Hello my dudes, my name is Tiffany! Welcome back to my series, Internet Analysis,
where I like to research and discuss things relevant to social issues and media. Today's video is about the rise of D'Angelo
Wallace. I made a video about the rise of Micarah Teweres
a few weeks or months back, and in that video I mentioned that my videos are typically more
critical, or I focus on the dark sides of things, but that occasionally I do like to
make more positive videos and just talk about creators that I enjoy. You've probably seen this video... Or maybe this video...? D'Angelo Wallace has blown up recently, he
gained over 600k subscribers, in only one month! So, I wanna discuss the rise and evolution
of his content. D'Angelo is a 22 year-old YouTuber from Texas,
who's largest channel currently has over 1.5 million subscribers. These days he's well-known as a commentary
creator, for his extremely well-researched, long-form videos. His viewers love that he calls out B.S. and
nonsense, and presents information fairly, without watering down his opinions. Plus, his channel has great aesthetics, and
he has a very appealing persona. Viewers love his wonderfully smooth voice,
his great sense of humor, his beauty, to be honest! I mean, read the comments on any of his pictures! But he doesn't need anyone's validation, he's
perfectly happy to compliment himself. All the time... D'Angelo: "Today I wanna talk about ME. Let's be honest, these are stunning, they're
iconic, like, you don't deserve to see these! You should have to pay!" But it's charming and refreshing, in a way,
because so many YouTuber's tend to be more self-deprecating than self-loving. And his confidence is contagious! So, in this video, we're gonna go through
D'Angelo's history on YouTube and get into why he is SO DAMN POPULAR! By the way, D'Angelo is a friend of mine,
and I reached out to him to see if he could answer some questions for this video, and
well, we ended up recording a 90 minute podcast. We talked about everything from film school
to the Paul brothers. So if you're interested in listening to that
conversation, you can check it on the YouTube channel for my podcast, Previously Gifted,
or you can listen on Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's go back in time to February 2018. This is the oldest public video on D'Angelo's
oldest channel. Many of us know him for commentary, but OG
viewers often say, 'Remember when D'Angelo was an art channel?' He made digital art videos, but he also did
art commentary, discussing trends and issues relevant to the YouTube art community. And even in these older videos we see a lot
of the familiar D'Angelo elements, eye catching thumbnails, intriguing titles. He often discussed scandals within the community,
and even back then he made a few videos about Shane Dawson and Tati. Foreshadowing? One of his most classic elements started in
October 2018, he made videos that were exactly 10 minutes and 1 second long. Every upload on that channel from then on
was exactly 10:01 long, aside from two exceptions. But we're gonna talk a little bit more about
the time limit in a second. So, D'Angelo continued on as an art channel
until he took a 2-month break, and switched to commentary. Overnight. Without ever addressing it directly. On July 21, 2019, he posted his first ever
purely commentary video. D'Angelo: "Being a super popular YouTuber,
and also an amazing person sure is tiring. I should probably get some rest, but if I
do that, my Social Blade might suffer... What's more important, my Social Blade or
my happiness? Well, if my happiness goes down no one will
notice because I always sound like this. But my Social Blade, that's public info. Ok Google, wake me up at 2pm... Silly Google! I meant wake me up at 2pm on the same day,
not 2pm two months in the future!" *Fake canned laugh track*
"Anyway, while I was gone, a lot of questionable things happened on the internet, and I'm going
to talk about them ALL..." I personally discovered D'Angelo's channel
soon after that, when he posted this video from August 2019. 'Brands are running drama channels and it's...
