Which of your favorite creators content quality went downhill very quickly?
Kind of a trend, the amount of youtubers who i had loved but their content became generic after gaining popularity is quite a bit, most drastic one being mrwhosetheboss, his uniqueness went down faster than MH27 MH17
They were pretty good in the beginning but the drive to create more and more output diminished the quality of the individual vids. Hence, the latest controversy.
To be fair, they dragged their feet on addressing it, sure, but then took massive steps to address it when they did. Top-to-bottom company-wide analysis and restructuring, limiting Linus' role and voice, a complete moratorium on releasing videos while they made plans to slow the release output, and refocusing on quality-control with additional community input. Totally get if you still don't like their videos, but I think they did everything possible to address everyone's concerns.
I actually like the WAN Show podcast more than their videos. I think you get a sense for their genuineness and passion as they discuss current tech news...
Did Linus ever really apologize for the "we didn't sell the prototype we auctioned it" comment. I only saw him make excuses about miscommunication (blaming the company that lent the prototype). Or apologize to Gamers Nexus for saying they didn't do "real" testing?
I only saw a long corporate speak "we will do better" video.
It's easy to dunk on LTT but they came back pretty strong after the controversy. It seems like marketing got the shaft and the engineers are way more free to spend time on their stuff.
LTT is one of the only ones that cuts the over spec PSU and Mobo bullshit when doing PC builds, when others are wasting all the budget on non gaming stuff.
I've been building "over spec" since RTX 20XX came out because they keep tripping even platinum PSUs from good brands. I have seen it with 30XX and 40XX GPUs too. This doesn't usually show up in test loads because they have a consistent load, it's the intermittent gaming loads that cause transient spikes. Some new PSUs are built to take the spikes but many are not.
At this point, how many different ways can you build a PC then benchmark it, all the while shitting on top tier equipment like it's for brokeasses? You made a server and put the highest capacity drives in it you could afford? Cool bro.
The video is covering the Toughbook CF-19 but it's not mentioned in the title and the thumbnail looks like generic YouTube trash and makes me not want to watch it out of principle.
Unfortunately, the stupid thumbnail and clickbait title is by design. Linus has spoken about this long before the latest controversy, but unfortunately they do increase views.
I'm fact, they trial different titles and monitor which brings in more views - if you catch a video early enough, you'll probably notice the title change a few hours later as they trial different ones. So as frustrating as it is, it's a symptom of the platform and the market at large.
For all of Linus' flaws and mistakes, he's generally a good businessman and make no mistake, LMG is a business at the end of the day. Put yourself in his shoes, is he going to do the thing that will get him 1,000 views but put off 1 person, or appeal to that 1 person but lose 1,000 views? It sucks, he been vocal about how much he also hates it, but it is what it is. His goal is to grow his business, at least he's up front about it.
I'm not completely defending Linus as an individual here, he's definitely fucked up a lot (especially lately), he still thinks he's a "little YouTuber" and doesn't appreciate how much sway he has, how his words can destroy an entire business overnight - the very thing his own company was nearly hit by several times in the past when he was small - but the clickbait and thumbnails aren't something I think he should be blamed for, he's just playing the YouTube game and if I was in his position, I'd do the same.
I just got tired. Stopped enjoying the videos as much, and when the last big controversy happened, I realized I only watched them out of habit and not for entertainment or even the info they gave out (if it could even be trusted).
Nowadays if I need straight data or a good review I go to Gamers Nexus. Dont need a forced meme every other minute to enjoy what could be a well constructed and informative video.
Agreed. They are supposedly working to fix the misleading info and quality control, but the damage has been done for me. I stopped watching them a long time ago
I've watched their content, practically from the inception of Linus' own channel. It used to be a really nice outlet for info, because he'd open up products, and actually show useful details during an unboxing. Over the years, I've unsubbed from all of their channels, minus the main one, but when the drama dropped, that was the last drop for me. I totally get entertainment, but not when it's fueled by harassment, gross negligence, drama, and "hot takes about the hard R". Everything is scripted and corporate. It doesn't feel enjoyable anymore
I remember the title of the video about how he wished he would have invested even more at framework, being titled "I made a bad decision about investing in framework" and the thumbnail being all on fire
Sabine Hossenfelder, used to love her takes on physics until she fell in the usual expert's trap of believing she can talk equally usefully about things OUTSIDE her expertise.
First trans care, which missed a few important nuances. Then autism, which had a decades-old perspective and was at best "not informative".
Then hoo boy Capitalism where she made a huge tangled MESS confusing and conflating markets with monetary systems and credit, all apparently based off half-remembered textbooks from 1950 using long-disproven historical claims.
A lot of criticism was sent her way. None was acknowledged, or apparently taken to heart. Repeatedly.
From skillfully presenting physics with a "explain it like I'm 5" style, she's now spouting any trending topic in a "explained by a 5 year old" style.
This, JFC so much this. The trans care thing was a serious blow to my interest in her videos. That capitalism BS. That killed it dead. Didn't finish that video, haven't watched since. Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
To be fair, I think her reputation might still be salvageable. But it would take sincere apologies, earnest corrections, and getting back in her ”lane” of experience. As a physicist she's fine, but not so much as a physician or politician.
She's always been a weird nerdy lady, but endearing. Her videos were never professional, a bit tacky, but very informative. But I too dropped her channel because she started talking about nonsense she had no business giving opinions about.
On that topic, Anton Petrov is legit. Daily videos on math, physics, and cosmology. Less frequent but better produced, Sixty Symbols is one of Brady Haran's channels at University of Nottingham.
He got louder, flashier, less techy and more talky and is doing a gazillion reruns of the same general idea over and over. Can't really enjoy it anymore.
