As a Jim Sterling fan, I have to say it's just fine to criticise him. He's not perfect. Thank God for him.
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A Critique of Red Letter Media’s Bigoted Content (See Staff Post)
- Thread starter PhoncipleBone
- Start date
As a Jim Sterling fan, I have to say it's just fine to criticise him. He's not perfect. Thank God for him.
ArtVandelay, I assume you're just taking a a while to type up your reply to us because you want it to be full of good examples.
I'm enjoying the idea that we can only bring up criticism about a group during the exact moment that they did something wrong, and never again under any other topic because it's not relevant anymore.
As long as you can weather those individual controversies, you'll never be truly held accountable to anything. Pretty sweet gig honestly.
As long as you can weather those individual controversies, you'll never be truly held accountable to anything. Pretty sweet gig honestly.
Looking forward to max landis' comeback. Maybe he'll have another cameo on RLM even.
But how is that funny or even a joke? "This guy is a bigot and has in-depth commentary on movies" is hard to look at as a clever joke or funny writing because there are so many actual human beings doing the same thing *not* as a joke.
In a world where we didn't have pedantic, bigoted people over-analyzing and tearing apart sci-fi, games, anime, etc as part of their fandom in the first place, maybe this kind of character would be a funny "what if someone was like this?", but given actual people already are like this (and the non-character parts of RLM offer similarly shitty takes, as others pointed out), I don't know how you write it off as just a character.
It'd be like finding out that the writers of the Office were themselves making racist comments on a regular basis and then trying to say "Well Michael Scott is just a joke character not meant to be taken seriously".
People ignoring the staff post and continuously calling for this to be banned anyway seems like extreme thread whining to me.
"I don't want to discuss this so I don't want anyone else to either."
"I don't want to discuss this so I don't want anyone else to either."
This seems to always happen whenever you bring up questionable shit in RLM thread. I remember people making light criticism of their takes on Force Awakens and Home Coming and people freaking out like they were being called racist for enjoying some of RLM's content. The direction they've been heading in has been pretty obvious for some time now.
Yeah there's a lot to discuss about a guy doing a buck-toothed ching-chong impersonation.
LouisCK for years played the "character" of a racist/sexist asshole, and people loved it because they assumed he was playing an extreme caricature of that kind of person and wanted to have a laugh at the outragenousness of someone saying that kind of stuff.
When he turned out to not actually be such a great person in real life, people re-evaluated his routines to wonder if he was just using the guise of a character to say what he really felt.
You have to ask yourself, in the face of all of their "jokes" in character, and all of their comments out of character, how much of real Mike is in the character of Plinkett.
In general, every time someone tells you they're doing a "bit" or playing a "character" when saying racist/sexist shit, how much of that actually IS the character VS the person themselves, especially when there's an increasing number of examples of it otu of character.
Edit: Also Rich Evans is a problem, outright. No guise of it being a character, he's just said some real dumb/sexist shit outright time and again and seemingly has zero inclination to ever own up to it.
When he turned out to not actually be such a great person in real life, people re-evaluated his routines to wonder if he was just using the guise of a character to say what he really felt.
You have to ask yourself, in the face of all of their "jokes" in character, and all of their comments out of character, how much of real Mike is in the character of Plinkett.
In general, every time someone tells you they're doing a "bit" or playing a "character" when saying racist/sexist shit, how much of that actually IS the character VS the person themselves, especially when there's an increasing number of examples of it otu of character.
Edit: Also Rich Evans is a problem, outright. No guise of it being a character, he's just said some real dumb/sexist shit outright time and again and seemingly has zero inclination to ever own up to it.
Because the joke is Plinkett is this insane, racist, cruel, sexually depraved senile white dude who writes 90 minute Star Wars reviews. That's the joke, it's crude humor in the context of an in-depth essay. It's not really clever, nobody said it was, it's just part of the character they decided to write. It's absurdism, which in itself is the joke.
