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This Is Phil Fish

Innuendo Studios

545K subscribers • 1 video on Hallway

YouTube
  • Recommended by 6 people: 5 on Hacker News and 1 on Lobsters.
  • A classic. People kept recommending it from 2014 to 2025.
  • May be out of date. Uploaded 12 years ago, in an area where tools change fast.
  • An opinion. It argues one side of a question engineers disagree on.

Beginner. No background in the topic needed.

1.3M views12 years ago6 recommendations

Game developmentCareers and interviewsGame designThe tech industryCareer growth

This video essay explores the mechanics of internet fame and public backlash through the story of Fez creator Phil Fish.

A case study in internet celebrity. patreon: patreon.com/InnuendoStudios bsky: bsky.app/profile/innuendostudios.bsky.social tumblr: innuendostudios.tumblr.com transcript: innuendostudios.tumblr.com/post/89201006992/this-is-phil-fis… audio: soundcloud.com/peevish/this-is-phil-fish

Why it's here

6 people recommend this, 1 disputes it

What people say. Recommended as a brilliant analysis of internet celebrity and the toxic dynamics that creators and developers face online.

pushcxon Lobsters • Recommends

This is Phil Fish "I made a 19-minute video essay about Phil Fish, which is really about internet fame and what expectations we have of the people we make famous." Author Phil Fish has been a contentious figure in the indie gaming scene, and I thought this a very thoughtful and thorough look at how fame (dys)functions in Internet subcultures with applicability to how coders have dealt with being Internet-famous.
25View on Lobsters

pdkl95on Hacker News • Recommends

On “Things the media does to manufacture outrage”

TL;DR - just watch 4 The internet has a serious problem with fame . Before the internet, fame was usually something that required an investment in media access . Everybody knows about the big Hollywood movie because they paid for a lot of advertising/etc. A low-budget film could potentially be more popular if people knew about it, but the meager (or nonexistent) advertising budget usually guaranteed it would never1 become famous . This is what the internet changed. It's fundamental power is that anybody can publish because the network doesn't differentiate between "publishing" hosts and "consumer" hosts. All peers are supposed2 to be equal in capability. The internet is media access. W…
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pdkl95on Hacker News • Recommends

On “Curbs on free speech are growing tighter. It is time to speak out”

…- but a very good analysis of the problem is the video essay "This Is Phil Fish"1. May HN readers will recognize that name as the author of "Fez", but as the essay mentions at the beginning, "This is about everybody in the world who isn't Phil Fish". I encourage everyone to watch 1, so we at lest have a clear understanding of the problem. 1 link to this video…
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pdkl95on Hacker News • Recommends

On “Reasons YouTubers keep imploding, from a YouTuber”

…ight coupling between fame and personal life causes or amplifies a lot of these problems. For a much better explanation, I highly recommend watching Innuendo Studios' video essay "This is Phil Fish"1. In spite of the name, it isn't really about Phil Fish. It's about everybody who isn't Phil Fish and how they (miss-)handle internet celebrity. 1 link to this video…
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pdkl95on Hacker News • Recommends

On “A Sad Day for Rust”

…thing that was chosen ; if you didn't want to be famous, you could walk away from the media infrastructure and go back to your "normal life". The famous band could quit touring. Now that everyone has media access, that "normal life" can become famous directly. When that happens, walking away from fame means walking away from your normal life . 1 link to this video…
View on Hacker News

pdkl95on Hacker News • Recommends

On “Naomi Wu video demonetized on YouTube”

…g some amount of responsibility to "act like famous people are supposed to act". This internet fundamentally changed the mechanics of fame, because the internet IS media access . Now it is possible to become famous - to become a "celebrity" with a "responsibility" to act in a certain way - simply by being yourself in your normal everyday life. 1 link to this video…
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ZeroGravitason Hacker News • Recommends

On “"Open Source is awful in many ways, and people should be aware of this"”

This reminded me of the "This is Phil Fish: A case study in internet celebrity" video: link to this video Phil Fish is an indie game developer, internet-famous for the game Fez. And "everybody" hates him. Though as the video explains, it's more complicated than that. The video is notably also as being referenced by Notch (creator of Minecraft) as part of the reason why he decided to go into semi-retirement after the sale of Mojang.
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dcolganon Hacker News • Recommends

