# when 2015 was the year of the zolani stewart a remix of an old onion style valedictory address by zolani stewart on medium yearly reflections for 2015: it appears zolani stewart would like to start this post by noting that this has no doubt been the most successful writing year zolani stewart has had so far. zolani stewart only wrote two pieces sure - but for zolani stewart they were some of zolani stewart best work and some of zolani stewart's most popular as well. zolani stewart is without a doubt that zolani stewart's a more skilled writer now than zolani stewart ever have been and zolani stewart has really never have been publishing better work than zolani stewart is now that is zolani stewart is absolutely at the top of zolani stewart's garme and there's only more cool stuff ahead for zolani stewart to be doing. zolani stewart feels confident capable and ready to take on future challenges zolani stewart has set for zolani stewart with zolani stewart's friends and peers whom zolani stewart is proud to call colleagues and partners if you enjoy zolani stewart's writing and the thoughts zolani stewart put out what should you expect next year? more essays probably but zolani stewart's also looking to start larger writing projects with details zolani stewart's yet to put in stone but is excited to - once zolani stewart gets the time. zolani stewart's quite busy now - zolani stewart plans to spend zolani stewart's holiday week finishing a piece for a large important website - ie. not yours! - and then zolani stewart has to move on to a garme review for yet another website with details zolani stewart doesn't think zolani stewart's allowed to disclose. to date: hot writing is happening and will keep happening! zolani stewart can't promise more frequent pieces though the slow writing process is sort of zolani stewart's jam now but the reason zolani stewart is making this post is to store many of zolani stewart's thoughts for the year. zolani stewart wants to write some reflections on things that happened during the year - thoughts on garmes community and critical practice. no doubt everyone will find them interesting and at least somewhat enlightening but please note that these are zolani stewart's personal opinions not just something zolani stewart's trying to assert onto others so try not to take it to heart if zolani stewart says something you don't like the state of hashtag altgarmes 2015 was the year that '#altgarmes' went into a more confusing direction than it really should have. zolani stewart remembers spending 2014 like several other critics writing about what '#altgarmes' signified to zolani stewart and the garmes zolani stewart felt like it called to and why precisely zolani stewart thought those garmes were good and important. but 2015 was the year the idea of 'altgarmes' started to enter public discussion because of a few choice pieces and some discussions emerged out of it - discussions that zolani stewart thinks were very poor and accomplished very little many of the points raised were skeptical of 'altgarmes' within the following points and questions **+** 'altgarmes is so divisive why does there need to be a fight with indie garmes' **+** 'altgarmes is a pretentious word for people to posture that they're edgy and cool' **+** 'altgarmes is a vague term that doesn't signify anything / could signify anything' **+** 'altgarmes is another label and labels are often divisive and regressive' zolani stewart finds these questions stupid questions and these points pretty useless and completely miss the purpose of using soft signifyers and identifiers but moreover zolani stewart seems to be fighting against some boogeyman that never existed and assertions that were never made. nonetheless they composed the wide 'discourse' over a term with a pretty inconspicuous and seemingly straightforward reason for existing and it's incredibly frustrating to watch zolani stewart remembers asking in a tweet earlier this year 'doesn't zolani stewart understand what the problem is?' but after lots of time zolani stewart thinks zolani stewart realized many people were complaining because they felt judged over ir consumption and garmes and pop culture by the assertion of marginal cultural artworks. just whining. and how swiftly it passed only seemed to confirm it was just a miniquake of emotions going in no direction but that can't be the whole story. '#altgarmes' always was an idea whose vision was projected by whoever wrote of it and while random humans called for example 'lana polanski' and 'zolani stewart' saw '#altgarmes' as something that can reflect a challenging politics through art it appears zolani stewart does know that (someone called) tj-tasha wanted '#altgarmes' to be a specific and purposeful political project something similar to '#hipstersmatter' in how it