Cinema Sins. Used to be 5 minute videos pointing out continuity errors or over-use of something (Iron Man 2 Bird Bonus Round) but then bloated into 20 minutes of nit picky bull crap.
I used to watch iilluminaughtii several years ago, probably because I've been grabbing popcorn and enjoying watching someone dunking on multi-level marketing since, uh, 90s at least. Then I watched some video that was about some topic that I was kind of in middle of a deep dive, too (I can't remember which exactly. Elan School, probably?). And the video was bland as hell. And then I was like "yeah, most of these other videos are kind of forgettable shallow pap too".
...and this year we found out about the whole landlordy corporate town fancier backstabby financial abuser helicopter-CEO situation. And the content mill situation. And the plagiarism thing. Can't forget the plagiarism thing. ...I was like, "oh this all just makes sense now."
Illuminaughtii was getting pushed into my feed so hard right before everything went down that I've started to cast side-eye on anyone that the algorithm starts to push hard.
On the plus side, I found Cruel World Happy Mind because of all the awful stuff Illuminaughtii did to her.
It was his video on IQ tests that set off alarm bells for me.
IQ tests are not some method of determining intelligence they are very much linked to relative education/socioeconomic standing. His complete lack of criticism and neutral/positive support of IQ tests make me think he likes the result of his score…
I stopped watching after the "speed of electricity in a wire" video. When I realised a video about something I knew about was bollocks, it made me question every other video that taught me about something I didn't know.
Even if that had been a one off, how would I know? The trust is gone.
I'll purposely seek out videos covering topics I'm (more) familiar with, from unfamiliar content creators that I might be interested in watching more of. It helps me gauge their accuracy, confidence, and ability to simplify without losing the underlying reasoning.
There are a lot of videos that made me question the validity of his "science". While I didn't want to spend time dissecting a specific video but with the videos piling up I decided it would be easier to just not watch him. I don't watch videos to question whether it's bullshit or not, so I ended up watching videos where I don't have to ask that question.
"Oh and by the way, this is a sponsored video 🤷" and then spends half an hour sucking a company's dick for money
That and the shampoo ad killed my interest in the channel, and ever since then I'm extremely wary of everyone. Kurzgesagt is also up there, for producing propaganda for a billionaire's charity.
Whoa, I thought I was alone in disliking Kurzgesagt. What made me unsubscribe was a video that was very clearly sponsored by the game Cyberpunk but didn't mention that anywhere
Yeah, the new SAT video was great and i still can’t for the life of me figure how those people managed to think about the problem and realize the options were wrong, really goes to show how intelligent people are always doing things with a very alert mind, even if the problem is very easy
Shiiiit i remember. His videos were genuinely fun to watch. It started to go down a bit when he kept ranting about plastic pipes, like it's some wort of conspiracy and copper was the best thing ever. Then covid hit and ooooh boy what an absolute wanker.
I can't remember who this was, but there was another engineering YouTuber who, during the pandemic, basically twittered about being frustrated with the lockdowns from business perspective and whingled about being scared talking about his political beliefs because apparently being anything anything right of a model leftist is a crucifiable offence in the bird site, according to him. And how the horse paste actually works. I was like "...oh shit, maybe this dude is a magahatter?"
I could kind of ignore it for a while but then he started dabbling in 9/11 trutherism and I had to nope out. At that point the paranoia and politics were infecting and degrading the actual meat of the content.
Penguinz0. His content was garbage when I discovered him so I just avoided him but one day I got recommended his old commercial parodies and it was pure gold. His videos about Kate cooking were also great too. Nowadays, he's a drama youtuber. He scroll Twitter, read about a random scandal, do the bare minimum research to not sound like a fool and then make a video about it.
I'm on the same boat. But my "what the actual fuck?" moment came when (for those unfamiliar with it) YouTuber Idubbbz came out with a sincere apology for many of his videos that used extremely racist or ableist terms. While aware that his apologies did not automatically translated into being forgiven by the memebers of the groups he insulted, Idubbbz still felt it was important for him to apologize.
And in this situation, Penguinz0 just said that "Idubbbz shouldn't have apologized and it felt like he was exaggerating the whole thing". Way to inject yourself in something that did not involve him at all. Also, that really told me the kind of person Penguinz0 is: someone who dismisses others suffering when it's not his place to do so and someone who just goes off his own gut feelings alone.
The level of self awareness in the idubbz apology blew my mind. I was an edgy teen and grew out of him, and while it took him a bit longer than me, he came around too. Was a weird and cool moment.
Same here. Had the worst bottom feeder energy to it. Just scraping up shit and shitting it out, with the worst possible takes he just takes up all the oxygen in the room. Charlie isn't much better than XQC.
A few weeks ago he posted a new episode of his podcast with him and a few others. They talked about Nothing Chats and Sunbird, the iPhone getting RCS and the usual OpenAI drama. At some point Marques mentions the fact that iMessage with RCS will still be "unencrypted". Following that they ponder over why RCS wouldn't have this fabled encryption, such a weird thing that RCS doesn't support encryption from the get-go, and after brainstorming for a bit someone adds the information that it indeed will be encrypted in-transit, but not end-to-end encrypted. And what comes next boggled my mind: Silence ensues. No-one says anything. You only see the faces of four grown-ass tech influencers that are stunlocked and completely unable to process what this neverheard difference between encryption methods might mean. It all just ends with "I've been trying so hard to figure out what that means. I can't." And then.......then they simply move on, not even addressing for a second this knowledge gap and solving it right there on the spot. You can watch it if you want. What hurts the most is that Marques' co-star, David, the guy that looks the most confused, made a 1+ hour history-lesson type video a few months ago about the history of the internet and the importance of HTTPS encryption.
