Reviews WebVideo / The Nostalgia Critic

Eh, I was pretty young and his comedy style amused me, even if I now don\'t find his work funny. It was a different time- less good content creators to choose from, and he was entertaining by comparison.

I like the character stuff mostly. Hyper is relatable (Stalker with a Crush trying to move on and be better) and all the relationships tend to be sweet.

The general view is he is someone you grow out of. He was big in the pre-youtube days amongst teenagers, back when comedic reviews were a fresh idea. But when you look back on them now, you realise how weak the shtick actually was.

I also have little patience for people who make videos of their opinions that are much more than 20 minutes long. Having people give their time to listen to your opinion is a privilege, and as such, it behooves you to express your opinion concisely.

I do think part of the problem is his stuff got longer and longer, and that as he tried to do more and more skits that soaked up runtime, the product suffered.

Another part is that a lot of his peers have commented that there's only so far you can go with the Caustic Critic watching clips of the movie/show and insulting it schtick before you start to feel creatively unfulfilled and want to try to do something different, deeper, more analytical. I hold up Bennett The Sage as an example of someone who managed to do so fairly well with his Anime Abandon program, even when I often sharply disagree with his tastes and analyses.

Unfortunately, Doug's attempts to do so have instead revealed that he often has a rather shallow and limited understanding of the things he critiques, and that he tends to get a bit of a martyr complex when he doesn't like something popular. And the skits haven't helped.

I won't pretend I didn't like some of his earlier material, like the Conan films, but I admit much of it has aged poorly and his newer material just got less and less for me as time went by. There was never a time I drew a line in the sand and walked away or anything; I never even found out about some of the messed-up stuff until other creators' TV Tropes pages started reporting on the Change the Channel thing. I just got less and less interested in each new video until I realized I hadn't watched one for months, watched the first few minutes of his new It video, and then shrugged and closed the window when it wasn't for me either.

I do dispute Valiona's claim, though, that longer film reviews are always self-indulgent. I am rather fond of the work of SF Debris, whose film videos skew longer because he is willing to dig very deeply into the fabric of the film, the ideas of the filmmakers, and even into why what works works or doesn't work. It is his ability to tap into a deeper, richer vein of criticism and idea that makes his opinions worth my time, and Doug's seeming inability, or at least, his self-indulgent preference for farting around with weird, unfunny skits instead of doing so, that turns away my interest in the here and now.

I agree, I actually like longer videos because a lot of those videos tend to be filled with more informative content and analysis, which I appreciate. (It\'s why I like Phelan so much now, and creators like Night Mind.)

The problem is that not exactly the length I find abhorrent: it's the lack of any interesting, insightful or funny content that pads the runtime out that I think takes the absolute piss IMO. I mean there's a justification for informative reviews since the long length actually matters. I can't say the same for comedic reviews because comedy skits live and die by their brevity and rapid fire pacing, which are two things NC lacks in his current output.

Then simply, you aren\'t part of his demography. Simply because you don\'t like something doesn\'t mean is bad. Haven\'t you ever heard that opinions are subjective?.

I simply like him because his sense of humor tends to align with mine, nothing more nothing less. I also tend to separate the art from the artist, so I don\'t care at all about the \"change the channel\" controversy. I never understood why I should care what every content creator I interact with via their products does in their personal lives. Meanwhile I like the product they produce, I wont have any other issue.

It\'s true that long opinion videos aren\'t always self-indulgent; there are times when they can do deeper and more comprehensive analysis than short ones. That being said, it can be a difficult sell to ask me to sit for more than half an hour and listen to a video that isn\'t necessarily well-made, particularly if it\'s an opinion I disagree with.

