So another podcast review to get the interwebs gnashing their teeth, and this time I’m setting my poison-coated daggers squarely on the cross-hairs of Blue Plz! This is a unique podcast in WoW-themed shows, as it only has a single host, in this case the vastly opinionated TotalBiscuit. This immediately eliminates the huge problem in the podcasting world of people talking over each other, which seems to happen on 90% of the shows that are out there. It creates a different type of problem in the sense that you have to listen to the one bloke rabbiting on for 90 minutes. So the focal point of the show is TotalBiscuit himself and the on-air persona that he has created for himself. The best way that I can describe this is an in-your-face, rant-ridden, mouth-frothing, shock jock, all packaged in a Pommie accent. It’s enough to make any self respecting Australian throw up in his mouth.
The huge saving grace on all of this is that this is intelligent podcasting. TotalBiscuit’s shtick par excellence is to have a nice rant at what he calls, scrubs. This is the English midlands version of Gevlon’s Morons & Slackers. TotalBiscuit’s opinions run the gauntlet of railing against the unique and beautiful snowflakes of the world and attempting to give them the proverbial kick up the backside, to taking Blizzard’s decisions apart piece by piece in a merciless and deadly accurate criticism laced with a healthy dose of unmitigated sarcasm. This may not sound very intelligent, but his arguments are for the most part quite highbrow, and you will not only find yourself nodding along to them in agreement, but actually thanking Buddha for the fact that finally someone is saying this stuff on the pod-waves.
His show opens with 5 to 10 minutes of flogging whatever video or show or in-game event that he is working on at the current time, so for the first-time listener this can be a little confusing if not off-putting. Then he immediately jumps into his mailbag, which forms the greater part of each episode. I’ve listened to 8 episodes in order to prepare this review, and it seems that either every person who writes in is a dipshit or TotalBiscuit purposely picks the most idiotic emails in order to take off on a 15 minute rant. Every so often he breaks this up with some music, which you won’t hear unless you join in to the live show itself. Apparently a lot of people do listen to the show as it’s being recorded, and here we arrive at one of my few issues with this show. Actually, it would probably be fairer to say that almost every podcast suffers from this malady – the live chat sickness.
If you listen to a live show you can participate in the live chat. Now, I’ve never done this myself, but from what I can imagine it more or less amounts to listeners writing things in the chat in an attempt to grab the hosts attention and get the host to comment on what has been written. This is the holy grail for people who participate in the live chat; their comment has been read live on the show, saved for posterity forever. And herein lies the problem: this is all well and good if you’re live at the time, but if you’ve downloaded the show after the fact it can get a tad annoying to hear the host constantly referring to the live chat. In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, it goes something like this:
Host: “… and if Blizzard would only give both the Alliance and the Horde the ability to kill gnomes with pink hair whenever the hell we wanted then – ahahahahahaha, yeah! Right on! Oh man, Jefko, you’re so right dude, that would be awesome, oh yeah. Oh guys, Jefko just wrote an amazing thing in chat, you really have to be there for this …”
Which we’re not. TotalBiscuit goes on a lot about his number of listeners. Apparently he has quite a few. He usually mentions this a few times every show, and it seems to jump from 70,000 to 110,000, I’m fucked if I know how many, but it’s a lot. The vast majority of those download the podcast, they don’t listen to it live. In fact, a few episodes ago he was complaining that he was maxed out on the number of people who could listen live as his server was crashing under the strain. So it’s not as if we can all go and listen live to this, (as if I could be bothered). So I really wish that podcast hosts would tone down the references to their live chat, as for someone listening after the fact it is a complete non-issue for us. Oh, they’re referring to the live chat, okay I’ll turn my listening brain off for a moment now.
One more thing; TotalBiscuit rants a great deal about scrubs and how they ruin the game and how they are the vast majority of players in the game, yet at the same time he is constantly going on about his huge listener numbers. So it doesn’t take an IQ much higher than room temperature to work out that the greater number of his listeners are most probably scrubs themselves, (although they will never admit this to themselves as they laugh at TotalBiscuit taking the piss out of all those other scrubs). Which means that either TotalBiscuit is on a great crusader drive to educate as many stupid people in the world as he is able to, or he takes great delight in the fact that so many people that he rails against listen in to the show. Maybe it’s a little of both, but only he knows. As far as I’m concerned any possible lowering of the general stupidity level is fine by me. So, long may TotalBiscuit continue to rail against the forces of the stupid.
