What is the appeal of DSP?

[Preacher ✝]

Howdy DSP subforum users. I'm Preacher and I've never posted here before.

Hearing Null discuss the recent subforum drama on MATI reminded me this place exists, and reading his posts on the new Meta thread and his rant thread inspired me to make this post.

He's encouraging y'all to branch out and explore other parts of the site, but I want to provide the opportunity for y'all to explain the appeal to the rest of us and maybe draw some new eyes here.

My knowledge of DSP comes entirely from Jim strems, MATI, and Turkey Tom's video as background noise.

I know he's fat and I would not have sex with him. I know he's bad at video games and managing money, I know about the fapping incident and how he got his start in the FGC.

However when I hear about DSP these days it all just sounds like more of the same. As if he's stagnated like Chris Chan did for a while before the arrest.

Thus I ask y'all, what is the appeal of DSP?

Thanks for reading, may peace be with you.

 

[Givi]

What the fuck kind of gay shit is this?

 

[DiggieSmalls]

he's an acquired taste

 

[Cats]

I personally can't listen to the dude speak for too long, his whiney voice and faggoty mannerisms really just put me off big time. I sometimes just casually follow his nonsense from what other people here talk about, or if I get a recommended video update from Tevin or someone. I have a friend who keeps up with him as a lolcow. But yeah I personally just cannot suffer the manchild.

Seeing him work his particular grift is frustrating, too. I don't like frustrating things, so I usually avoid watching any content made by DSP.

 

[FamicomGorby]

I think it's basically the same appeal that someone like Bossmanjack has, though not as violent. Basically just someone who never learns anything. I don't think most people pay attention to Phil every day, and Phil definitely has lulls where nothing interesting happens. But when something breaks his routine it's fun to watch Phil bash at a problem like a caveman, completely unable to handle a new challenge.

 

[Unsane]

What the fuck kind of gay shit is this?

He's the son of a preacher man.

 

[Citizen Nappa]

The appeal is seeing a middle-aged “man” fuck up at every single opportunity. I’m not sure Phil has ever made a good decision in his entire life.

 

[Near]

Thus I ask y'all, what is the appeal of DSP?

Go watch one of the old This Is How You Don't Plays, like San Andreas or MGS3. Then come back to me with your findings, homie.

 

[Lei Wulong's Left Leg]

I've personally watched DSP on and off since around the Sons of Kojima era and while I'm sure my opinion is tainted by sunk cost fallacy, my view is pretty straightforward: DSP is a fascinating case study of delusional thinking and pure circumstance. No other cow can make something as simple as a gambling addiction enticing just by how desperate he is to pretend he isn't hooked or sinking thousands of dollars a week into it.
Take for example, Fat Patrick Tomlinson. Sure, he spends a great amount of time on Xitter ensuring his stalker children enjoy prison, but you don't see him whining about having to pretend he got robbed, or have a huge karen spiel about a burger king chicken sandwich having too much sauce on it, or his mo- i mean, his wife having an ingrown nail or whatever the hell. He's an extremely boring man for whom the slightest of changes is a gargantuan, life-changing event that must be spoken of for years.
My personal interest is in how Phil walks the constantly thinning line of delusion as it becomes more and more evident that he's a scammer, that the only people that watch him are retards, and that the number one threat to his own livelihood is Phillip Paul Burnell himself. As someone who's shared a similar headspace of complacency before, I find it intriguing to see just how deep the rabbithole goes for him.
Now if he were just circling the drain non-stop, it would be one thing, but no - Phil constantly shirks deals and improvements to his living that would be beneficial to his "career" if you'd call it that - It's genuinely shocking how very similar he is to known FGC personality Aris "AvoidingThePuddle" Bahktanis and how many traits the two share, but Phil just...Doesn't get it.

Spoiler: The Aris-Phil matchup

Aris and Phil both:

1. Treat their chat like sub-par underlings
2. Ban chat members over stupid reasons and talking back
3. Have a low effort stream setup(Aris still uses a shitty microsoft webcam that pitch-shifts to green constantly)
4. Talk for extended periods of time and go on bizarre tangents and stories
5. Are bad at videogames
6. Complain non-stop
7. Play fighting games and despise online play in favor of offline
8. Have a bizarre anti-laugh
9. Burp constantly
10. Have a very caustic, sarcastic sense of humor
11. Have made it to the top level of competitive fighting games in their game of choice(Aris in SC2, Phil in SF 2 super turbo neo geo edition lmao)

And yet, Aris is popular, funny, beloved by his chat, doesn't E-beg, generally has a good time on stream, and has a long-lasting legacy in the fighting game community, whereas Phil is a laughingstock on par with LowTierGod.

