If you’ve read any of my past articles you may have noticed me drop an occasional reference to my own YouTube channel, such as last time where I mentioned that my gaming persona did his own play through of Toby Fox’s UnderTale. But who is this gaming persona, and why do I tend to act like he’s a different person? Today we’re going to be taking a look at my gaming persona Razzle Joestar and see what makes him tick, where he came from, and what it’s like to play a character that plays arcade games.

“Niko Linni & Friends” is a channel I’ve had for a number of years now, and I originally began it back when I first moved down to Southern California and had a lot of time on my hands between job hunts. Anyone that’s started a channel may have heard the idea of doing content with your own unique twist, and so I gave it some thought, and recalled how there were plenty of review shows on YouTube that had some kind of character or persona behind it, such as James Rolfe’s Angry Video Game Nerd or Doug Walker’s Nostalgia Critic. So I thought, well why not do a similar concept with my own channel, just in other kinds of genres like gaming videos? And thus I came up with the concept for the channel which saw three of my characters – Niko Linni the rabbit, Razzle Joestar the fennec, and Tamagi Stardust the floppy rabbit – coming together to form their own YouTube channel, with each character having a distinct voice and topic they covered. And I do my best to stay in character not just in videos, but in descriptions and even in the comments section in not just my videos but others as well.

However, over the years Razzle evolved into the star of the channel as his videos became the ones I focused on, and became the ones that were getting the most hits and views. Razzle’s main series is Arcade Appreciation, a Let’s Play series where Razzle plays through an arcade game while giving commentary that ranges from spur-of-the-moment impressions to insights and strategies if he knows the game well enough. The main driving force behind it is Razzle and I’s love for arcade games – we both agree that arcades are a wonderful thing and the arcades a bygone wonderland, and that there’s quite nothing like this era in gaming; ergo Razzle’s mission is to record these games and share them with whoever may be interested in them, be they arcade fans of old reminiscing or younger fans who wouldn’t know what a House of the Dead was if you hit them with the game box. And you’d think that Razzle would automatically agree with me since he’s “My character”, but you’d be surprised – that and I feel saying things like “Razzle and I” helps lend to the channel’s concept of these being characters doing their own thing rather than puppets I make dance on strings

Razzle is actually a character of mine that I’ve had around for a while, and was first created to be in one of my many fiction projects where he usually goes on adventures with Niko, and later Tamagi when I created the floppy bunny. “Razzle” was a name that had popped in my head after envisioning the character, and I was really into Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure at the time so I gave him the last name Joestar. In fact for a while Razzle was actually my fursona, but I didn’t feel like he was a good fit, which eventually led to Niko being designed from scratch to fill that role. But he very much has a large part of who I am – and not just because he likes gaming. Razzle tends to be a character that loves to focus on the positives of life, and encourage that in others, as well as acting as a mediator in arguments or debates and is always trying to encourage the best in others. While that depth is difficult to express with game play videos we might get to see these other sides of Razzle, as I’ve recently repurposed an old Twitter account for him and also have him branching out into other formats such as vlogging. He also does comical gaming videos too, such as his popular “Game Over, Yeah! Arcade Edition” video.

Playing the Razzle character is actually really fun, and I never feel in a bad mood when putting on his persona for whatever I’ve got going on. I guess it largely has to do with Razzle’s upbeat happy personality and willing lack to focus on the negatives too much – he also doesn’t swear either, so I suppose that lends itself to things. He also starts his arcade videos with a very energetic “Welcome on down to Arcade Appreciation fellow Dazzlers and New Players alike!” – “Dazzlers” being his word for subscribers.

Doing an LP as a character might seem hard, but I find it rather easy – though again, I’ve had Razzle around for close to a decade, so how he acts and talks is something that I’ve pretty much got down. Even then I am finding new sides to the character, as he’s already made a couples smart aleck remarks on Twitter.

It’s very much different from acting in fursuit – though I would love to get a suit done of Razzle and set him loose on all of creation – as in a fursuit you’re relying mostly on body language and physical actions and while one can speak in suit it’s quite different from having to convey a personality through text, or through voice only. Where a suit has to make up for lack of facial expressions by being physically animated the challenge with Razzle is to be animated with my voice and convey that emotion and character through that way. It’s quite interesting – but as long as it’s entertaining and it gives others joy its all fine and fun to me.

That’s all there is to it. Razzle’s a character I have a lot of fun playing, and even if you aren’t a YouTube surfer you might end up running into him on Twitter or even Reddit at some point. And don’t ask him if he’s ever thought of eating Tamagi or Niko if you do meet him, he’ll just roll his eyes and let out one exasperated groan.

Do you have any favorite gaming YouTubers you follow? Have you thought about doing any YouTube videos or other social media activities in a persona or character? What do you think of the concept in general? Sound off in the comments below and let’s get a discussion going! As always thanks for reading, and I’ll see you all on the next game. Bye bye!

Like this: Like Loading...