a lot'. D'Angelo: "So when I first saw a video from
the drama channel 'Spill', I didn't even question anything. I just assumed this was a real person. Spoiler alert, NO! So the big piece in all this is that between
the custom artwork, the captions for every single word, and the insane levels of research,
Spill is somehow spending a lot longer on each video than most YouTubers, but managing
to release several videos a week." Many of you may know this now, but D'Angelo
was the first person to point out that channels like 'Spill' and 'Brew' were not individual
content creators, but instead were run by corporations! D'Angelo: (Listens to audio from both videos
at once) "I'm scared." There was a lot that came after that. Spill made a response video, D'Angelo made
a response video to that... And you may not personally care if your favorite
drama channel is run by a corporation, but this was a very interesting situation. And, most of all, D'Angelo's videos about
it all were fascinating, creative, and well-researched. AND, even with so much complex information,
the videos were still ten minutes and one second long! D'Angelo: "Anyway, looks like I've got ten
minutes of content out of this, I don't have a watch... So, leave a like, tell me what you think,
subscribe if you haven't already, thank you for watching, and a big thank you to my 130,000
subscribers! Ok bye!" Now, let's talk about that ten minute limit. I was very intrigued when I first noticed
this, because it's so interesting, you know. We love an arbitrary commitment to a video
length. Hello, David Doberick! It's very impressive to be able to write,
film, and edit your video down to a very strict limit, especially since it's self inflicted! Now, okay, yes, D'Angelo has used his outro
graphic to add a few seconds, so he can get to that exact time limit. But, his actual content in the video does
usually get very close to the 10 minute mark. All I know is that in my time doing commentary,
my videos have just gotten longer and longer. They started out maybe 12 minutes, fifteen,
twenty, and now I find it difficult to make anything under 25 minutes. So sticking to 10 is very impressive! In D'Angelo's 10 minute videos, he still successfully
included all of the relevant, most important information, plus jokes. So I asked him about why he does this, and
he answered it in the podcast, but here's a short clip... D'Angelo: "...But I was telling my friends,
like, wouldn't it be so funny if I just, only uploaded 10 minute videos? Like, everyone knows I'm doing this for the
money, but what if I just let them know, this is legitimately just as much as I need for
an ad break! And of course, that's the joke, but internally
for me, it's not just the ad break at all, it's more so like, what can I put in 10 minutes? Can I talk about someone's entire channel
in 10 minutes? Can I react to... For me the highlight was reacting to a 5 hour
and 30 minute documentary series in 10 minutes, and people still know what I'm talking about! So, every time, every video became like, how
am I going to cut this down into 10 minutes? How am I going to make sure you have everything
you need?" That time limit ensured he couldn't just drone
on and on, he had to cut everything down to the most essential information, which is an
interesting and difficult creative challenge. The pacing of these videos is so quick, it's
a constant barrage of information and jokes that pass by so quickly you don't even have
time to process them before the next one, which makes them even more funny. As much as we love long videos, especially
here on this channel, it's nice to be able to get all the information you need in ten
minutes. Anyway, D'Angelo continued to do commentary,
covering topics like E-boys, VSCO Girls, Instagram scams, motivational scammers... and hating
RAID: Shadow Legends! His beef with RAID was so entertaining, and
it was kind of cool and funny to watch him ruin his potential relationship to work with
one of YouTube's top sponsors. But that's another thing that people love
about D'Angelo, he's very up front about the fact that he wants to maximize his earnings
through his YouTube channel! We respect it, get that coin! Which is why D'Angelo would be really proud
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case, please click the link below to get 20% off! Let's get back to it... In January 2020, D'Angelo posted his first
video to his second channel, D'Angelo Wallace, or D'Angelo Wallace Again. He made this channel to be able to post more
often, without having to stick to his more strict main channel standards. These videos did not have the ten minute time
limit, but then he challenged himself to post on his second channel DAILY. D'Angelo: "First of all, that was a mistake. But yes, I um, I thought it was like, I really
just enjoy talking about these things, and if I didn't have to edit so much, I'm sure
I could talk about so much more. So I started putting out daily content." Right away these videos were doing really
well, as was his main channel, if not better. He was getting an average of 50-75,000 subscribers
every month. D'Angelo: "But my issue with that is that
I'm not a perfectionist, I'm actually okay with putting something out that's good enough. But, I also do too much regardless. So, I was making these daily videos on the
