An Extremely Spoony Story - Part II

On Friday, I took you home...

Previously.

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As 2007 rolled into 2008, the one off decision to indulge in the passing desire to put his own unique spin on the concept of the angry internet critic appeared to be paying dividends for Antwiler. After years of toiling in obscurity, hopping from one creative endeavor to the next, it appeared that his hard work, dedication, and resilience had finally put his star on the rise. Increasingly, the name Tandem and Noah Antwiler fell to the side as he became associated with the name of his channel, and thusly dubbed Spoony.

As stated before, though Spoony didn’t shy away from engaging in the performative and exacerbated outbursts of anger that defined the angry internet critic schtick, he balanced the more humorously hyperbolic with sober analysis, insightful commentary, and a genuine passion for media discussion that immediately set him apart from the pack as just another imitator of the vaunted Angry Video Game Nerd. Antwiler’s deep and expansive knowledge of the most esoteric and obscure niches pertaining to the world of nerd culture allowed him to venture into topics that none of his contemporaries would dare to touch. It didn’t take long for Antwiler eschew the mantle of game reviewer and instead begin to merge the concept with that of his previous ambitions to star in his own take on Mystery Science Theater 3000, and for the scope of his content to increase. Rather than simply review games, Antwiler began to review movies, board games, role-playing games, and more. While most videos put out by similar reviewers at the time would average in at around ten or twelve minutes - which I believe was the hard-cap for the average YouTube user at the time to upload - Spoony’s content regularly exceeded that, with run times that easily sprawled into a hour plus long affairs with multiple overarching installments.

If you’re wondering if that had any effect on me at all, I invite you to revisit my catalogue. You tell me if you see any similarities.

Antwiler had positioned himself to not just be one of the successful among the vast pack of newly minted online critics, but rapidly proved himself to be among the most creative, prolific, humorous, and entertaining. I really cannot state just how different Spoony’s content was from the average online critic at the time. Not only had years of writing movie reviews for Kings of the Dinner Table and Tandem’s Movie Reviews given him a distinctly professional voice with which to precisely articulate his opinions in a manner that most of the ranting, sputtering morons among his cohort could never hope to match (especially without bothering to write scripts), but the size, scope, and variety of his content made the release of a new Spoony video feel like something of an event rather than just another internet video. As he branched out into more and more esoteric subjects, his videos were as educational and informative as they were comedic. An entire generation of fledgling geeks, such as yours truly, were introduced to the world of Full Motion Games and other niche, obscure, and oft-forgotten pieces of nerd culture ephemera that came before our time. Indeed, it would be when Spoony embarked on an ambitious project to chronicle and review all of the Ultima games that I was first exposed to the series, as well as the achievements of the man I’d met in Austin around that same time.

In fact, his Ultima retrospective would be one of the most successful, iconic, and entertaining project he would ever publish, alongside his similarly sprawling review of the controversial Final Fantasy XIII, which earned him a reputation as someone who wasn’t afraid to lay into and tear down beloved pillars of nerd culture.

In between this deluge of new review content, Spoony uploaded scads of vlogs that covered various topics. Basically, if it caught his interest, he was going to talk about it. And the man could talk. You could even say that he liked to hear himself speak. Whether it be the new edition of Dungeons and Dragons, Professional Wrestling, the latest movie that he saw in theaters or the newest game he’d picked up from the store, Spoony would sit his ass in front of a camera and talk it to death. One particular series of vlogs that found success was Counter Monkey, in which Spoony recounted humorous anecdotes of his many, many role-playing game escapades.

I feel as if I remember some vlogs going on for upwards of three to four hours, though, the average run time was usually somewhere around one or two. Again - the man did not shy away from long-form content, or sharing his opinion down to the most nitty-gritty detail. I can’t fault him, really - vlogs were easy to make. There was no scripting. No camera work. No footage of gameplay had to be recorded and edited. All you had to sit down in front of a camera and talk.

