Weekend Discussion - August 14, 2021

Please welcome back the Weekend Discussion as we here at Shacknews help you wind down your week.

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It’s a beautiful Saturday and Shacknews is happy to bring back Weekend Discussion! As the Community Manager, I figured this would be a great way to share bits of what’s happening at Shacknews, and also what’s going on within the culture. I’ll also be including sprinkles of chaos from around the internet and more fun moments as well. There wil be some tweaking of the format as I get comfortable and find the sweet spot so feel free to comment and let me know what you think!

Idris Elba as Knuckles confirms what the Black Community Already Knew

Earlier this week, Idris Elba announced via Twitter that he would be taking up the role as the voice actor for Knuckles the Echidna in the film Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and the Black nerd community lost their minds.

Much like Piccolo from Dragonball Z, Knuckles has been one of those characters that I always identified as Black since I was a kid and many of those around me would agree. He had the drip with the multicolored sneakers and the hip hop tracks bumping during his Sonic Adventure appearances. The Caribbean geeks were up in arms after the announcement since there are many references to Island roots in previous games but I think overall, fans are pretty happy about the news. Let’s hope we get a Pumpkin Hill reference in the movie!

Sonic fans everywhere are pretty hype about this addition but I gotta wonder if Idris will rock that Baltimore accent from the hit HBO show “The Wire” or something in between with his portrayal. Either way, best believe SEGA just gained a huge boost in potential Box Office with this move and I hope there’s a trickle down effect for potential video game projects with the next Sonic game being planned for next year.

Happy Free Comic Book Day!

In honor of Free Comic Book Day, Shacknews will be giving away some awesome X-Men comics next week including ones with a Variant Cover of House of X#1 by Pepe Larraz!

Fighting Game Corner

EVO Online 2021 started this weekend and there’s been a severe lack of public hype during the pre-game and side tourneys. We knew things would be different with Playstation taking over but with qualifiers being spread across multiple days and some not broadcast at all, it’s hard to follow the stories for some of our favorite competitors. There is still a chance for things to turn around as EVO is two weeks this year.

I think the energy parallels the Dipset vs The Lox Verzuz in terms of overselling and under-delivering this year but shoutout to our very own TJ Denzer for participating and going 3-2 in MK11. Here’s a bit of one of his matches. Collector is a tricky bastard.

Be sure to check out our EVO 2021 Online results page for winners and VODs of the Grand Finals!

Gotta love the Internet

Weekend Vibes

What I’m listening to:

  • Essence - WizKid ft Tems (Keep Bieber off of this please)
  • Mystery Lady - Masego ft Don Toliver
  • Rider - Mereba
  • My . Life - J. Cole feat 21 Savage, Morray

Here’s some Shacknews articles from this week


Thanks for reading! See you next weekend.

Community Manager

Denny is the current Social Media & Community Lead for Shacknews. He loves to be part of the conversation with readers and the gaming community as a whole. Denny is very passionate about making the game industry and associated media spaces more inclusive. He's also a huge fan of fighting games, hosting live tournament events with some fun color commentary. When he’s not gaming, you can find him diving into the discount comics bin or enjoying a horror movie with the lights off. He’s also been a content creator on Twitch since 2015 and has spoken live at Twitchcon, C2E2, and several other events along with providing D&I consulting for up and coming brands in gaming. 

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