Out of the Loop

Somebody made me aware of something with the Shaytards which I hadn't heard about, which led to me realizing more and more things.  Talk about out of the loop!

First of all, he's editing his own vlogs again?  Never saw that coming.  I guess the money train might be drying up in California, and he's trying to fall back on his real money maker.  Or who knows, maybe he actually realized they're not the same if he doesn't do it.  My cynical side has a hard time deciding!  I don't know how long he plans to do it, but good for him.

And directly related to that is that he's back in Idaho.  Is that to stay?  Is Cali too expensive?  Or is it just for the holidays?  Either way, it was nice to see that place again.  His family, too.  Their interactions were always way more entertaining than any of the California people.

And then there's the hour+ long Christmas special.  Gotta give Shay credit for that.  That's how you make a Christmas vlog.

I noticed a few things though which reminded me of why I got tired of him to begin with.  First was the religious stuff.  I know it's a big part of their family, but I'm really just not interested in hearing it all the time, and especially not in seeing them ingrain all that into their kids' heads.  Seeing kids awkwardly reciting the bible stuff just comes across as weird to me.  But the other thing which probably annoys me more so is plugging and namedropping Dave Ramsey.  For crying out loud, you'd think they were related to the guy the way the talk about him so much.  It always just reminds me that Shay is conservative, and I'd hate to see what he had to say about politics during the election.  That is, unless he was smart enough not to discuss it!

But then I noticed that I didn't see Malachi anywhere.  I was jumping around through the videos trying to find when they came back to Idaho, and still nothing.  I saw a different dog, though, and that gave me a bad feeling.  A quick Google search later revealed the sad truth: he had died.

I went back and found the video from April, and I gotta say, I don't know if I'm going to be able to watch it.  I'm tearing up hardcore just from the parts where he's sick and they think the worst, and just had to pause it when Shay said they were going to leave him at the vet.  I went through the same thing with a black lab once, who was old and gray and just couldn't hardly walk anymore.  How terrible.  I sincerely feel bad for them.

Just a few hours till New Years, so I want to finish this up quick (and less depressing!).  I have no idea what the new year will hold for Youtube.  Will we have upcoming Youtube stars?  Will I give old vloggers another try?  I guess we'll see!

Happy New Years!

How to Ruin Your Career 2.0

The last post with this title was referring to Cory.  I guess Kate learned from the best, because now her career is over as well.

Haven't watched the latest Katersoneseven vlog?  Don't bother. It's just a big middle finger to all the fans, followed by a Keek advertisement.

Is this just a trick to see how fans would react?  Doubt it.  Is it being opportunistic and finding an alternative money source which doesn't depend on the daily effort required to make vlogs?  Probably!

So, let's look at this based on what we know of the situation.  Kate obviously had to be making a reasonable amount of money all of this time to live where they do in California, and to buy all the clothes and makeup that she does.  But she was still always rather tight with her money.  And yet, she suddenly buys a brand new car, despite having already bought one a few months prior which ran fine.  Then she buys an expensive dog and hundreds of dollars of supplies.  Not to mention, she's been talking of them moving into a house soon.  Meanwhile, Cory gets this Heathcliff movie deal with Sparta.  And between all of this, the two of them have been promoting Keek like it's going out of style.  So, money situation?  Probably rather good right now!

But here's the kicker; shortly before buying that car, she returned a $2k computer she'd bought to better edit videos on, because of something related to her finances not working out as she'd thought (and yet bought the aforementioned car shortly after).  Then later, after paying a fortune for the dog, she said she can't afford to replace the camera, which was making noises.  These two particular things stand out to me for a reason: both of them were at times where she seemed to have had quite a bit of money available shortly beforehand, and yet she chose personal/luxury items instead.  Maybe she really was planning on dumping the vlogs way back then, and couldn't justify the expense of a new computer or camera anymore. But money certainly seemed to be coming from somewhere.

But we have to take something else into consideration.  Kate just went to the doctor, and then suddenly the next day she's ending the vlogs.  Does she have some medical issue she doesn't wish to share?  And/or is she pregnant?  You certainly can't hide a growing belly in a daily vlog.

Either way, to me, the reason is irrelevant.  She slammed the door in the face of almost one-hundred-thousand subscribers.  Her video announcing this has twice as many thumbs down as thumbs up.  Even the most hardcore fanboys who are trying to defend her in the comments are being out-commented by all of the people who are completely disappointed or angry about the situation.

So basically, Kate has destroyed most of her fanbase in exactly one minute worth of video.  She's obviously not counting on views from her Katers17 channel to support herself, so this "making short films" thing is either total bullshit to pacify angry fans, or she's actually naive enough to believe that she can somehow continue to make any money from Youtube after ruining years of work to build a fanbase.  Let's face it, her Katers17 channel just isn't very good.  Particularly the more recent stuff.  It wasn't until she became a vlogger that her career really went anywhere.  I do hope she realizes that.

If Kate wanted to stop vlogging, she should have simply started intentionally missing days here and there, or going to just weekdays, or three days a week, etc.  Fans might have been upset, but they wouldn't have been completely taken aback by it.  Unless she has a significant health problem to deal with, then the way she handled this was completely unprofessional, and I do in fact hope it's negative to her career in the future.  Seriously, this is essentially the same as spontaneously quitting a job without notice.  Employers don't like that when looking to hire someone, because they don't want to be left hanging themselves.

So, whatever, I guess.  Things in her vlogs seemed to have bugged me on a more frequent basis as she continued to deteriorate into this vapid individual who we see today.  This just saves me from having to make the decision to unsubscribe.  But the underlying point of the matter is irregardless of whether it's Kate or Shaycarl or any popular Youtuber: this isn't how you handle fans.


p.s. She's lost 500 subscribers in two days.

Merry Mediocrity-mas.

You know, maybe I just got bored of the Youtubers who probably still do a lot for Christmas in their videos (Shaycarl, Charlies Trippy, etc).  And maybe those of you who still watch those channels can fill me in on whether they did anything worthwhile.  But it seemed that this year's videos (at least, what I still subscribe to) were a bit mediocre to me.  I kinda expected more from Wheezy Waiter, Arturo Trejo, Meekakitty/Nanalew, etc.  And maybe some are still coming, but some folks didn't really even post anything!

Despite all my regular nitpicking, I have to admit that the Christmas Eve + Day vlogs of Katers weren't bad.  Though I do want to point out that, again, they kept the majority of the gifts a secret.  I think last year they said that it's because they want to keep some moments for themselves.  And to some degree, sure, I get it, that's fine.  But at the same time, one of the biggest gifts she wanted Cory to open was the robe, and she filmed that.  The cynic in me pretty much thinks that they don't open presents on camera because she doesn't want people to see how much they spent on gifts.  I think that's partially why she doesn't film her mail much anymore, too.

There's one other Katers-related thing I wanted to say, particularly after just watching the most recent vlog: Kate is turning into one of "those people."  You know, the kind who takes their dog into stores, and restaurants.  Come on, people eat their food in there, they don't want hairy animals being carried around.  That's why the FDA has actual rules against animals (except service animals) being allowed into restaurants, rules which most states adopt into their local health ordinances.  Plus, a lot of people out there are allergic to dogs, and I just think it's rude to shove one in their faces in places where they wouldn't normally expect to have to deal with one.  People will excuse service animals, but I think they would be pretty aggravated with you if they started having allergy troubles while trying to eat.  If you're going to drag the dog along with you everywhere, then send Cory in to order and you wait outside, or vice versa.  Better yet, leave the thing at home.  It's not a human baby for crying out loud, it'll be fine.

Cory put up a couple of Christmas videos on SMP Films, but they pretty much fit into the mediocre category I've been talking about.  The first one with the alien wasn't really funny to me, nor was it very original.  Think about it; how many times have you seen videos where there's an alien and completely made-up words are used to carry out a particular situation?  The second one with Josh was okay I guess.  It didn't turn out quite as I expected, which made it make a little less sense, but whatever. 

