A few months back I was able to get my hands on the prototype guitars for Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, so I shot a quick video — basically just a visual tour, showing where the batteries go, showing the new wings, stuff like that. I shot it myself — set the camera up on a tripod and did a few takes. Kat normally runs the camera for me, but she wasn’t available that day. She did do the editing for me, and said, “Your eye is pretty bad in this one.”
Now, I’ve had this lazy eye my entire life. I was born with it. It doesn’t affect my vision; the lazy one is actually about 20/30, so no complaints there, and I can see through both. I just see things…from two different angles. Really, my brain shuts down and I wind up seeing primarily out of one eye. I can pull them into alignment for short periods of time, photos and stuff. It’s no big deal, and most people I interact with on a daily basis just get used to it.
When I sang in an 80s cover band, I wore sunglasses on stage so it would not be an issue. Everybody said “Dude, nobody’s going to care.” But I kept thinking they would — like, are they going to stop listening to the band and just focus on that singer’s weird eye? I felt strongly about it, so I was never seen on stage or in band pictures without shades. I was in that band for five years.
When I got this job and started shooting videos, I knew it would be something to manage, just as it was with the OXM videos I did for Inside Xbox as well. I just told the camera crew, “Hey, if you see my eye slide out, tell me, and we’ll shoot another take.” And it did, and they did, and we did. And it was fine. Kat offers me the same feedback when we shoot.
So here we are, months after I posted that GH video. It’s gotten over 100,000 views. And every few days since I’ve posted it, I’ve gone in and culled the comments. Inevitably, someone says “OMG LAZY EYE” and that fear with the 80s band comes back — they’re not listening, they’re not seeing what this is really about, they’re hung up on the eye. (Maybe I should have worn shades. Is it better to look like a mutant or a douchebag?) So I delete the comments that don’t have anything to do with the video content itself — I even leave the posts of people screaming that Guitar Hero is for babies and Rock Band is their personal Jesus and all that. I just remove the bits about my eye. Let’s talk about plastic guitars.
Yes, it really says that on the video. What else can I do?
But the comments kept coming. Okay, curiosity is natural, but it’s clearly more than I expected. So I added it to the About page on my site. I threw in a few annotations on the video itself to try to warn people — you know, you don’t need to comment about it. I’m perfectly aware I have a lazy eye. And really, it’s an amazingly stupid thing to post — the equivalent of seeing YouTube itself, pointing, and screaming “Computer!” or walking outside every day, looking up and going “There’s the sun!” Yes, jackass — we all see it. But months later, the idiotic observations keep coming, and every few days, I delete a few more. I would guess that maybe 30% of the comments that were ever posted, I’ve deleted simply because they said “LAZY EYE DERP.”
I finally let one of them stand last week, because…it was funny. Believe me when I tell you that nobody has a better sense of humor about this than me, and I’m often the first to make a crack about it. It’s not that I don’t see the humor in it — it’s that everybody else is not funny.
Do you really think you’re adding anything to the party by typing “dude ur eye is crazy” or “what are you looking at” or “he has a lazy eye” or something else so painfully obvious that you should be chemically sterilized so as not to let your stupidity breed? You are comedy protozoa. Come back when you evolve.
In case you’re wondering, this is the comment I kept: “the design on the new guitars is kind of lazy. eye probably won’t buy it.” That’s clever; that actually made me chuckle. But someone who sees the color green and shouts “green means go!” does not. I may look like Marty Feldman, but I don’t need to tell you what your witless comments make you look like.
So that’s all I’m asking for, really. If you’re going to make fun of my eye, put some effort into it. Aspire to greatness. Be funny. It took six months and almost 900 comments for someone to say something worthy. If you think you have what it takes, go ahead — make me laugh.
Just remember, I’m watching you.
