CHARLIE BROOKER brought down the curtain on 10 years of satirical pessimism and scathing cynicism yesterday by announcing he was leaving his Screen Burn column in the Guardian with immediate effect.
In a sadly somewhat self-gratifying final submission, Brooker gives various reasons for quitting the television review piece. Firstly, he explains that "11 years of essentially rewriting the phrase 'X is an arsehole'... is enough for anyone".
His departure does not stop from using this final article to recall some of finest moments over the years.
These have included hilarious comparisons between Jeremy Kyle and Satan, Alan Sugar and Mrs Tiggywinkle, and - perhaps best of all - Ann Widdecombe's face and "a haunted cave in Poland".
But Brooker now seems regretful of his treatment to certain celebs with his desire to see Jamie Cullum "sealed in a barrel and kicked into the ocean" causing him most guilt.
It is only by reading further, however, that Brooker's real reasoning for quitting starts to become clearer - and even then it is not spelt out in black and white.
He laments the fact that it was not only television presenters on the end of his wrath but, more often, the non-celebrities cast into the public eye through a myriad of reality television shows.
It is not a surprise that Brooker found so much material in reality TV with its "ceaseless parade of instant hate figures, plucked from obscurity and flung onscreen for us all to sneer and point at".
But he now feels that he was a "witless bully" who had fallen "into the trap of writing from the point of view of a cartoon persona".
Perhaps the real reason why Brooker has changed is the fact that he has grown up and fallen in love.
His marriage to former Blue Peter presenter Konnie Huq after a whirlwind romance certainly seems to have softened him up. More pertinently, this is also the same Ms Huq who now fronts the X Factor spin-off show on ITV2.
I guess Brooker simply could not put himself in the hypocritical position of mocking hopeless contestants on X Factor at the same time as his wife puts a comforting arm around them.
He does not mention this reasoning specifically in his final column. Indeed, the closest he comes to admitting he has become too close to the world of television personalities himself, or - as he puts it - "one of 'them'".
Even this admission will come as no surprise to anyone who has followed his more recent television work closely.
Outside of Screen Burn, Brooker was lauded for the way in which he provided examples of dumbing down and exposed short-cuts at the highest levels of television media on his BBC4 show Screenwipe and its current affairs spin-off Newswipe.
However, his most recent television offering, You Have Been Watching, a quiz-show format on Channel 4, did not have the same cult appeal and led to claims from fans in cyber-space that he was losing his edge.
At the end of his final Screen Burn, Brooker attempts to soften the blow to his readers by promising a new column later this year.
But, in a life in which starting a family seems to be the priority, it is hard to see him pulling punches with anything like the same weight.
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