And actually, speaking of Cory, somebody pointed out something to me in a comment which I never even realized: 36 seconds is how long a Keek video is.  That's what this 36-Second Films is all about!  It makes total sense now.  I don't know how I missed that, even.  But I swear to you, eventually we're going to find out that Cory is getting paid or sponsored somehow by Keek, because those two have been pushing that damn site worse than a used car salesman.  It's not even a fad, because it's a stupid idea to begin with.  You can't combine Youtube and Twitter and get anything good, because Twitter is already annoying enough.  Who wants message size limits anymore?  Even Facebook realized how stupid that was.  If I want to deal with that shit I'll use SMS rather than filling the web with abbreviated words and sentences.

Meanwhile, I did think that the Christmas episode of Prank vs Prank was funny.  Lately I think the pranks have gone way over the top, and really just weren't funny at all.  Between Jeana intentionally dancing dirty with that guy to make Jesse mad, or Jesse putting hot pepper extract rated at 2,000,000 scoville into Jeana's food despite the warning label, along with various other recent pranks, I was pretty much starting to get tired of the channel.  Seriously, he might as well have sprayed pepper spray in her mouth, because it's the same scoville rating.  And worse yet, he wasn't even prepared to help her when she panicked.  But anyhow, no, the Christmas prank wasn't the most original, but it was still funny to me, and got back more to their roots rather than this crazy over-the-top stuff they've done lately.  They've had some pretty funny pranks in the past, and most of them were really pretty simple, so I hope they head back towards what made them popular to begin with.

One of the more entertaining Christmas vlogs though was somebody who I doubt anyone reading this would have ever heard of.  He's one of the people who used to be a Dave's Farm regular, but has distanced himself after the most recent news.  He goes by the name CrazyBritishBloke, and is a daily vlogger from Canada.  He pretty much starts out the day responding to comments and videos, then goes out and films things he encounters while working or helping out friends, and usually finishes up the day with his family and showing what they're going to have for dinner (along with how to make it sometimes).  Most of the people associated with Dave's Farm are essentially the Canadian equivalent to American rednecks of the south, though Bloke is a bit different.  I think the biggest reason I still keep up with his vlogs (even if I skip through parts) is because he's a pretty positive guy.  He always seems to encourage people or point out the bright side of a situation.  He's got a sense of humor, always laughing about something.  And he's always been rather impartial despite any of the drama that went on between other Dave's Farm regulars.  But anyhow, point being, his Christmas vlog was good if you ask me.  He and his family went to visit other family, and they all had an entertaining Secret Santa exchange.  I'm sure that his channel wouldn't appeal to everyone, but given that I was entertained more by that than most of the other holiday videos so far, I thought it was worth giving some credit to.

There may still be some other holiday videos and vlogs that pop up, so we'll have to see how they compare.  But so far, it just hasn't seemed like a very merry time on the Youtubes!

Four-Hundred-and-Seventy-Two-Second Films

I hope everyone had a good Christmas.  Can't complain, myself.    But now that it's over, I can write another critical blog post without ruining any holiday cheer!

This one is about, you guessed it, Kate and Cory again.  I caught up on my vlogs, and there's a few things to mention.

First, we find out that Cory and Sparta are somehow going to be involved with the new Heathcliff movie.  After everyone's had a chance to roll their eyes at this movie even being made, and lived through terrible flashbacks of the CG Garfield movies, let's get to the real question here: what is the point of hiring Cory and Sparta to begin with?  Sparta isn't a trained animal.  Not to mention, Sparta isn't even a kitten anymore.  When that Mean Kitty Song video was made, Sparta was very young and rambunctious.  What's he going to do now?  Stand around and look intimidated on a sound stage?  They're also talking about doing some kind of music video for the movie using Sparta.  Again, all I can ask is, why Sparta?  It's not like he's even a recognizable cat.  Maru and Grumpy Cat are way more iconic.  I just don't get it.  Hollywood is grasping for straws these days. 

I noticed this in particular, though:  "Sparta, a California-based cat known for his “Mean Kitty Song,” is in. But that took a holding deal, meaning money up front, against a full fee to be paid when the “Heathcliff” movie is released, probably in 2014."  I guess Cory took the quicker deal instead of waiting for a bigger amount later on.  Kind of brings us back to his financial situation in which we occasionally get insight.  Probably not a terrible idea, though, because shit movies like this have a good chance of never getting released to begin with.  Kids have no idea who Heathcliff even is these days.

So, moving on.  Kate made a Christmas video of the Easter Bunny saying "happy birthday."

...so, moving on.  Cory shares a bit about his upcoming plans.  It involves something called 36-Second Films.  Because, you know, that's an original name, and has definitely not been used by 5-Second Films, 30-Second Films, 60-Second Films, or similarly-named segments of other media groups or anything.  But hey, I'd figured he'd already come down from his happy phase and decided not to bother with whatever it was he was going on about.  So it's something, at least. We'll see if he follows through.

Lastly, Kate let Cory edit her most recent video.  As you might expect, we get lots of fans saying she should let Cory edit all her videos, because they wouldn't dare criticize even if they hated it.  In fact, I bet it was the fans who suggested him doing it after he edited the ending of a prior one.  I, for one, can do without the goofball video and sound effects.  Plus, when you let someone else edit your vlog, then it's not really yours anymore.  It becomes just a collection of video clips of the person.  I covered this ages ago when we first heard that Shaycarl was going to start paying somebody to edit his vlogs for him.  It loses that personal touch of the person choosing which clips to use, when to cut'em, etc.  It might have a slightly different meaning to someone else who wasn't there to experience it.  But whatever, I doubt it'll become a usual thing in this case.

On a side note, I recently went back and watched some older Katers vlogs, even as recent as when Amy visited.  It was just so much more entertaining to me, and they behaved way more natural in my opinion. I can't put too fine a point on it, but Kate today is just not quite the same person I subscribed to.  Tis a shame.

How to Justify Pedophilia

If you read the topic of this post and immediately said "there is no fucking way to justify that," then you and I are in total agreement! But let's talk about how I've witnessed this actually happen, thanks to the 'ol internet.  It's actually a topic I've started writing about in the past but never got around to finishing.  This worked out fine, because there's recent news.

You see, I used to be a big fan of this Youtube channel called Dave's Farm.  Primarily there were lots of car stunts and stuff out on his farm full of dirt roads and hills, which honestly wasn't really my cup of tea.  But he also had mechanical repair and building videos, including some specifically devoted to explaining how something worked.  He'd cover topics from refrigerators, to microwaves, to car transmissions.  Plus he'd put together some crazy mechanical contraptions.  I'd never really had a lot of mechanical interest beforehand, and I learned a lot by watching these things, to which I honestly have to credit him with improving my knowledge and confidence enough in this stuff to be a catalyst in eventually learning what I know today.  Combined with my existing electronics knowledge, I do most of my own car and lawn equipment repairs now, and am able to help friends and family at times as well.  Money has definitely been saved.

Then eventually I came to find out that Dave himself is a convicted pedophile, involving his own children.  It had happened years beforehand, but the revelation kind of exploded across Youtubers who knew him or knew of him.  I was pretty shocked myself.  A news article came out in a Canadian newspaper about it, since by that point Dave was kind of a local name where he lived I guess, making lots of money and views from Youtube by that point.  The fan base fractured, with some believing Dave's side of the story, that he simply was suffering from untreated manic depression and supposedly wasn't really a pedophile.  Others totally shunned him, unsubscribing and/or bringing down negative attention on him when possible.  Then you had the third group of people who didn't necessarily like what he did, but wanted to watch his videos anyway.  But this led to lots of arguing in the comments.

