"Channel Awesome" Talkback, Part 21 (Warning: Strong Language Throughout)

[Spideyzilla]

Wow, almost a year since this thread has been updated. I'm doing this update/bump as a test to see if this topic can still get any interest, because there is a TON going on with CA right now. I figured it warranted mentioning here, though it's fine if people want to let CA discussion here end once and for all.

So basically, former members of CA are coming forward to detail the mistreatment of the producers by the higher ups, though Mike Michaud is getting much of the criticism. There has also been a mass exodus of producers leaving the channel. MikeJ, Linkara and Todd In The Shadows are all gone, joining an already long list of producers from the glory days of CA leaving the site under bad circumstances. Many of them have taken to Twitter to detail their experiences, which resulted in someone compiling all of these stories into a Google doc, which you can read here. I warn you that it's very long, so here's a shorter version. I warn you: some of these stories are shocking, and some of them are so crazy that must be seen to be believed. Since then, this thing has blown up. #ChangeTheChannel has become a prominent Twitter hashtag, and countless people have started making Youtube videos about this. Here's one, but there's just so many.

Some of the former producers speaking out include Lupa, Phelous, Lindsay Ellis, Linkara, Benzaie, you name it. There are allegations of harassment against female employees, one of which was investigated by the NYPD. They were investigated by Indiegogo after that debacle in which they took so long to produce Pop Quiz Hotshot. Their admin, Holly Brown, was being stalked by one of the former site admins. Rather than call the police, Doug and Rob took her to a safe house, and armed themselves with baseball bats, pepper spray and a sword. This stuff is so crazy, so sad and so disappointing. I've barely scratched the surface, and haven't even gotten into the stuff Michaud is accused of doing to people. This could very well be the end of CA.

 

[Light Lucario]

I've read through that Google doc. While I was aware of some of those events, mainly involving Lupa and Phelous, it was still pretty terrible to see how many producers were treated so poorly. I think that the rape scene in TBF is one of the worst parts out of all of the events listed, if only because of how tone deaf one has to be to write in a rape scene and play it as a joke. There was a lot of sexism towards the women on the site, although plenty of male contributors were also treated poorly based on that document.

I knew that the management for the site was bad after what happened to Lupa a few years ago, but this is worse than I expected. I actually feel bad for ever watching NC videos. Most people would point to Michaud, but the Walkers don't come out smelling like roses either. It's just disturbing and sad that they have treated producers on the site this poorly for so long. It's especially telling that even some of the long time producers like Linkara left the site. Along with Todd and Mike J, I think Film Brain left the site recently as well.

I also heard that the site left a so-called apology after the Google doc was released. I don't remember the whole thing off the top of my head, but it was a prime example of a non-apology with using the phrase "we're sorry that you feel that way". They might as well have not said anything if that was their best initial reaction to these claims.

I haven't watched anything on Channel Awesome in years. Even if I didn't know about how terrible the management was, there's little point in going to the channel when most of the contributors have their own YouTube channels and I can just support them that way instead of going to Channel Awesome. I don't know if this would lead to any kind of change for Channel Awesome, whether it's good or bad change, but I am glad that a lot of former contributors are able to speak out against the site's management and I hope that they'll get the support they deserve.

 

[Daikun]

A total of 11 producers have left the site today, and the number may keep growing. I was originally going to post nine, but then I went out shopping, and lo and behold...by the time I got back, two more had left.

CA was planning a 10th anniversary special, but it has been canned due to the mass exodus.

And then there's this blunder that Doug made today at a convention...



This is it, folks. The end is nigh.

 

[Light Lucario]

Yeah, it's pretty bad. I don't think this many people left during the first large exodus of the site a few years ago. It's especially bad if that was all Doug had to say at the convention. It would be hard to do an anniversary special with so much bad press surrounding the company, but losing a lot of their contributors wouldn't help matters either. So many people quitting in just one day showed just how bad the situation at Channel Awesome is. There must be few people left on the channel and at this rate, there aren't going to be too many people left.

 

[Spideyzilla]

I really they can salvage the audio of Doug saying that....

