Monday, March 18, 2024

YouTube Sensation Jimmy Wong on ‘Gaming Culture’ and Hosting Disney’s ‘Polaris Primetime’ [EUR Exclusive]

jimmy wong

*American actor and musician Jimmy Wong is best known for his 2011 music video, “Ching Chong: Asians in the Library Song” and for his role as Ted in the popular web series Video Game High School.

As one of the original YouTube sensations, Wong began spearheading the video-sharing website in 2010 — collaborating with other successful content creators including Joey Graceffa. At the end of 2010, the web series Feast of Fiction was born, a cooking show dedicated to making food from movies, TV shows, cartoons, video games, and other fictional properties.

An expert in gaming and eSports, Wong was asked to host a gaming show in 2010 titled Polaris Primetime, on D|XP. Disney created the channel block, similar to Adult Swim or Teen Nick, that exclusively airs gaming shows daily from 9PM to 3AM.

Wong previously described the series as “A variety show for gamers. We have couches and big TV’s and we play games, we have game trivia, we have skits that we perform and ones we’ve recorded. It’s a lot of fun. We’re trying to bring the same style as the content creators out there, where it’s about the reactions. The show really does have a background cast of influencers and popular personalities”

When EUR/Electronic Urban Report caught up with him to get the scoop about Polaris Primetime, Wong defined it as “a group gaming show” unlike anything viewers have seen on TV/cable and online. 

Read below to see what he had to say about what makes the series unique, and his advice to parents of young gamers about the ugly side of gaming culture.

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Polaris Primetime

Talk about what makes ‘Polaris Primetime’  a unique gaming experience.

JW: Disney XD decided to do an 8-week test in the middle of the summer, that’s still continuing now, to see if, “Hey, let’s make some video game content and let’s see if it resonates with our audience.” And one of the key shows in it was a show called ‘Polaris Primetime,’ which is a group gaming show. It’s akin to something like ‘Saturday Night Live’ but for video games. It’s a group of us gathered on a couch in a big a warehouse, with a lot of other people there and we’re bringing on special guests every week to play video games as well as screen digital shorts, have challenges in the studio and essentially play games and showcase it in a way that is different than what you might expect from something that you might watch online. It’s all about the group experience. It’s all about finding new games, testing new games out and also showing celebrities and guests in a new light. People that you may not have expected to be into video games are actually huge nerds and so it’s a great way to showcase that side of a lot of different people’s personalities.

What’s been the reaction to the series from the gaming community?

JW: It’s really hard to get a gauge what people on the Internet think about a show when it is purely on TV/cable. As someone who came from the online and YouTube world, usually you have a comment section, or you have people talking to you on Twitter or Facebook or different social media and for a show like this, you don’t get that sort of immediate feedback. So it was not that easy to figure out what the reaction and what the general consensus was of the show on the Internet. But from what I could see, it seemed like a lot of people really did appreciate the fact that Disney was actually doing anything in the gaming space and I think that’s sort of the biggest takeaway. Ever since G4 TV, which was a long long time of ago (and) was sort of the first foray of cable into video games on TV — ESPN has had a couple of showcases here and there for some big tournaments — but ever since then there (hasn’t) really been a return to video games on cable and I think a lot of people are just really happy to see it happening with Disney. And the fact that there’s all sorts of different programming, they’re covering different live events, like the Nintendo World Championships.

I think people are just really appreciative of the fact that it is something that’s happening overall. And that’s something that I think is really important to note — is that, there’s nothing else on cable that’s doing something to this level and considering how big and popular video games are currently, I find it really surprising, but also really cool that Disney was the first company to take a risk on this. And from the limited amount of interaction that we do get from the Internet, people of all ages really do seem to appreciate it. I’ve seen a lot of comments from parents saying, “This is something my kids are actually interested in watching and we can watch it together as we go to sleep every night.” Or, “It’s something we can sit down as a family and watch.”

I think that’s really great because a lot of times I know parents are a little afraid to let their kids roam free on the Internet and watch whatever gaming content they want because you just don’t know whether or not the person that is streaming or playing is going to be friendly for the age range that your kid is. So I think being able to say that Disney has a show like this — and you know it’s going to be general audiences but also a lot of fun and well-produced — is boon for gaming and for Disney in general.

What advice can you give parents about the precautions they should take when allowing their kids to explore the gaming world?

