Vitriolic Best Buds / Web Videos

aka: Web Original

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• Pretty much everyone from Achievement Hunter is this, notable examples are Jack and Geoff, and Michael and Gavin.
• Linkara and his Robot Buddy Pollo from Atop the Fourth Wall are friends — but Pollo isn't above asking for embarrassing favors. When Pollo helped save Linkara from Mechkara, who is really Pollo from an alternate universe wearing his Linkara's skin, his favor involves being the host of an episode where he goes on a rant against Garth Ennis. Likewise, when Pollo comes back in the review of the comic adaptation of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (having "died", fittingly, during the review of IDW's adaptation of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan), he wants to review the first issue of Red Hood and the Outlaws with Linkara in Pollo's place. When Linkara points out that (at the time), it didn't fall under his cutoff date, Pollo reveals that he has access to Linkara's bank accounts and thus forces Linkara to comply.
• In Cream Heroes, Claire notes that two of her cats, Lulu and Momo, love spending time together but also often fight. Toto and Dodo also have this dynamic at times. One moment they will be happily grooming each other and snuggling up together, the next they will be pouncing and jumping on each other, sometimes to the point where their mother Nana has to intervene.
• Critical Role:
  • Scanlan has a habit of annoying the hell out of Tiberius, but Episode 16 has them trading their headgear as Tiberius thought it would benefit them both.
  • There's also Grog and Vax, who've been in an escalating prank war since the start of the campaign, but would give their lives for each-other if it came down to it. Grog's response to Vax barely escaping death by vampire is to slap him in the face and say "no-one kills you but me."
  • Beauregard and Mollymauk from campaign 2 hated eachother from the start, Beau seeing Molly as a self-obsessed asshole with a god complex, and Molly seeing Beau as a cynical jerk who didn't know how to have fun. They got into it so often that "Fuck you, Molly!" practically became Beau's catchphrase for a while. Despite this, Beau is absolutely crushed when Molly is murdered by Lorenzo, and takes his philosophy of trying to leave every place better than you found it with her through the rest of the campaign. When Molly is eventually resurrected in the finale, Beau, through tears, immediately flips him off.
• Basically every character Red Hood encounters during the course of Hero House.
• Chuggaaconroy and ProtonJon in The Runaway Guys are consistently trying to kill one another [in game of course] and constantly make jokes at one another's expense, but it's clear that they do genuinely like each other.
• In Dream's life, Dream, George, Sapnap, and BadBoyHalo have known each other for years and are the best of friends. They fight each other a lot during Minecraft Manhunt.
  • A similar dynamic is going on between the members of the Color Crew (a group of Manhunt players who basically codified the concept of "Manhunts with twists"), especially Kierrr and Its_Dev_ who share a YouTube channel, but also tend to spend the entirety of the video defending their position that the other is the most annoying of the entire group (except when they agree that another member is even worse currently, usually due to using a particularly unfair twist).
• Dropout:
  • The Jake & Amir sketches are built on this trope. Amir is usually the one who is annoying (and often stalking) Jake. However, they occasionally switch roles.
  • A later sketch had Grant explain to Katie that the sign of a truly healthy friendship with a gay man is making a jokingly-homophobic remark when set up for it, such as responding to "I went up to Queens" with "Oh, I thought you usually went down on Queens!"
    Katie: God, that's so fucked up. There's no way gay people like that!
    Grant: Oh, we don't. But if the friendship is strong enough, we'll laugh it off. That's why it's such an important step. It's the moment someone goes from being a homophobe to being a true friend!
• The group of Let's Players known as the Freelance Astronauts fall into this territory quite often in their videos — likely aided by the fact that they seem to have more or less grown up around each other, and have had years to get used to each of them treating the others this way.
• French Baguette Intelligence: While several people in the videos frequently insult each other, a disclaimer states that everyone is good friends in real life.
  • Fuck Cares and Bowl constantly insult each other, especially over matters relating to their respective nationalities.
  • The argument in Should Atheists Celebrate Christmas? devolves into people throwing random insults at each other's characters, instead of addressing their arguments.
• Josh Hadley and Scott Murray, hosts of Lost in the Static; on some shows, they seem close to breaking out into a fist fight. There were a few episodes at one point, in fact, where Scott took some time off, mainly to keep that from actually happening. Unfortunately, the best buds part is now over, after Scott got busted for possessing child pornography and Josh cut all ties with him.
• Mark and Cory of the Lets Play Modestly ProphItic jump at any chance they have to insult, berate and screw each other over while recording, but off camera (off mic?) they are extremely close friends.
• Golgotha from Noob acts this way towards everyone she considers allies or friends. Nobody is giving the vitriol back, but only the stupidest characters are oblivious to it while most just understand that this is her way of addressing people and interact with her normally.
