Callum Nathan Thomas Edmunds / MauLer93 / MauLer and the EFAPshere - Objective discussion about not-Channel Awesome featuring Rags, Southpaw and more!

[The Evil Midnight Bomber]

Speaking of Drinker, I noticed in his profile pic, he is seen drinking a bottle of Jack Daniel's. He is very pointedly aiming the label at the camera so the viewer has a clear view of the label.

View attachment 4332336

Just some general thoughts about this.
First, does Brown-Forman know or care about this?
Second, why is a 39-year-old Scotsman boasting he drinks a watered-down 40% American non-Bourbon whiskey when the finest whiskies are being regularly produced in his country of origin?
The guy's entire schtick is that he's getting drunk while reviewing cinema, but even his brand choice of drink is mid-shelf mediocrity.

Yeah if you're gonna drink Jack Daniels on camera at least get one of these:


Or you could get the fancier 65 %er (although Drinker probably took that photo before he had all that e-celeb cash so I can understand him not buying this one):

 

[Cheeseknife]

Gee... I wonder who that could be?

Spoiler

View attachment 4332249

More prevalently are the Chinese, I suspect.

How China Used Hollywood To Build The World’s Biggest Film Market

Erich Schwartzel’s new book reveals how China censored Hollywood and took the industry’s best practices.

www.bloomberg.com

However, I also suspect some of our invaders from the southern border are having their own influence.

https://www.axios.com/2022/03/31/latinos-hollywood-representation-movies

Yeah if you're gonna drink Jack Daniels on camera at least get one of these:
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Or you could get the fancier 65 %er (although Drinker probably took that photo before he had all that e-celeb cash so I can understand him not buying this one):
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Premium Jack is good, but I'd honestly have more respect if the guy was downing an actual Bourbon or a Scotch, like Four Roses or Glenmorangie. Or hell, an Islay with that peaty stuff in it.

 

[PaladinBoo]

I don't even think that needs to happen. The whole Southpaw debacle has hurt them regardless of how much of a fool SK and Southpaw made themselves out to be. They also lost Wolf for whatever reasons he left the internet. And Rags and Fringy don't seem to genuinely like each other, leading to awkward moments like this:

And then there's their beef with Synth over the quality of God of War: Ragnarok. Slowly but surely, the house of cards is beginning to wobble.

God, just from listening to that video you can tell that Mauler and Rags were bullies as kids. This is why I said that Mauler reminds me so much of Ralph. Both of them are insufferable bullies with superiority complexes that like to use their circle jerk of followers to attack and gang up on anybody who calls them out. Also just like Ralph, Mauler is a coward who refuses to go onto another channel without a gaggle of his friends to back him up. God, the internet and its consequences have been a disaster for fat low IQ men the world over.

 

[Hankus McSix]

I don't even think that needs to happen. The whole Southpaw debacle has hurt them regardless of how much of a fool SK and Southpaw made themselves out to be. They also lost Wolf for whatever reasons he left the internet. And Rags and Fringy don't seem to genuinely like each other, leading to awkward moments like this:

And then there's their beef with Synth over the quality of God of War: Ragnarok. Slowly but surely, the house of cards is beginning to wobble.

I'm gonna go for bat for Rags here a bit. There's a lot of times he is insufferable and rude to guests and overall detriment to the show. But in this moment I assume he's been having internet problems on the show he comes in after being put on deaf in Discord and annouces that it's going to be okay and he won't havy any problems.

Meanwhile Fringy is being a weird autist about it - Like he always is. Being very insulted that he didn't get to finish his point and being incredibly butt hurt about it - Which this just happens in normal group conversations with friends. Your friend comes in says something that is relevant and speaks over you and if you don't hone in on that thought you're gonna loose it. No reason to act like a weirdo and a child over it. But hey maybe it's just my dislike of Fringy that makes me more charitable to Rags cause I think Fringy is the most obnoxious autistic retard I've seen on Youtube.

Moving on - Drinker liking GoWR. Not shocked, these people are shallow and they'll never try more obscure Indie games that actually do a way better job at presenting stories and not becomming boring movies in the process. His arguments for the pressence of black people in it is funny for sure, it shows the utter hypocrisy and cements why I never really liked Drinker.
Yeah Drinker it is a fantasy world. The fantasy world is called the Nine Realms and it's based on Norse mythology, the Norse folk were 8th-11th century group of non-Christian Germanic people from the area of Scandinavia and they never ever saw black people.

 

[Shieldman]

Synth mans comment section is based.

Synth and Ptolemy are the only ytubers that give this vibe, wonder if there are more.

