The downfall of TGWTG or Channel Awesome

@Thanotos Omega  
A bit dickish of a way to make them leave, no ?

After reading that whole Google Doc it mostly seems like Doug and Rob are just really stupid and incompetent along with frankly a being kind of lazy. While Mike is an asshole and seems to actually be a bit malicious. Though I think some of it can be summed up with him also being lazy and completely in over his head doing a job he has no real right or ability to be doing.
 
I’m not trying to downplay the more serious things that were said, but the majority of it comes down to the fact that the company is being run by people who have no idea what they are doing, and have no real reason to be in upper management in anything.

@Commune  
@Angrybrony  
I as always reserve my right to boycott, i ain’t riding their asses on twitter or nothing, just refusessing to pad their numbers, hell when i actually left a comment on a MasakoX vid to say i was unsubbing i wished him well for fuck sakes,

Now admittedly, this could just be me foolishly holding out that Doug is still a good person, but part of me cannot help but wonder if he doesn’t have a full idea of everything that’s been going on the site and with other producers or perhaps that Mike has simply twisted the narrative to make himself seem in the right.
 
A lot of what I’m reading seems to indicate that a huge problem, perhaps the biggest, is way Mike has been handling managing everything and how he has been treating the other producers.
 
The lack of communication, him shutting out some completely, possibly telling the community not to talk to certain people, exc. Dropping people just for being late a day despite good performance in the past, and in how terrible handling of getting producers videos shown.
 
What Doug needs to do is drop Mike… yet perhaps he can’t because of contract. Perhaps he made a very stupid decision in signing on with who he did and is now stuck in a situation he can’t push against… especially if Mike has rights to the Nostalgia Critic persona.
 
Despite all this I’m not going to try to say that Doug is some sort of saint. That he hasn’t done things that can be criticized or even questioned… I just want to believe that Doug isn’t at fault for everything going on.

Check out this victim-blaming, “No YOU’RE the jerks”, non-apology from Channel Awesome. Pay particular attention to the last sentence of the second paragraph.

@EquestrianScholar  
Walker no longer owns the NC; Michaud does. There’s no real way for him to break off at this point without ending up in the poorhouse. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that necessarily excuses everything he’s done, but I can’t fault him that much for caving under pressure when he doesn’t want the responsibility of management.
 
As for Michaud, as Linkara says, I don’t think he really does anything; just owns a majority of stock in the company he’s managed to make his way to the top of, and the rights to the NC. He doesn’t seem to have any interest in doing much other than trying to make sure as much money as possible funnels upwards.
 
Reading about all this, killing off the NC almost seems like an impulse decision, despite Walker’s enthusiasm and claims that he’d been wanting to do so almost from the beginning. So many people didn’t know beforehand that it sounds spur of the moment.

@EquestrianScholar  

 
I suppose it all depends on how much the Walker brothers know what’s going on. The entire doc seems to paint them as blissfully out of touch with the reality of the situation.
 
Just sit one of them down and ask them “Hey, you do know your buddy Mike is a colossal asshole, a major creep, a slavedriver, and all around jackass who’s spent the last decade making everyone’s life a hell through incompetence and intentional malice, right?”

I forget, did the producers get at least a share of the ad revenue on their videos? Because they obviously weren’t paid directly.

@HeadlessHorselessHorseman  
Well from what I read, Mike at the very least never liked doing such and find ways of actively avoiding responsibility.
 
Honestly I was surprised to see Doug announce such, but given everything going on it is making a lot more sense. The responsibility, the expectation, the attention of so many, and how many videos he was putting out with the consideration that he didn’t even own the character that made him famous. Its no wonder he tried to drop NC.
 
@Background Pony #9F11  
I aactually wish the was an opportunity to sit them down and ready through the Google Doc for themselves.  
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Also, wow. No wonder Channel Awesome is suffering so much.
 
Mike Michaud looks like someone who wouldn’t know the first thing about management or working with others. He honestly looks like a douche to me, someone would do run Channel Awesome through the mud.  

@HeadlessHorselessHorseman  
Yes they got to keep the money from their vids because they did all the work, Channel Awesome was just a embedding site that had more and more rules to be a member,

@EquestrianScholar  
Yeah I’m pretty sure, like I said before, that Doug Walker is basically to CA what Tom cruise is to Scientology
 
That said, he was the deciding vote on someone’s employment and that person would struggle with employment later on
 
Rob would almost seem like he is oblivious but Ames story paints him as quite cruel

WELP…They “responded”.  
People are not pleased.

After reading the G-doc, my opinion remains the same: What’s killing CA is what killed the Escapist.

@Jarkes  

 
It’s a masterclass in backhanded bullshit, indeed.

@Wesley Foxx  
Man they really are assholes,

That “apology” actually kinda reminds me of Walter trying to cover up in the last scene of “Blood Money”

Funny how this thread started as just bitching about “SJWs” on the site… then it turns out that there were far worse things going on there.

@Jarkes  
Mhm,

Late to the thread, but honest question if it hasn’t been asked before: does Channel Awesome even make money? Reading the google doc from the former contributors, so many mention how they were underpaid or weren’t paid at all. I’m wondering if that’s less because the people in charge are greedy dicks (don’t doubt it though) and more because they can barely afford to keep the site going as is.

@zerowinger66
 
I don’t think so. It’s probably just a website to shove Doug’s content.

@maud pie of the Well  
What’s weird, a long time ago he wanted to stop and move on, but a bunch of people got pissy so he was technically forced to keep doing it.

@Cyborg_pony
 
Irony.

@maud pie of the Well  
It was morte a matter of he can’t do anything else, he;s only good at the NC schtick, his other show was a failure because he can’t write,

@Thanotos Omega
 
I honestly tried to watch Demo Reel. It was…okay and felt sorry he canned it to bring back NC.
 
But when I learned that he only brought back NC for the money and ‘The Review Must Go On’ was done because he was making fun of the fans who wanted more NC and making up multiple reasons for why he ended it, I lost respect for Doug. He was pretty much dead to me.

@maud pie of the Well  
I almost wonder if it he wasn’t trying self-sabotage. Knowing Mike Michaud owns the NC character and most of CA. Make the character unpopular enough to warrant canceling it.
 
Walker could probably be as manipulated as many that had come out and left, which most put their anger at Michaud.  
Not like if he broke away from it anyways would people care. I’ve seen some say Doug more responsible then the guy that runs it. As they say in the business “the fall guy.” The way Michaud is talked about as a sleazy 40’s gangster, that isn’t too farfetched. Those that got out could, but he’s kind of trapped as the face and under Michaud’s thumb possibly.
 
Kind of depressing when you think about it. An asshole that pretty much holds your life in his hands and there’s not much you can do while people grow to hate you over his actions.