Part of the problem I have with long video essays is the medium. While reading long text-based essays may not be everyone\'s cup of tea, I can read more quickly than I listen to someone reading slowly enough to be understood. It\'s also easier to skim an article or take a peek to see if it\'s worth reading more in depth, as well as to find certain passages. Another part is that video creators don\'t always use the medium to its fullest extent, since some may simply deliver their message over still images or B-roll. In cases like those, I find myself asking myself, \"What couldn\'t have been conveyed if the video creator had simply published a transcript of the video?\" and find that often, the answer is \"Not much.\"

Speaking of questions, my point is that the video makers should ask themselves, \"Does the video need to be this long?\" The video makers, as well as some commenters in this review, will probably say, \"Yes, it does,\" and I can\'t fault them for that, but it\'s something anyone who expresses their opinion and asks people to listen to it should consider.

His style runs on charm. If you do not find his angry man-child act endearing to some degree, his videos will be unbearable. I think he has generally improved over time, but has also run out of easy material to mock; not entirely a bad thing, as mixed reviews can be more interesting, but it means that while I find his early videos consistent but often grating, his recent ones are hit-or-miss. (And this is leaving aside the controversy.) I loved the Mad Max and X-men reviews, while others I find unwatchable.

When it comes to analysis, he is not a patch on Lindsay Ellis. However this relates to the length of his videos, as Valiona refers to: he doesn\'t do video essays, his manner of delivery is crucial to his schtick. While I treat Lindsay Ellis and other in-depth stuff as podcasts or audiobooks (listening to them while doing something menial), NC videos I need to watch to enjoy. There was a time when he let skits drag on far too long, though, and I\'m glad he keeps them short now.

But to address the starting review: I think he was always a bit overrated. He was at the forefront of a trend that he has struggled to keep up with.

His \"reviews\" are abysmal and his skits aren\'t funny.

As to why this website once seemed to spend most of its time firmly situated in Doug Walker\'s ass?

My guess is that TGWTG was THE geeky analysis destination once upon a time, so early and popular that it was one of the first places on the internet to offer media analysis in an amusing, relatable and engaging way to a lot of people. In a way, it could have been Babby\'s First Media Analysis for a lot of people - and it resonated with the crowd of people who built TV Tropes because of that. Hence, the overlap of terminology.

I couldn\'t tell you if that\'s true or not, I was a late-comer to You Tube and TV Tropes was the be-all end-all of my media analysis needs for years (I had to learn most of the TGWTG terminology like Big-Lipped Alligator Moment completely independently of the source material). And even considering how the roots of TGWTG are entwined so deeply with TV Tropes\' DNA, even today, I never really liked the Channel Awesome stuff I saw when I wasn\'t working through dial-up. But given the timeframe and TGWTG\'s popularity, I think that might be the case.

I think maninahat made a compelling point in saying that the Nostalgia Critic was something to be grown out of. Given that my speculation about TGWTG is accurate - which it might not be - it\'s kind of fitting that analytical content grew beyond the scope of Doug\'s Caustic Critic piss takes and began to be taken more seriously, making points in earnest and arguing genuine critical frameworks as opposed to pointing out animation errors or referring to the absence of extraneous plot details as plot holes. The rise of analytical, critical videos required them to shed the cheap humor of TGWTG, and it thrived from there.

That\'s not to say that analytical content has to be as informative and humorless as possible - Todd in the Shadows is great, and I would say that he embodies the more humor-focused aspects of older media analysis videos compared to someone like Lindsay Ellis who\'s become a bit more serious. But I am saying that the pissy takedowns and Accentuate the Negative attitude that old NC content seemed to embody had to go in order for media analysis on the internet to really come into its own. And now we have Down the Rabbit Hole, Joseph Anderson, Philosophy Tube - the age of video essayists. The Nostalgia Critic was something to be grown out of, and the greater media analysis community grew out of him in time as well.

Again, this is all speculation from someone who completely missed the TGWTG and Channel Awesome bus. I came across Lindsay and Todd later on - like, WAY later on. But that\'s my guess as to why TV Tropes had such a raging hard-on for Doug Walker.

I\'ll say that while his reviews definitely aren\'t as funny as they use to be, he has definitely improved as a critic.

