Listening to Alanah, Bruce, Lawrence and other former Funhaus members talk about Roosterteeth hit hard in a needed way. They were so honest about how poorly people were treated at that company and their conflicted feelings. Seems like Funhaus was consistently profitable, a great creative group of people, and still wasn't treated right. Still no support when they reported bullying and harassment. Keep in mind they didn't blame any on screen personalities from RT, more so the company culture or the higher ups in WB. But yeah, if they treat on screen personalities like that, imagine what they treat the off screen people like - the animators and editors. I saw someone on Glassdoor say he couldn't attend his own wedding without his work computer there and that he was fired for having a bachelor party and working during the bachelor party but not working hard enough. Insanity.
As soon as Jack took the mic and started talking, that first bit of dribble that came out of his mouth was exactly what drove everyone away to begin with. Nice hat btw.
I legitimately liked Jack in Achievement Hunter, but he always was an arrogant fool that couldn't go an hour without desperately shoehorning in an insult towards someone or something that disagreed with his incredibly bland political opinion
A few years ago I would have been pissed and crying over RT being shutdown. But with what RT has become, with all the mismanagement, controversies, show quality and just toxic things they've done I'm not really bothered. They brought it on themselves. This is deserved.
The worst part is seeing Geoff cry about the company he fought so hard to build being surrounded by the very people that destroyed it in that stream. Sorry but I blame a lot of those new faces for the downfall of RT. They never listened to the fans.
@@mattyomi1549He’s only one man. He cared, he cared a lot. But if shit happens on behind the scenes to people he cared about and he didn’t know it’s really rough to hear that.
@@mattyomi1549Keep in mind, once you become a company under an umbrella, there is only so much you can do. He and Burnie probably tried multiple times to get things back on track only to be tuned out, outvoted, or just flat out told “no”. So Geoff is surrounded by people that kinda symbolize what killed the very company he made with his best friends.
One thing that stuck out to me was Jack's continued behavior of " F the haters". He does not know how to read a room. It was that exact mindset that lead them to this point. I also now realize that he doesn't care, and in my own opinion it's because conpared to most others in that room he lost nothing. He's already enjoyed great financial success from RT so this closure isn't gonna impact his wallet compared to so many other people. He talks a big game but has been at RT during all those years of controversy and only spoken after others raised the issues. He's just been there clapping in the background enjoying a nice, big paycheck whereas the animators and background staff were getting minimum wage/ coerced into long overtime. I don't hate the man, I don't know him but I'd be curious to see how much he would have been talking had his salary been the same as the animation departments. Hope the people that are really affected by this at RT, can find better employment.
I really do feel what you are saying. But, if I can say, I feel it's a bit unfair to Jack to say that. He was at RT from almost the beginning, and it was on the back of his work from 7-8 years before that RT grew to a point where they could afford to hire animators. Of course if he was in their position, he'd be pissed off. But the man put in work to get comfortable and I can't be mad at him for that. I'm sure in he actually does care about everyone there behind the scenes but there is not much he can do. But I get your anger about tho
this, and it's not just Jack. Barbara and to some extent Michael. They pushed away their own audience, PEOPLE WHO SUPPORTED THEM, bc they what, had the audacity to disagree with them on twitter? I mean the entire company archived their twitter, why? bc they don't like Elon Musk? Like seriously, grow the fuck up and be adults. It was 1000% people who thought that they were untouchable. And I hate to see it, there's a lot of talent there and it's a part of all of our childhoods, but they brought it upon themselves. Nobody was shocked, we all expected it. One of the most common comments on twitter when the news came out was "Who was RT?" that ought to tell you, that people not even knowing who they were shows how far they had fallen. They were titans, and in their hubris, are the architects of their own downfall.
@@youtubeaccount2429he was the first to say if you don’t agree with our politics then “fuck off” and he made everything political even when it had no right to be
Geoff once said about the RT haters "You just want to see Rome fall." Yes, after what the city became, the debauched parody of its former glory, we did want it to fall.
Yeah... Hearing Jack continue to just "So glad the block button exists for the haters" Still rubs me the wrong way after he's consistently called EVERY bit of criticism that has ever come RT's way as 'hating'
Jack has always been trash, was never funny and always a buzz kill. I remember in the old Achievement Hunter/let's play videos where he would always throw temper tantrums, never made any good jokes, and was the worst gamer of them all. How many times did he burn down achievement city just because he lost?
No Burnie, no Gus, No Gavin, that tells you everything you need to know about this ‘goodbye’ stream. When not even a single member of the original team appears (not even a quick phone call) then it’s definitely the right time for it all to end.
Imo them not being there is also a statement reflecting on their opinion on what RT has become. If they would really care, they would do whatever is necessary to be there. To be part of this moment. But they're not....sooo.....it says a lot.
@@awkwardninja5738 I mean, if you need to take multiple days after you get shut down to get your old Founders to come back and say goodbye to the current employees that’s pretty sad and pathetic
Everyone on the stream felt like their were talking from the bottom of their hearts EXCEPT Jordan. When he talked it just felt like corporate bullshit and meaningless words.
i stopped watching a long time ago and i could see how hateful he got occasionally when i would come back to check on state of things. Jack would often be one of the ones to tell fans to leave if they didnt like the views and beliefs of the company. i said to myself "Jack, man, you cant tell your fans to leave or go f**k themselves if they didnt share your beliefs. you have to either be the better person and ignore the hate or come to a middle ground."
Yeah, Jack was always the complainer. He masked it with humor later on, but he's always been the one saying that genuine criticism is just baseless hating, and that anybody who criticizes RT is just a hater. NGL, sad that He was the one of Team Same-Voice that got to stay. (Though Ryan is Definitely the bigger bastard to put it mildly)
@@Splunkmastahespecially with the amount of political vitriol that man spewed on a daily basis and they fired Joel instead. Shit like that was always wild to me. But, you could see those cracks forming in about 2015 right after Ray left or if you listened to certain videos where the entire team of Achievement Hunter was frustrated due to lack of views and responses to some of their best videos. By Uno in 2016 with the presidential election night in full swing you can almost hear the lunatic happiness and giddiness in Jack’s voice as he complained he was supposed to be with his wife and her family watching the election. And then he full-sent his descent into madness against the fans.
@@Splunkmastah I was listening to some of the old podcasts (like the infamous tequila one) and man did Jack hate Gavin. I don't know how Gavin put up with it being in the same office as him. Jack was always the most toxic member of the group (Ryan notwithstanding).
Jack is the biggest mixed bag for me. He's the first Achievement Hunter Member I appreciated and He will always have my respect for those extra life streams. I didn't mind his politics at first because I knew how to think pass those and just appreciate the guy, but the times he said f off to those who dont share his sentiments really pushed me away. Like I didnt fcking care what you believe in lets just find common ground and we're good, but no he wants the ground to be 100% common or else go away. Anw RIP Roosterteeth you're the modern-day Old Yeller.
RT: Deletes content, ruins logo and merch, hires bad talent, goes political, won't address scandels, blames fans for anything negative Us: stopped watching RT: wait, why did you guys leave?
Fanbase: Actual criticism that is affecting people's experience watching content. RT: If you don't like it, just don't watch. Fanbase: Fine. RT: Why aren't we making any money? We ArE tHe BeSt!
@michaelhart1072 i left because the content i used to watch started to be made by a completely different cast that i didn't like and they moved the shows i liked to watch off RUclips and moved them to their shitty website
@@SkaterBlades To be fair, RT started before RUclips even existed and I once respected that they maintained control over their content distribution. But you're spot on about their content being shitty.
This. I had to stop supporting them a few years ago when they were doing all that. They love pointing things out but then sweep their own stuff under the rug or make excuses as to why it’s okay for them to do it but nobody else. Encouraging abandoning the OG fans and allowing them to just inject political shit all over every video and podcast and contradict themselves all the time is why I couldn’t take it anymore. People like barb would say something one podcast then next week contradict herself just to agree with someone else then next week say she never agreed with whatever that was etc. so annoying
To be honest, the people who achieved RTs peak and influence left long ago. Burnie, Joel, Ray, Monty (sadly), Bruice, Lawrence, even Adam (I know his major fuck up). The new guys just couldn't hold a candle to the comedy, writting standards that came before.
Why list Bruice, Lawrence, and Adam? they were just a desperate attempt to bring new viewers in. Company was already on fire by that point. its like listing the gunshot wounds after the death as the COD.
