Let's Players originating from Something Awful - ft. VoidBurger, General Ironicus, Bob Kamoc

[Tennis Monkey]

Quite conveniently a new video on the Retsupurae channel illustrates a point I want to make. Look at the following:

I saw noticed that video had been posted, and thought "Oh, someone's been nagging enough for some new content; here's some filler to try and keep the slavering mob at bay." Didn't even bother watching it.

There is a distinct difference between Retsupurae's audience and "slowbeef's audience". The former is self-aware enough to call out hypocrisy and shit content when they see it and just want funny old videos back.

I'd definitely agree that, with some exceptions, the quality on Retsupurae is generally higher than anything on Slowbeef's own channel. Slowbeef's managed to escape the full lolcow treatment until now, but sometimes you have to wonder how long it's going to be before he earns his own thread just like DarkSydePhil.

 

[proteus4994]

If I may powerlevel a smidge: I am also an internet creator...<snip>

Yeah, I'm way late addressing this (been busy irl lately) but I agree totally with what you said. I realized it probably sounded like I was shitting on Internet creators and I wasn't. What I meant was, when you're playing video games for the Internet FOR A LIVING at the age of 30, it has to be a bit depressing when you wake up one morning and realize that is your life. I'm all in favor of creating shit for fun. Hell, I did it myself. But when you try to turn it into a career, it sucks the fun out of it and it just becomes an obligation like any other job. And personally, when it gets to that point I'd rather just have a normal job where my expectations are set by middle management and not by a bunch of Youtube commenters.

Basically...

Art should be a thing you do in spite of revenue, not because of it. That's how I always saw it at least.

That used to be the entire idea behind the LP forum. That's why we shit on "trying to make money". You should be doing it because it's fun and you're having fun. If you make some money because of it, awesome! But money should never be the driving force behind art, I could not agree more.

 

[Alec Benson Leary]

Yeah, I'm way late addressing this (been busy irl lately) but I agree totally with what you said. I realized it probably sounded like I was shitting on Internet creators and I wasn't. What I meant was, when you're playing video games for the Internet FOR A LIVING at the age of 30, it has to be a bit depressing when you wake up one morning and realize that is your life. I'm all in favor of creating shit for fun. Hell, I did it myself. But when you try to turn it into a career, it sucks the fun out of it and it just becomes an obligation like any other job. And personally, when it gets to that point I'd rather just have a normal job where my expectations are set by middle management and not by a bunch of Youtube commenters.

Basically...



That used to be the entire idea behind the LP forum. That's why we shit on "trying to make money". You should be doing it because it's fun and you're having fun. If you make some money because of it, awesome! But money should never be the driving force behind art, I could not agree more.

Oh I took your point and I wasn't offended, I agree with you completely. When you are in your 4th decade on earth and you have no resume and your only income is from something that might dry up without notice because 1) the tastes of the audience change or are captured by someone who figures out the next new hotness, 2) no one can shut up about their extremist political views and you may be unpersoned for saying one wrong thing, or 3) because lets plays are a cottage industry entirely dependent on Google/YouTube not deciding your content that doesn't break the rules should still be demonetized anyway... there's a desperation that will manifest that turns you into a snarling, rabid attack dog who will poison their own content to fight every shadow.

That the culture of SA used to wisely say "this shit is for expression and fun only" and seemed to switch overnight at some point is dumbfounding. I think people like voidburger and slowbeef and others said "should I worry about retiring one day when I'm old?" and as I said, it's a lot more difficult to brush that question off when you're 30 and can't even pay the cable bill than when you're 18 and living at home (and dad pays the cable bill). It's also really odd how this frantic realization that they need to make money to live grew at about the same timeframe as all the glorification of communism/abolition of money as a construct. Weren't they more supportive of communist ideals when they were making their craft without consideration for money?

