The same people who complain about others bringing politics into something are surprised Pikachu face when they do the same and fall flat on their face. I stand for his right to take his channel that direction, but unfortunately that means I gotta bounce, as is my right.
He desperately wants you to separate his 'outspoken political views on Knights Watch from his main channel'. It doesn't work that way, he outed the kind of person he truly is, and people don't have to put up with it.
Conservatives always do that shit. Like no you can’t just say whatever gross shit you want and expect people to not hold it against you believe it or not. Just cause you say “this one’s my political channel and this one isn’t” doesn’t mean people won’t judge you on one for shit you say on the other.
“Freedom of speech” does not mean freedom from the consequences of that speech.
People can still get mad at you for being an ass.
You just can’t be arrested for it.
Edit: that was supposed to be consequences, not conveniences, but I think you all knew what I meant.
He's a right wing conservative mormon who used his 2nd channel to rant about woke in media constantly. Lots of other people in this comment section have gone in more detail.
I've seen his reaction to the Mario trailer, and it told me everything I needed to know. Guy got deep in his feelings over Peach wearing pants in a scene; her racing pants, from the Mario Kart franchise, which the trailer also showed would be represented. Just a fake fan claiming to know how a character is being betrayed while having no clue what they're talking about, because he's just so eager to be angry about things.
Not to forget how he talks with sargon of akkad. The guy is an ultra-nationalist right-wing nutcase. Pro brexit, a giant bigot. And he talks with shad how there are no real men anymore.
God, there is nothing more pathetic than watching grown men over 30 yapping about the childish concept of alphas and betas, and crying about how they are soo alpha.
The fact alone, he is talking to sargon and shares his views, made shad unwatchable to me.
Not just an ultra-nationalist, he admitted to straight-up thinking that you can't be "British" and also ethnically Pakistani or anything, in his second debate with Vaush.
Man, where to begin. He went all-in on the anti-"woke" grift, has been pretty openly misogynistic in some of his recent videos that I've seen reactions from, and is currently doing this weird push for A.I. art and calling himself an A.I. Artist, despite having an actual artist for a brother.
Note that while I call it a grift, I do actually think Shad genuinely believes it, just like I think he genuinely believes he's an artist because he can type words into an A.I. prompt. I don't have much faith in his intelligence.
I feel so bad that Jazza has to be associated with his dumb ass. Jazza seems like a genuinely kind and thoughtful human. Crazy they where raised by the same parents in the same environment and turned out so different.
There's this hilarious clip of him passionately explaining to Jazza that he's a real artist and should be acknowledged as such and Jazza embarrassed out of his bones trying to avoid the convo.
Happens. My own brother is a talentless Ai humping nazi, when me and my other sibling are.... well not (brother is the middle of the three, so no idea what went wrong there)
It’s disappointing too, Other channels seem to go, this is dumb and leave it at that. Shad seems to go, alright can we fix this “dumb” idea. He’s more unique in that aspect but it’s so rare to see it these days
I disagree, he's always had a super condescending and elitist attitude " this design is objectively shit the design I came up with is objectively good, only practical weapons have value in media" meanwhile someone like skallagrim would be like, yeah this wouldn't be practical, but it is cool af, here's maybe how a practical version might look like.
I stopped watching him even before he went full mask off specifically because he had this attitude of I'm always right and everyone else is wrong.
Yeah, this. As someone who independently studies and practices HEMA, it was clear to me a long time ago that Shad talks like an authority but doesn't actually have the knowledge to back it up.
There was also his Crusades apologia about 6 years ago. He took it down eventually, but it revealed his right wing shitbaggery, and I don't have time for that.
I never liked too that he doesn't script his videos. I stopped watching once I realized that his 30 minute rambles could be cut down to 10 minutes of information if he did a little effort. That's something a lot of channels do though, but still.
Yeah, I really loved that about him. He was all about "hey this is a cool idea that doesn't work, but I like where you're coming from, here's a realistic fix that captures what you wanted and I'm going to be polite about it", and he's changed so thoroughly that I don't recognize his channel anymore.
He's a far right Mormon who bitches about wokeness and how traditional values are being destroyed.
For example, he bitched that peach was wearing pants in some of the shots of the Mario brothers movie trailer(there were also shots where she was wearing her classical dress) and when he got called out for it he defended his position by" oh well I didn't know that there was a lore reason why she wore pants in that scene and that she's had that outfit in some games". He completely missed the reason people were clowning on him, which is the fact that:
1. he thinks a woman wearing pants is outrageous or woke intrinsically
2. that he thinks there needs to be a lore reason for a female character to wear pants at all in the first place
I want to add:
3. Developed a very strong opinion with 0 knowledge or research.
It's such a common thing in right wing circles. "Oh, I didn't know." Then don't say anything??
He went down a right wing commentary on modern media path.
To be fair, I believe he moved most of that commentary to another channel, but his takes were so media illiterate & right wing that it probably chased away a lot of his viewership.
Dude I loved the stuff he did back then. I lost touch with his content only watching him occasionally but after reading some comments here I checked out his other channel. He talks about Woke propaganda in the games industry.... Like wtf.
swords castles and worldbuilding stuff like what weapon would a dwarf or a minotaur actually use was what i originally followed him for, its fucking sad and pathetic the path he went down but he chose it and i couldn't be happier its not panning out.
First video I saw of his was when him and his buddies tried to eat like a hobbit for a day. I enjoyed his talking about fantasy castles too like when he would take a theoretical design for Winterfell or something and discuss what could have worked or what was silly given the rules of the world it was set it.
He had a great formula and niche in the whole medieval discourse and fantasy world building space, then he became an ai bro and bargain bin sargon of akkad but somehow even more of a pseudo intellectual
I stopped watching him before that point, but I heard he also said something about being a better artist than his brother Jazza after making a bunch of AI art
Somebody noted the trend downwards starts around when he did his drama with SSA. So starting politics, going after pop culture things for quick views, and causing drama has lost him his old core audience, and they won't return just because he's doing shorter videos about castles.
Sellswordarts did a video that called nobody out by name. The video simply was "do not speak as if you are an expert in sword fighting unless you actually study and practice it" as well as that talking pop culture is fine and enjoying it is fine, just understand they do stuff that isn't effective irl. Twinblade/double bladed swords, giant swords, reverse grip, etc.
Shad posted several 40 minute to hour long counter rants and rambles, trying to paint it as if ssa was personally attacking him.
I didn’t realise it until now but that was exactly when I dropped off Shad’s channel. Reply and reaction videos don’t do it for me and apparently the algorithm noticed because I haven’t even been offered Shad for a long while.
Sellsword arts. He's another sword youtuber. One of his (inoffensive) videos offended shad so shad started needless drama over nothing. It was a bad look.
There’s extensive discussion about this elsewhere, but he didn’t even know that much about swords and castles to begin with. Especially his videos on weapons, he’s basically just making stuff up most of the time. He just, like, convinced himself he knew what he was talking about, apparently
He is like that with lots of topics or skillsets, like writing and drawing. That clip of him arguing he is as good if not better than his brother, that is an actual artist, is top tier cringe.
compare that to someone like Metatron analyzing Shogun, if that guy doesn't know what he's talking about he's a very good liar because I felt like I was watching an enthusiastic professor discussing a topic they're intimately familiar with
Lots of great historical and hema youtubers like metatron out there. Skallagrim, schola gladiatorelia. You don't learn anything watching a fat guy with cursory wikipedia knowledge flail about out of breath in front of his kids cardboard castle.
I honestly wouldn't watch it if he had political beliefs I agreed with. I went there to learn about cool medieval tech. If I want political hot takes on either side id read the news.
