James Rolfe / James D. Rolfe / Angry Video Game Nerd (AVGN) / Rex Viper and Cinemassacre / Screenwave - Now with not much grieving about a 41-year old man still making videos on YouTube. We're the balls on the dick.

[Fenrir Ratatoskr]

This soy faggot youtuber recently put out a hour long video about james, nothing to note but above it all criticism and crying about the cinemassacre truth and calling them "fatphobic misogynists"
Time stamped below

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Probably late take on this but...
I'm neutral on the video. Whilst it was funny to hear him prattle off the shit from James book, and his critique of James(from a film production perspective) was entertaining;
I have 3 major gripes with the vid.

1. "Lady" Emily (as cringe as it is to mention them) did a far better job; chronology-wise, example-wise and gave a more fair assessment of the screenwave controversy than Dan did.
   For comparison...
   Dan characterized the reactions of the fanbase toward AVGN as...
   A. "well AVGN was always shit anyway"
   and
   B. "the criticisms of screenwave were unjustified because '-PHOBIA' , chan chuds, and bad actors"
   To which I would counter:
   A. AVGN got less funny around the Tiger Electronics Video. The acting changed, the format changed, the videos felt rushed, less angry, more boomer-humory. I blame the Movie production and ScreenWave for this. The old vids continue to see perennial success, whereas the new vids don't. He never properly explains this observable point, insisting that AVGN is a "crusty dragon" yet ignoring the fact that people are mad that his original content was far more fun.
   B. Regardless of what technical/managerial issues screenwave "fixed"; they were the wrong kind of people to handle AVGN. Their mindset of turning AVGN to Smosh/RLM, their bad writing(plagiarism), and their ugly PR behavior/retard members did not endear them to the viewer the way James and Mike's autism did before.
2. Framing James as a badish guy, rather than as just an Sperg/denying his importance to the youtube landscape.
   As Null pointed out on his "balls on the dick jimmy" segment on MATI;
   A lot of James behavior in his autobiography could be boiled down to "he has autism; What did you expect?"
   The narrative he has about how James seems to lack self-awareness, felt like Dan's own autism refused to identify the behavior as autistic, and he just wanted to paint James in a sort of backhanded manner as just having a "lack of character" or "being a man baby" which while sort of true, ignores the point that the behavior was an element of his autism, not an inherently "angry jealous filmmaker wannabe" character flaw ala. Doug or the literally hundreds of clones.
   Dan uses this notion to underplay AVGN significance in the realm of youtube critic/video essayist/skit maker history. Yes there was sarcastic reviews and parodies of game culture, but nobody put them all together like James did, and arguably, no one managed to effectively replicate it correctly since. It is reductionist in the extreme to assert that because penny-arcade/sean-baby existed before, AVGN wasn't original. It utterly ignores the fact that he and mike were the only ones to make AVGN the way they did. All the others of that era tried and really only made poor copies.
   He was the genre-maker. He deserves the credit.
3. Dan trying to imply that all of James past work isn't "film" in the same pretentious manner as one would assert Nickelback isn't "real" music. As if to imply that to be real entertainment/stories it has to have some metaphysical essence "Je ne sais quoi", was retarded.
   If a story is technically dysfunctional but still entertaining/engaging, then by definition it fulfills it's purpose. Art is merely meaning inscribed on a medium to entertain/engage an audience. To assert it must have certain "ideas" or "demonstration of qualities the critic expects" is the same bullshit that is killing all media. Stuff needs merely to be entertaining/engaging. That is the only bar. If the writer manages to instill in and the audience finds deeper meaning in it, so be it, but to imply that AVGN is bad because "my feminist social justice warrior inner critic" expects a message, is a weak supposition.
   
   All in all I agreed when Dan eviscerated Nostalgia Critic being a bad critic because Doug's "reviews" are not reviews, so much as they are "summaries with cringe egotistical skits", but this felt under-researched and way too autistic to be a fair assessment of jimmy.
   Overall 8/10 production, 4/10 Writing.
   Cringe.
   Forgive my autist sperging.