• Policeman vs. Fireman on YouTube has the ongoing "friendship" between Butt-Monkey Policeman Perry and chick magnet Fireman Jake as the main subject matter.
• Slowbeef and Diabetus will often tease Jon over something they don't want him to live down simply to piss him off (and it usually works), but in Diabetus' words, "If you've never given your friends shit for anything you must not have many friends."
• In Sanders Sides, the Sides easily qualify (except Patton, who doesn't have a mean bone in his body). They all deeply care for Thomas and consider themselves best friends, but they often get caught up in petty infighting, arguments, and pranks. Between Logan's haughtiness, Roman's self-centered nature, and Virgil's snarkiness, it's a miracle anything gets done.
• Shipwrecked Comedy: "The Case of the Gilded Lily" gives us Fig Wineshine and Ford Phillips. She takes to him right away and wants to be crime-solving partners, which he rejects the entire time, only for The Stinger to reveal that that's exactly what happens.
• All of the Sidemen, considering they have natural knacks for bantering, which is more than visible in their videos together. However, there are moments where they do genuinely get along.
• Ian and Anthony of ''Smosh. They call each other horrible names, smack each other around, and sometimes just flat out kill each other. And yet they're still clearly best friends.
• In The Sonic Amigos, Sonic constantly abuses Tails, but they seem to be good friends regardless.
• Sorted Food: The cast, being British Lads, mostly express their affection through violence, insults and piss-taking, but are also always genuinely supportive of each other's efforts and will often praise what the others have made to the skies. Sometimes competitions turn into collaborations when they see someone is genuinely out of their depth.
• In Soviet Womble's clan, this is the default way anyone interacts with anyone else, but the prize has to go to Womble and Cyanide, whose constant insulting and trolling of each other hasn't stopped them teaming up for lots and lots and lots of videogames.
• If you did not know Star_ by his "Sniper Stomper" video, you may have known him from his famous trilogy (Ruiner of Fun, Jerma is Mad pt 2 and part 3) where he made his his best bud, Jerma985, mad as hell and sending him into the vulgar humorous rage while STAR_ effortlessly outplay him time and time again and it extends beyond those videos. It's still clear that these two are the best buds, seeing that they keep playing with each other.
• The Tipping Forties crew are a circle of jerks but have been friends for a good time. See their Mario Party LP.
• The Switcher's Two Best Friends Play series (viewable here). Only genuinely good friends could hate each other that much.
• More or less the entirety of the Vanoss Crew — in fact, you can get a good register on how close any of the members are by how much they insult and abuse each other.
• The bears of Where the Bears Are are very close friends, though it's sometimes hard to tell given how Nelson and Reggie snipe at each other and how both belittle Wood.
• Ben Croshaw a.k.a. Yahtzee and his one-time bouncer, Gabriel Morton's relationship, or at how they're least depicted in their Let's Plays (or Let's Drown Out due to its podcast style). Gabriel's a recovering alcoholic — a source of much chortling from the oft-soused, self-medicating Yahtzee — who "takes up space" at Yahtzee's bar and doesn't order any drinks, is prone to big pontifical statements, and seemingly dislikes any genre of game that doesn't involve "hit-y" things. Yahtzee has a competitive streak, compelling him to dissect everything Gabriel says and mock his shortcomings, such as his weight and investment in worthless history courses. It's apparently become so vitriolic that, in the beginning of 'Let's Drown Out Sims 3' video, they have to explain that they are best friends with each other and essentially told their viewers to go get friends in order to understand the subtlety of human interaction. Yahtzee also pointed out that if he openly insulted you, it means that he is comfortable enough with you to do so whereas if he's unnaturally polite, it meant he's gotten sick of you.
  "It's because I'm comfortable enough to call you a fat, sweaty bitch that indicates my high esteem for you."
  "Yeah, y'know, and I call you vaguely-autistic shut-in nutbar."
• Lewis Brindley and Simon Lane from the Yogscast, especially in the Minecraft series where they're regularly hitting one another with diamond swords, pushing each other off blocks, and being generally snarky... And the rest of the time they're calling each other pal, helping each other through fear inducing challenges, and making Slash Fic jokes. Woe betide anyone who unites them against a common enemy.
  • InTheLittleWood and So Totally Toby have a similar relationship. The two abuse and snark at one another constantly, with Martyn dishing out most of it, but they're good friends.
  • Speaking of Martyn Littlewood, he has this sort of relationship with both Strippin and Sparkles* as part of the "Dream Team". They all enjoy hanging around together, but Sparkles* spends half his time snarking at the others, while Strippin gets a lot of the flak.
  • Hat Films have this sort of dynamic with one another, constantly abusing one another, killing each other in games for their amusement and snarking at each other. They're all really good friends in spite of this. They also love collaborating with Sips, Turpster and Lewis Brindley, but their competitive matches in Garry's Mod, Trouble in Terrorist Town, Prop Hunt and The Hidden: Source are very profane.
  • Sips gets on well with Sjin, but the former spends most of his time outright abusing the latter. He also gets on well with Hat Films despite their collaborative videos and constant swearing at each other.

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