Much like a dilapidated condo slowly falling into disrepair as a result of its owner, I can't watch it 24/7, but it's very entertaining to poke my nose in from time to time to see the new damage.

 

[Preacher ✝]

Go watch one of the old This Is How You Don't Plays, like San Andreas or MGS3. Then come back to me with your findings, homie.

I get that but what about something recent. What keeps people coming back. Is there really enough to justify a whole subforum or is this merely a containment board?

 

[Near]

I get that but what about something recent. What keeps people coming back. Is there really enough to justify a whole subforum or is this merely a containment board?

Can't help you there my guy. He's pretty fucking boring now. Ocasionally there's a crisis that will slightly inconvenience him, and he'll try to dress it up as the end of the world. If you've seen one of his crisis sagas, you've basically seen all of them.

 

[RIPRhongoBongo]

Check the SideScrollers interview from last May and you'll see how he interacts with real people he can't just ban. It's sagas like that and the Twitch departner arc that keep me interested

 

[Cyber Bowling]

You're not wrong about it largely being more of the same, but it is a little more than that. For me, it's part of the appeal. I know that no matter what he's streaming, Phil is going to go on some sort of angry rant and constantly make poor decisions. The reason it isn't completely stagnant is, with a few notable dry spells, he somehow manages to go off the rails in a way I'd never predict.

I mentioned it in...one of the other threads when the Phil drama was starting, but one of my favorite examples is Phil getting pissed at BK. I'll give the quick abridged version, it was his wife's birthday, he failed to make a reservation for lunch, so went to BK. He then proceeded to get completely assblasted about his sandwich having too much mayo on it, but he was too much of a coward to just go inside or even go through the drive through again. He proceeded to angrily rant about it, first on Twitter, then on his prestream, and he harbored a grudge off and on for several months. I mean, I'm sure he still hasn't forgotten about it, he just isn't talking about it anymore.

More recently, there was a bit of drama where he alluded to being robbed, then when his fans (or detractors pretending to be fans) showed concern, he both tried to back peddle and play it up as some big event, only to reveal that he left his cart unattended and someone moved his stuff.

The most recent surprise from a few days ago was Phil bringing his wife on, who has put on a lot of weight. He proceeded to, most likely unintentionally, make several fat jokes at her expense.

It's just little things like that. I've always thought of Phil as a bit of a guilty pleasure cow. He's the human equivalent of a reality TV show or sitcom that you wouldn't want to openly admit to watching because you know it's trash. I also find Phil a little easier to stomach than other cows because he rarely does anything that actually upsets me or gets under my skin, unlike some other cows. He's largely an isolated hermit who has no real influence or contact with the rest of the world, so after reading a thread that can actually be upsetting or come close to making me angry, it's nice to unwind and see what whacky and incompetent adventures Phil is getting up to today.

 

[Preacher ✝]

I've personally watched DSP on and off since around the Sons of Kojima era and while I'm sure my opinion is tainted by sunk cost fallacy, my view is pretty straightforward: DSP is a fascinating case study of delusional thinking and pure circumstance.

Much like a dilapidated condo slowly falling into disrepair as a result of its owner, I can't watch it 24/7, but it's very entertaining to poke my nose in from time to time to see the new damage.

This makes a lot of sense. A combination of sunk cost fallacy, a genuinely compelling original premise, and only checking in on occasion.

Can't help you there my guy. He's pretty fucking boring now. Ocasionally there's a crisis that will slightly inconvenience him, and he'll try to dress it up as the end of the world. If you've seen one of his crisis sagas, you've basically seen all of them.

That's the vibe I was getting but I didn't want to jump to conclusions. This begs the question, do you consider this a containment board or is it a justified subforum?

In otherwords, would a single Phil thread suffice these days?

 

[DeeTracktor]

DarksydePhil is robust and flavorful

 

[Lei Wulong's Left Leg]

That's the vibe I was getting but I didn't want to jump to conclusions. This begs the question, do you consider this a containment board or is it a justified subforum?

In otherwords, would a single Phil thread suffice these days?

In all honesty? Maybe. I think some consideration must be made to DSP's fans(Derich and CoffeeCuck are long overdue for threads in my opinion) but much of this board personally strikes me as fluff that could easily be rolled into an actual megathread instead of these piece-mail subthreads.

 

[Cyber Bowling]

That's the vibe I was getting but I didn't want to jump to conclusions. This begs the question, do you consider this a containment board or is it a justified subforum?

In otherwords, would a single Phil thread suffice these days?

