#like if it's a ned fulmer situation

[fadewalking]

I barely know who Jojo Siwa is, but ive also publicly defended her numerous times for all the "relationship drama" she seems to get cancelled for on twitter and tiktok, and i guess i still stand by that we need to be leaving ourselves out of the romantic affairs of celebrities. But now i also feel like having publicly defended her for anything is a bad look, given her stupid statement on Colleen Ballinger and her victims. And thankfully this situation is nowhere near on the scale of horrific as the Danny Masterson situation, but I can't help but draw some kind of parallel between Ashton & Friends defending Danny in their letters and Jojo defending Colleen. Like... why on earth would anyone make a decision to publicly support someone who has victims... is it money?? Just like being famous and having money??? That's the only thing jojo and Ashton seem to have in common, is that they're both famous and have money. So like when you're rich and famous do you automatically just not have a soul? I'm just floored at what could possibly cause this behavior of supporting people who do awful things. Unlike Ashton & Friends though, I think Jojo could recover from this if she just realized she's in the wrong and apologized. But i dont see her as the type to admit to being in the wrong, which is based off of nothing tbf, it's just a vibe and my own personal opinion. But yeah, horrible look. Not a girl's girl, i hope she grows up real quick and sees this situation for what it is.

[kay-claire]

I had a dream last night that Ned the ex Try Guy made a video where he basically came out as bi by admitting he'd also cheated on his wife with some guy he'd met at a pharmacy, and the video only had 1000 views bc no one cared what he had to say and also just recognized it as an attention grab.

[cherryblossomshadow]

What gets me about the SNL Try Guys video is their ignorance of context.

SNL ... honey ... that video was not for you.

You don't care about the Try Guys, and you don't have to. But that video was made for their fans, for the people who are already invested in them. You don't understand why they're upset about this abuse of power sorry breach of trust sorry "consensual kiss" so instead you made fun of men showing emotions and holding each other accountable. Look, I know there are worse situations, as you so bluntly pointed out. But that doesn't mean the Try Guys shouldn't have taken it seriously. That doesn't mean that there aren't consequences, that there aren't lives overturned (like the woman whom you dismissively called a Food Baby throughout your video)

[monarchisms]

ned has been officially fired from the try guys

[tweet source]

yeah, i just saw on twitter. what i didn't notice until just now is that they also removed him from their bio. this is what is was before:

and this is what it currently looks like:

[5bi5]

This is the only thing I’m going to say about the situation but while we can all agree cheating on your wife is bad, maybe somebody’s relationship doesn’t need to be a whole public discussion where the whole internet weighs in and posts about it… maybe we can just go “hey that was really shitty of him, but I am not involved in this” and then move on with our lives

[morkhan]

I am just. So weirdly tickled by this Watcher situation. Like yes, initially I was very disappointed and upset but honestly now I just think it's funny. I can't remember the last time a creator or group of creators misread the room this hard. Like they really thought they were cooking with this one. They had a countdown to this. They announced their paywalled streaming service with their whole chests and expected rapturous applause. Instead, there has been a non-stop chorus of boos and thrown tomatoes for days now. They would have probably gotten a better reaction if they had posted a video where they sprayed a dog in the eyes with soapy water.

It's all so pleasantly... low-stakes. The consequences are nonexistent. It's not like the Ned Fulmer situation, where a friend group is destroyed, real life relationships are ended, and young children are potentially subjected to the trauma of divorce. Nah, all that's happening here is three idiots will be making a lot less money than they wanted. Maybe they'll learn something, maybe they won't. Either way, they brought it entirely upon themselves, and that makes it okay to laugh at in my books. So I will!

[frogmascquerade]

.

