PewDiePie is famed for his over-the-top reactions to horror games. But that’s PewDiePie from 2012. PewDiePie from 2015? It takes more than a cheap jump scare to rile him up — and this reality is causing some friction with fans.
Like many gaming YouTubers, PewDiePie uploaded a Five Nights at Freddy’s 4 video last month. Titled “FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S 4 — NOT SCARY?,” the video starts out with PewDiePie sarcastically going, “Oh boy am I excited,” right before closing up on his nonplussed expression. These few seconds tell you just about everything you need to know about this video, where PewDiePie is clearly not impressed with the latest horror game craze:
He doesn’t even emote when the animatronics jump out at him. Look at this:
No flying off his chair, no high-pitched scream, no signs of being overtaken by terror. “If you’ve played the first three games, you’re practically immune to the jump scares by now,” PewDiePie explained.
To be clear: I am not suggesting that PewDiePie has to shit his pants over Five Nights At Freddy’s. But, based on his usual flare, some fans do expect PewDiePie to put on a show for them, regardless of how he actually feels about the game. To wit, last week PewDiePie wrote a blog post defending himself from criticism about the FNAF video, and it’s been making the rounds in the FNAF community since.
He calls this video his “worst” one — at least, based on ratings from viewers. As of this writing, it has 12,977 “thumbs down.” After the video first uploaded, you could even read comments from fans who seemed disappointed that PewDiePie wasn’t phased by Five Nights at Freddy’s. “Dude at least pretend to be scared,” one commenter wrote.
“A lot of people know me on YouTube as being easily scared,” PewDiePie wrote. “So of course people want to see me play the game to see me get scared.
“That’s not what they got, so they dislike the video,” he reasoned.
This reception makes sense to PewDiePie. What seems to puzzle him the most, though, is the expectation that he would fake his reactions for the sake of expectant fans. He notes that while he thinks this path would be a sure-fire way to get “more views,” that the trade-off just wouldn’t be worth it to him. He’d rather show people how he really feels.
This isn’t the first time PewDiePie has expressed scepticism around Five Nights at Freddy’s — while he makes it clear that he is a fan of earlier games, that hasn’t stopped him from making fun of the hype surrounding FNAF. Despite his ennui, fans do expect him to play through the games. In the blog post where he defends himself, PewDiePie shared a screenshot of over a dozen people begging him to play the latest FNAF game. He notes that this puts him in a tight spot. If he plays the game and dislikes it, fans wonder why he bothers with games he doesn’t enjoy. If he skips the game, he has people getting upset because he didn’t play it. What to do?
Despite the backlash, I’m actually pretty impressed with PewDiePie’s willingness to be honest here. It would be easy to play into the Five Nights at Freddy’s hype — that’s what most people are doing. Five Nights at Freddy’s videos sometimes seem like a race to see who can react in the most ridiculous way.
[Here’s a GIF of popular Youtuber Markiplier, who had a very different take on FNAF 4. Looking at the rest of the top FNAF 4 videos on YouTube, most seem to endorse the game’s so-called big scares.]
Even PewDiePie admits to a shift in the nature of his horror videos. “To be honest, I’m kinda proud of myself for not bullshitting myself through the game for fan pleasing and views,” PewDiePie wrote. “Not sure if 2012 PDP would have done the same.”
I know first-hand that the games are capable of delivering a scare, even if it’s a forced one. But on some level, there’s this worry that many Five Nights at Freddy’s reaction videos are just a show, or an affectation that an entertainer puts on. That’s what people want to see, isn’t it? When I witness people turning on a YouTuber for not delivering on that front, it makes me wonder how many other YouTubers might feel prisoner to fan expectation. Can you always trust the hype, or is this heightened enthusiasm for big games the norm on YouTube? Hard to say. Perhaps this is a sign that the Five Nights at Freddy’s bubble is about to pop, and it’s only a matter of time before YouTubers turn on the franchise.
“Fear of the unknown if the biggest key to horror and that’s gone [in Five Nights at Freddy’s]” PewDiePie remarked. “What’s left?”
Comments
39 responses to “PewDiePie Rejects The Five Nights At Freddy’s Hype”
Dance monkey, dance! *flicks peanuts*
Peanuts? Dude makes over $4m per year.
Honestly, good on him for sticking to his personal principles.
Every now and then I read this type of story about PDP and it makes me respect him so much more…
I always thought he was faking reactions to things in the past so I’m glad to see him being honest.
When he first posted the video one of the top comments was telling him to “show some respect for the most hyped game of 2015″….
I don’t think I’ve ever face palmed more harder in my life.
