Thanks guys!

Shoutout to the Burbacks parents for naming their boys after pasta Spag(Eddy) and Riga(Tony)

edgy and boney tied me to a chair and forced me to watch MANswers for 71 hours (such an odd number I know just make it 72)

"Hot girls read cheat codes" is one of the most 00s sentences that has ever been said

I'm a professional game designer and a woman - I joined the industry in 2003. If you thought THIS was bad, you should see the crap I had to put up with at work...or conferences. =(

Usually my coworkers never get close enough to my desk to see what's playing on my phone but luckily today a coworker got right up to my desk just in time for the shirtless women fighting, 10/10 great video guys

Jesus Christ....this was painful to watch. Aside from the blatant sexism and misogyny of those older awards shows I just think it's sad that our culture created a whole TV network devoted to perpetuating the idea that being a "man" means you should only care about getting drunk, acting stupid, boobs, and getting erections 24/7 like brain damaged teenager. Like.....if those were the only aspects of my identity that I was allowed to predominantly express or was pressured into expressing just to feel like I belonged that would drive me insane. It would be torture.

Looking back, that kind of culture is definitely a reason why I, a girl who has played video games since gradeschool, actively refused to acknowledge that I liked video games because I didn't feel like the games I liked "counted" because "girls hate video games".

You guys have such great chemestry, it feels like you are brothers sometimes.

Holy shit any actual footage was such a tough watch. Thanks.

I feel like spike TV has a huge responsibility for why us female gamers stayed silent on voice chats and picked male avatars and names. Especially in competitive gaming. It’s such a bummer to be told to get back in the kitchen and let my boyfriend use his console. Yes actual things I was told too many times in the last 15 years or so.

I'm so glad y'all mentioned Spike TV giving Madden 2004 its first game of the year award before the show even started. My brother and I were livid when they did that

The fact that the game awards come from the same network as manswers makes more sense than I'd like to admit

Those early VGA shows are the type of misogyny that bred the “I’m not like other girls” mentality that all of us teenage girls had to go through in the early 2000’s and it was bad for ALL of us.

it's wild to remember how gross 2000s nerd culture could be edit- and also pop culture overall, to be fair

"Geoff Keighley is the Pizza Planet Truck of video games" I'm not gonna stop laughing about this for 17 years

As a woman gamer who was a teenager in the mid-00's, I can safely say that I felt highly alienated by the male side of gaming. Which was weird because I had male friends who played games, but we never... talked about games together. Manga, school, history, other cultures, life... sure. But if video games were brought up, even though they knew that was primarily what I did at home after school, they were sure to seperate what I liked to play into the category of "chick games". Kingdom Hearts? Fatal Frame? Mario? Dumb baby games for girls. Needs more half-naked women and sports to count. Oh, we both like FF7? Well, girls don't like it in the "same way", so it was different. Me and the other girls who loved video games and anime/manga stuff used to hang out in the same spot for years and talk about all the nerdy/geeky stuff we liked and it wasn't until my senior year that ANY of the guys acknowledged that we existed and legitimately liked video games and that was only after I went way too indepth about the plot of Chrono Trigger during a class debate. Heck, one of my best friends had a boyfriend when we were in our early 20s who refused to believe either of us were "real gamers" until he walked in on us unannounced playing Samurai Warriors 2. He had seen us playing games before, but he thought we were just pretending to impress him. If it wasn't for the internet family I made eons ago in a Final Fantasy forum, I would have thought all male gamers were toxic idiots who thought women only liked shopping and beach vacations.

I remember unironically watching Manswers on Spike as a tween/teen. I am currently working on a time machine to punch myself in the head.

animal crossing has been a huge part of my life since i was little and i have so many hours across all the games but since i grew up in this era i would often say no or say "yeah but not real games" when people (especially guys) asked if i played video games. they'll judge us for gaming, not gaming, playing easy games, playing hard games. it's almost like some straight men deeply hate women, crazy! i appreciate y'all shining some light on it though as it was a real bummer to grow up surrounded by that and feel like i wasn't allowed to enjoy my favorite thing

I'm a woman who has enjoyed video games for over 30 years. I was a teen around the Spike TV era. That sort of programming certainly contributed to low self-esteem & a negative body image, but I think it also help shape my not-like-other-girls mentality at the time. I'd watch that stuff & think, "That's not me.. I'm not a boring nag! I'm different!" As for feeling excluded, I actively avoided shooters & other online games just so I wouldn't have to deal with harassment. Most guys I knew IRL thought it was cool that I was into gaming, but they'd still explain things to me like a 5-year-old. The space as a whole still has its issues, but it's come a long way in terms of inclusivity.