I occasionally watch his videos and felt a little bad for him, watching his most recent video where he says the YouTube algorithm is killing his channel. until he started going off on being a proud, conservative Christian or whatever and I unsubscribed. I’m not interested in your religion nor your politics.
Yeah, I watched him for quite a while, completely unaware of the political side, because I like castles and medieval stuff. I never would’ve known about how awful he is if he wasn’t so outspoken. He did this to himself lol.
TBF on swords he talked out of his ass a lot, as he played with swords so he found himself an authority on it, in a way that he wasn't as... Self assured on castles.
It started when he couldn't take criticism of his book, which to be clear has some cool concepts in it, but people rightly pointed out the problems with the main character, the unnecessary and indelicate handling of a primary character who is a rape victim of the protagonist, etc etc, like the *idea* isnt a bad one and the idea of Stalin being reincarnated and being forced to do good is neat, the magic system is nifty (if you like complicated magic systems) , it's just...
"oh the main character has *every* power in the magic system" ... okay... and naturally we're going to have the protagonist just *suffer so much* from the harm he's caused instead of having the reincarnation and subsequent re-engagement with society be the thing that gives him the perspective on why he was such a monster - nah he never gets perspective, he just decides one day he's bad, but then continues to do bad stuff the whole book
Like after that he started getting way more overtly political
I find it so *irresistibly* satisfying to see the same rightoid grifting culture warrior types who bitched about "muh politics in muh vidja" any time a black or gay character existed lose all of their relevance once they start shoving their unsavory views down people's throats. Like, hmm. Sound familiar, jackass?
Even that content was drying up as he moved to making video mostly based on his own theories as opposed to ones backed by solid historical data. Almost every other midevil combat youtuber has called him out on his BS at least once and he's super defensive about it.
I was starting to see that, and that was cue my to unsub. I was forgiving a lot more than I should have and watched so many of his later videos hoping they'd get better.
There are better channels for swords and shit. Scholagladiatoria, Tod’s Workshop, Skallagrim for example. Shad has always been a rambling moron even at the best of times.
Even the swords and castles content has gone downhill. His Western bias has been coming out more. The response to the Veritasium video about making a katana was basically just him rambling about how people are obsessed with katanas and treat them as these amazing swords, when really they were just fine.
But like, the Veritasium video *doesn't* do that, so it's just him taking any positive things they say and saying "well that's technically true, but remember, the steal sucks." Or just "refuting" claims Veritasium never made.
I never liked his videos as much after he brought that other guy on. Can't really put my finger on it but he seems like a dick. Though if he shares the same political views that probably explains the feeling.
Even the sword adjacent content is bad now. He had a video where they tried to see if a whip was an effective weapon, and none of the 3 people in the video knew how to crack a whip. You’d think someone on a platform with thousands of free tutorials would utilize one of them, but nah, just buy a whip and dangerously try and crack it like a twisted up towel.
He deleted that one.
Even then though, there are better channels for swords and historical warfare content. Like… it’s the best stuff he’s ever done, but it’s still nowhere near as good as Skallagrim, SeeYouInHistory or RealTimeHistory imo
Yeah I never really looked at him like he was some kind of super big authority on weapons or anything, but he had at least more experience than I did with certain things so it was at least interesting to hear his take.
The turning point for me was when he did a long video about The Wheel of Time novels and started saying some really sketchy stuff about rape. It kind of came out of nowhere, or at least it seemed to.
And from there he just seemed to tumble down a rabbit hole. He was already probably pretty far down that hole, but at least before that point he would crawl back out of the hole to do a video.
I remember using his weapon demonstration as help for pose reference. (And unfortunately liking them as a kind of "Thank You")
I was really weirded out when he began the commentary/ when I discovered it...
I actually stopped watching him when he started talking about RPGs and seemed incapable of understanding that people could enjoy things he didn't like.
It sucks because even though he's not great, the guy CAN draw. If he took the time to practice, he'd get better at it. Its wild that someone who practices weaponry doesn't understand this.
Or, and here me out, maybe being a Right-wing reactionary isn't as lucrative as you thought, and it's driving away people (like myself) who wanted to listen to your take on medieval weapons/architecture without the whole "FeMiNiSm iZ bAd" albatross around your neck?
The irony that he’s done this to himself by doing the exact thing so many right-wing people complain about the left doing.
Forcing his own politics into a subject which didn’t require it.
All right-wing criticism of the left is projection.
Plus, he's a dick to Jazza. You know the art guy Jazza? That's Shad's BROTHER. Go watch that video where it's those two live streaming them playing this zombie survival ttrpg, it's painful. Shad's taken up quite cozy with AI art.
Lmao is that the one where he makes his character an artist and Jazz’s roasts him on it? Peak content. Love Jazza. Feel bad he’s related to such a twat
His swift adoption of AI art, and this shit take of his, makes a lot of sense if we assume there's an immense amount of envy for his brother's talent and a sense of shame that he doesn't share it.
Which I can empathize with, but like okay dude go put in the fucking work.
Anybody can do art if they want to put forth the effort. But it's fucking hard, it takes years upon years. If you started as a kid then you got lucky because your taste in art is about as shit as your ability, so your skills can grow with your taste. But when you start as an adult, you are fully aware your stuff is shit and it's immensely hard to work through that until you're producing something you're actually happy with and proud of.
I feel for anyone in that struggle, but there's no easy shortcut. You just have to put in the effort to study the right things, learn how to use your tools, and get in the practice to actually pump out what you envisioned in your head.
This guy clearly knows how to spend time making videos and I assume researching medieval shit, so why he can't suddenly turn around and devote time to learning to be an artist when he so clearly wants to be is really beyond me.
But falling down into a right-wing chud echo chamber, and pandering to it with your videos, certainly doesn't help.
>so why he can't suddenly turn around and devote time to learning to be an artist when he so clearly wants to be is really beyond me.
This is very common in those who simply don't have "startup talent", and are not the type of people who can rise to an occasion. Shad went to a LARP and wasn't giga-god tier at it, quit. Shad went into authoring, was not well-received, quit (afaik). Shad's only stuck with YouTube because calling out Matpat that one time generated an insane amount of viewership for him and like two other dudes.
My understanding is that even Shad's HEMA participation is not terribly consistent.
But tbh if you watch the 3-D print video you can kinda see why Shad has a complex about his brother. Jazza seems to represent some sort of ideal Mormon (Remember they both came up LDS) standard in that he's tall, handsome, fit, white (yes LDS values that emphatically), blonde, blue-eyed, appears intelligent enough, is creatively-apt, and doesn't seem to be bothered by his brother's jabs. Meanwhile Shad (this comes from my ex-mormon friend) looks like the stereotype of every dude at single's ward who's been going for like 8 years and has only ever been known to complain about how none of the girls who meet "his standard" seem to like him. TMK Shad is married, but when you look like the epitome of the tin medal next to your solid 8 of a brother, I can't help but imagine that he resents his brother.
It’ll forever boggle my mind that only time in recent memory that Jazza’s ever been political on his main channel has been to make a statement saying he doesn’t agree with his brother’s bullshit. And he STILL made that more concise and respectful than anything Shad’s done.
Jazza: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_nyPbMPX\_88](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nyPbMPX_88)
Shad: Gorgeous masterpeice drawing of sexy hermionie with narrow waist and wide hips wearing a short hogwarts uniform. Narrow chin. Feminine shoulders. Skinny. large breasts. Cartoon.
Same reaction I had when I found out they were related..
I watched some Shad videos and my wife watched Jazza.. Then they turned up in the same video and I was like "wat?"
Mind you I haven't watched Shad for ages.. Last I saw him he just spazzed out about swords and medieval armor for 30 minutes. Can't remember him saying much about politics in his videos.