 

[Would]

Not trying to defend the lolcow because I find his takes cringe as well. But the CP he had was hentai. It was not actual CP. Still creepy as fuck but context matters. I'm just saying.

Having kiddie fodder of any variety is still indefensible. Only reason he stuck with cartoons is because he can't find the real thing.

 

[BullfrogBill]

Dan trying to imply that all of James past work isn't "film" in the same pretentious manner as one would assert Nickelback isn't "real" music. As if to imply that to be real entertainment/stories it has to have some metaphysical essence "Je ne sais quoi", was retarded.

I can agree with Dan on that. Shit like Jimmy Rolfe vs the Punching Bag and the Snix videos aren't films, they are the equivalent of children playing and it's delusional to think otherwise. Saying those are films is the same thing as saying Sonichu and the Lightbringer are real comics, they aren't. James insisting that his childhood home videos are actual movies is one of my favorite parts of his autism and it always gives me a chuckle.

 

[Fenrir Ratatoskr]

I can agree with Dan on that. Shit like Jimmy Rolfe vs the Punching Bag and the Snix videos aren't films, they are the equivalent of children playing and it's delusional to think otherwise. Saying those are films is the same thing as saying Sonichu and the Lightbringer are real comics, they aren't. James insisting that his childhood home videos are actual movies is one of my favorite parts of his autism and it always gives me a chuckle.

I'm not asserting that they are good. But they do count as deliberately edited media for the purpose of entertainment. Or if you want me to be a definition wielding faggot, "A film is a copyright work which is a recording on any medium from which a moving image may by any means be produced."

I am just persistently annoyed by Dan's annoying habit of trying to use the language of "higher criticism" to imply that they were not "real films" because to him they were bad.
They are "bad" films to be sure by the modern film industry standard of fully competent adults using commercial grade hardware with trained paid actors playing a script; but the intent to tell and/or perform a story or vignette differentiates them from being merely a "recording" or "home video".
Recording is what a person filming a birthday party does. Making a movie is deliberately choosing a premise, recording and editing the material and then releasing it as a finished product.

I am reminded of the short skits early Youtube hosted, and the short animations on newgrounds/ABS, or if you want me to get really pretentious, the films made when movies were just starting to be made.
I also hate to be that guy... But actually, yes; Sonichu and Lightbringer are in fact "real" comics, in just the same way that the disgusting consoomer slop shat into the mouths of Marvel and DC fans are comics, or Japanese pornography scribbles telling a retarded story are comics. Just because they look like shit and are written badly doesn't remove them from being "real comics". There was an effort made. Not a good effort, but competent enough to entertain trolls and watchers.

I am sperging on this point because to me it is inappropriate to assert something isn't "real media" just because it isn't to the standards of other people. It's like saying the Room isn't a film. It manifestly is. It sucks ass, but so does loads of films.
I think it's fair to criticize the plot, writing, art, and craft of a work, it is not to carte blanche assert that they were not attempting to make a film when it is patently obvious that they were.
Jimmy Rolfe vs the Punching Bag is a competent piece of media, when you remember it was a edited 60 second vignette made when he was 9. How many nine year olds in the late 80s had the autistic drive to get the equipment, make a scenario then intentionally film the skit, edit it and preserve it for 30 odd years? Is it not film making that he intended to make a little short about a kid trying to punch a bag and being beaten by the bag? You can't seriously expect Shakespeare from a baby.
The snix is stupid, silly, and bad made/acted, but it's no where near as stupid in my mind as the fact that Disney spent nearly a quarter of a billion dollars making one of the worst animated films ever made, Wish.
TLDR; I am just saying, yes, james films are film. They are ugly, silly and often poorly made; but they are still film. Dan is being a poofy little cine-snob faggot insisting it isn't.
Sorry for ranting/shitting up the thread. Film is my hobby horse. Dan is being pretentious for a former member of CA.

