Party of Four | The Party Crashers are peak gaming YouTube
YouTubers are an interesting breed of celebrity. It’s hard to describe why they resonate with so many people, specifically younger audiences, in ways that more traditional celebrities simply don’t.
Maybe it’s the fact that despite the corporatization of the platform, its roots as a platform where ordinary people create and share videos about whatever they want remain relatively unchanged. Most channels started out as the passion projects of people in similar situations like ourselves, thus making YouTubers feel more authentic and relatable than famous actors and pop stars.
For me personally, YouTube is my primary source of entertainment. I specifically find myself drawn to gaming channels, despite not being much of a “gamer” myself. Something about watching other people play video games will never get old to me.
But if there’s one thing better than watching people play video games, it’s watching multiple people all play video games together!
For the longest time, my go-to collaborative channel for Let’s Play- style content was Friends Without Benefits, which I started watching around the time they became a group of five. During the pandemic, I also watched a bunch of content from TheRunawayGuys and Game Grumps.
And now, I have developed a new fixation. All it took was revisiting a channel I’d been watching on and off for a few years, discovering that he made some Mario Party videos with a few of his friends, and deciding to give them a watch.
And thus, I discovered peak YouTube.
The Party Crashers are a group of gaming YouTubers consisting of TCNick3, Vernias, King of Skill, and Sophist. They all started making videos together nearly two years ago (though they’ve each been creating content on their own for even longer), but their collaborative channel only launched in November of last year (with the first video releasing a few months later in January). They primarily specialize in Mario Party and Super Smash Bros content, but also occasionally delve into other multiplayer games.
In less than a month will be the official one-year anniversary of posting videos on the Party Crashers channel. A while ago, they’ve hit 100,000 subscribers, and currently show no signs of stopping. I’ve actually been meaning to write about these guys for a while, but I figure now is as good of an occasion as any to delve into who they are and what makes their videos so entertaining.
As individuals
First, it’s important to understand the individual members of the Party Crashers in terms of their styles, histories, and personalities. After all, each of them had a significant online following before making videos together, and even at a cursory glance it’s not hard to see why.
- King of Skill (Brent)
As far as collaborative channels go, it’s usually hard to single out one member of the group as the “leader”. That said, if I had to say who I consider to be the leader of the Party Crashers it would probably be Brent. In gaming spaces, your status is determined by your skill, and Brent is significantly better than average at most of the games these guys play together. Not that the others are bad by any means, it’s just that he’s on another level.
He’s also well-suited to the de facto leadership role because he tends to be more calm and level-headed than many YouTubers of this genre. He’s not as loud as the others (well, with a couple of notable exceptions), and he’s generally not the type to get caught up in drama and conflict so easily. As I previously discussed, he’s more likely to be able to calmly and rationally assess problems where many people would react more emotionally.
So yeah, at first glance it seems like he’s just the “Nerd™” of the group. And, well, he kind of is. But also he isn’t.
In online gaming spaces, and fandom spaces in general, the term “Nerd™” carries with it an often negative connotation, a mental image of a Dunning-Kruger afflicted smartass; however, Brent’s online presence essentially breaks many of the stereotypes associated with “Nerds™”, and “Gamers™” in particular (a common trend among all of the Party Crashers, but I’ll get to that later).
You’d think that somebody who calls themselves the “King of Skill” would be really arrogant and stuck-up, but Brent is pretty much the opposite. He gives 110% in whatever game he plays; not to feel superior to others, but because that’s how he has fun playing the game. And it’s not a matter of having been born good at video games; he just plays them a lot with the goal of self-improvement for its own sake. He’s the King of Skill, not the King of Talent. He freely admits when he’s not good at something, but also expresses the desire to get better. He’s always striving to achieve great things; not just in terms of video games, but anything he sets his mind to.
A couple months ago, he announced that he was working on a big project, something he’d wanted to try for a long time. He spent a long time hyping it up, not even working on. The end result was a 7-minute long Super Smash Bros X Dragon Ball Z crossover animation that, even as somebody who’s never seen Dragon Ball Z, I still thought was pretty cool. It’s amazing to watch someone see a time-consuming passion project like that all the way to the end; I personally would have just given up.
