Overview

Channel Awesome Implosion refers to damaging stories spread about the business practices of Channel Awesome, a network of YouTube content creators whose most prominent member is The Nostalgia Critic. In March of 2018, previous contributors to the network began describing their experiences within the network, particularly with the management, namely Mike Michaud, Doug Walker (The Nostalgia Critic), and his brother, Rob Walker. Massive backlash to the channel ensued, as well as an apology from Channel Awesome that many dismissed as insufficient.

Background

On March 13th, 2018, content creator and former Channel Awesome member @Obscura_Lupa, real name Allison Pregler,^[1] responded to a fan on Twitter asking about her reaction to a recent Nostalgia Critic review about IT. In her response, she listed some of her issues with Channel Awesome (shown below).

In a long ensuing thread, other former members of the network, including PushinUpRoses and marzgirl, contributed their own memories of the poor business practices of the company. The list of grievances and poor practices became very long and included claims that the company once fired an employee for trying to take time off for a surgery and withheld her severance package until she signed a contract that she wouldn't work for another media company for 2-4 years,^[2] forcing two contributors to do a rape scene^[3] (script shown below), general sexual harassment that was ignored until it became violent,^[4] grifting $90,000 from fans for a failed game show,^[5] contributors passing out during shooting because the sets did not provide water, and many more.

The entire list of grievances lobbed at Channel Awesome was documented by Tumblr user wendynerdwrites^[6] (the post with the full list is embedded below).

A massive Google Document was compiled detailing the complaints from multiple previous contributors.^[7] A condensed version was created to summarize the details in the original document.^[8]

Developments

As the news spread, several threads were created which documented and featured commentary on the latest developments. Threads on NeoGAF,^[9] Freakin Awesome Network,^[10] and Bluegatr,^[11] referred to the controversy as an "implosion" of Channel Awesome. The hashtag #ChangeTheChannel spread on Twitter as people discussed the various grievances lobbed at the network.^[12] Contributor Linkara announced they would be leaving the network after the controversy spread.^[15] On March 27th, 2018, YouTuber SwizzlyBubbles posted an 18-minute long video summarizing the controversy (shown below).

On April 2nd, Channel Awesome tweeted a statement regarding the controversy (shown below).^[13] The original creators of the #ChangeTheChannel movement found the statement insufficient. Plegler called the statement a "non-apology" and highlighted a line where the statement said "we're sorry you felt that way."^[14]

Guru Larry Takeover

On April 12th, 2018, Channel Awesome contributor Larry Bundy Jr. (a.k.a. Guru Larry) tweeted that he was the only remaining member of Channel Awesome (shown below).^[16] The following day, Redditor wandercamp submitted the tweet to /r/thespoonyexperiment,^[17] claiming Bundy is "only on the site ironically."

Meanwhile, Bundy posted a photoshopped picture of the Channel Awesome page with the header updated with the tagline "Home of Guru Larry and… Guru Larry" to Facebook^[18] (shown below, left). Meanwhile, Bundy updated his Twitter profile to describe himself as "Champion of the first annual Channel Awesome Hunger Games" (shown below, right).

Search Interest

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External References