an ode to cameron "cringer reviews" greagan and other shams of the net
not sure how many of my followers here know or care about this but i've been thinking a little recently about how Cringer Reviews is genuinely the only long-running online project i've started that i've actually properly finished
obviously bugbo is on hiatus, but i also had a bunch of planned animated series' on my old channel that i tried multiple times to begin creating. i spent like 3 years thinking of animated shows to start, most of the time never even progressing past the script phase. and somehow the thing that finally gets me to commit to completing a full series from start to finish is pretending to be a stupid edgy youtube commentary channel with my friends ??? thats kind of crazy.
i think it's because of this that cringer reviews holds a special place in my heart to this day, even though a lot of things went wrong and a lot of plans were changed. there's also a lot i look back on kinda regretfully and wish i'd done differently
i see the first video we did on five nights at freddy's as kind of an immediate hit in terms of what we wanted to do for the series and i wish i took more inspiration from some of our decisions there . like , we made the conscious choice to create our own fanart and mostly showcase those as to not solely target random fanartists, and i think by video 2 we immediately forgot about that which is a shame. but thankfully (and hopefully) i dont think anything bad really came of that since nobody really took the videos seriously after the undertale one blew up lmao (but if anything bad did happen i apologize).
this is a small thing but i really really miss the bit we used to do where we included random "SJWs" onscreen to tell cameron to stop being rude and then cameron would strike back with a classic "oh are you offended? then stop watching!". i love those bits so much on rewatch because it's cameron literally making up people to get mad at and fighting with absolutely nobody, which perfectly encapsulates his character both as a shitty commentary channel AND the fact that cameron himself is literally a made up person trying to make people mad . just a bit of Food4Thort : J
Since cringer ended, i've started quite a few things, most notably bugbo. but i'll admit that bensilly has not been my most active channel over the past 2 years or so. my most consistent output lately has been on a totally different channel which, like cringer reviews, is being kept completely separate from my main channel and is also portraying an entirely new "fake person" character. it's also somehow become the most successful and widespread thing i've ever been involved in ??? it's also definitely not leading up to a real conclusion in the same way cringer reviews was, nor is it an ARG of any kind. if you know what i'm talking about then you know , but the channel itself is not the important part . what's curious to me is that I seem to be most comfortable making and posting things when it's sent out through lower-stakes alt accounts rather than under my own name and main channel, which should ideally host most if not all of my creative output . given that these fake accounts are also completely drenched in irony, could it be that i have a deep-seated fear of genuinely showcasing creative work under my own name ? this also isn't to imply that the bensilly channel itself isnt already Submerged in irony because like Look at it . but it's still weird to me that it seems to go deeper than that, that i genuinely feel more comfortable completely detaching myself from what I create . i feel quite guilty sometimes especially when I have friends working on said projects with me who are getting no public credit as to not "spoil the bit" . they haven't expressed any issues with that so far but i wouldn't blame them at all for not feeling good about it.
like cringer reviews, it's all meant in good fun, but i can't help but feel like these Annoying Ass Issues in my mind are stopping me from actually creating things i care about. but at the same time, i care a lot about cringer reviews. i cared a lot at the time, and i do care for all the stupid bullshit i do now. i just often wonder if i have some kind of crazy unchecked online identity crisis , because as a lot of my friends know very well at this point, cringer reviews and [REDACTED FOR MYSTERY] are far from my only alternate channels where me and sometimes my friends post shit . realizing that cringer reviews has been the only time in my life that i've started and intentionally concluded a full series has made me think a lot about my relationship with my own online identity in relation to my creative output. as fun as it is to come together and create complete and utter bullshit under different names, i wonder if i'm also severely limiting myself creatively by letting this mindset go almost totally unchecked for all these years . itd be cool to figure myself out and actually complete a full project released under my own name . maybe bugbo will be the first one of those if i ever manage to truly finish it one day! i dont know . i still have the Desire to revisit it, thats the only reason i didn't say it was for-sure cancelled. "indefinite hiatus" sounds cowardly but thats legitimately the bugbo status at the moment im afraid. not being worked on , but sitting there in my mind with the potential of being worked on again at some point
theres no real conclusion to this post im afraid, just kind of a 4am ben ramble. i hope my awesome tumblr followers got something out of this maybe . big special thank to all of you And all of my friends whom i love and decide to help me out in whatever endeavours i involve myself in
also feel free to ask questions about the cringer or anything else tbh and i may answer if i feel up to the task
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