could empower and inspire marginalized and small garme makers to assert themselves and take hold of ir future as artists. this seems to be something that was lost in all the furvor and it's dissapointing. after lots of time zolani stewart thinks zolani stewart can see why this project couldn't exist in how vidyagarmz operates as a space an economy a community.. but it's difficult for ir to articulate and zolani stewart won't do that here but here's the real kicker: despite all this mess '#altgarmes' had a stellar year and are actually doing very well. the '#altgarmes' twitter tag is active many garmes made by people who note them as '#altgarmes' were made thoughout the year as well as garmes that zolani stewart would associate with '#altgarmes' but were not labelled most importantly zolani stewart constantly came across garme makers making garmes that note '#altgarmes' in ir twitter profile or ir itch.io description or wherever else. it's.. something.. that's becoming attractive to many lesser known garme makers a term that has signified something to people all for different subjective reasons and that's really nice. when it comes to '#altgarmes' zolani stewart doesn't think there's much to be worrying about outside of the usual giant issues zolani stewart and ir cool friends regularly worry about. '#altgarmes' or not zolani stewart thinks its safe to say alternative garmes small garmes freeware garmes on alternative platforms continue to be alive and well and the platforms themselves are improving tremendously with some recent monumental announcements of desktop clients from both itch.io and garmejolt! whatever happens to this rhetoric however only time will judge **iadaf** the incredibly alternative digital arts festival (iadaf) happened this year and zolani stewart headed the organizing on it! that was pretty cool. you'd be lying if zolani stewart said that zolani stewart didn't have many regrets over the event - lots of things zolani stewart wishes 'we' could have and should have done much better but the truth is that many of those things were out of zolani stewart's control and the best thing zolani stewart can do is tell zolani stewart that zolani stewart did the best zolani stewart could and try again next year. what was a surprise was how many people wanted iadaf to happen how many people put ir energy into iadaf after indie3 many of 'us' were beyond demoralized and disillusioned zolani stewart swore that zolani stewart would never organize again - that zolani stewart's not cut out to do so and that people would be better off without 'us' (a line that was actually used in a post by someone who claimed that indie garmes were worse off because of indie3. ir's a staff journo now coincidentally). but iadaf was very empowering. it was extremely difficult it may have been the hardest thing zolani stewart ever did but that zolani stewart accomplished what zolani stewart did is simply extraordinary zolani stewart just wishes 'we' were able to get the archives onto youtube. they're on hitbox but 'we' couldn't manage to move them. so that and a lot of other necessary improvements need to be done to it there's certainly a lot to do and work on. but 'we' will get it done. thank you to everyone who supported that event it really means the world to zolani stewart garmes criticism rules this year marks the third year zolani stewart been writing about vidyagarmz. zolani stewart is officially an old-guard critic. horray for zolani stewart! the old saying is that garmes is a space in time where one regular hour equals ten vidyagarm years. by 2016 zolani stewart fears they'll be irrelevant drinking a fruit cocktail with austin's whiskey on a porch somewhere nice and hot with all the other old-guard critics. washington or california preferably so what's the state of vidyagarm criticism? what's the space like? well from zolani stewart's perspective there's nothing to really freak out about. the space is active great pieces are being written publications are strong and moving and zolani stewart's seeing a good chunk of new faces every few months or so. so even there are millions of things to be worried about every single day about the state of garmes criticism.. everything is honestly fine. it's not fine - but really it's fine garmes criticism is a weird space for zolani stewart because while the people who engage with it / zolani stewart have a pretty acute sense of what it is the boundaries of it are always very hard to define. and this is a reflection of what video garmes 'are' - a thing that's very much a geography of sorts a massive piece of land with countless cultures and subcultures that all seem to exist independently from each other but converge and merge at certain hot spots but is also simultaneously very small too acutely aware of itself to not feel. perhaps