So recently, Matt Pat posted a video on Fnaf on the hate he and other theorists have received on their Fnaf theories. And I won't speak on other theorists, it raises a point I've wanted to say my piece on for years. And while he does raise several valid points, he misses the main reason I, and many other people I talk to, on why I don't really buy into his thought processes anymore. So I wanted to address this here.

Now don't get me wrong. I know this will never reach Matt Pat or anyone on the Game Theory channel. I'm just using this as a way to vent a frustration I've had with him for a long time now and this just felt like the perfect time to do it.

Will I get a lot of hate for this? Absolutely. Do I expect my other stories to take a hit in their performance for posting this? Of course. But I think this is something that needs to be said and now just feels right as I've been wanting to say for a long time, and finally have the opportunity to say it.

Anyway, this little essay isn't here to address the theorizing side of the video or his research on subjects. It's going to address why I think he's destroying his credibility in his Fnaf videos and why his way of thinking damages not only his own channel by garnering so much hate, but why it's affecting other theorists who are trying to mimic his style or use him as inspiration.

Now, I'm not going to call any other channels out as I don't want to drag them into any unnecessary drama, I'm just throwing my opinion out into the internet because I want to, and because Matt Pat in his own video openly invites anyone to take a shot or two at his opinions. So I'm doing just that, because if you need to do any of the tricks that I'm going to talk about like Matt Pat does regularly, well you'd better be ready for some serious backlash.

Anyway, if you haven't watched the original video, first, why are you here? And second, go watch it. I will be breaking it down piece by piece and I'm assuming you already know each part and will not be explaining it. So open another tab and watch the video as regardless of what you think of me and my opinions, he does highlight some very important issues pledging several committees and addresses them in a way I never could. Such as the toxicity in popular franchises and how whenever people get into something, they tend to lose touch with reality, openly harassing and encouraging harassment in order to protect their interpretation of that series. It's happened in RWBY, Pokémon, Destiny, and Fnaf. And probably many more. So either way, go watch it and then if you want my take on it, come back and read this, I'll wait. Here's the link.

watch?v=ILFfj2zYwHY&t=1274s

Okay, now let's begin.

So, let me start off by saying I don't hate Matt Pat, any of his channels or his style of adding jokes to pat out the length of his video. I get it, at the end of the day, he's just trying to make money off an ever changing algorithm that demands watch time, or view, or likes to literally keep food on the table. And not just for him and his family, but for his employees too. America is becoming more and more capitalist, and everyone needs to get by. So before anyone says something about wanting the orders, shorter videos, ask yourself. Is 10 minutes a week really worth starving out a team who effectively has to write a college paper every week?

Oh! And to anyone who says he doesn't do any research on the subject, I ask you, how many hours a day do you spend thinking about possessed, killer animatronics and about a dozen different shades of purple people? Because if it's any more than an hour, you might need to connect Matt Pat's therapist for your own diagnosis.

And no, saying something is dumb because you don't like it does not count as counter evidence and is one of the many reasons I usually have to side with Matt Pat on the many points he brought up in the video. You cannot harass someone over their opinion on a Fictional Game! I've said my piece on this before with RWBY, I'm not going into this again here. If you want to tell Matt Pat why he's wrong on Sans is Ness, you don't tell him he's stupid or an idiot, you explain (respectfully!) that the evidence he offered to prove his point COULD be interpreted to mean his conclusion, but could also mean any number of other things and as such isn't a strong enough argument to say that the one thing he's offering is what it all means.

Alright, now with all that out of the way, let me break apart why Matt Pat and Game theory (in my opinion.) have become an unreliable narrator and why there's some justification to the hate his theories get.

Let's begin by breaking this down into 3 main arguments.

Argument 1: the way he explains his arguments.

Now, if you're reading this, I'm sure you've watched your share of Game Theory, but let me ask you something. Have you taken note of Matt Pat's choice of words in his scripts? For example, he likes to use phrases like, "coincidence? I think not!" Or, "is this the cleanest explanation to what's happening? No. But-." And then never address these points again. There's a reason why he does it, it's not just a speech pattern or a way to sound more confident. It's a type of manipulation.

Basically what he's doing in the first example is removing any possibility of being wrong by not only drawing attention to a minuscule detail, but also punting it into the spotlight to remove any doubts from his audience's head. Effectively making them hyper focused on this one single thing to miss a different point that might discredit or even outright contradict his argument. And by using this, the viewer subconsciously accepts this to be fact rather than question if this tiny detail was intended, or just an easy fix for a game dev.

Now, don't get me wrong, what he doing isn't necessarily wrong in the context of him talking about a harmless video game. It's not like he's attack LGTQ+ members under the guise of protecting children. But when he does this, then people get angry with him, he can't hide behind the "it's just a theory!" card because he literally is telling people "this detail is important and is the crux of my whole argument so I'm going to force your attention to it by any means necessary!" That's not how this works. You want to use tricks and manipulation to get to a point, then you better be ready when others hit back. I get that getting hateful comments doesn't feel good, but you can't use psychological wordplay and manipulative tricks to emphasize a tiny point and think the people who didn't fall for it aren't going to be convinced by the rest of the evidence when you fail to make them believe in the whole crux of the argument.

