"Testimony of a Former Irate Gamer Fan" by Robert Howard

Hey everyone. I've got something special today, another fan submission!
You ever want to see in the mind of an Irate Gamer fan? Thanks to today's post from Robert Howard, you can see the how and why, as well as the reason Chris has been bleeding fans for a while now.
Enjoy.

Hello, readers of the Irate Gamer Sucks blog. My name is Robert Howard. I have been following this blog for around a year and a half now and I have very much enjoyed reading BatDan’s posts and the comments that everyone makes. Over the past couple of weeks, I thought about sharing a story detailing my experience with following the Irate Gamer. I decided to e-mail BatDan and ask for his permission to share my story through one of his posts and after he said yes, I began to type it up. So, let’s begin.

I am a former Irate Gamer fan. Yes, I used to believe that his videos were some of the funniest and most creative videos on the Internet. I would like to use this story to explain how I became a fan of the Irate Gamer, what happened to make me lose my appreciation and respect for him, and where I stand now.

Let me start with some background information. In 2008, when the so-called “Internet War” between James Rolfe’s fans and Chris Bores’ fans was happening, I was not aware of any of it. At that time, the only way my family could access the Internet was through the one computer that we all shared and even then, my mom didn’t want me and my brother to be wasting time on YouTube. So, during the time, I had no idea who James Rolfe or Chris Bores even were.

However, that changed in the summer of 2009, when I used all the money I collected from birthday presents to purchase an iPod touch. For the first time, I was able to freely access YouTube without having to ask my parents for permission to use the computer. I spent the first few days watching all sorts of videos and I eventually started making some of my own. I admit that the quality of my old videos were really awful but I had a lot of fun making them.

After a while, I decided to try and find some footage on YouTube of one of my favorite video games at the time: Super Smash Bros. Brawl. After watching some videos of other people play the game, I came across Irate Gamer’s review of it. I watched it and I really enjoyed it. I was so amazed by the fact that there were other people who loved the video games I loved and who shared their love for those games by making reviews of them.

I decided to watch some other videos that he made and that’s when I came across his Super Mario Bros. 2 review. What really attracted me to this review is that I owned Super Mario Bros. 2 for the GBA and that I always loved playing it when I was younger. However, after watching his review, I went on to convince myself that the game was bad. Even though he had said positive things about the GBA port, I still believed that the game was bad simply because Bores said it was bad. I have played the game a couple of times since then and I regret ever hating it.

I went on to try and watch every single one of his reviews and I believed every word he said about the games he reviewed. After all, I am not an old-school gamer. I was born in 1996 and even though the first video game I ever played was Super Mario 64, I really didn’t get into video games until the Wii came out. So, I believed him because he seemed to look like he knew what he was talking about and I didn’t think he would have any reason to lie. I honestly believed that the star moved that slow in Super Mario Bros. 2. I honestly believed that there was no way to reach some of the red jewels in Aladdin. I believed him because I looked up to him and trusted him to tell the truth.

My fandom for the Irate Gamer reached such a high level that I began to memorize chunks of his videos and recite them back to some of my friends to see what they thought. I also tried to enter all of the “pick me” contests that he held, never winning. I had basically become a fanboy. Now, I wasn’t the kind of fanboy who constantly commented on his YouTube videos, defending his every actions. However, I was the kind of fanboy who believed that he could do no wrong.

Now, I know some of you might be asking, “How on earth could you have enjoyed Chris Bores?” Well, I have two reasons. The first reason is I thought his videos were unique and informative. Like I said before, I had no knowledge of video games made in the 80s and 90s so I thought what he was saying about the games was true. I believed Zombies Ate My Neighbors was a bad game because he said it was and he seemed to know more about it than I did.

The second reason is I thought he was funny. I was only 13 at the time and I thought his Family Guy style of jokes was hilarious. I showed the videos to my 12-year-old brother and he thought they were funny too. I talked about the videos to my friends and they seemed to think they were funny too. Granted, there were some jokes that I never found funny (“Someone call 911 because I was ROBbed” Really?) but for the most part, I found his videos to be really funny.

