A lot of research into things that really have very little meaning

April 7, 2019 12:10 PM

"The original pokerap is a travesty" — Brian David Gilbert, Unraveled LIVE. (previously) (even more previously)
posted by Memo (25 comments total)

A national treasure.
posted by supercres at 2:20 PM on April 7, 2019 [4 favorites]

Wow.

I've been a fan of BDG for quite a while now and yet this one caught me completely off-guard. Amazing execution.
posted by bigendian at 2:55 PM on April 7, 2019 [2 favorites]

Amazing.
posted by Wretch729 at 3:02 PM on April 7, 2019

#gesamtkunstwerk
posted by w0mbat at 3:38 PM on April 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

from the comments for WCityMike's second link:

There's a drop 69 seconds in (1:09) and he begins talking about decriminalization at 4:20 if anybody says BDG isn't a genius they're wrong.
posted by juv3nal at 4:59 PM on April 7, 2019 [10 favorites]

The whole Unravelled series is tremendous, especially on how it keeps finding new twists on the idea of 'Brian David Gilbert, in examining a topic in video game lore, descends into madness'. The ending of the Bowser's army one - where every enemy in Bowser's army is assigned a rank, in accordance with the Geneva Convention, and the troubling implications of same - really took me by surprise.
posted by Merus at 5:40 PM on April 7, 2019 [7 favorites]

Weird Polygon, in all of its iterations, is the best content on the internet.
posted by tobascodagama at 6:17 PM on April 7, 2019 [2 favorites]

I'm waiting to watch this with my bff, because Unraveled videos have become our emotional support content, but I very much appreciate the post title. BDG getting dragged by his mother was an absolute delight. (Also I've put the phrase "I have to do my dark bidding on these spreadsheets" into regular use.)
posted by epersonae at 7:14 PM on April 7, 2019

I'm not a gamer, have only the most tenuous understanding of Pokémon, and had never heard of this person until just now.

But you know what? That loving, obsessive attention to detail lavished on something that only an EXTREMELY specific audience will care about? That hyper-focus, possibly at the expense of other life goals, on the creation of something marvellously absurd?

I get it.

This guy is awesome!
posted by tantrumthecat at 8:13 PM on April 7, 2019 [6 favorites]

No JME?
posted by prismatic7 at 8:22 PM on April 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

Oh and in case you've never seen it: Neil Cicierega's spin on the PokéRap [Vimeo], while much closer to the original music-wise, is worth a watch too!
posted by bigendian at 8:36 PM on April 7, 2019 [3 favorites]

Better than Hamlton.
posted by w0mbat at 8:41 PM on April 7, 2019 [2 favorites]

(Ah, and now I see that BDG put the own into the presentation.)

"I see we do have some English majors in the audience"

That is epic and hilarious, and oddly moving, and apparently Justin McElroy really wants Lin Manuel Miranda to see it.
posted by epersonae at 9:17 PM on April 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

I'm really grateful to Metafilter for solving a mystery for me. The Junior Gamer and I were at PAX East on Saturday and while waiting in line for a game on the expo floor we encountered a very well dressed guy with fantastic hair who had two PAX staff people with him, along with someone that seemed to be his own staff. My kid was trying to figure out if this guy was a YouTuber ("Mamma, I don't think he's a lets play Youtuber, he's all dressed up."), and now I can say "Yes, that guy was a YouTuber and this is who he is." Mystery solved.
posted by anastasiav at 6:06 AM on April 8, 2019 [9 favorites]

Listen, this is amazing and beautiful, and I say that as someone who has never had any interest in Pokemon.

But the true amazement for me is just how consistently well timed the slideshow presentation is. Yowza, that just have taken a lot of skill, rehearsal, and luck.
posted by meese at 6:30 AM on April 8, 2019 [3 favorites]

That BDG has not been snapped up by some other NYC-based program (Hasan Minaj, John Oliver, Sam Bee, etc) amazes me.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 7:24 AM on April 8, 2019 [2 favorites]

BDG is chaotic good personified and a balm for this world-weary soul. Highly recommend his non-Polygon stuff linked in the previouslies if you need a little dash of absurdity on a bad day - I think I've watched the Siblings song a few dozen times by now.
posted by mcfighty at 8:16 AM on April 8, 2019 [2 favorites]

that was amazing and i really miss going to PAX
posted by numaner at 8:28 AM on April 8, 2019

Me, too, but I won't as long as the "PA" part is still in there.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:36 AM on April 8, 2019 [1 favorite]

I watched the song first, and I was curious enough about Terry the Tangela and why he basically skipped right through 400 pokemon to go back and watch the whole thing.

Everyone should watch the whole thing.
posted by numaner at 8:41 AM on April 8, 2019 [10 favorites]

The line for this panel got cut-off as full about an hour and fifteen minutes before it started. I think I was more crushed than my son was when we missed it by a few minutes after expecting it all day. We drowned our sorrows in Italian Ices.
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 8:59 AM on April 8, 2019 [3 favorites]

Everyone should watch the whole thing.

Yeah, that's why I didn't timestamp the song, the rap is the punchline. It works without context but it's much better after all that setup.

And also, everyone needs more Brian David Gilbert in their lives.
posted by Memo at 11:19 AM on April 8, 2019 [5 favorites]

I've gotten older and less obsessive about things I enjoy but sometimes I miss Gill and Gilbert so much it hurts and makes me feel like a teenager all over again.
posted by MaritaCov at 1:59 PM on April 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

My only experience with Pokemon is that I have a six year old who I can tell fundamentally doesn't understand how to play it but really desperately wants to. And I'm not much of a gamer. But I've now watched this full thing like four times and I keep trying to think of ways to get other people in my life to watch it without sounding like a crazy person (unsuccessful at that so far). And I fell down the rabbit hole of BDG's other videos. He's amazing and I love him and I want him to run the entire entertainment industry effective immediately. Thanks for this post, it legit enriched my life during an otherwise pretty crappy week full of multiple family illnesses.
posted by soren_lorensen at 3:33 PM on April 14, 2019 [3 favorites]

I didn’t expect it to get quite so Jim Steinman in the second half but I am HERE FOR THIS
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:25 AM on April 19, 2019