Not to mention the fact that all King of Skill videos are of a consistently high quality, and have only improved over time. Any YouTuber who can consistently edit their own videos well has my respect, but Brent’s videos have their own unique flair to them.
I especially love his taste in background music, most notably his use of the Rocky 4 soundtrack in his first and second Little Mac montages, which I greatly appreciated considering I basically grew up on the Rocky movies. And that’s not even getting into his liberal usage of SpongeBob SquarePants screenshots in basically every video; his videos alone prove that the show has a meme for everything.
Sure, he’s a nerd. But people like and respect him for a reason.
- Sophist (multiple names, but mainly goes by Sophist)
Have you ever done something just because you wanted to see what would happen? Or you knew what would happen, and you just wanted to cause trouble just for fun?
Sophist does that. A lot.
Of the four Party Crashers, he’s definitely the least into Super Smash Bros and the community proper, but he knows enough to keep up with everybody else. At the very least, he knows that maining Zelda and pressing the B button over and over again is a surefire way to send the opponent into a frenzy.
And yeah, that’s pretty much his entire schtick. As soon as Sophist gets his hands on any game, he immediately sets out to make it as chaotic as possible. His style of humor is defined by making jokes out of the worst case scenarios that often befall him and the other members of the group, paired with whatever memes have already been run into the ground at the time.
Despite being the oldest member of the group, nobody in their right mind would designate him the role of leader. He does not lead, nor does he follow. He’s here for a good time, not a productive time. He has no allegiance except to his ideals of chaos and strife.
In short, he’s nearly every ADHD stereotype rolled into a single person.
NOTE: I also have ADHD; that should be enough to allow me to make this joke.
Of course, when you put all of your faith in RNG, don’t be surprised if you rarely succeed. As of the time of writing this, Sophist has become the group’s bad luck magnet in nearly every single recent game of Mario Party, to the point where even the others want to see him succeed. Hopefully after his victory on Woody Woods in Mario Party 3, his wins will become more frequent. But in the meantime, at least he has a mountain of Cursed Dice Blocks for company.
As the old saying goes, “I’d rather be lucky than good”.
- TCNick3 (Nick)
Way too often, especially on YouTube, you’ll see people who make careers out of berating and insulting others, only to hide behind “I was just joking, can’t you take a joke?” when they receive any sort of pushback. And it gets even worse when they dish it out but can’t take it.
But when it’s done right, the “villain” of any cast can easily become a fan favorite. It’s an essential role in a Disney movie, anime, reality TV show- you name it, no cast is complete without someone who primarily exists to either start or escalate conflict.
In the Party Crashers, this role belongs to Nick, and he wears it like a badge of honor. If Sophist’s thing is making jokes out of misfortune, Nick’s thing is simply laughing at misfortune- specifically the misfortune of others. If you mess up, or get unlucky, he won’t let you forget it. Unlike Sophist, his antagonistic behavior is usually targeted (usually towards Vernias, but we’ll get to that later).
His moments of toxicity are one of the defining aspects of the Party Crashers as a group. Several compilations of his many antagonistic moments exist on YouTube, if you have some time to kill.
Now, it must be pointed out that for all of toxicity, he’s not without his moments of humility and self-awareness. He often acknowledges that he plays video games the least of all four of the Party Crashers, and so he’s not above admitting when he’s just unskilled- only when it’s funny, of course.
Even during his infamous Chance Time blunder during his turn as the “Mario Party raid boss”, he admitted that if anybody else had messed up that badly, he would be roasting them even worse than how badly he was getting roasted (by both his friends and all four livestream chats).
Honestly, I have to applaud him for his maturity there. That takes guts.