 

[Jobama]

I’m really tired of people trying to say that things you enjoyed when you were younger were always bad and that you just grew out of them. You hear this all the time with franchises that have gone downhill like Star Wars, Halo, or Pokemon. Like @Fenrir Ratatoskr already mentioned, there was a drastic decline in quality after the AVGN movie and the screenwave acquisition. There is no way that an episode like My Horse Prince is on the same level as something like NES accessories. There is an observable decrease in the quality of the humor and cinematography of the episodes.

Null said once when talking about idubbz that YouTubers who have hate fanbases of their former fans get then because they’ll hate with the same passion they had for their videos. There isn’t a dedicated hate community for other old review channels like RLM because they haven’t undergone a significant decline in quality like Cinemassacre has. Even for all of Doug’s faults he doesn’t have a dedicated hate fanbase because even his videos are pretty much the same quality as they always were.

 

[BrunoMattei]

I'm not asserting that they are good. But they do count as deliberately edited media for the purpose of entertainment. Or if you want me to be a definition wielding faggot, "A film is a copyright work which is a recording on any medium from which a moving image may by any means be produced."

You're being intentionally pedantic. Anything filmed by any asshole in the world can be considered a film. By the same measurement, any sound uttered by anything can be considered a song. The posts we write here could be considered writing. Etcetera and etcetera. There is a difference in classification of human achievement and making a home movie where you hit a punching bag when you're 8 is not a fucking movie. And the vast majority of filmmakers all the way from fucking Sam Raimi to even M. Night Shyamalan do not consider the films they made as children and teenagers to be actual films because if you do YOU COME OFF AS A GIANT FUCKING RETARD.

That's just the cold hard truth. Let's move on.

 

[The Cunting Death]

You're being intentionally pedantic. Anything filmed by any asshole in the world can be considered a film. By the same measurement, any sound uttered by anything can be considered a song. The posts we write here could be considered writing. Etcetera and etcetera. There is a difference in classification of human achievement and making a home movie where you hit a punching bag when you're 8 is not a fucking movie. And the vast majority of filmmakers all the way from fucking Sam Raimi to even M. Night Shyamalan do not consider the films they made as children and teenagers to not be actual films because if you do YOU COME OFF AS A GIANT FUCKING RETARD.

That's just the cold hard truth. Let's move on.

Thank you for your short story.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Thank you for your short story.

Thanks for yours, fucker. It's the next Baby shoes.

Here's a new short story:

James is bald.

I'm going to submit that to Chicken Noodle Soup for the Teenage Cunt.

 

[The Cunting Death]

Give it up for Bruno, our new poet laureate!

 

[Carlos Thin]

Yes and no. Jewwario being a rapist is true, but the change the channel faggots muddy the waters by calling someone who already a rapist a pedophile because one of his cat girls identified as 15 when she was 21. The woman Jewwario sexually assaulted was Brad Jones' ex-wife when she was passed out. Who later got in trouble for grooming an underage girl on World of Warcraft years later. Jewwario was caught because he left his Pokémon plushie at the crime scene.

Also when it happened, (Justin got caught leaving the girl’s hotel room as she was passed out) people (?) went to Channel Awesome’s HR (may or may not have been Holly) and they said something to the effect of “oh no, not again.”

Then when he an heroed himself, the people who made tribute videos for him (and monetized) knew about his shenanigans

 

[BrunoMattei]

Also when it happened, (Justin got caught leaving the girl’s hotel room as she was passed out) people (?) went to Channel Awesome’s HR (may or may not have been Holly) and they said something to the effect of “oh no, not again.”

Then when he an heroed himself, the people who made tribute videos for him (and monetized) knew about his shenanigans

Some of them knew. I think Spoony and Bennet the Sage were not in the loop with that. But don't quote me.

 

[mlanguishi]

Some of them knew. I think Spoony and Bennet the Sage were not in the loop with that. But don't quote me.

