Why do you have to be such a jerk, Jimmy Kimmel?

I get it. It's not cool to have someone express hope that you get cancer, or tell you flat-out to just" "die in a fire." Internet commenters are notoriously grumpy and the best/worst of them excel at pushing universal buttons. But when you raise that kind of ire and then you fire back by doubling down on the insults, you're just adding to the problem.

Two wrongs don't make a right, after all.

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Let's rewind. Earlier this week, the late night host leveled his insult comedy at fans of "Let's Play" videos on YouTube. He just couldn't fathom how someone could be entertained by watching someone else play video games, and rather than attempting to understand it he just leaned on the same tired, old insults:

Gaming is for losers, parents of gamers have failed, games and gamers are ruining society. You've probably heard it all before. Nothing overly offensive, just exhaustingly dumb.

The gamer trolls of the Internet responded in typical fashion, leveling the usual load of unacceptable vitriol at Kimmel. And to his credit, Kimmel responded with minimal rancor. He let the outrageousness of strangers telling him to die, or get cancer, to speak for itself. At least, that was his initial response.

A day or two later, Kimmel raised the issue yet again, sitting down with established LPers Markiplier and MissessMae. Instead of using the opportunity to educate both himself and his viewers about the other side, Kimmel showed up wielding an ancient NES Power Glove and Zapper light gun, then proceeded to dredge up the rotten comments he'd run through days earlier.

That wasn't even the end of it. While watching on stream, of MissesMae's mother screaming her way through a Minecraft roller coaster in Oculus Rift, Kimmel asks: "Is your mother having an orgasm?"

Wow.

Then Kimmel asks if his two guests know each other, and tries to match them up like he's hosting a weird, off-the-cuff episode of Blind Date. Except neither LPer is a willing participant. The whole exchange is exceedingly awkward.

Markiplier and MissessMae both demonstrate far more professional restraint than Kimmel himself, taking everything in with grace. But you can see it in their faces and their body language: WTF. Kimmel turned what could have been an intelligent follow-up into an opportunity to cast aspersions.

See it right here:

So I ask again: why be such a jerk, Jimmy Kimmel? Your inoffensive-yet-uninspired original video was greeted with undeserved anger, and your initial response shamed those that deserved it: anonymous trolls.

But then you show up for your sitdown with Markiplier and MissessMae, ostensibly to learn what all the LP fuss is about, and proceed to disrespect both them and their audiences. I'd like to believe you realize that it's not the sum total of gamers everywhere who went on the attack. So why publicly shame these two people who probably just wanted to help educate you?

Bad form. The respect you earned from your initial response was immediately squandered, and then some, by your subsequent aimless attack. Your target was nothing more than a broad, largely untrue generalization, founded primarily on your own ignorance and anger. That makes you no better than the gang of morons that raised your ire to begin with.