Note that this doesn't excuse him, but he has got Bipolar II Disorder and is getting help for it. He seems to be calm on the good days and a raging douche on the bad ones.
I cut up one dozen new men and you will die somewhat, again and again.
It might help your overall view of him if you stop projecting your inaccurate opinion onto him. The criticism comment strikes me as a little uninformed as from my experience if you don't act like a dick with that sort of stuff he won't turn into one. As it was mentioned before he has had several deep-seated personal issues that he has had to deal with in the present and recent past. Honestly I think his post-CA videos are just as good except for a few Counter Monkeys.
I'm not "project [my] inaccurate opinion onto him," I'm stating my personal opinion of his work. There's no objective measure of how good something is. And besides: you can't have an "inaccurate opinion." It's an opinion, not a statement of fact, and you can't really "project" an opinion.
And about the "criticism comment:" look at his Twitter. It's seriously nothing but him bashing things left and right (which is alright, although he still goes too far at times) and talking about how he's "bullet-proof" and too good for Channel Awesome, etc., etc. While it's true that his forums and comment sections can get ridiculously stupid, leading him to react with understandable anger, he can be pretty hard on people for pretty dumb reasons (like being a fan of something he doesn't like).
I understand that he has some serious personal issues going on; there's nothing wrong with him for being bipolar, having a heart problem, and ending a long-term relationship. These are all things I would never criticize him for. My issue is that he sometimes projects his problems onto others, and I don't think that's cool, especially for someone who's as visible as Spoony.
And please keep in mind that I'm a fan: as of this moment, I'm watching his review of a video game version of The Ring, and it's hilarious. When I say that Spoony will probably burn out, I don't mean that in a good way — I want him to keep making videos, because I love his work and he's very entertaining. But the way he's going right now, I don't know if he can keep it up for much longer. And when I say that maybe he should stop making videos, it's because I think he should take some time off and take himself away from the things that stress him out so much (which are often related to his website/internet presence).
Sorry, that should have said, "projecting [my]..." not, "project [my]."
I agree wholeheartedly with this review.
Fair enough point and I will admit the first sentence of my comment is rather dumb. However even though you elaborated upon your criticism comment I still take some issue with it as it brought to mind this post: http://spoonyexperiment.com/2009/02/19/fanboys-are-mine-to-toy-with-old-man/
. With regards his other comments well... I'll wait until he has fully worked through his issues until I choose to pass judgement but I tend to get the impression from some of his comments that he isn't entirely serious when he makes those comments. You make a fair point in your fourth paragraph and I feel that now that he is slowing down a bit and working through his issues things will work out. Honestly I feel that these points you have made could of been elaborated upon more in the original review but such is life. Sorry that I over reacted in my original posting the usual butthurt reviews tend to irritate and I tend to jump to conclusions.
You can totally have an inaccurate opinion. Forming an opinion without knowing all of the facts or basing it on a general assumption for example.
Also how often do you even look at his twitter? I look at it with some regularity I would hardly call it "nothing but him bashing things left and right".
I get what the reviewer was going for in the title, but no-one should burn out or deserve to do so
Honestly, the only time I found Spoony funny was in his Nostalgia Critic crossover with Linkara for Alone In The Dark.
Other than that, I cannot find this guy funny. He's rude, insulting and even told people to go out and find people who liked Final Fantasy X and kill them? I don't care if he says "Oh, that was a joke and my Spoony persona is not my real persona" that is not something you say, even as a joke. I say inappropriate things as jokes, but even I know where to stop.
And some of his other videos, like the other Final Fantasy ones, complain about things that are not the way they are in the game or complains about things that are, ultimately, his own fault.
I don't think Spoony should have a burn out. I just think he needs to step away from creating videos and take some time off, relax and chill and all that. (And as someone else said above, yes, he is bipolar and has heart issues, that doesn't excuse his behavior)
He's gotten pretty bad, yeah.
His White Ghost video was the nadir for me. That overlong fight with a photo of Frank Stallone, not the guy himself but a bloody photo of Frank Stallone was just plain stupid and not funny in the least, and went on for too long. It was like the Giant chicken fights on Family Guy.