Drinker being normie-tier is not really surprising, we have discussed it before. Weird how its easier to tell with videogames than with other mediums.

 

[Cheeseknife]

Synth and Ptolemy are the only ytubers that give this vibe, wonder if there are more.

Drinker being normie-tier is not really surprising, we have discussed it before. Weird how its easier to tell with videogames than with other mediums.

The problem is these guys treated the new GoW games like they were supposed to be judged as a movie despite how horrible the game's mechanics are.

Matthewmatosis showcases much of this, but what this all comes down to is the following:

*Move assist
*Lock-on mechanic breaks with evasive maneuvers from enemies
*Needless RPG mechanics
*Un-skippable walking sequences
*Un-skippable cutscenes
*Braindead puzzles and constant handholding to solve them.
*Runic attacks operate on exploitable cooldowns
*Limited single-shot camera
*Enemies can level up mid-fight
*High level enemies become immune to juggling, freezing ,tripping etc...
*You cannot swap weapons on the fly
*Platforming is all context sensitive
*Poor camera design requires radial attack indicators
*Wall pins are inconsistent with the environment
*Give me God Of War difficulty is a chore to get through due to the inflated health pools of the enemies and bosses

None of this stuff is even remotely talked about nor addressed in a manner that takes the medium for what it is. GoWR is a video game first and foremost and it's not being judged as such. Drinker and EFAP are making it out like this game really only exists for its cinematic experience and they don't spend any time comparing its mechanics to any other game they've played that does what new GoW does, but better.

Matthew lists games like Bayonetta, Godhand, Devil May Cry, The Wonderful 101, Dead Space, Batman: AA, and others that work on numerous mechanics in ways far superior to these new GoW games.

Funnily, Rags also said the game was great even though he also admitted he never played it. For him, it was also about judging the medium according to its cinematic appeal and not its gameplay. He has no idea how atrocious the gameplay is because he just watched someone else play it. Do their viewers not even care that an "objective" analyst is praising a game he hasn't even played?

The funny thing there is you can watch the new GoW games like a movie, but that only reveals another problem. The game is on a linear path from start to finish and the cutscenes take control away from the player. This was a specific advantage playing a video-game medium had versus cinema. In a game like Half-Life which came out almost 20 years ago, you're in complete control during the majority of the game's cinematic moments. Point being, the new GoW games never married gameplay elements with their cinematic elements as the art medium ought to do given what it is.

I've even started a video series covering why the story's structure doesn't work in the format that it currently has.

 

[The Nothingness]

Here is the video where Drinker throws shade at Synth and shows that he to is a fucking grifter. I love how Drinkers excuse for Niggerboda was "It's a fantasy world so its not hard to see people be different races other then white" when he and the others in his grift sphere bitched about that in Rings of Power. Synth is right that all these people in the Fandom Menace care about is going with the popular opinion in order to grift from low IQ and low self esteemed nerds. LotR fans are pissed about the race swaps? Make a shit ton of videos about how righteous their anger is. But if a game you like does the same thing make as many excuses for it as you can.

Meanwhile, Drinker recently makes a video on how male characters have been depicted in modern Western films but how male characters have been depicted in modern Western video games he likes is apparently not an issue.

 

[Kharash]

Meanwhile, Drinker recently makes a video on how male characters have been depicted in modern Western films but how male characters have been depicted in modern Western video games he likes is apparently not an issue.

Synth is definitely right about this phenomena where people(grifters) pretend a thing isn't "woke" when they like it. You can just like something despite it being woke, or any flaws really but suddenly pretending it isn't there is just idiotic.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I saw someone mentioned entertainment for zoomers this days a few pages back and I want to talk more about it.

Barring anime, there is no media to grow up on. And even with anime what we have now barely reaches the cultural significance of the Big Three. The closest thing there was in the west is capeshit but the movies themselves are more marketed for adults than teens or children and were completely forgettable and pandering the last five years.

Unless zoomers want to be anime freaks, the only remaining option is to grow up on social media and networks.

 

[Berrakh]

SJWs and Dangerhairs are basically correct when they say these guys think having a woman do anything important is woke.

Because they don’t think having random black people everywhere is political when that’s honestly more jarring.

 

[The Evil Midnight Bomber]

I kind of get the feeling that there is a lot of crossover between the users of this forum and the people in synth mans comment section.

Spoiler: The farms even get mentioned

 

[Schway]

SJWs and Dangerhairs are basically correct when they say these guys think having a woman do anything important is woke.