Even though I enjoy NC\'s older videos more for their comedic superiority, his newer reviews and takes are actually very insightful and clear proof that he has matured as a reviewer. I never minded Doug\'s over the top-pessimistic personality towards movies in the earlier days because I knew it was an act. But he did stretch for complaints at times. Modern Nostalgia Critic is more concerned with searching for the good aspects in even bad movies. I think the best critics are ones who acknowledge that a movie isn\'t very good, but can still point out its highpoints. NC is that type of critic now.

He\'s also more aware of viewer bases now. One of my favorite NC moments was from his Lion King 2019 review when he acknowledged that the movie, despite being bad in his eyes, still was a success because the average viewer is looking for entertainment first, and doesn\'t care about being a critic. This resonated so well for me because the online reviewing crowd often likes to call people who watch \"bad\" movies idiots, when really all these people are doing is looking to be entertained. A movie doesn\'t have to be good to be entertaining. I know many online critics acknowledge this, but Doug is the only one I\'ve seen who actually teaches a lesson over this point, with a movie he says is terrible.

He still has takes I disagree with, but I\'m not going to say that he\'s gotten worse down the entire board. In fact, I\'d even go so far as to say the quality of his modern work is underrepresented.

I\'m going to agree with DreamScape. I think his humor\'s degraded (or maybe I\'m just no longer 17 years old), but he clearly puts more passion into criticism. It\'s still underresearched, but he actually makes solid points a lot of the time. He did a good deconstruction of why we dislike Barney more than other toddler show characters, for example.

Personally I watched him for the sketch characters. The original characters are hilarious because he\'s got great actors on his team. The movie parodies aren\'t that great, though they have moments. And I appreciate that he tried to evolve his style instead of sticking with the boring old \"guy yells in front of camera\" shtick. Even people who criticize him for being old-fashioned still make videos like that without venturing into anything new, except maybe updating their memes to 2016 instead of 2011.

Overall, he\'s just...fine. The site\'s historically been weird about him. We don\'t need to switch from simping for Walker to wanting his head on a platter. He\'s an average Caustic Critic.

Admittedly, my issues with his videos have more to do with the controversy shattering my perception of Doug Walker as a person. It\'s impossible for me to separate my feelings on the subject from my feelings about his reviews, so even his older videos are tainted for me. But that doesn\'t mean his content is bad; I just can\'t enjoy it.

Granted, I did find his post-revival stuff less enjoyable than his earlier work. He was the first critic I\'ve ever watched and even if the style didn\'t age well, I started to get tired of the skits and characters and preachier messages, and I stopped watching him primarily for that reason.

His stuff just isn\'t my style. I\'ve gravitated more towards reviewers like Phelan and Linkara as a result.

I think i have simply outgrown him. tried to watch one of his classic videos and i switched off within 2 minutes.

I don\'t see any problem with this review. Thus unflagged it.

If there is still a problem, please post an explanation as a comment - the moderator flag tool does not pass the flag reason on.

Around 2009-2010, no one was doing what Doug Walker was doing. By 2014, there were so many \"angry reviewers\" that the novelty wore off.

At the time, some of the things he reviewed were obscure, some of the jokes he made were fresh.

He just kept working that one trick pony until it got lame, then it died.

It was fun while it lasted.

Just recently saw this conversation.

Perhaps I just have a bit of a higher than normal standard for what constitutes as a proper review, but this one just comes off as weirdly hostile (especially that title which seems to be attacking the fans) without giving enough critical points, which is why I would be in the ballpark of having this review flagged.

While I am a fan, also, I am not without my own qualms too. Generally speaking, I think the one thing that sticks out the most is that Doug likes to re-use the same formula a lot for his reviews, which can be tiresome if you've watched enough of him, and although I personally don't think it's too much of a sticking point I can totally see why others would be fed up with him.

<Moderator headband on>

Cleared out some commentary about fans and people that don\'t belong in a review.