General Web Series Thread (YouTubers, LPs, Vloggers Etc)

[Hobo]

VISUAL CHANGES!

[King Ellis]

You weren't kidding about the wipes...

[Hobo]

You weren't kidding about the wipes...

Yeah, I am trying to make it a bit less static. Too many wipes?

[Hobo]

Lindsay Ellis is leaving Channel Awesome and retiring the Nostalgia Chick she will, however, continue to make videos.

She doesn't really need them, I'd say. She's sort of branched out into a different space than what CA and certainly Doug's main schtick is (ie. riffing on stuff).

[Hobo]

Now Phelous and Andrew Dickman have left Channel Awesome.

[King Ellis]

Presumably they knew of this in advance, seems like they might have been better served to delay their new site launch until this 'spate' of people leaving is done, effectively saying "It's not all doom and gloom! Look, new site! New creators!".

[GoN_]

Lindsay had basically abandoned the Nostalgia Chick character long ago, so that was to be expected.

[Hobo]

Presumably they knew of this in advance, seems like they might have been better served to delay their new site launch until this 'spate' of people leaving is done, effectively saying "It's not all doom and gloom! Look, new site! New creators!".

The new site was supposed to happen long, long before this.

It is just starting to seem fairly obviously mismanaged. They don't seem to have anyone manning their twitter anymore. The new site isn't really an improvement. They've kinda bungled the new talent influx by taking on a whole host of people but not introducing them properly.

A few hours ago Obscurus Lupa announced she was leaving CA. Now they've lost three big names in a few days.

[Hobo]

Bye, CA!

Okay, so by now you’ve probably heard that Phelan, Lindsay, Andrew, and I are the most recent folks to exit TGWTG/CA. If you haven’t, well, you have now. But I’ve gotten a lot of questions about it, so here’s a long post explaining what happened as far as I’m concerned.

(EDIT: Clarifying none of the exits outside of Phelan had anything to do with me, and even then Phelan and I had been planning on leaving for quite some time.)

So was I fired? Well, yes and no. I was let go, but calling it being “fired” implies I worked for CA, and I did not. The only people with contracts/a payroll are those who work directly for them in Chicago. No producer has ever been paid by CA, and that includes the anniversaries. All profits from those, including the DVD sales, go directly to CA, and we were paid in “exposure” and “a free trip with our friends.” The only contracts we ever had to sign were for the anniversaries, mostly to sign over to them any crossovers we filmed (to pay for our trips there). So in actuality we were not on a “free trip” with our friends; we were working off our trip while also acting in a film we would have no profit from (the exception being commentaries, which we could keep). If we questioned this, we would be told we didn’t have to go and that was that. We did get a free copy of the movie for ourselves, if they remembered to send it to us. If you didn’t get a copy of To Boldly Flee, don’t worry, neither did I. One of Mike’s favorite things to tell us was how great it was that they hosted our stuff and never asked for a cut of our profits.

ANYWHO, my exit starts with the midrolls and Patreon. I’d been struggling for awhile to pay the bills, and ad revenue was down, and one of the things keeping me afloat was extra midrolls, which weren’t extremely popular. But I also had to do that to make barely enough to live, as this is my job. So while I’m in Chicago, Mike corners me while I’m alone and proceeds to tell me my midrolls are screwing everyone else by making people turn on adblock. It was very hostile, unprofessional, and uncomfortable. I told him I needed to do that to make enough money to live, he didn’t care (and also told me they left up comments about the midrolls as a hint to me, apparently), and it ended with me crying in a bathroom over how I was going to pay my bills. This was followed shortly after with a call from him and Doug mandating how many midrolls we were able to use, among other insulting things. Doug suggested I simply make more videos, like his TV show vlogs, because that was just his “work ethic.” I, of course, wouldn’t know about a work ethic. Mike was also unaware that I’d been posting on Sundays for 3 years, and implied that videos that weren’t OLPs didn’t count.

Anyway, I’m looking for alternative ways to make money, and Patreon is starting to do well for some folks. I decide why not? It wouldn’t hurt to try it out. So I start one up, and ask if Mike can put a link up to it under my next video. Mike and company do not know what Patreon is, and have not checked, because they’ve decided in their heads what it is. So he tells me I’m not allowed to promote it. I explain that it’s like an ongoing Kickstarter, and he tells me they won’t promote those either. This is despite them having already promoted Nerdquest stuff and their own Indiegogo, which you might remember was given $90,000 for something they have yet to produce.

(Side note: how many times does it take to film a game show pilot? As it turns out, at least 17, most with the same questions and guests. The other shows don’t even have a title, much less any start on production.)

Incidentally, the reason I don’t use as many midrolls now? Patreon. If they’d had their way, I’d still be broke, and people would still be using the same archaic system.

Rob then messages me and tells me adding Patreon to midrolls is a “slap to the face” and that their Indiegogo was “executive authority.”

Suede had made a video about the pros and cons of Patreon, and they told him he could not post it on the site. We weren’t allowed to put up any links, and only after the news about Suede got out and they looked bad did they tell us we could do a promotion at the end of our videos. After many of us had filmed them, they randomly told us they could only be 30 seconds long. I don’t know why.

Fast forward to now, and I see that they’ve posted Brad’s Patreon video on the new site. I ask Mike why it’s okay now, and quote the previous conversation with Rob. He tells me there was no reason to bring that up again because they’d said it while they were “still on the fence” with Patreon (“slap to the face” = “on the fence”). I told him, yes, there was reason to bring it up, because they never told us any of that was okay now. About 50% of the site’s problems could be fixed by them simply telling us things. I told him they were being hypocrites and should apologize, he deflects me, and I told him they’re always making excuses why things aren’t their fault.

