Jimquisition: Why So Serious?

[Infernal Lawyer]

You know, I have to say that I've found one of the best ways to disarm someone who's trying to insult or irritate you is to, as Jim said, laugh at yourself.

Someone takes a jab at you about your birth being a mistake and that you were intended for the tissue instead? Come back with, "Yeah, I know. My father reminded me of that regularly. He even bitched that the alternative to my birth would have been just as bad since he was out of Puff's Plus."

Nothing's more annoying to a troll than laughing off their insults.

HA! Or better yet, beat them to the punch. I've had more than a few DOTA games where I would realize I was talking a little too much, and then instantly remarked "And yes guys, I DO need to comment on everything, before you ask" before anyone could give me crap about it. Especially amusing when they try to get snarky about it anyway.

OT: Funny you should talk about that Forza thing, since I was just defending TF2 from someone who was saying it's a shit game because "the story is bad". Though I guess the article wasn't trying to claim that the entire game was terrible because of a few shitty models in the background, so it's nice to pretend know that I'm not some crazy fanboy getting mad over nothing... right?

Anyway, this is just another symptom of idiots who refuse to admit that their favorite past-time is anything but perfect, alongside "Hate/Whine out of Ten Syndrome", or need to get mad over someone pointing out the slightest (but undeniable) flaws. Boo hoo, get over it people.

Captcha: Which one does not belong

What, I don't even... You only gave me the option to pick "emo kid", what is this?

 

[Nixou]

There are few things one cannot joke about

As the great, late Pierre Desproges [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Desproges] said: you can joke about everything, but not with everyone, and to illustrate it, he added, and I quote:
il vaut mieux rire d?Auschwitz avec un juif que de jouer au scrabble avec Klaus Barbie
Translation: It's better to laugh about Auschwitz with a Jew than to play scrabble with Klaus Barbie [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Barbie].

***

Its still a great experience, with a lot of really serious moments, but it can have levity, and it can be made fun

And of course, the biggest and best joke was the way they utterly destroyed in the third episode the heileinesque quasi-fascistic fantasy about the proud military übermensch who's always right, especially when these pesky elected officials tell her that fevered dreams and visions do not constitute sufficient evidence of the coming back of an army of Mecha Cthulhus.
Unfortunately, so many among the audience took said heileinesque quasi-fascistic fantasy so seriously that I daresay that Mass Effect qualifies as another unfortunate case of involuntary Douche Porn [http://0.media.collegehumor.cvcdn.com/36/83/4626eedb25722cbc50cf101005b8f846.jpg].

***

I've had to explain to people that Yahtzee doesn't hate the games he reviews as much as he comes off

If anything, I think that Yahtzee is good at maintaining a subtle but noticeable difference of tone and style between reviews of games he enjoyed playing and reviews of games he genuinely despise. Or maybe I find it easy to differentiate because I spent too much time watching subbed british comedy as a kid.

 

[Eamar]

Well said Jim. It saddens me that people seem to be forgetting how to do this. Hell, one of my favourite things about getting really into something is being able to joke about it, preferably with other people who also love it. Makes me feel even more fond of whatever it is.

Nothing like watching LOTR for the billionth time with my family while we all make jokes and provide a running commentary XD And anyone who's seen me post pretty much anything before will know that anything Tolkien-related is serious fucking business as far as I'm concerned

 

[grumpymooselion]

It's a bit ridiculous how hard lined various aspects of the gaming community can be, that "either it's 100% serious or it's malicious trolling!" mindset can be found in all walks of the community. Not just the consumers and fans, not just the media coverage of games, and not even just the outside perspective either. I've even seen individual entities out of publishers and developers do this. A casual walk through the Bioware social network suggests, a lot of the time, that some of these people have no sense of humor at all. Still, I can't say this without recognizing that sometimes I get in that mood myself, I'm just as guilty as any other portion of the gaming community of what Jim covered in this video.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

The thing is, I think it's human nature.

In real life, we have tons of cues to pick out jokes from sincere statements. Smiles, knowing glances, someone's tone of voice and general posturing - there's generally always enough data for us to go "Okay, yeah, he's pulling jabs at the thing I love and is doing it for the sake of levity. I'm okay with that."

Online, all we have is text. Jim's videos and, Hell, any videos you can imagine, pack the audio-visual element on top of text. That helps to a degree, but I think it explains why there's always so much bile in the Comments section of YouTube and, of course, anywhere where we gamers might congregate to discuss our hobby's finer points.

Person A: *generally attempts to write down a witty assessment of some fact, a fandom in-joke or the parody of abject hatred*
Person B: *reads Person A's statement on the first degree, completely missing the cultural metadata behind it all. Proceeds to flip tables and pull Rage comic faces*

Tackle the defensiveness a lot of gamers happen to feel on top of that, and you're left with a pretty volatile environment.