I'm quite confident in my shitposting you know
When was the last time Spoony even did an actual review? Hell, he hasn't done a movie Vlog since Avengers: Age of Ultron, and it was nearly a year between that Vlog and the previous one. The only content he posts now is Live Wire (game streams) and Counter Monkeys. He was doing Wrestle!Wrestle! for Pay-Per-Views, but he hasn't done one of those in months, either.
What bothers me the most about Spoony is how he disabled all comments on his videos since 2014, both on his site and YouTube. This means there's no real way to comment on whatever Spoony says, even if what he says is factually incorrect. It comes across as both arrogant and being way too thin-skinned for a job like internet videos.
He turned them off at the same time as a lot of high-profile youtubers turned off their comment sections, some of whom are famously thick-skinned. There are a lot of good reasons for doing it, even aside from the effect they have on the creator.
-which totally shouldn't be discounted by the way. A lot of creators talk about how hard it is to block out some of the worst negative troll comments and how it can really affect even a stable state of mind. Spoony is completely upfront that his state of mind often isn't great. Why should he be forced to damage his health?
Of course there's a lot of value in good feedback and shutting yourself off completely is super dangerous. But the key word is good feedback - and also about how much crud and bile you damage yourself with in getting it. And to be honest, youtube comments are crud at it. I wouldn't want my creators to try and do half the insane rubbish that commenters suggest.
In other mediums its the norm to try and keep yourself on an even keel by avoiding too much exposure to the brunt of the public. Actors, website columnists, musicians, writers - they're all often advised to stay away from reading comments about themselves or even pay someone to read the feedback for them.
As always, it's a lot easier to tell someone to suck it up when you don't have to do any sucking yourself.
Spoony is immature and doesn't take anything seriously and he's burned a lot of bridges over the years because of it. He's just been lucky to have his small yet supportive fan base. Why people continue to follow him long after he stopped being "A fun internet personality" into basically a "complete jerk" I don't know. He hasn't made a note worthy video in the past 5 years.
I always thought he should of continued searching for a regular job like he had been back in his hayday. Unless you're able to make a "marketable" brand out of your name and get real sponsorships like Angry Joe did and AVGN has where they have millions of people following them and they can make a career out of what they do than it's not really sustainable.
Spoony doesn't have a large enough fan base to be a full time critic and blow his website off like he does and his fanbase off like he does. I know the guy has issues but his "Bi Polar" disorder isn't an excuse for his behavior and the things he says and does that he can control. For example, If you can't control your temper why are you needlessly using a public venue "twitter" all the time? Where you're more than likely to blow up at someone over nothing? Like he has many many many times.
Then again if you're "busy" as he claims he's been for the past 5 years... why is there never anything to show for all this supposedly "work" he's been working on? If you're depressed and sleeping all day... why are you always up to date on the latest games and movies and tweeting about things you watched or brought?
That's the thing about Spoony he contradicts himself. He's always busy doing everything else but working on his website. It didn't matter as much before he started taking peoples money but now that he does it's twice as wrong to defraud them that way.
He uses "Bi Polar" as an excuse in a way that that mental disease wouldn't even effect him. He uses being "bi polar" as an excuse for the fact that he just has a high opinion of himself and a bad personality to begin with.
the bottom line is that Spoony needs to get his life together and stop taking peoples money and pretending he's still interested in being an internet personality... because he's not and his body of work and lack of work ethics shows it.
BTW you'd be surprised how many hardworking well known people are Bi Polar. It's not an excuse.
"If you're depressed and sleeping all day... why are you always up to date on the latest games and movies and tweeting about things you watched or brought?"
That's quite a normal possibility if you're depressed. One of the things it can do is mess with your motivation to do things and it can end up trapping you in a place where you're just trying to dull your mind with lots of media whilst not ever doing other activities and things that can help keep your mind healthy.
