Cheat Codes Won't Help You Here | Reading Reddit Stories

It's hard to concentrate when you're worried about your health. It can feel like there's a wall between you and the rest of the world, like you can't be fully present. Hello, Axa Health. How can I help? At Axa Health Insurance, we build our teams with people who care. So when you need us, we're here to support you. For cover-that-cares, search Axa Health Insurance. Pre-existing conditions are not covered. Hi, welcome to Smoshreads Reddit Stories. I'm Shane, and today's theme is video games. Or gaming as a whole, probably, but video games. And I'm joined by two gamers, Courtney and Trevor. You're gamers. Such gamers. You know, it's kind of ironic that we're here doing a video game-themed Reddit Stories. Today, in 15 minutes, Hades 2 releases. But I'm stuck here with you dumb asses. Oh! You're in every video today. Yeah, I can't play Hades 2 today. I can go home after this, and I don't even like Hades 2. You're just kidding. I love watching it. Yeah, I downloaded, I beat it, I break it. Oh, dude. Right, it's fine. I'm going to be playing it for years to come. I didn't actually play Hades 1 for months after it was released, so I didn't discover it until later on. I love watching you play. I can wait on patient. Anyways, video games, source of a lot of drama, apparently, as we're going to find out. Those violent video games bring out a violent emotions. I've had a lot of very highly tense emotional situations that have arisen because of video games. Oh, so it's real. Already. Yeah, it is real. All right. What's up, Ben? I've changed. This is the gaming episode. I think we can find something a little bit more appropriate than the iPad. Oh, she's in no way. What's happening? Oh, my God. Oh, the frog. He's going to be playing on a leap frog. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I'm so funny. You're able to read on the steam deck? Oh, my God. All right. Mommy. We have the reddit stories pulled up on a steam deck. Can I see it? It looks like. Oh, my God. Emily, that's incredible. Here we go, our first story. This comes from Am I the Asshole, it's posted about a year ago, August of 2024. Would I be the asshole if I let my daughter continue playing a violent video game? Okay. I, a 39-year-old man, have a daughter who's 12, who has recently started playing a violent video game. The violent video game in question is the Sims. She has given me tours of her dungeons where she keeps her Sims X's, her child labor workforce, and complex love stories. You're an awesome 12-year-old. Wait till someone informs him like, the game is not inherently... Yeah. I hate to inform your daughters the violent world. Yeah. Now, I don't really find anything wrong with this. Okay, let's backpattle in here a little bit, man. Sure, it's a bit cruel to lock her Sims up, but I just think she's being a kid. It's only become a problem now because of my wife, who's 38. She wants to stop our daughter from playing because she thinks the game is too violent. But I'm just confused by this because we haven't typically stopped our kids from playing violent video games before. Our youngest, a nine-year-old boy, plays Fortnite and tried indoctrinating me into the game. Our 15-year-old son plays fighting games too, mainly of superheroes, so I don't really see the problem with a simulation compared to the shooting and fighting games our sons play. So I'm wondering if I would be the asshole, if I just let my daughter continue playing it, even if my wife has concerns. Am I the asshole? That is so funny. Yeah, you've introduced an actually really interesting thing because I think that maybe in this case Sims is more, quote, unquote, violent. Like, you have games like Fortnite, but you're like cartoon characters running around shooting guns and like superhero fighting games is superheroes. But if you take a sandbox game and you're like acting and you're using it in a way like that, it's like, I guess it's more violent. I don't think it's a problem. I think it's hilarious. But it's such an interesting line of the walk, where I'm like, oh, wait. I think it's more, I mean, my takeaway is for one based on the story, I am getting the read based on what we have, is that the parents are not being as scrutinizing of what the sons are playing as what their daughters are. Totally. Like, oh, well, it's giving a little bit of like, oh, well, boys will be boys. Uh-huh. Whereas they're hyper-fixating on what she's playing. It's how she's playing the game, though. Yeah. Yeah, that Sims is not inherently violent at all. Yeah. Unless you add the custom stuff. Yeah, unless you've got the violent upgrade. The violent sexual, the things. But just the fact that it's like, it's not a violent game. And sometimes even the creators of that game will like put in little notes or things where it's like, good job, you killed your Sim really fast. Hope you're proud of what you did in our game. Yeah. But I think it's a lesson, you gotta just teach your child empathy that. And I feel like, hey, do you realize what you're doing? Yeah. Like, it's not the game that's the problem. Teach your child something. It feels like an opportunity to like show interest in your child's interest. Mm-hmm. And to be like, hey, like, oh, that's what you're doing in the game. What if we tried doing this in the game? And like, you play it with her. And be like, hey, there might be a better way to go about this. Like, and ask more questions. Because, yeah, I get being like, whoa. Yeah. I'm curious if she was playing Minecraft. And she was like, this is my villager farm, where I have them all locked up in cages so that I can get the best trades. It's like, well, they be like, whoa, she's locking up humanoid figures and enslaving them. It's like, it's... I think it's, I think it's, it's like the most realistic looking and like the most... But it's also, it's the most sexual game out of all these things, which I would be more concerned about as a parent than a basement where you're keeping, I don't know. She's also... Yeah, it's so funny. This is so funny. This is so funny. But it's also like... Because my argument, like, playing video games, I'm like, it's a sandbox game. It's technically like, it's whatever you make it. Mm-hmm. Like, it's her decisions that she's making. She's being extremely creative with them. Yeah. Because those are not aspects that are built into the game at all. Yeah. It is the same as Minecraft, where I'm like, you could play Minecraft in million ways. Yeah. And if your kids go around killing villagers, it's not like, well, that's not really what you're designed to do in there. Yeah. You're making that choice. Play the game with them and like, try to encourage other things. I was playing some rollercoaster. I was launching those rollercoasters into space. We did that. You got me to do that. You got me to do that. We literally... It was little tiny bodies flew. It's been like 20 minutes in a mini-game video trying to figure out how to launch them as far as fast as possible. I think she's bored. I know that there's people who get concerned with what people can do when they're really young in video games or like, what can... Like, oh, is this just the show lack of empathy? Is this person going to be doing that kind of stuff in real life as an adult? Like, there's those things there that maybe that's what the mom is concerned about. Right. I also think maybe they're just bored. Because sometimes you just get weird with symptoms. You really just get weird. Yeah. Well, that's like the thing in Sim's is like, you spend enough time playing the game. You build a beautiful house and a beautiful family. It's like, okay, well, I've done it. I guess I got to lock someone in the basement or put someone in a pool and say, a lot. Yeah. Well, we got to have fun. I got to do it. It's like, got it. Yeah, there's the element too of like, hey, like... Your daughter's also 12. She's like... She's not a little tiny baby. Like, she knows what she's probably doing. And it's like, there is also the element of like, hey, we know this isn't real. Right. We're fucking around here making stupid stuff. I think the idea of just like, we'll take it away. I'm like, I don't think that solves this situation. No, and I think it's so right that's like, well, the sons are allowed to play these games. There's literal weapons and stuff in it, but the daughter... I think it's the lessons you should teach your kid. It's not like a video game is whatever you want it to be. Like, they have a nine-year-old who's playing Fortnite, which