Pure Pwnage

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Jeremy, the “pro gamer”, in a promotional image from the series.

Pure Pwnage (pronounced “Pure Ownage”^[1]) is an Internet sitcom, or “webisode”, by “ROFLMAO Productions”. The show portrays aspects of “the life of a pro gamer”, featuring a Canadian self-proclaimed pro video game player named Jeremy. Through a combination of interviews and situational conflict resolution, Jeremy reveals what it is like to be a pro gamer. Locations for the show include Calgary, Montréal, and mainly Toronto.

The show is filmed from the point of view of Jeremy’s roommate and brother Kyle. As of late 2005, Kyle is currently attending film school and will soon graduate. The Pure Pwnage website states that ROFLMAO may go into full-time production after Kyle’s graduation, and, as of January 2006, is negotiating the airing of Pure Pwnage on television. A DVD is now scheduled to be released after Episode 12, which is the planned end of the first season.

Most of the information about the Pure Pwnage series comes from a TeamSpeak chat public interview, the Pure Pwnage website, the featurettes, and the regular episodes (see List of Pure Pwnage episodes).

The world of Pure Pwnage

Pure Pwnage takes the audience to a fantastic world where the power and importance of video games is revealed to be far greater than the gaming layperson might expect. Kyle appears to film the show in gonzo, and it seems to mix the real world with a fictional one, blurring this with references outside Kyle’s lens at times.

Pro gamers vs. noobs

In the world of Pure Pwnage, certain elite video game players are quick to judge others based on their ability to master video games. Those with limited ability in a given skill, or who otherwise exhibit characteristics of one who is new to that skill, are collectively known as noobs.^[2]

Persons with abilities that exceed those of others, primarily in video gaming, are referred to as pro. The noob/pro distinction is not mutually exclusive, as a pro may be rendered a noob by a more proficient pro.^[3] A complete noob cannot become pro simply through training; this merely results in a trained noob.^[4]

Micro

Most characters in Pure Pwnage exhibit a fantastic video game playing ability known simply as micro. The neologism micro stems from micromanagement strategies inherent in playing RTS games effectively. One’s “micro” ability is applicable to any manner of video gaming, suggesting that any individual function of any given game peripheral may be managed with a significant level of refinement and expertise.

The primary function of micro is to win while playing video games, and otherwise pwning noobs. However, micro can be both practiced and made use of in real life — otherwise known as RL. Examples of this include efficiently dialing telephone numbers and quickly checking one’s bank balance at an ATM.

When a video game player reaches a certain high level of ability, that gamer transcends mere micro ability, and thus possesses über micro.^[5] In order to attain a high degree of über micro, the gamer must undergo significant physical and spiritual training. This training is conducted under the tutelage of a person with much greater micro.^[6]

Those who possess partial or complete über micro abilities are able to practice their micro without the aid of an actual peripheral device. To the layperson, it appears that a person demonstrating über micro is keying and mouse-clicking empty air.^[7]

Those who have achieved a significantly high level of über micro may begin to manifest their video game playing abilities in more profound ways while in RL. In this way, characters in Pure Pwnage are not limited by the normal restrictions of reality.^[8]

Jeremy’s views on über micro were reported in the December 2005, UK edition of PC Gamer. He was quoted as saying, “to have über-micro is to be completely at one with the controls of the game. It’s to have a thought in your head, and never for one moment examine how that’s going to get out into the game; it just flows through you. To have über-micro is to know that at every moment all your units are doing exactly what you want. Your brain is flowing straight to your hands. It’s sort of like qi, you know. You’ve got to close your mind to all things, and focus on the micro.”

Since Episode 9 (“The Story of Dave”), the concept of reality-altering über micro has been visualized as intensly-colored auras around the hands of the practicioners, as well as glowing orbs shooting from their hands. These phenomena are mostly blue, but red is used for some of the bad guys. Presumably due to technical limitations, none of this is seen in Episode 4 when Jeremy and Teh_Masterer are having a micro battle. It also does not manifest when the characters are actually gaming (i.e., on a computer). The presence of the glowing orbs has taken the show beyond realism, even though the crew has repeatedly said the show is quite real and about Jeremy’s life. It has also been heavily criticized as being “too much like Dragon Ball Z”.

