Breja: You do realise I was joking, right?
I've actually seen a few episodes of the latter. I had no idea it's a major influence though. And it seems the channel has been abandoned?
The channel has officially ended. The creators wrote a post-mortem on it, describing their goals, process, and reasons for ending the channel
here.
Breja: Angry Joe has really become unwatchable for me. His reviews have become these 40 minute long snore fests bloated with terrible skits and endless cringy clips from his streams. Lindsay I sometimes check up on, some of her videos I liked and found really informative, sometimes she's just boring, and often I just don't care about the subject. I honestly think her shorter, funnier stuff from her Nostalgia Chick days might have been better than what she does now. Todd is the only one of the bunch I still watch pretty much every episode of. I often disagree with him, but he is still both funny and informative, and sometimes he comes up with something really great, like when said that Imagine Dragons created an "uncanny valley for music". I thought that was brilliantly put.
I never found any of them funny, so I can't say I miss those times. For me, it was always either constant and grating interruptions or a pleasant lighthearted tone, but never actually "haha" funny.
Angry Joe I feel is the natural result of the "angry reviewer". Heavy on the screaming, light on the thinking, and ever more and more arrogantly convinced that everyone is there due to their
incredible talents as an entertainer, and so, he must give people what they
clearly want! With as many sketches and overlong, hollow diatribes where they can display their brilliance as possible.
I do mean it when I list him as an outlier though. He was smart (or lucky), to maintain his Youtube channel concurrently with his Blip channel on TGWTG. Knowing that the more views someone has, the more Youtube recommends their videos to other users, getting a 4 year or so head start on growing his channel made a tremendous difference for him when Youtube gaming finally exploded around 2012. Plus, he reviews new releases, which always brings him new viewers that are just looking for information on the game. Regardless of my thoughts on the quality of his video, or Spoony's, or anyone else's, I very much doubt that anyone starting now with that same format could get as big as Angry Joe.
Lindsay is actually a very important piece in all this. She had actual film school background, so she was familiar with academic criticism and essays in the first place. She was one of the first to start the post-RLM video essay style and is often listed as an influence by many YouTubers, including Every Frame a Painting and Nerdwriter. In the way that someone can influence a small group of people who then go on to be more successful than them, and influence far more people.