The Shallow End of the Media Pool

It occurs to me that the toxicity of a lot of traditional games media extends beyond just making me not want to visit their websites, as TV and radio tends to draw from the same pool of people whenever games are involved.

Totalbiscuit might have 20 times the followers, but is far less likely to appear as a pundit on a show over someone like Matt Lees with all his media connections. This is why, as much as I support alternative games sites — or at least ones that haven’t been arrogant enough to shit on their audience — if the upside of that whole model collapsing is people like Lees getting washed away in the flush, I may consider that a price worth paying.

If everyone had to survive on their likeability and popularity rather than their backroom connections, which seems to be more the case for ‘new media’ personalities like YouTubers and streamers, then I think people like Lees and their brand of pompous Citizen Smith-esque moral lecturing would rightly struggle to find an audience with people who don’t want any of that shit injected into their games coverage.

I’d rather listen to a Scandinavian make noises into a microphone on a loop forever than risk enduring one more person break into a wanky treatise on American imperialism or the use of enhanced interrogation techniques halfway through a review of a new Batman game.

There was a place for that, and it was in your sixth form newsletter that no one read.