Characters

During an interview, Kyle insists that all of the characters on the show are not acting. He suggests that the personalities on Pure Pwnage display their true-to-life abilities and eccentricities, and the characters take great pains to maintain that the Pure Pwnage world is simply an extension of the real world.

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  Jeremy (alias teh_pwnerer) — The protagonist of Pure Pwnage, twenty-three year old Jeremy is a stereotypical pro gamer. He lives in Toronto, Canada with his brother, Kyle. Jeremy spends the vast majority of his time playing video games and “pwning noobs”, using the online handle teh_pwnerer (“the ownerer”). He has been playing games since the age of two, when he used to “totally pwn Pong”.

  Due to Jeremy’s profound immersion in video game culture, his social skills have atrophied. However, he has also developed the ability to quickly master any video game, and can play competitively against extremely skilled opponents.

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  Kyle — Jeremy’s younger brother and director of the show, Kyle is a full-time film student. He determines what events to film, but mostly just follows Jeremy around. Occasionally, he tries to introduce Jeremy to a diversion other than video gaming. According to Jeremy, Kyle is a “total noob” in many ways.

  The show is shot almost entirely from Kyle’s point of view, so even though he often talks to the other characters, he is never really seen on camera.^[9] Not even the Pure Pwnage website has any pictures that show Kyle’s face (though there is a wallpaper [10] that partially shows Kyle with his face hidden behind a camera and a baseball cap). “I thought Kyle would look cooler,” a fan filmed near the end of Episode 8 (“LANageddon”) jokingly commented. “No wonder he’s behind the camera.”

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  Doug (alias fps_doug) — Jeremy’s boisterous friend and rival, Doug spends most of his time playing Counter-Strike: Source, defeating his opponents by skillfully “getting the headshot”. Doug has serious anger management issues, and can appear to be a psychopath, obsessed with FPS games to the point that he goes out training and practicing imaginary headshots in real life.

  Doug’s triumphant catchphrase, “BOOM! HEADSHOT!”, has become a popular exclamation among FPS players and has been displayed on many online message boards. During the TeamSpeak interview, Doug states that he has grown tired of this phrase, and now hates when people ask him to say it.

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  Dave (also known by his Chinese name, Dawei) — Jeremy’s friend, notable for his cooking skills and his nonchalant sense of humour, Dave is first introduced as a crew member in a “behind the scenes” featurette at the end of Episode 3 (“FPS Doug”). He excels at fighting games such as Street Fighter II and Super Smash Bros., but is usually seen cooking or casually observing Jeremy’s and Kyle’s antics.

  Template:Spoilers Dave left the show after Episode 9 (“The Story of Dave”), citing he had things to do back in China. The webcomic later revealed that he was really moving to Vancouver for a new job. “And if you guys can ever pay me, shit, I’ll quit my job and come back to the show.”

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  Teh_Masterer — Always clad entirely in ninja clothing, Teh_Masterer is a mysterious master gamer who trains Jeremy and others in the ways of being a pro gamer. His micro ability is so profound that he can play multiple video games at once, and he claims that he once “beat Garry Kasparov and Deep Blue with nothing more than a row of pawns and a single bishop.” He lives in seclusion in a small apartment, but he does have access to a training area (in the TeamSpeak chat interview, Kyle refers to this as the “room with no exits”). His true identity is as of yet unknown.^[11]

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  Anastasia (nicknames Stasia and Tagi) — MMO-playing Anastasia is Jeremy’s first love-interest on Pure Pwnage. She interacts with Jeremy off-camera in Episode 2 (“Girls”), but the audience never sees her meet him until Episode 6 (“Imapwnu of Azeroth”). She plays World of Warcraft under the pseudonym “Tagi”. Anastasia and Jeremy have differing views about video games, as she believes they should be social — not just about pwning. See also Anastasia’s weblog.

The episodes

Main article: List of Pure Pwnage episodes

There are currently ten episodes, with two more planned for the first season. They are all available for download in DivX-encoded AVI format from the Pure Pwnage website, HTTP mirrors, via BitTorrent, or via Xfire. Subtitles are available in more than 25 languages.

