User blog:Hippie Rat/Review/Analysis of Video Game Rap Battles's Freddy Fazbear vs Slenderman

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Not familiar with Video Game Rap Battles and/or his rendition of Freddy Fazbear vs Slenderman? Check out his channel here, and check out that battle here!

So today we got a review on Video Game Rap Battles. Love the series or hate it, Fazbear vs Slender was not his best. But do people agree? I don't know. Debate in the comments below: is VGRB's Freddy Fazbear vs Slenderman bad? No? Why? Compared to his other works?

Anyway

A good lot of us may remember when VGRB did Freddy Fazbear vs. Slenderman. Hell, one certain person normally on this wiki was in it. A lot of people enjoyed it. When I once brought up my dissatisfaction with it I was surprised to see a handful of people disagree with me. I fully respect their disagreement, I just wish to express my opinion over why I didn't enjoy it. If possible, those who do disagree, I'd like to see your feedback on this in the comments (I know I'm repeating myself but right now I'm super disorganized). And to those who agree, feel free to comment your own ideas.

The Bandwagon Jump
For one, the battle was a quick, shameless grab at the popularity of FNaF. And I can see why he does it. His Five Nights at Freddy's songs almost always gain some of his most views. It's why 20% of his own published work involves Five Nights at Freddy's. He does it a lot with some of the latest fads. It's why he's pieced together an Overwatch battle, a Splatoon "rap battle" (if you can really call it that..ech tbh...), a Pokémon GO Rap Song. Sure some of these do better than others, but it's a clear attempt to jump onto the latest fad. And no that's not the entirety of his work, he does a lot of battles and songs for his own interests, but his Fazbear vs Slender was very clearly phoned in for views. It didn't match the quality he had put in for his previous battles, such as the much higher quality GTA vs Saints Row and the fan-favorite Minecraft vs Terraria, and didn't come near matching the quality of the battles to come (skipping the Splatoon one...ech...) like CoD BO3 vs Halo 5 and Super Mario vs Sonic the Hedgehog. He just needed to get his few million views.

The Sleep-Inducing Visuals
But how phoned-in was it? Well watch the video again. Like really watch it. Look for changes in images and unique things that occur throughout. I am going to point out every aspect of the video. Like every single bit. Check it:


 * The entirety of movement to come from the characters was head and arm movement. The most movement was during Slender's second verse when his arm movements got a bit more dramatic and towards the end of Fazbear's verse when Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy moved closer to the camera.
 * There were a mere 3 effects in the entire battle made up of either Slender teleporting and/or creating static, along with 2 effects involving a translucent Slender appearing subtly on the screen and one filter change.
 * Freddy's not much better. The entirety of his verses are him standing still with pan shots (woah pan shots amazing stuff there really cinematic stuff) and kinda moving his left arm while stuffing his microphone in his mouth. An empty Freddy suit showed up for half a second, and managed to show more liveliness than the Freddy that was rapping, and during his second verse the camera super quick zoomed around the restaurant to show the other three animatronics in their normal places because references. And this shot was really quick. Like way too quick. Jarring quick. Ech. Then there were 3 times where Fazbear's eyes went to the white pupil thing which got old after the first time.
 * Never do a close-up of Slender Man. The point of the close-up is to portray details, especially facial features. Wanna guess why that's a problem with Slender Man? Because the only details you accomplish in showing by zooming in on Slender is the imperfections in the costume. Slender Man's head doesn't have a seam, and the more you can do to hide it, such as distance from the camera, the better.
 * There were three effects made up of the brightness dimming. Like, that was the whole effect.
 * And of course, every VGRB has at least one super obvious and distracting subtitle error (I blame the font he uses for making it so obvious). For example: Mario vs Sonic's "fattest man alive", PAS vs SSB's "bee more fun", Cloud vs Link's "fogiven once I cut your life stream". This battle's distracting subtitle error is "forrest".

Tl;dr: the video was fairly stale and didn't bring anything new when it was bringing anything. I know that seems like a lot, but it was a relatively boring video and I'm just ranting a lot.

Lyrical Analysis
This battle was made between FNaF 2 and FNaF 3. So of course, there would only be references to the first two games. Makes it a bit difficult to diss some of Fazbear's biggest downfalls, yes, such as FNaF World's initial release. But does that mean you can't come up with anything? Fuck no. It means you just work with what you got. Diss the entire aspect of robot animals coming to life at night and eating people's faces and having a convoluted timeline two games into the series. But what was Cam's lyrics comprised of? Pieced-together kinda-puns.

And Cam's vocabulary...I don't know why he was being so fluent in the English language here. Strange. He was just throwing in the most convoluted terms for things...like "divinity" instead of "deity" (one of his new favorite terms as Link vs Cloud has led me to believe) or "God". Or "exalted" instead of "overrated." Speaking of "exalted," that is totally not the right word to use. Like..it straight up is a compliment. "Exalted" means "held at a high regard". There's totally not any naturally given negative connotation to it. You have to give it the negative connotation yourself by stretching the meaning to be synonymous with "overrated."