...well not really because they were living off daddy's money in the suburbs, but you get my point. Anti-money philosophy only lasts as long as the dog's food dish stays filled. When reality hits and their stomachs start growling, suddenly it's "money is terrible and capitalism is evil but don't forget to like and subscribe and donate to my patreon".

 

[CrayolaFuckinModelMagic]

I don't know why Bob gets antsy over it, it's like being mad over MST3K.

:autism:
No really, :autism:
Bob is a special flavor of exceptional. While Void, Slowbeef and Ironicus make "hilarious" jabs at anyone they deem deserving, only to profusely back-peddle and make limp excuses when they stumble in towing the regressive left party line due to the lack of a spine, Bob is triggered by a review channel that makes jokes at the expense of people as dense as he is. Really, Bob has a lot in common with Chris and other people with whom also have autism. You make a comment in jest that is untrue and they just can't help but sperg out with a "um actually, that's untrue, and here's a diatribe as to why you're incorrect. I'll need an hour to explain this in detail." It's kind of of sad, actually. Can you imagine being Bob and stressing over obvious fucking jokes?

 

[BlueSpark]

The recent solo stream of himself playing videosgames and taking callers that Slowbeef uploaded to the Retsupurae channel garnered a lot of controversy in the comments. People are still bickering, days later.

Some autist named David Wessel is so desperate to white-knight Slowbeef that he allegedly made death threats, then deleted them.

Spoiler: Long vertical screenshot of the Youtube comments

 

[Tennis Monkey]

That the culture of SA used to wisely say "this shit is for expression and fun only" and seemed to switch overnight at some point is dumbfounding.

I wasn't around at the time but I get the impression that there was a bit of gold fever. Once the word got around that one or two people had struck lucky and were making money from playing games ("Wait, so I don't need to get a real job!"), there was a mad rush, and no-one thought through the details any more than most people who headed to California in 1849 thought through the long-term implications of being a gold prospector.

 

[Manah]

Both that Tol E Emmet and David Weasel dude are both exceedingly autistic.

That aside, I'd personally rather beef just stopped uploading stuff if it's going to be as awful as this; and I used to be a huge fan of theirs.

 

[CrayolaFuckinModelMagic]

That video was so inappropriate for the channel that I completely forgot about it in minutes, much like the Kickstarter Nonstarters. Apparently I even commented on it a few times. It's that easy to forget the brand new direction Retsupurae is going, so I foresee good things on the horizon!

 

[Terror Rism]

a channel created to make fun of people not adhering to a standard of quality is obviously the only place to put an unedited time filler stream i did on a tuesday with my friends where we don't talk about a game i was already gonna play for 90 minutes

i know it's hard to not be :autism: and talk about "artistic integrity" with stupid internet videos, but i think one of the major reasons people fondly remember the freelance astronauts and the tipping forties types of LP groups is because they didn't start using their official group channels to post irrelevant personal content and then get egotistic and annoying about it; they left it alone after their personality grew to conflict with creating that content anymore (as it does with almost everyone) or at least kept the content on-topic when they did feel like creating some.

to point out someone that illustrates my point well, Docfuture's one of the older SA content makers and sometimes goes a year or two without posting a video, but they're almost always well-made and more importantly, tonally and artistically identifiable as a Docfuture video. a slowbeef stream today does not in any way feel like the same asocial programmer/content maker slowbeef that would insult people or even outright steal (x) peoples (x) videos (x) for humor; and it's a little disheartening to see him fuck with the overall level of quality of what was a group effort in return for a very small amount of self-promotion that'll probably amount to another 15$ a month.

 

[What?]

I think the only recent Retsupurae videos that were any good is when Tie Tuesday and Slowbeef watched this Russian patent company's concept videos for crazy impractical things.
The company found them and had them taken down but they are still around as "Hidden videos"
12-20 on this list are the videos I'm talking about, also there's infamous ones like the DSP retsupurae in there too.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyTjhEgyReV9gS7OOeyYXHsCtPjeNdLmh

 

[proteus4994]

I wasn't around at the time but I get the impression that there was a bit of gold fever. Once the word got around that one or two people had struck lucky and were making money from playing games ("Wait, so I don't need to get a real job!"), there was a mad rush, and no-one thought through the details any more than most people who headed to California in 1849 thought through the long-term implications of being a gold prospector.

