Videogamedunkey

Gastrow has been video editing since 2003.[2] As he explained in his review of the 2017 game Cuphead, Gastrow created Flash animations that he uploaded on the website Newgrounds under the username "Meatwadsprite". Examples include "Great Yoshi Migration", his first video, and a parody of the Village People song "Y.M.C.A."[2][3] In an interview, Gastrow said he wanted to be an animator when he was young.[4]

Gastrow started his current YouTube channel, Videogamedunkey, in 2010, with a video of him performing a speedrun of the 1991 game Battletoads.[5] Prior to Videogamedunkey, Gastrow had another channel. Gastrow recalled that the name "Videogamedunkey" came about when he was playing Left 4 Dead with a friend. He "told him to pet a donkey or something," and after trapping his friend in the game, told him he would release him if he said "go go magic dunk".[4] By September 2015, the Videogamedunkey channel had 1.8 million subscribers,[6] which had grown to 3.5 million by September 2017[7] and 5.2 million by March 2019. Gastrow's videos have collectively generated over two billion views.[2] Outside of YouTube, Gastrow is active on Twitter[8] and has pages on Facebook and Reddit.[7] He and his wife Leah also run Dunkey's Castle, an online merchandise shop.[4]

Gastrow primarily covers video games on his channel, posting reviews, playthroughs, video essays, and montages.[2][7][4] He has also reviewed films, such as The Shining.[4] During his channel's initial years, Gastrow was primarily known for his coverage of the 2009 multiplayer online battle arena game League of Legends. According to Yannick LeJacq of Kotaku, Gastrow "had a special place in the League of Legends universe for consistently producing some of the best, and definitely the funniest, material in the game's massive community".[9] However, he quit making League videos in September 2015, after he was banned for "toxic" behavior, such as repeatedly insulting other players on his team in the in-game chat.[6] Gastrow is also known for popularizing jokes about Knack (2013) and its sequel Knack II (2017), titles for the PlayStation 4, to the point that the games "became the internet's favorite punchline".[10]

Gastrow initially signed a contract with Machinima, Inc., which took a large cut of his earnings from advertising. In 2013, after revenue declined, Gastrow became increasingly stressed (having just signed a lease for an apartment) and made as many videos as he could. He switched from Machinima to Maker Studios, which promised to pay for the remainder of the lease, but never did and took more revenue than Machinima. Microsoft offered to pay two months of Gastrow's lease if he made four videos for Xbox Live's Summer of Arcade. Shortly after Gastrow uploaded the first video, in which he lambasted the game he was playing, Microsoft took down the video and canceled the deal. Gastrow has since worked with Curse LLC, which he has praised.[11] Gastrow reportedly earns up to US$1.7 million a year,[2] and he is "likely the highest-earning cultural commentator with connections to Madison".[7]

In December 2020, Gastrow released a video in which he stated he would stop making "good videos" and instead switch to a daily schedule. He subsequently released shorter videos on a daily basis that satirized his stated plans and featured clickbait titles. For example, a purported Minecraft video involved Gastrow playing as the default Steve avatar from Minecraft in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. According to his wife, the switch in content format was because he was "feeling frustrations about the current YouTube landscape and worried about the future", where his and other channels' past curated content has been "overshadowed by the latest trends and low effort stuff" from larger channels. Polygon noted that the videos performed better than Gastrow's previous content, anticipating that he was exemplifying the current problems with YouTube to bring the situation to light and would eventually return to his normal curated content.[12]

According to Gastrow, while sometimes he writes a script for a video and records voice-overs during post-production, other times he records himself while he plays. Gastrow's videos depicting League of Legends and Overwatch (2016) are examples of the latter; he stated in an interview that he "would try to cut out the funniest parts."[4] Gastrow's most viewed video, "Ultimate Skyrim", depicts him playing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011) using a variety of user-created modifications to the point of breaking the game.[2] Gastrow has cited people he knows, Adult Swim television series such as Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Space Ghost Coast to Coast, and the Tim & Eric shows as inspiration, and has said he enjoys watching videos by YouTubers ProJared and Gaming Historian.[4]

According to Tone Madison's Reid Kurkerewicz, Gastrow is an example of "new games criticism", a reviewing approach inspired by New Journalism. While most of Gastrow's videos are intended to be humorous, he makes serious ones as well.[7] Gastrow has been noted as a "fierce consumer advocate, deeply skeptical of corporate marketing machines."[2] For instance, he has criticized Nintendo for demonetizing his review of Super Mario Odyssey (2017) on copyright grounds,[13] and Microsoft for its business practices, including the cancellation of their Summer of Arcade deal.[11] In his 2017 video "Game Critics", Gastrow denounced websites such as IGN for their decentralized opinions, poor writing, "the fuzzy ethics of building relationships with the companies [they're] meant to cover," and the divide between critics and audiences.[2][14]

Gene Park of The Washington Post described Gastrow as one of the most influential critics on YouTube, noting he has inspired a number of imitators, and called him the Lester Bangs of video games. Like Bangs, Park wrote, Gastrow is an industry outsider, has created modern vernacular, and is an advocate for consumers.[2] Patrick Klepek, writing for Vice, said Gastrow is one of the few YouTubers he subscribes to, calling him "a video editing maestro whose ability to make you laugh and understand why a game's interesting at the same time is unmatched. Even my wife, who barely plays games, loves Dunkey."[14] While Gastrow has received praise, he has received criticism for his crude humor, with Kurkerewicz accusing him of "[using] racist, sexist and ableist language."[7] Gastrow's ban from League of Legends for verbal abuse divided his followers; some defended him while others expressed surprise he considered insulting other players acceptable.[6]

Gastrow was born on January 30, 1991.[15][2] He has lived in Milwaukee[5] and Madison, Wisconsin.[7] Gastrow's mother is a second grade teacher.[4] In September 2019, Gastrow married fellow YouTuber Leah Bee,[16] with whom he was in a long-term relationship. It is a common misconception and a running gag on the channel that Gastrow is black, which Bee attributes to his voice and the fact that he rarely shows his face in videos.[4]

• List of YouTube personalities

• Videogamedunkey at IMDb