I know it wasn't directed at me, but IMO, justified. A single thread would move too fast because there's various elements of the goutsphere going on. Phil plays a lot of games, and while I don't think every game is thread worthy, some of the "bigger" ones are, so the thread can become a mess when people are watching at different times and trying to discuss different games. There's also specific detractors and fans that get bursts of attention that would clog up active conversations, or topics like the recent documentary, all the Khet shenanigans and his WWE spending. It's also convenient to have threads for the big "events" so people who don't catch them live can get caught up without having to sort through several topics in a single thread. IIRC, before we had the subforum, the thread was usually getting 5-8 pages each day covering a variety of things and it was a mess to really follow. Even now, it's arguably not the most organized forum, but even having just a few separate threads really does a lot to make it possible to keep up with everything going on and skim/ignore the parts certain people find uninteresting.

 

[Preacher ✝]

In all honesty? Maybe. I think some consideration must be made to DSP's fans(Derich and CoffeeCuck are long overdue for threads in my opinion) but much of this board personally strikes me as fluff that could easily be rolled into an actual megathread instead of these piece-mail subthreads.

That's not surprising. Quite frankly I felt the same about the Gunt board until it was modified to include the entire Sektur, though I still think that board should just be called "Da Sektur" since its a cleaner look and it could still mention Ralph in the description.

Even the Chris Chan subforum is kinda at the point where it could be a megathread, but I genuinely think that needs to be a containment board.

 

[Balr0g]

I get that but what about something recent. What keeps people coming back. Is there really enough to justify a whole subforum or is this merely a containment board?

To be honest kind of a morbid curiosity how Phil will actually end. He is probably one of the longest burning trashfires on the Internet and he is still burning...well more like twinkling these days. Maybe also a cautionary tale on how to waste every opportunity life has handed to you on a silver platter. Because imho Phil had so much opportunities and often just skates through problems where "normal people" would be sweating bullets (14 credit cards for maintaining a YT career that consists of sitting on your ass playing games badly anyone?) it is something to behold.

 

[Joshuan Moon]

DSP is pretty much a miles wide and inches deep type cow. There isn't really anything super special but there's a lot of content that already exists and a ton of content being produced daily. The challenge is that the nuggets of humor are hidden in the low effort content he puts out. So for the casual passerby it appears to be boring repetitive nonsense not worth the effort for the small moments.

For me the entertainment is in the consistent updates and anticipation for the next big thing to blow up (something's always primed to fail in DSP's life). Plenty of other people suffer through his boring content so I don't have to and produce steady updates that can be enjoyed without too much effort. It's easy to be a passive detractor that way. There's always something happening, even if it is more of the same. It's like watching reruns of the same shows because nothing else is on. But if Phil's your only cow that's gonna be pretty boring and that makes you boring.

Another factor is that Phil isn't an abject monster and he isn't political or culture war related like most of the active cows these days. I can talk with normal people about "that guy who is bad at video games and jacked off on stream" with normies, most of the people I feel comfortable bringing up DSP with already know who he is. He's that infamous, even if the incident is all anyone knows about him.

The tractors are also a good source of creativity and entertainment themselves. Tons of great liquid Richard style tracks. Meerkat is my favorite tractor all around, He's got talent and I don't think he takes himself too seriously. He definitely doesn't take Phil seriously and I think he's pretty compatible with the KF culture. But there are plenty of dent-tractors who are themselves lolcows or just in it for a paycheck. That side tends to be more frustrating but can be a source for milk in the DSP sphere for those who don't find "the Guy" himself particularly interesting.

So what does Phil actually do that I find humourous or funny? Well his man baby gamer rage and unironic stupidity in games is pretty funny. The problem is those moments don't happen so often or explosively anymore now that he has chat to hand hold him so his general gameplay is boring. What I truly find humourous about the guy is his alien like behavior. He's so sheltered and shut in from the real world he has almost no understanding of how thing work and yet he'll gladly speak on them with such confidence. Things like his trash piles and "food disposal", feeding the woodland critters, and over explaing the most mundane things "for those who don't know" is the premium entertainment I enjoy when a major happening isn't afoot.

He's a consummate liar so a lot of the fun is in finding the contradictions and watching as he flails to avoid them being pointed out to him in his chat. He over shares everything despite knowing full well he'd be best to say nothing. He's a video game streamer that hates video games so his only means of stalling is to share anyway. He's built a house of cards that is just a small breeze away from falling down and he's done nothing to protect himself from that likelihood and his ability to always manage to survive every hiccup and controversy up to this point just makes that tower even higher. No matter what wins he gets he always manages to squander it into a loss later.

In short, Phil is an alien with a ton of negative personality traits that is unable to see himself for what he really is and has built an unsustainable life that is just one small crisis away from disaster.