*shudders*
By the commenter’s logic, I guess we weren’t allowed to criticise FFXIII back in 2010.
I just don’t get these youtube & twitch videos. Are we so dull that we get kicks from watching others play video games?
I watched my friend play ff9 over a long weekend in 2001 and I wanted to cut my eyes out with a plastic spoon.
Maybe i’m just getting old and grumpy. Back to my corner with Mega Drive and Dial up internet.
I miss my dial-up. Spending 12 hours or more downloading a single episode of anime from an ftp server. Watching that bar progress as I downloaded game OSTs like Chrono Trigger. I fucking love progress bars but cant just sit back and enjoy them anymore.
Wait what was this article about again…..?
“I don’t like it so people who do must have dull lives”. Come on, don’t be that jackass. People like different things, it’s perfectly normal.
I’m not the jackass you need but I’m the one you deserve.
I get that people want to see a game in action before they decide to buy it and that’s what YouTube & Twitch are good for and if you like competitive StarCraft, DOTA, GS:GO etc.
But the ones that show their adorable little faces in the corner overacting every little thing that happens, have mods on their chat screens and the live ticker of donations showing you how long till they can buy their new $400 headset. They can die in fires. Seriously.
I’m guilty of watching Let’s Plays. Not really the ones you describe, but yes, I watch videos of people playing video games, and not to work out whether I want to buy the game or not. They scratch the same itch as podcasts do, it’s nice to just stick something on the other monitor while I’m working or browsing. It’s also less about watching someone play a game and more about the person playing the game. I would also be bored watching one of my friends play ff9 because I doubt they would be interesting enough to make it entertaining.
I don’t really get it fully, but I can understand wanting to see a game in action and get someone’s thoughts on it before buying. It’s like a more blunt version of a review, no bullshit, just actual gameplay.
Then of course there’s people who are stuck at work or school and want to get their game fix, even if it’s just watching someone else play. Also people who don’t have a specific console or PC who want to see what a game is like (I don’t have a PC so i watched a bunch of videos about DayZ to see what it is like).
Why do you watch a film based on a book when you could be reading that book instead of watching someone else’s interpretation of it? Why do you watch sports instead of playing them? It’s entertainment and in entertainment it’s different strokes for different folks.
I watch let’s plays to see different people play a game I enjoy and to find out stuff I might’ve missed or misinterpreted in a lore heavy game or to see a game being played differently and get different gameplay styles the next time I play it. Some people watch them to see what a game is like to make a decision on whether to buy it or not, while others just find it entertaining because of the person’s commentary and personality while playing. It’s not for everyone though
I didn’t understand it for a long time because I’d always see guys doing obnoxious characters like Pewdiepie who aren’t particularly interesting to watch and the idea of watching people play games has always been hell to me, but eventually I figured it out. It’s like a radio show or sports commentary. You don’t watch it to watch the game, you watch it for the person and the game is just the topic of the conversation. Trust me, if you found a Let’s Player who you thought was funny or made some good points about the games they played you’d get the appeal.
So you have never watched any event of any kind? Because if you have, why did you bother, why did you not actually just become proficient at said event and do it yourself rather than watching it?
I watch some Let’s Plays and Twitch streams, but it is far more often for the people playing than the game itself… And I wager its the same for a LOT of others who watch this sort of content.
Quite a few of them have a knack for keeping others engaged because they as a person are entertaining and the game itself largely has nothing to do with it… I’d say that fact that reinforces this point is that some of them can play ANYTHING and nobody gives a damn.
Honestly, if you’re not engaging as this sort of entertainer you’re absolutely dead in the water no matter what you play anyway. Your friend who played ff9 clearly wasn’t such an entertainer.
You could very easily level your comment against people who do all sorts of things. Take it back a few decades before the internet was every really a thing. “Are we so dull that we get kicks from listening to or watching other people on television and radio?”
It’s also very likely that comment could be used against whatever your own personal interests in life are… Television, radio, sports, video games, etc. Just because you don’t like something, doesn’t mean you’re not just like the people who do in some other area.
Are you Jimmy Kimmel?
give the people what they want and expect or ill downvote you.
fukin stoopid society, are we that willing to readily put ourselves in imaginary worlds. im so sick of the i want i want i want attitudes of todays generations. as a parent, i get that from my 3 year old, but i make damn sure that she knows its not acceptable. looks like a whole lot of failed and convenient parenting going on these days.
Well his whole thing was basically silly, over the top reactions. That’s what his subscribers expected. In a way he is a comedian, and if a comedian you go to see all of a makes the whole show a serious and humourless affair I think you might be a bit miffed. In a way he betrayed his audience, and for a YouTube professional that could be a silly move.