And if you want to go deeper to what you're saying, the joke at this point could evolve to the fact that there are people like that. The Star Wars reviews are rather old, same with the Star Trek reviews, but the "old, fat, socially maladapt white nerd living in a dilapidated house who is racist and sexist" isn't exactly all that new in terms of stereotypes. The Star Wars reviews literally start with the character complaining that a shitty movie is "the worst thing since my son", an exaggeration to how important Star Wars is to this insane lunatic who has lost all grasp on reality. You could easily say it's a caricature of nerd culture.
I feel like I'm probably diving deeper into this stupid character than RLM even initially gave thought, but the author is dead so what ever.
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Or people could discuss the latest episode of Best of the Worst, a great and hilarious series about bad old movies that AFAIK has never been racist or sexist.
I've been beating this drum for a while, op. Really like their stuff years back..Slowly began to notice the problematic language happening more often. Notice most people won't defend their bigoted language, they'll just use the "but it's entertaining" bullshit excuse to wave it away.
Pretty sure that racist chinese impression was from Best of the Worst.
The best bit is where they mock people who were upset over Brie Larson's comments... and then proceed to spend 15 minutes complaining about her comments.
I feel like I have to weigh in on this. I'm a long-time fan of RLM's, watched their videos basically since the beginning, at least of their mainstay shows like Half in the Bag and Best of the Worst. I love their channel and practically everything they do, their brand of humour is definitely aligned with mine. However, I also appreciate that there is a level of detail in their critique (specifically Mike and Jay) that I personally don't see in many comparable YouTube channels (definitely not ones focused around big pop culture phenomena like Star Wars). Like many, I got hooked in through the Star Wars Plinkett reviews - however, looking back, this is probably some of my least favourite content of theirs. I particularly enjoy their Best of the Worst's.
So, I feel like I have a pretty good handle on how these guys operate. They like to make a mockery of Hollywood, mainstream media, online trends in general, it's their shtick. They shine a light on what's going on and for me a lot of the humour is derived from highlighting the illogical nature of certain trends. Take an example - gender representation within film. Ghostbusters 2016 was a particularly incendiary case. What separates them, for me, from a generic group of white males wielding pitchforks somewhere else on YT is they're not criticising the fact of the gender reversal within Ghostbusters 2016, but it's how that's been manipulated by the studio to achieve a particular goal that is NOT in the best interests of women represented in film. They talked about this multiple times in all their Ghostbusters 2016 videos. For me, whilst RLM may engage with particularly tense issues and at a surface-level value, it is immediately perceived as 'Why do these three white men get to have this particularly say on this issue?', they are always using these views to enforce specific comments. In their Annihilation review, they talk about how the film has multiple female leads, all characters with STEM occupations and respecting that fact. This as opposed to a studio like Sony who saw the 'outrage' as an opportunity to make completely unsubstantiated points about women within film and basically treat the subject matter like a joke. Whereas a film like Annhilation, which commercially tanked, is the leading example - something which does it organically, treats its characters with respect and an audience wouldn't bat an eyelid.
This is just one example but for me, this is emblematic of RLM as a whole. They praise female performances and female actors, they praise actors of different ethnicities, they have praised diverse casts (Fast and Furious is an example), they have called out what they perceive as stereotypes (Jay did in Suicide Squad review). From the OP, the Scientist Man video is blatant sarcasm. This is their MO - the real commentary is in their primary Ghostbusters 2016 review, as mentioned above. The Plinkett video is a comment they have made before and actually one I disagree with. They said it about Wonder Woman, why a kid should have Wonder Woman, a fantastical character as a role model, as opposed to real-world successful women such as Marie Curie, for example. I disagree with them about this, for me, there's no harm in children viewing fantasy stars as 'role models'. They promote positivity and diverse representation is a benefit for kids to see because as they grow up, they're more accustomed to varying different types of person not only on screen but in their workplaces and towns. There's just an undoubtable net positive from that. This being said, I don't see this as an 'outrageous' take from them. I do see their point about how diversity IS a force corporate component. It's a long-standing take by Mike, he says something similar in his Phantom Menace review about Sam Jackson. This is a justified comment. Corporations, who do not care who is satisfied by on-screen diversity as long as it lines pockets, are being manipulative BUT Mike seems to fail to understand that, in reality, it does not matter. A black kid sees Sam Jackson on screen being a badass and that's a positive. They are cynical middle-aged men with no children, I'm not entirely sure why they have such a firm grasp on what children do and do not want to see.
