thehardtimes
patreon
Hard Digest August 19: Early Access Genres, Heist Movies, Misogyny, and More
🕑 Added 2025-08-20 00:00:08 +0000 UTC“That Kind of Music Sounds All The Same,” Says Fucking Genius Friend Who Figured Out How Genres Work
By Stephen Bell
UPPER ARLINGTON, Ohio — Local fucking genius music critic Sam Buchman recently made very poignant critiques of all of their friends music tastes after pointing out how music within a certain genre tends to sound the same, according to peers thoroughly impressed by his ineffable insight.
“My friends as much as I love them really are philistines when it comes to understanding music,” said Buchman while carrying around a Neutral Milk Hotel record as a fashion accessory. “Everything they listen to sounds the same. Like they don’t even seem to notice that the ska music they listen to is completely dependent on guitar upstrokes and a horn section, or that reggae uses so many goddamned steel drums. I mean could it be any more contrived or dare I say derivative?”
Friends were nearly dumbfounded by Buchman’s ability to point out these musical consistencies.
“The way he was able to really break down my favorite songs by simply telling me they sucked because they sounded somewhat similar sure was something,” said friend Kaitlyn Niner. “He definitely knows what the word contrived means and doesn’t simply say it because he heard someone smarter than him say it first to describe a piece of music. It’s certainly not the case that he doesn’t even care for music but more so that he gets off on criticizing the things other people like. He’s so erudite and precise in his criticisms that certainly he deserves a fucking award or some shit.”
The Grammy awards were apparently in agreement as they announced they were going to nominate him as part of the newly created “Best Music Critic” category.
“Never have we heard of a more witty or acerbic music critic than young Mr. Buchman here,” said Grammy spokesperson Niki Patel. “His powerful vision into how shitty and repetitive so many different kinds of music are make us really think about how wrong we were to like something that hit consistent beats. It’s like how anyone who likes chocolate is wrong for pretending that chocolate is anything but a one note food without any variety because it’s all chocolate in the end. Which is why he deserves this award.”
At press time, Buchman could be seen getting into the film critic space after pointing out how many movies have similar plot structures.
What the Fuck? “Big Score” in Heist Movie From 1990 Is $29,000
By Kyle Donley
If you’re anything like me, you like to end a nice long day of crushing it at your dead-end job by perusing Tubi for movies that you remember seeing the covers of at Blockbuster when you were a kid. The idea is, if you manage to see them all one day, you’ll finally fill that deep, dark void inside of you.
So yeah, I decided to watch this one with Billy Zane, you know the one where the cover is him running all cool with a metallic briefcase in his hand and there’s a sniper’s target on him? Opens with a really gratuitous, sepia-toned sex scene with an actress who looks like the big sister in Troll 2, but it’s not on her IMDB, so who knows? We’re talking full frontal by the time we get to the First Assistant Director credit (Tanner Skinmintz if you were curious). You know that one?
Right, so everything was going according to plan in regards to my catatonic enjoyment of the proceedings, the small bombardment of texts from my mom reminding me that I still owed her $2,700 notwithstanding. But by the time we reached the end of the first act, it’s revealed that this one last job at the Monte Carlo International Banking Institute was only going to net $29,000. And while I initially found that funny, it’s actually very distracting now.
Listen, I’m aware that inflation is a thing, but why is everyone in the film referring to $29,000 as a life-changing amount of money? There’s no way Billy Zane’s going to be able to retire, move to Panama, and start a banana farm as he post-coitally suggests to Jennifer Jason-Leigh in a hammock. Also, there are 5 of them! That’s like, $5,800 per person. Holy shit, Ernie Hudson just shot someone in the head for $5,800! These guys are literally risking their lives for 3 months’ worth of rent.
I can’t tell if this movie is just poorly written or if our economy is just that irreparably fucked. Like, now I’m looking up inflation rates on my phone which is not at all the vibe I was trying to cultivate here. It’s not like this movie is that old; it’s only been… 35 years? Fuck that’s old! Fuck, I’m old!