scale of my weekly videos, and I would even get comments like, 'Wow, you're doing, like,
what commentary channels do in a week, you're doing every day!' And of course, the unhealthy part of me was
like, yeah, validate me for doing more work than I should be doing! I'm so glad you realize that this is not healthy! I'm so glad that you're acknowledging that! But then, of course, it got to the point where
the burnout was so intense, and I had made 20 videos in 30 days, and I was like, this
is not maintainable, I would have to get somebody to help me. Because a lot of people upload daily and it's
really good content, but they have teams, and have multiple editors, etc. So I had to ask myself, do I want to hire
a team, or do I want to slow it down? Do I wanna not, maybe talk about everything
that ever happens ever! So I made the decision, you know what, we're
gonna put the daily ones on hold, um, it was really fun while it lasted, like, it legitimately
was a blast, creating so much content and getting so much engagement! But now I wanna focus on, like, bigger projects,
I would feel more fulfilled." One of his 'bigger projects', and I think
what was his longest video at that point, was posted April 14, 2020. It is a 38 & a half minute long video exposing
Shallon Lester. And you may be familiar with the situation
because a lot of videos were made about her around that time. But I think D'Angelo's channel was the first
to make a deep-dive video about her content being problematic, to say the very least. D'Angelo: "Hi, and welcome back to me talking
about whatever I want. Today, I wanna talk about Shallon Lester,
ah... Not so much that I want to talk about her,
but I definitely feel like I have to, just because, what she's doing is inexcusable,
and I think everybody should know this." If you haven't heard about the whole situation,
I would recommend watching D'Angelo's video. So what I think what happened was, before
the video was even up, he had Tweeted about her, or making a video about her, and she
blocked him. And then after that first video was posted,
this became a major situation! Shallon told her fans that D'Angelo had doxxed
her, and that she had filed a report with the police. So then D'Angelo made another 40-minute video
addressing all of these false claims. D'Angelo: "The person I'm gonna be talking
about today has dug themselves a hole, and now seems determined to jump inside of it
while simultaneously bringing me down with them. Now these are really spineless and just sad
ways to kind of cop out of having to provide evidence for the claims that you're making
against me. But the saddest part is, these reasons that
you gave for not providing evidence, actually proved that what you claim happened did not
occur." And these videos are really where we began
to see D'Angelo in his true element. They're very similar to the videos about Jeffree,
Shane and Tati. We'll talk about those in a bit. Though you could classify these as drama videos,
or commentary about drama, it's clear that D'Angelo takes these claims very seriously. He doesn't find joy in exposing or cancelling
people. He doesn't seem excited to be involved in
drama that's bringing in a lot of views. So, I had asked my Instagram followers to
tell me why they enjoy D'Angelo & his videos, so allow me to share some of the top responses... 'His videos are quality, they are very well
researched, and he takes the time to find any 'receipts' or proof to back up his claims
whenever possible.' 'He clearly puts in the effort to organize
the video and create a cohesive timeline, literal timelines, and explain complicated
events in the most straightforward way.' Now, unlike his 10 minute videos, these are
very long, but still, his writing is efficient, and he includes as much detailed, relevant
information as he can. Secondly, alot of responses called D'Angelo
'unbiased'. I think the concept of being an 'unbiased'
commentary channel is pretty difficult, if not impossible. It's hard to be perfectly balanced, or fair,
or objective. A lot of bunny fingers in a row... But, I get what they mean. D'Angelo didn't make a video about Shallon
Lester because he had a personal vendetta against her. He wanted to call out a creator who was making
really harmful, terrible content! I think what people mean by 'unbiased' or
'objective', is that he includes all of the relevant information, not just stuff that
supports his argument. He tries to explain the whole situation, instead
of just selectively showing his side. And like, even if he's calling someone out,
if they did something good that is relevant, he will mention that. He also creates some distance between his
personal opinions and the facts. It's very important to be clear about what's
your thought, versus what is the truth. Or at least back up your opinions with evidence. Here's my argument, here's a screenshot to
support that. And also, I think in commentary, or whatever,
it's important to admit your bias, if you have one. For example, I can say THIS video is extremely
biased, because I love D'Angelo as a creator, and we're friends! Yes, I'm bragging... Anyway, most of these videos are just him