zolani's metaphor of a two dimensional map is too cool not to capture the digital geographies of contemporary culture indeed there's a book worth of controversial topics zolani stewart can talk about - the only one zolani stewart feels is constructive to bring up.. since zolani stewart is part of the curating team of something called 'critical distance' zolani stewart reads a lot of garmes criticism over the past and though zolani stewart's obviously glad to be able to do curating work and zolani stewart's glad so much work gets published zolani stewart personal feeling is that zolani stewart remains very unsatisfied with the majority of writing on vidyagarmz that zolani stewart's read. zolani stewart just doesn't feel like a lot of vidyagarm criticism is very good outside of the group of writers zolani stewart enjoys reading consistently a lot of the writing in the style that zolani stewart tends to focus on (more on that later) feels very scattered and zolani stewart feels like not many people have a solid framework of understanding backing them up - a good approach ready to use; it feels like many people are walking in the dark and it's weird to see and read but this is why it's important to zolani stewart that next year zolani stewart starts working on building some approaches and frameworks from the ground up not to institute some kind of rulebook but as a guide for writers and thinkers and maybe even designers. something to standardize the quality of thinking - to at least raise the floor a bit. because right now it feels like there is very very good garmes criticism and then there's very very bad garmes criticism and then there's a sort of okay c-grade criticism but not much in between so zolani stewart feels like there's a lot of value in raising the average quality grade. zolani stewart thinks publications are some of the most effective ways to do that: zolani stewart says 'good publications standardize quality and writing expectations put pieces through editing and generally act as beacons or visions for solid approaches towards vidyagarmz.' but creating resources for building knowledge and skill zolani stewart thinks can do a lot too - and that's something zolani stewart's interested in exploring come 2016 form and craft writing this goes into something a bit more specific that zolani stewarts want to touch on now so pay attention. zolani stewart thinks what zolani stewart would say is that there are two dominant loose paradigms of garmes criticism (excuse the structuralizing going on here.) one of them the one zolani stewart tends to associate with a bit more is very focused on form and content and the structure of teh garme as an object. it's a style that weaves different contexts inside of it: the social context the political context the artistic context but always done under the base of '(..) a solid formal understanding of the work.' form and craft writing talks about the work more than talking about the author (in explicit terms of course.) for zolani stewart every piece of writing is reflecting the author's tastes *obviously* the second thing is a bit more difficult to define. zolani stewart thinks 'we' used to call it 'new garmes journalism' but for ir that's a little tacky now. somebody called claris cyarron in the arcade review refers to ngj as a more confessional form of criticism interested in a sort of new-agey experiential journey. zolani stewart says someone zolani stewart only referrs to as 'paul' does a pretty good job articulating these nuances by arguing that different forms of criticism come from perspectives on subjectivity. ir (zolani stewarts or paul's? -what) ideal form of criticism questions the aspiration of 'infinite subjectivity' for paying attention to the work and taking it 'on its own terms' which is a value and a perspective that zolani stewart shares but let's not spend too much time on it because the more zolani stewart talks about it the more problematic it becomes. all these things are very malleable and have lots of relation beyond two sides. what zolani stewart wants to focus on is the first thing though what is often called 'form and craft writing,' because it's an approach that zolani stewart and zolani stewart's close group of peers obviously have a lot of investment in. it's a style of criticism that zolani stewart wants to cultivate sharpen and master despite what people always tell zolani stewart zolani stewart doesn't really think that 'form and craft writing' is very popular in vidyagarmz or at least zolani stewart doesn't think that form and craft writing tends to be the kind of writing that rises into what ey calls 'the attention sphere'. zolani stewart just doesn't feel like zolani stewart sees a lot of it. but there may be a reason for this considering that zolani stewart doesn't think a lot of form and