutedspine (14:35):
Um, I think it.
I think like my personality.
I grew into who I am because ofit.
Right, like I was, I was notnearly a social in person.
Like I was very awkward and,like rhino can speak to it, he
knew me back then like was, yeah, well, you then, but but uh, I
(14:59):
was like weird to talk to anddidn't know how to handle people
.
And then, like started spendingtons of time playing games
online.
Mind you, it was like halo andcall of duty, lobbies and just
like obscenities being screameda lot of the time.
But like that, that constantinteraction online like forced
me into like not an onlinepersona, but like I as a person,
(15:23):
got a ton of cycles talking topeople and like and working with
people, and I've always been a.
I always thought I was anintrovert, but apparently
everybody thinks I'm anextrovert.
Maybe I just like to be at home, so maybe I'm just a homebody
but also extroverted.
I don't know.
But I think a lot of that cameout of like talking to people
online and get like I'll hopinto discord and talk to total
(15:43):
strangers.
I've been playing games withtotal strangers and like our
local city discord just becausethey're on and they're playing
something I play Like.
I don't know if that's normal,but that's kind of what I do,
like I'm not, I don't need to dothat, it's just fun for me to
go like meet these people andlearn about people and stuff and
I think that's reallyinteresting, right.
Scarto46 (16:03):
Like, do you sort of like in life, do you describe
yourself as an introvert, like,so, like put them side by side
like you in life and yourdiluted spine persona Is one of
them an introvert and one ofthem an extrovert and like how
they engage and do they engagedifferently.
Dilutedspine (16:22):
I thought they were both introverts, but
apparently I'm not an introvert.
Ryanocerus (16:25):
according to my wife and according to my friends, I
Apparently, I'm not an introvert.
Dilutedspine (16:28):
According to my wife and according to my friends
, I would say you're anintroverted extrovert.
That works, yeah, that thatthat makes sense to me but
that's like yeah that's likeboth real life person and and
online, though Like I'm the sameperson between the two
environments.
Like I don't really I don'tcontext switch in any meaningful
way between online and offlinespaces.
Really I don't context switchin any meaningful way between
online and offline spaces.
Ryanocerus (16:45):
so you said you got your first real internet in 2009
, um, and that's uh.
I was doing some uh back backof the napkin math here.
Um, because diluted spine and Iwere roommates in 2009.
Um, so I'm guessing that thatfirst internet was when we lived
together oh yeah, that was thefirst time I had ice be internet
(17:06):
.
Yeah, it was when we moved intogether and that internet
wasn't even that good, I mean,it was decent, it was 1.5
million down, I remember.
I was so excited.
Dilutedspine (17:15):
I was like wow, I could watch YouTube, I mean, and
that was 2009, so that wasprobably.
Ryanocerus (17:19):
I mean, we had, you know, four of us living in there
.
We had, we each had our ownconnection, we each had
connection and we each were, youknow, gaming it.
You know, often at the sametime as and I don't think we
ever ran it ran into any issues.
Dilutedspine (17:30):
That's just well no that it's because each of us
had our own line oh yeah, we allhad our own modem in each of
the bedrooms, because that's howthe apartment like for that
college.
Okay, sure, sure, I couldn'tMind you.
We were in a college apartmentcomplex.
I did not go to college there,I was just a guy living.
Scarto46 (17:52):
We have seen the tag Deluded Spine across Twitch,
across Reddit, like even yourcreative work right and working
on designs.
So like what does it mean tocarry that same identity across
so many spaces?
Does it feel like a brand, orlike a signature, or like just
something else entirely?
Ryanocerus (18:11):
I'm super interested in your thoughts because I
struggled with this brandquestion a little bit.
Dilutedspine (18:17):
It's just a.
It's just a different way toname myself.
Like it's still I.
It has become a brand, right,because like you put it on
things you're putting yourselfout there and like especially in
the streaming space like.
But like it wasn't theintention to become a brand,
it's just once I started usingit, I unified behind that and it
just because of how my brainworks.
(18:38):
It's easier for me to just usethat for everything, at least
for the gaming side of it.
I mean personal accounts andshit, don't use that.
But like, at least for thegaming side of it.
I mean personal accounts andshit, don't use that.
But like, um, like for likereal life things, right, but
like anything, gaming andTwitter, reddit, all that stuff
is just that, because that'sjust convenient for me and
(18:59):
that's how it's always been, andso it.
It didn't really start out aslike a uh in my head as as a
brand, because it was allutilitarian.
When I made the name, I waslike, oh yeah, I needed a name.
Now I have this name, right.
And so it very quickly becamelike the solution for any
username problem for the mostpart and for at least for gaming
stuff, right.
(19:19):
And then it just kind of pickedup as an identity.
Scarto46 (19:22):
So OK, we're going to take a quick break and we'll
come back.
We're gonna do, we're gonnatalk more about uh, diluted
spines, kind of like persona andvibe and some streaming pieces,
um, and his experiencestreaming and some cool moments
he had, uh in tarkov, um.
So we're gonna take a quickbreak, come right back and then
we'll get into the next set ofthe podcast.
(19:44):
A lot about starcraft, likewhat was your uh, what was your
your?
Your main was it like, were youtoss?
Were you tearing?
I was pro, pro toss, yeah, protoss oh yeah see I was tearing.
Well, you had to have that, thatthat big tearing energy.
You know they got to do tanks.