explaining the timeline, or the order and context of the events, rather than the majority
of the video just being about his personal opinions. And that's why I think viewers overall get
the sense that he's being as fair to the facts of the situation as he can possibly be. When it comes to discussing Drama on YouTube,
there are a lot of creators who don't care to take the time to research, or fact check,
or be careful of how they frame their arguments. D'Angelo's videos don't feel like someone
who's just trying to use other people's drama for quick content and clout. He genuinely cares, and clearly puts in the
time and effort to make high quality videos about the situation. So yes, he still talks about drama, but he
does it in a respectful, thoughtful way. He's also not afraid to have unpopular or
bold opinions, and again, he usually backs these up with his reasoning and/or evidence
or proof. He's critical without being overly rude. You can call people out for their actions,
not their appearance, or other low-blows. And, he admits when he's been wrong or made
mistakes. So, let's continue. On May 31st 2020, D'Angelo made a 41 minute
long video about the Lana Del Rey situation. A LOT of people had hot takes on this trending
topic, and he could have easily thrown together a quick video reacting to the first statement,
and then another video for each of the subsequent, increasingly bad statements. Milk it for as many videos and views as possible! But again, he took the time to carefully disect
and explain everything. So, for viewers who wanna learn about the
whole situation, from a charismatic creator, this is an ideal video to watch! D'Angelo: "Hi, and welcome back to me talking
about whatever I want. Today I wanna talk about Lana Del Rey. Because, she has a lot of statements about
society, and as someone who lives in the society, I have a lot to say about those statements. I'm a Lana Del Rey fan, I'm not here to cancel
her, I've never canceled anyone on my channel before. So, I'm gonna be fully honest, when she came
out with these recent statements that we're gonna be going over today... I was a little bit surprised. Before I get into that, I just wanna give
my own opinion of her statement, based off of just the statement. Even though it's long, she made 6 main poi-
that's not 6 fingers. She made 6 main points, so I'm gonna go over
those 6 points, and kinda just give the pros and cons of what I think about each one. Because she did have some good points, but
as you're about to see, there's also some stuff in here that's just... Weeeeird." Continuing on with our list of more factors
that viewers love about D'Angelo: His great sense of humor, he has a very, like, dry,
sarcastic delivery. And though it's not his main intent, to make
his videos funny, he is very naturally funny, so it just comes through no matter what he's
talking about. It's so easy to listen to him for 40 minutes,
an hour, because of his smooth, calming voice. I'm incredibly jealous! His older videos were a little bit more monotone,
again, I think for the sarcastic kind of delivery, but either way, it is just so relaxing. His videos are also aesthetically pleasing
in every way. He IS an artist! Remember when D'Angelo was an art channel? RIP. In his older videos, you'll see alot more
of that mood lightning, like purples and pinks. Lately, he's preferred a little bit more of
a black and white setup. And his editing is just fantastic. Overall, it's very clean, crisp, and not distracting. So, continuing on... By June of 2020, D'Angelo's second channel
had 375,000 subscribers, and his first channel had 424,000. At this time, he was taking a lot of time
off of YouTube between uploads, and he hadn't posted to his first channel since May. Then, on July 4th, he posted his mega video
about Jeffree Star. And this is all a lot. To recap, Tati posted her big 'Bye Sister'
video, on May 10th, 2019, to expose James Charles, we've heard it all before. So much happened! A year later, on June 30th 2020, Tati posts
another 40 minute video, essentially saying that Shane Dawson and Jeffree Star tricked
her into making that original video. I'm sure you know about it, and if not, just
watch D'Angelo's video, or any of the other million videos about the situation. Or, you can live your life in peace, without
the weight of that information in your brain. Anyway, again, people were making pretty quick
reaction videos, as soon as new information comes out. That's the thing about drama & commentary,
by the way, it's like any kind of media or journalism, you wanna jump on the story as
soon as you can, you wanna be the first person to talk about it, or at least talk about it
as it's happening. But again, D'Angelo decided to take his time,
sit back, and make this series of videos individually analyzing those 3 people involved in the situation,
and he started with Jeffree. As of right now, that video has 5.7 million
views. Absolutely amazing! On July 24th, D'Angelo posted the next video,
'The Exact Moment Shane Dawson's Career Ended', which now has over 12 million views. That video is an hour and 13 minutes long,
and honestly, it is really hard to watch. D'Angelo goes through Shane's entire YouTube