I think that game is technically 13-plus. It's probably better than me. It's probably really good. It's probably really good at the game. I would not... I truly like... I mean, look, we work in YouTube. I would not be as concerned with the video game someone's playing is like, frankly, what YouTubers are watching, what advice they're getting from online communities and stuff. But even then, it's like, it's this hard thing of how do you... And like, Fortnite, I'm like, I'm less worried about like, the violence of it and the shooting guns versus like, a nine-year-old is just going into public lobbies, like, with voice chat. Yeah. And like, hearing random strangers on the internet. Exactly. I think parents should be doing way more research before they're giving their kids access to games and anything. Just research everything. Yeah. My older brother and his wife, they make sure to watch stuff, or play stuff before they let their kids, you know? Yeah. My big thing is just, like, sit down and talk to her. Like, be like, why do you do this? Like, what? That's amazing. That's amazing. Because it sounds like the response they've gotten is like, she's telling them like, this is funny. Yeah. Which she is. Like, because she... Which means she's recognizing the absurdity of what she's doing. Yeah. She's like, yeah, I'm obviously not going to do this in real life. This is a joke. I'm 12 years old and this is hilarious. Yeah. Um, comments... Well, the verdict was not the asshole. Comments, not the asshole. To be honest, that's what a lot of female players do. Let her have fun. But I'm really sorry your son plays Fortnite. Women being locked in people. No. It's actually... It's actually really... People talk about like, oh, men are playing GTA, but women are on Animal Crossing doing horrendous shit to their village. Oh, my God. So it's not the asshole, LOL. That's hilarious. But talk to your wife and find out why she's so bothered by this. I'm guessing it's just gender stereotyping. I, not very ladylike behavior, but check in with her just in case she is erred. Seen other behavior from your daughter that raises her concern. That's valid. Someone said, hey, as both someone who studied child psychology and youth delinquency and a woman who played both Barbies and the Sims as a young girl, the Sims is just modern Barbies. Kids are going to explore the violent and strange bits of the world no matter how they do it. It's human nature. I used to lock up my Barbies in jail, have servant Barbies and nobles play out elaborate stories about romances and murders and cheating. It's how children learn empathy and explore and learn the realities of humanity. Both the Sims and Barbies are healthy outlets for kids. They can deal with their complex and negative feelings in a healthy way. Even if it looks violent without hurting anyone. Even if your daughter had a bully and she made the bully in the Sims and then locked them in a room and starved them until they died, something I did, LOL. That doesn't mean she wants to act down those feelings in real life. It's cathartic. The Sims looks so funny that putting them in a bizarre and cruel situation like that makes you feel a little vindicated and makes you laugh. It lets you feel all that and then let it go. Hope this helps. Well, I think that's... Yeah. I will say I think I remember as a kid trying weird stuff like that on the Sims and then just feeling really bad and then never do it again. Yeah. Yeah, it's just like wait, okay, I have a playground to like see, like experiment. Yeah. That is part of being a kid. Like, you don't realize it when you're a kid like why you're doing things but it's like, oh, it's your brain learning. Like with craves things. Yeah. I'm never going to let my kids play video games because I'm going to be playing them and they can watch if they want. Right. Fair. Green. All right. This next story comes from today I fucked up. Today I fucked up by buying a used PlayStation 2 on Let Go that caused me to face my worst fear. The story was posted in September of 2017. This happened only minutes ago. The graphics card in my old PS2 decided it wanted to give up on me recently. So I decided to replace it when I had a little extra cash. I was out browsing different sites like Craigslist and the like when I stumbled upon the PS2 mentioned in the title. It looked like a great deal at the time, $25 to buy it from this guy. Whereas a secondhand store in town was selling them for about $45 to $60. At the time, this seemed like a no-brainer. Now, I should preface this by saying that I have a strange faith in the honesty of others. Benefit of the doubt and all that noise. After all, the car I drive now is one I bought from a guy on the inner car. And it runs great for something that is 27 years old. Why should this be any different? Starting to sound like a mistake yet? If the answer is no, then have no fear. That is almost certainly about to change. The model the seller advertised on Let Go was one of the larger black brick models, like the first generation ones. When I finally met the seller, we had a brief handshake in exchange. When he showed me the goods, it was actually one of the slim and silver PS2s from later in the console's production run. He told me he had already sold the larger one. My first instinct, as many logical retters would tell me, is that I should have walked away when I saw I was being sold something that was improperly advertised. Unfortunately for me, and I guess fortunately for the rest of you reading this, I was not in the most logical mood. It was kind of a shitty drive to a pretty sketchy part of town and it had already been a long morning. I just wanted to get this thing and go home. Back at the old ranch, I hooked up the console, slapped in Kingdom Hearts 2 and got ready to enjoy the rest of my day. I'm off work and done with class. What else would I do with my evening, right? I was pretty happy with my life. Until I realized I had been waiting for five or so minutes and the disc wasn't reading. Strange, but not altogether discouraging. I slapped in another game that I knew for sure was working, didn't read. I repeated this several times with discs I knew would work, same story. Now I'm starting to get slightly pissed. I'm sure you can see where this next part is going. I opened up the app to message the seller and let him know he had sold me a defective console. Not so much to my surprise, he had blocked me. I've now got no way to contact him. Of course not, he just took me for a fucking ride. All I could do at this point was report him and live in my shame. That or I could get onto YouTube and try to find a fix for a disc-read error. I picked the latter option and went on my merry way. After a video about a quick mod I could make to the system, I was feeling pretty confident that I was going to get the last laugh on this one. Oh, golly G. Fuck was I wrong. Now at this point I begin to tumble from my perch of the high and mighty and start snowballing right down that tall fucking mountain. I managed to get the appropriate screws out and pry that bad boy open. It's putting up a little more of a fight than I saw in the videos, but why wouldn't it? It was never meant to be opened this way in the first place. With a little elbow grease it starts to give. I'm also starting to spot a bit of rust in one of the memory card slots. A bit annoying, but the other one was working a few minutes ago, so I can live with that. The further I get it open, the more rust I see on some more critical pieces. I'm sweating again, but holding out hope. Finally the plastic casing comes free and I experience the joy of a man that is working with his own two hands to solve a problem. I experience this joy for maybe a second and a half. You see after prying the top casing off of the console, the bottom half sort of clattered back down onto the desk. The first thing I noticed is that the inside is covered in rust. The second thing I noticed is that some of the rust is moving. Oh, that's not all rust. Oh, son of a bitch, those are fuck mothering cockroaches. What? Do you know that scene in Raiders the Lost Ark where Indiana Jones is like, Snakes, why did it have to be Snakes? That was me except with cockroaches. They are the one insect that filled me with more disgust than anything else and now they're crawling on my hands and these are the quick little tiny ones that don't give two fucks about whether you stepped on them or not. I threw that whole console on the ground post-hace which only made them more riled up. They're getting everywhere