Well, regardless of why people still watched, it didn't last for long.  His ex-wives had gotten together with some of his "hater group" to push Youtube to close his channel, citing that he was using it to attract young boys to his farm.  And they weren't really wrong, because people visited him all the time, including kids, so it was rather easy for one to make the accusation.  Dave himself admitted that his target audience was teen males.  So his channel got shut down.  Then it came back, and got shut down again.  I can't remember how many times it happened, to the point that eventually he was trying to get everyone to come to a different video site altogether.  Then he essentially disappeared for a while.

Well, sometime later, a news program interviewed him, doing the story in a negative light.  Dave came out in defense mode over it, making new videos to respond to everything he felt was wrong about the report, and I think threatening a lawsuit.  Shortly following that, Dave cooperated for a documentary about himself, by a guy who actually turned out to just be an opportunistic creep.  He let Dave think he was on his side to get the gig, then turned it around on him and dumped a bunch of dirt, some related to Dave's father potentially molesting him as a boy.  It was just a big debacle, with that guy raging at people who torrented the documentary and everything.  I think Dave compared the whole situation to blackmail, but he's been known to exaggerate, so.  I can't remember if lawsuits were involved with this or not.

Regardless, Dave is back on Youtube these days.  He doesn't post videos too often, and he's not part of the partner program anymore I don't believe (meaning probably no money is involved), but he's there.  More drama crept back into his videos related to accusations of theft against someone who had been going to the farm for years, which split the fan base a bit further.  Blind loyalty to Dave continued, with many wholeheartedly believing all of his accusations against the other guy.  This was spilling over into this guy's Youtube channel and everything, and resparked the pedophile debate over and over. 

And so now we finally come to present day.   Despite Dave's repeated attempts to convince everyone he's not a pedophile, he was arrested on charges of child pornography a few days ago.  We've heard no word out of Dave about the incident other than what the news article said, where he defended himself by claiming the content they found was simply nudist videos (since yes, Dave is a nudist, as it turned out).  But come on.  This is a guy who has already been in trouble with the law for recording children; does he really not have enough sense to not be present around naked children, and sure as hell not be filming them?  And this isn't even the first time accusations of inappropriate conduct with children have occurred in recent years, it's just the first one that's gotten him arrested.

So now we're back to comment wars across channels associated with the farm, with people blindly and rabidly defending Dave no matter what.  Some of them even completely dismiss what he did, selfishly arguing that people need to leave it alone so that he can keep making Youtube videos.  Meanwhile, another Youtuber who essentially got his own start by being in Dave's videos, has now officially distanced himself from Dave and the farm.  And this is a guy who's nice to everybody, not to mention keeps a trailer out on the farm for the summer, so I think that has some bearing on fan opinions.  Another Youtuber, who had been the one accused of theft by Dave, pretty much put up an "I told you so" video about the news article of Dave's arrest, which is where I learned the news to begin with.

I've always been a bit torn on this issue myself, because I did take a lot away from Dave's earlier videos, and it's really a shame that this is how it all turned out.  I know I'm not the only one to have learned from his videos, either.  But that doesn't mean I can simply ignore what's going on.  I personally believe many of the experts when they say pedophilia can't be cured, only treated.  And you can't treat a problem when you don't acknowledge you have one, especially while continuing to put yourself into situations in which you can feed the compulsion.  He may have done his time for his past actions, but in this case, obviously his past wasn't left in the past.  You don't reform from pedophilia with simply jail time.

There is so much more to this story that I haven't mentioned, mostly because I knew this would be long (and hence why I never finished writing about this topic before).  But I just thought that this was all worth mentioning because it reinforces something I've talked about before, and that's the fanboy plight.  Whether it's Shaycarl, Katers, Cory, Olga, Charles and Alli, or anyone else on the planet with a fanbase, there will always be blind loyalty, even in the face of blatant hypocrisy or wrongdoing.  This particular situation proves that even if you film and piddle your own kids, you'll still have quite a number of people who will aggressively defend you, thanks to the magical mental distortion field of internet anonymity.

Charity Choosy

Hey look, the world still exists, and hundreds of thousands of people who actually thought something bad would happen are facing the revelation that they're completely gullible instead of dead!

I was going to write a different post, related to some Youtube drama, but I realized it would be long, so maybe next time.  I haven't watched the last three Katers videos, either, so there might be something to talk about in those as well.

I mostly wanted to touch on something I mentioned last time, which I received a comment about.  That would be Project for Awesome.  I don't want to imply that it's a bad thing, because it's a charity, and charities usually help somebody somehow.  Helping people is good.  But the question is, who do you want to help, and how do you want to help them?

To me, P4A just comes across as a gimmick, particularly in being a way for Youtubers to self-promote by getting to the top of the charity video list.  I honestly don't think some of the participants even care about their charities, they just want the extra views/likes/publicity that come with doing it.  Think about it; they not only make money from the views on the video itself, but bring in potential new viewers in the process.  Why would an established or even aspiring Youtuber NOT be part of it?

Something else important to keep in mind is that while P4A gives 100% of your money to the charities (minus the cost to make the promotional items you might buy), that doesn't mean the charities themselves use 100% of your money to help anyone.  Being a non-profit agency does not mean it's run purely by volunteers.  Most of these people make money, particularly the management.  Always look into a charity before you toss them money, because there just might be a better one.

This is particularly a problem given that some 'tubers start selecting weird lesser-known charities just to avoid having the same one as someone else.  What if one Youtuber wants to promote the American Cancer Society, but makes a less good video than someone else, someone with potentially with a bigger subscriber base as well, who promotes Jim & Bob's Hair Loss Prevention?  What if the top five videos, which get the split of all the money donated, are all charities which you aren't totally satisfied with?

Last year, for example, one of the charities was to get prom dresses to girls who can't afford them.  And sure, that's a fine thing.  But is it more important than a cancer patient, or Alzheimer's?  And this year, another charity is the One Laptop Per Child thing.  And don't even get me started on that, because I could do an entire article on why that's a waste of money.  But come on, at the end of the day, these are first-world problems.  Cancer and debilitating conditions aside, plenty of kids need winter jackets or clothes without holes in'em, too.  Adopt an angel from the Angel Tree and I guarantee you'll make some kid happy, right in your own home town.

Point is, charity is still charity, and if you want to donate to P4A, then more power to you.  I just have my own issues with it, and I would prefer to give my money to causes I personally care about.  I don't need popular Youtubers to decide that for me, especially if their intentions are potentially of the less charitable nature.  So that's why I just skip most of the P4A videos altogether, that way nobody gets my "vote."

Vlog Overflow Error

I've gotten busy lately, and suddenly I find myself with way too many Youtube videos to watch.  But "Project for Awesome" has started, again, so that means we're going to have lots of Youtubers rambling on about that for their entire video(s), which I can simply skip!

And hey, what a surprise, I'm already facepalming at these Katers videos.  Not only am I tired of every other scene of these videos being about that dog or of her obsessing over getting back home to the thing, but now this dog is her excuse for why her video production quality is going to suffer.  She spent a fortune on this mini pet factory animal and associated items, and now she can't even afford to fix her camera.  You know, the thing which makes her her living.  And if that wasn't stupid enough by itself, what does Cory do?  He takes the camera from her and violently shakes it around trying to be funny.  And emphasis on "trying" because his antics really aren't amusing me anymore.

Speaking of Cory, what happened with that huge thing he was working on with leaving Youtube?  Seems his excitement has suddenly fizzled out, pretty much as I already predicted in a previous post.

And Christ, in this next video, Cory has his hand stuck inside some glass head.

Two or three more Katers videos skipped through in less than a minute.  Now we're to one where Cory said he hasn't finished Christmas shopping for Kate because he's going to wait till after the 21st in case the world ends.  Please let him have been kidding, because the amount of facepalming here is at critical levels.

