News Anchor Tells 13-Year-Old Tetris World Record Setter to "Go Outside" and "Get Some Fresh Air"

Last week, Willis “Blue Scuti” Gibson became the first human to beat Tetris, a game that was notorious for being “unbeatable.” The 13-year-old from Oklahoma managed to beat the game by reaching its infamous “kill screen” at level 157. This is a feat that has never been achieved by a human since the game’s creation in 1985 by Alexey Pajitnov but mainstream news immediately decided to diminish the achievement. 

Sky News Reporter Diminishes Blue Scuti’s Achievement 

A news report by Sky News talked about Blue Scuti’s achievement but the news reporter was quick to say, “As a mother I would say to step away from the screen and get some fresh air. Beating Tetris is not a life goal.” 

A clip of the news coverage was shared by Video Game Chronicle’s Chris Scullion who critcized Sky News for diminishing Gibson’s achievement. The internet immediately came to the 13-year-old’s defence with some notable members of the video game community chiming in their thoughts as well. 

Sea of Thieves developer Rare Games’ community manager Becky Frost commented on the issue saying, “’Beating Tetris is not a life goal’ …yeah, for YOU, Sandra. How many world records had YOU set at 13 years old? What a small-minded, smug & horrible way to belittle this kid’s achievement. As A MoTheR I’d be super f***ing proud. This took skill & determination, brilliant job!”

51-year-old Sky News journalist Jayne Secker has the message “hopefully outside” as part of her Twitter bio and many Twitter users feel as if she’s trying to mock gamers. While many might try to diminish the young gamer’s achievements, Scuti’s mother is proud of her son.

She told the  New York Times,  “He does other things outside of playing Tetris, so it really wasn’t that terribly difficult to say OK. It was harder to find an old CRT TV than it was to say, ‘Yeah, we can do this for a little bit.’"

The Association for UK Interactive Entertainment’s (UKIE) head of communications Bhavina Bharkhada said on Twitter/X, “What's bonkers about how this has been covered is if it was, say a child chess champion, we'd all be celebrating - they'd even be invited to Downing Street to play chess” 

UKIE also issued a statement saying it's high time we throw out those outdated perceptions of video games, and recognise it (gaming) is not only an economic powerhouse, but also a key cultural export for the UK.