now. I'm yelling for help to my roommates and stomping the ground like a fucking mad little bit of terrified panic. You would think that's something caught fire with the way I was yelling, which is what my roommate said he thought had happened. But no, just cockroaches. Tiny $25 freaks of nature. Eventually, I managed to eradicate most of the insect hoard with stomping and shouting alone, at which point I grabbed a can of raid from the laundry room and finished the job. At least, I hope I finished the job. I'm fairly certain there are at least two of those little fuckers still running around under the bed. But at this point, I'm a little too emotionally drained to care. I also get the extreme pleasure of wallowing in the fact that I basically just paid $25 to get covered in my least favorite living thing on the planet. Jesus, it's only three in the afternoon and I already need a stiff drink. How much money does it have? 25 bucks. Wow. But again, he's saying I spent 25 bucks to drive to a shitty part of town to then get covered in cockroaches. Like, he's just like, ah, this was a lot. I was so red, I was like, I was like, what is gonna be inside of that thing? I was thinking spiders at first. A curse. A curse. A curse. Poop. Poop. Poop. Someone pooped in it and then locked it back up. Prided open. Prided open. Poop did it. It's crude and basic, et cetera. Now, I would never do that in this room. You just bought the Jankin P.S. too. Yeah. Oh my gosh, that sucks, dude. I wonder if he was able to like report that user on the, he said that he'd be like, you gotta use a block. Yeah. It's not enough money to like report to the police, obviously. And yeah, you just have to report it in the app and be like, I hope this guy gets enough reports. Yeah. That guy's clearly just going around buying, or just getting defective consoles than selling them. Yeah, he's got a, like, garage sales, you know? A dump, I don't know. Poop. I would throw out. I would throw out. That's horrible. Prided open, they're just bugs. Do you think the seller knew that there was cockroaches inside or just that it was just a shitty? I'm just wondering what those cockroaches like get out of being inside of a PS2. Like there's no food in there. Like why are they in there? It's a home. It's a home. It's amazing what they, cockroaches were playing homes. It's amazing what they can fit into. Yeah. Or when they're like, when LX is one, they egg. True. Maybe they'd live their entire lives in that PS2. Yeah. It was like their home. Yeah. That's all they knew. Yeah, some Madden 05 cockroaches. They're only new. They're a little fewer like plugging into the motherboard. Yeah. They've been playing games for you. They can play games. Comments, how do they survive in such places? Anyways, if you have a PC, you can play PS2 games on it with your PS2 gamepad by downloading PS, PCS, X2. It emulates the PS2 in Windows and works very accurately. Someone said I'm reading R today, I fucked up, but this feels way too much like R, no sleep. Yeah. Someone said optics are going out on my PS4. I'm scared now. Someone said roaches love PS4s. We have a producer note. This comment links to a Tom's guide article about how roaches are attracted to PS4s. And it got so bad several console repair stores introduced roach fees. I like to suck phones. Am I been sucking bugs this whole time? Maybe. Bugs love gaming. Dude, another win for Team Xbox, I guess, on that one. Yeah, bugs hate Xbox. And bugs are so, I will say I thought this was going to a weirdly different worse where I thought this PS2 was resetting and erasing every game he was putting into it. Like, you know how you can burn a CD or whatever, I thought maybe every time he put a disc and it took the game away. That would be crazy. It's actually so a lot of your game. Yeah, he's just putting it on top of cockroaches. And I went down. They're like, what the hell is this? We hate games. Kate of Hearts. There's a comment. So with the roaches out, does it work now? And we didn't get a response from it. Damn. So you have no idea. I would assume no. Sounds like there's rust. Sounds like it's pretty much... Sounds like he probably beat the devil out of that PlayStation as well. Yeah, it's done. It's done. It's always a bummer when your console breaks and it's not fixable. It's so sick. I have a friend who's gone through four weas now. And the only thing he uses it for is guitar hero. Just different guitar heroes and he just keeps going through them. Wow. It's crazy because my N64 from my childhood still works. Wow. Still works like a charm. It's always like a gamble like on Facebook Marketplace. You go buy an old console and it's like, who knows, maybe it's going to be a great condition or it's going to work for three days. Yeah. It's kind of fun. All right, let's move on to our next story. I'm going to move back to the iPad. I'll take that. All right, you take it. Any good games on here? What do we got? It's been 15 minutes. I've never seen one of these. Oh my God, we can read along. I don't want to look at it. It's funny. Oh, that was a third story. I didn't read anything. I didn't read anything. Whoa. Our next story comes from Am I the Ashole and it comes from May of 2020, which is important. Time's tough times. This is timely. Am I the Ashole for telling my friends that I didn't want to buy animal crossing new horizons and calling them out on their fake gaming obsession? Huh? You're a fake gamer for please. You're a fake gamer. Oh my God. Let's see this. My friends are generally not gamers. They typically either diss on most games or have an incredibly warped view of them. For example, one of them thinks that life is strange is the most revolutionary game ever made because you can choose how the story plays out. Damn. All right, OP. Suck ass. So really good game. Yeah, dude. What the fuck? Really good. I tried to explain to her that there's been several games like that before and she just went into denial. Anyway, they bought a switch into animal crossing because they claimed that it reminded them of harvest moon for the N64. They asked me to get the game since they wanted to play together and I refused, saying that I didn't think that was my type of game. They rebuked me because they know I play a lot of Stardew Valley, which they claim to be a similar game and they can't understand why it's pretty different. I also didn't want to pay for the Nintendo online which I believe to be useless. I'm part of some Facebook groups where we discuss various topics and I was unaware that one of them was public. A guy posted that he had bought animal crossing and that he was deeply regretting it because he found the game to be super boring and almost devoid of any meaningful gameplay. I jokingly commented, LOL, that was pretty much a given. If a game is so beloved by the general public, it's usually pretty damn bad because they obviously lose their shit at whatever and forget about what actually makes a game good. You're gonna die alone. I hate guy who has to be a piece of shit. You're gonna die alone. Guy who has 5,000 hours in team fortress two. That's what I said. My friends saw the post and tried to grill me for it and told me I was basically insulting them. I told them the comment was a joke but also explained in general that there's hardcore and casual games and that animal crossing falls into the casual category. God, dude. I need to see this guy steam library so bad. Yeah, I need to leave. Show us your dick, read your dick for us, sorry. Which I didn't like and they did because they were more casual gamers which wasn't bad but was different from my tastes. They went, we're not casual gamers and I told them that 99% of their gaming library were casual games. They barely play games and barely know anything about the medium to the point where they thought life is strange was revolutionary. What are they? They again said that they weren't and that I didn't know about that and one of them pointed out how she even has an N64 logo t-shirt. She has it and always brags about it and wears it for Instagram pics. Like I absolutely love gaming. Fun fact, she never actually had an N64. I told her that that shirt was obviously just for appearances because the first day she brought it in, I asked her if she remembered Banjo Kazooie and she said, I don't know that game. I thought it was odd since it's literally one of the most famous titles in the console. So I asked about a lot of famous N64 titles. Goldnice, Smash Bros, perfect dark, Tarak, Conker. And she didn't know any title besides from Mario 64 and