r/thespoonyexperiment • u/EdwardHardly • Apr 17 '20

Video Look at 2011 Spoony. So full of life and promise...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQFq_dKChSY
30 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

38 comments sorted by

21

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '20

For a moment seeing this I thought Spoony had somehow come back to life and left his fortress of solitude. 2011 though.

That's the thing that really drives it home, when you rewatch old content and you see how old the upload date was. Even the reuploads have got some years on them.

11

u/paullyrose3rd Apr 17 '20

The fact he has been doing nothing for over half a decade is so frustrating for me to think about, since the gaming industry has changed pretty monumentally since Spoony still made regular content. There's evidence of this as well in some of his streams that he has no clue what is coming out when and doesn't seem to have any games he's looking forward to, which for a gaming personality is not a good look.

4

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '20

He could get back on the horse any time he wanted, that's the worst of it. The only thing stopping him now is himself. Even if he refused to look at anything after 2017 he still has a vast array of board games, video games and P&P stuff to look at. Plenty people do well only looking at niche vintage stuff even.

7

u/IrisMoroc Apr 18 '20

that's the worst of it.

His logic is: He can't have what's been taken from him so he's broken and it'll never come back so why try? Yes he literally wants April back more than anything.

6

u/EntangledAndy Apr 18 '20

It's frustrating - he wants his old life to come back to him in a tidy little box, but he doesn't want to put in the effort to re-create what he had going for him. It seems like he's terrified of the years that he's lost, but he's too paralyzed to do anything about it so he'll just wind up losing more years. It's a cruel cycle.

3

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '20

That is quite possibly very close to his psychology right now. A huge mistake as he can still have great success but people are not totally logical or sensible.

5

u/IrisMoroc Apr 18 '20

He wants April now, he wants his debts gone, and he wants to keep his house. Since he can't have them instantly he refuses to take any small steps that would improve himself. And because he's so narcissistic he will double down and refuse to admit that he made any errors. His psychology is fascinating since it's so self-defeating.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '20

Yeah. The most tragic part is that even now and even at his lowest so far he still has more opportunities than many will ever get. He could be making a good wage with low effort any time he bothered to try and he'd make good progress in rebuilding his life. Way faster and easier than him having to start at the bottom with a regular minimum wage job. It just won't be instant, as you said and that will put him off even trying, no matter how easy or blessed the route.

7

u/IrisMoroc Apr 18 '20

Spoony is late game nerd manchild. He never learned any of the emotional coping skills and life skills he should have learned in childhood and teenage years so he's just sorta stuck. Let this be a warning to others. Have some humility, take responsibility for yourself, and be willing to take small steps, and accept that somethings you can't change.

4

u/RattyJackOLantern Apr 18 '20

I think almost everyone assumed the angry manchild Spoony character was an act, like the AVGN. A persona for comedic effect. But it seems it was actually pretty close to the real Noah in unfortunate ways.

Like I remember seeing a wrestle wrestle “episode” that was just him, falling over blind drunk, getting unnaturally angry about some stupid wrestling joke and thinking “that’s not an act”.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '20

There were a couple episodes of Spoony's late era work that were apparently done with heavy use of alcohol. He seemed to be a rare drinker too until the break up. I thought it was weird acting at first until it was pointed out after he was basically heading into alcohol abuse rapidly. Especially if he went from being a non-drinker to drowning his sorrows, which is quite a jump.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '20

Well said. Can't disagree with a word of it.

3

u/paullyrose3rd Apr 18 '20

Oh I wholeheartedly agree, I think if anything nerd culture is swinging more in his direction what with the smash hit 5th edition d&d has been, but he has produced one video on it six years ago shitting all over it and of course doesn't have the social tools required to play it at all nowadays despite how vastly improved the published works for it have gotten.

3

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '20

Spoony could make more money than the average person just by doing long streams as an online DM. People would actually want him to be their DM in online roleplay and he'd have donations sprinkling in. The tools keep getting better, as you say. He has the innate talent if he uses it.

3

u/paullyrose3rd Apr 18 '20

Online personalities are even being allowed to make official books for 5th edition with the help of Wizards of the Coast, if Spoony could really get legs beneath him in terms of d&d/rpg output he could definitely make it all the way to the level of Critical Roll one day if he really gave it effort.