It’s funny thinking back to things and how (I mainly stuck with AH news, but stopped really watching when Ray dipped) seeing certain new faces just didn’t do anything. Jeremy and Matt? Off solo streaming and teaming up from time to time and they have a much better showing and chemistry there than with AH/RT. Ray was 51st on Twitch a couple years ago and probably has climbed a bit. Anyone remember the podcast where Ray came back and was hysterically shocked when he found out Trevor was now running AH. That just showed even at that point they had no idea what the hell they were doing. Did anyone enjoy Alfredo? He seemed pretty meh. Nobody cared or gave a fuck about Fiona. Anyone even remember her? And the biggest problem with it all was there was no longer any chemistry to mask over any wildly out of touch ideas.
The main issue was they didn't age up their content. I started watching as an 18 year old listening to late 20s / early 30s talk. I gave up when I was the late 20s listen to 18 year olds talk.
My issue was that the older personalities got so out of touch, the company started in someone's spare room anf they're talking about driving tesla's and buying houses because of the job they have. The newer personalities were too young to be interesting to me. Then, to start paywalling, what was free content just felt shady, and they forgot why they were successful. They made cheap but good content that was easily accessible.
Very well said. I feel like Rooster Teeth was always that friend that would want to go out to eat but never have money so you had to pay for them. Like I bought merch and attended RTX, but they were always asking for more (aka pushing First) and truthfully I just outgrew their non-evolving content.
A company isn't your friend. They want to sell things, that's their purpose. If they don't make money, they get shut down. Which is exactly what happened. This kind of attitude is way too parasocial.
@@Oldmanplum THANK you. it's been literally scary to me how many people have stated and restated this concept since the beginning of social media yet how many people play and fall right into the idea that "companies are my friend" "we grew up together" "it's about the people" no. no the fuck it's not. it is a COMPANY. it is their job to try and push content that you like to make the money they want and that does bring about positive feelings but that is much, MUCH closer to "a brand name you trust" than "a friend you go out to eat with" or whatever absurd analogies people come up with. COMPANIES. ARE NOT. YOUR FRIENDS.
@@MegaDarkness5000 i don't even get how anyone thought that Gen:Lock would be profitable. it had an expensive cast while at the same time being made by a bunch of fresh college graduates. don't get me wrong students can make some cool stuff, but it's not usualy what you can expect from a bunch of people with 0 experince in the industry. with a setup like that you get a product that is not only expensive but also cheap looking.
@@KingRabidi mean this is true for corporations and RT certainly went the corporate route after a while, but they were a small company who grinded their way to the top of the internet by making content they were passionate about and i think they just wanted to make a living doing what they loved, especially together with their friends. It turned into what you're saying, but companies can be small and actually build communities with that "friendly" dynamic with their customers.
You took words straight out of my mouth :) First I watched the FH stream and it was so different, so much more natural and real life then the BS Jordan Levin created. It felt so corporate and forced in some places - everyone had to speak, but it felt like some of them did not want to? Also, the way they started sitting mostly on Barbara's side leaving less and less people with Jordan was pretty on the nose. I, like most of you hear probably, am really emotional about this whole thing, but for me it was mostly because of Funhaus. I loved the way Alanah spoke about people there and you can see how much different FH was compared to RT and other brand of theirs. They are so loving and open. I hope they will be able to somehow do their stuff. Also she was pretty straight forward again that RT main office sucked so I am with all of you that keeps reminding that they did not do nearly enough to repair what was broken. I can see how anger is still in Lawrence and Bruce for the RT corporate side. And god dammit, I hated every time Jordan spoke in this livestream. I've seen him for the first time, I did not know who he was, but after the first, lifeless monologue, I already knew he must be some guy from WB that did not understand RT at all. I think a lot of vague comments about shitty management, about constant changing of targets and lack of proper goals from ex employees of RT are about him. But to sum up my rant, the worst thing was that only Goeff was here from the original founder. This is just shit... How the fuck can you do a stream like this when Gus is doing some checkups, they had to know that before. They could easily do it next week, maybe try to connect with Burnie or Matt? This stream sums up the last few years of RT perfectly - just do it quick and forget about it. Again, thanks for your videos on these topics, they are easily one of the best because you can feel that you were a fan, and they meant a lot to you as to me, but you are not bullshitting yourself one bit about the true state of RT in the last few years like these guys were doing on the livestream.
I enjoyed AH videos during their heydays, my spouse loved RvB and the RT podcasts (before Burnie left). Both of us tuned off after the scandals and the politics injection into their contents. My POV, there are 2 aspects leading to this. Corporate side: You can't get RT addressing the scandals (especially Haywood's incident) because that would mean admission and acknowledgement of the incidents. That gives more grounds for his victims to sue RT and Warner Brothers Discovery if they choose to (I believe at that time Haywood would be considered as an employee of WBD, not forgetting he came in contact with the victims as they are fans of AH and during RTX, a company organized event). As a corporation, WBD really don't understand the dynamics and appeal of RT. You can't expect a team of suits to manage and profit off a company selling authenticity (back then) and parasocial relationships to fans. Not to mention enforcing their corporate practices (DEI). RT: Loads of fans left when RT chose to stop entertaining and started lecturing. The scandals and allegations didn't help their image as well. I can say more but I believe enough has been said in other comments. I do feel bad for the affected RT staff. A word of advice, even after you leave the echo chamber, the real world is actually more accepting than what you perceived from the online world. Be professional and don't bash others for their beliefs/political views. That's how the rest of world work.
Thanks for your comment. You’re making valid points. However, they already released separate statements in the past that low key acknowledged what happened. And there would be a way to address the issues without going into any details around Haywood etc. and beyond that, RT basically is no more. And I doubt a lawsuit against WB on these cases would hold water. But who knows. Like I said, you’re making fair points. And in regards to WB and them not understanding what RT is, as a unique company that represents authenticity, I agree with you as well. And that’s 100% on them. It’s imo not about the creators or founding members etc. it’s just that WB tried to approach RT with a corporate handbook. Like any other organisation. While that concept hardly applies to them. Ultimately they messed it up imo. Thanks for your insightful comment. I appreciate it.
@@TheSneezingMonkey What do you expect from WB? Seriously I feel like the one thing they're involved with that isn't a dumpster fire are the Dune movies, and probably because they wisened up for once and didn't interfere with Dennis' work and let the man have some creative breathing room. But look at everything else they touch. From their multimedia companies like RT, their other movies, the disaster that was the DCEU, even their video game sector. Suicide Squad was an inarguable flop no matter how you look at it and WB took that as a sign to DOUBLE DOWN on their live service bullshit when the fans have been practically screaming at the top of their lungs that they only ever wanted good singleplayer comic book games. WB is the fucking Boeing of the entertainment industry; they're prone to crashing and burning because they can't help it.
That all sums it up better than I ever could. I once recall Gus shouting down Gavin on the podcast when he wanted to preach something political on gun-control. He said "This is not the forum to discuss this. We are not experts. Fans do not come to us for this." Then 2016 came and went and Gus said "We haven't discussed it for eight years and look what happened!" If I want politics, I'll watch a political podcast. If I want an escape to gaming culture I--well, I used to go to RT. But those days are long passed.
Rooster Teeth has no one to blame but themselves they themselves mismanaged their own company alongside with several controversies that didn't even help them in the slightest And none of the original members that founded the company were there on the Stream That pretty much says that they're mentally tapped out from the brand as a whole they once started
the sad thing is that a lot of the scandal were preventable. so many of them are basicly just harrassment and bullying cases. people saw right in the open how certain people like micca got treated and yet they did nothing. bruce and a few others reported adam to HR and yet nothing happend, until all of that blew up in their face.
When Geoff said "Jack can say whatever the F* he wants" codified the collapse of the company that was meant to entertain. Not to preach failed political agendas.
@@westbreazy9963 It called Morning Somewhere. Burnie just started it at the very end of 2023 right after Christmas. Usually anywhere from 15-30min long released Monday through Fridays about 55 episodes released so far. Episode 2024.03.07: All Good Things Ironically the episode prior he had Barb on and they were talked about about RT as well (among other things) .
as an og once Jack and other on screen talent started spewing political bs every 2 seconds it felt like I stopped watching because the content went downhill and it felt like political garbage. I know a lot of OGs on Reddit we’re saying this would happen for years only for us to be silenced and called conspiracy theorists
@@Matt_Schrlau9this. I had to give up on the entire company back in like 2020 or 2021 because they just got way too political for no reason. They could be talking about halo or the PS5 and then someone would randomly inject some anti trump or anti vaxer bs for no reason. Then it would last for a minute and everyone would add to it. Like I’m not an anti vax or anti trump dude nor do I support that it was just way too annoying. I came here to escape from that BS throughout my day and seeing them inject 3 minutes of political stuff in a 15 minute video was annoying. Once they allowed that to be in every single RT podcast without any accountability was when I quit supporting them. Also the contradiction they have. They treated Micah and Kdin terribly and then a year later suddenly the world told them to say gay and black people are heroes. Contradicting themselves all the time whenever convenient and doing the “it’s okay if I do it but not someone else” when they have controversies or being called out.
