Best of Giant Bomb: 174 - Heretical Grinder

Grind Baby

Giant Bomb, 2014-present: "Dan, NO"

What is the game Ben, Brad and Jason was playing at the very end? The soulslike looking one with Chinese text.

@arion: Bloody Spell.

People in the chat trying to argue that eggs are dairy was something special. People gave Dan a hard time about the butter thing but eggs as dairy was way worse.

Great compilation.

Dan

I understand the reactions to Dan's questions are just friends having fun and he obviously plays into that and gets into the goofs, but I wonder if they're a bit harsh sometimes. I think there's nothing wrong with being curious and wanting to learn about something you don't know about.

Are some of his questions about pretty basic common knowledge? Sometimes, yes. But at least he isn't afraid of admitting he doesn't know about it and wants fix that. That's a way better way of living life than just being dumb and acting like you know everything.

But, as I said, I know most of these clips are just people having fun.

Also, eggs aren't dairy.

GB West has so few highlights these days.

Eggs being dairy is a common misconception because they're almost always (in America, anyway) found in the dairy section of grocery stores by the milk and butter and cheese. Colloquially the word "dairy" represents "stuff from farm animals but not meat". People should know that it actually means anything from milk and that eggs are not actually dairy. But eggs still occupy that space in peoples' heads and it's not preposterous for people to make that mistake.

My issue with Dan isn't his curiosity or desire to learn things, it's the fact that if he's curious about something he can always just Google something or browse Wikipedia and educate himself quietly, not shrieking into a microphone in front of the whole internet without any sense of shame or humility, only to then get overly defensive and indignant when his colleagues cringe. Maybe I'm just sensitive/prone to secondhand embarrassment, but I really feel bad for Alex and Abby at times.

Dan is like "kids say the darndest things", except he's a 35 year old adult man.

Dan is the smartest human

Watching Dan realise he said something dumb feels like watching a dog tap dance.

I love DAN

When I was a kid they taught us the food pyramid and eggs were definitely in the dairy section. They also recommended you eat like 13 servings of bread a day so I think they stopped using that guide.

Cut Dan some slack, guys. Knowing what dairy is won't elevate you to a higher plane of existence. In absolute terms we all are as ignorant as him, he is just unabashedly honest about it.

And in some cases he has also exposed the ignorance of his coworkers too, so he is actually some sort of weird moder day Socrates.

Can we get fanart of Dan saying "I believe in dinosaurs"?

Dan in top form here. *chef’s kiss*

Great stuff as always. I really thought there would be more from the 8/9 GBE Playdate. Especially the rap battle and Dan's pulled pork/Bjork line. That was gold.

god i need this

throw some butter in it too

@swiftoid: Matter of taste and a popularity contest. Rorie is a highlight reel unto himself.

Anytime anybody gets exasperated at Dan asking a question they should somehow, in an ideal world, be obligated to explain the answer in detail. Too often someone goes UGH DAN and is then completely unable to answer the question themselves. I know it's a bit, and both sides of this can be annoying or inappropriate, but the whole dumping on him for not knowing something you only have the barest, most minimal understanding yourself is getting kinda old.

More content with Business Dave please. He is great.

Dan deserves constant and unrelenting dumping on for his dumbass questions

Last beastcast he said he didn't realise hamburgers counted as red meat. Imagine working with that kind of mind all day. You'd lose your shit.

I have a friend similar to Dan who doesn't really know a lot of stuff that I do, but the only time I've ever had a reaction as comically exaggerated as the Beasters was when they didn't know that Jesus was a Real Person Who Actually Existed, despite being raised Catholic (unlike me, who is not Christian at all). Of course, we're much younger than Dan is, and the rest of the questions tend to be so much more benign than Dan's astonishing gaps of knowledge that I don't mind answering them.

Seriously folks, if the question you have is something you feel like is common knowledge, just Google it and wallow in shame and embarrassment like everybody else.

Most of his questions come out from conversations they're having at the time, so it seems natural to ask. He obviously could search for them later but it's a mix of an act with genuine curiosity. I also never seen him get indignant when his colleagues cringe and when he does it he's clearly doing it for laughs. It's crazy how some of the crowd still haven't realized how self-aware he actually is.

However, I feel that every time everyone cringes or over-reacts to Dan's answers, they should be able to explain it in detail. There's been multiple times they all go "How the hell don't you know that?!" but then are completely unable to actually answer the question themselves and end up only giving a vague answer when sometimes it's obvious he knows the basic part and he's only asking about the details.

As I said multiple times, I know all of this is a bit (or a shoot or a work or whatever) and they're all in on the joke, often doing it just for fun. But everyone dumping on Dan without being able to answer is getting way more tiring than him asking questions. That's why I enjoyed Dan's interactions with Austin. Austin would often get flabbergasted by Dan's questions but he would follow it by understanding what Dan actually wanted to know and gave him the best answer he could.

The GBE podcast and now the GB highlights are becoming the Dan show. If the crew can't figure out how to produce content that doesn't use Dan's ignorance--real or fake--as a content crutch, I'm not renewing my premium membership.

Variety in content and personalities has always been the appeal of GB to me, and it's losing that to a constant stream of Dan and monotonous reactions to Dan.

Maybe that's intentional--they can certainly appeal to and sell memberships to the segment of internet users who enjoy what Dan/Dan's character is, but it's not for me.

@johnymyko: It being "a bit" that Dan is "in on" might (MIGHT) make it less embarrassing but even more annoying because it's not even a funny "bit" - it's tiring and old. We get it, Dan has the brain of a 6 year old, ha ha everybody look at the fool, ah boo boo boo. It's exhausting, and the reactions by his co-hosts confirms they feel the same way.

I want to reiterate that somebody not knowing how something works and asking about it aren't bad (if maybe sometimes extremely sad) but what grinds my gears, personally, is the turning the ignorance into a performance that he's seemingly proud to be good at. He almost never shows humility or graciousness at having learned something new, and instead cackles and smugly grins at having irritated his co-hosts and caused viewers to laugh at the jester. It's really selfish, borderline sociopathic behavior.

"You could've just said 'dragons,' Dan! You could've JUST SAID DRAGONS!"

Ohhhhh, I love this site.

Good stuff, many laughs to be had.

@garwalk: "He almost never shows humility or graciousness at having learned something new"

Are we talking about the same person? That doesn't sound like Dan at all.

Dan obviously loves to play a "heel" but he's very humble and seems to be one of the members of the whole crew who more openly accepts criticism, specially in the most recent years. There's been multiple times, specially on Beastcasts or on the podcasts with his wife, where he talks about how broadening his tastes has made him a better person and he constantly thanks his wife and friends for helping him improve himself. Even on the whole "dinosaurs are real!" segment, if you watch the whole thing and not just the "funny" bits, he talks about how Alex Boniello helped him change his mind about musicals. Not to mention how open he is about his anxiety and always shows interest in helping other people who might be suffering through it.

I'm not here to defend Dan, he's a grown up person who can defend himself, but it feels weird to me how people only see him as this weird ignorant, arrogant, and pretentious character when in reality he has shown multiple times he's actually pretty humble and a smart guy on certain aspects, eager to learn more, and always with a positive look on life.

I mean, I kinda understand why some people only see him in that negative way, but I think it's also super easy to separate when he's joking and when he's being himself, specially knowing how much he loves kaufman-esque humor and even more after watching him for a while, since he's not exactly a brand new hire on the site.

Also, if people are allowed to be tired of his "bits" playing "dumb", I think some of us are also allowed of being tired of the "bits" when everyone overreacts to him but then don't explain anything.

Dan is an American hero.