The 2022 Game Awards was proving to be the longest show yet with a runtime of over 4 hours due to an excess of celebrity appearances and Crash Bandicoot skits. I and a large amount of my friend group were getting very bored and were about to fall asleep when suddenly a bizarre chain of events happened as the Game of the Year was announced.
Right as Elden Ring was announced as the Game of the Year and Miyazaki’s team walked up on stage, the observant among the crowd noticed that a young man dressed in casual clothes was walking right behind them. The next few minutes of the show proceeded as normal with the typical flair you’d expect from an acceptance speech. However just as Miyazaki’s team was about to leave the stage this young man stepped forward and let out a statement that set the internet aflame;
“I want to dedicate this award to my reformed Orthodox Rabbi, Bill Clinton”
Immediately after he let out this declaration the show’s cameras cut to Geoff Keighley as he took great haste to shut down the stream. Whether this was because of the Bill Clinton kid or if he couldn’t keep up the “One free Steam Deck a minute” contest has yet to be seen.
Less than a minute after the Game Awards stream ended the internet was already full of memes about Bill Clinton and this kid. Within five minutes Bill Clinton was trending on Twitter. As a form of damage control Geoff Keighley has tweeted out that the young man who interrupted the show has been arrested.
Upon learning of this kid’s arrest, Twitter’s user base began to cry out “Free him!” And got a new hashtag of #FreeBillClintonKid trending within another few minute long time span. The story then took another turn as a Twitter user named “general aiden” claimed that he recognized the kid and that he had been on Alex Jones’ Info War before.
Upon learning this information the internet then took a moment to reexamine the kid’s statement and realized it was perhaps an anti-semetic dog whistle as the punchline of his joke was that Bill Clinton was Jewish.
All in all this has been an extremely strange half an hour, but I think this small moment in time really encapsulates the internet and specifically the Twitter news cycle. Within seconds of this event happening everyone loved the Bill Clinton kid and were making jokes about what he said. Then after a few moments of actually examining what he said they wisely realized that they hated him. It’s always interesting to watch these situations go down.
Regardless of if the claims that this kid is an anti-semite are true or not I personally think one thing is clear. Geoff Keighley really lucked out here, if the Game Awards didn’t end on a big thing like this everyone could laugh at then the only conversation that would be going on right now would be the typical arguments over how this 4 hour awards show is frankly really boring and all of the awards get immediately overshadowed by ads. At least now people have a different thing to talk about in regards to the Game Awards as they ended the show on a funny note.
Some Random Kid just Hijacked the Game Awards
[…] Not much is known about this fella at the ceremony except for the information that a lot of people are taking at face value. But the most important part of all of this is that this kid has been the talking point regarding the entire ceremony this year; Elden Ring, a master class in story and exploration, will be known for its Game of the Year award for not only its quality but the fact their acceptance speech was usurped by a 15-year-old online troll and possible anti-semite. So, in a way, Geoff Keighley really did get his wish of being seen at the same level as the Oscars; both have captivating controversies more memorable than the winners and are both seen as the butt of their respective industries. Congrats on your legacy, Mr. Keighley. […]