(And I know I dropped the ball and didn’t review Halloweentown IV this past Halloween. I forgot but I will do it this year, especially as I’ve come to some realizations about it).
Anyway, I was introduced to That Guy With the Glasses when a friend sent me a link to Lindsay Ellis’ Nostalgia Chick review of Labyrinth. I loved it and watched her other videos before starting to explore the site’s other contributors, including the Nostalgia Critic. I remember watching Kickassia, eager for each part to be released each day, and discovering new people to watch (like Linkara) from it.
Then came To Boldly Flee, which featured the end of the Nostalgia Critic as Doug Walker (the man behind the glasses) wanted to focus on new, more original productions. While I was sad and knew I would miss the Nostalgia Critic, I wished him well. I even gave one of his new shows, Demo Reel, a chance—but soon found that it just didn’t hold my attention or strike me as particularly funny. There also ended up being long stretches between videos and while I understood that it was a more complex production than Nostalgia Critic, the long stretches were definitely more of a turn off. However, I was still watching other contributors on the site and kept going there almost every day.
Barely a year after To Boldly Flee ended the Nostalgia Critic, the last episode of Demo Reel brought the character back. I expressed my concern to some friends on a message board who also followed the site because I didn’t know if Doug was bringing the character back because he truly missed it or because they were losing viewers over Demo Reel, so they were just giving people what they wanted. I was concerned that he wouldn’t have the same passion as he had before. I’m not sure that didn’t happen—while I watched some of the new Nostalgia Critic videos, he started to do a lot more recent stuff that I had no interest in and eventually, I stopped watching his videos.
I did keep watching other contributors, particularly Lindsay, Linkara and Paw Dugan (also occasionally Todd in the Shadows) . So I was still going to the site almost daily.
Then came 2015. I follow several contributors on Twitter and a couple on tumblr. Linkara was fielding questions about something that happened with Allison Pregler (AKA Obscura Lupa) and not long after, Lindsay announced that she had left the site and all her videos would now go up on her own website, Chez Apocalypse. I knew Allison had had a rather public feud with Noah Antwiler (Spoony) and that it had led to him taking a break as he dealt with a previously undiagnosed mental condition. When he returned, they settled whatever bad blood they had between them but I wondered if some people were still bothering Allison over it.
During this time, many of the contributors had added a mid-roll—meaning they played ads in the middle of their videos in addition to the ones that appeared before and after the video. It was to help increase their revenue from Blip but some still struggled, including Allison. She was one of the contributors who started to add more ad breaks. Many all pleaded with viewers not to use adblockers or they wouldn’t get the revenue.
Allison and also Linkara also signed up for Patreon, where people could support their favorite artists/creators in exchange for perks. It’s very similar to the PBS campaigns where they give you various prizes depending on how much you donate. They couldn’t actively promote their Patreons for a long time and then suddenly, it was okay for other contributors to do so. Allison called the site—by now called Channel Awesome rather than That Guy With the Glasses—out for the resistance and nastiness she experienced when she tried to initially promote her Patreon. She then did not respond to Channel Awesome management in a quick enough time frame (15 minutes) and was then removed from the site.
With Lindsay also leaving, I learned that site management was not so kind to some of their contributors—especially the female ones. That turned me off and I decided not to go back to Channel Awesome. Instead, I went straight to the websites of the people I liked—like Atop the Fourth Wall for Linkara and as I mentioned, Chez Apocalypse for Lindsay.
I haven’t looked back since.
Over time, Channel Awesome faded from my memory. It was just a logo at the end of Linkara’s videos. Blip, the site that hosted many contributors’ videos, shut down and so they moved to YouTube. It was easier for me to follow them and a couple new people there, so I still didn’t need to go back to the website. YouTube would tell me if they updated.
Then Linkara announced he was leaving Channel Awesome and mentioned that several past contributors were sharing their experiences on Twitter. From what I could tell by the questions he was answering on Twitter, they weren’t pleasant experiences. Linkara said they were being compiled to make it easier to read and he hoped it would be available soon.
On April 2, 2018, a Google doc entitled Channel Not-So-Awesome went live and was shared on Twitter. It’s a compilation of anecdotes and complaints from several former contributors to Channel Awesome that totals about 69 pages and has been updated to add a few more from other past contributors. Though it was released early, early in the morning, I still found myself staying up to read it.
Holy. Crap.
There are many allegations in that document, some on the rather minor end of the spectrum and some on the WTF? end. I probably don’t talk a lot about my day job, but I’m a Human Resources Associate. I even have fancy credentials that let me put letters after my name—PHR (Professional of Human Resources). Many things in that document made me cringe and in a few cases, yell “You can’t do that!” It was really infuriating.