I just paid $81 for GrubHub, and I’m the poorest person I know. How could our economy let this happen? I should be running the goddamn banana farm! Do you realize how powerful I could be if I lived inside this movie? I could have Ernie Hudson kill my mom for the amount of money she’s asking me to pay for barely crashing her car. Reality is such bullshit.
Misogynist Who Can’t Get a Second Date Starting to Wonder if Maybe It’s Him, in Addition to the Liberal Media
By RJ Atkinson
EASTON, Md. — Local misogynist Bryce Turner is starting to suspect that he, in addition to MSNBC, are to blame for his inability to convince a woman to be in his presence for even a second longer than absolutely necessary despite dozens of first dates, confirmed sources.
“I used to think it was just Rachel Maddow, and the rest of the liberal propaganda machine,” quipped Turner. “But then I realized it was maybe 10% my fault, and that I had just been projecting too much dominant energy during my dates. Look, it’s no secret females are intimidated by alpha males such as myself. I mean, showing her my Pantera fan fiction Substack, AND pictures of my guns within the first 15 minutes of meeting her must have been pretty intense. Plus she didn’t laugh at any of my jokes that I mainly took from Joe Rogan’s standup special. I should probably dumb them down, so the next one understands them. All in all, I’m proud of myself, though. It takes a strong man to look at himself in the mirror. I bet Anderson Cooper has never done that.”
One of Turner’s dates couldn’t be more turned off by him.
“He kept mentioning how much he hated CNN, and that I was one of the good ones,” said Courtney Landis. “In his Tinder profile, he said he wanted to be my knight in shining armor, which I thought was kind of cute, in an old fashioned way. But then he showed up wearing chainmail and carrying a broadsword. At first I was like ‘OK he’s eccentric. I can work with this.’ But then he rambled for over an hour about the Crusades, and how awesome it was that women weren’t allowed to go on them.”
Turner is not without hope, however.
“I’ve worked with men like Bryce before, and his path to rehabilitation is exceedingly narrow,” said relationship coach, Sarah GIlbert. “The only thing I can do for men as far gone as him is recommend a large dose of psychedelics. I’ve been helping men make personality adjustments for years, but for men like Bryce, the only hope he has is to experience ego death from a heroic dose of LSD or Ketamine. This will literally shatter his ego, and completely reshape his personality. A complete factory reset if you will.
At press time, Turner finally scored what he considers a second date, by following an earlier date to their favorite coffee shop and covertly reading Ayn Rand in the corner.
Bethesda Remasters Elder Scrolls VI Announcement Trailer for Original Trailer’s Seven Year Anniversary
BY Kate Danvers
BETHESDA, Md. — Bethesda Game Studios director and executive producer Todd Howard unveiled The Elder Scrolls VI Announcement Trailer: Remastered during a showcase of the company’s upcoming projects, sources confirm.
“We want to take you back to that moment at E3 in 2018,” Howard said during his keynote speech, “we want to put you in the seat of a games journalist, fan, or YouTube reactor seeing the trailer for the first time. To watch the camera soar over that non-descript mountain range as the title appears. If we can rekindle the same feelings you had on that day, then I think we’ve succeeded as artists.”
The audience cheered as the thirty second trailer came to a close. One attendee, Grant Carter, saw it as an opportunity to connect with his son.
“Dylan wasn’t even born yet when the original announcement trailer released,” Carter said, shedding a single tear, “now that he’s seven, I get to share the experience of watching that announcement for the first time. I can’t wait to see his jaw drop as he realizes what he’s seeing. If he’s anything like his old man, he’ll be yelling about how epic it looks.”
Others in attendance were more skeptical, expressing disappointment in the trailer’s scope, suggesting the original trailer could be remastered into an actual game.
“That’s great and all, but Bethesda is ignoring their core fanbase,” said Brent Graham, a longtime fan of the series. “Why hasn’t Morrowind’s trailer gotten a remaster in all these years? They knew how to make promotional material back then. In my mind, it shouldn’t even count as a trailer unless it has a dozen quotes from niche gaming websites and magazines ranking the game against everything else they saw at E3 that year.”
At press time, Bethesda still hadn’t given a release date for The Elder Scrolls VI, but promised they’re hard at work on the game while they wait for another generation of consoles to release Skyrim on.
