One of my favorite web comics is the consistently hilarious Penny Arcade. It’s successful enough that it supports two families; Child’s Play, an annual Christmas Gifts for disabled children charity which last year pulled in Six. Hundred. Thousand. real actual U.S. currency dollars; PAX, a gaming trade show which is huge; and now a scholarship.
Of course, if you’re going to offer a scholarship, you have to pick a scholar.
The comic’s writer, Tycho, says of this process:
At last year’s PAX, we announced a ten thousand dollar scholarship that would go out to a reader. We’ve been sitting on our top three for a long time, unable to complete the process.
The Penny Arcade Scholarship is a good idea on paper, and it’s also a good idea in real life, but as an act one must perform it is terrible. It doesn’t feel like you are selecting a person so much as you are denying hundreds of people support they desperately need. I’m sorry to complain about it, but I thought I was engaged in awesome behavior, and instead I’ve seen the enormity of our task.
Michael Stein of USC, we choose you. We chose you from many. Now earn it.
Congrats, Mike.
Tycho, Gabe…you mad men. You magnificent mad men. I have no words.