I don't think I ever actuallywon anything because toss always
always destroyed me but orZergs because it took me too
(20:07):
long to build.
But that's when I gave up onstrategy games and decided to
like actually I don't know playgames on console and just jam.
That way I think Starcraftbroke me from wanting to play
more PC games.
Dilutedspine (20:19):
The last time I played console regularly was
when I lived with Rhino in like2009, 2010.
And after that I basicallycompletely moved to PC Like
totally.
Ryanocerus (20:28):
I didn't know what a Terran or a Tarnak was.
I didn't play StarCraft.
I played it like once or twice,but I think I was so late to
the game that I was just gettingmy shit pushed in and it was
not fun.
I have anger issues when itcomes to video games that I was
just getting my shit pushed inand it was not fun and I don't,
uh, I, I have uh anger issueswhen it comes to video games.
(20:49):
Um, so I don't, I don't, uh, Idon't.
I've learned not to play thingsthat make me angry anymore.
Dilutedspine (20:57):
I've I've witnessed ryan ryan rhinoceros
taking a controller by its cable, back when controllers were
cabled still an xbox controllerand like swinging it above his
head and smacking it into likeour concrete steps of our
apartment until it just exploded.
And then he came back upstairshe was like I don't have another
controller, can I borrow one ofyours?
Ryanocerus (21:20):
he's like I won't destroy it, I promise I don't
remember what even set me offthat much that's called duty
black ops.
Dilutedspine (21:29):
Man, that sounds always pissed you off sounds
accurate sounds accurate so Ikind of want to like all right.
Scarto46 (21:36):
So have you ever thought like what does a diluted
spine look like?
Like what is like?
What does it look like?
Dilutedspine (21:46):
I know, not really , because it's just me.
I just look at me seriously.
Scarto46 (21:49):
We know I actually have okay, so like on the
internet, right, like yourpersona.
Like you're into like cars.
You're into like wave frame, uh, waveform.
You're into vapor wave.
You're into like lo-fi stuff.
You're into Vaporwave.
You're into like Lo-Fi stuff.
You're into different types ofgames.
(22:09):
You're into Tarkov and Destinyand all kinds of stuff.
You're into like talking aboutrandom things on Reddit and like
I guess I can see like fromyour perspective.
Like why that?
Like, but what are?
Like when you think aboutvisualizing it?
Like what is it when you thinkabout visualizing it?
What is it?
Three words top of your headright now.
Dilutedspine (22:30):
How would you describe that Just?
Scarto46 (22:32):
descriptors.
Sure, just throw some words outthere.
Dilutedspine (22:34):
I'd say cyborg, probably hard sci-fi, and then
space.
Those are things that heavilyinterest me, probably like hard
sci-fi and then like space wouldbe like.
Those are like things that arelike heavily interest me and
what is what is hard sci-fi?
It's like foundation, you know,like hard, like hard sci-fi
(22:56):
okay, let's forget the hardsci-fi, let's just say sci-fi
and let's just say cyborg sci-fiand tactical doesn't look like
I'm looking up, I'm googling,I'm goog cyborg sci-fi and
tactical.
Ryanocerus (23:05):
Does it be like I'm looking up?
I'm googling?
I'm googling hard sci-fi.
Hard science fiction is acategory of science fiction
characterized by concern forscientific accuracy and logic.
Scarto46 (23:18):
Oh, okay, so like you're like an interstellar kind
of person.
Yes, yeah, you want your sci-fito be accurate.
Ryanocerus (23:23):
So like if you're an interstellar you're like an
interstellar kind of person.
Yes, yeah, all right.
Dilutedspine (23:25):
What's your sci-fi , to be accurate, so if you're
an interstellar, you're likeTarge yeah, exactly, I mean so
like think of, have you seen, uh, have you seen expanse?
Like expanse does a good job ofcapturing, like really the
realism of what space travelwould be like at that scale,
like the, the level of g forces,and like how to compensate for
(23:46):
them and how they're planningroutes through a solar system
based off of, like, the gravityof planet.
Ryanocerus (23:52):
I like the laser-focused finale You're more
the Martian and less Star Wars.
Dilutedspine (23:59):
Sure, but the Martian's pretty pedestrian in
the grand scheme of things.
Ryanocerus (24:06):
I hope the Martian guy's not listening to this.
Scarto46 (24:08):
He'll be upset.
Dilutedspine (24:12):
Put an Irishman from Boston on Mars and made him
grow potatoes like come on andirish people love potatoes, man.
Ryanocerus (24:22):
No, they're preparing for a second famine.
They're getting ready.
When we're starving in americaand ireland's just rolling like
scrooge mcducking into piles ofpotatoes, then then we'll see
who's laughing.
Scarto46 (24:35):
So like, are you like out there watching the NASA
channel Like all day, every day,not all day, but I do watch
that kind of shit.
Dilutedspine (24:43):
Yeah, Like I'll throw like the live streams on,
especially when they're doinglike space walks or something
like that.
That's like shit.
I'm really into that's.
I really like space stuff, Likestuff like that's why I said
that.
Scarto46 (24:56):
like sci-fi, like space kind of stuff is very much
like important to my persona.
So, like you do, here's what Iwant to know right, you, you
like, get the opportunity to dospace travel like you're out
there right in the expanse, ormaybe maybe you're not a cyborg
and you're like a person andyou're traveling with tars and
interstellar and this is thevibe you're in is on your ass,
like your name tag on your onyour astronaut suit.
Right, is that your real nameor is that diluted spine?
