A bit of column A and a bit of column B, but really, it was a death of a million slices. I blame the internet as a whole, really. Anyone can put anything out there and end up with like-minded people and people they've influenced spreading their rhetoric. There's also the tendency for Intentionally Bad Takes that started as ironic jokes ("Daniel was the real bully in The Karate Kid", for instance), becoming the accepted, prevailing opinion somehow. And the endless "Beauty and the Beast was about Stockholm Syndrome" take being put on infinite loop on popular online outlets helped contribute to the era of Live-Action Remakes we're trapped in. Channel Awesome was birthed as much from online media illiterate nonsense as much as it created media illiteracy.
I think the problem with “ruining media literacy today” claim, is that it assumes we had better media literacy in the past, and I’m not convinced that’s true.
@@agramuglia I think so too, though we just see a lot more dumb ass takes now, so it is easy to think it is worse now. There are some old reviews where you go "What do you mean they didn't like The Thing? How did they watch The Big Lebwoski and enjoy that film?"
Doug can have great reviews that actually make me look at films differently. My biggest issue is that he just... Doesn't understand media, sometimes? Like, he can't comprehend why a majority of a fan base enjoys something because he's not attached to it, or he's SO CLOSE to getting the point, but dismisses it as a fluke. It can be frustrating. Then CinemaSins are so much worse with media literacy...
I remember I stopped watching when he reviewed Last Action Hero, and didn't realise it's a Satire. He spent most of it complaining about how it follows the tropes of action movies of the time, when, for those who don't know, it is set Within an especially cheesy action movie of the time. I would go back to it a little later, until he "Did a Let's Play", that got Retsupuraed. And as soon as Slowbeef sarcastically said "Well, loud equals funny, and gun equals loud, so gun equals funny." It just kind of killed over 50% of Doug's humour.
I think Doug eventually realized that playing a character doesn’t work when people take it seriously. After the 2010s, he’s been a lot more laid-back and less snobbish, only playing a character in the cutaways.
I think the worst example of this was his review on Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.” As someone else put it, it feels like his review is a surface-level, snarky critique of what is a very vulnerable and personal film.
1:20:00 I always hate how dudes think the skirts in Sailor Moon are supposed to be sexy. They're literally skirts attached to a leotard. The girls are wearing the equivalent of a gymnastics uniform just with a sailor collar and skirt.
One of my biggest peeves with him is when he reviews Hunchback of Notre Dame and called ‘Heaven’s Light’ the lame song before Hellfire. Not only is that an insult to the song which is quite beautiful, but it misses the point entirely. You know why it comes before Hellfire? Because it’s basically a part of the song. No really a lot of versions of the soundtrack actually group the two and there’s a reason for that. Heaven’s Light is all about how Quasimodo is happy to have someone like Esmeralda in his life because she is the first person not to treat him like a monster. Yeah he has a crush on her but what’s important is that for the first time he felt accepted by anyone and later on we see him go out of his way to help her even when it becomes clear she isn’t romantically interested in him. She means more to him than just a girl he likes. However Frollo who has always seen himself above and more holy than everyone else is terrified at the idea that he can fall for feelings such as lust and sees Esmeralda as an object that he attributes his moral failings to refusing to simply blame himself for his sexual feelings for her. At the end he declares that either she be with him or be put to death. He doesn’t care about her in any way other than sexual attraction. And yeah it becomes obvious when you read the song titles. Heaven’s Light: Quasimodo sees Esmeralda as a pure and heavenly presence that offers something of salvation from his isolation. Hellfire: Frollo sees Esmeralda as a demon sent to corrupt him and is something he needs to either overcome of claim as his own.
@@FernieCantoBecause it’s an example that stands out to them the most of his failings as critic? And why is someone not allowed to go into detail about something they find particularly egregious just because it’s based on one song in a movie? They’re simply adding examples onto the ones brought up in the video, which is pretty common for people to do with videos that are meant to foster discussions What isn’t clear about this? What a weird comment you made.
Hunchback is one of those movies that has so dang much potential because it does have some fantastic moments, but it also has more moments that just drag it way the hell down because they're just attempts at juvenile humor that weren't even all that funny as a kid in the target market for it. Hellfire is one of the boldest Disney Villain songs they've ever done, and Heaven's Light is very nice.
@@cloudstrife4534 When did I ever say anything about them "not being allowed" to say anything? No, seriously, I want you to point out the EXACT point when I disallowed anyone from saying anything. No, not want, I DEMAND you to do that. It's absolutely disgusting for you to invent things to put in people's mouths and attack them for it. That's dishonest and borderline misanthropic. You just have the irrational need to accuse and attack people, regardless of whether you have reasons to do so. So, I demand you, point out the exact moment when I disallowed anyone from saying anything.
See, the thing is, I could actually go back to old Doug reviews and find something enjoyable. CinemaSins to me is virtually unwatchable from just HOW snide and condescending each review feels.
Worst part was that Jeremy of CS wrote a book called "The Ables". It was supposed to be a commentary on how society treats the disabled. It wipes away the main character's disability with the first five chapters and becomes a by-the-numbers superhero story worthy of Marvel's worst movies and humor.
@@agramugliaLiterally I started rewatching their videos just too see how many of their “sins” were total nonsense. For most of the videos I’ve rewatched so far 95% of the sins were total nonsense. Everything from sinning the logos for no reason, not paying attention to the plot and blaming the movie for it, sinning puns they consider bad and then making worse puns. The older videos are even more unwatchable with the monotone and unchanging voice throughout the videos.
That's true in the video sense, but because of behind the scenes stuff I'd say CinemaSins never had a Change The Channel kinda thing happen to him as far as I know. I simply can't find Doug likable or even pitiable after knowing things he did and was involved in.
I think Doug's singular best review that he's ever done was the Last Airbender review, specifically because he lead up to it by watching the entirety of Avatar: The Last Airbender (at his brother's behest) and doing mini reviews of each episode immediately after watching them as just Doug Walker the person, not The Nostalgia Critic. You got to watch him progressively fall in love with the show and grapple with trying and mostly understanding its themes and ideas on an episode-by-episode basis. So he had an extensively in-depth knowledge basis against which to rightly prosecute the movie's failings because he did the research and the work ahead of time, something he's never done prior or since. It is the one time in his life he ever attempted anything approaching the legitimate media criticism of his one-time peers like Lindsay Ellis. It showed him what he could be when working to his full potential... and I think it scared the shit out of, the amount of work it took, I mean, and he's never done anything like that again and has actually since kind of ruined it with his hackneyed memery.
Oh shit, I think you may be right. That was one of his best reviews, without a shadow of a doubt, and it was clear it was because he genuinely understood avatar was and why people loved it. he could have taken some great lessons from this. He looked down a long, hard road of learning and growing and becoming a better and more competent reviewer...and he blinked.
Eh. The show reviews were fine but I found most of the movie review to be "but in the show they did this so much better!" Which, while true, is the most obvious, boring critique one could make about an adaptation.
That's why The Wall finally got everyone to see how bad he was at criticism. He doesn't do research, doesn't engage with the media he's reviewing beyond the most surface level, and can't engage well with art that is challenging. There is a reason why Dan Olson called him "a fundamentally incurious person" in his review of Doug's version of The Wall.
I also think his reviews like most of his DC reviews, Ghostbusters[2016] and his Lorax reviews are also great both because you can tell they mean a lot to him and can actually give some pretty insightful critiques like in his Cat in the Hat review "no there not just some simple kid books. there stories that were continuing to read even today. there stories that we remember years later, even when others fade from our memory. there we will never forget and for good reason their stories that helped shape our childhoods through well-thought-out writing, imaginative drawings and endearing morals and the idea of this shaping somebody's childhood the fact it even has the same name as it makes me sick to my stomach. maybe "these simple kid books" are far more adult than you give them credit for. and i guarantee that I'll show when years later both children and adults will still be reading these "simple kids books" while pandering bullshit dissapears from people's consciousness,also for good reason good art doesent come from focus groups and statistics. it comes from people who share how they see things in their own unique way.
Honestly, I think the big difference between Linkara's content and Doug Walker's is that Linkara is a reviewer first, comedian second. Doug is the opposite: Comedian first, critic second. I owe my love of ROM: Spaceknight and Blue Beetle to him.
i was just rewatching his blue beetle retrospective yesterday, all 6 parts, and i freakin love those. Lewis is one of the many content creators from that channel that truly earned the respect of his viewers because he doesn't take himself serious and actually tried to be better and grow
And another difference, doug can actually take cricitism meanwhile linkara throws a shit fit the second he gets made fun off, the oneyplays situaton proved that
As someone who was utterly burned out on Channel Awesome adjacent drama at the end of the 2010s/beginning of the 2020s, looking back on that period should be a healing process.
@@brandonspain12345 I'm half and half. I don't wanna act like Doug was a perfect guy, nor especially a perfect film critic. In fact as far as film criticism goes, he's said and given more bad/questionable opinions than good. In fact my perspectives on movies got better when I was no longer a fan of his. That being said, I do still get entertainment out of certain videos of his, I don't think he's without occasionally having a smart thought and most of all, the misdeeds of other content creators far outweigh what made people basically disavow him. And whilst we all derided him as a coward, I think in hindsight he actually made the right choice to not listen to the anger and criticism caused by the ChangeTheChannel movement. If he had improved in terms of management, then the change was done and a lot of the rest of the Doc (not all but a lot) was in hindsight very petty and meaningless. Not to mention, he was willing accept all of that online criticism about him, but most of the people that left Channel Awesome throw a fit when they're criticised themselves. Doug basically came out looking like the best of the bunch for the most part. Hell, Spoony at least had an excuse for his behaviour, what the hell was Allison's?
The funny thing is I think what I liked best about the earliest, earliest NC reviews…..was the personality of the character of the Nostalgia Critic itself. I never liked how later, Doug insisted the NC character be miserable and not be friends with the other characters his fellow reviewers made. The Critic in the earliest videos….honestly seemed more likable.
I think that's a very good point actually. Early NC videos are presented as just a normal guy (a bit hammy) but one who's inviting the audience (who are assumed to be in the same age range and to have the same nostalgia for the things he likes) to come and watch old things and joke about how badly they aged. It's evoking the idea of you and a friend coming over to riff on something. But yeah, when every story beat was about how terrible and awful he was to the people around him that went away.
yeah, i liked most of the reviewers, but i never really got why they were so insistent with the trope of "We don't actually enjoy what we're doing nor the people we gotta share a website with" whenever they crossed over with themselves. Part of me feels it was a fear of being sincere with the audience, because it might come off as lame that people enjoy talking about bad media, which i feel applied to a lot of internet humor.
@@Duskool I suspect that’s because he truly doesn’t enjoy what he does anymore. You could see it in what he attempted to make when he “killed” the persona of NC - silly shows, skits or web series that had nothing to do with movies. But those projects were far less popular, so he was forced to bring NC back, especially it wasn’t just a guy making videos at that point - it was a massive business operation.
Nostalgia Critic became more angry and miserable because Doug had to punish the character for being the thing he'd always be known for; and a legacy he'd never escape.
@@mhawang8204 I think that was true at one point. But I do belive Douge truly does enjoy what he does, and has been able to reshape the NC into more what he wants to do. He will still sometime make the NC the butt of a joke, but I think that's because Douge enjoys making himself the butt of the joke. Douge always came off to me as someone willing to learn. When not playing the NC he is usually pretty open about the limitations of his own views, and actually enjoys hearing about why people enjoy something he didn't. He genuenly seems pretty down to earth when you watch him as just himself, and he will always be willing to lough at his own mistakes.
I think a thing to note here is that Doug has stated in the past that one of the inspirations behind the Nostalgia Critic was the show Mystery Science Theater 3000 which is something you can tell during the scenes where he’s reacting to the film. Hell, I’d argue that his skits that he puts in his reviews were inspired by The skits MST3K during commercial breaks with the main difference being that the skits in MST3K were intentionally funny. Now, It’s important to know that MST3K wasn’t a review show. The show was basically just the cast riffing over bad movies and making jokes. While It’s not bad to take inspiration from a show like MST3K, It feels like Doug viewed the show as a Review show and as such that influenced the style of review he does.
This is what I was thinking! Particularly the earlier videos where he essentially watched and reacted to an entire movie. The earliest versions had intentionally selected terrible movies (like the obscure animated 'Titanic') rather than movies people genuinely liked and felt nostalgic for. I remember being thrown when there were more and more episodes about generally well-liked films, whether for reasons of nostalgia or otherwise. Or, films that might not be great, but weren't obviously "so bad it's good" movies like those in MST3K. At that point, it became less clear whether or not the critiques were meant to be genuine, or what the core of the joke was. Are we still laughing *with* the character *at* the movie? Or are we just supposed to be laughing at the character now, and not engage with his opinions? It just generally got worse after that
It's making me irritable as a MiSTie to hear the comparisons to Channel Awesome. And I found and liked CA when I was in my 20s, older than the average fan. Doug was definitely not my favorite, but I watched him too. MST3K was just very precise under the goofiness whereas a lot of CA was...not. Some of it did have that shoestring budget charm. It sounds pretentious, but I don't think Doug really understands MST3K lol.
I think Spoony’s lingering shadow haunts me the most out of the Channel Awesome lore because I was diagnosed with Bipolar I after a severe manic episode where I was confined to my bedroom with nothing to watch but video essays on my phone. Spoony put a human face on a condition I was being treated for, and seeing him flame out the way he did terrified me as a creative person diagnosed with the same thing he had. It was really rough to watch Spoony disappear in front of us, for very personal reasons. Although Rob Scallon came out as bipolar, and he’s still working with CA despite his contributions to The Wall review. It’s different now that Chappell Roan is openly bipolar, but when Spoony and Kanye were the only media figures who had this it was brutal to live with.
@@jensaversjo316 I have faith that Noah will get better, but I'm hoping he steps away from streaming and reviews all together. Not because he wasn't great, but because the pressure of a million eyes and ears watching and listening clearly got to him. I also just feel like that kind of nerd reviewer thing went out the window as soon as OneyPlays started up and began ragging on it. Seeing Noah parodied in the Professor Psychotic episode of Smiling Friends was this surreal moment of watching that era kind of finally die out and get buried. It's bittersweet because yeah, it was funny, but Noah also spoke to a lot of my interests at the time and exposed me to a lot of weird games and movies I never would've seen without him. Now we kind of look at that as lame unless it's done through a cynical filter with RLM (who I do love), but Noah's enthusiasm and knowledge really got me into that stuff.
Lindsay: the beatles, started good, only got better, ultimately has the largest influence Critic: the rolling stones. Not as good as the beatles, will never be as beloved, but still extremely influential and still playing concerts with the same old songs until the day they die Linkara: the monkees, seen as a joke, but actually more talented than they are given credit for Spoony: jimi hendrix, exciting, cool, fan favorite, but huge and immeadiate fall off that leaves everyone depressed
I respect Lindsay as a content creator but not as a person. She has been a huge proponent of cancel culture and has destroyed peoples lives for having the "wrong opinions".
At least the Rolling Stones had a lot of critical acclaim, influenced a lot of other talented artists and made some of the best rock n’ roll albums of all time. Dog Walker hasn’t had much critical acclaim or adorations from other internet personalities and critics (not just in film). If anything, Doug Walter is Mike Love of Beach Boys fame. Someone who rode the talent of other content creators just bc they were in the same group but are looked as a joke and when they produce something, it’s just references more beloved pieces of art.