Wham. Bam. Thank you, ma’am. May I have some more, please?

Put a pin in that. We’ll touch on it again.

Personally, I never found much utility in 95% of his vlogs. I’d put them on as background noise while I played World of Warcraft or some other game, but, often times, I’d zone out, lose track of whatever Antwiler was saying, and then go put on music or listen to one of his reviews for the Nth time like they were some sort of audio drama¹. The vlogs were met with mixed reception from his audience. Some series, like Counter Monkey, were well liked. Others… not so much. Again, put a pin in that - we’ll touch on it again.

But, most knew that they were something of a necessary evil, even if they didn’t particularly care for them. Most people understood that they were there to pad his content output between the releases of his review videos, which required a significant time investment to complete. And, like I said - they weren’t bad either… not in the beginning, at least. Antwiler just had a folksy sense of charm and a way of telling stories that came off an intensely personal that made listening to him easy.

Listening to them, you not only got the sense that Spoony not only cared deeply about what he was talking about, but you also got the sense that you were listening to an old friend chat with you over a drink. His Counter Monkey series, in particular, speaks to this affable and amiable affect. Though I do enjoy the occasional dalliance with pen-and-paper table-top role-playing games myself, especially in my college days, I’ve never much cared to listen to other people tell me about their own experiences playing with them. Unfortunately, among the TTRPG crowd, this is basically standard operating procedure, and if you bring up any sort of game with anyone who plays them, you’re basically dooming yourself to sit there for an hour and listen to them recount some super epic awesome amaze-balls story about the time their halfling archer-bard-wizard Bimbo epically pwned Doo-Doo the Dread Dragon with nothing but a rubber chicken and the help of a busty fox furry in a skimpy French maid get-up, which inevitably boils down to a series of And Then’s that leaves you just nodding, smiling, and replying with Wow, that’s crazy! until they finally get to the end of their tale in which Amélie the Vixen hops in bed with brave Bimbo and they do exactly what you think they do. In explicit detail.

By the time I get to my eighth Wow, that’s crazy I’m having to roll for a sanity check.

It’s the same reason that listening to podcasts like Critical Role and Dimension 20 are basically the auditory equivalent of Chinese water torture to me. Though, full disclosure - I did quite enjoy Adventure Zone. But, just like how I found Counter Monkey tolerable, I think that was only because I find the McElroy brothers funny, not because I suddenly started enjoying hearing other people play DnD. I’d rather just play it myself.

I digress.

Spoony, again, had a way of spinning a yarn that didn’t feel like a chore to listen to. If I couldn’t get through his vlogs, it was more due to my own limited attention span than his lacking ability as a story-teller, because I’m fairly certain that he could have read names out of the phone book and I’d find something to smirk at.

Now, Spoony was also unique among the sea of Angry Video Game Nerd imitators not only for his verbal abilities and possessing a vocabulary that exceeded the average eighth grade level, but he was able to upload these lengthy videos due to hosting them on his own site - The Spoony Experiment. By hosting his videos off of YouTube, he was able to circumvent the limitations imposed by the site that most others had to contend with.

Part of this was enabled by the help of his new girlfriend, Scarlet, who he’d begun to see near the end of 2007. Like I said, the guy’s life was really beginning to look up. Scarlet was web savvy in her own right, and as both a Christmas and birthday gift, took it upon herself to overhaul The Spoony Experiment site and transform it into the shape that it would take for most of Spoony’s online career.

One eye on the streets, one eye on the hoes.

Scarlet would also establish herself as a presence in his fan community as both the web-master of The Spoony Experiment and chief mod in the site’s forums, which, again, was another unique feature that few others in the field could boast. Really, his only other competition was James Rolfe - the Angry Video Game Nerd himself - who had long since run his own site chock full of both AVGN content and other homemade film projects, called Cinemassacre.com.

