Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
A producer who used to be involved in CA and Blistered Thumbs weighs in:
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
for some much needed levity, MarzGurl put this out on Youtube
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
yikesPerrydotto wrote: ↑Fri Apr 13, 2018 5:16 pmBtw Guru Larry is either a Gamergator or sympathizes with them (he makes dumb anti-PC jokes and has apparently expressed gratitude to Kotaku in Action before) and is staying on CA esesentially for "the lulz" so he's profiting off of the negative attention
I like some of his videos but that sorta shit is beyond my line and I'm not gonna watch him again, anyone who thinks it's funny to stay on a sinking ship for the notoriety even though shit about rape has come to light is not my kinda guy
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
Perrydotto wrote: ↑Fri Apr 13, 2018 5:16 pmBtw Guru Larry is either a Gamergator or sympathizes with them (he makes dumb anti-PC jokes and has apparently expressed gratitude to Kotaku in Action before) and is staying on CA esesentially for "the lulz" so he's profiting off of the negative attention
I like some of his videos but that sorta poo poo is beyond my line and I'm not gonna watch him again, anyone who thinks it's funny to stay on a sinking ship for the notoriety even though poo poo about rape has come to light is not my kinda guy
Consarn it I liked fact hunt
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
Something that was discussed when Linkara and others were talking about the problems they had with how Doug wrote their characters as assholes is that Doug firmly believes that humor comes from misery. This is something he himself discussed in length on his videos, where he feels that, in order for something to be funny, it needs some element of cruelty.
In retrospect, that explains a lot about his sense of humor.
In retrospect, that explains a lot about his sense of humor.
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
Just wanted to write that this whole fiasco is just... mind-boggling. Channel Awesome's responses (the first non-apology tweet and then the accusation-fact-response) have been unprofessional and embarrassing. The groomer incident they unintentionally created is the worst outcome from this.
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
I'm starting to think PPPP might not be the best place for this thread anymore.
Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of...
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
I'm starting to think this planet is not the best place for humanity any more.
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
Soapbox instead, I presume? I'm honestly not sure
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
Another potential wrinkle has come up: The CA management made references to a five way ownership of the site, and Brad Jones/Cinema Snob might be involved, which could be the reason he can't easily leave. He lashed out a few days ago on Facebook when asked about leaving, which is kinda understandable given the stressful nature of this mess, but him being otherwise quiet could be down to more than just supposed friendships. If that's true, shit's gotta be really complicated for him right now.
This means Cinema Snob is still technically with CA as far as we know right now, and Guru Larry isn't the asshole Highlander yet.
This means Cinema Snob is still technically with CA as far as we know right now, and Guru Larry isn't the asshole Highlander yet.
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
More about how Mike Michaud is out of touch and a dick:
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- West Filly
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
Shut up everyone else at the table, let me tell you about my business model.
You see instead of getting the creators to upload directly to something like Blip or Youtube that'll generate revenue for them, we upload it ourselves and take the money, paying them in GOOD EXPOSUR. Better yet, we control their script and inject the ads right into the piece they're making. We take that money too. Now all we have to do is convince content creators that Youtube is full of so much trash that they'd never have a chance getting found on their own. Convince them that people want to come to a trusted site, our site, to find good videos. Do this and they'll fall right into the trap of letting us have their money.
You see instead of getting the creators to upload directly to something like Blip or Youtube that'll generate revenue for them, we upload it ourselves and take the money, paying them in GOOD EXPOSUR. Better yet, we control their script and inject the ads right into the piece they're making. We take that money too. Now all we have to do is convince content creators that Youtube is full of so much trash that they'd never have a chance getting found on their own. Convince them that people want to come to a trusted site, our site, to find good videos. Do this and they'll fall right into the trap of letting us have their money.
Last edited by West Filly on Sat Apr 14, 2018 8:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
He's so desperate for that good exposure that he's willing to exploit these atrocities to get it.
He's perfect for the channel.
He's perfect for the channel.
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
Phil later said it was just a joke and that people who didn't get the joke "should stop drinking the kool-aid" so he's likely just being a shit, but I found this interaction too fitting not to post.
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
I'm talking about Larry. He's milking this evil!
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
Your comment could honestly belong to either of these butts so
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
This is a complete WTF and I don't even know where to start. Gamergate douchebags taking advantage of people who might have been raped? Jesus Christ. Closest rl analogy I can think of would be the KKK taking advantage of Bill Cosby's thing or the Westboro Church Kevin Spacey & Bryan Singer!