To describe my *personal* enjoyment of Nostalgia Critic, I will quote Doug's words from his "Kung Pow: Enter the fist" review: "Ok, I REMEMBER why i like this, but I can SEE why critics didn't."
Doug's take on Sailor Moon is a prime example of him not quite understanding what he's reviewing. Also, basing that review solely on the atrocious DiC dub instead of the original product was NOT the way to go about it.
Plus in the clip Ant showed, Doug (and Jelly) was implying that repetition and recurrent structure are bad which would indict so so many well beloved stories and arts since these tools have been used effectively a lot(even in the art the two were unfairly excoriating) since time immemorial
Doug always had a tendency to not do his research. He wouldn't really "show his work" in reviews until THE WALL blew up in his face. But like with THE WALL, he also came to very bizarre conclusions with his reviews. "SAILOR MOON is for people who like seeing fourteen year olds fight monsters in short skirts." That's reductive to the point of being insulting.
@seamusburke639 A lot of flaws in his review cannot be explained by his lack of research alone. In sailor moon for instance do you really need to sl*tshame these characters Doug?!
@@seamusburke639 You can always count on anime fans to desperately defend their shows when the rest of the world recognizes the creepiness for what it is. Just because Japan's culture is creepy as hell; doesn't make that culture okay. Just as America's obsession with violence culture isn't okay.
I think Lindsay Ellis said once that a lot of her old videos are gone because of outdated humor too that she doesn't want representing her content anymore?
this was due to how CA's CEO wanted EVERY content creator on the channel to be like Doug, this is why many of them started off as "the angry reviewer *insert topic/genre*" because Doug at that time was popular with his persona, so they wanted to milk that
@@ShanaReviews No lol she just used to be edgy basically like everyone else on the internet at the time let's not just made random assumptions here lol.
@@mysteryman9488 no this was a factual thing if you read up on the not so awesome document and many of the sites producers confirned that was something that happened, this was the reason Lindsey was originally called The Nostalgia Chick She was literally meant to be another Doug
My issue with his style of videos is that it often feels like, at times, critics have to walk this tightrope of conveying information in a digestible way, and reading off of Wikipedia and listing large amounts of information. Linkara's videos often feel like they lean on the Wikipedia side, and the "Did you know?" Type of TH-camr. Bro's trying to teach me notes for the test I'll never be taking.
Which is why Doug/The Nostalgia Critic gave Linkara the privilege to be the one to completely defeat the Power Rangers antagonists at the end of his Power Rangers Turbo Movie review, which is a funny, entertaining review.
I always considered Doug Walker to be an "entry point" into larger media discussions and reviews. Its because I watched NC a lot in the mid 2010s that lead me to finding YMS and other critics that critiqued media on a much deeper level However when i noticed that the NC were somewhat lacking, what finally got me away from watching was ChangeTheChannel. Obviously for the controversy but also just because I found creators who were a lot more analytical, while NC always felt more surface level and safe I will end on this and give Doug and the whole NC brand credit for just being able to keep trucking along and remain consistent in their process, and giving us a lot of creatives who went on and managed to do better work with their careers
I honestly don't think Nostalgia Critic ruined internet criticism. Doug basically just took the MST3K formula and applied it to 80s/90s pop culture under the assumption that fans understood he was playing almost a parody of the basement-dwelling nostalgia-obsessed manchild. The different between him and modern grifter channels is they lack any self-awareness and believe their rants should be taken seriously by the masses.
"under the assumption that fans understood he was playing almost a parody of the basement-dwelling nostalgia-obsessed manchild." Eh, there's a problem with that interpretation. The Folding Ideas video "I Don't Know James Rolfe" makes a point that the writing of the Angry Video Game Nerd isn't really consistent, in that we don't have the true "voice" of the Nerd, and the writing oscillates between exaggerated ranting and legitimate criticism according to whatever the writers felt like doing at the time. I think that applies even more to the Critic: saying that he's a "parody" is kind of a convenient shield to his lack of self-awareness. There were videos in which he was clearly making an earnest criticism of the movie in question, but using the same language and "voice" as his more absurd videos. In other words, the parody falls apart when we're unable to distinguish between the Critic as a basement-dwelling manchild and as a proxy for Doug Walker's genuine desires to talk about movies.
@@FernieCanto Well considering how this was the early years of TH-cam, I doubt Doug or James were working off any level of long-term consistency. They were reinventing the review format as it went along. Especially since these videos pre-date most of the early film critic reviews. If anything, it was that blend of high-brow and low-brow conversation that made both channels appealing to early TH-cam/online audiences. Also, the vibe of their videos was essentially "how did we play/watch these things for years and not realize their flaws" while occasionally showing an appreciation for how the media worked despite its obvious faults. Contrast that to today's Fandom Menace types who view media pre-2014 as if it were all noncontroversial or never political/topical. Everything now is either perfect or woke trash and all nuances in between get reduced to labeling something "mid."
@@FernieCanto agreed. CinemaSins adopted the same strategy but more intentionally - occasionally offering real criticism/grievances, but “we’re joking” when criticized.
26:20 I actually remember Linkara commenting on that. And it's related to the Continuity alarm. It's easy to forget now, but Linkara originally had a running gag that whenever he would go onto a rant about continuity, there would be an alarm going off called the "continuity alarm" and he would stop. The idea is that as he expected his viewership to be comic fans, they would not care hearing him rant about continuity minutia about The atom going MIA after his ex killed a superhero's wife. To clarify, he did hope non-comicbook fans would enjoy his videos, but he thought only comic book fans would go looking for comicbook reviews. As it turned out, however, people who had never picked up a comicbook not only enjoyed his videos, they would go, "no wait I am invested in this Atom character I never met before. what happens next?" Because it turned out people were interested in the lore and stories of comicbooks. And Linkara had a natural talent to tell about these stories in a compelling way. Any wonder his retrospectives are some of his best works?
His retrospectives are incredibly good because unlike Doug, he puts effort into his research, and only does retrospectives on things he cares deeply about. That is what good creators do, and is a big part of why we have the phrase "write what you know". Linkara is great with his comic reviews as well, but even he will admit he doesn't consider himself a comic book expert; and isn't trying to say his opinions are the definitive ones on those comics.
His Caintrospective got me hooked on his videos. He’s legitimately one of the only comic book TH-camrs that gives serious critique for the books instead of acting as summaries for continuity like with Comics Explained. He has a very specific neesh, and it’s genuinely great that he got better and figured out how to make his reviews the best he can be.
@@osirisatot19 I would not even necessarily go that far. what Linkara does is *be curious* about what he is trying to cover. he took the moment to explain that VTM Bloodlines had a troubled development before getting into the Review, and Videogames is not his first area of expertise.
@@locuas5601 I have respect for reviewers who are willing to do some footwork but also couch their opinions with their limitations. Yahtzee from FR (formerly ZP) usually prefers to go into game blind, but he acknowledges that’s the limited prospective he’s bringing. He may only play the first 5 hours, but he’ll admit to not knowing if it improves after that point. (He also usually does research at some point before the review, but still.)
Coming from someone who got into online film criticism pretty late in the game and who's first exposure to Doug came from both the memes and controversy, this was a very informative and engaging watch.
To add to your overview of Linkara, I noticed in his videos a few years back that he added time stamps for anyone who just wanted the review without the lore. It seems other people had the same complaints as you and he took note.
I’ll admit. I like his storylines more than the reviews. He does know that his audience is split and that casual and new audiences are even less likely to enjoy them. So the storylines are often de-prioritized and shunted off into their easily ignored sections.
Yeah. I just don't care about his story stuff; I'm glad he's enjoying doing them and that other people like them; but they are not for me and I'm glad he understands that and can split them up.
Linkara has come under fire for a variety of things in recent years, generally regarding how he handles jokes at his expense, but one thing I’ve liked about him is that he’s fairly self-aware when it comes to his storylines. He knew from the start that his storylines were more for himself than the audience. He always referred to them as a personal indulgence. He was a guy who grew up loving doctor who and Star Trek… and the first thing he wanted to do when he had a show of his own was cast himself in those kinds of stories. I can respect that, honestly, even if I’m DEFINITELY one of the people who always skipped the skits when I watched his stuff.
I don't fully know how to feel about Doug in the end, but as someone who drops everything I'm doing currently whenever Dominic (formerly the Dom) Noble posts a vid, I guess I have to thank Channel Awesome for _something_
Dominic is a treasure and I also found him on that site, and I love that he's willing to do stuff like completely abandon Harry Potter or reedit and reupload an entire video because he misgendered someone; as well as having actual good criticisms and thoughtful incite into what he's talking about.
I like him and his work because outside of making informative videos about the works he reviews, he has also made an effort to make his work and channel a safe place. Like Osiris said, he makes sure his channel is safe for trans individuals for instance by entirely (and justifiably) dropping Rowling’s work once she made it clear she is a bigot. That is something I commend him for.
I'll say this for Spoony, in his FF13 review he apologized for the "gay gay" bit of his 8 review. His best stuff to me was his Counter Monkey series. I could see him going forward as a d&d youtuber with his talents there. A real shame he isn't still making videos imo.
His Swat 4 LP was also really good because it was just him reacting to the game as it happens with no agenda or need to do a bit and he was having legitimate fun with how dumb it was.
@@lucyinchat Yeah, it is really a shame that his stress and illness basically crippled him emotionally for years, and while able to stream now, he obviously hasn't fully recovered. I would love to see him in a healthy headspace again, and even occasionally. Drop in on his livewire streams hoping to see improvement.
I think Doug has gotten better by leaps and bounds over the years, he himself pointing out that he’s focused a lot more on actual analysis over using the movies as a vehicle for jokes. He’s gotten a lot more positive and seems happier
I agree. Doug has always been interesting in that he both almost seems to be a living relic of a past time of the internet, while also always continuing to evolve. And I do belive he truly loves what he does. He might not always get the point of something, but he has always been open to listening to other people's view points on media.
Agreed! I do think his analysis overall has become noticeably more thoughtful and introspective over the years, his quip delivery has gotten better and less reliant upon repetition/memeification at least from my point of view, and the skits with Malcolm and Tamara have helped to keep things reasonably fresh.
Is it just me or does this video never actually get into the proposed question? There's a lot of history of Channel Awesome and bemoaning of Doug's humor and seemingly intentional style/technical obsolescence, but hardly any actual analysis of his ability to engage with and understand his subjects. Like outside of the ~20 minutes of him clearly not making a proper attempt at understanding anime you barely go into his analytical ability at all. This video feels like an unfocused overlong excuse to criticize Doug, which I guess is kinda fitting considering.
Right on the money. Seems like the thesis was more an excuse to explore Doug’s work and critique it than anything, because I don’t feel as though the question was sufficiently answered and I found myself getting restless at points. The Sailor Moon and Pokémon sections, as an example, didn’t need as much time as they got, but instead we got like 10+ minutes of what could’ve been explained in a sentence.
Just like the Patch Adams review showed that Doug can do actual critical analysis, he showed a willingness to properly research the media when he watched the entirety of ATLA before reviewing the Shayamalan movie.
Checking Channel Awesome every week was a huge part of my teen years. From 2009 until about 2015, I was a regular. But I've checked in on some of my favorites every now and again since. 🥺
Had a younger soldier in my unit gush about Angry Joe. Asked him about channel awesome and doug….no idea went way over his head. Odd feeling. Like remembering Jeffery Starr from MySpace or something.
Unlike every other Channel Awesome creator Angry Joe also posted his videos to TH-cam. Meaning when Blip.tv collapsed and everyone else had to start from scratch on TH-cam Angry Joe wasn’t impacted as badly and could weather financially. Angry Joe’s videos rarely made reference to his Channel Awesome colleagues so unless you were already a Nostalgia Critic fan it was very easy to not realize Angry Joe was a Channel Awesome member.
What do I think of Doug Walker? He used to be entertaining, he ran a platform that launched a lot of careers, but now he's a washed-up has-been. All in all, he's just another brick in the wall.
Can’t believe this guy talks so much about Nostalgia Critic’s videos without actually talking about the modern videos. You know why? Because the claim of this video is that online reviews haven’t changed even though Doug himself has changed a lot. Ant says that Doug hasn’t changed from the old loud “screaming is funny jokes” but he barely makes those types of jokes anymore, the wish review being the most recent one I can remember. His skits are shorter, if he even does them, and he does more videos on movies he likes or just finds ok. He points out good parts of bad movies too. I don’t hate this video, some of the points are definitely valid but a) it’s just disrespectful to analyze how “horrible” a person once was while barely mentioning how they’ve changed, and b) trying to talk about comedy like it’s a fine science, like there’s objectively good comedy. Fun fact, no. Comedy is entirely subjective, even Doug himself admits that. Doug has also said that he knows his past jokes haven’t landed or aged well. TLDR: im mainly peeved about this video because it tries to state an objective, journalistic opinion on things that are completely subjective and refuses to acknowledge that people can change when it doesn’t support your claim
Acting like TH-camrs, especially such an unserious individual as Doug Walker, are responsible for people's inability to critically interact with media is a but myopic in my book. In the United States, at least, I think a cultural that systematically devalues arts and humanities has more to do with it.
I remember being shocked that TitS was on channel awesome. He was able to keep his identity without having to play some character (other than the one he was already playing). I think of all of them, he's the best critic which is why he's still around, still making the same content and only continued to rise in popularity
Not too far into the video, but wanted to jot down my thoughts before it got too far. I kinda get the sense that Nostalgia Critic started as partial commentary, partial bit, but more so a bit than Doug's actual feelings in the media he was talking about. You'd see a difference between when he'd do a Nostalgia Critic video vs when he'd do, say, his commentary on every episode of Avatar the Last Airbender. Or when he'd do a video discussing something he was genuinely passionate about (which were frankly my favorites of his) I do think, though, that, much like something like Cinema Sins, the bit started to overtake the commentary and it became more about criticism than analysis. When you view something through a certain lense for a long time, even if it's for a character, that can also color your view of things as a normal person. Doug's character depended on being critical, so I believe he moved on to just finding negatives and leaning on complaining about those instead of trying to unpack stuff and analyze why elements are in a piece of media in the first place, like what happened with the now infamous The Wall video. The irony about Doug not evolving his stuff is that, for awhile, he actually tried. He retired the Nostalgia Critic character for a time and tried to make a new show, but from what I understand, it wasn't doing the numbers that the old stuff was doing. He said he revived The Critic character because he felt he had more content to make as him, and I don't doubt he believed that, but I'd bet part of it is because he tried something new and the response he seemed to get from his audience was, "nah, we're not interested, go back to the old stuff". And that can be hard to square.
Lady Emily's videos on Demo Reel explain why they failed; they failed because they were the best that Doug could do with his creativity and film making skills, and they are impressively bad. That may seem mean to say, but you have to remember that Doug built his career and legacy around shitting on creative works himself; and based on the Change The Channel stuff, he isn't just some goofy guy that's trying his best but that the end of the day he's a nice guy.
I really appreciate seeing someone looking at Linkara more favorably and actually recognize the effort he puts into his stuff, feels like often peeps are quick to dismiss him for whatever reason but I always thought his reviews were fairly strong and only ever got better pfft
@IcyDiamond I can understand him not really being much of a good sport about it compared to Doug kinda just shrugging it off but at the same time, not everyone takes that sorta stuff the same y'know? Doesn't totally surprise me but maybe that's cuz I'm familiar with similar people in my own life and don't fault em much for it myself lol.
