MovieBob leaving The Escapist

[Westonbirt]

I used to enjoy a lot more of MovieBob's content. After #GamerGate, he just went ideologically nuts, and his worked suffered. Very few of his latest content was actually good, and even then it was just kinda meh.

The "subhuman" comment, alone, would make anyone get fired on any serious outlet. Much less than that, actually.

I don't remember who said that social media produces lots of conflict and trash because it provides a straight pipeline from people's brain to the world and therefore ideas and comments are not fermented in such a way that their raw emotional spite content is reduced, resulting in lots of emotionally driven trash. The alternative is also to not post whatever passes through your mind.

I guess when you're in a sacred crusade against whichever enemy you want, and that methods don't matter, only targets, it makes things worse.

 

[The Youth Counselor]

I feel like the Gators are doing some sort of rain dance in celebration.

 

[AsurasEyes]

The subhuman comment was targeted at the "dude bro" persona... however "dude bros" are a big part of gaming culture, who after all is buying each and every call of duty, GTA and madden game comming out every year ensuring mind boogling sales numbers and massive profits?

So no, it can still be argued that he insulted gamers. Not all of them, but a significant group with alot of financial power.

It can be argued that he insulted a group of people who overlap with gamers. It cannot be honestly argued that he simply called "gamers" "subhuman".

What's the qualifier for being a "gamer"?

Do the "dudebros" play video games? Yes

Do "gamers" play video games? Yes

Then I'm tempted to say they're gamers and there's nothing wrong with what they do. What is wrong is how the gaming community shuts out certain franchises as being inherently bad, regardless of overall quality. They do the same thing with people, and frankly it's bordering on fascism. Everyone must march in lock step against Call of Duty and Madden, because that's exclusively the domain of the subhuman bastards.

 

[Happiness Assassin]

Well, time to throw my hat into this... whatever it is.

I used to really like Bob. After Yahtzee (who I have liked religiously since '08) he was my go to contributor. And yet, I disagreed with him on quite a bit despite that. In fact the first video I saw of his was the "You are all wrong about Suckerpunch" which I still disagree with to this day. But what had me keep coming back was his analyses, which I always appreciated even if some of them were opinions in disagreed with. Then I dug into his archive and some points stuck with me, but in the wrong way. Some of his argument struck me as self-aggrandizing or rather "dickish". But I passed them off as unimportant, as I still enjoyed his content and his smarminess never got in the way of the content like it did with Bill Maher. Until Gamergate happened...

I have quite a few issues with Gamergate as a group (tendency to delve into conspiracy theory territory, lack of real cohesion, etc.) but deep down I still sympathize with them. I never really got past moderate. But my God... so much of what he said was just atrocious and would get someone less important fired. Even discussing Gamergate made you a target, worthy of the same treatment that he decried as barbarous. He saw things in only a black/white dichotomy, simplifying a rather complex issue into an "us vs them" situation. His smugness kept running and running, leaving the likes of Maher in the dust. And because of all this, I could not watch any of his content. I didn't care how interesting his previous stuff was, it just felt... tainted.

Actually, I did come back once, only for him to take a quick swipe at Gamergate and reiterate my distaste for him.

In short: Thanks for the ride Bob, but please don't come back.

 

[AsurasEyes]

Does anyone know how exactly you delete your Escapist account anyway?

Go into "change password"

Open a notepad and smash your head into your keyboard several times.

Copy and paste random mess into password and confirm password field.

Click "Okay".

You have successfully locked yourself out of your account!

(This next bit is aimed more at the general userbase, not you)
_______________________________________________________

Seriously, we cannot delete accounts.

I get PMed this maybe once a month.
[HEADING=2]We cannot delete your account![/HEADING]

Ask for a permaban or just delete the Escapist from your bookmarks.

Don't ask for a permaban. Earn it.

 

[Mikeyfell]

I blame The Miracle of Sound

 

[Pete Oddly]

Honestly, I'm not too worried.

For one, Bob will find another venue (probably YouTube) to host his shows. Sure, he'll probably make less money, but he'll endure. I know I'll continue supporting him wherever he goes. Bob is a smart, insightful dude, so it won't be long before he gets his feet under him again.

Secondly, while The Escapist is certainly diminished by his leaving, that doesn't mean it has to stay that way. There's all sorts of quality content creators out there who will contribute their work for peanuts just for the chance at the exposure a site like The Escapist can give them.

So all in all, as much as this transition period might be a little painful for some, it's far from the end for anybody. I'll stick it out until this place up and dies for good, I know that much.

 

[bdeamon]

Never let it be said that the escapist community doesn't care about MovieBob. Even the people who did not like him felt that they must talk about him.

 

[Johnny Impact]

Saw that coming.

The only people with audiences who are allowed to express strong opinions are comedians. Bob isn't one. He made a lot of enemies recently. The perception at the Escapist is that booting him will stop bad feelings against the site.

My personal impression is that this is a cowardly thing to do. I don't run a website, nor do I answer to advertisers, so I'm trying not to judge. The upshot is I have one less reason to come here.