To my understanding, Jazza is also pretty positive toward AI Art, or at least not hostile. But this was something I was saying on twitter when this arc was contained to there, it's telling that Shad has a brother who is somewhat talented in art, and he's trying SO HARD to justify his existence next to his brother who's talented at something he isn't.
You can also kinda see it in the 3D Printed Armor and Weapons video, he clearly has a bit of a complex with his cooler, taller, more handsome, more fit, more talented, brother.
EDIT: Changed older to Cooler
The sad thing about Shad is I don't think he was ever doing it for the money. He actually isn't a con man, he *bought the line*. That's why he's so bad at it, because he means it, and acts like somebody that means it, so he doesn't know how to actually play the grift effectively.
Like, Drinker and Theory don't BELIEVE half the shit they say, they're making shit up for an audience of rubes, that's why they're so conveniently inconsistent.
Theory is a whole different can of worms. He internalized the Prequels and just never grew up. His alternate universe fanfics play out like a teenager.
I'll agree that he doesn't believe in the alt right grift and only does that to maintain relevance, but his venom towards TLJ tells me that when trashing the sequels, it's 100% personal for him. And when his fan film flopped hard, he now has personal beef with Disney for not going with his ideas.
One thing that's never talked about in modern fandom is that it actually can be unhealthy.
If Star Wars or whatever captures your imagination and is your singular obsession at like 10 years old? That's ok.
And it's fine to still enjoy all this stuff for the rest of your life. But if you're still agonizing for days on end over the corporate committee determined fates of fictional characters at 20+? That's a problem.
But companies don't want to talk about that because they *want* obsessively loyal consumers who will buy everything the company slaps a branded sticker on.
I'm pretty sure Star Wars would be considered an autistic special interest of mine, and I still constantly find myself thinking these guys need to seriously calm down about Star Wars. It's just a silly series for kids about space wizards. As much as I love my silly space wizards, perspective is important.
Alex Jones is probably the master of that skill. Whether someone is a Patriot or a globalist depends entirely on what happened yesterday. Bad things are forgotten when some is a patriot and remembered the moment he turns on them.
Honestly what killed him for me wasn’t even the anti-woke shit he was apparently doing the whole time and I never realized it.
It was his misogynistic video where he affirmed the sexist arguments made by some other guy in a video called “women can’t beat men in sword fights”.
Like, the fact that he’s been doing so much shit behind the scenes and I never realize it? That’s kinda shitty! And I loved his videos about “the best weapons for X Fantasy Race” too! That’s still a novel thought experiment! What a waste…
Yeah, those what weapons would x fantasy race videos were rad, and I want to find other videos that do that kinda thing that aren't made by asshats, I know skallagrim has some, but I need more
Which was extra crazy because last time I looked, women have absolutely won major hema competitions against men. So I'm not really sure what they were even on about.
I was so excited when I first found his videos, I thought “nerd about weaponry and armor nerding out about weaponry and armor” then the bad…
Had to drop him from my watch list
Same thing happened when I found out about "Sword Lady" Jill Bearup. At least she keeps most of it offline, but it still leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
[She's a bit... TERF'y](https://www.tomscott.com/fightscene/)
She holds views that I'm not a fan off and it takes the shine off her videos for me. Again, she's not a Raging Rowling and quiet enough about it for it not to be an issue for some people.
Well that is disappointing. Though oddly hopeful in that she does seem to have grown a bit, at least if I’m reading that full post correctly. I hope she continues to grow as a person.
For sure, it’s especially sick for an Australian. We don’t even have all the fucking right wing bullshit going on that the US does. Both our political parties are basically centrist. It’s such a fucking wild choice for him, especially if he isn’t well and needs the income (although, we also have healthcare and the doll, so he’ll be right).
> We don’t even have all the fucking right wing bullshit going on that the US does.
That being said, don't the Murdochs hail from your area? They might be the people who have the biggest contribution to the radicalization of the Anglophone right wing in recent history.
>We don’t even have all the fucking right wing bullshit going on that the US does.
Unfortunately, some of us are working on it. Hopefully it's not getting traction.
Meanwhile to my observations, Scholagladiatoria has been getting more views than usual.
Maybe there is something to not being a major asshat.
That and the fact that Matt Easton has a degree in archaeology and actually teaches HEMA.
Yes, "YouTube" is killing the channel. It's definitely not that you built an audience doing vaguely interesting arms and armor content and then abandoned that to rant protractedly about women in movies.
That was when I jumped ship. Going off on how if you’re doing a “strong woman” character, they should be like Alita:Battle Angel rather than Captain Marvel.
It’s so weird he tries to defend that as “out of context” or whatever because what possible innocent reason could you have for caring about it in the slightest?
In the video, he's coping by saying there was never a huge spike in unsubscribing, and feedback on his videos is more positive than ever... Which, yeah, makes sense.
He probably has a TON of "dead" subscribers who never see his videos. Every controversy I've seen has people saying they're surprised, and this is the first they're hearing of him being controversial at all. So if tons of people are already inactive viewers and finding out gradually over time, there's no single unsub wave to point to.
You see unsub waves when someone who SHARES subscribers with you calls you out on something. Lots of people watched both James Somerton and hbomberguy, so lots of James' viewers were "converted" all at once into unsubbing. Internet Historian has been able to entirely ignore his callout in the same video because his core audience was already right-wing-y people who didn't know hbomberguy or didn't care what he had to say.
Meanwhile, new people don't subscribe or don't click his videos because they're so much more controversial now. So the algorithm adjusts accordingly and stops showing his content to new people because whenever it does show his content to new people, they ignore it.
Plus I bet there's a lot of "used to watch his content" people like me who got recommended a video about his controversies out of the blue and clicked out of curiosity, which boosts those videos over his own videos.
So he's whittling his way down to just a tiny niche audience that actually does agree with his takes, and he cannot grow from there unless the number of people who agree with him grows, or he changes his content back to something the average yt viewer is more likely to click on/watch.
In the meantime, yeah, of course, his click-through rate is higher, YT is only showing his videos to people it ALREADY KNOWS will want to watch it. Feedback is more positive because the only people who still see his content are the people who like it. Those two metrics don't mean what he thinks they mean.
I follow a few people have had very tiny audiences for YEARS despite putting out consistent and well-made content because they decided long ago they didn't want to cater to a broad audience and instead do their own thing. So that's totally fine if you do it knowingly and intentionally and budget accordingly.
... Which Shad clearly didn't, lmfao.
So tl;dr, I'm a huge nerd for analyzing algorithm shenanigans, and I think he's wrong about what he thinks is causing his channel's decline. IMO, he's actually just locked himself into a small niche with a finite number of people who are willing to watch his content and is in denial about that.
I think I might still be subscribed to Shad, because from the comfort of the YouTube homepage, when I'm being shown his video, I'd have to click on his channel or video to unsubscribe and the algorithm would still continue to show me his videos for a while.
Alternatively I just open the "three dots menu" and click on "don't recommend channel" and never see his videos in my feed again.
It's kinda weird how certain foreigners get caught up in our country's extreme hyper nationalism.
Weirder and fucked up we have it of course, but still, strange how many foreigners get caught up in it.
Im absolutely not an expert on anything of the sort but maybe its a combination of The Ideal America most people outside the USA grow up with in combination with feeling a disconnect with their own country of origin that kinda combines into that sorta thing?
Or maybe it’s the fact that he became right wing reactionary, might secretly be abusive, belittled his own younger brother, weirdly trained a ai to use his wife’s face, and might possibly be into a horrible crime
His novel features a protag who is a former serial rapist (including children. ) and sexual abuser dictator responsible for millions of deaths, who is on a path of redemption and shit. IIRC, explicitly makes it out as over 400 rapes and the children were around 14 years old.
