The Downfall of Channel Awesome

[Zaq "That Guy" Buzzkill]

[Paul]

Wow, an hour and 20 minutes? I already know Mike's a turd and that Doug's made one popular show and a whole bunch of awful ones. Does this tell us anything new or interesting?

I mean at this point you either know what happened, or you probably don't care, right? You can really sum up this whole story in about 10 minutes.

[Deleted]

Watched that the other day, thought about linking to it. There's not really any new information in it but it does do a solid job of summarizing the situation.

And man, even as a teenager I thought that Doug quitting his job video was uncomfortably dickish but seeing clips from it again now, dude really should've been arrested.

[Paul]

Apr 25, 2019 0:58:05 GMT -5 Lizuka #BLM said:

Watched that the other day, thought about linking to it. There's not really any new information in it but it does do a solid job of summarizing the situation.

And man, even as a teenager I thought that Doug quitting his job video was uncomfortably dickish but seeing clips from it again now, dude really should've been arrested.

That video of Doug quitting his job by jumping up on the table and opening his shirt and yelling is fascinating in a "Wow, he is really an attention whore" sort of way, and not in the "Wow, that's so quirky and funny" way he wanted it to be.

Doug is pretty awful at socializing and dealing with people.

[Mozenrath]

The only real update from the last time we talked about it is that Allison and the rest don't really talk to Brad Jones anymore after he mocked everyone in an interview and made shit up. (namely, saying he moved due to people harassing him, when he was already in the process of moving when this stuff went down. Like, I don't dispute people didn't contact him, I'm sure that happened, but I don't get why he feels the need to embellish it. Maybe he feels obligated to play damage control for being a dickweed, but if that's the case, it didn't really work.)

I still watch some of Brad's stuff sometimes, but it really sucked a lot of the fun out of his content.

[Paul]

Apr 25, 2019 1:41:51 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

The only real update from the last time we talked about it is that Allison and the rest don't really talk to Brad Jones anymore after he mocked everyone in an interview and made shit up. (namely, saying he moved due to people harassing him, when he was already in the process of moving when this stuff went down. Like, I don't dispute people didn't contact him, I'm sure that happened, but I don't get why he feels the need to embellish it. Maybe he feels obligated to play damage control for being a dickweed, but if that's the case, it didn't really work.)

I still watch some of Brad's stuff sometimes, but it really sucked a lot of the fun out of his content.

I suspect the real issue is that Brad thinks for himself and has decided to still be friends with Doug and that bugs the hell out of Allison and others on her side.

Doug is not the kind of person I'd want to be friends with but obviously Brad feels differently and was already friends with him and decided to stay friends so I have to respect him for that even if I probably wouldn't have done the same thing.

[Mozenrath]

Apr 25, 2019 1:53:35 GMT -5 Paul said:

Apr 25, 2019 1:41:51 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

The only real update from the last time we talked about it is that Allison and the rest don't really talk to Brad Jones anymore after he mocked everyone in an interview and made shit up. (namely, saying he moved due to people harassing him, when he was already in the process of moving when this stuff went down. Like, I don't dispute people didn't contact him, I'm sure that happened, but I don't get why he feels the need to embellish it. Maybe he feels obligated to play damage control for being a dickweed, but if that's the case, it didn't really work.)

I still watch some of Brad's stuff sometimes, but it really sucked a lot of the fun out of his content.

I suspect the real issue is that Brad thinks for himself and has decided to still be friends with Doug and that bugs the hell out of Allison and others on her side.

They didn't care about that. Like from the beginning, it was pretty clear they didn't expect him to leave Doug. They even explicitly said in some of the early posts that people shouldn't write him and that they really didn't want to involve him.

It's one thing to be Doug's friend, that's thinking for yourself, as you put it, sure. Doesn't even begin to make it cool that he did an interview literally laughing about it, dismissing the document as "someone didn't get fast food" or whatever the f***. Like, that was just being a slimy douchebag about the whole thing when even Channel Awesome themselves gave more gravity to it than he did.