They did explain why some of the main guys weren't on the stream, it was a spontaneous stream to address the news getting out and it was not an official "Good-bye stream". It wasn't the time or place to address the underlining issues and give all the fans an explanation
Thing is, they have had the best part of the last 5 years to address various issues and they never have. Now we know it will end, many of us are just sad that they can’t be open to those that made them their fortune as to why things happened the way they did. Instead, everything is amazing, everyone is amazing.
@charliewalker9443 Even if somehow Rooster teeth would have turned things around WBD would still have shut them down and unfortunately it seems like all of Rooster teeths videos, channels, everything is gonna get wiped.
The thing thats was wild to me out of it all was jack at the very start, being his typical self and talking shit to random people becauee hes to big headed to ignore them, i thought that shit was wild.
I hate to be that guy, but... 1) I didn't recognize half the people on that stage 2) This really REALLY hateful shitty part of me felt schadenfreude for a lot of the people there (mainly barbara) rooted in jealousy I guess. She's had life on easy street her entire life imo. 3) Only 1 founder was there. This is not a good look.
Your second point is so true, but not just her specifically. A lot of these people are going to start a twitch channel or another podcast/patreon becasue that's all they know how to do.
To be honest, RT has been dead or at the very least, still born, for at least about five years. Warner Bros. putting the final nail in the coffin was going to happen sooner than later. You only need to take a look at the views from their older videos and compare to the newer ones and you see a HUGE disparity in the numbers.
For a channel that has 9 million subscribers, a majority of their videos can’t even get 1/100th (hell, recently some didn’t even get 10k views) of the viewership. That’s woefully bad.
An interesting mirror to this - The recent Linus Tech Tips controversy. Granted they're not entirely analogous, but when they experienced a big controversy, they shut down all production for what seemed like a week, and made two apology/explanation videos. I don't think they were particularly guilty of the mobbing they were a victim of, but I think the approach they took is in line with what you wanted out of RT and RT's various controversies: a very sober, serious approach that addresses community concerns directly. And I think they've rebounded wonderfully.
According to their podcast, both Burnie and Ashley have been in contact with the people at rt, hell, Barbara was on their show the day the shutdown was announced. He could be in Austin because he lives in Scotland now and had apparently just gotten home from Houston where he was dealing with a family medical emergency and a back to back Transatlantic flight at the last minute is pretty hard to pull off
When they told me and other fans we weren’t welcome because of our political views, they lost any shred of sympathy. Akira Toriyama will be remembered forever for his contributions to culture, rooster teeth will be forgotten in a few months and they deserve it.
The world has changed since 2014. I agree that bringing up politics everywhere is bad, but in this day and age, we can absolutely choose not to accept certain opinions. Because we know what they lead tk
@@ileutur6863 man, I jumped ship as soon as Trump started running. Jack Potato talked about him more than trump talked about himself. Then the rest couldn't help themselves and crap all over the part of the fandom that had other political views, so I left. But then they turned on each other! that was the funny part.
Things that killed RT: Being corporatized - the feel of the company was never the same. Cross-company videos and pranks became rarer and rarer, because it became more of a strict professional environment. Mishandling of the live action department - what happened to on the spot? Million dollars but? 10 little roosters? Some really poor movies: Lazer team 2, bloodfest Genlock: both its absurd budget and the scandal of turning your animation dept into a sweat shop The 2020 pandemic- slowed down and interrupted a ton of production that was either abandoned or significantly delayed RWBY X Justice League: Seriously, who asked for this? Scandals - fuck haywood and kovic. Shows just losing interest over time: Let's face it. RT started with RVB. They went several years with some secondary stuff, but RVB was what they were known for. Then they started AH, and also made RWBY. Both incredibly popular, and carried them when rvb fell in popularity. RWBY then had mixed reviews after Monty passed. And do you know why AH eventually failed? Competition. It started the Lets play genre, but commentary and banter over video games are such absurdly competitive genres now. So people found other content creators, which is partially why new AH members didn't get the easy recognition that their predecessors got. So with RVB with 1 foot in the grave (and frankly had a great conclusion with season 10), RWBY struggling to carry the load, and AH being just one of thousands of gaming content creators, it lost the market share it once had.
Rooster Teeth was a burning ship on fire and people were abandoning ship for years, im surprised it was afloat for this long. In the last AH video i think Michael made a point of how we ended it, we did not let AH die, we ended it. BULLSHIT! It died hardd you guys didn't take it behind the shed with a shotgun, you guys shot yourselves in the foot so many times and bled to death slowly throughout the years
They really thought alienating their fanbase would save them from legitimate criticism and garner new viewers for revenue. "If YoU dOn'T lIkE iT dOn'T wAtCh." And we said okay.
Man it was crazy to see over 3 mil subs but not even getting over 70k views and remembering when it was a few hundred thousand subs and millions of views
Yeah it was a shambling corpse uncertain of where it wanted to go since about mid-2015. Stunk up the joint for years and only is now been given a burial.
The last RT podcast I watched was after Matt Bragg got fired. It just made no sense for someone as hard working for so long to be let go. But sure, keep the new personalities. I waited anticipating their response during the podcast so I could have a better understanding but nope, nothing. Just swept it under the rug like everything else. It was nice to drink with you during your livestream where we all can share our thoughts.
Roosterteeth was the main set of channels I watched in high school. I watched thrm all time, I'd come home from school and load up RUclips to check out what was new. Around 2017 at the latest I think I judt stopped watching them. Learning about Ryan's ordeals years after the fact fucked me up. He was my favorite of the AH crew. I knew this day would come eventually. Making yourself so huge on RUclips and actually brcoming a full fledged company with over 100 seperate employees and thrn priortizing youtube as your main platform is scary buisiness. Recently I watched a vod of Ray's where we reacted to a lot of his best moments throughout his internet career and seeing all the old AH stuff honestly made me emotional. Seeing all the modern stuff RT does just hurts so much knowing how well off thr company used to be. Sometimrs you really need to stop and ask yourself, "do you ever wonder why we're here?" It really is one of life's greatest mysteries.
It always felt to me like no one at RT ever wanted to be the person to step up and take responsibility for what was happening. It consistently felt like there was never a true leader and never someone who would put their hand up to deal with situations as they arose.
Jack was a hypocrite and wouldn’t stfu about his political opinions and was judgmental. He loved when they went woke. He just butthurt they went broke haha
I chalk it up to they failed to take accountability for what happened to led to the shut down. I also watched a bit of the livestream and I tuned out after ten minutes when it felt like to me that they weren't gonna talk about where things went wrong. I made an extensive comment on another video about Geoff's response on the stream last night that I will just post here: Well, as someone who was a fan back in the heyday who had been soured by all the controversies, the woke pandering, the humor drying up, the content getting more stale with every passing year, and the original guys leaving; I'll admit... This was a long time coming and it still kind of hurts, but I'm not nearly as broken up about it as Geoff is. Now if this happened 10 years ago, I would've been all torn up over this. However, I'm getting the feeling that none of these guys here understand where things went wrong. I also recall Geoff speaking defensively about the company after the layoffs. I bet he was remembering that in this video and realizing he was just living in an echo chamber. He coped about how Rooster Teeth suffered before, but they still stayed alive. Rooster Teeth wasn't gonna recover and with each passing controversy, so the writing continued to be written on the wall. I haven't watched anything these guys uploaded in AH or Let's Play because the videos just aren't what they used to be, as well as some of those shows coming to an abrubt end. RvB wore out its welcome by the end of season 13, I'd say. RWBY died with Monty Oum and RT thought they could drag it out like RvB. Anything after that was as generic or disinteresting. I would talk about all of the controversies, but then this comment would be extraordinarily long. Longer than it is already. You had a good run, Rooster Teeth, but by about the 14-15 year mark, your days were numbered. Machinima waits for you in the hole.
