#we are watcher

[crispycreambacon]

Ending April with a small parting gift. I’m gonna miss this.

Anyways, an announcement of my own.

The short of it

I’m leaving the Watcher fandom. Don’t worry, I won’t be unfollowing anyone, but I will be ceasing the creation of art for Watcher and interaction with the community at large. Thank you all for this short but meaningful ride. Feel free to unfollow me if you were here for Watcher art, and for those who stick around…

Thank you :]

I hope to not disappoint with this new era of mine.

The long of it

It’s been a couple of days since a certain channel dropped an announcement that imploded its fandom. It was… a mess. A lot—and I mean a lot—of us didn’t handle the news well, and we made that known to everyone. The impact was so massive that YouTubers, who are nowhere near the niche that Watcher operates under, covered the situation, and some of them explained very well why the decision went over so poorly. Meanwhile some of them made fun of the situation, and some were just there for the clicks, but that’s the cycle of YouTube drama for you.

With the amount of ears waiting for even a peep out of their mouths, Watcher couldn’t ignore the backlash any longer and released an apology video three days after the announcement. By all accounts, it was a pretty good response. The reception was mixed, but it was definitely more well-received than their first video, and they actually listened to their fans who gave them valid criticism over the sudden shift to a streaming service.

However…

For as much as I appreciate their response, I still can’t find it in myself to continue following Watcher. I really mean it when I say this disaster soured any enjoyment I had for them. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to watch them again for a long time without thinking about this situation or remembering the people they have hurt, even if unintentionally, through their poor execution of a business decision.

Do I believe they could’ve pulled off moving their content to a streaming service? Absolutely. However, so many factors doomed this decision and their announcement from the start from them believing that $5.99/month was “affordable to everyone” (seriously?) to them insisting that this was for the fans even though the fans have vocalized that they were never there for the high production value. They were there because the three guys who run Watcher were enjoyable!

I feel like if they had been honest about the fact that the TV quality they are aiming for was more for themselves than anyone–hell, it’s the mission statement in their About page, and, I don’t know, considered the idea that $6 is not cheap, especially for international fans, people wouldn’t have gotten so angry at them. Now, there are still numerous issues plaguing this business model, but to go through all of the arguments would require a separate post, and I’ve already expended too much energy on this situation. Needless to say, Watcher has burnt their bridges, and it will take a while before they can build them back up again, let alone get people to trust them enough to cross them.

On the other hand, I can’t blame Watcher fully for my departure. Despite my heavy disagreement with their initial decision, I understand why they thought this decision was a good idea in the first place as YouTube is a very unstable career path, and it would rather hurt its creators with its relentless demonetization, censorship and restrictive guidelines than give up just a tiny amount of its profit. Besides, they’re in control of their content, and they could do what they want with it even if their fans disagreed with them.

Speaking of the fans, my god. The situation revealed a side of the fandom that I never thought I would see, but in hindsight, I should have seen it coming. To see fans resort to anti-Asian racism and death threats so quickly was extremely heartbreaking, and as an Asian person, it made me feel very unsafe and unwelcome in the community.

Moreover, using Steven as a scapegoat to absolve Ryan and Shane of any wrongdoing was unfortunately a very common response. Yes, he is the CEO, and yes, his series being centered on traveling and eating expensive food really doesn’t paint him in a positive light, but need I remind you that RYAN AND SHANE ARE GROWN ADULTS. They’re the founders of Watcher, and they both have to agree to the initial plan for it to be implemented. You can’t assume that Steven was a boogeyman terrorizing your precious little boys just based on a 15-minute video. You don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes.

All of this to say that the initial announcement combined with how the community reacted violently to the announcement really nipped my interest in Watcher in the bud. It was a shame too because I really did love Watcher, and I still do. Had it not been for the time I invested in following them, I wouldn’t have made great friends, regained the joy in creating art–even reviving a hobby/skill that I assumed was long dead, and had a reason to be able to laugh or smile even in terrible days. I truly am grateful for Watcher, and I do not regret ever getting into them at all. However, I think it’s time for me to go.

Thank you all for this weird and wonderful ride, but at some point, you’ll have to hop off. I just didn’t expect to hop off it so soon.

#Back to hiatus I go (for real this time) I’ll see y’all in 3 weeks 🫡 #I’m more sad than anything #But alas we move forward #Thank you everyone #It was fun while it lasted #the professor #puppet history #watcher #watcher entertainment #we are watcher #art #chris p fried art #chris p fried 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

[thehob-bitch]

They were like "if we don't move to streaming site, we'll have to quit"

ENTIRE INTERNET RIOTS AND HAS A JUSTIFIABLE MELTDOWN BECAUSE OF TRAITOROUS ACTIONS

Watcher boys: oh shit.. we gotta stay on YouTube or we won't do anything...

#puppet history #watcher #we are watcher #shane madej #shane and ryan #steven lim

[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???

