In the past few years
as part of this community, I have consistently
heard and felt a sentiment: that being that YouTube
is nothing more than a sinking ship, and that if we are all to survive,
we need to band together, pack up our things,
and push our communities elsewhere. To create our own clone of YouTube where instead of being ran
by a corporation like Google, a select few YouTube elite take the reins. And whenever I hear stories like that,
frankly, all I can really think is good luck with that, guys.
No—no, I’m gonna stay here. Hidden deep within the history of the Internet
is a cautionary tale about what happens when a select few are given massive power
with little to no chance of public outcry. It’s a story of betrayal, abuse of power,
and an idiot savant attitude that led to the birth and fall
of an obscure yet powerful online empire. It’s a story that not many will tell you. Not because it’s a secret or it’s hidden,
but because most have forgotten. But I remember. Oh, do I remember. In fact, you could say
that I remember specifically… so you don’t have to. Full disclosure: I have always planned
to cover this topic. In fact, up to about five days ago,
I had planned for this video to be the finale to this series. I wanted this to be
the final Fallen Titans I ever made. I’ve moved it up on my schedule
for reasons that will become obvious. Throughout this video,
I’m going to be discussing three things. Firstly, the history of
ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com and how it all started. Secondly, what happened
when the site became Channel Awesome and how that version fell into obscurity. And thirdly, the allegations
that have come out against the men that ran these sites. Many of these come from a 70-page document
which was just released written by notable producers
who were once hosted on the site, and while a select few
might find this controversial, I am going to be treating these as facts. I know that some of you are going to argue that all allegations
should be presumed to be lies, but these are frankly
substantiated accounts from people who worked on the site
who are heavily respected to this day, and I see no reason to try and
cherry-pick which ones we believe are true and which ones we believe are lies. Furthermore, it should be noted
that despite having the chance, Channel Awesome has not debunked
any of these points. Instead, they simply stated, “we sincerely regret
that you felt that way,” which is close to the worst apology
I’ve ever read. Anyways, on to the history of the site.
In the last episode of Fallen Titans, we briefly touched upon
the creation of YouTube, which was invented by
three PayPal employees who were disgruntled about
the lack of places online to host videos. What happens next in the story
is three significant things. For one, the website
became immediately popular but was constantly losing money due to how much it cost
to keep all these video streaming at once. For two, they were threatened
with numerous lawsuits due to the massive amounts
of copyright infringement. And for three,
Google purchased the platform for billions of dollars, and made it their goal
to fix both of these problems no matter the cost. Enter Doug Walker,
a small-time commentary creator who started uploading content
around mid-2007. His YouTube channel
focused on three main shows: an in-universe discussion series
about his childhood called The Nostalgia Critic, a series of clipless rant videos
written from the perspective of bum and about current films, and a series where Doug
would post a clip from the film usually with little more
than an added caption introducing it. Doug Walker would instantly
grow a following on YouTube, but tragedy would literally strike when his channel was taken down
over his Five Second Movies uploads, meaning that he would essentially
have to start over knowing that at any time
his channel could be taken down seemingly for no reason. That being unless he left, which was an option back then. you have to understand that despite
the early introduction of the ads program, it was very hard
to get your content monetized on early YouTube. Only a select few were chosen
to be Google partners, and because of this,
it became very common for other content creators
to move to YouTube’s head competitor, Blip.tv, which was
a video streaming website meant to be used
to host videos on other websites. it was this window of opportunity
that led to the grand opening of ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com,
the proud home of The Nostalgia Critic. However, the creators of this site
had in their vision a much grander plan. They envisioned a website
that would garner daily traffic: visitors coming every single day
to see content creators similar in style to Doug Walker. And this decision led to them
seeking out and recruiting other online reviewers
to fill in the website’s charter. These days, to survive
for an extended period of time on YouTube, change is a necessity. You have to be able to evolve to set yourself apart
from other content creators. When it comes to things like reviews, memorable creators
who are rising in the ranks all find their own ways
of discussing film and television. Creators like me, YourMovieSucks,
Ralph The Movie Maker, Jenny Nicholson, I Hate Everything,
and Garf Gab all discuss film and television
in their own unique voices and with their own unique styles of video. And we survive on this platform
and respect each other because of this. And that’s why the story
of ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com, at least to me, is so mesmerizing. To end up on Walker’s
roster of content creators, you had to have a very similar
style of discussing film, and instead of finding their own voice
from the get-go, most of the content creators were first
preoccupied with finding a gimmick. As I mentioned, in the early days
The Nostalgia Critic limited himself to media from his own childhood, and all of the other creators
invited to the site were expected to find their own gimmicks