 

[KazeAizen]

I like that Greg Tito response to Escapists audience being "defined" by Yahtzee. "Thankfully I can stop trying to change that now." That's very telling, that he was trying to "change" the Escapist's audience rather than respecting them and developing content for them. Seems like a solid business strategy: rather than give our audience what they want, lets give them what WE want and force them to like it.

Does it ever occur to anyone that when people make comments like that that they actually didn't like the audience they ended up attracting in the long run possibly because they might be very very very toxic. Just saying.

 

[thewatergamer]

*sigh* well that's a crying shame for the escapist

I can't say I always liked bobs content since he tended to get overzealous with his political views to the point of cannibalizing his own audience by insulting them, but when there wasn't a serious topic he had tons of interesting and weird stuff to tell me about, I may not agree with him on alot of stuff but still gonna wish him the best of luck...

yeesh yahtzee is about the only reason to even come here anymore, well except for critical miss and feed dump every once in awhile, but I'm worried about the future of the escapist...

 

[themilo504]

Um well that?s kind of a shame I guess.

I used to really like nearly all of moviebob?s work to the point I kind of looked up to him, however that changed during the mass effect 3 debacle, not because I disagreed with him but simply because I got the sense he didn?t really know what he was talking about, that and he just came across as a bit of a jerk.

Nowadays I think that he?s great as long as he talks about movies or television, he?s clearly very happy with the current state of both mediums and I just feel like he has more overall passion for both, because of that he comes across as informative and even when I don?t agree with him his videos are still enjoyable.

But he really needs to stop talking about video games because he has no clue what he?s talking about, he just doesn?t play or know enough about video games to talk about them in the way he tends to do, honestly I don?t think he even really likes video games anymore, gaming has evolved in a direction that he clearly doesn?t like(with the exception of Nintendo) and he feels left behind.

And his reaction to the whole gamergate debacle made me loss nearly all of my respect for him, I know twitter brings out the worst in people, but even as far as people at their worst go bob just came across like a judgmental self righteous asshole.

Still it is kind of a shame to see him go and I might still decide to check out his new stuff wherever he might go, I just hope it?s a movie website where using twitter is forbidden.

 

[Silvanus]

What's the qualifier for being a "gamer"?

Do the "dudebros" play video games? Yes

Do "gamers" play video games? Yes

The problem with that is that when somebody refers to a category, they are not by extension referring to any group which includes that category.

For example, if somebody says "pirates are bad", it is not reasonable to accuse them of saying "humans are bad", on the basis that pirates are humans. The statement was quite clearly more contained than that.

Then I'm tempted to say they're gamers and there's nothing wrong with what they do. What is wrong is how the gaming community shuts out certain franchises as being inherently bad, regardless of overall quality. They do the same thing with people, and frankly it's bordering on fascism. Everyone must march in lock step against Call of Duty and Madden, because that's exclusively the domain of the subhuman bastards.

The "gaming community" does not shut out Call of Duty. It's incredibly popular, as evidenced by its absurdly high sales figures.

A relatively small sub-set are critical of Call of Duty, as is Bob. You're under no compulsion to "march in lock step". That's just silliness.

 

[likalaruku]

Hate to be "that guy," but Bob & I never agreed on much. I also still feel that anything not about games should be off topic for this site, even with all the new changes. However, I wish him the best on his journey to the next big adventure.

Not a big fan of mass site changes though, especially so soon after the Channel Awesome debacle. At least I know CA's CFO is to blame for that one. Judging by Bob's surprise, it's probably the same story here.

 

[Strazdas]

Odd, recent twitter activity from him points out he feels legitimately regretful for using the terms

Its almost as if he is sorry to be fired. No wonder he regrets saying it - it cost him his job. There is still nothing to indicate he regrets the notion itself, merely getting caught using it. in fact the first tweet you quote flat out says he simply needs to find a "different insult".

 

[cth]

I actually had to check what you were talking about. "Subhuman"? I can't even recall him using that. And I watched all of his content! Even read most things. I guess he used it to describe the anti Sarkeesian guys? I honestly don't know. I mean I don't like her either, even though I respect her skill as a scam artist, but I didn't feel offended at all by Bob and his stance on the matter. I mean that would be childish, wouldn't it?

Anyway, I hope he does the same thing Jim Sterlin did. I would hate to miss out on his opinions/reviews/comic and tv summaries. Not a big fan of the Schlocktober stuff, though.

 

[Davroth]

I won't miss him. I lost all respect I had for him after I saw how he conducted himself on Twitter. I don't need my go to video game news site to give money to Aristotle Means.

Good riddance, Movie Bob.

 

[VanQ]

Don't ask for a permaban. Earn it.

This. Should I ever decide to leave this site for good, I'm going out with a bang.

 

[darthdenim]

I haven't really cared about him as an actual critic for a long time now.

I've been mostly watching his stuff lately to see how he filters various things through his preconceived notions and political beliefs, and to see what inflammatory thing he says next to get everybody riled up.

 

[Pescetarian]

Just visited the site reflexively to catch the new Big Picture before I realized there was only Extra Punctuation.

Better extend Yahtzee's contract through the end of the dang Holocene Epoch, guys.