Like I said, I've watched these guys for a long-time and Mike and definitely Jay seemed pretty copped on people. I cannot remember something that can even be considered racist or sexist on their Half in the Bag or Best of the Worst's shows within context of what is being said. Whenever something is said, it's hugely mocking a particular director, perhaps of an old-school class or a type of studio mandate which they perceive as being sexist or racist. They have been very open in the past about 'condemning' blatant acts of sexism and racism within certain modern blockbusters. Do I think that they slightly lean into online trends because it's click-worthy? Yes, I do. I do think they are, ironically, part of the problem they mock within The Nerd Crew. Even if it's done as satire. So, I will not completely die on a hill for them. Their Last Jedi review, specifically Rich and Mike, without a doubt played into some of the lazy criticism we'd seen levelled at the film at the time. I do think it was just two Star Wars nerds getting in a fluster about something because they didn't like it, I don't think there was anything sexist about the review though - they criticised Holdo and Rose but specifically the character's actions during the film. However, the recent Captain Marvel film was a bit of a weird one, to me. I think they are definitely buying into things because it's the sort of, flavour of the month, sort of thing. Half of that video was about a controversy of the sorts they have in the past decried people for complaining about. I would perhaps go so far to say it's a character attack on the actor that wasn't particularly justified (they have praised Brie Larson's performances in the past, so it wasn't as a result of that). I can definitely see why, at a surface-level, people may wish to lump them in with other sorts of online nerd right-leaning types on YouTube but...I actually think it's incredibly ignorant to do that.
However, I have held off on commenting on one particular faction and that's Rich. I liked Rich before I saw pre-rec. Multiple times on pre-rec, he would highlight his gross ignorance towards the wider political situation in regards to many, many things. The example in the OP of the Women's March is just one of them. He displays a staggering level of cynicism towards many aspects of life, generally speaking, to be honest. It really put me off him, in those pre-rec videos. Nobody likes a centrist bastard who hasn't even done his research. However, Rich is a small part of RLM and he's been relatively benign within RLM's channel specifically, not pre-rec, in terms of political commentary.
It's difficult to bring together all my thoughts cohesively, especially as I'm kinda knocking this out there quickly, but I just wanted to put forward SOME level of defence for them. I consider myself liberal, I'm left-leaning (supporter of Labour within UK, although it's a bit...difficult in and of itself at the moment) and I don't particularly follow any other comparable types (based on accusations levelled against them in this topic) to RLM on the internet. I'm just speaking as someone who has followed them for a long time and feels like they essentially know the guys and how they operate/feel about particular things. I don't deny they dip into black humour and they toe the line but not everything is as binary as people think in this world and I'm just staking the claim that RLM are, at the very least, within the moral grey.