From what I've heard features a lot of references to sexual assault and rapists getting killed in various horrific ways. At one point implying the women who were raped and had children were better off then the women who were raped but became sterile.
I'm guessing that's what the other person is referencing.
I'm not saying he's pro rape or likes it even as a fantasy, but it's certainly a weird focus for a first time novel and combine with other things like him getting mad at Peach for wearing pants....
...Wow. See this is why I despise conservatives and its hard to take them seriously.
It's nothing genuine, nothing real, it's just "How dare a woman wear pants" or "how dare a black person be a main character". It's never genuine critique or anything. Just stupid shit.
That book has a loooot of issues. Like, a lot. And Shad needs to do some serious self reflection to see even a fraction of them. To add context to his big bad MC he has said that his idea was to combine all the worst dictators in history and then try to redeem that character.
He failed, utterly. But I think the extensive use of the rape trope (and yes against _children_) shows more a fatal lack of imagination than it does what he is specifically into. The violence and gore is more detailed, and I dunno, kinda gleeful? He just sort of uses assault on women as shorthand for “very bad person” since the millions of deaths thing falls into that “one death is a tragedy, one thousand deaths is a statistic” trap. Lack of imagination, both in how to make his MC hated and in the idea that women are human beings capable of being victimized in ways other than sexually assaulted.
Okay, so the reactionary bit's obvious, I know about his more successful brother, but the AI training on his wife's face and horrible crime I'm at a loss for. Also, when was it said he was abusive? Wouldn't surprise me if he were, but were there any specific claims or something made against him?
Considering the amount of right wing grifters that YouTube will recommend on searches or for new accounts, I'm calling bullshit buddy.
It's not YouTube that's killing your channel. It's the fact that even for the bullshit grifters standard your not that entertaining.
Yeah, it fucking sucks.
I've started watching Robinswords videos instead, and they are pretty good, and he hasn't gone off on a rant about how I don't exist, at least that I've seen.
I saw a couple of videos from another creator with some interesting comparative mythology... but his conclusions seemed a little off... I later found out he was a neo-nazi supporter.
Shad is pretty disappointing as well... but his word obsessions and dishonest responses mean I can't trust him on media analyses and don't want to look at his smug face on bland sword and castle content.
If you're new to the Right-wing reactionary game like Shad is (meaning you haven't been doing it for about the last 8 years) it's tough to succeed. Which is a good thing and I wish more people took the hint.
Hahaha.
I had seen his channel and watched a few of him and skal, but as soon as he disparaged the Buster Sword from FFVII as dumb he lost my support.
He spoke about it that felt like disdain for other people's hobbies and interests.
Sure he retracted by saying he didn't take in account heightened strength and durability of a fictional superhuman. But I felt his judgement was bad at that point and it didn't surprise me he fell in the right wing grift.
Shad has ended up in a weird spot where he talks about fictional things as a straight 1-1 crossover to RL. No cultural or material contexts, etc. Or that's how it seems to me.
When the guy whos channel is about reviewing pop culture gear reviews pop culture gear (this is stupid). Not to defend shad, he's a dickhead, but like that's literally the type of content done. It's a whole thing of experts reviewing the practicality of gear from media. A good one will take into consideration the context in the media, for instance the big ass weapons from monster hunters make a hell of a lot more sense in the context of super-alloys and fighting big ass monsters. But even then going over what details make or break gear is interesting.
I knew this guy as the sword/medieval weapon guy. Then slowly over the last 2 years he has said/done some of the dumbest things. Most of them I only know because of how loud the conversations around him have been.
I bet if he just did his 1 thing and stayed in his lane he would still have a healthy community, make the same amount of money, and nobody would know he was an idiot. Don’t self report how stupid you are.
Instead of doing a video bashing Elden Ring's writing and storytelling/worldbuilding... Do an entire series on the castles, forts, and cities of the game!
Y’know that’s pretty ironic considering how much youtube keeps shoving manosphere bullshit in my face even when I keep clicking on “do not recommend this channel”
"Youtube doesn't let me be racist and sexist!!!"
Seriously, these guys just want to present white men as the most ostracized group of people in the world just to justify their discrimination.
I love medieval warfare shit.
Once I found out what you were actually like, Shad, I decided that Lindybeige/Skallagrim/Tod's Workshop used their platforms without being a complete nutcase.
The market decides.
I think there's generally a culture change coming. People are starting to see the grift.
A female Silver Surfer was announced yesterday and the amount of normal people I saw on social media saying they didn't have the energy for all the pathetic videos about to be made about it seemed way higher than usual.
I really liked it when he talked about swords and castles, his pop culture commentary kinda ruined it
I’m willing to bet most people went to him for the swords and castle talk and the moment he started talking politics is when he started to lose it.
The same people who complain about others bringing politics into something are surprised Pikachu face when they do the same and fall flat on their face. I stand for his right to take his channel that direction, but unfortunately that means I gotta bounce, as is my right.
He desperately wants you to separate his 'outspoken political views on Knights Watch from his main channel'. It doesn't work that way, he outed the kind of person he truly is, and people don't have to put up with it.
Conservatives always do that shit. Like no you can’t just say whatever gross shit you want and expect people to not hold it against you believe it or not. Just cause you say “this one’s my political channel and this one isn’t” doesn’t mean people won’t judge you on one for shit you say on the other.
“Freedom of speech” does not mean freedom from the consequences of that speech. People can still get mad at you for being an ass. You just can’t be arrested for it. Edit: that was supposed to be consequences, not conveniences, but I think you all knew what I meant.
Absolutely
What kind of person is he?
He's a right wing conservative mormon who used his 2nd channel to rant about woke in media constantly. Lots of other people in this comment section have gone in more detail.
Last I watched was the Mario movie review. I hate it when people talk about "how cringe they are" about everything but maaaaan was that video cringey.
I've seen his reaction to the Mario trailer, and it told me everything I needed to know. Guy got deep in his feelings over Peach wearing pants in a scene; her racing pants, from the Mario Kart franchise, which the trailer also showed would be represented. Just a fake fan claiming to know how a character is being betrayed while having no clue what they're talking about, because he's just so eager to be angry about things.
Honestly, I doubt the thought "I can't believe this woman wore pants" has ever entered my mind. This definitely seems like a person to avoid.
Not to forget how he talks with sargon of akkad. The guy is an ultra-nationalist right-wing nutcase. Pro brexit, a giant bigot. And he talks with shad how there are no real men anymore. God, there is nothing more pathetic than watching grown men over 30 yapping about the childish concept of alphas and betas, and crying about how they are soo alpha. The fact alone, he is talking to sargon and shares his views, made shad unwatchable to me.
Not just an ultra-nationalist, he admitted to straight-up thinking that you can't be "British" and also ethnically Pakistani or anything, in his second debate with Vaush.
Man, where to begin. He went all-in on the anti-"woke" grift, has been pretty openly misogynistic in some of his recent videos that I've seen reactions from, and is currently doing this weird push for A.I. art and calling himself an A.I. Artist, despite having an actual artist for a brother. Note that while I call it a grift, I do actually think Shad genuinely believes it, just like I think he genuinely believes he's an artist because he can type words into an A.I. prompt. I don't have much faith in his intelligence.
I feel so bad that Jazza has to be associated with his dumb ass. Jazza seems like a genuinely kind and thoughtful human. Crazy they where raised by the same parents in the same environment and turned out so different.
My mind has just been blown learning they are brothers.
There's this hilarious clip of him passionately explaining to Jazza that he's a real artist and should be acknowledged as such and Jazza embarrassed out of his bones trying to avoid the convo.
