Pure Pwnage

Pure Pwnage
Pure Pwnage title screen
Created by	Geoff Lapaire, Jarett Cale
Country of origin	Canada
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	18 (list of episodes)
Production
Running time	ca. 10–50 minutes
Original release
Release	May 11, 2004 – present

Pure Pwnage (pronounced "pure ownage", IPA: ['p^hjʊɹ oʊnɪdʒ]) is an Internet-distributed mockumentary series from ROFLMAO Productions. The fictional series purports to chronicle the life and adventures of Jeremy (played by Jarett Cale), a Canadian self-proclaimed "pro gamer". Originating in 2004, eighteen episodes of the series have been released to date. The creators of the show recently estimated their current viewer base to be well over three million. The series is filmed primarily in Toronto but has also included scenes filmed in Calgary, Montreal, and the Netherlands.

Overview

The episodes are filmed mostly from the vantage point of Kyle (Geoff Lapaire), Jeremy's brother and roommate in the series. Lapaire, a former Ph.D. physics student, is currently working full time on Pure Pwnage, making income from the "noobstore", an online store selling merchandise such as T-shirts, stickers, a DVD version of the first twelve episodes and a CD soundtrack. In an interview with Good Game, Geoff Lapaire (Kyle) stated that there will be three seasons each consisting of twelve episodes and possibly a feature length film, although their plans are not set in stone.

This show has generated a strong cult following. The characters, as seen through eighteen episodes, are becoming known in real life. Although staged, the recognition seems genuine. As well, the official Internet forum has several users counting posts into the thousands discussing the show.

Most of the information about the Pure Pwnage series comes from the TeamSpeak chat public interviews, the Pure Pwnage website, the featurettes, and the regular episodes (see List of Pure Pwnage episodes).

The world of Pure Pwnage

Pure Pwnage takes the audience to a world where the power and importance of video games is revealed to be far greater than the gaming layman might expect. Kyle appears to film the show in gonzo, and it seems to mix the real world with a fictional one, blurring this with references outside Kyle's lens at times (shown in a letterboxed format). The show, and its extension in the internet community, extensively breaks the fourth wall. Hence fans typically address the show's characters as if they were real people. However, in episode 12, the final episode of season one, this trend was altered. In the end credits, the names of the cast and creators of Pure Pwnage were revealed. The face of Kyle, which had never been seen before in the series, was also revealed.

Gamer Army

File:Gamer Army logo.png

The official seal of the Gamer Army

Often referred to as "Teh Gamer Army" or "PPGA", this is a small part of the Pure Pwnage community where gamers can sign up (for US$19.99) to obtain "gamer army" status on the forum, thereby gaining access to deeper parts of the forum where gamers discuss events that could be played between members of the gamer army. They also receive material recognition under the form of a dog tag with their gamer army number, name, and two other lines of their choice (suggested is favourite game, guild/clan name, date of birth or real-life name).

The gamer army's soldiers have grown exponentially, and currently are led primarily by classified members of the Special Ops Division. Almost all knowledge of the Special Ops Division is classified, and unknown. There seems to be an Alternate Reality Game taking place, revolving around a kidnapped member of the Gamer Army. Parts of this mission have been recently de-classified.

Micro

File:Pure Pwnage micro.png

Dave repels attackers during a fight scene with über micro, a physical manifestation of gaming skill.

Most characters in Pure Pwnage exhibit a video game playing ability known simply as micro. The neologism micro stems from micromanagement strategies inherent in playing RTS games effectively. Micromanagement in RTS was originally known as the player's direct, real time control of any of his given units, causing them to behave exactly as intended, reacting on the small scale. This control method requires a high degree of dexterity, speed and skill in handling input devices such as a mouse and keyboard. Macromanagement, in contrast, is a management style concerned with planning and organizing economy, infrastructure, and strategic movements on a larger scale. One's "micro" ability is applicable to any manner of video gaming, suggesting that any individual function of any given game peripheral may be managed with a significant level of refinement and expertise.

The primary function of micro is to win while playing video games, and otherwise pwning n00bs. However, micro can be both practiced and made use of in real life, otherwise known as "RL". Examples of this include efficiently dialing telephone numbers and quickly checking one's bank balance at an ATM.

