There's being funny. And then there's being whatever FIFA-loving YouTube video game commentator JJ "KSIOlajidebt" Olatunji was in the video up top.
When we last covered the exploits of Olatunji, he was encouraging his 600,000 or so YouTube channel subscribers to e-mail Kotaku to help highlight his frustations with Machinima.com, the gaming site and channel partner that he felt wasn't giving its star content creators their fair share of ad revenue generated by popular videos.
Olatunji appears to have successfully broken away from Machinima. He even seems to have hooked up some sort of deal with PC maker Razer to help hype their stuff at the ongoing Eurogamer Expo with official CultofRazer videos like this and this. (I'm not clear on what his deal is with Razer and how official it is; I have a request in with the PC-maker to clarify.)
So, that video above? That's his handiwork, too. 200,000 clicks and counting. And, on Facebook, his fans love it. He's made videos like it before; just man-on-the-street videos of him asking rude sexual questions for comedic effect. I guess it's not that different than Howard Stern's routine, and plenty of people like that. It's not for me and I'm not so sure it was for all the folks interviewed in that video. If this is the direction coverage of video game conventions could be heading, count me out.
Good on Olatunji for being able to attract a half million clicks on a video that just hypes that he got to London to go to the expo, but, come on, really? This new video is a bit much.
In other Eurogamer Expo news, the organizers banned booth babes from next year's show.
UPDATE: A rep for Razer says: "KSIOlajidebt is a pro gamer in the UK that Razer invited to the Eurogamer Expo to shoot some community videos for our site. After KSIOlajidebt was done with his work for Razer, he went on to shoot video on his own for his own channel, outside of Razer's input or approval, during the show. The resulting video was not and is not content with which Razer wishes to be associated."
UPDATE 2: It looks like KSIOlajidebt has been banned from future Eurogamer Expos by the convention's organizer, according to a Tweet from Eurogamer.net operations director Tom Bramwell.
UPDATE 3: The YouTube video this story is about has been set to private, presumably by Olatunji. We swapped in a copy, so readers can understand the context of all of this.
UPDATE 4: Olatunji has apologized, addressing the accusations made by others that he was sexually harassing women in his video:
The blonde spokesmodel who agrees in the video to allow Olatunji to put his face in her chest also took to Twitter to address the theory that he had sexually harassed her:
Of course, reaction to the video hasn't only involved Olatunji's interaction with Brewer. In the video, Brewer is clearly into Olatunji's raunchy approach. The Mountain Dew spokesperson who he laments doesn't have visible enough breasts and the show attendee who cuts off their interview and walks off cursing seem less delighted to be involved in this sort of thing. They may well have been, off-camera, but it's not evident in the clip.
UPDATE 5: The woman who starts and ends the video, a blogger named Zoe, took to Twitter to share her perspective on the video. Olatunji apologized to her directly, as you'll see below.
UPDATE 6: Uncomfortable with the publicity this whole affair was generating, the blogger Zoe deleted the Tweets that were previously in this story. For the record, in response to Olajidebt's apology, she had written: "hahah, it's alright!" But she was also very clear that while she did not feel sexually harassed, she also said, in the context of the entire video and how other people were portrayed in it, "sometimes funny is just too far!"