Because they don’t think having random black people everywhere is political when that’s honestly more jarring.

Nah they're not, most of the time there's actual woke feminist shit in there when they complain it's just that it's been more or less normalized so the argument is about who has the correct "badass and strong" chicks lol.

Complaining about feminism and gender shit on YouTube is in general way safer than race so they tend to focus on the former rather than the latter.

What I am trying to understand is to what degree are they conscious of the obvious misdirection's and lies they play with this race stuff when it comes to the stuff they like. Do they actually believe the trannies behind GOW are not woke and aren't putting woke shit in the game? They think all these black people in a norse setting is just a curious stylistic choice? It's mind boggling.

From that video you can also notice how they almost play a controlled opposition-like role in the whole politics in media shit. You have to really hammer in the progressive messaging for them to call something woke, but if there's so much as a wiff of (non)-plausible deniability they will eagerly go ahead and attack people calling that piece of media woke as "Thinking everything is woke", "Acting just like the SJWs", "Being outraged by everything" . They are very, very eager to attack their own viewerbase/ostensible side to prove how non-partisan, non-racist, non-outraged and objective they are. Basically if it isn't dead obvious and completely undeniable they will try to shame people out of calling that piece of media woke, and by doing that they move the ratchet on what's considered "woke" or not in media.

These people are in a way more dangerous than the SJWs because of this behavior. Imagine going back 10 years and telling someone that black vikings/black norse gods in games isn't a political statement, that's the overton window shifting.

 

[Berrakh]

Nah they're not, most of the time there's actual woke feminist shit in there when they complain it's just that it's been more or less normalized so the argument is about who has the correct "badass and strong" chicks lol.

Complaining about feminism and gender shit on YouTube is in general way safer than race so they tend to focus on the former rather than the latter.

What I am trying to understand is to what degree are they conscious of the obvious misdirection's and lies they play with this race stuff when it comes to the stuff they like. Do they actually believe the trannies behind GOW are not woke and aren't putting woke shit in the game? They think all these black people in a norse setting is just a curious stylistic choice? It's mind boggling.

From that video you can also notice how they almost play a controlled opposition-like role in the whole politics in media shit. You have to really hammer in the progressive messaging for them to call something woke, but if there's so much as a wiff of (non)-plausible deniability they will eagerly go ahead and attack people calling that piece of media woke as "Thinking everything is woke", "Acting just like the SJWs", "Being outraged by everything" . They are very, very eager to attack their own viewerbase/ostensible side to prove how non-partisan, non-racist, non-outraged and objective they are. Basically if it isn't dead obvious and completely undeniable they will try to shame people out of calling that piece of media woke, and by doing that they move the ratchet on what's considered "woke" or not in media.

These people are in a way more dangerous than the SJWs because of this behavior. Imagine going back 10 years and telling someone that black vikings/black norse gods in games isn't a political statement, that's the overton window shifting.

What I’m trying to say, sneakily, is that they aren’t racist but should be.

 

[Cheeseknife]

I saw someone mentioned entertainment for zoomers this days a few pages back and I want to talk more about it.

Barring anime, there is no media to grow up on. And even with anime what we have now barely reaches the cultural significance of the Big Three. The closest thing there was in the west is capeshit but the movies themselves are more marketed for adults than teens or children and were completely forgettable and pandering the last five years.

Unless zoomers want to be anime freaks, the only remaining option is to grow up on social media and networks.

I don't have kids myself, but a few of my siblings are married and they have kids. Their kids are watching classic stuff and reading books. They have no subscriptions to any modern trash because there's nothing worthwhile to be found. Even Disney's live action remakes of classic animated films get fucked because they can't stop putting smearing their woke bullshit everywhere.

But I've noticed kids at church who are given tablets or cell phones and they are actively watching...stuff. I don't recognize most of it, except maybe PAW Patrol. One thing that's incredibly grating about modern kids' stuff is everyone speaks in this "excited" upward pitch all the fucking time. Nobody has real conversations, all the dialogue is extremely pointed and didactic. In that manner, it's just like modern entertainment where all it does is try to teach you something rather than tell a story.

Thing is, I can watch The Neverending Story today and figure out the entire movie is an analogy for Bastion's coping with and mourning the death of his mother without even having the film tell you that's what's actively going on. You don't really realize that when you're a kid, but you feel it. I don't need to be told that The Goonies is one of the purest forms of coming-of-age ever to be made into a film. That's why moments like Mikey tossing away his inhaler or Chunk giving Sloth a hug and welcoming him into his home stick with you. These kids are really infantile at the film's beginning and by the end, they've become far more mature.