So, I feel like I have a pretty good handle on how these guys operate. They like to make a mockery of Hollywood, mainstream media, online trends in general, it's their shtick. They shine a light on what's going on and for me a lot of the humour is derived from highlighting the illogical nature of certain trends. Take an example - gender representation within film. Ghostbusters 2016 was a particularly incendiary case. What separates them, for me, from a generic group of white males wielding pitchforks somewhere else on YT is they're not criticising the fact of the gender reversal within Ghostbusters 2016, but it's how that's been manipulated by the studio to achieve a particular goal that is NOT in the best interests of women represented in film. They talked about this multiple times in all their Ghostbusters 2016 videos. For me, whilst RLM may engage with particularly tense issues and at a surface-level value, it is immediately perceived as 'Why do these three white men get to have this particularly say on this issue?', they are always using these views to enforce specific comments. In their Annihilation review, they talk about how the film has multiple female leads, all characters with STEM occupations and respecting that fact. This as opposed to a studio like Sony who saw the 'outrage' as an opportunity to make completely unsubstantiated points about women within film and basically treat the subject matter like a joke. Whereas a film like Annhilation, which commercially tanked, is the leading example - something which does it organically, treats its characters with respect and an audience wouldn't bat an eyelid.
This is just one example but for me, this is emblematic of RLM as a whole. They praise female performances and female actors, they praise actors of different ethnicities, they have praised diverse casts (Fast and Furious is an example), they have called out what they perceive as stereotypes (Jay did in Suicide Squad review). From the OP, the Scientist Man video is blatant sarcasm. This is their MO - the real commentary is in their primary Ghostbusters 2016 review, as mentioned above. The Plinkett video is a comment they have made before and actually one I disagree with. They said it about Wonder Woman, why a kid should have Wonder Woman, a fantastical character as a role model, as opposed to real-world successful women such as Marie Curie, for example. I disagree with them about this, for me, there's no harm in children viewing fantasy stars as 'role models'. They promote positivity and diverse representation is a benefit for kids to see because as they grow up, they're more accustomed to varying different types of person not only on screen but in their workplaces and towns. There's just an undoubtable net positive from that. This being said, I don't see this as an 'outrageous' take from them. I do see their point about how diversity IS a force corporate component. It's a long-standing take by Mike, he says something similar in his Phantom Menace review about Sam Jackson. This is a justified comment. Corporations, who do not care who is satisfied by on-screen diversity as long as it lines pockets, are being manipulative BUT Mike seems to fail to understand that, in reality, it does not matter. A black kid sees Sam Jackson on screen being a badass and that's a positive. They are cynical middle-aged men with no children, I'm not entirely sure why they have such a firm grasp on what children do and do not want to see.
Like I said, I've watched these guys for a long-time and Mike and definitely Jay seemed pretty copped on people. I cannot remember something that can even be considered racist or sexist on their Half in the Bag or Best of the Worst's shows within context of what is being said. Whenever something is said, it's hugely mocking a particular director, perhaps of an old-school class or a type of studio mandate which they perceive as being sexist or racist. They have been very open in the past about 'condemning' blatant acts of sexism and racism within certain modern blockbusters. Do I think that they slightly lean into online trends because it's click-worthy? Yes, I do. I do think they are, ironically, part of the problem they mock within The Nerd Crew. Even if it's done as satire. So, I will not completely die on a hill for them. Their Last Jedi review, specifically Rich and Mike, without a doubt played into some of the lazy criticism we'd seen levelled at the film at the time. I do think it was just two Star Wars nerds getting in a fluster about something because they didn't like it, I don't think there was anything sexist about the review though - they criticised Holdo and Rose but specifically the character's actions during the film. However, the recent Captain Marvel film was a bit of a weird one, to me. I think they are definitely buying into things because it's the sort of, flavour of the month, sort of thing. Half of that video was about a controversy of the sorts they have in the past decried people for complaining about. I would perhaps go so far to say it's a character attack on the actor that wasn't particularly justified (they have praised Brie Larson's performances in the past, so it wasn't as a result of that). I can definitely see why, at a surface-level, people may wish to lump them in with other sorts of online nerd right-leaning types on YouTube but...I actually think it's incredibly ignorant to do that.