Zelda, Aukarena of Time. Bitch, look, that's what! She even thought Majora's Mask was a GameCube title. Fucking casual. Oh my god. Oh my god. I'm a... That was so good. Whenever my friends lose an argument, they kind of just go into denial mode. And that's what they did here. Now, they didn't bring it up, but I'm wondering if I handled the situation correctly. Was I the asshole here? What? Was I the asshole here? Oh, okay. Oh my god, you're a professional asshole. You're a casual asshole. Good. Oh my god. OP. I just want to say, let's get down into the fundamentals of it. Okay. Gaming is literally what you make it. And so saying you're not a real gamer is like saying, like you're not a real person. Like, it's like with, okay, so I'm very into drag, right? And RuPaul's Drag Race. You cannot judge or determine whether someone else's drag is drag or not. That is their passion. They're passionate about it. Calling them casual. They're like, I don't feel casual about it. I feel very passionate about my island on Animal Crossing. Like, you can't diminish someone else's thing. Especially, they're inviting you to play this game not because you had to play this game, bro. They're saying, hey, we want to do this thing together. We're in a pandemic, you know? We want to like hang out with you. And this, they're going into these moments of denial. I'm like, no, maybe they're just stopping and thinking about how maybe they don't want to be friends with you anymore. This is like so rude. It's really stupid. Yeah, God, there's so many things that they're just wrong about, in my opinion. One is, I don't really know if I believe in casual games because any game can be casual, but the online community makes every game so intense. Right? I was playing Animal Crossing a ton in 2020, and for me, it was very casual. I was like, I'm having fun. And then you'd go online and you'd visit other islands and you're like, holy shit. Yeah, this game is not casual for this person. I don't know how they did this. No, literally. I've like, I've like, it's like seen peggle speed runs. That old game where you just like, drop the balls. People get insanely intense about any game ever, like no matter how it's... There's a, I think it's Dunki, video game Dunki who said this that I loved, and he's talking about Mario. I think he was talking about Mario Odyssey. Just a game like, truly, like that kid's love. Like, it's a game ultimately designed for kids to be able to play, but he was like, what's amazing about Mario games is that there is hard as you want them to be. Yeah. And I think that's so true. Like, there's always a new challenge for how to make that game harder. Yeah. And I feel like that's kind of true for most games, right? I love Stardew Valley, but I'm like, to me, it's casual because I'm playing it casually, but there are things you can do in the game that you have to be locked into. Yeah. No, I've watched so much. I love like Odyssey, Super Mario Odyssey speed running, and the things that they do in that game, I have like gone and spent like, watched videos and spent like hours trying to figure out just the smallest little movement techniques. And I'm like, you're on it. You're gaming at a different level. Like then my brain isn't even operating on the same wavelength. Yeah. Also, Life is Strange is one of the most impactful and incredible narrative storytelling games of its time and probably of the 2000s. So that's just insane. Really? It didn't know it awards and stuff? Like, hello. And it's also like there were games similar to it before, but like, there's always new things happening, right? Like, I'm such a fan of Hades, but it's like Hades wasn't the first rogue-like. But it kind of made like specific formula changes that people were like, this is amazing. That's what's so cool. We're in such a time where so many video games are available to us and we're still able to be entertained and not shaded by what's coming out. And then also, there's a couple more things. One is the N64 conversation is exhausting. Yeah. It's just like someone says they like N64, but you're like, yeah, that's cool that you like a thing I like. There's multiple levels of liking N64. And I'm like, do you like these people? Like, do you? Or you tend to go into patterns that are going to be very isolating. You're diminishing everybody else's interest that they're talking to you about these things because they like you and want to talk about something they're interested in with you. They're not trying to say they're better than you. Like, it feels like you're trying to establish it. You're better at all these things in everybody else and that you know better. But it's like going to an amusement park and being like, I don't want to go over on this ride. Like, that's not a real ride. This is a ride. It's like, they're all different and fun for different reasons. Like, just chill. They're exhausting. The fact that they're bringing up conquer as like famous N64 titles. I'm like, unless your friends are in their 40s, they were a kid when the N64 was out and they were not playing conquer's unless they were like me and they were playing it and their parents didn't know about it. Yeah. That's a game. That was violent in my parents. They saw that they were like that. You are not playing that game. Also, dismissing OG games like Mario or Zelda. Like two ones. I remember being in sixth grade and my friend showing you Mario for the first time and I remember being too frustrated and I couldn't play it. And that I never played any of those games because I just simply wasn't good at them. I went on to do like Sims and other stuff. But like, now I'm like, wow, that person was so cool for playing that back then. Like, they're legit. The most impressive thing I've ever seen in a video game, actually, it was in Mario. It was a level from Mario Maker. This guy, Chanchum Brayden, created just the most insane level ever called Trials of Death. And it took him like six years or something like that to make it and beat it. I think I remember seeing that. It was the most, it's like the craziest, like, the YouTube video I'm sitting there watching. I'm like, I don't get it. Like, it's any game. Yeah, it's so, it's fun. Yeah, it is fun, like, no matter what game you play, there's always someone who's turned it into the hardest thing on the planet. Yeah, because that's for me with Zelda Breath of the Wild. Like, my favorite game, right? And I play that casually. Like, I'm really good at it because I've played it so much. But I play it in a way that I'm like, I'm just wandering around doing stuff. But then you'll watch the speedrunners who are like, do a crazy back flip on their shield, land on someone, and then launch themselves to the other side of the map. Yeah. What the hell? You learn to do that. Yeah, and even, let's be clear, you're playing casually, but you have it on master mode, where your health is always permanently low or something. Like, you play casually enough. Yeah. Become a master. And then also last thing I'll say is, we're in the midst of 2020. Like, man, find whatever joy you can in this era, this sucked, this was like the worst time. And all this person is doing is just shutting down everyone trying to have a good time. Yeah, like the world's gonna open up again, you're gonna be alone. Like a pro, hello? And to be clear, it's okay to not want to play a game or buy a game. Just don't be an asshole about it. Yeah. Just be like, no. It doesn't sound like the game for me, or I'm not really too interested in buying it right now. It's also just like not even about the game. You wanted to hang out with you. Yeah, you did. The verdict was asshole overwhelming. Oh yeah, can I hear these comments? Comments, you're like the human counterpart of a paper cut. You're the asshole. Someone said you sound like a gatekeeping asshole, just let people enjoy things. O.P. responded. They can enjoy them. I just called them out on their Instagram followers tactics. Oh, Jesus. Huh? You're not allowed to wear clothes in your Instagram posts. You're not allowed to enjoy N64 as an aesthetic. Animal Crossing was the biggest game of that year by far. It was. And also just some people explore and find their passions in weird ways, whether it's finding a cool shirt and going, huh, what is this? I like this shirt. OK, and now I'm actually, and then they're better at that video game than you will ever be. Like you just don't know. Yeah. Just like these, you have friends in the pandemic. That is a beautiful thing. It looks amazing. I have to come clean. I own a sublime shirt, and