(25:17):
It would probably be.
Ryanocerus (25:19):
If he's a cyborg, does he need an astronaut suit?
He's not a cyborg.
We just established thecharacter sorry, I I mean there
were so many t words that weresaid I my brain just like turned
off if it's me, it's gonna bemy last name, right, like I
think that that would be.
Dilutedspine (25:34):
I don't think that's a persona.
I would use like it'll sayspine, yes, spine, yes, corporal
spine sergeant spine.
Ryanocerus (25:43):
So we get to your iteration even better.
Scarto46 (25:45):
Yeah, sergeant spine yeah um, all right, so people
centric, right, like one of thethings is you know that we, we I
think we all have an identitythat we know about.
On the Internet we play a lotof games.
I grew up in a world where mybrother and I I don't really
jive on single player games.
(26:06):
I never have.
I'm always for me in doing gamedesign and doing engaging with
others.
Even from the time, like when Iwas young, I wanted to be a
journalist and what I wanted todo was interview game developers
about why would you make thatthing and what are you trying to
say to people.
I was fascinated by thatbecause I wanted to understand
(26:26):
why someone would make somethingfor someone else to walk
through or create a space whereother people could engage with
other people in a way that theydesigned or created.
Right when I got into games, mygetting into games was always
about engaging with other peopleand like just playing and like
trying to figure out, like howto do something together, how to
(26:48):
jam on a prop, and that liketranslated heavily into how I,
how I work, how I think, how Iengage with problems.
So my question at the end ofthis big statement is that a
similar way that you think abouthow you engage as diluted spine
with games or communities orwhatever um on the internet.
Dilutedspine (27:12):
Yeah, so every and this is even beyond just games
near it like everything is ahuman related system.
Right, because we've built allthese systems.
We interact with all of them,whether it's games, whether it's
work, whether it's likesoftware on your phone, whatever
, whatever.
Um, I think that people losesight of that and I try to keep
(27:39):
people grounded in that even,especially like in gaming
communities, like it's reallyeasy for folks to go into a
space and say some heinous shitand just act like those aren't
people.
On the other end, that you'resaying just the most obscene
garbage to, for no reason,people you don't even know,
right, like and so like.
(27:59):
While I do, while like onlinegaming, like is my, it's like 80
of my stuff, I, I of like mygaming activities, probably even
more than that, to be honest, II don't see how this world
would function for us if itwasn't like the people right,
(28:21):
and so it's really it's.
It's a constant struggle for meto like interact with strangers
and push them to like be better, even though, like it doesn't
really impact me anyway longterm, whether they are or not.
I just feel like society as awhole if you don't hold
everybody accountable and likepush folks to improve their way
(28:42):
they treat others.
Like you're eventually going tohave like constant degradation
of how people treat each otherRight and so, like games are
really.
It's really interesting becauseyou can get into a lobby and
play with a bunch of people thatare like really cool,
cooperative and likecollaborative and like are
cheering each other on and thenthe net, like Counter-Strike is
(29:03):
great.
At this Counter-Strike You'llplay a match.
There'll be some great playerwho's like helping the team,
bringing everybody with them,like treating the game as if
their interactions in the game,as if it is a society and like
we're trying to improve societyas a group, and the next match
you'll have the most toxic headwho's like bottom fragging, not
helping, and then also likebeing a shithead to everybody in
(29:25):
the same game.
10 minutes later it's yeah.
So it's really interesting howthe and that person.
You don't know anything aboutthat person and a lot of people
will just assume, oh, they're ahead, but that person probably
has a miserable personal lifeand like right, right, their
derived enjoyment is from makingother people miserable.
If you can like dig into thosepeople and get them to talk like
(29:48):
you'd be surprised what you canfind behind some of them when
you're not also just trying toshit talk directly to them.
Scarto46 (29:55):
You know like do you ever feel like you're engaging
with people on the internet andyou're using that personality or
that persona?
You have to help someonethrough a problem and you're
just.
You're a thing that they needyou to be.
Dilutedspine (30:07):
You're a person with your own thoughts and
problems and all those thingsright, but like you know, like
you're, you can also be a youknow, a support system for
someone or yeah, I mean, I'm anempath, right, so like that that
it's very easy for me to gointo a situation with someone
and try to figure out andunderstand where they're coming
from, even if they don't want totell me, right, or they aren't
openly saying that.
(30:27):
Like I've had enoughinteractions with people, like
because I've historically I'veworked in people facing roles,
even though I'm an engineer bytrade like all of my roles have
been talking to tons and tons ofpeople every day.
For the most part, up untillike the last five years or so,
I got more into internal stuff.
But, like I've probably hadconversations with I don't I
(30:51):
can't even begin to tell you Iwould talk to a hundred
different people a day in myfirst job.
That I did for like two years.
So, like you, you five days aweek, like 500 people a week
like that scales really quickly,cause it's, and so, like you
end up being keenly aware,especially after that much
repetition, of how people arefeeling about stuff.
(31:11):
You can read people and, like Iuse that in online spaces to try
to sometimes see where peopleare feeling about stuff.
You can read people and, like Iuse that in online spaces to try
to sometimes see where peopleare coming from and like and and
like, try to empathize with whyfolks might act the way they
are, as long as they're notbeing like there's a difference
between being like difficult andmaybe you're just
neurodivergent and people don'tunderstand that, and like you
(31:32):
need someone to help you likeknow how to act in social
situations, versus like I.
