I think I just discovered the worst tech video of all time...

[Clay]

It was horrible for the intended audience. Almost every single thing he did in the video was wrong, and almost every piece of advice given was wrong. You could seriously damage your computer parts if you followed what was originally shown as is, especially since they skipped around so much in editing and skipped a lot of important steps. If I was working for a major organization, and came out with a how-to video on something I knew absolutely nothing about with a large risk of damaging thousands of dollars worth of viewer's parts, why would I be defended?

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The editing is so bizarre. They clearly make mistakes in the segments shown that are then corrected off-camera. They knowingly published a video they knew would make them look clueless.

Is the Verge's budget for stuff like this so tight that they can't go back and re-shoot some video when they realize something like "Oh dang, I forgot to install these fans, we should probably fix that part where I talk about how long the screws are and shoot footage of the fans being put in."

But no, for whatever reason they fixed it off-screen and never acknowledge it.

 

[NeoChaos]

He's apparently part-Chinese and that's a character he does from time to time....I dunno if that changes anything.

This is him normally.

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Half-Thai, which arguably makes it worse.

I'm a fan of Bitwit and Kyle's work in general, so it's so disappointing when he decides to drag out the Lyle character for his vids.

 

[Lobster Roll]

Just watched the whole thing. I get the feeling the guy who built the PC was tasked with doing so with having zero prior knowledge, whatsoever. I get making fun of the content. Towards the back end of the video, one of the people reacting say that they feel bad making fun ... and so do I.

The Verge deserves an endless amount of ridicule for 1.) putting the wrong person on camera for the task, 2.) having the video editor being just as clueless as the builder, 3.) having the final approval done by somebody just as clueless as the first two, and 4.) not realizing what a fucking disaster of a build this was.

It's fun to high horse this situation, and Stefan certainly fucked that build up, but people fuck up all the time. He doesn't deserve that ridicule. The Verge deserves every bit of it. I'm willing to bet there are people out there who have never built watching the video thinking - "wow, that would be me".

 

[ShivereZ]

Oh God... That's really terrible ! :( I feel bad for the guy...

 

[Mars]

While hilarious and sure, warrants some fun to be made about it, people are assholes and took it beyond that.

 

[Nature's finest mango]

So first, some backstory.

While I've been gaming primarily on PC for a while now, I just built my first custom PC a month ago. At first I went with a pre-built Intel rig from CyberpowerPC, but after doing some more research on the subject (and lamenting how stupid I was for going with an SLI setup, along with going with Intel), I decided to RMA it and build one from scratch with components from Newegg & Amazon.

• Ryzen 9 3900X
• EVGA 2080Ti
• G-Skill Trident 32GB 3200 DDR4 RAM
• Sabrent Rocket PCIe 4.0 1TB NvME SSD
• Samsung 860 Evo SATA6 SSD
• Hitachi GST Deskstar 3TB 7200 RPM HDD
• ASUS ROG STRIX B550 E-GAMING Motherboard
• EVGA 1000GQ 80 Plus Certified PSU
• Corsair H100i RGB AIO Liquid Cooler
• DIYPC Vanguard-RGB Chassis (this case really ain't shit on its own, but I kinda like it once I replaced the stock fans with addressable 3-pin fans)

Other than me having to RMA the 2080Ti due to some artifacting, I'm happy with the build. And it's actually gotten me into the PC build scene on YouTube. LinusTechTips, JayZTwoCents, Gamers Nexus, Bitwit, etc have taken up a lot of my viewing time recently, and have helped me understand what I did wrong with my build (installing the RAM incorrectly, and having sloppy cable management, both of which are fixed). And while on AutoPlay, I came across a GM video that was calling out The Verge for copyright striking Bitwit for a video in which he made fun of a video from The Verge where they tried to show people how to build a PC. So, I had to try to find it for myself.

The original video seems to be gone, and when it was up, they had comments and likes disabled. So, the best video is this compilation of reactions from other tech channels.

JESUS CHRIST



Some highlights:

• Calling zip ties "tweezers"
• Destroying product boxes
• Almost destroying the AIO by using the wrong screws
• Benchmarking using League of Legends, at a locked framerate.