On the bright side, this same video has them out shopping and doing things away from the house and the dog for most of the video for a change.  Cory was a bit loopy, throwing things and all as usual, but at least this one was a bit entertaining again.  But then the video concludes with him dropping the camera Kate can't afford to fix from the upstairs.

Wow I didn't expect to tear through so many videos so quickly.  So much for this being an interesting post!  All that was left was some electrical and automotive channels, some Wheezy Waiter, some Boogie, etc.  Nothing to really talk about.  Oh well!

Unjust Justifications

So hey, let's talk more about Katersoneseven's new dog.  Or should I start with her deleting my comment when I pointed out how much she paid for it?  Yeah, that happened.

In her newest vlog, Kate linked to the website of the woman she bought the dog from, so I went and took a look.  Maybe she assumed nobody would actually do that!  But when I saw the $600-1000 price tags, I almost Shih Tzu'd myself.  I mean, you've got to be fucking kidding me, right?  You handed this lady potentially ten times or more the cost of a shelter dog?  The same person who tells people how bad breeders and pet stores are, while suggesting they donate to animal causes?  And this doesn't even count the probably hundreds of dollars she spent on items for the dog beforehand.

This woman breeds more than one type of dog.  They might have a litter of five on average, each.  Dogs can usually have pups twice a year.  They're freaking four-legged dollar signs for this lady, I don't care how nice she seems.  And of course she's going to be "one of the sweetest people you'll meet" to the suckers stupid enough to hand her hundreds of dollars a pop to keep her puppy factory running.

So when I made my comment regarding my shock at the cost, and that this woman was obviously in it for the money despite her personality, and that I was disappointed in Kate for not getting a shelter animal, she deleted it.  Pretty quickly, too!  And I could tell that mine wasn't the only one, because I have a tendency to check her vlog comments for criticism, because she has a history of deleting and banning people who say things she doesn't want to hear.  There were scattered ones missing by the time I refreshed, but I can't really remember any specific content from them (maybe something about someone talking about not getting adopted and comparing it?), just that there were gaps. 

At the end of the day, it's just a comment; nothing but bytes floating around out on Google's servers somewhere.  But the fact that someone can't take honest and justified criticism of their actions, who makes a living putting their life on the internet for a hundred thousand people to see and judge every day, is a bit ironic.  This blog isn't my first foray into writing, nor with negative comments, and I never deleted anyone's opinions.  Hell, there's even some negative ones on this blog.  And sure, a blog is a bit different from a daily vlog.  But unless it's a blatant troll or spammer, you either reply to'em or you ignore'em.  Anything other than that comes off too much as trying to protect your brand by keeping others in the dark.

Oh, and while we're talking about comments, I saw one from Cory on a vlog or two prior to this one.  He was replying to someone leaving criticism about not getting from a breeder, seemingly peeved at them about it, then went on to say that Kate "did the right thing" over and over, and implied there's no need to question her about it.  Sorry, buddy, but saying something often doesn't make it true.  Obama's still not a Muslim, global warming still exists, 9/11 wasn't an inside job, there will never be a "Year of the Linux Desktop," and Tupac is dead.  Didn't work for these things, and it's not working for you either.  Kate did the right thing, for her.  She didn't do the right thing, ethically.  There's still a puppy sitting alone in a shelter somewhere (or already put to sleep) because she opted for the puppy factory version.  Nothing he can say changes that fact.

Anyway, I just wanted to make a post while I was a bit steamed over what she paid for the damn thing, combined with the comment incident.  But I've about run out of steam on the issue.  Kate will be Kate, to which I can simply continue thumbing down her videos, and question whether I want to remain subscribed at this point, or simply fast forward through all her incessant hyperactive cooing over the puppy.  Seriously, I had to skip the goofball stuff when she visited the animal store when her dad's car broke down.  They must have thought she was nuts from that caffeine high she was on.

So yeah, that's enough about that nonsense.

Shit Zoo

Couple things or so I wanted to mention about recent Katers vlogs before I move on to something else.

First is the fact that Kate is in Vegas again with her dad, and I gotta admit, the vlogs have been more enjoyable to watch again.  With these last few videos, I've actually clicked on them not long after seeing them pop up, as opposed to letting them sit in my notifications for possibly days before getting around to them.  Part of me wants to say that it's because Cory stayed behind, and maybe Kate's more herself when she's just with her dad.  But I also kinda enjoyed the ones when they were visiting Cory's family too.  So maybe I'm just bored of the monotony of their apartment life, I dunno.

Second thing I wanted to mention was in the recent episode where Kate bought the hat or whatever it was for that girl she saw in the gift shop.  At first, I thought that was a pretty nice thing of her to do.  And I do still think that, don't get me wrong.  But later on, when it crossed my mind again, I realized how my parents and I might have reacted to a stranger buying me something like that.  While being generous is a good thing, I don't think my parents would have really appreciated someone buying me something without their permission, and certainly something so costly.  And in the case of this girl, obviously her mother had been trying to teach her financial responsibility, which might have resulted in the situation playing out a bit differently had she asked the mother first.  Instead, the girl got a rather expensive item responsibility-free.  But worse than that, her mother was likely feeling embarrassed at being barely able to have bought this for her child by herself, along with from knowing a stranger was watching this and pitying them enough to buy something so costly.  Some people are very prideful and refuse to take charity, some to the point of feeling insult.  You never know who that's going to be, so I would be a bit wary before offering something so expensive to a young person, and most especially when having not asked permission to do so.  But, it was still a nice thing to do, and I don't want to pick at her for it too much.  Just, you know, take other peoples' feelings into consideration too.  Sometimes not being able to afford something is a lesson young people need to learn, and helps shape them to be more responsible with money as adults.

The last thing to mention is something I just saw on Facebook.  Kate is determined to have a Shih Tzu, and with quite a specific laundry list of expectations about the particular animal she wants, from shedding to barking restrictions.  So she found a breeder who can supposedly give her one.  That immediately set off my hypocrisy detector, because Kate has always been a strong proponent of shelters, and to avoid breeders and pet stores.  Not to mention, I believe she herself was burned by a breeder giving her a sickly animal once upon a time.  So Kate seems to be trying to justify her current actions by commenting that this woman is "very supportive of adopting from animal shelters when you can."  Irrelevant!  The women breeds animals!  Give me a break.  She's just being sympathetic of Kate's feelings on the matter in order to make a sale.  If the woman really felt this way, she should be taking in strays or shelter animals for people to adopt, not breeding new animals into the world for people with very picky expectations of what they want in a dog, while yet another unadopted shelter dog gets put to sleep.  This really kinda bugs me, to be honest.  It's one thing for random strangers to give business to breeders, but for Kate to do it is just simply ridiculous.  I honestly don't want to hear any more from her about donating to animal charities or getting shelter animals when she's too hypocritical to practice what she preaches.  Come on.


Anyhow, enough about that.  I actually was going to comment on peoples' naivety concerning the importance of money after seeing some of peoples' comments on a recent Wheezy Waiter daily vlog.  Since this post is already getting a bit long, I'll just get right to the point: a lot of people are just stupid about money. 

You see, some people either grow up with money in their hands and never learn how hard it is to actually earn or keep it.  Other people truly think that money is a bad thing and that society should/could exist without it.  You will often see both of these kinds of people, along with a few other generally naive individuals not really fitting into either category who just want to appear as if they have this profound understanding of something, who will go around insisting that money isn't important.  They go on and on about how it's the root of all evil, how it doesn't buy happiness, blah blah.