When a video game player reaches a certain high level of ability, that gamer transcends mere micro ability, and thus possesses über micro. To attain a high degree of über micro, the gamer must undergo significant physical and spiritual training. This training is conducted under the tutelage of a person with much greater micro.

Those who possess partial or complete über micro abilities are able to practice their micro without the aid of an actual peripheral device. To the layperson, it appears that a person demonstrating über micro is keying and mouse-clicking empty space. Micro can also be performed to a lesser extent using console or arcade controllers.

Those who have achieved a significantly high level of über micro may begin to manifest their video game playing abilities in more profound ways while in real life. In this way, characters in Pure Pwnage are not limited by the normal restrictions of reality.

Characters

During an interview, director Geoff Lapaire (although as "Kyle"; Lapaire maintained his "Kyle" identity among fans and media) insisted that all of the characters on the show are not acting. He suggests that the personalities on Pure Pwnage display their true-to-life abilities and eccentricities, and the characters take great pains to maintain that the Pure Pwnage world is simply an extension of the real world. Lapaire has finally admitted that they are in fact actors. The sixth fanchat with the crew was out-of-character, where the fact that the characters within Pure Pwnage are exaggerated versions of the actors was confirmed.

File:Pure Pwnage Jeremy.jpg

Jeremy, aka teh_pwnerer

Jeremy (aka teh_pwnerer) (played by Jarett Cale)

The protagonist of Pure Pwnage, twenty-five year old Jeremy is a stereotypical pro gamer. He lives in Toronto, Canada with his younger brother, Kyle. Jeremy spends the vast majority of his time playing video games and "pwning n00bs", using the online handle teh_pwnerer ("the owner-er"). He has been playing games since the age of two, when he used to "toaly pwn Pong" (totally own Pong).

Due to Jeremy's profound immersion in video game culture, his social skills have atrophied. Because Jeremy has lived in his basement for most of his life, he has had very little conversation with any other person and has therefore taught himself how to speak. This means his fictional accent is slurred and full of interjections such as "like" and "'n' stuff". However, he has also developed the ability to quickly master any video game, and can play competitively against extremely skilled opponents. Jeremy often makes narcissistic comments about himself. See Jeremy's MySpace.

Kyle (played by Geoff Lapaire)

Jeremy's younger brother and director of the show, Kyle is working full-time on Pure Pwnage, and ROFLMAO productions . He determines what events to film, but usually just follows Jeremy around. Occasionally, he tries to introduce Jeremy to a diversion from video gaming. According to Jeremy, Kyle is a "toal n00b" (total noob) in many ways.

The show is shot almost entirely from Kyle's point of view and he often talks to the other characters. His face is finally revealed in Episode 12.

In Episode 18, it reveals that Kyle is also a porn director.

File:Pure Pwnage Doug.png

Doug

Doug (aka fps_doug) (played by Joel Gardiner)

Jeremy's boisterous best friend and rival, Doug spends most of his time playing FPS games such as Counter-Strike: Source, Call of Duty 4, and defeating his opponents by skillfully "getting the headshot". According to Doug, his skills frequently get him banned from servers due to accusations of him hacking. Doug has serious anger management issues, and can appear to be a psychopath, obsessed with FPS games to the point that he goes out training and practicing headshots in real life with an imaginary gun and holding the belief that carrying a large kitchen knife whilst running makes him go faster. At the end of the first season, Doug betrays Jeremy for a conspiring, unidentified organization, but they reunite as friends during Jeremy's birthday party in episode 16 as they pwn together on Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

Doug's triumphant catchphrase, "BOOM! HEADSHOT!", has become a popular exclamation among FPS players and has appeared on many online message boards and chatrooms.

The character Brucie in Grand Theft Auto IV bears a striking resemblance to Doug both in terms of looks and personality and is reported to have been modelled on him.

File:Pure Pwnage Dave.png

Dave

Dave (aka Dawei, his Chinese name) (played by Dave Lee)

Jeremy's friend, notable for his cooking skills and his nonchalant sense of humour, Dave is first introduced as a crew member in a "behind the scenes" featurette at the end of Episode 3 ("FPS Doug"). He excels at fighting games such as Street Fighter II but is usually seen cooking or casually observing Jeremy's and Kyle's antics. He has started his own web cooking show, named Pro at Cooking.