to set themselves apart from Doug. The Nostalgia Chick, Lindsay Ellis, reviewed girly media
from Doug Walker’s childhood. Todd in the Shadows examined music
and media connected to music, Linkara reviewed comics
and other nerdly products that he was fond of, The Rap Critic did, well, take a guess, and The Cinema Snob reviewed porn. I think you get the idea. This standard was set in place to the extent that
when two content creators reviewed the same movie, there was a feeling of scandal. many of the crossover segments,
which have now aged very poorly, featured the various creators fighting over who had the right
to review said product. there were scenes of The Nostalgia Critic
telling The Nostalgia Chick to stick to girly products
instead of reviewing films meant for boys, and of creators jumping into other reviews
to say that the video wasn’t needed because it had already
been covered by someone else. This was an atmosphere where two people
were not allowed to watch the same movie. that is insane. There was a point
partway into the history of this site where Lindsay Ellis
and The Amazing Atheist were uploading virtually
the same content to the website. Two people, whose content
is now wholly evolved away from each other into different audiences
and different cliques, were both posting videos
for the same audience about similar topics in a semi-imitation
of the work of Doug Walker. Not to imply that these creators
failed to make an impression or set themselves apart from one another. Indeed, many of them would make up
for the cookie-cutter style of their commentary by choosing unique personalities
to present to these audiences, and through this tactic they still managed
to find a way to make an impact. In fact, I will directly state
that Todd in the Shadows has always been and will always continue to be
one of my main inspirations for discussing media online. But my point is simply
that many of these producers were actively encouraged to stay inside
a very limited field of creativity up until the point
that they left the site. Now, discussions of videos
hosted on ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com can be reasonably difficult. Mainly because many of these videos
just don’t exist anymore. Years after the start of the website, and by all accounts
thousands of videos in, the hosting website Blip
officially closed its doors and no one really had enough care
to catalog and download all of the videos hosted on this site, and even those who did
didn’t exactly have anywhere to post them. Doug Walker left YouTube
because he felt that it wasn’t a place where fair use existed, and he sought out to create an environment
where fair use was always at play, but what he actually ended up doing
was creating a place where copyright was never enforced,
whether the use was legal or not. I’m going to flat-out say
what some of you are already thinking. Despite his protests,
the Five Second Movie series is the antithesis
to what we now see as fair use, and many of the choices
made by content creators back in the day are now entirely frowned upon, such as when Linkara would play
entire songs in his outro crawl, or when the site hosted actual
Jinx-style reaction content. -His daughter has a different motif
where she’s just like “Whip my hair back and forth.” In defense of these creators,
without legal precedent and without YouTube
having a coherent system, understanding fair use
is next to impossible, but it’s still hard
to watch clips of these creators discussing what they
consider to be fair use, especially under the context
of what their videos were. -[Mr. Walker]
Even though technically my work is protected by satire parody clause. -I told you I was protected
by satire parody clause, but you didn’t listen! -But, Mr. Glasses, don’t those video mongols know
that you’re giving them free press and free advertising for their movie? -And I’ve made these film studios
so much money, giving them free advertising
and free publicity! There are so many people who don’t even
give a shit about your movies until they see my version in five seconds! -Their solution is to have people
not look at their product and not increase their sales. -All you people care about
is not getting the word out, not getting people
to look at your product! [screaming] -[Mr. Walker sincerely]
Where’s the fair use? -[Quinton]
For the most part, Doug Walker’s reviews served as a replacement
for the experience of watching a film. In many cases, he failed
to change the tone or context of the clips that he was showing, and he often ate up
the potential audience of various films. His review of The Room
was infamously taken down by Tommy Wiseau, and while many at the time herald Doug
as a champion of free speech, in a modern context it’s easy
to see how this comedy video wasn’t exactly transformative. Most content creators on Blip.com believed in the “anything that’s funny
is fair use” clause, which doesn’t exist. -[Mr. Walker over phone]
And it was taken down because your studio claimed copyright infringement, even though it’s so obviously a review,
so it’s covered by fair use as well as satire parody clause. -[laughs] -I’m at the office of Wiseau films, and any footage you use of Tommy Wiseau
is hurting his good image! -I feel like I’m forgetting something. Oh, fuck. The movies. So partially to celebrate
the annual success of the site, and partially to strengthen the bonds
between the numerous content creators, The men behind ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com would fund and produce
numerous crossover specials. The actors would be flown out
to various locations to shoot scenes in character, written by someone who apparently failed to understand what their characters
were actually supposed to be like, and any content
which the actors filmed on the trip was given directly
to the hands of the producers so that they could personally
upload and monetize these reviews, meaning that not only were the
numerous producers involved in the process dedicating their precious time