Now, if we're talking about visual quality and overall visual production quality, his videos were insanely enjoyable to watch. I also don't want to shame anyone for not knowing something and I understand that this is in part the consequence of an ever growing company at this point. The channel is still growing and has reached 18 millions subs. Him (and his team) also cover a constantly growing tech sphere, from phones to laptops, from e-vehicles to supercars, from tech politics to tech blunders. But coming from a guy that has been a "tech influencer" on YouTube for 14 years, a guy that over the years had the chance to interview Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Sundar Pichai and surely had the chance to surround himself with experts on all sorts of topics, a guy that dedicated entire videos to Nothing Chats, the role of Quantum Computing in encryption or the dangers and potentials of the Metaverse, this kind of shocked me. I just couldn't take him seriously anymore and I hate myself for it. But it's like my grandma not knowing the difference between a normal call and a WhatsApp call, expect that he's been talking about tech for more than a decade.
He never struck me as being actually knowledgable about tech. He knows the consumer level stuff, just enough to review things. But anything deeper than that he never touches.
Production quality wise, the videos are always exceptionally well done for a Youtube channel. I just really cannot stand his content.
He markets himself as an unbiased first look channel, but for example, any time a new phone comes out, he'd praise an iPhone for all the same reasons he absolutely fucking decimated an Android phone for. It's very similar to other products he takes a look at. The podcast is also filled to the brim with similar conversations, and it's just unpleasant tech-bro culture
Seems like they never recovered after the whole YouTube Red exclusive stuff they did. I was glad they came back, but you're right, it just doesn't hit the same.
Remember when they had all 3 channels firing on all cylinders? Vsauce for mind blowing science videos, Vsauce2 for awesome shorter format wtf internet widget videos, and Vsauce3 for gaming science stuff. One of the best eras of YT.
I think Vsauce is a lot more grifty than he looks. If you look at the really early videos they were very different and he changed his content wildly in order to find something that makes the most money with the least work. The science education happened to be profitable but as the Meta started favouring more than 10+ min and science vids became mini documentaries he just dropped off and started reviewing science toys and do compilation videos. Right now he is doing a lot of shorts because they are being pushed by the algorithm.
I started watching VSauce well over 10 years ago, so I've experienced how his content changed first-hand. I feel VSauce dropped off when Michael became an internet meme, when VSauce made it "big". They got their own studio, their own merch box, and I thought this was going to be an upgrade to the content between VSauce 1, 2 and 3. But then Michael made that YouTube Red series and that was basically a brick wall.
Only Jake Roper still made some good videos for some time, but that stopped eventually too. Mindblow stopped, Build It, Draw It, Play It stopped. Instead of seeing anything that would justify having a studio and a team to work with we basically got, like you said, Michael reviewing toys from their merch box, and Kevin doing some math philosophy once in a while.
Mindblow is technically back but... it lacks any energy or soul that the original Mindblow had. It's sad...
His side gigs are super grifty. Curiosity box was a straight scam. Two months delayed and full of shifty products that break or fall apart trying to assemble them.
Vsauce2 is still good and mindblown just recently came back, Kevin basically said on his podcast that the mindblown videos just take too much time to research for something that's presented extremely fast and short, since he's not a tabloid making wildly innacurate reporting on science papers.
But he already made those in top 10 format. There isn't much "mystery" to talk about without hyping up certain things like science journalism tends to do a lot.
He could make a documentary that goes into deeper details about one of the things he already mentioned in his older top 10 videos...
Never would have called him a favorite of mine exactly, but a channel I used to watch was Shadiversity. Had some interesting videos on medieval life and castles. These days he seemingly only does "let's test this wacky weapon" videos and has a terrible second channel where he whines about "woke culture".
Tangential fun fact: the guy from "Shadiversity" and the guy from "Drawing with Jazza" are brothers. This is incredibly odd to me because I don't think that they look or act alike at all.
I find that connection hilarious cus Jazza is way more popular and talented with true artistic ability, where shad is an anti-woke dipshit who gets mad at the mario movie and plays with swords.
I lost interest after he sang the praises of the Goblin Slayer rape scene. BuT tHe GoBLiNs nEeD tO bE sCaRy! You can "make monsters monstrous" without adding explicit rape scenes to your mid-tier manga.
I actually appreciate that he's taken care to keep the two channels separate, I just didn't bother to subscribe to Knights Watch and so it doesn't bother me.
I guess mileage varies on the "wacky weapons" vs "medieval history" division, though. I like both so I'm fine with them being mixed.
After a certain point, what else can you cover about the medieval period thats interesting, entertaining, understable to a general audience, and can fit in a youtube video?
I still think he needs to collab with Jill Bearup on boob armor, though.
That's fair enough, though I do think there are a ton of interesting medieval topics he still could have covered. I'm the kind of guy who likes watching multi-hour essays on ancient civilizations though, so I might not be "general audience" and he moved pretty much in the opposite direction of what I like to watch. Finding his second channel was what sealed the deal for me though, couldn't take him seriously after that.
Joshua Weissman. He started out super chill, most of his recipes were pretty approachable, the editing wasn't over the top, the b-roll stuff at the end was tasteful.
Now it's like he's catering to a whole different crowd. The editing is over the top and jammed with memes, he's more idk, psychotic isn't quite the right word, but it's way less chill, he's constantly saying stuff like "if you don't use XYZ ingredient then what are you even making this recipe for?", his recipes are more over the top, and he has a much more elitist opinion of himself and his food. The change happened so quickly too, it was kind of shocking.
