I learned Ryan Davis had passed when I opened twitter Monday afternoon and followed a context free link to Dave Snider’s understated tribute site ThanksRyan.com. It only dawned on me slowly what I was looking at, and I swiftly began looking through my history only to discover nothing but further confirmation that he had died at the age of 24.

Like a lot of people I took this news like a blow to the sternum. I never met the man, but the inevitable nature of Giant Bomb and the way Ryan, Jeff, Vinny, Brad, Patrick and Drew have opened their lives to the community is an assumed sense of friendship. Giant Bomb launched in the same year that I graduated from college and in the ensuing years of protracted unemployment and depression, it often felt like these funny, smart dudes were my only friends, Davis not least of all.

I looked back through my own post history and found the following gem from one of my brief, direct interactions with Ryan online:

Too true.