JW: I’m sure most people are familiar with PewDiePie, who is known as the world’s largest gamer. His videos are watched by millions every single day. He came to controversy recently because in a live stream he used the N-word in regards to another player. He had already been under fire previously for some comments and videos that he made online that were of a pretty inflammatory nature. So I think the main thing that parents should be wary of is that a lot of times gaming is something that people get very passionate about and it’s a completely understandable thing in the same way that we get passionate about playing sports or doing anything of a competitive nature. At the same time, I think the gaming crowd overall tends to gravitate towards the younger audience and so some of that is going to be kid-friendly and some of that is going to be the worst part of the younger demographic — which is crude, crass and using things like slurs.

It sucks because it’s gaming and if you’re streaming online you want people to be entertained when you’re making videos. But it’s also a hard sell because a lot of times that means you’re going to deal with gamers that are crass and crude in nature and I think that’s sort of the thing that parents are worried about and they should be for good reason because there’s no filter. At this point, anyone can put anything on anywhere and that’s sort of the danger. You don’t know what your child is going to be watching and so the big part of having something on TV is that it is curated content and it’s high-produced content. It’s entertaining in a way that’s not going to be dangerous for your child to be watching on the Internet.

I understand you’re an expert in ‘Live Drone Racing.’ 

JW: I’m not sure I’m an expert necessarily. I’m probably more of an enthusiast. My brother loves to build things and drones are one of the things he started building. And also being a filmmaker, drones are a big part of the filmmaking culture. A big part of knowing about drones is also researching the different ways that drones are used and drone racing is just sort of this new phenomenon that’s been popping up recently. There’s been these huge tournaments in Dubai and other parts of the world that reward giant cash prizes to people; that are akin to goggles that show you what the drone is seeing and they’ll take it through an obstacle course and do things like time trials. It’s really fascinating. It’s a new emerging sport. I have no idea if it’s something that has staying power but it definitely is indicative of the current trends going on. Drones are a really cool tool for filmmaking and recreational hobbyists and it’s also turning into this random sport that’s really fun to watch.

Your thoughts on the future of gaming?

JW: Connecting is one of the huge parts of what makes gaming special. Everyone can share an experience together. The idea of gaming is something I think is very pertinent to our society. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a video game but we find ways to gamify the world around us constantly and in that way, I think gaming is slowly taking over our culture in a deeper sense. It’s a lot easier to get someone compelled to do something if you can turn it into a game and I think we see this on every level — with people that grow up with games and with people that are just getting into it now. There are weight loss apps that make it into a fun challenge that put different things in front of you that makes it feel more like a video game and a gaming experience. There’s a running app that has zombies chasing you the whole time. The gamifying of our culture and the way that we interact with the world is I think the most pertinent thing to take away from what gaming has done, which is, it creates an interactive experience. Oftentimes you can share that experience with people, but most of all, it turns something that may be mundane into something that’s fun and that’s a really easy way to convince someone to do something. I think that’s the future of where gaming is going.

It’s going to expand past just PC gaming, XBox, PS4, Nintendo. It’s going to be something that consumes our life — from every aspect of it, all the way down to, “Hey, if you do “X” on time you get an extra bonus.”  We see it all the time already. I think that’s the mainstay of what gaming has done to influence our society. People want to gamify experiences and the more so they do that, the more interactive and the more compelled people are going to be to engage with that. And that goes all the way down to stuff you do in your personal life to how brands are going to advertise at people.

What games have you played and enjoyed lately? Any recommendations?

JW: If you are just getting into gaming, I would recommend above everything else, if you wanted to buy a console buy the Nintendo Switch. It’s sort of a culmination of what Nintendo has always been, which is a very strong leader in the handheld market. And they have finally fully combined their consoles with their handhelds with this portable and incredibly accessible console that is a lot of fun. It’s portable. It’s light and you can bring it anywhere with you and you play games on the airplane, you can play it on the bus and you can also experience a slew of indie games, which are games developed by independent developers because the console is such a malleable platform for a lot of these different games. So I would recommend Switch and there are tons of games on there that I’ve been playing recently that are a blast. The newest Legends of Zelda, the new Mario and also there’s indie games that you can download that are fun, cute and not necessarily something like, 80-hour quests. Some are 6-hour experiences. Overall, I would recommend doing that if you’re interested in gaming at all.

 

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