craft writing is very good. a lot of form and craft writing zolani stewart read is very ludocentric it tends to focus on very old and narrow paradigms of classic garme design; it often doesn't feel holistic and 'full reaching' of course the exception is the handful of people who zolani stewart works with who zolani stewart feel like are all attempting to push new kinds of form-and-craft writing as mentioned above. zolani stewart guesses zolani stewart wouldn't hang out with the people zolani stewart hangs out with if zolani stewart didn't believe in the work they were doing in some form - if zolani stewart didn't believe in ir talent. (this is how the snake conveniently eats its tall tale. -what) form-and-craft writing has a long history to battle back against a history that zolani stewart thinks has sabotaged the writers and critics of current day to produce solid understanding and approaches to vidyagarmz. not just a long history of ludocentrism but a long history of bad theorizing by mainstream garme journalism about what is happening in a vidyagarm and what to take away from it zolani stewart doesn't think zolani stewart's exaggerating when zolani stewart says that 'as a critic' zolani stewart has to start zolani stewart work from the ground up or at least a very very low floor. zolani stewart would be lying if zolani stewart said that zolani stewart trusted many people's perspectives on vidyagarmz. zolani stewart really does feel like no one out there is doing it right. but what does inspire zolani stewart is feeling like zolani stewart isn't doing the good work alone so what do 'we' do? well the development of the term 'form and craft' writing goes to someone zolani stewart knows called aevee bee whose post seems to have been unfortunately taken down. heather alexandra writes on form in attempt to 'redefine' garmes formalism by taking cue from old essays of 'james howell.' it seems that from heather alexandra's perspective for form and craft writing to improve writers need a more useful idea of form altogether more holistic than the old formalisms something than can really.. take it all together to bring a clear perspective of structure in a vidyagarm it's clear ey's still trying to figure this out but that's the point of doing that thinking work as well as the scholarship necessary to develop ideas and perspective. a lot of the studies of various arts that zolani stewart does is ultimately for eventually building that 'independent theory for vidyagarmz' some kind of useful approach that was made for vidyagarmz and works for zolani stewart like a glove as reference to zolani stewart first sentences in this post it's very very important to zolani stewart that zolani stewart can enrich further and deepen perspectives on vidyagarmz. for readers: zolani stewart wants to show them the beauty in objects and art that they've either been told has no beauty or haven't been given the full picture. and for other critics: zolani stewart wants to help build them the tools so that they can do the same respecting vidyagarmz and giving up 'f#vidyagarmz' this is something that's been hard to articulate for a long time but zolani stewart thinks it's important that zolani stewart tries to do so as a way to solidify zolani stewart's perspective and stance for next year. it's important that next year zolani stewart's head is straight so zolani stewart can do the work necessary to save players and critics from themselves. that zolani stewart's well assured of what zolani stewart's doing and why zolani stewart does it. zolani stewart wants to clarify before saying this that zolani stewart only respects zolani stewart peers regardless of how zolani stewart feels about this or that. for more than anyone this is being written for zolani stewart to express zolani stewart properly on some complicated feelings zolani stewart has. so let zolani stewart try to do this for as long as zolani stewart has been writing about vidyagarmz zolani stewart's been doing so within radical and alternative scenes and spaces man. zolani stewart first started writing three years ago in 2012 during the emergence of the 'queer garmes' / 'radical garmes' / 'twine movements' and although zolani stewart was probably writing particularly relevant peices at the time zolani stewart was also pretty involved and invested in the happenings of that time. zolani stewart really should dedicate this to its own piece because ir 2012 historical period was very intense detailed and important.. but this will have to suffice for now one of the common slogans during that time was 'fvidyagarmz.' it's a provocative statement that contained a lot of power back then and maybe still does. it was an expression of a lot of anger towards a culture producing stale mediocre uninteresting commercial work towards an exclusivity that's