Recasting controversial self-help guru Jordan Peterson as some manner of Tiberium-obsessed tyrant.
After departing to Russia for experimental detox treatments in 2020, Jordan Peterson returned a changed man—he craves Tiberium now? And instead of “woke moralists” he really has it in for… The Brotherhood of Nod?
Riffing on a video from YouTuber Benzenas earlier this year, video maker Definitely Not Kane is pursuing a simple premise to its hilt: professional internet weirdos like Peterson, $1.5 billion-in-the-hole talking head Alex Jones, and accused rapist and sex trafficker Andrew Tate all kinda talk like FMV cutscene supervillains, and you can just drop them into Command & Conquer communication screens without missing a beat.
“I believed there could be more to this and more quotes from Peterson and other famous people could fit into the cheesy but likeable, funny style of C&C’s world,” Definitely Not Kane tells me. “Also, I wanted to go beyond simply using the same line over and over again and try to build a narrative for every video.”
I’m particularly fond of Definitely Not Kane’s relative chart-topper, “Jordan Peterson Fires the Ion Cannon On Your Base,” where the public intellectual(?) pops onscreen and remarks, “It is impossible to talk with you. You have departed from the sphere of reason and reasonable discourse.” After a couple more choice digs that sound straight out of the repertoire of Civ’s nuclear-armed Gandhi and his ilk, Peterson, here representing an AI-controlled enemy player, blasts you with that Ion Cannon mentioned in the title.
They’re short videos too, but not literal YouTube Shorts, something I appreciate in this era of 10-hour audio essays at one end and TikTok knockoffs on the other, making me feel like I’m an old man printing out webpages to read as I watch videos in portrait mode on my desktop. “Tiberium Wars But EVERYTHING Is Voiced By Alex Jones” hits you with its main conceit, then does not overstay its welcome. Short and sweet.
Definitely Not Kane is helped in his process by having a superfan’s encyclopedic knowledge of Command & Conquer’s story and gameplay scenarios. “I gathered specific scenarios that regularly happen in C&C games like using superweapons, cutscenes before a mission, briefings right at the start of a new mission, etc,” he said. It also doesn’t hurt that Peterson gave an on-stage presentation dissecting the Biblical story of Cain and Abel that gave Definitely Not Kane some convenient audio to work with. Who can say whether the Canadian was railing against Cain or Kane?
Definitely Not Kane is open to making new videos as our real-life politicians and public figures continue talking like supervillains, and indicated that he thinks Joe Rogan and Biden could make good fodder, as we’ve seen some accounts using AI lately to produce parodies (and scams) of these figures. You can check out Definitely Not Kane’s full back catalogue of spoofs and goofs over on his YouTube channel.
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