 

[Tuznecote]

Having a Sense of humour is the only way to be a Sonic the hedgehog fan. To many of them are dreadful and totally off there heads but worst.... serious.

 

[Cabisco]

Yes! YES!

Thank god for you Jim, this is so true and the gaming communities habit to fully commit to loving to the point of radicalism or hating to the point of insanity has for the most part driven me away from the more in depth aspects of gaming culture (like these forums for the most part). We didn't used to be this full of hate and bile, what the hell happened :/

 

[IrisNetwork]

Metal Gear even makes fun of itself sometimes. Even Saints Row 4 made fun of it. It was a good laugh.

 

[JenSeven]

It's also good to remember that the majority of the internet seems to be bipolar. Either they are:
"Awwww Kitten!!!!" or overflowing with impotent rage and loathing for everything and everyone but themselves.

Kind of a strange world we're living in. I have seen this trend with society as a whole too lately.
Not on such a vast and quickly moving scale as the internet. And it comes as quickly as it goes.

Kind of like the world has got a combination of Attention Deficit Disorder and Bipolar Disorder.

I don't think this is really a good direction of society to head towards.
Especially since the majority of society seems to not be all that clever.

 

[Nixou]

Either they are:
"Awwww Kitten!!!!" or overflowing with impotent rage and loathing for everything and everyone but themselves.
Kind of a strange world we're living in.

There's nothing strange about it: worshippers of the perfidious felines can only be mentally unstable, hence the hate and loathing that appear every time people are not prostrating themselves before the deceitful cuteness of their lords and masters

 

[Erttheking]

I think part of the problem with this is Poe's Law. I love Persona, and I love nothing more than taking jabs at it with my IRL friends. The problem is that when people are online, someone taking a light hearted jab at something is hard to tell apart from a scathing remark, and it doesn't help that in many ways, a lot of forums are being more overwhelmed by negativity towards games and how ones they don't like suck. So yeah, my two cents on the matter.

 

[ZtH]

Another awesome video, but I noticed you always seem to use Zhang He clips in your Dynasty Warriors highlights. Is he your favorite character?

 

[Thanatos2k]

Ooohhhhh I can't wait for next week's episode. It's gonna be about the Microsoft Youtube fraud!

 

[Proverbial Jon]

Silent Hill 2 is my favourite game of all time. Yet there's a whole plethora of things to laugh at in that game: stilted voice acting, bizarre characters, a protagonist who makes some strange choices and says dumb things, wonky combat system etc. But it's also incredibly good at what it's intended to do: horror. That's why it's my favourite; it makes me feel so many different things all at once.

I can't imagine not being able to laugh at my favourite things.

 

[LoLife]

People need to watch Galaxy Quest more =)

 

[Aardvaarkman]

So when I say I like dragon's crown art style, and then am called a "sexist pig", amount other things, do I just laugh it off or something?

That never actually happened, though, did it?

 

[LetalisK]

I don't laugh at myself specifically because of my upbringing and other social environmental factors.

However, I did laugh at Critical Miss' comic on Spec Ops The Line.

CAPTCHA: change yourself

YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO CAPTCHA, YOU'RE NOT MY REAL PARENT ANYWAY!

Funny that you post that song. I love Linkin Park, especially that song, and I still make fun of it. Though, I forgot just how blindingly gorgeous the chick in the video is. Jesus Christ.

 

[Stormwaltz]

(leaving)

 

[Breywood]

"Po-faced" - there's a turn of phrase I've only read a handful of times, and never heard in conversation.

I looked it up to remind myself the precise definition. I'd always assumed it came out the American slang of "po'" for "poor." Turns out the etymology is... somewhat more amusing.

There's another definition, but it's because of spelling. "Poe" named after Nathan Poe a nontheist user on a religious website who coined the term that unless someone uses some way of flagging sarcasm, it can be indistinguishable from someone being sincere.

And on topic:
As someone who still regularly plays Diablo II and DOS games, I'm not so thin skinned that I can't let someone make a joke about something I like. I know that D2 is just a repetitive grind fest with a horrendously small plotline that has somehow taken on biblical proportions. Besides, if I can't laugh at myself, I know there will be plenty who would be happy to do it for me.

 

[geizr]

Wouldn't surprise me that those same people to which Jim refers are very quick to mock and laugh at others and others' interests, and then they'll have the nerve to tell people, when the inevitable backlash comes, that people should just chill and learn to take a joke.

ADDENDUM: Just went back to check out the "Joy Begets Anger" video (missed that one). Yeah, some hardcore gamers are just very large toddlers and not much different from a humorless religious zealot, a personality which likely many of those same hardcore gamers openly mock. Basically, these people just need to grow-up and get over themselves.