Picking a fight with gamers may have been the best idea Jimmy Kimmel had this week.
The videos where he shares the overwrought, furious reactions to silly jokes pointed in their direction are blowing up on YouTube, with numbers vastly higher than the majority of the videos on the channel. Many people may be downvoting the skits, but they're watching them first, which is what's important.The video we shared yesterday is up to almost 800,000 views, with 57,000 downvotes. Guess which one Kimmel and his team cares about more.
"I'm fighting with a group made up mostly of 12-year old boys," he says at one point, and keep in mind he could be right. He's not fighting with people who play video games here, he's fighting with people who feel threatened enough when you criticize their hobby to make jokes about someone catching serious diseases as a response. They may not all be 12-year old boys, but it certainly gives that impression.
Kimmel stated he would sit down with people who watch other people play games, and then render a verdict on the activity, and why not? This has been great for his ratings, and the angrier and more childish the reaction from the gaming community the better these skits turn out. Kimmel's humor may be hackneyed and childish, but this is a hornet's nest he's happy to poke for as long as their response is more infantile threats.