I was a woman in that era, and yes i learned real quick to never speak because once they knew i was female, they treated me like crap. It was frustrating. I could never get good at multiplayer shooters beecause it was not fun. So i played mostly alone, andthen i played with my husband and then my kids and now we game with our grandkids, and i still stay muted.

This is probably the best takedown of cringy 2000s stereotyping I've ever seen. If I can say that as an OLD OLD OLD OLDoldoldold OLD lady. More video essays, please!

The fact that Madden was named game of the year in 2003 is by far the funniest thing in this entire video.

I feel like every woman that ever featured on any Spike TV show deserves financial compensation

You know Eddy and Tony never disappoint. Until they do and they will find me and punch me in the face

Man, in the 90s they were really just throwing garbage at the wall to see what would stick

If I had a nickel for every time an award show got cancelled after Joel McHale hosted it, I'd have two nickels which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice.

No matter what year it is, there’s an uncomfortable video game award show somewhere.

it feels like my two favorite professors are ignoring the curriculum and talking about shit that really matters 😤💪

Joel McHale dogging on the show the whole time was perfect lol

The fact that there’s people who look back on this and say it’s “real comedy” and “the good days” before people were “too sensitive” scares me. this shits disgusting and slimy and makes so many people feel terrible. Like I’ll never understand it I get growing up with stuff and not liking change but thinking being a terrible slime ball to everyone especially women and minorities and that ruining peoples mental health and tearing people down is good comedy and are good things that are funny and cool is just beyond me. Having to be silent in game lobbies or hide hobbies to avoid getting harassed just because you’re not a guy playing video games shouldn’t be a thing it’s not nearly as bad as it used to be but it’s still got issues I hope the future of gaming keeps getting better

This video reminded me why I was so into feminism in 2010-2014. Growing up in the 2000s was brutal

The only problem with current game awards is the hollywood celebrity cameos. Like games industry still look up to hollywood for approval or something

Spike TV: The first EVER network made to appeal to what has been the number one target demographic of all cable television from the invention of cable til the dawn of streaming services 😂

It makes me sad these things happened. It's easier to pretend Eddy made them up and hired actors to act the events out.

all of female gamers i know never speak in the chat to avoid getting verbally attacked. which sucks bcs a lot of games like valorant, CSGO, etc. really require teamwork and communication, so theyre less likely to do well as they can't communicate with their team

It is absolutely wild (and easy to forget) that this stuff was less than 20 years ago. Sometimes it feels like things don't change, but this gives me some hope we can still keep improving. We've come a long way, but there's still further to go!

I love how we’re all discovering how insanely disgusting and problematic Spike TV was; I remember being like 12 when it was big and being made to feel so uncomfortable by it, it was always gross to me. I feel like you can draw a straight line between kids who secretly watched and grew up on shit like Spike TV and Maxim Magazine in the 2000s and today’s sad, 25-35 year old incels.

I had no idea the earlier VGAs were so disastrous. It makes more sense now why Geoff wasn’t so thrilled about a random kid coming on stage and pulling a prank which could potentially tarnish the reputation of the show. He probably wants to avoid recreating the past cringefest again as much as he can. And he also wants the show to be taken more seriously.

Being born in the 2nd half of the 2000s, I wasn’t really around for most of it, but that spike tv stuff seems like a parody of reality compared to today.