Man, Brad Jones is still there. I was really hoping he'd be one of the ones to go, but he's still there. I know he's buddies with Doug, but I'm kind of disappointed in him staying with the company over this. Though really, Brad strikes me as a super laid back guy who can brush things off easily. For that matter, Angry Joe and Nash are both still there. Really, they might be able to survive on Doug, Brad, Nash and Joe for the next little while, provided they say. They won't do anywhere near as well as they've done in the past, but they may be able to survive. Plus, they still have well over one million Youtube subscribers. The end may not be as close as we thought.

Out of curiosity, I checked out a new NC video, something I haven't done in over a year. It was garbage, it was basically a Demo Reel episode that the NC decided to show up in. It occurs to me... maybe the best thing really would have been for Doug to hang it up back in 2012. I don't mean retire and start Demo Reel, I mean retire and do something else. He is a great example of someone who, rather than dying a hero, lived long enough to see himself become the villain. I'm at the point where I'm wondering why I started watching him in the first place, and thinking maybe he was never all that great. It's a far cry from 2009, when I used to log onto the site while I was in school just to see what that week's episode was going to be.

 

[Light Lucario]

I really they can salvage the audio of Doug saying that....

Man, Brad Jones is still there. I was really hoping he'd be one of the ones to go, but he's still there. I know he's buddies with Doug, but I'm kind of disappointed in him staying with the company over this. Though really, Brad strikes me as a super laid back guy who can brush things off easily. For that matter, Angry Joe and Nash are both still there. Really, they might be able to survive on Doug, Brad, Nash and Joe for the next little while, provided they say. They won't do anywhere near as well as they've done in the past, but they may be able to survive. Plus, they still have well over one million Youtube subscribers. The end may not be as close as we thought.

I don't think that people choosing to stay with the channel necessarily means that they are choosing the company over supporting the victims. Linkara stayed on the channel at least partly because he wanted to see if he could help make the work environment better. Some people may just have better experiences working with the management than others as well. Brad is friends with Allison and she has worked with him on some of his movies, so at the very least, there aren't any issues between them. They have different reasons for staying on the site, so unless they do something like call all of the people in that Google doc liars, then I don't think we should look down on those who are staying with the channel.

Nash also made a statement about leaving the site earlier today: http://radiodeadair.com/2018/04/07/so-i-left/

Out of curiosity, I checked out a new NC video, something I haven't done in over a year. It was garbage, it was basically a Demo Reel episode that the NC decided to show up in. It occurs to me... maybe the best thing really would have been for Doug to hang it up back in 2012. I don't mean retire and start Demo Reel, I mean retire and do something else. He is a great example of someone who, rather than dying a hero, lived long enough to see himself become the villain. I'm at the point where I'm wondering why I started watching him in the first place, and thinking maybe he was never all that great. It's a far cry from 2009, when I used to log onto the site while I was in school just to see what that week's episode was going to be.

While I haven't seen any NC episodes in ages and can't talk about the quality, I know what you mean in regards to wondering if he was ever good. I got some good laughs from his videos and I was able to find out about other more talented people on the site, but these accusations just make me regret watching his videos in the first place. I don't think it helped that everyone for a long time expected Internet reviewers to act like Doug instead of being their own person or their own take on reviews. That's one reason why I really love Lindsay's video essays. She is much more like herself instead of a character and her videos are engaging without the need to always throw in a joke. It seems like Doug wanted to be able to do more than just the NC, but he's kind of stuck with it for better or for worse.

 

[Zeether]

The last NC video I watched was Mamma Mia, only because I wanted to know if the movie was actually terrible. In hindsight, I didn't need his constant screaming, gun firing, and repeating annoying running jokes to tell me it was bad. Plus, he's got garbage opinions (Tank Girl and Last Action Hero are bad? Pocahontas II is a good movie because of "the part when she gets to the new world"?? Doug, are you nuts?) Now I feel justified dropping off watching any of his content after hearing these stories.

I'm also extremely appalled at the reaction from them over JewWario's suicide that's in the document. Part of me wonders if the terrible treatment of the Blistered Thumbs staff (the site closed without them knowing and it never went back up) led to that happening, and if it did then that just makes me extremely infuriated at Michaud and the Walkers even MORE.

What a vile site. I'm glad Lindsay, Allison and everyone else jumped ship.