Dude, this video is brilliant! You did a really good job on analyzing how an online reviewer or a critic should grow over time. It even made me look back at my own work and past mistakes I've done to reflect how I've grown and how I should grow from here. But you know what the biggest irony about Doug Walker is now? It's funny how you mention that his comedy is dependent on memes like the Bat Credit Card or TIMING!, since a reason why The Nostalgia Critic survived after his review of The Wall was because of how he became a bit of a running gag on Oney Plays, which brought some of fans of that channel back to him. The reason why I point this out as ironic is because, thanks to Chris and the guys at Oney Plays, Doug Walker himself has become the same kind of joke he needs to create his reviews: a meme.
That's such a wild thing. The reason he showed up on Smiling Friends was due to him being so memetic, more than anything else. Once you see that aspect of it, everything falls into place. It's so wild.
@@ForrestFox626 ok but It doesn't seems hurting him, on the contrary he's pretty open on being a meme and going along with it while doing his commentary. Again, I don't how that is supposed to be damning him
"I don't drink" was a VERY good punchline to the scene with Arin. It makes me wonder if Doug's material is usually pretty smart, but delivered badly... or if Doug just didn't write that bit.
Even if they didn't ruin media literacy, what these reviewers did was create echo chambers where people would regurgitate the same opinion as them on anything to the point where you couldn't have discussions. As mentioned in the video, for a long while you couldn't talk about Final Fantasy VIII without people repeating what Spoony said. It got so bad that even the rest of the website critics would repeat the same talking points without even as much as adding something new to the argument. It was a really hard time trying to study any form of media.
Or, instead of college teaching you media literacy... ...you became an adult. Most of Doug Walker's fans were pre-teens and teens, and screaming is funny.
37:50 god spoony was actually how i got introduced to Channel Awesome. It's so bizarre and sad to hear about his complete implosion after he fell off my radar. The clip about him feeling betrayed actually made me tear up. Playing games with older siblings and learning to read is extremely relatable, and the sincerity was much appreciated.
I personally blame RedLetterMedia and CinemaSins. Because both pushed the agenda that there's only one way to watch movies and that if they don't follow those specific narrative, emotional, and creative beats, then they lack something. Don't get me wrong, I think those SW reviews are still very entertaining and spot on, but people have taken those critiques, and their body of critical analysis, and applied them to everything. They essentially set up a whole generation of film bros to think in those terms. CinemaSins, inadvertently, did the same thing by making continuity errors and negligible issues into major film negatives. I think the nature of Channel Awesome, making their reviewers obviously very flawed and over the top dampens their cultural impact. I personally never watched any of their stuff and took it to heart, like AVGN, but I held on to what RLM was saying because it was more serious in comparison, even with the humor. I think that slight stylistic difference makes a world of difference. And that opened the flood gates for people like Critical Drinker, who is the epitome of terrible criticism, but people follow his nonsense because of the tone and gusto he delivers with. I don't dislike RLM, never have, but to me, they got the ball rolling on that ilk of criticism that has indirectly led to a wave of people who wrongly associate their opinions with object fact...which is a fallacy in art criticism. They don't understand art or story beyond a 7th grade analytical scope.
@@Zombie_Trooper whoa whoa RedLetterMedia are actually solid critics, don't lump them with CinemaSins, they done more deeper stuff outside the Plinkett reviews, check out their Re-review series on old movies
@@Tacom4ster I never said they were bad critics, just that their perspective definitely played into the cultural zeitgeist of online film criticism. I've watched years of their work, 15+, and still feel the same. Nearly every person I've debated film with in 15 years has inevitably name dropped them, hence my point. They're far better, absolutely, but still a factor.
All I'm saying is, Doug's reviews are actually some of the best in the whole TH-cam film critic-space whenever he sheds the Nostalgia Critic persona and is being himself. Not only does he actually start to engage with the media he's reviewing at that point, but he's also being incredibly respectful towards the creators. I don't think I've ever heard him insult or mock any film/tv show etc. outright on his "untitled review show" or "doug reviews" shows. First time I realized that Doug actually does have some meaningful things to say, was when he released his top 20 favourite movies list a decade ago (when he was still uploading to "thatguywiththeglasses"). Dude showcased an actually interesting selection of films in there that didn't fit his over the top Nostalgia Critic persona in the slightest. It's sad that apparently those videos just don't get as many views or attention, cause they are infinitely more watchable than his usual shtick.
When it comes to Thatguywiththeglasses, I first and foremost saw the Nostalgia Critic (Doug Walker) as a comedian, more of an entertainer than a real critic, I saw Lindsay Ellis as more of a real analyst than Doug. In addition, I saw Film Brain (Matthew Buck) as a better reviewer, plus Lupa and Phelous as better entertainers than Doug, and it was from this - that I believed, Doug could not stand being the funniest or the cleverest person in the room, which was why he made To Boldly Flee, when he ended the Nostalgia Critic, he expected _everyone_ would end their shows too, because they could not exist without him. Doug was wrong, but his ego made it impossible to know that other critics and entertainers, on his channel had audiences and fans, they still had careers and evolved with the times, but Doug couldn't let it go, their shows continued while Demo Reel floundered, moreover, Doug couldn't let this go either, as his reviews took on the aesthetics of Demo Reel, for this point on, Doug and his minion, Mike Michaud made the channel hostile towards content contributors. The first warning sign I noticed, was the lack of new contributors, Channel Awesome no longer tried to recruit new talent, Doug felt threatened by potentially funnier and smarter creators, I saw the criteria for joining Channel Awesome, and it was a strict checklist meant to gatekeep everyone out. The dethroning moment for me was his review of the Jungle Book 2016, denouncing it as the 'Grown-up version", plus his hostility for the audience who loved this film, I was one of them. Out of the Disney live-action remakes, I like Jungle Book the most, for being its own thing while doing something unique, which is the point of remaking a film, not rehash the film shot for shot - dialogue for dialogue, but Doug couldn't handle other people's opinions deviating from him, because he viewed his opinion was supposed to be the default. Even back in the day, I found some of his reviews flawed and problematic, case in point was his review of the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, in his review he condemns the show as too childish, even though this show _was_ made for children, I was six years old when AoStH was on the air, plus this programme was based on the video game, which is why the show looks the way it does, Doug did like Sonic the Hedgehog (Sonic SatAM) because it was darker and more mature, but this was based on the Archie comic, after all, Sally Acorn is not original Sega game. Doug could have not reviewed Sonic the Hedgehog, he was unprepared to review the TV programmes without understanding the context, he didn't play the video game nor read any of the Sonic Archie comics, this has been the default approach to Doug's reviews. Doug is a parody of the AVGN, James Rolfe had legitimate complaints about flaws in video games and consoles, he would also own up to his mistakes, and had many positive things to says, Doug kept the "Angry" and refused to evolve, for a guy who believes comedy is based on misery, Doug is the longest gag to ever overstay its welcome, poetic justice for all who made his channel great.
About Doug's humor philosophy - there are actually THREE academic humor theories (disclaimer - I am not an american, I learned about those theories in Hebrew, so if I'm mistaken with the names, that's the reason): 1. Superiority theory, the one which Doug believes in - that humor is based on feeling superior over someone else, whether him being miserable unlike us or lesser than us. One of its supporters was Plato. 2. Relaxtation theory - that humor is a way to release inner pressure. One of its supporters was Freud (who, of course, talked about it in relation to sexual jokes and repressed sexual desires) 3. Incongruence theory - that humor is based on a surprising cognitive intersection between two plains or fields, like a kid who wears a pot on his head and therefore connects between cooking and clothing. One of its supporters was Henri-Louis Bergson. None of the theories was ever proven entierly correct. The best guess is that humor is a combination of all three. Doug's view on humor is very limited and therefore he is limited not only as a reviewer but as a comedian and a creator, something which you can see mostly when he writes other reviewers. He just didn't get their humor (Why was Obscurus Lupa allways the straight man in his crossovers??? She was anything but!).
i feel like the style of youtube media criticism is one of the reasons fandom culture has become so toxic, all criticism is framed as the media being garbage that you'd have to be garbage to like so people start taking even mild criticism of some show they like as if it's saying that
Or maybe its because fandom is filled with literal children or manchildren who cant process the emotions of a film unless the good guy wears a white hat and the bad guy wears a black hat
Just remember the vast majority of people you see (or maybe even interact with) on the internet, especially on YT, are younger than 18. The same can be said for anyone engaging in media "discourse" and the childish "thing bad, therefore enjoyer bad" is indicative of such a demography
The thing that gets me with Doug Walker in retrospect is that he would often have these big revelations in his reviews that he treated like he cracked the code. Like yes, Doug, people like fury road because it's essentially a road runner cartoon. Congratulations
That review is written like an episode of a TV show, with a narrative, characters, and a final revelation. I'm not saying that it's done well, I'm saying that based on the intention, that part is supposed to be played up
He thinks the slightest observation of things like that makes him incredibly clever, because he so rarely has those. Also funny because he clearly didn't see the interview where the director pretty much said the same thing, that he wanted to be able to tell a visual story that you could understand even if you didn't know the language.
Doug's worst reviews are the ones he does on things he clearly knows nothing about and therefore thinks that thing is stupid. Pokemon the 1st Movie Digimon The Movie Mighty Morphin Power Rangers The Movie Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie
The wall as well. That destroyed Doug Walker’s credibility more than Change The Channel did imho. People viewed Doug as an incompetent but well meaning guy during Change The Channel bc he wasn’t the worst person in CA. But after the Wall Review, he got fucked and blasted by every corner of the internet and I’ve never seen him come back from that tbh.
@@Lechef53His channel continues to grow as does his views and videos Turns out many people Including the upcoming generation etc Don't give two craps Bout the wall or pink Floyd these days And fewer take any of that seriously
@@mckenzie.latham91 @@mckenzie.latham91, if not less than that@@mckenzie.latham91 and would sell out arenas and stadiums within minutes if the remaining members were to join together and make a new album and go on tour@@mckenzie.latham91 Contrast that to Doug who is laughed at by Video essayists, Film reviews, Music reviewers, Commentary channels and the general audience. There’s a reason why so many people still talk about the Pink Floyd:The Wall “review” when discussing nostalgia critic and dog walker. It’s because that is what most people now think about when discussing him and how detrimental it is to his brand.
I can not say that for myself. If anything, it was my first encounter with media criticism. Now, I recognize the lack of quality but I appreciate that my exposure to him helped later to recognize formalist analysis of media and go beyond it. It also introduced me to one of my favorite video essayist, Lindsay Ellis.
You know, when I saw this video in my recommendations, I groaned and assumed it just was going to be another "Nostalgia Critic is terrible..." video essay saying how all of Doug Walker's videos were always terrible and the only reason you ever liked them was you were a stupid teenager... a type of video I've seen a million times on the platform. But this is actually a lot less negative than I thought it was going to be. Good Job. Doug Walker is a person who's content I have an incredibly complicated relationship with. Doug Walker and the rest of the Channel Awesome critics were a massive influence on me... and when CTC broke I was absolutely gutted. Still, as you point out, I do think Doug Walker CAN be a good critic, and he has made a lot of good (or decent) reviews in the past. This might be an unpopular opinion, but... I actually liked NC BETTER after he came back. Like the Pre-TBF the character of the Critic was pretty much just a straight up arsehole that your not supposed to take seriously. Whereas after he came back... yeah the Critic was still an arsehole, but he was a bit calmer, more open to other people's opinions and trying to better himself as a person. I also felt he was better as a critic and was less jokey, and more insightful. While you mentioned his Patch Adams and Haunting reviews as evidence of him being a good (or at least decent) critic, but I'd also include The Cell, A.I., The Last Airbender, Man of Steel, Alice in Wonderland (2010), and his Dr. Seuss Trilogy (How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Cat in the Hat, and The Lorax) also contain a lot of legitimate criticism. I also liked his editorials, like "Why Tom and Jerry is Genius?", "Is Goofy Secretly Badass?", "What's with all the Princess Hate?", "When Is It Right to Nitpick" "Looney Tunes Show: Good or Bad" etc., and in some ways I feel as though they were forerunners to modern video essays. It was only around 2015, when he started doing the clipless reviews is when I feel he started to go down hill, and then I stopped watching after CTC.
I do think he hit a bit of a rout around 2015 that culminated in the Wall review. But I think he has come along way from that. He hasn't done a clipless review in ages and has continued to refine more of his ciritism and joke balance. I still enjoy his videos and I feel like he is continuing to improve.
Phelous is the one "angry" reviewer I still love. And I do think the research he puts into his videos has to do with it. Like my man does not have to Sherlock his way to figure out the names of voice actors in random Disney ripoff #10303 but god damn it, he does.
They also bounce well off one another when they do joint reviews. If one doesn't understand the why or what of a scene, the other often does and can explain it (or editor Matt explains it later). So we get a more rounded view of media, instead of just, "I didn't get this therefore it is bad."
1:03:10 Which is hilariously ironic, because Doug always hated and complained about pop-culture references in movies because those references will expire and their target audience won't find it funny. And yet, his humor isn't that different
@fernandozavaletabustos205 it was about the graphics on To Boldly Flee. Phelan was working his ass off on the graphics as he wasn't technically a cgi artist. Doug complained about Phelan being lazy and awful with the quality. Unfortunately (or fortunately) the person he complained to was Julian (sad panda), who was Phelan's roommate and best friend at the time. And of course Julian told Phelan and that kinda caused the cracks of the rift between them.
@@slenders1ckn3ssis that why Doug never again used that song, “the Nostalgia Critic anthem” in his intros, when he came back? I always wondered why and hated that new intro that sounded like NC was supposed to be some kind of action show.
oh boy, here we go! Ngl, I have a soft spot for The Nostalgia Critic but only because I don't take him seriously and find his 'reviews' amusing... Also, I will forever delight in ye olde "~Spiders!~" meme
praising ellis, and especially the pocahontas video of all videos, without going into, or even mentiong in passing, her anti-Indigenous racism scandals or the encouraged harassment of Ali Nahdee for her criticisms of that and the twilight video is irresponsible.
I’m not going to pretend like Doug’s a great comedian or critic. But I find it pretty ironic that people say Doug doesn’t pay attention to media. While those same people don’t actually pay attention to Doug’s media. Every example people give of Doug not being a good critic is from before his Wall review. Because people really do just judge the guy by the things that’re popular to talk about. The memes, the Wall, the Change The Channel controversy. And I’m not gonna defend him about those things either. The Wall review is barely a review & Doug’s severe tunnel vision during that controversy is not justifiable in the slightest. But it seems more like people are just mad that Doug doesn’t engage with their piss takes of him. I saw a response to his Rango review recently which was the person in the video saying ‘Hey, I don’t agree with your point, and I can justify it by hanging this controversy that you’ve moved on from over your head.’ People only recognise Doug from his Nostalgia Critic reviews which if you see his most recent reviews. You’ll know he sheds that personality more & more. There are times when the only things that relate back to his earlier years are his clothes. I’ve weirdly seen him be more perceptive & honest about a topic when it’s just him. No cap or tie to speak of. Again, I’m not defending his previous actions. I’m just sick of people going off the memes & vague recaps of a controversy that’s 5 years old now & thinking they’ve got the guy figured out when they barely reference his most recent material. The guy reviews his movies in a sofa chair now. It’s the equivalent to trying to pick a fight with a senior citizen & gaslighting them when they don’t fight back. It’s pointless at this point & I wish people would actually look at the person they complain about looking at media the wrong way.
