The internet is an expansive and exotic place. There are so many nooks and crannies where great, strange, and bizarre content hides.

Through no effort of my own, I found one of those havens of content. Just like a lot of things I became interested in, it was my brother who found a series that started in 2010 on Machinima called “Two Best Friends Play”. 15–25 minute videos of two guys, Matt and Pat, playing video games. That’s really the gist of it.

Why would I watch two random (and later I came to find out, CANADIAN) dudes play Kirby’s Epic Yarn? Why not just play it myself?

Well, to explain that, I have to introduce you to a niche internet community: The Let’s Play (LP) Community. “Let’s Play” encompasses the community that posts videos of their game-play on the internet. It could be just one section of the game, or an entire playthrough broken up into multiple videos. Some LPers do not narrate their videos, basically allowing people the purest experience to what it would be like to actually be playing the game, without actually controlling it.

And others… Others are so awkward and feel like they need to explain everything and awkwardly ramble the entire time. But not the Zaibatsu; a nickname given to the Two Best Friends community when their friend Woolie joined the cast. With Woolie, and for a short time their friend Liam, they became Super Best Friends Play. Instead of making short videos, they started to dedicate themselves to their own channel, playing and uploading full playthroughs of games.

I know how weird this must sound, but I grew up watching these guys play video games on Youtube. Games that I would have NEVER known about, played myself, or would ever want to spend the money to own. Their LP’s feel like what it must have been like back in the day when you had the one friend who had a Nintendo 64 or a Playstation. Everyone would go over to their house to play games together. You beat games together, and you beat each other in games.

Best Friends Play holds a special place in my heart. There are so many inside jokes, euphemisms, and an entire sense of humor that I have today because of the Zaibatsu. Their community of fans are one of a kind, too. It feels like one big group of friends. And we always go over to Matt and Pat’s house to watch them play. Which means there are plenty of times where we yell at them that they missed something, or to use a certain item, or oh my god please use cure. Their knowledge of certain video games also made a lot of LP’s entertaining but also enlightening. Pat’s expertise in the Silent Hill franchise makes their Silent Hill 2 and 3 LPs so goddamn interesting. Trivia… tips… secrets… A lot of cool tidbits. All this while making the game not nearly as scary or creepy with their banter. Or their Detroit: Become Human LP. A game made by the infamous David Cage (I had no idea who this guy was before the Zaibatsu introduced me to ze bad games). Which they actually sort of liked. All of their LP’s of games made by David Cage are must watch for a new member of the Zaibatsu.

Then, yesterday, we were told we can’t go over to Matt or Pat’s house anymore. Woolie announced that the channel would be closing (right in the middle of a long awaited Kingdom Hearts LP) ((sorry I have been looking forward to that)). He didn’t go into specifics, other than that Matt and Pat’s friendship had eroded over time and they do not want to be friends anymore.

This hurts more than your favorite TV show getting cancelled or it coming to the series finale. The Zaibatsu are not characters on a show. They are real people. To use Matt’s words, they are our “three weird dads”. And they just got divorced. It is fitting to call them our dads because I keep thinking about what I did wrong to cause two of my weird dads to hate each other and want to get divorced. This is a real friendship that has now ended, right in front of the entire internet. This really hurts.

I owe them a lot. These three friends introduced me to a world of video games, anime, and movies that I would have never found on my own. They introduced me to a community of people that is a joy to be a part of. I will miss their podcast which, unlike a lot of other “gaming” podcasts, is not polished or well edited. They were 2–3 hours of the friends trying to stay on topic, but they really just talked about whatever was on their mind. The podcast felt like sitting at a bar with a couple of gamer nerd buddies.

All this rambling was in an effort to find closure and peace at this difficult time. Best Friends Play was a special group of people: Matt, Pat, Woolie, and Liam. Their content was special because they were just being themselves, and their community was special for the same reason.