I only know like two of their songs. So what I got in San Maria. There are San Maria. No, it's San Maria, and the one that Lana Del Rey sampled. Dude, I have there are a Smosh Pit videos where I'm wearing a lead Zeppelin shirt, and I could not have told you what a lead Zeppelin song sounded like. Like it would be doing things. And now I listen to a ton of lead Zeppelin, but I don't have that shirt anymore. What is life? I don't think. I think there's another one. I think I'll make a weird argument for like wearing aesthetic things, because when things become so a part of just culture, then it's like, yeah, it influences like lead Zeppelin has influenced so much of his life that it's like, yeah, you can rock that shirt. Also, people are dying. OK? Let us wear a fucking engendover. Yeah. Someone said, you're the asshole. Stardew Valley is so similar to Animal Crossing. Like literally almost the same gameplay. Definitely both are casual games, though. You just come off as a huge asshole. Who cares if your friend wants to say they're a gamer? Sounds like you're pushing an issue that doesn't matter. OP responded saying Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley have nothing similar in gameplay, aside from the theme. That's crazy to say when you've never played Animal Crossing. Like you're... So wait, you've played both Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley. Yes. I think they are very similar. As someone who's gotten really in the trenches on both, to me, there is huge differences. Yeah. But they are similar in the like, the zone I'm in when I'm playing. Yeah, they're a very similar vibe, just kind of like, yeah, the way that you play them and kind of like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Kind of that. Yeah, like I never could get into Animal Crossing, but I was playing a ton of Stardew Valley. I was just like, I don't know, I'm specific about like, whether it's an 8-bit or like, I like the graphics that I sit in and get into, so I could never get into it, but I loved watching you play it. And I was always so intrigued by like, oh, time is actually the same as real time and real life on Animal Crossing. Stuff like that, that was so interesting. Animal Crossing, to me, I thought it was perfect in 2020 when I was bored, because Animal Crossing, the way I played it at least, was a lot of like luck of like, well, I want to have this type of design, but every day you get to log in and just kind of hope that you get something of an aesthetic, you're kind of, it's, that was an aesthetic game where it's Stardew Valley, you can like, keep grinding and move a little bit faster. Yeah. Animal Crossing makes you slow down sort of. Yeah. But the same thing of like, hey, you're just, it's whatever you want. You can't lose. Yeah. So you're just kind of playing and designing it out. Can you die? And Animal Crossing, no. You can faint, but then you wake right back up. Yeah. I installed the icon dimod, actually. Nice. I installed an Animal Crossing, the basement prison, tile paper mod. The Pace NICE. However, concerned A-PASS, I did that Animal Crossing was an inspiration for Stardew Valley. I think concerned A-P took inspiration from so many people. Oh, clearly a lot. So it's like, that guy's a gamer. It's so funny, because O-P is like, I play Stardew Valley. I don't want to play Animal Crossing. It's like Stardew Valley. I heard so many people be like, well, Stardew Valley is just a frank and sign of every other game and whatever, and dismissing that. So it's like, how dare you stand on that and then shit on other wounds, you know? Someone said, you're the asshole for gatekeeping gaming, being an elitist and talking so much shit about your friends. No one has to justify their interests. If someone plays games and says they're a gamer, they are. You don't get to override them because you don't like their games. O-P said, not, they're not. Saying you're a gamer implies you play at a higher level than most people do. Does that mean no one does it? Same applies for gamers. A lot of people play casually, but that doesn't mean they're gamers in the proper context. Also, they're free to enjoy their shitty casual title. I just told them I wouldn't buy it myself. All right, so earlier they compare themselves to like competitive drivers. I'm like, I know that this person's not nearly as good as like eSports players. That is, on a level, people cannot comprehend. It's really as madder as the craziest thing. No, it's so funny too, because I'm picturing this person ahead and as someone who has played a lot of online, like competitive game, like ranked games, I would say that I'm probably above average, but I am nowhere near anywhere of BB and like, yeah, I'm really good at this game or I'm like a real gamer. It's like, this person's probably like gold and league of legends or something and thinks they're like insane at games. Right. This is awesome. This is crazy. Also, it's just, yeah, they're putting their own definition of what a gamer is because a gamer means someone who plays video games. Like sure, there's been a cultural like, weight to the word gamers. Like, oh, you stream on Twitch, even. You are like a professional, but like, this so many people here that are incredible video games have never done anything professionally with it. Or like, we had the pleasure of working with that guy Daniel Stonewall, who was a champion for Smash Bros. He's the nicest guy I would never say anything like that about any other video game. Like, it, it, it, superiority complexes are a funny thing. It's, yeah. It's just insecurity clearly. Yeah. Actually, I did play in a valent tournament recently and I sat a Tier 2 pro. So I think I actually am kind of like a good gamer. Okay, so I love this. Yeah. And that's, and we have representation of all types of gamers here. I have a clip. It's pretty nasty. You guys must see. Yeah, I, you know, I think any type of game makes you a gamer. My, my grandpa played so much solitaire. He had like a little solitaire device. You just always playing it. Old gamer. Yeah. Yeah. And now here I am playing Bilatro all the time. So. All right. Let's move on. Yeah. Let's move on from that. Let's move on from that. This next story comes from the confession subreddit. Comes from a couple of years ago. I sent someone tit picks because he did acute Arthur Morgan impression. Okay. Self explanatory, not my proudest moment, but it's been haunting me for like a week. L. M. I'm so sorry. Can you read the title just one more time. Yeah. I'll read the title and the entire story. Okay. Great. Ideal. I sent someone tit picks. Because he did an acute Arthur Morgan impression. Self explanatory. Not my proudest moment. But it's been haunting me for like a week. L. M. A.O. Did you say a cute one or an acute one? A cute to Arthur Morgan impression. Arthur Morgan notoriously cute man. Yes. That would be the first word I would describe him. I'm on Dutch. Wow. Comments. Whoa. Oh, what happened? Easy now. I saw someone with tuberculosis, and I flashed them, okay? Oh my god. Arthur Morgan impression is great. I'm not doing so good. All right, comments. RIP to your inbox with Arthur Morgan impressions. Someone said there's an interview with Roger Clark where he says that he initially made the horse lines a bit too sexy and intimate. I see that. And then proceeded to demonstrate. I'm a straight guy, and it nevertheless did something to me. Whoa. Someone said, bro, once I got sent a titty pick because I said I know how to cook. Oh my god. Okay, spoilers for Red Dead Redemption 2, but Opie said if the TB didn't kill him enough, the titty flash definitely did. Oh my god, yeah. Nice. That'll do it. All right. That was a fun one. That's good. That's good. That's good. I'm going to be on this comes from Am I the asshole? So it's posted in 2019. Am I the asshole for telling my kid I would help him get a switch if he can beat Ocarina of time. No, that's awesome. That's pretty sick, dude. That's a right-of-passage. All right, my 10-year-old kid has been saving his money, birthday, allowance, et cetera, for months now to get an Nintendo switch so he can play Breath of the Wild. Yeah, it's been two years since Breath of the Wild was released as of this story being posted. Right now he has $200 saved up at his current allowance $10 a week. It will still take him months to be able to afford it. I know he really wants it as all of his friends have one and he hasn't been obnoxious about it, just diligently saving up his money. Now I have to say he's a really good kid, kind smart, does