Why are YouTubers always so cross?

Why are YouTubers always so cross?

A reader worries about what happens when critics go too far, and the increasingly aggressive attitude of YouTubers.

Once upon a time, in a previous life, I was a game critic. I suffered through Sonic The Hedgehog 2006 for the sake of writing a comprehensive review, even though I knew before I'd passed the first half hour that it was one of the worst games I'd ever played. A review I once wrote for Monster Hunter Tri got me a heck of a backlash from the fanbase who claimed I didn't 'get it', when I basically called it a squalid grind on top of a grind.

I was constantly worrying about whether or not my tone was appropriate or whether I was being needlessly cruel (I still wonder if I was too harsh on some of the games I examined). But I did my best to be honest and explain why I felt the way I did about the games I played, whether positive or negative. To this day I'm not sure I was entirely successful on that front, and if I ever do dip my toe in it again I'd like to think I know better for next time.

That anecdote simply exists to lead in to my feelings that, in this day and age of critique and the Internet, where a massive disparity of opinions is made more public than ever and it seems everybody's divided into either the 'Screw the critics!' or the 'Screw the masses!' camps, it's easy to forget that critics are just people at the end of the day, people with opinions they're sharing to the world.

To me, a good critic gets you thinking about a piece of art in a way that perhaps you'd never considered before, and acts as a teacher in how we can better convey our own opinions and thus promote healthier debate and discussion of said opinions.

However, in recent years, particularly with the rise of the YouTube celebrity, we've seen a new generation of critics make names for themselves, and what bothers me is that most of them are making names for themselves through use of over-the-top anger-filled tones. It started with the Angry Video Game Nerd's rise to success and it's reached the point where such a tone has become the norm of games discourse on the Internet, a tone I associate more with arguments on a forum or on Twitter than I do with professional critique.

Don't get me wrong, I love a good roast or comedic review as much as the next man; some of my favourite entertainers of the modern era, such as Stuart Ashen and Lewis Lovhaug, have built entire careers around the format. However, many of these people (or at least my favourite ones) make it clear that they're showmen first and foremost and don't expect to be taken too seriously as critics, or have a more balanced approach to their presentation style which doesn't rely on caustic ranting.

I'm speaking of people who seem to have been raised on a diet of pure narcissism, who seem firmly set in the belief that their opinion is the only one that matters, who openly state that everyone else is just plain wrong, even when their opponents have valid counter-arguments.

These critics seem to revel in their over-aggressive style, apparently perpetually poised to wait for another mess-up to wander into their sights so they can demonstrate to the world how 'right' they are and how they're the paragons of truth in an otherwise lie-infested profession; trying to guilt-trip you into following some cause that means nothing to you personally. Basically they act like arrogant, patronising braggarts, and their worldwide fanbase are ready to latch onto every word they say.

I never realised just how long these thoughts had been plaguing me until a specific incident brought them to my mind front-and-centre. That incident involves Jimquisition host Jim Sterling and the legal tussle he's found himself in with infamous indie developer Digital Homicide (which, as far as I know, is still ongoing). Mr Biffo of Digitiser fame summed up the whole sorry affair better than I can (the first part of his lengthy editorial can be found here), and I tend to share his view that, regardless of the outcome of the whole affair, neither side will come out of it looking good.

Digital Homicide reacted atrociously to Sterling's initial video about their game The Slaughtering Grounds, but Sterling could've easily ignored it. Instead he chose to escalate matters, even resorting to personal insults, and things reached the point where he ended up sued for 'libel and slander' (Sterling himself hasn't commented on the matter, presumably on the advice of his lawyer).

It's clear that the style Sterling uses for his work is some degree of adopted persona (his review of The Beginner's Guide and his tribute to the late Satoru Iwata feel much more genuine and heartfelt); he's deliberately abrasive and crude, and some of what he says is clearly meant to be tongue-in-cheek. Yet in more recent times this kind of reliance on a created persona really rubs me the wrong way as I see it everywhere in modern games critique.

Referring to Mr Biffo again, the whole 'it's a persona' argument comes across as the 'Ricky Gervais Defence'. It feels like people who use this approach are trying to absolve responsibility for their words and actions by hiding behind a character.

Besides, if it's all an act what reason do we have to take what these people have to say seriously? Why the heck do people like Sterling think that volcanoes of rage and aggression, surrounded by swarms of Yes Men, are people that we should aspire to be? I'm not talking about characters like the Angry Video Game Nerd or the Nostalgia Critic, personas who – by their creators' own words – are complete schmucks who shouldn't be taken seriously.

If you're trying to raise a serious point then the excuse doesn't wash with me, especially when that in-your-face persona ends up targeting somebody who can't take the punches (a lot of people who get into the industry don't realise they can't take them until they start receiving them), or worse yet doesn't deserve them.

This isn't the first time this has happened either. YouTube celebrity PewDiePie made a video caustically attacking a tiny indie game called Bear Simulator, even going so far as to flip the developer 'the bird' and demand a refund. This kind of video, and the rousing of the mob mentality of his fans, actually scared the developer into leaving the industry because he couldn't handle the onslaught. I never saw the video, but if someone like PewDiePie actually took it down due to having second thoughts then it must have been toxic.

Perhaps the reason why people such as Sterling and Pewds feel they can get away with it is because they know they've got public opinion on their side, loyal (dare I say fanatical) fanbases that take every word they say as the gospel truth and engage in a mob mentality, ready to us social media to fire equal amounts of venom at the targets these critics highlight.

Does that mean critics shouldn't call out developers big and small for releasing shoddy products or engaging in bad business practices? Absolutely not; that would be against the idea of freedom of speech, and if you put something on the market and expect to make money off it you should expect some degree of criticism.

However, how one conveys their opinion can be just as important than the opinion itself. Words contain a lot of power, and I fear that the words critics like Sterling and Pewds choose are setting extremely ugly trends and could have repercussions on the industry that are in no way positive. The total lack of personal responsibility and basic empathy these critics show, just to play to a crowd or get more clicks, disgusts me.

If, by some bizarre planetary alignment, Digital Homicide do in fact win their lawsuit (I highly doubt they will, given that they're representing themselves, but the slim chance remains nonetheless), that will set a horrifying precedent that will surely have disastrous consequences for anybody who writes about games or puts content up on YouTube. In my eyes, that will be entirely the fault of critics who choose the caustic, attack-y, playing-to-the-crowd tone that is becoming the norm in video game discourse.

I hope it doesn't come to that to make people realise that such a tone is when critics do indeed go too far.

By reader Andrew Middlemas

The reader's feature does not necessary represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.

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