Hey, solid video. As someone who works on an award show myself, let me throw my few cents in. We made an entire award show because of the Spike VGAs in 2011, called the Vidya Gaem Awards (/v/GAs). They've become a yearly event since then, and I've been working on the /v/GAs since I was 16. In our first year, people nominated the Spike Video Game Awards for "worst video game event", and it won by a landslide. Geoff Keighley actually acknowledged the win and tweeted out, "We won! /v" right after the show. There's excellent research in your vid, but what you said in <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="404">6:44</a> isn't accurate. Spike VGA was not the first televised gaming award show. The first major televised award show was Cybermania ’94, which Geoff Keighley worked on when he was 14 and is credited in the show as a "Interactive Product Specialist". That isn't even the first award show for video gaming, depending on who you ask or what you consider as "official", they go as far back as 1979 or earlier with the Arcade/Arkie Awards. While the guy had some role to play in making the Spike TV Video Game Awards, both at Spike and his earlier time as editor-in-charge for MTV, I think much of the raunchier, sexist content was pushed for by network heads at Spike itself and not him. Were that not that case, we would have heard something. And to be clear, it wasn't only Spike that teetered on "male-power dynamic" BS, G4TV also had this problem. Remember that time in 2008 when Kevin Pereira attempted to pop a balloon on Olivia Munn's rear end by thrusting himself onto her live on the air? Any of the producers ask Olivia Munn if she was okay with this? VGX, Spike's final VGA presentation, made me really think Spike divested from the concept of gamers as a target audience. I'd speculate the soundstage setting was for cost reasons. Joel McHale really capitalized on the opportunity to co-host and went wild with it, took a bad situation and intentionally made it worse for Spike by roasting them nonstop throughout the presentation. Geoff Keighley's past time at Spike didn't haunt his new production too badly, and his past notoriety as "Dorito Pope" belies the genuine difficulty in getting the industry to fund and attend an award show when there were dozens of other ones already out there. You gotta give the man credit for ingenuity though. He knew Britney Spears, who was in the middle of a Vegas residency, and she loaned him use of her theater and the set for their first show. Not even making this up! In later years, I took it upon my self to go and attend The Game Awards since 2019 in person, because complaining about it is one thing, but being there is another. If you get over the pomp and circumstances surrounding the nominations/voting process (which is something I still philosophically disagree with), it's actually not that bad of a time. If you forgive some of the advertisements, which are there to pay for the show's crew and the rent, there's something special about bringing thousands of gamers, developers, and creatives sharing a roof and getting to see new things get released, kind of like E3 without the lines or the walking. After many years of hearing the guy is literally a shill, or that he's some kind of imposter, I've come to realize there's an easier explanation to why he manages to make these shows: Geoff Keighley legitimately loves video games. The award show is something he called his 30-year journey. Calling something a 30-year journey, with the work to back it up over those years, isn't something that's easily faked. When I finally got a chance to meet the guy earlier this month at the New York Game Awards, he remembered our show, even spelling out the "Vidya" part. We had a good talk. He mentioned his years at Spike, and that he was past them. It's wild that I've pretty much gone on a similar road (working on a gaming award show) and find myself in such a unique place to describe what's going on, but here we are. It's thanks to the people who believe in gaming and make each year an interesting one.

What I like the most about Geoff Keighley is that no matter how many video game related shows he hosts or is apart of, his energy and excitement never falters. Even during VGX he kept a big smile and tried to make the best of it. You can tell he genuinely loves and cares for this industry with just how much effort he goes into year by year to make it better and better.

im halfway through the video and im dying on the inside. THIS WAS REAL LIFE FOR US OLDER PEOPLE. THIS WAS REAL.

just learning this unknown history of Spike TV has floored me.

The Burback brothers do Defunctland. Love it!

Finally understood why Muppets were included in the VGAs (The Geoffies Awards) when I saw Geoff's face in the Muppets Haunted Mansion movie lmao I hated admitting that SpikeTV's award show engrained internalized misogyny into my personality, knowing now that I was trying to be a pick-me girl gamer so I wouldn't be treated like garbage in MW2 lobbies. It carried itself over later in my life up until recently when I noticed I was part of the problem. All I can say is I'm glad we're not in 2005 anymore.

Tony's reactions are inspiring me to "we talked about patience" to my lil sister

this single handedly killed any nostalgia i was feeling for the early 2000s.

great video boys, some of those early vga clips really hurt to watch but it's encouraging to see how far we've come

God, those early 2000s versions of the award show were grim. David Spade just sounded like a huge slimeball.

My main takeaway from this is man, we need to have more robot combat shows in 2023. Legitimately still great to watch.

man, after hearing geoffs history and how dedicated he is to making a genuinely good gaming awards show, FOR gamers, it makes me feel pretty bad whenever anything goes wrong in the game awards, most notably the most recent one, that you talked about in this video. screw that bill clinton kid.