[storybookstr4nge]

i am seeing all of the criticism of watchertv (and agreeing of course - it's entirely tone deaf and un-conducive among other things) but i feel as though the attitude i am seeing from a lot of people online involve absolving shane entirely, saying things like, "shane blink twice if they made you do this!" "shane "eat the rich" would never allow this!" "he was forced into this!" and redirecting all of the blame unto ryan and steven - mostly steven - saying that steven is the "ned fulmer of watcher" (wild thing to say) and delegating the responsibility of this decision entirely onto the two of them, and i cannot help but feel like there is an undeniable racial undertone to this rather vitrolic pivot. i understand being a fan of shane - i myself was a proud shaniac! - but i plead that we be conscious about woobifying an adult man who - though could have very well opposed the decision - was still one of the three ceos who okayed it! nothing is gained from scapegoating the two asian men and relinquishing the white one for the hate that this business venture is garnering. please, by all means, continue to criticize, but if you are, do it tastefully, and be careful with insinuations - especially without knowing the intricacies of the situation (and even if/when we do know something. criticism should never come from veiled bigotry) ! just because the property itself is shifting rather horribly doesn't mean we as watcherinas need to turn our community toxic <33

[cheshirecatqueerio]

I would like to note the cultural reach of the Ned Fulmer situation c a n n o t be understated. During one of my lectures today my entire WGSS class (which is 9 people) knew about the situation- including the prof (granted they are a millennial). Everyone was pitching in, dicussing the most notable Buzzfeed alums they saw crawl out of the woodworks on Twitter, funniest memes they'd seen, etc. Nonetheless diabolical the reach this seemingly niche gaggle of Buzzfeed remnants has. Absolutely off the rails diabolical.

[watcherthrowaway]

also one real post about this and like, plenty of ink has been spilt on how disconnected watcher entertainment seems to be from its fans but i think the missing piece here is how disconnected watcher is from the rest of youtube. when the catastrophe hit i went to all my terminally online friends, the same way i did after the hbomberguy james somerton video, or after the ned fulmer fiasco, or the creepshowart scandal etc, or every time jenny nicholson dropped a new evermore video, including the ones behind the $2 patreon paywall we all gladly pay for, and for the first time...

no one knew who i was talking about.

these are not insulated people. these are people i can trust to have at least name recognition of almost any youtuber i mention. they know downtherabbithole and strangeaeons and cjthex and kappakaiju and miniminuteman773 and kazrowe and somemorenews etc etc etc

so when i put in the group chat, with no context, 'he wasnt even on cribs' or 'we have no cats kathleen' or 'only humble pagan commune schemes' or whatever, i usually do so with great trust that at least half the group will know what im on about.

this time, crickets.

i backpedaled a little and pulled up the 'ive connected them' meme and the fuzzy blue professor, and i got nothing at all. the only recognition i got was when someone belatedly realized that he had seen the goatman video when it dropped (although he had no idea that they had their own company now), and another person remembered that they had offered to collab with danny gonzalez, a youtuber with twice the subscribers

because she had checked back to see if danny went ghost hunting again, and lost interest because he hadnt.

i also brought it up in my dedicated buzzfeed unsolved group chat but ummmmm i am the only one in that group still watching ever since the shift to watcher oops

the only splash they had made in my again, TERMINALLY ONLINE friend group that watches hours and hours of youtube a day was a buzzfeed video seven years ago, and when they had failed to collab with someone more famous than them. i found myself in the unusual position of having to explain the situation to a bunch of dirty internet gremlins, all of whom heard the whole story and said 'why would they do that'

not 'why would they do that to their fans' but 'why would they do that as youtubers'

even aside from the moneygrubbing, we watcher stans were confused about why they tried to offer us a service we didn't need or want, and i think it obscured the confusion on why they thought it was a good idea at all, when so many other models were available to them. why werent they using their patreon like other youtubers? why weren't they collaborating with other youtubers? why weren't they putting out regular, lower quality content like other youtubers? if they wanted higher quality content, why weren't they partnering with nebula, like lindsay ellis, or netflix, like bo burnham. why didn't they run their ideas past someone like the green brothers, who have jumpstarted scishow and many other similar projects successfully, and are famously good to work with/consult with? why would they try to pull a roosterteeth? don't they know what happened?

and i think the answer is no. i think they just don't know those things. and they didnt bother to check, because they think all those things are beneath them. because they think corporate content is the only worthwhile kind there is.