[hotpoopymilk]

mkay i'm actually going to need all of these drama channels to hop out of our family business right about now, the crisis is over stop beating a dead horse

#watcher entertainment #we are watcher #shane madej #ryan bergara #steven lim

[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

[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

[crowleys-right-eyeball]

i lied abt only posting abt this situation once, i just saw this lovely person’s comment!! passing it on to tumblr 🫡

edit: SOMEONEE changed the password and ruined it for everybody :/ pls try this version instead!!

edit 2: WATCHER POSTED AN UPDATE

#i will cry i love the watcher community #watcher #we are watcher #ghost files #mystery files #puppet history #shane madej #ryan bergara #steven lim #i forgot some tags oopsies #buzzfeed unsolved #watcher entertainment #too many spirits #are you scared #top 5 beatdown #hall of lame

[helpwhatsthis]

steven lim: we actually need more money for higher production value so that you guys have the best! and we're bringing back a super expensive show! for you guys, the fans!

the fans:

#watcher #shane madej #ryan bergara #ghost files #mystery files #steven lim #we are watcher #too many spirits #worth it #watcher streaming #paywall #shane and ryan #puppet history #buzzfeed unsolved

[panicatthetwentyonechemicalboys]

OMFG THIS COMMENT. GUISE. THAT LAST SENTENCE IS SO FUCKING RAW

edit: i see a lot of people arguing over the 'eat the rich' thing and i'd like to clear up my standing currently! i know they aren't the same kind of fancy multi-million corporation that our beloved phrase talks about, and the reason i agree to a point with this comment is that watcher is evidently trying to become that. they're doing some shitty things in regards do disregarding poorer fans, and are seemingly blatantly ignoring the economic crisis by saying 'everyone can afford that!', all in direct contrast to their entire branding of being leftist and openly supporting things like eat the rich.

"You said 'eat the rich' then handed us the forks, laid on the plate, and expected us to spare you?" at least from my understanding isn't flat-out saying watcher are now the rich we eat, but are well on the track to becoming so, and are quickly developing the same ego.

BUT!! don't like people directly hating on steven like that!! they're all grown men who can make their own decisions, and pretending like shane and ryan are out little baby beans and then calling steven evil and whatnot isn't okay. they can all be held equally accountable. though i do somewhat understand being the most disappointed in shane, as he's the one who speaks on shit like eating the rich the most, and is generally more outward with his ideals, so it's perfectly reasonable to feel betrayed more deeply. but bottom line is they're all equally accountable for this decision.

some shit we can't take back. i probably got pissed and said some weird/uncool shit initially because of the intense emotions i was dealing with, which other people amplified. i do regret some of the things i've said to a point when it comes to being hateful, but i can't just un-say it all, so i'm not even going to try. i'm going to leave everything be and allow it to serve as something to look back on for what not to do in future circumstances. while this new path for watcher is, in my opinion, not the smartest and generally really shitty, they're human beings who make mistakes, and they deserve our acknowledgement of that.

in short, i don't like it but i'll stop being a bitch about it because they don't deserve that. also sorry for the wall of (probably incoherent lmao) text i got passionate <3

edit 2: guys. im screaming. the apology was amazing imo and i genuinely think they really mean it, like it doesn't seem bullshitted. i think they realized they fucked up for reals and feel bad. im so happy for them, but also for us as fans. yay :D

#watcher #watcher entertainment #we are watcher #shane and ryan #ryan bergara #ghoul boys #shane madej #i cant even bring myself to type 'all hail the watcher' as a tag anymore #sighhh

[bluepuppethidinginafilingcabinet]

the watcher fandom rn

#i’m joking to cope #this is all i’ll say on that #mystery files #watcher #watcher entertainment #we are watcher #all hail the watcher #shane madej #ryan bergara

[blues-main-blog]

The difference between Ryan and Shane’s instagram bios will never not be funny to me

#watcher #we are watcher #ryan bergara #shane madej #boogara #shaniac #buzzfeed unsolved #watcher weekly

[thehob-bitch]

I can't believe we bullied them hard enough to make them walk back on some things... first the sonic movie, then watcher, what's next?! Can we yell at the senate when they ban tic tok to bring it back!? Can we do that?!

#puppet history #watcher #we are watcher #ryan bergara #shane and ryan #shane madej #steven lim #ricky wang #where is he

[bluecloudsandwhitesky]

Okay can we stop acting like Shane and Ryan are hostages? They are grown men and this is their company too. Even if Steven is the driving force, they are supporting this with their full chests. Ryan said it’s the “right thing to do” and Shane had the professor say “ well why not?” Which is every bit as tone deaf as Steves “ everyone and anyone can afford it”

#they co-signed this! #watcher #we are watcher #watcher entertainment #steven lim #shane madej #ryan bergara

[maxxxines]

#watcher #watcheredit #making watcher #puppet history #shane madej #shanemadejedit #we are watcher #usersource #chewieblog #userbbelcher #mine* #gifs* #watcher* #**** #tuserdee #nessa007

[ghostbinary]

he speaks like a man who doesn't know other people can hear him

#ryan bergara #shane madej #watcher #puppet history #we are watcher