Weekend Confirmed 133 - Resident Evil 6, Tokyo Jungle, Borderlands 2

I really would have loved to be there to provide a counter argument for the "referential humor" segment regarding Borderlands 2. I haven't read any of the criticism that Garnett was brought up so I can only speak personally. Also, I haven't played BL2 , so these comments are based solely on what I've heard on WC or other outlets. For me, what's annoying about the type of humor in BL2 is not that I don't get it or that I don't like the media that it references, but instead, I'm simply tired of seeing this type of humor everywhere I look.

It's like the source material is a replacement for any sort of creative or meaningful idea. If you engage in "geek" culture online, you will encounter a nonstop torrent of image macros, memes, u mad bros, epic wins, epic fails, normal fails, bacon, "remember old Nickelodeon shows?" and on and on and on, creating this flimsy proxy for actual conversation, but in the end saying nothing at all. If you just reference the correct 80s sitcom, or post the appropriate rageface, you'll be accepted and loved. I understand the appeal of these things and I do derive a certain amount of pleasure from them, but only because I can avoid them and limit my exposure to them.

Except, sometimes, I feel like I can't avoid it. I can't seem to surf the internet for 5 minutes without running into some mashup picture of Dr. Who driving a DeLorean that has a million comments screaming in joy because, like, those are things, that, you know, I love, and here they are, together!

So when I see promotional material for BL2 or hear an interview with Anthony Burch talking about how he loves writing characters saying "fo' dizzle" (or whatever he said a couple weeks ago on WC) I can't help but worry that this same same type of humor that gives supreme reverence towards classic media, where simply referencing something is a punchline is becoming that much more inescapable. To be perfectly clear though, I will likely play BL2 for tens of hours and enjoy it immensely and will have little trouble looking past anything I'm not keen on. However, I feel the need to comment since the WC crew was one-sided on the subject. Nothing wrong with that, but I just want to provided some alternate perspective (though I appreciate the attempt by the crew to empathize). I think it's great that people can enjoy these silly references, but some people (maybe just me?) are getting a little tired of it and are frustrated by it's growing prevalence.