 

[CoolEric158]

They won't do anywhere near as well as they've done in the past, but they may be able to survive. Plus, they still have well over one million Youtube subscribers. The end may not be as close as we thought.

The fact that their YouTube channel's so popular's probably the worst part of it all. The Channel Awesome site itself has arguably been a walking corpse for years, especially after Blip shut down and YouTube became the only dominant content-creator video site on the Internet, and to a lesser extent Patreon being the most reliable source of revenue for most content creators. The appeal of TGWTG and CA was on the idea that it was an alternative YouTube that didn't deal with the site's strict copyright regulations, but with all of these people forced to go to YouTube, there's little to no worth to the site, since you can just subscribe your favorite creators' YT channel, and not deal with going on the site.

But with their YT channel, Nostalgia Critic arguably got more popular through that site. Anecdotal, but most of my friends who got introduced to Nostalgia Critic found him through League of Super Critics or the Channel Awesome YT channel. And the way that YouTube works is that while controversies will dampen subscriber count for the short term, people will forget. The Fine Brothers got slammed by just about every YouTuber on the site in 2016 for attempting to license and trademark the word "React," and saw a mass exodus of subscribers and divebombing of people disliking their videos. But a few months later, people just forgot about the whole controversy, and their subscriber count came right back, and two years later, it's as big as ever. Granted it's not completely 1 to 1, since Fine Brothers are a bigger channel, and they actually corrected their wrongdoings, but CA's YouTube presence is still popular enough that within a year Nostalgia Critic will still live on and be as popular as ever, even if the Channel Awesome website will be defunct, or Brad leaves, which means the site will consist of Doug, Angry Joe, Blockbuster Buster, and...whoever else is still on there.

Anyway, all of these revelations within the past few weeks has been deeply upsetting. I distinctly remember Nostalgia Critic as the highlight of my week back when I was in middle school and high school. As a nerdy kid who went through a bad break up with a friend, and had problems with socializing, his videos were always something that made me feel better on the worst day. I even loved his new videos, even if I knew it seemed like he was running out of steam and he had done a few shady things in the past. He was pretty much the main reason why I'm trying to get a Communications degree and be a part of the world of media criticism. Now, I'm not even sure if it was worth being a fan in the first place. But I guess the one good thing that came out of it was that I still discovered many other great content creators, and the majority of them have been doing great stuff after leaving the site (I implore everyone to see Lindsay Ellis' newer videos. They're leaps and bounds above her Nostalgia Chick days, and are some of my favorite videos on YouTube at the moment).

At the very least, I do hope Tamara, Malcolm, and the Orbit Report/Top 5 people get out of there as soon as they can.

 

[Light Lucario]

The last NC video I watched was Mamma Mia, only because I wanted to know if the movie was actually terrible. In hindsight, I didn't need his constant screaming, gun firing, and repeating annoying running jokes to tell me it was bad. Plus, he's got garbage opinions (Tank Girl and Last Action Hero are bad? Pocahontas II is a good movie because of "the part when she gets to the new world"?? Doug, are you nuts?) Now I feel justified dropping off watching any of his content after hearing these stories.

I don't remember him calling Pocahontas II a good movie, but that might have happened after I stopped watching his videos.

I'm also extremely appalled at the reaction from them over JewWario's suicide that's in the document. Part of me wonders if the terrible treatment of the Blistered Thumbs staff (the site closed without them knowing and it never went back up) led to that happening, and if it did then that just makes me extremely infuriated at Michaud and the Walkers even MORE.

What a vile site. I'm glad Lindsay, Allison and everyone else jumped ship.

That was a really disturbing part of the document for me as well. I don't know know how a person could be that heartless to react to someone wanting to do a memorial for a friend who committed suicide.

The fact that their YouTube channel's so popular's probably the worst part of it all. The Channel Awesome site itself has arguably been a walking corpse for years, especially after Blip shut down and YouTube became the only dominant content-creator video site on the Internet, and to a lesser extent Patreon being the most reliable source of revenue for most content creators. The appeal of TGWTG and CA was on the idea that it was an alternative YouTube that didn't deal with the site's strict copyright regulations, but with all of these people forced to go to YouTube, there's little to no worth to the site, since you can just subscribe your favorite creators' YT channel, and not deal with going on the site.

