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This is very much a starcraft 2 related topic but I did not want to post it into the starcraft 2 forums because nothing productive happens over there. It's always seemed like the people who read and comment in the blog sections are more honest about their opinions and slighty, if not hugely more open to real discussion.
Do any of you find the majority of sc2 casters to be unfunny and annoying? Even among the 'top' level of casters there are many that I wonder how they ever became so popular. It started with tasteless and artosis way back in the early days of gsl. Many times the games were extremely dull and the two casters were forced to fill time, and more and more often they began going wildly off topic into things i neither found funny nor interesting. Eventually the quality of play went up, but the intentionally ironically lame puns and tangents into nerd subculture increasingly became a part of their casting style. Apart from these (what I consider) faults they were undoubtedly the best casting duo at the time. Unfortunately for me, it seems that almost each casting duo that has sprung up has copied this formula. For most events, I would never dream of introducing a friend to sc2 because of how awkward, nerdy, lame, boring, whatever you want to call it, all the casters are. There have been a few times when I'm watching a cast a a friend overhears the casters and questions how can I stand to listening to those jokes.
There are several casters I do like. Just to name a few, I enjoy djwheat, apollo, artosis when not paired up with tasteless and tasteless when not paired up with artosis. I don't want to name too many because then I might as well be specifically calling out the casters I can't stand. I understand that humor is subjective, which leaves two scenarios. One, that there are many people that feel as I do and somehow we've all just settled for shitty casting, or two, that my preferences are way different than the average sc2 fan.
An interesting thought just occurred to me: if a majority of sc2 fans share my opinion, then why is there a mismatch between the humor of most sc2 casters and the humor of their audience? I think the best explanation would involve the vocal minority problem; only a small percentage of the sc2 community is giving feedback thus warping the perceived preferred casting style.
I hope way more people share my opinion than it appears to me that they do, otherwise I guess I'm just gonna have to start hitting the mute button. I suggest (as much as possible) trying not talk about casters that you specifically dislike, as that is like to stir emotions and bring about pointless insults.
Edit: It seems to be mostly the popular casters that i feel this way about. The no-namers and up-and-comings are a lot better, provided their game knowledge is adequate.
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It's gotten... old?
I'd like to see some fresh jokes for sure.
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In all my future castings, I will now reference pop culture iconic people from a decade or time I didn't partake in.
I'll be just like Al Franken.
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I cam across this today which was sorta the inspiration for the blog. Some of the jokes did seem forced but I enjoyed the casting of that game way more than I've enjoyed most of everything else.
I think there is a line between being a no nonsense professional caster and trying to make jokes, and a lot of would-be good professional casters try to be funny but fail at it leaving them in a position where they are neither funny nor professional.
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An interesting thought just occurred to me: if a majority of sc2 fans share my opinion, then why is there a mismatch between the humor of most sc2 casters and the humor of their audience?
I'd like to see some numbers on this, because clearly this claim is what you are using as a basis for your entire argument which is ultimately based on something completely subjective.
I find Artosis, Day9, Wolf, Doa, Khaldor, Tasteless and Totalbiscuit hilarious. all of them. I routinely laugh at the stupid quirks and jokes they come up with. I've sat down with friends that don't play SC2 and at first their reactions have been mostly positive.
At the end of the day. When it comes to subjective shit like humor, it's impossible to please everyone. It's just impossible. You shouldn't be faulting the caster for that, trying to appeal to everyone is at the end of the day appealing to nobody. Instead try and find a caster whose style of humor is like yours and become a fan of his/hers don't try and start some blanket movement to make casters use humor less just because you don't find it funny, that hurts the experience for the rest of us.
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Only time I have noticed this is with Incontrol. I love his casting but I feel like he goes for the jokes far too often for my own tastes. It becomes awkward for me after a while but most seem to enjoy his casting so it's not a huge deal.
I have a ton of friends that love starcraft just for what you find annoying. Awkward, nerdy jokes.
Fresh jokes are a different story though and I believe mizU is spot on with his statement.
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On July 04 2012 13:10 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote + An interesting thought just occurred to me: if a majority of sc2 fans share my opinion, then why is there a mismatch between the humor of most sc2 casters and the humor of their audience? I'd like to see some numbers on this, because clearly this claim is what you are using as a basis for your entire argument which is ultimately based on something completely subjective. I find Artosis, Day9, Wolf, Doa, Khaldor, Tasteless and Totalbiscuit hilarious. all of them. I routinely laugh at the stupid quirks and jokes they come up with. I've sat down with friends that don't play SC2 and at first their reactions have been mostly positive. At the end of the day. When it comes to subjective shit like humor, it's impossible to please everyone. It's just impossible. You shouldn't be faulting the caster for that, trying to appeal to everyone is at the end of the day appealing to nobody. Instead try and find a caster whose style of humor is like yours and become a fan of his/hers don't try and start some blanket movement to make casters use humor less just because you don't find it funny, that hurts the experience for the rest of us.
I think the practical and easily applicable reasoning to his question is that everyone just tolerates/let's it go. It's not the end of the world and not everyone cares enough to raise a fuss.
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On July 04 2012 13:10 Vindicare605 wrote:
I'd like to see some numbers on this, because clearly this claim is what you are using as a basis for your entire argument which is ultimately based on something completely subjective.
yeah that is the whole point of my post, it's not really an argument trying to convince anyone that their opinions are wrong, it's me trying to see how widely my views are shared
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On July 04 2012 12:55 thrawn2112 wrote:
Do any of you find the majority of sc2 casters to be unfunny and annoying? Even among the 'top' level of casters there are many that I wonder how they ever became so popular. It started with tasteless and artosis way back in the early days of gsl.