If I’m understanding correctly, you’re saying NC has improved and evolved as a critic in past 5 years since The Wall? Are we talking substantially better or just marginal improvements?
@@calebmarmon1310 I’d say marginal improvements. He still has sketches but they’re at least placed at the beginning & end of the video with an occasional middle sketch. He doesn’t place them in nearly as much. People say he doesn’t evolve to fit with times. But honestly would anybody care if he did grow past these sketches. They’re not even that funny to me. But it doesn’t feel like he’s chasing an algorithm anymore. Especially now that most TH-camrs don’t do his kinds of sketches anymore now that his popularity is gone. The phrase ‘If’s been done before’ can be countered with ‘How many people are doing it now?’
Literally everyone who hates CinemaSins and think people actually take it seriously have to have some sort of mental problem. Do you really think guys wouldnt nitpick plotholes if not for them? Ebert did that since the 70s
So this is 100% without watching it again and purely off memory, but I seem to remember the Lorax video being pretty thoughtful and more about the the context of the film to its predecessor and what muddling such an important message like that can do to impressionable children (and apparently Film theory)
1:12:49 Mako’s cancer affected his other works too. When he was performing for the Tale of Iroh in Tales of Ba Sing Se from avatar he was genuinely crying cuz he knew this was going to be one of his last or his last (which it was his last iirc) time acting before he died.
Doug didn’t necessarily have bad media literacy cause he had the good grace to admit when his audience had a point about some work. He did however create a space where the most viral of videos was the ones people paid attention to.
Doug Walker is still very much a guilty pleasure, i know he isn't the best critic, but I'll always have a soft spot for his style. I think some of his retained audience is from the fact he doesnt take himself that seriously anymore and people like making fun of the old videos
I remember being at a low and hopeless point with my depression in 2009 and his videos with AVGN (which is how I found him to begin with) made me laugh so hard I actually felt better. So I'd watch his reviews over and over again because it was something that was making me happy in an otherwise empty environment. I was living alone at the time, had little social support because everyone lived in different cities. Watching his videos (and the other critics on CA) made me feel like I had something to look forward to. It was comforting and made me feel less alone until I was able to really get back up on my feet. So when the change the channel thing happened...I kinda felt like Spoony with the Ultima games. Just crushed.
1:01:13 I don't think that was even supposed to be a joke. Yeah, the parody Frankenstein has props from the original Frankenstein, but I thought that that was just because Mel Brooks was a huge fan of the original movie and thought that it would be cool to have them. The props being in the parody scene weren't going to be funny if you recognized them for what they were. It'd be more of an "oh, cool, I know what that is" moment.
I don't understand why the bat credit card gets so much shit. What's he supposed to do, say "just put it on the tab of my good friend Bruce Wayne, he pays for all my stuff. No we can't be in the same room together."
I quite enjoy Linkara’s knowledge, humor, and variety in story ideas! He’s definitely a great influence for my own works, and I hope I can meet him and give my respects to him. (As long as I’m not par-asocial about it. He’s been harassed enough as is.)
The truth is Doug did change. It's not the "Angry Review" and that's due to his voice finally cracking to loosing it more so he had to dial it down. When I started doing reviews, it was to counter the "angry reviewer" to being more positive while also being in the style of Doug's and Lewiss videos. To The point I have been the keeper of the flame of "The Reviewerverse" and it's something I hold a lot of responsibility for to carry on what came before. Sure there were a lot of issues at CA and we all had to move on, but the lore I like to keep alive because of how fun it still is in creativity. Good video as always
My take on Doug is this his style of reviews only works as well as the movie that goes with it. It’s why I think he’s early reviews worked so well because he reviewed movies that people’s either did not know or barely remember so we just sit back and watch it. I think where he falters is when he gets to popular movies or films that don’t fit his style so it ends up falling flat. Just look at his old video about movies I’ll never review and you’ll see why it can’t all work.
Honestly, saying that channel awesome "ruined media literacy" when cinemasins exists and is objectively worse in every single way is just...wrong. at least the people who worked at channel awesome actually told good jokes and actually gave a shit about what they were talking about, cinemasins has not told any good jokes ever and doesn't care about anything. (Honestly, the video "cinemasins is (still) terrible" says all that needs to be said about them.) Plus on the main topic at hand, it just feels like this criticism is about old nostalgia critic and not recent nostalgia critic. Now, is it fine to say that he sucked in the past? Sure. But it doesn't really apply to recent nostalgia critic since personally, i think he has improved.
The part at the end, where the Angry Reviewers of yesteryear are related to current 'angry reviewers' I don't think it's entirely their fault. Keep in mind, they were parodies of how nerd culture was portrayed before it became cool in the 2010s. Stuff like the Eltingville Club or Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons showed nerds as obsessively gatekeepey and hard to please, ESPECIALLY online. It was a stereotype, yes, but it did come from actual experiences. People like that have always existed and were certainly not shy about sharing their opinions. I think the main change is that older videos saw themselves as presentations trying to be something other than just one guy's thoughts on something, perhaps stemming from the novelty of it where being a video on the internet was still something unique so they emulated TV and tried to be something worth watching by being funny. Whereas, nowadays being a video on the internet is nothing special at all. So now, there will be the occasional quip here and there, but there's no expectation on being anything other than a stream of consciousness opinion piece. I believe that, rather than inspiring hate-filled content criticizing media, people who were willing to make those kind of videos were always around, they just weren't putting those ideas into full videos at the time, but were perhaps emboldened by the lackluster media literacy videos that came before.
The line "Arin Hanson of Game Grumps" breaks my heart because he used be known for animation, which I assume is how he connected with Doug Walker in the first place. Sucks that nobody remembers or knows that about him. RIP Egoraptor.
@@Tacom4ster I'd say both Doug and Sandler can dip far below mediocrity at times. Sandler frustrates me so much more; because I know he has a lot of talent, I can't say the same for Doug.
As an old fan of the channel, this was an amazing essay you made. I mean could give Channel Awesome the reason why I love essays, but maybe Scott McCloud comic book essays that really gave me that appetite of media analysis.
You should really watch Folding Ideas' video on it if you haven't, pretty much the definitive video on why that review is so bad; and why Doug was so bad at reviewing it. Also Dan knows how to work a camera and do all the behind the scenes stuff to actually make a video look good.
I don't think anyone has pointed it out but I think the best way to view Doug as a critic is with his honest reviews. Things like his Doug Reviews vids, or his Disneycembers, his old "Real Thoughts" videos, or even his Dark Toons vids. There's no gimmick, character or anything like that. It's just 100% him and how he honestly feels about what he's talking about. And the best part is, they're short. After all, he can't just only do Nostalgia Critic that'd be exhausting to make and watch, and I think even he knows that and that's why NC reviews are not his **only** reviews. So credit where credit is due. The sad thing is, not as much people care about those or think they're worth bringing up. I guess there is some merit to the last thing you said about how sometimes it's better to be terrible than good
I actually remember his Goofy reviews & his review on Tom & Jerry, those are my favorite, because he clearly knows the source material, & why they worked so well. I think when he truly cares, he really can pull kut some great stuff.
The commentary around the one hour mark about the reference being the joke is something Lindsay called out pretty often even before she left Channel Awesome.
I said it once and I will say it again: It is unfair to still criticize doug from the early 2010 Never more unfair to criticize the character of the critic. Because is meant to be a joke Doug Walker, from the little I could see, is a very level headed person in their reviews the only times he is "not getting it" is when he is mostly making a joke I think the fact people still attacks Doug over "not getting it" or "not understanding midia" is midia iliteracy itself. The guy can have his own view, his own interpretation and not liking something. I saw all his videos from 2010 to 2018 and he was never so wrong on a reading for saying his channel is what caused midia illiteracy. Come on, he is not Lily Orchardor that guy that made terrible DreamWorks Trolls reviews
Yep. And in this very comment section. The IMMENSE creep factor of people defending their anime like Doug tried to steal their family or pets, is astounding. Maybe Doug was making a joke. Maybe he was recognizing that the culture there is creepy and just because you're not living there, doesn't make it less creepy. The fact that people get THIS pissed over people dissing some anime WAY MORE than if people were dissing any western animation or show; says a LOT about the person and it doesn't say good things.
I agree, altought I'm not so blind to the point of ignoring some of the bad criticism like the sailer moon review....but at the same time I'm not so blind to ignore the skit in his 2019 Toonami video where he mocked that review, so he clearly thinks that old material is shit
To this day, her video on Shrek was so fascinating and completely made me rethink about movies as a Doylist art. I also still laugh at Eisner pasted on Disney's Pocahantas head.
Short Answear: No Long Answear: I feel like it was mainly the fault of people, who forgot these vidoes we're ment to be satire and tried to leech off of the sucess of that format, without understanding what made it work, as well as Doug Himself to an extent, especially when he made that god forsaken The Wall Review Musical. Which could make his videos come off as Schrödinger's Douchebag.
As someone who's been a fan of Spoony for a long time, and even goes back to watch his vids today, Sai is probably correct. If there was an Alternate Universe Spoony that did manage to deal with his issues enough to keep going, he'd be nowhere as big today as he used to be, because he'd be too stubborn to change up his style. He'd just continue doing what he did fifteen years ago, slowly losing traction as TH-cam and trends shifted around him, and sink into obscurity. A slow falloff, as opposed to the abrupt self-destruction we got in this timeline. A fate he'd share with a lot of his fellow Channel Awesome creators. However, I do think there's one avenue where AU Spoony could pivot and stay relevant: TTRPG. Thanks to shows like Critical Role, and later on Baldur's Gate 3, D&D rose to popularity it has never seen before; and Spoony would be in the perfect position to sail on that tide. It's nice to imagine that trajectory for him.
Hey, Anthony. I was wondering if you would be interested in making a video about how to identify bad faith criticism of media. I’ve notice that in online discussions it is very common to find people who cannot distinct between negative criticism and bad faith criticism. Many adopt the attitude that most negative critics are bad faith, while others do the opposite by and defend bad faith critics by saying they are just negative critics. I know you made a video addressing bad media criticism and touched on the concept of bad faith criticism, but I was hoping you could expand more on the subject. Keep up the great work.
![Forced Diversity Does [Not] Exist | Ant vs. Anti-Woke Slop](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/gDh1cuxCie4/mqdefault.jpg)
“Did Nostalgia Critic ruin media literacy?”
Phillip J Fry: “Give a little credit to our public school system”
This is probably the best answer. He and Channel Awesome didn't help but they can't take the full blame.
A bit of column A and a bit of column B, but really, it was a death of a million slices. I blame the internet as a whole, really. Anyone can put anything out there and end up with like-minded people and people they've influenced spreading their rhetoric. There's also the tendency for Intentionally Bad Takes that started as ironic jokes ("Daniel was the real bully in The Karate Kid", for instance), becoming the accepted, prevailing opinion somehow. And the endless "Beauty and the Beast was about Stockholm Syndrome" take being put on infinite loop on popular online outlets helped contribute to the era of Live-Action Remakes we're trapped in.
Channel Awesome was birthed as much from online media illiterate nonsense as much as it created media illiteracy.
I think the problem with “ruining media literacy today” claim, is that it assumes we had better media literacy in the past, and I’m not convinced that’s true.
As i showed with the Siskel and Ebert clip, i would agree with you there
I think it was more referring to the "tastemakers" having media literacy.
@@agramuglia I think so too, though we just see a lot more dumb ass takes now, so it is easy to think it is worse now. There are some old reviews where you go "What do you mean they didn't like The Thing? How did they watch The Big Lebwoski and enjoy that film?"
@@agramuglia I think I intended this as a reply to another comment and not to the video itself. I know you specifically weren’t saying that.
@@calebmarmon1310 i realize!
Honestly I dont think Doug hurt the media literacy online
That is cinemasins fault and you cannot change my mind
^^^^^^ even when I was like 15 I realized that CS were just chasing trends and didn’t actually care about movies
I agree with this comment.
@@lioedevon4275They’re not even shy about it either. A new Disney live action remake gets announced they immediately sin the animated original
I think it was both of them
100%. My normie mates never knew the critic but would consume cinemasins like craxk.
Doug can have great reviews that actually make me look at films differently. My biggest issue is that he just... Doesn't understand media, sometimes? Like, he can't comprehend why a majority of a fan base enjoys something because he's not attached to it, or he's SO CLOSE to getting the point, but dismisses it as a fluke. It can be frustrating. Then CinemaSins are so much worse with media literacy...
I remember I stopped watching when he reviewed Last Action Hero, and didn't realise it's a Satire.
He spent most of it complaining about how it follows the tropes of action movies of the time, when, for those who don't know, it is set Within an especially cheesy action movie of the time.
I would go back to it a little later, until he "Did a Let's Play", that got Retsupuraed. And as soon as Slowbeef sarcastically said "Well, loud equals funny, and gun equals loud, so gun equals funny." It just kind of killed over 50% of Doug's humour.
I think Doug eventually realized that playing a character doesn’t work when people take it seriously. After the 2010s, he’s been a lot more laid-back and less snobbish, only playing a character in the cutaways.
I think the worst example of this was his review on Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.” As someone else put it, it feels like his review is a surface-level, snarky critique of what is a very vulnerable and personal film.
Ableism
Yeah that’s my experience with it too.
1:20:00 I always hate how dudes think the skirts in Sailor Moon are supposed to be sexy. They're literally skirts attached to a leotard. The girls are wearing the equivalent of a gymnastics uniform just with a sailor collar and skirt.
For some people, girls just existing is enough to be "fetish fuel."
Doug would lose his mind when he watches Ramna 1/2 like a religious Puritan seeing a girl's legs
@@agramugliaBasically Jello Apocalypse with One Piece.
Okay but that is sexy, not oversexualized, but sexy nonetheless
Doug will be insanely creepy if he sees Princess tutu
"I have thin walls and I must scream" 💀 chefs kiss
Instant TV Trope.
Thankyou thankyou I'm proud of my brain for producing that one.
@@SaiScribbles Iconic
One of my biggest peeves with him is when he reviews Hunchback of Notre Dame and called ‘Heaven’s Light’ the lame song before Hellfire. Not only is that an insult to the song which is quite beautiful, but it misses the point entirely.
You know why it comes before Hellfire? Because it’s basically a part of the song. No really a lot of versions of the soundtrack actually group the two and there’s a reason for that. Heaven’s Light is all about how Quasimodo is happy to have someone like Esmeralda in his life because she is the first person not to treat him like a monster. Yeah he has a crush on her but what’s important is that for the first time he felt accepted by anyone and later on we see him go out of his way to help her even when it becomes clear she isn’t romantically interested in him. She means more to him than just a girl he likes.
However Frollo who has always seen himself above and more holy than everyone else is terrified at the idea that he can fall for feelings such as lust and sees Esmeralda as an object that he attributes his moral failings to refusing to simply blame himself for his sexual feelings for her. At the end he declares that either she be with him or be put to death. He doesn’t care about her in any way other than sexual attraction. And yeah it becomes obvious when you read the song titles.
Heaven’s Light: Quasimodo sees Esmeralda as a pure and heavenly presence that offers something of salvation from his isolation.
Hellfire: Frollo sees Esmeralda as a demon sent to corrupt him and is something he needs to either overcome of claim as his own.
Honestly, I didn't even think about that until This very comment.
