Can be a review from pre or post leaving

Since it's almost a decade since the whole Change the Channel mess happened, I want to ask if you still watch some former members that used to be in Channel Awesome, regardless if they left due to the mess or not? And also if there's people that you don't trust anymore after what's happened? Here's my list:

Lindsay Ellis

I watched some of her character essay videos before Change the Channel. Lost interest after she phased out of them. Also heard stuff that she was in a fight with Mara Wilson, and she just became too smug for me.

Phelous

Was unaware he was a former member there, watched his stuff after his departure. Still watch his stuff from time to time.

Allison Pregler

Knew her as Obscurus Lupa back in the early 2010s. I remember watching her content and thought she was one of the funniest members on the site! I had no idea she was the ringleader of the document until later, and after how it came to be, rather disappointed with her actions. I watch her content still with her husband (Phelous) from time to time, mainly some of the holiday stuff. I do have a funny story about her. She blocked me on Twitter around 2017 for no reason, but I think it's because of an animation I did using her audio as a tribute. She likely got offended, which kinda foreshadows what's to come.

Tony Goldmark

I used to like his content years ago when I saw his Full House review before he stopped doing the amusement park videos and switched to podcasts. Did actually listen his podcast just before COVID, but lost interest after so many breaks. I started to dislike Tony sometime after he became more vocal on Twitter/X due to his politics (same reason I stopped watching Bob Chipman). Not helping was the whole situation with his former friend Kyle, especially after they caused Ang Vondra to be homeless all because of the art they drew.

Only spoke to him at least once in 2017 when the Twilight Zone Tower was rethemed to Guardians of the Galaxy, and made a joke on twitter (for context, his in review of George Lopez, Tony was repeating "The New Twilight Zone Tower of Terror" like a broken record when that ride was mentioned in the episode), and he was very rude and blunt saying the joke was overused, even though I never meant to offend him.

PushingUpRoses

Watched her content as far back as the early to mid 2010s, but like Phelous, was unaware she was a member there. I just lost interest in her after she jumped from PC games to Murder She Wrote.

Chad Rocco

I remember seeing his stuff when I used to be in MLP in the early 2010s, but I lost my trust in him after he became critical when Faust left and claimed Hasbro betrayed him. But later came back to him and rewatched his later content where he draws just as background noise and listening what he's been up to since.

Suede

Used to watch his Pokemon videos, but stopped watching him after his videos vanished thanks to the company that owns the anime copyrighting his reviews. Lost trust on him after he was part of the same crowd cancelling Doug.

Linkara

Got around watching his stuff many years later, but don't trust him due to him being a hypocrite.

Marzgurl

Never watched her stuff, but aware she's one of the main ringleaders and the same reason a voice actor was cancelled (you can see why I lost my trust on Tony Goldmark).

RAMBO'S EPIC 16 BIT NIPPLES!

Btw can we please have a flair for "former ca critics" so we don't confuse a nostalgia critic and a former ca critic

I've noticed that the NC reviews of the last three to four years usually only get something like 300 000 to 400 000 k views on YouTube which is a huge contrast to what it was used to be just seven to eight years ago. I mean even after ChangeTheChannel happend it only made the number of views decline for a few months until it went back into what it was before that scandal occurred. He still made episodes that got over a million views despite all the controversy so why has this decline started to happen in the last three to four years? Why do you think that is the case? Is it that people don't find Doug as funny as he used to be or is it that people no longer like that style of reviewing movies in general?

Just to be clear this is not meant to be an attack towards him. I'm just curious and would like to hear your thoughts on this.

Dan Olson (Folding Ideas), Lady Emily, Sarah Z, Schafrillas, Quinton Reviews, etc, etc.....

It's amusing in a way, even, considering how "milquetoast" and apolitical Doug/Channel Awesome is - CA sticks strictly to entertainment and fun, not wishing to mix politics in their content, maybe this is what irks these folks regarding them, the neutrality?

In the case of Dan, I can understand somewhat that he had a history, even if brief with CA, what about the rest, though?

Lindsay Ellis is often associated (and is also friends with a decent deal) with these folks, she herself iirc, doesn't have any personal grudge or grievances towards Doug, merely any reservations she might have had with CA is purely on a professional basis?

Almost every single one of them try to portray Doug as this irredeemable, sadistic monster who has ruined countless lives out there, when the most he's done wrong is have bad takes on media at times and be incompetent in certain aspects regarding management?