For actual cooking stuff, I prefer Adam Ragusea. He dives more into the history and molecular gastronomy side of things, to explain how a dish came to be and why it works. Not quite as sciencey as Alton Brown, but I definitely see the influences. And for actual historical food stuff, you may want to check out Tasting History. He’s a creator who does deep dives into historical dishes, then tries to recreate them.
Both interesting in their own ways, but Adam’s stuff has helped be become a better cook simply by understanding the why, rather than the how. Because if you know why something works, (rather than simply knowing how to do it) you’ll be able to translate that to other situations where it will work, and be able to avoid/work around situations where it won’t. It took me from “following recipes” to “making my own recipes” if that makes sense.
Yeah he talks like he's on coke now. Borderline unwatchable. I bet you can reduce the playback speed by 50% and it would de-stress the whole experience.
I have the opposite problem where Youtubers who I watch because I enjoy their unedited, off-the-cuff content keep deciding to put more effort into their channel and start producing videos that are scripted and edited well, which I find way less interesting and watchable than their stream-of-consciousness rambling was. WolfeyVGC is a big one. He theoretically has a second channel for low effort content but he rarely posts to it.
You might like Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't if you like that style of video. It's a crass low brow approach to botany and ecology presented by a Chicago Italian. Been going for years now and has improved his quality but it's still off the cuff rambling.
CinemaSins. They were always kind of bottom-of-the-barrel, but their early videos pretty much just amounted to narrating the IMDB trivia pages so it was harmless. I went back and checked in on their channel for the first time in 8+ years and holy shit they've gotten bad. Videos running a quarter the length of the movie they're doing with word-salad voice over that doesn't even make sense.
Also: "[female actor] isn't 18 in this scene" was just as fucked up in 2012 as it is in 2023.
I agree, I don’t think that CinemaSins was ever really good, but it definitely got worse over time. His content has been criticized to death and there are some good commentary videos covering the issues with his channel. I will plug CinemaWins as a pretty good “counter” channel. I don’t watch it because I’m not really into that kind of content these days, but the videos that I have seen are worthwhile if you’re looking to fill a similar hole.
Bon Appétit after the issues at their workplace were raised, they all make some decent content outside the BA brand though. Nice to see Sohla doing so much content too since she wasn't treated the best at BA.
I miss gourmet makes. Claire Saffitz solving industrial food issues on a small scale was fascinating and unique. Her new stuff, dessert person, is nice, but it's standard cooking show fare, not solving weird industrial hacks.
Just so contrived. Even before the harassment allegations, their videos just seemed so corporate. That's the Conde Nast influence, but it makes for such milquetoast content.
I actually liked the magazine before they did YouTube stuff cause it was different than the typical food mags directed at moms. Industry leading photography and good deep dive pieces in to food trends and unique restaurants, always getting in to the process. Their video editors were youtube guys given a budget and their video content had that feel to it. They did some innovating with how they approach recipe vids, keeping in and even highlighting mistakes was a major editorial decision that set them apart. At their peak they were found to be treating the staff poorly regarding compensation and allegations of sexism, and not paying Sohla for her video appearances etc. They switched their editor in chief and hired new staff but now it just seems even more corporate than it used to.
So far I think I can trust MrMobile to give an honest opinion. When it comes to his channel its not just specs and numbers but real experiences. Quite different from the myriads of other tech channels on YT today.
I agree but something with Mr Mobile has been off for me lately. Less enjoyable and it feels a bit like unintentional shilling or “hey this is cool if you force an interest.” Maybe it’s me and I’m just tired of the genre.
Yeah, I forgot when I stopped watching him, maybe take a look at the videos he makes to understand my point. He's very enthusiastic but it's not informative and he gets stuff wrong.
Sinfest. Used to be a charming and funny daily webcomic about an eclectic cast of colorful characters getting into surreal and philosophical situations. Then one day in 2011 it suddenly swerved hard into radical feminism. I'm not anti-feminist myself, but the comic became obsessed with it -- literally every strip was related to The Patriarchy in some way and it became extremely preachy and boring.
I checked out for the better part of a decade, and when I randomly revisited a couple years ago it turned out that the author had transited the TERF-to-fascist pipeline and turned into an extreme-right antivax conspiratorial fascist loon, of the "teachers are secret pedos" and "the war in Ukraine is a hoax" variety. Super sad to see.
Scotty has the most clickbait titles. "If you have a car you will REGRET this ONE SIMPLE TRICK and DESTROY YOUR ENGINE" (video is about winter octane stabilizers or something completely mundane)
Check out Garbage Time. It's a channel about an Aussie and his mechanic buddy repairing old, shitty cars. Many of the cars are Australian specific too.
Donut Media during the 350z hi car/low car thing was really good, but feels like they are just repeating the same content over and over now without getting much useful/interesting info now.
Eh, I would have to disagree with this, I have been watching him for a while and as far as I can tell the quality is the same the only difference now days is that he mentions his tools in the videos while picking the locks, so the videos didn't even really get longer.
He’s very much not liked in the lock picking community.
Not only does he push his overpriced tools a lot, most of them are very much not needed. He also puts a lot of focus on specialized car lock picking tools which are expensive at, made for each brand basically, and in a very dubious grey area which is a big no no in that “sport”.
From a purist side there are also a lot of complaints.
Agreed. Before it would be "so I made this tool by filing down this other thing, you can probably make one yourself" to "I used this tool that you can get in my shop, and here's how to pick it with a few standard tools as well..."
Feels like it's mostly because there's not much to talk about anyway, whatever needed to be said has already been said in one of his 1.5k video. I start follow his channel before he established his company, it's mostly the same and it's really just about how he defeat the lock. He sometimes still talk about unique lock he find interesting though.
Yeah, those unique locks are the highlights I remain subscribed for. He used to dismantle locks more often, but at this point it'd just be more of the same if he kept doing that.