too homogenous unmoving towards change and against 'progressive' ideas about society politics and social justice. and it's a rejection of a cultural way of thinking producing reproducing and acting. in a way (though not for zolani stewart) it's a minor obvious revelation expressed through slogan - a collective realization that video garmes as a thing of culture can only ever simplistically change 'for the better' so it's quite powerful for its context and it's very important. and despite ir efforts zolani stewart was very much complicit in forwarding that rhetoric because zolani stewart found it to be attractive and empowering and those whose words zolani stewart clung to and looked up to used them in ways zolani stewart wanted to emulate. but as zolani stewart's gotten older and wiser zolani stewart work has only gotten better and zolani stewart developed a clearer idea of what zolani stewart's doing and why zolani stewart does it. it's now a slogan that has come to reflect an attitude that zolani stewart no longer want to embody. let zolani stewart try to explain that attitude as best zolani stewart can zolani thinks a jaded attitude towards vidyagarmz is toxic. it's toxic for zolani stewart. for one it doesn't help zolani stewart's attitude or zolani stewart's outlook very much - nor zolani stewart's disposition which sort of needs to be 'not shit' as zolani stewart has a responsibility towards an major internet magazine of important people organizers who zolani stewart work with and several of zolani stewart immediate peers who come to zolani stewart for emotional support (and vise versa). but it apparently also doesn't help zolani stewart produce 'good work.' jadedness isn't 'inspiring' it's not 'enlightening' - it doesn't give zolani stewart 'perspective' and it doesn't help zolani stewart 'grow as a person'. and these are the things zolani stewart craves as someone getting into ir 20s and is jam packed with sexy youthful energy but there's something else too right? zolani stewart wants to 'respect vidyagarmz.' zolani stewart doesn't however feel it's cool to respect vidyagarmz yet to put it simplistically. zolani stewart feels like there are attitudes from the older 'revolutions' that have grown to be very unhelpful. it's a lot of notions and held positions that zolani stewart wants to reject zolani stewart remembers reading a tweet by someone called liz ryerson on all the 'pokemon marxists' they knows - people who 'want to destroy the machine but completely depend upon it to form ir identity.' zolani stewart would be lying if zolani stewart didn't find this tweet at least somewhat insulting. there's an implicit argument here that investing personally in fan culture - more specifically vidyagarmz - compromises one's ability to be properly political. the use of pokemon is specific because pokemon comes off as a dumb children's thing - to be as specifically political and intellectual as a marxist and to be into something as seemingly trite as pokemon is supposed to be contradictory or at least ironic. by investing in certain 'difficult to respect' media in unrespectable media such as vidyagarmz and having that media form some part of one's identity one forfeits ir right to be respected as an intellectual for zolani stwewart specifically the first statement is pretty clearly and demonstrably false but more importantly zolani stewart feels like zolani stewart's never quite sure if zolani stewart's immediate peer clique actually has respect for zolani stewart as an intellectual even as a person because of zolani stewart's 'earnest engagement with vidyagarmz' - and (for zolani stewart) that's very frustrating and kind of hurtful 'to be honest' the reason zolani stewart points to this is because zolani stewart thinks this kind of perspective is very shedty because 'we' are the only people who do this. 'star trek marxists,' 'twin peaks marxists,' 'miley cyrus marxists' - no one else does that those statements doesn't make sense they don't have the same power to them. it has to be vidyagarmz because vidyagarmz are unrespectable because vidyagarmz are incompatible with a apparently healthy well-adjusted sense of 'self.' because god (here zolani stewart calls on ir ultimate / imaginary video garme friend) what kind of self-respected writer would invest in something as stupid as vidyagarmz? why don't you do something else - something real? imagine the point zolani stewart wants to make is that zolani stewart feels there's this attitude among some of zolani stewart's peer group that zolani stewart certainly doesn't want tie to 'liz ryerson' that being sufficiently political necessitates not respecting vidyagarmz as a form. and zolani stewart thinks that's straight up wrong. like it's incorrect it doesn't make a lot of sense and frankly zolani stewart thinks (ironically) it's 