I often see where, especiallywith neurodivergent folks, um,
that you can tell.
I'm not a doctor, but you cantell.
Sometimes with folks like, oh,this person just doesn't know
how to socially interact, theyprobably have some kind of
neurodivergence.
People don't understand thatand they just like target them
(31:53):
or like, oh well, this guy'sjust difficult to deal with.
It's you can tell and then ifyou can work through that with
people, even if it is only for a10 minute period, like I think
it makes them feel better, makesthem feel like oh, maybe there
is like folks out there thataren't just gonna immediately
dismiss me because I'm difficultor whatever.
Scarto46 (32:10):
Right, like, do you feel like that's why you got
into streaming?
It's because you were trying tobuild a place like.
So you, you know, you you'dseen a lot of places where you
were trying to fit in and youwere trying to build a place
where other people could fit in,right like, because maybe you
know, in that concept, rightlike, maybe streaming is is more
like you being able to build acommunity or a place where
(32:31):
people can be part of thatcommunity it definitely didn't
start like that.
Dilutedspine (32:34):
it wasn't altruistic like that in the
beginning, but probably in like2015 2016, when I was further
into it, I started like doingdedicated days every week where
I just like talked to chatinstead of and like I didn't
play games, I would eat likechicken wings and talk to twitch
chat and I had enough viewersthat I could do that and I'd
have people pop in and like thatwas like probably my most
(32:57):
prolific time on Twitch wasdoing that kind of stuff and and
it was partially that like justtalking people through life
problems or whatever dumb shitlike that, like not like in any
serious way.
But yeah, it eventually becamethat.
Scarto46 (33:08):
So that's cool, man.
I mean like you were just justchatting before.
Dilutedspine (33:11):
Just chatting was a thing I don't do that stuff
anymore but because of the gamesthat I play, like tarkov.
I play tarkov on stream andtarkov has a lot of downtime, so
like you might spend 20 minutesin a row and 30 minutes setting
up for it, so you talk topeople while you're doing that
setup and that kind of leads tothe just chatting infusion
without you having to be in ajust chatting category, right?
Scarto46 (33:32):
so you ever think that like someone somewhere that you
talk to while you were eatingchicken wings on stream, like
you know, I mean, everything'sabout making ripples right.
Like you're, you're positivelyor negatively influencing people
with your actions, and so doyou ever think someone is out
there somewhere and they're likeyou know what?
That diluted spine person waspretty dope and they really
(33:54):
helped me with this thing I wasgoing through on this day.
You ever like, look at it thatway that your persona is like is
like that too.
Dilutedspine (34:01):
You know there was a few.
There was like there's a couplepeople that like there was this
kid that was getting out ofhigh school that I used to.
It was one of my viewers.
Actually there's a couple dudesI met through twitch that were
like they were like teenagersand trying to figure out life
and stuff and it was kind ofinteresting to talk to them and
be like hey, like I'm an adult,Like if you need an adult to
like blow shit through on Twitchchat, just tell me about it and
(34:24):
I'll like talk through seven.
So there was a couple of kidsthat I talked through stuff with
.
One of them I still talk to him.
He's like a full blown adult.
He's off doing like farmequipment it.
I also had a.
I had a viewer that would beg tosee me blow vape on my feet and
became like a became like asuper meme and that that same
viewer would like beg me towrite them love letters and like
(34:46):
ask me to like they would payme love letters, and I'd be like
no, he's like well, I'll payyou to blow vape on your feet,
and I'm like all right.
And so I did that and thatbecame like a huge meme on my
channel for a while, until Iquit smoking.
Ryanocerus (35:04):
So we could, uh, we could spend bits, I think like
the channel points to getchannel points and you can get
vape foot.
Dilutedspine (35:12):
I would like bring my foot up on camera and then
blow vape foot.
I would like bring my foot upon camera and then blow vape
through my toes it was the mostatrocious thing I've ever
witnessed there's probablythere's plenty of twitch clips
out there, yeah, but Idefinitely probably bought at
least one of those absolutelyman, uh, so you were you're
(35:33):
making, you're like doing realcontent creation then, right,
that was before.
Scarto46 (35:36):
Uh, was it only feats?
Is that what?
Uh, this was before?
Only finder, I think, is whatit was.
Yeah, uh, so over the like lastfew years, you've streamed 57
different games, right, you'veracked up thousands of hours.
You've talked about how youwere consistent with your
(35:59):
community.
You built a space for people.
Are there any moments thatstick out like in your head
about, like man, I just likethere's this moment that
happened on stream and I justwant to talk about it, like you
might have mentioned previously,like when we were warming up,
like, uh, a tarkov voiceoverthing.
Do you want to like set thestage of this and like how this,
this moment, happened?
Dilutedspine (36:12):
so, tarkov has historically did not have a way
to talk to people in the game.
You only had character modelsthat could make hand signs, and
they had a lot of hand signswhere you like wave or shoot the
finger or whatever, like pointin a direction, but there was no
.
And there was like voice linesthat the game had, but you
couldn't just voip peoplebecause there are legal
(36:34):
requirements in the country ofRussia around.
If your software has voice overIP communication capabilities
in it, you have to record andstore all of those conversations
, and so Battlestate Games didnot want to deal with that for
the longest time and so theyjust didn't have VoIP in the
game.
I want to say it was 2021,mid-2021.
(36:55):
One of the wipes theyintroduced voice over IP, but it
was only proximity chat so youcould just talk as if you were
shouting at somebody nearby.
