The Official Unofficial That Guy with the Glasses Thread.

Here you have an entry on Channel Awesome Wikia.

Since the entry is outdated (like most of this Wiki, it seems), it doesn't mention the reason for disbanding the project but from what I've heard, there was not much interest from bar owners and such. Not to mention that there were similiar sites at the time already.

Yeah I was more interested in why it didn't work out, but anything negative related to the site mysteriously disappears...

Ive been moving towards Chez Apocalypse now anyway since I have started to prefer Media Analysis with humour rather than Comedy Review with analysis and a number of Dougs stuff recently hasn't been gripping me. I'll probably just stick around now for only Some Jerk With A Camera and Mike J.

Honestly, a lot of Mike J's stuff doesn't make its way to TGWTG. It's only on his youtube.

Yeah

So why is Mike J a "featured reviewer" on Channel Awesome?

The featured reviewer thing has been utterly squandered. Why do Brad, or Todd, or Linkara need more exposure? Aren't they the biggest contributors to the site?

Well, Brad, Todd, and Linkara are in the "Featured Shows" section in the menus probably because they're the biggest contributors. MikeJ is included alongside them, since I guess CA decided he deserved it. (Notice that the section also includes some of the new talent.)

Mike, however, is also included in the "Featured Producer" section on the right side of the page, meant to spotlight the CA producers. Featured Producers are supposed to be showcased every Tuesday, with a video plug from Doug in the NC post, as well as with a new video from the particular producer placed on the top of the page for a week. And a contest! (This is actually a pretty nitfy idea, since it allows some of the new talent to gain more exposure. I wonder who's going to be the FP tomorrow?)

edited 2nd Feb '15 12:05:52 PM by Motyka5

Have they actually featured anyone new or unknown there, though?

Yup, Yomarz was the first producer featured in that section. Mike is the second one, so now it would be sweet if they chose someone new. (iRawss would be great but I don't think he has a new video ready. Maybe Some Jerk with a Camera?)

Hey, remember Luke Mochrie? Here's what he's up to now: https://jeanepstein.bandcamp.com/album/jandemmes

MUSIC!!! XD

in the new Mortal Kombat Conquest episode review,Phelous is already taking jabs at CA.That was quick... but damn,I laughed a lot when he made a reference to how CA announced his "departure",mispelling his name and all...

Hes been jabbing at them for a while in his vids mostly about to boldly flee

yeah,but we had no idea there was so much crap going on until he said so himself recently after CA announced his "departure".Phelous made an explicit reference to the CA's text as "Shao Kahn would LIKE to announce that Shang SONG has parted way with us".Can't be clearer than that...

Apparently Phelous is just as snarky in real life as he is in his reviews, which is really surprising because anything that isn't scripted he's super soft spoken in. I read an 'interview' with a sound guy who worked on Kickassia and apparently when most people would just turn over for Doug (who was apparently fairly humorless for most of the shoot) Phelous and Brad weren't afraid to crack jokes about him and the production. The dude said it made the shoot a lot more bearable, though Doug didn't seem to appreciate it.

Got a link to the "interview"?

If you're referring to the sort-of interview conducted at 4Chan, then apparently it's not particularly trutful.

edited 5th Feb '15 6:18:14 PM by Motyka5

It is the /tv/ poster Linkara's talking about there. I normally don't cite 4chan stuff since it's all anonymous but a bizarre amount of people cite Phelous as a genuinely funny, down to earth guy. He's not very popular with the anti-TGWTG crowd so it seemed an odd thing for so many people to make up, which added some credence to it in my opinion.

Although considering how much has come to light these last few weeks I'm not exactly trusting of Linkara's word either.

edited 5th Feb '15 6:22:37 PM by OdieFromTheOz

I mean, yeah, I've heard that Phelous is a down-to-earth guy in real life but I'm not sure if the Kickassia stuff from the interview is exactly true.

And hey, why would Linkara lie? (Well, aside from wanting to make himself look better.)

edited 5th Feb '15 6:24:55 PM by Motyka5

It's a pretty embarrassing story (if true) and it's understandable he might want to sweep it under the rug. From the 'interview' (gotta be a better word for it) he just seemed to be awkward, so he might just be covering for his own sake. This is of course, applicable to the 'interviewee' as well, he could just be shitposting for giggles. The fact that he chose phelous though is what makes me think it's a bit more genuine, since few people on /tv/ like Phelous or know about him, so it's not like he's reassuring them of anything.

I can kind of see it, since Phelous strikes me as an off-the-wall kind of guy.

Eh, stop gossiping

While I most certainly agree that Mike Machaud seems to be unpleasant(to say the least!)... I've read some interesting responses about his behaviour AND the behaviour of people that have ended up getting the boot.

This post from the Escapist forum is very long, but pretty interesting: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/18.868831.21764007

NOTE, NOT MY POST, just one I found interesting! I'll cite the parts about Mike(not all, he's mentioned in relation to almost every other person, read the full post for the whole thing!), Doug and Lupa here, but I really suggest reading the post in it's entirety!