8.5/10
December 3, 2010 at 9:40 am
Nice review / write up. Blue plz is actually one of the only podcasts I can stomach although legendary with gary gannon, fony and lore probably pips it.
December 3, 2010 at 9:43 am
I’m unfamiliar with that podcast, I’ll have to give it a listen and review.
December 3, 2010 at 12:59 pm
Its better as a video cast than just the audio but yeah check it out. The three of them work well together imo. Also worth taking a look at are fonys bff reports which are pretty amusing (you tube it)
December 3, 2010 at 10:47 am
TB rightfully won the PPI reward for best podcast last year. There’s a lot that I like in it, most of all I think his passion. He’s got temperament, humor, personality and he’s not afraid to be controversal. Sometimes I get a little bit of an overdose of negativity; if you like me listen to every single show you get to know his pet peeves pretty well an it happens that it feels a little bit old. But on the whole, he’s a great deal more interesting to listen to than many other podcast. You don’t have to endure long stretches of “eehhh… I just forgot what I was about to say…” “hehe”… and above all there’s no bloody giggling at your own “jokes” or some inside humor that the host and his partner has but no one else is a part of. There’s a lot of patting each other’s backs going on in some other podcasts that becomes a bit boring for the outsider. TB never does that. Admittedly he’s a hug admirer of himself, and you have to take him with a pinch of salt. But most of the time he’s entertaining and fairly “pro” compared to most others.
I’m not quite as bothered as you are by his remarks about the chat room. Maybe I’m just too used to it to notice (I too download the show, so I’m not in the chat room either.)
On the whole I agree with your evaluation and would also give BP a grade in those brackets.
December 3, 2010 at 11:05 am
His youtube channel – Totalhalibut – is great as well. He’s got me addicted to Starcraft2 with his “I suck at Starcraft2″ series.
December 3, 2010 at 11:06 am
Also, are we too early to mention the cricket?
December 3, 2010 at 3:10 pm
Many years ago in an earlier season, it dawned on TB that alot of his listeners were the people he railed against. People in the live chat made fun of his girlfriend and he went into a rage live on air. The show was on haitus for many months.
I would say, as you put it “he takes great delight in the fact that so many people that he rails against listen in to the show.”
December 4, 2010 at 4:54 pm
Do you know what episode this was/whether its in the podcast version? Or did he cut it out
December 6, 2010 at 3:53 am
That episode was never put up as a podcast and no longer exists.
December 3, 2010 at 5:45 pm
“…in a Pommie accent. It’s enough to make any self respecting Australian throw up…”
That’s fair enough Adam, you’re bound to be a bit touchy about the Pomms at the moment, 245 all out
Nice review mate, I’m going to head on over and have a listen on the strength of it.
December 3, 2010 at 6:54 pm
Listen you mangy lot, before you start putting the boot in, lets see how many you score in the first innings, shall we?
December 3, 2010 at 9:19 pm
Isn’t that what Ricky said to the umpire ?
We’ll see how it goes
December 4, 2010 at 7:12 pm
One of the only reviews of Blue Plz I have ever actually read, and gone “fuck yeah, some of this is true.”
However, you have a couple of things wrong, which is understandable as you haven’t been in the thick of it just yet
. You need to come and experience the chat yourself. You will see that some of the thing’s you’ve mentioned, don’t hold truth. I’ll explain.
In both chats, it’s considered kick able if you “bother the brit.” Only operators, or people with actual vital information can talk to Totalbiscuit in live chat. Others will get kicked by the cynicalbot (it’s seriously cynical, and incredibly unforgiving), or by an online operator (there’s a few of us.)
I’ll also tell you that getting something read out by TB is usually a humiliating experience. As you said about his email choices, it’s the same for the chat. The quote you’ve picked is one of the only instances of him actually agreeing with somebody in chat. He usually picks the stupidest comments in chat, and makes the person look like a complete and utter moron in front of everyone in chat AND anyone who listens to the show.
Everything else is spot on though, and I will be looking forward to seeing you in one of the live chats some time soon.