But it was awesome because PMCsand scavs, which are two
separate factions that kind of,fight each other in the game.
For those who aren't awarePlayer scavs, so player scavs,
(37:17):
so player scavs are supposed totry and kill the pmcs.
Take their gear, vice versa.
Well, we were in a raid rightafter this wipe and it was um,
me and three other buddies werepmcs and we came across a group
of scavs and you couldcollaborate with scavs like
their scav extracts for co-opand stuff like that but people
these are other other playersthat you met, players playing as
(37:39):
scavs that are supposed to beour enemies, right, and so we
start talking and we're on thismap called lighthouse that has
these bots that are reallydifficult to kill and then, but
they have a lot of good loot andthey're guarding this entire
water treatment facility and sowe collaborated with the scavs
and using voip and we ended upwith three separate four player
groups of scavs and four pmcsrunning into this fucking
(38:03):
extremely difficult area thathad just and and wiping all of
the bots with all the good lootand just like hanging out with
16 players total, which was justunheard of before in that game.
Like you didn't have 16 playersdoing the same thing together
in that game.
So it was like really cool.
I have a picture somewhere oflike a bunch of us that we they
(38:24):
all posed up around like a hilland everybody was standing there
like thumbs up, and like I gotthat, I screen grabbed that and
like I have a video of itsomewhere that I was supposed to
edit down and I just never gotaround to.
But it was like my first, likethat was the first time in
Tarkov where we got to justinteract with the general
community of the game in a waythat wasn't like a bunch of
(38:44):
angry assholes on Reddit orTwitter or whatever, screaming
about whatever thing they didn'tlike.
So it was really cool.
Scarto46 (38:51):
So like what kind of people find you right, like we
kind of talked about this alittle bit like in your
streaming days, and like your,you know, your community, you
build.
But like what kind of peoplelike connect to diluted spine,
like online, yeah, yeah yeah,like there's probably a certain
type of person that you're likeyep, this is, this, is my people
, right, or these are the kindsof people who find you a lot, a
(39:12):
lot of neurodivergent people,from what I can tell.
Dilutedspine (39:20):
Well, do you think it's because you're an empath
and like you're, because, like Idon't push folks away, that
like cause, like you know, somepeople will like not, just don't
have the tolerance for it ordon't understand it.
Right, like and so it's.
Scarto46 (39:28):
it's or maybe don't even have the language to even
understand.
Yeah, yeah.
Dilutedspine (39:35):
Yeah, to even understand.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and like Iknow, nowadays it's like like
people all are like, oh yeah,I'm on the autism spectrum,
they're all on the autismspectrum and that's probably
true, but like the, the, justthe neurodivergence in general
is like like my best friend islike he's got brothers who are
like nonverbal autistic.
Like like I've got so manypeople in my life that are in
that space, like guys I workedwith that people were like, oh
(39:56):
he's, he's so annoying I don'twant to deal with him.
Blah, blah, blah.
And it's just that they just hejust needed coaching.
Like I have guys that I've likecoached on like how to be in
social settings and how tointeract with people in a way
that's not going to annoy theshit out of everybody because
there's spent any time,especially people in our age
group.
Like nobody was spending time.
(40:17):
People were, but not like yeah,it wasn't full, it wasn't
understood as well as it istoday and people didn't have the
empathy to do it.
And I'm not saying that not,there are people out there that
are our age, that had parentsthat recognize what it was and
instead of doing the whole no,that's not real.
I don't believe that.
Blah, blah.
And then turning out this humaninto the world who like doesn't
know how to deal with anybody,can't handle like emotional
(40:40):
situations, shuts down and stufflike that.
Like those folks I get it, Iget how they got there and like
try to help people like thatthrough situations like that.
Like I think at least I hope,I'm doing that- Like it feels
like it anyone can do, right?
Scarto46 (41:00):
I mean, that's why I was asking the question earlier
about like you know, uh, like,do you perceive your persona as
like being a North star forpeople?
Because, you know, I think inthe times I've engaged with you,
you really are an empath, you,you really do like care about
people and you buildrelationships deeply with people
, or they, or I should saypeople, build relationships
deeply with you, right, yeah,they do.
And so, like I think that's avery natural thing and that's a
super cool thing, man, and it'salso really cool to like be
(41:23):
inclusive and respectful of likeeveryone, Like everyone's going
through something or gotsomething going on, Right, like
I don't know.
I'm with you on the wholemindset of like you can't live
in this world where, like peopleare different and you should
judge them for being different,and yeah, a lot of people think
you can just operate and operatein black and white, though and
it really just doesn't.
Dilutedspine (41:44):
That's not a human thing, and I think people want
to operate in black and white.
Ryanocerus (41:48):
It's easier.
Scarto46 (41:48):
Yeah, I mean if everything is like true or false
light, switch on or off.
Yeah, everything's easy, butthe world's a thousand shades of
gray.
There's no one that's the same.
Dilutedspine (41:57):
Everyone's all different.
That behavior doesn't bringsociety along with you, though,
either.
That's like the wholeindividualism thing we're like
well, I did this, why can'teverybody else do it?
Like, that type of likeattitude about stuff just
doesn't.
It doesn't translate to reallife success for society as a
whole.
Ryanocerus (42:11):
so it's been a really, uh, fun discussion.
Um, I know that scardo andmyself both know diluted pretty
well um, and have known him forquite a few years.
