State Farm Gamerhood brings together fan-favorite streamers, gamers and content creators to face off in an interactive gaming competition with substantial amounts donated to charity in the process. The competition touches a variety of spaces, featuring a variety of popular games, stepping into the anime / anime gaming world at times, and turning streamer collabs into streamer competitions. Premiering July 31 at 6:00 p.m. ET, the fifth season of Gamerhood brings together creators across streaming, entertainment and culture, including IShowSpeed, PlaqueBoyMax, Cinna, Marlon, JasonTheWeen, Emiru and Jake from State Farm.
At this year’s Dream Con, Gamerhood took over the convention’s “gatekeep” event immediately following opening ceremonies. Creators were tasked with answering trivia questions across pop culture, gaming, anime, and general State Farm history. This led to some hilariously wrong answers, a battle over pronunciation, and an argument over Avatar: the Last Airbender that almost led to cosplayers taking over the stage to share their opinion.
In addition to the events on stage at Dream Con, we at Anime Corner had the opportunity to interview Berleezy and Krystalogy, who took home the winner’s key during the Gamerhood event at Dream Con, as well as RDCWorld founding member Mark Phillips. We spoke to them about their experiences during past seasons of Gamerhood, how those experiences affected their general outlook on streaming, and what anime characters they’d tag in to assist them in the competition.
Gamerhood Takes the Stage
The on-stage Gamerhood competition was a quiz-style show where streamers competed in pairs to attempt to advance 4 places forward on a game board. Each position on the game board corresponded to a category, with the category of the position (e.g. pop culture, anime) further corresponding to a trivia category with a question that needed to be answered correctly in order to move forward on the board. Additionally, certain spaces, when reached, granted teams certain abilities called “hacks” which either gave unique game-breaking advantages or allowed a team to pass on a debuff of sorts to another team — like having to move back multiple spaces or complete some mini challenge before they were able to take their next turn. Though, this challenge was sometimes something like “compliment all of the other players,” so the debuff wasn’t always too bad.
One of the most notable early questions that caused a big stir amongst the players (and presented itself as a veritable wheat field when it came to farming clips) was the question “What is the name of Thor’s hammer?” RDCWorld’s Mark Phillips answered this question…sort of correctly. While he clearly had the right name in mind, he pronounced it incorrectly, causing host Khleo Thomas (and the audience) to reject the answer and not give Mark the point, leading a pretty funny argument on screen. Other questions, like the majority of the anime questions (which primarily focused on commonly seen series like Pokemon) were answered correctly. One question was as simple as knowing Professor Oak’s name. Personally, I would have liked to see some questions about some popular recent anime, if only to distinguish between creators who actually watch the anime they talk about and which ones just larp for the internet.
The anime category question which caused the biggest stir was, without a doubt, the question of at what age the avatar is told they are the Avatar in Avatar: the Last Airbender. This question is interesting; in terms of avatar tradition, the bender is meant to be told their identity upon turning 16. But the question didn’t ask when the avatar is meant to be told, it asked when the avatar is told. This created some reasonable confusion, as Aang was told he was the avatar early due to the war launched by the Fire Nation and Korra was already able to bend three elements as a toddler, obviating the need for any sort of formal revelation. When Thomas said the answer was 16, the crowd erupted, and multiple fans in the audience were given a mic to make their case on what the answer should be. One woman gave the analysis around Aang being told earlier than he was meant to (though most videos you see of this moment will center on an Aang cosplayer, who gave the same answer a few seconds later). The crowd, by and large, rejected the idea of 16 being the right answer, and truly I blame the wording of the question.
Interviewing Berleezy, Krystalogy, & Mark Phillips
Opening up the conversation, Phillips was asked about his unfortunate streak of Gamerhood losses, specifically whether the game was stacked against him. He answered honestly, explaining “I don’t think it’s rigged against me. I think it’s just fun for people to be like, ‘Mark, no, no, no,’ that’s all. […] They like to pick on me, bro. That’s a better way to put it.”
Both he and Krystology shared reflections on their careers as content creators overall and especially as content creators of color. They were asked what they would say to a person of color wanting to get into cosplay, content creation, or streaming. Krystology shared an answer centered on being resilient, saying “I would say you got to block out the noise. You know, there’s always going to be that inherent racism that you deal with online. But you just got to push through, because there’s space for us, there’s community for us, and you just got to ignore them.”