However, as you might have guessed, the inevitable happened. In late 2010, while telling one of my friends about the Irate Gamer and his videos, he told me that there was another YouTube channel called the Angry Video Game Nerd who also did reviews of old video games. So, I decided to check him out. The first video I saw was Rolfe’s review of The Wizard of Oz and I thought it was really funny. I noticed that his style of reviewing old video games was very similar to Bores’. At the time however, I didn’t think much of it. I just thought that they were two guys who shared a similar interest in reviewing video games and I thought there was nothing wrong with me being fans of both of them.

A couple of months later, I came across a YouTube video titled “top 10 stupidest things said by irategamer” uploaded by irateqaymer. My first thoughts on the video were that the creator of the video was bullying Irate Gamer for no good reason. At that time, I was still unaware of all the plagiarism, research mistakes, censorship, and false-flagging that Bores was accused of doing. Therefore, I thought that irateqaymer was simply jealous of Irate Gamer and was making a video just to make him feel bad.

Then, in early 2011, I came across a video made by the Archfiend titled “The Irate Gamer Is Better Than You. ‘Deal With It Bro’ –Chris Bores.” In the video, the Archfiend talked about how Irate Gamer cyberbullied an unknown YouTuber by telling him that he will never be as good or as successful as him. The Archfiend also included links to pictures and a video, which proved the cyberbullying. I was completely shocked and partly in denial. I honestly couldn’t believe that Chris Bores, someone whom I looked up to and respected, would do something so cruel and disrespectful. I didn’t want to believe it but the evidence seemed too convincing.

Shortly after, I began to watch the Archfiend’s other videos about the Irate Gamer, along with some other critical videos made by other users, and that’s when I first learned about the claims that the Irate Gamer was a rip-off of the AVGN. I learned about the plagiarism accusations, the censorship in the comments section, and the false-flagging. I couldn’t believe that the Irate Gamer would do those kinds of things and I was starting to lose a little bit of respect for him. However, I still considered myself a fan of his work and I still thought that there was nothing too wrong about being a fan of both him and James.

And then, I learned about LadyBuggin777. In mid-2012, I watched an Archfiend video which showed a picture of the comments section of Bores’ Silver Surfer review. The picture showed the accidental reveal that Bores is LadyBuggin. Since I usually didn’t like to read the comments sections of videos at that time, I didn’t know who LadyBuggin was. At this point, I was really curious so I decided to do a Google search to see if I could come across any more info. I found Bores’ Encyclopedia Dramatica page and I was first shocked to see how cruel the writer of the page was to Bores. (I didn’t find out until later that the point of the website is to be cruel.) Then, I read LadyBuggin’s section of the page and I learned about all of the horrible things she did. I saw the constant examples of cyberbullying and her inability to listen to reason. To think that this was all done by Chris claiming to be his mother made me furious. What LadyBuggin was doing was terrible and my respect for Chris became smaller and smaller.

Shortly after that came the Cheetahmen 2 “scandal.” I’m not going to talk too much about the original video since I still don’t understand all the details regarding the scam but from what I know, James apologized for his involvement and I accept that. When I saw Bores’ “Ebegging: The Spoof,” I began to feel a mixture of both shock and outrage. I couldn’t believe that Bores was bullying the person who inspired him to make reviews simply because he made a mistake. Don’t get me wrong; criticizing someone for making a mistake and trying to help them realize their mistake and improve so they don’t make the same mistake again is fine. But the only thing Bores seemed to be doing was rubbing the fact that James made a mistake in everyone’s faces and trying to act like he was so much better than James because of that. What made me angry the most is that in the video’s description, Bores criticized James for deleting comments but still running ads on his video when Bores has been doing that since 2007. That was the big turning point for me. That was when I had lost all respect for Bores.