why else would they think they have to have an office building, keep dozens of people on staff, buy expensive cameras, and build a streaming platform? why do they only collaborate with actors and singers who have corporate entertainment approval? why are they reinventing the wheel on buzzfeed when thousands of youtubers build perfectly stable careers with a mic and a camera, and sometimes hire an editor?

i guess my takeaway from this is that, at least they didnt break my heart as a fan entirely because they fundamentally misunderstood me. they did it, at least in part, because they do not understand how youtube works, or what part they play in it.

they dont understand how people use youtube. it is not a cinematic event worthy of the big tv, it is line goes up playing in the background for the 400th time as i wash my face and put my laundry away.

that is why they spent months and months planning this without ever noticing it was a bad idea, while millions of youtube viewers knew instantly. thats why they didn't start with a more moderate solution, why they never used their patreon properly, why they cared so much about the production value, why they thought a youtube audience, any audience at all, would jump at the chance to leave youtube.

bc youtube as a creator sucks, and we all know that, but youtube as a viewer is extremely comfortable. all i ask of youtube is to be mildly interesting in the background while i do other stuff. it is filler. some of the filler is extremely good, yes, but there is no room or reason in my life to give more of my money and attention to my filler, let alone to get a bigger screen for it.

and honestly, this is why i and others stayed on with the ghoul boys even though their quality dropped. because it's filler. im not even looking at the screen you apparently spent 100k on. im flipping my eggs. im washing my hair. im waiting for the bus with my headphones in and my phone in my pocket. thank you for being my background music. in return i will sit through your ads and push your view counter up by one. i may even hit the like button by accident bc my phone is in my pocket.

this is not to say i dont enjoy my filler. i would absolutely die without it. but it is not and never will be exchanged for the instances when i make popcorn in The Big Bowl and turn on a Real Movie on the Big Screen (my old laptop that is 15 whole inches) with my phone turned over so nothing can distract me.

my filler can't be my movie, and vice versa. nor should it be. but watcher doesnt understand that, apparently. they think youtube is cruelly preventing them from being netflix, and they think we want netflix, and they don't understand that, even with that half-assed apology that they didn't explain their dream correctly and they are jsut so destitute they had to take extreme measures after they went to europe 6 too many times...

there is a fundamental misunderstanding about how people use youtube , both as creators and as consumers. they didn't just misunderstand their fanbase. they continue to misunderstand the entire ecosystem. idk guys. maybe you should have learned something from those youtubers that you apparently think you are too good for.

and as for me, welp. i've booted people from my filler line-up for less. and there are soooooooooooooo many other fish in the sea, and they are not asking me to pay them 27 corporation salaries from my own pocket. they are asking for me to bump their view counter up by one.

goodbye boys. i really hope you find a way to fulfill yourselves artistically or whatever. but you have burned this particular bridge, like. forever. and i don't think i'm the only one who feels that way.

and not because i dont support people getting a living wage, you guilt-tripping vultures, or because i dont believe in following dreams and wishing on stars and whatnot.

but because i prefer to consume content from people who know what they're doing, and i simply no longer trust that includes you.

[captain-grammar]

A few things to bear in mind while Ned Fulmer begins his quiet, carefully-managed rehabilitation to try and repair the public image he threw a wreckingball through this past week:

It wasn't a drunken fumble or an ill-advised, one-time dalliance. That might be easier to forgive. No. It was (allegedly) a 10-month "relationship" with a woman who was not his wife. That means for almost a year he was making the conscious decision to be unfaithful. That's not "losing focus". That's calculated.

He called it a "relationship". Not an "affair". Nothing to indicate it was something to be ashamed of or embarrassed by. You don't call something a relationship unless you're all in on it and you have no regrets. I find it hard to believe he has any real remorse.

He and Alex were spotted alone in public on numerous occasions, holding hands, having lunch... He's a recognisable face. I find it hard to believe he thought he could maintain anonymity in LA, never mind at a Harry Styles concert where the Venn diagram of those in attendence would unquestionably overlap with The Try Guys' audience. He was either getting too cocky or simply didn't care.

