What Is "Blaseball" And Why Is It Taking over the Internet?

Blaseball is so much more than just a game about baseball. Here's Quinns to get you up to speed.
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Special thanks to the artists featured in this video:
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Athunin#6908 (Discord)
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Written and presented by Quintin Smith:
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Design and art direction by Anni Sayers:
/ anni_sayers

[@PeopleMakeGames]

Hello from the future! Since publishing this piece, Quinns and Anni have been working on some OFFICIAL roundup videos for the latest Blaseball season. Imagine this video, but with significantly more chaos energy: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mpqkeaiLi5eAm8k&

[@ashsheffield921]

P

[@Rafael-iq5su]

@@ashsheffield921 P

[@kilo3989]

Can confirm: it is chaos energy

[@amelio7737]

It was literally the most toxic community I've interacted with so far, I've seen communist and pro-mass-unaliving propaganda, people disappearing from discord after even just asking about what's lgbt+ (the poor fools were completely ignorant about it), satanism and sometimes even strange sexual stuff, at the start it seemed really really cool tho I'll give you that

[@wooooooooods]

quinns blaseball is dead

[@MelodyBurst]

I like to believe that it's impossible to get a baseball uniform in england and he only had access to an Elton John costume

[@doubtful_seer]

I cannot imagine how itchy that outfit must have been.

[@camdavbax]

Illegal*

[@H.D.83]

It's just more proof that the dodgers are gay ;)

[@psychohousegremlinstudios4931]

That is definitely not a real baseball jersey

[@waifubreaks1572]

@@H.D.83 The Giants are the gay team, they play in San Fran.

[@Avarn_]

Loved the talking head animations for the developer dialogue. Especially with the attention to detail of the baseball noticing the runner as he passed.

[@PeopleMakeGames]

The bat also blows a fly off his mouth at 13:52, which I'm a fan of. -Chris

[@Avarn_]

@@PeopleMakeGames I completely missed that, amazing. 😁

[@Jimster71]

It's uncanny how much the developer actually looks like a baseball

[@jdazzani]

He looks more like a blaseball to me

[@gangreneday]

That’s racist

[@Electroporcupine]

I don't see it

[@Dickythemainman]

Crazy how nature do that

[@maximus4375]

That’s kind of mean :(

[@kevinolmedo675]

So, basically: The devs are playing GM to a giaaaant table playing a mix of SCP community writting and Sport Fans' passion rallies.

[@bangboom123]

Yeah, the devs as GMs is really the right way to think of it

[@incognitoburrito6020]

That's about spot on, really. The Yellowstone Magic actually have a SCP analogue in their team log.

[@Anastas1786]

Blaseball is definitely one of the Foundation's intramural sports.

[@ribby9069]

Their literally is an SCP about what is essentially blaseball

[@mrcroob8563]

That sounds fucking awful

[@zachgaskins3731]

Important to be reminded of: the "canon" is just groups of fans arbitrarily coming together to think a certain thing, but there is NO ACTUAL CANON beyond what is presented by the developers on the website itself. These are fictional characters and you are not obligated to think about them in any certain way. Enjoy the horror.

[@DomTarason]

Also to further reduce confusion, the Pitching Machine is an Actual Cannon. Also apparently a vampire.

[@RandomBrick13]

A similar vein as Andrew Gussie's approach to fiction, mm?

[@sertaki]

@@DomTarason that sentence is the opposite of "reducing confusion". ;)

[@incognitoburrito6020]

@@sertaki It's actually very simple. Pitching Machine is Pitching Machine. Is it a robot? A pitching machine? A person named Pitching Machine? Yes! It was too popular so the gods trapped it inside a giant peanut. Then it was a batter for a while. It has blood and its favorite kind of coffee is macchiatos. Hope this clears things up!

[@tukoijarrett9155]

@@incognitoburrito6020 I don't know what this means thank you

[@AntiSuccess]

important note: since this video was made, the champions of the current season had to fight a god in a JRPG-esque boss battle where the god stole a bunch of players from basically every team and gave them some WILD buffs. absolutely one of the wildest things ive ever seen. y'all, get into blaseball, it's a really fun thing to be a fan of

[@budderbrinejr]

We also got to steal the god's kicks. The peanut now has one less set of shoes.