It was kind of a two-shot. Money was one factor, and Deceased Crab was the big catalyst. He was making big money (remember this was 2006-2007, so "big money" on Youtube was like $250/mo or so). There was also less of the demanding standards that SA typically placed on Youtube. If your Unregistered Hypercam 2 video sucked, SA would rip it apart (as we regularly did with DC), whereas Youtube would eat it up because their standards are much less demanding.

I'd say it was a combination of the two that pushed people to Youtube. But you're right, money was one of the big factors.

 

[Manah]

I think the only recent Retsupurae videos that were any good is when Tie Tuesday and Slowbeef watched this Russian patent company's concept videos for crazy impractical things.
The company found them and had them taken down but they are still around as "Hidden videos"
12-20 on this list are the videos I'm talking about, also there's infamous ones like the DSP retsupurae in there too.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyTjhEgyReV9gS7OOeyYXHsCtPjeNdLmh

I think the longplays can be pretty good still. The Jack Orlando one going on right now made me laugh.

As... Strange as 'beef's gotten lately, I still think he's got a great chemistry with Diabetus and they're really funny together. It's when he's not with him that things start to fall apart.

 

[CrayolaFuckinModelMagic]

All right, I'll bite. What is this demonetized shrimp video thing?
http://imgur.com/s7IwCGd

 

[BuckBumble]

This thing.

AKA Unfunny midlife crisis man eats shrimp to Witcher Music.

 

[Tennis Monkey]

As... Strange as 'beef's gotten lately, I still think he's got a great chemistry with Diabetus and they're really funny together. It's when he's not with him that things start to fall apart.

The shrimp video is really a classic example of that. It's like he can't tell the difference between "stupid but funny" and "plain stupid."

Slowbeef is never good when he tries to do comedy without a partner - Diabetus seems to work best, but he can be funny with other people too. He should really stick to playing it straight when he does solo videos.

 

[CrayolaFuckinModelMagic]

Slowbeef is never good when he tries to do comedy without a partner - Diabetus seems to work best, but he can be funny with other people too. He should really stick to playing it straight when he does solo videos.

What I find with Slowbeef is that his comedy is more passive and reactionary, while Diabetus' is more active. Watch just about any Retsupurae video and count the times this formula pops up:

*Funny thing happens in video*
*Betus makes off-the-wall comment about it*
*Slowbeef laughs*
*Slowbeef makes general statement summarizing the funny thing that happened in the video*

 

[BlueSpark]

Unfunny midlife crisis man eats shrimp to Witcher Music.

DSP's masturbating on stream was more dignified than this. And more humorous.

 

[Manah]

What I find with Slowbeef is that his comedy is more passive and reactionary, while Diabetus' is more active. Watch just about any Retsupurae video and count the times this formula pops up:

*Funny thing happens in video*
*Betus makes off-the-wall comment about it*
*Slowbeef laughs*
*Slowbeef makes general statement summarizing the funny thing that happened in the video*

slowbeef was a lot more funny when he was passionate/angry about videos.

 

[CrayolaFuckinModelMagic]

slowbeef was a lot more funny when he was passionate/angry about videos.

Oh yeah, the best stuff of his by far is his rage over shitty LPs of his favorite games.

 

[BlueSpark]

Bearpigman, one of the leftist let's play hangers-on (and one of the few that actually uses Bob Kamoc's shitty LP forum) is apparently one of the creepy followers of Alison Rapp (credit to @Hellfire for archiving the tweets in the Rapp thread).
He also supports political violence against Trump supporters:

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