But you know what money does buy?  It buys food.  It buys water.  It pays your mortgage.  It pays the taxes for the land your home even sits on.  It buys gasoline.  It pays your car payment.  It pays your medical and pharmacy bills.  It buys your entertainment.  It pays for your internet which allows you to make these kinds of ludicrous comments to begin with.  You can't barter for everything, and certainly not if you want to live in the 21st century.  Your ISP doesn't want your chickens for six months of internet service. 


Money is important, folks.  Nothing is free in this world; not even water (or rain).  Money does buy happiness, but not necessarily in the life-fulfilling way some people hope.  Money buys you peace of mind, which has an extreme impact on your happiness.  If you make $15k a year and have countless medical bills and general debt looming over your head, you're going to be a much happier person if you make $250k+ a year and can actually pay all of these on time and go to your next appointment or hospital visit without concern.  And knowing you can buy your kids what they want for their birthday or Christmas, or buy your wife/husband that anniversary gift you think they deserve, gives you a strong sense of satisfaction.  There's certainly a limit on what amount of money can make you happy.  But the fact is, that amount is still usually more than a lot of people make.  If you make minimum wage working full-time in America, you're still living below the poverty line.

So this blind cynicism that money is a bad thing is just immature.  Either you have too much of it, and/or you're out of touch with its importance.  Currency was created for a reason, and it's because not everyone who has something you want or need necessarily needs the goods or services you yourself can provide.  While the American dollar may not necessarily translate directly to something of value anymore (as in gold), it does still represent work performed or goods sold, which is the entire point of it in modern society.  A piece of paper still has value if society as a whole deems it so.

Anyway, that's enough of my rambling.  Probably should have broken this up into two posts, but I doubt anybody reads most of this stuff anyway!

Boogie Tonight

I don't talk enough about Youtubers that I still like, so I thought I would take the time to do that while I'm not busy at the moment.  Don't know how much I'll have to say, but I guess we'll find out!

Today I'll tell you about a fellow I stumbled onto by accident a while back.  It was of a morbidly obese guy with a lisp, ranting and screaming about some video game, probably World of Warcraft.  While part of me wanted to facepalm, another part of me thought that this was pretty funny to see him raging so animatedly like that.  So, I clicked to see what other videos this "Francis" fellow had, since he seemed to have a lot, and I thought watching him scream and throw things might be mildly entertaining enough to watch a bit more of.

Turns out, this guy is not actually named Francis.  He goes by the name Boogie (Boogie2988 to be exact), has no lisp after all, and his real voice more suited to doing radio.  Francis is a character he plays sometimes, along with other characters like a redneck named Jessy.  Boogie himself is not much like either of these characters.  He's actually turned out to be one of the most insightful people I subscribe to on Youtube.

Boogie's Youtube description pretty much sums him up:  "I'm fat, I make internet videos. Sometimes they're funny, sometimes they're serious. Deal with it."  He's very comfortable in front of the camera, so he tackles a large array of topics, from video games and trading cards, to bullying, to politics on occasion, all the way to mental illness, depression, and suicide.  He's shared details of his past with his viewers of his less-than-stellar upbringing, dealing with his mother's mental condition, and his own struggle with obesity, which led to rough points in his life.  But instead of using this as a crutch for excuses or sympathy, he uses it to encourage, motivate, and educate people.

The guy just doesn't need any sympathy, and he admits it.  He's engaged, he's losing weight, has a career through Youtube doing what he enjoys, and has an ever-growing following of viewers who support him in his endeavors.  He seems pretty genuinely thankful of his subscribers, and often interacts with them directly in live shows.  Though his growing fame still has its unfortunate side, both due to his weight being an easy target for trolls, along with all the people who stumble onto Francis videos and think he's for real.  But he deals with these people fairly well, and sometimes uses it as a talking point.

I've never dealt with being overweight at any point in my life, so I can't relate to him directly in that sense.  But, oppositely, I have had health issues which resulted in me combating being underweight in the past.  I think a lot of people have dealt with health issues, either for themselves or a loved one, and/or have known people who have struggled with obesity, and/or known people who have had mental health issues.  So I think a lot of people can find things to relate to with Boogie's ramblings on various topics.  The insight he's shared on certain issues has even enlightened me a bit at times.  And it indicates to me that he actually thinks about these kinds of things, where as many people simply dismiss them in favor of happier thoughts.

Now, I won't go as far as to say I watch every single one of his videos.  I'm not really a big fan of the Jessy character most of the time despite my southern upbringing, and some of the trading card or video game videos I'll skip just because I don't necessarily play whatever he's talking about.  But I would say that I still watch the majority of his normal videos, as well as his live streams, and always click on any of the Francis skits, all of which enough so that I can recommend people check him out if they're ever looking for somebody a little different from the average Youtube vlogger.  Just look for boogie2988.

How to Destroy Your Career

I felt this was worth writing about, so I thought I'd do it now before I forget again.

So, Cory Williams aka SMP Films announced on his Facebook that he was "done with Youtube."  He listed off a myriad of other websites like Newgrounds as examples of other places which he has also been "done" with in the past.  He went on about change, and how that's good and necessary.  Then he said there was another place for SMP Films instead of Youtube, and to stay tuned.

The comments to this Facebook post where about what you would expect, with a mix of the typical "I'll support you no matter what" from the brown-nosers, and people expressing some degree of concern that this perhaps wasn't a smart move.

If you've read this blog for any period of time, you've probably guessed that I would fall into the latter category.

If we look back at Cory's career, he had his initial success on Newgrounds.  That was in a time in the pre-Youtube days when vlogging and internet video was still very young.  Lots of people still had internet that was so slow, and had to use plugins which were so crappy (RealPlayer), that streaming video wasn't exactly the most desirable media at the time.  But to his credit, he still managed to get his start, with the right technology appearing on his heels, to turn his initial success at Newgrounds and Myspace into something of an actual career.  Particularly so with Youtube rolling around when it did.

But that's the thing.  His career now is on Youtube.  It presently revolves around the partnership program that Youtube provides, based on the tens of thousands of subscribers who regularly view his videos, which allows him to buy his food and pay his rent.  When you cut Youtube and his subscribers out of the equation, suddenly the career part kind of goes away with it.  Your options for making money outside of that environment are not nearly as easy or advantageous, and to cut off that huge resource of user and monetary potential without at least gradually migrating to something different is pretty much how you destroy everything you built so far. 

Now sure, Cory is sometimes premature in his excitement, and prone to positive and negative emotional extremes.  One time he'll be so excited to tell you how good everything is going (like right now), and then suddenly a week or two later he'll be totally depressed again.  I think he gets his hopes up on things which have a good chance of not working out, or he doesn't think something through, and disappoints himself.  It was like with that whole stupid wrestling thing, which lasted all but a month before you never heard about it again, despite fans telling him from the start that it's a crazy idea with all of his back problems.  That may be all this is, and he might be on Youtube for years to come, but his impulsive nature makes it hard to tell at this point.

If that's not the case, then his options are a bit iffy.  There's Vimeo, the only other streaming video site which has had anywhere near the success of Youtube.  Then there's sites like Ustream, too, but they tend to cater to live streams as opposed to uploaded media.  He could have his own custom website made for serving up his videos, too.  But the problem is that there's absolutely no revenue in any of these by default.  I'm fairly sure that Vimeo and Ustream still lack any kind of affiliate or partnership programs.  He could always use these services to host video on a custom website, but then that begs the question why not just use Youtube's player?  You could put ads on a custom website of course, which makes it really the only option worth looking at, other than ads inserted into videos themselves.  But then you still have the problem of viewers, making your revenue source a moot point if nobody's watching.

Let me be blunt here.  Cory's success is almost entirely based around the communities of the websites he's been a part of, not by the quality of his content alone.  If someone had to actually go and look on a separate website to find his stuff, his career would have likely never gone anywhere.  Convenience is a huge factor in success.  I subscribe to things on Youtube which I would never bother going to find elsewhere on the internet.  Hell, that even applies to him and Kate, and any other vlogger I've watched over the years.  I wouldn't actually seek out vlogs normally, it's just convenient for me to watch them when in my list of other subscriptions.

