Hard Drive (Website)

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About

Hard Drive is a satirical news website mainly focused on articles about video games and nerd culture. The website was launched in May 2017 as a branch of the satirical publication The Hard Times. with screenshots of its snippets often being shared akin to memes. In 2019, the website created a parody presidential candidate Ace Watkins, "the first gamer president."

History

On May 26th, 2017, Hard Drive,^[1] a satirical news website about video game and nerd culture, was launched as a branch of satirical website The Hard Times. Hard Drive was cofounded by three former Hard Trimes contributors Jeremy Kaplowitz, Mike Amory and Mark Roebuck.

The website launched together with its Facebook,^[2] Twitter^[3] and Instagram^[4] social media accounts, where it would share headlines and snippets of its articles.

Multiple snippets shared by the magazine on social media went viral (examples shown below). Additionally, many snippets and screenshots of its headlines received viral spread on social media, with the name of the publication often being cropped. On September 11th, 2017, Hard Drive^[5]^[6] posted its first article to go viral, a satirical news piece claiming that Nintendo had confirmed that Waluigi is uncircumsized (tweet shown below, left).

Gamer President Ace Watkins

Gamer President refers to a parody character named Ace Watkins created by Hard Drive in July 2019 and portrayed by YouTube comedian Phil Jamesson. The character is presented as a gamer who originally ran the for 2020 United States presidential election, with jokes usually referencing various video games and their mechanics and the stereotypical gamer behavior.

Kotaku Roasts

On multiple occassions, Hard Drive roasted video game news website Kotaku over headlines that could just as well be satire, with many such posts going viral. For example, on May 11th, 2020, Hard Drive quote tweeted^[7] Kotaku's tweet, commenting, "please stop stealing our drafts." The tweet (shown below, left) gained over 4,700 retweets and 32,000 likes in two years.

Hard Drive vs. Elon Musk

On May 30th, 2022, enterpreneur and billionaire Elon Musk tweeted^[8] a snippet of Hard Drive's article originally posted by Hard Drive on its Instagram^[9] page. On the same day, Hard Drive responded^[10] to Musk on Twitter, accusing him of cropping the publication's name from the snipped (despite the original Instagram post not having the name and not having been altered), also making a reference to the recent sexual misconduct claim put against Musk (exchange shown below, left).

Hard Drive and Musk proceeded to mock each other in a series of tweets^[11]^[12]^[13]^[14] (exchange shown below, center and right), with Musk ultimately deleting the original post. The last tweet, in which Hard Drive shared an image of Elon Musk as Wario from a May 2021 Saturday Night Life episode gained over 12,400 retweets and 152,400 likes in three days.

Later on May 30th, Hard Drive^[15]^[16] posted two more articles about Musk, with one headline reading, "Hard Drive Apologizes to Elon Musk for Dunking on Him Too Hard" (shown below, left and right). Later that day, Musk tweeted^[17] a Stop Giving Me Your Toughest Battles meme, with the post gaining over 43,900 retweets and 449,000 likes in three days (shown below, left).

Features

Hard Drive is a satirical news publication mainly covering video game industry and nerd culture. In addition to staff writers, the publication also publishes approved submissions by contributors.^[18]