"I don't know. There seems to be a lot of people trying to make a big thing out of nothing, and are just taking some things (especially with Lupa) at face value, without really thinking about them. First off, let it be said that yes, Mike Michaud absolutely sounds like he's a douchebag. Unfortunately Mike Michaud is also the CEO of Channel Awesome. (Are we really surprised at a CEO being a douchbag? But I digress.) This means that he is the top guy in the company and the guy making decisions.

"I see a lot of people pointing the finger at Doug Walker here; Doug's official role within the company is: Actor and Presenter. Basically he is the mascot, and the face of the organization. What he is not, however, is the person that's making the rules, or disciplining producers. While I'm sure that he could influence decisions if he wanted since he is by far the biggest draw for the site, it is neither his job nor his obligation to do so. I'd also like to point out how those ex producers now badmouthing him seemed sooo thankful when he did crossover work with them, thus driving up their views for those episodes, and introducing them to a much larger audience that may not have been aware of their work. Apparently the Channel Awesome execs are not the only ones with a "what have you done for me lately" attitude."

SNIP

"Of the three producers that seem to have been lightning-rods for the current situation, I am going to focus on Lupa. I'm not doing this to pick on her, but her situation seems to be the one gaining the most traction with people, and also the one who's thinking is a bit flawed."

SNIP

"Let me be clear, I have no issue with her personally. I was never a big fan, but I was aware of her as the hot/goofy chick that reviewed terrible schlock movies, and that Todd had the hots for (did he ever get that date he was promised?) and that the Nostalgia Chick hated as a result. She seemed to be good at her work and in the crossovers I had seen her in, I found her very entertaining. I just really wasn't interested in the content she was reviewing (I have the same issue with the Cinema Snob, as much as I enjoy him), and as such never became a fan.

Lupa seemed to have the same issues as the others: Mike deserves to die, Rob only crippled; but she has been by far the most outspoken, and had gone into great detail about some of the situations that she had issue with when it comes to management, and I'm going to take a look at her post on Tumblr mainly, as that is where she set out what occured.

She seems to think that these stories show company management the is unreasonable and unduly difficult to deal with, and they well may, but in my opinion they really show that she seemed to think herself special and that the rules shouldn't apply to her if she didn't want them to. Into the breach then.

She starts out by complaining about the anniversary movies, as the producers were not paid for their involvement in them and the proceeds went to the site. Their payment, according to Channel Awesome, was free exposure and a free trip with their friends. So far it sounds good to me, there were lots of producers I had never heard of prior to watching the anniversaries (Phelous being one of them) and quite frankly there are some that I still have no clue who they are, outside of them appearing once a year. While I'm not clear on this next part, I believe what Lupa is saying is that everyone had to sign a contract to do a crossover with another producer, and give the rights to it over to the company to defer the costs of flying everyone to Chicago. I can understand producers not liking this, but I can also see the need for something of this nature for Channel Awesome, as they are a small company, and it probably would have been cost prohibitive otherwise. She also states that producers were given the rights to do commentary on the movies, and keep the proceeds of them as they would any other content they created. In my opinion this makes up for the flight deferral contracts from earlier, as it is much longer content in multiple parts, meaning more ad revenue, and it basically boils down to sitting and watching a movie for a couple of hours occasionally saying what you remembered about the shooting process, how much fun you had with everyone, and continually saying "Oh I live this part!" Understanding that less people are going to watch a commentary vid than a regular episode of your show, but factoring in the multiple parts and thus multiplying the ad revenue, I am willing to call this a was, but I honestly think the producers come out ahead, that's if they choose to go for the easy money.

And what was the punishment for anyone that disagreed? For anyone that would dare buck the system and say "I will not be a pawn!"? They were told, that's fine, you don't have to go do it if you don't want to. And this is presented by Lupa as being unreasonable that Channel Awesome would tell people they can just not do the movies if they don't want the hassle that goes along with it. She then complains that she never got her free copy of To Boldly Flee, and that Mike likes to say that the producers are lucky that the site doesn't take a cut of their revenue. #1 Mike's still a dick. #2 He's also right. At the time when most of these producers joined the site, I don't think a skim of 5-10% of the profit would have prevented many people from joining, since they would still be making much more money being with the company. I know that the internet landscape has changed, and that would be a no go today, but they definitely could have done it in the past.

We then go into the subject of midrolls, which I really think she lost me. For those not aware, midrolls are the advertizements that run when they take a break in the middle of the video. The site policy was one midroll per video. Lupa wanted more money, so she started putting in two. Mike confronts her about this (apparently in a very jerky way), because they have seen a direct correlation between these extra midrolls being added, and an increase in visitors using adblocking software. In other words, while adding the extra midroll was making her more money, it was causing all of the rest of the producers to make less. Despite this she continued doing until they dropped the ultimatum that if she didn't stop she was gone. When Doug had the audacity to suggest that if she wanted to make more money, she should create more videos (and like him or not, the man creates a ton of videos; the NC, Bum Reviews, Disneycember, Shut Up and Talk, Sibling Rivalry, V-logs of various TV shows, the occasional commentary track and whatever else turns the hamster wheels in his mind; pretty sure Malcolm is the one monetizing the behind the scenes videos, so I didn't include), she took this as an insult to her work ethic, because she has already put out a video every Sunday for three years.

