My girlfriend pointed out that Lisa had a website, and dutifully, we examined it to find banal game reviews, and more interestingly, three episodes of a fledgling web series called "Everyday Achievements." What amazes me about most nerds is that, for the sheer amount of comedic material they ingest, they are generally unfunny as shit. Couple that with the fact that game humor is probably the easiest subject matter to come up with jokes with, and I don't understand how someone who actually had experience with comedic acting could fuck up a webseries so badly. I wasn't expecting some sort of gaming hilarity like Broken Pixels, but JESUS CHRIST FUCK THIS SHIT.
Presently, I'm wonderingly if I can write about the show without having to rewatch any of the episodes. The plot is that Lisa is a wacky GAMER GRRL who has wacky friends but no wacky adventures because that would require some modicum of creativity, so instead you get idealized retellings of game nights. What struck me most about the series is that there really wasn't much actually game humor, the closest we get is the sight gag that her psychologist is named Dr. Wily (faint praise approaches: this was far and away the funniest thing in the series). The first episode has Lisa throwing things around, then goes to a skit about her wacky roommate Kenny who does wacky stuff like baking cupcakes with mayo frosting (AND HE ALSO LIKES IT THAT WAY LOLOLOLOL). The second episode features the worst "psychologist and patients group meeting" skit ever conceived, then notes that when gamers play together, it kind of sounds like they're having sex! WHOA
Perhaps sensing that the series is already starting to decay, Lisa goes for her Limit Break, the third episode opening with her dressed up in various sexy costumes and goddamnit I may as well post the entire monologue because it is the perfect representation of attention-seeking girls realizing the bounties of nerd hormones:
After 5 minutes of awkward dialogue masquerading as humor, we find that the pizza guy was interested, but not really, leaves so the viewer can mentally insert himself as the caring shoulder that might transmorph into the hot lover after lots of sweet talks and sexually charged near-victories on Street Fighter 4. ;) The two highest rated comments on youtube pretty much say it all:
Everything I know about life and the universe tells me that if you meet a girl who is THAT attractive and THAT seductive with THAT much innuendo, you need to run the f**k away. It's a trap. Nobody's karma level is that high. You'd take one step in the door and get struck by lightning, or covered in bees. The universe is not that kind. If you happen to BE that attractive, your punishment is having people run away from you, fearing karmic repercussions. Or the aforementioned bee lightning.
Lisa's so pretty.
Maybe I'm being a little harsh, as it's only been three episodes, but as it's already started mining for boners, fuck the show. I even considered giving it some leeway since we're only dealing with five minute long snippits, but that actually makes the terribleness of the show even worse, as then all you would have to do is just ignore the need for filler and just pile on the gags. lern2channel101.
Ultimately, I guess this is all just frustration at how drastically unfunny nerds are. By nerds, I mean those people that leapfrog from one stupid nerd website to another, roffelling at penny arcade, kotaku, and maybe zero punctuation if it's still around and hasn't been swallowed up in some of space time singularity of total pointlessness. While most members of every subculture are pretty terrible at humor, nerds are generally the most hellbent subculture at convincing people that they are funny. Your average jock is somewhat aware of his lacking funny bone, and instead just going to refer each other to the humor column in sports illustrated, or just relate humorous anecdotes. Nerds are still convinced mouthmashing memes without any context are totally hilarious.
Maybe it's the source material. People flipped out over Ebert declaring "games are not art," but he's basically right. Movies, music, and other sorts of media offer a chance to connect to other people via the experience of observing the media. There's nothing commonly shared about video game experiences, just a vague blob of "oh man that was awesome you dodged that missile" between players. There are cutscenes that are always the same, but come on, cutscenes? Better to argue that Let's Plays are art, since at least then many people have the same experience watching those, but then you're just watching a movie with a nasally asshole commentary track.
At any rate, the variable nature of video games really makes subtle humor on the subject difficult, as you either have to be really good at humor in general, or fall back on other subjects of humor to pad it. As most nerds are just about as clueless on other forms of media as any other idiot class, the latter option is out. And as to the former, if you're actually funny, why bother being funny on a subject that is only going to be funny to those people that no one actually cares about? Which bring me in a roundabout way to the question, why even bother really being funny with video game humor? Going back to Penny Arcade, the only thing really humorous about the strip is that the disparity between the creators' actual physical appearance and their cartoon selves mirror the same situation of the comic's readers. Actual game humor is reserved to the punchlines of:
"Whoa this sort of thing wouldn't happen in real life."
"Man, what were those video game executives THINKING???"
"Not much happening here WAIT WACKY THING HAPPENS IN LAST PANEL"
The worst thing is that Penny Arcade is -relatively excellent.- I can read a couple of Penny Arcade strips and at least just roll my eyes, or hell, EVEN CHUCKLE (note that my chuckling at a strip usually means that the normal readers of Penny Arcade will quote it for YEARS TO COME). Compare this to VGCats, which usually leads to me feeling too ashamed to play video games for a month. Combine this with a base readership of overwhelming social awkwardness, and we're at a place where even when someone might have an idea of attempting something new humor in game humor, they'd be too afraid and instead just fall back on going "pedobear pedobear pedobear" to be warped into the dimension of screaming gamer lexicon to get love.
WHERE DOES THIS LEAVE ME, YOU ASK.
Well, maybe I should try to be funny?
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