Altogether the battle wasn't really clever anywhere and put way too many words in, causing a jumbled mess of Cam and Stoff trying to cram the words into the beat, causing some distractingly compacted speech that becomes hard to comprehend. In terms of how the lyrics were presented, it was just a continuous stack of references with a side of filler.

To demonstrate my claim, here is an "explained" version of the battle (and by explained, I mean I'm analyzing the actual stuff he is saying and illustrating what works and what doesn't by means of pointing out the bare bones concepts these lines are built on):

[Note: ''Most gripes are based off of statements being presented without being clever. What are ways for it to be clever? Have multiple meanings, connect ideas from both sides (which, yes, is done a few times, but in an awkward way that made it so that I honestly didn't understand some of the connections drawn until I was going in-depth in the lyrics today), make a fun rhyme scheme with internal rhymes and stuff, don't have such awkward diction and syntax, etc. Is Cam bad? No. Is this bad? Kinda sorta.'']

Slender Man:

These first four lines are an entire eighth of the battle, a quarter of Slender's raps...

Yet all it accomplishes is saying that Slender is a faceless godly horror that's been around for millennia...

While mentioning that Freddy is nothing but an overrated (with awkward diction) "Chuck E. Cheese rip-off"...

That has only been around for a few months (while also mentioning that Freddy's scary, way to concede without a refutation).

(Insert reference to lesser-known Slender lore character) Slender's watched over Freddy over those few months..."and now it's time to strike".

"Leave your location and go to mine and 'reference to title'." (A title that's been mathematically incorrect since the first game despite the title being the first impression of the game, but you know, that's not funny enough to diss someone about I guess..better to just name drop the title because ?humor?)

"Don't you know by now?" Customary name drop. "I am the reason for this extremely unimportant little detail in one of the games." (Seriously, I get its a reference to Slender making cameras go static but why even include it? The camera goes static when you die in both games, so why not make other implications involving the deaths in FNaF? Considering the small amount of visual effects throughout this battle, this should've been a moment of "show, don't tell")

Cliché joke void of all originality stuffed into the battle for the sake of being stuffed into the battle, "you're in my hands!" And finally something that actually has a double meaning...accidentally. At least it totally seems accidental. The clear meaning of course would be the FNaF fanbase, known for being one of the worst fanbases on the Internet, but the accidental meaning would be the desk fan, which became a meme when it was brought to FNaF players' attentions that it being on makes the power drain, causing many people to be infuriated at the fact that the fan can't be turned off. Who knows? Maybe he intended the double meaning. If he did, then we could've all known had he extended the clause to make it clearer instead of forcing in the "ready for Freddy" joke.

Freddy Fazbear:

"Leave your location and go to mine"...again..? Empty threat based off of game mechanic that's been referenced already by means of title reference.

Filler line that does nothing but give another empty threat and name drop a year associated with an event in FNaF lore.

A line that actually has cool flow and compares the sidekicks of each side. I like this line tbh.

Severely twists what was said in Slender's first verse in a convoluted way just to drop a vague "kinda reference" to the Toy animatronics.

More and more empty threats. Reference to FNaF 2 character because it's unique and peaked people's interests I guess. Setup to a decent joke frame in its most basic form.

Punchline of said joke. Clever scenario, awkward wording. Also, why threaten Slender when you can insult him by calling him too skinny to fit in the suit?

Reference to limiting game mechanic in first game. Reference to limiting game mechanic in second game.

Hoop-jumping anastrophical language all for the sake of "It's Me" joke. "Leave, but leave in the way that you're accustomed to. I don't care how many syllables that means of transportation is, just do it."

Slender Man:

Another reference to a game mechanic that's been referenced twice already. Verbatim quote from a game mechanic in Slender that kinda connects together but not in a very obvious way.

Slender says he owns Freddy...as if he's the reward Slender has received for being scary... It'd be strange for your trophy to be a gold statue of the enemy you beat. I don't know. I guess I'm looking too deep into these lyrics (which I've had to do to even get a grasp of any clever joke in any previous lyric but whatever).

A very good phrase that is original and follows Slender's character greatly...that unfortunately only exists because it's another lame pun for a character. Then a totally unconnected shoehorned phrase kinda claiming Freddy as one of Slender's proxies (I guess, this whole battle is just badly worded) while namedropping another FNaF 2 character (because he was scary...and everyone scary should be directly referenced...right?)

Probably the best line, actually illustrating the conflicting sides of these characters without having to shoehorn in weird puns. Kudos to this line.

"You'll be dead, but in such a way that I get to name-drop another character from my extended lore." "I don't need this game mechanic of yours to protect myself, nor do I need a face. I don't know why needing a face to go against you is...like...a concern...maybe it's the lack of eyes? I don't know." And btw I separated those quotes because they were two unrelated statements with no seqway that I assume you wouldn't understand if they were in the same quote there.