[@BluesMoth64]

GOD IS DEAD HAHAH

[@snowyyyyyyyyyyyyy]

GOD IS DEAD AND WE KILLED IT

[@mrcroob8563]

Well baseball is the most boring thing in the world. That sounds like a 9 year old tried to make it cool, or a really shite anime. That's a hard pass.

[@MiseFreisin]

@@mrcroob8563 it's just good fun, it might not be for you but that's fine, too

[@nathanielleon4163]

Point of clarification, the Canada Moist Talkers were the big organizers of Jaylen Hotdogfinger's resurrection. Because Necromancy sounded fun.

[@josephmei3108]

Preach! Talk Spit Get Hits!

[@lmarsh5407]

Lol I thought it was a reference to Justin Trudeau saying "Speaking Moistly"

[@beesforbreakfast]

I know what all these words _mean_ but putting them in that order might have bluescreened my brain

[@Asylumrunner8]

"and that's Blaseball in a nutshell" Quinns how dare you invoke the name of the Nut after what just happened

[@GneralTsao]

Watching this years later (and after Blaseball has shut down) makes me so happy to have been along for at least part of this ride. I don't think the experience of the creativity and goodwill of the community can really be recreated, restarted, or retold. The best I can hope for is to find something like it again someday. And I hope my friends will listen to me next time I tell them about this weird Internet thing that's happening. :D

[@HMJ66]

You should cover the Marblelympics/Marble League; the fandom/analysis of the marble "athletes" is fantastic - there's been injury, corruption, doping scandals, all in a sport that is basically marbles rolling down various flavours of obstacle course. Also - Go Team Galactic!

[@KillahMate]

Marble League sounds 100% like something PMG should cover!

[@shotgunheist6536]

Yes! I am a huge jelles fan (go crazy cats eyes) and this is a very similar addiction can’t wait to get involved in this too

[@muratkahraman8743]

Team CatEye for the Win!!!

[@3possumsinatrenchcoat]

all started with the sand marble rally though, which Red Number 3 is doing terribly this season but they're still my MVP

[@thetgi4458]

I think we all remember where we were when we heard that Momomomo was injured

[@AKImeru]

I was skeptical but then one of the teams listed was "Unlimited Tacos" and now I am a player for life.

[@cassandratastrophe9000]

Mike Townsend is not a disappointment. He's back and losing every game just like we wanted him to.

[@ryanalpertlowy]

One might say Mike Townsend is a credit to the team.

[@LemmaEOF]

Mike Townsend is a credit to the team! He keeps us humble

[@Sckazinski]

Wait, Mike Towsend is back?

[@cassandratastrophe9000]

@@Sckazinski He got pulled from the Shadows at the end of S9, along with Lenny Weed, Randy and Dom's dad.

[@Sckazinski]

@@cassandratastrophe9000 cool! 🖤

[@f52_yeevy]

Finally my childhood dreams of getting to play Calvinball came true.

[@wanderingrandomer]

Kinda seems like an extension of Blurnsball from Futurama, where the running joke is that the rules are never properly explained.

[@Anastas1786]

Blaseball sounds like a blast, but I can't help but wonder... who _runs_ this circus? In-universe, I mean. What's the _owners' association_ look like? What about the almighty _Commissioner_ of Blaseball? Has anyone written or drawn anything on this?

[@Goombalove3000]

The Commissioner has a twitter account, and is Doing a Great Job.

[@jessescott6259]

the commissioner is doing a great job! and also has a twitter and is named Parker!

[@cranknlesdesires]

Blaseball is inevitable.

[@eric1393]

The commissioner is doing a great job!

[@kilo3989]

There's a Boss now, the Coin. We don't know what that means.

[@UnwrittenSpade]

Ok can we take a second to appreciate how the eyes of the little baseball developer actually look up as the jogger runs past. That’s attention to detail!