While YouTubers will often claim to be “playing a character”, that was never my interpretation of the difference between people’s “on camera” selves and their “off camera” selves. You can’t truly portray something that isn’t at least a small aspect of your personality; it’s just about putting out the best AND most entertaining part of yourself. I have no issue with believing people who say that Nick is actually a really nice person off-camera, but I also never feel like any part of his on-screen self is “false”, if you see what I’m getting at here.
It takes a lot of talent and charisma to be mean in a funny way.
NOTE: By the way, did you know that forming the group channel was Nick’s idea?
- Vernias (multiple names, but mainly goes by Vernias)
And finally, rounding out the cast, we have Vernias, who also belongs to another collaborative channel called Sidequest (which you should totally check out). Despite being the youngest of the four Party Crashers, he’s been a YouTuber the longest. Besides Super Smash Bros, he also has an affinity for Kirby games, and all things cute and pink in general.
Vernias is the member of the group that’s the hardest to talk about, because his role, identity, and perception amongst fans is the one that has changed the most over time.
On one hand, he prides himself on being the “nice” one of the Party Crashers, and to an extent this is true. He’s usually been the least prone to angry outbursts, and is just there to have fun. This was an easier image to lean into back when the group first started recording videos together, because he got screwed over a lot, not just by the others, but by the game itself. He was always on the receiving end of some sort of injustice.
Over time, something changed. Now he’s more likely to retaliate against someone who screws him over, or even just say something rude unprovoked. He’s also leaned a lot harder into sexual humor than he used to, in a stark contrast to the “pure and childish” person many people see him as.
While some fans think Vern has changed too much, I’m fine with it. It was bound to happen after so long of hanging out with these guys, particularly Nick and Sophist. Also, it’s not like he changed as fundamentally as some people think. If you watch his solo videos on his channel, he’s essentially the same person he’s always been- a nice and wholesome guy that people are understandably very drawn to.
Actually, he’s a great case study on what nice people are actually like, as opposed to what people think they’re like. “Nice” doesn’t define someone’s entire personality and every action. Once in a while, they will lash out at someone who pisses them off, and it’s usually at least somewhat justified. Kindness and wrath are known as opposites, but it’s not hard for the former to transform into the latter.
Some people need reminding that content creators are real people too.
I know it sounds like a copout, but there’s no way I could pick a favorite member of the Party Crashers. Again, the fact that they all had their own independent followings before finding each other isn’t surprising. They all play to their strengths, and make entertaining content as a result.
As a group
Of course, there’s more to creating a successful group than taking a handful of talented individuals and putting them together. However good each member of the group is at what they do, it doesn’t matter if they don’t work well with each other. It’s all about the chemistry, both in terms of the one-on-one relationships and the group as a whole.
Fortunately, this is the main strength of the Party Crashers.
The group chemistry between the four of them is nothing short of phenomenal. Chemistry and energy are difficult things to pinpoint and put into words, so it’s hard to describe exactly why they work so well together, but in short, when they’re together, they create something even greater than the sum of their parts.
The Party Crashers are a picture-perfect example of a group that took off in popularity specifically because of the viewers’ desire to see others be the friend group they wish they had. That’s the best way I can describe them. They strike the perfect balance between between being playfully toxic and competitive and genuinely enjoying hanging out with each other. If you want to really see this in action, I especially recommend checking out their streams when you get the chance.
It’s not truly a friend group with a dozen or so running jokes that start out as offhand remarks that quickly deteriorate into a series of barely-coherent references you need about 2 months worth of context to understand.
Here’s just a short list of all the running jokes within Party Crashers canon:
- Obnoxiously pointing out Turn 4/20
- “BE ME, ME BEE”
- Everybody except Vernias hates Birdo
- The “Vern Virus”
- Honestly just about everything to do with Vernias is a meme
- Saying “I SEE” in the most exaggerated way possible
- Every penguin is TCNick3
- Brent rolls high
- Sophist rolls low
- “Hey editor…” (seriously, the editors don’t get paid enough to deal with these guys /hj)
Keep in mind, that’s nowhere near the full list. For the full list, click here.