Pat Contri was the big one. He made 2 videos after, one close and said he was shocked, but didn't want to speculate. After the reveal, he said more or less 'Yeah, everyone knew, he'd massage his young fans and ignore his wife openly' and so on. I hate defending Pat cause he's a shithead, but he seemed to be the only one to say it, later on, that it was some obvious thing as it went. (edit there for clarification.)

Marzgurl did the worst, monetizing both her farewell to kamen rider and her video saying he was a monster. Then she never mentioned it again hardly.

At least Pat has some minor relevance to AVGN, and knew all the goings on at CA.

This is the one that basically said everyone at CA suspected it or were in denial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLDR4HJfheA

This it he earlier one where he was kinda being a two-faced bastard saying Jewwario was a good guy but troubled: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbBH7SEvv-s

 

[Sicko Hunter]

The Cinemassacre truth subreddit is shit but not for the reason the fat balding sex offender looking guy says. The main issue is it's filled with people really determined to paint James as an evil malicious person instead of just lazy and on the autism spectrum. They come up with crazy theories like him stealing money from the AVGN movie kickstarter and all types of shit to justify hating them because they feel personally betrayed someone they watched for years stopped being funny.

 

[PeriodicTrouble]

Yes and no. Jewwario being a rapist is true, but the change the channel faggots muddy the waters by calling someone who already a rapist a pedophile because one of his cat girls identified as 15 when she was 21. The woman Jewwario sexually assaulted was Brad Jones' ex-wife when she was passed out. Who later got in trouble for grooming an underage girl on World of Warcraft years later. Jewwario was caught because he left his Pokémon plushie at the crime scene.

Kitty Marie (who's widely believed to be the Jane Doe in the document) said that she was "physically 18 but mentally 16 at Best". Screaming Mantis was not Brad's wife, just an ex-girlfriend (You're not the only one who made this mistake, Almighty Loli did as well). She didn't get in trouble for grooming a minor, that was Jillian (who was actually Brad's ex-wife) who allegedly did that. I have no clue if that's true or if it was made up. Mantis brought Holly upstairs to her room where when Holly saw Jewwario's Vulpix plushie allegedly said "Oh No Not Again". Which made clear Holly knew what happened and it was not the first time it happened. That was suspicious because Mantis didn't even say what had happened at that point according to Count Jackula's retelling of the events.

All of them covered for it.
Doug covered it because he knew it would tarnish his brand and be a PR nightmare, specially after they (Channel Awesome) all made videos saying he was the most wholesome Jew who ever lived.
The "Change the Channel" collective covered it because JewWario was as much as a proggie tard as they were, and not a good look for their taste in friends. It's why they wouldn't name the Jew in their PDF. We only found out who it was when Doug intentionally let it slip.

CA didn't cover it up because it would tarnish their brand. It was because the victim did an anonymous report because they feared getting harassed by Jewwario's fans. It left very little options but firing the guy and acting like it was a mutual decision considering they can't say what happened as they would have nothing officially on the record to back that up. When Jewwario committed suicide. what the hell do you do? If you mention Jewwario committing sexual assault, what if people don't believe them? What if they think CA made it up in order to ruin Jewwario's reputation when he's no longer able to defend himself? What if they find out it was Mantis that was the victim and harass her as a result of CA bringing up the sexual assault? It's basically a Pandora's box of what could happen once he killed himself. It's a no win scenario for Channel Awesome. So I can't blame them if they just felt the safest option was to memoralize Jewwario and then move on.

 

[Stupid Sexy Flanders]

I’m really tired of people trying to say that things you enjoyed when you were younger were always bad and that you just grew out of them.

I don't think it's that things were necessarily bad, just very specific to a point in time which AVGN was. This is also what causes a disconnect when younger people watch AVGN - it's just outdated by today's standards where it's been so influential on other creators. Personally, I still enjoy going back to old episodes now and then, but if they were produced today to the same quality? They'd seem redundant because we've been there, done that and moved past it. For AVGN to work today, it needs to evolve. That's why things like the Earthbound episode worked quite well.