But with their YT channel, Nostalgia Critic arguably got more popular through that site. Anecdotal, but most of my friends who got introduced to Nostalgia Critic found him through League of Super Critics or the Channel Awesome YT channel. And the way that YouTube works is that while controversies will dampen subscriber count for the short term, people will forget. The Fine Brothers got slammed by just about every YouTuber on the site in 2016 for attempting to license and trademark the word "React," and saw a mass exodus of subscribers and divebombing of people disliking their videos. But a few months later, people just forgot about the whole controversy, and their subscriber count came right back, and two years later, it's as big as ever. Granted it's not completely 1 to 1, since Fine Brothers are a bigger channel, and they actually corrected their wrongdoings, but CA's YouTube presence is still popular enough that within a year Nostalgia Critic will still live on and be as popular as ever, even if the Channel Awesome website will be defunct, or Brad leaves, which means the site will consist of Doug, Angry Joe, Blockbuster Buster, and...whoever else is still on there.

While I wouldn't be surprised if people do forget about this after awhile. I hope that it doesn't happen. After finding out just how bad the management, I would hope that Channel Awesome's reputation doesn't fully recover. I think that there were controversies around the site before this, but this document details information that a lot of people didn't know about with some pretty horrific stories and led to so many people quitting in just a single day. They may keep riding that Nostalgia Critic train and they could just change the Channel Awesome to just the Nostalgia Critic channel, but I would hope that people don't completely forget about this situation either way.

Anyway, all of these revelations within the past few weeks has been deeply upsetting. I distinctly remember Nostalgia Critic as the highlight of my week back when I was in middle school and high school. As a nerdy kid who went through a bad break up with a friend, and had problems with socializing, his videos were always something that made me feel better on the worst day. I even loved his new videos, even if I knew it seemed like he was running out of steam and he had done a few shady things in the past. He was pretty much the main reason why I'm trying to get a Communications degree and be a part of the world of media criticism. Now, I'm not even sure if it was worth being a fan in the first place. But I guess the one good thing that came out of it was that I still discovered many other great content creators, and the majority of them have been doing great stuff after leaving the site (I implore everyone to see Lindsay Ellis' newer videos. They're leaps and bounds above her Nostalgia Chick days, and are some of my favorite videos on YouTube at the moment).

At the very least, I do hope Tamara, Malcolm, and the Orbit Report/Top 5 people get out of there as soon as they can.

I used to have fun watching through a bunch of NC videos at once too. It was fun to get the newest one every week, but now, I don't think I could enjoy even the older reviews. I think Tamara and Malcolm have their own YouTube channels, although they aren't too active there. They were some of the highlights of the later NC videos for me, so if they do ever jump ship, I'll be happy to watch their own videos.

 

[Zeether]

The Pocahontas II thing was from his Disneycember from 2016 where he reviewed all the direct to video sequels.

 

[Neo Ultra Mike]

I I know he's buddies with Doug, but I'm kind of disappointed in him staying with the company over this.

As pointed out I don't think it's really fair to call someone else out for not having left the site yet/not wanting to leave the site. I mean are you also going to be disappointed with Dudley as well whose technically still on the site Spideyzilla?

I admit I still like a fair amount of NC/Doug's reviewer content but... they have had horrendous behind the scenes stories like this circulating for years and honestly they're handling of it now and not copping to it has been even worse in a way. An apology won't fix everything but at least try and take the steps needed to improve instead of just making false not apologies and making the situation honestly even worse.

 

[PapaGreg]

The last NC video I watched was Mamma Mia, only because I wanted to know if the movie was actually terrible. In hindsight, I didn't need his constant screaming, gun firing, and repeating annoying running jokes to tell me it was bad. Plus, he's got garbage opinions (Tank Girl and Last Action Hero are bad? Pocahontas II is a good movie because of "the part when she gets to the new world"?? Doug, are you nuts?) Now I feel justified dropping off watching any of his content after hearing these stories.

I'm also extremely appalled at the reaction from them over JewWario's suicide that's in the document. Part of me wonders if the terrible treatment of the Blistered Thumbs staff (the site closed without them knowing and it never went back up) led to that happening, and if it did then that just makes me extremely infuriated at Michaud and the Walkers even MORE.

