First off, yes! Yes, it is a slow news/discussion day for sure! However secondly, I wanted to discuss how people have reacted towards MatPat’s latest video, it which he discusses the Coronavirus in a well, let’s say not the most tasteful approach given the current circumstances. I also wanted to highlight the slight hypocrisy of everyone else.
So MatPat made a video titled Game Theory: Who Will Survive [CENSORED] Virus?, in which he discusses which video game character is likely to survive the Coronavirus. I initially didn’t want to watch the video, not because of some moral reasoning, but because I was kinda fed up with hearing about the virus. It wasn’t until I started seeing people bash MatPat for the video online, did my interest peak. MatPat has had quite the history of people coming for his neck, so this isn’t anything new.
Some of the core arguments mostly revolved on how MatPat approached making that video. The biggest complaint is that he’s profiting off the demise of others. I’m not gonna lie, I found that argument to be valid, but regardless I decided to watch the video to see how bad it actually was. The video was more of an educational lesson on how to keep yourself safe while hyperbolizing it to make it revolve around video game characters and who would survive the coronavirus. It was information that we already knew, but with video characters. I guess he was aiming at his younger audience and gamers alike.
What people had the most issues is that he;
- Titled the video without mentioning coronavirus in the title to avoid demonetization!
- The thumbnail had a shock value that could spook people into hysteria!
- It undermines or exaggerates the severity of the situation (I really don’t know which).
- He comes off as a hypocrite after criticizing Logan Paul’s Forest video.
- Making money and has sponsorship in his video.
As you can see, there are quite a few points here. Allow me to share my thoughts on them. Let’s start with the first point. Avoiding using the coronavirus in the title is common sense. Getting demonetized on YouTube not only strips you of making any money, but YouTube’s algorithm won’t share the video on the platform. There’s nothing inherently evil about that. Every YouTuber, well most anyways is doing it to avoid getting demonetized if they want to talk about the virus.
The thumbnail makes sense AFTER you watch the video. Yes it draws your attention, and it could be considered in bad taste but I really don’t see anything wrong here. The third point gets washed away when you actually watch the video. From the way I saw it, this was MatPat’s way to educate people while taking a more light-hearted toned approach to it. Unfortunately, I will admit that doing so undermines the severity of this virus, and will likely stop people from quarantining themselves, especially the young.
The fourth point is a massive stretch in my opinion. Unless you’ve never laughed at any of the memes thrown around online or didn’t make one yourself, you can’t possibly compare this video with the Logan Paul video. It’s ridiculous. Logan Paul filmed a dead guy, making a profit was not the major talking point, it was his action.
As for the last point, that one is really the meat in the discussion. We often don’t realize this but ask yourself this, why is it that we allow news media and news outlets to run ads while reporting on disastrous events such as famine, war, terrorism & deaths in the world, meanwhile we hold individual content creator on a moral compass? In a perfect world, neither should be making a profit from discussing these events. However, here we are!
Should MatPat have turned off his ads and not have done a NordVPN sponsorship? Yes but I really don’t care personally! It’s in bad taste sure but it’s not the worst thing to have happened, however, the video wasn’t bad at least. I mean, if we’re keeping it even further 100%, then people who try to get likes, clicks and follows for joking about the virus or taking advantage of it instead of being educational should also be scrutinized as those could also lead to future profit, and we know people on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok are definitely “profiting” off the jokes and content they’re making around the virus. I mean there’s viral trend going around called “It’s corona time!” Yep! Keep that same energy the next time you think about retweeting or sharing those memes/contents.
You wanna know what really bad? People still refusing to quarantine themselves, not taking this pandemic seriously and putting not only themselves but others around them in danger. Buying up essential sanitizers in bulks, putting their fellow neighbor at risk. Jobs not letting you go home. Western world shaming people for trying to protect themselves with masks. Certain media outlets calling the COVID-19, the Chinese Virus! Yeah, it originated in China, but we all know what they’re trying to do here at this stage.
We have bigger fishes to fry right now, so let’s turn our energy to that. Let me know what you guys think of this, and yes I am aware of the irony here!
