This is what winning looks like.
In April last year I covered the outcome of a lawsuit brought by Billy Mitchell against Karl Jobst and followed up with a review of the documentary King of Kong that significantly raised his public profile. There hasn’t really been any news to cover since then but there was one more angle I wanted to look at with this whole affair before (hopefully), moving on forever.
That angle is the significant change in perception Mitchell has had since his big court win over Jobst and why this happened.
Since last year, Billy Mitchell has been a lot more active on social media and also seems to have an increased following. The main difference is he is now occasionally comments on some online drama when not selling his hot sauce. He has sold a few special edition brands including most recently in partnership with the Kino Casino with the aptly named ‘Felted Sauce‘. For those that aren’t aware, Kino Casino is a duo that broadcast on Kick covering online drama which did include the fallout from Karl Jobst’s loss last year. They also (along with Mitchell), made a great deal of fun out of Jobst’s earlier online hustle as a ‘pick-up artist’; though his method of “approach” ended where most pick-up artists would generally begin.
Jobst has mostly continued as he was before covering speed running cheaters and controversies. Since the end of the lawsuit, he has stated that he signed many of his assets (including his home and business), over to his Chinese wife which at least by appearances thus far, has worked for him. He made one lengthy and obstinate follow-up video to the results of the case where he openly shared this information and possibly also left himself open to another lawsuit. His coverage of video game cheating scandals still get a decent amount of views so his channel is presumably still profitable. His online career isn’t “over” as many expected it would be but it has certainly diminished. Those who have been on the Internet long enough, know people like Jobst rarely ever go away and if they ever say they will, they nearly always come back. Will he get himself sued again? Will there be any legal trouble for shifting his assets? Has he funded Billy’s new RV? This all remains to be seen.
Of more interest is Billy himself who as mentioned, has increased as Jobst has diminished. It is now easy to forget how much of a punching bag he was on message boards and YouTube videos for close to twenty years. Through all of this, he made relatively few public statements though he certainly brought a few lawsuits to the more prominent among his detractors. The details of these aren’t all well known but it is now clear that they were mostly done to protect his reputation which is not an unreasonable motivation.
Whether Billy really used MAME to achieve some of his high scores in Donkey Kong or not is now largely seen as irrelevant; though many still cling to these claims. As I mentioned in my first post, the average person really does not care about whether someone cheats in a video game. I found the evidence that he had used MAME to achieve some scores compelling but even assuming this was the case, it didn’t follow that he should be publicly vilified for it. And many (including Jobst), turned this into a strange vendetta wildly disproportionate to his supposed digital sins that became far too personal.
The reason for this is because people love a winner. Many will say they support the underdog but that support will evaporate if the underdog doesn’t win. Billy Won and Karl Lobst and that’s all that matters. Once Mitchell had the victory, he proceeded to enjoy it publicly and rightly so. He had kept quiet for years and copped an enormous amount of abuse that went well beyond his supposed crimes.
Yet it was not his overzealous critics that turned online public opinion in his favour. It was the fact that in the end: he won.
It has sometimes puzzled me in the past why genuinely evil historical figures like Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and Mao Zedong are still revered by so many today. As with Mitchell, the answer is simple: they won. The same is true of more admirable figures like the Hernando Cortes and George Washington because they also won and the losers aren’t so well remembered. By way of contrast you also have Napoleon who did an awful lot of winning before his decisive loss and so has a more mixed legacy. I’m not comparing Billy Mitchell to any of these figures, I’m just acknowledging that the people love a winner.
This is why Billy Mitchell, the King of Kong and Gamer of the Century has seen a dramatic change in his public perception. This remains true even if you believe the worst about him which, despite all that has been said, can be summarised as him being a vain, self-promoter who recorded some high scores using an arcade emulator once. When I put it like that, it all sounds rather trivial, doesn’t it? Indeed, his public persona is as authentically American as his signature tie. Men like Billy Mitchell are legion in American history and his style of braggadocio is also embodied in the current president — which is a major source of his popular appeal too.
As for me, I’m really no different — I love a winner too.