Interview With Jonathon Burkhardt AKA ChaosD1
Jon Burkhardt AKA ChaosD1 is a video game reviewer specializing in MMO’s. He’s found himself embroiled in the controversy surrounding his old not-quite-employers, Channel Awesome, with the rise of the Change the Channel hashtag and the publication of the Google Doc Not So Awesome, which he contributed to. Having been a long time contributor to the Video Aggregate, he personally witnessed much of the mismanagement and poor treatment committed by the site’s management, culminating in his own abrupt termination.
He was nice enough to talk to me in some more detail about the controversy, the fallout, and his plans going forward.
First, can you go into, in your own words, who you are, and what you do?
I go by ChaosD1 online, but most people know me as Jon. I’ve been doing video game related content on YouTube for nearly 10 years, but focused specifically on MMOs with my show “MMO Grinder” as well as have livestreams on Twitch.tv most weekdays.
How did you come to work for Channel Awesome?
I was fairly involved with the site as a fan, as I think a lot of us were, back early [during] its inception back in 2008. Funnily enough I had a manager from my job at the time mention [the Nostalgia Critic] NC specifically, but I didn’t end up checking it out until watching Noah’s announcement that he was posting on there.
Early on there was a flash game arcade that kept track of overall points in each game, and I gained recognition when gaining the top rank overall in the arcade. I was contacted by the wiki team, who hired me on to work on the wiki with them.
Far later after meeting and talking with a few friends who started out as people I was just a major fan of, like Phelous, I decided to start making videos of my own. One of them won the Transmission Awesome contest to have me featured and interviewed on the podcast.
It wasn’t until I started my show “MMO Grinder” that I felt I had any content worthy of placing onto the site, and after Julien (Sad Panda) used up one of his schedule spots to give me a trial run, I was well enough received to earn a spot on Blistered Thumbs in October of 2011. I posted there and on TGWTG.com and after the site merger when BT was shut down, until May of 2017 when the incident I wrote about occurred.
How did you get involved in Change The Channel?
I never figured my story was important or interesting enough to provide any fuel to the fire that was quickly becoming #ChangeTheChannel, to the point I didn’t even make a big deal about what happened when I was let go, though I did have forward enough thinking to save the conversation, just in case something like this even came up. People involved as well as curious fans, still asked to tell my story through the Twitter thread, as well as some anon asks on Tumblr. It happened more after I reblogged Allison’s post from years ago describing the incident after she once again received a ton of people asking her why she didn’t watch or work with Doug anymore. Despite my thinking I didn’t really have a great story to add, I figured it was more a cautionary tale for those who still remained, as well as at least symptomatic of what was an overarching problem we all had for years.
There have been rumors and statements flying kind of under the radar for some time about the channel. What do you think sparked this movement now? What about this period in time led all these people to contribute to a mass document like this?
I think with the current climate on social media, as well as less and less people holding onto those idyllic ideas of a peaceful online utopia that was the internet equivalent of making it big in Hollywood, people were just more accepting now. Also with less and less producers being on the site, more were willing to finally let loose with the stories rather than rock the boat for those who were willing to put up with it. Just another case of straws breaking the camel’s back and what not. As you said, these rumors have been around for years… and honestly it’s nice to finally be able to come clean about a lot of them, rather than just let speculation fester and have contributors thrown under the bus for CA’s policies of silence and non-involvement for any form of bad press.
Can you talk about your personal aims in contributing, as well as what you think the general intent of the document was?
If anything, to show support for those that have, and give my take, regardless of how seemingly insignificant it was. The document’s intent is pretty outlined in the opening paragraph, but some people want an apology for their mistreatment, while others just want people to know why we don’t enjoy being questioned about what CA’s been up to, like we’re forced to be lifelong fans just because we were involved with them once. At least that’s my reasoning. I don’t expect an apology. I know how they do. I just remember feeling more disrespected, like every one of us not in the main studio were a burden upon the website they deeply regretted bringing along in the first place.