[@UnwrittenSpade]

And the fly on the bat and he blows it away omg!! Whoever edited this is amazing

[@Nixitur]

The closest thing this reminds me of is, weirdly, TwitchPlaysPokemon. Because, sure, there is ostensibly something like a "game" going on in the background. But what really seems to matter is how that is filtered, interpreted, retold, and turned into fanworks by online communities. The way people have been ascribing personalities to specific Blaseball players or teams especially reminds me of... pretty much the same thing happening for TPP. People becoming fans of specific characters, that happened. Errors and bugs being turned into part of the lore, we did that. People being devastated when specific characters "died", same thing. The kayfabe is way stronger with Blaseball, obviously, and the game changes much more severely. But the interplay between this internet sensation and the fandom surrounding it is oddly similar.

[@EPE444]

Also, Fish plays Street Fighter

[@balut76]

I think that Lord Helix would appreciate Blaseball.

[@Zsil33]

That was exactly what I was thinking, I never really watched much of twitch plays pokemon, and to this day I still think the start 9 riots were stupid, but I loved the little stories people made up behind the scenes!!

[@GameScoreFanfare]

This was honestly the first thing that attracted me to blaseball. It recaptured that energy of Twitch Plays Pokemon where the story was being invented by the community. Blaseball just takes it to the next step by the devs being able to respond.

[@elipandaman]

this is an awesome comparison. totally

[@kilo3989]

Rewatching this post-Blaseball, remembering the good ol' days 😔💜

[@zacharygrafman4760]

This is TRULY the internet we need from you guys. Top marks, 87 fingers. Very Unthwackable.

[@atfruitbat]

This was a fun look at the cultural phenomenon of blaseball. The animation was great. I particularly enjoyed the way the baseball looked at the person running past it.

[@michaelz903]

Someone call Jon Bois, this game is clearly a portal...................................................to the fumble dimension

[@alessandroverganti9992]

Pretty good

[@pdieraue]

In season 3 a batter named Atlas Jonbois played 4 games for the Charleston Shoe Thieves before they were incinerated. At the time that was the record for shortest career.

[@OhNoBohNo]

Is this NOT a John Bois project??

[@jinkim0513]

I had heard about this, but didn't realize just how deep the thought and lore of this game went. I... I might actually get into this sport, it seems fascinating.

[@DoggyGoWoof]

*splort

[@fusrodadd]

The "world building" giving me "Welcome to Nightvale" vibes

[@GameScoreFanfare]

Blaseball totally has that absurdist horror comedy of Night Vale.

[@catbot42]

Yes! I am totally getting Nightvale vibes from this.

[@klltsun_2576]

yessss I actually got into this cause of fellow NV fans who talked about it in discord servers. A few minutes ago we were just talking about blaseball lol

[@levtokol8649]

1:19 "Blaseball is as simple as that." 4:42 "So that is Blaseball in a nutshell!" **Looks at rest of video** Hmm...

[@Nono-hk3is]

Blaseball has been a tremendously effective demonstration of the.... frivolity? of rooting for a sports team, or musical acts. I'm not making light of it; it's a legit human response and isn't any different than any other monte carlo-based video game. But people are dedicating extraordinary amounts of energy to, and getting *extremely* emotional about, what is a machine learning/artificial intelligence-based random number generator.

[@Puerco-Potter]

Have you seem the Marble league?

[@bangboom123]

I'm a Spies fan, but without question my favourite arc has been the Taco's Snackrifice. They were the worst team at the time by a huge margin, so they decided to just mess with the game itself rather than worry about winning the season, and fans of other teams could even join in in creating such wonderful nonsense. I felt such elation watching Taco pitchers climb up the Idol board. Incidentally, the reason they could perform the Snackrifice was because the top players on the Idol board, so long as they were not one of the three players with Peanut in their name (e.g. the Tigers' Peanutiel Duffy), were considered as displaying heretical idolatry against the evil Peanut that rules over Blaseball, and so were punished by being Shelled (i.e. put in a big peanut shell, you can't get out unless the birds free you during bird weather). This created the potential for the Tacos' shenanigans, with the help of other fans.

