YouTube Series Rivals Television

A Look at Video Game High School

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Photo by: Google Images

D.J. Hudson, Assistant Editor-in-Chief

Video Game High School is a regular-length action comedy series that was made for YouTube. Created by Freddie Wong and Matt Arnold of Rocket Jump, the third and final season is set to release weekly every Monday starting on October 13 on the Rocket Jump YouTube channel.

In the VGHS world, gaming takes the place of actual sports. So when unknown gamer Brian D (Josh Braylock) takes out the best gamer in the world, The Law (Brian Frienzi), on live TV, it’s a big deal. Brian D gets accepted into video game high school where he meets Jimmy Wong (Ted Wong), Ki Swan (Ellary Porterfield), and Jenny Matrix (Johanna Braddy). From then on the adventures start, but fun always comes at a price. In VGHS, if you lose too much, you get kicked out of school. So the stakes are high for Brian trying to defeat enemies such as the Law.

The series has become a hit, with over 7 million viewers and a great fan base. The whole VGHS series was funded by crowd-funding, which means that fans give money to the project, and in return they get special items depending on how much money they donate.

Crowd-funding seems to be the way to go, with projects and movies getting funding like Blue Mountain State: The Movie, Veronica Mars, even the Reading Rainbow. Projects like these have made a lot of money and gotten the fans really involved in what they do. This is why this method is so successful.

Due to the success of crowd-funding and popularity, VGHS has been able to land some impressive cameos such as Chris Hardwick, Conan O’Brien, and Tony Hawk.

Many fans fell in love with VGHS due to the on screen chemistry between main character Brian D and his love interest and female-lead Jenny Martix. However, fans rejoiced when Josh Braylock and Johanna Braddy actually decided to take their romance to another level by getting married in real life. They got married in November 2012 between season one and two.

When the curtains fall on VGHS, it will be missed. In a world where something original is hard to come by, this series did just that. It shows that the internet can be a place to watch TV, and opens the door for an original series to be showcased on the web. We might look back on this show and realize it was the start of the fall of TV as we know it.