his chores without complaining friendly to everyone. He's been making great grades in school and was even made captain of his soccer team. Instead of making him do more chores to earn more money, I thought of a more fun solution to help him get his switch. I told him if you can beat Ocarina of time without googling for help, though I would help him along the way if he got stuck. On my old N64, I'll pay for the rest of your switch and get you Breath of the Wild. Wife was initially opposed to the idea, but then thought it could be a fun, father-son bonding thing. Part of my reasoning too is I just want him to appreciate how far video games have come and Ocarina of time is a timeless classic. He jumped at the idea. After a weekend of playing, he's already at Zora's domain as young Link. He seems to be having fun with it and hasn't gotten too frustrated yet. He's only played Minecraft really, so the dated graphics don't bother him either. But anyway, I told a couple of friends about it and they think I'm a massive dick. That I'm trying to relive my childhood vicariously through my son and that I should just get him the switch because he's already such a good kid. Now I'm having second thoughts and I'm feeling bad about it, but he does seem to be enjoying the challenge. So am I the asshole? Oh, living vicariously through your son is if that's not a thing parents do. Yeah, and this is the most non-payment. This is the most mild version of that. I think this is a healthy way of doing that. I want to relive this and experience it with you. That is a bonding moment. It isn't suffering. You're making your kid play Ocarina of time. I'm giving him a half of $10 a week. What? Hello? Yeah, I think it sounds like they're doing a great job of parenting this kid. And that sounds like timeless memories for this kid. It's amazing. I love this. And you're also offering to expedite the process of getting them the switch. So you are acknowledging that this is a good kid and you're just letting them play. This is awesome. In fact, this is motivating the kid to be down to play this. You're enriching their experience as a gamer. Which they are one. It's also like, I feel like this is, you know, there's such a small window with how far things have come. There's such a small window to really experience those things for the first time and appreciate them. Once you play Breath of the Wild, it will be hard to go back and play Ocarina of time and like enjoy it. I struggle with that. Like, Wind Waker, when I played it as a kid, I was like, this is the best game ever made. Look at this world. It's so crazy. And now that I've played Breath of the Wild and stuff, I'm like, I can go back and play it and I can appreciate it. But it's definitely me enjoying the Nostalgia. Whereas if I was young and playing it for the first time, I'd be like, why not play the newer thing? How do you say this, Debby? You want to spend time together playing one of the greatest video games so that I can then just give you a bunch of money to buy a switch. Oh, you're playing catch with your son? Just let him play MLB the show. Yeah, and there's tons of Easter eggs in Breath of the Wild to Ocarina of time that you'll get. When they come to that first area in Breath of the Wild and you're like, oh, is this the temple of time? And you're getting the small music cues. You're going to get those references. When I first started Smosh, I saw Ian was wearing a triforce shirt. But I was like, that's a cool shirt. What is that? You don't know what this is. I was like, no, and he was like, ugh. And we just squashed it by me. And I was like, oh, no. And it's like my first few months at the job. So I literally, I had missed a flight and had like five hours to kill. So I spent five hours watching YouTube videos on all of the lore of Legend of Zelda. And I was like, holy shit, Zelda's amazing. And then- You know what's really funny is Nintendo doesn't even know the lore of it? They're making that shit out of this thing. It did make me wish I was able to play those games. I was like, I was like, I was never at access to those games. Oh, well. Yeah. Like, you know? That's fine. I didn't beat Ocarina of Time until I was an adult. Like, I played it as a kid. And I would watch my brother beat the game, right? Which is the case for most video games. Like, I just watched my brother's play-um and beat him. But I finally, at a certain point, was like, I got to beat that game. So I could say I beat it. No. I mean, Ocarina of Time is a 10-year-old. That's a healthy challenge. Yeah. That's a healthy challenge for him. Yeah, it's hard as hell. Yeah. There's something- I mean, look, the sun, where the dad might be an asshole is once they get to the water temple. Yes. Or things are going to get bad. The verdict was not the asshole comments. Not the asshole if your son is up for it and seems excited. It doesn't matter what other people think. I think it's a cute idea. O.P.'s comment in response to a now edited comment. O.P. said, I mean to them, O.P.'s friends. It sounds like I'm forcing him to play an old video game before he can play a new one. And that I'm robbing him of making his own memories with video games. When I thought about what they said, I think it would have pissed me off if my parents had made me play like pong or Pac-Man for hours before getting an N64 when I was his age. So I kind of get their side of it. I just kind of fully disagree with that. It's, yeah. I don't know. I think it's really fun to play those old games. Yeah, I mean, Pac-Man and those games are more of a repetitive thing, not so much a story. Sure. So I would probably feel a bit tortured by that if I'm being honest. But I still think it's a really like a switch is a big deal. That's a big like that is that is not just one little game system. Like that has that gives that opens up such a big window to games and other mediums on that on that device. Like my oldest sister, she had been telling her her son's no to a switch because she thought it was just something you attached to your iPhone. She thought it was controlled. She touched her iPhone and she was like, no, that sounds stupid. It's like, I was like, no, this is amazing. It connects to your TV. So you can enjoy it as a family or watch stuff or then also take it on the go. Like, it's a big purchase. And so this is like the littlest challenge to... And like you said, it's going to make the gameplay of Breath of the Wild. Because Breath of the Wild is a huge game. And for that to be your first introduction into any legend of Zelda game, there's a lot of stuff. And so being able to just have little reference points for like, oh, I recognize like those characters, I recognize like those areas. Like it is going to make it like more fun so that he's not just thrown into this thing kind of like, just thrown into the deep end. He'll have a deeper knowledge of the story than his friend. So once he goes into it, like... No references to things. If you had to play... If you said someone needed to play one other Zelda game before Breath of the Wild, which one would you say? Ooh, that's good. I would maybe say... I'd maybe say Wind Waker, because the references in Breath of the Wild to Wind Waker are like probably the most prominent. You have Beetle, the salesman. You've got the... Why am I blanking on the names? The Little Leafy guys, the... Carrokes? You have the Corrokes. You have the Dragon Roost Island theme comes back and that whole thing. I would say that, but ultimately any of them is fine. Because in the Nintendo lore... It was like three timelines, right? Well, yeah, but Breath of the Wild takes place so far after the timeline split that it's all back together. And they refer to all the previous Zelda games as like the Age of Myth. Like, these are tales that were told. But now it's been tens of thousands of years since then that it was their way of like being like, okay, we're gonna move past this timeline split thing and just start fresh. It ultimately doesn't matter. Like, to me, every Zelda game is just like, yeah, it's like Mario. It's like, and we're back in Hyrule and things are a little different. But it's all ultimately the same. Where is Ganon? Yeah, we get it all again. We get it all again. One last comment here. Someone says not the asshole except for one part, the water temple. That makes you the asshole. But I like it. It's a good take and different spin on doing chores or something around the house for a reward. Seems like a good kid you have there. So I don't think this is an issue. You said he is enjoying