Channel Awesome’s business set up is kinda awful but it does offer them some protections. It was made abundantly clear that most of the contributors were not employees. From what I could glean, they wouldn’t have been considered independent contractors. So there is little that employment law can do to help them. However, they do need to find someone who could help them fix their culture and I feel like the Walkers may need to invest in a very good lawyer to figure out how to oust Mike Michaud and keep the rights to the Nostalgia Critic (because apparently they signed those over to him), which may be the only way to make this right.
However, it does also seem like the Walkers are sticking by Michaud, which may be their downfall.
**One note from my HR self based on the experience of Holly Brown—if anyone gives you a separation agreement, NEVER sign it right there and then. You legally have ten days (21 if you’re over 40) to sign it. Take that agreement and make sure you have a lawyer look it over. There are places that will do it for free if you don’t want to pay for a lawyer. If they include an exclusivity or non-compete clause, the courts have issued very strict and narrow guidelines for crafting these. So narrow, in fact, it’s almost not worth using one. You cannot ban someone from an entire industry and I believe it can’t be longer than a year, maybe 18 months at the most. So definitely get a lawyer to look it over before signing it.**
**Also, learn your state’s disability and leave laws. I’ve learned that state statutes set the amount of employees an organization must have to be covered by them at very small numbers, so even if you don’t meet the 50 employees for the federal statutes, you might be covered by state ones.**
Channel Awesome released an apology that…wasn’t really an apology. They stated that they regretted that the past contributors felt the way they did about their experience on the site. No acknowledgment that they may have made mistakes, that they were listening and learning, nothing that an apology should have. Nope, they thrust it back on the people who brought the allegations. It essentially boiled down to “We’re sorry you feel that way.”
Oh boy.
Naturally, that did not go over well with anyone—fans, former producers and even current producers. Within the span of days, several contributors announced that they were leaving the site and I believe Channel Awesome currently has about three or four producers remaining. (However, it would seem Brad Jones AKA the Cinema Snob has removed links to Channel Awesome from his social media and there are rumblings that Doug Walker himself may have walked away from the site). Channel Awesome needed to do damage control and they needed to do it fast.
They pretty much did the exact opposite. After all this furor, they published another response, where they cherry-picked certain accusations and tried to refute them. Most fans were not impressed and the anger continued. My personal favorite was how they insisted that there isn’t a misogynistic attitude in the organization but all the claims they felt the need to refute were the ones put forth by the female former contributors. Their responses almost boiled down to “They are just being vindictive bitches” and their proof that the organization wasn’t misogynistic was that the current female employees didn’t think it was.
Yeah, you got a misogyny problem. Deal with it, Michaud.
One of the more serious allegations raised in the Google doc is that Channel Awesome management knew that one contributor had sexually assaulted someone and was grooming fans but did nothing for over a year. Channel Awesome refuted that in the defense they posted, saying they took action within three weeks of learning about the contributor’s actions. They posted a screencap of the conversation to prove it. Since the original contributor who made the allegations appears in the Google doc as only “Jane Doe” and she didn’t want to name the contributor, Channel Awesome kept all identities a secret. However, they still left enough clues for the internet to figure out who the contributor was.
Justin “JewWario” Carmichael.
For those who don’t know, Justin committed suicide not long after leaving Channel Awesome. All the circumstances around it are still unknown, but this was probably a contributing factor. Justin was a beloved contributor even after his death and it seems some of his accusers were treated rather poorly back then when they tried to speak up. Now, though, they are believed and Justin is a fallen idol.
It’s very distubring and gives me pause now over the fact that he dressed up as Jareth in Suburban Knights.
Honestly, I can’t see how Channel Awesome can continue. It’s lost almost all its contributors and has been hemorrhaging subscribers. No doubt it’s lost ad revenue from that. And each attempt it takes to defend itself just digs the hole deeper. It might be best to disband the channel and then the Walkers can deal with whatever legalities they might need to get control of the Nostalgia Critic back. However, it might be time to just retire him completely. I’m not sure if they can bounce back, though the document wasn’t too touch on Doug Walker. However, he was complicit in many things and I don’t know if he can shake off this taint.
We’ll see what the future holds for Channel Awesome. As for me? I’m glad I stopped supporting them back in 2015. I wish all the contributors—past and present—nothing but the best as they continue with their careers. Hopefully, they will finally be able to put this all behind them and find some closure.
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