As if I were the world’s biggest sucker opening a bag labeled “dead dove do not eat,” this morning I clicked on a link to the video ‘Baby Steps Developers React to 7 Minute Speedrun’ expecting commentary on the strategy and technique of an expert Baby Steps player. This was, of course, incredibly foolish.
“Gabe, do you think the reactions in developer react videos are ever real and authentic?” asks Baby Steps’ co-creator Bennett Foddy as soon as the video starts.
“They’re false,” says co-creator Gabe Cuzzillo.
“Well, they’re acting. It’s not false. There’s a kind of truth,” says Foddy.
“Acting is reacting,” says Cuzzillo.
“Well, there’s truth in acting because there’s truth in art,” says Foddy.
“Yeah, but you know that people say acting is reacting,” says Cuzzillo.
“Yeah, but—that’s true,” says Foddy.
“Like, re-acting, because you’re doing it again,” says Cuzzillo. They laugh.
This is nowhere near the end of the bit. I was in stitches within the first couple minutes, as the 16-minute “reaction video” to an incredible 7-minute-long speedrun begins with the two developers completely ignoring the playthrough in progress to instead riff on the metatextual form of the reaction video and what makes art beautiful.
“There’s truth in beauty,” Foddy declares.
“You’re talking about ecstatic truth? Herzogian, ecstatic truth,” says Cuzzillo, sagely.
“Things are beautiful because they’re true,” Foddy explains, not helpfully.
“Do you think, like, a beach is true?” asks Cuzzillo.
“Yeah, obviously,” Foddy retorts before he even finishes the sentence.
Every time one of the developers seems ready to drop the riff and then maybe talk about the video of Baby Steps playing out in the background, the other finds a way to take it a step further. There’s a minute-long tangent about Markiplier throwing his chair while playing Foddy’s Getting Over It.
“He’s maybe remembering a time when he was mad and channeling it,” says Foddy, arguing the YouTuber was just acting. “In the same way that I’m like ‘ooh, this guy’s going so fast’—it’s not real. We’ve watched this five times.”
Luckily for us, as soon as the speedrun is actually over the video only gets more beautiful. The pair rewind it to the start and deliver the kind of performance they just spend the first seven minutes taking the piss out of.
“Wow!! I mean, who knew? He would never make a mistake!” Cuzzillo exclaims one second before the player falls for the only time in the entire speedrun.
I won’t spoil the rest, but it’s the best thing you could watch on the internet today—particularly to see how the pair handle the wild exploit that the speedrunner finds to launch himself towards the end of the game.
The whole video reminds me of Conan O’Brien’s incredible appearance on Hot Ones, in which he glugs ruinous amounts of the hottest sauces on his wings before devouring them like a maniac. Where normal guests appropriately feared the pain, Conan’s only goal was to be funny, and he effectively broke the interview show’s format by ignoring his senses and drinking the sauce like he’d had a psychotic break.
“You’re allowed, in the comedy world, to fake things a little bit,” O’Brien joked later.
But still, there’s a kind of truth to that. You might even call it beautiful.
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