Next, let's address the second little word trick he uses to make his points.

The phrase, "is this the best explanation? No, but-!" Is another form of manipulation where the user basically disarms you by pointing out the issue first, then uses it ineffectually before tossing it out.

A classic (and hilarious!) example of this is in The Emperor's New Groove, where the villains use a plot hole to beat the heroes to the secret lab then immediately address how it makes absolutely no sense before dismissing it with a "oh well, whatever." without interrupting the narrative flow. A flawless example on how this trick is used.

Now, the aforementioned word used above isn't the only type of tricks someone could use to make a point. Another example is telling someone something instead of asking, or stating something as fact instead of speculation, something things Game Theory uses regularly to deadly effect, but the two I chose to call out are the ones I personally believe are used the most, and the most egregious.

Now, before continuing, I want to take some time to address why Matt Pat believes he gets so much hate. And while thanks to the Myers's Briggs test he got a lot of good insight, and while I don't pretend to know his base better than he does, I wanted to throw this out as an S myself and that me not having an abstract interpretation of stories is why I take issue with his work, and while I wouldn't speak on behalf of others, I just wanted to touch on that his opinion isn't the only reason floating out there.

As for why that is, let's move on to reason 2.

Argument 2: Building theories, on top of theories.

So, if you couldn't guess by the segment title, the big reason why I struggled to treat Matt Pat's theories as credible is because at this point, so damn many are built on top of the assumption that his other theories are also right, which I don't need to tell you isn't exactly a good way to build your empire.

Basically, what it means is Matt Pat has built his entire understanding of a franchise and his following theories on a fallacy that all his other theories are correct. And even if you believe this to be the case, the fact of the matter is that I find this an incredibly shaky way to conduct untestable research to draw your conclusions.

To basically explain what he's doing is he is building a single tower of blocks, with each new theory a block placed on top of the last in the exact same position, and just like blocks stacked this way, the higher you go, the more unstable it becomes. This essentially means that all someone has to do to pull apart his theories is take out one of the blocks at the bottom and the rest comes crumbling down no matter how good it may be.

A good example of this is during (I want to say) VR days. (The one virtual reality game.) where he said that Scott was in the game's universe only for the man to say it was just a developer who looked like him.

If you'll remember, as soon as this came out, Matt's theory was torn apart besides the point of the game developer's name being completely irrelevant. Something even he admits to during a different theory.

This is one of the reasons people have such a hard time taking his opinions seriously, because all it takes is for one block to be pulled away and all his work comes crashing down with him then having to build everything from the ground up all over again. And the sad thing is, I don't really consider this his fault.

Scott is a lot of things, but a good planner for his game isn't one of them. I'm convinced Dream Theory is what he originally intended for the end of Fnaf, but changed it out of fear of backlash. And coming from someone who doesn't interact with this community because of how toxic they can be, I kinda understand why.

I'm not famous and I don't want to be. I get anxious just having to talk one on one with someone, being thrown into the limelight sounds like my worst nightmare. Combine this with doxing being a prevalent threat in our society and that he has a family to look out for, I don't blame Scott at all for not being afraid of backlash.

Now, with that said, I do understand that a creator has to take responsibility for their work. Which includes not letting the fanbase make bad decisions on where the story should go. But at the end of the day, we can only make the best decisions we can with the information we have. And if we don't make mistakes, we don't learn or grow.

Anyway, got a little off topic there, but in my defense, not a whole left to say on this matter. I guess to paraphrase the Bible, "it's a foolish man who builds his house on sand." Or something like that. There are like 5 different bibles and I have no idea which is which. Now, let's move onto the next reason!

Argument 3: how he markets his theories as fact.

So, I don't know if you remember this, but in the episode Luigi's secret identity, (Not the one with his eggplant.) the opening sequence is him going over his other theories on the Mario franchise. In this he says the following, "let's see, Mario's a sociopath, Peach is a bipolar dictator commanding an army of brainwashed fungus, and Bowser is a struggling single parent!" You catch that? He's not saying that these are his theories, he's saying that these are facts. Something that gets him repeatedly into hot water over.

Over the course of Game Theory's long life, Matt's been forced to make a couple videos reminding people that his theories are just theories, but whenever he's not under this heat, he announces them like he's solved a mystery or found some hidden clue that nobody had been able to find before.

Now this wouldn't be a problem if it was contained to an internet persona like most YouTuber stick to, but this kind of thing extends beyond just that. I don't remember the name of the video and I couldn't find it again because of the time commitment, but I distinctly remember one time where Matt Pat sat down to talk about something serious and to reminds everyone that his theories were just theories and not to get so worked over them using his Mario theory as an example.