Might be a good idea for him to change up his format a bit to make fewer videos but have them be more of a deep dive into whatever locks he's focusing on, maybe do more of the old "now let's see if we can open this with the leg of a Barbie™ doll and half of an M67 fragmentation grenade" stunt videos. I remember he used to get more experimental with his approaches when there was back-and-forth with Bosnian Bill.
I don't agree, his techniques and format are still good and though expensive, the covert instrument sets are some of the finest tools I have. If the guy wants to make a buck and offer a one stop shop for the hobby I don't see the problem.
I guess my only complaint with LPL is seemingly running out of challenging locks, which is more a fault of manufacturers.
Someone who becomes good at something selling goods/services isn't exactly what I would consider offensive. Consider the guy who did Mouse Trap Monday videos who is now selling his trap commercially: do you have any idea how long he spent testing and reviewing traps to reach a point where that was viable? I suspect he spent thousands of hours on this.
Level1Techs sell basically the only DisplayPort KVM worth a damn, that's a pretty great offering to have. They don't bring it up much but it's there.
Apparently not just his tools, either. He's got some partners too, and it started recommending me their videos too. Their stuff is more of the same, advertisements for their store.
I got into lockpicking and now I love Lock Noob. Covert Instruments aren't that good either, I would go with Sparrows if I were to start, if anybody else is interested in getting into the hobby.
This seems to be the prevalent trend with most channels that gain traction. They start focusing more on selling their plushies, clothing, tools, or other shitty branded merchandise, and less on the content that got them there.
Maybe it's because original content creation is hard work. I get that. But holy shit, when they start hawking their stupid merch hard their credibility just goes down the toilet.
I think he’s been incredibly consistent with his videos and don’t find any of his ads offensive or annoying, even though I’ll never buy something. I guess I disagree that the quality has changed. I do feel I’ve seen most content already though and he’s not doing much to keep interest growing.
I didn't see anyone mention streamers.
For me that has to be Asmongold.
He is now just drama farmer and reacts to videos and reddit all day.
I would even say he is slowly turning into another Andrew Tate.
Called it on Lemmy a few months ago! Something about him and MoistCritical just give me bad juju. Can't explain it except as a father you learn to trust your gut sometimes and it was run of those times.
If this makes sense. YouTube algorithm aggressively pushes Joe Rogan. In that sphere are other trends that come with it. Sadly they come into that picture
Kind of related but I follow lilAggy on twitch. He pissed off some of chat one day because he told them to fuck off with their Andrew Tate bullshit and full on explained bluntly how Andrew Tate is a mysogynistic fuckwad.
I just realized it only recently, but Asmongold was going downhill for a few years. He wasn't my favorite streamer, but watched him here and there.
List of my streamers is slowly shrinking. Nowdays I mostly watch Lirik. He just became a dad like a year ago. As far as I know he has no problems. Only thing that some people are not liking about him is that when NFTS came out, he wanted to make some, he didn't at the end. I don't really blame him. When NFTS came out even I thought it was interesting for little while.
My second most watched streamer is probably Elajjaz, I discovered him only a year ago. He is a variety streamer who really likes Dark Souls and similar games. I don't think I acually saw him "react" to videos. He just plays games.
LilAggy's stream looks interesting, I gave him a follow. Will see if we click.
Less "downhill" and more "dropped into a sinkhole straight to the pits of hell," but Creepshow Art. I thought she was really fun to listen to, and it was interesting hearing tea spilling from a community I'm not privy to. At some point she opened up about a stalker who'd been following her for years, harassing her constantly, trying to get her fired from her job by sending compromising photos from her past to her boss, threatening her life... And then it turns out she was the stalker, and the victim was Emily Artful! She was the psychopath threatening someone's life and trying to get them fired and shit! And I was planning on donating to her patreon!
They have had so many issues back to back that I don't enjoy them anymore. From Ryan coming out to fucking fans when he has a wife, to the underpaid and crunch heavy work they put staff to, and then firing Matt who was one of the most beloved members.
When they sold their company to WB they sold their ethics at the same time.
Roosterteeth started circling the drain for me when they were shilling those bullshit sugar pills that were supposed to make you a better gamer. Alpha Brain i think it was called?
And I completely fucked off of them when they shilled perscription pill mills to their young/underage audience, then Geoff..the massive piece of shit that he is, tried to deflect all the criticism away by claiming he has ED and twisting all the criticism into attacks against his supposed medical issue.
Then, years later, you found out about how abusive and miserable it was to work there for anyone that wasnt a face, how they exploited their fanbase for unpaid work, and how everyone behind the scenes was either a racist piece of shit to the non-white staff (Which really makes you look back at some of the on screen interaction with ray differently), or were A-OK with all the racist shit being said (which makes you a racist too, dipshit).
I dont know how the fuck it hasnt collapsed as a company yet.
AH lost its sheen to me when they basically forced out Ray. A whole bunch of downhill slides in content quality, and by the time the Ryan stuff happened that was the straw that broke the camel's back for me.
It's a shame, because I have fond memories of some of the peak Lads vs Gents era but the whole network is just ruined for me now.
First gen AH was great. I came to love second gen just as much. The reason I stopped watching was fairly pragmatic. I typically had RT/AH content running in a side window while I worked. However, I found myself unable to continue when they added Ky to the regular staff. She was funny, and fit the vibe check; but she had no compressor for her audio setup and it would literally hurt when she screamed or overreacted. As they increased her presence in content, I was left with less and less that I could watch. And when the community desperately tried to let RT know the volume spikes were an issue, it was very aggressively written off as the usual rabid 'fanbase' misogyny and racism.
