‘Jeopardy!’ Champion Rubbing Fans the Wrong Way Because of This Personality Quirk

LeVar Burton isn’t the only person generating plenty of buzz online amid this week’s Jeopardy! episodes. As The Reading Rainbow host stepped out for his guest hosting debut, contestant Matt Amodio stole the spotlight, but for all of the wrong reasons. The PhD student from New Haven, Connecticut has been dominating the game, but one weird quirk viewers have picked up on has rubbed Jeopardy! fans the wrong way.

Amodio, a Yale doctoral student studying artificial intelligence, has won six-straight games of the long-running game show, though as he balances Daily Doubles with strategic Final Jeopardy! wagers, viewers have noticed his tendency to use “What’s” regardless of if the answer is a thing or a person. Jeopardy! viewers picked up on the unusual quirk almost immediately upon Amodio’s Jeopardy! debut, and in the days since he first stepped out onto the Jeopardy! stage, Amodio has continued to answer questions with “what’s.” Amodio has used the placeholder even when answers have been a person’s name, such as Anna Faris, Jim Parsons, or John Cleese. Rather than saying “who’s,” Amodio answered the clues with “what’s Faris,” “what’s Parsons,” and “what’s Cleese.”

Although his answering style is somewhat unique and clearly hasn’t interfered with his gameplay – he’s already earned a spot in the Tournament of Champions tracker – it has done little to win over fans. In fact, Jeopardy! viewers tuning into Amodio’s episodes have found his quirk rather annoying, with numerous people taking to social media to air their grievances. Keep scrolling to see what people are saying.

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“I love [LeVar Burton] as host of [Jeopardy!]. He’s a natural. That being said, I’m so annoyed by Matt Amodio’s improper posing of the questions that I can’t even enjoy the show,” tweeted one viewer. “‘What’s Moore’ when answering a question regarding a proper name? Seriously? WHAT IS. WHO IS.”

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“Every time with him! They should mark his questions as wrong since he’s phrasing them so improperly,” one person suggested in response to the above tweet.

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“Matt Amodio’s current dominance on [Jeopardy!] is impressive,” one person acknowledged. “But man, his insistence on starting every response with ‘What’s’ is more than a little bit off-putting.”

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“What’s wrong with Matt Amodio,” asked one viewer. “He has no personality; he speaks with a monotone; and he doesn’t know any other pronouns except ‘WHAT is…?’ even for people or places. Matt: it is WHO is for people; WHERE is for places and so on. Learn grammar.”

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“Can’t stand another night of watching Matt start every question with ‘what’s’ on [Jeopardy!],” tweeted somebody else. “It’s like nails on a chalkboard.”

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“Yesterday was my first time seeing Matt play. He goes straight for the highest value clues first and only uses the interrogative ‘What’s…’ regardless of the subject of the response,” wrote one. “A man with a plan.”

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“Matt Amodio is a worthy 5-day champ on [Jeopardy!] but he curiously answers every question with ‘what’s’, even when the question clearly refers to a person or the response is in the plura1,” tweeted another person. “Very weird. Oh well, he’s a computer geek.”