it and having fun. So I wouldn't say you are living vicariously through him. So again, not the asshole except for the water temple. You're the asshole for when he plays that level. I just think there's just absolutely nothing wrong with like, as a parent being like, hey, I love this thing and we're gonna do this thing together. Yeah. Experiences thing together. Like, to me, like, I'm not a parent. But like, any parent who goes like, I want to experience this thing with my child. Yeah. I'm like, you can't really be an asshole because like, you're spending time with your kid doing something together. That's ultimately the best thing you can do. And you're teaching your kid also like this wonderful thing of just like, if you work hard, you get great things in your life. Yeah, I do think he'll like his son will learn a lot about gaming like in a healthy, good way. And like, especially not googling. Something like, I was talking to Damien about this recently about how I'm like, a lot of video games are a little bit ruined for me because I'll play them and like, I'll play puzzles. And I have a really hard time not just getting frustrated and just googling stuff. And I'm like, oh, and now it's not fun. But when I was a kid, I didn't have access to that. So you'd come across stuff and you'd just be like, I don't know. And like, hearing about my brothers playing Link to the Past, they were like, yeah, so this is back in like the early 90s. And they'd be playing and you'd reach apart where you just were like, I don't know where to go. And it would just be months. And they would just spend months just being like, yeah, we're stuck here. And then eventually one of your friends would be like, hey, I figured out how to get the ice rod. You crashing this cake. And you're like, sweet, now we all know. And now we can all do this together. And that's just how it used to be. Yeah. But now it's just like we know things immediately. Yeah, there used to be a hotline in the 80s where like, there's this guy working at like a Nintendo office. And he's like, yeah, okay. And then like this guy calling and it's like, yeah, I'm not able to get the master sword. I have all the hearts for it. So he's like, okay, have you checked this thing? You make sure you have 13 hearts. He's like, yeah, I don't, you know what? I miscounted. I have 12 hearts. I'm so sorry. And he's like, I'm stuck here. I'm stuck here. And it makes up. It's so funny. That's awesome. We don't have an update that we could find at no piece post history. But we can hope his son beat Aakri enough time and has been enjoying his Nintendo Switch. And hey, maybe even has a Switch 2 now. But maybe he had to play Wind Waker to get the Switch 2. Love it. Or the door is masked. I don't know. Tradition. No, I mean, I literally, I think the reason that I love video games so much, I don't think I know, is because like my dad and my parents, like, we were always doing stuff together. It's like, my dad was a gamer and he's like, hey, you want to play Halo together? Yes. And I'm like, yeah, I want to play Halo. He's like, hey, I'm going to make you a runescape account. Like the reason that's the coolest parents. That's cool. Literally, like the reason that I love video games so much. And all of my fondest like video game memories from my childhood are like playing games with my dad and my parents. Like it was just such a fun thing to do. Absolutely. For me, it was watching my brother play, watching my brother play Final Fantasy VII was like, huge. Yeah. I was like, this is crazy. That's awesome. All right. Our next story comes from Am I the Asshole and Am I the Devil? Oh, God. So close to 2023, we have a video game devil. Oh, my God. Oh, no. No, don't read ahead. That's not fair. Can't even do that. Am I the asshole for demanding my girlfriend divorces her husband on Stardew Valley? I thought it was going to be a literal like, am I an asshole for demanding that my girlfriend divorce her husband? I know. And has nothing to do with video games. It just ends. I'm going to play some Fortnite now. So I, a 26 year old man, have been with my girlfriend who's 19. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait Oh my god! I was actually planning on proposing soon, but this issue has me rethinking our entire relationship. She has been playing Stardew Valley for about six months now and actually only showed me recently. When I saw what she was doing on the game, I was taken aback to say the least. I thought that the game was a farming RPG or something, but little did I know she had been fostering an inappropriate relationship in the game. When I asked her why there was another player in her house, she explained that she had a roommate in the game. Now this is the part where I might be the asshole. I'm not a gamer myself, but I knew something was wrong with this. I waited until she fell asleep and logged into her game. I talked to the man in her house and to my horror, they were married. I waited until the morning to confront her about this. And when she told me it's just a game and that she has to go to work, I lost it and asked her how she thinks that this is appropriate and how she could even imagine a life with another man that isn't me. She told me that I'm being ridiculous and that I'm crazy, but my friends are on my side. So am I the asshole? Oh my god. Well, I think really before we decide, we have to know who she married. Yeah, truly. He feels threatened, which means it's probably either it can't be Shane. No. No, it's not her Elliot or Alex. Harvey is very happy. Oh, Harvey. She married a doctor. A passionate lover. She didn't look her. Harvey is devoted. Elliot's sweet and caring, but Harvey's dialogue. I don't know if you guys have seen those. It's... This is the funniest thing ever, man. In Star Dove, Elliot. I know the least seems. In 8-bit games. I know. We're like nothing even happened. It's not even like she's playing Baldur's Gate and like making sweet love to a sexy man. Yeah. It's like... I'd be like, dude, you married the character that gives you the best gifts. Yeah. You lost it. It's really a lookbook and like, how dare you imagine life with any man outside of me? And like, oh, you barely let this person exist as an adult woman. Like, hello? You're trying to lock that shit down? You're clearly not secure enough in yourself to do that, buddy. I wish his friends were like, no, you're not the asshole for this. You are the asshole because you're a pedophile. LAUGHTER Unfortunately, my friends, okay, it wasn't that appealing yet. I'm okay with the story of the marriage. Yeah, you were dating a minor, so... Yeah. All right. Verticked asshole. Yeah. Comments, you're the asshole. I am so tired. LAUGHTER Someone said fostering inappropriate relationships, but you started dating her when she was 17. OP is getting ready to fight Clint or some crap. LAUGHTER Oh my god. Dude. Um, this is ridiculous. I feel like we need Damien here to be like, yes, this story is not real. LAUGHTER Like, this is hopefully rage-bait. Yeah. But I also know, as always, these people do exist. So... If you marry some of the people you marry in that game, give you stuff or take a barrier, relive stock for you. Yeah, man. Hey, you can't run a farm on your own. Yeah. No, the only judgment that would ever come for me is, yeah, based on who you marry. Then it's like, okay, well, come on. Well, who is it? Yeah, who is it? I think this is when you scramble dates. I love Penny. And there was a steamy bath seed. Whoa! Whoa. Okay, now slow down. Oh, god. Oh, hold on. Oh, no. Yeah, did I marry Lydia and Skyrim because she's the first companion you get? And the carry weight is awesome? Yeah. The carry weight is awesome. Hold my five steel plate bodies, please. Am I just dreamy, desperate, and video game? Video game, I guess. Oh my god. All right. Do I have three girlfriends in Stardew Valley? Yes. But I carry a rabbit's foot on me, so it's fine. No, I only have one girlfriend in the game. And it's Leah. Who? Leah. And she makes beautiful carvings. I'm feeling a little uncomfortable. All right, our final story. This is a, today I fucked up. And it was posted in 2020. Today I fucked up by making my dad punch a stripper in GTA and tearfully ask God for forgiveness. I'm from my entire family. Oh my god. This reminds me of when you had Amanda. Yeah, I touched the clip of me. When Amanda asked how to talk to a woman in Kentucky. Take that curfew. You can do it. You want to hurt in the fedora? How do I talk? Press B? Oh no! No! No! That's no. I wanted to talk to her. Hey! I was kind of like