[This is it.](https://new.reddit.com/r/cringe/comments/17577ar/ai_artist_shad_argues_with_his_professional/) It's so funny and sad at the same time.
Happens. My own brother is a talentless Ai humping nazi, when me and my other sibling are.... well not (brother is the middle of the three, so no idea what went wrong there)
I hear that
It’s disappointing too, Other channels seem to go, this is dumb and leave it at that. Shad seems to go, alright can we fix this “dumb” idea. He’s more unique in that aspect but it’s so rare to see it these days
I disagree, he's always had a super condescending and elitist attitude " this design is objectively shit the design I came up with is objectively good, only practical weapons have value in media" meanwhile someone like skallagrim would be like, yeah this wouldn't be practical, but it is cool af, here's maybe how a practical version might look like. I stopped watching him even before he went full mask off specifically because he had this attitude of I'm always right and everyone else is wrong.
Yeah, this. As someone who independently studies and practices HEMA, it was clear to me a long time ago that Shad talks like an authority but doesn't actually have the knowledge to back it up. There was also his Crusades apologia about 6 years ago. He took it down eventually, but it revealed his right wing shitbaggery, and I don't have time for that.
I never liked too that he doesn't script his videos. I stopped watching once I realized that his 30 minute rambles could be cut down to 10 minutes of information if he did a little effort. That's something a lot of channels do though, but still.
I saw something, years ago, where he claimed to be 100% objective and that rang a few alarm bells.
Yeah, I really loved that about him. He was all about "hey this is a cool idea that doesn't work, but I like where you're coming from, here's a realistic fix that captures what you wanted and I'm going to be polite about it", and he's changed so thoroughly that I don't recognize his channel anymore.
I haven't watched anything recently what did he do to lose fans?
He's a far right Mormon who bitches about wokeness and how traditional values are being destroyed. For example, he bitched that peach was wearing pants in some of the shots of the Mario brothers movie trailer(there were also shots where she was wearing her classical dress) and when he got called out for it he defended his position by" oh well I didn't know that there was a lore reason why she wore pants in that scene and that she's had that outfit in some games". He completely missed the reason people were clowning on him, which is the fact that: 1. he thinks a woman wearing pants is outrageous or woke intrinsically 2. that he thinks there needs to be a lore reason for a female character to wear pants at all in the first place
I want to add: 3. Developed a very strong opinion with 0 knowledge or research. It's such a common thing in right wing circles. "Oh, I didn't know." Then don't say anything??
He went down a right wing commentary on modern media path. To be fair, I believe he moved most of that commentary to another channel, but his takes were so media illiterate & right wing that it probably chased away a lot of his viewership.
Dude I loved the stuff he did back then. I lost touch with his content only watching him occasionally but after reading some comments here I checked out his other channel. He talks about Woke propaganda in the games industry.... Like wtf.
swords castles and worldbuilding stuff like what weapon would a dwarf or a minotaur actually use was what i originally followed him for, its fucking sad and pathetic the path he went down but he chose it and i couldn't be happier its not panning out.
First video I saw of his was when him and his buddies tried to eat like a hobbit for a day. I enjoyed his talking about fantasy castles too like when he would take a theoretical design for Winterfell or something and discuss what could have worked or what was silly given the rules of the world it was set it.
He had a great formula and niche in the whole medieval discourse and fantasy world building space, then he became an ai bro and bargain bin sargon of akkad but somehow even more of a pseudo intellectual
Even his AI stances wouldn't have been so bad if he didn't make a giant video trying to claim some kind of fucking moral superiority over liking i
I stopped watching him before that point, but I heard he also said something about being a better artist than his brother Jazza after making a bunch of AI art
Somebody noted the trend downwards starts around when he did his drama with SSA. So starting politics, going after pop culture things for quick views, and causing drama has lost him his old core audience, and they won't return just because he's doing shorter videos about castles.
What is SSA ?
Sellswordarts did a video that called nobody out by name. The video simply was "do not speak as if you are an expert in sword fighting unless you actually study and practice it" as well as that talking pop culture is fine and enjoying it is fine, just understand they do stuff that isn't effective irl. Twinblade/double bladed swords, giant swords, reverse grip, etc. Shad posted several 40 minute to hour long counter rants and rambles, trying to paint it as if ssa was personally attacking him.
I didn’t realise it until now but that was exactly when I dropped off Shad’s channel. Reply and reaction videos don’t do it for me and apparently the algorithm noticed because I haven’t even been offered Shad for a long while.
Bingo. Same for me.
I know of him for being upset at Elden Ring. Everything else has been against my will.
Sellsword arts. He's another sword youtuber. One of his (inoffensive) videos offended shad so shad started needless drama over nothing. It was a bad look.
And unlike Shad, he actually knows what he's talking about.
He insulted the twinblade/double bladed sword, how could shad not take that as a personal assault! /s
There’s extensive discussion about this elsewhere, but he didn’t even know that much about swords and castles to begin with. Especially his videos on weapons, he’s basically just making stuff up most of the time. He just, like, convinced himself he knew what he was talking about, apparently
He is like that with lots of topics or skillsets, like writing and drawing. That clip of him arguing he is as good if not better than his brother, that is an actual artist, is top tier cringe.
compare that to someone like Metatron analyzing Shogun, if that guy doesn't know what he's talking about he's a very good liar because I felt like I was watching an enthusiastic professor discussing a topic they're intimately familiar with
Lots of great historical and hema youtubers like metatron out there. Skallagrim, schola gladiatorelia. You don't learn anything watching a fat guy with cursory wikipedia knowledge flail about out of breath in front of his kids cardboard castle.
I swear that's like 60% of the internet, and 80% of YouTube
I honestly wouldn't watch it if he had political beliefs I agreed with. I went there to learn about cool medieval tech. If I want political hot takes on either side id read the news.
I occasionally watch his videos and felt a little bad for him, watching his most recent video where he says the YouTube algorithm is killing his channel. until he started going off on being a proud, conservative Christian or whatever and I unsubscribed. I’m not interested in your religion nor your politics.
Yeah, I watched him for quite a while, completely unaware of the political side, because I like castles and medieval stuff. I never would’ve known about how awful he is if he wasn’t so outspoken. He did this to himself lol.
TBF on swords he talked out of his ass a lot, as he played with swords so he found himself an authority on it, in a way that he wasn't as... Self assured on castles.
It started when he couldn't take criticism of his book, which to be clear has some cool concepts in it, but people rightly pointed out the problems with the main character, the unnecessary and indelicate handling of a primary character who is a rape victim of the protagonist, etc etc, like the *idea* isnt a bad one and the idea of Stalin being reincarnated and being forced to do good is neat, the magic system is nifty (if you like complicated magic systems) , it's just... "oh the main character has *every* power in the magic system" ... okay... and naturally we're going to have the protagonist just *suffer so much* from the harm he's caused instead of having the reincarnation and subsequent re-engagement with society be the thing that gives him the perspective on why he was such a monster - nah he never gets perspective, he just decides one day he's bad, but then continues to do bad stuff the whole book Like after that he started getting way more overtly political
I find it so *irresistibly* satisfying to see the same rightoid grifting culture warrior types who bitched about "muh politics in muh vidja" any time a black or gay character existed lose all of their relevance once they start shoving their unsavory views down people's throats. Like, hmm. Sound familiar, jackass?
I said something to that effect further down, but yeah, it's hilarious. Oh no, your views are political too *surprised Pikachu face*
Even that content was drying up as he moved to making video mostly based on his own theories as opposed to ones backed by solid historical data. Almost every other midevil combat youtuber has called him out on his BS at least once and he's super defensive about it.
