Is Ben Finegold as big a jerk as he seems in his videos?

i heard he luvz tropical mentos

shat (change a to i)

uhhh..we gettit.

Well, I've not exactly provided the definition of a jerk, dude. You've literally just taken one small sentence from my whole paragraphs, and used it as a quote to bring forth the context for your argument. You missed the points about him giving to charity, and the fact that once you understand his humour you realise he's not mocking from a sense of malice. I'd totally agree with you that he's a jerk if he's mocking everything with evil intent, and gets a kick out of making his viewers/people upset, but he's really not trying to do that.He can often be self deprecating toward himself and humans in general which shows that it comes from a place of humour.

I mean there are loads great comedians out there that literally mock everything, but are absolutely lovely people. Take the creators of South Park for example. Their humour is incredibly controversial - to the point where they even mock the cultures that they come from - but when you do some research into them, look at their actual political view points, how much they contribute to charities and understand that South Park is complete satire on how ridiculous society is, you realise the creators are genuinely really nice people. 

I think if you're a person who doesn't like , or get, that style of humour, then yeah I can totally understand why someone can see Ben Finegold as a jerk. I'm not some far-right, dude, on the internet who thinks that society has gone too 'woke', or people are too sensitive these days; I have pretty left-wing view points, but I do think a lot of people need to distinguish the difference to when a person is joking, and when a person is genuinely being horrible.

No, I met him in real life at the K-12 National Scholastic in Orlando, pretty cool dude who cracked a few jokes and I got a picture with him.

Jerk? His lectures are pretty funny tbh, but I guess some people have different tastes. 

Your opinion of Ben Finegold is a lot higher than mine and I see zero value in trying to change it.  If you like him, you like him.  Let's just leave it at that.

Yep, that's cool, dude, and I'd like you to stick to your opinion of him to. 

I don't think he's a jerk at all. Plain spoken maybe. But his audience seems to enjoy his demeanor and he's an excellent instructor.

Came' across this topic and I see it gets revived every so often (Guess' it's like the hub of Ben demeanor discussion ) so I don't think anyone would mind if I add a few videos of his:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYF_OodSyb8

He sprinkles realistic words of encouragement like that between his usual humor of "Everything is the worst including myself". So it's not malicious or anything as he is savvy to the big picture.

Here's another example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m8zwJRFD_A

He starts off by saying the 296 rating is not good, but that was only a setup to go over people's perceptions on ratings and how misunderstood it can be. Then stating the 296 was pretty good.

I watched a video of his about Capablanca. I wasn't impressed.

For a start, the production values of his videos are poor - poor lighting and sound, for example.

Then he started this particular video by rambling on about his and his son's birthdays, as if anyone is remotely interested in that. So not a great beginning - wasting time in the opening (against all chess principles 😁).

Then we see him looking at his computer, reading off things about Capablanca from a Wikipedia page! 😲 Err ... I'm quite capable of reading that for myself, actually. I don't need to watch a video of a guy doing it. 🙈

That's a taste of what his videos are like - poorly made, poorly presented and poorly organised.

I much prefer Agadmator's videos, which have excellent chess content and a presenter who doesn't have an ego inflated to the size of a hot-air balloon.

I actually agree. There is a whole world of difference in quality between his old videos and his new ones. In the old days in St. Louis he made an effort, and the thing was edited by a good editor.

i wanna send him a candycare package

he's a little bit funny. 
he's excellent at chess and has good tips, I have learned a bit from him, though one at my low level of 1000 there are probably more suitable teachers who aim for instruction & inspiration sans rampant the constant exclamations and references made in hopes of highlighting our disparate comedy demographics. It's ironic that the most fitting online teacher for someone is probably a softer spoken lower ranked player. He's definitely a good guy and not a jerk tin real life. Let's just keep him away from reality TV creators

It's absurd that this thread continues to go on.Ben has his own personality as do so many of us.

I'm sure that some folks aren't too wild about some aspect of our own personalities either.

Give it a rest already.

He is very funny on youtube with the kids but I was put a little off by his saltiness towards Hikaru that was clipped from his livestreams. I don’t know if it has a good reason but at least I tried to understand what he was mad about. He always just said oh if you know you know that Hikaru is a jerk so I’m not give any reasons, you just know if you know. But the youtube humor I liked.

Who started this thread?

You might say that he is like Don Rickles was.

That's pretty much the truth,imo......People have to lighten up.

So's Ben.....Actually,I think the guy's a riot! It all comes down to how one perceives someone.

Some folks are a little too tightly wound.