to working on the film, but they were also essentially
paying someone to let them be in this movie. These films could actively be
compared to The Room, not only because they’re horrible movies, but also because they were flagged
by some of the same production errors. The most notable cases involve
actors being held in hot environments for inappropriately long
periods of time between filming and the filmmakers having to be told
that they needed to supply water on set. A lot of this happened during the film
that was shot in the Nevada desert. This is almost certainly what led
to an actress passing out mid filming. The people involved in the films
were constantly injured on these sets, and in fact one of the only reasons
that contracts were actually signed was so that the people in charge
could not be held liable. When one actress
who was brought in last minute injured her knee, the crew forced her
to sign one of these contracts after the fact
to avoid legal ramifications. These are not things
that you are supposed to do. The only difference between
the production of The Room and the Channel Awesome anniversary films is that the people who made The Room
were actually paid. Meanwhile, people involved with
The Nostalgia Critic and Friends often worked on their own time
without reimbursement, and despite this they were often met
with a snobbish, Mean Girls–like atmosphere. there’s this feeling early on
that these films were justifiable to these creators
because there was a sense of teamwork, but over the years as the scripts
got meaner and meaner and the production efforts
became less and less fun, these glaring issues became
impossible to justify. The terribleness of these movies
was evident to the extent that the fourth movie, To Boldly Flee, was essentially about the fact
that these movies were not good. The story surrounded a massive
rip in space and time called a plot hole threatening to destroy the universe
where all of these reviews took place. It sounds potentially enjoyable, but the film was still
obnoxiously pretentious and un-self-aware in all the wrong places. So it had the mood of a movie
that loves itself, thinks itself art, but production efforts from a crew
that figured that because the movie was about how it wasn’t good,
they didn’t need to try. To Boldly Flee was almost four hours long and was filmed
over the course of seven days. The hell that it must have been
to shoot this is unimaginable. By all accounts, filming could go on
for as long as 18 hours straight. Long and painful arguments would ensue over very basic elements of filmmaking
that everyone should know about, and many people swore off
working with Rob and Doug Walker after this production. The main impact
of the third film’s role on the site was Doug Walker’s decision
to kill off The Nostalgia Critic. His final review was of
the live action movie Scooby-Doo, and his character
was officially killed off when he entered the plot hole
to save the universe. To Boldly Flee was stupid.
Don’t ask me to explain it anymore. It’s been pretty consistently stated
that the script for To Boldly Flee was finished only two to three weeks
before filming began. It was when they were
first given the script that the creators on the site
learned that The Nostalgia Critic would be killed off. The film presented this
as the end of an era, the age of reviews
and of commentary videos, And the script was intended to be an end for every single actor
and character featured on screen. To these producers
involved in the making of the film, this was a stressful concept
dropped in their laps last-minute. The channel that facilitated their success
was ending their most popular series, and it was doing so with a script
that implied that they too would no longer be hosted on the site. But even more controversial
was how amazingly unfunny and poorly paced this four-hour experience proved to be. Most controversially,
contributing force Linkara was horrified to discover
when reading the script that it included a comedic scene
where his character rapes The Nostalgia Chick. And now, context. -[Linkara]
I do not have the time, and neither do you, audience, for me to give a lengthy diatribe
on why using rape or any other kind of a sexual assault
in a fictional story can be a really, REALLY bad idea. However, I will link to someone
smarter than me on the subject and read an insightful little bit. “Take a good look at your story. Why do you think rape is what you need
for it to progress? Is there something else
that could fill the same function? Unless you have a damn good reason
to include rape in a story, you probably shouldn’t.” -[Quinton]
These were both creators who made careers
out of ripping apart media for poorly illustrating women
and victims of abuse, and they were virtually coerced
into filming a joke scene where one of them
was raping the other one. In the end it was cut down
to Lindsay Ellis just making rape noises off screen, but the fact that Doug Walker still insisted that this joke
needed to be in the movie is a huge problem. Perhaps on a real film set they could have gotten the scene
cut altogether, but you get the feeling
that there were so many problems with the creation of To Boldly Flee that to people involved all these problems
just started to compile into one big pile of useless mush. After the death of The Nostalgia Critic,
whose skull was proudly owned by Phelan, the site moved on. Their next notable project involved the creation of an IndieGoGo campaign
for a game show. Notoriously, the production of this show
was so haphazard and horrible that they had to refilm the pilot
numerous times and they only put out 12
of the promised 40 episodes. Supposedly, mostly
to avoid an investigation. If you’re looking at the show
and thinking that it looks terrible, I want to personally know
how worse it looks when you know that they spent
90 thousand dollars on this. -On your marks, get set, a-go! -[energetic music]
-Well, my job’s done, I hit the on button.
