That Guy With The Glasses/Channel Awesome Thread

Channel Awesome (formerly That Guy With The Glasses) is an online media production company created in 2008 by Mike Michaud, Mike Ellis, and Bhargav Dronamraju. The website was built around the work of Doug Walker, creator of the Nostalgia Critic, and is now home to several content creators who cover a variety of subjects, but the main focus is reviewing things.

Due to the high number of personalities on the site and the subject matter, the community is more than a little dysfunctional and there's been a lot of drama swirling around over the years. This includes infighting, content producers leaving under dubious circumstances and desperate cash grabs and media stunts. The site's popularity has also begun to wane a bit as people get bored with the whole angry critic shtick but still remains popular in certain circles.

Channel Awesome was brought up several times in the general "angry" critics and gamers thread on the Farms and proved to be such a popular topic that several of its content producers got spin-off threads to varying degrees of success. The website also got its own general thread and we even had former site producer LordKat turn up to join in discussion along with current site producer MarzGurl.

I'm starting it again because after reading around the site it's clear to me there's still some appetite for discussion to continue. This time, try to keep the focus on the actual content Channel Awesome produces although I realise discussion of the drama is inevitably going to seep in (in fact I'm going to bring up a lot of it in the OP).

If you don't know anyone from Channel Awesome, here's a quick guide to some notable current/former producers:

Doug Walker (The Nostalgia Critic)



As the Nostalgia Critic, Doug was one of the first major "angry" critics on the web and the impetus for Channel Awesome to begin. In 2012, Doug briefly retired the Nostalgia Critic to make a new show called Demo Reel which was poorly received by his fanbase forcing Doug to bring back the Nostalgia Critic a few months later. However, Doug was stung that Demo Reel wasn't a success and decided to merge the failed show with his reviews, meaning his reviews are now partly taken up with long sketches and storylines. The new style has received mixed reviews from his fans, but the Nostalgia Critic remains popular. Another thing of note that Doug did is hold an IndieGoGo campaign in 2013 with the stated goal of raising money to create new shows. The campaign raised nearly $90,000 but over a year later no new show had been released. Finally, the first episode of "Pop Quiz Hotshot" (only one of the new shows that had been promised) premiered in 2015 and was of such poor quality that even Doug's longtime fans had a difficult time justifying it. It was later alleged that most of the $90,000 had been used to pay off Doug's bank account and Doug had in fact been embezzling money from his fans.

Lindsay Ellis (The Nostalgia Chick)



Lindsay joined Channel Awesome in 2008 when she won a contest to be the site's "Nostalgia Chick". She left the site in 2015 to create a new site called "Chez Apocalypse" with other current and former Channel Awesome producers. The site has been down for well over a year now, but Lindsay still produces content on her YouTube channel. She was formerly dating fellow content producer Todd in the Shadows but they broke up a while ago. Shortly before her departure from Channel Awesome, Lindsay went full SJW and her Twitter antics have included (among other things) attacking fellow critic and former collaborator James Rolfe (The Angry Video Game Nerd) over his decision not to see the Ghostbusters remake.

Lewis Lovhaug (Linkara)



One of Channel Awesome's biggest draws, Linkara does a show called "Atop the Fourth Wall" where he reviews bad comic books. He's somewhat infamous for being among the worst offenders on the site for having his reviews turn more into a storyline than an actual review. One of his first major controversies was producing a video where he basically begged his fans to turn off their AdBlockers, because he didn't have a job other than reviewing and without Ad revenue he wouldn't get any money. Some time after this, embarrassing revelations about his personal life began to come to the fore. These included a fap folder filled with bizarre fetish material and the fact that his ex-girlfriend, Iron Liz, had been a transexual who he'd dumped when she said she wanted to get gender reassignment surgery.

Noah Antwiler (Spoony)



Spoony left Channel Awesome in 2012 under very unfortunate circumstances. He basically got in a huge Twitter fight with some of the female personalities on the site, including telling one of them (either Obscurus Lupa or JesuOtaku) that he wanted to chain her up in his basement and rape her. He's calmed down a bit since then and has been invited back to the site to do a few crossovers, but it's clear he's not all there in the head.

Jacob Chapman (formerly Hope Chapman) (JesuOtaku)



JesuOtaku was an anime reviewer for Channel Awesome but left in 2014 to write for Anime News Network. While on the site she was dating fellow producer Nash. In 2013, after they'd bought a house together, she dumped Nash and hooked up with somebody else. Apparently (this is hearsay - I can't remember seeing concrete evidence this is true) after her and Nash broke up she took the house from him and had been bonking the other guy before her and Nash bought the house. Something that definitely did happen is her new boyfriend mocked Nash over Twitter after his mother died. In early 2016 JesuOtaku came out as transgender and changed her name from Hope to Jacob.