Gavin's just been kinda tired of making internet content and public appearances in general after that crazed nutcase purchased a gun, broke into his house, and tried to murder him out of jealousy for his relationship with Meg. Even if Rooster Teeth hadn't been on an extremely sharp decline, could you blame him?
I remember years ago, when Geoff said “Y’all just want the company burn”. I can’t say what everyone else wanted, but I didn’t. I didn’t want Rooster Teeth to have gone down the path they took and become another statistic of folded companies. But it’s the path they gleefully took. I stopped watching their content on a regular basis around the mid to late 2010’s, when things became hyper political, and when they started inserting Politics like they did, they were losing fans. And the Jacks started saying “F Off, we don’t want you here “, I don’t they realized that when fans left, they took their wallets too.
Well It’s hard not to watch RT burn when it was already doing so. Especially after 2020 when it was in life support. At that point it was a case of when not if.
@@azurai3934 I agree, 2020 was the clear that RT was dying. Not because of the lockdowns, but because of the scandal. Ryan wasn’t a background character or someone who would appear from time to time. He was a pillar, and was loved for his antics.
@@azurai39342020s RT was just a Corpse with animatronics making it move. 2014 fullscreen getting RT is what killed the company. It was a slow poisoning as well.
@@trebot9292266 A lot of people have said that, hell I believed when that happened, it wouldn’t be good. But no one knew that it would become a WB company. And correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t this happen to Machinima?
It’s nice the RUclips channels will still be around, but there’s still a bunch of exclusive content on the website that will become lost media if the website shuts down. First membership shows like Achievement Haunter, Last Laugh, Hardcore Tabletop, Arizona Circle, exc. Even regular gameplay videos have edits on RUclips and were often better on the website. Funhaus videos on the website completely cut out the video’s sponsor bit and generally contained fewer censorship edits like swears. There’s also the plethora of uncut raw Funhaus gameplay videos called Fullhaus that will be lost as well as the NSFW versions of videos. I really hope that someone who still has a first membership can archive these website exclusive content.
@@subliminal6211 True, because the old Inside Gaming Machinima channel did stick around for a few years before all of its content was removed. The same could happen here.
I agree with much you had to say here, but something I rarely hear mentioned, but I think is the core reason many people stopped watching Rooster Teeth, was when they sold. Please understand that I find the "Corporate sellouts!" take to be a bit overdramatic. I don't begrudge the cofounders. Those guys earned any money they got from that sale and I hope they have enough to retire comfortably and never work another day in their lives. But frankly, the sale killed any sense of community, micro culture, and any illusion of it being a cottage industry formed by a ragtag group of gamer goofs. From that moment forward it became corporate. Again, I don't blame them. They gave us 2 fantastic decades and they don't owe us anything more, but everything ends and maybe this is the way it had to be.
I can agree with that sentiment as well. Ultimately, when the company was sold much of the overall management shifted and I do think it caused a lot of people to skip out or flee for their lives essentially. I mentioned it in another post, but I think it was 2020 or so when they were doing the AH podcast and had Ray return and he was extremely confused to why Trevor of AH Kids was now running the show or had been for a while at that point.
“Why are we here?” “It’s one of life greatest mysteries isn’t it? I mean, are we the product of some cosmic coincidence, or is there really a God watching everything? You know, with a plan for us and stuff. I don't know, man, but it keeps me up at night.” “What? I mean why are we here out in this canyon?…. What was all that stuff about god?”
AH got boring when it became a political talk show. Hard to shut my brain off from real world issues when i watch you play GTA and other games using guns, while bitching about the president (at the time) and those that own firearms in real life. Dont be a hypocrite, too late now.
I am not intending to “Hate” I just want to speak honestly to how I feel, and think I am owed that as a fan of RT, financial investor into their films, bought Merch, shared videos and watched loyally for 15 years. I am completely confused by the level of delusion that is being displayed by these people, you’d think by their reactions that the company was going so successfully but the big bully mother company are just turning off the lights on them. Radical acceptance is a good mindset to have in order to move on, but you wont go on to be successful if you cannot own up to the failures of the past and learn from them. SM, I understand you sympathise with the creative talents and state this is not their fault, to a large extent I agree. However, I do think the employees are not half as talented as they think they are. Maybe technically, ability to edit, run a stream, write, etc, but the talent on screen suck. I don’t find anyone from RT in the last 4 years compelling, clever or even funny. They were never forthcoming about departures and problems. They never owned situations. I actually do not care for the bad apples because any company that employees over 100 people are mathematically going to have some people among them guilty of horrific things. But they never owned those situations. They started asserting values onto the community and their content that made them SOOO unfunny. Forgetting that often something is funny because we know it is wrong, immoral, stupid, etc. I never wish anyone to fail, so good luck to them all, especially the Funhaus crew!
I mean, I think they knew the writing was on the wall but they're still allowed to be sad about the closure of a company that some have been working for a better part of the 2000/2010s
Couldn't have said it any better. They seemed to have an attitude similar to Disney. They were at one point the biggest gaming youtube channel and it seems they still feel like they're living in the glory days. They were pioneers in the youtube gaming space but times changes and they did very little to keep up. It's very much a peaked in high school vibe. The reality is from the start they were unwilling to take constructive criticism. Then 2016 came around and it brought the worst out of a lot of people. Ended up alienating their audience and I can't help but think that was a symptom of the toxic workplace.
@@TheCubanMissile-sb8jf Also well said. Not many people have mentioned the political situation of 2016 but indeed it was a big deal. Another overblown, overdramatised and needlessly fearful time in history. I even remember Barbara begging people to go vote because she did not want to get deported back to Canada. That was actually quite extreme.
It wasnt a goodbye stream. It was an informational stream saying they dont have answers yet and will give everyone a chance to say goodbye in later videos.
Fair point. But it certainly felt like a farewell stream to me. I‘m curious to see whether they will do another ‚final‘ stream with more of the bigger personalities taking part. But I appreciate your comment.
Not surprising considering most of the new hires were for Diversity's sake. Alfredo, Kye, and Joe were interchangeable in terms of personality. Fiona was as grating as younger Michael was. The only one who really stood out to me personally was BK, but I'd stopped watching by that point so only say her a little bit. Sorry to say it, but.... After Ryan was forced to leave, I knew it was over. (He was a monster and Had to go, this I understand. Doesn't mean I don't miss the personality I thought I knew)
I caught much of it. It was a bit off putting that when the founders were being praised on Joel got zero acknowledgement. I can’t remember her name but she was basically the moderator of the stream mentioned him when she got hired. I get that he left bad taste when he left but that doesn’t take away from he was a founder.
I don't think they wanted to talk about how badly they treated Joel. His personal politics weren't far left like many of the others so they had him come in to record his lines for Caboose, and as soon as he was done, told him he was fired and to not come back. Pretty scummy.
I see the farewell livestream as a sort of funeral for Rooster Teeth. The people in that room are mourning the death of something they loved, that's not the time to start airing out dirty laundry. Yes there were a lot of problems with Rooster Teeth, especially in the later days, but that discussion belongs at the wake after the funeral, not in the eulogy.
True. I think my point about addressing their scandals and the feedback from the fans in a more extensive way, was less about this specific stream. It should‘ve happened a long time ago imo. But I understand there are potential legal implications etc. So it’s not all that easy. You’re making a fair point. I guess I‘m just a bit bitter because I feel it was never treated fairly. As the fans would’ve deserved. But I appreciate your comment.
Don’t totally disagree with everything you’ve said, but they literally said it wasn’t a goodbye stream. Just a quick reaction stream to communicate to the fans the little information they know and some feelings. They said it came together very quickly and not everyone was available.
Fair point. But it certainly felt like a farewell stream to me. I‘m curious to see whether they will do another ‚final‘ stream with more of the bigger personalities taking part. Even we disagree, I still appreciate your comment.
Hey really good video. I'd like to expand on two points you made. 1. The political stuff. I know people love to bring it up constantly about Roosterteeth being too political because they were woke or whatever, but my counter would be that those same people wouldn't care if the company was expounding pro Trump rhetoric or whatever. So I think the problem was more so that Roosterteeth told members that if they didn't agree politically to leave rather than tell them, "hey we may disagree, but you guys want to listen to us talk about what goes on in our lives and this is what we believe so even if you don't agree on everything, maybe you might find common ground on some specific ideas." But telling them to leave in general was more the bigger issue IMO 2. Roosterteeth not addressing scandals in more consistent long-form content than just one-off videos. I think what made Roosterteeth such a big success is that they were on the ground floor in regards to the parasocial relationship with their audience. In regards to the site or fans eventually working at RT, guardians at RTX or whatever, so there were many ways for fans to interact with RT members or work at RT. So when these scandals hit and they tried act like they fucked up and then tried to move past it and put barriers between fans and RT like a business/customer relationship it was really the kill shot in what made RT a success to begin with and RT wasn't in a position to change course on how they could successfully operate since they didn't have some widespread appeal. Their reach was because they were a niche company that had a very significantly dedicated fanbase, so to make it more of a commercial "we pump out content, you watch" type of transactional arrangement wasn't going to work.
