Welcome to the first in what I hope will be a semi regular column on the sometimes wondrous world of You Tube. Today I'll be talking about a channel that's quite rightly becoming huge at a bit over half a million subscribers.
Ladies and gentlemen please put your hands together for Simon and Lewis aka The Yogscast.
I first came across these guys while looking for dungeon guides for World of Warcraft and thought the humour and sense of fun they brought to their videos made a welcome change from the more often than not bland commentary of other guides.
Here were a couple of guys who were obviously having fun as casuals in WoW without treating it like a second job like so many others. If you've never played WoW before then it's kind of hard to understand why this seems so odd and if you have played it with friends or a social guild you realise that the fun is never conveyed through most video commentaries.
Sadly the guys stopped playing WoW because after you finished five mans there really isn't much to do unless you want to commit to raiding which is for many when the game just stops being fun and becomes a second job even if you manage to find a casual raiding guild.
A few weeks/months later they started a lets play series of videos on Minecraft and this is when they started their meteoric rise to You Tube fame and in fact their videos are the reason I bought the game.
I very rarely buy games solely on recommendation or reviews but thanks to the sense of fun Simon and Lewis convey in their videos I just had to try this one out.
Perhaps the key to their appeal is that they don't appear to try with their videos. It all comes across as so natural that a lot of people have made the mistake of assuming that they are professionals working from a script. While they've admitted in interviews that as the show has progressed some elements of it are pre prepared it's only Lewis that really knows even vaguely what's going on.
The other key to their appeal is the obvious differences in their personalities. Lewis is for the most part what would traditionally be considered the good cop or the hard put upon straight laced guy and Simon is the whacky side kick.
That's not to say both aren't hilarious it's just that there are times when you can almost picture Lewis sighing as his partner in crime does something that's blatantly a bad idea.
The duo have since added a second channel where they do voice overs and reviews for game trailers and lets play series for other games all in their own inimitable style.
If you haven't seen their shows yet then give them a shot and for the love of Bob if you're going to leave a comment please say anything but "When is the next Shadow of Israphael?"
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