Phillips strongly agreed, following Krystology’s answer with “I would say block out the noise is a great answer, because that’s the first thing you’re going to get is a lot of noise. And even if that’s not from the internet, it might be from people you grow up with, like everything. I remember when I first started making videos, it wasn’t necessarily streaming, but making videos in general, I felt like nobody I knew really supported it at first. It was mostly people from different cities and states first. And then once they see everybody else start liking it, they started supporting it. You know what I’m saying? So don’t take that to heart. I think everybody’s just kind of scared of what they don’t know, right off rip. But now it’s a little bit more acceptable, you know? So just start and be consistent and be creative.”
On Gamerhood specifically, Krystology revealed that there is heavy amounts of trash talk during recording sessions, but that it’s also an opportunity for fresh and new collaborations, explaining that “these are sometimes streamers I haven’t collaborated with before, so Gamerhood is a really fun place and environment to get to know them and play new stuff. And yeah, there’s always competition, but it’s healthy competition.”
When asked about what anime characters they’d want on their team for Gamerhood, Phillips clearly had his trivia loss in mind, saying “I mean, if I had to pick one anime character to help me win, that one, I’d pick L. He ain’t going to, he know everything.” Krystology followed up with a pick perhaps more suited for the more tactile parts of the competition, saying “I would want someone who’s positive, so Naruto.” to which Phillips reacted “She about to take an L like me. To keep it a buck.”
Joining press later in the day to talk Gamerhood was Berleezy. I asked the cartoon-reactor, skit maker, and gaming streamer to reflect a bit on his participation in the competition, which he was happy to do for members of the press.
“I would say Gamerhood is almost like an arena where people can do what they already do, but for for a reason and also for a good cause. I think anytime that it’s Gamerhood season, the energy behind it is like, yeah, we’re friends. Yes, it’s a good cause. But there is something on the line. And having that even as something that we look forward to at Dream Con has been fun because it’s not often that we get to all — I mean, you got PlaqueBoyMax doing the music. You got JasonTheWeen. You got Cinna. You got all these different creators. And I mean, IShowSpeed, right? It just serves as a place for us to compete in a fun way and in a controlled way. You know, sometimes you see creators and it’s like, ‘Ok, I got to get to know you first before we start doing some content.’ But Gamerhood kind of allows you to be like, ‘Ok, all that matters is your skills, right?’ Whether it’s physical gaming, it’s like, how bad do you want it? And I do have two keys. So, you know what I’m saying? I’m up there now. I’m a veteran of the Gamerhood. And not only Ludwig can say that now, that’s pretty cool. That’s pretty cool.”
Berleezy also commented on one of the funnier moments of the on stage Gamerhood competition, where Phillips had helped Berleezy and Krystology with some trivia answers they didn’t know, but separately (jokingly, to be clear) accused Berleezy of betraying him for not partnering with him or otherwise helping him out more during the competition. Berleezy explained, “So the thing about Mark Phillips is he will make a plan and then he’ll say that you fumbled the plan, even if you never agreed to it. So he could come to you and be like, ‘Hey, bro, we’re going to be on a team and I’m gonna get that key.’ And I’ll be like, ‘What?’ And then he assumes that means, yes, we’re going to be on a team. And that’s what happened on stage. He acted like I betrayed him. From the jump, I told Krysta it was going to be me and her. He never even brought this to me, actually. Mark’s a liar! (laughs) He doesn’t deserve — no, Mark is cool. That’s my boy. We’ve been — it’s like a 10 year long friendship now. My first creator friend, too. So it’s easy for him to pull cards like that.”
When asked the same question about what anime character he’d like on his Gamerhood team, Berleezy thought for a moment, but gave a pretty resolute answer. “One anime character that I would have to be a part of my team? I need a dog. I’m gonna go. Yusuke Urameshi, Yu Yu Hakusho. He just, he could not lose, bro. He just does not take losses.”
Looking Forward to Gamerhood
Dream Con brought some great opportunities to a see a live rendition of the kinds of competitions that the pre-recorded, but in-person Gamerhood events tend to entail. It was a great way to kick off Dream Con following opening ceremonies and the packed room was a testament to the interest from attendees. As mentioned previously, the fifth season of Gamerhood premieres July 31 at 6:00 p.m. ET. You can stream it on the official State Farm Twitch channel, State Farm YouTube channel and across many of the players’ own channels.
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