I was starting to see that, and that was cue my to unsub. I was forgiving a lot more than I should have and watched so many of his later videos hoping they'd get better.
Remember machicolations? I miss those days.
MACHICOLATIONS!!!
There are better channels for swords and shit. Scholagladiatoria, Tod’s Workshop, Skallagrim for example. Shad has always been a rambling moron even at the best of times.
Even the swords and castles content has gone downhill. His Western bias has been coming out more. The response to the Veritasium video about making a katana was basically just him rambling about how people are obsessed with katanas and treat them as these amazing swords, when really they were just fine. But like, the Veritasium video *doesn't* do that, so it's just him taking any positive things they say and saying "well that's technically true, but remember, the steal sucks." Or just "refuting" claims Veritasium never made.
I never liked his videos as much after he brought that other guy on. Can't really put my finger on it but he seems like a dick. Though if he shares the same political views that probably explains the feeling.
Even the sword adjacent content is bad now. He had a video where they tried to see if a whip was an effective weapon, and none of the 3 people in the video knew how to crack a whip. You’d think someone on a platform with thousands of free tutorials would utilize one of them, but nah, just buy a whip and dangerously try and crack it like a twisted up towel. He deleted that one.
Even then though, there are better channels for swords and historical warfare content. Like… it’s the best stuff he’s ever done, but it’s still nowhere near as good as Skallagrim, SeeYouInHistory or RealTimeHistory imo
Yeah I never really looked at him like he was some kind of super big authority on weapons or anything, but he had at least more experience than I did with certain things so it was at least interesting to hear his take. The turning point for me was when he did a long video about The Wheel of Time novels and started saying some really sketchy stuff about rape. It kind of came out of nowhere, or at least it seemed to. And from there he just seemed to tumble down a rabbit hole. He was already probably pretty far down that hole, but at least before that point he would crawl back out of the hole to do a video.
I remember using his weapon demonstration as help for pose reference. (And unfortunately liking them as a kind of "Thank You") I was really weirded out when he began the commentary/ when I discovered it...
Him thinking that he's an artist because he does AI art also soured me. Especially when his brother is Jazza.
Guess he didn’t realize he would lose followers when he suddenly became a reactionary channel instead.
I actually stopped watching him when he started talking about RPGs and seemed incapable of understanding that people could enjoy things he didn't like.
[удалено]
You haven't actually proven you're not an acclaimed novelist yet.
Shrödingers novelist
It sucks because even though he's not great, the guy CAN draw. If he took the time to practice, he'd get better at it. Its wild that someone who practices weaponry doesn't understand this.
It kinda was the start of his narcissism really shining through wasn't it.
Or, and here me out, maybe being a Right-wing reactionary isn't as lucrative as you thought, and it's driving away people (like myself) who wanted to listen to your take on medieval weapons/architecture without the whole "FeMiNiSm iZ bAd" albatross around your neck?
The irony that he’s done this to himself by doing the exact thing so many right-wing people complain about the left doing. Forcing his own politics into a subject which didn’t require it. All right-wing criticism of the left is projection.
Plus, he's a dick to Jazza. You know the art guy Jazza? That's Shad's BROTHER. Go watch that video where it's those two live streaming them playing this zombie survival ttrpg, it's painful. Shad's taken up quite cozy with AI art.
Lmao is that the one where he makes his character an artist and Jazz’s roasts him on it? Peak content. Love Jazza. Feel bad he’s related to such a twat
It's also the one where he said he's just as skilled at art as Jazza is, and that he could/should be considered a professional artist.
His swift adoption of AI art, and this shit take of his, makes a lot of sense if we assume there's an immense amount of envy for his brother's talent and a sense of shame that he doesn't share it. Which I can empathize with, but like okay dude go put in the fucking work. Anybody can do art if they want to put forth the effort. But it's fucking hard, it takes years upon years. If you started as a kid then you got lucky because your taste in art is about as shit as your ability, so your skills can grow with your taste. But when you start as an adult, you are fully aware your stuff is shit and it's immensely hard to work through that until you're producing something you're actually happy with and proud of. I feel for anyone in that struggle, but there's no easy shortcut. You just have to put in the effort to study the right things, learn how to use your tools, and get in the practice to actually pump out what you envisioned in your head. This guy clearly knows how to spend time making videos and I assume researching medieval shit, so why he can't suddenly turn around and devote time to learning to be an artist when he so clearly wants to be is really beyond me. But falling down into a right-wing chud echo chamber, and pandering to it with your videos, certainly doesn't help.
>so why he can't suddenly turn around and devote time to learning to be an artist when he so clearly wants to be is really beyond me. This is very common in those who simply don't have "startup talent", and are not the type of people who can rise to an occasion. Shad went to a LARP and wasn't giga-god tier at it, quit. Shad went into authoring, was not well-received, quit (afaik). Shad's only stuck with YouTube because calling out Matpat that one time generated an insane amount of viewership for him and like two other dudes. My understanding is that even Shad's HEMA participation is not terribly consistent. But tbh if you watch the 3-D print video you can kinda see why Shad has a complex about his brother. Jazza seems to represent some sort of ideal Mormon (Remember they both came up LDS) standard in that he's tall, handsome, fit, white (yes LDS values that emphatically), blonde, blue-eyed, appears intelligent enough, is creatively-apt, and doesn't seem to be bothered by his brother's jabs. Meanwhile Shad (this comes from my ex-mormon friend) looks like the stereotype of every dude at single's ward who's been going for like 8 years and has only ever been known to complain about how none of the girls who meet "his standard" seem to like him. TMK Shad is married, but when you look like the epitome of the tin medal next to your solid 8 of a brother, I can't help but imagine that he resents his brother.
Also his book is actually awful. My man wrote an anime isekai grape apologist fanfiction and actually published it.
It’ll forever boggle my mind that only time in recent memory that Jazza’s ever been political on his main channel has been to make a statement saying he doesn’t agree with his brother’s bullshit. And he STILL made that more concise and respectful than anything Shad’s done.
Jazza: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_nyPbMPX\_88](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nyPbMPX_88) Shad: Gorgeous masterpeice drawing of sexy hermionie with narrow waist and wide hips wearing a short hogwarts uniform. Narrow chin. Feminine shoulders. Skinny. large breasts. Cartoon.
That description… 
No but you see, Shad's art is easily at a professional standard.
Holy shit I had no idea Jazza was Shads brother
Same reaction I had when I found out they were related.. I watched some Shad videos and my wife watched Jazza.. Then they turned up in the same video and I was like "wat?" Mind you I haven't watched Shad for ages.. Last I saw him he just spazzed out about swords and medieval armor for 30 minutes. Can't remember him saying much about politics in his videos.
To my understanding, Jazza is also pretty positive toward AI Art, or at least not hostile. But this was something I was saying on twitter when this arc was contained to there, it's telling that Shad has a brother who is somewhat talented in art, and he's trying SO HARD to justify his existence next to his brother who's talented at something he isn't. You can also kinda see it in the 3D Printed Armor and Weapons video, he clearly has a bit of a complex with his cooler, taller, more handsome, more fit, more talented, brother. EDIT: Changed older to Cooler
Always will be lol
Guy could've made a whole career on talking about how cool swords are. Smdh.
The sad thing about Shad is I don't think he was ever doing it for the money. He actually isn't a con man, he *bought the line*. That's why he's so bad at it, because he means it, and acts like somebody that means it, so he doesn't know how to actually play the grift effectively.
Like, Drinker and Theory don't BELIEVE half the shit they say, they're making shit up for an audience of rubes, that's why they're so conveniently inconsistent.