[@theninjaofmusic]

I had an aneurism trying to figure out what all this means as an outsider.

[@bangboom123]

@@theninjaofmusic It's very simple. Blaseball is Gnosticism, and the Demiurge is a big Peanut. The Tacos sacrificed themselves, in a nutshell, by refusing to worship the evil god, because they had nothing left to lose, and everyone else helped out with that. In return, they got a pitching machine who was also a vampire.

[@theninjaofmusic]

@@bangboom123 Jesus. Now I know how my mom feels when I talk about videos games.

[@balut76]

@@bangboom123 Who ended up in a loving vampiric relationship with the San Francisco Lovers' blind gorgon, Ortiz Lopez.

[@Mattzere]

Spies win!

[@Kanra_0]

As a man who discovered Shut Up & Shit Down in between the last 2 videos and has been binging it constantly, this video was a trip. Love you Quinns!

[@leoseydoux3831]

I do this in pes 2008, i created a team full of players completely unique and customized with different stats, animations and nationalities...I ended up creating backstories for them and It's a lot of fun seeing how they all interact

[@yokonamigaara]

Is very fun to me that the guy that introduced me to Blaseball is now doing the roundups. I very much appreciate his work!

[@Weirdo9494]

A good friend of mine has been talking about this game for a little over a month now. And the more he went on, the less I got. There was mention of the necromancy and the blood-sucking pitching machine, a bunch of weird dialogue involving a squid and a sentient peanut, incoherent screaming about birds attacking the field and causing a team to have 16 outs in one inning, a black hole consuming the sun and somehow leaving one of the teams with "-1" in the wins column, and some plot to kill God which apparently actually took place in the game's simulation. Needless to say, I watched this video to try and make sense of it...which it has helped, thankfully, but only to the extent that it's possible to understand Blaseball, I assume. Which is still very little.

[@mikeandyholloway]

"What if a teambase's passion, ferver and ingenuity could *actually* help that team?" I felt a great disturbance in the Sports Fandoms, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced

[@psplayer1344]

Lol Star Track reference.

[@MozilloGames]

I enjoy videos by Quinns as he always flips wildly between a geography teacher in triple corduroy and then... like, that cool science teacher... in a sequence baseball outfit. And I'm totally here for that.

[@zexin3897]

I so love how they animated the objects to have faces.

[@themixedmaster]

“Supernova of creativity” oh my god if only he knew

[@wahoodotwav]

riv blaseball. we laughed, we cried, we "same as it ever was"ed. one day maybe itll return. sending love from the flowers 🌹

[@BLASEBALLNEWSNETWORK]

We are all love blaseball.

[@PierceWhiteside]

This is so unbelievably funny to me like holy crap. This is just everything I think I could’ve ever wanted and more. The very name of Blaseball just made me laugh from the start so I knew this was going to be good.

[@Zacharuni]

I have never seen anything more up my alley, so excited to find this!

[@SurprisedPika666]

I just learned about it today. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[@RocketSlug]

The fan-made lore you're describing is giving me Twitch Plays Pokemon vibes and I'm so down for that

[@MarcusNoble]

Whenever anyone asks me "WTF is blaseball?" I'm going to send them to this video.

[@Naruedyoh]

"This is an idle game" Less than one minute and i need to play that

[@mrcroob8563]

Wow thats a low bar. Idle games LITERALLY don't need you 80% of the time how fun for you.

[@sporeham1674]

@@mrcroob8563 holy shit, somebody enjoys a game genre enjoyable that you don't? How fucking care they.

[@mrcroob8563]

@@sporeham1674 Game? Where?

[@alexanderking8336]

Anyone else rewatching this and other Blaseball YT content every few days as the grand siesta goes on?

[@anemoiapolisofficial]

Why did I have to watch this video... I had so many things to do this week. Now I'm rooting for an arbitrary team and discussing with the Discord what the linguistics of "ascend" imply

[@IoFoxdale]

Quinns I need to know if that incredible outfit was a business expense or something you just casually owned.