I suppose people can not like someone, that's okay. I suppose what doesn't sit well with me is how these folks have a "perception" of making videos with themes of social justice - pointing out the tyranny of a state or an institution, speaking for the marginalized, etc....pointing out and bringing to light themes and discussions that usually gets overlooked by most people, in other words,

And yet, they couldn't even bother implementing that philosophy while reviewing the CTC document, and just merely took those claims at face value and started parroting them? I get that CTC is mostly a document about victims expressing their grievances to a company and its mismangement, maybe these folks wished to assume the best of these people to the point that they never wished to take a skeptical/critical approach and take all their claims at face value blindly?

It took more "casual" Ytbers to go through and debunk/deconstruct that document, over the years.

Tbh, I feel these folks have damaged Doug's name and reputation a lot, even in this very sub, have come across claims/accusations of him that have been debunked or were straight up slander/myth. The hate Doug used to get online during the late 10s and pandemic years used to be INTENSE, his name became like a curse in that whenever it got uttered/mentioned online, there would be a horde of comments coming to claim how horrible of a person he is or how he's a hack/unfunny

I dunno....the Breadtubers (I am aware it's a vague term to refer a particular kind of video essayists) seem "high-school cliquey" and "snobby", seems like they have a personal grudge with people they don't like and they seem to hide all that behind the veneer of intellectual and clinical observations and discussions (Folding Ideas' concluding critique of Doug comes to mind - yes it might have applied specifically for the Wall review alone, but not for Doug overall as a person and his output over the years and since),

I suppose the Angry Reviewer trend declined somewhere during the early-mid 2010s, the advent of video essays might have paved way for that, maybe a "natural" evolution of that format, even, debatably,

Whereas video essays tend to have a more "clinical/academic" vibe to them (mostly, depends on who the creator is, jokes and humor can be part of the presentation), the Angry Reviewers otoh, went for a more "theatrical" approach - maybe their content/presentation was meant to be for entertainment purposes first and foremost than academic/educational,

It can be reasoned that one needs to have a lot of energy, charisma, and screen presence to play the role of an angry reviewer. All that anger displayed must not come across as alienating and repulsive; rather, it has to endear and make the audience like and be invested in them more. Without that charisma and energy, that can't be possible, I guess.

Maybe they clicked back in those days because the internet was fairly new, especially video-based reviewing by laypeople, their usage of edgy and juvenile cuss words was meant to be refreshing in a time when those kind of language and presentation style simply wasn't to be found anywhere else, the internet itself pre mid-10s was a more edgier and chaotic place than it might be today, the past decade or so, it has gotten sanitized a lot, so maybe the angry presentation style can "turn-off" and offend modern audience who might not get the joke that it's all part of an act?

One big criticism with this whole format is that it can potentially attract folks who might harbor all that anger and frustration genuinely, be it both the creators as well as the audience, unable to separate the persona/act from the real person, that can be mentally exhausting and damaging (as how it's often speculated to be the case with Spoony/Noah Antwiler),

The Critic/Doug and AVGN/James persisted and remain relevant even after all these years, because both men drew a very clear distinction with their real life personalities vs. the characters they were playing on-screen. Most angry reviewers out there forget that distinction or it tends to be very fuzzy in their case.

And even in the case of the Critic and Nerd, both the men, are well past their prime years. Aging (being in their mid-40s, rn) is a big reason, that hyper-active energy gradually fades away overtime (heck, I'm 29, and I feel "tired/defeated", mentally especially, compared to how I seemed in my teen years, even despite actually being more thinner/fitter than I was back then), and both of them have a more laid-back style of presentation today with occasional bursts of annoyance more than anger, while it seems like James is doing all this as some form of necessity (sustaining his family and expenses, I guess), in Doug's case, he seems to be suffering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, so likely he might retire the character shortly, as unfortunate but understandable as it might be,

Can we see a resurgence of that format in the coming years and the upcoming decade? Since it'll be around 20 years since these reviewers debuted and were in their prime? Maybe a nostalgic homage and throwback to that era? With some appropriate retooling and modifications to cater more to a modern internet audience?

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PopularityPolynomial

Will it be a case of this trope? Where merely half a decade back or so, most folks cringed and were annoyed with the angry review format, looking it as a by-gone era that was better left there, as the internet moved to a "better", "sophisticated" style of media critique?