Eric "Erod" Rodriguez (The Blockbuster Buster)



The Blockbuster Buster is somewhat infamous for having one of the worst shows on Channel Awesome. The poor quality of his cinematography (which hasn't improved despite him having been at this for well over five years now), coupled with his annoying voice and his propensity for destroying DVDs at the end of his reviews turns a lot of people off. He gets a laughably low view count on his videos and it's still something of a mystery how he managed to get on the site in the first place.

Dan Olson (Foldable Human)



This is stretching it a bit because Dan Olson was only on Channel Awesome for a year, but he's a member of Chez Apocalypse and is still connected with a lot of Channel Awesome people. Olson was on the site for a year and during that time produced very few videos. He claimed he was let go after his "trial period" on the site ended, but it's since been revealed that Channel Awesome has no such trial period and he was in fact shitcanned because his show was bombing. What's more interesting about Olson is what he got up to outside his videos. Olson is a proud SJW and staunchly Anti-GamerGate, taking the latter to ridiculous extremes. The nadir of this was when he participated in a two-man operation with Laurelai Bailey (founder of the SJWiki) to try and get 8chan taken down by planting child porn on the site. Laurelai uploaded the incriminating images and was caught doing it, while Dan downloaded the images, blurred them, then wrote a Medium hit piece condemning 8chan with the images in the article. This meant that Dan had committed a felony under Canadian Law (he's Canadian) because he went to a site looking for child porn, downloaded it and then distributed it. That's right, his opposition to GamerGate could've landed him in jail. He also had a few run-ins with the Farms, including complaining on Twitter that Jaimas included him in an SJW Bestiary.

Todd Nathanson/Ken Munson (Todd in the Shadows)



Todd's a music reviewer for Channel Awesome and managed to keep himself fairly clean in terms of drama until 2014 when he used the then-recent death of his fellow content producer JewWario to try and score points against GamerGate. Later, he defended proven and admitted pedophile Sarah Nyberg, further dragging his reputation through the mud. As mentioned earlier, he was dating the Nostalgia Chick but they've now broken up. Doesn't stop him acting as something of a lapdog towards her.

Tony Goldmark (Some Jerk with a Camera)



Goldmark reviews theme park rides. He's honestly not that interesting, except for the fact that he's been in meltdown ever since Trump was elected. Seriously, his Twitter consist of nothing but Trump whining at the moment.

Right, I think that's everyone notable. Let discussion begin.

 

A long ass time ago I watched some of the Nostalgia Critic stuff and enjoyed what I saw. I didn't realize he went of and made a network of sorts.

 

I must say that Doug's attempts to get out of showing film footage with those actors he entrapped, err, placed on contract was not his best concept. Heck, it was probably just a way to continue to write Demo Reel, even though he clearly did not place much thought in this "passion project" from what I say.

As for the rest of the lot, Linkara works like this; skip about a quarter of his video to actually get to his review. Wait maybe a year or two for a video by Spoony. Last but not least, never trust Todd's opinion on music genres he does not like.

 

To specify...

Spoony did that rape joke towards JesuOtaku. She didn't think much of it, but Obscurus Lupa brought it up in a Twitter conversation with Spoony weeks/months later, basically saying that he couldn't take the high ground with her. It then only escalated from here.

Spoony claimed in a video commentary that he was not fired from TGWTG because of that rape joke controversy. He was planning on leaving the site for a while, mostly because he hated TGTWG's layout that didn't give his videos the right exposure and the stress of filming crossovers and anniversaries.
Lupa got some nasty harassment and even death threats by radical Spoony fanboys, thinking she was responsible of getting him "fired". Spoony himself had to specify loud and clear that she had nothing to do with it, and that both of them kinda made peace now.

However, many Spoony fans are upset at him now not because of that.

He has produced almost no new review videos in years. The last one was a "Rebruary" video in 2016.

He made some "Counter Monkey" (paper RPG thoughts) and "Wrestle! Wrestle!" videos, but even then, most of his fans want his genuine reviews of bad PC games, board games or bad B-movies.

Most of the time, if he produces new video content, it's long livestreams where he barely says anything.

He has barely updated his website since the fall of blip (that hosted many TGWTG videos), with many video links not working, and fans have to resort to watching fan reuploads that usually include French or Russian subtitles.

He has a Patreon, where the money he receives keeps going down and down since he fails to deliver real content.

He has disabled comments and ratings on his videos, which are never a good sign. Spoony's fandom is notorious for being a bit crazy and defensive...

