BACKGROUND
The last time I wrote about failing online media company Roosterteeth, it was because one of their new hires (Ky) had tweeted:
She then caused more anger by playing the racism card again when people said that she was too loud in videos.
THE LATEST DRAMA
So what is Ky up to now? Achievement Hunter views are absolutely atrocious for a 3.7 million viewer channel, bearing in mind there are probably a couple of dozen people working full-time in this team:
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One of the few remaining series that old viewers still enjoy is Ya Dead, Ya Dead, in which six Achievement Hunters play Minecraft until only one player remains. In past iterations this would run for about seven episodes at an hour per episode, unedited.
For some reason (maybe in an attempt to get rid of the last remaining old-school fans), Ky appears to be in charge of the new series. She promptly announced that all the episodes would be heavily-edited to fit into a shorter runtime:
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How have the fans responded?
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Some choice comments from the /r/roosterteeth thread:
I think what I miss about old AH were the conversations. The content was a conduit for conversations to happen like how much fun they were having or their general attitudes towards each other. Old AH was like a group of friends making content now its co workers making content and it isnt the same.
Instead of a bunch of friends fricking around in games, it feels like people who took 1 improv class and tried to put on a show.
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AH: makes decisions that drives away long-term viewers, despite the feedback of paying subscribers. Also AH: "why would YouTube do this to us?"
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its frustrating to be a fan from 2013 and just see something i love so so so so much just fall apart
The subreddit has finally completely tipped and is now a place where almost no automod video post gets > 20 upvotes or comments. The only active threads are ones in which people air frustrations. There is no positivity anywhere. The last few RT defenders are slowly getting pushed out.
Anyone wanting more RT drama should look at "I love this Podcast, but 18 minutes of Ads is taling the piss. I dont care how funny they are an ad is an ad and I’m skipping that shit." in which some /r/roosterteeth users try to defend an hour-long podcast having 18 minutes of ads in the middle.
Trevor and his consequences have been a disaster for the RT fanbase.
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I don’t care about any of this, but it’s interesting to see yet another piece of nerd culture completely destroyed. How the frick do they not learn their lesson? Why do they insist on destroying themselves every single time?
I think RedLetterMedia should be the model for nerd-targeted entertainment, which is funny because it’s pretty lazy when you think about it. They avoid serious topics like politics, they don’t feel the need to pander, and most of all, they’ve just been doing the same exact shit for ten years. They’re a bunch of guys hanging out and talking as friends, that’s it, and that’s all people want sometimes.
You don’t need to drag in fresh blood or try and tackle difficult topics. Literally just stop trying and keep doing what’s working.
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The answer to the question is: nerds aren't actually smart.
As for oldies like RLM, completely skirting controversy is an incredible skill. Besides one hiccup AVGN has managed to pull off the same trick
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They failed if you consider when Mike got his dreams destroyed via Twitter beef with Will Schatner.
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The viewers of nerd channels are heavily neurodivergent and any change to the format makes them irrationally angry.
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It’s always foids coming in that signal the end
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RLM removed all their foids early.
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I was watching the first couple of best of the worsts and they had a foid, but apparently the fans scared her off by being creepy
Nerds are the best
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Asocial, wierdo nerd communities are the natural immune response to corpos and unfunny regulars trying to stick their fingers in the cookie jar.
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The secret sauce is cynicism. If you maintain a contempt for the very idea of your channel you have basically immunized yourself against entryists.
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That's precisely how they maintain quality, lol. They stick three guys with mics in front of a camera and film them ripping into the entertainment industry for 30 minutes. They're also genuinely entertaining critics, which means that their source material will never run out.
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I don't even know if quality is there main concern, it feels like having fun takes the front seat most of the time.
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That's another way they maintain quality.
I didn't mean to imply it's some concerted strategy on their part. What I meant to say is that genuinely entertaining content is usually entertaining in and of itself, not necessarily because of a bunch of post-production, polishing, clipping, storyboarding, etc.
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