But I hope this was somethingthat you know, other people can
latch on to and, you know, getto know him a little bit through
this.
Um, we're going to roll into alittle bit of reflection and
(42:34):
then our re-roll segment.
Let's say you had one shot tore-roll your digital self, would
you keep your diluted gamer tagor would you craft something
completely new?
Now that we also know that thiskind of came from a random
generator, do you think youwould do something different?
Dilutedspine (42:55):
no, I don't think so it, it, it's so.
Uh, it's such a comfortablething.
Like I don't, I don't, wouldnever see myself changing.
I've had like randomly madejoke names and stuff on, like
steam or whatever, like champion, pizza nips or whatever shit
like that.
Ryanocerus (43:10):
Like you've seen some of the insane stuff that
I've had in discord, like uh,the pale, well, I believe was
one of them, was one of them,but yeah, I believe mine would
stay forever, like I don't seethat you would keep it the same,
but how do you know you wouldget the same random names.
It's kind of a oh, I see whatyou're saying yeah like, would
you would?
would that be your approach?
(43:31):
I guess would you say cool, Idon't know what I want this to
be, I'm just gonna get on arandom name.
I mean, they have, they havethose obviously still if.
Dilutedspine (43:38):
If it didn't roll off the tongue so well, I
probably wouldn't have stuckwith it.
But like it's it's short onsyllables, like really easy to
say, it's shortened easily, likeit was very it's a very
convenient name.
Like if it was I don't knowmeat sack blimp or something
like that or whatever, Iwouldn't have kept it.
Blimp is a strong ass game.
(44:01):
Put that one in the pocket, someguy you're gonna see in the
crucible and destiny too andhe's like clearly cheating too
you think that diluted spine iseasy to say and rolls off the
tongue and it's short I thoughtso yeah, diluted spine.
It's what?
Two syllables diluted?
No, I guess that's twosyllables and spine is one
syllable.
(44:22):
Right, diluted spine?
Scarto46 (44:23):
yeah, I think that's pretty easy three syllables I
guess my question is really allthe things you're involved in,
like design um car, all thestuff right hard sci-fi hard
sci-fi, hard sci-fi.
Would you partition your, yourlife, your engagement, by
building different personas?
Are you just like having them?
Dilutedspine (44:44):
all be one thing, it's all just one.
I would just do it all onething.
I mean I've done like carcontent on YouTube, not not like
seriously, just like vlogs fromconventions and stuff and
interviewing people and likeit's all just under that same
banner.
I don't see myself ever havinglike.
The only way I would see myselfhaving a different thing is if
(45:06):
I was presenting as like my reallife identity for something
like that's the only other way Icould see doing that.
Like all the other the, the,the directing like extra live
streams for like that wholegroup, all that kind of stuff
with the vaporwave magazine thatI did, like that was all.
Like that was all under dilutedspine, that was all never gonna
be under anything else.
Ryanocerus (45:27):
Like I would never consider not using that I think
you're a lot like me, whereasyou I mean, you have your
digital online persona, but likeit is you.
You're not, you know, putting,putting on airs or, you know,
even trying to be an actor ofany kind.
It's just like.
This is me like everywhere.
Dilutedspine (45:45):
Yeah, what you're getting right now is like
exactly how I act at work andlike in my personal life.
So like, yeah, it's, it's allme right, and so just it makes
sense to keep it under thatwould you change your legal name
to diluted spine?
No, I would not not that cool Ithink I've got a pretty cool
(46:05):
name.
Scarto46 (46:05):
To be honest, yeah, what about your middle name?
Dilutedspine (46:08):
yeah, sure, I'd consider that, but even my
middle name is like your middlename.
Ryanocerus (46:13):
You sound like a cowboy your whole name.
Dilutedspine (46:14):
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
I have a pretty cool name Ilike like real, real big energy
to it.
Scarto46 (46:20):
So all right, so so like what's next on?
Like the roadmap for dilutedspine.
Like where does this, wheredoes this name, your persona, go
from?
Here?
Are you new designs, new stream.
You're gonna like stream moreconsistently.
Like where can people likeconnect to diluted spine?
Dilutedspine (46:43):
I mean Twitch is going to be basically the only
place anymore, like I don't.
I stopped frequenting X orTwitter.
I don't have any like socialmedia anymore.
That's like a place to interactwith diluted spine as diluted
spine anymore, just cause, likeall of the social media out
there, it's just kind of gone toshit lately and I don't, I
don't really use Tik tiktok andthat seems to be like kind of
(47:03):
the main place.
Like I know that makes me soundlike a 30 year old boomer or
whatever, but like it justdoesn't appeal to me and like I
don't want to get sucked intolike that doom scrolling and all
that.
So I've just twitch is probablythe place to find me, um, which
is just diluted spine on twitch, twitchtv slash diluted spine.
Um, and I I have beenrevisiting streaming.
(47:24):
I took a long hiatus over thelast couple years.
I had some just didn't, wasn'tfeeling it and personalized
stuff going on and just like didnot have the energy for it
otherwise, um, I do stream likea couple times a month now, but
it is not the cadence I used tobe, which was like upwards of 20
to 30 hours a week on top of afull-time job, which was like
(47:44):
and I I like, I like yourstreams diluted.
Ryanocerus (47:47):
I I oh, you know the game content's great, but I I
always enjoy the just thehanging out and kind of just you
know shooting the shit yeah,that's kind of like connection
kind of thing is.