It's like the le edge humour that populated Internet 1.0 like Maddox. It felt revolutionary at the time, but if you weren't there you might not get it.

 

[demicolon]

Funny thing about the movie kickstarter is that it ended at the tail end of the fiscal year. Nearly a hundred grand just... gone, spirited away by Uncle Sam. No time to write off!

 

[Brother Wind]

How quickly was it adopted, to be fair? Also "hurr durr 1997 was before DVD before YouTube" is an incredibly patronizing thing to say. Like no shit, James, 1997 was before YouTube.

It took awhile to really stick. Like when we got ours in 98, on a PC, Best Buy still wasn't selling many titles. And my Dad spent years even after that to get places to get some movies on DVD. Like we live in the middle of nowhere, so it was a coin flip if Sam Goodys or Best Buy would actually get a new movie on DVD until probably 99/00. That is when DVDs finally took off running. Because the PS2 actually sold a lot of units on the back of being a DVD player. Probably for the cost of some DVD players on the market still. Pretty sure the "latest" movie I watched on VHS was Return of the King, because my buddy didn't have a DVD player in his house quite yet. So we rented it on VHS one night. And I think that was the last time I ever rented one. So like 03 they were pretty much getting everywhere. Even the poor fucks in the middle of nowhere.

God knows we still kept that VCR around a long time to watch Bloodsport for the 80,000th time.

 

[Jobama]

I don't think it's that things were necessarily bad, just very specific to a point in time which AVGN was. This is also what causes a disconnect when younger people watch AVGN - it's just outdated by today's standards where it's been so influential on other creators.

I completely disagree that AVGN is outdated. I don’t want to power level too much but at someone who is actually younger and got into avgn in the mid 2010s I never felt that it had aged poorly or was outdated. I know a lot people who are in my age bracket who are fans of AVGN who got in when they were in middle or high school around the same time as me. AVGN just has a timeless quality to it.

I think a lot of the appeal of AVGN was how he would go over all of the old unique technology like his virtual boy review or NES accessories. I think a lot of people my age liked AVGN because of the more informative reviews when he would cover old hardware. I think that it’s something that he unfortunately doesn’t do as much anymore. Maybe it’s because he’s ran out of things to talk about but there hasn’t been a good hardware review since probably Gameboy accessories.

 

[Carlos Thin]

It took awhile to really stick. Like when we got ours in 98, on a PC, Best Buy still wasn't selling many titles. And my Dad spent years even after that to get places to get some movies on DVD. Like we live in the middle of nowhere, so it was a coin flip if Sam Goodys or Best Buy would actually get a new movie on DVD until probably 99/00. That is when DVDs finally took off running. Because the PS2 actually sold a lot of units on the back of being a DVD player. Probably for the cost of some DVD players on the market still. Pretty sure the "latest" movie I watched on VHS was Return of the King, because my buddy didn't have a DVD player in his house quite yet. So we rented it on VHS one night. And I think that was the last time I ever rented one. So like 03 they were pretty much getting everywhere. Even the poor fucks in the middle of nowhere.

God knows we still kept that VCR around a long time to watch Bloodsport for the 80,000th time.

And VHS was infinity more useful; when we finally got a DVD player in our house (2000ish, I remember having the LOTR trilogy on vhs), we were able to connect it to the VHS player and tape everything. My parents were still going to the electronics store in the 10s buying VHS tapes

 

[Stupid Sexy Flanders]

And VHS was infinity more useful; when we finally got a DVD player in our house (2000ish, I remember having the LOTR trilogy on vhs), we were able to connect it to the VHS player and tape everything.

The ease of use of VHS was really unbeatable - just hit rec and stop when you wanted to stop. No long editing process, no long wait times. Unless you really was a sucker for quality picture / sound it was very practical. If it wasn't for the fact that everything gets put online these days or is available to rip on streaming, I'd probably still use it tbh.