This is wild. No wonder The Verge was embarrassed.

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I was ready to come in here and post "This isn't the Verge PC build video" but you knew, OP. You knew.

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Boom. Precisely the same over here, haha!

 

[N7_Kovalski]

The one thing that always gets me is that even if he had all the info correct and was using all the right terms, etc., the video was so poorly shot. If you're gonna show people how to build a PC, make sure we can actually see what you are doing. This whole thing was such a headscratcher and cluster from top to bottom.

 

[Aurongel]

It's an awful, terrible video with some irresponsible information in it but the backlash to it that the author still receives to this day is fucking ridiculous. Especially considering that 99% of The Verge's journalistic output is a categorical cut above their peers.

Don't even get me started on the small cottage industry of "oH mY gOd He'S sO sTuPiD" reaction videos from True Gamers™ this video inspired.

 

[J-Skee]

I wonder how that guy is doing. The backlash he got for this could be seriously mentally damaging.

 

[Lobster Roll]

Don't even get me started on the small cottage industry of "oH mY gOd He'S sO sTuPiD" reaction videos from True Gamers™ this video inspired.

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"Just gonna get up and walk away from my computer, laughing loudly enough off camera to be picked up by my microphone of course."

 

[Samaritan]

With a title like that, I'm disappointed OP hadn't found something more embarrassing than the Verge video haha

 

[Kyle Cross]

tried watching the video but the tech "personalities" commenting on it are mostly horrifying (and is that one dude's accent for real? sounds like fucking mickey rooney from breakfast at tiffany's)

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It's not real. That's Bitwit Kyle, he once in a blue moon plays a character that is a relative of his named Lyle. The whole character is the racist accent and bragging that he's a sex machine.

 

[Duffking]

The video wasn't particular great, but the vitriol from the enthusiast PC community was 100x worse. I remember watching the original verge video, and while there were mistakes made, it wasn't horrible for the intended audience, people who never attempted to build a pc before. The Verge took it down, and usually, they answer that sort of thing with correction or update videos, but given the ammount of attacks, they just updated the article with the corrections.

Link here

I built a $2000 custom gaming PC

How we built one and how you can, too

www.theverge.com

However, the PC enthusiast community continued to harrass him, and they occassionally still go after him. The reporter in question, Stefan Etienne, was part of the print side of VOX and did mostly smartphone/laptop and general tech reporting. A few months later, he left the company. Being wrong is one thing, but the community were pieces of shit about it.

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This is all true, though I'd suggest that it was horrible for the intended audience, since the last thing you want to do when building a PC for the first time is have a video that encourages you to do things wrong and potentially damage your expensive hardware or straight up misses a number of important steps.

 

[Sabas]

The way the PC youtuber scene reacted to it was incredibly awful and Bitwit's Lyle persona is such a racist caricature but so many in that scene are perfectly okay with it.

Seriously turned me off most in that community.

 

[exodus]

It's not that bad if you're putting a PC together for the first time and make those mistakes. They were really overblown.

That being said, the fact that this was an instructional video makes it hilarious. How do you have an Allen key but not a damned screwdriver for your build?

 

[Telaso]

I had heard this video was bad, but never watched the original.

Watching that compilation video though... oh man...

 

[Lazlow]

Just watched the whole thing. I get the feeling the guy who built the PC was tasked with doing so with having zero prior knowledge, whatsoever. I get making fun of the content. Towards the back end of the video, one of the people reacting say that they feel bad making fun ... and so do I.

The Verge deserves an endless amount of ridicule for 1.) putting the wrong person on camera for the task, 2.) having the video editor being just as clueless as the builder, 3.) having the final approval done by somebody just as clueless as the first two, and 4.) not realizing what a fucking disaster of a build this was.

It's fun to high horse this situation, and Stefan certainly fucked that build up, but people fuck up all the time. He doesn't deserve that ridicule. The Verge deserves every bit of it. I'm willing to bet there are people out there who have never built watching the video thinking - "wow, that would be me".