[@Frogglin]

At the start I thought "Oh interesting but not really for me" By the end I needed to head over and join.

[@pip.turner]

Incredible animation work this episode! So many small details. Favourite you guys have put out yet 😊

[@mcFreaki]

pitching machine was then idolized to the point of getting shelled, was drafted to the pods, and now pitches for the Seattle Garages.

[@IndicatedGoodLife]

I thought that tony hawk was in the thumbnail. Im disappointed... at myself.

[@PeopleMakeGames]

Hahaha, oh wow.

[@gqsnowman]

RIV Blaseball. Jazz Hands forever.

[@Notester82]

Hoooooly heck. I remembered hearing about this game a while ago and thought "wow, this is pretty neat" but I feel like this video has immensely opened my eyes to the deeper, weirder (in a good way), and cooler sides of Blaseball, thank you for this!

[@NotForLongNFL]

Rest In Vault Pitching Machine 😔

[@calllen]

when I saw him in a flashy outfit at the start, I thought blaseball stood for bling-baseball

[@Taaaamas]

That's it, I'm hooked already.

[@Stonedead1991]

Thank you for doing this video, I had no idea this existed and I am ready to enter and enjoy this crazy world.

[@ricecooker7037]

I can see how this is a sensation. A few minutes in and I already wanna play this game just because of how goofy it is.

[@Whitsoxrule1]

I have a curiosity stream sub from another youtuber sponsored by them and the documentary mentioned at the end of this video (Knuckleball) was SO GOOD, I watched it a few weeks ago. Even if you don't like baseball it's an awesome story about this tiny group of pitchers who use this pitch that nobody else really understands. There's only ever about 2-3 knuckleballers in the league at any given time (out of ~400 pitchers) so they have to work hard to make sure the art doesn't die out. Plus these guys often try to learn the knuckleball when they can tell their regular pitch arsenal isn't gonna get them to the majors, so it's a really awesome underdog story as well. 10/10 would recommend.

[@gorem8]

Lol, i don't even know how Baseball works but i love Blaseball already

[@IDidntSetAHandle]

3:52 - Oh I think the developers know what they mean by "changing your blood type to grass". The rest of the video is proof of this.

[@imsotiredofthiscrap2341]

More like changing your blood type to crack, weed is too chill for these mfers.

[@jedfromyourlocallibrary]

Ah yes, the cultural event known as Blaseball.

[@TheDarkEye]

I can't believe how creative you are in picking the topics of your videos...each video uncovers some hidden gem of the gaming community I have never heard about before.

[@edcrypt]

Looks like dwarf fortress meets fantasy football, changing the sport, add adding a whole lot of acid

[@Call-me-Al]

That was my first thought too

[@vandarkholme8548]

Such a shame that I didnt discover it until well after it was over

[@echo5172]

That is a shame. There is nothing like Blaseball, and possibly nothing will be like it again. (Until The Game Band releases their next project!!!)

[@MichaelAussie05]

Brilliant thanks to Quintin and all those involved in the production of this entertaining and informative story for their time and efforts. Cheers.

[@maplelavender]

Quinns lookin' even more fabulous than usual today

[@swampghost835]

RIV blaseball. you were weird, you were wonderful. sending love from the sunbeams ☀️

[@Anonymous19951]

5:12 was such a neat touch to have the baseball look at the person running by. Awesome vid! New fan

[@alvinmercado4843]

rigid unfeeling shell of the nut? the heart of it is love? hits deep man.

[@seanthebluesheep]

I've been tangentially exposed to Blaseball through my Twitter feed and I'm so glad to find out that it's so much more than I could have dreamed it was.

[@curupa66]

Watching a video about something I never heard of that is taking the internet. Now my youtube will be taken over by blaseball.

[@vintageindy]

I'm glad that I now know about Blaseball, but also, I thought this was going to be about drag baseball based on his Dodgers outfit.

[@lydiasteinebendiksen4269]

That peanut scene actually made me uncomfortable... Quinns, you are a weird man, and I love you.

[@Goombalove3000]

...Who's here after the Hall Stars came back to kill god at the end of S10?