Dave left the show after Episode 9 ("The Story of Dave"), saying he had things to do back in China (he later returned in Episode 13, entitled "Old Habits"). The webcomic later revealed that he was really moving to Vancouver for a new job. However, the creators of Pure Pwnage have been known to be misleading, and the webcomic could very well be a filler for those looking for an explanation on why Dave left the show. Hak5 episode 2x05 on Pure Pwnage implies that Dave simply didn't want to star in the show and requested to be written out in a positive way. Recently, Dave posted a story on the main page of the website about his life in China, with a picture attached. One of Jeremy's MySpace friends took pictures of the spot where Dave also took his picture, and is in fact located in Toronto's Chinatown, also in his new show "Pro at Cooking" at 1:33 he walks by the same place. Dave returned to the show in season 2, rescuing Jeremy from his "near pwned" experience vs Doug and the Big Bad. He refused to say what happened in China but he resumes playing games and cooking for Jeremy and Kyle.

File:Pure Pwnage masterer.png

Teh_Masterer

Teh_Masterer (voiced by Fr William Craig and played by Geoff Lapaire)

Always clad entirely in ninja clothing, Teh_Masterer is a mysterious master gamer who trains Jeremy and others in the ways of being a pro gamer. His micro ability is so profound that he can play multiple video games at once, and he claims that he once "beat Garry Kasparov and Deep Blue with nothing more than a row of pawns and a single bishop." He lives in seclusion in a small apartment , but he does have access to a training area (Kyle refers to this as the "room with no exits"). His true identity was unknown until Episode 12, where it is stated that Geoff Lapaire (who plays Kyle) plays Teh_Masterer. In Episode 11, when Jeremy visits Holland, Teh_Masterer appears to be under surveillance by some form of agency such as the CIA, who are tracking Teh_Masterer's network of gamers and apprentices. Whether this story arc will be picked up on or continued in the future is unknown. Teh_Masterer wears black ninja clothing to protect his exceptionally sensitive skin, a condition he developed from playing video games for fifteen straight years in a dim basement.

File:Pure Pwnage Anastasia.png

Anastasia

Anastasia (Nicknames: Stasia and Tagi) (played by Miranda Plant)

MMO-playing Anastasia is Jeremy's first, but former love interest on Pure Pwnage. She interacts with Jeremy off-camera in Episode 2 ("Girls"), but the audience never sees her meet him until Episode 6 ("Imapwnu of Azeroth"). She plays World of Warcraft under the pseudonym "Tagi". In episode 14, Jeremy decides to delete her character in World of Warcraft after it becomes apparent that Anastasia has become addicted to it. Anastasia and Jeremy have different views about video games, as she believes they should be social—not just about pwning noobs. In episode 12, it is revealed that she has turned into a vegetarian because of the health benefits. In episode 17, Jeremy sees Anastasia dancing with a guy, when she told him she was going for a "girl's night out." This ultimately leads to their break up. See also Anastasia's weblog.

Terence Brown (Nicknames: T-bag) (played by Troy Dixon)

In episode 15 T-bag is introduced to the cast. An expert at the Halo series, quoted as making "250 000 last year playing Halo". Jeremy and him get off to a bad start at the release of Halo 3 as they wait in line. However they meet again in the street and decided to start anew. Jeremy is invited to T-bags Halo 3 party, where he sees Doug. Doug and Jeremy then have a 1v1, and Jeremy eventually decides to leave because he didn't feel comfortable. It can be assumed that T-bag will now be a permanent part of the cast as he also appeared in episodes 16-18.

Kris

In episode 17, Dave is shown with a younger pupil that is a part of an exchange training program set-up by Teh_Masterer. Kris is the young gamer that is assigned to Jeremy. Jeremy explains that Kris is the best of the younger gamers. In episode 18 Jeremy talks about Kris with T-Bag once they are on his yacht, where Jeremy implies that Kris is a guy, But at the very end of the episode, we are shown a brief clip of Kris, who turns out to be a very attractive girl in goth wear.

