261: Zero Punctuation: Achieving the Cross-media Transformation of Ludological Hermeneutics

[AgentNein]

It was a funny article. I used to see stuff like this all the time in my English Lit classes. People overanalysing books and using a MS Thesaurus fed vocabulary to stuff their own ideas into it. I know because I used to do it myself.

This article gave me a good laugh - cheers!

Also Miskatonic University is a university that features heavily in H.P Lovecrafts stories. I don't know if it's a real university or not but I'm going to guess that it isn't.

I'm fairly sure that it's not. I recognized the name instantly at the end of the article because I'd been playing Arkham Horror today.

Yeah if it existed I would be already applying to attend the place. Sure you're likely to get carried off by walking corpses, or driven mad by a nameless horror from beyond - but you gotta die of something, right?

It's for this reason that I also want to visit Derry in Maine (probably not a real place either), but I'm getting off topic...

Derry's a real place. And I never ever ever plan on going there. Fuckin' clowns, man. Seriously.

 

[Virgil]

I found the analysis to be both compelling and cinematic. Truly a work of art. Well done, sir!

 

[Jorias]

I had to use the dictionary like 15 times. This article was hilarous, i had a mental picture of Yahtzee reveiwing Dragon Age: Origins in person, but with a narrator deconstructing his critisim then bashing on his ego for it lol.

 

[ceolstan]

Heh, I understood all the words without having to look them up in the dictionary, which in my case is the Oxford English Dictionary (unabridged), which I own and which is in a place of pride. I also understood the joke.

I remember reading Sokol when his article first came out. Well played!

 

[Hoplon]

I hate you Max, in a very real and meaningful sense.

Funny though

 

[SPARTANXIII]

It could be that, or it could be the more obvious fact that he is just Dead to right's:Really

Really
Really
Really
Really
Really
Really
Really funny!

 

[LightspeedJack]

How could anyone not instantly know this is a joke? A pretty funny one, if albeit unneccesarily long.

Because believe it or not people over analyse thing's like this for real. I find it hard to read sarcasm over the net. It doesn't matter that the context was completely ridiculous, or that he was being overly verbose for no apparent reason because people do write pointless tripe like this and mean every word of it.

Which I know is the joke itself. Taking the mick out of people who do that. But in my opinion the joke isn't really apparent. Just reads like another pseudo intellectual who thinks the world cares what symbolistic garbage he dragged out of a piece of joke media.

Actually I will admit if I didn't know Yahtzee so well I probably wouldn't have figured out it was a joke so quickly, people actually do write like this sometimes!

 

[Ukanef]

Trying to go Sokal on us. Good one.

 

[NicolasMarinus]

Analysing humor, especially with such expensive words does not make one very popular.

 

[dashiz94]

Very, very clever joke. That ending was pure fucking gold.

 

[UMNiK]

I thought he was doing it fer teh lolz.

 

[carpathic]

Fantastic and hilarious!

Did I just learn something too? eeek!

 

[Booze Zombie]

Wow, that is some article.
I got that it is a giant joke about over-analysing, though.

Anyway...

I do wonder if Yahtzee or indeed any human contemplates their actions in the same way this article is worded? I had always gotten the impression Yahtzee was a "hmm, yeah, this'll work" type of fellow.

E.g: "Okay, pad the joke out over the episode, then they'll only be mildly insulted. That'll work!"

 

[gallaetha_matt]

It was a funny article. I used to see stuff like this all the time in my English Lit classes. People overanalysing books and using a MS Thesaurus fed vocabulary to stuff their own ideas into it. I know because I used to do it myself.

This article gave me a good laugh - cheers!

Also Miskatonic University is a university that features heavily in H.P Lovecrafts stories. I don't know if it's a real university or not but I'm going to guess that it isn't.

I'm fairly sure that it's not. I recognized the name instantly at the end of the article because I'd been playing Arkham Horror today.

Yeah if it existed I would be already applying to attend the place. Sure you're likely to get carried off by walking corpses, or driven mad by a nameless horror from beyond - but you gotta die of something, right?

It's for this reason that I also want to visit Derry in Maine (probably not a real place either), but I'm getting off topic...

Derry's a real place. And I never ever ever plan on going there. Fuckin' clowns, man. Seriously.

As the Derry tourism board says...

Derry - You'll float down here, too.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Snip

To... many... Big... words...

Brain... can't... take... it...

*Head explodes*

 

[mjc0961]

...I am very disappointed that I didn't just rewatch the ZP of Dragon Age instead of reading this. Quality gag (asuming it really was meant to be one), but the actual video is funnier.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I had no idea ZP had all those underlying messages.

And did the writer of this article purposefully make it a hell for non-native english speakers?

I'd say there are rhetorical devices in play (obviously) but like many a dissertation by frustrated English students I feel that this particular explanation desperately digs for hidden meaning where none is found. I also get the distinct impression that this article was written a a joke.

 

[Jonluw]

I had no idea ZP had all those underlying messages.

And did the writer of this article purposefully make it a hell for non-native english speakers?

I'd say there are rhetorical devices in play (obviously) but like many a dissertation by frustrated English students I feel that this particular explanation desperately digs for hidden meaning where none is found. I also get the distinct impression that this article was written a a joke.

I know, I understood that the article was a joke upon reading the comments.

Initially, when he mentioned that whole "political situation, nazi" thing, I thought that there was no way Yahtzee would be putting that kind of underlying messages into his videos, and that the writer was just over-analyzing. Then I opened up to the possibility that I was just stupid not to have noticed it, and that there was a whole other level to ZP that I had been ignorant towards.

Then, upon reading the comments, I understood that the article was a parody on over-analyzing. I will blame my apparent obtusity on the fact that I have not been to college yet, and am therefore not very familiar with that kind of over-analyzing. When reading it, I attributed the unnecessarily difficult wording to the fact that he wrote about Zero Punctuation, a show known for the "presenter" talking so fast people often have to rewind in order to hear it all.

 

[Carnagath]

That...is not the kind of humour I expected to find on the Escapist. It's also hard to appreciate when you a) have no idea who the hell the writer is and b) what incited him to write this. Perhaps it could be explained if we assume that this is Yahtzee trolling Rebecca Mayes and her "accusations" of sexism in his reviews. Otherwise... nope, nothing else comes to mind, sorry. A lovingly crafted inside joke? Probably. Anyway...let's move on.