One thing I also noticed about Party Crashers gameplay sessions is that unlike most similar groups, it’s actually quite rare for any of them to start telling stories about their pasts. They’re usually more caught up in what’s happening in the moment, which I think will give this group a lot of longevity going forward, because they will always have that option on the table.
They’ve even secured a couple of collaborations. They won a crew battle against the Underdogs, played a couple of MagicTheNoah’s homemade tabletop games, and celebrated their 100k subscriber milestone with Sidequest.
But it’s not just the chemistry between all four of them together that make their videos and streams special; the one-on-one relationships between them are also noteworthy, especially because they occasionally do videos with each other on their separate channels.
Just to highlight a few of the more notable ones:
Brent and Sophist are the classic order-and-chaos duo, with Brent trying his best to follow along with every stupid idea Sophist has in whatever nightmare Sophist managed to drag him into. Their video on Shrek Super Slam is probably the best example of this. Actually, Brent in general is good at being the straight man to the chaos of his friends.
With Nick and Sophist, it’s a constant cycle of trying to outdo each other to various results. It’s funny enough watching them compete, especially because Nick generally has the lowest tolerance for Sophist and his constant trolling, but it’s even better watching them team up, like in their co-op playthrough of Subspace Emissary in Super Smash Bros Brawl.
But no discussion about one-on-one dynamics between the Party Crashers is complete without specifically addressing the relationship between Nick and Vernias, because it’s one of the most iconic aspects of the group.
Have you heard of the “old married couple” dynamic? It’s a trope used to describe two people who, despite constant arguments and disagreements, are obviously very close with each other. If you’ve watched the Party Crashers for any length of time, you know that this perfectly describes Nick and Vernias, to the point where… well, we’ll get to that in a bit.
It may look to the untrained eye like two people in such a relationship hate each other, but nothing could be further from the truth. It actually takes a special kind of friendship to not only survive constant arguments, but for those arguments to be a part of the friendship’s appeal.
This is especially true if you watch the multi-part series where they play board games; even with the constant back-and-forth arguing, it’s still extremely obvious that they’re the best of friends. It’s a microcosm of the entire group’s “love-hate” chemistry in general, with a little something extra.
Combine that with the fact that Nick and Vernias are often the subjects of some of the most “sus” moments in the group’s videos, and it’s no wonder that they’re pretty universally the fan-favorite duo amongst the Party Crashers. Everything about their dynamic feels perfectly suited for the apparently not-insignificant portion of their audience who grew up on the rivals-to-lovers fanfiction that takes up a sizable portion of Tumblr’s bandwidth.
And yes, that means what you think it means.
Spotlight: The thing we need to talk about
NOTE: The Left-Hook Official Blog does not intend for the following section to be read as an endorsement of shipping real people; this is simply an observation of the fan community’s… interpretation of their dynamic.
So, if you follow me on Twitter/X you may already know this, but a while ago I compiled a list of screenshots I took of some… interesting comments on a video from the Party Crashers Clips channel.
NOTE: This is a fanmade channel not run by the Party Crashers themselves, though they did publicly approve of and sign off on it a few weeks after its creation.
Now, by the nature of the Internet it’s impossible to know the intentions behind a comment. Are they joking, half-joking, not joking? Who knows?
Now, I’ve been aware of the fact that this was a thing for a while. I read the comments on all the videos these guys are in together, and there’s a surprising amount of comments from people who, for lack of a better term, “have a feeling about those two”.
And while I’m trying not to make this such a big deal, because I really don’t like getting overly serious about anonymous Internet comments, this is one of those times where I feel at least a little bit justified.
Shipping real people is considered relatively taboo, because it has the potential to spiral out of control before most people realize it. There’s often a small but very vocal group who take it to the extreme, spreading false rumors “confirming” their relationship status and displaying lewd, explicit shipping fanart/fanfiction in full view of the people involved (as in, on X/Instagram/etc. -sometimes even tagging them directly- and not the back corners of DeviantArt and Newgrounds where it belongs, if it belongs anywhere).