... ... why are we suddenly getting into so much detail about one song from one movie when commenting on a video about old reviewers?
@@FernieCantoBecause it’s an example that stands out to them the most of his failings as critic?
And why is someone not allowed to go into detail about something they find particularly egregious just because it’s based on one song in a movie? They’re simply adding examples onto the ones brought up in the video, which is pretty common for people to do with videos that are meant to foster discussions
What isn’t clear about this? What a weird comment you made.
Hunchback is one of those movies that has so dang much potential because it does have some fantastic moments, but it also has more moments that just drag it way the hell down because they're just attempts at juvenile humor that weren't even all that funny as a kid in the target market for it. Hellfire is one of the boldest Disney Villain songs they've ever done, and Heaven's Light is very nice.
@@cloudstrife4534 When did I ever say anything about them "not being allowed" to say anything?
No, seriously, I want you to point out the EXACT point when I disallowed anyone from saying anything. No, not want, I DEMAND you to do that. It's absolutely disgusting for you to invent things to put in people's mouths and attack them for it. That's dishonest and borderline misanthropic. You just have the irrational need to accuse and attack people, regardless of whether you have reasons to do so.
So, I demand you, point out the exact moment when I disallowed anyone from saying anything.
Doug is at least funny and likable.
CinemaSins has all the problems of Channel Awesome but ten times worse, and they’re not funny nor likable.
See, the thing is, I could actually go back to old Doug reviews and find something enjoyable. CinemaSins to me is virtually unwatchable from just HOW snide and condescending each review feels.
Worst part was that Jeremy of CS wrote a book called "The Ables". It was supposed to be a commentary on how society treats the disabled. It wipes away the main character's disability with the first five chapters and becomes a by-the-numbers superhero story worthy of Marvel's worst movies and humor.
@@agramugliaLiterally I started rewatching their videos just too see how many of their “sins” were total nonsense.
For most of the videos I’ve rewatched so far 95% of the sins were total nonsense.
Everything from sinning the logos for no reason, not paying attention to the plot and blaming the movie for it, sinning puns they consider bad and then making worse puns.
The older videos are even more unwatchable with the monotone and unchanging voice throughout the videos.
That's true in the video sense, but because of behind the scenes stuff I'd say CinemaSins never had a Change The Channel kinda thing happen to him as far as I know. I simply can't find Doug likable or even pitiable after knowing things he did and was involved in.
@@agramugliayup!
I think Doug's singular best review that he's ever done was the Last Airbender review, specifically because he lead up to it by watching the entirety of Avatar: The Last Airbender (at his brother's behest) and doing mini reviews of each episode immediately after watching them as just Doug Walker the person, not The Nostalgia Critic. You got to watch him progressively fall in love with the show and grapple with trying and mostly understanding its themes and ideas on an episode-by-episode basis. So he had an extensively in-depth knowledge basis against which to rightly prosecute the movie's failings because he did the research and the work ahead of time, something he's never done prior or since. It is the one time in his life he ever attempted anything approaching the legitimate media criticism of his one-time peers like Lindsay Ellis. It showed him what he could be when working to his full potential... and I think it scared the shit out of, the amount of work it took, I mean, and he's never done anything like that again and has actually since kind of ruined it with his hackneyed memery.
Oh shit, I think you may be right. That was one of his best reviews, without a shadow of a doubt, and it was clear it was because he genuinely understood avatar was and why people loved it. he could have taken some great lessons from this. He looked down a long, hard road of learning and growing and becoming a better and more competent reviewer...and he blinked.
@KiwiLombax15 AND it has Dante Basco, iirc. Literally the best Doug arc.
Eh. The show reviews were fine but I found most of the movie review to be "but in the show they did this so much better!" Which, while true, is the most obvious, boring critique one could make about an adaptation.
That's why The Wall finally got everyone to see how bad he was at criticism. He doesn't do research, doesn't engage with the media he's reviewing beyond the most surface level, and can't engage well with art that is challenging. There is a reason why Dan Olson called him "a fundamentally incurious person" in his review of Doug's version of The Wall.
I also think his reviews like most of his DC reviews, Ghostbusters[2016] and his Lorax reviews are also great both because you can tell they mean a lot to him and can actually give some pretty insightful critiques like in his Cat in the Hat review
"no there not just some simple kid books. there stories that were continuing to read even today. there stories that we remember years later, even when others fade from our memory. there we will never forget and for good reason their stories that helped shape our childhoods through well-thought-out writing, imaginative drawings and endearing morals and the idea of this shaping somebody's childhood the fact it even has the same name as it makes me sick to my stomach. maybe "these simple kid books" are far more adult than you give them credit for. and i guarantee that I'll show when years later both children and adults will still be reading these "simple kids books" while pandering bullshit dissapears from people's consciousness,also for good reason good art doesent come from focus groups and statistics. it comes from people who share how they see things in their own unique way.
Honestly, I think the big difference between Linkara's content and Doug Walker's is that Linkara is a reviewer first, comedian second. Doug is the opposite: Comedian first, critic second.
I owe my love of ROM: Spaceknight and Blue Beetle to him.
That's honestly an excellent point.
i was just rewatching his blue beetle retrospective yesterday, all 6 parts, and i freakin love those.
Lewis is one of the many content creators from that channel that truly earned the respect of his viewers because he doesn't take himself serious and actually tried to be better and grow
To be fair Doug has actually evolved a litter more over time and is giving more analysis during his reviews
@@josephcontinelli7997
It comes & goes, but I definitely feel him growing & improving slowly.
And another difference, doug can actually take cricitism meanwhile linkara throws a shit fit the second he gets made fun off, the oneyplays situaton proved that
As someone who was utterly burned out on Channel Awesome adjacent drama at the end of the 2010s/beginning of the 2020s, looking back on that period should be a healing process.
I call it "The Redemption Era" for The Nostalgia Critic.
@@brandonspain12345 I'm half and half. I don't wanna act like Doug was a perfect guy, nor especially a perfect film critic. In fact as far as film criticism goes, he's said and given more bad/questionable opinions than good. In fact my perspectives on movies got better when I was no longer a fan of his.
That being said, I do still get entertainment out of certain videos of his, I don't think he's without occasionally having a smart thought and most of all, the misdeeds of other content creators far outweigh what made people basically disavow him. And whilst we all derided him as a coward, I think in hindsight he actually made the right choice to not listen to the anger and criticism caused by the ChangeTheChannel movement. If he had improved in terms of management, then the change was done and a lot of the rest of the Doc (not all but a lot) was in hindsight very petty and meaningless. Not to mention, he was willing accept all of that online criticism about him, but most of the people that left Channel Awesome throw a fit when they're criticised themselves.
Doug basically came out looking like the best of the bunch for the most part. Hell, Spoony at least had an excuse for his behaviour, what the hell was Allison's?
The funny thing is I think what I liked best about the earliest, earliest NC reviews…..was the personality of the character of the Nostalgia Critic itself.
I never liked how later, Doug insisted the NC character be miserable and not be friends with the other characters his fellow reviewers made. The Critic in the earliest videos….honestly seemed more likable.
I think that's a very good point actually. Early NC videos are presented as just a normal guy (a bit hammy) but one who's inviting the audience (who are assumed to be in the same age range and to have the same nostalgia for the things he likes) to come and watch old things and joke about how badly they aged. It's evoking the idea of you and a friend coming over to riff on something. But yeah, when every story beat was about how terrible and awful he was to the people around him that went away.
yeah, i liked most of the reviewers, but i never really got why they were so insistent with the trope of "We don't actually enjoy what we're doing nor the people we gotta share a website with" whenever they crossed over with themselves. Part of me feels it was a fear of being sincere with the audience, because it might come off as lame that people enjoy talking about bad media, which i feel applied to a lot of internet humor.
@@Duskool I suspect that’s because he truly doesn’t enjoy what he does anymore. You could see it in what he attempted to make when he “killed” the persona of NC - silly shows, skits or web series that had nothing to do with movies. But those projects were far less popular, so he was forced to bring NC back, especially it wasn’t just a guy making videos at that point - it was a massive business operation.
Nostalgia Critic became more angry and miserable because Doug had to punish the character for being the thing he'd always be known for; and a legacy he'd never escape.
@@mhawang8204 I think that was true at one point. But I do belive Douge truly does enjoy what he does, and has been able to reshape the NC into more what he wants to do. He will still sometime make the NC the butt of a joke, but I think that's because Douge enjoys making himself the butt of the joke. Douge always came off to me as someone willing to learn. When not playing the NC he is usually pretty open about the limitations of his own views, and actually enjoys hearing about why people enjoy something he didn't. He genuenly seems pretty down to earth when you watch him as just himself, and he will always be willing to lough at his own mistakes.
I think a thing to note here is that Doug has stated in the past that one of the inspirations behind the Nostalgia Critic was the show Mystery Science Theater 3000 which is something you can tell during the scenes where he’s reacting to the film. Hell, I’d argue that his skits that he puts in his reviews were inspired by The skits MST3K during commercial breaks with the main difference being that the skits in MST3K were intentionally funny.
Now, It’s important to know that MST3K wasn’t a review show. The show was basically just the cast riffing over bad movies and making jokes. While It’s not bad to take inspiration from a show like MST3K, It feels like Doug viewed the show as a Review show and as such that influenced the style of review he does.
This is what I was thinking! Particularly the earlier videos where he essentially watched and reacted to an entire movie. The earliest versions had intentionally selected terrible movies (like the obscure animated 'Titanic') rather than movies people genuinely liked and felt nostalgic for.
I remember being thrown when there were more and more episodes about generally well-liked films, whether for reasons of nostalgia or otherwise. Or, films that might not be great, but weren't obviously "so bad it's good" movies like those in MST3K.
At that point, it became less clear whether or not the critiques were meant to be genuine, or what the core of the joke was. Are we still laughing
*with* the character *at* the movie? Or are we just supposed to be laughing at the character now, and not engage with his opinions?
It just generally got worse after that
To add to this, Linkara and Spoony were also public in admitting MS3TK as being primary inspirations for their videos.
It's making me irritable as a MiSTie to hear the comparisons to Channel Awesome.
And I found and liked CA when I was in my 20s, older than the average fan. Doug was definitely not my favorite, but I watched him too.
MST3K was just very precise under the goofiness whereas a lot of CA was...not. Some of it did have that shoestring budget charm.
It sounds pretentious, but I don't think Doug really understands MST3K lol.
actually that was linkara.
@@apieceofbitsandpieces342thanks for the source.
I think Spoony’s lingering shadow haunts me the most out of the Channel Awesome lore because I was diagnosed with Bipolar I after a severe manic episode where I was confined to my bedroom with nothing to watch but video essays on my phone. Spoony put a human face on a condition I was being treated for, and seeing him flame out the way he did terrified me as a creative person diagnosed with the same thing he had. It was really rough to watch Spoony disappear in front of us, for very personal reasons. Although Rob Scallon came out as bipolar, and he’s still working with CA despite his contributions to The Wall review. It’s different now that Chappell Roan is openly bipolar, but when Spoony and Kanye were the only media figures who had this it was brutal to live with.
Spoony's personal talk with the actor from Phantasmogoria a while back was good. It showed Noah as a human, vulnerable but slowly recovering.
@@jensaversjo316 I have faith that Noah will get better, but I'm hoping he steps away from streaming and reviews all together. Not because he wasn't great, but because the pressure of a million eyes and ears watching and listening clearly got to him.
I also just feel like that kind of nerd reviewer thing went out the window as soon as OneyPlays started up and began ragging on it. Seeing Noah parodied in the Professor Psychotic episode of Smiling Friends was this surreal moment of watching that era kind of finally die out and get buried.
It's bittersweet because yeah, it was funny, but Noah also spoke to a lot of my interests at the time and exposed me to a lot of weird games and movies I never would've seen without him. Now we kind of look at that as lame unless it's done through a cynical filter with RLM (who I do love), but Noah's enthusiasm and knowledge really got me into that stuff.
Lindsay: the beatles, started good, only got better, ultimately has the largest influence
Critic: the rolling stones. Not as good as the beatles, will never be as beloved, but still extremely influential and still playing concerts with the same old songs until the day they die
Linkara: the monkees, seen as a joke, but actually more talented than they are given credit for
Spoony: jimi hendrix, exciting, cool, fan favorite, but huge and immeadiate fall off that leaves everyone depressed
I don't think the Nostalgia Critic made Exile on Main Street
I could see Linkara like the Monkees!
What would Allison & Phelous be?
This band metaphor is a great idea!
@@daelen.cclark ooooh theyre frank zappa and the mothers!
I respect Lindsay as a content creator but not as a person. She has been a huge proponent of cancel culture and has destroyed peoples lives for having the "wrong opinions".
At least the Rolling Stones had a lot of critical acclaim, influenced a lot of other talented artists and made some of the best rock n’ roll albums of all time. Dog Walker hasn’t had much critical acclaim or adorations from other internet personalities and critics (not just in film). If anything, Doug Walter is Mike Love of Beach Boys fame. Someone who rode the talent of other content creators just bc they were in the same group but are looked as a joke and when they produce something, it’s just references more beloved pieces of art.
To describe my *personal* enjoyment of Nostalgia Critic, I will quote Doug's words from his "Kung Pow: Enter the fist" review:
"Ok, I REMEMBER why i like this, but I can SEE why critics didn't."
@@alekslic3385 oddly enough I feel like that's one of his better reviews, actually examining the method to the madness of the movie's odd humor
& to reword that into my own experience: “I remember why I liked this, but I can see why I don’t now.”
Doug's take on Sailor Moon is a prime example of him not quite understanding what he's reviewing. Also, basing that review solely on the atrocious DiC dub instead of the original product was NOT the way to go about it.
Plus in the clip Ant showed, Doug (and Jelly) was implying that repetition and recurrent structure are bad which would indict so so many well beloved stories and arts since these tools have been used effectively a lot(even in the art the two were unfairly excoriating) since time immemorial
Here! Here!
Doug always had a tendency to not do his research. He wouldn't really "show his work" in reviews until THE WALL blew up in his face. But like with THE WALL, he also came to very bizarre conclusions with his reviews. "SAILOR MOON is for people who like seeing fourteen year olds fight monsters in short skirts." That's reductive to the point of being insulting.
@seamusburke639 A lot of flaws in his review cannot be explained by his lack of research alone. In sailor moon for instance do you really need to sl*tshame these characters Doug?!
@@seamusburke639 You can always count on anime fans to desperately defend their shows when the rest of the world recognizes the creepiness for what it is. Just because Japan's culture is creepy as hell; doesn't make that culture okay. Just as America's obsession with violence culture isn't okay.
I think Lindsay Ellis said once that a lot of her old videos are gone because of outdated humor too that she doesn't want representing her content anymore?
this was due to how CA's CEO wanted EVERY content creator on the channel to be like Doug, this is why many of them started off as "the angry reviewer *insert topic/genre*" because Doug at that time was popular with his persona, so they wanted to milk that
That, and she's generally afraid of being seen as a criticizable person
She being criticized, or she criticizing?
@@ShanaReviews No lol she just used to be edgy basically like everyone else on the internet at the time let's not just made random assumptions here lol.
@@mysteryman9488 no this was a factual thing if you read up on the not so awesome document and many of the sites producers confirned that was something that happened, this was the reason Lindsey was originally called The Nostalgia Chick
She was literally meant to be another Doug
"What do you think of when you hear the name Doug Walker?" Middle school depression era.
Fuckin same.
