So the recent controversy about Channel Awesome mismanagement
- Thread starter Drathnoxis
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Basically, numerous account of Mike Michaud (the CEO) engaging in behaviour which ranges from unprofessional and disinterested to borderline abusive.Souplex said:
General lack of communication between management (particularly Michaud) and producers, and communication which was received was often insulting or negative. Many, many broken promises (including financial promises).
Nebulous rules enforced inconsistently to target people management didn't like or wanted gone. Tendency to drop and remove people without informing anyone (including them) or without any explanation.
Smaller producers often feel they were promised promotion which they never received. Recurring sentiment that management only cared about Doug and to a lesser extent other big names. They took on huge numbers of producers at various points and never adequately supported them.
Shoots for the various channel awesome movies were poorly handled. Various people were injured during filming. Financial corners were cut to the point that many people lost money attending film shoots they were obligated to be in. General lack of concern/care/professionalism regarding those involved.
Several allegations of sexual harassment by Mike Ellis (former co-CEO) and one allegation of sexual exploitation (not illegal, but clearly upsetting and ethically questionable) of fans by a former producer which was known about but not followed up on by management. General weirdness around women by pretty much everyone.
It's not even that. If they had been treated like employees they likely would have been treated with the respect they were due.Cold Shiny said:
Honestly, I'd heard murmurings about CA before but this...Jesus. This might finally be the end of them.
Or, alternatively, they'll end up in the same position as the Escapist: a website/channel no-one watches anymore, save for one well-known producer (Yahtzee in the case of the Escapist, NC in the case of CA).
Or, alternatively, they'll end up in the same position as the Escapist: a website/channel no-one watches anymore, save for one well-known producer (Yahtzee in the case of the Escapist, NC in the case of CA).
Well if those creators have been dragged through shit for past few years, they probably don't care anymore. Tired of that shit, so to speak. Same deal as the Machinima/Polaris perpetual contract shenanigans back in 2013-2014. A group of people who are fed up of being taken advantage of and want to warn others that "Group X are awful people".Callate said:
I sorta feel like I should have an opinion on this but I kinda don't. I don't think the folks over at TGWTG or Channel Awesome, or however they're calling themselves, ever seemed like anything other than a bunch of nerds who are in over their heads. I watched Doug Walker back when he was still good, in the very early 10s, but even then he wasn't even the best entertainer on the site. Lindsay Ellis, Kyle Kallgren and even Todd have been making better content than him for a while now and continue to do so as independekt producers.
It's not that I don't find it a bit unfortunate that the site ended this way, for a while they seemed like they were onto something when it comes to internet based entertainment but you knkw, whatever, plenty of people doing basically they same thing they did, but better.
Still unfortunate to see what seemed like a success story end on such a depressing note but there are better things to get sad about.
It's not that I don't find it a bit unfortunate that the site ended this way, for a while they seemed like they were onto something when it comes to internet based entertainment but you knkw, whatever, plenty of people doing basically they same thing they did, but better.
Still unfortunate to see what seemed like a success story end on such a depressing note but there are better things to get sad about.
Thank you. Just want to let you know you are not alone. Youtube is slowly turning into a giant tabloid with corporate advertisements. Yeah it can be fun and exciting to get outraged at things but are our lives really so empty that people are expected to get outraged about interpersonal drama we have no stakes in? I only have so many fucks to give and there are better ways to spend my time, like not being angry over strangers being shitty to each other.Callate said:
I didn't respond to this post, but mostly because I pretty much agree with everything and didn't feel I had anything to say.Vault101 said:
Basically, it seems to me that there was a time when the central joke of a lot of youtube pop culture commentary was essentially "I'm unreasonably angry or annoyed about something which in the real world doesn't matter". Essentially, trying to copy people like the Angry Video Game Nerd because the angry video game nerd was popular at the time. CA and most of its content was very much a product of this one joke. So what you ended up with is a bunch of people who were good at one particular joke, and got super popular for doing one joke.
And yeah, like you I liked that joke in the past, but I think for an increasing number of people it's got old. Some people, as you say, adapted out of it pretty well. I don't think Lindsey Ellis or Kyle Kallgren had much trouble adapting because they never really fitted the format anyway. Others, yeah, I'm not sure they ever really had any talent beyond being angry.
While I'm not a huge Doug Walker fan & I don't want it to seem like I'm rushing to his defense, (I only really see him when he appears in the Cinema Snob's content) these allegations, with the exception of the alleged harassment, seem much ado about nothing. Most of these problems could just be solved in a few weeks with a change in management.
He was kinda funny in "Jesus, Bro".
He was kinda funny in "Jesus, Bro".
That's an extremely minor difference. It's like the people who watch tabloid news and then say "I don't care about this celebrity stuff!" They're still watching - differences in *attitude* of people watching the same thing (like "ironic" versus "sincere" attitudes) are minor, virtually irrelevant compared to people not watching versus those watching.Dansen said:
A big old "meh" from me.
Honestly most of this stuff was leaked at one point or another from various sources years ago, we're just finally getting it straight from the horses' mouths.
To Boldly Flee was pretty much the last hurrah from Channel Awesome. It was a site created to give a haven from YouTube's haphazard rules back in the day and to give people a chance to come together and make a living from making videos online. But over time YouTube actually got it's shit together and the necessity of Channel Awesome died out. CA got too big for their britches both in terms of "creators" and greed, it all came toppling down.
And let's be honest at this point none of this is really relevant anymore. If this had come out 6-8 years ago it would be massive and I'd applaud them for actually standing up and saying something. But at this point Channel Awesome is pretty much dead, it isn't the giant money making empire that it once was. And everyone pretty much moved on to other things years ago. The only thing keeping it mildly relevant is the Nostalgia Critic. At this point all of this is pretty much a fart in the wind. The saga of CA has been buried for quite some time.
Honestly most of this stuff was leaked at one point or another from various sources years ago, we're just finally getting it straight from the horses' mouths.
To Boldly Flee was pretty much the last hurrah from Channel Awesome. It was a site created to give a haven from YouTube's haphazard rules back in the day and to give people a chance to come together and make a living from making videos online. But over time YouTube actually got it's shit together and the necessity of Channel Awesome died out. CA got too big for their britches both in terms of "creators" and greed, it all came toppling down.
And let's be honest at this point none of this is really relevant anymore. If this had come out 6-8 years ago it would be massive and I'd applaud them for actually standing up and saying something. But at this point Channel Awesome is pretty much dead, it isn't the giant money making empire that it once was. And everyone pretty much moved on to other things years ago. The only thing keeping it mildly relevant is the Nostalgia Critic. At this point all of this is pretty much a fart in the wind. The saga of CA has been buried for quite some time.