Modern media has this desire to explain everything to us rather than very simply allow a story to speak for itself. Because we aren't trusted to do the correct thinking for ourselves.

Because they don’t think having random black people everywhere is political when that’s honestly more jarring.

The existence of random black people everywhere also contradicts what they've been saying for years about oppression. If the world has been so oppressive, why are they constantly rewriting history as if that wasn't the case and token black people were, in fact, everywhere.

 

[Hankus McSix]

I saw someone mentioned entertainment for zoomers this days a few pages back and I want to talk more about it.

Barring anime, there is no media to grow up on. And even with anime what we have now barely reaches the cultural significance of the Big Three. The closest thing there was in the west is capeshit but the movies themselves are more marketed for adults than teens or children and were completely forgettable and pandering the last five years.

Unless zoomers want to be anime freaks, the only remaining option is to grow up on social media and networks.

It depands. Power level - I'm a zoomer. I won't say specifically how old but I am one of the older members of the generation and I grew up very much with what I'd call classics in terms of entertainment - Warcraft 3, Lord of the Rings etc. etc.

These youngest kids could still have solid media to grow up with if they looked for it, there's great Indie titles being released all the time. And the accessibility to older good media is higher then ever with old video games being easily accessible and cheap on Steam and so on. So it's not doom and gloom, my worry is more so the gen after Gen Z that are currently not interested in video games or movies or God forbid books and instead they're growing up with Tik Tok and this other shit.

I don't personally subscribe to the "Ah this new generation is gonna be shit cause when I grew up things were better" - It all depands. Some are gonna turn out stupid some will turn out fine like every generation before

EDIT: Got a bit lost with the original point but I still felt it was worth putting out.

 

[Kars den Karb]

Here is the video where Drinker throws shade at Synth and shows that he to is a fucking grifter. I love how Drinkers excuse for Niggerboda was "It's a fantasy world so its not hard to see people be different races other then white" when he and the others in his grift sphere bitched about that in Rings of Power. Synth is right that all these people in the Fandom Menace care about is going with the popular opinion in order to grift from low IQ and low self esteemed nerds. LotR fans are pissed about the race swaps? Make a shit ton of videos about how righteous their anger is. But if a game you like does the same thing make as many excuses for it as you can.

I'm also disappointed that Drinker walked away from GOW:R believing the hype, but I don't read this video the same way as you guys. I was under the impression that this was a declaration of war, but it seems to be a polite difference of opinion. He doesn't mention Synth by name or impugn his moral character. There's no doubt he was influenced by Mauler, but their approaches aren't even comparable. I know the internet has kind of inured everyone to extreme tones, but it has to be said that, "I don't think this game is woke because it's sufficiently removed from Norse fantasy" and "this EVIL man is a GRIFTER and also UGLY" aren't even in the same (American) football field, let alone ballpark.

He even supports a couple of Synth's opinions in that the gameplay is "casual" and not very challenging, and that the first part of the game is a walking simulator (he actually says "walking simulator").

I have to stress that I am disappointed, though. The clips Drinker chose, amusingly, seem like lowlights. "Atreus remains [grabs chest]" and "we must do better" are self-evidently better than the random clip from the originals? Really? And Angrboda is ok because this isn't really a Norse mythology story anymore? Lol please, were these games hyped because they brought Norse gods and stories into GOW or not?

Is this grifting on Drinker's part? Impossible to tell how much, but I would lean towards mostly not - and the same for Mauler, too. The game hoodwinked them in the same way Oscar bait attempts to, well, bait the Motion Picture Academy: it went into subject matter that is considered more profound (in this case, the father/son bond) than the stuff of those earthy action movies (revenge cough) and explored it with heavy tones of vulnerability and angst. Because this is by its very nature the exact opposite of the violence you'd expect to see in a GOW story, and because it's a development of Kratos's character, it's already destined for a higher score for being "interesting," especially when you're kind of a normie Gen Xer who, much like David Jaffe himself, is prone to meditating on the softer side of life as he grows older.

Drinker stands on a much more sound foundation than Mauler, but every critic has their soft spot and occasionally makes bad calls, especially when they don't know the IP. I really don't think he has any strong opinions about GOW either way. Not to mention that when most of your career thus far is calling out dumb blockbusters for mangling the Hero's Journey, you tend to overpraise a product that is neither very bad nor very good.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

It depands. Power level - I'm a zoomer. I won't say specifically how old but I am one of the older members of the generation and I grew up very much with what I'd call classics in terms of entertainment - Warcraft 3, Lord of the Rings etc. etc.