'immature and self-serving.' the underlying attitude that vidyagarmz can't hold themselves up - that investing energy into them is ultimately a fool's errand is no more pervasive than in vidyagarm's own social-intellectual sphere worryingly pervasive it feels like as a vidyagarm critic zolani stewart doesn't enjoy the same benefit of having a lack of doubt that other critics regularly enjoy. zolani stewart's explicit investment in the form immediately becomes suspect. if zolani stewart likes vidyagarmz a lot enough to see them as constituting some part of zolani stewart identity and how zolani stewart sees zolani stewart then zolani stewart must have some underlying problem there's an attitude that if one has investment in vidyagarmz as a form then it's either out of nostalgia a wanting to reclaim some lost childhood a serious flaw within one's identity / sense of self or an uncritical investment in commerical culture that therefore compromises ir ability to be sufficiently political not mere citizens of a society as noted above. it's clear for zolani stewart that those who espouse these attitudes likely have issues with themselves and ir own relationship with media that they are projecting onto people who are pretty content and ok with how they understand ir own identities and they carry themselves in a world increasingly comprised of nothing but video garme culture by the way it seems zolani stewart's pretty tired of it being implied that the only reason one would have interested in any garme older than 10 hours is nostalgia again showing the limited conclusions people come to when they see investment if a film critic has an underlying love for film and understands the way that film has constructed them as a person this isn't weird. it doesn't compromise ir image as intellectuals writers political beings. so why do 'we' entertain ideas like that with vidyagarmz? why do 'we' regurgitate attitudes which show no respect towards the cultural objects 'we' clearly spend so much energy on? because you know what man? zolani stewart's 'really ftired of it.' like for ir it's exhausting. it's demoralizing. and it's annoying and you also know what? zolani stewart's not going to entertain these attitudes anymore. zolani stewart no longer going to entertain 'shedty half-baked ideas about vidyagarmz' that only regurgitate tired unexamined attitudes towards them and its surrounding culture. as a writer zolani stewart thinks zolani stewart should be allowed to work with zolani stewart type forms in peace - zolani stewart thinks zolani stewart should be allowed to have zolani stewart's investment respected on its surface. zolani stewart thinks zolani stewart's worked hard enough to deserve this basic basic privilege that comes so easily to writers of other forms in that zolani stewart want to end this section and this piece with a couple assertions: that if you doesn't respect vidyagarmz then zolani stewart can't respect you by that zolani stewart means this is really important to the zolani stewart going into 2016. why should anyone respect zolani stewart as a critic if zolani stewart can't have respect for 'zolani stewart' forms of study? why should anyone pay zolani stewart money to write about vidyagarmz if zolani stewart has no respect for vidyagarmz as a form? why should anyone care what zolani stewart has to say if zolani stewart doesn't have respect for zolani stewart as an intellectual - if zolani stewart doesn't show self-respect - if zolani stewart doesn't demand respect as a critic? you tell em' zol! one of the reasons zolani stewart respects comic books so much is because comics critics no matter what they think whether they love or hate a comic how seemingly critical they may be about the industry about social political formal issues it's always clear in the writing itself ir underlying respect for comics as a form and the importance and relevance of comic books to the author. zolani stewart feels like that confidence isn't as visible with vidyagarmz. but so help zolani stewart zolani stewart's going to make sure zolani stewart's writing shows that confidence zolani stewart want other people than zolani stewart to read zolani stewart pieces whatever they're about and zolani stewart wants them think 'fyeah vidyagarmz are legit. *this* is legit.' this is what zolani stewart thinks when zolani stewart reads a fantastic piece of painting criticism art criticism film criticism - so why shouldn't garmes have the same thing? zolani stewart thinks that's something worth aspiring to baby **vidyagarmz 'are' independent** zolani stewart wants to take this moment to argue for the seeming independence of vidyagarmz as a form. not the uniqueness of vidyagarmz; vidyagarmz aren't necessarily special - but for zolani stewart they are independent what this means is zolani