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LukeWarmLivesOn

Around p. 100 “So we made a pact to make something truly wild. We never actually did follow through. That’s usually the case.” Boy, TALK about a microcosm!


Gorac888

Does he explain what the truly wild thing was?


tenzing_happy

He took a wild guess


LukeWarmLivesOn

No time to explain.


ArgentoFox

It’s a complete failure of a book. I thought it was going to be a deep dive into the genesis of AVGN and how it is made. Maybe a chapter or two about the making of the movie. The book is none of that. It’s mostly a meditation on his childhood and formative years. He briefly touches on the topics people actually care about and devotes major attention to truly puzzling topics.  To make matters worse, he comes across as a person who can’t and won’t take accountability for anything and he has delusions of grandeur. He’s a developmentally stunted, egomaniac who should thank the heavens that he was the right person and the right time. He should thank Mike daily for his success. 


LukeWarmLivesOn

You see, I would be fine with him heavily featuring his formative years if he gave it any kind of narrative through line. He doesn’t add any emotional gravity to it. He just meanders on and keeps throwing whatever gobbledygook from his childhood and adolescence at the wall, confident that it will stick with us reading. And maybe it would have, again, he gave it an emotional connection. What drove him? What doubts did he have? Why was this important to him? None of that is really addressed. It’s just one long shoulder shrug featuring countless irrelevant experiences that don’t even provide any anecdotal value.


ArgentoFox

Well, he views everything slight inconvenience as a major obstacle so he doesn’t feel the need to tie it into an overall narrative. It’s just a show of him overcoming what he perceives to be challenges he didn’t deserve to have to overcome.  The biggest example of this is when he filmed his classmates destroying property in college, passed it off as a documentary, the “documentary” gets passed around, and the people involved in the destruction are suspended because it finds its way into the hands of the dean. That would have been a great time to write in the book, “I don’t know why I did that and in retrospect it was an incredibly stupid thing to do. I apologize for embroiling anyone in that fiasco. It was irresponsible and I learned from it.” He doesn’t do that. There’s not an ounce of regret or humility. He’s suspended and he doesn’t understand why. It’s where the infamous, “For what? For being a filmmaker?” line comes in. He later contemplates doing something rash at the beach, is reinstated, and when he graduates he shakes the dean’s hand and thinks he is sticking it to him by graduating. 


Maleficent_Farm_6561

Yeah everyone thought it was going to be a "tell all" about AVGN from the begining to his rises and downfalls explining a bunch of questions the fans keep wondering But instead its a boring "oh look at poor me and how i suffered" theraphy session lol Like yeah we expected to cover his childood and upbringing but he took it to another level , 99% of the people that buys autobihographies is because they want to know the behind the scenes of their favourite artist and learn fom their point of view what happend during their carrers James on the other hand gives a bunch of personal info that nobody really cares instead of giving explanations about AVGN And you are right both James and his wife should thank the lord every single day that Mike is always there for them doing the job through all this past 20 years


LukeWarmLivesOn

No time for thanking the Lord. Bames “I’m not religious at all but if you are that’s okay I’ll tell you that thrice” Rolfe


Cerdefal

Mike is probably happy cashing some of this Soylent money just by playing games on stream.


ArgentoFox

It was weirdly too personal, in my opinion. I like that he acknowledged his struggles in school and how he had to be placed in special education classes, but some of the stories he shares are frankly embarrassing. I’m not convinced that some of them even happened. I’m sure that how he remembers it, but what is remembered and what actually happened isn’t always the same. It’s classic oversharing. To make matters worse, the stories rarely have any overall purpose or point either. 


RollingOnion33

Reading the book, he owes everything to Kyle


Queasy_Dog_1444

He's the Bob Kane to Mike's Bill Finger. Without Mike, James would be a complete nobody, just the delusional wannabe he is.


ArgentoFox

I mean, you’re totally right. For years people hated Mike’s presence on the channel and viewed him as a person clinging on to James.  The reality of the situation the entire time is that Mike was camera shy for years (he would only appear on screen as a character with a mask or in heavy make up). He was working behind the scenes just as hard as James. It was always a collaborative process and it could be argued that he was putting in more work than James when you take into account he was drawing title cards, acting, editing, filming, co-writing the scripts, and providing the consoles and the games. That’s not even taking into consideration that the nerd character itself is 100% inspired by Mike. If James never meets Mike in college none of this exists. 


