As of today, I am no longer affiliated with Channel Awesome.
I was picked up by Channel Awesome on 2014 and at the time I couldn’t have been happier about it. Since then I have made great friends and I do not regret being picked up by the site. As time has gone on though it became clear that Channel Awesome was not the site I had hoped it would be when I was brought in. I didn’t fit in as much as I had hoped with everything and was one of the outsiders. It happens. I made friends eventually and I’m grateful because of it and Channel Awesome posted my videos for years. As of now though…I don’t feel comfortable being on the site anymore.
For those wondering why I had stayed on the site for so long even in the light of all the #ChangeTheChannel situation, I was hoping they would try to make things better internally like they said in their posted apology this past Monday as well as acknowledge some of the specific things they had done in the past to former producers. I was also asked to be a part of a 10 year anniversary film back in December and I was holding out because I figured they would try to correct things before the filming and production of that would start. I found myself holding out hope for nothing and stressing myself out because of it. The communication was still scarce even though we were practically begging for it at one point.
I’ve been trolled by being listed under the Channel Awesome and the #ChangeTheChannel banner. It’s the internet. It’s YouTube. Trolls happen. That’s life. As someone who has received legitimate death threats over the years for making jokes about bands, I assure you that people leaving generic Channel Awesome insults at me has no affect. The reason I’m bringing this up is that there are people who have recently left Channel Awesome or are still on the site. Leave them alone. They don’t have anything to do with the actual situation that has stemmed from all this.
If you are looking for a post that rips people apart or names who has done me wrong, you won’t find it here. I’ve really only had one bad experience and that was just between me and one other person running the site. That’s it. I’ve never had a bad experience with Doug, Rob or Greg. In hindsight, I had much of an easier time with Channel Awesome than most and I was never treated that poorly. Since 2014 however I started realizing the site was not a community but just a business that we all were able to post our content to. That’s it. So, I treated it as such, worked alongside friends I eventually made, and continued on.
Over the past few weeks I found myself having conversations in group chats and one-on-ones with people I cared about who were worried and angry about all the information that had come to light. I admit I was in the same boat. After a while I found myself not being able to find answers and everything started to become clear that it would not get better if I stay.
As for my personal situation…I’m working 11 hours a day at five days a week along with bad health issues that have reoccurred since November. I’ll spare you the details but leave it to say that I’m not doing well and I need to get better. I want to be there for my friends and also help people when they need it, but I realize now that I have to start figuring things out for myself in order to get better.
I’ve been making errors on Rocked videos that are small and should be easy to spot. My quality is slipping and I’m falling apart at a lot of different areas in my life. To clarify, I’m not going anywhere and I’m not stopping Rocked. This gives me something to focus on and at least gives the feeling that I’m achieving something. At times this is all I have that keeps me going. The light grows a little dimmer on being able to do this full time and I see that, but I still want to keep pushing to make Rocked better. I truly feel I can’t do that while being associated with Channel Awesome and everything tied to the website now.
I hold no ill-will to people who are still on the site. I support people who have spoken up in the past few weeks about their experiences. I just need to start getting my own life together in the process. I apologize for being vague, but there are things that I don’t want to get too specific on because I’ve had bad experiences with that in the past when trying to open up. The purpose of this post is to let people know I’ve left Channel Awesome and that I’m going to try and make things better for my own channel as well as figure things out in my own life.
-Luke Spencer
