#ghoul boys

[fandomhype]

Best photo I got tonight 😂

#ghost files live #ghost files #ghoul boys

[thatonegeekygirl]

was rewatching ghost files looking for reference photos and stumbled across a meme template

#shane’s face is just really fuckin funny to me #no thoughts behind those eyes #watcher entertainment #all hail the watcher #watcher #ghost files #ryan bergara #shane madej #shane and ryan #ryan and shane #ghoul boys #the geek rambles

[acefusti138]

i’ve seen so many people be like “i’ll keep watching but no more supporting them in any other way 😒” like y’know what. GOOD. fuck off. i’m gonna buy their merch and support their patreon/new streaming service because i understand what it means to make a fucking mistake.

watcher/the ghoul boys helped me grow up. i started watching ‘em at 16 and now i’m almost 24. they got me through college with their humor and creativity and it’s gonna take a hell of a lot more than a bunch of people who were only supporting them up until they made a mistake. jesus it’s like you guys expect them to produce ALL this stuff and then work for nothing, because as soooo many people have insisted, they will no longer financially supporting them in ANY way??? not to mention that holy SHIT did yalls racism and sexism pop out. tearing sara to shreds??? the VOLUMES of hatred steven got (don’t get me wrong he is no saint, finding out he’s friends with some homophobic & transphobic people is more than enough to give him some distasteful looks and rightful criticism, but could yall maybe NOT immediately jump to racism and insist ‘Shane was the only good one?’) this one weekend of a seemingly beloved company making a bad move, taking the time to listen to people and course-correct, and still being told that one mistake was enough to never fully trust them ever again or give them ANY of your support…

Do any of you people truly love anything but yourselves and your own fucked up sense of morality and justice?

#ace speaks #watcher entertainment #we are watcher #all hail the watcher #steven lim #shane madej #ryan bergara #the ghoul boys #ghost files #ghoul boys #puppet history #the professor #watcher #buzzfeed unsolved #bfu #mystery files

[sandrasaid]

what i learnt from that fiasco is i need to go out more because that was the wildest weekend i've had for months

#watcher #watcher enter #shane #ryan ber #steven lim #watcher entertainment #ghoul #ghoul boys

[thetrashthatsmilesback]

Watcher, Capitalism, and the Petite (Petty) Bourgeois

So the whole Watcher controversy has revealed an interesting misunderstanding of what constitutes "the rich" or capitalist beliefs. The major theme that arose during the controversy was the sense that Shane in particular had gone against his previously stated leftist beliefs - that he had, for all these years, taken up a humorous aesthetic of anti-capitalism without actually believing in what he was saying. I believe that this is due to a breakdown in definitions as they become spread to the general public. Dissemination of information is a good thing, and I would never argue against it, but one problem which arises from concepts spreading to large groups without context is that often the actual meanings break down until they are vastly different from their original, academic denotation. This is, I believe, what happened with the phrase “eat the rich” and its current colloquial usage.

I want to preface this with the fact that nothing I am about to say applies exclusively to Watcher, or that the Watcher staff have done anything wrong or misrepresented themselves. I also don’t think that the Watcher fanbase is wrong at all – the situation just happened to spawn arguments both in defense of and critique of the Watcher team which indicated, in my opinion, that an understanding of “the rich” in a capitalist society is not well understood. Disclaimers out of the way, let’s get into this.

During the controversy, two major sides arose – those who had begun to see the Watcher crew (in particular Steven, Ryan, and Shane) as “the rich” or ruling class in a capitalist setting, and those who argued against this by arguing that as Watcher is a small business, and not the upper 1%, they are not included in the definition of “the rich” expressed by leftists. I want to focus in on the counter-argument that Watcher being a small business just trying to survive means that they are not considered “the rich.”

In Marxist theory, there is a small group called the “petite” or “petty bourgeoisie.” This group is defined as those who both own and contribute to the means of production – aka, small business owners. Marx himself wrote little about the petite bourgeoisie, predominantly referencing them in passing in his essays The Class Struggles in France, 1848-1850 and very briefly in The Communist Manifesto. He does happen to criticize this group in the little writing he did on it, “Marx derides what he sees as the petit-bourgeois self-delusion that, because it combines both employment and ownership of the means of production, it somehow represents the solution to the class struggle. This class was progressive in a limited sense, as witnessed by its claims at various times for co-operatives, credit institutions, and progressive taxation, as a consequence of felt oppression at the hands of the bourgeoisie. However, these were (in terms of the Marxist view of history) strictly limited demands, just as the ideological representatives of this class have been constrained by their own problems and solutions” (“Petite Bourgeoisie - Oxford Reference”).