[@hapticflapjack]

That sequin outfit is incredible, I love it. And thanks for the intro to something so creatively surreal.

[@friedman1675]

You guys make the best videos, thanks for introducing me to all kinds of cool things I've never heard of

[@Jmdeleeuw-]

This is my new favorite channel. Incredible content. I love that I found out about Blaseball.

[@lydiasteinebendiksen4269]

When he sais "in a nutshell" and I, knowing the shelled one, crack up.

[@rui5u]

I don't know if the Jelle's Marble League would be a good fit for Quintin's segment, but I'd really love to see that

[@baldipogchamp8926]

I needed this! Keep seeing on twitter and seeing it sponsored by cool games made by cool people but had no idea what this was. Stuff like this is what I love

[@thecastawaydc]

I am now a fan of the Hellmouth Sunbeams. Let's see what Nagomi Nava is all about.

[@jjthepikazard212]

my friend & i are now hooked to blaseball. thanks for introduce it to me. :)

[@stratking86]

Wow what a cool sounding game! I should check it out...........oh it's dead.

[@joebremer1722]

I've never watched this channel before and i was really alarmed when that person turned around and it was Quinns

[@VitaKet]

Damn.. guess if we're just hearing about this now we were too late.

[@aatired7307]

This kinda reminds me of a Discord MMO I recently learned about called "Rowdy Fuckers Cop Killers: Endless War." It's also a multiplayer game that has a canon that is almost entirely community driven, and is also driven by dark humor. The major difference in storytelling is that instead of A.I. controlled characters out of the players control having bad things happen to them; The Players themselves are horribly maimed and murdered because it's a versus MMO.

[@eldesconocidosenork5981]

Never heard of this until half an hour ago, and now I want a 5 hour podcast just explaining to me the entire Lore (Which, I know in these cases it´s basically imposible, like making timelines from SCP or like making a picture of Nightvale)

[@echo5172]

It's not quite comprehensive, but a good overview of the first 20 or so seasons are the official Blaseball Roundups

[@flackbyte]

I just wanted to know what blade all was but is a nice surprise to see Quinns.

[@pleasetellmeitworks]

What a dork, I love this

[@theothertonydutch]

What an informative and well produced little video!

[@QuincelSC]

We need Twitch Plays Blaseball.

[@Solinaru]

There's some people that will do live commentary over Blaseball games like The Splorts Hub. It's really good especially during the the final game of the season and post season.

[@SimGunther]

On this week's episode of "Videos recommendations I didn't ask for, but definitely needed"

[@amalaspina]

R.I.P Blaseball, it was fun while it lasted.

[@yellolao]

I'm a long time subscriber to Shut Up and Shut Down and can't believe why YT didn't recommended this channel earlier!

[@slodes.6634]

so basically an ever-growing nearly uncontrollable game of fantasy baseball

[@PantheraLeo04]

Yes but you also get to kill capitalism

[@GGlitchGuy]

I can’t believe missed blaseball by a year :(

[@NathanyelGrey]

I'm signing up now! thank you for sharing an amazing game like this

[@Your2ndPlanB]

Is it even possible to get into blaseball now there's so much lore already?

[@macdoo99]

Yeah! Since it's so chaotic you don't really need to understand everything that's happened before, just what's happening now. But if it is something you'd feel better knowing there's a bunch of summaries dotted over the internet, and the wiki has a pretty comprehensive runthrough!

[@OmySpy]

You don't need to know everything, just consume it at your own pace!

[@incognitoburrito6020]

There's a lot of depth to blaseball lore, but fortunately most of it is entirely optional! You pick it up pretty fast through osmosis if you join the discord, but just betting on games and experiencing the dopamine hit of Earning Money is a perfectly valid way of interacting with blaseball.

[@MorpheusTheBro]

This is incredible! Thank you so much for introducing me to this incredibly weird game

[@lydiasteinebendiksen4269]

To think this would lead to Quinns becoming something of an official spokesperson for the legue on youtube... I'm not the surprised in the slightest, but more than a little exited about it.