[EvenBaldobombHasAJob]

Apr 25, 2019 1:59:26 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

Apr 25, 2019 1:53:35 GMT -5 Paul said:

I suspect the real issue is that Brad thinks for himself and has decided to still be friends with Doug and that bugs the hell out of Allison and others on her side.

They didn't care about that. Like from the beginning, it was pretty clear they didn't expect him to leave Doug. They even explicitly said in some of the early posts that people shouldn't write him and that they really didn't want to involve him.

It's one thing to be Doug's friend, that's thinking for yourself, as you put it, sure. Doesn't even begin to make it cool that he did an interview literally laughing about it, dismissing the document as "someone didn't get fast food" or whatever the f***. Like, that was just being a slimy douchebag about the whole thing when even Channel Awesome themselves gave more gravity to it than he did.

I still live watching Snob but there are times when he comes off as Spoony level thin skinned.

[Glitch]

Saw this a few days ago. I didn't realize it had been a year already, and this hindsight in the vid brings things into perspective. Specifically how Brad was treated better than the rest, and how he pretty much doesn't give a shit about the people screwed over. Just like many in the wrestling business, Brad seems to only care about putting himself over.

[Mozenrath]

Apr 25, 2019 5:07:56 GMT -5 EvenBaldobombHasAJob said:

Apr 25, 2019 1:59:26 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

They didn't care about that. Like from the beginning, it was pretty clear they didn't expect him to leave Doug. They even explicitly said in some of the early posts that people shouldn't write him and that they really didn't want to involve him.

It's one thing to be Doug's friend, that's thinking for yourself, as you put it, sure. Doesn't even begin to make it cool that he did an interview literally laughing about it, dismissing the document as "someone didn't get fast food" or whatever the f***. Like, that was just being a slimy douchebag about the whole thing when even Channel Awesome themselves gave more gravity to it than he did.

I still live watching Snob but there are times when he comes off as Spoony level thin skinned.

Yeah, I still think he's got a knack for really funny lines and deep cuts, plus I still like Sarah, Dave, and Brian, but it does feel like he can be a real dick, too. Not like you have to be nice to be funny, but you get how I mean. There's this nasty undercurrent that really just jumps out at me more on knowing.

[EvenBaldobombHasAJob]

Apr 25, 2019 5:11:37 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

Apr 25, 2019 5:07:56 GMT -5 EvenBaldobombHasAJob said:

I still live watching Snob but there are times when he comes off as Spoony level thin skinned.

Yeah, I still think he's got a knack for really funny lines and deep cuts, plus I still like Sarah, Dave, and Brian, but it does feel like he can be a real dick, too. Not like you have to be nice to be funny, but you get how I mean. There's this nasty undercurrent that really just jumps out at me more on knowing.

Yeah I mean... I always thought we only got his side of the story with what went down with Jake if I'm honest.

[Deleted]

it May not bring in new information about the scummy things CA has done, however it reminds us about the scummy things CA has done.

[Mozenrath]

I still can't get over how goddamn easy it'd have been for them to make a decent apology and skirt a ton of this. Like, a bit of humility would have gone a long way to having this not blow up like it did.

Something as simple as, "Mistakes were made, and our ambition sometimes outpaced our professional know-how. So much of this has been learning on the job, and the unfortunate truth is that people have been hurt along the way. We do not recall every listed incident the same way as the document outlines, but we do not dispute that were we able to do things differently, with the benefit of the experience we have now, we would, in order to better take care of content creators who put their time, effort, and creativity into the growth of the site and their own growth alongside us."

Like, I threw that together in a matter of minutes, and it'd obviously be given some more passes to tighten it up, probably in part with concern to any legal liability, but even this half-assed apology would have probably been plenty to satisfy a lot of people and prevent rubberneckers.

Then again, I don't know that Doug, Rob, or Mike have that kind of humility in them, and we know enough about Doug's acting to know it wouldn't have been too convincing. Instead, we got an "apology" so piss-poor, it became a huge meme and got passed around by people who didn't even give a shit or in some cases even know who any of these people were. Just absolutely zero contrition.