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That's the thing, he went on to claim otherwise and that people were just being 'nerds' and doubled down on telling people he knew what he was doing. Should have just admitted he fucked up Everyone involved dealt with it poorly but The Verge really shouldn't have let a video like that go out, they sent him out to slaughter.

 

[Spinluck]

PC ERA probably sees this video as a torture device lol.

 

[GearDraxon]

Don't even get me started on the small cottage industry of "oH mY gOd He'S sO sTuPiD" reaction videos from True Gamers™ this video inspired.

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Let alone forum posters saying "hey I just discovered this terrible video" and starting the cycle again. Like, two days ago, he tweeted about a new Pixel phone...and someone immediately replied with a picture of the PC build. Two years later. Gamer culture continues to be embarrassing on every level.

 

[Clay]

It's fun to high horse this situation, and Stefan certainly fucked that build up, but people fuck up all the time. He doesn't deserve that ridicule. The Verge deserves every bit of it. I'm willing to bet there are people out there who have never built watching the video thinking - "wow, that would be me".

Click to shrink...

For sure, it's hard to believe there's not at least person on staff more experienced with building a PC. It's ridiculous they didn't have someone watch it before it was published to catch little things like the tweezer comment, or advise on the thermal paste situation.

Alternately they could have billed it at as "My first PC build, warts and all" instead of as a guide.

 

[Dr. Lucien Sanchez]

That one guy is doing such a ridiculously racist accent holy shit.

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yooo, that's exactly the first thing I noticed (other than that youtuber reaction videos in general are awful, but that's already known).

I looked at the youtube channel and the fucker is still doing 'in character' videos as of 8 months ago and making jokes about eating rats. 2mm subscribers also, what a fucking world

 

[TheRulingRing]

The most embarrassing thing here is that people get off on watching the particular reaction vid linked in the OP.

 

[Charcoal]

OP, you're going to need a table.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

That's the thing, he went on to claim otherwise and that people were just being 'nerds' and doubled down on telling people he knew what he was doing. Should have just admitted he fucked up Everyone involved dealt with it poorly but The Verge really shouldn't have let a video like that go out, they sent him out to slaughter.

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I felt bad for the guy but no, he's an idiot.

 

[Lobster Roll]

That's the thing, he went on to claim otherwise and that people were just being 'nerds' and doubled down on telling people he knew what he was doing. Should have just admitted he fucked up Everyone involved dealt with it poorly but The Verge really shouldn't have let a video like that go out, they sent him out to slaughter.

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Damn, well that certainly adds more context. I don't know, I'm still on the fence. Dude got piled on and harassed for a while, and I'm sure he was still feeling fucked up in that moment.

 

[garion333]

The video wasn't particular great, but the vitriol from the enthusiast PC community was 100x worse. I remember watching the original verge video, and while there were mistakes made, it wasn't horrible for the intended audience, people who never attempted to build a pc before. The Verge took it down, and usually, they answer that sort of thing with correction or update videos, but given the ammount of attacks, they just updated the article with the corrections.

Link here

I built a $2000 custom gaming PC

How we built one and how you can, too

www.theverge.com

However, the PC enthusiast community continued to harrass him, and they occassionally still go after him. The reporter in question, Stefan Etienne, was part of the print side of VOX and did mostly smartphone/laptop and general tech reporting. A few months later, he left the company. Being wrong is one thing, but the community were pieces of shit about it.

Click to shrink...

Huh, the pc master race attacked a poc over something? *shock*

 

[secretanchitman]

I'm glad The Verge removed it but at the same time, why did they put a person who doesn't know how to build videos on this project in the first place? I remember watching a Twitch clip of the person and just called all of his critics "angry nerds" instead of owning up to his mistakes and criticism.

I don't agree with the harrassment and racism of the person in question and The Verge staff, that's unacceptable but constructive criticism should be accounted for. Just a bad effort all around - watch Linus Tech Tips on how to build a PC and you'll be much better off!

 

[knightmawk]

I'll raise

 

[nib95]

First time I've seen that whole vid. Phew that was painful lol.

