the day had a really
good computer - it had
a sound card and a CD
drive and a VooDooFX
graphics card.
"But you'd go over
there and I'd watch him
play games.
"It was just a way of
playing or experiencing games you didn't
have access to.
"Combine that with
the absence of the
couch multiplayer these
days and I think that
explains the growth of
some of these social
gaming things."
It's the start of a long
conversation
about
the nature of the internet that winds its way
through our discussion.
Particularly highlights
include
comparing
himself to Ron Paul
("we need to return video games to the Gold
Standard") and a discussion on young people that includes the
sentence "A good war
will sort you out".
For a channel which
just hit 4,000 subscribers, Aaron at least is
remarkably dedicated
to the fans.
"I see it as an outlet.
Every single comment
that pops up I will read
it, and if there's a reply
in there I'll reply to it.
"When I realised
most of our viewers
were from the UK and
the US, I was like 'that's
awesome' because it
means it's not just our
friends watching."
We stick on the topic
of holding friends as a
captive audience for
some time, and once
again we get more
quotations from Chairman Gabe.
"Real
creativity
comes from you doing
something that you'd
be doing for free and
for people rather than
trying to get to a million
views."
"On a personal level, the process should
be fun. If it's not fun,
why are you doing it?"
As we're chatting on
a Skype call between
Sheffield and Brisbane,
it maybe illustrates the
point that the internet
has made it difficult to
feel lonely.
Part of the omnipresence of the web is that
it's made it possible to
build communities without the tyranny of distance. This is something
the duo have become
acutely aware of.
"The baseline of
sadness is now like a
good day for me" says
Gabe, more chirpily
than that might imply.
"There's a space for
everybody on the internet. I've seen people who make money
drawing fucking furry
incest on the internet.
"There's a community
of people who inflate
their ball sacks with
saline.
"Yeah you can feel
alone in a crowd, but
there's a titanic difference between that and
having no-one around
you."
Classy indeed. But
given how much there
is on the internet now,
I ask if it's inevitable for
content to simply be
lost in the crowd.
"That's the thing,
everyone does this
stuff" says Aaron.
"Everyone sees a channel and says 'I wanna
do that' and then puts
it up. The difference is
most of these people
aren't functioning human beings."
Keep 'et Classy
has come a long way
in the last year, and
the name recognition
they've managed to
pull together so far has
brought in over 4,000
people. Will it mean
they become more professional?
I check YouTube to
see Gabriel downing a
blue, ultra-sour candy
spray. The answer is no.
11