(Video is very NSFW)
In addition to the recent post on Gen Y's detonation over the previous decade, I wanted to share this video which centers on an old era of the internet, the one before Gen Y really imploded into itself. Nonetheless, it ended up being a warning of things to come.
Few really remember the angry internet reviewer trend of the mid-00s, the time when YouTube took off and its early creators mostly got by on deconstructing and burying their youth and traditions (while also profiting clout off of them), aside from the more extreme examples. This is mostly because the trend ended up influencing the following generation of video creators which either went all in on the snark and bitterness (much of which then spilled over into the Skeptic sphere and then into modern identity politics) or pushed beyond it and mastered the form of video review and analysis with a more genuine take and better executed humor. Either way, it's a very quaint era looking back on now. It's very much a foreign country today.
The one group that really epitomized this brief era of the late '00s to early '10s was Channel Awesome, home of That Guy With the Glasses AKA the Nostalgia Critic and his not-so-merry band of followers. Spinning off the success of the Angry Video Game Nerd, the man who started as the Angry Nintendo Nerd and kicked off the trend near YouTube's beginning, this wave of similar creators were blowing up the then-burgeoning platform and suffering copyright strikes wiping out their channels in the process. I'm not sure how to explain this to younger audiences except that if someone like Red Letter Media put up even one of their videos back then, it would have been deleted and their channel terminated within the day. That is how harsh YouTube's early system was. Even the AVGN barely squeaked by, his channel barely slipping through the cracks because the video game industry, at the time, was not as malicious as Hollywood.
So this period saw a struggling band of video makers desperate for a platform to continue their schtick on. The only problem is that no such site existed at the time. The obvious thing to do was create a website people could go to find them, safe from the horrors of early YouTube's moronic copyright system. That is what the original That Guy With the Glasses website was, and there really wasn't anything like it at the time.
One could say a lot about what happened to that site after it took off, but there were many reviewers on Channel Awesome that achieved different levels of success and infamy. In some circles this stuff was huge, especially among both Gen Y nostalgics and irreverent snark machines. As said, it led to an explosion in this sort of content, much of which flooded every single one of the limited amount of video sites. It looked as if they were going to be the kings and queens of the internet.
And then it all blew up.
The video above talks about this snarky movie reviewer trend and how absolutely strange this whole era was, detached from its time and place, and showing just how that generation saw itself, its peers, and the entertainment it grew up with and shaped them. It's a very odd video talking about a very odd time, but I do recommend watching it. I can't even imagine what the whole thing looks like if you weren't around at the time. The video topic is centered on one of the awful movie projects from back then (spoiler: they were all awful) which really shows you just how strange the scene got by the time it all died off in the mid-'10s.
If you want more on this odd topic, the same video creator as the above video talked about many of Channel Awesome's stumbles and ambitions through a massive review of all three of their movies, highlighting the group's formation, rise, and implosion. This one is twice as long as the above video, but still shorter than the movies themselves, so be warned. Nonetheless, it is a good piece of internet history that will fade away in the years to come, especially as Gen Y continually chooses to turn into themselves and away from the world, so it is worth watching for that.
When you have the time, you can watch that one here:
(This video is also very NSFW)
As someone who lived through that time, I have to say that I remember getting sick of this stuff before the first Channel Awesome movie even fully released in 2010. This whole snarky scene gave me the same feeling as Scott Pilgrim: a Frankenstein monster of stolen parts to build a sub-optimal engine that just doesn't run as well as the original. Nothing new was actually being made. In fact, it was merely a collection of half-tropes glued together by cynicism and a lack of identity. There is a reason few of these creators survived past the trend. There was really nothing else to it.
You can see this for yourself in the above videos. There just isn't really anything there under the surface, and it is hard to understand really why such a thing was ever that big to begin with. But it was, and it is pure uncut Gen Y in a time before that bitter irony warped into despair. I don't know if I'd call it a hard watch, but it's difficult to keep that out of mind while watching.
The scene on YouTube a little better now, for the most part. There's much more of a sense of self-awareness and less ego to what is being created, but it's still a bit strange to look back on what it used to be. You can't even help but wonder: what would these people be like now if the internet had not been around to prop up their negative traits? Where would they have gone without an outlet for this specific niche and interests to tarnish? How different would they be today? Would they even be the same people? We'll never really know, but it is interesting to think about and consider. You never really know what curveball life will throw you next.
Regardless, that era is over and not coming back. We've lived through it and made our choices that have set us on the road we are now on. There is no turning the ship around and doing it over again. We can only learn from our mistakes and apply the lessons learned moving on.
There's nothing else to be done. The fourth wall is long gone, and we can only see the mirror staring us back from where it used to stand. Time to act accordingly.
Anyway, have a good weekend. I will see you again soon enough.
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