It also was a really bad look to zero in on retorting to the women while completely blowing off Linkara's complaints, since it , and holding Tamara out for a "see, we're not misogynists!" really just read like parody, it was so tone deaf.

[eJm]

Apr 25, 2019 5:34:21 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

I still can't get over how goddamn easy it'd have been for them to make a decent apology and skirt a ton of this. Like, a bit of humility would have gone a long way to having this not blow up like it did.

Something as simple as, "Mistakes were made, and our ambition sometimes outpaced our professional know-how. So much of this has been learning on the job, and the unfortunate truth is that people have been hurt along the way. We do not recall every listed incident the same way as the document outlines, but we do not dispute that were we able to do things differently, with the benefit of the experience we have now, we would, in order to better take care of content creators who put their time, effort, and creativity into the growth of the site and their own growth alongside us."

Like, I threw that together in a matter of minutes, and it'd obviously be given some more passes to tighten it up, probably in part with concern to any legal liability, but even this half-assed apology would have probably been plenty to satisfy a lot of people and prevent rubberneckers.

Then again, I don't know that Doug, Rob, or Mike have that kind of humility in them, and we know enough about Doug's acting to know it wouldn't have been too convincing. Instead, we got an "apology" so piss-poor, it became a huge meme and got passed around by people who didn't even give a shit or in some cases even know who any of these people were. Just absolutely zero contrition.

It also was a really bad look to zero in on retorting to the women while completely blowing off Linkara's complaints, since it , and holding Tamara out for a "see, we're not misogynists!" really just read like parody, it was so tone deaf.

Yeah, I think that’s what got to me the most.

All of it, every single thing, could have just been overrided with something you wrote and something that seemed like they understood what happened and were going to be better in the future. Even if you didn’t mean it and people didn’t believe it for the most part, it would have made you LOOK better.

They couldn’t even go in with the “Well it was only a couple of people, it’s not important” bit of arrogance when dozens and dozens of creators left the site, in a way that can’t possibly be ignored or put down to “haters”.

They just fell further and further down when they literally needed to do one thing to at least stop falling.

[Deleted]

Apr 25, 2019 5:47:33 GMT -5 eJm said:

Apr 25, 2019 5:34:21 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

I still can't get over how goddamn easy it'd have been for them to make a decent apology and skirt a ton of this. Like, a bit of humility would have gone a long way to having this not blow up like it did.

Something as simple as, "Mistakes were made, and our ambition sometimes outpaced our professional know-how. So much of this has been learning on the job, and the unfortunate truth is that people have been hurt along the way. We do not recall every listed incident the same way as the document outlines, but we do not dispute that were we able to do things differently, with the benefit of the experience we have now, we would, in order to better take care of content creators who put their time, effort, and creativity into the growth of the site and their own growth alongside us."

Like, I threw that together in a matter of minutes, and it'd obviously be given some more passes to tighten it up, probably in part with concern to any legal liability, but even this half-assed apology would have probably been plenty to satisfy a lot of people and prevent rubberneckers.

Then again, I don't know that Doug, Rob, or Mike have that kind of humility in them, and we know enough about Doug's acting to know it wouldn't have been too convincing. Instead, we got an "apology" so piss-poor, it became a huge meme and got passed around by people who didn't even give a shit or in some cases even know who any of these people were. Just absolutely zero contrition.

It also was a really bad look to zero in on retorting to the women while completely blowing off Linkara's complaints, since it , and holding Tamara out for a "see, we're not misogynists!" really just read like parody, it was so tone deaf.

Yeah, I think that’s what got to me the most.

All of it, every single thing, could have just been overrided with something you wrote and something that seemed like they understood what happened and were going to be better in the future. Even if you didn’t mean it and people didn’t believe it for the most part, it would have made you LOOK better.

They couldn’t even go in with the “Well it was only a couple of people, it’s not important” bit of arrogance when dozens and dozens of creators left the site, in a way that can’t possibly be ignored or put down to “haters”.

They just fell further and further down when they literally needed to do one thing to at least stop falling.

