Does HaloFollower deserve the Hate and Criticism? (Halo Community)

we all know that at the end of halo infinite when master chief will be laying on his deathbed with the arbiter on his side chief will call to arbiter for just one last request for the arbiter to put on just one more video from chris i mean ron from halo follower honestly i can't see how that wouldn't be the perfect ending to halo infinite uh 343 you could hire me anytime you want but honestly luke and i are new to the halo community in comparison to some of the channels that have been on youtube for a long time i mean most of you guys haven't been subscribed for all that long and one thing we've learned from being in the halo community for a little over a year is that this community can be to say this lightly extremely toxic towards each other at certain times we've experienced to a degree on our own without us having a lot of pre-existing involvement in this community like the fact that in our early days of this channel we made four videos about our criticisms towards the 343 industries era of halo games but the second we make one video talking about the things we actually liked we automatically become 343 industry shills you know okay i mean we didn't even get that early access to halo 3. we were pretty upset about that so one thing that's always been really puzzling to us is that the more we've started involving ourselves in the halo community it's the amount of distaste we've seen across the entire community for one channel specifically halo follower oh boy is this a confusing one and some of the times it seems like the distaste for halo follower that we've seen online ranges from kind of funny memes to wow this guy over here is calling for the death of this youtuber over potential news clickbait on a game franchise that hasn't seen a main game release in over five years and no death threats are never okay and i'm pretty sure we're not the first people to ever ask the question what's the deal with halo follower [Music] now to best understand why there's this persisting stigma around halo follower we wanted to get a full understanding i mean criticisms don't just fall out of thin air right so we dug in deep to try to get a better understanding of everything that's kind of happened in recent years and it seems like for the most part criticism towards halo follower comes from a few leading causes first there was a big controversy that happened in 2016 then some people argue that the titles of halo follower videos are clickbait and misleading and then there's people who criticize halo follower towards the quality of content and inaccuracies that have appeared in some videos now that last one we can kind of attest to maybe on a personal level or at least relate to it a bit because when we started this channel we made a roblox video and got the fact that the game came out in 2006 not 2004 incorrect and that it was just a pre-alpha that had come out in 2004 and ever since then we've gotten an onslaught of comments from roblox fans criticizing this and you know it was a career-ending mistake and man have we've had to pay dearly for it ever since but seriously yes it can be frustrating when a content creator gets something wrong but while we try to do the best we can a lot of the times it can be really easy for something to slide right past us and then what can we do i think in most cases audiences are willing to forgive creators every now and then so one thing that always catches us off guard is definitely how halo follower just gets blasted even if he just pronounces a word wrong it's pretty obvious there's more going on to why he has this dedicated following that might be a little trigger happy to try to cancel halo follower every turn and upon more research that we've done we're probably thinking that this might stem from issue number one back in early 2016 there was a pretty massive falling out from a halo follower that probably has altered its reputation as a brand and a channel and a source for halo content ever since and it is a really interesting topic that we think we should look into here if we want to understand the larger scope of what the state of the halo community is to this day we do believe it would also be fair and important for relevance sake look at the context of everything that happened in the current 2020 landscape of where the halo community is now afterwards so back in 2016 if you were a dirty casual halo fan like myself just watching youtube videos it sort of seemed like one morning halo follower was just doused in gasoline and then lit on fire and as it had turned out several people who had been running the channel halo follower during a time period of a little over a year where the original founder of the channel chris had stepped aside for personal reasons had essentially announced publicly that they were leaving on bad terms and there would be a lot of different accusations and reasons for so many members leaving halo follower ranging from accusations such as the way that certain payments to the people working on projects were handled to criticisms of chris's managerial skills during a time where he had stepped away from the channel it's definitely easy to get lost here in the ocean of different accounts that we have but with halo follower having a large audience this was a massive blow to the channel's reputation especially because halo follower had kind of been the top face of the halo community when it came to the youtube side of things now this video right here that you're watching all started out as a simple meme video seriously luke and i were planning on making this a top 10 halo followers videos video and there would have been some memes some good fun about the house spartans pee video and then maybe some side commentary on the state of the community along with how toxic things can get at times but in the process of writing that video we felt that it wouldn't be fair for us to speculate on all of the stuff that happened in 2016 just off of some of the accounts that have been posted back in the day and we thought for fairness sake we should probably try to get some better insight as to what happened now going after insight definitely gave us a little bit of a conflicted moment because the last thing we want to do is get in the middle of some old drama but we decided to reach out to ron from halo follower to maybe get some insight and at the same time we reached out to fletch from ultimate halo who worked alongside the team that initially left halo follower to maybe get some insight on the other side of things as well at the end of the day we deemed that the only way to be fair here and avoid taking sides and getting in the middle of all of this is to literally just swan dive right into the middle of all of it and simply ask for personal insights from some of the most direct