# The Angry Video Game Nerd The Angry Video Game Nerd, originally titled The Angry Nintendo Nerd, is a sweary retro-game review character created by filmmaker James Rolfe in May 2004 for a Castlevania II rant uploaded to his site Cinemassacre. The series grew into one of the earliest viral YouTube review shows, winning a Mashable Open Web Award in 2009 and helping define the 'angry gamer reviewer' format of mid-2000s YouTube. ## Origin Rolfe uploaded the first review, of Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, to Cinemassacre on May 7, 2004 under the handle 'The Angry Nintendo Nerd'[1]. The follow-up episode on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, posted eight days later, introduced his on-camera appearance and the Rolling Rock beer gag that became the series' visual shorthand[7]. New episodes stalled until April 2006, when Rolfe joined YouTube as JamesNintendoNerd and reposted the clips alongside new reviews of The Karate Kid and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III movie tie-in game[4]. The 'Nintendo' label was later swapped for 'Video Game' to sidestep trademark issues and widen the show's scope beyond NES titles. - **Platform:** Cinemassacre (2004 origin) / YouTube (viral spread) - **Creator:** James Rolfe - **Date:** 2004 ## Overview Each Angry Video Game Nerd episode follows a tight template: Rolfe, in a plain white button-up and taped glasses, cracks open a Rolling Rock, pulls out a maligned retro cartridge, and screams escalating profane metaphors about how badly the game plays[4]. Running bits include elaborate scatological insults, physical abuse of the offending console, and a backlog of titles too obscure for mainstream reviewers to touch. The show expanded off the NES to cover Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Atari 2600, Game Boy, Odyssey, Jaguar, Vectrex and other dead systems, logging 97 episodes by late 2011[4]. In December 2009, Mashable readers voted the series Best Online Video Web Series at the 3rd annual Open Web Awards, placing it alongside winners like shaytards and Escapist Magazine[2]. ## How to Use The AVGN format is a template many later YouTubers copied: pick a notoriously broken retro game, play it on real hardware, and narrate the frustration with increasingly baroque profanity, intercut with gameplay footage, prop gags, and absurd metaphors. Common conventions include an on-camera beer, visible period-correct controllers, and a tagline-style sign-off. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is The Angry Video Game Nerd? AVGN is a long-running retro game review character played by filmmaker James Rolfe, known for shouted profanity, Rolling Rock beer bits, and reviews of broken NES-era titles[4]. ### Where did The Angry Video Game Nerd come from? It started as 'The Angry Nintendo Nerd' on Rolfe's site Cinemassacre, with a Castlevania II: Simon's Quest review uploaded on May 7, 2004[1]. ### What does The Angry Video Game Nerd mean? The character is a parody critic who voices retro gamers' frustration with poorly designed cartridges, framed as a tortured nerd who 'drinks to soothe the pain of playing bad games'[4]. ### How do you use The Angry Video Game Nerd? Fans and later YouTubers reuse the format by filming screamed, profanity-heavy reviews of broken retro games on real hardware, a template that spread widely after MTV covered the show in 2006[5]. ### Is The Angry Video Game Nerd still popular? It is treated as a classic of early YouTube: Mashable's Open Web Awards named it Best Online Video Web Series in 2009[2], and by September 2011 the channel was averaging 136,412 views per day[4]. ## References 1. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4we8iFk-fY]() 2. [https://mashable.com/2009/12/16/open-web-awards-2009-50-winners/]() 3. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y306cWw98a4]() 4. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-angry-video-game-nerd]() 5. [https://web.archive.org/web/20170821130338/https://www.mtv.com/video-clips/9qqy6i/viral-videos-infect-the-mainstream]() 6. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZw6YHR2EBM]() 7. [https://cinemassacre.com/category/avgn/]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/the-angry-video-game-nerd Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library