However, I have held off on commenting on one particular faction and that's Rich. I liked Rich before I saw pre-rec. Multiple times on pre-rec, he would highlight his gross ignorance towards the wider political situation in regards to many, many things. The example in the OP of the Women's March is just one of them. He displays a staggering level of cynicism towards many aspects of life, generally speaking, to be honest. It really put me off him, in those pre-rec videos. Nobody likes a centrist bastard who hasn't even done his research. However, Rich is a small part of RLM and he's been relatively benign within RLM's channel specifically, not pre-rec, in terms of political commentary.
It's difficult to bring together all my thoughts cohesively, especially as I'm kinda knocking this out there quickly, but I just wanted to put forward SOME level of defence for them. I consider myself liberal, I'm left-leaning (supporter of Labour within UK, although it's a bit...difficult in and of itself at the moment) and I don't particularly follow any other comparable types (based on accusations levelled against them in this topic) to RLM on the internet. I'm just speaking as someone who has followed them for a long time and feels like they essentially know the guys and how they operate/feel about particular things. I don't deny they dip into black humour and they toe the line but not everything is as binary as people think in this world and I'm just staking the claim that RLM are, at the very least, within the moral grey.
Those replies were for entertainment, we were in character so it's cool.
I only recently watch their stuff a few weeks ago because I saw a big thread on it going around and I figured, what the hell, let's see this guy take down Phantom Menace.
At first I thought that cringe aside, the humor was simply "not holding up", but it was a schtick making fun of the person the reviewer pretends to be, which is similar to actual people.
The jokes weren't funny, but I saw what I thought they were trying to do, and figured it could have been worth trying.
However, I watched the Attack of the Clones one and it was much harder to ignore, and then I couldnt make it through the Revenge of the Sith one at all.
Did some reasearch and came to OP's conclusion that they only are satirizing themselves so they can hide behind the white boy classsic "it's just a joke" defense should anyone criticize.
And then sometimes they're just blatant.]
It's the South Parkian defense of "I think everyone is dumb, and therefore you can't say I'm on any particular side of a given issue".
South Park did the same bit as them with the restaurant owner:
At first I thought that cringe aside, the humor was simply "not holding up", but it was a schtick making fun of the person the reviewer pretends to be, which is similar to actual people.
The jokes weren't funny, but I saw what I thought they were trying to do, and figured it could have been worth trying.
However, I watched the Attack of the Clones one and it was much harder to ignore, and then I couldnt make it through the Revenge of the Sith one at all.
Did some reasearch and came to OP's conclusion that they only are satirizing themselves so they can hide behind the white boy classsic "it's just a joke" defense should anyone criticize.
And then sometimes they're just blatant.]
It's the South Parkian defense of "I think everyone is dumb, and therefore you can't say I'm on any particular side of a given issue".
South Park did the same bit as them with the restaurant owner:
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RLM is tough to watch nowadays. I like Jay and Jack most of the time, but Mike and Rich especially have been getting harder and harder to watch as of late. Mike's very, very set in his ways and Rich has ALWAYS been a problem for as long as I can remember.
Someone else in the thread mentioned that they're basically your bog-standard "apolitical" nerd types who use said lack of "politics" as a shield to let them say stupid and vile shit and then shrug their shoulders when people call them out for it. I think that's a pretty accurate description - I don't feel like they're full-on right-wingers or alt-righters, but they're so used to using vile shit for comedy that it's just become part of their general vocabulary and they don't care if it pisses people off.
One of my old bosses once called out one of my coworkers for using a racial slur in a joke by saying "Don't let that word get comfortable in your mouth, because once it does, it's gonna bring in some furniture and then invite its whole family to come live there too." Rich feels like a textbook example of that.
Someone else in the thread mentioned that they're basically your bog-standard "apolitical" nerd types who use said lack of "politics" as a shield to let them say stupid and vile shit and then shrug their shoulders when people call them out for it. I think that's a pretty accurate description - I don't feel like they're full-on right-wingers or alt-righters, but they're so used to using vile shit for comedy that it's just become part of their general vocabulary and they don't care if it pisses people off.