During this entire time, Chris was busy making his story arc so I would like to now briefly talk about my feelings regarding that. When he uploaded the first episode in 2010, I was really excited to see him incorporating a story into his videos and I wanted to see what would happen next. At the same time though, I thought the story arc would only last two or three episodes and that he would have it finished by the end of 2010 or the beginning of 2011. I was very annoyed to have to wait until June 2011 for episode 2 and I was also very annoyed to learn that episode 3 was not the end. It honestly felt like he was dragging the story out way too much and the story was getting worse and worse every single episode. It was also very annoying to watch three straight episodes where nothing happened in the plot, which made me think that he had given up. In 2010, I would’ve never guessed that he would spend 12 episodes and three and a half years on the story arc. To put things into perspective, when he uploaded the first episode, I was one month into high school. When he uploaded the last episode, I was one month away from graduation. It also didn’t help that I didn’t find the episodes to be funny and that the ending was very anticlimactic and bad, which made me think the whole story arc was pointless and a waste of time.

After watching some of the episodes he made in 2013 and not finding them funny, I began to question whether the Irate Gamer was even funny to begin with. I went back and watched his old videos that used to make me howl with laughter and I found myself not laughing even once. I questioned why that was and I came up with two reasons. The first reason is that I was growing up. Irate Gamer’s comedy style has been pretty much the same since day 1 and while it might be entertaining to 12-year-olds, it certainly doesn’t entertain most people above the age of 14. The second reason is that I knew the truth. I couldn’t find myself able to laugh at a guy who was trying to become famous by ripping off someone else. Other people might be able to but I am not. It was at this point that I stopped believing he was funny.

Near the end of 2013, I came across DLAbaoaqu’s “I Can’t Believe It’s Not AVGN” series and unlike Bores’ videos, I found DLA’s to be hilarious. There was something about DLA’s harsh criticism towards Bores accompanied with his humorous tone that I found very funny. I also found DLA’s videos to be informative, as they taught me for the first time about Bores’ constant research failures. It was very enlightening to see Bores claim that he knew a lot about 80s and 90s video games yet make mistakes that a quick Google search could have easily fixed. After watching DLA’s videos, I was 100% convinced that the only thing Chris cared about was the money.

At the beginning of 2014, a friend suggested that I watch Linkara’s parody of the Irate Gamer. I did and I thought he did a very good job at imitating Bores’ style of reviewing. In the credits, I saw Linkara thank BatDan and his blog as well as FFL2and3rocks, also known as Third Rate Gamer. I decided to look both of them up. I started with Third Rate Gamer. His parodies were really, really funny and I enjoyed spending an afternoon or two watching all of them. His videos made me laugh harder than Bores’ videos ever did.

After watching Third Rate Gamer, I looked up BatDan and that’s how I found this blog. I began reading the articles he wrote on Bores and I could tell the blog was something special. It was a way to criticize Bores and his actions and inform people of the truth without Bores being able to do anything about it. After all, he isn’t able to false-flag the articles. To me, this showed how much BatDan didn’t want people to be deceived by Bores’ lies, which in turn shows how caring BatDan is.

Now, how does my story with Bores end? Well, the final nail on the coffin was the “Opening Up” video. When I saw that Bores had uploaded that video, I thought that this might’ve been his final chance at redemption, at least in my eyes. I thought that the video would be a chance for Bores to acknowledge his past mistakes and apologize for them but at the same time, accept what happened and move on from there. I saw the entire video and I did not believe it for a single second. I heard him make claims about James yet constantly found myself asking for proof which was never provided. I saw how he neglected to mention the closing of comments, the false-flagging, and the blocking of any user who criticized him. I listened to some of his statements, knowing that there was evidence out there to prove that he was lying. I never once remember him apologizing for anything. He simply used the video to try and justify his actions while trying to make himself look innocent. Even my roommate, who was listening to the video with me and who had no idea who the Irate Gamer was, said, “Does this guy ever shut up? He sounds so whiny and full of himself.” I think the best response I can give to the video is a quote from Kyle Broflovski from the South Park episode “Fishsticks”:
“That's how people like you work! Your ego is so out of whack that it will do whatever it can to protect itself. And people with a messed up ego can do these mental gymnastics to convince themselves they're awesome, when really, they're just douchebags!”

