[bergoozter]

[mio-nika]

I think they should've created an OnlyFans account for Professor. It would unironically made them so much money.

[punch-love]

so are watcher fans going to apologize for the unreal amounts of racism they projected toward steven or are we going to pretend that was totally normal behavior?

[slc99]

they will be releasing videos a month early on their site but otherwise it will be put on youtube for free (link)

[montessori-grad]

Watchergate: 4/19-4/22

[amiibo-king]

ive been seeing some people deride others as childish or whatever for being like "ghost/mystery files wasnt as good as buzzfeed unsolved" calling it "sour grapes", but i watched a video talkin abt the watcher thing just now (by stateofmoregon) where she points out that, when youve been receiving something for free, and u suddenly have to pay for it, it forces you to think about whether or not you actually like that thing—if it's worth paying for, if you only liked it before because it was free. which i think is a good point. it's not that people are suddenly denying they ever liked ghost/mystery files, its that many of us are being forced to reexamine whether or not ghost/mystery files is something we actually enjoy or if we were just taking it because it was free, and many of us are deciding that no, we never really did enjoy it on the same level as buzzfeed unsolved

i know that i personally havent even watched a ghost/mystery files episode in some time bc every time a new one popped up in my feed i just felt apathetic about it, none of the excitement i used to feel about new bfu eps. and i realized a while ago that ive only really been forcing myself to watch new ones out of the hope that maybe this time itll have the same charm as bfu did. so i really dont think its fair to say its "sour grapes". a lot of people are just being forced to reckon with feelings that theyve had for a while but just never bothered to acknowledge because hey, its free.

[hiyaluronic]

Day 3 of Watchergate and watcher is still trending. That’s how you know you’ve seriously fucked up.

[grimrester]

sometime yesterday people on reddit figured out that the new watcher entertainment platform is not a website they have full creative control over (as implied in their video) but instead is from Vimeo OTT. this is why their new platform looks identical to dropout's. vimeo very likely just has a couple templates you pick from and they picked the same one.

this is FASCINATING to me for a few reasons:

it's not unusual for a company to obfuscate how their new web product is built out. "we're using vimeo's content paywall platform" is not nearly as impressive of a statement as "we're launching our own subscription service." this decision sometimes blows up in a company's face though. in this instance, being more candid about the process probably would have helped to mitigate the blowback, because vimeo could have been pinned by the audience as the evil scapegoat company and people wouldn't be feeling stupid when they create accounts and realize all the videos are hosted on vimeo. it also explains why they encouraged password sharing but their subs limit playing videos on more than three devices. it's just a function of the platform they don't control and didn't think about it when they said that.

i really wonder if they made this decision entirely on their own, or if vimeo has recruiters out there trying to make their platform bigger. obviously the watcher guys are responsible for this decision either way, but it sure would explain a lot about why they jumped to this solution to make more money if they had someone at vimeo pitching it to them.

how fucking funny is it that they posted a dramatic "goodbye youtube" video talking about wanting more control and wanting their own special platform just to go to youtube's direct competitor. lol

[rocksalt-and-pie]

you already know how bitter and disappointed I am about this and how I'm simultaneously mentally eating popcorn while scrolling through the sheer chaos and laughing in disbelief but the emphatic part of me that was their fan for like seven years can't help but feel a little bit bad for them (and ryan especially, very likely suffering an ongoing anxiety attack) because in their arrogance and hubris they clearly didn't expect this to ruin their careers that they've arguably worked for very hard but on the other hand, they've made their beds

[atlantis-distillery]

Anyone who's saying "they remain silent during all this" with the watcher stuff have never been in a situation where everything is crumbling around you and there's intense pressure from some public audience. You are in flight or fight, you are panicking, and trying to figure out what to do. (Whether you're in the right or wrong). They're definitely planning next steps, and I don't think it's wrong to take time to do that vs addressing the situation fueled with emotions.

If you were them in this situation (remember , these are real people, not characters) you'd also be a mess. Not defending the choices they're making or anything, but after I went through something where there was pressure from the public and a group of people and I felt like my life was falling apart, I get it. It's hard. People fuck up, it happens, but I see some of y'all equating this to the try guys situation or Colleen ballinger and it's so not on that level

[citiirose]

If I had a nickel for every time someone made the exact same "Oh to be a fly on the office walls" joke about the Watcher situation, I'd have probably like at least 120 nickels. Which. Is a lot. That's a whole 6 dollars

[the-name-i-want-was-taken]

The most important comment in this whole mess

[badass-space-fish]

I haven’t seen one of these yet

[moonlitdiane]

C'mon don't be losers, instead of doing Watcher subscription giveaways just literally buy esims for Gaza or donate to non-profit charities like Care for Gaza, which actually help affected Palestinians and deliver food and other necessities to them. There's also a bunch for Sudan like the one set up by the ICRC. Don't give $6 just for a man to eat expensive shit on camera when that $6 can do so much for an entire nation of starving people.

[bluecloudsandwhitesky]

Shane “share the passwords” Madej you’ve got some explaining to do!

[prosperousduckscommuteviawaffle]

Do I feel bad about how mean some of the Watcher comments are? Ah, sort of.

But mainly when I see people posting things like 'I no longer have to pretend that anything they did on Watcher was as good as Unsolved' I'm struck by how it just shows that people followed them, and stuck with them, out of love, loyalty and respect. So when the illusion of those feelings being mutual was shattered well, this is basically post-divorce honesty hour. It's the paraosocial relationship break up equivalent of 'I never really liked your apple pie.'

[supreme-kais]

"Steven isn't solely responsible for the paywall shift" and "Nobody wants to watch Steven eat insanely expensive food and have to pay for it" are statements that can coexist btw.