THAT fucking "The Wall" video
Oof!
Someone who won't take responsilbity for his actions, and thinks he's better than his audience, and will shame you if you disagree.
The fact that Linkara has released an entire comprehensive history of the Power Rangers in its entirety is VASTLY underappreciated.
Itll be out when it’s out
My issue with his style of videos is that it often feels like, at times, critics have to walk this tightrope of conveying information in a digestible way, and reading off of Wikipedia and listing large amounts of information.
Linkara's videos often feel like they lean on the Wikipedia side, and the "Did you know?" Type of TH-camr. Bro's trying to teach me notes for the test I'll never be taking.
Which is why Doug/The Nostalgia Critic gave Linkara the privilege to be the one to completely defeat the Power Rangers antagonists at the end of his Power Rangers Turbo Movie review, which is a funny, entertaining review.
I always considered Doug Walker to be an "entry point" into larger media discussions and reviews. Its because I watched NC a lot in the mid 2010s that lead me to finding YMS and other critics that critiqued media on a much deeper level
However when i noticed that the NC were somewhat lacking, what finally got me away from watching was ChangeTheChannel. Obviously for the controversy but also just because I found creators who were a lot more analytical, while NC always felt more surface level and safe
I will end on this and give Doug and the whole NC brand credit for just being able to keep trucking along and remain consistent in their process, and giving us a lot of creatives who went on and managed to do better work with their careers
I honestly don't think Nostalgia Critic ruined internet criticism. Doug basically just took the MST3K formula and applied it to 80s/90s pop culture under the assumption that fans understood he was playing almost a parody of the basement-dwelling nostalgia-obsessed manchild. The different between him and modern grifter channels is they lack any self-awareness and believe their rants should be taken seriously by the masses.
"under the assumption that fans understood he was playing almost a parody of the basement-dwelling nostalgia-obsessed manchild."
Eh, there's a problem with that interpretation. The Folding Ideas video "I Don't Know James Rolfe" makes a point that the writing of the Angry Video Game Nerd isn't really consistent, in that we don't have the true "voice" of the Nerd, and the writing oscillates between exaggerated ranting and legitimate criticism according to whatever the writers felt like doing at the time. I think that applies even more to the Critic: saying that he's a "parody" is kind of a convenient shield to his lack of self-awareness. There were videos in which he was clearly making an earnest criticism of the movie in question, but using the same language and "voice" as his more absurd videos. In other words, the parody falls apart when we're unable to distinguish between the Critic as a basement-dwelling manchild and as a proxy for Doug Walker's genuine desires to talk about movies.
@@FernieCanto Well considering how this was the early years of TH-cam, I doubt Doug or James were working off any level of long-term consistency. They were reinventing the review format as it went along. Especially since these videos pre-date most of the early film critic reviews. If anything, it was that blend of high-brow and low-brow conversation that made both channels appealing to early TH-cam/online audiences.
Also, the vibe of their videos was essentially "how did we play/watch these things for years and not realize their flaws" while occasionally showing an appreciation for how the media worked despite its obvious faults. Contrast that to today's Fandom Menace types who view media pre-2014 as if it were all noncontroversial or never political/topical. Everything now is either perfect or woke trash and all nuances in between get reduced to labeling something "mid."
@@FernieCanto agreed. CinemaSins adopted the same strategy but more intentionally - occasionally offering real criticism/grievances, but “we’re joking” when criticized.
Yeah MST3K is the often overlooked grandparent of the angry reviewer phenomenon.
@@mhawang8204 Yeah, I think CinemaSins helped consolidate the Schrödinger's Asshole trick: I was either joking or serious depending on your reaction.
26:20 I actually remember Linkara commenting on that. And it's related to the Continuity alarm.
It's easy to forget now, but Linkara originally had a running gag that whenever he would go onto a rant about continuity, there would be an alarm going off called the "continuity alarm" and he would stop. The idea is that as he expected his viewership to be comic fans, they would not care hearing him rant about continuity minutia about The atom going MIA after his ex killed a superhero's wife.
To clarify, he did hope non-comicbook fans would enjoy his videos, but he thought only comic book fans would go looking for comicbook reviews. As it turned out, however, people who had never picked up a comicbook not only enjoyed his videos, they would go, "no wait I am invested in this Atom character I never met before. what happens next?"
Because it turned out people were interested in the lore and stories of comicbooks. And Linkara had a natural talent to tell about these stories in a compelling way.
Any wonder his retrospectives are some of his best works?
His retrospectives are incredibly good because unlike Doug, he puts effort into his research, and only does retrospectives on things he cares deeply about. That is what good creators do, and is a big part of why we have the phrase "write what you know". Linkara is great with his comic reviews as well, but even he will admit he doesn't consider himself a comic book expert; and isn't trying to say his opinions are the definitive ones on those comics.
His Caintrospective got me hooked on his videos. He’s legitimately one of the only comic book TH-camrs that gives serious critique for the books instead of acting as summaries for continuity like with Comics Explained.
He has a very specific neesh, and it’s genuinely great that he got better and figured out how to make his reviews the best he can be.
@@osirisatot19 I would not even necessarily go that far. what Linkara does is *be curious* about what he is trying to cover. he took the moment to explain that VTM Bloodlines had a troubled development before getting into the Review, and Videogames is not his first area of expertise.
@@locuas5601 I have respect for reviewers who are willing to do some footwork but also couch their opinions with their limitations.
Yahtzee from FR (formerly ZP) usually prefers to go into game blind, but he acknowledges that’s the limited prospective he’s bringing. He may only play the first 5 hours, but he’ll admit to not knowing if it improves after that point. (He also usually does research at some point before the review, but still.)
Coming from someone who got into online film criticism pretty late in the game and who's first exposure to Doug came from both the memes and controversy, this was a very informative and engaging watch.
To add to your overview of Linkara, I noticed in his videos a few years back that he added time stamps for anyone who just wanted the review without the lore. It seems other people had the same complaints as you and he took note.
I’ll admit. I like his storylines more than the reviews. He does know that his audience is split and that casual and new audiences are even less likely to enjoy them. So the storylines are often de-prioritized and shunted off into their easily ignored sections.
Yeah. I just don't care about his story stuff; I'm glad he's enjoying doing them and that other people like them; but they are not for me and I'm glad he understands that and can split them up.
Linkara has come under fire for a variety of things in recent years, generally regarding how he handles jokes at his expense, but one thing I’ve liked about him is that he’s fairly self-aware when it comes to his storylines.
He knew from the start that his storylines were more for himself than the audience. He always referred to them as a personal indulgence. He was a guy who grew up loving doctor who and Star Trek… and the first thing he wanted to do when he had a show of his own was cast himself in those kinds of stories.
I can respect that, honestly, even if I’m DEFINITELY one of the people who always skipped the skits when I watched his stuff.
I don't fully know how to feel about Doug in the end, but as someone who drops everything I'm doing currently whenever Dominic (formerly the Dom) Noble posts a vid, I guess I have to thank Channel Awesome for _something_
Ant what the fuck I didn't expect the Arin Hanson/D-Club jumpscare 😂
Dominic is a treasure and I also found him on that site, and I love that he's willing to do stuff like completely abandon Harry Potter or reedit and reupload an entire video because he misgendered someone; as well as having actual good criticisms and thoughtful incite into what he's talking about.
I like him and his work because outside of making informative videos about the works he reviews, he has also made an effort to make his work and channel a safe place. Like Osiris said, he makes sure his channel is safe for trans individuals for instance by entirely (and justifiably) dropping Rowling’s work once she made it clear she is a bigot. That is something I commend him for.
I'll say this for Spoony, in his FF13 review he apologized for the "gay gay" bit of his 8 review. His best stuff to me was his Counter Monkey series. I could see him going forward as a d&d youtuber with his talents there. A real shame he isn't still making videos imo.
His Swat 4 LP was also really good because it was just him reacting to the game as it happens with no agenda or need to do a bit and he was having legitimate fun with how dumb it was.
Oh yeah none of us really saw the "gay gay sissy gay" thing as an issue it was literally the humor of the time.
LiveWire (him playing games in live streams) is still going. It’s not great, though.
@@lucyinchat
Yeah, it is really a shame that his stress and illness basically crippled him emotionally for years, and while able to stream now, he obviously hasn't fully recovered. I would love to see him in a healthy headspace again, and even occasionally. Drop in on his livewire streams hoping to see improvement.
His 'Ripper' riff is still something I can go back to and laugh my ass off. Spoony was my favorite.
I think Doug has gotten better by leaps and bounds over the years, he himself pointing out that he’s focused a lot more on actual analysis over using the movies as a vehicle for jokes. He’s gotten a lot more positive and seems happier
I agree. Doug has always been interesting in that he both almost seems to be a living relic of a past time of the internet, while also always continuing to evolve. And I do belive he truly loves what he does. He might not always get the point of something, but he has always been open to listening to other people's view points on media.
Agreed! I do think his analysis overall has become noticeably more thoughtful and introspective over the years, his quip delivery has gotten better and less reliant upon repetition/memeification at least from my point of view, and the skits with Malcolm and Tamara have helped to keep things reasonably fresh.
Is it just me or does this video never actually get into the proposed question? There's a lot of history of Channel Awesome and bemoaning of Doug's humor and seemingly intentional style/technical obsolescence, but hardly any actual analysis of his ability to engage with and understand his subjects. Like outside of the ~20 minutes of him clearly not making a proper attempt at understanding anime you barely go into his analytical ability at all. This video feels like an unfocused overlong excuse to criticize Doug, which I guess is kinda fitting considering.
Right on the money. Seems like the thesis was more an excuse to explore Doug’s work and critique it than anything, because I don’t feel as though the question was sufficiently answered and I found myself getting restless at points. The Sailor Moon and Pokémon sections, as an example, didn’t need as much time as they got, but instead we got like 10+ minutes of what could’ve been explained in a sentence.
A lot of long videos like this pull that. It's why I read the comments to see if I'll bother watching. I won't this time.
Just noticed the Pathfinder Beginner Box on your shelf, I hope you've had a blast with it! ❤
Just like the Patch Adams review showed that Doug can do actual critical analysis, he showed a willingness to properly research the media when he watched the entirety of ATLA before reviewing the Shayamalan movie.
Checking Channel Awesome every week was a huge part of my teen years. From 2009 until about 2015, I was a regular. But I've checked in on some of my favorites every now and again since. 🥺
Had a younger soldier in my unit gush about Angry Joe. Asked him about channel awesome and doug….no idea went way over his head.
Odd feeling. Like remembering Jeffery Starr from MySpace or something.
I'm gonna keep it a stack with you i didn't know Joe was a part of channel awesome until like this year lol
...I don't like the implication that we're supposed to "remember" Jeffree Star from somewhere that isn't MySpace
Unlike every other Channel Awesome creator Angry Joe also posted his videos to TH-cam. Meaning when Blip.tv collapsed and everyone else had to start from scratch on TH-cam Angry Joe wasn’t impacted as badly and could weather financially. Angry Joe’s videos rarely made reference to his Channel Awesome colleagues so unless you were already a Nostalgia Critic fan it was very easy to not realize Angry Joe was a Channel Awesome member.
What do I think of Doug Walker?
He used to be entertaining, he ran a platform that launched a lot of careers, but now he's a washed-up has-been. All in all, he's just another brick in the wall.
Actually his Disneycember videos are still quite good.
Pink Floyd reference?
@zainmudassir2964 Yes - because the review that ruined his reputation was of Pink Floyd's _The Wall_
L
That’s unnecessarily mean spirited
I remember watching him in 2011. Back then, the secondhand ability to just scream and rage at everything felt good.
Christ, Ant, you made my spine hurt saying Doug has been around for almost 20 years.
AVGN has already.
Can’t believe this guy talks so much about Nostalgia Critic’s videos without actually talking about the modern videos. You know why? Because the claim of this video is that online reviews haven’t changed even though Doug himself has changed a lot. Ant says that Doug hasn’t changed from the old loud “screaming is funny jokes” but he barely makes those types of jokes anymore, the wish review being the most recent one I can remember. His skits are shorter, if he even does them, and he does more videos on movies he likes or just finds ok. He points out good parts of bad movies too. I don’t hate this video, some of the points are definitely valid but a) it’s just disrespectful to analyze how “horrible” a person once was while barely mentioning how they’ve changed, and b) trying to talk about comedy like it’s a fine science, like there’s objectively good comedy. Fun fact, no. Comedy is entirely subjective, even Doug himself admits that. Doug has also said that he knows his past jokes haven’t landed or aged well.
TLDR: im mainly peeved about this video because it tries to state an objective, journalistic opinion on things that are completely subjective and refuses to acknowledge that people can change when it doesn’t support your claim
I don't think the focus here is on the jokes being loud, just memetic.
Acting like TH-camrs, especially such an unserious individual as Doug Walker, are responsible for people's inability to critically interact with media is a but myopic in my book. In the United States, at least, I think a cultural that systematically devalues arts and humanities has more to do with it.
Welcome to the TH-cam video essay-sphere, where hyperbole reigns supreme.
Nietzschian Exploration of Barney. @@twocentsmiguel
I remember being shocked that TitS was on channel awesome. He was able to keep his identity without having to play some character (other than the one he was already playing).
I think of all of them, he's the best critic which is why he's still around, still making the same content and only continued to rise in popularity
You think that’s wild, he dated Lindsay Ellis for a minute!
I was surprised Todd didn't get a mention as another critic who came out of CA, and has gotten respect and success since then.
@@KariIzumi1 They dated for 3 years 2008-2011. Mike Michaud is why they broke up.
Not too far into the video, but wanted to jot down my thoughts before it got too far.
I kinda get the sense that Nostalgia Critic started as partial commentary, partial bit, but more so a bit than Doug's actual feelings in the media he was talking about. You'd see a difference between when he'd do a Nostalgia Critic video vs when he'd do, say, his commentary on every episode of Avatar the Last Airbender. Or when he'd do a video discussing something he was genuinely passionate about (which were frankly my favorites of his)
I do think, though, that, much like something like Cinema Sins, the bit started to overtake the commentary and it became more about criticism than analysis. When you view something through a certain lense for a long time, even if it's for a character, that can also color your view of things as a normal person. Doug's character depended on being critical, so I believe he moved on to just finding negatives and leaning on complaining about those instead of trying to unpack stuff and analyze why elements are in a piece of media in the first place, like what happened with the now infamous The Wall video.
The irony about Doug not evolving his stuff is that, for awhile, he actually tried. He retired the Nostalgia Critic character for a time and tried to make a new show, but from what I understand, it wasn't doing the numbers that the old stuff was doing. He said he revived The Critic character because he felt he had more content to make as him, and I don't doubt he believed that, but I'd bet part of it is because he tried something new and the response he seemed to get from his audience was, "nah, we're not interested, go back to the old stuff". And that can be hard to square.
If you're talking about Demo Reel you'd be right in it not doing well. Lady Emily has a video on that if you want to learn more.
Lady Emily's videos on Demo Reel explain why they failed; they failed because they were the best that Doug could do with his creativity and film making skills, and they are impressively bad. That may seem mean to say, but you have to remember that Doug built his career and legacy around shitting on creative works himself; and based on the Change The Channel stuff, he isn't just some goofy guy that's trying his best but that the end of the day he's a nice guy.