Episodes

Main article: List of Pure Pwnage episodes

There are currently eighteen episodes available to the public. Episode 18 was released on August 23rd, 2008. Episode 17 was released on August 14, 2008. Episode 16 was released on March 8 2008. Episode 15 was released on November 10, 2007. Episode 14 was released on July 24, 2007. Episode 13 was premiered first on April 14, 2007 in Toronto, it also premiered in various other cities (including some in the USA) within the next few weeks. Finally, it was released to the general public on May 4, 2007. Episode 12 was the first episode to feature credits for the cast of the show. Episode 11 was released June 19, 2006 through an advance screening over the internet for US$2.99 and was released June 21, 2006 to the general public for free. They are all available for download in DivX-encoded AVI format and now also in Mac/iPod and PSP MP4 format from the Pure Pwnage website, HTTP mirrors, via BitTorrent, or via Xfire. Subtitles are available in 30 languages and counting. The entire season, as of Episode 12, can now be viewed directly on the site, using Macromedia Flash Player. On the release of Episode 12, the website was overwhelmed by the many users trying to watch the season finale.

Episode 1 of season 2 premiered on April 14, 2007, at 7 p.m. in the Bloor Cinema in Toronto, after some technical difficulty and was eventually shown in black and white. The next day, for the first time, it was screened in colour at Cinema du Parc in Montreal. It had also been screened on later dates throughout late April at several locations in the United States (such as New York, Houston, and San Diego.) and Canada. After much delay, Episode 13 (Season 2) was released as a streaming format on the Pure Pwnage website on May 5 at 9:35 a.m. (UTC).

Episode 2 of season 2 ("Lifestyles") premiered on July 14, 2007, at 4 p.m. local time, in the Fairfield Theatre in Croydon, United Kingdom. Due to local demand in the UK, the originally-planned single screening was extended to two screenings, the latter at 8 p.m. The premier featured a re-screening of episode 13 prior to the screening of the new episode, and was hosted by Cale, Lapaire and Plant.

Episode 3 of season 2 ("T-Bag") premiered online November 10, 2007 at 12 a.m. after live premiers throughout Canada and Australia.

Episode 4 of season 2 ("Duty Calls") premiered online March 8, 2008 after live premieres in Toronto and Vancouver.

Episodes 5 ("Just the Guys - Part 1") and 6 ("Just the Guys - Part 2") of season 2 premired in Toronto, and in many other areas of Canada a day later. Episode 17 (Season 2 Episode 5) was released online on August 14, 2008, and Episode 18 (Season 2 Episode 6) was released on August 23 2008.

Online community

Pure Pwnage has spawned a large online gaming community on the web; the Official Pure Pwnage Forums, which were created in early October 2004, boast more than one million posts to which over 20,000 members have contributed, and 1,338 users were simultaneously online on June 21, 2006. Pure Pwnage also runs a Community Internet Relay Chat and its own TeamSpeak server, in which many of its fan chats are held.

Pure Pwnage: The Comic

From February 28, 2006 to March 7, 2007, the Pure Pwnage website featured a regularly issued comic, of which a new page was released once every two to three weeks. Apparently set in the "real world" rather than in the magical world of Pure Pwnage, the comic breaks most of the fourth wall of the show. For example, Dave held in the show that he was leaving it due to unfinished business in China, the comic claims that the real reason was that he had found a new job in Vancouver.

However, both the show and comic clearly contain elements that are either symbolic representations of reality (for example, pwning an opponent with "micro balls" as a possible metaphor for pwning them in an actual video game) or are not based in reality whatsoever.

References to Pure Pwnage

• In Guild Wars: Factions, the player is capable of recruiting a ranger henchman called Yuun. During combat he occasionally taunts the enemy with "I can dance all day! I can dance all day!" and "Are you afraid of my...headshot?". These are references to the taunts used by Doug while playing Counter-Strike.
• In Guild Wars: Eye of the North, the player can earn a skill named Ebon Vanguard Sniper Support, which when it deals bonus damage, indicating a headshot, a message that may appear is "Snap, headshot!", also referencing the taunt used by Doug, changed to reflect the use of a bow and arrow.
• Über Micro Skillz is a title awarded by the online game Guild Wars to players who win sufficiently many of the mini-games available during seasonal festivals.

