One day I hope the "angry Internet reveiwer" schtick goes extinct forever, not just because it's played out but for many people it's not a persona or an act that's what they really think. I just never understood the appeal of some person having frothing at the mouth hateful vitriol at Steven Universe or whatever. If you don't like it just say it's not for you and move on. So many people invest so much of themselves into their personal choice of entertainment it's scary.
“Why did you become an English major?” Sometimes their is judgment in their voice, sometimes not. Regardless I get asked that question a fair bit, like many people I’d imagine. If you were to ask most people in my age range who picked this field of study you’ll probably get a few of the same answers. “I’m good at writing papers.” “I was encouraged to do it by a teacher.” “I love to read.” “I LOVED Harry Potter” (that last one is very common, and as time goes on can be replaced by any young adult novel). For me however, it was none of those things. I was never very good at writing papers. I like my English classes, but no ever went out of there way to tell me I should study this. I never really cared for reading growing up. And my opinions on Harry Potter are long and complicated (and I might talk about those later this month). No the reason why I decided to go on this path is because of a series I had stumbled across back in high school. His name is Chuck, and his series is called SF Debris.
Before I get into exactly how he influenced me, I think it’s important to talk about where I was in high school in relation to fiction. As I said, I was not the most well read person in the world at the time. Reading was always really hard form me, and because of that it was simply never something I did for fun. Well, that’s not strictly true. I had started reading comics in middle school, and I had recently stared reading book by this guy named Terry Pratchett. Comics were fairly easy, it let me have a visual aid for events. Terry Pratchett was still hard for me, but I just had so much fun reading the words he put on the page (more then I had with any other book I ever had to read) I just kept going. The book on the whole wasn’t just enjoyable, but the every act of reading his style was enough for me to power though all the trouble I was having. But I never cared for the classics. The Great Gatsby, The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin, Beowulf. All of these were just boring, uninteresting, and just hard to read. It didn’t help that this was High School English. If the book was not viewed as a classic, then I could not talk about it. No comics and no Terry Pratchett. I also liked Science Fiction from various TV shows, but I was not allowed to do that because “science fiction is not art”. That was a quote one of my teachers said that I will remember forever. This is then were SF Debris comes in.
I’ll be honest, I have no idea what the first hing I watched of him was. It might have been is Gargoyles series or his Avatar series, but I just don’t remember. Regardless I started watching his stuff. He was a critic, but not like others I had seen on the internet like the Nostalgia Critic or Angry Video Game Nerd. He wasn’t just looking at bad stuff and making fun of it. He talked about it. He looked at what is was doing. What is was saying. Yes he looked at bad stuff and called it out, but he also looked at good stuff and praised it. And probably most important to me, it didn’t matter what he was talking about, he showed the same level of care that he did with anything else. Everything deserves to be looked at with a critical mind. Even if it’s design for mass audiences. Even if it is a cartoon. Even if it is holey not meant for your audience. He looks at them all the same.
That was important for me to see. A month ago I wrote a paper on a science fiction short story and how it used elements of code-switching to comment on society. In the spring I wrote a DnD campaign, ran it, recorded it, and then critically discussed it in front of a group. In the winter I did a presentation of what Emojis are in today’s English Language. In the Fall I wrote a paper about Terry Pratchett’s Wyrd Sisters as an adaptation for Macbeth. And I love it. Just because they are silly does not mean they are not smart. If I had listened to my teachers back in high school, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I wouldn’t be about to graduate from a degree in English with plans to go on until I get a doctorate. No teacher showed me the joy of do this. No book convinced me that I need to tell the world about its brilliance. One man and his silly Science Fiction review show got me to see what literary analysis could be, and I cannot thank him enough.
What's Wrong With The Nostalgia Critic's Recent 'Reviews'?
What’s Wrong With The Nostalgia Critic’s Recent ‘Reviews’?
So, I just got finished watching the most recent episode of the Nostalgia Critic, wherein he talked about Mad Max: Fury Road. For the most part, I really liked it. Sure, I find myself using the term ‘review’ somewhat loosely, but I still liked it. But, when I scrolled down to the comments section, I couldn’t help but see comment after comment talking about how much it sucked strictly because of…
I made a new video! It took an absolute shit-ton of time to film and edit! Youtube blocked it in the US and Poland the second I uploaded it!
Yaaaaaaaaaaaay!
