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.

Katers Christmas

So how about that Katersoneseven Christmas vlog, and how it didn't happen?

Yeah, I don't get it either. A person who vlogs 365 days a year, vlogs last Christmas, vlogs birthdays, vlogs family and friends (and their birthdays), vlogs good times and bad, yet suddenly decides Christmas this year is off limits. To make matters worse, the audience was built up to what was thought to be an awesome Christmas vlog, by showing the shopping, showing all the presents and the tree all the time, and actually saying how it was in fact going to be awesome, more than once. But apparently that didn't mean it was going to be awesome for the viewers, because at the last minute, on Christmas Eve, she broke the news that we didn't get to see any of it. Well, unless you count opening of the fan gifts, but that lasted for two minutes out of a six minute vlog. And to be blunt, nobody wanted to see any of the fan gifts a fraction as much as they wanted to see what Cory and Kate gifted one another.

The thing is, not only did we not get to see the opening of the presents, we didn't even get to see the presents themselves later on. What's the big secret? What's so special about this year compared to last? I mean sure, maybe she wanted a morning to relax with no makeup or anything. Fine, I can totally accept/respect that. But like I said, we didn't even get to know what the presents were, aside from what we might have seen strewn across the floor afterwards. How can presents exchanged between two friends be so special that nobody is allowed to see? Even if there were a few special gifts in there, that doesn't mean everything else couldn't have been opened on camera. They're not really helping the whole Kate/Cory relationship rumor by doing stuff like that.

Just to put alternate possibilities out there, maybe they bought each other expensive stuff (since I saw a Wii box on the floor) and thought trolls would remark in the comments about them being spoiled and having lots of money. I know that they make remarks about them spending money eating out and at Starbucks a lot. But again, the expensive gifts could have been edited out or skipped. So I just don't get it, especially for someone who makes money by making entertaining vlogs. By being a Christmas-tease, she really only managed to ruffle the feathers of her viewers.

On a side note, I heard that the Shaytards did like an hour long Christmas vlog, but to be fair, we all know by now that Shay is so eager for views/money that he would vlog pretty much anything at this point as long as it didn't take much effort. I have no desire to watch it, though, so I'll have to take peoples' word on how long it was. I do know that Vlerabrite opened gifts on camera, as well as some other lesser-known Youtubers I watch. Likely even other big vloggers like CTFxC did too. So as for Kate, again all I can say is "I don't get it." There's got to be more to the story.

But whatever, despite my multiple paragraphs of disappointment/conjecture on the subject, at the end of the day it really just doesn't matter. Just toss it into the "odd Katers activity" pile and wait to see if anything in the future sheds light on any of it. I just really wanted to see a Christmas vlog, is all.