One of my old bosses once called out one of my coworkers for using a racial slur in a joke by saying "Don't let that word get comfortable in your mouth, because once it does, it's gonna bring in some furniture and then invite its whole family to come live there too." Rich feels like a textbook example of that.
I very much enjoy the best of the worst series, but the recent half in the bag episodes have turned me off to those. Seems like their politics seeps more into those. I couldn't even finish Mike and Rich's bitchfest about Discovery. Plinkett is another one that's fallen for me. Still like the old ones, but newer ones are just bleh.
They are problematic. There's no denying that they have very troublesome, sometimes outright racist views (that rich with the Chinese thing is just awful).
But at the end of the day I still enjoy some of their stuff, and try to ignore their politics. Pretty much the same thing I do regarding Jeremy Clarkson and Top Gear/Grand Tour.
They are problematic. There's no denying that they have very troublesome, sometimes outright racist views (that rich with the Chinese thing is just awful).
But at the end of the day I still enjoy some of their stuff, and try to ignore their politics. Pretty much the same thing I do regarding Jeremy Clarkson and Top Gear/Grand Tour.
There's plenty of other media that's banned here. I think it's a fair comparison to make when you're dealing with a place with zero tolerance for things like racial caricatures and anything that could even tangentially be construed as sexist. As the OP has demonstrated, RLM crosses such lines freely.
I don't really have a dog in the fight. I didn't know what RLM was about until I popped in here. I'm just surprised management decided NOT to ban them given the examples provided. I'd have lost money on this bet.
Jeremy Clarkson? You've got a stronger stomach than mine. I can't stand the sound of his voice.
There really isn't, like a handful of people have been banned, but actual media hasn't been from my recollection.
Mods opened up pandoras box with the ban stuff, the fact that they didn't nuke THQ from this forum should go to show that they kinda regret making this an option in peoples minds anytime the topic of "canceling" comes up.
wow the stuff in OP is really bad. rlm seems like trash
enjoying that kind of content is highly sus in my book
enjoying that kind of content is highly sus in my book
Yeah, I used to find them kind of funny, but they tend to throw 3-4 unnecessary sexist or racist jabs in all of their reviews for no real reason.
At first I excused it as taking the piss out of Youtube commenters, but at this point it's clear it's probably just sexism.
I mean, their video series did begin with a hilarious character torturing a woman in the basement. In hindsight, they may have been letting on a bit more than we realized.
At first I excused it as taking the piss out of Youtube commenters, but at this point it's clear it's probably just sexism.
I mean, their video series did begin with a hilarious character torturing a woman in the basement. In hindsight, they may have been letting on a bit more than we realized.
Rich has said some gross things and if this was a thread about how Rich sucks and RLM would be better off without him, I'd agree - using Plinkett reviews as a source for the accusation that they happily use racial slurs or something is completely absurd, though. It's a character intentionally designed to be repulsive, not Mike himself just throwing out slurs because he genuinely likes them.
I agree with criticisms of RLM insofar as they have a tendency to lack self-awareness that they often are the thing they criticize (pointing out, rightly, how Disney and other big companies intentionally utilize progressive verbiage for marketing purposes and people are too sensitive for letting it get to them, but then just spending ages rambling about it anyway while pretending they're somehow above it all - they're clearly not) but overall I think the problem with RLM is that they're deeply deeply cynical, like to a near-poisonous degree at times. Oftentimes the cynicism is warranted (big media companies don't care about you and Nerd Crew is an excellent demonstration of their loathing for modern "nerd culture" that is mostly just rooted in rabid consumerism - the latter being a big problem on this forum, one might argue) but often times it just makes them sound like killjoy jerks and hypocrites (like Mike's dumb "role models don't matter" spiel - he clearly had role models).