What kind of shitlords use the abuse of others for their own joy? I have no love for your average Internet SJW but even if I didn't think their hearts are generally in the right place I... Fuck I don't even know how to vocalize how amazingly shit these Gamergate jerks are. (They were always shit. But that's besides the point. Now they are ultra shit approaching Alex Jones levels of douche.)
What kind of shitlords use the abuse of others for their own joy? I have no love for your average Internet SJW but even if I didn't think their hearts are generally in the right place I... Fuck I don't even know how to vocalize how amazingly shit these Gamergate jerks are. (They were always shit. But that's besides the point. Now they are ultra shit approaching Alex Jones levels of douche.)
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
At this point you might as well not use the term unironically SJW at all anymore. It's been thoroughly poisoned and raked through the mud by people that it means basically anything and anyone who's not a hardcore alt-righter. There are many other ways to discuss harmful activism without a word that is just a worn out buzzword these days.
And yeah, they will stop at nothing to fuel their own agenda. It's sadly not even a new thing, this is just the most recent example.
And yeah, they will stop at nothing to fuel their own agenda. It's sadly not even a new thing, this is just the most recent example.
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- Perrydotto
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
One of the more recently split creators, Battle Geek Plus, wrote a detailed account of his experiences. He echoes things like the bad communication, scheduling issues, and others. He also discusses harassment he received from CA fans and other problems, and how he got increasingly disillusioned during his tenure.
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- Adiwan
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
My question is now: Who has remained?
"The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss." - Douglas Adams
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
Right now, outside of Doug, there's Guru Larry and Brad Jones/Cinema Snob afaik. The former is staying for the lulz, essentially, and the latter is staying for unclear reasons. Some speculate it's out of friendship for the Walkers, others speculate it's because he's the mysterious fifth owner of the Channel Awesome company. He's kept a tight lip about everything for the most part so nobody knows.
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
All of the Walkers' material is being crossposted to YouTube these days, which I guess means they managed to secure one of those special YouTube partnerships that grants them immunity to ContentID (I can't imagine a single NC video about a movie being accessible otherwise), so they might as well close down the site entirely just to save face. But then, for all the things they could have done to save face up until this point, they've done the exact opposite, so I don't really expect that to change.
Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of...
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
Marzgurl just posted a pretty good video on this whole recent even worse revelation and it really makes me feel bad for how many people CA screwed over and due to their actions screwed over AGAIN thanks to them being so inept.
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
They had that big uproar a few years ago about getting their account closed over content strikes or something, where they started their "Where's The Fair Use" campaign. Their account was eventually reinstated a few weeks later. No idea how it's been since but I can imagine it's some partnership thing. Funnily enough, as much as I'm in support of Fair Use, I think you could pretty easily make the argument that the NC stuff is largely not in Fair Use, or at least questionable. It can be debated how much he actually transforms the work and how much he just uses clips 1:1 without much editing, analysis or commentary. Things worked out ultimately but even among reviewers, it seems he changes surprisingly little from basically an abridged watch-through of the movie. Fair Use is a murky thing, in general.Pocket wrote: ↑Sun Apr 15, 2018 9:55 pmAll of the Walkers' material is being crossposted to YouTube these days, which I guess means they managed to secure one of those special YouTube partnerships that grants them immunity to ContentID (I can't imagine a single NC video about a movie being accessible otherwise), so they might as well close down the site entirely just to save face. But then, for all the things they could have done to save face up until this point, they've done the exact opposite, so I don't really expect that to change.
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of...
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
Not sure if this is true, given it's Reddit, but interesting.Pocket wrote: ↑Mon Apr 16, 2018 12:23 pmA Redditor noticed that Doug's Facebook info has changed since last week.
EDIT: People who actually use Facebook (as in, not me) have noted that it's an extra click and some info to change "worked here" to "currently works here" in your profile, so this oculd also be a case of Doug being bad at internets. No idea.
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
Meanwhile, Guru Larry registered on ResetERA to clear his Gamergater sympathies from the past. Not bad of him to answer people's questions. I do wanna believe he's gotten smarter past nonsense, but who the fuck knows. I'm willing to be cautiously optimistic that he's maybe just a more typical ignorant gamer than an outright asshole (though I still don't like his occasional anti-PC jokes), but as of 2017 he still thought KiA was cool so I dunno.