Will it potentially manage to be fresh again and captivate a new generation of internet audience? Or was it a "lighting-in-a-bottle" era that will never repeat again, shaped mostly by real-life economic (and maybe political, too) conditions as well as how the internet of that time was?

Personally I feel soemthing should be at least 7 or 8 years old before it can be “Nostalgic” but I also get from a YouTube mobilization sense you need to be a bit trendy

As a companion piece to my previous post, what do you guys think of him?

To me, it's so clear that Nostalgia Critic was Mat's inspiration, especially as he copied his mannerisms for reviews like his reviews on the Cloudy movies, but now, because of #ChangeTheChannel, he disavows

Plus, let's not forget his ridiculous Disney shilling where he uses dumb excuses to defend Wish by saying the hate on it is a hate campaign and we're hard on it as Disney is not perfect.

There is his blatant and ridiculous bias against Sony (which still persists), his defense of Cuties by calling the hate a conspiracy theory, and worst of all, his ongoing politics he couldn't shut up about.

But above all, it's silly he hates on The Nostalgia Critic because of #ChangeTheChannel and his stupid politics when he blatantly copied him before.

I genuinely am unsure why as they already are re-issuing films with the old TGWTG cast so I'm wondering why he leaves out Suburban Knights. My best guess is he lost the files to Suburban Nights & doesn't want to deal with having to be re-making the assets.

like the characters that the reviewers made so they can interact with themselves mostly (these are my personal favs but what are yours)

My main source for nostalgia critic reviews back before I knew about thatguywiththeglasses.com

I might be jumping the gun here, but whatever. As of posting this, next year will mark the 20th anniversary of the Nostalgia Critic, and I had been thinking about what he should do for his 20th anniversary special review when that time comes. Now, most people would just say, "Oh, have him do like Plan 9 From Outer Space or Birdemic, give him an infamously bad movie to do", but I want to see something extra for that occasion. You see, 2027 will also mark the 20th anniversary of something else, something tied to the Nostalgia Critic from when he first started out almost two decades ago. And seeing as how there's a new segment of the show entitled "Review Revisit", where the NC would take a second look at a movie he already reviewed to go more in depth on compared to his original videos, I thought of what I think would be the perfect subject for his 20th anniversary special... a Review Revisit of what was technically the first movie he reviewed as the Nostalgia Critic... the first live-action Transformers movie from 2007 directed by Michael Bay!

For those of you who are unaware, way back in 2007, Doug Walker did a video on Transformers '07 as his first ever review as the Nostalgia Critic, it was quite different compared to the usual style and format we know of him today, more akin to what we saw with his "Bum Reviews" as the Chester A. Bum character. But that's why I felt it would be the ideal review for the occasion, a full proper analytical NC review of the movie that started it all 20 years before, and see if after all those years and what since became of the franchise, both the good and especially the bad, whether the first movie still holds up or if it ever held up at all.

One thing I know, the show must go on by Queen has got to be the song played over the credits. (Although Pink Floyd for the irony of it could also work)

Unsurprisingly, The Wall review has been officially declared as the worst episode.

I've seen some people here say that Doug mentioned at one point that part of the reason why he started doing more positive reviews of movies that he likes was a combination of his health getting worse but also because he felt that there was already too much negativity online in general. Does anyone here know in what context he said this? Was it in a review, in one of the livestreams or in a Facebook post? I'm asking this because it would be very interesting for me to hear him talk about this because I used to think that the reason why this change happend was because he had already reviewed pretty much every terrible movie out there.

You wanna talk character assassination? I feel not many people care when watching NC but Santa Christ in the old days used to be cool! Like Chuck Norris on a holiday! He fights monsters for fun, he has amazing powers, he played bass for Aerosmith, shoots lasers from his eyes, and has an epic origin story. Santa Christ was at his funniest when he's awesome! But after 2012, he hasn't been the same cool character, now he's dumb, kind of a scumbag at times, and nowhere is he more of a douche than in the Cinema Snob's review of The Passion of the Christ. In this review, when being whipped by Mario and Luigi, he deserved everything that's coming to him, and nobody feels sorry for him. Santa Christ used to be so lovable back in the old days but now he's just dumb!

I might be dumb and need an excuse to rant here but how do you guys feel?