The Popularity of Lets Plays

Video games are a huge part of geek culture. Watching people make fools of themselves on YouTube is also a part of geek culture. Therefore we you can combine the two, watching someone make a fool out of themselves by playing a video game would be the golden and great. This has rather lead to the genre known as Let's Play, where someone plays a video game, while offering commentary that is either entertaining or informative, or both.

Or at least that seems to be the idea. Some things are better off in theory than there are in practice.

Let's Plays-A Sub Culture of the Internet

Most people out there can make a Let's Play. A good portion of the people that do make Let's Plays likely should not. Some people are rarely self aware. Granted, among those people it sometimes hits so bad that it warps all the way back around into being awesome and entertaining to itself. I will never make a Let's Play, because it is debatable on whether I'm entertaining or informative and my voice makes small children and animals cry.

In the area of video capture cards, and YouTube, pretty much anyone with a gaming system and the Internet can really make a Let's Play. There have been some good ones. Some not so good ones. And some Let's Plays that have been so awful, you wonder how in the hell they managed to upload the video in the first place.

Being loud and obnoxious seems to be a common tactic used. Granted, can be funny for about five minutes but listening to hours and hours at some guy yelling at you, and eventually it is going to get ponderous. Most people can go to work and deal with their boss for that quality, so why would they want a video doing the same thing.

The Best Let's Plays offer some of the following things. They are entertaining ,without being over the top. They are informative but not bland. You have a sense that a person has a good idea of what they are doing. They don't waste too much time. And most importantly, they are complete. There is nothing worse than watching fifteen parts of a Let's Play and realizing the game is not done.

On its most base level, watching someone play the latest X-Box and Playstation game seems utterly absurd and just stupid. And on that sense you might be right. The best Let's Plays make you almost forget you're watching some random weirdo play a video game. A few can be more entertaining than a lot of the programs on television.

Okay, a lot can be more entertaining than a lot of the programs.

It is one of those things where you have no idea how it gained popularity, why anyone would watch it but Let's Plays exist, so there you go. You can pretty much type in most video games, even some remotely obscure and potentially find a Let's Play. Even the bad ones. Of course, you get what you pay for sometimes with things on the Internet.