history in detail, including a lot of very troubling things... that I honestly just can't
mention because they're so 'de-monetizable'. Definitely pay attention to his content warnings
if you do end up watching any of these videos. But again, in these videos, D'Angelo is not
like, happy to cover these really tough topics. Sometimes people in drama videos are like,
'I'm a messy bitch who lives for the drama!' And like, we like that sometimes, but that's
not D'Angelo's angle, that's not what he's trying to do. He had to go through the process of researching
and digging and watching a lot of this content that is really, really disturbing. It's not fun! And especially his Shane video, I saw it shared
by all kinds of people all over the internet. I had other friends in real life that don't
watch a lot of YouTube that were like, 'Hey have you seen this video?' He successfully compiled SO MUCH, it was like
a master document of all of the terrible things that Shane has done, especially on the internet,
and that's why it was so popular! But also, the video is not monetized. D'Angelo made a point to say that he did not
want to monetize the video, due to the nature of the topics that he covered. But he did say in the comments of the video,
that it has been copyright claimed, because he included an 'Always Sunny' clip in there,
so... Anyway, that video, with 12 million views
and such a long runtime, could have made him bank with Ad Sense. That was a video that he spent WEEKS researching
and writing and editing, and he didn't make a dime from it. From the ads at least. And that is very admirable! Now of course, D'Angelo has benefitted hugely
from making these videos, even if they weren't individually monetized. During July, the month that he posted both
the Jeffree and Shane videos, his subscribers went from 428,000 subscribers, to 1 million
150 thousand, in ONE MONTH! I have never ever seen a channel grow that
fast, in one month! That is a huge testament to how high quality
his videos are, and how much his new audience has enjoyed them. Clearly, his videos are appealing to a really
huge audience. His latest upload is the final part of the
series, the video on Tati, it was posted on August 25th, and it too is an hour and 13
minutes long. Weirdly specific, but okay. Anyway, it is just as high quality and well-researched
as the others, as we have come to expect from D'Angelo. He has a really great part of that video,
where he discusses the ageism and sexism that was present in a lot of the discourse about
Tati in the last year and a half of drama, and how that is wrong. And he admitted that he used to say things
that played into those issues as well. Someone who can admit their mistakes and learn
and grow? Dare I say, we stan! Now, as of the time of filming this, D'Angelo's
second channel has over 1.5 million subscribers, and over 57 million total video views. Now, let's talk about the main channel, second
channel stuff, because if you haven't noticed, things get a little wonky. His second channel now has twice as many subscribers
as his first channel. So, essentially this new channel has taken
over as his main channel, but he's still gonna post on his other channel, which was his first
channel, but now he's calling it his second channel. You know, to be safe, just subscribe to both
channels, and you won't miss any great content. But wait, D'Angelo has one last channel! He has a podcast, called 'Office Husband'. He posted the first episode in June, the people
loved it. He said, you know, we're gonna have weekly
podcast episodes, and we've been starved for podcasts ever since! How could he? But, by the way, we addressed this in MY podcast
episode, so again, make sure you go listen to it, if you wanna know what's up! Anyway, that is the end! Hope you guys enjoyed this brief history on
the rise and evolution of D'Angelo Wallace, so far! Clearly, he's doing great things, and I'm
sure he is going to continue to grow exponentially in the future. I bet most of you watching this are already
big fans of him, so I'm pretty much just preaching to the choir, but, oh well... Please subscribe if you liked this, and let
me know if you want more 'Rise Of' videos, and let me know which creators you would like
me to look into. By the way, I recently hit 600,000 subscribers,
which is wild, so thank you so much for subscribing, and again, if you're not subscribed... Click that button please! If you wanna see all my videos, I mean, that's
just how it works, it's fine... You can follow me on Instagram for some mediocre
pics. You can follow me on Twitter for some political
Tweets and some important information that I retweet occasionally. And yeah, here we are! By the way, I just started my final semester
of college, so that's why there's been a big gap in my upload schedule. You can honestly expect that to continue over
the next few months, because I am swamped! Nobody told me that your last semester of
senior year of your bachelor's degree would be BUSY! Unbelievable! But soon, when I graduate in December, I'm
gonna finally be able to focus solely on my YouTube work, and hopefully bring back my
podcast regularly, and other projects, who knows! Who the frick knows? Alright, that's all, I'm getting loopy, I
want coffee! 'K thanks, bye!