-King
(Cynicalbrit IRC OP / Tinychat Mod)
December 4, 2010 at 7:45 pm
King,
Fair points all. My only excuse is that I really hate live chat references on air so much that my brain now seems to switch off when they happen.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be around for the live chat, but if I’m able to then I’ll give it a look.
December 4, 2010 at 7:23 pm
Thanks for the feedback, it’s extremely useful and you’re completely right, I’ve slacked in that area lately and I didn’t used to.
Also a quick correct, my name is just one word, not two, TotalBiscuit.
December 4, 2010 at 7:44 pm
Sorry about getting the name wrong, that’s something that I always try to avoid. And glad to see that you appreciated the review. It’s always highly revealing just who can take criticism in a constructive manner.
December 4, 2010 at 8:37 pm
An interesting and fairly accurate review, just a shame you had to use the phrase Pommie and say about throwing up in your mouth, just not necessary really. Although I believe self-respecting Australian is an oxymoron.
December 4, 2010 at 8:43 pm
Who you callin’ a moron?
December 4, 2010 at 11:31 pm
Oxymoron is a figure of speech that combines contradictory terms.
But w/e
December 5, 2010 at 9:15 am
…
December 5, 2010 at 2:39 pm
Raxx for pity sake chill out man.
The Australians and the English have had a tradition of baiting each other for hundreds of years. As a true blooded Englishman I have no problem at all if some Aussie bastard calls me a Pomm, that’s part of the sport. Equally, it doesn’t mean I have any less respect for Adam’s very well written article.
December 4, 2010 at 10:16 pm
Nice review. I got into WoW podcasts roughly 6 months ago but have culled my list down to only Blue Plz.
I think it’s safe to say *most* WoW podcasters have not had any previous experience in such a field, whereas TB has a background in radio hosting. I feel this is also what keeps listeners tuned in. Too many people doing podcasts trail off with “Uh’s” and “Um’s” or have periods of silence while they try to figure out what it is they want to say. This happens obviously, but too much pockmarks and disrupts the flow of the show, I find. TB keeps that flow going.
I also prefer one-host shows for the exact thing you said in the beginning; numerous hosts tend to talk over each other and that is a big pet peeve of mine. It feels like I’m sitting in on a casual conversation but am unable to interact with it, and that can get annoying. Sure, you don’t need to be news anchor worthy or have a background in radio hosting to do a podcast, but I believe there is still a certain structure to follow, especially if you want to not only increase your listener count, but also retain them. Specifying one person to talk about a subject briefly and making it clear that nobody else should be interrupting until the end would help out a lot of podcasts I think.
I enjoy TB’s rantiness, more so about Blizzard and game companies/developers in general than the scrubs clogging up LFG. Certainly that has it’s place (I rant about it a lot myself) but I find it more interesting, entertaining and engaging when he is picking apart games and Best Buy/WoW Developer chats.
December 4, 2010 at 10:39 pm
That is a nice review.
Blue Plz’s ‘intelligence’ tends to be overrated, because of the format of the show. As you described, he chooses incredibly stupid emails and topics to rant against, so by comparison it is very easy for Blue Plz to be seen as a bastion of intelligence in a sea of stupidity. The context of Totalbiscuit’s comments show him in a comparably favourable light.
Totalbiscuit’s discussion of general WOW and/or Blizzard topics are not entirely “merciless and deadly accurate criticism”. His arguments are usually entertaining and more intelligent than other podcasters, but he is not immune to stupid comments and factual inaccuracies.
His persona significantly influences his perceived genius. Anyone who says something stupid is a scrub (never just misinformed). Other opinions are heavily criticised for being only opinions. Anyone who corrects him is a ‘sperglord’ (no matter if the criticism is valid or just pedantic).
December 6, 2010 at 1:00 pm
First time posting here since i only discovered your blog recently.
As for totalbiscuit tbh i find his youtube channel as well as podcasts quite good. His humour is quite good and tbh i agree with most of what he says. But i also agree some less references to live chat would be nice since i usually download it and listen to it later on.
February 15, 2011 at 12:12 pm
You know I found one thing wrong with this review. You refered to his accent as pommie, which is false, Australians are the pomes not the english.
Prisoner of mother England = ‘pome’ which were prisoners sent to australia from England, to which later colonised it and are the ancestors of the aussies of today.
Other then that? Seems alright.