I am a Trump supporter and I still think it would get very annoying very quickly if they were touting rhetoric that was conservative if it weren't liberal. Rooster Teeth was not and should never have gotten involved with politics. Rooster Teeth was not originally meant to be a political company, unless it was satire that goes both ways. Which they did make satire to that in the past, like with Pongo the puppet being an affirmative action hire. I bet you they wanted to forget that video at some point because it goes against the left leaning beliefs the company had. It also doesn't help that they're also based in Austin, Texas. A very liberal city in an otherwise red state.
The problem is, if they started being pro trump when all of their content was about gaming and gaming related challenges. They would have lost the other half of their fans. RT didn't JUST start sharing their opinions, they slandered and attacked ANYONE who even criticized their shows. The problem is, taking something that is apolitical. Making it political, and then attacking people who weren't even political. You can express your opinion, but people don't like being called racist because they don't like the content that is being made. Or being called racist because they don't agree 100% on the current news item. RT became very political, and even people on their side of the political isle were not there to support the company. They lost fans from both sides. Because their focus shifted from friends playing games, to pushing political rhetoric and pumping out shows to appease their corporate masters.
I can largely agree with you on the 2nd, but I disagree on the first. Keeping in mind, this is me personally. I watch a lot of political content. Crowder, tim pool, destiny, tyt. People I both disagree and agree with. I go into those knowing I'm going to be getting politics. When I had a long, rough work day and just want to unwind, I used to put on Rooster Teeth. But then that turned into a political lecture, which is what I was trying to avoid. I wanted to watch more cunning stunts, not be subjected to an argument about the security of mail in voting. Now I've rotated into other creators. Some are right wing, some are left. Very occasionally, it will come up in a video, but it's not the focus, and even if it's someone I wholeheartedly agree with, if they're going off on some political rant when all I want is to watch true crime, I'm going to eventually unsubscribe from them, too.
@@3rdStreetAVolitionite You do realise that's not how politics works, right? RT had liberal people in it since day one, even with the edgy humor you could tell there was an attitude of equality all around. The world became more heated, so did they. I'm not saying I like it, I'm saying etf did you all expect
Yeah and another reason why the main guys weren’t there because they were in a meeting all day before they announced the shutdown so you can imagine the stress and sadness they felt for a company that ran for 21 years and people just hate because they don’t take the time to listen or will never do nothing as successful in their life
Agreed man, nothing but facts in this, the scandals and loss of identity in their videos is what made them lose their magic and ultimately led to the shut down and they didnt even wanna address that
I know that a lot of the audience wants to hear about the problematic stuff during the live stream but did people serious believe they would talk about it? I feel like that is the last thing these guys would want to bring up during this stream. Yeah it's the "goodbye" stream let's talk about the allegations of Ryan Haywood and Adam Kovic.
It was an hour and a half of self soothing, coping bullshit. Edit: This sounds harsh and I obviously feel awful for the people losing their jobs, but literally NOBODY took accountability for anything that drove this once beautiful company into the ground.
rooster teeth failed because it became a company and wasn't just a bunch of friends running a youtube channel people left the group but had to be replaced but because this wasn't just any other company the new people just didn't fit it right hiring people for diversity just amplified the differences in the people working there and led to a sad ending because the original people were so much better than the new it led to less views which meant less money, so yes it was the new people that indirectly and accidentally killed it
I remember the AH group, on their website, only allowing 1 or 2 days to talk about Haywood. Then they banned any and all future discussions making many who didn't follow religiously confused about what happened.
There was probably some ndas involved not allowing them to bring up a lot of the problems it’ll probably come out in the next few years as former employees talk about it on streams and such
I think a lot of people are reeling from this still in the company. I wouldnt be surprised if Matt/Gus are still grappling this on their own or away doing something else. Either way im not going to judge anyone within the first 24 hours with two corporate responses. Some of the twitter posts like Lawrences have been interesting, Im still invested to the point where I want the tea though
There was 0 responsibility taken and when they addressed the chat they just got angry and talked about how easy it is to block people and make sure you give your favourite roosterteeth employees money to support them
i think that the worse thing about the general managment of the company was that some of the cast members had to aproach the controversies by their own. when the Ryan controversy exploded, Jack and Michael were the ones to showed up to adress the situation and i was like "where were the official statements?? why the higher ups are not involved??" and it showed how painfull was for them, not only as members of AH, but as their friend, as well.
i was such a HUGE part of the community. i wanted to even work for/with RT for the logest time. but after mismanagement of content kept happening and the content got worse because it kept getting dumbed down and the toxic fanbase paired with toxic cast and crew who will attack you for having a different opinion is what pushed me away. and that isn't everyone at the company. i don't have every person. but generally they pushed people away while trying to playcate their audience . i get choked up thinking about the past i had with them and the great memories i had that are now tainted from my personal experience.i it all hurts.
@@subliminal6211 You know, I personally feel like ever RWBY episode from 2015 onwards were nothing but forged copies, so, my answer is NOT to finish the story.
@@broden4838did they bring Monty back from the grave? If the answer is no, then leave his work alone. Roosterteeth already butchered it once and alienated his brother. Let the mans legacy keep what little quality remains.
The elephant-in-the-room point was genuinely such a heinous part of that pathetic stream. To see something so close to you be so underhanded is jarring. Not a word about Kdin, Micah, or the layoffs...
Ehhhh i dont really think they needed to own up to anything or anything like that, not in this particular case. This was most likely a result of wb profit margins and nothing else. Theyve killed entirely finished movies for the tax write-off, lets not act like they just killed RT because of questionable behaviour or something.
*Not gonna lie I only recognised less than ten people there (With two of them arriving later on during the stream) and they were Barb, Jessica Vasami, Jack Pattillo, Chris Demaris, Geoff and Kerry. Now before you say anything I have only known about RT and their scandals for the past 2 years due to the fact that I got into RWBY towards the end of 2022 although I actually first became aware of them in 2015 because of Monty’s death.*
It certainly feels that way. But I‘m not sure. Someone else commented that it was probably the upper management and NDA‘s stopping them from talking about it. But I personally feel they did care. It’s just not in the ‚corporate handbook‘ to bring sth like that up in a livestream like this. But there in lies the problem. RT never was a company that should be run using a corporate handbook.
@TheSneezingMonkey it was all over when they acquired by wb. Wb is run by a bunch of boomers who don't know how run a company and are out of touch Especially when they really hurting this year.
I got into this channel at around 15 from the heist videos and stayed as a pretty consistent viewer because of Michael and Gavin mainly, there play pals or really anything with them is immaculate to me. I still loved watching videos with the entire crew although jack was always my least favorite because of how easily offended he would get and was passive aggresive because of fuckn jokes. It still crushed me to watch him and michael talk about ryan being a monster. I think the downfall for me is once they continued adding people after jeremy and matt who fit perfectly. Also to add a little more perspective I lived my childhood in detroit and then moved to mississippi at around 13, all of my family is very one sided politicly as Republican and it rubbed off on me when i was young to the point were I was a child apart of that echo chamber. I started getting into podcasts especially being Jre because of random clips and then become a full on fan and its helped me realize to look for the perspective in people.. so i never got mad when they take jabs at Trump or republicans because if i was I was born in their shoes, look like them, am surrounded by the same people and have the same experiences then i would do that as well but to make a stand politicly, as if any of them are journalists or even reading past headlines, why do you feel the right to throw your opinions onto kids.. Ill always love Gavin, geoff, ray, michael, jeremy and respect the rest for what they did for my childhood but its definitely best to shoot the horse. I still hope Gav and Michael do content together. Also barbarra does OF… what the fuck…. Absolutely shameless.
the comments on GUS are bad.... phone in when your at the doctors? seriously? hes having surgery FFS use your head, i think hes more worried about coming out of surgery alive than phoning in on a spontaneous live stream. Burnie has had no online presence and no affiliate with rt since 2019/20 4 yrs ago, why should he RANDOMLY turn up for a a spontaneous live stream, he has 2 young kids to look after and now lives on a farm in scotland.... gaving is also in another country filming slow mo content, under contract, its not like he can just jump on a plane and be there in 10 mins to jump on a random unscheduled live stream...