What a vile site. I'm glad Lindsay, Allison and everyone else jumped ship.

Not to defend Doug as a person but Tank Girl is horrible and he only said the middle parts of Pocohauntus was good and the rest was terrible

Sent from my LG-D415 using Tapatalk

 

[Light Lucario]

The Pocahontas II thing was from his Disneycember from 2016 where he reviewed all the direct to video sequels.

Ah, that would explain why I never heard of it. I stopped watching Doug's videos long before that Disneycember. I think I heard about him reviewing the direct to video sequels though.

As pointed out I don't think it's really fair to call someone else out for not having left the site yet/not wanting to leave the site. I mean are you also going to be disappointed with Dudley as well whose technically still on the site Spideyzilla?

I admit I still like a fair amount of NC/Doug's reviewer content but... they have had horrendous behind the scenes stories like this circulating for years and honestly they're handling of it now and not copping to it has been even worse in a way. An apology won't fix everything but at least try and take the steps needed to improve instead of just making false not apologies and making the situation honestly even worse.

I'm still honestly surprised that they even bothered to make a statement. There has been controversy surrounding the site for years and the information that Allison provided for the Google doc was the same information she provided when she was fired years ago. There is some new information, but a decent amount of it was brought up awhile ago. The statement was the such a huge non-apology that they would have been better off not saying anything at all.

I agree that a genuine apology wouldn't have fixed everything, especially when there are some pretty horrific stories in that Goggle doc, but it might have helped restore people's faith in the site. Some of the contributors who recently left the site wanted to see what the management had to say before making any decisions, but with the non-apology and communication issues showing that they weren't going to even try to improve, I think that made it easier for some people to leave Channel Awesome. While the site may be able to continue, I don't know if their reputation can recover from this. A lot of people used to want to be on Channel Awesome, but with all of these stories coming to light and their non-apology, I don't know if a lot of people would still feel that way.

 

[Daikun]

They've lost a sponsor.

I wonder if they'll lose more as time passes.

 

[jaylop97]

Given the severity of the situation, they are most likely going to continue losing more sponsors. As such It feels good to know that the sponsors are terminating their sponsorship with CA to show support to those that left.

 

[Light Lucario]

I wouldn't be surprised if they do lose more sponsors. That may have more significant damage to the company than losing subscribers on YouTube. It is nice to see that at least one of their sponsors didn't want to continue their sponsorship after reading how terrible the management is.

 

[Classic Speedy]

So yeah, that was a really depressing document to skim through. Don't really have anything more to add, other than what goes around comes around (the mass exodus and sponsors dropping).

 

[CoolEric158]

http://channelawesome.com/our-response/

Wanna read a stupid response article that doesn't even bother to say "We're Sorry," and instead try to make some "No, you" statements? Well, enjoy this.

And while you're at it, Doug just recently made a Nostalgia Critic episode on...Jack and Jill...a movie that came out 7 years ago, and has little to nothing to do with anything that could be considered nostalgic...man, that show really has gone downhill, hasn't it?

 

[Toon4Thought]

The thing about the Nostalgia Critic is that it's painfully clear he has run his course by this point. In the past year, the character has more or less regressed to his pre-2012 self of being overly high strung and having most of his remarks just be quick statements. This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact he's going after painfully easy targets, like he has to really grasp at straws just to stay afloat, along with him overall having less and less to say with each passing review. What can he say about the Woody Woodpecker movie that he couldn't say about the Smurfs and Alvin ones? Basically, his content just feels so by the numbers and passionless now.

Not to mention that his older videos really don't hold up as well as people claim they do. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy watching them to an extent, but there's a reason the 'angry critic' mindset that he kick-started became more and more frowned upon over time. Mr. Enter learned that the hard way.

http://channelawesome.com/our-response/

Wanna read a stupid response article that doesn't even bother to say "We're Sorry," and instead try to make some "No, you" statements? Well, enjoy this.

Not going to lie, the fact that virtually every comment on both social media and the website itself isn't putting up with any of this crap is strangely reassuring to me.

 

[Light Lucario]

http://channelawesome.com/our-response/

Wanna read a stupid response article that doesn't even bother to say "We're Sorry," and instead try to make some "No, you" statements? Well, enjoy this.

