Does Jim Sterling need to drop his gimmick?

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Tarkand

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A little bit of context here - when the Jimquisition started, I really hated it. But as feedback poured in, Sterling went about and made some changes to his shows as well as beefed up his argumentation and now, while still crude and raw, the show is actually quite fun to watch and smart. It basically did a 160 (not quite 180 :p) in quality. That's my opinion anyway. The post here will be mainly addressed at Jim Sterling, even tho he probably doesn't read this forum :p... you guys feel to comment on it.

I just don't understand why Jim is sticking to the 'douchebag/V for Vendetta rip off who think he's god's gift to the world' gimmick anymore.

Two things are pretty obvious with Jim...
1 - He's a troll. He enjoys getting a reaction. The whole concept of the show is usually him taking a popular opinion and destroying it, so obviously the people who share that opinion will get mad and flame him. He's kinda like an inflamatory version of Extra Credits.
2 - He cares about what people think. He's open to criticism and willing to act on it. This is obvious because most of the improvement the show went through were pretty much straight out of the comment section.

So while Jim now makes good points, I can't help but roll my eyes and go 'Ah, ok, show's over, he's done being interesting and going back to his gimmick to make his close' when he goes all orgasmic and says 'And thank god fer me!' By now, I would think that most of the haters have moved on. The Jimquisition no longers generate 300+ comments a week and his down to a much more realistic level and most of those comments are positive. In short, your job of 'shocking people' is now wasted, as most of the people watching you like you already.

The other thing that is odd, is that Jim has at least on 2 occasion (including this week) started off by going (not quite word for word of course) 'I'm not really this douchebag you see. This is a persona I made up. And you are stupid if you do not realize it'. What's the point of this?

If it bothers him that people think he's really an asshole... why not just drop the act? In fact, even if it doesn't... why doesn't he drop it anyway since it doesn't really add anything to the show? What more, the fact that he's openly contradicting his gimmick makes the whole thing hollow.

I'm remembered of Goldust, a wrestler from back in the day when the WWE was still the WWF. His gimmick was basically every negative gay stereotype - a predatory flamboyant queer. He really creeped out the public. But that made him popular, because people loved to hate him. As his popularity waned, they tried make a good guy out of him - by revealing that he was a married man and a father. Except the next week, he went on to fight doing all his homo-erotic things... but now, people were laughing at it instead of being creeped out. This was the beginning of the end for the gimmick.

So yeah basically Jim, you're kinda being like goldust here... not in the sense that you are fat and like man meat, but rather in the sense that by contradicting your gimmick, you're making it utterly pointless.

I understand that he kinda needs a gimmick to set himself apart from the crowd, but I still think it's just not a good gimmick. He already has a really inflammatory editorial style which is refreshing in its brutality and crudeness... not quite sure the whole preacher/douchebag thing is something he needs to keep around.

EDIT:

In an attempt to limit to those type of comments, I'm going to go out and add this here -

Yes, everybody has a gimmick. Yahtzee is a bitter curmudgeon. MovieBob is a snob.

The core difference between those 2 and Jim however, as that both Yahtzee and MovieBob own up to their gimmick - both of MovieBob's show make him come off as a snob and Yahtzee's Extra Punctuation column only heighten his dislike of everything. While Jim spend a good 15 seconds every other show telling people it's an act. Why bother with the pretense?
 
Apr 28, 2008
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He keeps up the persona for the same reason Yahtzee keeps up his fast-talking shtick.

It's just his thing.
 

NinjaDeathSlap

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Feb 20, 2011
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Yahtzee could have stopped all the deliberate gratuitousness once people started to take him seriously but he didn't.

MovieBob could have stopped preaching his love for all things nerd and his hat for all things human nature once people got the message but he didn't.

Same with Jim. It's just kinda their thing.
 

ZeZZZZevy

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Apr 3, 2011
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Irridium said:
He keeps up the persona for the same reason Yahtzee keeps up his fast-talking shtick.

It's just his thing.
This. Every person who speaks for entertainment needs some sort of shtick to call their own and get people's attention. You wouldn't want to listen to someone who speaks in monotone all the time would you?

It's simply not interesting otherwise.

EDIT: alright, so maybe you can enjoy monotone if that's the person's shtick. My point was that every speaker needs some sort of shtick to be interesting.

Maybe I should have seen this coming, since I'm fairly monotone and people tell me I'm a good public speaker...
 

Lokithrsourcerer

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the only thing that doesn't sit right for me is the delivery.

the imagery and style of the show is as though he is a "fixer" or a dictator
but it doesn't come across very well as he is camp as Christmas.
 

Mark Flanagan

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Not really, internet columnists need gimmicks to stand out from the masses.
As others have said; Yahtzee, Movie-Bob and Jim's gimmicks are half of what makes their shows enjoyable.
 

