It all started a few days ago when Notch, the creator of Minecraft and founder of Mojang, an indie video game developer seems to have "drunk tweeted" (or sleep-deprived tweeted) deprecating remarks about the Yogscast. The Yogscast are mainly two guys from England who, although already-established gaming video makers on YouTube, hit YouTube fame and "fortune" when they started doing Minecraft playthrough videos.
Mojang had just hosted last week's Minecon, a convention celebrating Minecraft, in Las Vegas and Simon and Lewis (aka The Yogscast) were also there as presenters. Though they prepared video material and agreed to a Q&A panel as well as autograph signings, they apparently were only compensated by getting free rooms from Mojang. (And, though it's never been stated as being the case, we Americans know how Vegas works...because of the business the convention was going to bring to the hosting Mandalay Bay, they [Mojang] likely were given a free bank of rooms from the hotel) so it probably didn't cost Notch (who's made millions from Minecraft's incredible success) a penny.
But Notch, for whatever reason, said via Twitter, that he felt Simon and Lewis were inappropriately rude and not indicative of the Minecraft community. He mentioned they'd "dropped the F-bomb" in front of and directly to kids. He also called them egomaniacs and implied they tried to mooch from him some kind of payment for being in attendance.
Well before you could say "Diggy Diggy Hole" the "Minecraft community" was up in arms, splitting into two camps like Twilight fans and it soon became an internet-wide war between Team Notch and Team Yogscast.
The boys made a very brief video response to Notch's statement and a professionally-written post about it on Reddit. If you ask me, the Yogscast showed their maturity and have definately deflated Notch's rants to that of misunderstanding or out right lies.
I fully support Simon and Lewis. Having watched enough of their videos, you can tell they're not mean or spiteful. They do have a bawdy sense of humor though and I could see that some could get the wrong idea.
For instance, I found this on Simon's Facebook, apparently submitted by a tweenaged-looking Minecon attendee asking "Y U do this?":
I get the satire, obviously poking fun at the whole idea of fandom and autograph seeking, but you can see where a kid might not "get it" and take it literally. And their parents might not have found the joke very funny either. Especially when they just paid hundreds of dollars for their kid to attend a convention they themselves probably didn't see the value in.
EDIT: A few days after posting this I happened to rent the absolutely hilarious comedy film "Paul" and saw yet another connection to the "Fuck Off" remarks at autograph signings. In the movie, a fictional "famous" (famous to Sci-Fi geeks, anyway) science fiction novelist is begrudgingly enduring a book signing. He is hostile and rude and when one fan asks for an autograph yet has not purchased a copy of his book he tells them to "fuck off". Now this character was an over-the-top pompous jerk but one could imagine spoofing his actions for inside joke comic effect that would more-fully be appreciated by viewers of this film...and I'm sure a lot of Yognaughts had seen the movie and "got it".
Whatever. I for one hope this blows over soon. The boys need to move on. Notch has already made some conciliatory remarks on Twitter regarding this ordeal. 'Nuff said about it.
I hope it doesn't mean the Yogscast is going to self-censor their videos and make them G-rated just to placate a few overly-sensitive types. And Notch better not make good on his initial threat to never work with them again. Minecraft on its own is a cute game but it looses its lure rapidly since it can be too unstructured. Simon and Lewis add spirit to Minecraft that is otherwise lacking.
And besides, like I posted about when I first discovered their videos, it really is more fun watching them play than playing it myself.