Moth Mues
Host of Riffcoms and Riff Break, centered around riffing and reacting to sitcoms (or miscellaneous television media)and commercial compilations, respectively. Previous series focused around wrestling and/or music videos include RAW Reactions, WWF Magazine Cover to Cover, First Impressions, and Rope Break. In 2014, they started the "Goin' Off" music-related podcast with The Rap Critic.
Their YouTube channels can be viewed here
They are also a former member of RVT, previously Xtreme Network Online.
This user provides examples of:
- Accentuate the Negative. They do this to such an extreme degree that in one of their own videos, "Top 10 Best Pop Singles of 2010", they didn't say a single positive thing about the song they chose for #2.
- Some choice excerpts from said video: "She sounds like a train wreck", "the song is pretty basic and stupid", and "can't tell jokes, she's boring, moody, and can't do anything right".
- Accidental Innuendo: Mues asks Diamanda Hagan in the "Raise Up" review to take her shirt off (for the signature move of the song), which naturally doesn't go over well.
- Acting for Two: Sometimes the character "Marco", Mues in a Luchador mask, appears.
- Alliterative Name: Moth Mues.
- Appeal to Obscurity: In the Soulja Boy: The Movie crossover with Rap Critic: Soulja Boy boasts about the number of his fans on MySpace. Mues remarks that Tila Tequila had even more fans. Then:Rap Critic: Who?Mues: Exactly.
- Author Tract: Mues hates them, saying they insult the intelligence of the audience and use dishonest, manipulative tactics, like the "Why Must We Eat the Animals" song, which tries to promote veganism by showing us cute little animals in the video.
- The Cameo:
- Bhargav, Demoversi, Todd in the Shadows, Il Neige, and Diamanda Hagan all have cameos in their first crossover with The Rap Critic.
- Apollo Z. Hack has a cameo in the "J.R. Rotem SUCKS (and here’s why)" video. He gets defensive after Mues calls Rotem a "hack".
- To demonstrate how easy it is to rhyme Mues' name, RapCritic, Todd in the Shadows, Demoversi, Cin Wicked, Doc Pepper, Maffew, JewWario and Phil Buni all offer rhymes in the Worst 6 Pop Songs of 2011 video.
- Blatant Lies: Calls out G. Craig Lewis for this several times.
- Bowdlerise: Riffcoms was originally "Shitcoms" before having to make the channel advertiser friendly was a concern.
- Canine Companion: Mues' dog Noodles sometimes joins in.
- Cargo Ship: In their review of Take Care by Drake, they insult their car quite extensively before apologizing profusely to it as if it were their girlfriend.
- Caustic Critic. In their early reviews every song would be reviewed as jaw-droppingly awful and songs were never given even a cursory compliment. They've softened their approach recently, but are still one of the more caustic critics out there.
- Crossover: With The Rap Critic for "Raise Up" and Soulja Boy: The Movie.
- Deadpan Snarker: Oh so much.
- End of an Era: Mues' established style for a very long time was their mostly unscripted, on-the-fly rants that were more generalized around a specific artist and their recent music. Around mid-late 2010 they retired the 'SUCKS (and here's why)' format and moved onto more structured reviews of entire albums and although still snarky, has toned down the anger a bit. YMMV on whether this change was for the better.
- Even more, so the eventual rebranding of his channel. They kept doing Mues Reviews up through the mid 2010s until the views dried up, and it wasn't worth the effort. These days, they almost exclusively do Riffcoms (which is what they renamed the channel to) and their podcast with Rap Critic.
- Epic Fail: On "Somebody That I Used To Know": "I can't hear [Gotye] over the acoustic guitar!"
- Epic Rocking: Mues is not a fan, given their patience is already exhausted with songs that last 5 minutes. The sole exception seems to be their praise for Metallica's eighties albums.
- Follow the Leader. They're often accused of being a more negative clone of Todd in the Shadows due to having the same subject matter (pop songs) and similar presentations, even though
Mues started a year and half before Todd did. - Hypocritical Humor: After Drake references his "Acura Days", Mues plays clips of several artists bashing their previous vehicles and criticizes them for doing so. Mues immediately insults their own vehicle, eviscerating it, which is made even more hypocritical as Drake didn't actually say anything negative about the car. Mues apologizes to the vehicle afterwards (see Cargo Ship).
- Although not intentional, they bash Eminem and Royce Da 5'9's album Hell: The Sequel for them advertising themselves as Bad and Evil saying they really aren't. The humor comes when you realize that Mues advertises themselves as a nerd and an asshole.
- In the same review, they talk about Royce's talent yet bashes Eminem, saying that fast rapping doesn't equal good rapping. Once again, the humor comes when you realize that Royce raps faster than Eminem throughout the album.
- Keep Circulating the Tapes: Almost all of the old, 'classic' Mues rants are extremely hard to find and possibly lost to time altogether. They deleted quite a few of them on their own due to their dissatisfaction with them in retrospect, but a good number of them were also forcibly removed, since the music was reviewing was copyrighted. Same deal for their other early series like Cover To Cover (where they'd read old wrestling magazines) and Living With Geddy Lee. A few survived on Blip... until that site went down for good, anyways.
- Lesser of Two Evils: Invoked in the eponymous video series where two horrible musicians are compared to each other.
- Misattributed Song: In the Billboard Top 10 April 2012 review, they mistook Wiz Khalifa's verse on "Payphone" for B.o.B..
- Old Shame: The original rant videos that put them on the map, very much so. They've mentioned multiple times how they were adamant on removing them because they hated who they were during that era. This would also include a change in overall tone, shifting away from "angry ranter" to more light hearted riffing and reacting content with a more sensitive approach to language. Old episodes of Goin Off included the reading of the "n-word" while quoting lyrics, but was addressed in 2017 and has not been a problem since.
- Real Song Theme Tune: "A Working Day" by Ben Folds and Nick Hornby from their collaborative album Lonely Avenue
- Rant Comedy: Their hatred for bad music often leads to comedic screams.
- Shout-Out: Their review of "Mistletoe" by Justin Bieber in part resembles the news segments in Starship Troopers.
- Silly Love Songs: Mues doesn't like them. At all. In their "Top 10 WORST Beatles Songs" video, most entries fit firmly within this genre (and written by Trope Namer Paul McCartney, of course).
- Smark
- Take That!: They made videos directed against Moral Guardians who preach against the old and The New Rock & Roll. They're especially angered by the distortion of facts these people frequently employ.
- They also delivered a rant against the constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage in their home state of North Carolina.
- The Stinger: Many of their episodes have a short segment after the credits where they film their dog, Noodles.
- Top Ten List: Has been known for some of these, including Top Ten Beatles Songs and Top Ten Pop Songs of 2010.
- Video Review Show
- What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Their Top 10 Inappropriate Kidz Bop Songs is about songs which for various reasons really shouldn't be covered by kids, like Britney Spears' "Toxic" which uses the love as drug metaphor.
- What Measure Is a Non-Cute?: Mues points out in the "Why Must We Eat the Animals" review that many insects die in the process of farming vegetables, but that doesn't apparently bother the makers of the song, as they show only cute animals in the video.