Also Funhaus. They used to be funny, then the shtick got old, then they all started making announcements they were leaving Funhaus for greener pastures......and now they're all back at Funhaus doing the same old thing. Ehhhhh.
My partner got me into AH right before the Ryan controversy. Gotta say, it was weird watching it all fall apart afterwards since I wasn't as invested as she was. Thankfully some of my favs from the bunch do solo stuff so thats cool.
With RT, I watched RvB and RWBY. RT doesnt know when to end a show or let it close, I dropped off both after their peaks.
This is definitely not true. Rooster Teeth has been producing some of their all-time best content since covid (speaking as fan since 2012). They just pivoted to primarily making podcasts, and most of their podcasts are awesome and high-production quality without feeling inauthentic. F**KFACE and ANMA are especially good for old fans.
H3H3. As soon as they got notoriety for their defamation lawsuit against the cringe pickup artist guy, they abandoned making reaction videos and instead became a trashy podcast.
AAVE. He used to be a cool tool review channel who really got into the nitty gritty of how electric tools worked and what made them quality. Now he's an anti-vax spouting asshole who loves the truckers who blocked the bridge in Canada. Spiraled into the right-wing like a waterslide
Boogie. Not a favorite of mine and hated the Francis stuff, but I used to watch some of his gaming videos. He did his weight loss surgery about the same time as a relative so found that interesting. But good lord it's been a descent since then,all of it self inflicted. Be it saying something stupid, firing a gun within city limits while getting into a pissing match with some other YouTube idiot, or losing his money in crypto. It's hard to imagine someone that's fallen further than him.
Watched the documentary on him last month and then went through his channel and it was embarrassing.
Did you ever happen to visit /r/samandtolki before it was banned? They really gave Boogie hell. They documented lie after lie from the dude. It's sad how much of a pathological liar Boogie is. The worst one I witnessed was him saying people were swating him. Mod of samandtolki did a FOIA request to Boogie's local police department and got camera footage from the officer that visited Boogie's home. Boogie was making a lot of suicide claims and a fan called a wellness check on him. One officer showed up and asked Boogie's roommate some questions. That was it.
Ethan Klein and H3. Before the Israel stuff happened in October, the silliness was enjoyable because it seemed like the guy had an earnest, intellectual curiosity underneath it all.
What did he ever do? He seems to be the YouTube equivalent of famous for being famous. I've tried watching but it's a lot of nothing talk and seemingly contrived drama with other YouTubers who also talk a tremendously long time about nothing.
He gave a few lukewarm takes but the worst one was probably him sticking with "we gotta get rid of hummus" which is literally impossible because every time the IDF does a genocide tour through Gaza they create three times as much Hamas as they destroy.
He really hammers on the "both sides are bad" when almost everything in the conflict is clearly israel's fault. It's like the teacher punishing both the bully and the bullied kid when the bullied kid fights back.
edit removed a rumor that's most likely untrue from further research
I stopped watching when they stopped doing the prank vids, I was subbed when he did the "it's a ten" vid and all the edits and meme vids, the Vape Naysh.
I prefer the older videos with less/no post production effects. I tried watching the interview with Elijah Wood but the fading video overlapping, music, zoom ins/outs, the voice echoing, and I couldn't deal with these stupid transitions. Closed the video and haven't got back since. The channel has one job and that is to make people eat progressively hot wings but the stupid post production effects ruin the video quality and make the whole interview less engaging. COOL IT SEAN!
Their content is good but how it's presented is garbage.
It's may be more subtle and perhaps the quality is still there (IDK bc I unsubbed ages ago), but Babish. There was an uproar when he got sponsored by Hogwarts Legacy, and he had no response / apology to supporting JK and her anti-trans viewpoints.
If it helps, the game itself is very positive about the whole spectrum of human sexuality and treats everything as completely ordinary and it's all represented (trans included), like the Wizarding world has already come out on the other side and everyone is welcome.
I think JK very purposely tried to tarnish it so that less people would play it, she already got her cut from the licensing, so sales don't matter to her.
The game itself is exactly what we want and what she would hate. The company that made the game is someone we should support, they took the world away from her, fixed it, and gave it back to us.
Oh I figured it would be good. I loved HP growing up, well before we knew any of JK's purviews and hatreds. It also does help that majority of the actors involved in the cinematic universe were outspoken against her. It's rather difficult to separate art from the artist at times, but I think I'll probably sail the seas first to test it out, and then determine how best to purchase it without giving her any more cashflow, however meager that is in the grand scheme.
I still watch a Babish here and there, he pioneered foodtube but his content was very formulaic and I sort of just got bored of it. I'd rather watch Food Wishes or other cooking channels with stuff I'd actually make and eat. For interesting and entertaining food content I like what the former BA hosts do, and a lot of famous chefs have excellent YouTube content that is very humbly edited and presented.
I feel this. I watch about 8 Foodtubers on and off and babish now feels very generic because basically everyone is a take on him.
Two things in his favour are his decision to use being the largest to platform others was really good and although that diluted his channel by making fans of the person stop watching every video, and also the fact that if I'm actually looking for a specific cooking guide and I see a babish video, I know I can follow it reliably and have a tasty end product.
It was definitely tough dropping him over something seemingly so miniscule, but it hit a nerve. Being part of the queer community myself, and having many close friends also being such, it just felt right. The salt in the wound was that there was no response at all except for the ones supporting him in this sponsoring.
A quick google for "Babish Hogwarts Legacy" garnered this Reddit post (sorry).
I am completely different, but agree with the sentiment.
I was one of his first 10k subs from his first video. His cubano video solidified me as a day 1 viewer.