We’re all aware of at least one instance of shipping real people that escalated to the point where the subjects had to speak out and tell people to knock it off (ex. Markiplier X Jacksepticeye, Jaiden Animations X TheOdd1sOut).
Fortunately, we’re at the point where an online content creator can make a public statement laying out their boundaries (regarding shipping, NSFW art. etc.) saying “I’m okay with this” or “I’m not okay with this”, and the majority of people will accept it as the final word on the matter.
But in the same way that hand sanitizer only kills 99.9% of germs, such a statement isn’t guaranteed to fix everything. If the real people being shipped express that they don’t feel comfortable with it, and some people keep doing it anyway, the consequences can be disastrous.
In this case, while nothing catastrophically bad has happened yet, just keep in mind that these sorts of thoughts are best kept private, especially because Nick has a girlfriend. And if you don’t make it crystal-clear that you’re joking, don’t be surprised if some people end up calling you out. This isn’t targeted at anybody in particular, it’s just me trying to keep this from going too far.
There’s nothing to worry about if this sort of thing is all in good fun; just make sure that your fun isn’t at the expense of somebody else.
NOTE: I would just like to take this moment to apologize to the Party Crashers if they’re reading this. I acknowledge that I myself have spoken and acted irresponsibly and recklessly on this subject in the past, to the point where I nearly burned my bridge with them as a whole. Let this serve as a promise from me to do better in the future.
The impact
It’s impossible to talk about the Party Crashers without mentioning the dedicated fan following they’ve spawned in their relatively short time together as a group.
Of course, since their audience is primarily people age 25 and under, a lot of the Party Crashers’ influence is felt through memes and references. Don’t believe me? Just check the replies of any Pokémon gimmick account tweet that involves Piplup.
NOTE: I was going to include a screenshot of every TCNick3 penguin joke I’ve ever seen on social media, but I wanted this editorial to get done before Christmas 2024, so never mind.
Jokes aside, I’ve seen Party Crashers references in a wide variety of fandoms and Internet spaces, and it really shines a light on how these guys bring so many different kinds of people together.
Then there’s all the fanart. So much fanart. Their Twitter account is basically a highlight reel of the best fanart if you’re interested in checking it out, and I wanted to take a moment to highlight some of my favorite artists with some of their best art:
(I can’t even pick one specific piece from @RAMYUNE_WAV to highlight, just… check them out. Please. You won’t regret it.)
There’s even been… uh…
NOTE: The only reason I feel comfortable mentioning this is because Sophist mentioned it first; otherwise, I would keep my mouth shut.
(For the record, this is possibly one of the funniest exchanges I’ve ever seen in a YouTube comment section.)
On top of the mountains of fanart dedicated to the Party Crashers, there’s been several animations and animatics (including an ongoing series about their DnD videos with MagicTheNoah), a rap song that the guys even reacted to, and various fanfictions scattered around Ao3 and Wattpad which I’m not going to link for… reasons).
Obviously this isn’t a matter of whether or not they deserve it. Rather, I’m just surprised. There have been several instances of friend groups looking to get famous on YouTube (or start a podcast, or a band, or whatever), but they simply failed to gain traction and ended up fading away.
On that note, it’s also rare for content creators who have been around for years to gain their second wind or be able to reinvent themselves and their public image.
But it’s perhaps rarest of all for a group with, at the time of writing this, a small-to-moderate outreach (on paper) as far as average YouTube channel sizes go to gain this level of transformative fandom in the short time they’ve “officially” been together.
NOTE: By “transformative fandom”, I am referring to fan activity that takes a media property and reinvents it in some way, such as fanart and fanfiction. For a more in-depth explanation of this concept, watch this video.
There’s a lot of reasons why people have gotten attached to the Party Crashers as a group, but the number-one most common reason I see is that their content is a just huge source of comfort for people. Lots of their fans are young people dealing with the stress of school, minimum-wage employment, or both. They something to be said for a group of friends that make you really feel like you’re there.