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Pure Pwnage Comic number 4. Jeremy's encounter with the jock is displayed as a spoof of a Final Fantasy style battle menu

Pure Pwnage: The Comic

Since February 28 2006, the Pure Pwnage website features a regularly-issued comic, of which a new page is released twice a week. Apparently set in the “real world” — rather than in the magical world of Pure Pwnage — the comic breaks most of the fourth wall of the show. For example, while in the show Dave held that he was leaving it due to unfinished business in China, the comic revealed that the real reason was that he had gotten a new job in Vancouver.[12] As the show has gradually drifted away from reality, the comic is a clever way of once again blurring the distinction between fiction and reality.

Phrases used or popularized by the show

newbie

Someone who is “new to gaming”, or has never played a particular game before.

noob

Someone who just plain sucks. This term is used commonly by Jeremy as an insult or taunt. His rationale for calling even skilled gamers “noobs” is that “everyone is a noob compared to me.”

to pwn

(pronounced “own”^[13]) To defeat an opponent by a significant margin in a video game, or to complete a single-player game skillfully.

pwnage

The state of pwning. When used as a personal pronoun, as in “I am the pwnage,” it refers to “the person who pwns.”

to micro

1. To perform micromanagement. This term is fairly extensively used by the community of RTS players. 2. To perform pseudo-micromanagement in air or on a platform irrelevant to gaming (such as a public phone or an ATM), as if one was playing a game with a mouse and a keyboard; often referred to as “one’s micro”. Jeremy often shows his micro in public, and this is an easily recognizable gesture among fans. It is also used by Jeremy in “micro-battles”. Teh_Masterer seems to have the ability to see a player’s real micromanagement skills just by looking at their “micro”.

über micro

Overwhelmingly superior micro skills.

“BOOM! HEADSHOT!”

Taunt used by FPS Doug when he has killed an opponent with a headshot, almost exclusively in FPS games.

LOL

(pronounced “lawl”) An acronym for “laughing out loud”, commonly used in chat rooms and games signifying that someone has typed, shown or done something funny. Used by Jeremy in real life (he actually says “LOL” when he laughs).

ROFL; ROFLMAO

Acronyms for “rolling on the floor laughing (my ass off)”. Usage is similar to that of “LOL”.

“...and stuff, right?”

Used extremely frequently by Jeremy. Grammatically, this replaces “et cetera”, and adds a confirmation request tag question.

to school an opponent; to make an opponent ride the school bus; to take an opponent to school

To beat an opponent by using a tactic of which they are ignorant, thus educating them in that particular tactic. Hence, more generally, to pwn a noob.

Three Dozer Build

A tactic often used by newbies in the RTS game Command & Conquer: Generals — Zero Hour.

ghey

(pronounced “gay”) Used as a generic insult. Despite being derived from the word “gay”, it does not suggest homosexuality.

Trivia

• Jeremy, according to the TeamSpeak interview, in his early childhood played text-based adventure games, but later became utterly obsessed with competitive play as video games evolved. He is more concerned with gameplay than graphics. His favourite game designer is Shigeru Miyamoto.
• Jeremy should not be confused as a professional video game player whose primary source of income comes from winning video game tournaments. Rather, the implications of “pro” in Jeremy’s sense (and pretty much all around the amateur video gamer community) refers only to relative skill level. Jeremy spends the majority of his time playing video games, and therefore lacks any kind of gainful employment. In the TeamSpeak chat, Jeremy stated that due to this lack of income, he cannot travel to competitions as much as he would like.
• Kyle does his best to emulate classic film directors such as Martin Scorsese, and according to an interview, he desires to be like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.
• Dave makes a reference to ice cream more than once, which seems to be his weakness.
• Dave is the only Pure Pwnage character to have his head on an official PP T-shirt.
• Doug seems to shave his head and face specifically for episode filming. He is seen wearing a hair-concealing toque and scruffy beard during his live appearance for the theatrical screening of Episode 9. This is likely to maintain continuity in his hairstyle, unlike Dave, whose hairstyle changes greatly from episode to episode.
• Many of the pro gamers in the show seem to have some of their own unique skills they attain. These skills can be taught to one another, it would seem. While most micro is simply the ability to pwn and even throw some energy balls around, micro can be really interesting. For example, Doug’s micro allows him to instantly center his aim on an opponent’s head.