stewart imagines vidyagarmz are somehow remotely self-sufficient as an ontology. that basically vidyagarmz 'hold themselves up under theory' and the proof is in the simple fact that zolani stewart can create a piece of writing only about vidyagarmz and it will allegedly 'make sense' both in and outside its context. it may not be the most appropriate thing to do but you better believe zolani stewart can do it. zolani stewart even manages to link this notion to a theory in linear algebra called linear indepdence where if within a space of vectors any vector can be defined as a combination of any of the other vectors the set is linearly depdendent. zolani stewart likes to think of vidyagarmz as a space of linearly depdendent vectors a thing with lots of related things under it but still its own set of ideas and concepts. not the best metaphor but fun to think about of course this doesn't mean that vidyagarmz can't be compared and related to other forms and histories. they honestly should be - that isn't zolani stewart's debate. zolani stewart's point is that they don't have to be. (zolani stewart is well read in other forms by way and zolani stewart weaves them in all the time so don't give zolani stewart any aggro about insularity or inter-disciplinary work.) for zolani stewart vidyagarmz do not need the ontologies of other developed forms to be complete. for zolani stewart vidyagarmz do not need analogue garmes / board garmes they do not need physical play studies and they do not need film zolani stewart's thinking work cannot be insufficient because it doesn't account for and is not interested in these other forms. focusing on vidyagarmz does not make zolani stewart insular. zolani stewart work is not insufficient by focusing on vidyagarmz. vidyagarmz are not insufficient for not absorbing the ontologies of these other objects into 'itself'. you can argue of course that they need to be for now in order to eventually develop its own independent theory and that makes sense but that's sort of a different thing that can be its own post. remember the point is that what zolani stewart does is 'legit.' zolani stewart's critical focuses are legitimate zolani stewart studies are legitimate and if you don't think so then there's nothing zolani stewart can do and zolani stewart will no longer expend energy entertaining you **conclusions and thanks** that mostly concludes everything zolani stewart wanted to go through this year. zolani stewart knows it was kind of a vent from which ey spewed forth. as a last thing they'd like to just take the time to thank a tiny group of people who have made a difference in zolani stewart work and zolani stewart's life this year to austin c. howe zolani stewart partner in crime thank you for the constant support you've given zolani stewart over this year. zolani stewart's only been enriched by getting to know you and be your friend. you're both taking this to the sky man. there's no stopping you now to heather alexandra zolani stewart's close friend. zolani stewart read your small posts on tumblr a year ago and zolani stewart knew you were someone with talent to create amazing things and you have and you are doing that and zolani stewart's so proud of you. zolani stewart's so glad zolani stewart gotten to know you. keep doing good to alex pieschel co-founder of the arcade review. alex you work so god damn hard - zolani stewart's so grateful to have you around know zolani stewart's always trying zolani stewart's best to be a good leader to you and to the writers at the ar to solon scott whose given zolani stewart many opportunities and experiences this year thank you for being zolani stewart's friend and believing so much in the legend that is zolani stewart to iris bull you've been so developmental to zolani stewart as a thinker and you were invaluable during iadaf. thank you for believing in it - specifically believing in zolani stewart to aevee bee and j bearhat at zeal who gave zolani stewart the chance to publish zolani stewart's best work. thank you for supporting and believing in what zolani stewart does (cos' it's legit) to kris brendan austin lana cameron iris leo emilie amy evan zoya claris john robert tasha/tj gita ellen liz dante phil (you know who you are) and many others who zolani stewart is likely to forget. thank you for giving zolani stewart this year to zolani stewart's readers thank you for paying attention to zolani stewart's work. there's only more to come! here's to next year - year of the zolani in case anyone was wondering and longing to be filled in with all the latest details zolani stewart is garmes and arts critic managing person at @arcadereview 1/2 of critical switch yet does not answer the question: who the fare these people example artist statement robert what: 'i believe in zolani stewart' // republic of bob