2HF said:
I've heard a lot of people say "Now that X is leaving I have no reason to come to the escapist", never thought it'd be me. And it won't! At least not until Yahtzee gets the boot. And even then I'll probably come out of pure habit and for general gaming news. The only videos I watch at this point are ben and bob's. So weird to have lost all the shows I did come here for. What is it about this place that drives everyone away? Gonna miss ya bob, and by that I mean I'll probably have a hard time tracking you down but when I do we'll be back in full swing.
See, I'm in the camp where - if the Escapist hadn't won me back with how it had handled certain hot button issues - Bob leaving would bring me back. And it's not because I hate his content. In fact, MovieBob used to be a big draw for me because he was and intelligent man who managed to do smart, entertaining videos.
The first problem I ran into with him was when he directly insulted the audience of certain movies because movies he liked bombed. A prime example would be The Expendables profiting within the same time frame Scott Pilgrim tanked. I don't necessarily disagree with his criticism of The Expendables, but insulting the audience is completely uncalled for, especially since intelligent people are entirely capable of enjoying schlock, and The Expendables was schlock that was made to be (at least mildly) entertaining to as large a number of people as possible, and although I didn't go to see either movie while they were in theaters, I'd take The Expendables over Scott Pilgrim any day. I haven't read the graphic novels the movie was based on, but I feel the movie was a brightly colored mess with uninteresting and largely unlikable characters. It seems like a case where the A-to-B structure of the plot remained intact but cramming it into a movie (and casting Micheal Cera - a man with no charisma whatsoever - as someone who is supposed to be a loveable douchebag) ripped the heart out of the characters and the world they inhabited.
There's two problems with that:
1. If Bob is willing to insult people like me or hold people like me in lower regard because of different tastes and opinions, he's a hypocrite who is no better than the people he so often criticizes for reacting too harshly to those with dissenting views and criticisms of other media.
2. This extended far beyond just movies and games to politics and other arenas. I originally came to the Escapist for the kind of humor and thoughtful commentary provided by Yahtzee, Extra Credits, and Shamus Young, and I got sick and tired of being put in this separate category of "lesser human being" by Moviebob whenever he held a strong stance about something that contradicted my own. Yes, he and I have never personally interacted, but if someone is going to make a broad statement about groups which I belong to which is as inflammatory as it is simplified or misinformed, I'm going to take it personally and I'm going to hold that person's analytical abilities (as well as the resultant content) in lower regard.
That Bob has strong feelings on a wide range of topics that are often in direct opposition to my own views doesn't bother me in the least. The fact that he's incapable of handling complex issues like an adult does, and I decided around two years ago that I wouldn't give pageviews or ad revenue to websites in order to talk down to, insult, and browbeat their audience.
By no means am I rejoicing that Bob isn't on this site anymore. All I'd really ask of him is to tone it down a bit and stop making everyone he disagrees with into strawmen representative of what he deems an inferior world, especially since it's hardly as simple as "I think Anita is making spurious arguments in this video..."="I'm an MRA traditionalist that wants women to go back to the kitchen and never play, make, or even talk about video games!" Real people are a lot more complicated than that, and I've never seen him approach these big topics with any kind of nuance. If he at least made an effort then I'd be happy to watch his videos and read his columns. As it is, I've made an effort to avoid him ever since he changed the format of his Game Overthinker series, and that's not going to change unless he starts acting like an adult.
So all in all, I support the Escapist's decision, and I think that over the long haul this is a good choice because people like Bob are poisonous to a brand like this. I can't speak for everyone who has stopped coming here in the last year or two, but I'm one person who is back on board and who 100% supports this site now that it seems to be going back to what it was when I came here on a near daily basis.