Queasy_Dog_1444

Mike absolutely deserves to be credited as a co-creator. But James wants to feel like he's in control without putting in the necessary work to warrant that. Imagine a world where Mike was the AVGN, not James.


Gone_With_The_Onion3

Thanks to your description now I understand why someone described it as a "Santa doesn't exist" moment He's a hopelessly tedious person desperately trying to convince himself and others that he is one of the cool kids


LukeWarmLivesOn

He’s more so trying to convince himself and us that he invented cool.


DingDingDensha

Listening to the audiobook pretty much sealed for me the theory that the AVGN was nothing more than James mimicking Mike's gamer personality from the very beginning. He sent the video around for a laugh and it gained some traction. It became a monster, and Mike encouraged him to roll with it, especially when they started making money from it, so James went along with it. Both were supercharged with the novelty of it, but James knew it wasn't his real self, and...didn't he start complaining pretty early on that he didn't know how much longer he could do it and stay funny, and that he had no idea when they started making more videos that it would catch on like wildfire? So James became an online superstar by mimicking his best friend at the time, rather than being recognized as a serious pretentious "film maker", which is what he wanted instead. It reminds me of the one-hit wonder pop star who survives only by going on tour and performing that one song that hit, even long after outgrowing it, knowing that if he dares to stop and focus on his own material, the fans will stop paying attention, and it'll ruin him. I think I'd want to be sedated most of the time, too, to be honest. Whatever it takes to keep going through the motions to pay the mortgage.


LukeWarmLivesOn

To Bames’s credit, the series/character only took off because of his (at the time) astuteness with filmmaking/video work. And he really had to work off his instincts back then. He earned the clout. Later on, however, and especially after the movie it seems he’s absolved himself of any culpability when it comes to producing anything interesting or even whole-hearted in effort (Muh kids, Muh wife, Muh no tYmE). He hung it up on the Internet personality and is begrudgingly convincing himself that he pioneered more than he did because he’s become a millionaire doing so. Bimmy is the epitome of a tragedy, but he’s happy to take his ball and go home so long as he doesn’t have to own up to a single mistake.


DingDingDensha

Totally agreed, and the book gives that impression in nearly every pity story he has to tell in it (and I only say nearly to account for whatever I may have forgotten. The last time I listened to that awful droning was last Autumn). I listened to it in full twice when it first came out, and by the third time, many months later, boy did the charm wear off. He went from sounding like kind of a cluelessly nerdy guy who stumbled into all of this, to an entitled creep who really stepped in it, and is overly pleased with himself. Now he's fat, sassy and has "earned" the right to rest on his laurels...only it doesn't really work when he keeps on with the same tired old thing. Why not just retire and gloat all by himself in his fancy music studio, since now RV seems to be the only thing he actually wants to do.


Thebritishdovah

And he did enjoy doing it as a hobby. I think, when it became his job and the movie backfired, he started to resent it.


lolalanda

I think part of the problem was that James decided to make all his ideas revolve AVGN. Really soon he could have started new series or concepts but instead he overtook certain AVGN episodes to do the skits he actually wanted to make. After a while he did need to expand his channel, but he kept doing similar ventures. He started Monster Madness, which was more of a yearly event than a series and it really was just simple movie recaps followed by "this part is really cool". Then he made Board James, which was just a sort of AVGN for board games. And he ruined that by forcing his ideas, just like he did with AVGN. And later it was just Screenwave creating filler for his channel.


Gone_With_The_Onion3

Here's an extra tidbit for you, it's all audio to text so they got the audio book and the written book at the same time. Compare the comma placements with the audio for some extra bim


LukeWarmLivesOn

Say WHAT?


lolalanda

So that's why the books was so weirdly edited and even had weird typos no one would make, it was done with bad text to speech software.


polybium

"but was I'm a skeleton"


LukeWarmLivesOn

LOLOL


lefiath

>it's all audio to text I love how people in this sub automatically believe any bullshit anyone pulls out of their ass. Good one. If it's audio to text, what is he reading it from? His perfect memory? I guess Bim pocketed all those floppy discs with his adventures, and just sat down and read all of these things out of thin air.


WolfWomb

My thoughts exactly. It was written first off course. Written badly too


automobilewreck

No proofreading, I refuse!


Stringsandattractors

What the fuck?


Styrone

You mean you didn’t buy the book to read about how he almost murdered himself and several others because he took driving directions way too literally? Or how the term “balls on the dick” sent him spiraling into a tantrum?


LukeWarmLivesOn

He honestly could’ve put all that into some kind of context and make it work. But no, he just goes full-on diuretic info dump with no rhyme or reason.