@@cestfixement your an idiot, so during surgery you expect him to make a phone call to something that wasnt planned, he might not of even known himself they was doing this. think with your head - they might not of even told him knowing he was going into surgery, did you even think about that?
@@cestfixement you have such a child mind set, the guy was in surgery, he might not of known it was even going on, think with your head. they might not of even told him about it due to them knowing he was going into surgery.
@@wilson3387 20:51 in the stream, in the spiel its said he wanted to be here, so he knew it was on, he could have asked to pass on a quick message - even just to say he'll be up soon to chat and say goodbye, I doubt he was actively in his procedure at the time, there's no mention I can find of surgery also
I haven't watched any RT content for the better part of 5 years now, plus the occasional controversy that came out through the years made me even more disinterested in consuming their content. Everyone saw their closure coming, it was a matter of when not if, and the stream was filled with mostly unfamiliar faces, so I really didn't think this was gonna get to me. But fucking hell, I grew up with Roosterteeth. The AH crew were my Tom and Jerry. Seeing Jack there, and especially Geoff brought a big lump to my throat. The company responsible for a big chunk of my childhood is now officially shutting down, and it stings really fucking bad. Feels like the universe finally ripped the band-aid out all the way and I've officially entered the adult phase of my life. This isn't their farewell stream. There's definitely gonna be one that has more finality to it but I really don't know if I wanna watch it.
And a certain someone who was told some times years in advance about certain people’s behaviors, yet did nothing. Skates off in to podcasting like nothing happened.
Hey Misty. I hope you’re okay and thanks for your comment. We have set up a community Discord where several ex RT employees and ex friends of RT personalities hang out and have shared their stories with me. I would love to chat with you there. Of course only if you‘re comfortable with that. The link is in the description. In any case, all the best and take care.
Do you think maybe they weren't allowed to speak on issues? Maybe they were only allowed to say certain things. Maybe when they're officially off the books, the individual members will speak more about everything.
Going off what you said how it would be uncomfortable to talk about what wemt wrong amd who is responsible well so was bringing politics into gaming and entertainment. Whatever someone's political views are I for one dont want them in my entertainment and thats what RT became
rooster teeth is the facing image of embarrassment, poor (and i mean REALLY POOR) choices that continued to stack up over the years. Fans have not been in line with what they produce for the shows anymore and are sick and tired of RT constantly letting them down and no REAL change happening. Im sad to see them go and at the same time im glad to see then go down hard, that stream cast was nothing more than showing the world who is responsible for the downfall of the company. Im a long time RWBY fan as it was my first anime I loved, and literally once season 4 rolled out, i knew it was gonna crash and burn into the steamy pile of shit it now is, horrible fight choreography and sloppy story writing, and when people might complain, but the show was founded on fighting and the unique style and powers and colors the worl of RWBY provided to animation, despite the rough animation, go back to seasons 1-3, and look and the show anywhere season 4+, and the light RWBY was had faded, and i can say this for other shows.
What a luke warm send off. I know RT has had a rough past 10 years with all the controversies and layoffs but not seeing MOST of the founders and mainline talent was a bummer. I havent watched RT content in about 8 years and I didnt recognize about 90% of who was there to say goodbye. Truly a sad day
I'm sad to see Rt go but ngl I think it probably should have stopped along time ago it's hard to let go of something go but rt in my head was kinda like a flower it was fantastic and pretty but it started to die and should have been pruned but it wasn't because it was so pretty, I really hope the employees r ok
I just want to know, who hired those loonies to bring down the company? I knew after what happened to Ryan, hell opened up the gates. I feel bad for the OGs and Geoff building an empire, take a few controversial steps to crumble it down.
I loved the company have watched them since RvB Battle Creek, (season 3 iirc) but I just couldn’t take the political crap. Was that stupid video from them about the 2016 election.
Great video! My only disagreement is regarding the thing about how they only addressed the controversies with the apology videos and then went back to regular videos. Only because I don’t know what the alternative is other than continuing?
Thanks Tom. Well I guess my point is to really discuss this in depth. With fans. Potentially with the victims. Maybe even those who participated...for example in the bullying of Kdin. In my mind it would have a therapeutic effect. I understand that it also has legal implications. And they're probably under some kind of NDA to not talk about it. But the way it was handled, felt wrong. It felt like it was never really cleared up. But that's just my opinion.
Listening to Alanah, Bruce, Lawrence and other former Funhaus members talk about Roosterteeth hit hard in a needed way. They were so honest about how poorly people were treated at that company and their conflicted feelings. Seems like Funhaus was consistently profitable, a great creative group of people, and still wasn't treated right. Still no support when they reported bullying and harassment. Keep in mind they didn't blame any on screen personalities from RT, more so the company culture or the higher ups in WB. But yeah, if they treat on screen personalities like that, imagine what they treat the off screen people like - the animators and editors. I saw someone on Glassdoor say he couldn't attend his own wedding without his work computer there and that he was fired for having a bachelor party and working during the bachelor party but not working hard enough. Insanity.
As soon as Jack took the mic and started talking, that first bit of dribble that came out of his mouth was exactly what drove everyone away to begin with. Nice hat btw.
Seriously, who was that for? It feels like Jack was trying to take a stand against something, but it just felt incredibly out of place and awkward.
@@floatinghamstickhe had to die on that hill.
I legitimately liked Jack in Achievement Hunter, but he always was an arrogant fool that couldn't go an hour without desperately shoehorning in an insult towards someone or something that disagreed with his incredibly bland political opinion
A few years ago I would have been pissed and crying over RT being shutdown. But with what RT has become, with all the mismanagement, controversies, show quality and just toxic things they've done I'm not really bothered. They brought it on themselves. This is deserved.
8-9 years ago it would have been sad. This year, its actually a good thing. The old horse can finally rest.
RT died long before their shutdown
The worst part is seeing Geoff cry about the company he fought so hard to build being surrounded by the very people that destroyed it in that stream. Sorry but I blame a lot of those new faces for the downfall of RT. They never listened to the fans.
Geoff cried over and over again after every crisis. But nothing ever changed
@@mattyomi1549He’s only one man. He cared, he cared a lot. But if shit happens on behind the scenes to people he cared about and he didn’t know it’s really rough to hear that.
@@mattyomi1549Keep in mind, once you become a company under an umbrella, there is only so much you can do. He and Burnie probably tried multiple times to get things back on track only to be tuned out, outvoted, or just flat out told “no”. So Geoff is surrounded by people that kinda symbolize what killed the very company he made with his best friends.
The new people aren’t at fault for the bs the higher ups pushed or the toxic environment that made people quit.
@@BriarPatchNyra exactly. They aren’t to blame, but they do symbolize a part of what led to this.
When they showed the new logo this summer, I knew it. Right then. They died.
Funhaus did the same thing
One thing that stuck out to me was Jack's continued behavior of " F the haters". He does not know how to read a room. It was that exact mindset that lead them to this point. I also now realize that he doesn't care, and in my own opinion it's because conpared to most others in that room he lost nothing. He's already enjoyed great financial success from RT so this closure isn't gonna impact his wallet compared to so many other people. He talks a big game but has been at RT during all those years of controversy and only spoken after others raised the issues. He's just been there clapping in the background enjoying a nice, big paycheck whereas the animators and background staff were getting minimum wage/ coerced into long overtime. I don't hate the man, I don't know him but I'd be curious to see how much he would have been talking had his salary been the same as the animation departments. Hope the people that are really affected by this at RT, can find better employment.
Jack was one of the ones that pushed me away from their content in the first place.
I really do feel what you are saying. But, if I can say, I feel it's a bit unfair to Jack to say that. He was at RT from almost the beginning, and it was on the back of his work from 7-8 years before that RT grew to a point where they could afford to hire animators. Of course if he was in their position, he'd be pissed off. But the man put in work to get comfortable and I can't be mad at him for that. I'm sure in he actually does care about everyone there behind the scenes but there is not much he can do. But I get your anger about tho
What did he do to push people away?
this, and it's not just Jack. Barbara and to some extent Michael. They pushed away their own audience, PEOPLE WHO SUPPORTED THEM, bc they what, had the audacity to disagree with them on twitter? I mean the entire company archived their twitter, why? bc they don't like Elon Musk? Like seriously, grow the fuck up and be adults. It was 1000% people who thought that they were untouchable. And I hate to see it, there's a lot of talent there and it's a part of all of our childhoods, but they brought it upon themselves. Nobody was shocked, we all expected it. One of the most common comments on twitter when the news came out was "Who was RT?" that ought to tell you, that people not even knowing who they were shows how far they had fallen. They were titans, and in their hubris, are the architects of their own downfall.
