It feels like I was watching this scene only yesterday
On November 16th, 2021, G4TV was officially relaunched as both a cable channel and a twitch channel.. and I couldn’t have been happier.
Less than 12 months later, the returned G4 is no more.
The fall of the old G4 felt more ‘out with a whimper’…. non-stop airings of Ninja Warrior and Cops, the shows themselves feeling fewer and further between.. but THIS, this version felt different, and yet.. familiar. Back were shows like X-Play and AOTS.. new shows like Invitation to Party, Ask Donna and Name Your Price joined the ranks, yet still had that ‘old school G4’ feel about their pedigree. New hosts joined the ranks of returning hosts Kevin Pereira and Adam Sessler, the latter of the two being more ‘occasional host’, but having them on board always felt to me that it was giving the relaunch a legitimacy; a passing of the torch until the newer hosts found their comfortable footing.
And find their footing they did. Watching AOTS and Vibe Check felt like putting on a forgotten but favorite sweater you had nearly forgotten about… all comfort and familiar while feeling new. Invitation to Party was just brilliant. B. Dave Walters brought his A game and, as the consummate DM that he is, brought the A+ game out of the players. Ask Donna showed Will Neff at his best. God of Work was a labor of love from Jirard and that passion showed in the sketches.
It wasn’t without rough spots though. Some shows didn’t stick around… Boosted, which focused more on the eSports side of things, left the ‘show’ and became a YouTube exclusive.
And then there was “The Frosk Incident”.
Indiana Black, better known as Froskurinn or Frosk, did a segment on X-Play (which, you can watch here..) where she talked about sexism in gaming… and things went off the rails.
Let me be perfectly clear.
Everything she said is 100% correct.
Everything.
Gaming and the gaming industry has a sexism and misogyny problem that, unfortunately, is not going away. Can it be minimized? Shunned into the darkness? Yes, but only if WE minimize it and shun it when we see it.
That being said, the trolls came out of the woodwork. Online harassment and sexist comments blew up on not only Frosk’s, but G4’s socials by those ‘offended’ by her comments.
It was called a “rant”. A “meltdown”. “Maybe, in 2022, we be a bit nicer, a bit more self reflective, and we enjoy the fact that people are working hard to make free content for you. If you don’t like it, don’t watch” was how she ended the segment.. but all mouthbreathers heard was “IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT, DON’T WATCH!” and that became their rallying cry.
Was Frosk the reason for G4’s demise? Not at all. Inept management at Comcast not knowing what to do with their talent was the reason for G4’s second demise.. but not if you frequent the internet. a never-ending number of YouTube videos, blogs, TikToks, articles and the like blame Frosk for G4’s collapse without at all realizing that by blaming her, they’re behaving in exactly the same sexist and misogynistic way she called out in her segment. It’s unfortunate and wrong, yet not unexpected. “Fandoms” have become louder and louder in their entitled toxicity against things they don’t like, and this was no exception.
What destroyed G4 was Comcast. If any proof was needed, consider that more than half of the hosts/writers/producers and creators found out about G4 being cancelled from articles about the cancellation being tweeted out. How shitty does a company have to be to have employees find out via Tweet they no longer have a job? And not even BY Tweet.. but reading an article.
Will I miss G4? 100 percent. I loved the content they created. Hell, we even got mentioned on Vibe Check (no.. really! The story of how and why is for another day…).
My sincere hope is that the amazing people from G4, on both sides of the camera, reconnect in some way in the near future.. be it Twitch, YouTube.. whatever. The cast and crew are far too talented to NOT be working with each other.
G4 may be gone again, but it will not be forgotten.
– PCR