sources and for the record and like i said earlier in this video luke and i are still newer faces in the halo community and neither party here had to give us any information in regards to what had happened during or after all of this and one thing that we surprisingly were taken back by was how both fletch and ron offered a lot of insight from their own perspectives and were really transparent and willing to explain how they viewed things through this whole process this was incredibly unexpected to us and having these two unique interactions with essentially what is deemed as two opposing views and a really big issue within this community somewhat restored our faith in this community as a whole and we really only have good things to say about how our correspondence with these two people went i think if we're going off of the main point that we want to get across in this video is that digging into the specifics and back and forths and what this person said and what that person said in reference to what exactly happened in 2016 potentially won't help anything and possibly only would exhaust the issue which could indirectly cause the same type of toxicity that made us fall down this rabbit hole in the first place but to the best and most fair of our own abilities coming in from a neutral perspective looking at this through the scope of four years later and trying to the best of our abilities put these pieces fairly together off of what halo follower said and off of what one member of ultimate halo said along with checking it back to various statements people had made along the way it clearly appears that in these earlier days of halo follower chris had managed to put together an outstanding team of content creators to run the channel while he was busy with personal stuff and because of this team running the channel around and before the launch of halo 5 halo follower grew a ton because of the awesome stuff that they had been putting out and from the different accounts and experiences we've heard it seems like with halo follower still being an up-and-coming brand and company a lot of structural systems in place that a typical company of this size would typically have simply weren't there at this time written contracts weren't the norm there were questions as to how equity and company ownership was split and who actually even had control of the brand and that probably caused a lot of anxiety and confusion to literally everyone involved in any level of aspect within the project with how quickly halo follower was growing and how successful it had become the infrastructure and the systems in place to make sure transitions between different types of roles would always be smoothly just was never implemented and it's a shame there wasn't steps in place to allow for a resolution because it fostered an atmosphere that was probably extremely stressful for everyone who would put their time and energy into halo follower but this is the biggest thing right here that everyone seems to overlook when referencing the 2016 stuff that had happened to our best understanding it actually proved to be a really big pivotal moment in everyone's career after the departure of a lot of these team members now we don't want to speak for all of the members that had left halo follower as we only had a limited correspondence with a few former halo follower members but from what we can understand and for the most part seems like everyone landed on their feet in new projects and ways that probably turned out a lot better for everyone's individual careers some members moved on to work on ultimate halo which is an awesome halo youtube channel and if you haven't checked it out you should probably go take a look at it others became streamers or some even leveraged their experiences to get themselves jobs in different types of industries along the way we actually got to talk a little bit with dean abdu who was one of the leaders of halo follower and he was more than happy to share some insight as to what he's been up to since his departure he actually managed to make a jump into marketing and go to work in pr teams for some of the biggest movie releases of 2016 and then he got into gaming journalism getting some of his work put into major online publications and then he landed his current work at gamer network where he has worked on a ton of video content and has just really succeeded in just four years in a way that a lot of people probably don't recognize and this is just one example where a lot of these people who were frustrated at the time were able to use the split and springboard into other possibilities looking back the biggest takeaway from 2016 should really be the reiteration that if you don't feel comfortable working alongside someone or you're in a group and you don't feel like you have the tools or support you need maybe removing yourself from the situation might be the healthiest option for literally everyone involved but when we cycle back to halo follower after everyone left the channel it seemed like for the most part it was a massive blow to its reputation and chris returning to the channel and who later went on to change his name to ron would have to prove himself as a capable leader once again if he had hopes of building a sustainable structure for the future of halo follower if the halo follower reputation would ever be able to recover halo fuller would have to have some major changes and avoid really any conflict going forward ron actually told us that for the most part the systems he has in place nowadays is extremely different from what the format was used back in early 2016 and before that ever since returning from the hiatus of the channel it's apparent that ron decided it would probably be in his best interest to go back to the roots from where he first started content creating and focus more on just making videos for halo follower rather than trying to evolve halo follower into a massive company with branching arms and parts to it matter of fact ron told us as of now that he's currently the only person who works on the main content for halo follower he actually prefers it this way this is definitely a stark contrast from the way that a lot of the stuff was managed back in the 2015-2016 era but it also seemed like ron didn't want to stir the pot anymore and just kind of kept to himself making content i think a lot of people don't actually even realize that it's just one person behind the core uploads that go on that channel after this 2016 falling out for the most part that's where a lot of the community's perspective on this story ends it just abruptly ends at that moment that's a huge disservice not only to the halo community but also all of the content creators whoever were involved in halo follower who are involved in some awesome stuff now and even ron who has continued to push the channel