Now, it is very important to note that team “Watcher is a small business” aren’t completely wrong in their positioning of Watcher’s attempt to raise more revenue as Not Evil Capitalism. Marx’s belief was that eventually the Petite Bourgeoisie would be pushed into the proletariat class. I also am not positive that Watcher is a classical small business – they very well could be a worker co-op. A worker co-op is a business where the workers have ownership of the company, and significant representation on the board of directors(“What Is A Worker Cooperative? – U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives”). While some criticism of worker co-ops from a communist or socialist view exist, they are generally seen as a more socialist approach to the typical small business model.

I couldn’t find direct confirmation that Watcher is a co-op. One point against them being one is the use of titles such as CEO and Owner, but these designations could simply be for tax and paperwork reasons. Watcher is an objectively small company, they have between 25 and 30 workers, and most people cite them currently having 27 workers, but in the past they have employed interns and I am unsure of if they currently have interns on board so I am going to stick to the range. It would be incredibly easy to have a worker co-op with 25-30 people, you wouldn’t even need voted representatives; everyone could just be on the board and contribute to decisions. I figured the next best approach would be to see what the roles on Watcher’s shows are – if Steven, Shane, and Ryan contribute significantly rather than just showing up and looking pretty on camera, then there is a good chance they might be functioning as a worker co-op more than a traditional business or small business.

To do this, I decided to look at Watcher’s largest show for each co-owner. This means Ghost Files, Mystery Files, Puppet History, and Steven’s food series. These numbers broke down as follows:

Ghost Files: Ryan is listed as a Creator on all Ghost Files videos. Ghost Files Debriefs do not have writers, so that role will not be held against them on those videos. Ryan and Shane were listed as a Host and an Executive Producer on all videos, but neither ever held a Writer, Editor, or Sound Mixing role.

Mystery Files: Ryan and Shane were listed as a Host and an Executive Producer on all videos, but neither ever held a Writer, Editor, or Sound Mixing role.

Puppet History: Shane is listed as a Creator on all Puppet History videos. He is listed as a Host on all videos, an Executive Producer on all videos, Writer on 4 videos, and never held an Editor or Sound Mixing role.

Steven’s Food Series: Steven is listed as a Host and an Executive Producer on all videos, but neither ever held an Editor, or Sound Mixing role. This show does not require a writer so this will not be held against him.

*Do take these numbers with a grain of salt, I wrote this while in class so its possible that I missed something.*

Looking at those numbers, the main three do predominantly just film, but I don’t want to devalue the work that goes into being on camera. They are still generating capital by acting, I simply wanted to clear up confusion I had due to seeing people say they edited every Ghost Files video. From what I can see, they don’t do the editing, but as executive producers they likely have to review every video before it goes out. I also still can’t fully come to a conclusion on if the company can be considered a worker co-op, but I believe it is a standard small business – aka, the petite bourgeoisie.

All of that leads to the final point – the way that people only began to view the three lead Watcher members/founding members as “the rich” after the announcement of the streaming platform shows the way that leftist theory has become divorced from some of its meaning. I saw several people arguing “you guys can’t recognize the rich”/”you guys would attack doctors and lawyers under the guise of eating the rich,” and yes its true that doctors who work in hospitals are proletariat, but if a doctor opens a private practice or a lawyer opens a private firm, does that render them more bourgeoisie or more proletariat? At what point do the petite bourgeoisie become a part of those who we disavow? I don’t actually have answers to these questions, and I’m sure people much smarter than me or better versed in economics have written on this (one source I found that seemed good while I was skimming it despite its age is this one https://www.jstor.org/stable/2083291?seq=3 ). I didn’t make this point to argue one point over the other on whether Watcher counts as “the rich,” but more to focus on the way that term gets used. The argument could be made that we could have started questioning Shane’s anti-capitalist beliefs the moment he helped start a company, but we didn’t. We only started to criticize him on the basis of hypocrisy after the announcement and its out of touch comments. This raises so many questions about how we use the term “the rich” now – does it refer to anyone we dislike who is financially stable? Has the term become completely divorced from its original meaning? Or were we being hypocrites all along? Has Watcher Entertainment always been incongruent with Shane’s implied political beliefs? Is there a certain point at which the petite bourgeoisie become a part of the financial aristocracy? Or is that term only relegated to the industrial bourgeoisie, is it reserved exclusively for those in financial positions that no artisan could ever hope to reach?

Is it possible that both arguments are correct regarding the Watcher boys, and all other members of small business ownership and management positions? That they are both “the rich” but not a part of the proper bourgeoisie?

I don’t know. I find it fascinating though.