"How about meet cracked ribs, and concussion" Mad fear when Tyson says some shit like that

Christopher Judge making Al Pacino wait for 8 minutes set a new standard for Gigachads worldwide.

"Geoff Keighley is like the Pizza Planet Truck of the games industry" is the funniest and most accurate way to describe him

I knew Geoff saved the day but I never realized to what extent, I only really started following the event yearly once it became the game awards. It's bound to have awkward moments as game devs aren't actors or performers, but I think it nails everything it needs to.

Finally, a youtube channel just for us guys.

I remember watching these shows as a kid. Being a female video game player just made me have internalized misogyny and a “I’m not like other girls” complex I didn’t come out of until my late teens. It also made me struggle with my femininity because I was being told all the things I liked were masculine. Crazy times

God I love this kind of content! So glad you two are so into making them! Your guys humor and jokes are on point!

as nostalgic as I am for the 2000s, I also hate the decade more and more with every video I see that even mentions it 😭 as a girl, I actively avoided talking about video games outside of a couple close friends I trusted dearly and my brother because of the culture at the time

heyo, just discovered your channel and man, what a way to start off. i'm so happy to see someone talk about the early VGAs, which i think have kinda been lost to time. but anyway, your summary and commentary throughout have been spot on. you guys nailed how both the VGAs and the gaming community actually are. y'all just got yourself a new subscriber!

I remember when I was a kid I found the Spike video games Awards Show and I was excited at first and then I was so confused as the show kept going, even as a kid that entire channel was so weird to experience, I don't even think anyone my age watched it

My god. That Neil Patrick Harris bit where he just shoots everybody and the dancers are moaning and screaming. Jesus Christ...it doesn't occur to you how much times have changed until you see shit like that

as a kid i never saw anything that portraited games nor gamers as how they really are, but only as those terrible clichees and till this day i have very mixed feelings when people start talking about gaming you just never know in which direction it goes

I'll never forget how happy I was getting my first headset to be able to speak to people in the lobby of online PS3 games... only to be brutally disappointed by the reactions my voice elicited in said lobbies. I was actually relieved and actively encouraged whenever people would mistake me for a prepubescent boy with a squeaky voice. I'd get grief for that, but way less grief than being a girl. I met some great people online but I haven't looked back at public lobbies since the PS4 introduced private ones. It's sad that dealing with those cretins back in the day has stopped me from making new connections online. But I feel much more relaxed and happier gaming online these days. Oh and I'm also gay. There's no better combo than being a woman and gay for feeling unwelcome in gaming. It's not as bad as it used to be but it's still pretty bad sometimes. The games themselves have gotten much more diverse, inclusive and interesting, but the gaming crowd still contains some of the most toxic troglodytes I've ever come across.

What a great video from Tony Burback and Eddy Nine-Pins

Im gonna need you guys to never put this much terminal cringe in a video ever again.

Honestly, all this time I've been assuming that the Game Awards are the exact same as they were in the Spike TV era and haven't watched it because of that.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1228">20:28</a> Did I just spot a Tommy Tallarico in the wild? I guess his mom must be very proud

These videos are so niche and fun I love it. There is a certain vibe to watching ripped 2000s TV content on UKposts.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1226">20:26</a> world record holder Tommy Tallarico spotted

i've barely ever played a video game in my life, but i love this channel and legitimately look forward to every new video. its just such entertaining, well produced, genuine content. your passion for the subject matter is just really infectious i guess. keept it up guys

Been waiting for some more Burback ❤

This is a great video guys! Feels very Defuncland in your own style. Can't wait to see more like it :)

This was a awesome slIce of history! Thanks guys! Love your content!

Love the coverage Tony, who's this new guy you got as an extra narrator?

i was not expecting a new burback video today but i appreciate it

Fun/sad fact about Opryland. The guy that made the decision to close it was only with the company for one year. He came in, closed the park, then left and made it everyone else's problem. It was very popular, nobody wanted it to close.

I remember TNN! Forgot about it and had no idea it turned into Spike TV. I’m a proud Nashville native though and it was fun to hear about Opryland as though it’s some relic from a museum that no one’s heard of 😢

You guys remember Idiocracy? This all feels like the TV shows from that. I guess it's convenient timing it came out the same decade all of this did.