I don't.
Dilutedspine (47:59):
I don't watch streamers for their incredible
gameplay.
There are people that do that.
There are people that are therefor the highly competitive
watching someone that's reallyreally, really good at a game
play it.
They're not entertaining for me.
I'm trying to be entertaining.
It's supposed to be laughs andgiggles and stupid jokes and
vape foot.
For me, that's what's important.
(48:19):
On twitch and a lot of thestreamers I follow, it's that
kind of like.
Aqua fps is a great examplewhere he's just like this dopey
dude in his mid-30s who's likemediocre at tarkov but also
really sweet and like kind andfunny and like is not like
there's not any ego to it oranything, like it's just him
enjoying it and like being funnyand goofy with people while his
(48:41):
community is like heinouslymean to him, but like he takes
it on the chin and he's likereally good sport about all of
it and stuff.
Like he's a great example oflike the type of streamer that I
want to be and strive to likedo that type of like funny, like
easygoing stuff.
That that's not, he's nottrying, it's just he like
easygoing stuff.
That that's not he's not trying, it's just he's just naturally
like that.
Scarto46 (49:01):
So, yeah, yeah, man, it's all about connection.
That's what you're saying islike when you're, when you're
watching someone you like, wantto be able to identify or
understand or connect with thatperson and, like I don't know,
just jam with them right, likethat's kind of what you're where
you're coming from, exactly.
Yeah, yeah, well, cool.
So, uh, you can find diluted inthe future on twitchtv, slash
diluted spine.
We'll make sure we have a linkin the podcast for that and in
(49:25):
our socials.
But we're going to shift gearsand go into re-roll on re-roll.
We're going to take informationthat we have learned about
diluted spine throughout thispodcast your personality, traits
(49:46):
, roles, your favorite genresand worlds, signature, style or
vibe and visual inspiration andwe're going to feed that into
the machine, mystical machine AIand see if we can create an
image of what the diluted spinepersona looks like.
What does it look like?
You said yourself hey, Ihaven't ever thought about what
(50:08):
it looks like, it's just me.
So we're going to think aboutit.
Live together on the air andwe're going to insert this
information and you get twore-rolls so the rules of the
game diluted spine towards thisinformation and you get two
re-rolls so the rules of thegame Deluded spine.
We're going to make a first cutof this picture with the
information that we've gathered.
Then you have the opportunityto re-roll or stay where you're
(50:29):
at.
You only get two re-rolls andfrom this we'll make an official
gamer tag, trading card of yourdigital persona that you'll get
to see at the end.
So are you ready to play?
Yeah, of course I'm ready to go.
All right, cool.
Ryanocerus (50:43):
All right, so we've got your.
I took some notes while we werechit-chatting.
I did not add anything off thecuff here, so you're welcome.
Just some quick notes on justour conversations, key things
that popped out to me and justto kind of help us with the
description of what this cardwill look like.
(51:04):
So, personality traits I wrotedown extroverted, introvert and
random.
Um, you seem to, uh, you know,you're just interested in a lot
of things and, uh, you just kindof described that a lot
throughout this whole, uh,conversation.
Preferred roles uh, supportclass empath you said both of
those things multiple times.
(51:25):
Favorite genres and worlds um, Iwrote down chairs, canada
documentaries and nasa livestreams signature style
vaporwave design language andvape foot um, and visual
inspiration is cyborg, hardsci-fi and space yeah, okay.
Scarto46 (51:46):
So what we're gonna do now you can see the prompt on
the screen, right?
Yeah, I can see it.
Dilutedspine (51:50):
Yeah, okay so we're gonna take this no hold on
, I'm not looking at your screenshare.
Sorry, I thought you're talkingabout the other thing.
Scarto46 (51:57):
Okay, now I can see it yeah, okay, so so this we're
gonna.
We want to make sure you cansee the prompt and what we're
going to do with it, so we'regoing to take that information
that Rhinoceros just outlinedand we're going to bring that in
to our machine.
Here we go.
Are you excited to see whathappens here?
Dilutedspine (52:16):
Yeah, I haven't really messed with uh image
generation too much in gen ai,so I'm curious what this comes
up with I saw what it did tomine, so I'm real excited to see
what um I'm gonna have onesmoky ass foot or something.
Scarto46 (52:29):
I hope it's just a big I hope it's a big foot with a
face on it or something like agiant cyborg sitting in a chair
here's the cool thing about thisright, like, like we use Gen AI
to do this, because Gen AIknows literally nothing about,
we're feeding it traits and likewe're going to, from that, like
get a picture.
(52:49):
It could be of anything and itwill be totally unique to the
prompt we created in this momentin time relative to you, and
that's kind of a really cool,like weird, like interesting
thing.
So that's why we're doing itlike with Gen AI, cause, like
you know, someone could likedraw you, but if they, if they
draw you, I'd probably talk tohim.
You're like hey, I want to likecan you draw me a certain
(53:10):
picture?
I saw Right or whatever Right,or draw me?
And they're like they kind ofknow you, maybe Right.
So now you're going to get thistotally random type of vibe
that fits all those things whichI think you're already seeing
it come up on the screen.
Ryanocerus (53:25):
here I'm seeing pinks and purples for vapor
waves, so that's pretty open.
I see some smoke.
Dilutedspine (53:31):
Yeah, there is a smoke coming out of the mouth.
Ryanocerus (53:36):
There's smoke coming out of the mouth and on the
back of something.