 

[Randam]

Under $3K. Honestly, the most expensive component was the nVIDIA card. I hope the new cards aren't going up in price, because $1000+ for a card is already ridiculous.

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You don't really need a 1000$+ card. And this one should be enough for at least 5 years.

 

[Deleted member 75954]

oh god, I cringed hard when he installed his PSU incorrectly.

Let alone forum posters saying "hey I just discovered this terrible video" and starting the cycle again. Like, two days ago, he tweeted about a new Pixel phone...and someone immediately replied with a picture of the PC build. Two years later. Gamer culture continues to be embarrassing on every level.

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TWO YEARS?!? This is the very first time I've seen this!

 

[JustinH]

I'd never seen this before either, but some of those reactions are just too much though IMO.

Yes. I install my mobo into the case before I put stuff on the mobo. There's nothing wrong with that and it's how I would recommend others to do it too.
There certainly does seem to be some head scratchers though, like wtf is he doing with that power supply, lol? I don't understand the point of that "CPU applicator tool" thing either.

Oh NO! Just got to the thermal paste part. (I audibly went "Oh my God!")

Not a fan of that "joke" Asian character.

 

[Siresly]

You gotta ask yourself how the fuck he did managed not to look up/research videos of building a PC before even starting to make a video of building it?

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Right? How did this video happen? Multiple people worked on, saw and approved it before it was published.
From where do you even get the inaccurate information that you need an Allen wrench to build a computer?
How did they not notice when actually building the computer that it was never needed? How was that not edited out or reshot?
How anything?

It's a beautiful incomprehensible disaster that shouldn't have been, yet thankfully was.
No one should be harassed or personally attacked over this video, but we should certainly point and laugh at the video itself, because it's hilariously absurd.
It's the Konami E3 2010 of PC building videos.

 

[haziq]

After reading some of the responses, I just wanna say this...

I wasn't around in the PC gaming community that heavy when this video was originally posted. That being said, the toxic parts of the gaming & tech communities are a Venn diagram that is almost a circle, so I don't doubt that the guy in the original video probably did experience some racial abuse. And no one should be treated that way under any circumstances.

I will say that this makes me more disappointed in The Verge than anything. That dude clearly didn't know that the hell he was doing, and there were likely multiple opportunities for The Verge to can it before it got uploaded. And not just because of the credibility-destroying incompetence on display in the video, but also for the fact that someone like me could've seen this video in the past, thought that was the way to build a rig, and end up potentially starting a fire. The Verge, as a tech-centric outlet, has a responsibility to its viewers and readers to be informative & correct with their instructional content. Not only were they not doing that, but the actions that followed seemed to make things worse.

Doesn't help that the dude doubled-down and cemented himself as a damn fool in the eyes of everyone.

 

[Ravelle]

This was great, thank you hahaha.

This is a joke right? Like, it looks like the verse just grabbed a random video about "how to build a pc wrong and lets see if it works" and put a VO over it, the voice doesn't even match the person in the video.

The streams were actually pretty cool and giving tips on why you shouldn't do it, except for that obnoxious racist accent dude.

 

[LordRuyn]

Linus also commented on it after the fact last year on Sara Dietschy's podcast.

 

[Mukrab]

Huh, the pc master race attacked a poc over something? *shock*

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This is some bullshit. The content of the video is so hilariously bad that its hard to believe that it isn't a parody. They would have attacked anyone who did this. Could have been god himself

 

[Firima]

There was definitely a ton of cover given to weird racists over this video (yeah, I said it--you know who you are) and Stefan still gets a lot of harassment over it to this day. This video is a bit of a sore spot that doesn't need any more picking and poking, honestly; feel how you want about the content of the video, but the backlash was kind of horrifying.

 

[LordRuyn]

This is some bullshit. The content of the video is so hilariously bad that its hard to believe that it isn't a parody. They would have attacked anyone who did this. Could have been god himself

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Being mad and leaving comments about how the content sucks and can actively cause people to build a PC in a manner that can damage the components is one thing. They went after the guy who did the build (who also refused to accept any criticism, as shown in one of the videos posted above) with death threats and also brought race into it. The latter is absolutely not ok and unjustifiable.