Amanda in real life though. Yeah. Oh! Ah! When I was young my brother's a nice snuck a copy of San Andreas into the house. We spent days hold up in our basement, taking turns playing, and down there my parents didn't bother us too much. In order to get tons of money for guns, we had yet to figure out my parents' dial-up passwords. So cheats weren't a thing for us yet. We would go to the strip club and stand on the stage, absorbing the money dudes through with the women and just let the game sit for 10 to 20 minutes. Seeing it. I didn't know you could do that. That's awesome. That's so smart. I'm gonna do that in real life. That's awesome. He's blocking the money. He's getting it. Um, um, um, um. Um, um. We had to be careful though, because sometimes the strippers would do a move and bump into CJ and the bouncers would shoot the place up. One day while I was playing my mom yelled down to the basement at us to get ready, we're going to Pizza Hut. In a stroke of genius, I drove to the GTA strip club, got on the stage, and then turned the TV off and we left. It was to be the best heist of the century. My dad, however, was at church at this time, practicing for a gospel concert that he was singing in. He always filmed the practices so he could take notes at home upon playback and this time was no different. While my mom and brothers and I were still at the hut, he arrived at home and plugged his camcorder into the VCR. We had just one VCR and it was connected to the basement TV. Back at the hut, my mom gets a phone call. She puts her napkin down and slowly looks around the table at us and says, okay, a few times. Into the phone in this really calculating specific way that she always did when she knew us kids were in trouble before we did. Naturally, it was at this point that we kids knew we were in trouble. For what though, we didn't know. After a very quiet minivan ride, we get home and my mom says, boys, why don't we go down to the basement? Your dad wants to show you his gospel practice downstairs. It was then at this point, we knew why we were in trouble. So we dragged our feet down the stairs and low and behold, my dad is sitting on the couch, TV on, a strippers, polygonal titties, swung stiffly back and forth on screen to end Vogue's My Love In with CJ standing near inches away collecting money. My dad starts in, boys, I don't even know where to begin. This PlayStation was a blessing to you for Christmas and this is how you repay us by breaking our trust. He is holding the controller up now, just stimulating with it. Here I am practicing to bring glory to God but he was cut off as he inadvertently squeezed the controller, causing CJ to punch the stripper. My entire family stands in silence, watching together as the bouncers in the strip club shoot the place up for what seems like an eternity. After the shooting stops and CJ appears in front of the hospital, I look back and see my mom silently weeping into her hand. I look at my dad as a single tear rolls down his cheek and he prays under his breath. After another eternity of silence without a word, my dad bends down, disconnects the PlayStation, walks back to the family computers, disconnects it, goes to his car and drives away. For the next four months, he kept the PS2 and PC locked in his office at work. It's one of my favorite memories of growing up. I miss my brothers. That's so funny. Also, I was just thinking the way the title is read is like, where he's like, I made my dad punch a stripper. I love that I was like wanting so badly for him to come home and be like, look what I have to do now. And he like goes and just intentionally instead of my accident. I just love the single tears. It's like, I have offended God. My goodness. Oh my God. That's unfortunately just hilarious. I miss my brothers. Comments, all I got from this was you can collect money at the strip club. Never knew that hack. Then again, I had the unlimited money cheat. So no need. Someone said, are you Rod or Todd? Because your dad is Ned Flanders. Yes. 3000 votes. Someone said, so what made him give the PS2 back after four months? If I was caught in the GTA strip club, my parents would have taken my PlayStation forever. Oh, he said his coworker probably asked why he has a PS2 in his office and decided he never wanted another person to ask him that again. That's what I choose to believe. I got home from school one day and it was just plugged back in. Oh my gosh. Oh. Update. What? Yeah, we have an update on this. What? Okay. I don't know what the update is. Thanks so much for the response. I'm glad I could spread some laughs with this story. I just want to clarify that my parents weren't crazy at all, so no need to insult them. I love them so much. They just got over zealous and dramatic from time to time. I had a really great childhood with two loving and involved parents who tried really, really hard to live and raise our family by their convictions. It just doesn't always work out for everyone involved. Like in this case, but it made for a great story that we can all laugh about now. I'm very much an atheist in my parents know it, but we still get along great. Also, my brothers aren't dead. We're all just spread out across the country now. I don't get to see them very much anymore. That's all. I was a little like, but he wrote, I miss my brothers. He's like, what? It's a saving private rye in moment at the end. It's like, whoa. Second update. I got my dad GTA and he loves it. He looks very naughty. My dad is a stripper now. All right, this is a summarized update. O.P. Post a second update that basically going off on the people who called out his parents in the comments and drops this wild insult. However, if you do still feel inclined to let the pee that rolls around your empty head, whose sound you mistake for a competent thought inform you of some truly transcendent comment in which you consider calling my parents whack jobs and nuts, it says way more about you and your small mindedness in acting like you know better just because you have an internet connection and a lifetime full of trauma on your own. I will also say to O.P. like, hey man, don't post on the internet if you can't handle it. I know, but like, I know, but like, but like, if you're going to come in and say, hey, my parents are super religious, you're going to get people hate. I know, but that's not his, like that shouldn't be his. Well, I know he feels like he's defending his parents. I think sometimes in this in this current era of rage bay is everywhere. I think people think that's what the internet is and that everything is rage bay and they take that bay every time it's like, hey, this was just a funny memory to laugh about it, but people don't always come to the internet for that. Right. They go to the internet to be mad. And yeah, so I think he doesn't need to waste his energy replying to those. That's what I'm saying. But the post, I'm like, thank you for that. Yeah, it also felt pretty clear in the post that he like, it wasn't like a thing of like, oh, my parents, it was like this really funny thing happening. Yeah, as a kid, like. Absolutely. I'm just saying like, the internet does this every time. Like, it's always going to be shitty in response. So maybe he doesn't post that often. So, well, that's all our stories. Wow. Yeah. I feel like a better gamer now. Yeah, I think I know a lot more about gaming. I'm better at video games now. I mean, I think I am because now I know that strip club thing for Game of Thrones and the Draughto. That's pretty sick if it still works. When we start playing San Andreas on, on Smosh Games. But also, I think about my brothers too, because we played a lot of video games together. And that's last story was really sweet. Yeah. I miss my brothers. Dude, my brothers, he's cool. He's all right. I talked to him regularly and I don't know if I don't have to say I miss him. We play. Whoa. Well, now it's like he's, I love the guy. What does he play? He plays a lot of stuff, but the thing that we mostly play now is Runescape. And for all the games. Same game, it's usually runes. That's awesome. My brothers probably playing Hades 2 right now. Dude. So, good for him. That's so extreme. Good game. Yeah. Actually, we have 30 more stories and we're going to be here for the next 24 hours. You're not far off. All right. Well, thank you both for being here. And thank you for listening and watching. And let us know what other categories and types of stories you want to see on this show. And we'll see you next Saturday. Goodbye. Play the gamers. See you there.