I think originally the Plinkett character was an amusing satirical portrayal of how they viewed obsessive YouTube review nerds. The points of critique are played straight but if you've watched them for any amount of time you'll realize how much they kind of hate most other media critique channels on YouTube in general. But over time as RLM became something bigger and bigger, and their full-time thing, I do agree the character has changed from something they viewed as a jab at basement-dwelling obsessed nerds into that kind of being just what they are.
I agree with criticisms of RLM insofar as they have a tendency to lack self-awareness that they often are the thing they criticize (pointing out, rightly, how Disney and other big companies intentionally utilize progressive verbiage for marketing purposes and people are too sensitive for letting it get to them, but then just spending ages rambling about it anyway while pretending they're somehow above it all - they're clearly not) but overall I think the problem with RLM is that they're deeply deeply cynical, like to a near-poisonous degree at times. Oftentimes the cynicism is warranted (big media companies don't care about you and Nerd Crew is an excellent demonstration of their loathing for modern "nerd culture" that is mostly just rooted in rabid consumerism - the latter being a big problem on this forum, one might argue) but often times it just makes them sound like killjoy jerks and hypocrites (like Mike's dumb "role models don't matter" spiel - he clearly had role models).
I think originally the Plinkett character was an amusing satirical portrayal of how they viewed obsessive YouTube review nerds. The points of critique are played straight but if you've watched them for any amount of time you'll realize how much they kind of hate most other media critique channels on YouTube in general. But over time as RLM became something bigger and bigger, and their full-time thing, I do agree the character has changed from something they viewed as a jab at basement-dwelling obsessed nerds into that kind of being just what they are.
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User Banned (permanent): troll account
I feel like if nothing else the OP has been quite enlightening to me as to how easily work can be misconstrued when presented in a vacuum. As previously said, I won't defend Rich's racist phone call but the rest is incredibly tenuous. So, 'RLM crosses such lines freely' isn't a very clear claim. As I said earlier, they've demonstrated multiple times how much they respect the importance of gender representation and diversity within film. A few debatable examples of one side posted in a thread shouldn't be fair game for a banning.
They had those shitty woman torture/murder asides in the Star Wars prequel reviews. I remember enjoying those, but their shitty nature was always there. Never did watch anything else from them though.
ehhhhh
you're free to dislike the film but that's not a good reason.
Tony Stark, Starlord, and doctor strange, nick fury, Captain kirk, among many others all act smug and arrogant and that only makes people love them more, yet with brie larson that is a negative somehow?
Context. The joke is that the torture ends up being her having to watch the Star Wars prequel. Then she is casually chatting with Plinkett whilst watching them. Then she gets revenge. Dark humour does not automatically equal cancelable humour.
Is Rich's twitch rant about feminists misconstrued? It's pretty blatant.
Yeah, when he was simply joking about being a serial killer, I thought it was funny, because that's the star wars fan hes making fun of.
The weird Blair Witch-esque scenes of him locking women in his basement and stuff just didn't make any sense, wasn't funny to begin with, and they just played that shit the hell out.
There were points where I just kept skipping ahead to see when it was done. Like what the fuck does this have to do with your otherwise astute Star Wars critique?
At best, it harmed his voice as a critic, and was tonally dissonant.
But more so, it just showed that he's not too far off from the person he's satirizing because of how funny he apparently finds it.
That was after the joke got reused too many times that I guess even they didnt find it funny anymore, and thought comparing watching a movie to torture was going to be a new joke nobody has ever made( and definitely not in 4th grade).
Dark humor is good if you're actually funny and can pull it off.
It was just distracting at that point, like any bad humor inserted in what otherwise is an intelligent conversation.
You just try to ignore your professor's terrible puns that you pretend laughed at, causing him to think he should do it more, and take notes on what will be on the exam.
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This is the part that bothers me.
I love RLM content. But Rich is the real issue i have. Jack is fine, he follows and signal boosts a lot of the progressive youtubers i love, and when Jay is serious about talking about films his sense of right and wrong is clear. Like in the recent mouth of madness review where he calls out lovecraft's terrible racism and how it's good you don't really have to engage with it.