#watcher #ghoul boys #watcher entertainment #ryan bergara #steven lim #shane madej #watcher tv #we are watcher #this is really my distracted musings #its probably not very coherent #like i said #i am in class #meta #i guess???

[justdann85]

Let's do this...

The few people I've spoken to aren't happy

#watcher #watcher entertainment #shane madej #ryan bergara #steven lim #ghost files live #ghost files #ghoul boys

[greenisnotpretty]

loving the parallels, the plot, the execution, i feel like maybe the tempo was too quick but otherwise 10/10 internet drama, would follow

#meme #watcher #buzzfeed unsolved #ryan bergara #shane madej #steven lim #paywall #apology #try guys #ned fulmer #ghoul boys #watcher entertainment #ghost files

[gothra]

I don't think I've ever been in a position where I've been close enough to a certain creator/batch of creators where I can examine mid-sized to large-scale drama, with relatively low stakes, but I am now, which is exciting because everyone is using the buzzword I have a strong love/hate relationship with: parasocial. Almost everyone has a parasocial relationship, except maybe babies or people who don't ever engage with media or people who know exactly what PRs they are and exactly how to avoid them. They aren't inherently bad or necessarily unhealthy. That feeling of disappointment you get when someone you saw value in as a creator or a mentor does something bad or makes a mistake is not proof that your parasocial relationship has run amok or gone too far, that is proof that you are a human being who has been hurt by people that you care about, the same way you would feel if it was a person you knew in your everyday life. It's fine to feel sad, disappointed, and frustrated when someone has done something to make you feel that way even when that person is an internet person. If your sadness has turned into grief and you find it difficult to cope in your daily life because of something that an internet person has done, that's a different story and it would serve you well to examine the connections you have with people.

And if you're angry to the point of racism, you are just being racist and that has little to do with this.

#watcher #ghoul boys #steven lim #shane and ryan #watcher entertainment #ghost files #parasocial relationships #parasocial behavior #psychology

[acewithapaintbrush]

Ghoul Boys in Glasgow let's goooooooo

#Watcher #ghoul boys #watcher entertainment #shane and ryan #ghost files #Ghost files live #shane madej #ryan bergara

[dukesoakedoats]

you either die a hero or live long enough to become 3 guys on a couch

#Watcher #ghoul boys #shane madej #ryan bergar #steven lim #shane and ryan

[ineffably-poetic]

i get they need money. but what i don't get is why they're choosing to start going on expensive trips to europe for ghost files and being back a show that is very expensive if they allegedly wouldn't have been able to keep the company going if they only stayed on youtube. do they just not know how to handle their money?? what's going on here??

#watcher #watchergate #shane and ryan #ghoul boys #paywall #youtube

[thatonegeekygirl]

and now, back to your regularly scheduled fanart!

#some normalcy on your feed: a lil gift from me <3 #ryan please don’t kill me i don’t really think you believe this #it’s for the bit! the BIT!! #ghost files #watcher entertainment #all hail the watcher #we are watcher #watcher #shane madej #ryan bergara #ryan and shane #shane and ryan #ghoul boys #unsolved supernatural #the geek draws

[incorrectghostfiles]

Ghoul boys mention in my new favourite comic (the rest is censored so no spoilers will be given out for Lorena Immaculate)

#lorena immaculate #shane madej #ryan bergara #ghost files #ghoul boys #watcher

[homoerectusindeed]

Seriously though, I'm very happy that the lads decided to properly listen to the criticism they received and offered a good compromise. I'm really happy with the way they handled things. Thank u boys.

#Watcher #ghoul boys #ryan bergara #Shane mad #shane madej #Steven #steven lim

[npckim]

YouTubers are milking out and having a goddamn field day with the Watcher situation (Shane, Steven and Ryan). 💀😭

I watch Buzzfeed Unsolved and Watcher eversince I got time from quarantine. SOME (not all) "commentary" channels doesn't even know them and didn't do an extensive research well about the people involve, the videos they produce and the company itself. It's kinda embarrassing for these YouTubers.

#get these commentary channels some researchers idk #watcher #shane madej #ryan bergara #steven lim #the watcher entertainment #ghoul boys #we are watcher #buzzfeed unsolved

[l0vedove]

Watcher google drive

i think the title is pretty self explanitory

Only ghost files on it atm but Mystery Files and Puppet History are next. Watcher has back pedalled on deleteing all their free content to lock it behind a pay wall but y'know what? maybe I just dont want to give them ad revenue anymore, which is evil but screw them. Also they may still back pedal on their back pedalling, which is to many pedals anyways.

#watcher #mystery files #watcher entertainment #shane madej #ryan bergara #ghost files #ghoul boys #puppet history