There’s something really weird going on in video games right now. With the rise of so-called “esports,” more and more people are more interested in watching people play video games vs. actually playing videos games. Take, for example, the meteoric rise of Nadeshot’s celebrity, who makes $1 million a year playing Call of Duty and was just featured in the New York Times. He wouldn’t have a dollar to his name for playing video games if he didn’t have an audience to regularly livestream to. It’s truly a thing.
Another so-called “celebrity” who plays video games professionally for the Internet’s entertainment is Sweden’s PewDiePie. He has 32 MILLION subscribers on YouTube, making him easily the biggest channel on the biggest video site in the world. And his entire digital content output is nothing but video game-playing with added commentary. As baffling as that is, kids are wildly entertained by it and he’s become a household name in the gaming community, mostly out of envy for him making millions of dollars a year playing games.
Last night, after building up an episode with the so-called “biggest celebrity cameo ever,” South Park skewered the PewDiePie phenomena. Some of the gang just can’t make sense of a world where we watch video games instead of playing them. After all, isn’t playing them, uh… The point? It’s rather amazing: