We discussed the hugely negative reaction to Jimmy Kimmel’s sketch on YouTube Gaming a few days ago. Basically, Kimmel made an admittedly not very funny sketch regarding the absurdity, according to him, of people watching other people play video games, and then the YouTube comments section beneath the video erupted with waves of insults, death threats and other such nonsense lobbed in the direction of the talk show.
Kimmel responded to this by showing his audience a few of the comments he had received, kinda like his recurring “Celebs Read Mean Tweets” skit except with just one celeb, Kimmel, and he seemed more pissed off than humored. Then he again devoted a segment to reading out these comments on another show, and it was slightly less funny this time around, but we all still agreed that it was ridiculous that he was receiving such vitriol for having the nerve to poke fun at the self-proclaimed “gaming community” of YouTube.
But now he’s produced another segment of his show in which he sits down with YouTubers Markiplier and MissesMae in order to record a Let’s Play, and it’s so excruciatingly cringeworthy that it’s almost impossible to not watch it without biting down on your fist.
The video sees Markiplier and MissesMae attempting to describe the appeal of watching people play video games, with Kimmel playing the “out of touch, older celebrity” part well by forcing the two YouTubers into uncomfortable situations (asking them if they are in a relationship before trying to hook them up with one another, then telling them that they should “try being around other humans more” after judging them on their hugging abilities), and generally looking miserable as shit. It wouldn’t be so bad if anything here was remotely funny, but it seems that Kimmel is merely intent on squeezing the last amount of juice he can get from riling up an over-sensitive portion of the Internet than he was in actually giving his audience anything to laugh at. While watching the video, I didn’t even realize that it was being played to his studio audience, until I heard some apathetic laughter midway through the video after Kimmel cracks a feeble joke about MissesMae’s mom sounding like she’s having an orgasm when they watch a video of her playing Minecraft using an Oculus Rift.
Watch the video below, but be warned: it’s immensely difficult to sit through.
