#ned fulmer

[sogoodtoheritsvicious]

ned fulmer needs to watch out cause one of these days he’s gonna run into eugene in the streets and it’s not looking good for him

[morkhan]

I am just. So weirdly tickled by this Watcher situation. Like yes, initially I was very disappointed and upset but honestly now I just think it's funny. I can't remember the last time a creator or group of creators misread the room this hard. Like they really thought they were cooking with this one. They had a countdown to this. They announced their paywalled streaming service with their whole chests and expected rapturous applause. Instead, there has been a non-stop chorus of boos and thrown tomatoes for days now. They would have probably gotten a better reaction if they had posted a video where they sprayed a dog in the eyes with soapy water.

It's all so pleasantly... low-stakes. The consequences are nonexistent. It's not like the Ned Fulmer situation, where a friend group is destroyed, real life relationships are ended, and young children are potentially subjected to the trauma of divorce. Nah, all that's happening here is three idiots will be making a lot less money than they wanted. Maybe they'll learn something, maybe they won't. Either way, they brought it entirely upon themselves, and that makes it okay to laugh at in my books. So I will!

[ellovett]

TWT BE FR AHDHAHDHAHA

[m1oki]

lost focus and had a consensual workplace relationship

[moonybeam3]

Losing my mind this is the funniest take yet

[ohara-n-brown]

The more I listen to the TryPod the less I could understand this happening.

The fact that these three men have so much professionalism, that their first and only thoughts were ‘how do we do this right’, the fact that they held it together for weeks to preserve everyone around them while even on tour.. it just baffles me

Eugene, Keith, and Zach are so professional and emotionally mature that it really just blows my mind that Ned could not even extend 1% of the same courtesy to them. To do something so unprofessional and selfish and still look at the three of them and consider yourself a part of their ‘team’.

It really shows the difference in character between Ned and the True Try Guys. Wow.

[kimbleefucker]

literally never engage in a 4 person friend group because inevitably one guy is gonna turn out to be super fucked up and ruin it for everyone else

[snailwriter]

They lost focus and had a consensual workplace relationship

[khruschevshoe]

Three Guys On A Sofa: Try Guys, Watcher, Values, and Cognitive Dissonance

Listen, as someone who has no real emotional investment in Watcher but all the emotional investment in the last "three guys on the sofa" internet scandal (Try Guys were MY long-standing Buzzfeed emotional support dude-group), what has kind of amazed me is the difference in reaction to the two scandals.

Watcher's video was built up for a week as a positive announcement but immediately cratered their reputation, revealed the cracks in their handling of business/lack of forethought in ALL THREE FOUNDERS, and, thanks to them not responding quickly to fan reactions, is now cementing their negative perception in a way they might never recover from.

On the other hand, the Try Guys' video was possibly one of the best apology videos/reactions to scandal I've ever seen. It seemed like a quick response to the breaking scandal but was well-thought out (and as was discussed in podcasts, had been extensively thought-out/planned for at least a month, with all three of the remaining Try Guys heavily invested in the investigation/handling of the problem), reinforced audience sympathies because the problem had been dealt with, and most importantly reinforced the idea that the audience's faith in the remaining Try Guys was warranted.

The Watcher video revealed the massive gap between the ideals that the Watcher Guys (all three of them) had purported to hold for years (authenticity, "eat the rich," a strong personal/parasocial connection to their audience) and what was being executed in practice, while the Try Guys' video showed that the ideals that Keith, Eugene, and Zach had held (non-toxic masculinity, respect for women, healthy working environments, a strong passion/belief in supporting their staff) still seemed as genuine as can be.

TLDR; I think that the Try Guys were able to recover from the Ned of it all in a way that Watcher won't be able to because while their apology video showed quick action and reinforced/proved that they stood by the same values they'd always had, Watcher's video and fan response has only shown that they don't seem to hold the values THEY preach, fundamentally betraying their audience.

[booklovingturtle]

Had this cursed realization today

OG artist credit: @pumpkinhrat