After that video, I convinced myself that Bores would never admit to what he did so I decided that I will probably never be a fan of his work again and that’s where I stand today. My younger brother is no longer a fan either. All I have really done this year regarding Bores other than watch some of his videos and read the blog posts is post a couple of sarcastic remarks on his videos calling him out, which caused Bores to delete the comments and LadyBuggin to block me. I still watch James’ videos and even though I don’t find them that funny anymore, he still does a good job at reviewing games and I still get the sense that he really cares about his fans. I am also still a fan of the Archfiend, even though I disagree with his stances on James and Chris. So, that is how I became a former Irate Gamer fan.

So, what’s my point in saying all of this? Well, I have a few points. The first point is directed to Chris, in case he ever reads this: your deception is more harmful than you think. By acting like the star is that slow in Super Mario Bros. 2 or like Aladdin has no way to obtain some of the red jewels, you cause some people to believe those things. You can claim that they’re jokes all you want but I believed they were true and I wouldn’t blame someone else for believing they’re true either. I know you might not think this matters because it’s just the Internet, but what would you do if you wanted to apply for a job in a business outside of YouTube? Your potential employer can easily search you on the Internet and find out your entire YouTube history. Do you think they will want to hire you, knowing that you have a history of deception and censorship? If you want to gain respect and trust, then the best way to do that is to tell the truth. You’ll at least gain a little respect from me. (Maybe.)

The second point is directed at LadyBuggin: if you really are Chris, then just admit it. There is quite a bit of evidence out there that suggests you are Chris and absolutely no evidence suggesting you are his mother, except for a profile picture that could be of any random woman for all we know. Do you realize how sick it is to say such horrible things to people and then claim that your mom is saying them? Just remember what I said about deception. If you really are Chris’ mom, then why don’t you just prove it to shut us all up? Granted, you don’t have to but as long as you don’t, you need to accept the fact that people won’t believe you when you say you are his mom and stop calling everyone an idiot who claims that you are Chris.

My third point is directed at BatDan and the followers of this blog: informing people of the truth does matter. I think Chris had his chance to improve but he has proven time and time again that he is unwilling to listen to criticism. However, I think the blog is about more than just criticizing Chris; it’s also about trying to stop people from being deceived. There are too many people out there who are ready to believe the statements of someone who is popular simply because they are popular. However, there are also many people out there who are trying to be open-minded and willing to listen to what you have to say. I believe that if people are willing to look past the negative connotation the blog’s title has, they will see all of the positive that the blog is trying to do.

My final point is also directed at BatDan and the blog followers: there is hope. I used to be a close-minded fan of the Irate Gamer who didn’t know or wouldn’t try to learn the truth about him. It’s six years later and I am now in college, more open-minded, and more willing to listen to what people have to say. If I have changed over the years, then surely there must be others who have as well. I know it might be frustrating to see people constantly support the poor quality work that Chris puts out but it will pass. I know that fanboys will always be replaced by new fanboys but Chris won’t be able to do this forever so the fanboys won’t be able to either. I know that there will always be people who don’t grow up and who still act like fanboys even though they are in their 20s or 30s but the number of those people doesn’t even compare to the number of people who will grow up. Fanboys will change and they will discover and accept the truth and it is ok to take pride in knowing that you helped at least one person (me) see the truth.

That’s all I have to say. I will gladly answer any questions you might have in the comments section. Thank you all for reading and thanks to BatDan for sharing this on his blog. I hope you all have a nice day.