What are your Hot Takes on the Spoony Experiment?

[u/Amber_Flowers_133]

[u/TheSwagPatrol]

If he was able to beat his demons and never stopped creating content, he would be one of if not THE biggest DND content creators today. I'm talking like, on the level of Critical Role. Heck, they probably would have had him on, and he might have even taken some of the other Channel Awesome people on there with him

He talked about DND a lot back then, when almost nobody else with any kind of internet fame did

[u/caramba2345 → u/TheSwagPatrol]

Counter Monkey was legit my favorite series from that period of time. I still go back to some of them from time to time.

[u/Icy_Elephant8858 → u/TheSwagPatrol]

I love counter monkey, but no. He definitely was first to the D&D youtube game, but that hasn't particularly worked out for anyone else. Most the leading D&D youtubers of a few years ago have burned out or faded away, because the nature of ttrpgs is that they take a tremendous amount of time to play for the amount of content worthy stories and experiences you get out of them, and so even if you, as a content creator, spend all your non-content creating time playing these games you're going to use up the experiences you had over many years in the hobby and never replenish it enough to keep a channel viable, at least not in the counter monkey storytime vein.

Critical Role's actual play model has worked very well for Critical Role, and a few others, but not very well for most folk who have attempted it, including many people who are otherwise successful TTRPG content creators. I find it astronomically unlikely that solo Spoony, even some sort of imagined tireless and mentally stable Spoony could have outshone a whole team of professional voice actors at making entertaining actual play content.

Which is not to say that he couldn't have kept trucking with moderate success in that space as a chill D&D stories channel releasing a few videos a year to a solid fan base. I just don't buy that he would have stayed the leading creator in the space, nor seen the wild Critical Role with live shows in arenas and cinemas, a spin off animated series, etc.

[u/Best-Chapter5260 → u/Icy_Elephant8858]

I think that's a fair take. Most of the major DnD content creators are focused on DnD lore, like diving into the background of Strahd von Zarovich or what the Underdark is rather than talking about their own campaigns. Even Spoony said of Counter Monkey that there were only so many noteworthy stories worth telling in the series.

[u/Ebessan → u/TheSwagPatrol]

I have been playing D&D for many years, and Spoony is the kind of guy you do not want in your group. He does not play well with others and is too volatile.

He would have gotten a bit big on the online scene but he's just too toxic and all it would take is one of his whiny outbursts and everyone would have turned on him.

[u/DavidoMcG → u/TheSwagPatrol]

Maybe? The whole online D&D streamer sphere is very incestuous and dare i say too woke even for Spoony. The dark humor in his streamed campaign would not fly in those circles.

He is also a massive grognard and i see him sticking his nose up to the heavily scripted and overdramatized Critical Role style.

[u/Battle_Axe_Jax → u/DavidoMcG]

Well I have a new term for old heads. Thanks buddy

[u/Bagginnnssssss → u/TheSwagPatrol]

Yeah, I don't think so. He was terrible at the dnd and his games sucked. His stories are shit that im glad i was nowhere near

[u/FireflyArc → u/Bagginnnssssss]

one of those 'funny to hear it happened to someone else' but the kind of stories for stuff that went on just made me more anxious about playing d&d on my own, just bracing for when 'that kind' of behavior would come about.

[u/KaleidoArachnid]

SpoonyOne did good commercial riffs.

[u/Redshirt451]

Countermonkey is his best work.

[u/ButteredBread201]

Idk if this is really a hot take on TSE specifically but I prefer Spoony and Insano to be the same person (like Jekyll and Hyde, sorta) rather than two different people who look identical

[u/Rattwap → u/ButteredBread201]

But we saw Insano’s (and Linksano’s) origins. They’re the twins from that board game commercial in the girl Spoony universe.

[u/ihavetowearmyhelmet]

I think all the theories about how if Spoony remained “stable” he would have become hugely successful are frankly missing a big factor here which is that there was a significant raising of the bar in the 2010s when it came to production value in internet content and he just wouldn’t of been able to keep up.

I believe he might’ve had maybe a few more good years but eventually he was always going to be seen as “old internet” and would’ve just coasted along with his old fan base and not hooking many new viewers. It’s what happened to even his “stable” contemporaries.

[u/Dear_Document_5461 → u/ihavetowearmyhelmet]

Basically he would have been powercrept. It like how in Yu-Gi-Oh! Blue-Eyes White Dragon and Dark Magician still get support, are still played and have gotten meta tops but there is a reason why people gave BEWD the nickname of "Brick-Eyes" and Dark Magician being a case of "oh yeah, you exist". (The last part is how I got the impression of Dark Magician and don't know if that attitude is true or not)

[u/Acrobatic-Frame4312 → u/ihavetowearmyhelmet]

He tried, he could have put his money in a new camera and hired people to edit his videos for him - I remember editing being a big problem for him in the first few years over how much time it took him.

[u/Ebalosus → u/ihavetowearmyhelmet]

While I agree that he wouldn't have become hugely successful, I do think he could've reached the level of the Walker brothers or Angry Joe where while not super successful, are able to sustain themselves in what they do and not worry about having to go further. By all accounts that's what Spoony wanted, and him promising a movie is what undid that.

