MovieBob leaving The Escapist

[J Tyran]

Whether the overriding perception of his comments is false or not thats enough for any professional, responsible media outlet to lose patience with. Especially as it isn't the first time, the tone and language used left criticism and commentary a long way back and are simply shit slinging so thats not a defence either.

It's not meant as a defence.

It's right to call out falsities when they're repeated, time and again, particularly when those falsities support certain political narratives. Whether Bob said bad things is beside that point. I'm sick of misrepresentation altogether.

Well thats the thing, it really is kind of the point. If he did get fired and it is because of his Twitter rants it was an inevitable consequence of him using a public persona associated with his employer to sling shit at the public, its not more simple or more complicated than that.

Trying to decide who and why he was slinging shit is a tangent at best or irrelevant at worst.

 

[klaynexas3]

Bob insults people who disagree with him, it's the end of the world, Yahtzee does the same and it's funny -.-

The difference being Yahtzee does it as his job, and it's all meant in good fun.

Bob does it because he genuinely doesn't like these people he disagrees with and there is actual toxicity behind his insults.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Eh, I couldn't really care less. Once in a blue moon his "Big Picture" was entertaining, and I did enjoy "Schlocktober", but 95% of his content just sounded like:

A: An angry nerd with a giant chip on his shoulder from being bullied in high school (I always found it ironic that his last name is "Chipman").

and/or B: a pretentious, smug, ultra-liberal know-it-all who seemed to believe that having a bachelor's degree in film and owning the entire collection of "Samurai Pizza Cats" on DVD somehow made him smarter than 99% of the population.

Anyway, with Jim Sterling leaving and now Bob, it seems clear to me that Escapist is trying to rebrand itself as being much less of a "SJW" site and more focused purely on games and nerd culture.

 

[Piorn]

aaaaw, I've been on this site for a very long time now, grown quite attached to it, and I've seen shows come and go, but this is definitely one I'll miss having here.
And I hope he'll make good videos somewhere else then, I really liked them.

 

[MatsVS]

I agree with him a lot politically, but his behaviour on twitter in recent months has been, quite frankly, appalling and uncivilised, and I am not surprised to see him gone. Oh well, I'm sure he has a big enough fan base to become enough of a patreon jockey to eke out a meagre existence somewhere on the internet.

 

[ecoho]

Bob insults people who disagree with him, it's the end of the world, Yahtzee does the same and it's funny -.-

its very simple one does so fully believing what he said the other is doing it ironically for laughs. In other words Yahtzee acts like an asshole on TV were as Bob is an asshole all the time.

 

[SKBPinkie]

If this happened a year ago, I think I would have been disappointed. Now, after so many forceful opinions and antagonistic comments, I'm just shocked it didn't happen sooner. I'm glad now

You know, the most surprising thing here is the sheer number of people who, like you, openly state that they want their internet browsing to be a complacent echo chamber where they won't see nor hear opinions inimical to their own.

"Transformers was a pretty bad movie"

"Transformers is for bad people. The world be better off without these subhuman shits"

You see, when your opinion is more along the lines of the second statement and you constantly, and I mean constantly, try and convince people that you're somehow intellectually superior, then yeah, I couldn't give a fuck about your opinions, and you should really learn how to present your thoughts, let alone have a whole fucking editorial segment on a website.

Also, please stop accusing that guy of some random BS. He isn't "openly" saying shit. He's clearly talking about how antagonistic Bob was. Try not to put words in his mouth.

 

[marioandsonic]

Don't remember in recent memory his slagging off all gamers on his twitter, jus what he referred to as the GameBros. Which isn't all of us. That said, could see why the would offend GameBros

He made many posts claiming that "bros" had co-opted his hobby, and that he was an "original" gamer because he started with the NES and many of them only started with the Xbox. I seem to recall he may have blocked someone after they told him they started with the Magnavox Odyssey, disagreed with his views and called him a 3rd generation n00b lol.

So Bob claims that he wants games to stop objectifying women so they can be more inclusive, yet he hates that "bros" now play video games as a hobby? What?

 

[cleric of the order]

Don't remember in recent memory his slagging off all gamers on his twitter, jus what he referred to as the GameBros. Which isn't all of us. That said, could see why the would offend GameBros

He made many posts claiming that "bros" had co-opted his hobby, and that he was an "original" gamer because he started with the NES and many of them only started with the Xbox. I seem to recall he may have blocked someone after they told him they started with the Magnavox Odyssey, disagreed with his views and called him a 3rd generation n00b lol.

