Command & Control: DrDisrespect
Mr. Herschel “Guy” Beahm IV, commonly known by his online alias Dr Disrespect — a famous video game entertainer/streamer, has broken his 18-day silence today with two appearances.
The first: a PC Gamer interview, with Steven Messner, surmised by saying he is still unaware or at least legally bound to not divulge why he was banned from Twitch (owned by Amazon), that is the dominant platform utilized by video game streamers to date.
Dr Disrespect alluded to maintaining an open position in terms of where he will unveil himself next, looking out for the best interest of his character and large community following, aptly named the “Champions Club.” He also hinted that he is not opposed to streaming independently to his championsclub.gg domain — in a follow-up email sent after the interview.
The second: a tweet seen below, where he amassed over one million views in a little under ~30 minutes time.
The clip, with its 80’s music backdrop reminiscent of Blood Sport intersecting Blade Runner with his infamous Red Lamborghini, zooms into a street alley with the shot showcasing his character standing in the shadows as the lyrics “It’s out of my hands, but I’m still in control. It’s out of my hands, you can never take away the power of my soul” transcend the scene.
Both instances were pre-planned with his publicist reaching out to PC Gamer for a one-on-one interview earlier this week and the tweet aligned with the release. The coordinated public affairs efforts are reminiscent of Dr Disrespect’s previous absences as he unveiled brand re-works and character leave of absences in the past.
My speculation: I’m inclined to believe that Dr Disrespect has amassed a following large and committed enough to follow him wherever he ends up. His team of brand specialists, graphic designers, and media advisors is skilled enough to take his brand to a level where platform confines become obsolete — as seen by the massive amounts of speculation and media hype two small reveals have shown in very minimal time. He does not need the power of a Twitch, Facebook, or YouTube platform to garner additional fanfare unless he’s looking for guaranteed contract financing. I think he is better off commanding and controlling his fate through means of his own domain or service.
In related news, Amazon unveiled their release of their Interactive Video Service (IVS) for live-streaming capabilities across the internet on 15 July. It advertised IVS as “a new fully managed service that makes it easy to set up live, interactive video streams for a web or mobile application in just a few minutes.” Amazon was quick to point out that “IVS uses the same technology that powers Twitch” as well as the scalability of the new service, “customers can easily configure and stream live video through their own website or mobile application, with scalable delivery that supports millions of concurrent viewers globally.”
It’s not a far stretch of the imagination where Amazon has realized that by providing IVS as a backend service, concurrently with their Amazon Web Services business segment, that companies and content creators would be free to expand outside of the confines of platform agreements and ultimately liberate Twitch from the grey area of responsibility for the content on its platform and it’s creators— brought into the limelight with the recent “MeToo” movement across the gaming community that has brought both negative press and legal complexities to Twitch’s business efforts.
Time will tell, but at some point the residency concludes and the Doctor becomes certified to practice where he pleases and I believe opening his own practice is in his and community’s best interests.