Roofstone

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I laugh every time he makes the Thank God joke. So no, dont change anything. It is fun just as it is to me. =)
 

Dragunai

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Yeah but Yahtzee has never said he is anything other than a twisted hateful human being disgusted by everything and everyone. So he doesn't apply to this subject haha.

Besides with him, its still funny and amuses me while being fairly objective and informative to some degree.

Never watched this Jim guy, probably never will.
Only 3 series ever caught my attention on this site - Yahtzee, There will be brawl (which seemed to suddenly vanish halfway into the series) and Doomsday Arcade which finished its series and left gracefully.

The others, like that "top 5 with I'm a blonde try-hard" got my 1 view out of me and irritated me.
I've also been told that tales from the table is meant to be good.

Back on topic though, It does sound like he is trying to rip off Ben, trying to look like a comical jerk, but without the confidence and savvy to shrug off peoples rebuttals while being afraid of actually being seen as a jerk.
 

AlternatePFG

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I actually think his shtick is pretty funny. It makes laugh at least, especially at the people in the comments who take it at face value. Doesn't happen as much anymore, which is a shame really. :V I like Jim, he actually writes some pretty insightful articles and reviews on Destructoid.
 

OliverTwist72

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I did a 360 and walked away (no really, I wasn't heading towards it in the first place). I tried to watch a couple (2) episodes of Jimquisition, the first one I got about 2 minutes in, the second I got about 25 seconds in before I turned it off. To each their own I guess.

I realize this isn't constructive feedback, but I can't quite place my finger on why I don't like it. Probably has something to do with how he states his opinions like they are stone cold law, which is his entire schtick. Also, what annoys me is he states his opinions like he's the only one in the universe holding this point of view.

Overall, just meh...
 

vermin_

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May 16, 2011
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THANK GAWD, FOR MHEEEE.

Nah.

I didn't like him aswell. But now? I think I'm more intersted in his shows then ZP. Maybe just becouse it's something new, i dont know. So no, no. He shouldn't realy change anything. It's his thing. :)
 

AlternatePFG

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Krychek08 said:
Also, what annoys me is he states his opinions like he's the only one in the universe holding this point of view.
You do realize that that is supposed to be satirical, right?
 

Tarkand

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Dragunai said:
Yeah but Yahtzee has never said he is anything other than a twisted hateful human being disgusted by everything and everyone. So he doesn't apply to this subject haha.

[...]

Back on topic though, It does sound like he is trying to rip off Ben, trying to look like a comical jerk, but without the confidence and savvy to shrug off peoples rebuttals while being afraid of actually being seen as a jerk.
That's pretty much the point! Too bad I can't quote everybody so they all get a notification of this and they'll probably just skim over and I'll get 10 more people saying 'Der, Yathzee does it too'.

Yes, Yathzee has a gimmick/persona, but he doesn't contradict it... in fact, his extra punctuation column only reinforce it. Yathzee may not be this huge embittered curmudgeon in real life... but going from what I know online, everything points that yes, he is.

He's owning up to his gimmick. Jim isn't.

Dragunai said:
Never watched this Jim guy, probably never will.
Only 3 series ever caught my attention on this site - Yahtzee, There will be brawl (which seemed to suddenly vanish halfway into the series) and Doomsday Arcade which finished its series and left gracefully.
Actually, the finale of There Will Be Brawl actually did air on the Escapist, I have the badge to prove I've watched it...
 

targren

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ZeZZZZevy said:
You wouldn't want to listen to someone who speaks in monotone all the time would you?
That's Ben Stein's thing.

AlternatePFG said:
Krychek08 said:
Also, what annoys me is he states his opinions like he's the only one in the universe holding this point of view.
You do realize that that is supposed to be satirical, right?
Shush. He probably thinks Stephen Colbert is really a Bill O'Reilly clone, too.
 

OliverTwist72

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AlternatePFG said:
Krychek08 said:
Also, what annoys me is he states his opinions like he's the only one in the universe holding this point of view.
You do realize that that is supposed to be satirical, right?
I get that he's satirizing, that doesn't mean I enjoy the delivery. He's trying to be edgy and make a name for himself, but to me he sounds like everyone else. In a slightly more annoying package.
 

anthony87

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I don't think it bothers him that people think he's an asshole.

I think it bothers him that he has to actually explain that it's a gimmick because people are too stupid to pick up on it themselves.

Jimqusition is good and has been so from day one on this site.

Krychek08 said:
AlternatePFG said:
Krychek08 said:
Also, what annoys me is he states his opinions like he's the only one in the universe holding this point of view.
You do realize that that is supposed to be satirical, right?
I get that he's satirizing, that doesn't mean I enjoy the delivery. He's trying to be edgy and make a name for himself, but to me he sounds like everyone else. In a slightly more annoying package.
You know he already has a name for himself right? The Escapist isn't the first site he's been featured on. Also, you say that you get that he's satirizing, then you say that he's trying to be edgy.....but the edginess is what he's being satiricle about, so what's the problem?