Something that’s become a hot button topic over the last few years and has been a major point in the Change The Channel complaints is the concept of being paid “in exposure”. What are your feelings about that whole idea and it’s validity?
I understand it to a certain degree. In the event of an aggregate site, it does help when the community is being fostered. Where fans can potentially become contributors, which is exactly what CA USED to be. There’s a slight validity to the claims that people on CA would be NOWHERE without Doug, but that’s not the case for everyone who was involved. People like Smarty [For Smarty’s story, click here], Mike J and myself didn’t really see any level of channel growth directly from CA. In fact, both Mike J and I’ve made mention of how shockingly LOW the metrics coming from CA were. We’re talking a percentage of a percent.
But if that site gains popularity because of you, it’s only fair to share some of that success with the people who helped you reach that point.
And if you’re only there to host people and pay them in “exposure” it’s not fair to make complete demands of them for how they post their content, or what content they post, especially if you were fine with everything they did beforehand.
There’s benefits to the aggregate site, but I don’t think anyone’s willing to put in the work for that kind of thing anymore.
What means do you think an online media worker has to protect themselves, and what measures and protections would you like to see become a reality?
Honestly that’s something I should be looking into myself. It’s still pretty much a Wild West right now, with so many people at the mercy of any company’s whim. If anything it would be nice to see a more hands on approach and clear communication between all parties involved, instead of leaving everything up to an experimental AI. Get some PEOPLE involved and create some jobs. Don’t just shut down channels or delete videos for having footage if they aren’t going to check the context that footage was placed in. I dunno. I’m not really an expert here.
What was your experience fresh off of your split from the Channel?
It was a non-starter all around. As I’d mentioned in my Tumblr post (I would have added more detail to my section of the doc, but figured I’d just keep things concise.) views from CA were next to nothing at the time of my departure. I’m not joking when I say a percent of a percent. 10k views? About 20 from CA. 100k in a month overall? Less than 200 from CA. It just wasn’t worth the effort, but staying just felt like some kind of principle you know? Phelan, Allison and Julien were all wondering why I bothered to stay on as long as I did, but I figured as long as I didn’t get any flak either way, I’d stick around. In a way I knew I was going to get canned for posting just one video that month. I didn’t ever really want to bother asking to get back on until I was encouraged to do so by the producer chat. It felt like I was freeing myself from a needless burden after they let me know, but the whole thing still felt really shitty. They never really did much of anything to promote me. In turn, I never bothered to promote them. Notice how I never included the Channel Awesome logo bumper, nor mentioned them in my credits scrawl after Blistered Thumbs was shut down? That was on purpose.
If anything did surprise me, it was how upset a lot of the producers were after they let me go in such a… and let me use this word correctly here, “callous” manner. In fact I think at least two producers quit in solidarity shortly afterward. For the producers, they all seemed to care about me. For the management? I was a fly on the wall they just shooed out the window. Out of sight, out of mind. They just never asked the fly how much information it gathered beforehand.
Do you think workers at online companies - particularly in online media, are particularly vulnerable given how unregulated the medium is? After all, as we’ve seen with cases involving everything from fair use and “revenge porn” cases, it seems the law is far behind properly addressing how to handle the internet?
I think cases like this, regardless of how important this whole thing might seem to the average viewer, or online atmosphere are steps in the right direction. A lot of these companies did just start out as a group of friends deciding to do a thing, and spiraled into unexpected popularity they weren’t ready to handle. You can say the same about a lot of online producers. Hopefully we just keep moving forward with all of this and perhaps in time we’ll see some protections for new media. As long as old media isn’t still trying to completely invalidate it out of fear of being replaced.
A lot of people have taken notice of this over the last couple of weeks. What do you want to say to people who wish to support you?
To support me, or anyone you choose to support, visit their shows directly. Share their videos. Leave feedback and engage with their communities. Follow them on social media. If they have a Patreon, contribute if you can. Even a dollar makes up for literally HUNDREDS of views worth of ad revenue. Just continue to recognize what they do, as long as you enjoy what they do.