You do make a good point about a lot of really famous celebrities being bi-polar, and whilst it was obviously a huge difficult in their lives (and even lead to the end of their lives) it hasn't stopped them from achieving things at the absolute height of their professions. I don't think it was the best to put "bi-polar" in quotation marks like that though, I was being quite unfairly judgy about it and your opinion on bi-polarism because I was misreading what you meant by doing that. It was only at the end when I realised I'd got you all wrong on that.
It's worth noting that Stephen Fry, who famously has bi-polar, has had to quit a lot of social media including at times his twitter, despite being a very famous tweeter, because he was finding it damaging to his health.
@Tomwithnonumbers: I have my own share of mental issues (not as severe as Spoony, from what I understand, but enough that it can really cut into my productivity for online or real-life stuff) and I would not choose to block all comments. It feels very cowardly to do, like plugging your ears and going "Lalalalalala!" over everything. It prevents people from even complimenting the work, or pointing out (even politely) that a certain fact is wrong in his video (It was never YUNA who sang in X-2!), removing the posibility of improving oneself. Course, since I do not get dozens of comments a day, I tend to not have to deal with people being asses a lot - though I have had one comment who snapped at me, but left a second comment later, apologizing and saying that their complaint turned out to be unnecessary as I did talk about what was going on in the game.
I do not think it has anything to do with being 'thin-skinned'. As even this page says, everyone has a certain amount of skin to go through, but it requires healing for some time, before one can take things up again.
@TheRemoteWarrior: Angry Joe certainly still has his moments, but I personally unsubscribed recently. Part of his complaints was stupid (Yes, you are making reviews, but you are also making money off of them, which is not under Fair Use) and his range of reviews is horrible (He complains that videogames-based-on-movies are horrible? Of course they are horrible! They are based on movies and must, hence, restrict themselves to following the movie plot, which doesn't work for a different medium like videogames!) and I honestly found his XIII review to be the worst. If he didn't like it, fine, but he didn't need to condemn the entire Final Fantasy series for it, which he never even touched or cared about beyond what little he played of XIII, and claim that it sucks. I doubt he even got very far. Biased review or not, you cannot say the entire game is shit, if you only played a part of it.
"It feels very cowardly to do, like plugging your ears and going "Lalalalalala!" over everything."
You made your response very politely and I appreciate the thoroughness and reasoning of it, but I sincerely don't think this is at all fair. And since I know for a fact that it's a pretty standard policy for a lot of actors, writers, reviewers etc not to read comments, I'm not just talking about Spoony when I say this and I'm not talking about mental health issues either, since I firmly believe that avoiding reading comments about your work on the internet can be an important strategy for anyone of a disposition that can be hurt by exposure to the toxicity that some commenters display.
Comments, internet comments in particular, are not a fair forum. If I go up to someone in real life and tell them that they're
"lazy as fuck and don't want to do anything else other than occasional livestreams despite takin cash from his fans on a monthly basis." (comment chosen from the first Spoony One reddit post I clicked on)
then they have a chance to make their case or lash out at me in return. People who know will see what I did and their impressions of me could be damaged by it. Worst comes to worst the person could punch me :p
Internet comments are not like that. If someone wants to throw bile, it's consequence free. And if someone tries to respond, it always ends terribly. Look how much trouble Total Biscuit gets himself into by arguing back with forum commenters.
I don't think its immature or sticking your fingers in your ears to realise that this can be a bad medium for a conversation and it's not a good idea to engage with it.
And look I know you need feedback. The comment I chose - there's something of a point there - (although seriously, if you aren't happy with the content someone is producing who support on Pateron stop supporting them on patreon then), but that's why you should seek out areas for feedback which are fairer, where you know all the comments will be rational and you don't have to throw yourself to the trolls because people feel like you have an obligation to do that. There are professional reviews, well-moderated forums etc. These are places where you can learn the things you're doing wrong and grow as a producer and because they're well designed and the feedback system is not entirely one-way, you actually get useful feedback that won't ever be needlessly spiteful
(Incidentally, you might notice my position changed a little bit in my latest comment and that's because, thinking about all the things that have been said in this comment section, people do need to seek out feedback and I was wrong to consider otherwise. But I still maintain that you should seek it out from healthy, balanced sources where the balance of power isn't all in the hands of the anonymous commenters)
As you say, if someone is not happy how the content has changed (or is not as frequent as hoped) to the point that they think their money is being wasted, why are they still putting money into it?