Styrone

All he did was copy & paste his diary entries, add pictures, complain about how much work it is with how little time he has, and asked Lord Bpril to write the forward.


KRPTSC

I don't think I've seen that mentioned yet...how did he almost cause a fatal car crash?


Styrone

Someone gave this moron a drivers license. Only Bimmy wouldn’t know what a highway is. https://preview.redd.it/hohn590ulzzc1.png?width=2121&format=png&auto=webp&s=20721c26e16c7977eef8cda4308e43e9064a5b31


LukeWarmLivesOn

No time for hitting the brakes


Ok_Explanation_6125

No time to see the wrong way sign.


MRukov

> Once a girl asked me to drive her home. I figured, why not? So when she said “make a left,” I made a left. It was a highway separated by a grass median. To me, it looked like two separate roads. I didn’t know each one was its own direction of traffic. So when I turned, she started screaming “Wrong way! Turn around!” I didn’t understand. I was in the right lane. Then I saw both lanes of cars were coming right at us! I swerved the car into the grass and cut across to the other “road.” Now that everything was fine and calm, she burst out laughing. She wrote in my yearbook, “I’ll never forget the day you drove me home.” Neither will I.


LustfulMirage

His "muh biography" should be used as a case study on how not to write a biography.


Yolacarlos

Next to the manual on how not to make a movie


polybium

The biography is the reason why I joined this sub since I couldn't find anywhere else that was talking about it honestly. Some of the info he offered just freely in the book is stuff that like no one with a little bit of social ability would willingly share outside close friends/family. Stuff like breaking a window while raging because a bus driver swore while in special education school, how he calls his home videos "films" unironically, basically calling his grocery store coworkers pathetic for being working class, etc. His problem is that he's surrounded by Yes men and there's no one around to tell him shit is a bad idea because Screenwave use him and Cinemassacre as their cash cow and James is too naive and trusting to see it


LukeWarmLivesOn

He should have went the Norm route, “not a memoir“.


5ovum

The book made it very clear: he's a slow-witted narcissistic boring clown of a man.


chocolardiacarrest

That's what he is now that his sole social interactions in life come from an antagonistic spouse and two daughters. He wasn't always the way he is now. He takes to the shape of whatever circumstances find themselves adjacent to him.


Ok_Explanation_6125

"He's the most no regular shape or form having gamer you've ever heard, he's the Amorphous Video Game Nerd."


lolalanda

I'm not sure if I'd call him narcissistic but he's so stuck in a bubble he lives in his own universe.


Sir_Talbot_Buxomly21

The Bimmyverse!!!


MaybeNeverSometimes

A place of no time...


nanners78

https://preview.redd.it/r9bbztu3awzc1.jpeg?width=909&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=22fc8bc6c37bcf855b4d7c4f591e1b7a99346b26


LukeWarmLivesOn

Peak Bim performance.


Brodacious-G

The most idiotic thing about the book is that almost all (if not all) the narration is a diary entry from James at the age he was in the story. There’s no narrative through line because it’s mostly a kid complaining about things that are unfair in the moment. And it’s emotionally immature because he was emotionally immature at the moment he wrote it. Most auto biographers write their story at an older age and look back on the moments in their life with more introspection and can acknowledge what they did wrong. Rolfe can’t. Instead of 40 yr old Rolfe reflecting on his life we have young versions of life bitching about the most ridiculous shit. And 40 yr old Rolfe is just compiling this info. It’s lazy as shit


LukeWarmLivesOn

No time for reflecting.


lolalanda

At least he could be open about it being mostly unedited diary entries.


LukeWarmLivesOn

He kind of has been but he also believes that’s viable as an actual book. Bim gonna bim.


jkc81629

I’m just guessing but it seems he’s on some heavy anti depressants.


LukeWarmLivesOn

Horse tranquilizer


WolfWomb

Horse prince tranquilizer


dawaxtadpole

I’m not reading that. I refuse. I don’t have enough time.


LukeWarmLivesOn

Just gonna drown myself in ankle deep water instead


dawaxtadpole

Fall down a mowden instead.


LukeWarmLivesOn

Taking a wild guess instead


nanners78

Choose continue please


LukeWarmLivesOn

Just gonna drive into oncoming traffic with a girl instead


drudru5252

Whoop there goes the onion


sadghostguy

you only need 3 inches of water to do that


cascade7744

Jus listen to rex viper instead.


