Kiwi Farms
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Sister services, email, and search will continue to be negatively effected by the attacks. I made a thread to talk about it, if you're into networking.
Seriously speaking, Micheal Does Life is as blatant a Youtube troll as you can get, and makes weekly content which recycles the same lines verbatim about any popular video game which hasn't even been released while offering a contrarian opinion, usually negative, about the game, all in a weird Donald Trump impersonation and with what appears to be a lazy eye he can either correct or displace on command. If you've browsed certain video game-focused forums, you've probably seen his face come up now and then.
But the intent of this thread isn't for the point of mockery, although that may come up now and then, but to simply archive and marvel at such a magnificent individual's dedication towards trolling gamers and the reactions he spurs doing so. And no, I didn't rewrite a script from the above video to make that first paragraph, that was just written from memory based on the unchanging phrases heard throughout his regular and multiple spiels. The accompanying video was just picked at random.
Starting off with his actual content, while overwhelmingly negative in his "reviews," there are exceptions to his unwavering "tastes," such as swapping to a positive opinion regarding The Last of Us 2 despite offering his usual lines of criticisms against it only days before; all because its leaks made people actually question the quality of the game, with Michael citing the game was "winning [him] over" when public perception of it began to actually agree with his original stance. Clearly, Michael's "critic" persona is the definition of a contrarian, and will regularly claim a game is poor quality while mocking its fans, citing blurry screenshots of gameplay or odd photos of games changing over development, making it difficult to decipher what he's actually criticizing. My personal favorite is his regular critique of when a game is shorter than Witcher 3, an open-world WRPG which takes around 60 hours just to beat its main campaign.
The titles and thumbnails of the videos are also a treat as well, as Michael will intentionally give conflicting titles for the sake of clickbait and uses the literal exact same thumbnails with the game edited into his hand to appear unique. Sometimes, videos made back-to-back will not even use photos of Michael within the same timespan, swapping between before and after he let his hair grow out to appear more like a meth-addicted Shaggy from Scooby-Doo.
But just because Michael is an obvious troll, it doesn't mean he's not a successful one. While he has some ironic "fans," his like/dislike ratios on his videos are overwhelmingly negative and rife with individuals falling for both his clickbait and his routine.
As a pleasant bonus to his Youtube shenanigans, he's fond of doing livestreams where he at least intends to talk about video games, but his insistence on using Skype to allow absolutely anyone to call in leads him to becoming frustrated, possibly even breaking character. This is where his troll persona seems to drop at times and he genuinely appears annoyed or angered, which makes it all the more enthralling. The best descriptor is it's akin to old Jace streams before Jace himself got outed as a fake, and while the magic similar to Jace's stream is sort of missing when you know Michael is only an act, the seemingly real irritation he expresses on his streams prove highly amusing. The streams themselves are nothing but non-stop entertainment as links to both the live feed and his open Skype causes other trolls to call in and impersonate him, drop racial slurs, or insult him, leading to Michael starting a screaming match between them while only a select few callers actually bothering to pretend to agree with him. On a vaguely related note, he's also started to "branch out" of a sort by occasionally discussing American politics on his streams. Given his contrarian nature, he most clearly rallies behind Donald Trump since he sees this stance as the most provocative venture.
That said, it's highly important to archive his streams immediately as Michael tends to delete them instantly when he ends them. Luckily, a few posters from boards like /v/ will rehost the videos on unlisted links, but older streams are still difficult to find. Below is one of his more recent forays as he discusses an upcoming game release.
If it isn't obvious already, I highly recommend Michael's reviews, comments, and streams. He's been noticed here and there for his obsessive rants about video games for a few years and has slowly started to pick up traction in recent time. I personally find vlogger/streamer lolcows as absolute misery due to them producing a huge quantity of content with only a rare snippet worth saving, but thankfully Michael is an extremely rare (and welcome) exception. Even under the reality of it all being an act, no amount of fakery can mask the sheer obsession it takes to upload new content yelling into a camera every three days and exchanging insults on livestreams. Every video he makes, while repetitive, is absolute gold and doesn't need the slightest bit of trimming and are pleasantly brief. Every stream he holds, while loud and obnoxious, doesn't stop with its rapid-fire swapping between yelling at detractors and skipping over people playing audio into the mic. His frequency is respectable as he always winds up making something weird every three days or so, and absolutely everything is just so entertaining to watch as a whole.
But best of all, Michael is refreshing. He's not some depressing drug addict, even if he looks like one, nor is he some obnoxious drama-centric mess, although he certainly tries to act like it. He's just a troll putting on a wonderful persona and an uninterrupted feed of content, and the last thing I'd want is something which scares him off from doing so. As such, I'd love to use this thread primarily as a means of archiving his content and discussing his forays as a world-class veteran video game critic.
LINKS
Youtube