The worst thing is, Spoony barely gives updates, barely communicates, barely gives explanations.
He is always on his Twitter saying whatever things, but when was the last time was it relevant to his content updates?

Here are some good videos that kinda say it as it is:

 

Sometimes I wonder if it's because I was a college student that I actually liked TGWTG for as long as I did. Since most of the contributors have a YouTube account anyway, I haven't gone on the site since sometime after Doug released the Rocky and Bullwinkle Movie review, and it was a better, more fair review than Erod's, which was one of the reviews that got me to stop watching his videos. Even though the biggest reason was the fact he uploads them on Dailymotion and the site's rather shitty with me, so I don't bother. I had been getting bored of Linkara long before the fap folder came out, although I was trying to go back and listen to his "History of Power Rangers" videos if only for background sound while I draw. JesuOtaku never finished her Digimon Retrospect videos, so outside of actually watching some anime she reviewed (simply because she had reviewed them), I don't care about her anymore.

The only ones I keep up with are the Cinema Snob, Bennett the Sage, and sometimes Todd in the Shadows (or at least his "One-Hit Wonderland" videos). I also check out Nash on Radio Dead Air, I still highly enjoy his "What the Fuck is Wrong With You?" segment even though Tara's been grating on me these last few years. His "Here There Be Dragons" is a slow update, but they've been good. Then there's Suade, but outside of the Pokémon reviews, he hasn't been doing anything, and I'm all "meh" about that. I think he has an actual job outside of the Internet, which is why.

Been meaning to go back and watch some of MarzGurl's older reviews, especially the one of the TMNT anime OVA. I think those videos should still be up on the site, although weren't some older reviews removed when they made the transition to Channel Awesome and when Blip died?

 

Yes, many videos have gotten lost since Blip died, and the authors didn't seem to bother reuploading them.

Speaking of "fired reviewer drama"... remember ThatAussieGuy?

Yeah, me neither. Apparently he did some gaming videos and had a hand on "Blistered Thumbs" (remember this?? No?)

From what I've heard, he was a bitter and jealous person who would badmouth and try to sabotage other producers that he disliked. He notoriously said that Lindsay Ellis was a nymphomaniac.
Even Doug Walker himself said in the old forum that he personally gave him an old laptop, but Aussie kinda stabbed them in the back.

This guy had gone so bad for TGWTG that they deleted his article on the Thatguywiththeglasses wikia, only accessible through web archive!

 

Super embarrassing confession incoming:

I discovered the Nostalgia Critic just before I went off to uni and discovered That Guy With the Glasses early in my first year at uni. I didn't just enjoy TGWTG, I wanted to be part of TGWTG. This was circa 2011 when there wasn't much drama going on and the community seemed really cool. I had ideas for reviews and I wanted to put them out there. Luckily they never got beyond the scripting stage - real life got in the way. I look back now and I wonder what I was thinking.

Nash was the first TGWTG person I found other than Doug. I was looking for some decent Doctor Who video reviews (those are harder to find than you might think) and stumbled on Nash's stuff. At the time I absolutely loved them and I'd wait with bated breath for a new one to come out. I was kind of disappointed when he stopped reviewing Doctor Who - sword and sorcery isn't really my thing. I tried to watch one of Nash's Doctor Who reviews recently and I didn't enjoy it as much as I used to. I think I've just grown out of the humour style. I've never watched Radio Dead Air except for a snippet of the CWC episode.

Fun fact: someone I know was in one of Nash's videos. Nash asked his fans to vote for who their favourite classic Doctor was and send in video submissions explaining why they thought their Doctor was the best. The guy I know had his video selected for inclusion in Nash's video. I won't say which one he was because it could be a breach of privacy.

 

I was never interested in Nash's videos. The only one I remember seeing was the one where he commented on Chris' pepper spraying.

Speaking of Spoony... I remember he was considered a lolcow even back in the early TGWTG days.

There was this (now defunct) blog site, "The Busy Street", that DARED to criticize TGWTG and had a special section for "Spoony's fans say the darndest things". Back then, I didn't realize what the big deal was. But now...

 

Yeah, of the lot, I really only think Brad and Nash are worth viewing nowadays. The former because he doesn't take this as seriously as his peers and still puts forth the fucks given to review. The latter because I do like WTFIWWY.

 

I'm amazed that the place has been in business for 9 years.