If the Pewds starts getting serious I might actually watch him.
I’m very impressed with Pewd’s response. That “Do I make my fans happy or myself happy?” struggle seems to be universal. That’s why so many rappers try to make their first album over and over again.
It’s been interesting lately to see gaming publications flip on Pewdiepie. I feel like a couple of months ago, he was disliked but “put up with” because of his power and what he is to YouTube. However, ever since that very honest “I make money, so what?” video, he seems to be treated with a lot more respect.
With this too, it feels like he has become an actual human being, rather than that annoying foreign guy who acts crazy in videos. It’s nice to see him treated that way. He is just a gamer afterall, just one who managed to bottle lightning.
Good on him for keeping it real. Fuck the hype.
Game looks like night trap anyway pfffff.
Call me petty, but Prwdiepie has a face i want to smack with a heavy fish. Repeatedly.
perhaps if he didn’t want to play the game and knew that he wouldn’t get the views on it or his fans wouldn’t like his performance then perhaps he shouldn’t have done it in the first place instead of being a boring, condescending, jackass and actually just let youtubers like markilpler who actually really enjoy the series to do their thing
I’ve said it before and I will say it again, I don’t like his videos, I grew tired of them after he started doing mods for Amnesia, BUT I sure to respect the guy and the way he handles situations like this!
Please don’t kill me PDP fans….
It’s weird, I love horror games, but I’ve never found the FNAF games scary in the slightest. They always seem super lame to me. Am I broken?
No, you’ve just played an actual horror game before 🙂
I don’t like it either but it doesn’t bother me that people do. I feel like the narrative structure is kind of interesting but they haven’t held my attention for long. Do people hate the fact that I don’t like something they do despite being totally cool with people liking what they want?
As someone who avoids horror games, my family laughed hard at me when I got jumped by chica after diverting my attention to tell them to shut up so I could listen to breathing.
However compared to PDP I don’t generally play horror, so I am easily jumped
I think it also depends on your mood when it comes to these things. When I played PT, at first I was terrified by the atmosphere… but then got bored walking around trying to figure out what to do. When the woman shows up behind you I was half looking at the screen and became annoyed that the game took control from me, not scared at all, actually ANNOYED. It ruined the entire experience for me despite wetting myself only 10 minutes before.
You become really desensitised to the same sort of game I think.
Some games have scared the fuck out of me at first, then an hour later I’m sprinting down a hallway laughing at every horror that jumps out like its a walk in the park.
to be honest the game isnt that much different with the jumpscares, i just love his Outlast videos the most.
I don’t like or dislike Pewdiepie, never really watch his content because it was never of interest to me.
But I do think it’s hilariously convenient to suddenly start having ‘principles’, as people are putting it, after you’re making millions off the people who supported you when you apparently lacked said principles.
Of course, I am also completely open to the idea that everyone else is just playing up the FNAF hype and he’s just genuinely not interested anymore.
BUT there is a big difference between Pewds’ and Mark’s scare: Pewds didn’t know what was going on in the first place, whereas Mark knew he had to LISTEN to beat the game
That’s why Mark’s more scared, he was paying REALLY CLOSE ATTENTION! Pewds was randomly jumpscared!
This article makes Markiplier look ridiculous 🙁
I agree. Mark Plier plays the game to pass them. Pewds plays them to entertain. Also… i don’t know about everyone else… but I actually find this game scary as hell. It annoys me to no end that there are people that just hate FNAF because of its success but have no idea what the game is about or how it is actually played. They just give one look and laugh that it is stupid. To me the game for what it is, is a very creative concept. It definitely isn’t an amnesia, but it still makes me feel helpless and scared nonetheless.
I don’t hate FNAF because it was a success. I hate it because it’s shitty, it’s boring, the story is made-up as Scott Cawthon goes along and, most importantly of all, IT’S NOT SCARY. Anyone who has ever played an actual horror game, such as Amnesia: The Dark Descent or Outlast, will tell you that FNAF isn’t scary. And this isn’t even mentioning that Cawthon can actually make a better game, he made that one RPG where you play as a coffee maker (can’t remember the name right now) that was apparently quite good.
I have played those games and I still find FNAF scary(can be loosely termed to jump scares here) in its own right. But I do understand where you are coming from. My friends freak out over spiders, they don’t phase me at all. But snakes I hate them… yet my friends don’t mind. It all comes down to personal preference. But yeh, if you just aren’t scared of it, this will appear as a very lackluster dull game. But for me… I like it. 😀
He’s made millions off over acting and being eccentric so now that he has the following he can do whatever he likes with minimal effort and the cash will still roll in. Hardly rocket science.