Pure Pwnage/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • The Web series ran almost entirely on YMMV. Fans were split (and may still be split to this day) between the show's fantasy elements ("micro," the group of mysterious villains) and its depiction of gamers as obsessed, lazy and dismissive to "n00bs" (newcomers or rookies to video gaming). Granted, it was an Affectionate Parody, but after awhile, it was hard to tell whether it was comedy, satire or just mean-spirited.
    • Add to that the stereotypes of gamers as Basement Dwellers. The show's three leads (Jeremy, Doug and the barely seen Kyle) lived with their parents throughout a majority of the series. Attempts at "real jobs" between Jeremy and Doug would fail spectacularly, with one notable exception: Jeremy uses his hand-eye coordination skills to speed up a grocery store check-out, and gets hired as a cashier within minutes.
  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: All eight episodes of the TV series are now available on Hulu, a major American distributor of streaming media. The TV series originally aired on Canada's Showcase channel, which enforced No Export for You when it came to American fans. That didn't stop people from uploading bootlegs to Youtube, however.
    • Pure Pwnage itself went so far to have two different versions of their Web site: one for Canada and one for everyone else.
  • Awesome Music: Much of the show's background music was done in-house. Many of the show's original songs would take on Memetic Mutation beyond the show itself.
    • "World of Warcraft Is A Feeling," "Straight Outta Blood Gulch," "The Noob Song," etc.
  • Non Sequitur Scene: Not moment per se, so much as the villains Big Bad and "The Spy" looking older compared to the rest of the cast.
    • "The Story of Dave" had a fairly confusing narrative about the character's backstory.
    • The scene where Jeremy snaps out of his WoW addiction showed a lava flow and a WoW character simply staring at him for seconds at a time.
  • Broken Base: The TV series. Many of the Web original's plots were simply re-done. Having stand-ins for the requisite female and the Token Minorities meant the show's shelf life would be as far as new fans would take it. Carryover fans from the Web series could quickly grow tired of watching the same plot themes one or two times over.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: Jeremy's addiction to World of Warcraft was covered in two episodes. The first episode showed Jeremy collapsing after not taking a break from WoW, and subsequently being admitted to a mental hospital. The second episode showed Jeremy being treated from his addiction and working out his thought processes via machinima until he returns to "normal".. This addiction was Played for Laughs but very closely mirrored real-life video/computer game addiction.