@@youtubeaccount2429he was the first to say if you don’t agree with our politics then “fuck off” and he made everything political even when it had no right to be
Geoff is the only person I have some sympathy for. And Jack? holy moly, good riddance.
Geoff once said about the RT haters "You just want to see Rome fall." Yes, after what the city became, the debauched parody of its former glory, we did want it to fall.
why jack?
Yeah... Hearing Jack continue to just "So glad the block button exists for the haters" Still rubs me the wrong way after he's consistently called EVERY bit of criticism that has ever come RT's way as 'hating'
Jack is a true ass that hides behind his donation streams. From how he treated Matt Bragg and his stand towards criticism are clear indicators.
Jack has always been trash, was never funny and always a buzz kill. I remember in the old Achievement Hunter/let's play videos where he would always throw temper tantrums, never made any good jokes, and was the worst gamer of them all. How many times did he burn down achievement city just because he lost?
No Burnie, no Gus, No Gavin, that tells you everything you need to know about this ‘goodbye’ stream. When not even a single member of the original team appears (not even a quick phone call) then it’s definitely the right time for it all to end.
Bit of a bummer that Matt and/or Gus didn't show up. Would have been nice if Burnie called in.
Imo them not being there is also a statement reflecting on their opinion on what RT has become. If they would really care, they would do whatever is necessary to be there. To be part of this moment. But they're not....sooo.....it says a lot.
They said in the stream that it wasn’t the “goodbye stream” and that it was just a talk to people stream.
@@awkwardninja5738
I mean, if you need to take multiple days after you get shut down to get your old Founders to come back and say goodbye to the current employees that’s pretty sad and pathetic
@@devildolphin2102 ? It’s got like 2 months before it’s closed and the founders don’t have to get on a live stream to talk to employees.
Everyone on the stream felt like their were talking from the bottom of their hearts EXCEPT Jordan. When he talked it just felt like corporate bullshit and meaningless words.
I used to love Jack but i can’t enjoy watching him anymore because he seems so filled with hate. My heart aches for Geoff especially
i stopped watching a long time ago and i could see how hateful he got occasionally when i would come back to check on state of things. Jack would often be one of the ones to tell fans to leave if they didnt like the views and beliefs of the company. i said to myself "Jack, man, you cant tell your fans to leave or go f**k themselves if they didnt share your beliefs. you have to either be the better person and ignore the hate or come to a middle ground."
Yeah, Jack was always the complainer. He masked it with humor later on, but he's always been the one saying that genuine criticism is just baseless hating, and that anybody who criticizes RT is just a hater.
NGL, sad that He was the one of Team Same-Voice that got to stay. (Though Ryan is Definitely the bigger bastard to put it mildly)
@@Splunkmastah exactly, telling your fans who just wanna give genuine criticism that they are haters is not the way to go.
@@Splunkmastahespecially with the amount of political vitriol that man spewed on a daily basis and they fired Joel instead. Shit like that was always wild to me. But, you could see those cracks forming in about 2015 right after Ray left or if you listened to certain videos where the entire team of Achievement Hunter was frustrated due to lack of views and responses to some of their best videos. By Uno in 2016 with the presidential election night in full swing you can almost hear the lunatic happiness and giddiness in Jack’s voice as he complained he was supposed to be with his wife and her family watching the election. And then he full-sent his descent into madness against the fans.
@@Splunkmastah I was listening to some of the old podcasts (like the infamous tequila one) and man did Jack hate Gavin. I don't know how Gavin put up with it being in the same office as him. Jack was always the most toxic member of the group (Ryan notwithstanding).
Jack is the biggest mixed bag for me. He's the first Achievement Hunter Member I appreciated and He will always have my respect for those extra life streams. I didn't mind his politics at first because I knew how to think pass those and just appreciate the guy, but the times he said f off to those who dont share his sentiments really pushed me away. Like I didnt fcking care what you believe in lets just find common ground and we're good, but no he wants the ground to be 100% common or else go away.
Anw RIP Roosterteeth you're the modern-day Old Yeller.
He got Joel fired or being a Republican.
RT: Deletes content, ruins logo and merch, hires bad talent, goes political, won't address scandels, blames fans for anything negative
Us: stopped watching
RT: wait, why did you guys leave?
Fanbase: Actual criticism that is affecting people's experience watching content.
RT: If you don't like it, just don't watch.
Fanbase: Fine.
RT: Why aren't we making any money? We ArE tHe BeSt!
Is that really why most people left? I left just cuz the content got tediously boring
@michaelhart1072 i left because the content i used to watch started to be made by a completely different cast that i didn't like and they moved the shows i liked to watch off RUclips and moved them to their shitty website
@@SkaterBlades To be fair, RT started before RUclips even existed and I once respected that they maintained control over their content distribution. But you're spot on about their content being shitty.
This. I had to stop supporting them a few years ago when they were doing all that. They love pointing things out but then sweep their own stuff under the rug or make excuses as to why it’s okay for them to do it but nobody else. Encouraging abandoning the OG fans and allowing them to just inject political shit all over every video and podcast and contradict themselves all the time is why I couldn’t take it anymore. People like barb would say something one podcast then next week contradict herself just to agree with someone else then next week say she never agreed with whatever that was etc. so annoying
Real talk RT died the moment Joe The Cat did.
Rip in pieces joe.
Rip Joe the Cat
To be honest, the people who achieved RTs peak and influence left long ago.
Burnie, Joel, Ray, Monty (sadly), Bruice, Lawrence, even Adam (I know his major fuck up).
The new guys just couldn't hold a candle to the comedy, writting standards that came before.
Why list Bruice, Lawrence, and Adam? they were just a desperate attempt to bring new viewers in. Company was already on fire by that point. its like listing the gunshot wounds after the death as the COD.
It’s funny thinking back to things and how (I mainly stuck with AH news, but stopped really watching when Ray dipped) seeing certain new faces just didn’t do anything. Jeremy and Matt? Off solo streaming and teaming up from time to time and they have a much better showing and chemistry there than with AH/RT. Ray was 51st on Twitch a couple years ago and probably has climbed a bit. Anyone remember the podcast where Ray came back and was hysterically shocked when he found out Trevor was now running AH. That just showed even at that point they had no idea what the hell they were doing. Did anyone enjoy Alfredo? He seemed pretty meh. Nobody cared or gave a fuck about Fiona. Anyone even remember her? And the biggest problem with it all was there was no longer any chemistry to mask over any wildly out of touch ideas.
The main issue was they didn't age up their content.
I started watching as an 18 year old listening to late 20s / early 30s talk. I gave up when I was the late 20s listen to 18 year olds talk.
My issue was that the older personalities got so out of touch, the company started in someone's spare room anf they're talking about driving tesla's and buying houses because of the job they have. The newer personalities were too young to be interesting to me. Then, to start paywalling, what was free content just felt shady, and they forgot why they were successful. They made cheap but good content that was easily accessible.
Very well said. I feel like Rooster Teeth was always that friend that would want to go out to eat but never have money so you had to pay for them. Like I bought merch and attended RTX, but they were always asking for more (aka pushing First) and truthfully I just outgrew their non-evolving content.
You also had them spending millions of dollars on Gen:lock and for it flop hard.
A company isn't your friend. They want to sell things, that's their purpose. If they don't make money, they get shut down. Which is exactly what happened.
This kind of attitude is way too parasocial.
@@Oldmanplum THANK you. it's been literally scary to me how many people have stated and restated this concept since the beginning of social media yet how many people play and fall right into the idea that "companies are my friend" "we grew up together" "it's about the people" no. no the fuck it's not. it is a COMPANY. it is their job to try and push content that you like to make the money they want and that does bring about positive feelings but that is much, MUCH closer to "a brand name you trust" than "a friend you go out to eat with" or whatever absurd analogies people come up with.
COMPANIES. ARE NOT. YOUR FRIENDS.