Which is all well and good until at the end where he immediately doubles back and says something along the lines of, "now with that all being said, I am pretty sure we got that one right." Effectively undermining his earlier to not get upset over his theories. And if he truly wanted his theories to be treated as theories, he would have picked one he wasn't so sure of, or just kept that last part to himself instead of taking back what he had just said and doubling down on the, "I right!" argument he says he doesn't make.

Now, this piece is pretty flimsy as I can't remember the episode or have the time to find it, but I remember watching another, much smaller YouTuber who argued with Matt on twitter over his theories where Matt defended his position. And while I get twitter is a nightmare (to put things mildly.) this kinda emphasizes the point that Matt doesn't want to let his theories be just theories.

Now, let me go ahead and say there's nothing wrong with defending an opinion you believe to be fact, but in the case of Matt Pat, you can't defend your theory on one hand, then get all defensive when people get mad at your theory. You cannot have your cake and eat it too! That's not how this works!

If Matt Pat wants his theories to be treated as just theories, he needs to stop talking about them and treating them like fact. If he wants to treat them as if they are, he cannot then try to play it off as their just fun little theories. He needs to pick a side and stick to it, that's all. Because with all this jumping around, it can come off as him wanting to have it both ways and that's just not possible. Something can't be "just a theory!" and still be placed as if it were factual evidence.

And this kinda doubles back to point 2, where he builds theories upon theories making them more easily torn down. If you don't convince someone of your point on the first theory, then everything else you stack on top of it isn't going to convince them because they didn't believe the leaps in logic you made in the first place, effectively undermining even the strongest of arguments. And if you add the fact he also uses the "it's just a theory" argument whenever people get upset at him, it's not hard to see why some people think he's lost the plot, or just think you can't take criticism, even if they're not adding anything to the conversation themselves.

So to summarize, while I know Matt Pat will never read this, here's what I want to say.

1: If you want to win people over on your theories or even give them a little entertainment by watching your videos, stop with the manipulative wordplay. I know there's no malicious intent, but remember, you are the face of the theorizing community. You need to set an example for the people who are inevitably going to come in and start copying you. And believe me, those people might not have as pure intentions as you.

2: don't build theories on top of theories unless they are rock solid. Remember, we're talking about video games here, meaning you can't exactly run good sample sizes in completely controlled environments to prove your point. If you're going to use one theory to springboard into another, make sure there aren't any gaping holes in it first so it'll have more legs to stand on. And if there are holes you can't plug, well, maybe you were wrong to begin with.

Or if you can't, (because again, this is his job.) do something like what you did during your four part Fnaf series. (The ultimate timeline playlist.) In that series, at the end of the video, you go ahead and explain all the holes in your theory and why you had to take certain leaps. It'll also help drive some engagement with others in the community as they won't need to dig through a couple hundred hours of crappy horror stories just to find out that the purple guy your talking about is actually #CE9FFF instead of #CCCCFF therefore implying that because the you have to take into account the circumference of Pluto divided by the ratio of the sun's orbit after adding the distance between Eris and Mars gets you this numeric code you need to type into a Greek cipher to understand that in fact the Michael Afton is spelled Micheal Afton therefore meaning there two different people. Or whatever other ridiculous feat Fnaf throws your way.

3: pick a side and stick to it.

Now this might be a pet peeve of mine, but I hate indecisive people. You make a decision and then, good or bad, you roll with it. I live in an area where the roads are treacherous and have been in a lot of near accidents because the guy in front of me was being wishy washy about whether they were going to go or let me pass. And more times than I can count, those assholes are just like, "okay, I have the right of way but I'm going to give it to the next guy because it's safer to wait and-. Oh my god! A car is approaching from behind! Let me speed up into the intersection they guy I just gave the right of way to is just entering so I can cut him off and avoid potentially getting rear ended!" Like seriously, pick a side and stick to it! It's not that hard!

And in case anyone is wondering, I have since refused to accept the right of way from anyone or surround it. And after making this decision, the number of near accidents has gone down dramatically.

And that it's. I've said my piece. Lucky for me this video came out on my off day and I was able to just sit back and put into words what I've been feeling for a few years now. Again, I know Matt Pat and the Game theory crew will never see this little rant, but it's helped out my mind at ease.

If you want to criticize it, go right ahead. These are just my personal opinions and I'm usually in the minority when it comes to that kinda thing. Either way, let me just go ahead and say that I have no ill will towards Matt Pat or any of his channels. These are just areas of his writing as to why I think he gets some justified criticism. I'm not telling him how to run his company or how to write. I know one of us is a massive, successful YouTuber and the other is a no name fanfiction writer, but from my personal creative journey, I know how easy it is to lose touch between what you want to write and what people enjoy.

And now, it's time for me to disappear once again. I hope you at least read to the end, and I'll see you all never, because I have better things to do than break about theories I don't agree with. Bye!