Gamer Girls

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrtNfGrK2fQ

They review that Godzilla side-scrolling NES game.  Sort of.  It’s mostly just Tony reading a list of the enemies in the game and saying that they never appeared in a Godzilla movie.

9:00 – Then they talk about my review of a previous Godzilla episode.  I barely even wrote anything.  I just thought it was kind of cool that they mentioned me.  But a second time?  For a review that didn’t even have anything of substance to it?  It’s desperate.

And why the desperation?  You have a topic: the Godzilla NES game.  You don’t have more than nine minutes of content there?  Talk about who made the game.  It was a company called Compile.  Maybe talk about them.  What other games they made.  Are these other games any good?  How did they get the deal with Toho?  Do some research.

They barely even described what the game is.  If I wasn’t already familiar with the game, I’d have no idea what they’re talking about.  It’s some sort of turn-based like board game in some sections and then when you land on a monster (or something) it goes to a side-scrolling stage.  So there’s obviously some strategy involved in this board game section.  I don’t know what the strategy is, I only played the game briefly, years ago, but you have a Godzilla podcast.  Do the research.

What’s the ending?  Is there an ending?  If you can’t beat the game yourself, at least look up a playthrough.  

You can also talk about the graphics, the sound, the “fun factor”, the usual shit that people tend to mention in game reviews.

Anyway, let’s get to the meat of the video: another bizarre, boring, confused discussion about a review that I wrote..

12:00 – “So I noticed that he only talked about the first two episodes and he’s talking about this episode and I’ll get into why later.”

He’s talking about how I reviewed the first two episodes of his podcast but not the next four.  He has a bizarre theory on this but here’s the real reason: there’s nothing in the videos worth talking about.  I don’t mean that as an insult.  

I’ve listened to all of them.  Just in my spare time.  For “fun”.  It’s Tony talking about the movie (or whatever), giving some trivia, and his co-host Johanna will sometimes make some contribution.  

So after I finish listening to the podcast, I think, “Well, that was alright, I guess” or “Well, that was kind of boring.”  

How am I going to turn that into a review?  

Also, I’m not really an authority on Godzilla movies.  I’ve watched a few on television when I was a child.  That’s it.  So I can’t say, “Oh, you got this wrong!  You got that wrong!”  I don’t even remember any of these movies.  I’ve only seen a few.  Decades ago.  Edited, badly-dubbed, 1980s television versions of them.

Also, this is something I’ve mentioned previously, as much as I appreciate Tony’s work (albeit, in a somewhat ironic fashion) the name of the blog is Gamer Grrls.  Tony is not a gamer grrl.  

Wait…has he ever given his pronouns?  Maybe I was wrong to assume his gender.

I also sometimes write about non-gamer grrls but I intentionally limit this to try to stick with the theme.  I can’t turn the blog into a Tony from Hack the Movies blog.  I don’t even review every video that the gamer grrls make.  But I’m supposed to review every Godzilla podcast?  Frankly, nobody cares.  There are three people in the world who are at all entertained by these Godzilla podcast reviews: me, Tony, and possibly Johanna.  

Speaking of Johanna, I don’t have any problems with her.  Indeed, I’ve been very careful with what I say about her.  It’s somebody who’s doing a podcast, she’s never done one before, what am I going to say?  She’s trying.  She’s getting better.  I think that I’ve been encouraging.  

13:45 – Johnanna calls me an “incel” for reasons that escape me.  That insult de jure of all the dimwits on the internet these days.  I’ve just been “pwned”, I guess.  Fucking “llama”.  Any adult using these stupid internerd “meme” terms is just announcing to the world that they’re a total moron. 

Anyway, Tony was quoting my review where I say that they were offended by my use of the word “female”.  It’s true.  That’s what happened.  But why would this cause offence anyway?

Then Tony says, “It is weird when people use the word ‘female’ in like a non-biological/medical…”

This was after he read my explanation that I was including girls as well as women.  Because I was talking about what percent of the video game market is female.  I said it was 25% female.  Video games are popular with children and adults but children are a large portion of the audience.  So I said “female” to include girls as well as women.  What better term would he suggest?

14:15 – “They don’t know what those little MUSCLE figures are.”