But, Spoony did continue to upload to YouTube in order to draw in new fans and expand his audience, though the time limitations forced each of the videos to be chopped up and divided among multiple parts.

This, however, would come to a sudden stop in 2008, when it seemed as if the entire concept of the angry internet critic was put in jeopardy by the intrusion of the same entities that have plagued the Internet and sought to destroy all things that make it worth while since its inception…

Joyless corporate assholes.

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In 2008, after years of relative freedom, YouTube’s laisse faire approach to hosting content attracted the ire of media conglomerate Viacom.

Though defunct today after a merger with CBS, the company was a titan in the entertainment industry at the time, and they were not happy with what they saw on YouTube. With an impressive collection of copyrights stuffed under the belt, including networks such as MTV, Nickelodeon Studios, Comedy Central, Dreamworks Animation, Paramount Pictures, and more, Viacom saw the unmoderated landscape of YouTube at the time as an affront to their very existence. Much like any big corporation worth being called a big corporation, the collective entity of Viacom was severly allergic to people having a good time without collecting their pound of flesh from the transaction. The only thing the stuffed suits in board rooms hate more than kitties, puppies, and kids with cancer is people living fulfilling lives witout using whatever it is they sell. By that they simply could not abide.

To be fair, this was a time when just about anyone could upload anything to YouTube. Any old Joe Blow could burn their Spongebob Squarepants DVDs to their computer and upload the episodes to YouTube for anyone to watch. This is, of course, a copyright violation. I won’t say they were unjustified to do so. But also still fuck them just on principle.

However, it would have been one thing if they were simply upset with YouTube user DarthBongRip69 re-uploading crusty, grainy clips from South Park in 121p that accrued a grand total of, like, 251 views. It would be stupid to get one’s corporate knickers in a twist over something so minor, but, still - they’d be within their rights.

But they didn’t just go after people actually uploading copyrighted material. Oh, no - they went after everyone. If you used so much as a picosecond of footage from any content they owned, you could rest assured that they would find you, and they would nail you to the fucking wall. If you wonder why so much content from this time - especially those of early internet critics and reviewers - is so sparse, you can thank Viacom. It wasn’t just them, of course. Once other companies realized that they could, indeed, smite the puny proletariat who deigned to show so much as an image of a copyrighted character, they did. If you uploaded a static picture of Donald Duck with royalty free music over it, you could bet that Disney would have your entire channel nuked by the day’s end.

And, the thing is that they were in the wrong. They were demonstrably on the wrong side of this. The Copyright Act of 1976 defined the limits of fair use, which are as follows:

Given that these reviews were both transformative works, parody and satire (which are both fall under the same purview), and educational… somewhat, they were fair game and perfectly legal. No one was violating any copyright by uploading a review of a shitty movie that happened to have muted clips playing in the background every now and then.

Not that Viacom cared. Because corporations only care about the law when they benefit from it, don’t you know?

Overnight, Viacom’s name became synonymous with Satan among internet denizens, and the angry internet critic scene, once flourishing, was thrown into turmoil as video after video winked out of existence like dying stars, one by one, and big names in the space saw their channels - years worth of hard work and effort - swallowed up like small ships amidst the tumult of an angry sea.

Anyone who made a name for themselves on YouTube around this time felt was sure to feel the wrath of these spurned corporate entities. Thus began a legal battle between these entities and YouTube that would stretch on until 2010, when, after years of agony, destruction, and legal warfare, the courts would ultimately side with YouTube, and some semblance of balance would be restored.

Until the big corporations once again decided, nah, fuck that, actually, and started doing it again, because these corporations are literal babies that can’t stand not making a single penny off the intellectual property of creatives that they hoard like greedy dragons their own hard work.

