Jeopardy champ Matt Amodio responds to his 'what is' critics: 'It feeds me, I like it'

Nick Romano
·2 min read
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Jeopardy winner Matt Amodio welcomes all the "what is" jokes. He seems to like it.

In a Q&A video posted to the show's social media platforms, Amodio responded to those who were perturbed by him responding to Jeopardy questions with "what is..." instead of "who is..." when referring to a person.

"I get a lot of 'what's Matt' [from people] and I think they're trying to be mean, but I've just kind of taken it on my own. So, it feeds me. I like it," he said.

Amodio has won 20 consecutive games of Jeopardy, tying with past champ Julia Collins in the third spot for most consecutive games won. The only past winners ahead of him in that regard are James Holtzhauer and Ken Jennings.

However, there were those who took issue with Amodio's answering style.

"I know the rules of Jeopardy. I've watched a lot of Jeopardy and I've seen rulings on individual questions here and there. So, I have known from experience what is acceptable and what is not," he explained in the video. "I went about the approach of saying the fewer things to think about the better. If you have a moving part, that moving part can go wrong. And so, I found the simplest most repeatable approach I could and went with it."

Q&A With Jeopardy! Champion Matt Amodio | JEOPARDY!
Q&A With Jeopardy! Champion Matt Amodio | JEOPARDY!

JEOPARDY/YouTube 'Jeopardy' champion Matt Amodio

He admitted "it's been a bit much" playing Jeopardy and "seeing reactions to the games that are airing" on social media.

"I've just been trying to compartmentalize all of that," he added. "People have been very nice. I didn't know the internet could also be nice. People have been very nice and so I've appreciated that."

Amodio later went on Twitter and wrote that he was referring to "all of you in the #Jeopardy twitter community! Thanks for your support!"

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