Notes

1. ^ The word “pwnage” can be pronounced several different ways. The show’s creators pronounce it “ownage”. Jeremy justifies this pronunciation with the following statements: “When people say ‘/po^ʊn/’, they sound like a complete fag, and I’m not cool with being a fag, so I pronounce it ‘own’.” “‘Pwn’ was originally a typo of ‘own’, because the ‘P’ is near the ‘O’ on the keyboard. The person is still trying to say ‘own’.” [TeamSpeak chat, December 13 2005].
2. ^ In Episode 1, “The Life of a Pro Gamer”, Jeremy refers to himself as “pro”, based on his superior video game playing skills, and refers to inferior gamers as “noobs”. He also cites Kyle’s inept social skills and camera work as those of a noob.
3. ^ In Episode 4, “Pwn or Be Pwned”, Teh_Masterer explains the nature of noobs vs. pros. Moreover, pros such as Jeremy and FPS Doug are defeated and temporarily rendered noobs — they become “noobified” — in Episode 2 (“Girls”), and in “Pwn or Be Pwned”. Other evidence of the relative relationship between pros and noobs is clarified in the “Jeremy’s mailbag” section of the Pure Pwnage website. An October 2 2004 letter from user “ID Project” asked about Jeremy’s new T-shirt. Jeremy responds “lol it sez i pwn n00bs bcuz evry1 is a n00b compared 2 me rofl”. This clearly suggests that pros may become noobs when faced by superior pros.
4. ^ Jeremy explains the trained noob phenomenon in Episode 4, “Pwn or Be Pwned”.
5. ^ Episode 2 (“Girls”) suggests that only pro gamers such as Jeremy possess über micro. Examples of his superior micro ability are apparent in every episode.
6. ^ Episode 4 (“Pwn or Be Pwned”) shows Jeremy enhancing his micro with training by Teh_Masterer, who certainly displays micro capabilities greater than Jeremy’s in multi-genre gaming. Teh_Masterer is also seen training lesser video game players in Episode 9 (“The Story of Dave”). Episode 8 (“LANageddon”) shows Jeremy and Doug training each other in their respective genres, as each man possessed substantially greater micro than the other in their individual games before the training session.
7. ^ Jeremy shows his micro to Teh_Masterer in Episode 4 (“Pwn or Be Pwned”) without the use of a keyboard. Being an experienced video game player, Teh_Masterer comprehends Jeremy’s micro ability. In Episode 2 (“Girls”) the non-gaming people do not comprehend Jeremy’s micro demonstration.
8. ^ In Episode 9 (“The Story of Dave”), many characters clearly demonstrate abilities that transcend the boundaries of reality. Most notable is the ability for various pro gamers to use their micro to physically combat each other in RL. Kyle being knocked to the ground by a micro attack during the micro battle shows that micro can also be effective against non-gamers.
9. ^ There are some instances where Kyle is caught on camera. In Episode 2 (“Girls”), when Jeremy is talking about the one time he pwned, the mirror behind him gives a presumably accidental glimpse of Kyle filming. In addition, Episode 9 (“The Story of Dave”), gives a third person shot of Kyle filming when the group is ambushed, but his face is hidden behind the camera as usual.
10. ^ In the Pure Pwnage forums, a forum member’s post pointed out a physical resemblance between Teh_Masterer and a musician named Geoff Lapaire, based in Toronto. The presence of a link to the Pure Pwnage site at the bottom of Lapaire’s website suggests the possibility that he is the actor who plays Teh_Masterer and/or is Pure Pwnage’s music producer. A later post in the same thread confirms Geoff Lapaire’s association with Pure Pwnage, as the purepwnage.com domain name is registered under the name “Geoff Lapaire”. However, his specific connection to Teh_Masterer remains unconfirmed.

External links

• Pure Pwnage Official Website
• Pure Pwnage Forums
• Pure Pwnage: The Comic
• Pure Pwnage Artchive
• Anastasia’s blog
• Jeremy’s MySpace page
• Pure Podcast