 

[Mukrab]

Being mad and leaving comments about how the content sucks and can actively cause people to build a PC in a manner that can damage the components is one thing. They went after the guy who did the build (who also refused to accept any criticism, as shown in one of the videos posted above) with death threats and also brought race into it. The latter is absolutely not ok and unjustifiable.

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No its not, you're right. But they did not go after him because he was a poc. They went after him because of the video and because they knew he was poc they knew they could add fuel to the fire by throwing racial slurs. Which is not an excuse. I just don't believe they went after him because he is a poc. If he was white they would have found something else. Fat, short, ugly whatever..

 

[obin_gam]

budget

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All of the budget went to buying Two Thousand Dollars worth of stuff.... :P

 

[garion333]

This is some bullshit. The content of the video is so hilariously bad that its hard to believe that it isn't a parody. They would have attacked anyone who did this. Could have been god himself

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I'm talking about the backlash being so huge.

You make a video, folks laugh about it and meme you? That's normal.

You make a video, folks laugh about it, meme you, the begin to harass you and your workplace till you quit? That seems to be especially reserved for people of color, women, etc.

My original post probably didn't clearly state what I intended. The video itself is laughable and shameful.

 

[super-famicom]

Wasn't there also someone who removed a graphics card without powering down the PC or unlocking the PCIe slot? I remember seeing a gif and going omg at the sparks flying out of the case.

 

[scare_crow]

Yeah, the video is bad, but a bunch of dudes sitting in Gamer chairs snickering and talking shit about it? A PC build video? Ehhhhh...

And that one guy with the racist Asian accent? Really impressive.

 

[Jonnax]

No its not, you're right. But they did not go after him because he was a poc. They went after him because of the video and because they knew he was poc they knew they could add fuel to the fire by throwing racial slurs. Which is not an excuse. I just don't believe they went after him because he is a poc. If he was white they would have found something else. Fat, short, ugly whatever..

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Just heated gamer moments, eh?
You're totally excusing the racism.

 

[Mukrab]

Just heated gamer moments, eh?
You're totally excusing the racism.

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I am not. Using racism against the guy is terrible. And im not saying no racism happened. Im just saying that i don't think him being a poc was the catalyst for harassment. Was it worse because he was a poc? Probably. Im not denying that or excusing it.

 

[dallow_bg]

I'll raise

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Needed this. haha.

 

[Sparks]

Has it been confirmed yet if the video is parody or not? There's no way it isn't... just the "TOOLS NEEDED" section alone is just comedy gold and then the perfect transition into, "Ok you need a static bracelet".

 

[Jonnax]

I am not. Using racism against the guy is terrible. And im not saying no racism happened. Im just saying that i don't think him being a poc was the catalyst for harassment. Was it worse because he was a poc? Probably. Im not denying that or excusing it.

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If someone receives racially motivated harassment.
That's different to whether the person was white.
If the guy was fat, regardless of his race he would be mocked for his weight.
But racism is something else.

A non-racist person isn't going to think "Oh, I hate this person. So I'm going to say something racist to them to hurt them."
It's disingenuous.

Him badly building a computer is the reason why they've targetted him.
But of course, the people thinking "oh let me roll out my racist vocab" are racist regardless if they are just seeking a rise.

At the end of the day. It's just a computer.

 

[Mukrab]

If someone receives racially motivated harassment.
That's different to whether the person was white.
If the guy was fat, regardless of his race he would be mocked for his weight.
But racism is something else.

A non-racist person isn't going to think "Oh, I hate this person. So I'm going to say something racist to them to hurt them."
It's disingenuous.

Him badly building a computer is the reason why they've targetted him.
But of course, the people thinking "oh let me roll out my racist vocab" are racist regardless if they are just seeking a rise.

At the end of the day. It's just a computer.

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I agree 100%. Like you just said the reason they targeted him was the badly built computer which was the only point i was trying to make because the guy i replied to at first implied that the PC master race is just going randomly after every poc just for fun which is a generalization and not true. He himself said his choice of words on that comment weren't the best.