If nothing else, like... They could have at least risen to the level of decency of, "Let's not throw a rape victim under the bus by confirming who did it when they don't want that," with their response but noooope.

[eJm]

Apr 25, 2019 5:56:01 GMT -5 Lizuka #BLM said:

Apr 25, 2019 5:47:33 GMT -5 eJm said:

Yeah, I think that’s what got to me the most.

All of it, every single thing, could have just been overrided with something you wrote and something that seemed like they understood what happened and were going to be better in the future. Even if you didn’t mean it and people didn’t believe it for the most part, it would have made you LOOK better.

They couldn’t even go in with the “Well it was only a couple of people, it’s not important” bit of arrogance when dozens and dozens of creators left the site, in a way that can’t possibly be ignored or put down to “haters”.

They just fell further and further down when they literally needed to do one thing to at least stop falling.

If nothing else, like... They could have at least risen to the level of decency of, "Let's not throw a rape victim under the bus by confirming who did it when they don't want that," with their response but noooope.

Jesus I almost forgot about that. That was the worst part in a montage of worst parts.

Like, for a start, how do you not do a better job hiding that stuff to prevent that? People on social media do a better job hiding confidential information with the tools the apps provide and that stuff was around last year too.

[Mozenrath]

I feel so badly still for JewWario's wife and friends who had no idea, and obviously the victim, no shit, but just, given how disgusted, betrayed, and hurt I felt about it as a fan, it had to be thousands of times worse for them, and continues to be, like MarzGurl having done that fan movie to try to honor him, only to find out and be left with just this movie that now means nothing.

[kingoftheindies]

Apr 25, 2019 5:11:37 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

Apr 25, 2019 5:07:56 GMT -5 EvenBaldobombHasAJob said:

I still live watching Snob but there are times when he comes off as Spoony level thin skinned.

Yeah, I still think he's got a knack for really funny lines and deep cuts, plus I still like Sarah, Dave, and Brian, but it does feel like he can be a real dick, too. Not like you have to be nice to be funny, but you get how I mean. There's this nasty undercurrent that really just jumps out at me more on knowing.

From the little I've been able to find. Jake's side is Brad went crazy over the girl and she came to him theres a lot more weirdness but apparently Brad got really possessive

[BorneAgain]

I wonder if the effects of Change the Channel would have been more pronounced if it had happened a few years previous. While the mass exodus of talent was significant in some ways, the actual value of the CA site had plummeted by the time the incident occurred. Given that Doug was already emphasizing his Chicago crew in terms of focus (down to actual talent contracts for them as opposed to looser agreements for everyone else) before any of this went down I have my own cynical interpretation of the Walkers and Machaud's response to it.

With no significant CA movies being done, everyone having their own YouTube pages and/or Patreons, while even practical association being limited to the outdated site and the occasional review crossover, I think it's likely that they saw the exodus as unfortunate yet not wholly crippling to their direction. Bad PR for a few months, and likely the old TGWTG/Channel Awesome model never being possible for them again, but with a few sponsorships and gradually new subscribers on YouTube (probably young ones not familiar/concerned with the CTC protest) they probably believed they'd be stable after a time.

Basically I suspect CA saw most of the contributors as expendable circa 2018, and figured the possibility of a real apology acknowledging wrongdoing on their part would have worse consequences than basically putting out a PR response and staying the course in terms of content. A heartless, entirely assholish attitude certainly, yet one they probably thought was the practical solution.

[EvenBaldobombHasAJob]

Apr 25, 2019 7:24:23 GMT -5 kingoftheindies said:

Apr 25, 2019 5:11:37 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

Yeah, I still think he's got a knack for really funny lines and deep cuts, plus I still like Sarah, Dave, and Brian, but it does feel like he can be a real dick, too. Not like you have to be nice to be funny, but you get how I mean. There's this nasty undercurrent that really just jumps out at me more on knowing.

From the little I've been able to find. Jake's side is Brad went crazy over the girl and she came to him theres a lot more weirdness but apparently Brad got really possessive

I mean it did seem a bit off. He said they'd only recently started dating and he was acting like they were going to get married.