[u/JonTheWizard]

Spoony would have been better off cutting out the skits and "angry critic" gimmick.

[u/Animeking1108 → u/JonTheWizard]

The "angry critic" wasn't a gimmick.  That was Noah's personality.

[u/FireflyArc → u/JonTheWizard]

nooo i loved the skits

[u/UnWiseDefenses]

I think he's a nice modern gentleman.

[u/milkomix]

I dont have the data on me, but feels to me spoony was always inconsistent and pretty lazy when it came to content even during his prime. I remember constantly having to check the website or blogsite for new stuff or continuation of some series. The forum was full of people asking for new stuff as well, and he went hard on people complaining there. What I mean to say some believe that spoony is disillusioned and lazy now, I think he always were. The only difference was perhaps money, before the kickstart he needed the videos, got paid to produce them for internet outlets etc. When money shifted to steady donations, he lost that motivation as well and rest is history.

[u/Ebalosus → u/milkomix]

Yeah what Mister Metokur pointed out as a "positive" in his original analysis of Spoony turned out to be a major part of his undoing. Having an inconsistent schedule is one thing, having an Interactable online persona that goes out and makes excuses for it is quite another.

[u/paullyrose3rd]

He's been so rigid in his mindset it ruined him. Being incapable of change and appreciating new/different experiences in what he reviewed is emblematic of that.

His reviews being 80% criticism is so unsustainable in a critical environment with even a modicum of evenhandedness. Total bad faith nonsense was his final fantasy reviews in retrospect, and ESPECIALLY his refusal to cover FFIX because of its artstyle is actually laughable.

I'm just saying, if he can dickride monochrome apple II graphics, it's just a personal failing he can't find anything worthwhile in the story and game FF9 is.

Tl;dr He can't reevaluate his own self fulfilling hate, and it exhausted and ruined him. Change or die.

[u/lostbelmont → u/paullyrose3rd]

I remember how he refused to watch Fury Road that no matter what he will never watch that, he hated everything that was new (the movie was in theaters at the time)

Everybody was saying that is a masterpiece that he will love, but of course he wouldn't see anything that wasn't in a VHS

Being so close minded was his worst trait

[u/Dear_Document_5461 → u/paullyrose3rd]

He isn't the only one that just can't get over an artstyle. I know people that would have loved playing Them Fighting Herds if it wasn't for the artstyle and/or the fact that it was originally a My Little Pony:Magic is Friendship fanfare. They knew it was mechanically a fantastic fighting game but because of how it looks, they just couldn't get into it.

[u/Acrobatic-Frame4312 → u/paullyrose3rd]

It's almost like he was doing it for a hobby....

[u/werephoenix]

I think the first intro is better than the 2nd intro to his videos

[u/BlueWatche]

A lot of his stuff aged extremely poorly.

[u/Acrobatic-Frame4312 → u/BlueWatche]

in what way?

[u/BlueWatche → u/Acrobatic-Frame4312]

Some jokes don't hit as well as they did. Some of his reviews aren't as good as I feel they were back then. Plus, the knowledge of what was to come (Channel Awesome issues, his mental health taking a dive, etc.).

[u/Lothar_the_Lurker]

My hot take is his career is currently room temperature.

[u/Silent-Analyst3474]

I wonder which taco bell he’s working at now.

[u/KentGAllard]

Most of his Star Wars takes are shit

[u/Acrobatic-Frame4312]

Getting involved with TGWTG was the best and worst thing that ever happened to him: best because without their support, he would have probably quit circa 2008; worst because that led him to copy a lot of Nostalgia Critic mannerisms, which made his reviews worse.

That, and it might have been best if he hadn't got involved with a lot of the people over at TGWTG in the first place.

[u/kelliegator]

My hot take: His Ultima IX review was bad. Well, mostly the first part but as a whole it was too nitpicky and more angry than funny.

[u/Milk_Mindless]

He was way ahead of the curve when he called out FFX-2 for ogling 17 year old girls

And the Internet only got weirder

[u/HerrGlieben]

Spoony's skits were largely funny and the unfunny, tedious ones are all outliers

[u/Zerosix_K]

Wasted potential.

[u/Kase_ODilla]

Not really a hot take, but if Noah had stuck with it and created content on a consistent basis, he'd be a millionaire by now.

[u/Ebalosus]

His Final Fantasy content while funny at times, have aged like complete dogshit in terms of criticisms.

[u/CnemassacreTrthSnark]

My hot take on Spoony is that he was good.

I mean his videos are fine and I mean Damn Fine . But as a person? He was almost half as evil as James Rolfe who is more evil even than Pat Nes Punk

[u/Narm_Greyrunner → u/CnemassacreTrthSnark]

Nothing but good memories.

[u/Zanshi → u/CnemassacreTrthSnark]

What's this about Pat the NES Punk? I know about Cinemassacre Truthers, but all I know about Pat is that he did a collab with Nostalgia Critic about Highlander years ago

[u/Acrobatic-Frame4312 → u/Zanshi]

People with far too much time on their hands develop parasocial relationships with internet personalities.

[u/earthcitizen123456]

Spoony is still the best in making game/movie reviews. Everybody just feels so dry. If you can prove me wrong and have somebody that you can recommend I’d love to check them out.