[chuckles] Alright, catch those fish, boys. -Within six months they decided
that the death of their flagship series probably wasn’t a good idea, and The Nostalgia Critic
was brought back. From my experience,
many of my personal friends who know anything about Doug’s work
started watching around this time, mainly because this was the period where Doug officially began
uploading his content directly to YouTube. Around this time, Blip.tv
had been purchased by Maker Studio, and the video hosting site
was shut down by the end of 2015. And as soon as people began uploading their content
to YouTube instead of Blip, a surprising thing happened. Creators who had once been vital
components to the Channel Awesome network were suddenly beginning to disappear. What you need to understand is that
no one went to Blip.tv and searched for their favorite creators
on that site, so in order to get a reasonable
amount of views on your video, you had to upload it to a place
like ScrewAttack, Atop the Fourth Wall, or Channel Awesome. And because of this very unique situation,
none of the creators hosted on the website were actually under contract. They promoted the website
by being creators that people came to see, and they were paid
through ads on their own videos, and so while it’s certainly accurate to say that they worked for
ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com, it is not legally accurate to say
that they were employed by the website. Because of this, the producers
featured on the websites were given no consistent guidelines and were often treated
like replaceable cogs in the machine. Female creators
who spoke out about any issue, privately or publicly, were taken far less seriously
than their male counterparts, and would often be faced
with screaming fits of rage from the CEO of the company. Mike Michaud would use intimidation
to get his points across, and in many cases creators
were taken off the site without warning just to prove a point. In one case, a beloved and respected
content creator on the website was taken off almost immediately for failing to arrive
at a Skype call for 15 minutes. A creator who had sunk her own personal
money, passion and time into Doug Walker’s vanity projects was fired by a team notorious
for ignoring messages for months on end because she wasn’t available for a call
within a 15-minute window. According to that creator, Obscurus Lupa, this was the fastest that she had ever
seen them update the site. I’m bringing this up as the first example because it gives context to why
many of the more significant issues with ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com
and ChannelAwesome.com didn’t come to surface for many years. Content creators who even
poked fun at the works of Doug Walker could face immediate
administrative consequences, and people could be
removed from the site at any time without any real, clear reason. if anyone had tried to
expose the website while they were on it, they would have immediately
been kicked off with absolutely no consequences
for the people running it. Anyways, the people in charge
of ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com ignored several instances
of sexual harassment and sexual misconduct under the pretense
of keeping up a clean public image. They kept these abusers on the payroll
and on the site for years on end despite being alerted to these problems simply because they figured
that if it was ignored long enough it would simply go away. There are numerous accounts
surrounding problems with Mike Ellis, the site’s co-founder. Ellis, a married man, would constantly harass
Holly Brown, the site’s HR, for refusing to enter
a relationship with him. On another occasion, he messaged
Epic Fail showrunner Sean Fausz to do what I can only describe
as “sexual venting” where he typed out detailed fantasies
about what he would do to Sean “if given the chance.” This went on for about two hours
with Sean never responding once and Ellis just continuously
messaging him these things. When Shawn told
CEO Mike Michaud about this, Michaud supposedly responded with, “Goddammit, I told him
to stop doing that shit.” Ellis was not fired for over a year, and when he was, several members
of the That Guy With The Glasses team decided to take Holly Brown
to a safe house out of fear that Ellis
would come after her. These cases are just as bad as they sound, but those are also
the only instances of misconduct in this 69-page document… which have names attached to them. Another passage
describes a producer on the site with a history of sexually grooming
his young female fans. This content creator
was supposedly reported to the site, and it took them
well over a year to remove him. These people’s rights to their own privacy means that we’re never going to have
all of the hard details on these stories, but take for granted
that this part of the video, no matter how long or short
I’m able to make it, is more horrible
than I could ever portray. To receive complaints of sexual misconduct
about the men employed under your site, the men who represent your brand, and to sit on those complaints for years on end while you left these people
in positions of power under the pretense
that if you ask nicely enough these things would just stop? That is unforgivable. But to then turn around
and antagonize female creators, and remove one from the site
in mere hours because she was 15 minutes late
to a Skype call? “That raises a lot of questions”
is all you can really say. Holly Brown, by the way, the HR, was fired after years
of dedicated day-by-day work. Weekends, holidays, hospital visits,
you name it, she worked that day. She was let go
directly after a major surgery and was not given
a reason for why she was fired, and in order to receive her severance pay, she was forced to sign a contract saying that she would not work