These youngest kids could still have solid media to grow up with if they looked for it, there's great Indie titles being released all the time. And the accessibility to older good media is higher then ever with old video games being easily accessible and cheap on Steam and so on. So it's not doom and gloom, my worry is more so the gen after Gen Z that are currently not interested in video games or movies or God forbid books and instead they're growing up with Tik Tok and this other shit.

I don't personally subscribe to the "Ah this new generation is gonna be shit cause when I grew up things were better" - It all depands. Some are gonna turn out stupid some will turn out fine like every generation before

EDIT: Got a bit lost with the original point but I still felt it was worth putting out.

I don't like having the newest generation being pretty much forced to live on the past of the previous generations, culture should move forward, not backwards. Having an indie scene is good, but like with anime, the amount of people it would appeal to is limited.

I don't think we can even say that the things in the new generation are worse than previous. There is outright no new things - no big games, no big budget movies, literature is just YA copycats even more pozzed and music is a nightmare.

 

[Cheeseknife]

Is this grifting on Drinker's part?

Why are you even looking at what's in the video to determine this? Just look at his subs. Look at how much he's capitalizing on the algorithm. He has a channel is full of coverage of trailers despite the fact that people familiar with the industry know trailers don't always give you a worthwhile grasp of what the final product will actually be. He continually trashes Marvel but continually fills his channel with Marvel.

Why would a film critic who loves the art -orm continually to pay homage to people and media they have said are decidedly bad for the art-form?

Why is he giving so much attention to media that he has said Western audiences are flocking to Eastern media?

Stop associating huge numbers with quality. Nothing he says in that video gives any indication he did anything other than copy-paste someone else's reviews and smatter a bit of his own glib within.

Yes, he's definitely watching the narrative and picking whatever side butters his bread. You must have missed this part, but Synth specifically points out that Drinker left his "criticism" section at the end of his video purposely because, by that time, most of his viewer will have tuned him out. That's what this business is all about. These guys aren't even remotely on the level of actual film criticism, this is just click-bait, rage-bait for anyone who isn't looking for anything so serious as to acknowledge engage the medium as it is.

 

[Kars den Karb]

View attachment 4334922

Why are you even looking at what's in the video to determine this? Just look at his subs. Look at how much he's capitalizing on the algorithm. Stop associating huge numbers with quality. Nothing he says in that video gives any indication he did anything other than copy-paste someone else's reviews and smatter a bit of his own glib within.

Yes, he's definitely watching the narrative and picking whatever side butters his bread. You must have missed this part, but Synth specifically points out that Drinker left his "criticism" section at the end of his video purposely because, by that time, most of his viewer will have tuned him out. That's what this business is all about. These guys aren't even remotely on the level of actual film criticism, this is just click-bait, rage-bait for anyone who isn't looking for anything so serious as to acknowledge engage the medium as it is.

The problem I have with this model is that it doesn't predict different results than the critical rubric that Drinker has rolled out for several years. The Prey trailer did send mostly the wrong signals, while the movie remedied several of the usual female protagonist failings - she was lucky as well as skilled, survived on her wits instead of her feats, never was dominant over the antagonist, portrayed a clear sense of danger, wasn't even the best fighter in her group, etc. I find his review a little easygoing but mostly consistent with his previous work.

He's riding the algorithm, obviously, but the GOW:R video is the first time I can think of that he's stepped in a serious self-contradiction.

As far as real film criticism: of course it doesn't apply to any of this stuff. This is catharsis, news, entertainment, parasocial bonding, recommendations, very basic dramatic theory, and a little bit politics. But this also describes Synth's content, and his criticism of Drinker isn't about the specificity of the content so much as Drinker and other youtubers holding back on the really uncomfortable stuff because they want to make money. And maybe this is where I diverge from you and him: I don't care as much if they hold something back. However, it's a whole other matter to acknowledge certain things and defend them.

 

[Idiotron]

Barring anime, there is no media to grow up on.

Unless zoomers want to be anime freaks, the only remaining option is to grow up on social media and networks.

That is just not true.
There are shows for children like Paw Patrol, Peppa Pig or Spongebob as well as tons of other ones that adults just have no clue about unless they're parents (seriously, I looked it up and kids today have more choice than my millenial ass ever had).
As far as movies go, if we remove the ones trying to push some ideology, just this year we had The Bad Guys, Minions 2, League of Superpets, Sonic 2 and Puss in Boots 2 which is a really good movie in general.

There's plenty of stuff for both kids and adults, don't let the MauLer types color your worldview.