It’s a weird time we live in, Game Fans. Over the last 12 hours, a couple of All Elite Wrestling (AEW) wrestlers have managed to stir up a majority of the internet TTRPG fan base. It honestly wasn’t hard, as all it took was a single post on Twitter from Maxwell Jacob Friedman to set off the firestorm. All he did was post a picture of himself at the gym with the caption “I don’t play Dungeons and Dragons.” Somehow, all of us decided that he was knocking D & D and lost our collective minds.
Enter Brandon Cutler, the next opponent for Mr. Friedman, who posted a reply pic saying that he does in fact, play Dungeons and Dragons. Noew the internet fandom of Dungeons and Dragons had a guy to root for and we’re off to an old school wrestling psychology lesson that the ancients of wrestling would have been proud of.
Friedman is a heel (ref. Bad guy). He’s supposed to be a ridiculously awful caricature of a human being who makes fun of the things we like, and beats up the good guys. He’s also really, really good at it. With one tweet (consisting of 6 words and a picture) he’s turned a majority of the Dungeons and Dragons fan base against him. If i were running this performance review, he’s getting an A.
Cutler is the babyface (ref. Good guy). He’s supposed to be the plucky underdog that the fans rally behind and we, as the fandom, cheer him to victory over the dastardly heel. I’m not so sold on his performance as a babyface. In the context of this feud, he seems like a really weak baby face, and we’ll get to the other issue i have in a minute. Performance review, C+.
So, for all of you who are up in arms about this jock ass making fun of your hobby, did he really? I don’t think he did (yet). I personally have an issue with our babyface in this feud shilling T-shirts with D20s on them as part of this feud, as it feels a lot like he’s trying to work merch through a fanbase that doesn’t know a thing about him.
We, as Dungeons and Dragons fans, have been Worked (ref. Conned). The scenario we have been presented is one where we have an obvious bad guy making fun of our precious hobby. Cue the predictable appearance of a babyface champion of the people to defend our collective honor and for us to rally behind. This is how wrestling is supposed to work.
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