By the time the second bout had begun, the internet landscape had changed - dramatically so - but, at the time, circa 2008, the situation seemed grim. Much ink was spilled, many impassioned debates were had, hours of angry videos cursing the names of these companies were uploaded, and futile petitions launched like arrows, numerous enough to blot out the sun, yet, for all the effort, it was sadly for naught. Viable alternatives to YouTube were precious few. Competitor BlipTV was much more lenient with their copyright strike system, but many creators abhorred the idea of abandoning the largest video-sharing platform on the internet for a site with a fraction of the user base and an unfriendly user-interface that made searching for new content tedious and difficult. Few among the rabble had the funds to host their own site, and an even more scant number boasted the coding abilities to create one.

Where could they go? What could they do?

Many played the game as best they could, working around the copy-right restrictions as best they could, though, even that was a dangerous game; as I said, these corporate leviathans were both relentless and unforgiving, and even seconds worth of copyrighted material in a video was enough to trigger their attack dogs to strike a small creator’s channel and vanquish them to the abyss before they even got a chance to get off the ground. No small number of angry internet critics saw their story come to an end, then and there, as they were either smothered beneath the weight of these corporate beasts, or simply threw in the towel and admitted defeat.

But, there was one man among them who refused to go quietly into that good night. One man - an unlikely champion - who would rise to the occasion. Like most great heroes, this man rose from obscurity, from modest means and a humble beginning, and would come rise to challenge. Among this coarse, rag-tag assemblage of nerds, geeks, dorks, and social outcasts that had formed this online community of like-minded acquaintances, one man would take it upon himself to stand in defiance of this great offense. From the suburban streets of Napierville, Illinois, an unlikely hero would arise. His face would become a symbol of resistance, and his catchphrase, adopted as a defiant battle cry;

This man was then-27 year old Doug Walker, better known to posterity as the Nostalgia Critic.

Like many of histories most accomplished leaders and colorful characters, Walker was a reasonable man who was forced to be unreasonable. Simply put, he had no other choice but to act. A struggling illustrator, aspiring comic artist, and hopeful comedian, Walker had found success with the character of the Critic, enough that he had actually quit his humble day job as a janitor at a nearby factory to pursue content creation full-time. In colorful fashion.

Seriously, you want to watch this. It’s actually pretty funny.

As Walker states at the end of the video - That bridge… has officially been burned.

Like Caesar burning the boats of his legions on the shores of Brittania, or Cortez doing the same in Mexico, he had left himself no other alternative but to push forward. There was no recourse.

In April of 2008, Walker, his brother, Rob, and a business partner, Mike Michaud, would join forces to establish a site specifically to host his own material; ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com.

As the battle between online content creators and corporations continued at pace, and more and more fell beneath their boots, Walker found himself with a unique opportunity. He couldn’t standby and watch his fellow creators fall. No - he could do more.

He could help them. He’d found safe harbor on his own site. After a while, Walker and his partners would soon open the doors to other creators that he deemed worthy. Auditions were held. Talent was recruited. Little by little, Walker accrued a stable of creators that were given a new home on his site, beneath his banner, and on his dime.

Of course, it helps that he was raking in ad revenue hand over fist by hosting their videos, but, hey - that was just gravy to be smothered on top of the good deed he gave succor to YouTube’s tired, YouTube’s poor, YouTube’s huddled masses, yearning to be free. It was here that many successful internet personalities such as Lewis “Linkara” Lovhaug, Lindsay Ellis, Joe “Angry Joe” Vargas, and Todd “ToddInTheShadows” Nathanson that still create content today would find their footing and begin their own colorful stories… but those stories are for another day.

Together, ThatGuyWithTheGlasses would slowly transition into the collective under which it is more widely known, Channel Awesome.

Spoony’s path to Channel Awesome is not typical of the other creators under the collective’s banner. As stated, The Spoony Experiment site offered Antwiler a safety from the wrath of Viacom and their thuggish peers, and he had already largely begun to migrate off YouTube. Unlike many of the creators that found themselves funneled into the hallowed halls of Channel Awesome’s site, he didn’t need their services. But, when they were extended to him, he was all too happy to take them.

