Yknow what I personally find very sad about all this? I remember back when GG first started and it was just Jon and Arin mindless rambling and cracking weird jokes while they played mega man or Kirby I saw people endlessly posting shit about them everywhere online while everyone kinda bonded over all their favorite moments and praised the two for taking something as relatively bland and niche as Let’s Plays and make them into something entertaining enough that anyone with a goofy sense of humor could enjoy. As much as everyone likes to poke fun at how crazy and lame this shit is now, when it started out it was actually something that breathed new life into the geeky YT scene and it got a lot of people interested in the concept of making Let’s plays more akin to chill podcasts and whatnot. But you don’t really see much of that stuff anymore. They’ve been greatly overshadowed by other channels that copied the formula, but tweaked it around elaborated it until it became something that stood out on its own, while Arin pretty much yanked out all the fun and soul that used to make the channel entertaining in exchange for turning into what can only be described as some strange unfunny Fox sitcom in the form of two guys half-heartedly playing games and repeating the same few jokes over and over again. Outside their own fandom and their hatedom nobody really seems to acknowledge anything about them anymore. They’ve become this weird entity that everyone knows exists but doesn’t really find them worthy of conversation anymore. Honestly for somebody who’s watched this shit unfold since high school it’s really jarring watching how it’s warped and slithered itself down this path of big name mediocrity, especially given how exciting that shit was at the start.
It’s like that old playground you used to hang out on as a kid. You had so many memories of swinging around and having mindless fun and making new friends in this cool colorful little landscape that always seemed to bring something new each day, but one day while you’re driving out to finish some errands you finally see it again and it’s this sad barren little place filled with overgrown weeds and old rusty metal with swasticas and dicks painted all over it. It’s still there, but now it’s something that could never live up to the old memories you have of it.