I think they may have casted something before GSL...
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Most of them do nerdy sort of jokes (which as you said, can get old fast). I also don't find SC2 casters in general to be particularly funny. But then again, I care more about the actual in-game stuff than their jokes. I don't think you can expect most of them to be professional comedians AND pro casters.
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I feel like interjecting with at best semi-related things keeps the starcraft stuff more 'fresh'
If all a caster does is talk about the game, while it's great that they can, it just seems to make the casters less of a personality and more of a job.
It also seems more tiresome to me to only hear about the game, and I'm not quite sure why.
But I'm at best a casual viewer, maybe the more hardcore among us would agree with you.
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I'm finding it increasingly annoying....to the point where I'm getting completely turned off if there are certain casters (Tastosis I can live with, others not so much).
It's getting to the point where I chose the Korean streams for GSL (I can watch it on my tv too....guess that helps)
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My biggest pet peeve is when commentators say "sorry" for every little thing. Examples:
"Extremely sorry I missed that guys...again so sorry"
"Guys please forgive me I won't have the next video up till Wednesday"
"My fault guys, my computer really needs an upgrade, I'm really sorry"
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I think a lot of casters are able to be successful because they knew the right people or just got some opportunity that others didn't. Some of them turn out to be good and others are just terrible and have no business casting. For me, it's not so much about the jokes as it is the ability to sound natural. I think Incontrol sounds natural. He sounds like he's having a normal conversation but still makes it exciting and funny. Others say the same lines over and over or just sound like a bad game show host using too much voice inflection and trying too hard to sound exciting. I could name some, one of which is quite popular, but I don't want to make people angry.
So, yes, in answer to the OP I sometimes wonder how some of these casters can be so successful and popular when I don't like them and often mute them. I mean, how do casters become popular? Is there some way to give feedback and influence what casters a major tournament uses? There probably is and I'm just too lazy to find it and give my feedback.
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I agree, and have shared your view since basically the inception of SC2 when everybody tried to mimic Tastosis from the very beginning. It seems everybody tries too fucking hard to imitate them (especially Artosis), and the awkwardness stemmed from this contributes to some of the unpleasantness in the cast. I guess you could say it's actually insane how hard people people try to copy Artosis' style. As annoying as this can be though, it's not nearly as bad as the issue of some of these dudes being overly critical and focusing all their concentration on how people fuck up rather than the strategic implications of their movements or something more tolerable like that. This would be getting too far off topic though
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I don't get it. You'd want them to be quiet during the boring parts? If anything I woud like more jokes. And nerds tell nerdy jokes to other nerds. Not everyone does it that well but Tastosis especially in the earlier seasons of the GSL was pure gold. They have moved away from that style just a bit I feel like. Don't know if it's conscious or not.
And I'm pretty sure the majority doesn't agree with you. There is always room for improvement but casters should definitely keep telling jokes.
In Dreamhack it was funny when iNcontroL told this decent joke and no one laughed. It was a typical caster joke, something about cheese and quesadillas. But what he didn't realize was that we don't have mexican food in Scandinavia.
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On July 04 2012 14:44 d00p wrote:
I don't get it. You'd want them to be quiet during the boring parts? If anything I woud like more jokes. And nerds tell nerdy jokes to other nerds. Not everyone does it that well but Tastosis especially in the earlier seasons of the GSL was pure gold. They have moved away from that style just a bit I feel like. Don't know if it's conscious or not.
And I'm pretty sure the majority doesn't agree with you. There is always room for improvement but casters should definitely keep telling jokes.
In Dreamhack it was funny when iNcontroL told this decent joke and no one laughed. It was a typical caster joke, something about cheese and quesadillas. But what he didn't realize was that we don't have mexican food in Scandinavia.
it's not that i don't want them to tell jokes, it's that their jokes are pretty lame and only make me less interested in the game. i'm so sick of all the "it's like when" and "what if the __ was all like ___ and said or did ___." And then after they realize that they are at the end of their forced joke and it didnt come out as funny as they hoped they will go "yeahh... well anyway back to the game." tasteless and artosis started that and almost everyone has copied it. i'll admit that tastosis are better at it than others especially early on, however that opinion is suspect because i was high for almost every night of gsl when it first started. now that everyone does it, and not only does it but seem to be getting progressively more annoying with it, combined with the fact that i stopped smoking so i'm no longer stoned enough to not care it's been making sc2 almost unwatchable for me. sorry if we have a difference of opinion... i've just been curious for awhile now if other people find the majority of casters awkward and annoying.
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No.
Some guys are trying way too hard to please the audience and it gets stale.
For me it has to flow naturally.
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I've heard some really bad casters.. a lot of bad amateur casters as well.
Some of them really shouldn't be that popular, and are really socially awkward through their casting and jokes.
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I find that I enjoy Chinese casters a lot more. Good analysis, not too much random, in-jokey material, but lots of expressiveness in their casting, which I enjoy.
As for favorite English-speaking casters, Grubby(!!!!!!) and Rotterdam/MrBitter. Other than those, I'm not too hot on any others.
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On July 04 2012 16:11 babylon wrote:
I find that I enjoy Chinese casters a lot more. Good analysis, not too much random, in-jokey material, but lots of expressiveness in their casting, which I enjoy.
As for favorite English-speaking casters, Grubby(!!!!!!) and Rotterdam/MrBitter. Other than those, I'm not too hot on any others.
yeah grubby is pretty damn good 
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EPT