I just see so many issues with her actions and attitudes here. But to put it simply, for someone complaining about the site having a "screw the producers" attitude, attitude seems to be "screw the producers that aren't me, because I need more money and don't want to do extra work for it". Imagine yourself working at a fast food place for minimum wage. You go to the boss and say that you can't pay your bills on the 20 hours a week that you're working, so he offers to double your hours to 40 a week to solve the problem. Then you say, naw that sounds too hard, I'll just have you pay me twice for the 20 hours I work. This is the attitude she has and she is so angry that she's not allowed to do it!

This leads to Patreon. Lupa decides to set up a Patreon so that she could receive direct donations from fans. I'm all for this, and if you are a fan of Lupa by all means I would encourage you to donate. However when she asks site management if she can promote it on the site. This still being a new concept at the time she received a response from Rob stating "It took us long enough for our fans to get used to the idea of ads to begin with. Uploading more than the standard two ads per video and then offering a buyout option comes off as too much of a slap in the face to them, and we do not want to risk it." I put this last part in quotes because this is the exact message sent to Lupa from Rob, which along with other conversations Lupa had, was "leaked anonymously"...right. I also put this entire message up in quotes because in the version of the story Lupa posted, Rob told her that adding Patreon to midrolls is "a slap in the face".

Are you beginning to see the problem I'm having with her? She brings up the one time kickstarter campaign they had, but I see a big difference between a site doing a one time kickstarter, and every producer asking visitors for money in every video, because if you let one you've got to let everyone. Over time anyways, as Patreon was shown to be accepted by fans, the site allowed the producers to add a 30 second kicker at the end of their videos, which she still complains about, but I see it as properly reacting to fans being seemingly okay with the system. Further to that, with the fans being alright with the added bumpers, upon moving to the new site, restrictions were relaxed even more, and in addition to the bumpers producers could now include links with their videos and they can produce one video dedicated just to promoting and explaining their Patreons.

Apparently not everyone heard the news right away, but I'm sure when she asked about it, and was told the good news, she must have been very happy that she was getting what she had wanted, right? No. She demanded Mike tell her why it was allowable now, but not when she asked for it, and sent him a copy of the message from Rob, I had quoted earlier. Mike told her these are the new rules, and that there was no reason to pull up a message from almost a year ago when they were still on the fence. She asks him since when was "a slap in the face" being "still on the fence". And again, when she just keeps using the "a slap on the face" snippet from the actual message it doesn't sound right, but yes, when you look at Rob's actual message it is clear they're not sure if this will work and that right now "we do not want to risk it". She then calls him a and the rest of management hypocrites that are always, and demands an apology.

At this time I feel I should point out, that this was not occurring during a private chat, but on a group chat, with the other producers on it. Mike tells her that they can have a private chat later, but she says she wants to continue on the group chat. He tells her that there's nothing else to say on the group chat and she finishes up by saying that like always he's making excuses so that it's not his fault.

20 minutes later, he contacts her asking if she is available for a quick call, and when he asks "when will you?" she just ignores him and leaves. A couple of hours later he try again asking if she can talk now. Still getting no response, he informs her that her videos will no longer be hosted on Channel Awesome.

Now this woman is telling everyone that she was fired because she wasn't at her computer for 15 minutes. But lets really think about this. On a conference chat in front of all her fellow producers, she calls the CEO of the company she essentially works for, a hypocrite that is making excuses to make himself not look wrong, because she is now getting what she wanted.

Now I don't know of too many companies where you can call the CEO a hypocrite in front of all your co-workers and not get fired on the spot, regardless of whether they're a jerk or not. (They are a jerk...all CE Os are). Anyways, at this point in time, she still appeared to be employed. Then the CEO asks her if she has time for a quick chat, I'm assuming here that he is at this point still trying to smooth things over and fix things with her. She simply tells him no. And when he asked when they could talk, she ignored him and left.

Please read this recap slowly and clearly: She called the CEO a hypocrite in front of the whole company and when he asked to talk to her about it afterwards, she says no, and leaves communication. So a couple of hours later he asks again if she can talk. At this point my guess would be that he wanted to afford her the dignity of firing her over the phone instead of over chat. When he is still ignored, he fires her over chat instead.

Whew, I honestly wish Lupa the best, but she was in the wrong, and funnily enough, the conversations she leaked only make that clearer. Again I believe that his Mike guy is a dick, because pretty much every single person that works with him says so. But in these conversations both him and Rob come off as very understanding and professional people while she just seems to constantly attack to try to get her way.

Well, that was way longer than I thought it was going to be, but like a lot of people this situation was bothering me, and I'm glad I had a chance to work it out.

TL;DR: It's all Mike's fault."

I'm inclined to agree on the Lupa part, honestly. Mike seems to be an ***, but Lupa's certainly not the innocent victim here.

edited 10th Feb '15 10:08:21 AM by RWB2

...... do we know she had no idea Mike tried contacting her again for 15 minutes when she was away from her computer? Or did she KNOW Mike tried to, and stayed away from her computer on purpose?