• An episode of the show Hak5 is a special episode about Pure Pwnage, featuring Geoff and Jarett talking out of character about the show, its conception, and also documenting the showing of Episode 12 in Toronto, Canada.
• In episode 8 of Good Game at 3:50 there is text labeling the master setting on an HDD as "Master-er". Good Game has also interviewed Pure Pwnage twice.
• In an episode of Weebl and Bob titled "Housework", there is an exploding hedgehog followed by an exclamation of "BOOM! Hedgehog!" There is also a dancing man who says "I can dance all day." These are possible references to Doug.
• There is a mod available for Garry's Mod which contains skins for Jeremy and FPS_Doug, as well as a vehicle - the noob school bus.
• Call of Duty 3 features a loading screen, which stresses the importance of headshots, cleverly titled "BOOM! Headshot!"
• In Valve's Meet the Sniper video, in the opening, the Sniper says "Boom, headshot" when he flicks the TFC VIP bobblehead.
• In the movie Disturbia, while Kale Brecht, played by Shia LaBeouf, is playing GRAW 2 he shouts "BOOM, BOOM HEADSHOT!" a reference to FPS_Doug's famous tagline.
• In the Arabic movie Tito (film) the character played by Karim Swelim says 'BOOB HEADSHOT' to the character played by Sharif Nassef during an action scene even though it is an arabic movie.

Music

Pure Pwnage has spawned some related songs, usually sung by characters in the show. These songs are available at the official website.

• "Get Outta Myspace" – Geoff Lapaire
• "I'm a Gamer" – Linda Gallant
• "I Feel Like Pwning N00bs" – Kyle and Jeremy
• "Teh N00b Song" – Jeremy
• "World of Warcraft is a Feeling" – Davin Lengyel and Sabina
• "Big big big da balls" – Jeremy and Doug
• "Straight Outta Blood Gulch" – T-Bag (A parody of "The Day the Niggaz Took Over" and "The Chronic (Intro)" by Dr. Dre)
• "Christmas Time in Dun Morogh" - Davin Lengyel (originally sung in a machinima music video made by Geoff Lapaire for Christmas of 2007).

More series music is available on the season 1 soundtrack, which was commercially released in March 2007.

Music from "Girls", "Pwn or Be Pwned" and "M8s" are taken from Interstellar's To Sleep, to dream, to wake.

Trivia

• On March 27, 2006, Jeremy sold a lock of his hair with a signed bandana on eBay as memorabilia from Episode 10. It sold for US$4,200 (approx. C$5,000 [Mar 2006]) through 10 days of 99 bids. They used the money to travel to the Netherlands to surprise visit long-time fans of the show. The Pure Pwnage crew obtained the address from clothing that was ordered from those fans.
• Episode 10 received 597,893 downloads in the first 24 hours from the official mirror alone.
• The director, Kyle, made reference to the two "article for deletion" discussions on the article about the show on Wikipedia while discussing legitimacy of such Internet television. (AFD Discussion: 1, 2).
• The episode 12 Pure Pwnage TeamSpeak chat was targeted by a cracking group from goons.net who managed to close down the TeamSpeak server on more than one occasion throughout the chat, although the disruption was completely ignored by the organizers and the chat went successfully. These relentless attacks forced the crew to displace their fanchats since episode 16 onto IRC, while streaming themselves on video on the purepwnage homepage.
• Forum user Skrie from the Pure Pwnage forums is the attacker from episode 11. This can be explained by the fact that Skrie was given a surprise visit from Cale and Lapaire during their Netherlands visit using the money procured from Jeremy's (Cale) hair auction on eBay.
• Jeremy uses the Razer Deathadder gaming mouse.
• The dog "Dick" that appears in episode 12 of Pure Pwnage has his own MySpace Profile: Kemo and in the end credits it says his name is Kemo.

Notes

External links

• Pure Pwnage website
• Pure Pwnage Artchive
• Pure Pwnage Wiki
• Pure Pwnage Documentary on Hak5
• Pure Pwnage Frappr Map
• Pure Pwnage Portal
• Pure Pwnage Forums
• Pure Pwnage Store(Noob Store)