Everybody acts like each new Game Changer is a new level of betrayal and psychological torture from Sam towards his friends.
Did we forget that the very first game changer was "Sam wheels out a strange machine and asks the contestants embarrassing personal questions, the veracity of their responses is judged by the Machine.
The machine is actually controlled by the contestant's significant others who have been made accomplices. Forcing their loved ones into revealing shameful truths for internet broadcast."
And sure, he's gotten a bit more personalized with these, constructing a variety of torture chambers for Brennan Lee Mulligan specifically, putting Grant O'Brien in various situations and then bringing his mother onto the set. But deception and betrayal were part of Game Changer from the beginning.
So, when I hear people say "I can't believe Sam WENT THERE" about something all I can do is think to myself
He went nowhere
He's been there the whole time
Imagine you’re friends with someone who hosts a really popular internet game show, and he invites you on a couple of times and you gain a reputation for winning that gameshow. Then, he sets up a show where the whole point of it is that you cannot win the game, just to break your streak of the whole thing. Your trust breaks just a little bit.
Next time, he asks you to put on a mic pack for another episode of the game show, turns out it’s a heart rate monitor for another episode where you have to sit there and be almost tortured as you attempt to keep yourself calm. Your trust is devolving.
Next time, you come on the show, he tells you to go and wait in the green room and locks you in there, he’s a recording on the screen because he’s locked in the bathroom, he’s been there the whole time, you’re forced to do an escape room to go to work. You don’t know if you can trust him anymore.
Next time, you go on the show, you play bingo, you don’t trust him, something’s wrong, he’s been manipulating players to manipulate players into manipulating players. There was no way for you to win this one, not really.
You are a mouse trapped in a maze
You are a performing monkey at the circus
You are the most popular person on TikTok despite not having a tiktok
You are Brennan Lee Mulligan and this is your life. Sam is your boss, your chief scientist and ringmaster. You will never escape.
Drawn in Photoshop, animated in Spine Pro. The final art piece I made for my bachelor thesis on GIF as a medium for art.
I've been researching digital art in the context of modern folk art, outside institutional or commercial art. I analysed almost 500 art GIFs across Tumblr, Artstation and GIPHY.
There's almost no academic research on art GIFs, so it was important to me to examine and document it. I also examined the optimisation of GIFs and how it relates to web sustainability.
And because the bachelor program was focused on art practice, I then created my own art GIFs, and it seemed only right that I should do it through fanart of something I've been really into lately. Thanks @samreich and the rest of Dropout for giving me some unhinged content as inspiration. Watch 'Game Changer' everyone, it's great.
sam and brennan’s greatest weaknesses (respectively)
(transcript under the cut)
[transcript:
Clip 1:
Elaine: It’s possible this is my new favorite bird!
Sam: I agree. Before, my favorite birds were... [pauses]
Elaine: What?
Sam: Fuck me.
Elaine: [Laughs]
Sam: Um, bluejay. A robin. A cardinal. A flamingo... [pauses] Dinosaurs were technically birds. A pterodactyl—
Brennan: Sorry, dinosaurs were technically birds?!
Sam: I was just listening to an NPR story about this, Brennan.
Brennan: I believe that you mean birds were technically dinosaurs. Not all dinosaurs, were birds!
Elaine: He has a point.
Sam: Oh god in heaven, I don’t know if I know five more birds.
Clip 2:
Carolyn: Woody Harrelson has the vibe of someone who should have been cancelled years ago, but remains one of the rare celebrities loved by both sides of the political aisle, like Dolly Parton, The Rock, and... Kid Rock.
Brennan: That’s the opposite of these five celebrities that both the left and the right hate... Honestly, just like a list of five celebrities would be enough to really... [sigh] oh god, who’s famous? Um...
Sam: Who’s famous?
Carolyn: [Laughs]
Sam: This is like me with the birds.
Brennan: Oh, god, let’s switch. Let Sam name five famous people and I’ll name five birds. I’ll name a hundred birds!