A source of humor and entertainment is just as much of a need for most people as food and shelter. Sometimes you just need to kick back and relax by watching a chaotic yet sincere friendship. As much as everybody hypes up YouTubers who have important things to say regarding politics and media criticism, YouTubers who exist solely to make you laugh and take your mind off the stress of everyday life are some of the most beloved people on the entire platform.
And I’d say that if that’s what you’re looking for, you can’t get much better than the Party Crashers.
But I wanted to hear it from them. Why do they think this joint venture took off so quickly? To what do they attribute their success? Why do they think they work so well together?
Then it hit me: Why don’t I ask them myself?
Now, while this sounds obvious, I was actually very nervous about doing this. Sure, it was as simple as shooting them an email asking for a mini-interview, and this process wouldn’t even require me to talk to them directly like when I met them at Super Smash Con this year (except for Brent), but this is different than approaching them as a fan. This is me approaching them as a fellow content creator, and a much smaller one at that. I kept wondering if this was a good idea, and I kept obsessing over the idea of getting turned down.
Eventually, though, I got over my anxiety and sent the emails requesting a fraction of their time, and I was able to pull off a short interview with Vernias. The others were most likely too busy at the time, which is very understandable.
So this next section was taken from a series of email correspondences where I asked him a series of questions about being a YouTuber and part of a collaborative YouTube channel, and about a few other things as well. Enjoy!
Spotlight: Interview with Vernias
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Question: What do you think your greatest strength is as a YouTuber?
Vernias: I think my greatest strength is being able to inject my personality and editing style into anything I play. I’m also really good at crowd work. I love working off my live chat’s comments in
real time by making jokes or having them be part of the content in some other way
Question: What is your favorite part of creating content together?
Vernias: The best thing about recording together is always having sometime during the week that’s dedicated to hanging out and gaming with each other. Plans can fall through or change a ton, but having
a set day and time when we get to make content together is really nice to me.
Question: Why do you think people are drawn to you guys as a group?
Vernias: I think our varying personalities and content draw people towards us whenever we interact. We all play the same kind of games (Smash Bros, Mario Party, etc.) yet we all have our own styles of
comedy and interaction that makes what we do entertaining for people to watch.
Question: How much do you see your channel growing in the next year?
Vernias: Personally I think we’ll definitely hit 200K next year as long as we keep doing our best to be consistent and on the top of our game.
Question: How much longer do you guys think you will be making videos together?
Vernias: As far as I feel as long as we still enjoy making content with each other I don’t per see a day when we’ll stop.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Question: If you could have one career other than being a YouTuber, what would it be?
Vernias: I’m actually in college right now working to become a screenwriter or a director, but my dream job would to be a dancer.
Question: What’s the biggest difference between your on-camera self and your off-camera self?
Vernias: I feel like I’m mostly the same off camera as I am on camera. Doing YouTube for so long just made me more naturally outgoing and social in life.
Question: If you guys all lived close together, how often would you hang out?
Vernias: I loved getting to hang out with Nick over the summer so I’d love to do that more often if we all lived closer together.
Question: What is your favorite genre of video games?
Vernias: I absolutely love roguelikes because of their addicting gameplay. A run in Risk of Rain 2 and Hades never feels the same no matter how much I play them, which is the fun for me.
Conclusion:
Even out of the dozens, probably hundreds, of YouTuber groups out there, the Party Crashers are really something special. They’re certainly special to me. They’ve gotten me through some really difficult times recently, and have given me the opportunity to meet people who I am proud to call my best friends.
As “parasocial” as it may sound, I don’t know where I would be without them.
So happy soon-to-be one-year anniversary, you guys. As long as you keep doing what you’re doing, there’s going to be plenty more where that came from. Thank you all so much for all you’ve done to entertain and inspire your fans, both in the past, present, and hopefully a long and prosperous future.
This past summer, the Party Crashers announced the creation of a special Discord server for their fans, which I joined a little bit after its creation. What followed is an absolutely insane series of events which I will elaborate on some other day in the future, probably on the group’s official one-year anniversary, so stay tuned for that!
Thanks so much for reading. Until next time, stay on the hook!