So I am female who was about 22/23 on 2003 and 2004, when these first time game awards came out. Never watched them but I can tell you, being a female gamer in the early 2000s was not a great time. I love gaming, have since I got my first 8 bit system when I was 7 years old. And I remember back in those days on my Xbox with Xbox live, just speaking on chat and I'd have guys young and old messaging me left and right. They had even had a clan on XBL that was all female that I had wanted to join but I was turned off because they were all the 'hot' types who wore booty shorts, etc. I had plenty of my female friends who either used the voice changing feature or never spoke because of the harassment. And female characters back then peaked at Lara croft. So no it wasn't a good time for us over all but it's amazing to see how the landscape has changed. The fact we have so many female protagonists that don't need to a sexy stereotype and the fact there are male gamers now that can see how disgusting it was back then, that gives me some hope. Also helps that we have twitch and more female gamers out there but they still get the 'sexified' treatment which is eh. And that's my rambling rant.

If only you hadn't skipped through 2007 to 2010, 2009 was the most memorable one for me, as it was when Jack Black threw his award on the ground for Brutal Legend not getting GOTY. It was also the year we got the teaser for Arkham Knight and the sole teaser for the once forgotten game Fortnite.

You guys are getting me through my work day

This is hands down by far and away my favorite UKposts Channel hosted by twin brothers that uploads once every month or two or three!

I had to escape to the comments multiple times to avoid the second hand embarrassment from the old video game award shows

I've done a TGA awards/Christmas party for the past 3 years with my friends, it's honestly the best mix. If something doesn't grab our attention we just ethier chat or hand gifts to each other, when we do pay attention it's honestly the best. The dead silence when TLOU2 won GOTY, everyone getting excited for Sonic 2 when that trailer dropped, and overall one of our friends was a huge bayonetta fan and got his fair share this past event. TGA may be complete garbage or boring but damn do I love it every year, can't wait for this year.

Dude this is yall's best video yet in my opinion! Great job boys (:

Yall are seriously one of my favorite channels. Your humor and dynamic is like me with my closest friends.

Little late to the party here but I just wanna say, as someone who was a child during that gross time I’m more shocked at the rampant sexism of the time more than the gaming disinterest. Growing up I never really watched too much tv just because UKposts was starting to be this big thing (plus i was a kid so couldn’t have too much tv) so I was never aware of just how bad it was. It’s honestly pretty gross just how much shows like that have likely affected the men and women of today.

I knew the sexism was bad, but holy shit. I’m honestly glad lil me was simply unaware of it, cuz it might’ve kept me even farther from the gaming community. I’m still pretty removed lolol. But thank you for making such thoughtful and funny content. It’s a much better space to be in

Worst part about the early vgas was the fact that you could literally see female developers sitting with the rest of their team, it must've been mortifyingly embarrassing to be there

Y'all's videos just keep getting better!

The best part of the old Spike Video Game Awards was that one year where they had an intro animation of a bunch of characters from differant games and genres batteling each other with Sam Jackson MCing the brawl.

Watching this as a little girl on live tv, especially the body paint year, made me give up my dreams on making video games. Cause the message was clear. The only people talking are men. And women are dirt to walk on and meat to eat with your eyes. The envoirnment may have gotten "better" over the years. But the bar is beyond the floor back the . Its barely on the floor now, half falling into a rotting wood floor the landlord swore he replaced it and didn't cover it up with new paint each year to hide it that there's mold in the core.

Thanks for the upload. Much appreciated. Love this channel.

lost it at the "hot girls read cheat codes" bit how is that a thing aired seriously on television its so funny

At <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1500">25:00</a> I saw the bald guy and thought it was joe rogan, after looking closer it was not but then I looked to the person next to him and it was Joe Rogan, I proclaimed "oh there is Joe Rogan" and started laughing

Only ever watched the Game Awards for the Smash reveal, but between you contrasting the early shows and a recent podcast interview I listened to with Geoff, kind of feel like I judged the current iteration too harshly. Maybe I'll give it another shot, come year's end.

I was a gamer and a woman in the 90's and after that first time that was a mistake, I never ever did tell a guy I didn't know and trust, that I played D&D, videogames and read comics. Never. Ever. And this shows are just how it was and why I kept this to myself and my friends.

The "I am man" burguer king song is pretty much a real world "I am Just Ken"