And he kind of yells “muscle” because it was in all caps, which is the stylisation they used for this line of toys.  It’s an acronym.  

He goes on to say that he doesn’t know anything about them.  I appreciate that he wasn’t born when they were released but they were pretty popular.  They were based on the Kinnikuman figures.  It was a popular anime in Japan about wrestling.  I believe that there was an NES game based on this licence.  He likes wrestling.  He likes NES games.  You’d think it might have crossed his radar.

If he’s not familiar with it, he’s not familiar with it.  But I can’t write my reviews based on what I think Tony from Hack the Movies is familiar with.  If I did that, this blog would be entirely about pornography and right wing conspiracy theories.

19:15 – He’s quoting from my review where I talk about how I got a boost in traffic on the day that they released this video and mentioned the Gamer Grrls blog.  I said, “Thanks for sending those ten people over.”  So Tony says, “Don’t say ‘boost in traffic’ and then ‘ten people’.  Your traffic is very low if ten people is a boost.”

THAT WAS THE JOKE!  This was clearly all said sarcastically.  I was implying that his podcast doesn’t get many views or downloads or whatever.  It’s true.  They don’t.  So when he mentioned my blog, I got an extra ten views.  

Let me see what it was actually was.  I had about 100 views on 30 October (which is about my usual number) and about 200 on 31 October (when he mentioned the blog).  So that’s not a lot in itself.  And I think if you’re on a phone, this counter will count every article you read as a view.  So if ten people read ten articles, that’s 100 views.  

Anyway, it was clearly a joke that they didn’t get.  

20:00 – Then he gives his theory on how I found the video where he reviews my review of his Godzilla review.  

He doesn’t believe me when I say that I was catching up on the podcasts.  Again, he seems to think that I should have reviewed every podcast that he did.  No.  I watched them and then moved on with my life.

Then I didn’t have internet for a couple of weeks because I moved.  So when my internet returned, I started catching up on videos that I hadn’t watched and I started where I left off.  

So Tony says that he wrote a message on Reddit about the podcast and it included the words, “and an angry blogger complains about Johanna”.  He says, “So of course he went right to that one.”

I never saw this.  First of all, I don’t really go on Reddit.  I haven’t posted in like a year?  Maybe longer.  And I barely read anything on there.

But secondly, I looked this up just now.  He posted this on his own sub-reddit.  

https://www.reddit.com/r/Hackthemovies/comments/jl3pdr/whos_afraid_of_godzilla_book_and_an_angry_blogger/

It has zero replies and zero thumbs up.  His sub has 41 members.  I didn’t even know that it existed.  

So that’s the video, but it got me thinking.  Tony talks about how 800 views in a month is a lot.  And he thinks that his sub with 41 members is all the rage.  

When Tony would say stuff like this, like about how popular his “merch” is, or how everybody is on his OnlyFans, people on Reddit would get upset.  “Oh, this idiot thinks that people actually want to buy a t-shirt with his face on it!  Can you believe it?”

I thought that Tony was in on the joke.  And that’s what made it funny.  

But now I’m not so sure.  And that’s just sad if he thinks that Hack the Movies is doing big business.

I’ve said many times that I don’t have any problem with Tony.  He might be a contemptible person.  I don’t know.  Maybe he isn’t.  He seems to have some contemptible political views.  But whatever.  If he’s grossly misguided, what do I care?  It doesn’t make him a bad person.  And he’s just trying to do a job.  He’s just making some videos for fun.  That’s all great.  

Similarly, Johanna, I don’t have any problem with her.  I could have been much harsher in my reviews, like I am with these gamer grrls, but it just doesn’t seem appropriate.  She’s doing a podcast, she’s never done one before, and it’s not completely unlistenable.  

I mean, she has no charisma, isn’t terribly bright, and doesn’t add much to the show but whatever.  It’s harmless.  It’s a woman trying to help her friend with a Godzilla podcast.  Good for her.

These people don’t seem overly fond of me.  I think that Johanna in particular doesn’t understand the humour of the blog.  I suspect that there are many things that she doesn’t understand.  But whatever.  The world is a magical place full of people with all kinds of different ideas and preferences.  You can’t please everyone.  And that’s okay.  People are allowed to have opinions different than yours.