I really appreciate seeing someone looking at Linkara more favorably and actually recognize the effort he puts into his stuff, feels like often peeps are quick to dismiss him for whatever reason but I always thought his reviews were fairly strong and only ever got better pfft
I feel that’s mainly because of OneyPlays making fun of him and his unlike Doug he was very mad about it
@IcyDiamond I can understand him not really being much of a good sport about it compared to Doug kinda just shrugging it off but at the same time, not everyone takes that sorta stuff the same y'know?
Doesn't totally surprise me but maybe that's cuz I'm familiar with similar people in my own life and don't fault em much for it myself lol.
Nah he's considered a lol cow for how he acts and reacts to criticism and etc.
Dude, this video is brilliant! You did a really good job on analyzing how an online reviewer or a critic should grow over time. It even made me look back at my own work and past mistakes I've done to reflect how I've grown and how I should grow from here.
But you know what the biggest irony about Doug Walker is now? It's funny how you mention that his comedy is dependent on memes like the Bat Credit Card or TIMING!, since a reason why The Nostalgia Critic survived after his review of The Wall was because of how he became a bit of a running gag on Oney Plays, which brought some of fans of that channel back to him. The reason why I point this out as ironic is because, thanks to Chris and the guys at Oney Plays, Doug Walker himself has become the same kind of joke he needs to create his reviews: a meme.
That's such a wild thing. The reason he showed up on Smiling Friends was due to him being so memetic, more than anything else. Once you see that aspect of it, everything falls into place. It's so wild.
You say that like it's supposed to be a tragedy or something bad: he's pretty self-aware about this, runs with it and he doesn't have issues about it
@@lupinthenerd439I don't think that was his intention
@@ForrestFox626 ok but It doesn't seems hurting him, on the contrary he's pretty open on being a meme and going along with it while doing his commentary. Again, I don't how that is supposed to be damning him
@@lupinthenerd439 I meant I don't think the original comment was implying this was a tragedy
"I don't drink" was a VERY good punchline to the scene with Arin. It makes me wonder if Doug's material is usually pretty smart, but delivered badly... or if Doug just didn't write that bit.
Even if they didn't ruin media literacy, what these reviewers did was create echo chambers where people would regurgitate the same opinion as them on anything to the point where you couldn't have discussions. As mentioned in the video, for a long while you couldn't talk about Final Fantasy VIII without people repeating what Spoony said. It got so bad that even the rest of the website critics would repeat the same talking points without even as much as adding something new to the argument. It was a really hard time trying to study any form of media.
I was not prepared for the forbidden Doug lore
Or, instead of college teaching you media literacy...
...you became an adult.
Most of Doug Walker's fans were pre-teens and teens, and screaming is funny.
There's always going to be space for humor.
@@somethingclever8916 Yes, but children find screaming monkeys funny. When you grow up, it's just noise.
37:50 god spoony was actually how i got introduced to Channel Awesome. It's so bizarre and sad to hear about his complete implosion after he fell off my radar.
The clip about him feeling betrayed actually made me tear up. Playing games with older siblings and learning to read is extremely relatable, and the sincerity was much appreciated.
I personally blame RedLetterMedia and CinemaSins. Because both pushed the agenda that there's only one way to watch movies and that if they don't follow those specific narrative, emotional, and creative beats, then they lack something. Don't get me wrong, I think those SW reviews are still very entertaining and spot on, but people have taken those critiques, and their body of critical analysis, and applied them to everything. They essentially set up a whole generation of film bros to think in those terms. CinemaSins, inadvertently, did the same thing by making continuity errors and negligible issues into major film negatives. I think the nature of Channel Awesome, making their reviewers obviously very flawed and over the top dampens their cultural impact. I personally never watched any of their stuff and took it to heart, like AVGN, but I held on to what RLM was saying because it was more serious in comparison, even with the humor. I think that slight stylistic difference makes a world of difference. And that opened the flood gates for people like Critical Drinker, who is the epitome of terrible criticism, but people follow his nonsense because of the tone and gusto he delivers with.
I don't dislike RLM, never have, but to me, they got the ball rolling on that ilk of criticism that has indirectly led to a wave of people who wrongly associate their opinions with object fact...which is a fallacy in art criticism. They don't understand art or story beyond a 7th grade analytical scope.
@@Zombie_Trooper whoa whoa RedLetterMedia are actually solid critics, don't lump them with CinemaSins, they done more deeper stuff outside the Plinkett reviews, check out their Re-review series on old movies
@@Tacom4ster I never said they were bad critics, just that their perspective definitely played into the cultural zeitgeist of online film criticism. I've watched years of their work, 15+, and still feel the same. Nearly every person I've debated film with in 15 years has inevitably name dropped them, hence my point. They're far better, absolutely, but still a factor.
@@Tacom4ster And they're certainly the security blanket of every Star Wars TH-camr ever lol
@@Zombie_Trooper well they had beef with that Star Wars Theory channel, they made fun of conservative grifters at times
@@Zombie_Trooper like conservatives that reference George Carlin, they don't actually understand them
All I'm saying is, Doug's reviews are actually some of the best in the whole TH-cam film critic-space whenever he sheds the Nostalgia Critic persona and is being himself. Not only does he actually start to engage with the media he's reviewing at that point, but he's also being incredibly respectful towards the creators. I don't think I've ever heard him insult or mock any film/tv show etc. outright on his "untitled review show" or "doug reviews" shows. First time I realized that Doug actually does have some meaningful things to say, was when he released his top 20 favourite movies list a decade ago (when he was still uploading to "thatguywiththeglasses"). Dude showcased an actually interesting selection of films in there that didn't fit his over the top Nostalgia Critic persona in the slightest. It's sad that apparently those videos just don't get as many views or attention, cause they are infinitely more watchable than his usual shtick.
1:25:00 This explains why fandoms often feel like bots, the same opinions are passed around with little difference. it comes off as disingenous.
When it comes to Thatguywiththeglasses, I first and foremost saw the Nostalgia Critic (Doug Walker) as a comedian, more of an entertainer than a real critic, I saw Lindsay Ellis as more of a real analyst than Doug. In addition, I saw Film Brain (Matthew Buck) as a better reviewer, plus Lupa and Phelous as better entertainers than Doug, and it was from this - that I believed, Doug could not stand being the funniest or the cleverest person in the room, which was why he made To Boldly Flee, when he ended the Nostalgia Critic, he expected _everyone_ would end their shows too, because they could not exist without him. Doug was wrong, but his ego made it impossible to know that other critics and entertainers, on his channel had audiences and fans, they still had careers and evolved with the times, but Doug couldn't let it go, their shows continued while Demo Reel floundered, moreover, Doug couldn't let this go either, as his reviews took on the aesthetics of Demo Reel, for this point on, Doug and his minion, Mike Michaud made the channel hostile towards content contributors. The first warning sign I noticed, was the lack of new contributors, Channel Awesome no longer tried to recruit new talent, Doug felt threatened by potentially funnier and smarter creators, I saw the criteria for joining Channel Awesome, and it was a strict checklist meant to gatekeep everyone out. The dethroning moment for me was his review of the Jungle Book 2016, denouncing it as the 'Grown-up version", plus his hostility for the audience who loved this film, I was one of them. Out of the Disney live-action remakes, I like Jungle Book the most, for being its own thing while doing something unique, which is the point of remaking a film, not rehash the film shot for shot - dialogue for dialogue, but Doug couldn't handle other people's opinions deviating from him, because he viewed his opinion was supposed to be the default. Even back in the day, I found some of his reviews flawed and problematic, case in point was his review of the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, in his review he condemns the show as too childish, even though this show _was_ made for children, I was six years old when AoStH was on the air, plus this programme was based on the video game, which is why the show looks the way it does, Doug did like Sonic the Hedgehog (Sonic SatAM) because it was darker and more mature, but this was based on the Archie comic, after all, Sally Acorn is not original Sega game. Doug could have not reviewed Sonic the Hedgehog, he was unprepared to review the TV programmes without understanding the context, he didn't play the video game nor read any of the Sonic Archie comics, this has been the default approach to Doug's reviews. Doug is a parody of the AVGN, James Rolfe had legitimate complaints about flaws in video games and consoles, he would also own up to his mistakes, and had many positive things to says, Doug kept the "Angry" and refused to evolve, for a guy who believes comedy is based on misery, Doug is the longest gag to ever overstay its welcome, poetic justice for all who made his channel great.
I'm glad Phelous and Lupa are still doing their thing. Same with Matthew, even if he doesn't do bad movie beatdown anymore
AVGN is passe. And He's done some pretty Weak and POORLY researched videos.
I'll turn on Doug's video when I want a laugh. I notice I really avoid the deep academic critic because they get really boring and even smug.
About Doug's humor philosophy - there are actually THREE academic humor theories (disclaimer - I am not an american, I learned about those theories in Hebrew, so if I'm mistaken with the names, that's the reason):
1. Superiority theory, the one which Doug believes in - that humor is based on feeling superior over someone else, whether him being miserable unlike us or lesser than us. One of its supporters was Plato.
2. Relaxtation theory - that humor is a way to release inner pressure. One of its supporters was Freud (who, of course, talked about it in relation to sexual jokes and repressed sexual desires)
3. Incongruence theory - that humor is based on a surprising cognitive intersection between two plains or fields, like a kid who wears a pot on his head and therefore connects between cooking and clothing. One of its supporters was Henri-Louis Bergson.
None of the theories was ever proven entierly correct. The best guess is that humor is a combination of all three.
Doug's view on humor is very limited and therefore he is limited not only as a reviewer but as a comedian and a creator, something which you can see mostly when he writes other reviewers. He just didn't get their humor (Why was Obscurus Lupa allways the straight man in his crossovers??? She was anything but!).
i feel like the style of youtube media criticism is one of the reasons fandom culture has become so toxic, all criticism is framed as the media being garbage that you'd have to be garbage to like so people start taking even mild criticism of some show they like as if it's saying that
I mean this is just not true with Doug, at least in recent years he’s been a lot more positive with untitled review show and disneycember
Or maybe its because fandom is filled with literal children or manchildren who cant process the emotions of a film unless the good guy wears a white hat and the bad guy wears a black hat
@@maydaymemer4660 I Agree. Oh and The Wall Film is pretentious and Self Righteous. There I said it.
Just remember the vast majority of people you see (or maybe even interact with) on the internet, especially on YT, are younger than 18. The same can be said for anyone engaging in media "discourse" and the childish "thing bad, therefore enjoyer bad" is indicative of such a demography
@ This.
The thing that gets me with Doug Walker in retrospect is that he would often have these big revelations in his reviews that he treated like he cracked the code. Like yes, Doug, people like fury road because it's essentially a road runner cartoon. Congratulations
That review is written like an episode of a TV show, with a narrative, characters, and a final revelation. I'm not saying that it's done well, I'm saying that based on the intention, that part is supposed to be played up
He thinks the slightest observation of things like that makes him incredibly clever, because he so rarely has those. Also funny because he clearly didn't see the interview where the director pretty much said the same thing, that he wanted to be able to tell a visual story that you could understand even if you didn't know the language.
No they dont?
Well Y’know, they had to pad out the run time somehow.
Doug's worst reviews are the ones he does on things he clearly knows nothing about and therefore thinks that thing is stupid.
Pokemon the 1st Movie
Digimon The Movie
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers The Movie
Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie
He did it for clicks. Every engagement farms are guilty of this.
The wall as well. That destroyed Doug Walker’s credibility more than Change The Channel did imho.
People viewed Doug as an incompetent but well meaning guy during Change The Channel bc he wasn’t the worst person in CA. But after the Wall Review, he got fucked and blasted by every corner of the internet and I’ve never seen him come back from that tbh.
@@Lechef53His channel continues to grow as does his views and videos
Turns out many people Including the upcoming generation etc
Don't give two craps Bout the wall or pink Floyd these days
And fewer take any of that seriously
So basically Gen Y slop you have nostalgia for?
@@mckenzie.latham91
@@mckenzie.latham91, if not less than that@@mckenzie.latham91 and would sell out arenas and stadiums within minutes if the remaining members were to join together and make a new album and go on tour@@mckenzie.latham91 Contrast that to Doug who is laughed at by Video essayists, Film reviews, Music reviewers, Commentary channels and the general audience. There’s a reason why so many people still talk about the Pink Floyd:The Wall “review” when discussing nostalgia critic and dog walker. It’s because that is what most people now think about when discussing him and how detrimental it is to his brand.
Linkara did a review of Avengers: Disassembled recently, and it's really well constructed. Really put into words how much I hated that comic.
"I have thin walls and i must scream" oh my god 😭😭😭
I can not say that for myself. If anything, it was my first encounter with media criticism. Now, I recognize the lack of quality but I appreciate that my exposure to him helped later to recognize formalist analysis of media and go beyond it. It also introduced me to one of my favorite video essayist, Lindsay Ellis.
You know, when I saw this video in my recommendations, I groaned and assumed it just was going to be another "Nostalgia Critic is terrible..." video essay saying how all of Doug Walker's videos were always terrible and the only reason you ever liked them was you were a stupid teenager... a type of video I've seen a million times on the platform. But this is actually a lot less negative than I thought it was going to be. Good Job.
Doug Walker is a person who's content I have an incredibly complicated relationship with. Doug Walker and the rest of the Channel Awesome critics were a massive influence on me... and when CTC broke I was absolutely gutted. Still, as you point out, I do think Doug Walker CAN be a good critic, and he has made a lot of good (or decent) reviews in the past.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but... I actually liked NC BETTER after he came back. Like the Pre-TBF the character of the Critic was pretty much just a straight up arsehole that your not supposed to take seriously. Whereas after he came back... yeah the Critic was still an arsehole, but he was a bit calmer, more open to other people's opinions and trying to better himself as a person. I also felt he was better as a critic and was less jokey, and more insightful. While you mentioned his Patch Adams and Haunting reviews as evidence of him being a good (or at least decent) critic, but I'd also include The Cell, A.I., The Last Airbender, Man of Steel, Alice in Wonderland (2010), and his Dr. Seuss Trilogy (How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Cat in the Hat, and The Lorax) also contain a lot of legitimate criticism. I also liked his editorials, like "Why Tom and Jerry is Genius?", "Is Goofy Secretly Badass?", "What's with all the Princess Hate?", "When Is It Right to Nitpick" "Looney Tunes Show: Good or Bad" etc., and in some ways I feel as though they were forerunners to modern video essays.
It was only around 2015, when he started doing the clipless reviews is when I feel he started to go down hill, and then I stopped watching after CTC.
I do think he hit a bit of a rout around 2015 that culminated in the Wall review. But I think he has come along way from that. He hasn't done a clipless review in ages and has continued to refine more of his ciritism and joke balance. I still enjoy his videos and I feel like he is continuing to improve.
and doug did NOT know about uranus and neptune linkara had to tell him about that
Phelous and Allison usually done better jobs reviewing the same movie because they does way more research
Phelous is the one "angry" reviewer I still love. And I do think the research he puts into his videos has to do with it. Like my man does not have to Sherlock his way to figure out the names of voice actors in random Disney ripoff #10303 but god damn it, he does.
They also bounce well off one another when they do joint reviews. If one doesn't understand the why or what of a scene, the other often does and can explain it (or editor Matt explains it later). So we get a more rounded view of media, instead of just, "I didn't get this therefore it is bad."
@@KyleRDent well they are married
The only review of theirs i saw was foodfight and it literally starts with a cringe skit
"Media literacy" wasn't a problem until TH-cam let some people think they had it and others didn't.