There's also the potential of using social media these days to promote yourself entirely, of which he already has a Facebook and Twitter presence.  But he only has around twenty-two thousands likes on Facebook at the moment, which is a drop in the bucket compared to his Youtube following.  And even then, you're counting on people sharing the video to ever branch out to new subscribers, because Facebook isn't designed to promote media randomly to others like a dedicated video site is.  Youtube's been doing this for years, they have the "related videos" thing down pretty well now.

So basically, any other website Cory moves to means an immediate and drastic drop in views.  That also means an equally drastic drop in profits, other than money he'll continue to make from stuff currently uploaded there (assuming he doesn't delete it).  People don't want to leave Youtube, people don't want to check another website, and people don't like being abandoned.  I've seen it before, when someone thinks they're sick of Youtube and starts posting click-through placeholder videos on Youtube linking to their actual video on Vimeo.  People get pissed, they thumbs the video down, they leave a bunch of angry comments, and they never click through, out of spite and/or laziness. 

And I recognize that he specifically mentioned SMP Films, which perhaps excludes Mean Kitty from being moved.  And if I'm to be honest, Mean Kitty is the only one of the two channels I care much about.  Though, still being honest, the Mean Kitty videos as of late have been a bit lackluster. 

So I dunno, it's just all silly if you ask me.  What I do know is, for a guy who has complained about money problems on more than one occasion, he sure doesn't seem to think these things out very well.  While he can legitimately and proudly consider himself a trailblazer in internet video, that time is over.  Crazy videos of guys doing stupid shit are a dime a dozen on the internet now, as are cat videos for that matter, and he's not going to stand out from them while doing what he's always done, regardless of what website he might take them to.  There are ways to reinvent yourself without shooting yourself in the foot in the process. 

There's No Sense in Nonsense

I know that I pretty much only write about KatersOneSeven and Cory/SMPFilms these days, but I guess I'm fairly disillusioned with the entire vlogging community these days, so I don't really watch many anymore to complain about!

There's a couple of things I wanted to discuss.  Primarily, Kate's new car.  Let's forget the fact that it's a Nissan Juke, one of the ugliest cars presently on the market, with awful gas mileage to boot.  Cory owned a Nissan, so I imagine he talked her into buying one as well out of brand loyalty rather than actually knowing anything about cars, as has been covered in this blog previously.

So it's been, what, less than six months since Kate got her Ford Focus?  I imagine that she got it for around five to eight thousand bucks, which isn't bad, especially given that the Focus isn't too bad of a car.  I had the same thing for a while myself, so I know what it's like.  But what doesn't make sense is why Kate would be jumping up and getting another car so soon, and a NEW car at that.  It wasn't a month ago that she bought a brand new computer to be able to make better videos, and then returned it because her finances weren't what she thought they were going to be.  Now she's gotten herself into about eight years of payments on a car that will be lucky to last that long.

The fact of the matter is, buying a new car is unquestionably a bad decision.  Unless you're very rich, there is no logical justification for doing so, other than "I want it."  The moment you sign those papers and drive it off the lot, it's lost 10% of its value.  It's no longer a new car.  You can put a hundred miles on it and then decide you don't like it, but suddenly it's worth quite a few dollars less because it's a previously owned vehicle.

Given that the Juke starts at $20k (and who knows how many options she added, not to mention at least $2k of tax and then a bunch of dealer fees), she already lost $2k driving it off the lot.  Might as well have burned that money.  Which is ironic, given that that much would have bought the computer she returned.

In five years, you're looking at a mere 40% of the original value.  That means she's lost $12k (not counting the tax and fees on top of the original vehicle price) before she's even paid it off. 

Meanwhile, she's going to sell her Focus to Cory, which I'm quite sure she won't sell him for market value given their relationship.  So he might give her $2-4k for it, depending on how generous she is, which is barely enough to pay for any serious down payment.  

So basically, the lack of sense put into in buying this vehicle is apparent.  And this isn't just about Kate; people make this same blunder all of the time.  They get into serious debt for a vehicle they don't need with money they don't have just so that they can feel good about owning something that's never been owned.  They don't consider that there could be a serious and/or annoying recall within the first few months, either, which is all the more reason to avoid a new vehicle.

Then to make matters worse, Kate was going on about credit in a way which seemed to indicate that she didn't entirely understand it, and worse yet, was practically promoting that people get into debt in order to build their credit score.  But whatever, people and their spending problems is a whole other topic.

My last complaint about the car she chose is that, as someone who pinches pennies as hard as she does, I fail to understand buying something with such bad gas mileage considering how much driving she has to do, and will inevitably do in the future for her career.  If I were going to blow $20k on a car, I'd at least want a little bit of return in how much fuel it guzzles.



Anyway, the other topic I wanted to mention in this post was about the UFO thing I just watched, where Kate and Cory are out in a parking lot at night and are certain they see one..  Instead of considering the options of what it could be, or asking someone what they think it might be, they just immediately jump to the most far-fetched conclusion: that it definitely has to be an alien.  And Cory matter-of-factly stating this just made me facepalm, since it's certainly not the first time he's factually declared something ridiculous and been utterly wrong.  I've got 99 explanations, but a UFO aint one.


So yeah, that's my facepalming session for the time being.  I don't try to be too harsh or anything, but come on.  If people put themselves out there for the public to view their lives, then it's fair game to criticize as well.  That's the whole point in this blog!  Besides, there's more than enough fanboys in the world to make up for anything I say.

So Fix It

I've kind of gotten bored of the Katers vlogs again lately, some of which I've actually just skipped along through.  As mentioned in previous posts about other vloggers, that's never a good sign!  But out of boredom I've just let the recent ones play, and I heard something which irked me just enough to bother making a post about it!  And it's partially because I've seen this same thing happen in other couples as well.

Okay, so, Cory seems to like to think he knows about cars.  He's tried to make us think that he knows a thing or two about his dune buggy, for example.  And he went with Kate to help her pick out her car.  He also tried to teach her to drive stick.  But, as someone who does know about cars, I can tell you that Cory pretty much does not.

Now don't get me wrong, I know it's kind of a man thing to say you're into cars.  It doesn't really hurt anything most of the time, which is why it didn't bother me about Cory before, aside from the teaching Kate to drive stick part (which personally I think he couldn't have done worse).  All of the trouble out of Cory's jeep was also kind of an indication that he had no idea about them.  But in this particular vlog, and actually a vlog or two prior as well, Kate had been having trouble with her tire.  Dangerously so, I would go as far to say, because it was affecting her steering.  That's when the boyfriend who conveniently knows about cars is supposed to step in.

Now, as any man who knows anything about cars might do, he would immediately jack the car up, take the wheel off, and inspect it for defects.  Running over shit in the road happens all the time.  I just plugged a hole in my tire after pulling a nail out of it the day before last, as a matter of fact.  So, anyone who knows even the slightest bit about cars can change a tire.  Cory could have checked, patched, or even replaced the tire if necessary.  All he had to do was put the spare on it temporarily (in case she needed it that day or something), throw her whole wheel in his car, and just taken it to get a new tire and balancing done to it.  You don't need the whole car for that, after all.

Instead of dealing with this right away, though, Kate drove on this dangerous wheel for days.  It could have simply gone flat and left her stuck with trying to change it (or more likely, calling someone to), or worse, and left her careening into another car, tree, or worse.

Well when Kate took her car in, she said she was not only going to get the tire fixed, but have a rotation, alignment, and oil change.  The alignment, okay, that's fine.  The equipment at the shop can do an alignment way better than your average Joe ever could.  And the rotation is certainly easier to do on a lift than trying to do it yourself, but it certainly could have been done by Cory at home.  But the oil change is the real kicker.

