About that episode. (Gaming)

by narcogen , Andover, Massachusetts, Friday, April 15, 2016, 23:41 (2944 days ago) @ Funkmon

Totally understandable. Like I said, I'm sure this is just the wrong video for most of the public.

I remember someone talking to me about one of the Achievement Hunter Let's Plays in Minecraft where one of the guys was absolutely berating a girl for screwing up a build. Like stuff that would make you punch him if you saw it in a street. He didn't have the context and knowledge of the group to know that the girl was the guy's wife, and he hadn't seen videos enough to see that the guy is playing an angry character and spends most of the time he's yelling and swearing with a smile on his face.

That was me, and I have seen most of their vids and I know that's what Mike is usually like. In fact I think Rage Quit was one of my favorites of the things he did.

My problem with that episode was that if you had no background going in, you'd be rightfully horrified by what appeared to be some pretty unjustified verbal abuse that wasn't really appropriate for public consumption.

If you did assume that it was an act, the horrifying part was the idea that they thought their audience would be entertained by this.

And then I was horrified by the fact that they were right. And that's when I unsubscribed. Not out of protest or anything like that, which would be pretty pointless-- but because that episode was unfun, unfunny, and unpleasant to watch, and I didn't want more of that.

What he saw was bullying, but what regular viewers saw was Michael doing what only he can do, getting absurdly fake angry over > nothing, at someone he loves dearly, and he didn't mean it. It's not a great introduction, and I remember thinking it was harsh, but I didn't > think too much about it because I had been following those specific morons for three years, one of them for ten.

Still not funny. Let's take what was (at that time) one of very few women on the channel-- who at that time was more involved in the Minecraft series as a behind-the-scenes builder and not a player-- in other words, a part of the team, but not one of the personalities who gets showcased on the channel. That has since changed, which is good, but at the time this event occurred, that change was not yet complete.

So let's either have that person either screw up deliberately, or else just take advantage of the mistake for Mike to go on one of his angry rants. It sounded like we were witnessing a boss dress down an employee right out in public, and it was embarrassing. If you're an insider you know that's his wife, which actually makes the whole thing worse, not better.

It's super weird at best for you to suggest that because the two people are married, or pretending to fight-- or both-- that that makes it OK. If these guys did obviously scripted role playing it would be one thing, but they really don't. Mike does get controller-throwing apoplectically angry during play and on camera. I don't think it's an act, I think it's a natural tendency they're exploiting and perhaps exaggerating. I don't think he method acts his anger, wondering what his motivation for getting angry is in the next scene, because when people screw up or his avatar dies he just gets angry. And sometimes it's funny. And sometimes it isn't.

If these were two fictional characters pretending to be married and pretending to fight, it might have been dramatic or interesting or perhaps even funny in the right context. It's not that, though. It was a guy treating his wife like an employee in public. I really hope the whole thing was scripted fiction, but having watched an awful lot of their Minecraft content.... carefully scripted it is not. There are channels that are. That is not one of them. They do lots of build prep (well, other people do) and stage a lot of things, but they are not playing roles in that series, they're just playing themselves. And that was what felt uncomfortable about that episode.