His entire personal brand was built around family. He was the Wife Guy. He had videos around his and Ariel's marriage. He monitized her pregnancy and the birth of their kids. They wrote a cookbook of date-night recipes they made together. Ariel has a podcast with the partners of the other Try Guys under the Second Try banner. He happily profited from ALL OF IT while he was sleeping with another woman. The man is morally bankrupt.

He didn't consider ANY of the rammifications. If he'd given his actions any kind of thought over the past year, maybe he'd've done the right thing and either ended the affair with Alex or come clean to Ariel and left her. But no. He lied. He lied right up until there were real-life, tangible consequences that affected HIM directly and only then did he become penitent. He didn't think about the affect it would have on his marriage and his family until it looked like he was about to lose it. He didn't care about how his behaviour would affect the business, his friends and their potential sponsors and endorsements - hell, the company's entire image - until he'd been fired. He had no regard for how disappointed the fans and supporters would be until they began to voice their feelings when the speculation was rife. He didn't care about any of it.

Rumours and internet gossip hint that he'd always been a flirt and had never truly left that Yale frat-house headspace. If there's an alleged pattern of prior bad behaviour, if he brazenly carried on with another woman for as long as he did without guilt, we can probably assume it's going to happen again. He fucked over his wife, his friends, his business, his entire reputation and for what? Nobody will trust him completely again.

If Ariel has the strength and the grace to want to make it work and to take him back, the fans should support her but if I were in her shoes, I would kick him to the kerb. There wasn't a single person in this situation he didn't screw over. Could you ever put your faith into someone like that?

[ticcitavvi]

Hey guys! I’ve seen some people going after the rest of the try guys for, allegedly, being at least somewhat aware of Ned Fulmers cheating. And I just wanted to say that, while they very well could have been aware of it, it’s not entirely impossible that they did not.

especially when considering that humans are really, really, really, good at not seeing things when we don’t want to see them.

Humans naturally tend to just.. ignore things we don’t want to be true. Subconiously the rest of the guys probably knew abt the cheating, but their brains purposefully shielded them from the truth of their friend.

(Their friend whom they had known for actual years, and went through a lot of shit with. Would we be surprised if they didn’t want to admit to themselves Ned was cheating?)

not to mention the fans themselves likely could have been doing the same thing, especially considering how many fans have started coming out and sharing past expierences with Ned that implied a history of cheating. Likely, these fans were also subconsciously choosing to be blind to Ned’s cheating because they didn’t want to be true, but when the truth came out there was no longer any other choice but to see it. (not saying they were wrong t odd so, or even that that is what was happening, but it’s a thought)

this is, of course, speculative. But I think it could very well be true. This isn’t a new phenomenon, especially in situations that involve cheating. People subconsciously gaslight themselves, avoid looking too deeply into things that could prove them wrong, and even further emphasize the opposite of what they suspect. (ex. Further emphasize that Ned is a faithful,loving husband when they suspect he is not.)

anyway, just trying to point out that there is alot happening, and we should try to give the rest of the guys some support during this time. I’m not saying believe every word they ever say, I don’t think anyone could do that ever again, but I am saying we don’t know all the facts. And until we do, we shouldn’t punish the rest of the Try Guys for something they potentially didn’t even do or help do.

[filthyjanuary]

ok so like here is my opinion even though absolutely no one asked and i am going to attempt to say the first part of this from an objective standpoint ignoring the dream situation of it all 

quackity ignoring this externally imo is not a big deal. it’s very nikita dragun school of ignoring controversy until it disappears which i think is generally a good strategy unless you’ve been accused of Literal Crimes like celebrities are not sitting on twitter writing up twitlongers to every single petty drama that they or their stans are involved in

that said, i do think (if this is all true) ignoring private messages is kind of immature and stupid on his part like at least internally sort this out. the ignore and cut off move was one of my standards in high school and then i grew up and stopped doing that because it’s not a very adult way of handling things. i don’t think anything else that he (allegedly) said or did was particularly wild or wrong though, like i can think of multiple reasons off the top of my head that he wouldn’t want people on both servers that have nothing to do with being malicious. i just think articulating things once internally would’ve probably been Smart. courteous even.