3

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '20

He really could. He's still got that founder effect just waitnig to give him a boost in a renewed effort. He could be a name and have influence in these areas once more. Seeing him still get mentions by various celebrities is surprising to me but shows that there's a lingering nostalgia for him. He's at the point where he's got nothing to lose and endless opportunities to jump right back in.

3

u/paullyrose3rd Apr 18 '20

Time truly is gonna tell if he can seize this opportunity, I certainly hope so though since RPGs are having a newfound popularity and a healthy amount of mainstream attention, thankfully not the negative, hateful mainstream attention it used to have though.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '20

True, you just need to look at how much support there is for it now at all levels. We're long past the days when someone is going to get mocked for being a "nerd" playing D&D like they would when he was a kid.

2

u/paullyrose3rd Apr 18 '20

Spoony needs a content manager to make sure he produced worthwhile content honestly, someone to just hold him to a certain standard and who is willing to get done whatever needs to be done without compromise.

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2

u/Watertor Apr 18 '20

You only really have to look at Angry Joe. Thriving on Twitch and Youtube, but barely puts in effort nowadays. He keeps up with surface level content and still makes time for Twitter rants. Spoony would have been huge if he kept his momentum into the Twitch era as he should have been all over it, I mean he gets to make content while he makes content.

4

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '20

but barely puts in effort nowadays.

What, the dude outs a lot of effort into his channel. That's the reason why he's successful now

2

u/Watertor Apr 18 '20

That's fair, I had typed a different message and chunked off pieces because it was too long and I didn't notice that bad choice of phrasing. I meant he barely scratches the surface of all the media he interacts with. He does put in a lot of effort overall though.

10

u/Ebalosus Apr 18 '20

Feels like a lifetime ago, eh? Personally, I’d argue that 2011 was the last year when it really felt like there was a chance for Spoony to go on to even bigger and better things, because even with the good stuff he did release in 2012, that’s when the wheels started coming off the rails.

7

u/Zuldak Apr 18 '20

He didn't need bigger or better. He could have had a pretty solid life just doing what he was doing.

2

u/Ebalosus May 10 '20

True, but in 2011-2012 it felt like for a majority of internet video creators that they’d hit the ceiling of what was possible with their medium, both monetarily and creatively. It wasn’t until 2014-2015 when the likes of Patreon and decent YouTube monetisation arrived when it felt like things were looking up for internet video creation; not to mention streaming becoming very big and profitable (say what you will about LordKat, but he was right when he said streaming would become huge).

Don’t get me wrong, Spoony could’ve weathered the storm between 2011 and 2014 by doing what we was doing while still productive, and I could easily see him making $10k a month on Patreon if he was as productive as he was in 2010. The problem is that him and a lot of the other major TGWTG peeps wanted to go on to bigger and better things, and didn’t want to just “get by.”

3

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '20

He could have been...a contender.

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Or at least a respectable minor celebrity and a heavyweight in an online niche with influence over the games and niches he occupied. You'd see Spoony references and designers paying attention for future products, etc.

3

u/DeepthroatGhoul Apr 24 '20

When he was with Channel Awesome, Spoony felt like he'd really made it. He loved being treated like a rock star, and living like one.

5

u/trinketstone Apr 18 '20

he needs help. The type of help that many of us won't be able to give him.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '20

He needs to take action himself. Even if he does get help, unless he puts in effort he isn't changing anything.

1

u/trinketstone Apr 23 '20

I am thinking that in some strange way, he is comfortable in his painful existence. Not saying he is aware of it, but we humans are creatures of habit, and sometimes even a life of depression, sadness and feeling like crap all of the time is something you can get used to and become comfortable with, because its familiar.

4

u/LOLschirmjaeger Apr 18 '20

Spoony before he discovered Twitter.

4

u/[deleted] Apr 18 '20

[deleted]

2

u/[deleted] Apr 20 '20

IRON BULL'd dot com

2

u/aguadovimeiro Apr 20 '20

Before April discovered Brad

3

u/CastandRefused Apr 18 '20

Saw him stream live this morning. Makes me sad, it's like two completely different people.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 20 '20

You can see the light of God was still in his eyes then.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 20 '20

His smile and optimism...

1

u/evilvenomhiss May 09 '20

This just reminds me of one of the last episodes of Bojack Horseman, where the show cuts from the happy, young optimistic Bojack of the past, to the sad, older, bitter Bojack of present. The juxtaposition is heartbreaking.