Literally since the creation of the "babish universe" or whatever MCU franchise parody it was, it just took a nosedive in quality (production quality didn't change of course). Like there are only so many movie foods you can do, and I get why he branched out for sure, and Basics with babish was quite decent for a while.
I just think even a few years ago it became much more corporate and more of a "cooking content generation" channel and less of someone cooking and teaching in an entertaining way. It just feels completely different.
Hate to say it, but Wintergatan and his Marblemachine X. In the earlier days his videos were an exciting mix of mad genius, cool music improv and crafting. Then he became obsessed with making the machine play tight, precise music to a level that is beyond what anybody in an audience would be able to hear, and it became obvious that the machine would never get finished because he was stuck in an improvement loop.
Jimmy Dore. Started watching in 2015. He was consistently about progressivism and brought awareness to causes such as Medicare for All. As the channel grew, he slowly became more deranged. COVID came and he found a larger audience spouting anti-vax dog whistles. The channel is now tabloid anti-vax, pro-putin, hot garbage.
not a youtuber, but I genuinely enjoyed babylon bee and the daily bonnet for parody news about christian and mennonite culture. the humor was always inward. now its all propaganda
Jake Tran. His old videos were pretty cool. He went downhill ever since he tried to convince me that drinking soy milk turns people into femboys and losing sperm cells.
Idubbbz. It's fine that he grew out of his edginess, I largely have too, but most of his videos now just feel like he needs to pay the bills and just cranks something out.
Andrew Callaghan sad to say because I was a huge fan and I guess there's been actual rape allegations come out although he hasn't been charged with anything so who knows. That style of journalism I just love so much and he is so good at it so it's a shame.
He went from looking like he was going to have his own HBO series, to almost completely disappearing, also the allegations were by underage girls and he acknowledged the allegations as true from what I remember.
Yeah, this one hits home. Recently he tried to put out a few videos, haven't watched them, kind of waiting for someone else to dissect it for me because yeah...
I watched them and they were alright. It's disturbing how serious the allegations are yet no legal actions are being taken against him. It's like he's in this place of irredeemable limbo. I've volunteered with inmates and believe people can be redeemed but not if they can't face their wrongdoings.
2 women said he tried to have sex with them and made them uncomfortable. There are allegations of sexual assault, however I'm withholding judgment. Dude seems to drink a lot.
SVSeeker. At first it seemed like a really inspirational channel about a guy building a giant boat in his backyard in Oklahoma that was going to be used as a free to anyone research vessel, but as time went on everyone slowly realized the dude had basically no idea what he was doing and was super hostile to anyone telling him otherwise. Now it's been two years since lunching the boat and he has done none of the things he promised to do with it (like even leave the coast) and it seems pretty clear everyone got duped into helping him build a retirement house boat instead of a research vessel.
Smarter Every Day. Used to be just some amateur prettyboy nerd just geeking out and getting behind the scenes on cool stuff. Then it seems like he run out of cool ideas and money got involved. Last episode I watched, he was hocking some obviously awful aquarium game that he was involved with.
ThePrimeagen Was cool but now he's just reacting to programming articles with insane clickbait, especially compared to other programming YouTubers, and talks about things way outside of his core skillset
I really used to enjoy his videos. A lot of insightful talk. It was just programming with an occasional meme. Now it's 45 minute reaction videos, for a blog post i could have read in 2 minutes
I just recently started watching him, so I'm kinda bouncing around from his old stuff to his recent stuff, and i'm not really noticing a significant difference besides what you would expect with time and experience.
I think it's kind of understandable due to latter but I feel like he became a lot less personable and more full of himself. It was a lot of little things so it's kind of hard to pinpoint.
Admittedly I haven't watched his content in probably about eight years but I don't image things like his podcast would help.
Check it now. I'm not even sure where it's slant is anymore. It's full Palestinian support now. Unless that's become right territory now. I don't even know in this world anymore....
AvE. I wish he'd have kept his political comments to snide funny side comments. But the straw for me was his arguing against masks and repeating covid conspiracy dog whistles.
Typical case of a person becoming (fairly) widely recognized as a smart domain expert and thinking this translates into being an expert in other fields. It happens, sadly, so often with Youtubers.
I agree, mrwhosetheboss got so boring for me. Every video just felt pretty much the same. Same old jokes, same old style, every single time.
For me, another one is Linus Tech Tips. Their content just feels kinda boring nowadays. It was much better maybe 2-3 years ago.
Dave2D - Not a huge creator, but he lived in a van and made videos mocking other van-lifers who did the glamping thing and only showed the positive side of van life, not the negative side where you poo in a bucket and live in fear of a crackhead breaking into your car while youre asleep in it.
One of the glam-van-life couples broke up and he made a video publically mocking them. Then the girl killed herself. There was a huge shitstorm in the vanlife community and he ended up deleting almost all his content. Now he mostly does fantasy artwork livestreams.
A Brazilian named Poladoful used to make funny videos playing smaller concept games like Soda simulator, with funny commentary done by a robotic voice.
One year after I found him he pivoted to become a kids focused channel.
I used to watch Big Clive and supported him on Patreon.
Then he started going off on wild shit about weird conspiracy theories about vapes being harmless, and government just wanting to get rid of them and lying about the lung damage or something to that accord.. and of course, Covid had to come into it to, where he made wild claims about it just being a regular flu and the whole response was blown out of proportion and really dismissing it as a threat.
I dont know how far he's fallen since then since I cancelled my patreon and fucked off from viewing.
Google #changethechannel, but to sum up, people got fed up with the mistreatment by the Walkers (Doug, the NC, and Rob) as well as Mike the ceo, especially after one of the best liked members was fired from the site.
And THEN it came to light that they had known about a pedo in their midst and protected him for years. Justin Carmical, Aka JewWario.
