A pre-emptive apology for my panel question

So Jeff suggested that people should come up if they had spectacularly bad questions. Thus, I decided to play the character of "Bad Question Asker," fully commiting to the role. You'll probably know me when you see me because there's an audible groan. Unfortunately, I think the parody aspect of it was lost on a lot of people, as even John Drake said, quote, "I liked your parody question that no one knew was a parody until the end." Talking to the GB staffers, once I mentioned "Hey, he said bring bad questions," they laughed and seemed ok with it, but I know you won't be because you're people on the Internet, so I'm making this public statement to apologize. At least the question was relatively quick.

Um, which were you? The ethics guy?

Anyway, you're forgiven.

No need to apologize. I actually sat and watched the Q&A this time rather than close the video stream. I think that is all that needs to be said there. Also, if someone goats a response they can't expect people not to do it. As an added note I laughed quite hard at some of the things people said this time. In previous panels it was really just a bunch of eye rolling proceeded by metaphorical facepalming and closing the stream by the third question or so.

what was your question for those that missed the panel? I want to judge you now, not when the video goes up tomorrow.

@beachthunder: Yeah. I had dumbass follow up questions like "How many ethics should there be? Like 5?" But the room responded pretty poorly so I ducked out.

I for one am glad you didn't mention which question it was specifically, for specificity is the soul of nothing. I forgive you for saying something somewhere to some people.

This isn't pre-emptive. To be pre-emptive you would have had to apologize before you did it.

I was watching live and I'll pipe up and say that I thought it was obvious you were joking. I was shocked at how many people thought you were being serious.

@corevi: Well before the archive goes up at least.

A lot of the questions were pretty bad but hey at least you had the balls to get up and say something, even if it did go over our heads. I would have been shitting my pants up there in front of everyone. Don't be to hard on yourself, shit happens.

All the 'bad questions' I'm thinking of right now are probably a million times worse then whatever questions were asked. I'm thinking of some fucked up shit dudes.

people here are always unnecessarily harsh or exaggerating their hate on the panel segments here. or maybe they're just being funny and it's hard to tell. yeah it gets a bit awkward but it's mostly in good fun and i don't think they'd keep doing it if they really hated it. it would probably be more enjoyable in person, i'll concede that. but it's not a travesty/nightmare/etc.

anyway the rat man forgive you. this time.

That wasn't even the worst question. Apology accepted.

As someone who's never been to PAX and has also never heard/watched any GB panel, I think I have the authority to say that your Holy Mountain avatar removes you from any potential criticism.

I didnt mind the ethics joke. It was pretty obvious it was a dig and not meant to be serious. If you had done the "How many ethics" part, I would have lost my shit.

I got it, even if it wasn't super funny. Seriously though, you still asked one of the less offensive questions during the Q&A segment.

Everyone is super ready to say that people who ask questions are "sOoOoOo CRINGEWORTHY" but it's almost never that big of a deal. I don't even know what a good question would be for the bombcrew, as everything is so wrapped up in layers of injokes and shit. A lot of the time even the serious questions to the crew get a jokey response before they delve into a serious answer, so the joking back and forth is to be expected to a point. The chat flips out during Q&A each year, but I never think it's even close to as bad as they make it out to be. In short, don't sweat it. I thought it was funny.

The only time it was really bad was when that girl asked Jeff about his dick on the call in show. That was uncool. If you're reading, person who did that, don't invade people's bubble like that. It's lame.

Thanks for contributing to the garbage dump of cringe. Seriously. I laughed my ass off. It hurt so good.

Hold on........ the panel was tonight and it was streamed? Dear lord! I really am losing all sense of time and space.

Is there at least a twitch stream archive of it somewhere I can watch???

@icyeyes: Yeah, it'll be on the archives for PAX2. I know for a fact that the first half of the panel is up already. Not sure if the latter half is yet, but I think it is.

I liked your question and thought it was a good parody of Q&A awkwardness. That was a solid nervous nerd quiver in your voice!