on dream’s part dear god dude when are you going to learn to shut up!!! just be quiet!!! talking about it just publicizes it MORE and is dumping kerosene on an already burning house. no one who was already sending death threats or doxxing is going to stop because you tweeted asking nicely lmfao please get a reality check. the people who are doing that are going to keep doing it because i promise everyone already knows that doing those things is wrong and they don’t care!!! they do not care!!!!!! you do not need to publicly answer to every fucking thing (except the thing you should probably actually answer to but i digress). and as a multimillionaire you actually have the resources to protect yourself and the people you care about. lots of people don’t. and if anything publicizing all of this after already having stirred the pot publicly for weeks is literally just going to make the vitriol worse so like congrats, go girl give us nothing.

basically imo they should’ve coordinated their responses to either be both of them put out a statement (think ned fulmer and the try guys) and then stopped talking about it or neither of them said anything because this one person says nothing and one person does not shut the fuck up does not look good for anyone. for the love of god GET PR PEOPLE I KEEP SAYING THIS I AM BANGING MY FISTS ON TABLES GET PR PEOPLE YOU CAN AFFORD IT

at present it’s very nikita dragun school of controversy vs jeffree star school of controversy sorry i keep comparing everything to beauty gurus i hung out in that corner of youtube for a very long time (#blockedbyjeffreeontwitter)

having said that taking the dream situation into context!! i actually don’t care even if i thought he’d done everything right in this situation i still wouldn’t care!! i am not going to sit around and tweet mournfully about a multimillionaire who takes advantage of his status to be weird to fans peace and love on planet earth

[monarchisms]

Ive always been a fan of Jeremy but how open he has been about mental health and making sure to speak about about it and triggering factors makes me admire him even more. To see a rowdy tough guy talk so openly about panic attacks and anxiety is so good for destigmatizing. I hate that this whole thing recently has clearly been pretty triggering for him though, and I hope he and the rest of AH are doing ok (as well as the Try Guys obv)

[jeremy's tweets, for context]

fully agree.

i, and many other rt/ah fans have immediately clocked on the similarities with how the ryan situation with AH and the ned situation with the try guys started, but i think one thing i failed to acknowledge more is just how triggering it can be for those in the former group seeing everything they went through going on with the latter group.

with jeremy specifically, i've heard him talk about the try guys and how he's a fan of their stuff on his twitch stream forever ago, so him reliving everything through the online discourse and shitty misconceptions must be The Fucking Worst

[busdriver]

i can’t get over how fuckin stupid the ned fulmer situation is.

like your entire brand is your wife. you have an affair with your engaged subordinate who has worked with your wife, produced videos of her, knows her insecurities. you make out with this employee at a harry styles concert where you know people recognize you because they approached you and you took pictures with them.

how could they possibly have expected that to end????

[morkhan]

I've been trying to put into words how I feel about the Ned situation, and I just can't get over how stupid it was. Like, we joke about John Mulaney building his personal brand around his wife, but the wife thing was never his only joke. It was just the one we liked best. At the end of the day, John Mulaney is still a talented comedian; he can make other jokes.

Ned Fulmer without his family is actually, legitimately nothing. He has destroyed almost everything he has spent the past ten years building, and what isn't destroyed is irreversibly tainted. There's no way you're going to be able to watch old Try Guys videos without making a stink face every time he pops up onscreen, because, again, the wife bit is basically his only bit! He did this to himself!

And it's just like... it's just so stupid, and so pointless. You built a wildly successful entertainment company with your best friends, you were being showered with gigs and opportunities, book deals, TV shows, a full length documentary movie, and you take all of that, years and years of not just your work, but the work of everyone who loves and trusts you, and you flush it down the toilet because you just... I don't know. I guess you just can't help yourself.

I'm disappointed, but it's not a "my God, what a monster!" kind of disappointment. It's an "Oh, that's it? That's all you are? Huh" disappointment. I'm not shocked or horrified. I'm just mildly disdainful and, honestly? Bored. I am bored by the person that Ned Fulmer has turned out to be. Like, this dude could have been a baller and an example to all men, and instead he chose to be an unremarkable, garden variety scumbag. What a stupid thing to choose.