So Bob claims that he wants games to stop objectifying women so they can be more inclusive, yet he hates that "bros" now play video games as a hobby? What?

that always confused me, like when he plunged himself in that game overthinker thing, I felt the anti thinker was just mean.
I know jocks,bro and the like, I've been friends with a couple despite being a massive nerd and they aren't /bad/ people.
Everything about the game over thinker was really just cringe worthy.
There are going to be simple, "bros" are as much a part of our hobby as otherwise.
Also
>original gamer
>starting on the nes
>not Atari and the others in the way back
>sheeeet
seriously my uncle has been playing games since pong had it's own machine and he is the quintessence of bro still plays shit like call of duty and he thinks bros co-opted "HIS" hobby
>bloody persuasion complex that's what that is or some cognitive dissonance

 

[Silvanus]

Trying to decide who and why he was slinging shit is a tangent at best or irrelevant at worst.

It's not at all irrelevant to me. When somebody fabricates or exaggerates an attack on "gamers" or "gaming", they're using me (and you, and the rest of us) to make a partisan argument. That shouldn't just float by unchallenged.

 

[Colour Scientist]

Eh, I could really care less.

You mean you couldn't care less though, right?

 

[Adamantium93]

Just cancelled my Pub Club Sub. Its not so much that I loved Movie Bob but more that you guys are bleeding interesting content. No more Jimquisition, no Escape to the Movies, no Big Picture, no Intermission or HD. And let us not forget how low your standards for "news" have fallen. Remember how people used to say that Jim, Bob, and Yahtzee were the three pillars of the Escapist? Well, you've lost two of them in a few months.

I didn't always agree with Bob's views; he was a holier-than-thou hypocrite could act like a petulant child, but on the whole I enjoyed his series. Honestly, ZP is what brought me to the Escapist but The Big Picture is what kept me coming back until I tried the other great shows and columns this site offered. I remember when I used to have something new to look forward to everyday, and that's why I subbed: because I spent so much time here, it felt wrong not to contribute.

Now, I'll be stopping in on Wednesdays for my weekly dose of ZP and Feed Dump. Occasionally I'l read a Critical Miss or an Experienced Points, maybe watch a No Right Answer. But I'm not going to pay for two five-minute shows every week. I don't want to sound like a Chicken Little, but so much stuff is leaving or disappearing, one must wonder what will happen next (LRR have talked about crowd funding before).

Also, it doesn't escape me that the two major contributors they've axed were also the most vocal about their personal views. Big mistake, IMO. The fact that the Escapist had teeth, even if I didn't always like what they bit, was a strong selling point. If I wanted a sanitized zone of Stepford Smiles and click-bait articles, I'd visit any other gaming site.

 

[Ratty]

Trying to decide who and why he was slinging shit is a tangent at best or irrelevant at worst.

It's not at all irrelevant to me. When somebody fabricates or exaggerates an attack on "gamers" or "gaming", they're using me (and you, and the rest of us) to make a partisan argument. That shouldn't just float by unchallenged.

As has been outlined though, Bob did attack gamers and he did attack gaming. Many many times over the last 6 months. He just attacked the ones he didn't like. To be fair he's been doing this kind of thing since before the escapist. In early game overthinker episodes he would always pronounce "hardcore" in "hardcore gamers" (who he identified specifically as Gamers who didn't like/grow up with Nintendo and preferred modern shooters) with an exaggerated grunt while showing this [http://justcomedies.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/donald-gibb-ogre-revenge-of-the-nerds.jpg] picture of evil Jock Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds. Though he seemed to eventually realized this was a bad PR move (core gamers are still his audience after all) and said that he to was a "hardcore gamer", which he'd just realized (after mocking "hardcore gamers" for some time) because he enjoyed grinding in Metroidvanias on the DS.

After that he kept his contempt for his audience mostly in check in his actual videos. Save the occasional slip up like in that Transformer's review where he basically called anyone who likes the Transformers movies an idiot if not an outright bad person. Because it's a sin to enjoy and support bad movies apparently, unless it's something Bob-sanctioned like the Schlocktober films or MST3K.

But if you've been following him on twitter the last six months, you know what he's said there makes the above look like compliments, his bile for people who disagree with him on gaming issues has been beyond the pale.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Eh, I could really care less.

You mean you couldn't care less though, right?

