Shane being a demon is one of those jokes where like I'm aware it's just a joke but also if Shane came out and said "Hey guys, so I actually am from hell and Satan is my boss" I would be like "Well yeah" and move on with my day.

I watched Charlie MoistCritikal’s video on the Watcher drama and he definitely has some good insight considering he runs a company that helps creators get sponsorships, and finding out that with their subscriber & view counts they probably get $15,000-$30,000 per ad read was like the final nail in the coffin for me. So they make $100k a month on patreon + an ad read a week + ad revenue + merch sales? Maybe slow down on making new shows. Cultivate what you have. Maybe remaking worth it… isn’t worth it.

(Charlie’s video is good if you want some deeper insight into the creator economy)

Me @ the Watcher boys in the aftermath of THAT announcement:

i lied abt only posting abt this situation once, i just saw this lovely person’s comment!! passing it on to tumblr 🫡

It's time for them to learn how to play the ukulele

The most important comment in this whole mess

this is so unus annus core of them <3

OMFG THIS COMMENT. GUISE. THAT LAST SENTENCE IS SO FUCKING RAW

You know what we're not gonna do? Put shane and ryan on a pedestal and using this issue as an excuse to hate on steven

this is a company thing. i hate it too but once again steven is being blamed for this because some fans refuse to see that ryan and shane also gets a say in business matters, theyre co-founders, they work WITH steven

One thing I'm not noticing anyone else talking about—the production value thing is not because they think it's what the fans want. It's not. They want to go for higher production value, it's important to them. That's not a bad thing. Ryan has stressed multiple times on podcasts, behind the scenes content, even the live appearance I saw him at that it's important to him their new media is better quality than Unsolved. I think part of that is just anxiety that what they make isn't good enough, but I'm also sure it's a natural artistic yearning to want to expand and grow. Shane and Steven probably feel the same way about their shows. Ryan has also mentioned how taxing it is for so much of the channel to be about him, which he mentions again in the video with the comment about wanting to expand with other creators. And there's nothing weird about that! That's just facing realistic burnout. The vibe in the announcement video from Shane and Ryan is extremely telling of burnout. They're growing the content because (1) it's exhausting for them to make the exact same style of content for the 8+ years they've been doing it, and one of the ways to get past burnout is by pushing your boundaries and growing creatively; and (2) just making the shows, all of the shows, with themselves as the camera-facing element has to be exhausting for them.

I still think this is a bad decision but I think it's one grounded in their own creative impulses and how hard they've been working for several years now, not some urge to suddenly live the high life. They want to make stuff they're personally proud of, and right now that's beyond their means. I'd make an argument that they should opt for scaling back instead of jumping forward right now, but that doesn't mean they're making this choice because they hate their fanbase or are suddenly a big corporation. They've made a mistake, and hopefully they'll be able to tweak the Watcher TV system in the next couple days to make it more affordable for all.

waiting for the upcoming "lost focus and made an ill-informed workplace decision" tweet from watcher headquarters

all of us who thought watcher’s “big announcement” was the return of the hotdaga rn

ah yes we need to flush out those rich elites like *checks notes* those people who made ghost hunting videos on YouTube

one thing thats startling to me about so many responses is people saying they dont care about x show or only want to see ryan and shane doing things, so why should watcher want a higher budget? surely they can just axe the shows 'noone' cares about and just upload low budget videos of ryan and shane messing around?

its breathtakingly entitled. god forbid they should want to do things that are more artistically fulfilling than a vlog. and its telling that the shows people are saying 'noone cares about' are all stevens. hes just as much a part of watcher as ryan and shane and deserves the same artistic freedom. people need to get that through their heads

That's also part of the problem. Not only is Ghost Files artistically fulfilling to them but it's also the thing they made that was getting the views. We wailed about WWW for years since we lost it but the refrain has always been "we know you love it but the views don't match and we have no sponsors for it" and that's the crux of it. We will be getting the low budget stuff because they'll have the budget for more employees (and hopefully they'll learn to delegate more) which frees them up to do the low stakes content.

Don't even get me started about the racists coming out of the woodwork to paint their precious granola eating communist by brand white man Shane as a pure innocent victim of evil capitalist Steven who makes shows that don't contain puppets and songs. I'll just get meaner. It pisses me of like nothing else.