HEY, it's Zachary Mahabir with another AMAZING, now GENIUS AWARD WINNING User Interviews! This time, I have the 2016 Rookie of the Year, butterscotch-pie, with us, so let's get this interview rolling!

How are you? What have you been working on recently, Genius-wise and in your real life?: I’m good! Genius-wise, I’ve been doing the usual editing, annotating, transcribing, and metadata, but I’ve also been mentoring a few users and working on some Game Genius stuff! IRL, I’ve been mainly focused on schoolwork, and I’ve also been playing ping-pong a lot!

For anyone that doesn’t know you all that well or aren’t familiar with your work, give us a bit of a summary of what tags you’re frequent on, what you love about Genius, etc:
On Genius, I mostly do stuff on the Gaming tag, which includes video-game-related songs, lists, scripts, dialogue, cutscenes, etc. I’m really into the Web Annotator, and I often web annotate articles about video games. I also work on pages in various other tags, especially X Genius and any other Genius niches.

The main things I love about Genius are the annotations and community; I think that the whole concept of digital annotations is amazing, and Genius is a fantastic platform for breaking down text using annotations. The community is just a fun place, and there’s so many awesome users!

Now, I know you love YouTube — tell me about some channels that you really like:
For gaming videos, I really enjoy JonTron and PeanutButterGamer — they both make really high-quality and funny content about random video game stuff. I also like Space Chicken; he does videos about glitches in Mario games. In the same vein is pannenkoek2012; he does stuff about hacks and glitches in SM64. Vargskelethor is also great, and he has a wonderful series where he downloads a bunch of viruses and shady software on Windows.

I’m also a big fan of both theodd1sout comic and Domics; they’re both animation channels with very different drawing styles and senses of humor.

Jacksfilms is my #1 favorite channel overall; he does comedic videos and is very sarcastic.

Now, while a lot of what you do on the website is video-game related, obviously the site focus is music! Who are some of your favorite artists?:
Kendrick Lamar, E-40, Danny Brown, T.I., YEAHTIM, Ariana Grande, YG, N.W.A., Jeezy, Travis $cott, Ludacris, Tupac Shakur, and Wiz Khalifa, to name a few.

What’s your favorite album of 2016?:
Definitely Danny Brown’s Atrocity Exhibition — it’s such a dark, atmospheric, fascinating project with great lyrics and amazing use of samples. My favorite track from the album is either “Tell Me What I Don’t Know” or “Lost.”

I’m curious: what’s the best piece of physical (non-digital) music you own?:
I don’t actually own any physical music, but my parents have several CDs, some of which I’ve listened to — out of those, I’d say my favorite is Young MC’s “Stone Cold Rhymin’”!

Let’s back to something that we mutually love: video games! Name for me your favorite genre as well as some of your favorite games:
I really like indie games, especially with retro graphics. Some of my favorite games are Papers Please, Stardew Valley, Rocket League, Clustertruck, The Escapists, Nidhogg, and of course, UNDERTALE.
Speaking of Undertale, I could tell you were a big fan based on that username! I haven’t beaten the game myself, but I’ve already seen it defeat games like Ocarina of Time and Link to the Past for Best Game of All-Time. Let me in on the hype!: I’ve noticed that everyone has different reasons for liking UNDERTALE, but my personal favorite thing about it is the random encounters — it challenges the idea that regular enemies in video games can’t be cared about in the same way the “good guys” are. It also has great art, great dialogue, great story, fantastic music, and just provides an overall fun atmosphere. The way everything you do has some sort of effect on future playthroughs is also pretty amazing.

We’re moving into a new generation of consoles soon. As an avid gamer and someone who’s super on the wave of gaming, tell me what you’re excited about in this ninth generation of consoles?:
I’m really hoping that the ninth generation will provide a new and exciting platform for gamers and developers that will allow for the creation of an extremely diverse group of games that push boundaries and expand the idea of what a video game is.

Realistically, though, that probably won’t be the case haha

What was your first video game memory? What is the first time you remember sitting down in front of a console or with a handheld and thinking “This is awesome.”?:
I’m not sure when the first time I played a video game was, but the earliest video game memory I have is playing Wii Sports at my cousin’s house. I also have memories from around that same time of playing Brick Breaker (an Atari Breakout ripoff) on my dad’s BlackBerry.

What’re some movies and TV shows you like? Any video games crossovers in there?!:
My favorite movie is It’s Such a Beautiful Day by Don Hertzfeldt (s/o DoyleOwl for telling me to watch it) — it’s extremely moving. As for TV shows, I really like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Family Guy.

Now, as we start to get towards back half of our lovely little interview, I wanted to ask some of the juicier questions. You’ve made quick work of moving up the Genius user ladder. Getting all the way from a contributor to one of the most respected moderators on the active site roster. How has it been gaining all that mileage in such a short period of time?:
It’s been a super fun ride so far, and I’ve really enjoyed being able to take part in this community and get to know so many users!

What do you want to accomplish in 2017, as we are close to the New Year, not only on Genius, but in your personal life?:
On Genius, I’m hoping to mentor several users and help them reach the Editor role, and I also want to grow the community around Game Genius and continue to use Genius as a platform for breaking down video games and the culture surrounding them! In real life, I’m hoping to stay healthy and take up some new hobbies! I have no clue what those hobbies would be, but I’ll figure it out haha

Fantastic! One last question that’s been bugging me for a while…HOW IS BEING HOME-SCHOOLED?!?! I’ve never met someone that has been before and i have an excuse to ask you now! I imagine it’s made you very close to your family!:
Being homeschooled is great! I’d say the best part is how it allows for a very flexible schedule. A lot of the work is done in traditional textbooks, but there’s also a large online component as well — sites like KhanAcademy are fantastic resources that have helped me a lot. And yes, it has made me closer to my family!