Mike... i feel is just generally cynical, this is where i am conflicted. If it was just rich, i'd get it. He was a construction worker, there are some things i just understand. But Mike is very hands-off with politics in-so-much as he will decry anything and everything political whether left or right. What i have come to understand is that Mike has an aversion to anything he sees as "extreme" he is the quintessential radical centrist.
I don't think as a general rule most of RLM is racist/sexist though, they are too clear in their identification of the social problems with most of the content they engage with.
That's my opinion, and i admit i am probably engaging in quite a bit of hand-washing because i will never not enjoy Best of the Worst. It's one of the only shows i look forward to where i try to turn off my critical brain.
I WILL say, however, the star wars reviews were written by mike a long time ago and he is not a great critic. He makes his small films and owns the company.
Jay is where you have to look to in order to get any substantive film-making critique.
Rich Evans is trash. His gaming content is Trash. RLM shouldn't be putting out gaming content, but since Rich is Mike's friend i guess he gets his own thing.
Why not?? Still, why do discussions about RLM get the benefit of being free from complaints about their bad behavior, even if the discussion is not about the incident specifically. Because it is a benefit. In fact if anything that's an indication that those conversations perhaps don't have a place in this community. Think of it from a community perspective, are the people having those discussions posters who don't care about the racist stuff and just want to not have to think of it, or even consider them as notable in the first place? How's the community supposed to deal with that? Especially when this is a community that's self proclaimed to be heavy on the progressive side?
What's more important? Letting conversations about content that seems to be permanently tendentiously racist or sexist happen without scrutiny? Or making a communal choice to not promote that kind of content source?
I try to explain why they're wrong, If I see they can change their minds or are starting to keep slowly trying to change it if they reveal to be outright racists and a few of them have I stop talking to them yes.
Not liking the little mermaid actor because she's a black woman and nothing else is just plain old racism tho. So yea, I'm cutting that shit out of my life.
Yeah, I'm just referring specifically to stuff in Scientist Man and Plinkett reviews in which the context matters. When it comes to Rich it's a different situation.
Ultimately it's pretty clear to me based on how they've been acting thar the Plinkett character is them taking advantage to say horrible shit they wish they could say themselves under the guise of a character
Yes. I don't know anybody who would give a wet fart about a fictional half fish, half human being played by a black actress. It's just such blatantly disingenuous nonsense that anybody who started to complain about it is going to get a chance to study the back of my head.
This dude seemingly being in every nerd circle is why I never hung out with the nerds in school.
It always seem like they put up with some imp who probably deserved to be outcasted, who would dance around making racist jokes if I was there playing Magic the Gathering with them, but was definitely telling them when I wasn't.
User banned (1 week): Sexist rhetoric.
Ok guys, settle down!
Yes, yes, I realize you have me figured out and I know where we're headed. But no, I don't think it's arrogant to stand up for something and be passionate about diversity. It's got absolutely nothing to do with that. And no, I don't believe women have to be giggly and inoffensive.
It's just that her general demeanor comes off as somewhat standoffish. The WIRED video is a good example. Or the ET interview.
2:30, 3:38, 5:00
Or this bit from the RLM video:
12:44
Again, I'm not talking about what she's actually saying. But that somewhat uppity body language rubs me the wrong way.
That being said, I'm socially awkward, so maybe people who exude confidence generally seem a bit unlikeable to me.
I was aware that saying this means I'll be lumped in with the "feminism has turned Brie Larson into an ugly SJW!!!" crowd.
I remember rich said on a stream one time he hated the pressure of the prank calls so he deliberately bombed that one with a Ching Chong voice.
they never asked him again so it definitely worked
I have heard about that, but a racist bit is still a racist bit. Even if it's done "ironically".
Maybe he could have just said he didn't want to do the prank calls anymore and the crew should respect that and not do a racism.
Crazy idea I know