Why is Rage Funny?

When I first established this blog, I insisted that Let's Plays are a form of comedy and can be compared to the likes of stand up and other famous genres of comedy. Of course, like I said, comedy is an objective art form and what one can find funny about a certain joke, may not be what another thinks. Though one aspect that fans of Let's Plays can universally agree on is rage gaming. I mentioned in my last post with the iconic Game Grumps moment how rage can be funny because in this particular instance, it's so over the top and dramatic that it's gut bustingly hilarious. But how else rage be funny? And why is it funny as a whole?

Well to dive into that, let's talk about gamers and the gaming community. Gamers as a whole, are a family of sorts. We play games because we get pleasure and joy out of them. They're fun and they take us out of the World and put us into another whenever we turn on the power button. Most of the time anyway. With good movies and good stand up comedy, there is an equal and opposite bad. Routines that just aren't funny no matter how you look at it and are universally panned by critics. The Room here, is considered one of the worst films of all time, and has a distinct cult following because of its poor acting, poor production, and generally weird plot. Same with video games, as there are bad games out there that are considered universally bad. Games like Sonic '06, Drake and the 99 Dragons and E.T on Atari are notorious for there terribleness. These are flawed games that suffer from poor design choices which hold the game back from being enjoyable. Imagine you're a kid in the 90's, with no internet, and only know about video games through word of mouth. Imagine you get say, Bubsy 3D as a birthday gift for your Playstation One and curiously try to play it to see what its like only to discover that the controls are terrible, the puns are too painful and the graphics look like windows 95 barfed on your television screen. Wouldn't that anger you? Wouldn't it piss you off that the game is so poorly designed ? Wouldn't you be seething with jealousy knowing that your friends got to play Super Mario 64, an infinitely superior 3D exploration game? That's the rage that kids in the 90's and even before then, felt when they stumbled upon a terrible video game.

Fast forward to over a decade later, where the internet is firmly established and a website called YouTube was just born. Browsing through the videos, you see a guy called JonTron reviewing this very game. He makes fun of the poor controls, the terrible graphics the puns and just the ridiculousness of the entire game, even pointing out how Super Mario 64 came out a little before it. This is what you call being relatable. People find pleasure in pain by finding others that they can identify with. In the video, Jontron is essentially reacting to the game as anybody else would and its funny because you know exactly what its like. You take pleasure in his pain because you felt it too. This is why The Angry Video Game Nerd is so popular, because gamers identify with his pain of playing terrible games. He's working your nostalgia and representing your emotions.

Let's Players do the exact same thing, though in a natural and unscripted environment. Game Grumps here illustrates this concept perfectly. As a kid, I dreaded this specific level in Super Mario Sunshine every time I played it. If you've ever played it, you'll know that there's this invisible wall that follows you as you move right across the board, preventing you from going backwards, even if the slot is inches away from you. On top of that, the slope detection, (or the angles that dictate whether Mario can walk on or slide down because it's too steep) is terrible in this game and you will slip and slide even on the most flattest of inclines. This level has it BAD and as you cans see, both contributed to the Game Grump's death in the clip. Seeing this moment made me bust my gut laughing because I've experienced it so I relate to their misfortune. Sure some people can laugh at something over the top, but isn't the moment that much funnier when you know exactly what it's like? The answer is a resounding yes of course.

Now you might be asking yourself, how is this humor in the same field as say Jim Carreys stand up? Or how is it as funny as say the sitcom, Friends? Well, allow me to answer that question with a question of my own. Don't both Jim Carrey and Friends use the same technique? Don't they present something that people can relate to, albeit in a more humorous fashion? Comedians, actors and television shows alike use relatable situations to their advantage when creating their routines or episodes. The only difference here is that one of these forms uses everyday life as humor while the other uses video games. Just because the medium changes doesn't mean the impact is any less effective. Both Let's Play Channels such as Game Grumps and Markiplier and review shows such as The Angry Video Game Nerd and JonTron for that matter reach out to a specific niche audience and have gathered the success they have because they represent them. Fans live vicariously through these internet celebrities and have satisfaction in being represented in a medium that both reminds them why they're gamers and why they love video games. When you plug in that disk or cartridge into your system for the first time, you never know what to truly expect, good or bad. The experience you have with it is something that stays with you for the rest of your life and to have those feelings represented in humor, is something that I think certainly deserves some respect.