in that field of expertise for three years. These people fired
a chronically impaired woman directly after surgery, but were so afraid of
losing her to competitive sites that they forced her to blacklist herself
or else she wouldn’t be given money that she needed to stay alive. This was directly after they won 90 grand
to make a game show by the way, so they really had a whole
domino set of scams lined up. I am now going to read a passage
from Channel Awesome’s official response to these allegations. “Channel Awesome is an organization
that respects our producer partners and strives to create
the best possible environment for everyone. We welcome a diverse community
of people joining together to create great videos. For the people who have spoken out
about past instances they deemed harmful, or unprofessional, we sincerely regret
that you felt that way. We appreciate and hear the frustrations
of past producers. We’re actively taking internal steps to better improve
communication with our producers so they can be focused on
putting out their great content. And we’re open to constructive criticism— the kind that can help us
become even better and serve the needs of our community. But criticism that isn’t a means
to a productive end does little for either
the party criticizing or those in the line of fire.” So it seems like from a PR point of view this should be something
that’s easy to fix. Doug Walker walked out
of this 69-page document somehow barely being mentioned, although in a 10-year period
it’s hard to imagine that he didn’t know about these things. but the point is that recouping from this
should be a possibility. Just fire a few controversial people
at the top, hire some new goons, and keep moving. The problem is that this
isn’t really an option for the company. Mike Michaud is without a doubt
the most controversial figure still aligned with Channel Awesome. He joined when they needed someone
to help create the website, and he allegedly became CEO because no one else wanted
to be in charge. He has been referred to as
“the silent CEO” because no one exactly knows what he does
other than play video games and occasionally throw hissy fits. He has been described as “unprofessional,
aggressive, immature, difficult, and misogynistic.” Let’s be clear. I’ve seen people stand up for Mike Ellis. I’ve seen people defend him
despite everything that he apparently did. I have never ever seen anyone
do the same for Michael Michaud. He is that hated. Even if you’re going to ignore
the obvious examples in this document of him being misogynistic,
of him failing to meet any standard for how a professional should act, you could at least admit
that he is terrible at his job as the supposed CEO. Michael infamously did not believe in actively recruiting
video creators to the channel. In fact he despised video conventions and didn’t think
that people should go to them. He wasn’t interested
in branching the site out to include innovations in the online web,
such as streaming, alongside a billion other things
that arguably led to the site being left behind in the dirt. The fans and creators of Channel Awesome
consistently told those in charge that they needed to strive to innovate, they needed to respect
the creators hosted on the website, and they needed to run
a coherent and professional company, and over and over again, consistently, those higher-ups turned and responded,
basically, -Well, the chart says— -You are everything
that’s wrong with entertainment! So like I said, Michael Michaud is essentially the most
controversial figure on the website, and he’s the one
that everyone seems to hate. And considering that he apparently
doesn’t do anything, surely they should just get rid of him and make a statement
saying that he’s gone. They can’t do that. You see, he owns the exclusive rights
to The Nostalgia Critic. He somehow convinced them to sign over
the exclusive rights to the character, which means that despite the fact
that he’s a horrible and useless imbecile who does nothing
and has harassed numerous people and basically is the subject
to this huge debate, if they kick him out, their brand ceases to exist. ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com was a site put together by people
who had a dream to build a community, even if they didn’t exactly
know what they were doing, and they used this sense of a team effort
to create a fanbase that adored the brand, and the understanding was
that as they continued to grow their increased professionalism
would make up for the fact that they didn’t initially
know what they were doing. Instead, the only thing that disappeared
was their respect for anyone involved, particularly anyone who had helped them
get to where they are today. It’s funny to think that when I started
uploading reviews to YouTube, I secretly had this hope that one day Channel Awesome would be a place
that I could call home. I had this stupid dream that one day
I’d be hanging out with Linkara, and Lindsay Ellis,
and Todd in the Shadows, and I’d be helping out the site
in my own way, so to hear that these content creators
that I loved and respected were treated like dirt
and weren’t given the time of day when they were the very reason
that people loved the site, well, it’s not so awesome. So, as a closing statement,
I would ask that you guys not antagonize the very few who are still
aligned with Channel Awesome. I’m sure they have their own reasons,
and if they’re going to leave, they will. Second of all, I must directly ask
that you don’t try to “investigate” the more sensitive
anonymous details of the document. There’s a lot of stuff in that document
that I couldn’t fit into the video in a reasonable timeframe, but it does paint a very clear
picture of the administration, and I very much suggest you check it out. Thank you so much for watching.