At this point, it's almost mandatory to have at least one cringe worthy question during a GB Panel Q&A. If I didn't know any better, I would have assumed that Jeff had planted some guy to do this on purpose. He has mentioned that he is a fan of Tim and Eric after all.

No, I got the joke. It wasn't bad.

I haven't watched anything yet but I'd say don't be too bothered. People know what to expect out of these Q&As by now. I'll consider starting to talk shit once I've found out how I handle myself in such a situation. So possibly never.

@trafalgarlaw: but, "When's the next Endurance Run?!"

At some point I figure the best questions are like improv suggestions - they don't even have to have substance, just a topic the crew can run with and do what they do best.

Kudos to you for trying to run with a joke, I totally respect that, but universally the bad questions are the ones in which the askers try to make themselves the center of attention. Combine that with the fact that actually asking a question is pretty damn terrifying and it's understandable that you maybe didn't pull it off 100%. It's pretty much a given that some questions are going to be terrible, and I would actually feel like the panel was missing something if there wasn't a meltdown or failed joke somewhere in there.

I could do without the constant in-joking though.

@trafalgarlaw: No the "humiliated" guy genuinely had no clue he had been unintentionally funny. I forget what he said, but made Jeff mention how hot it was then he just moved on without even thinking about it which made Jeff sound like a chump. When the crowd laughed the guy asking the question thought the crowd was laughing at him, not Jeff. So he remarked "Man, I came off like a dumb ass." and Jeff turned it around on him and got him to say that like... 5 more times instead of just moving on and asking his actual question. To me that was worse than OP's GamerGate send up question.

I don't think a single person in mod chat during the stream got your "joke", and I remember commenting that I was glad Jeff shut you down hard and got you out of there quickly. I didn't find it funny, it was more of a waste of time and possibly taking up a valuable slot for an actual legitimate question that could have provided some insight for everyone attending and watching.

The chat going into full asshole mode at every question was far more awkward than the questions themselves.

Not related to your question, but just a general thought about Q&As: To me, the mistake people make with panel Q&As is either trying to open a dialog, or trying to "match wits" with the folks on stage. That's not going to happen in that kind of setting. Even if the question is a good one, it can be dragged down by trying to start a conversation through followup questions or by burying it in jokes.

"Duders, Big Jeffrey Saucepan Man Peter Molyneux's Balls. Anyway, this question that I am about to ask to you is a question divided into seven parts, and will be asked in the order of shortest to longest. After that, I have a follow-up question pertaining to part three of my original seven part question, which for the purposes of preserving the essence of said question will be spoken entirely in Klingon, and I would ask you to answer in the same tongue out of mutual respect. Furthermore, this question doubles as a riddle devised by yours truly as a measure of your wit and mental acuity. Part one: When's the next Endurance Run?"

Yeah, that was hard to watch. Imagine how different it could have played out if he had just asked his original question. My heart goes out to you, guy.

As for the OP, apparently I'm not as cynical as most since I figured you were joking. And I don't have a problem with an audience question simply being a joke, but it's gotta be good. For one, the timing didn't work. If your question had somehow been a second after they mentioned taking bad questions, it could have worked. Secondly, even if it did work, I imagine it'd only crack a smile at best. Jokes like that are fine when made in passing, where others can build off it or move on to something new. But when you get up there on the mic, anything you say isn't going to be said in passing. The expectation is that it's going to stand up on it's own.

And that is not easy, which is why if I was there I'd stick to my seat.

This seems like a decent thread to also say that the guy who asked about Rock Band had a decent question and the guy from Harmonix responded pretty poorly. When I saw the Harmonix guy walking up I thought "Oh, he'll probably talk about how they're trying to make the old instruments compatible with the new Rock band" but instead he just put the question asker on the spot in a really rude way. Asking him to come up with ideas for a new Rock Band or something, or if he ever "brought back a multi-billion dollar product." It really rubbed me the wrong way. I don't like seeing people talked down to.