Mechanics ALMOST ALWAYS rip you off on this.  Some of them don't even change it.  They'll check the stick, if it looks clear, they leave it.  This is partially because people want their oil changed way more often than it really needs to be, to be honest.  But it's still a dishonest practice by mechanics nonetheless, because you're paying for it to be done.  Even if they change the oil, though, lots of them won't bother to change the oil filter.  You can find hidden camera shows a dime a dozen where they've marked the filter somehow and end up getting the same one back after the "oil change."  For anyone who knows anything about cars, as Cory claims to be, this is not hard to do either.

So that's the thing.  Kate is always pinching pennies.  Here's a perfect opportunity to save a lot of money.  But what do they do?  Take it to the shop, and drive it there on the bad wheel.  Some car guy!

The irony of course is that in this very same vlog, Kate's chair is broken, and Cory says "I love to fix things."

I'm sure Kate's chair is still broken as well.

Road Trip Troubles

I guess I'll throw a post on here!

When Katers and Cory first started their road trip, I'll admit, I was pretty bored of the vlogs. It had gotten to the point that I was just skipping along through them, which is usually a sign that an unsubscribe is in the not-so-distant future. I was busy during the time, too, which didn't help. Though I've been busy in the past, and still made time for the vlogs. But anyhow, I don't know what happened, I just started enjoying them again, for the most part. Funny stuff happened, meet-ups happened, etc. So while I don't look forward to the vlogs like I once did, I at least don't sigh to myself at the thought of watching another 20-30 minute episode as I was doing for a while there. I'd kind of expected the road trip to ruin them, much like such things always did to most other peoples' vlogs.

Here's the thing I don't get about this road trip, though. Cory hired this Josh guy to be his camera man, who I don't know if we ever even saw before that day. I asked myself why does Cory need a camera man, when that's what he already pays Kate to do?  Stranger still, vlog after vlog happened, and we never really saw Josh even holding a camera. In fact, I had a "wat" moment when Josh had to ask Cory one time whether he needed to use the flash to take a picture of something while they were outside. So I just don't know what the deal is with him coming along, particularly since there's no indication that he's any kind of professional photographer. He might be filming actual SMP Films videos for him which we don't see on the vlogs, but still, again, why isn't Kate just filming them like before? She's the one who actually studied up on how to operate the cameras. But anyway, that all being said, Josh has turned out to be kind of entertaining, particularly when paired with Shaun.

There's also the thing with Kate getting all upset in that recent vlog. Obviously it had something to do with Cory, because she commented something along the lines of "that doesn't help" when showing people holding hands and stuff together. I guess the internet rumor machine immediately assumed this meant her and Cory broke up, but I don't know if I'd go that far. My brother has actually assumed that they've been broken up for a little while already, and that they were just keeping up the illusion for the fan's sake, but I would disagree. He actually got bored enough of it to unsubscribe, so his info isn't really up to date anymore.

One thing I kinda get tired of is this Keek thing. It's starting to rub me the way that things like City Story did. It just doesn't feel like something she just naturally wants her fans to check out. And Cory just made a video wanting people to jump on Keek as well, so if that's not proof enough to me that they're being sponsored by them, then I don't know what is. I mean, the Gung Ho stuff doesn't bother me, because they admitted they're a sponsor. It's when somebody tries to push something under the guise of it being something they personally like when it bugs me. It's that kind of stuff that turned me against people like Leo Laporte. He'll claim he loves just about any product that's given to him, then in a week or two he's back to using what he used to use. Anyway, I digress. I was going on Keek at first to see if Kate made any videos I'd be interested in, but apparently now you have to be logged in to even watch anything, so fuck that.

Shaun has turned out to be the entertainment of the trip. Most of the stuff he does is amusing to some degree, which is usually enhanced when Josh is involved. I had a few actual laugh-out-loud moments. Whether that gets annoying when riding in a car with him/them for hours though is another story!

I keep thinking there was something else I meant to touch on, but heck if I know what it was.

TL;DR version: Katers vlogs are still entertaining, but fuck Keek.


UPDATE: Naturally, the day after typing this, we see Josh filming an SMP Films video.

I Find Your Lack Of Sense Disturbing

There may have been things I meant to comment on before, but I think today makes a prime candidate to update about.

So basically, Cory was determined to win his Gold's Gym Challenge, repeating often "I've got to win this" and "I'm going to win this" throughout his training. Then when he realizes he's not going to win, he starts giving that "It was never about winning" line, which I thought was a hair on the sore loser side to be honest with you. He improved his body, sure, and in that respect he certainly won. But let's face it, he was banking on winning this contest to fix his finances, and he counted his chickens before they hatched. Now he's back where he started, apparently depressed and in financial problems, and needs to find a way to make money again the old-fashion way.

The rational direction here would be to continue making DudeLikeHella videos, building up a secondary fan base and income, putting his wrestling aside so that he can work on SMP Films and Mean Kitty videos for bigger projects that will pull in the most views on his main channels.

But somehow I don't think rational thinking went into this, because he's decided to stop doing DudeLikeHella, citing a lack of views as the reason he's not going to focus his efforts on it.

Now first of all, no, I don't know how much money he makes. But I can tell you this: he has more subscribers than Kate did when I started watching her. Kate managed to move to another country on what she made, along with that from her side jobs. So something tells me that between SMP Films, Mean Kitty, and DudeLikeHella, he's making a decent paycheck. If you go and look, DudeLikeHella has been getting around 30k views on most of the vlogs. This is how much Kate's vlogs make lately, believe it or not. And this isn't good enough???

And yet, Cory's views were even much higher a few weeks ago, which, surprise surprise, we before he started this bodybuilding and wrestling stuff. I'm sorry, but that stuff is so boring to me, and apparently to a lot of other people as well. Yes I know it's part of his life, but that doesn't mean it has to be filmed. He's said before that he makes the vlogs for himself primarily, not us, so that's why he films that kind of stuff. But that's a silly excuse because there's nothing stopping him from filming private stuff of his workouts and whatever to save for later in life, and only sharing the rest of his day with fans to entertain them. The "they're for me" thing is a cop-out as far as I'm concerned. Work with your audience, don't expect your audience to work with you. If you're giving them a product they don't want, then, you know, there's a good chance they're going to stop buying it. And that's exactly what's happened to his view counts apparently.

But I digress, and come back to the thirty thousand views part. Most people never make that many on all of their videos combined, and he's making it on a potentially daily basis (if he went back to daily vlogs). And I reiterate that Kate is getting this many views as well, on a daily basis, and somehow she's managing to live just fine, even though she doesn't hardly ever make a Katers17 video anymore.

So whatever. I thumbed his video down today. I know that Cory acts on impulse a lot, and there's a good chance that he'll be posting another video in a week anyway, but the fact that he would scoff at this kind of success as not being good enough is just ridiculous. Give me a break.


EDIT: You know what I realized after writing this? The big problem Cory might have is taxes. A few days ago was tax day, and he was going to owe a lot after winning that $20k furniture contest.

March Madness

So a few things have happened lately in the "vlogosphere" that bear mention.

First and foremost, Charles Trippy had a brain tumor. How 'bout that. I admit to resubscribing to CTFxC just to watch the events unfold. I don't know how much longer I'll stay subscribed now that the core issue is resolved, but I suppose that as long as I remain at least semi-entertained, I'll leave it. I just honestly had zero interest in watching Charles on tour with his band or any of that. But it's kind of fun to watch again lately when they were all together again.

