I'll cut it off here before I write a blog post on accident, But I would encourage anyone reading this to stop and ask yourself where you were when you learned who Jim was and compare to where you are now. Im sure Jim didnt completely shift your life, but he did make you laugh, maybe even taught you a lesson or introduced a perspective.
Was definitely a perspective thing for me. I vaguely remember watching some Jim's earlier stuff, but Quinnspiracy Theory is the one that made me pay attention to him.
Jim had already ditched the IA persona by that point, though I don't think he'd rebranded yet. I had steadfastly ignored all of the political bullshit around video games, and had literally no idea what GamerGate was despite hearing about it everywhere. However, watching that video made something click. Some people point to the 2016 election as the moment we entered clown world, but I have a distinct, crystal clear memory of the day that all of the gaming websites I casually browsed all of a sudden started churning out articles about how gamers are all toxic, white, virgin nerds and how that needed to change, blah blah blah.
That moment left such a clear impression for two reasons:
1. It was shocking to see publications just openly shit all over it's intended audience like that. (Which is practically passe nowadays)
2. From that point on, it felt like you couldn't go ANYWHERE online and not be constantly bombarded with propaganda and political arguments.
So, Jim's videos explaining (and proving) that this was all orchestrated really gave me some much needed perspective, and cynicism. In the latter case, A Bigot's Dollar demonstrates that all of the left-wingers are just useful idiots for governments and mega-corps, so best not to sperg out about the pawns too much.
This is good to know because it seems like everyone I know (half of whom never gave the faintest shit about politics) came down with an explosively bad case of TDS, and basically all have stereotypical Reddit politics. (I even know one who uses "chud" in an unironic negative way lol)
So, in conclusion, despite some of the talk about people putting Jim on a pedestal, it's actually the opposite for me. I find him (and Josh) relatable. A reminder of the humour, culture and times before the entire normalfag world got online through smartphones and collectively lost their fucking minds, a reminder that the Internet isn't real and calling someone a niggerfaggot on it is not some kind of immoral act. A reminder that, at the end of the day, it's all pretty fucking funny, and not to take yourself too seriously.