 

I don't know an couldn't care less for any of these people other than Doug himself, since I have watched and liked some of his older videos.
For me, when he truly jumped the shark when was he started reviewing very recent or even current movies as the Nostalgia Critic. There's something really unappealing about a character with that name talking about movies that came out last thursday, and it seems like he's doing it only because it was his more recognizable character.
Hell, even James Rolfe pretty much retired the Angry Video Game Nerd when he started to run out of bad vintage games, and only brings the character back when he finds something that seems worth reviewing as that character.
I don't care much about the sketches on his recent videos and think they don't add anything to his reviews other than overexposing some mildly annoying people who think they can act.
Some of his last videos are still kind of interesting and informative though, but mostly those in which he reflects about a certain topic rather than a specific piece of media (for example, the Does PG Mean Anything Anymore? one.

 

oooooh boy Channel Awesome, that brings back memories of being a stupid edge lord teenage. I use to be a hardcore fanboy back in the day. I used to visit the site everyday, every mourning after waking up like clockwork. I would basically watch every video released on site for long time and i mean every video. But as Time went on i slowly stop doing that and only really watched the ones i liked the most. Among my favorite during my fanboy days were Doug, Linkara, Spoony, Phelous, JewWaro, and BennettTheSage. but even then I slowly started to stop watch even them. JewWario was the only one I was really following before his passing. A lot their stuff just stop being interesting to me, despite still being a retarded teen I started to notice the poor quality in there videos. it happen after watching literally hundreds of episodes, but it happened. Now days I really don't give them much thought nowadays. Other then they a complete train wreck that struggling to remain relevant despite that they time of fame is over.

 

I'd say the only decent new talent they've got is The Dom, with his "Lost In Adaptation" series. His skits are mostly tolerable and even a bit entertaining, and as someone that doesn't read many books or watch many movies but is interested in fiction in general, it comes across as fairly interesting for an outsider looking in.

Though I do give Count Jackula massive props for slamming Dan Olson after he attacked James Rolfe when he announced his refusal watch/review Ghostbusters 2016. He called Dan a lying, hypocritical, sanctimonious, pseudo-intellectual asshat who uses fancy words he doesn't understand. Unfortunately, I couldn't tell you if the rest of his content is good or bad, because I'm not even tangentially interested in horror. Here is the video in all its glory, bookmarked at the Dan Olson bit (3:38)



I find Blockbuster Buster more tolerable when he's just being eRod, talking about shows he likes, actors he likes, discussing trivia and stuff that as a non-latino Canadian, I would never hear about, instead of being a wannabe Linkara. I admit his Twilight reviews entered into guilty pleasure territory for me.
I also found Alison Pregler to be fairly boring, but I absolutely loved her Charmed reviews.

 

I don't know how I forgot about The Dom, his "Lost in Adaptation" series is probably one of the more (if not the most) original review shows featured on the site. There's probably not much he could do with the formula of the reviews (though he's done slight tweaks here and there depending on what he's looking at), but he's very pleasant to listen to, and he goes into a lot of detail that's more interesting than dull.

 

A Russian Voudoun man reviewing shit? I'll give it a few bites and see how it tastes.

 

I am not sure if it was because she was unceremoniously fired from TGWTG and having a breakdown, but after this, it's like she decided to stop being funny, drop the "Obscurus Lupa" monicker, give her show the boring generic name "Movie Nights", try to give it a 80s video club aesthetic (only good part), and then just talk like an uninspired normy about a movie, without much to say, not bothering with jokes anymore...
So, when she decided to cohost it with her boyfriend Phelous, you could tell she needed help... and when cohosting it with Phelous and Brad Jones, it's obvious she doesn't give a third of the energy.

Also agree with Erod. He should be more himself instead of forcing himself into a "hilarious" persona. (I remember when The Busy Street criticized many TGWTG rejects about how they were acting instead of being themselves...)

 

Also, dude looks like the Penguin, has a really grating voice and I think he's one of the guys who turned on Rolfe for not wanting to see the Ghostbusters reboot.

 

Something very ironic happened as of late...

Remember Iron Liz? Linkara's ex-girlfriend?

Remember Asalieri? The "reviewer of reviewers" who has long been considered an enemy of TGWTG?

Asalieri who has been accused several times of being "transphobic" when he made a parody of Iron Liz?


Well, Iron Liz is now cool with Asalieri:


It kinda helps that Iron Liz has now become a bit more of an anti-SJW:

 

I remember watching Nostalgia Critic when I was in grade 10-12, back when he focused more on reviewing his content as opposed to skits. It was aroundgrade 12 though that I outgrew NC and to this day still watch Retsuprae instead.

 

Nostalgia Critic is somewhat of a guilty pleasure for me, and I am not entirely sure why I still watch it even though there are a lot of other reviewers whose content I enjoy a lot more, such as RLM, RebelTaxi, and heck, even James Rolfe.

Also, I feel like these are obligatory for Channel Awesome discussion.

Spoiler: Juicy Linkara Walls of Text