History of Let's Play

The History of Let's Play - a not-essay-but-who-gives-ashit
by IGgy IGor IGsen

What you are about to read will most likely clash with what you believe to be true. Documented history will disagree with or flat-out contradict the following. But that is only because history is written by the victors. And victory doesn't automatically make one right. It allows to twist and obscure facts, so official sources are always unreliable. If you think you knew the truth, think again, because what you're about to read is the whole story.

It is the year 1945. Hitler is dead and with him falls the third Reich. The world is rejoicing and finally ready for less depressing shit. So the allied forces single handely invented video games a couple years later. And people liked the games. They liked them a lot. So much in fact that with the arrival of the Internet and video streaming sites and cheap or even free software and hardware to record these video games magic happened.

The first let's play was conceived in my backyard when I was seven years old. I documented a playthrough of The Guardian Legend by photographing the screen while I was playing and writing captions underneath the pictures. Later this most definitely first Let's Play was posted someplace else and people didn't notice the obvious anachronisms, like it being run on an emulator on a computer that runs Windows 7. But that's not important.

Years after this first LP the one who would later be known as Legendary Let's Play Badass slowbeef and later still as Enemy of all Let's Play: slowbeef beefed it up a notch, although slowly (geddit cos that's his name ell oh ell) by creating a humorous screenshot walkthrough of Custer's Revenge, though he did not apply the Let's Play label to it at the time because he didn't know I invented it and gave it that name years prior. He, however made the concept popular among his peers and soon everyone and their mothers made Let's Play... in some awful forum on the internet. Those were the dark ages of Let's Play. No one got views and no one liked commented and subscribed because there were no videos. Only screenshots. You can't very well like comment and subscribe to something that's not on youtube. Can you?

And then rose from a puddle of fecal matter and semen the bringer of true Let's Play: Deceased Crab. Over night he single handely invented the Youtube Let's Play. With his humorous and varied commentary as well as countless catchphrases he LP'd himself into people's hearts. And yes indeed, people commented, subscribed and rated his video's with five stars (terrible relic of Youtube past). Suddenly, Let's Players had something to aspire to. The views and ratings and number of subscribers became a meter for how good a Let's Player is. Over were the times of having to put out good content because Youtube is not picky. As long as you give them something that they can leave on in the background and doesn't require their attention they will be happy.

Proton Jon also played a part in the rise of Youtube Let's Play, although a smaller one. Super Mario World romhacks were his forte, but ever since he got tricked into making an LP of a romhack by someone who claimed to be terminally ill he's just not the same man anymore. You should see him. It's really sad.

But anyway Let's Play became big. Now everyone wanted to make their own Let's Plays and everyone did make their own Let's Plays. But slowbeef saw this and he was not amused. The Let's Plays people enjoyed and produced were not up to his rigid and yet arbitrary code of LP, so he formed retsupurae and became the enemy of all Let's Plays. The once benevolent ruler of LP became its biggest adversary. For retsupurae slowbeef built robot masters: Diabetus, a robot with a penchant for really bad puns. Proteus a robot that knew nothing but hate and the c-word. The last robot master was Dave-O, but people just called him Chill Man. Together they took videos of other people and tore them limb from limb. And retsupurae never stopped doing this.

But retsupurae could not stop the brilliant new minds with brilliant ideas that showed themselves. The camcorder LP, sadly, soon died out, but Facecam was to become a staple of good Let's Play. If you had no Facecam you were nothing. Finally something that helped obscure the game that always distracted the viewers from the important part: The Let's Player. Luckily, the creators of videos knew their place. They knew the rules. The insecurity about whether or not ones genitalia were sufficiently sized dictated the size of the face cam (a rare example of someone with no such insecurities at all was someone who provided a cock cam, which sadly got removed from youtube).

From the masses and masses of videos the legendery Let's Players emerged. Tobuscus, who brought on the Buscus, a unique style that delighted millions over millions of viewers, PewDiePie, maker of noises, yeller of rape, bane of all swedes. Then, of course, there was ZLF Aurora. Greatest Let's Player of all time. She simply enchanted her audience. Most of them had several orgasms while watching her video (Yes, only one) over and over. Fun Fact: This went so far that sperm banks used that video to milk its contributors for all they could give and frustrated women who were otherwise unable to orgasm all over the world simply liked to sit down and watch some Aurora to get the times of their lives.

Times were good, and this is what we now know as the Golden Age of Let's Play. But as is the nature of Golden Ages, or any age for that matter it soon had to end, for in the shadows retsupurae was preparing its secret project D.E.A.D.T.O.R.I.G.H.T.S. No one knows what this acronym stands for and the one who would know has disappeared a long time ago.

It started as an innocent day, could have been any other. People were just sitting in front of their computers, laptops or were viewing from mobile devices. What occurred was an event so tragic that to this day, everyone will be able to tell you what they did when it happened. For me it was simple, I was just coming home from work, I was a little down because the girl I'd been going out with decided we probably weren't made to be together, but nothing too terrible, you know? Then I came home and loaded up Youtube. Only there was no Youtube. Turns out someone wiped Youtube's database and all backups and what was to follow were the big Let's Play Riots. The aforementioned girl called me during this and cried it was a mistake, she needs me now. Today we are a married couple and have three children. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

People took it to the streets, trying to find the one responsible. They were determined to find the one. And from a riot sprung a war. It seems ridiculous now and no one knows what the exact trigger was that made two armys of Let's Play enthusiasts fight each other to the death. Maybe they were suspecting that one of the others was the killer of Youtube. The world was in ruins, the world government led by The America President Obama made sure this would never happen again. They banned LPs. It was over. It was all over. The year was 2015, Let's Play was dead.

Somewhere in a trash can behind the white house an Obama mask was found, attached to it with a stapler was a note, and it turns out, in fact, that Obama never existed. He was a character, because it turns out that little did we know, for slowbeef was Obama all along. Thanks a lot Obama.

Now Let's Play is back where it started: The Underground, but this time it is persecuted because it's the entertainment that the Internet deserves, but not the one it needs right now...and so we'll hunt it...because it can take it...because it's not a video walkthrough...it's what our hearts desire, a barrel of fun...the Let's Play.

Sources:
Voices from my head
Voices from the future
That homeless guy under the bridge I pass on my way to work.
Fart noises
The first Let's Play