after everything that happened and turn it into the sustainable platform that it still is today so many people focus on this instance trying to make a black and white decision over what happened rather than appreciating the individual growths and changes that have occurred in the following years and ron explained to us how nowadays he just wants to work on halo follower make videos and stay out of the drama is quite possibly the best approach to take in the aftermath of everything that happened but you would think that's where this all ends and no that's not where any of this stops there's so much more that it seems there is to unpack when it comes towards halo follower besides death threats leafy is here knock off reaction videos and tier lists that's literally single out halo follower we're just getting started so let's go to issue number two which is the click bait deal sure we see this in video comments all the time people calling halo follower on his click bait content and sure some video titles are honestly a hot mess like this one halo infinite cortana 2 story teas void portal new mombasa multiplayer teas new art there's a definitely a lot going on in this title and boy is it time for us to completely destroy ron on click bait here except is this really the fight that the halo community should be picking okay chances are if you watch this video you probably have higher intellect than majority of the people in the world and you're probably in the top 1 percentile if you already hit the subscribe button so i'm not talking to you specifically but in the grand scheme of the halo community luke and i have seen a lot of people relentlessly hating on halo follower after pretty much any upload and while like we said earlier being on this platform does make you open for criticism the biggest critique he seems to get hit with is this idea that he click baits all of his content and while his titles are a bit of a confusing mess we'll agree to that when we actually watch his content while everything is mostly speculation ron does a decent job at presenting ideas that are practical and at least backs them up with evidence based on directions 343 had suggested in interviews he bases his ideas on things that have happened in the expanded universe's lore and while some videos might seem lengthy at least there's a constant conversation being presented this is pretty big in comparison to other channels that are known for their quote-unquote click bait content but this strategy for titling videos was actually something that a lot of youtubers did back in the 2011-2013 earlier days of youtube content because it was a strategy that actually got you views and helped you in the search algorithms and while nowadays it isn't needed as often to get your videos in front of people it's just maybe one of those instances of if it ain't broke don't necessarily fix it mentalities but like come on for the most part halo follower comes across almost reminiscent of those late nights on xbox live parties speculating for the future of halo with some friends while you know arguing about the lore and trying to figure out what microsoft wants to do with halo going forward and that's not necessarily the worst type of content if you go into it with a perspective of knowing what you're getting into watching his content while i was editing this i realized i wanted to add my two cents to this issue of clickbait too elijah said everything i think about the other issues i just wanted to go more in depth about the clickbait but yeah essentially on youtube this whole idea of click baiting something is one of the worst things you can do as a youtuber and it gets demonized to the point why i don't think it's fair to everyone anyone who does some form of clickbait gets thrown into this category of being scum but this guy isn't j station clickbaiting someone's death or slavery but what halo faller does is nothing compared to any of this he just adds red circles to a thumbnail about a sci-fi video game it's as easy as not clicking his content that is all you need to do there are obviously people who enjoy his content the likes to dislikes aren't bad and they show there's actually a community behind his channel there is no social issue here you need to fight just don't watch his content it doesn't make the world worse it doesn't even make the halo community worse and yes sometimes it can be funny to poke at something like this poke at the red circles the red arrows and just meme on it and that's fine but i feel like it gets taken too far a lot of the times and it's the only joke that gets made and there's no constructive criticism anymore and i'm pretty sure most youtubers have done some form of clickbait in their career and you might not enjoy it but it's literally not that bad of a thing for the normal youtuber who just says video game related content if you are a youtuber of course you want your video to do well and get the most views possible and it's really easy to overanalyze thumbnails and titles and description and the whole seo stuff to the point where you might like justify clickbait for yourself and i don't think it's actually a big issue either he literally doesn't clickbait anything problematic and i always wondered why is it so bad that this guy wants to talk about the smallest halo news for 10 minutes you don't need to be triggered by some dude rambling on for 10 minutes and one second but people get so mad and focus all their energy into it for no reason and you know it gets to the point where even his fans get arrested in forums youtube comments and on twitter people that say they like watching hello for his content you know they get [ __ ] on constantly and just let people watch halo clickbait if they want to who cares i think there's actually people in the halo community that are flat out racists or bullies or whatever and of course he might be the biggest youtuber in the halo community that is exclusively doing halo content but nobody else seems to also focus on the toxic part the racist part of this community too there was this one guy and elijah's gonna read this message but he flamed our friend arash and it's like the most toxic and kind of hilarious thing at the same time but essentially this dude got upset because arash didn't want his content to be re-uploaded somewhere else also check out arash's channel he does super good content and we're gonna co-stream the halo xbox event on the 23rd with him together on twitch so here's elijah's reading of this little interaction we aren't against each other i assume you have mental disorders marriage problems you're probably a very angry man who has lots of anxiety and rage you will never win you're so content making it on your own you don't get 1 million subs with one person yourself you get 1 million subs with 1 million people duh you're so stupid while