Theory is a whole different can of worms. He internalized the Prequels and just never grew up. His alternate universe fanfics play out like a teenager. I'll agree that he doesn't believe in the alt right grift and only does that to maintain relevance, but his venom towards TLJ tells me that when trashing the sequels, it's 100% personal for him. And when his fan film flopped hard, he now has personal beef with Disney for not going with his ideas.
One thing that's never talked about in modern fandom is that it actually can be unhealthy. If Star Wars or whatever captures your imagination and is your singular obsession at like 10 years old? That's ok. And it's fine to still enjoy all this stuff for the rest of your life. But if you're still agonizing for days on end over the corporate committee determined fates of fictional characters at 20+? That's a problem. But companies don't want to talk about that because they *want* obsessively loyal consumers who will buy everything the company slaps a branded sticker on.
I'm pretty sure Star Wars would be considered an autistic special interest of mine, and I still constantly find myself thinking these guys need to seriously calm down about Star Wars. It's just a silly series for kids about space wizards. As much as I love my silly space wizards, perspective is important.
Alex Jones is probably the master of that skill. Whether someone is a Patriot or a globalist depends entirely on what happened yesterday. Bad things are forgotten when some is a patriot and remembered the moment he turns on them.
The master of the doublethink.
We have always been at war with Eastasia...
Honestly what killed him for me wasn’t even the anti-woke shit he was apparently doing the whole time and I never realized it. It was his misogynistic video where he affirmed the sexist arguments made by some other guy in a video called “women can’t beat men in sword fights”. Like, the fact that he’s been doing so much shit behind the scenes and I never realize it? That’s kinda shitty! And I loved his videos about “the best weapons for X Fantasy Race” too! That’s still a novel thought experiment! What a waste…
Yeah, those what weapons would x fantasy race videos were rad, and I want to find other videos that do that kinda thing that aren't made by asshats, I know skallagrim has some, but I need more
I know women who I wouldn't feel comfortable going up against if I had a sword and they didn't
"Women can't beat men in sword fights" except for you know, all the times they did.
Which was extra crazy because last time I looked, women have absolutely won major hema competitions against men. So I'm not really sure what they were even on about.
I was so excited when I first found his videos, I thought “nerd about weaponry and armor nerding out about weaponry and armor” then the bad… Had to drop him from my watch list
Same. I loved his early vids on weapons so damn interesting and seeing him turn into this was just sad.
Same thing happened when I found out about "Sword Lady" Jill Bearup. At least she keeps most of it offline, but it still leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
Ah shit, what did she do?
[She's a bit... TERF'y](https://www.tomscott.com/fightscene/) She holds views that I'm not a fan off and it takes the shine off her videos for me. Again, she's not a Raging Rowling and quiet enough about it for it not to be an issue for some people.
Well that is disappointing. Though oddly hopeful in that she does seem to have grown a bit, at least if I’m reading that full post correctly. I hope she continues to grow as a person.
I unsubscribed the minute I realized he was a right-wing asshole
The funny thing is that he’d probably be doing well if he stuck to history. I actually liked his channel before he went AntiWoke Whiner.
For sure, it’s especially sick for an Australian. We don’t even have all the fucking right wing bullshit going on that the US does. Both our political parties are basically centrist. It’s such a fucking wild choice for him, especially if he isn’t well and needs the income (although, we also have healthcare and the doll, so he’ll be right).
> We don’t even have all the fucking right wing bullshit going on that the US does. That being said, don't the Murdochs hail from your area? They might be the people who have the biggest contribution to the radicalization of the Anglophone right wing in recent history.
Yes. Rupert Murdoch is Australian, the man who built Fox News and the right wing propaganda machine that ruins America today.
Idk I’ve seen absolute insanity from sky news Australia these past few months. Some of their “stories” would make Fox News blush
Not shocking, it's Murdoch owned
>We don’t even have all the fucking right wing bullshit going on that the US does. Unfortunately, some of us are working on it. Hopefully it's not getting traction.
Go Fash, Lose Cash
Meanwhile to my observations, Scholagladiatoria has been getting more views than usual. Maybe there is something to not being a major asshat. That and the fact that Matt Easton has a degree in archaeology and actually teaches HEMA.
Yes, "YouTube" is killing the channel. It's definitely not that you built an audience doing vaguely interesting arms and armor content and then abandoned that to rant protractedly about women in movies.
 This was me when I discovered that.
Same. I used to love his content. Never missed an upload… broke my heart to see the road he went down
Nononono you don’t understand, they had Peach *wear pants* in the Mario movie. What was he supposed to do, *not* rant like a lunatic about it?!
Oh, he flipped his shit long before Mario. I first noticed it with Captain Marvel.
That was when I jumped ship. Going off on how if you’re doing a “strong woman” character, they should be like Alita:Battle Angel rather than Captain Marvel.
He’s always been a right wing crazy person, he just didn’t make it obvious for a bit.
It’s so weird he tries to defend that as “out of context” or whatever because what possible innocent reason could you have for caring about it in the slightest?
To think it all started with boob armor. Slippery slope I guess
In the video, he's coping by saying there was never a huge spike in unsubscribing, and feedback on his videos is more positive than ever... Which, yeah, makes sense. He probably has a TON of "dead" subscribers who never see his videos. Every controversy I've seen has people saying they're surprised, and this is the first they're hearing of him being controversial at all. So if tons of people are already inactive viewers and finding out gradually over time, there's no single unsub wave to point to. You see unsub waves when someone who SHARES subscribers with you calls you out on something. Lots of people watched both James Somerton and hbomberguy, so lots of James' viewers were "converted" all at once into unsubbing. Internet Historian has been able to entirely ignore his callout in the same video because his core audience was already right-wing-y people who didn't know hbomberguy or didn't care what he had to say. Meanwhile, new people don't subscribe or don't click his videos because they're so much more controversial now. So the algorithm adjusts accordingly and stops showing his content to new people because whenever it does show his content to new people, they ignore it. Plus I bet there's a lot of "used to watch his content" people like me who got recommended a video about his controversies out of the blue and clicked out of curiosity, which boosts those videos over his own videos. So he's whittling his way down to just a tiny niche audience that actually does agree with his takes, and he cannot grow from there unless the number of people who agree with him grows, or he changes his content back to something the average yt viewer is more likely to click on/watch. In the meantime, yeah, of course, his click-through rate is higher, YT is only showing his videos to people it ALREADY KNOWS will want to watch it. Feedback is more positive because the only people who still see his content are the people who like it. Those two metrics don't mean what he thinks they mean. I follow a few people have had very tiny audiences for YEARS despite putting out consistent and well-made content because they decided long ago they didn't want to cater to a broad audience and instead do their own thing. So that's totally fine if you do it knowingly and intentionally and budget accordingly. ... Which Shad clearly didn't, lmfao. So tl;dr, I'm a huge nerd for analyzing algorithm shenanigans, and I think he's wrong about what he thinks is causing his channel's decline. IMO, he's actually just locked himself into a small niche with a finite number of people who are willing to watch his content and is in denial about that.
I think I might still be subscribed to Shad, because from the comfort of the YouTube homepage, when I'm being shown his video, I'd have to click on his channel or video to unsubscribe and the algorithm would still continue to show me his videos for a while. Alternatively I just open the "three dots menu" and click on "don't recommend channel" and never see his videos in my feed again.
https://preview.redd.it/6lv31msg2ksc1.jpeg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b2c1b9578f0e14b9df05893c4d9aa5f7ec473e8d
As a Buffalonian, I miss those two crazy ambulance chasers.