He also says he intended his jokes about CA to be in okay taste and he'll stop now at any rate. That's something, because at least I personally felt he just wanted to garner attention for himself more than anything else with that stuff, but that's my 2 cents. It can be hard to discern whether someone is just a genuine dumbo with an iffy sense of humour or a purposely malicious douche, especially online.
He also says he intended his jokes about CA to be in okay taste and he'll stop now at any rate. That's something, because at least I personally felt he just wanted to garner attention for himself more than anything else with that stuff, but that's my 2 cents. It can be hard to discern whether someone is just a genuine dumbo with an iffy sense of humour or a purposely malicious douche, especially online.
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- Perrydotto
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
Regarding the Channel Awesome situation, Guru Larry has said the following:
About Cinema Snob/Brad Jones
About the management
About Linkara
About Cinema Snob/Brad Jones
No idea if he has Brad's permission to say this or if it's true, but there it is.Yup, Brad DM'd me the morning, poor guy has been getting a ton of harassment from fans demanding he leave, threatening to doxx him and other horrible stuff if he doesn't. But he's said it'd be a cold day in hell before he leaves. He's close friends with the Walkers, especially Rob, so he really just want to remain loyal to his friends. Oh, he also said he removed the links to CA from his Twitter bio as he wanted the limited space to promote his movie.
About the management
My only real gripe with management is never being invited to anniversaries, or asked to do anything with Doug. I couldn't put that on the list as they could easily counter that with me being entitled or it's because I live in another country. (But them letting Film Brain and Benzaie go over and over instead of rotating with the other foreign contributors was shitty - but that was Doug, not Michaud. Doug's in charge of anything creative on the site)
But lol I've not seen that video before, that's funny. :D Mike is apparently working on a second Our Response message to respond to more accusations, but after the last one did so well, it might not happen.
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I'll most likely be kicked when they close the site, I've not got any info that they actually are, but they've already closed the store and the forums on there, and them having just 2 contributors when they had over 80 three years before can't be too pleasing for them.
The other producers have been planning a new aggregate site for years, they've been discussing it for the longest time, but it's only really now that they're finally kicking it into action.
About Linkara
I would say that's true of him, From about 2010 communication with the management has always been awkward between them and us and Linkara tried to position himself as a kind of liaison between the two since then. Completely unsuccessful, but he put the effort in to try. He comes across as some rather anally retentive and a bit of a fuddy-duddy, but he's actually a super nice, helpful guy IRL, someone you'd really want on your side in a fight.
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
Bit of an odd time to be actively updating that part of his profile either way, though. Unless Facebook itself removed the ability to specify one's position some time ago, without changing people's existing data, and he was trying to update it to "co-owner" or something similar only to discover too late that he couldn't set it to anything other than the default. I've had... a similar experience on a forum I'm on.Perrydotto wrote: ↑Mon Apr 16, 2018 5:03 pmNot sure if this is true, given it's Reddit, but interesting.
EDIT: People who actually use Facebook (as in, not me) have noted that it's an extra click and some info to change "worked here" to "currently works here" in your profile, so this oculd also be a case of Doug being bad at internets. No idea.
Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of...
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
No idea if this whole ordeal has impacted the friendship between James and Doug, but business-wise it's done:
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
Well that's a relief. At least one of my early Internet memories isn't done by a total shitlord.
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
Most of the people who contributed to Channel Awesome throughout the years are actually decent folk. But some ... yeah. Yeah.
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
The Salon article is up, and includes the only official statement so far from Doug.
Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of...
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- Perrydotto
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Re: Channel Awesome is an absolutely godawful horror show
In general, I feel like that article isn't exactly stellar. I wasn't expecting incredible journalism or anything, but the article still glances over a lot of important stuff and has a weirdly standoffish tone (at least in my opinion). It's not trash, but I can't help but feel it's pretty damn milquetoast.
Doug's statement, unsurprisingly, doesn't adress anything. "Oh we all just did this internet stuff for kicks" doesn't fly anymore when you make serious bank off of your site while treating your producers like shit. Just because internet stardom, especially at the time, was basically a case of "winging it and seeing what sticks" doesn't mean you are exempt from every improving on how you run your business.
Doug's statement, unsurprisingly, doesn't adress anything. "Oh we all just did this internet stuff for kicks" doesn't fly anymore when you make serious bank off of your site while treating your producers like shit. Just because internet stardom, especially at the time, was basically a case of "winging it and seeing what sticks" doesn't mean you are exempt from every improving on how you run your business.
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