this guy wasn't the biggest in the halo community he did have a decent following on twitter and stuff from people within the halo community and the point we wanted to bring across is that the halo community has been kind of small the last couple years and now is growing back and i don't think any creator in the halo community deserves to be torn down like halo follower does you gotta understand that most of the top creators have stuck with this franchise no matter what because they love the core of halo and so does halo follower we should let everybody do their thing and focus our energy on the things that really hurt someone like stealing content or you know using racist slurs on discord and sorry if i was kind of rambling i just wanted to add a part that i felt very strongly about to the video anyways back to elijah who's gonna talk about a controversy that happened this year with halo follower but then just when you think he's maybe starting to get in the clear controversy struck yet again in 2020 the most recent controversy of all not really but this is one that we've seen a lot that we still wanted to talk about there's been a lot of really toxic people in the halo community especially people who bully and try to steal content along the way and it seemed like halo follower in an upload earlier this year may have just stolen a video directly from another halo youtuber and re-uploaded it onto his channel essentially what happened was earlier this year general kidd also known as general heed hired the master chief voice actor steve downs to voice all of the lines from halo reach and then made a mod that you could download off of nexus mods that would then replace all of noble six lines with master chiefs lines it was a really clever idea and a really cool concept and general kid uploaded all of the cutscenes onto his channel and just a day later it appeared that halo follower had just re-uploaded the content with a little voiceover line giving credit and there was definitely a lot of outrage in the halo community though general kid seemed really chill about it but actually what a lot of people didn't realize is that when this stuff happened it actually really wasn't any theft at all halo follower had went and downloaded the mod and recorded all of the footage on his own and essentially just did a mod showcase showing all of the cutscenes from the mod there's a lot of channels out there in other communities that do mod showcases all the time and this really wasn't all that different i think a lot of people didn't realize it was a mod and thought it was just a video re-upload and in that case it probably would have been fair game to call this situation out but it really wasn't something directly malice here but upon the backlash even though for the most part halo follower just tries to stay out of things he chose just to demonetize the video and donate any money that he made to charities that help out with everything that's going on right now he even reached out to general kid to make sure everything was cool and we actually cross-checked with both general kid and halo follower and they both corroborated this story in real talk we've actually talked and hung out with general heed a couple of times now and he's such a chill guy not sure how this is relevant to anything else in this point of the video but i put it in my notes so i'm just recording it anyways so at the end of the day when it comes to halo follower content i think it's great content to fill the void of speculation and honestly there's solid videos to put on the background while you drink mountain dew and eat doritos and try to get to the next checkpoint of halo 2 gravemind lasso attempt number 6004 like there's some solid stuff out there if you know what type of content you're clicking into and that should be fair another thing we thought that was really interesting is the fact that he is really now involved in doing different types of things with machinima projects on his channel and it seems to really be a central focus of one of his passions that he also puts time and energy into but at the end of the day if you don't like someone's content that's totally fair and valid you don't need to watch it i just want to set a friendly reminder to the 90 of the community that doesn't waste their energy and already know this that the loudest 10 percent the toxic side of the community can be a little bit cringy i mean i guess i could have just said that at the start of the video and saved ourselves all this research and all the interviews i did but i think we made a decent point here that we really could be making a bigger difference in making our community a better place if we focused a lot of this energy that goes to nitpicking small criticisms at the things that are actually really big issues in the gaming industry and there's definitely a lot of different things and changes that the community as a whole can make to make this place a more positive and exciting place to be in rather than this huge divide and place where all of this edgy content lives and dies the halo community might be small when compared to something like the call of duty community but like there's still a lot of really great channels out there some who we've interacted with along the way some we just really like and we decided to put together a quick list at the end of this video here with just a few content creators or members in the halo community that we think are really awesome but hey after all of that if you like this video be sure to subscribe with notifications on for more videos just like this one and you won't miss anything we upload even if youtube's acting all whack also if you want to you can follow us on twitter you can follow me at rocket elijah or you can follow luke rocket sloth luke thank you guys so much for watching and we'll see you all next time with a brand new video bye guys

Channel: Rocket Sloth

Views: 284,124

Rating: 4.7915707 out of 5

Keywords: rocket sloth, halo, halo mcc, halofollower, halofollower bad, why does everyone hate halofollower, halofollower hate, halofollower cringe, why do people hate halofollower, why does everyone hate halo 5, halofollower clickbait, halo community, halo community toxic, halo infinite, halo infinite news, why halo is bad, why halofollower, halofollower needs to stop, halo throwback community, what to expect from halo infinite

Id: 2MgZDUAQQzQ

Length: 22min 42sec (1362 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 20 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/saradominsword]

Surprised Rocket Sloth made a video like this given he's so new. It's good he spoke with as many people as he could who were involved. HaloFollower, Ultimate Halo, Generalkidd all gave answers. He said he was surprised how willing they were to engage.

[u/TheThinestMint]

God that video is so bad.