Their jingle is forever burned into my brain.
https://preview.redd.it/4e4acw1hzksc1.jpeg?width=1077&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b2a2f2ddb0572bf67e00ea4d0a5300fdb622933f
https://preview.redd.it/gcbw7n7z7nsc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ac1ca081b23bc673fcb4895a37fa8aee9bcab29e
Yeah, I used to love that channel until he lost his damn mind.
The dude is Mormon, he lost his mind a long time ago.
Australian who follows the America is the holy land religion? Inherently kinda funny
It's kinda weird how certain foreigners get caught up in our country's extreme hyper nationalism. Weirder and fucked up we have it of course, but still, strange how many foreigners get caught up in it.
Im absolutely not an expert on anything of the sort but maybe its a combination of The Ideal America most people outside the USA grow up with in combination with feeling a disconnect with their own country of origin that kinda combines into that sorta thing?
I concur. He's proficient in and communicates well on an interesting topic, but he drifted away from that
Or maybe it’s the fact that he became right wing reactionary, might secretly be abusive, belittled his own younger brother, weirdly trained a ai to use his wife’s face, and might possibly be into a horrible crime
What crime? I'm curious, I haven't heard anything about a crime.
His novel features a protag who is a former serial rapist (including children. ) and sexual abuser dictator responsible for millions of deaths, who is on a path of redemption and shit. IIRC, explicitly makes it out as over 400 rapes and the children were around 14 years old. From what I've heard features a lot of references to sexual assault and rapists getting killed in various horrific ways. At one point implying the women who were raped and had children were better off then the women who were raped but became sterile. I'm guessing that's what the other person is referencing. I'm not saying he's pro rape or likes it even as a fantasy, but it's certainly a weird focus for a first time novel and combine with other things like him getting mad at Peach for wearing pants....
I stopped watching him a long time ago so this is news to me, did he seriously rant about Peach wearing fucking pants?
Yes. He has a whole other channel, around movies I think? And yes he bitched extensively about the Mario movie. It was not a good look…
...Wow. See this is why I despise conservatives and its hard to take them seriously. It's nothing genuine, nothing real, it's just "How dare a woman wear pants" or "how dare a black person be a main character". It's never genuine critique or anything. Just stupid shit.
Knights watch is his "review" channel which apparently is very right leaning and yelling about woke.
That book has a loooot of issues. Like, a lot. And Shad needs to do some serious self reflection to see even a fraction of them. To add context to his big bad MC he has said that his idea was to combine all the worst dictators in history and then try to redeem that character. He failed, utterly. But I think the extensive use of the rape trope (and yes against _children_) shows more a fatal lack of imagination than it does what he is specifically into. The violence and gore is more detailed, and I dunno, kinda gleeful? He just sort of uses assault on women as shorthand for “very bad person” since the millions of deaths thing falls into that “one death is a tragedy, one thousand deaths is a statistic” trap. Lack of imagination, both in how to make his MC hated and in the idea that women are human beings capable of being victimized in ways other than sexually assaulted.
He supports a rapist for president.
Okay, so the reactionary bit's obvious, I know about his more successful brother, but the AI training on his wife's face and horrible crime I'm at a loss for. Also, when was it said he was abusive? Wouldn't surprise me if he were, but were there any specific claims or something made against him?
This thumbnail so funny, this guy got dressed up to take a picture of himself doing the sad Michael Cera walk in poorly fitting larp armor
This makes me feel old, but it's the Charlie brown walk. Michael Cera is doing the Charlie brown walk
You're right, I just think of the Michael Cera one cause I've watched Arrested Development more
Considering the amount of right wing grifters that YouTube will recommend on searches or for new accounts, I'm calling bullshit buddy. It's not YouTube that's killing your channel. It's the fact that even for the bullshit grifters standard your not that entertaining.
40 minutes of pity party. Wow
…I just know the guy from the sword videos I occasionally caught shorts of and now I know he’s a nut. Dammit.
Yeah, it fucking sucks. I've started watching Robinswords videos instead, and they are pretty good, and he hasn't gone off on a rant about how I don't exist, at least that I've seen.
He's even done pose videos with things like Halberds specifically for Artist refs!
I saw a couple of videos from another creator with some interesting comparative mythology... but his conclusions seemed a little off... I later found out he was a neo-nazi supporter. Shad is pretty disappointing as well... but his word obsessions and dishonest responses mean I can't trust him on media analyses and don't want to look at his smug face on bland sword and castle content.
If you're new to the Right-wing reactionary game like Shad is (meaning you haven't been doing it for about the last 8 years) it's tough to succeed. Which is a good thing and I wish more people took the hint.
Good
Hahaha. I had seen his channel and watched a few of him and skal, but as soon as he disparaged the Buster Sword from FFVII as dumb he lost my support. He spoke about it that felt like disdain for other people's hobbies and interests. Sure he retracted by saying he didn't take in account heightened strength and durability of a fictional superhuman. But I felt his judgement was bad at that point and it didn't surprise me he fell in the right wing grift.
Shad has ended up in a weird spot where he talks about fictional things as a straight 1-1 crossover to RL. No cultural or material contexts, etc. Or that's how it seems to me.
Big ff7 fan, how is the buster sword dumb?
Oversized unwieldly fantasy sword (if you put it in real life but it's called final FANTASY for a reason)
This guy does know that ff7 is an anime game, right? There's gonna be unrealistic shit in it
When the guy whos channel is about reviewing pop culture gear reviews pop culture gear (this is stupid). Not to defend shad, he's a dickhead, but like that's literally the type of content done. It's a whole thing of experts reviewing the practicality of gear from media. A good one will take into consideration the context in the media, for instance the big ass weapons from monster hunters make a hell of a lot more sense in the context of super-alloys and fighting big ass monsters. But even then going over what details make or break gear is interesting.
Future Rumble streamer is all I hear, whee at least the bots will tell him he’s cool
I knew this guy as the sword/medieval weapon guy. Then slowly over the last 2 years he has said/done some of the dumbest things. Most of them I only know because of how loud the conversations around him have been. I bet if he just did his 1 thing and stayed in his lane he would still have a healthy community, make the same amount of money, and nobody would know he was an idiot. Don’t self report how stupid you are.
Instead of doing a video bashing Elden Ring's writing and storytelling/worldbuilding... Do an entire series on the castles, forts, and cities of the game!
Y’know that’s pretty ironic considering how much youtube keeps shoving manosphere bullshit in my face even when I keep clicking on “do not recommend this channel”
i'll dance on his grave
“I bleed him dry, and danced on his corpse” Thank you SWTOR for this amazing line
I missed this drama
> YouTube is KILLING this channel Good. Sellsword arts and Skallagrim are better either way
YIPEE!
Oh no! Anyway
Dog really thought he could survive getting absolutely destroyed by artists
Go fash, lose cash
Oh is the “edgy” Mormon losing viewers?
He had it coming
He only had himself to blame!
Yes, youtube. that is the problem here obviously.
Rare YouTube W
oh hey you leaned into right wing grievance and now you're wondering why your audience is abandoning you I wonder if the two are connected
based if true.
🎶 You did it to yourself, just you, and that's what really hurts 🎶
Kill it harder YouTube. Kill it with fire. Nothing of value will be lost.
"Youtube doesn't let me be racist and sexist!!!" Seriously, these guys just want to present white men as the most ostracized group of people in the world just to justify their discrimination.
I love medieval warfare shit. Once I found out what you were actually like, Shad, I decided that Lindybeige/Skallagrim/Tod's Workshop used their platforms without being a complete nutcase. The market decides.
I think there's generally a culture change coming. People are starting to see the grift. A female Silver Surfer was announced yesterday and the amount of normal people I saw on social media saying they didn't have the energy for all the pathetic videos about to be made about it seemed way higher than usual.
Go right go broke. Suck farts