Filler anastrophe. Slender then insults the smell of the pizzeria itself...instead of the animatronics which are noted as smelling worse. I'm sure the joint don't smell too good but geez that's nothing compared to Freddy himself if people notice that he smells bad. Insult Freddy's odor, not his location's.

A REFERENCE TO A FUCKING FAN GAME. Seriously, there's enough to say about these guys for like seventy battles yet in a relatively short battle he resorts to a fan game. Just..bad writing choice bro.

A decent closing line. Not much to it. Simple, sweet, to-the-point. I just kinda wish it ended with a specifically FNaF 1 reference considering there only being the two games out at the time. It woulda just felt right. Like a better bookend to the verse.

Freddy Fazbear:

''You're telling me what's frightening? Now this is getting funny.'' Seriously this is like "right, I've heard of your play.."-level filler.

A REFERENCE TO A FUCKING FAN GAME. AGAIN. Yeah and not only is this another reference to a fan game which I already established is just not something to do but it also is an already-used reference ("How sad, they made a Teletubby scarier than you."). It's not even original suckage.

Near-anastrophical catchphrase insert...that catchphrase being less relevant than a different catchphrase but whatever. Another reference to the basic time and night mechanic. And what doesn't do anything more than really have another location reference.

Reference to the game-overs in FNaF, one being the actual game ending, the other being the cold ending in losing. No real gripe besides it being a pretty generic line.

Overused and non-clever "standing tall" joke. But we've only begun.

This line really does nothing but namedrop the other so-far unnamed FNaF characters (or, in the case of Foxy, heavily imply their existence). The entire process is convoluted, as Freddy is putting Slender in Pirate Cove and then Bonnie and Chica will join the fun..instead of Bonnie and Chica joining the fun while Slender's still at the stage near Freddy...?

Rules for safety joke, which I have nothing against, I just feel like rule number six, in which U Can't Touch Freddy, holds a good hip hop reference that would be better than what was done here.

Such an eh ending line. I guess the point is calling the proxies the entirety of Slender's fanbase? Or something? Because it's weird to be comparing the fanbase to the animatronics... I don't know, I guess it's "up for interpretation."

Point is, the battle is too vague when it shouldn't be, too sidetracked, and just doesn't get the right information about either side for a rap battle.

My Version
So using what I believe was done incorrectly and what I believe was done correctly, I rewrote the lyrics to make an alternative version of VGRB's battle.

[Note: This was written in the context of FNaF 1 & 2 being the only games released in the franchise so far and the entire series having been introduced less than half a year before writing, as that was all that Cam had to work with then.]

Slender Man:

For millennia, Slender has come, from Africa to America,

Five Nights was fun, but feared by no one in the past few months,

Best beware the terror, fright comes from what you don't see on me,

So look into my eyes..realize..your schtick's too Chuck E. Cheesy.

What's a bunny and duck to slaves of the horror Hun?

Ready to drag a bear to my turf, back to where it came from.

I wreak havoc on cams, from handheld to the kitchen,

You wreak havoc with fans, from the fanbase to the desk fan.

Freddy Fazbear:

Petty..you wouldn't last one measly night at Freddy's,

I bite the mic and spit back sick rhymes 87 times, a'ight Slendy?

Got a really killer squad that'll rock your proxy crew,

Something borrowed, something new, hit them locks or we'll pop you,

Strangle and Mangle you, squeeze the juice out of a brute,

If he wasn't too damn skinny to fit snugly in a real suit.

But keep a gauge on power, you can't always hold back my band.

Is it me or should Slender here just poof away while he can?

Slender Man:

Did you already forget what happens to those who

Point a camera at the dude in the snazzy suit who owns you?

Yeah I said it! You're my toy, my puppet, my trophy!

Children run to you with glee 'cause they're all trying to hide from me!

I'll leave you decommissioned, decomposing, like the corpses in your core,

So ungodly putrid that noseless men don't wanna wear your mask anymore!

'Cause if sitting and staring at frozen robots is what you're game's about,

Then I can see exactly why Fazbear's Pizza shut down!

Freddy Fazbear:

Sure I'm popular with kids but that's 'cause horror should be fun,

Isn't chasing teens in woods a tad bit overdone?

So let's party! It's five AM and you know we're getting closer,

But there ain't much power on the motor! Game over, Man! Game over!

You thought you got the upper hand and can't be taken down,

But it's me and Bonnie, Chica, Foxy who got the high ground.

So here's a final rule for safety: don't step to me,

Or you'll get five to no face while U Can't Touch Freddy.

Conclusion
I enjoy VGRB a lot. I loved watching the quality increase over time and was pleasantly surprised when I learned about what Cam contributed to Mario vs Link, proving that his writing is much better. This battle was an unfortunate step back from where he was at the time, especially in terms of writing, but with millions of views and a large amount of people who sincerely enjoy this battle, this is a battle to be proud of. There were things done right, but in comparison to the things done wrong, this battle disappointed me.