Rooster Teeth and Achievement Hunter - their fall from grace was slow at first. First yet another corporate sellout and Bernie leaving, then the employee scandals - especially Ryan. RvB outlived itself and it was their prime thing. RVBY went downhill after Monty died. The new talent wasn't as entertaining as the old, and then the pandemic really kicked their ass.
Used to like old MoistCritical, now it's all just drama, stream reactions and an occasional sex toy video. Also took up a gambling site sponsorship for one of the podcast episodes, so I stopped watching him and haven't seen the channel in like a year. Maybe he has changed though in that time.
He was never a favourite content creator of mine, but some of John Campbell's videos at the start of the pandemic were very informative. Then he started getting high on all his own hype, reporting more and more dubious psuedo-science, and getting into stupid spats with other YouTubers and pandemic 'celebrities'.
Yeah he got me early on and I was recommending his channel, then he started to get in to the political stuff and pseudoscience baiting, then full on pseudoscience.
Fabulous Crusty. I don't hate his work or his decisions, as he wanted to do what he liked, and he found a new audience with it. Absolutely good for him.
I miss his old content he probably decided was cringe, or perhaps YouTube deemed controversial like his playthrough of Rinse and Repeat. Rinse and Repeat isn't controversial as far as I know(?) and had censor blurs. As someone in the LGBTA, I didn't find his reactions to be inappropriate, and I liked his exploration of the jank of that game. Although I'm not sure why he played it, other than "this game is weird, it'll get clicks."
He's deleted or delisted a lot of my favorite videos from back in the day (or I can't find his old channel, not sure). I hope he's doing well, I just miss the really random weird stuff he was playing. I did enjoy the Shadow of War stuff though.
Commanders quarters. Started as an interesting budget build magic the gathering commander deck channel and in less than a year went from that to click bait, 7 videos a day between 10-15 minutes about spoiled cards from whatever the new set coming out is. It absolutely flooded my feed and was completely worthless.
There was also some drama about the lead guys opinions about other IPs getting cards (the walking dead being the first) and how it was the end times for that particular flavor of inked up cardboard.
Tik went from solidly researched war history to not-so-solidly researched political and religious theory. I did not appreciate it. Veritas et caritas recently raked him over the coals for it, which I am grateful for. Hopefully he returns to his area of strength, and resumes making quality history content.
Sam Hyde/MDE, some hilarious stuff before Trump then they just became boring political trigger/shock humor. He has this weird feud with Heidecker alleging he convinced Adult Swim to cancel his show which Tim denies as ridiculous. Hyde can be hilarious but he ruins it with sincere right wing politics and trying to be as offensive as he can for the sake of it.
I agree with you here. I stumbled onto his video maybe 5 years ago or so and some of them were so bizarre and hilarious, and to find out now he's deep in the alt-right, cryptofacist nutjob space is so disappointing.
The TEDx talk is absolute gold, "my dream is to teach Javascript to African children." Considering he's given money directly to Daily Stormer he's just openly fascist at this point.
Sips from the Yogscast moved to mostly Twitch, and it sucked all the soul out of his content. I dislike streaming in general, because watching people interact with the randoms in their chat is not entertaining, but it felt especially bad for Sips, since his videos used to have so much effort and personality, but that was all lost on Twitch. I'm sure he's making more money now, and that's great, and I'm glad he found a good way to do his career that he's enjoying, but I just can't watch him anymore
Wow I never knew he was part of Yogcast. I found out from him from Northernlion who has basically did the same thing. He stopped YouTube and just is just streaming and I really can't watch it live which seems like the appeal. NL has always streamed but never really interacted with chat as much as he does now, which makes watching VODs awkward imo.
Van Oak Props. He had some very cool, very intricate builds that were a lot of fun to follow along with.
Now that there are sponsored videos, those videos are somewhat short, almost half assed builds just to use the sponsors product. The quality in his videos and the props he makes have gone down.
PhoenixSC. They used to create very interesting niche technical Minecraft videos. Then they once made a "cursed Minecraft" video which became very popular and created a lot of memes. I still liked it then but they kept going that direction and now their channel is just stupid memes.
Gardiner Bryant I liked him when he was doing Linux News updates and talking about Linux gaming but after he blew up with the LTT Linux challenge.
It's like his personality shifted and has that I'm being managed vibe and doesn't hide it very well. I'm glad he found success but he is just not for me anymore.
I just checked back in and I guess he is just a generic gaming handheld reviewer now like we don't have a million of those.
I think guns are neat, and Ian's channel is a gun oriented one without the reactionary politics. I wouldn't say his quality went down, but he (this was a few years ago) did a series on Rhodesian guns he got from a collector. I thought it was gross, but not necessarily bad. Lots of people are interested in Nazi stuff without being into the politics.
But then, in the middle of the George Floyd protests, he covers a grenade launcher (Like the one from Terminator2) that shoots rubber bullets and a bean-bag firing shotgun in the same week. Weird time to cover riot police gear. I haven't watched since.
She was always far left, and that fact underpinned pretty much every older video. She has always talked about social and economic issues, and done a damn good job of it.
I've no problem with the trans and lefty commentary, I find that stuff fascinating...
Who is miss is Oliver. Abigail is nice, but I identified with Oliver in a lot of ways. I can't identify with Abigail. I wish they could have cloned/split into 2 people.
Check out the Carefree Wandering vids that use Abigail, coincidentally right before and after her transition, as an example of how philosophy is commodified by influencers, and some of the interesting things around identity and how it impacts the content etc.
I don't think she knows the subject matter enough a lot of the time and is part of this weird commodification of philosophy happening. The political angle never bothered me.