Second, it was around that time that I realized Shay Carl has lost a ton of weight. I only stopped watching him less than a year ago, so that seems to be a bit fast based on what I've heard about safe weight loss. His face even looks a bit gaunt to me. Though he does seem to be in good physical shape. So good on him for losing it though, I suppose. But, I have to say, part of the charm is lost. Him being a big guy was part of what made him funny. It's kind of like with Wayne Knight; Dennis Nedry and Newman would not have been funny characters if he'd been his eventual thinner self. There's simply a comedic value to someone being overweight. So I'm sorry to say, but now Shay just seems like some kind of over-enthusiastic gym trainer or something.

Thirdly is Katers' little run-in with the law. There seems to be debate in the comments over whether Kate may have actually intended to steal the sunglasses. Either way, I think she exaggerated a little on what happened. She made it sound like she got taken downtown, arrested, fingerprinted, and the whole nine yards, and is "in the system" now for sure. But in reality, it sounds like she actually just got a summons to appear in court, and has a chance to contest the whole thing. That's a big difference.

Meanwhile, there's no video evidence to prove or disprove her story, so all of the rabid fanboys showing their loyalty by talking bad about the security guard and police, and claiming Kate "has proof" to sue, is all a bit unnecessary and unreasonable. Claiming you forgot you had the item in your hand is one of the most common excuses a shoplifter gives, so why should the security guard have thought Kate was any different? And no, she didn't legally have to submit to any search, but you better believe that security guards are going to let you think you have to if you don't know any better. As for the handcuffs, who knows. For all we know, maybe Kate was freaking out and arguing with them or something.

And, again, for all we know, maybe she was in fact trying to steal them. You just don't know. Kate comes from a low-income background, with no father figure present, and has shown that she was friends with a rougher crowd. It's not unreasonable to assume anything in this case. I mean, she said she joked with them about how she didn't even take sauce packets or whatever from restaurants, even though that's an obvious fib. Remember when she was visiting her dad, and scooped up every one of those little jelly jars that she could find? Yeah. And it's no secret that she's very very tight with money, to the point where she would freeze in her own house before turning the heat up a few degrees.

So yeah. I won't go as far as to say she intended to steal the things, cause it's certainly a plausible story she gave. But I will still stay open-minded enough to accept that maybe she did do it, too. We'll never know the truth either way. And I'm not boycotting Pennies over it like Cory is insisting everyone do, because if I boycotted every store where someone has had a negative experience with security, I might as well not even go out of the house. I've even had a couple of experiences myself, and while they weren't anything like Kate's, it was enough for me to stop visiting one particular store for years. But I wouldn't have gone around telling others not to shop there just because one douchebag employee ruined it for me.

I guess that's it for this vlogger blogger. I'm sure there's other topics I could talk about, but it seems Youtube ends up filling up posts plenty on its own!

Correcting My Stand

I'm going to have to stand corrected on the last post I made, I guess.

Initially the circumstances around Kate and Cory's New Years kiss were vague enough that you could assume Cory meant many things by his "I'm gonna do it" talk, such as "do it" being "reveal the relationship to the public" rather than actually kissing her for the first time. But as of the January 2nd vlog, they outright said enough things to one another that makes it either totally legit, or all a total lie. And since I really don't think it's the latter, I'm going to shrug away all of my initial skepticism.

At least Cory admitted he's liked her for a long time now, which means most of us were right all along in that regard. Don't get me wrong, though, I totally get his reasons for not admitting it openly, because I figured the same thing as why.

So yeah, don't mind my rambling in the last post. I just figured I'd leave it up though because I don't care to admit I'm mistaken. I take a cynical approach to such things because, let's face it, way too much entertainment is fake these days to take everything at face value right away. And while Katersoneseven is still a vlog as opposed to a TV show or viral video or something, I still believe that some aspects of the vlogs, once in a while, are more for entertainment rather than something that would happen normally. That being said, nothing has really gone too overboard into "view whore" territory or anything, so I'm cool with it, and am still pretty entertained by most of them!

New Years Smooches

Well obviously I have to say something regarding the big New Years event involving Katersoneseven and Smpfilms.

I'm a bit conflicted about it. Not conflicted about it happening, but rather how/when it happened. The cynic in me sees hype on Facebook and Twitter to leave fans in suspense, leading up to a big year-opening vlog event to keep fans interested for what's to come, which is then further hyped by Cory on aforementioned social sites, which is then retweeted and linked by fans, many of which trying to get a trending topic going on Twitter. Whether that's all happy coincidence or clever marketing, who's to say. But I'm going to get into some of the reasons of why the thought crossed my mind!

There's been various reasons to believe that there was more between Cory and Kate for a while (Cory referring to her as "my girl" on a Facebook comment before New Years being one of the latest), but never anything substantial enough to assume they were definitely a couple. If nothing else, it was obvious that Cory was really into her, but you didn't necessarily see the same thing from Kate. Either way, it took a fairly gullible person to take Cory's word for it all this time that he just considered her a friend. That doesn't mean it went anything beyond him having feelings, but it doesn't discount it, either. But it does show that Cory went out of his way to try to hide his feelings to the audience, when he could have just ignored it.

Next, we know that Kate pretty much identifies as being an actress, and we also know that they've both wanted ways to branch out and make more money. Nothing wrong with that of course, but for those who take a more objective/cynical look at things, it's one more reason to question whether what we see in vlogs is always a natural progression of events, or catering for views. Not to be a jerk about it, but we're talking about someone who freezes in their own home because they don't want to pay for the heat. Either her budget is really tight, or she likes money a little too much, bringing into question how far an aspiring actress (and actor) might take something.

One smaller detail is that nobody seemed to really care that they were kissing. Sure, it's a party, and people are mingling with one another. But I just feel like somebody there would have noticed it and looked and/or pointed, and other people might have looked to see what they were looking at, etc. Everyone was oblivious to the situation.

But, there's a detail which throws a kink in that whole line of thinking. It was a reaction by Kate, or rather two reactions, when Cory kissed her. The first is how she initially smiled and tried to laugh, which gives the impression to me that she thought he was just being silly. She also looks up at his eyes when they continue kissing, probably to gauge his intention, but that's not quite enough to go on for anything. The second big thing is her reaction when he asks her the question, which everyone seems to think is "will you be my girlfriend" or something to that effect. It was something in the nod, and her eyes, even if you couldn't see them straight on. It was very similar to the one she's had before in actual emotional situations, like happy but trying to hold back tears kind of look, maybe with some bashful mixed in.

So yeah, it's possible that maybe Kate is just a really good actress, but you know, it just doesn't even matter. Even with my questioning attitude, I still loved it. I watched the end more than once (even if some of that was to look at reactions). I'm not ashamed to admit an emotional response to it. If the whole thing was staged, it wouldn't change the fact that finally they're apparently together, after all of this beating around the bush to what most people knew was inevitable.

I'm sure there will still be rumors from trolls of the entire thing being a sham, Kate's a lesbian, that they're just together for views, and so that people will stop questioning her sexuality from lack of dating, etc. And to that, I say.. who knows! I'm not really in any position to judge people coming up with their own theories when I've made plenty. But I also say who cares, because like I said, they totally sold me with the kiss. As long as it doesn't turn into a WB show's level of romantic drama, I'll watch.



p.s. For fuck's sake, why doesn't somebody stop inviting Madson to parties? I think he only shows up for free booze, and considers getting drunk as an obligation. I know his kind, and just from the snippits we've seen of him in the vlog, I can characterize him to a T (since usually there's not much character to begin with). Unfortunately, too many people think it's funny, cute, endearing, or whatever other bullshit to hang out with people who "speak their minds," when in reality it's just somebody with no social graces or respect for other people who will take advantage of anyone stupid enough to let them. You don't reward that kind of behavior with friendship and invitations. I would rather listen to Stephanie's high-pitched excited squee for the whole video than hear Madson blather on, usually as if he's the life of the party. But anyway, that's just a pet peeve, so I conclude my mini-rant.