- Joined
- Aug 21, 2018
I have my own theory which I want to share, its a little shallow but I think it does explain a lot.
Ralph is terminally online... but not in the way you think.
Ralph is in the enviable position in that all of his money comes from donations by people online, if he's not online, he's not growing his base then he's not gonna make more money, so I think he has to be online almost 24/7 and protect his brand and make sure nothing happens to jeopardise his relationship with his pay pigs. This is why he calls Gator his "best friend in the whole wide world" even though they literally only met once in Knoxville, he's online all the time and Gator did play a big part in Ralph maintaining a community and in turn a semi-stable revenue stream.
This dichotomy between the fact that Ralph needs his audience to make money and that his audience is shrinking is what makes him so thin-skinned and explains a lot of his actions. He told Jim that all he needs a stream is $200 and that is honestly getting harder and harder for him to achieve in recent weeks.
The reason why he doesn't mind destroying Gators life and going hard on any detractors is because he believes that people talking shit about him online is ruining his life.
In Ralphs brain, if he becomes the next Mundane Matt (losing all of his online income because people made fun of him) he will end up with no income and maybe be like Matt in having to drive Uber eats to pay the bills.
Thats why I believe Ralph is incapable of separating real life from online life, the online IS his life because it's where his money comes from, he has no Plan B, he has no safety net. If you make fun of Ralph, he will have to try and either spin it as a win and if he cant, he will try to destroy you.
I also think this is why he likes going to Vegas. When he's in Vegas he doesn't stream and he doesn't have to risk losing followers by being a sperg online, in Vegas he is quite good at being offline.
Ralph is terminally online... but not in the way you think.
Ralph is in the enviable position in that all of his money comes from donations by people online, if he's not online, he's not growing his base then he's not gonna make more money, so I think he has to be online almost 24/7 and protect his brand and make sure nothing happens to jeopardise his relationship with his pay pigs. This is why he calls Gator his "best friend in the whole wide world" even though they literally only met once in Knoxville, he's online all the time and Gator did play a big part in Ralph maintaining a community and in turn a semi-stable revenue stream.
This dichotomy between the fact that Ralph needs his audience to make money and that his audience is shrinking is what makes him so thin-skinned and explains a lot of his actions. He told Jim that all he needs a stream is $200 and that is honestly getting harder and harder for him to achieve in recent weeks.
The reason why he doesn't mind destroying Gators life and going hard on any detractors is because he believes that people talking shit about him online is ruining his life.
In Ralphs brain, if he becomes the next Mundane Matt (losing all of his online income because people made fun of him) he will end up with no income and maybe be like Matt in having to drive Uber eats to pay the bills.
Thats why I believe Ralph is incapable of separating real life from online life, the online IS his life because it's where his money comes from, he has no Plan B, he has no safety net. If you make fun of Ralph, he will have to try and either spin it as a win and if he cant, he will try to destroy you.
I also think this is why he likes going to Vegas. When he's in Vegas he doesn't stream and he doesn't have to risk losing followers by being a sperg online, in Vegas he is quite good at being offline.
I don't believe that Ralph is looking for a father figure in his life. While this is true that boys of single parents tend to look for a father figure in their life, they normally stop this by the time they turned 30. By then people who haven't found a father figure in their life have already rationalised it with themselves internally that they do not need a father figure.