What also makes Spoony unique among the rest of the Channel Awesome cadre is that, while most had to audition and hope that they were accepted to join Walker’s roster of creators, Spoony was invited. Walker saw him as an asset - rightfully so - and realized that, together, the two could do great things. They were better together than alone. They could help one another.

In mid-2008, Spoony would begin to cross-post his content on both The Spoony Experiment and Channel Awesome, expanding his presence and, by proxy, his audience, twofold. It wasn’t long before he became one of the premier contributors to the site, one of their biggest names, and certainly one of their greatest draws. Within a year, he’d struck up a personal friendship with Walker and the aforementioned Lewis Lovhaug, who’d also proven himself to be one of the site’s most valuable members, creating something of a Triumverate.

Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus. Porthos, Aramis, and Athos. Lee, Peart, and Lifeson². Alvin, Simon, and Theodore. Perhaps most pertinent, Larry, Moe, and Curly.

Antwiler. Walker. And Lovhaug.

More than any other contributors, these men would be the one’s to define the site. During the site’s halcyon days, they would be the ones more than any other who would contribute to it’s success. This isn’t to say that other names weren’t successful in their own right, or that they weren’t also popular, but I don’t recall any others coming close to sniffing the prestige that these three had in the wider internet critic circle. I’d also say that, among them, he was the best. Perhaps not as successful as Doug, and not as prolific as Lewis, but he had a sense of sincerity that the overly-scripted Doug couldn’t match, and acting chops that made Lewis look like he was putting on an elementary school stage-play.

Over the next several years, Antwiler’s wild ascendancy would continue with the unlikely help of his newfound friends. He would continue to cross-over with the creative endeavors, frequently appearing in the storyline segments of Linkara’s videos, playing both himself and the character of Doctor Insano within the annals of the ever growing plot surrounding Linkara’s… comic reviews.

Because if a series about reviewing bad comics needed anything to make it more entertaining, it was a sprawling, epic story-line packed with characters and lore that made watching every episode in its entirety a necessity to understand linking each one of them, and watching a grown man dance around in front of a green screen in a Power Rangers cosplay.

You have to excuse the poor quality, Linkara used a toaster to film his early reviews, I think.

He also played lead parts in Doug Walker’s infamous, independent anniversary films - impressively expansive cross-overs between Channel Awesome contributors, filmed in celebration of the site’s anniversaries. Ironically, despite being a nominal celebration of the site’s existence and unlikely success, it could be debated that one of these movies would prove to be one of, if not the flashpoint that finally sent the whole Channel Awesome endeavor unraveling.

Top-most from the left.

Believe me, we’ll talk about all of these in due time, but, for now, all you need to know is that Spoony, too, adopted his friends’ penchant for squeezing lore and story into his reviews, and soon established his own canon within the overarching Channel Awesome mythos. It was never as intrusive as it was in Linkara or the Nostalgia Critic videos, but, if you thought the Doctor Insano bit was a bit stale from the beginning… well, it never got more fresh as the years went on.

Pictured: Antwiler playing Squall from Final Fantasy VII.

But, that’s a while down the road, yet. For now, it was gravy. It was all gravy for the Channel Awesome crew, and Spoony in particular. In only two scant years, Noah Antwiler had not just found success. He’d found friends. He’d found a community. He’d found an audience, one that was both larger, passionate, affectionate, and fiercely defensive of his honor than those of his peers. Between the years of 2007 and 2012 - an all-too brief half-decade - Antwiler found himself blessed with everything he could have asked for and more.

I’d say it was all downhill from there, but, if you can believe it - it wasn’t. Though 2012 and 2013 would be some of the most trying of Antwiler’s life, like any storm, there was a clear, blue day in the aftermath, and a rainbow in the sky.

But it wasn’t going to be easy to get there.

1. I did the same thing with South Park, since you could watch episodes for free on the Comedy Central website.

2. That one’s for you,

Alexander Hellene