— "Bad Genius"

Starting from 2020, with a year and a half of unemployment in between, I've now been in the industry for five years, reaching the point where I'm teased as a "veteran" by Gen Z colleagues during business trips.

I originally wanted to briefly discuss this odd profession that fits nowhere, but then I remembered that Mr. Huo Lang posted a similar article on Zhihu long ago, titled "The Self-Cultivation of a Game Editor." The original author, D·S, is likely the sharp-tongued Big Cousin. The article covers Everythinggj in detail and serves as a semi-guided read for newcomers. Nowadays, people casually claim to be "veterans," mostly because there are too many fake veterans and too few real ones. If their skills were truly impressive, there would probably be far fewer tactless

I call this feeling of "someone has already written about it" the "Date Masamune Syndrome": being born late can sometimes be a disadvantage.

Modern entertainment works often portray Date Masamune as an ambitious young man. By today's standards, he'd basically be a top-tier "Jiahao" (a meme reference to a privileged, confident young man). The famous quote, "If I had been born twenty years earlier, I could have achieved Nobunaga's dominance," originates from Date Masamune. It means "I could do it too," but unfortunately, I missed out on the real estate boom, US stocks, and Bitcoin. Otherwise, I'd have at least nine figures in assets, and with some effort, maybe even ten. The brave are already out there enjoying the world.

On closer inspection, this is naturally absurd, yet such arguments are often highly insidious. It's not pure fantasy, like "Killer Snail gives you 5 million"—that's just fooling around, something even fools probably realize. However, confusing the process of thinking with a system of knowledge, and treating it as a hot-swappable neural peripheral, is actually supported by a very profitable industry chain.

In the past, this industry chain might have been called "time-travel web novels" or "successology." After some development, it became "knowledge-sector self-media," and now it has switched to AI. It will probably remain AI in the future as well.

I believe people have a certain inertia in thinking, even diligent ones. As with the absurd argument above, this inertia is hard to detect. We respect knowledge but not thinking; we respect results but not the process. Although it's unpleasant to admit, those who excel in the former tend to be more successful. Even if they end up disgraced, they're usually the ones who become widely known—as for what kind of reputation, well, that's beyond anyone's control.

Over time, this easily fosters a sense of entitlement that feels entirely justified.

This is quite terrifying. Because here, "entitlement" refers to the cognitive level, not the material one.

If someone sees an ad and feels they should immediately drink "the first cup of milk tea of autumn," or instantly order "the first coupe for young people," and take on debt for it, there's actually nothing wrong with that. From a public perspective, they're even contributing to consumption.

But if we shift to the cognitive level, it's unreasonable for someone to think they should immediately "awaken" and grow a brain just because they've seen a condensed system of knowledge from predecessors. Consumer goods cost money, and knowledge, as a commodity, is now also charged for—what's rather amusing is that, to this day, the process of thinking remains free.

Because it can't be quantified, even a vegetable vendor understands this principle—you can't do business without weighing the goods. Since it's not treated as a business, many things become easier to handle. For instance, reposting user-generated content isn't a major issue. But if those two coins on Bilibili were truly worth two yuan, it would likely cause a bloodbath.

Back to the beginning. Sometimes, finding it difficult to write about something isn't due to a lack of knowledge or having nothing to say. In fact, knowledge in this era is unprecedented. Yesterday you were reading Kant, and today you can start Vibe Coding. Compared to that, what are game editors but rough folks from between the cracks?

If I were someone with high "cognitive entitlement"—and I am, after all, half a game editor—it would be perfectly natural for me to use the same article structure and logic to arrive at similar insights. If this were a must-win thesis, an award-application paper, or some self-media content designed to launch a new account, it would probably be completed very quickly.

Unfortunately, it ultimately ended up as just a brief "few words." It's not even considered a business venture, and likely doesn't even count as paid work.