'Jeopardy!' Contestant Gets Called Out—'Disturbing'

Newly crowned Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions victor Yogesh Raut has sparked ire among fans of the syndicated quiz show over the manner in which he hit the buzzer.

During Tuesday's final, Raut, a social and personality psychologist from Vancouver, Washington, was seen defeating his opponents—Ben Chan, a philosophy professor from Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Troy Meyer, a music executive from Tampa, Florida—to secure the coveted $250,000 prize.

Raut's victory has also earned him a place on the second season of Jeopardy! Masters. The first season was won in May 2023 by James Holzhauer, who battled it out with Matt Amodio and Mattea Roach in the final.

However, Raut's crowning moment was preceded by a flood of complaints from a number of Jeopardy! viewers, who shared video footage of moments where the trivia whiz appeared to repeatedly smash the buzzer to get in first with his responses.

"Yogesh's violent attacks on the buzzer is really disturbing me," wrote one viewer on X, formerly Twitter.

"I hope Yogesh's buzzer technique isn't as distracting to the other players as it is to me," another commented. "Definitely not fun to watch."

"I'm only just noticing this, but Yogesh's buzzer technique is giving me anxiety like is he using his entire palm?!" read another post on X.

"I hope they've asked Yogesh for a security deposit on his buzzer," quipped another, who posted footage of Raut using the buzzer.

"Yogesh needs to chill out with that buzzer... he's insanely smacking it," one viewer opined.

"Currently watching #Jeopardy!... Yogesh is treating the buzzer the way I treat buttons while playing Mortal Kombat," said another.

"Lock this brother up for going ham on the buzzer like this #Jeopardy," another weighed in.

While Raut was criticized for the manner in which he used his buzzer, he was also defended on the micro-blogging platform by a number of supporters.

"I'll never understand hating on a #Jeopardy contestant just because you don't like their buzzer technique," another viewer wrote. "There are plenty of reasons to not like a contestant that I consider valid, but buzzer technique is not one of them."

"Huge congratulations to Yogesh for his victory in the #Jeopardy TOC," said former Jeopardy! champ Luigi de Guzman. "The quality of his play throughout the tournament speaks for itself."

Another posted a screenshot of Raut's winning stats, as they said of the victor's buzzer method: "I mean... if it works, it works."

For his part, Raut briefly addressed his style of buzzer use in a Facebook post shared ahead of Tuesday's broadcast. "'By the pricking of my thumbs' is also a good description of my buzzer strategy," Raut wrote.

Last week, Raut also shared on the social media platform that his buzzer strategy led to concerning consequences when he visited a friend for dinner after taping his Jeopardy! episodes.

"I picked up a pair of chopsticks ... and my right hand suddenly decided that, after four days of my using it to abuse a buzzer, it had had enough," he recalled. "It seized up and refused to function any more."

The issue was remedied, he said, with a hot water bottle.

Following his appearance on Jeopardy! last year, Raut sparked controversy when he criticized the show in a series of Facebook posts.

"'Jeopardy!' is a fun TV show but putting it on a pedestal is an objectively bad thing. It's bad for the future of quizzing," he wrote in a January 12, 2023, post that appears to have since been deleted.

"It's bad for women and POC who want to be treated with the same levels of dignity as their White male counterparts. It is fundamentally incompatible with incentivizing the next generation of quizzers to excel, and it is fundamentally incompatible with true social justice."

Raut later defended his comments, stating: "People who know me know that long before I was ever called to be on the show I was saying the exact same things, the exact same sentiment, the exact same words."

Newsweek has contacted a representative of Jeopardy! for comment.