It's a legitimate question. In-case you didn't hear it, he was asking if Jeff (and the others) thought that there might not be a lot of people willing to pay for new plastic instruments. Granted it's a question that had a really easy answer that anyone with Google could find out, but the reaction was still uncalled for.

Don't feel bad. I once called into one of the Developer & Jeff QA sessions they did live over Skype. I forgot my "Serial Killer Voice" setting was active on my headset, so the entire I was talking to them it sounded like I was a moron/creeper.

I know but repeating the same line 5 or 6 times made me wonder if he actually HAD a question to ask? Jeff got bopped after he went on his weird tangent.

There were a lot of bad questions. At least yours was intentionally bad.

They should get people to submit their questions n twitter to weed out all the awful ones, then just get a mic to the person when they answer the question. Not ideal, but I think anything is better than the current system. The q and a portion always seems to sour the entire panel.

@trafalgarlaw: Hence why I made it quick, and hence why I didn't follow up on it, even though it might have made the parody a bit more obvious. Apparently people think I'm an actual GGer now? The whole reason I asked *should* there be ethics is because it's the most Ali G question I could think of. But I'm not sure continuing would have been the best solution either, because as you said, it takes up time, and mic assholery, while fun, should definitely not be the whole thing. And to continue with the Ali G comparison, he has a whole show with 6 minute segments to establish his character and "game." I had 30 seconds.

EDIT: the other thing about the Ali G comparison is that dude ACTIVELY tried to get people to hate him, which is fine because that's part of his game, but in order to do a character like that, especially not in costume, you have to be totally ok with people hating you, which I'm clearly not cause I made this thread.

@dudeglove: You're right, no one is ever truly sorry. Why even have the word regret?

Speaking of archives. As one of those people in Europe at the moment, that panel started at about 3:30am for me so I lasted about an hour before I started dozing off at my desk. Has there been any word on when it's going up or if it's archived on Twitch somewhere?

EDIT: Came in to GB chat and someone was already answering this question, thanks to @creamypies ..as uncomfortable as that username makes me..

I always stop watching before the audience questions. The whole affair is just usually much too awkward.

I believe it's pre-emptive since he did it before anyone asked him to do it. Maybe it's a parody pre-emptive apology?

Anyway, to the OP: I think it's stupid to feel like you need to do this, and I hope you're joking. It's a Giantbomb panel where they used Dan on a fake game show, & Jeff read from Tim Allen's book. If people consider your question any more "stupid" or "useless," then they are a pot calling the kettle black.

the only thing you need to apologize for is typing the word "quote" when you are writing. HOW DARE YOU!

may you burn in hell

I wouldn't worry about it. People always waay overinflate how awkward these kinds if things are. I'm guessing them feeling exceedingly awkward watching at home has to do with their own social anxiety, same reason they always think the staff arent getting along or when Alex gets super snarky when watching press conferences.

There was a Mega64 panel where during the Q&A someone brought a picture of a meme with them, and tried to get the guys to talk about the meme and engage with them about the meme and do a wacky "woah, that meme sure is crazy and funny!" type of thing with them. And he wasn't trying to be ironic, he really genuinely thought he was being funny.
So just rest assured knowing that you are not the most awkward audience member at a panel ever, you are not the Hitler of Q&A, and that really, most people are kind of nervous/not good at asking questions or trying to be funny in a room made up of mostly strangers and a handful of people who they really enjoy.

Agree. Stopped watching probably after the first PAX. Actually any of these panels to me have become boring. i know i am in the minority but i dont know if any of them are having fun anymore, except Dan who is benefiting the most.

I suggest that anyone attending panels or cons who wants to ask questions have them written out on a notecard beforehand and avoid insider jokes and meme type comments. There's nothing inherently wrong with nervousness, but with a little prep work while you're waiting in line, folks won't come across halfway as awkward. Just ask genuine, interesting questions. Avoid the eye rolling minute long preambles.

And for the love of all that's holy and sacred to nerdiness, ONE question. One. Not a multi part question, not seven questions. One.