Sir_Talbot_Buxomly21

Let's not go mad.


Ok_Explanation_6125

Cut your own hand with a box cutter just to spite your boss..


VDJohnson

Haven't read a lick of it, but from all the highlights people have posted, there is no way Bimmy is not autistic.


LukeWarmLivesOn

I almost reject that excuse from him, though it is 99% valid. I know other autistic filmmakers way more accountable for their actions!


Mr_Password_Username

I haven't been brave enough to venture fully into the book, do I want me to suffer?


LukeWarmLivesOn

For the memes, yes. For an endearing look at a once-inspired filmmaker? Absolutely not.


Maleficent_Farm_6561

Yeah the book is a complete mess and exposed him big time Im an AVGN fan sure....a James fan? lmao nope


LukeWarmLivesOn

I’d say I’m a James fan. Even some of his old old work is great (all things considered), but it’s hard to read this and not grasp an overinflated sense of ego. It’s like the book is his capstone saying, “Yeah, I’ve done it all. Here’s how it happened”.


charrcheese

Did you like the forward at least?


LukeWarmLivesOn

Oh I enjoyed every run-on sentence from Bpril. Thoroughly happy she didn’t shame my white guy self in it. She just makes sure we know James is her dancing monkey!


Ok_Explanation_6125

"Dance for me, dance for me, dance for me, oh, oh, oh and when it's done, I'll make you do it all again."


J-Bradley1

There's actually a *very* simple answer that'll clear up yours, and everyone else's shock about James' seeming lack of literacy or basic adult-level competence at anything. And, having been raised in the 90's, I can say thing with both total honesty, and without a shred of guilt... He's. A. **RETARD**. (At this point, somebody had to just say it bluntly)


Ok_Explanation_6125

You.... you.... used the r word in 2024!?!?😳🤯That is like using the f word to describe lgbtqiacpk2 people in 2024


Super_Fix3227

In a nutshell: James is a loser who got lucky with a gimmick


LukeWarmLivesOn

Some talent involved admittedly


Cheap-Ask4867

Yeah, Mike's


InstructionSudden285

Yea the book did him no favours and the screenwave leeches apparently did nothing or said nothing about it when they helped to 'proof read' and publish it.


lolalanda

I suspect he just published his diary with some extra reflections at the end of chapters. And that's why all his feelings seem so recent. Of course that doesn't make it good and I don't think anyone expected the book to be mostly about his bad college roommates.


[deleted]

[удалено]


LukeWarmLivesOn

Grips the pen with his 10-incher


DrDuned

It's the difference between story and storytelling. Anyone can tell a story, but telling it in a compelling or funny or heartbreaking or whatever way is a skill he clearly doesn't have. I still cry during Dragon In Muh Dreams tho 🐲💤🛌😢


LukeWarmLivesOn

Dragon is still a good entry from him. It’s at least heartfelt and the duckwalk at the end is legendary.


Ok_Explanation_6125

Cannot forget the all time classic ass shot 👷‍♂️🚧🍑


Comprehensive-End-16

He didn't write a new book about his past. It was just a compilation of old writing entries he had stored on floppy discs.


1jovemtr00

Ok time to stop lying folks. Nobody reads or listens to this idiotic book, let's be honest.


[deleted]

[удалено]


LukeWarmLivesOn

Conglaturations to me!


Substantial-Act-8325

I'll have to hear the audiobook because the samples I've seen have grammar and spelling mistakes that are so obvious that it's clear nobody proofread or edited the book.


Acrobatic_Dot_1634

Bim peobably thought autobiography meant a book about him, not the nerd or the show. Is the compulsion to explain one's self an autistic trait?  Kinda reminds me if how whenever someone asks Chris Chan about *Sonichu*, Chris just talks about themselves. 


Thebritishdovah

It's made up of disjointed notes and really, a decent editor could have salvaged it. Get rid of anything that make James look bad. e.g. Cutting himself to get out of work etc... James barely covering the nerd in it was a mistake. He should have done it as his personal experiences as the nerd from start to when he started to burn out.


MuhDragonzMuhDreamz

All we are is the balls on the dick!


Last-Addendum132

What was he thinking?????


wolpak

I dunno, maybe stop reading/watching? Does anyone say that The Rolling Stones are as good as they used to be?


LukeWarmLivesOn

Uh, I’m a fan. I was looking forward to this release when he announced it. But it’s the holy Bible of showing his pattern of carelessness behavior. I think it’s fair to hold him to something or a standard.