Jimmy Kimmel and Gaming

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtZgpEqfoaI[/media]

So this happened. And before I give my personal thoughts on it, here is a brief summary for the uninitiated:

YouTube released a new "YouTube Gaming" platform, and, along with it, an associated trailer and whatnot. Jimmy Kimmel, an American late-night comedian, notable for hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live!, created a sketch parodying this platform in which he insulted individuals who enjoy gaming content, implicitly implying that they are all idiots and basement-dwellers. When the hate comments flowed in (as they do), Kimmel released a video in which he read the worst of these comments mockingly, however, strongly implied that this was a "random selection" and that these comment supported the claim he made in the YouTube Gaming sketch. This led to more and more hate, until eventually, Kimmel made the above video, seemingly as a sort of "peace offering".


If I made any mistakes in that summary, please let me know; I'll do my best to fix them. However, I'm going to be moving on.


The following is my opinion and analysis of the subject. If yours is different, do not rage at me; this is just some random 16-year-old New Englander's analysis of the subject.

If you consume gaming content and watch this video, I think it's clear to you what this is and isn't. It isn't the peace offering it parades itself as, but instead a continuation of Kimmel's satire, this time with the gamers themselves. This is obviously inflammatory, especially given how determined Mark especially seems to be to actually change Kimmel's mind, but I don't want to talk about that. It would probably grow even more inflammatory. Instead, I think we should talk about why he's doing this.

The going hypothesis is that Kimmel's, and many other mainstream media personnel's, actions towards gaming content is fueled by fear. This idea states that YouTube and its associated media is quickly overtaking television as a source of entertainment, and that they're trying to knock it down a peg so they can stay on top for as long as possible. If you want to know more about this idea, Game Theory's MatPat did an entire episode advocating for it, so just search for that. However, I want to propose an alternate hypothesis:

This satire and all of its associated drama are fueled by a lack of understanding. Gaming content is a bit silly, on the face of it, and I don't think anyone can deny that. I mean, it's watching other people play games -- it does look kind of dumb. However, people like you or I find it entertaining, and a fair-sized portion of us could vocalize why we find it entertaining. Yet, to someone like Kimmel, who doesn't quite get it, they can only see the top layer of it -- the silly, dumb layer that makes him ask "Who would ever watch someone else play video games?". As such, he acts on his first judgement, unknowingly enraging one of the largest internet communities in modern day.

Part of me wants to think that this led Kimmel to do at least some research on the topic, and, for the sake of argument, we'll just assume he did. Maybe he watched a few Let's Plays and they weren't to his taste. However, this seemingly minor fact contributed to all of the videos that came after the first sketch, as his disliking Let's Plays gave him justification (in his mind, at least) to continue mocking it and sweeping it under the rug. His existing biases combined with what he found there to reinforce what he stated in his sketch, that gaming videos are stupid and the people who watch them are idiots. He thinks he understands it pretty well and doesn't really care to learn more, so he just goes on mocking it. I think that's really the problem: the mainstream media guys don't care about understanding YouTube and other media because of the sort of stigma attached to it. And that can't be fixed, because they don't want it to be fixed.

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Kimmel and the others are operating purely out of fear that YouTube will take over content production. Maybe they're just having a good time getting the people mad and watching their view counters tick up and up and up. Maybe they're really malicious and are just trying to troll the gaming community because they have nothing better to do. Who knows? Not I. But what I do know is that I'd like to hear some other opinions on the matter. Leave what you think down below but please, KEEP IT CIVIL. Thank you.