Yup, caught and corrected

 

[Silvanus]

As has been outlined though, Bob did attack gamers and he did attack gaming. Many many times over the last 6 months. He just attacked the ones he didn't like. To be fair he's been doing this kind of thing since before the escapist. In early game overthinker episodes he would always pronounce "hardcore" in "hardcore gamers" (who he identified specifically as Gamers who didn't like/grow up with Nintendo and preferred modern shooters) with an exaggerated grunt while showing this [http://justcomedies.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/donald-gibb-ogre-revenge-of-the-nerds.jpg] picture of evil Jock Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds. Though he seemed to eventually realized this was a bad PR move (core gamers are still his audience after all) and said that he to was a "hardcore" gamer, which he'd just realized (after mocking "hardcore gamers" for some time) because he enjoyed grinding in Metroidvanias on the DS.

In all honesty, that just sounds like a joke, not an insult. It sounds like something me or some of my friends might say in a semi-self-deprecating way, and a number of us (myself included) consider ourselves pretty avid gamers. People say that kind of thing jokingly in games.

After that he kept his contempt for his audience mostly in check in his actual videos. Save the occasional slip up like in that Transformer's review where he basically called anyone who likes the Transformers movies an idiot if not an outright bad person. Because it's a sin to enjoy and support bad movies apparently, unless it's something Bob-sanctioned like the Schlocktober films or MST3K.

But if you've been following him on twitter the last six months, you know what he's said there makes the above look like compliments, his bile for people who disagree with him on gaming issues has been beyond the pale.

As I said, I'm not defending his comments.

I'm just objecting to those comments being twisted and misrepresented for other political arguments.

 

[Sampler]

Won't miss his film reviews as quite honestly I feel he's a terrible reviewer (how many times does he have to through up a spoiler warning, it's a review, not a dissection, if you want to talk about more detailed points use another show).

I did, however, enjoy Big Picture as we seem to have had similar life experiences growing and a similar age so we geek out about the same things - oh well.

With only ZP left - and maybe Feed Dump, but that seems to ever increasingly be phoned in since it transitioned from Graham to Kathleen, as much as I appreciate the quirky little lady there's simply not enough Graham beard per show that it needs..

 

[Ratty]

As has been outlined though, Bob did attack gamers and he did attack gaming. Many many times over the last 6 months. He just attacked the ones he didn't like. To be fair he's been doing this kind of thing since before the escapist. In early game overthinker episodes he would always pronounce "hardcore" in "hardcore gamers" (who he identified specifically as Gamers who didn't like/grow up with Nintendo and preferred modern shooters) with an exaggerated grunt while showing this [http://justcomedies.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/donald-gibb-ogre-revenge-of-the-nerds.jpg] picture of evil Jock Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds. Though he seemed to eventually realized this was a bad PR move (core gamers are still his audience after all) and said that he to was a "hardcore" gamer, which he'd just realized (after mocking "hardcore gamers" for some time) because he enjoyed grinding in Metroidvanias on the DS.

In all honesty, that just sounds like a joke, not an insult. It sounds like something me or some of my friends might say in a semi-self-deprecating way, and a number of us (myself included) consider ourselves pretty avid gamers. People say that kind of thing jokingly in games.

Sure people might say something like that as a joke. But go back and hear the venom and exasperation when Bob vents about the hardcore gamers ruining his hobby in those early game overthinkers, he's really upset. But like I said, that's miles away from the kind of overt hostility he's shown on twitter.

After that he kept his contempt for his audience mostly in check in his actual videos. Save the occasional slip up like in that Transformer's review where he basically called anyone who likes the Transformers movies an idiot if not an outright bad person. Because it's a sin to enjoy and support bad movies apparently, unless it's something Bob-sanctioned like the Schlocktober films or MST3K.

But if you've been following him on twitter the last six months, you know what he's said there makes the above look like compliments, his bile for people who disagree with him on gaming issues has been beyond the pale.

As I said, I'm not defending his comments.

I'm just objecting to those comments being twisted and misrepresented for other political arguments.

What political comment are you trying to keep at bay? Because we seem to agree that Bob has attacked gamers, a sizable section of gamers if not the term as a whole. I don't see how it's twisting to talk about his attitude over the last 6 months. Like I said I agree with many of Chipman's stated political goals, but I strongly object to his hateful and authoritarian approach to attaining those goals.

 

[Nixou]

He made many posts claiming that "bros" had co-opted his hobby, and that he was an "original" gamer because he started with the NES and many of them only started with the Xbox.

