Well. . . I think maybe your students are terrible. And maybe they’re douches. Look, I wouldn’t expect them to know everybody (but if they can say Yahtzee/Gerstmann/Jeff Green/Kotaku, I would be surprised if some of them couldn’t name Chick, or any number of other critics/journalists). But that’s not even trying. I don’t know what else to tell you. Have them read some Costikyan.
But I don’t really understand what the fact that your students name Yahtzee and “Kotaku” has to do with anything (outside of them either being ignorant, and/or just being terrible). If you were teaching this class 12-15 years ago, they could cote about Scorpia (who frequently was negative too, as people sometimes forget). And Martin Cirulis’ “What’s the Deal With. . .” columns. Or Old Man Murray. We could also talk about CSIPG.[Name it], or how people on web forums are too mean to games, and can we please just find some place where people cherish games (yes, people were bitching about that in 1998. Actually, it was old in 1998).
When I ask them to write a critical analysis of a game, they generally go very negative. I have to fight with them to get them to name anything positive about a game that I assign.
Ok, so they can’t write for shit. But so far we just know your students are ignorant and possibly also stupid. This isn’t a reflection of Yahtzee’s existence. It’s a reflection to the fact that they don’t really get Yahtzee, or his place in the gaming world. Of course, they have plenty of “shining examples” (scare quotes for snarkiness) of positivity to look up to, and you could point them to any number of those. And I’m not even talking about people on the level of the bot masquerading as Jose Liz.
It seems to me that when examining game criticism, the overall level of negativity/positivity is secondary to actual quality criticism. That was certainly Jose Lizbot’s problem. That he was overwhelmingly positive was of little consequence. It was that he couldn’t write for shit. It wasn’t just that he would regurgitate materials from previews to reviews (the stuff sometimes even originating in company press releases and the like). Or even that he came off as the worst kind of shill. He really couldn’t write.
You want to argue. Okay.
Well, I just wanted a discussion. But okay?
Yahtzee has used the word “gay” many times to mean “bad.” There you go.
Yeah, I know. Do you really think he’s insensitive to plight of the gays? Or something like that?
So, she’s asking if Yahtzee is being ironic by making fun of people who shit all over everything, or is he just shitting all over everything. It’s the same defense that Rush Limbaugh is using nowadays-- “I just said that outrageous thing to tweek the liberal media.”
No, see, here’s the thing. He’s not “just shitting on everything”. He’s offering up meaningful game criticism. He’s dressing those criticisms up with the most over the top, mean, snarky rhetoric a human being can conjure up without lapsing into incoherence. Neither you nor I could pull that off. We know your students are barely competent enough to write their own names, so of course they can’t pull it off.
It’s not a style for everyone, I can completely understand that. Yahtzee isn’t the Robot Unicorn Attack of critics (that is, some sort of super evolved critic who has moved beyond our own understanding of the universe). His style isn’t even new (it’s just taken to a level few have reached). OMM frequently did the same sort of thing (slightly different rhetorical style, of course, but often very negative and very over the top). But it isn’t like he just cusses about a game and then signs off, either.