So he asks me if I have time for quick call. I tell him no.

2 hours later, I’m away from the computer and Mike creates a new convo with me, him, and Doug. He asks if I can talk now. I don’t answer because, again, I am away from the computer. He waits approximately 15 minutes, and then tells me because I’m ignoring them they’re taking my stuff off of the site and letting me go. My stuff is immediately removed, which, coincidentally, is the only thing they’ve updated since the new site has gone up. Keep in mind, when the Noah incident happened, they never let him go, they simply kept extending his suspension. I was never even put on suspension. And he got a nice farewell post!

(Edited to add that Mike has been known to stop contact for weeks at a time and, to think he’d be available within 15 minutes of any contact is laughable.)

They’re getting a lot of bad PR right now, which probably could be fixed if they hadn’t fired their PR person the day after her surgery.

The site has had many, MANY behind the scenes issues, and ANYONE who has said anything has been labeled a troublemaker. Also, anyone who has said anything is gone now. It is a site fueled by yes men and denial, and many broken promises. They’ve referred to the other producers as “children” on more than one occasion, which is as patronizing as it sounds. The site has ALWAYS been about Doug, and they don’t care about anyone else there.

But what does this mean for videos? Nothing, actually. Us former CA members are still making videos on our own sites, you can find me, Phelan, and Andrew on Phelous.com, Lindsay on Chez Apocalypse, and I encourage you to continue to support folks who have or will leave the site. The producers are still friends, we will still work together, and we still love what we do.

tldr; I was let go for being away from the computer for 15 minutes.

Lupa on her being let go from CA.

Also Kyle Kallgren/Oancitizen has left CA too.

Wow and damn.

[Hobo]

High Def Hbob!

[Hobo]

http://imgur.com/a/K8Xe4

This imgur gallery has logs of the Skype chat wherein Channel Awesome does all of it's non-communicating with it's 70+ contributors. Including Lupa's firing.

[King Ellis]

I can understand people being frustrated with the way things developed but to complain about your employer being unprofessional and to then go and leak these private conversations and tattle to IndieGoGo doesn't seem right.

I say tattle, obviously they've censored the name but being included with these images and them feeling they need to censor their name at all can't help but make you jump to certain conclusions.

[Hobo]

I dunno if Lupa is the source of all those images. The Skype chats pertaining to her most probably yeah. I don't have much of an issue with that, bar perhaps they could've been censored a bit better. There are folks who aren't involved who's comments appear in the screenshots.

The ones about someone needing their blip page and the IndieGoGo email I don't think came from her. They came from last June and she never lost her blip page.

Incidentally, the Holly that Mike Michaud's status says people should contact when he's out of town hasn't worked for them for 2 years.

[GoN_]

Both sides just look so childish in all of this...

So, she was away from the computer for three hours, but after the firing message she answers right away... Yeah... Not digging it. They were assholes but she comes across as a really annoying person to work with.

[Hobo]

Both sides just look so childish in all of this...

So, she was away from the computer for three hours, but after the firing message she answers right away... Yeah... Not digging it. They were assholes but she comes across as a really annoying person to work with.

2 hours later, I’m away from the computer and Mike creates a new convo with me, him, and Doug. He asks if I can talk now. I don’t answer because, again, I am away from the computer. He waits approximately 15 minutes, and then tells me because I’m ignoring them they’re taking my stuff off of the site and letting me go. My stuff is immediately removed, which, coincidentally, is the only thing they’ve updated since the new site has gone up. Keep in mind, when the Noah incident happened, they never let him go, they simply kept extending his suspension. I was never even put on suspension. And he got a nice farewell post!

According to her post she was away from the computer at the time of the second message too. Not really impossible to believe that she got back a few minutes later to find the message.

On a scale of not very professional things people involved with CA have done posting her dismissal Skype message isn't up there with the reasons they cut say, Spoony or Dan Rizzo sexually harassing other contributors.

Maybe she isn't great to work with - but - to be honest the job of Channel Awesome when it comes to managing their contributors is basically post their videos and help them promote their stuff. All 70 or so of them. Not just Doug, or Brad Jones or Linkara or anyone who pulls in major hits for them. It's not hard but they don't do it very well.

Incidentally, Lupa's new show Movie Nights isn't too bad (production wise it's a massive step up). It's less scripted than her old one which might be a problem but it certainly felt better when she had Phelous alongside her to bounce off of.

[Hobo]

It seems pretty likely that Blip.tv is done. It's no longer playing on the site (only on the embedded players) and everyone who uses it is backing up their videos.

[Hobo]

http://socialblade.com/youtube/user/thefinebros/realtime

 

You can watch the Fine Brothers (the Kids React! guys) subscriber count fall in real time after the announced a misguided attempt to franchise their "concept".

[MalaCloudy Black]

I'm already so tired of all the uncreative HUR DUR CAN'T SAY REACT YOU'LL GET SUED!!! LOL!!! comments on Twitch streams and in YouTube comments. I imagine it'll go on for the next month or two as well.

[Ruki]

Looks like the Fine Bros. saga is gonna come to an end.

[LL!]

Oh, Ruki. Sweet naive Ruki. This is the internet. Internet rage doesn't end until they kill what they are raging against.