That was Bob circa 2009, back when his misanthropic "Why have I to share a planet with these moronic rubes" shtick wasn't regarded as controversial: back then he could have pulled a Hicks and called for the systematic genocide of every and all people who didn't notice the similarities between Mass Effect and Babylon 5, and that would have barely caused a blip.

It's when he mellowed out, toned down his generational tribalism and began to revise his older opinions, starting to say that maybe educated, upper-middle class kids with backgrounds and cultural references similar to his own weren't blameless art enthusiasts that he started to be regarded as sanctimonious, antagonistic, and disrespectful.

 

[T8B95]

And as far as the "meh meh meh, Bob's political agenda soapbox wwwwhhhhaaaaaggghhhh" well, as you can see it never really rubbed me the wrong way. I looked at some of the "here's what Bob said on Twitter" crybaby links during several of the political arguments that broke out and wafted around the Escapist. None of it offended me. Ooh, someone on Twitter has an opinion... my stars! I never really saw the point in getting worked up about it. It's not like there are a couple million assholes with opinions ranting on Twitter or anything.

Can I like buy you a drink for this statement here? Seriously. Rock on.

People do get passionate about stuff and clearly Bob is one of those people that wears his emotions on his sleeve. He's never made it a secret that he dislikes the kind of culture that was born of the Xbox LIVE era and was genuinely sad about the state of gaming. God forbid someone rant and rave on the web about something. Its like totally unrealistic.

Yeah he engaged in name calling but its not like he's doing it behind people's backs. If anything about these past few months he just found that A) Many people follow him just to debate him because they don't agree with anything and B) Several of his previous followers don't share his opinions on many things and frankly if I were him I'd essentially like to sort through the trash as it were. Get the people you wouldn't want following you anyway out and get new people in if you can. Besides the thing about the Big Picture wasn't that basically given to him as a soapbox show anyway? He could literally talk about whatever he wanted for like 5 minutes so I don't get why people would get mad at him for expressing his political opinions there.

Though what I do find funny is people getting mad at him putting his politics or whatever into movie reviews. I mean this is mostly a gaming site and clearly people aren't aware that movie critique evolved into something beyond "is it good or bad?" way before Bob started doing it. Gaming still hasn't gotten there yet unfortunately and several people appear to not want it to get there but him trashing on Amazing Spider-man or Man of Steel again and again to make a point or bring up troubling metaphors is something other movie critics have been doing for years. He will be missed. Hopefully if he could only maintain one show I'd like it to be The Big Picture. That way I can at least get my trivial nerd knowledge that won't benefit me in any way shape or form in the real world.

I too would like to add my assent to this conversation.

To be completely, brutally honest, a lot of Mr. Chipman's supposed "meltdown" on Twitter really wasn't that severe, especially going by Twitter's standards where "stfu ***** or ill raep you" seems to be the standard response to anything someone happens to disagree with. Yeah, on Twitter Bob can be inflexible at times, but at least he was always articulate and could defend his points intelligently.

And you're right, Big Picture was basically given to him as a 5-10 minute slot where he could get up on his soapbox and talk about whatever was on his mind at the time. And people got mad at him for getting up on his soapbox and talking about whatever was on his mind. Personally, whether I agreed or disagreed with what he was talking about, I always found his views to be at the very least well thought through.

Actually, that's a fair assessment for my view on Bob "Moviebob" Chipman as a whole. Sometimes I agreed with what he said, sometimes I disagreed, but I respected the hell out of him regardless. From what I saw of him he was an intelligent and well-thought, though highly opinionated, man, and a veritable encyclopaedia of knowledge on the history of geek culture and cinema as a whole.

Spread your wings, Bob. Fly and be free.

 

[Silvanus]

What political comment are you trying to keep at bay? Because we seem to agree that Bob has attacked gamers, a sizable section of gamers if not the term as a whole. I don't see how it's twisting to talk about his attitude over the last 6 months. Like I said I agree with many of Chipman's stated political goals, but I strongly object to his hateful and authoritarian approach to attaining those goals.

I'm not trying to keep any political notions at bay; just objecting to misrepresentation that serves them.

The "anti-SJW" rhetoric flying around at the moment, for example. I find it alienating, reductionist, stupid. Imagining that Bob is attacking all gamers-- rather than whatever "conservabros" are-- creates another scapegoat, fuels the idea that we're aaaall under fire from these radical liberals, and that we should aaall be united by our hobby being insulted-- when in fact, it isn't (or not here and now).