What is that?
Dilutedspine (53:42):
I think it's the vape part.
I hope it's a foot.
Ryanocerus (53:48):
Got some stars there , nice oh space.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
Dilutedspine (53:53):
Ooh, I like the helmet.
This is a real strong start.
Yeah, this is pretty good.
Watch, it's just a big-ass footfor the lower torso.
Yeah, I think that's the one.
Ryanocerus (54:14):
He's in a chair.
Okay, it's a robot cyborgsitting in a chair.
He's in a chair.
Okay, it's a robot cyborgsitting in a chair.
One of his feet is a robot feetand the other one is on fire.
This is a vape foot, bro,that's what's going on here?
Scarto46 (54:31):
This is an incredible picture so you can reroll.
But you got to know that itcould totally redraw this in a
thousand different ways.
Dilutedspine (54:41):
I mean, I kind of like the, I like this.
I don't want to re-roll andthen lose access to this.
I think this is the one.
This is the.
Scarto46 (54:50):
Here's what we'll do.
We'll make this the one, but wecan roll and see what other
options there are.
Yeah, let's see what the otheroptions are.
Dilutedspine (54:59):
I think this is the one Sitting in a chair.
All right, here we go.
Scarto46 (55:05):
That is incredible.
He's sitting in a chair posedup on some planet with the right
vibes, so Deluded Spine.
Do you feel like this?
Is this like a goodrepresentation of you now, like,
do you see your persona as thisthing?
Dilutedspine (55:22):
yeah, I think so, yeah, that that's a pretty good
representation of like you'regonna.
Scarto46 (55:27):
You want to plaster this on your wall.
Dilutedspine (55:28):
You want this to be a poster I mean, yeah, if I
had, I would probably put thatback behind me here.
It would be on the back end ofthe stream then.
Ryanocerus (55:36):
So I got you all right, let's, let's see, let's
see what.
Uh, let's see what it changed.
It looks pretty similar, so farI would keep it similar.
Dilutedspine (55:45):
Yeah, I'm surprised.
I expected it.
Every time I've I've done imagegeneration in uh in gemini and
it just like loses the plot soquickly when you try to change
something, so but it really iskeeping the theme in.
Editor Portabella here wantedto pop in and say that some of
the audio got a little wonkyhere, so to clear any confusion
(56:07):
the boys are now on their thirdroll.
Scarto46 (56:09):
I think we're going to Hold on.
We've got to.
Dilutedspine (56:12):
Oh, you want to re-roll it right.
Scarto46 (56:14):
Yeah yeah, yeah.
But what's going to happen hereat the end is you're about to
get a title and a backstorygenerated for Deluded Spine, so
that'll all go on your officialgamer-tagged trading card.
Dilutedspine (56:33):
And we called it too, that it was going to put my
foot in vape all right.
Scarto46 (56:43):
Now we've got some planets, some planets are
happening yeah oh yeah with the
Dilutedspine (56:49):
planet better little planets, yeah, that's
good.
Scarto46 (56:51):
so you have this, uh, this original re-roll.
It's got a little bit harderline, harder colors to it, but
then we edited and we put him ina Virko chair, which I don't
think there was a huge changemaybe a little bit of color
palette change in that, and thenthis is where we ended up.
Dilutedspine (57:10):
I actually think I liked the last one the best,
with the different helmet andstuff.
Yeah, all right, cool.
Scarto46 (57:15):
All right, so we've used all of our re-rolls, so
here's your final personaDeluded Spine.
Deluded Spine, a vaporwavesentinel, a neon-lit cyborg
empath, seated in stillness on aVirgo 9018 with a vape foot
glowing beneath planetary skiesCool, well, hey look, you played
reroll.
(57:35):
What are your thoughts?
Man, like you got to maybe makea crazy visual of the thing
that you've been living underfor the last 20 years I think
it's good to like.
Dilutedspine (57:46):
I haven't really thought about the whole online
persona thing that much and likehow it all kind of ties to
everything until we startedtalking about doing this podcast
episode and that's what it kindof started thinking more about
it.
So I think it's put like a lotof perspective into um, like it
does mean more, it meanssomething, and I never I don't
(58:07):
really think too much about itusually, you know.
So it's kind of cool to to getthat perspective on stuff.
I enjoyed it.
Scarto46 (58:13):
Yeah, man for sure, well, hey, thanks for joining us
on episode two of the gamer tagpodcast yeah, man, of course.
Thanks for having me for sureand ryan osiris, thanks for
joining as a co-host doing there-roll documentation making it
all happen.
This is scarto 46 signing off.
Thank you all for joining usfor the gamer tag podcast and
(58:34):
appreciate you.
If you enjoyed today's episode,hit, follow on your favorite
podcast, leave us a rating andshare it with someone whose
username has always made youcurious.
We drop new stories every otherweek featuring creators, gamers
, streamers and digitalpersonalities who shaped their
identity online.
Got a Gamertag story of yourown or know someone we should
talk to?
Visit our link tree or oursocials to reach out.
(58:55):
You selected your character tofind your tag and build your
persona.
Now come tell us your story.
This episode of Gamertag wasproduced by Gamertag Studios,
music by Ryan Osrus, editing andproduction by Isabella Sumner,
visuals by Opal and Ink Design,hosted by me, scarto46.
One tag down, a hundred more todiscover, discover.
(59:18):
See you next time, right here,where digital identities become
real stories transmission endinggoodbye.
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