As the old saying goes, better to have known too late than to never have known at all, or whatever.
Back in the day, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and Nintendo was a new-fangled gaming system, game hacks were the hottest gossip in school hallways, all done by word-of-mouth. Emergency summits would be called in the back of classrooms to discuss how best to rescue Zelda, and pages-long notes would be passed on how to crack the impossible ice level of Super Mario 3. Arguments would break out, detentions would be issued. It was a whole thing.
Then some enterprising company (maybe Nintendo itself?) put out an actual magazine full of Nintendo hacks. A real, physical magazine, with, like, an office full of editors and ad space and bill collectors that would call your house when you fraudulently signed up for a subscription without your parents' permission. The collections notices, of course, arrived by Pony Express.
Of course nearly all parents flatly refused to pay for something so frivolous, but if you were lucky you had that one friend who had a copy that he would share with you.
Of course, now, that magazine is obsolete. Nintendo was hard and information was scarce and we could access it through vice and graft. But now, of course, there's Twitter. And this week Seth Rogen blew some damn minds with some insider information we've all been waiting *counts* 436 years to get hold of.
Hot tip that’s 25 years late but I didn’t have Twitter back then: in Duck Hunt on Nintendo, the second player contr… https://t.co/t5SqaayO2O— Seth Rogen (@Seth Rogen) 1537207221.0
Me and my sister found this out because I sat on the controller by accident and the duck kept flying to the top right corner.— Seth Rogen (@Seth Rogen) 1537209179.0
On the internet, people––celebrities and mere mortals alike––were on a similar emotional roller coaster of intrigue, shock and outrage:
@brielarson I wish I could have shared this when it was relevant!!!— Seth Rogen (@Seth Rogen) 1537216094.0
@rejectedjokes It’s a lot.— Seth Rogen (@Seth Rogen) 1537216026.0
@Sethrogen @rejectedjokes I did not come on Twitter to have my mind blown today. I feel like my life is a lie. What… https://t.co/9tOVjo5Nsm— Tom Jorgensen (@Tom Jorgensen) 1537216163.0
my whole life has been a lie. why why why reveal this now. pandora's box cannot be closed again. https://t.co/chSLU7qs7a— Hend Amry (@Hend Amry) 1537211342.0
I feel like I wasted my childhood https://t.co/R9fBgMbvGA— Shane Nikolao (@Shane Nikolao) 1537218196.0
And of course, some people had to be smug jerks and pretend like this knowledge was actually widely available:
So many people had no idea this is a 2 player game https://t.co/o6PkDgG15T— △⃒⃘ (@△⃒⃘) 1537207271.0
I swear this was common knowledge. That the 2nd controller controls the ducks in Duck Hunt. And people finding ou… https://t.co/AuRtfR6dE9— Nash *LL (@Nash *LL) 1537218842.0
Someone clearly didn't read the manual cc @Sethrogen https://t.co/KXzK2iPXHW https://t.co/ZHVqG7aP8s— Sam Machkovech (@Sam Machkovech) 1537219087.0
...Oh.
But this explanation is too neat and tidy to be believable. This is a conspiracy.
Holy smokes!! Who else knew about this Duck Hunt secret? The Illuminati? https://t.co/V7kP9JyraT— JACK 96.9 Vancouver (@JACK 96.9 Vancouver) 1537286972.0
@Sethrogen No actually, the duck was controlled by a secret cabal of the Rothschilds, the UN, and the Pentagon. WAKE UP, SHEEPLE.— Rob Kutner (@Rob Kutner) 1537207875.0
Vindicated!
H/T Mashable, The Independent