On “No Man’s Sky One Year Later”

As a former amateur Twitch.tv streamer, I've always been fascinated by the rise and fall of internet personalities, and some of the biggest personalities seem to be game developers that found themselves in the spotlight. Someone made this very in-depth video about the fall from grace of Phil Fish, the creator of Fez: link to this video It seems to me that the combo of high pressure and a guy with a combative personality combined with internet anonymity to create a really messy situation that drove him out of the business. I've also followed Narscissa (formerly Cosmo) Wright's fallout in the speedrun community after coming out as transgender. Once one of the most popular streamers on Twitch, I'd imagine…
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pdkl95on Hacker News • Recommends

On “Unidentified Plane-Bae Woman’s Statement Confirms the Worst”

…. You simply quit participating; being some type of celebrity was a job that required maintenance. When you become accidentally famous on Twitter/etc it is often your normal life that happened to become famous. Walking away form that means walking away from your normal life. For a very good explanation of this topic, I recommend this1 video. 1 link to this video…
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pdkl95on Hacker News • Recommends

On “Where’s _why? (2012)”

…internet, anybody can become famous at any time, because the internet is media access . People now become famous without the mask that differentiated their famous persona from their normal life. Giving up fame now requires giving up the part of your normal life that made you famous. For a much better explanation, see this1 short video essay. 1 link to this video…
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latexron Hacker News • Recommends

On “I deleted my social media accounts”

That video is part of a larger series on Gamergate. If you liked that one, it’s worth it to see everything. link I also recommend these two earlier videos, on unrelated matters. link to this video link
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beefleton Hacker News • Recommends

On “Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition”

I have been following him, and I think a lot of the claims about him have been exaggerated. He stopped being so edgy on twitter after watching the "this is phil fish" video. It is an interesting watch and applicable to notch. link to this video He is developing a new voxel-like game called "levers and chests", and before that he has shown us a few cool webgl demos I find interesting. link
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forgottenpasson Hacker News • Disputes

On “No Man’s Sky One Year Later”

Someone made this very in-depth video about the fall from grace of Phil Fish, the creator of Fez: link to this video This video bugs me. I don't disagree with it. In fact, the first time I watched it, I found it quite similar to my own take on Fish. Maybe just a few degrees off of how I feel. Watching it for the first time in ~three years made me realize why it bugged me. The differences between the video and my opinions are the set of changes I'd make if I wanted to publish the strong argument for my perspective on the topic and be taken seriously. Fish is an interesting case study of internet-rando-turned-celebrity that doesn't adapt well to the fact people now care what he's saying. The rough edges…
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pbhjpbhjon Hacker News • Mentions

On “I'm Leaving Mojang”

This, link to this video , presumably is the "This Is Phil Fish" video referenced ("talking about Phil is talking about fame"). link to this video for the tl;dr.
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pdkl95on Hacker News • Mentions

On “Just doesn’t feel good”

The internet has changed the concept of "fame". In the past, being famous usually required a lot of effort and (usually) money. Many people that could have been famous but didn't spend the time/money to make it happen were often discovered by the larger public only after their death . The end game of this property are things like the modern manufactured artist, where fame is achieved because that was the business plan. An important consequence of this "traditional" type of fame is that someone who wants to leave and get their old life back can generally stop participating. Without the time/money investment the public moves on. "Traditional" fame is a job you can walk away from. This changed…
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jdlshoreon Hacker News • Mentions

On “The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages”

I think you've got cause and effect reversed—GamerGate worked because gamers were already prone to this sort of behavior. See "This is Phil Fish," 1 a video (by the same person who did the GamerGate video) about Phil Fish, the creator of the acclaimed indie game "Fez." He was driven off the Internet (or at least out of public participation) by similar toxic behavior. Phil Fish is a white male. I don't know how long this has been going on, and it does seem to be getting steadily worse, but I don't think GamerGate was a turning point. Just a particularly visible example of how bad things have gotten. 1 link to this video
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