Wow. That was absolutely awful. I didn't think it could get any worse than the whole "we sincerely regret that you felt that way", but they proved me wrong by digging an even larger hole.

First off, starting off the statement that everything in the Google doc is nothing but lies is a terrible thing to do. Unless you actually have solid evidence to back it up, which they don't, then it's generally not a good idea to openly call a bunch of accusations against your company lies. They don't provide any kind of solid information as to why we should believe their information. Of course Allison said that it was fun to to be on Suburban Knights. She was still working for the site at the time and complaining about it would have most likely got her removed pretty fast. Lindsay wasn't the only person uncomfortable with the rape scene. Linkara was uncomfortable about it too, but they go out of their way to focus primarily on Lindsay, as well as the other female contributors to the site. Saying that Holly was allowed to resign and brushing off her claims as vindictive was especially sad considering how much work she did on the site and she couldn't work for another site for years because of what she had to sign.

And they had to use the whole "our other female employees have had different experiences" card to get out of the misogynistic claims. Just because they've treated other female employees better supposedly doesn't mean that they could have never been misogynistic towards any other women. The claim that they'll go through mandatory sensitive training is especially rich when they've already shown just how insensitive they are with both of these statements.

This is an absolute PR nightmare. They barely addressed anything from the Google doc, put much more focus on the female contributors than any of the male ones, which makes the notion that they aren't misogynistic even harder to believe, and despite claiming that all of these accusations are lies, they haven't provided any evidence to claim otherwise. They're just barely providing any information and what information they do provide is statements taken out of context like Allison saying she liked being in one of the anniversary movies. Even the comment section is full of nothing but people calling them out for their terrible statement, which is kind of refreshing for a comment section. I don't know what they wanted to do with this statement. If they thought that this was going to help them, they're just shooting themselves in the foot at this point. This statement is so bad that I actually want the site to crash and burn. I didn't actively want that before, but if a non-apology and flat out calling victims liars is really the best way for them to handle some serious accusations, then Channel Awesome can just collapse as far as I'm concerned. I'm just glad that I don't watch anything on this site anymore. If I was still doing that and the non-apology somehow didn't turn me off, then this would have certainly done that.

And while you're at it, Doug just recently made a Nostalgia Critic episode on...Jack and Jill...a movie that came out 7 years ago, and has little to nothing to do with anything that could be considered nostalgic...man, that show really has gone downhill, hasn't it?

That's been an issue since they brought back the NC. He focuses on more recent movies, including movies that are still out in theaters. I can kind of understand it in a way since it gives him more to do besides nostalgic properties and movies, but at the same time, that's what his character is based on.

The thing about the Nostalgia Critic is that it's painfully clear he has run his course by this point. In the past year, the character has more or less regressed to his pre-2012 self of being overly high strung and having most of his remarks just be quick statements. This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact he's going after painfully easy targets, like he has to really grasp at straws just to stay afloat, along with him overall having less and less to say with each passing review. What can he say about the Woody Woodpecker movie that he couldn't say about the Smurfs and Alvin ones? Basically, his content just feels so by the numbers and passionless now.

Not to mention that his older videos really don't hold up as well as people claim they do. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy watching them to an extent, but there's a reason the 'angry critic' mindset that he kick-started became more and more frowned upon over time. Mr. Enter learned that the hard way.

I don't know about his recent videos, but it might have been better if Doug was able to do something else besides the NC. He shouldn't have dropped it immediately to do Demo Reel and the fact that they went back to NC so soon afterwards was pretty telling of how the site was doing, but maybe it would have been better for him creatively. Based on what I remember of the last few NC videos I saw, he was trying to be more like a legit critic while still being funny. This wouldn't necessarily be a problem if it wasn't a mood whiplash involved and there were plenty of times where he would make a joke without fully understanding the source material. His review of Sailor Moon was especially bad in that regard.

Not going to lie, the fact that virtually every comment on both social media and the website itself isn't putting up with any of this crap is strangely reassuring to me.

That is pretty comforting in a way. There are few, if any, people who are still willing to believe them after this and almost all of the people there are calling Channel Awesome for making such a terrible statement to begin with. There are people who just joined up to call them out on their lies and asking for their accounts to be closed there.