Clearly you never heard of the Satanic Panic.
1:03:10
Which is hilariously ironic, because Doug always hated and complained about pop-culture references in movies because those references will expire and their target audience won't find it funny. And yet, his humor isn't that different
He’d probably hate Earthbound.
"my opinion is better than yours"
I'll still never forgive NC for badmouthing Phelan.
What did he said?
@fernandozavaletabustos205 it was about the graphics on To Boldly Flee. Phelan was working his ass off on the graphics as he wasn't technically a cgi artist. Doug complained about Phelan being lazy and awful with the quality.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) the person he complained to was Julian (sad panda), who was Phelan's roommate and best friend at the time. And of course Julian told Phelan and that kinda caused the cracks of the rift between them.
@@slenders1ckn3ssis that why Doug never again used that song, “the Nostalgia Critic anthem” in his intros, when he came back? I always wondered why and hated that new intro that sounded like NC was supposed to be some kind of action show.
That's not even like top ten worst things he's done ether.
Who cares...
Oh god, that oldschool Gaia Online page brought back some MEMORIES.
oh boy, here we go!
Ngl, I have a soft spot for The Nostalgia Critic but only because I don't take him seriously and find his 'reviews' amusing... Also, I will forever delight in ye olde "~Spiders!~" meme
praising ellis, and especially the pocahontas video of all videos, without going into, or even mentiong in passing, her anti-Indigenous racism scandals or the encouraged harassment of Ali Nahdee for her criticisms of that and the twilight video is irresponsible.
I’m not going to pretend like Doug’s a great comedian or critic. But I find it pretty ironic that people say Doug doesn’t pay attention to media. While those same people don’t actually pay attention to Doug’s media. Every example people give of Doug not being a good critic is from before his Wall review. Because people really do just judge the guy by the things that’re popular to talk about. The memes, the Wall, the Change The Channel controversy. And I’m not gonna defend him about those things either. The Wall review is barely a review & Doug’s severe tunnel vision during that controversy is not justifiable in the slightest. But it seems more like people are just mad that Doug doesn’t engage with their piss takes of him.
I saw a response to his Rango review recently which was the person in the video saying ‘Hey, I don’t agree with your point, and I can justify it by hanging this controversy that you’ve moved on from over your head.’
People only recognise Doug from his Nostalgia Critic reviews which if you see his most recent reviews. You’ll know he sheds that personality more & more. There are times when the only things that relate back to his earlier years are his clothes. I’ve weirdly seen him be more perceptive & honest about a topic when it’s just him. No cap or tie to speak of.
Again, I’m not defending his previous actions. I’m just sick of people going off the memes & vague recaps of a controversy that’s 5 years old now & thinking they’ve got the guy figured out when they barely reference his most recent material. The guy reviews his movies in a sofa chair now. It’s the equivalent to trying to pick a fight with a senior citizen & gaslighting them when they don’t fight back. It’s pointless at this point & I wish people would actually look at the person they complain about looking at media the wrong way.
If I’m understanding correctly, you’re saying NC has improved and evolved as a critic in past 5 years since The Wall? Are we talking substantially better or just marginal improvements?
@@calebmarmon1310
I’d say marginal improvements. He still has sketches but they’re at least placed at the beginning & end of the video with an occasional middle sketch. He doesn’t place them in nearly as much.
People say he doesn’t evolve to fit with times. But honestly would anybody care if he did grow past these sketches. They’re not even that funny to me. But it doesn’t feel like he’s chasing an algorithm anymore. Especially now that most TH-camrs don’t do his kinds of sketches anymore now that his popularity is gone. The phrase ‘If’s been done before’ can be countered with ‘How many people are doing it now?’
Not entirely. CinemaSins on the otherhand...
"I tripped and stubbed my toe while coming back from renting this movie, that's a sin."
Literally everyone who hates CinemaSins and think people actually take it seriously have to have some sort of mental problem. Do you really think guys wouldnt nitpick plotholes if not for them? Ebert did that since the 70s
To be honest Doug and the other reviewers you spoke of had opened the door to other much better reviewers and that a legacy that we can’t denied them.
So this is 100% without watching it again and purely off memory, but I seem to remember the Lorax video being pretty thoughtful and more about the the context of the film to its predecessor and what muddling such an important message like that can do to impressionable children (and apparently Film theory)
1:12:49 Mako’s cancer affected his other works too. When he was performing for the Tale of Iroh in Tales of Ba Sing Se from avatar he was genuinely crying cuz he knew this was going to be one of his last or his last (which it was his last iirc) time acting before he died.
Doug didn’t necessarily have bad media literacy cause he had the good grace to admit when his audience had a point about some work. He did however create a space where the most viral of videos was the ones people paid attention to.
No he has bad media literacy, watch any review of his "The Wall" video and they will explain why he's bad at it.
@@osirisatot19 The Wall Movie sucks.
@@osirisatot19
That more so tells me that he _had_ bad media literacy. It's been five years, what about his work since?
@@DTheAustralian You go watch his garbage and see if anything has changed lol, I'm pretty confident nothing has.
Doug Walker is still very much a guilty pleasure, i know he isn't the best critic, but I'll always have a soft spot for his style. I think some of his retained audience is from the fact he doesnt take himself that seriously anymore and people like making fun of the old videos
I remember being at a low and hopeless point with my depression in 2009 and his videos with AVGN (which is how I found him to begin with) made me laugh so hard I actually felt better. So I'd watch his reviews over and over again because it was something that was making me happy in an otherwise empty environment. I was living alone at the time, had little social support because everyone lived in different cities. Watching his videos (and the other critics on CA) made me feel like I had something to look forward to. It was comforting and made me feel less alone until I was able to really get back up on my feet.
So when the change the channel thing happened...I kinda felt like Spoony with the Ultima games. Just crushed.
1:01:13
I don't think that was even supposed to be a joke. Yeah, the parody Frankenstein has props from the original Frankenstein, but I thought that that was just because Mel Brooks was a huge fan of the original movie and thought that it would be cool to have them. The props being in the parody scene weren't going to be funny if you recognized them for what they were. It'd be more of an "oh, cool, I know what that is" moment.
You remember it so we don't have to.
I don't understand why the bat credit card gets so much shit. What's he supposed to do, say "just put it on the tab of my good friend Bruce Wayne, he pays for all my stuff. No we can't be in the same room together."
I quite enjoy Linkara’s knowledge, humor, and variety in story ideas! He’s definitely a great influence for my own works, and I hope I can meet him and give my respects to him.
(As long as I’m not par-asocial about it. He’s been harassed enough as is.)
The truth is Doug did change. It's not the "Angry Review" and that's due to his voice finally cracking to loosing it more so he had to dial it down.
When I started doing reviews, it was to counter the "angry reviewer" to being more positive while also being in the style of Doug's and Lewiss videos. To The point I have been the keeper of the flame of "The Reviewerverse" and it's something I hold a lot of responsibility for to carry on what came before.
Sure there were a lot of issues at CA and we all had to move on, but the lore I like to keep alive because of how fun it still is in creativity.
Good video as always
Ok sure sure very cute whatever but u made a typo and misspelled Kathleen Kennedy’s name in one of ur video titles lmfao … do better !! :P
@@kg7219I will correct that. Thank you
I will never understand how people can forgive Doug and Channel Awesome
My take on Doug is this his style of reviews only works as well as the movie that goes with it. It’s why I think he’s early reviews worked so well because he reviewed movies that people’s either did not know or barely remember so we just sit back and watch it. I think where he falters is when he gets to popular movies or films that don’t fit his style so it ends up falling flat. Just look at his old video about movies I’ll never review and you’ll see why it can’t all work.
Honestly, saying that channel awesome "ruined media literacy" when cinemasins exists and is objectively worse in every single way is just...wrong. at least the people who worked at channel awesome actually told good jokes and actually gave a shit about what they were talking about, cinemasins has not told any good jokes ever and doesn't care about anything. (Honestly, the video "cinemasins is (still) terrible" says all that needs to be said about them.) Plus on the main topic at hand, it just feels like this criticism is about old nostalgia critic and not recent nostalgia critic. Now, is it fine to say that he sucked in the past? Sure. But it doesn't really apply to recent nostalgia critic since personally, i think he has improved.
The part at the end, where the Angry Reviewers of yesteryear are related to current 'angry reviewers' I don't think it's entirely their fault. Keep in mind, they were parodies of how nerd culture was portrayed before it became cool in the 2010s. Stuff like the Eltingville Club or Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons showed nerds as obsessively gatekeepey and hard to please, ESPECIALLY online. It was a stereotype, yes, but it did come from actual experiences. People like that have always existed and were certainly not shy about sharing their opinions.
I think the main change is that older videos saw themselves as presentations trying to be something other than just one guy's thoughts on something, perhaps stemming from the novelty of it where being a video on the internet was still something unique so they emulated TV and tried to be something worth watching by being funny. Whereas, nowadays being a video on the internet is nothing special at all. So now, there will be the occasional quip here and there, but there's no expectation on being anything other than a stream of consciousness opinion piece. I believe that, rather than inspiring hate-filled content criticizing media, people who were willing to make those kind of videos were always around, they just weren't putting those ideas into full videos at the time, but were perhaps emboldened by the lackluster media literacy videos that came before.
Nerds are still like that now they just gatekeep based on who’s “media literate” enough to enjoy spiderman meets wolverine
When you mentioned the Cinema Snob hovering over his toilet to vomit... TH-cam cut to a McRib commercial... I love when TH-cam is accidentally funny.
Speaking of vomit anybody else noped out of that Rug rats P review?😅
The line "Arin Hanson of Game Grumps" breaks my heart because he used be known for animation, which I assume is how he connected with Doug Walker in the first place. Sucks that nobody remembers or knows that about him. RIP Egoraptor.
It is funny how he's managed to stay around and stay popular, even with his own controversies with himself and others around him.
@@osirisatot19i heard about the Sr. Pelo controversy, but I did not know there were others.
@osirisatot19 Its a PR miracle that they made it out of the Dream Daddy debacle largely unscathed
@@bijoux873was it not a good game or something?
@@paulpower9959it's a great game. People were just really weird about it
These days Doug does offer thoughtful criticism and analysis. I specifically really like his review of Spielberg's A.I. (2001).
@@Weezing336 only when's he motivated, reminds me of Adam Sandler that way, moments of brilliance in mostly mediocrity
@@Tacom4ster I'd say both Doug and Sandler can dip far below mediocrity at times. Sandler frustrates me so much more; because I know he has a lot of talent, I can't say the same for Doug.
@@osirisatot19 i actually really like Leo
As an old fan of the channel, this was an amazing essay you made. I mean could give Channel Awesome the reason why I love essays, but maybe Scott McCloud comic book essays that really gave me that appetite of media analysis.
First thing I always think of for Doug Walker now is just how terrible his take on The Wall was.
Filtered
You should really watch Folding Ideas' video on it if you haven't, pretty much the definitive video on why that review is so bad; and why Doug was so bad at reviewing it. Also Dan knows how to work a camera and do all the behind the scenes stuff to actually make a video look good.
@@osirisatot19 The Wall is Pretentious piece of nothing.
@@Ayahuasca98 Yes, Doug was indeed filtered by The Wall.
I don't think anyone has pointed it out but I think the best way to view Doug as a critic is with his honest reviews. Things like his Doug Reviews vids, or his Disneycembers, his old "Real Thoughts" videos, or even his Dark Toons vids. There's no gimmick, character or anything like that. It's just 100% him and how he honestly feels about what he's talking about. And the best part is, they're short. After all, he can't just only do Nostalgia Critic that'd be exhausting to make and watch, and I think even he knows that and that's why NC reviews are not his **only** reviews. So credit where credit is due.
The sad thing is, not as much people care about those or think they're worth bringing up. I guess there is some merit to the last thing you said about how sometimes it's better to be terrible than good
If anything online ruined media literacy, it was TV Tropes.
I actually remember his Goofy reviews & his review on Tom & Jerry, those are my favorite, because he clearly knows the source material, & why they worked so well. I think when he truly cares, he really can pull kut some great stuff.
The commentary around the one hour mark about the reference being the joke is something Lindsay called out pretty often even before she left Channel Awesome.
I said it once and I will say it again:
It is unfair to still criticize doug from the early 2010
Never more unfair to criticize the character of the critic. Because is meant to be a joke
Doug Walker, from the little I could see, is a very level headed person in their reviews the only times he is "not getting it" is when he is mostly making a joke
I think the fact people still attacks Doug over "not getting it" or "not understanding midia" is midia iliteracy itself. The guy can have his own view, his own interpretation and not liking something.
I saw all his videos from 2010 to 2018 and he was never so wrong on a reading for saying his channel is what caused midia illiteracy. Come on, he is not Lily Orchardor that guy that made terrible DreamWorks Trolls reviews
Yep. And in this very comment section. The IMMENSE creep factor of people defending their anime like Doug tried to steal their family or pets, is astounding. Maybe Doug was making a joke. Maybe he was recognizing that the culture there is creepy and just because you're not living there, doesn't make it less creepy. The fact that people get THIS pissed over people dissing some anime WAY MORE than if people were dissing any western animation or show; says a LOT about the person and it doesn't say good things.
I agree, altought I'm not so blind to the point of ignoring some of the bad criticism like the sailer moon review....but at the same time I'm not so blind to ignore the skit in his 2019 Toonami video where he mocked that review, so he clearly thinks that old material is shit
@@JamesR624 This. Its Pretty Pathetic as far as I'm Concerned.
Lindsey Ellis showed me what actual media criticism even is as the Nostalgia Chick.
To this day, her video on Shrek was so fascinating and completely made me rethink about movies as a Doylist art. I also still laugh at Eisner pasted on Disney's Pocahantas head.
You should read more actual criticism
@maydaymemer4660 I'll tell that to my 12 year old self who watched the video. Thanks for the heads up.
Short Answear: No
Long Answear: I feel like it was mainly the fault of people, who forgot these vidoes we're ment to be satire and tried to leech off of the sucess of that format, without understanding what made it work, as well as Doug Himself to an extent, especially when he made that god forsaken The Wall Review Musical. Which could make his videos come off as Schrödinger's Douchebag.
As someone who's been a fan of Spoony for a long time, and even goes back to watch his vids today, Sai is probably correct. If there was an Alternate Universe Spoony that did manage to deal with his issues enough to keep going, he'd be nowhere as big today as he used to be, because he'd be too stubborn to change up his style. He'd just continue doing what he did fifteen years ago, slowly losing traction as TH-cam and trends shifted around him, and sink into obscurity.
A slow falloff, as opposed to the abrupt self-destruction we got in this timeline. A fate he'd share with a lot of his fellow Channel Awesome creators.
However, I do think there's one avenue where AU Spoony could pivot and stay relevant: TTRPG. Thanks to shows like Critical Role, and later on Baldur's Gate 3, D&D rose to popularity it has never seen before; and Spoony would be in the perfect position to sail on that tide. It's nice to imagine that trajectory for him.
i feel the same way
Hey, Anthony. I was wondering if you would be interested in making a video about how to identify bad faith criticism of media.
I’ve notice that in online discussions it is very common to find people who cannot distinct between negative criticism and bad faith criticism. Many adopt the attitude that most negative critics are bad faith, while others do the opposite by and defend bad faith critics by saying they are just negative critics.
I know you made a video addressing bad media criticism and touched on the concept of bad faith criticism, but I was hoping you could expand more on the subject.
Keep up the great work.