And no sane (or insane) person would take an obvious, toxic-filled comment seriously. Sure, you have the trolls and asses on the internet, but you just ignore them because screw them. The ones who, even on You Tube, are rational enough to give you decent comments are the ones you listen to.
Whilst obviously no-one would take it as feedback for their show, my experience and understanding is that lots of people can't just ignore them like you can. It depends on the sort of person you are.
Rationally knowing the comment is stupid and worthless doesn't help, because brains and emotions aren't rational.
Brain is, it's the emotions and 'heart', if you will, that isn't. But even so, you might get angry at a stupid comment, but after a few days at the latest, you probably have better comments or otherwise managed to let go of it and concentrate on other things.
The brain's not rational, its just not. There's a mountain of research on it. That's why you get stupid stuff like Ayn Rand saying Objectivism is 'objectively true' - because she thought her thought processes were rational but actually they were a big pile of beliefs and logical contradictions like the rest of us. Most people arrive at conclusions and then their brain tries to justify the conclusion they came to.
Also I don't think you can speak so generally about how you expect other people to take bad comments. I've read people talk about how negatives comments were affecting them way more than it should have and how it was taking up too much of their life.
Even if it did last only a few days, people get these comments all the time. They'd read one, take a few days to shake it off and by then they'd have read 5 more.
Some people can shake it off easily, some people can't. People who can't should realise they're that kind of person and mitigate the problem.
This review sums up pretty much all of my issues with Spoony and words it better than I ever could, so thank you for that.
The worst foe lies within the self. Living on without hope is worse than death, don’t you think?
I didn\'t know there were bots on This Very Wiki...
Somebody once told me the world was macaroni, I took a bite out of a tree
Apparently they are. One of them just bumped up an old-ass review of Of Mice and Men
Fanfiction I hate.
Never mind, problem was fixed. : )
The ink flows into a dark puddle, just move your hand- write the way into his heart
Why is THIS review in particular a favorite of spammers?
Fanfiction I hate.
@Pannic: Because it gets a lot of traffic and the spammers want more people to see their wares.
The wheels definitely fell off the Spoony train.
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Will Spoony Burn Out? Probably. Should He? Maybe.
I'm in a weird place when it comes to Spoony. On the one hand, he's made some very entertaining, very funny videos; on the other, he's self-righteous, insulting, and cannot take criticism. Like one of the other reviewers on this page, Spoony is one of the reasons I'm not a big fan of the "angry nerd"-style of humor: he goes so... above and beyond with his persona that his ranting and raving about video games, movies, and the like go from being understandable/entertaining to just pathetic.
I wouldn't be as bothered by Spoony's seeming annoyance with everything around him if he wasn't so self-righteous about it. It seems as though, in Spoony's mind, he is a beacon of light in a world of shitty media; he fails to understand that he is not some kind of badass nerd messiah, he is just a guy with strong opinions. Reading the man's Twitter feed is painful. He insults the fans of things he does not like, something I think no reviewer should do, as if their very existence is offensive to him. If he receives any criticism, he immediately goes into his "I'm the badass savior of the nerds" mode and becomes a gibbering manchild, raging against the morons and bullies who dare to disagree with his shenanigans.
In addition to his attitude problems, Spoony seems like he's on the verge of just burning out. He doesn't produce material as much anymore, even his Vlogs; he's left Channel Awesome, which was not necessarily a career-ending move but did lose him fans. I used to visit Spoony's site daily just to see if he posted new material, but by this point I only visit once a week or so because I know he probably hasn't posted anything. In my opinion, the new, non-Vlog videos he's posted are of lower quality than his previous videos, as well.
I honestly think that Spoony will stop being an "internet celebrity" within the next year or two. He might fizzle out, never to be seen again; he might take a long break to collect his thoughts and reflect on his jerkass qualities. I really don't think that would be a bad thing — at this point, it would be more of a mercy kill than anything else.