And what actions should they avoid?
Don’t be a sycophant or a zealot. You don’t need to directly “attack” anyone on our behalf, and plenty of innocents tend to get caught in the crossfire around that kind of behavior. Be mindful of those upset by the information, as for a lot of people, it’s very tough to deal with the news. I tend to forget just how long the site’s been around, and some people literally grew up with our videos. That dose of reality is a lot harder to deal with than some.
Also, for the love of God, do NOT speculate on things that have been kept vague. I’m seeing a whole bunch of people trying to piece together parts of the puzzle left by a few anon contributions, and several people I know were NOT involved were thrown under the bus as a convenient scapegoat. Sometimes it’s easy to want to hate someone for a certain reason, and use them to blame all those mysterious stories, but the truth is far darker than you can imagine, and there are none who come out of top by trying to decode the message. If they decide they want to add more information to their stories, they will. Until then, respect their decision to remain anonymous and vague when they feel they need to be.
How have you found the response so far?
I’m genuinely appreciative and shocked for the outpour of support I’ve seen. Yeah, there have been more than a few “hell no we won’t go” die hard fans with some disturbingly zealous responses, or attempts to dismiss our stories as whining or revenge, but far more are willing to accept this kind of thing as reality now. If you’d have asked me years ago if I’d ever wanted this day to come, I would have honestly said no, as we were all starry-eyed hopefuls once, but I think the writing on the wall’s been there for years, and only now are people starting to read it. I’m not hoping to see any one particular outcome from all of this. I’m just glad people are finally reading that writing.
What are your plans going forward professionally?
Having nothing to do with Channel Awesome, the market situation of MMOs has forced my hand into a defacto hiatus, but we’ve been going fairly steady with the side content, and I plan on doing a new show focused on my new gaming passion Indie Games. As much as I’d like to talk about my favorite Switch or AAA games, too, I think it helps to carve out a niche.
Going into #Change the Channel, was there any fear or anxiety about possible legal retaliation by CA?
For me? No. Someone on Tumblr asked why I wasn’t on CA and I answered.
Others might have concerns, but I think many more fans have been concerned, or defenders of CA outright teased producers, that legal action would head their way, but so few things were under contract. I never even got a welcome package. That kinda works both ways.
After leaving CA, did you keep in contact with your old co-workers prior to the Change the Channel collaboration? What was the general atmosphere among ex-CA members before this?
Considering I only really ever spoke with them, and never really the management, yeah I did, and most of us usually did. There were plenty of times collabs would have ex-members pair up with current At that point, most of us were disillusioned with the concept of CA being some kind of exclusive club. It was never a "member vs non-member" mentality. Friends we made there tended to remain friends. There is even a group Skype most of us have remained in just to chat and collaborate. This is far from the first time any of us had grievances with the management, but it's definitely the first time it's been this public.
There's been a lot of talk about how the sense of camaraderie was what compelled a lot of people to put up with the mismanagement and mistreatment. Can you speak to that?
That's, from my perspective, an unquestionable truth. Many of us didn't share stories just as we didn't feel it necessary. (Again, my reason for being let go is basically nothing in the grand scheme. It fits more for the "They don't care about non-studio producers." side of the story than the "Here are some generally horrifying practices." portion. I learned about many of these from the doc, just like the rest of you.)There are plenty of people who wanted the status and recognition they perceived they would get from joining the site, two of who I warned personally about, but really, we mostly stayed for the sense of community with each other. That's why so many, past and present, left in small groups of solidarity. It's when we realized that it wasn't the site keeping us together. It was just us.
You can follow ChaosD1 on his youtube page, his Twitch stream, on twitter, and at his tumblr page @chaosd1. You can also find his work on his website, MMOGrinder.net. Also, please consider supporting his Patreon!
Art by Andrew Dickman.