@@MegaDarkness5000 i don't even get how anyone thought that Gen:Lock would be profitable. it had an expensive cast while at the same time being made by a bunch of fresh college graduates. don't get me wrong students can make some cool stuff, but it's not usualy what you can expect from a bunch of people with 0 experince in the industry.
with a setup like that you get a product that is not only expensive but also cheap looking.
@@KingRabidi mean this is true for corporations and RT certainly went the corporate route after a while, but they were a small company who grinded their way to the top of the internet by making content they were passionate about and i think they just wanted to make a living doing what they loved, especially together with their friends. It turned into what you're saying, but companies can be small and actually build communities with that "friendly" dynamic with their customers.
many of the people in RT and Funhaus saying to stop watching them if they voted a certain way made me stop watching like 7 years ago
You took words straight out of my mouth :) First I watched the FH stream and it was so different, so much more natural and real life then the BS Jordan Levin created. It felt so corporate and forced in some places - everyone had to speak, but it felt like some of them did not want to? Also, the way they started sitting mostly on Barbara's side leaving less and less people with Jordan was pretty on the nose.
I, like most of you hear probably, am really emotional about this whole thing, but for me it was mostly because of Funhaus. I loved the way Alanah spoke about people there and you can see how much different FH was compared to RT and other brand of theirs. They are so loving and open. I hope they will be able to somehow do their stuff. Also she was pretty straight forward again that RT main office sucked so I am with all of you that keeps reminding that they did not do nearly enough to repair what was broken. I can see how anger is still in Lawrence and Bruce for the RT corporate side.
And god dammit, I hated every time Jordan spoke in this livestream. I've seen him for the first time, I did not know who he was, but after the first, lifeless monologue, I already knew he must be some guy from WB that did not understand RT at all. I think a lot of vague comments about shitty management, about constant changing of targets and lack of proper goals from ex employees of RT are about him.
But to sum up my rant, the worst thing was that only Goeff was here from the original founder. This is just shit... How the fuck can you do a stream like this when Gus is doing some checkups, they had to know that before. They could easily do it next week, maybe try to connect with Burnie or Matt? This stream sums up the last few years of RT perfectly - just do it quick and forget about it.
Again, thanks for your videos on these topics, they are easily one of the best because you can feel that you were a fan, and they meant a lot to you as to me, but you are not bullshitting yourself one bit about the true state of RT in the last few years like these guys were doing on the livestream.
I enjoyed AH videos during their heydays, my spouse loved RvB and the RT podcasts (before Burnie left). Both of us tuned off after the scandals and the politics injection into their contents.
My POV, there are 2 aspects leading to this.
Corporate side: You can't get RT addressing the scandals (especially Haywood's incident) because that would mean admission and acknowledgement of the incidents. That gives more grounds for his victims to sue RT and Warner Brothers Discovery if they choose to (I believe at that time Haywood would be considered as an employee of WBD, not forgetting he came in contact with the victims as they are fans of AH and during RTX, a company organized event). As a corporation, WBD really don't understand the dynamics and appeal of RT. You can't expect a team of suits to manage and profit off a company selling authenticity (back then) and parasocial relationships to fans. Not to mention enforcing their corporate practices (DEI).
RT: Loads of fans left when RT chose to stop entertaining and started lecturing. The scandals and allegations didn't help their image as well. I can say more but I believe enough has been said in other comments.
I do feel bad for the affected RT staff. A word of advice, even after you leave the echo chamber, the real world is actually more accepting than what you perceived from the online world. Be professional and don't bash others for their beliefs/political views. That's how the rest of world work.
Thanks for your comment. You’re making valid points.
However, they already released separate statements in the past that low key acknowledged what happened. And there would be a way to address the issues without going into any details around Haywood etc. and beyond that, RT basically is no more. And I doubt a lawsuit against WB on these cases would hold water. But who knows. Like I said, you’re making fair points.
And in regards to WB and them not understanding what RT is, as a unique company that represents authenticity, I agree with you as well. And that’s 100% on them. It’s imo not about the creators or founding members etc. it’s just that WB tried to approach RT with a corporate handbook. Like any other organisation. While that concept hardly applies to them. Ultimately they messed it up imo. Thanks for your insightful comment. I appreciate it.
@@TheSneezingMonkey What do you expect from WB? Seriously I feel like the one thing they're involved with that isn't a dumpster fire are the Dune movies, and probably because they wisened up for once and didn't interfere with Dennis' work and let the man have some creative breathing room.
But look at everything else they touch. From their multimedia companies like RT, their other movies, the disaster that was the DCEU, even their video game sector. Suicide Squad was an inarguable flop no matter how you look at it and WB took that as a sign to DOUBLE DOWN on their live service bullshit when the fans have been practically screaming at the top of their lungs that they only ever wanted good singleplayer comic book games.
WB is the fucking Boeing of the entertainment industry; they're prone to crashing and burning because they can't help it.
That all sums it up better than I ever could. I once recall Gus shouting down Gavin on the podcast when he wanted to preach something political on gun-control. He said "This is not the forum to discuss this. We are not experts. Fans do not come to us for this."
Then 2016 came and went and Gus said "We haven't discussed it for eight years and look what happened!"
If I want politics, I'll watch a political podcast. If I want an escape to gaming culture I--well, I used to go to RT. But those days are long passed.
Rooster Teeth has no one to blame but themselves they themselves mismanaged their own company alongside with several controversies that didn't even help them in the slightest
And none of the original members that founded the company were there on the Stream
That pretty much says that they're mentally tapped out from the brand as a whole they once started
Geoff was there
the sad thing is that a lot of the scandal were preventable.
so many of them are basicly just harrassment and bullying cases. people saw right in the open how certain people like micca got treated and yet they did nothing. bruce and a few others reported adam to HR and yet nothing happend, until all of that blew up in their face.
When Geoff said "Jack can say whatever the F* he wants" codified the collapse of the company that was meant to entertain. Not to preach failed political agendas.
Michael and Lindsay weren’t there either. Says a lot. Not even Michael one of the hallmarks of the big six.
for all of the OG's there it must be like watching a kid die. It's worth noting that Burnie and Ashly have a podcast where they talked about it
What's it called, because I'm interested to hear their take on this?
@@westbreazy9963 Podcast is called “Morning Somewhere”
@@westbreazy9963 It called Morning Somewhere.
Burnie just started it at the very end of 2023 right after Christmas.
Usually anywhere from 15-30min long released Monday through Fridays about 55 episodes released so far.
Episode 2024.03.07: All Good Things
Ironically the episode prior he had Barb on and they were talked about about RT as well (among other things) .
as an og once Jack and other on screen talent started spewing political bs every 2 seconds it felt like I stopped watching because the content went downhill and it felt like political garbage. I know a lot of OGs on Reddit we’re saying this would happen for years only for us to be silenced and called conspiracy theorists
@@Matt_Schrlau9this. I had to give up on the entire company back in like 2020 or 2021 because they just got way too political for no reason. They could be talking about halo or the PS5 and then someone would randomly inject some anti trump or anti vaxer bs for no reason. Then it would last for a minute and everyone would add to it. Like I’m not an anti vax or anti trump dude nor do I support that it was just way too annoying. I came here to escape from that BS throughout my day and seeing them inject 3 minutes of political stuff in a 15 minute video was annoying.
Once they allowed that to be in every single RT podcast without any accountability was when I quit supporting them.
Also the contradiction they have. They treated Micah and Kdin terribly and then a year later suddenly the world told them to say gay and black people are heroes. Contradicting themselves all the time whenever convenient and doing the “it’s okay if I do it but not someone else” when they have controversies or being called out.
They did explain why some of the main guys weren't on the stream, it was a spontaneous stream to address the news getting out and it was not an official "Good-bye stream". It wasn't the time or place to address the underlining issues and give all the fans an explanation
Thing is, they have had the best part of the last 5 years to address various issues and they never have. Now we know it will end, many of us are just sad that they can’t be open to those that made them their fortune as to why things happened the way they did. Instead, everything is amazing, everyone is amazing.
@charliewalker9443 Even if somehow Rooster teeth would have turned things around WBD would still have shut them down and unfortunately it seems like all of Rooster teeths videos, channels, everything is gonna get wiped.
Gus was having butt surgery
They brought this upon themselves
The thing thats was wild to me out of it all was jack at the very start, being his typical self and talking shit to random people becauee hes to big headed to ignore them, i thought that shit was wild.
I hate to be that guy, but...
1) I didn't recognize half the people on that stage
2) This really REALLY hateful shitty part of me felt schadenfreude for a lot of the people there (mainly barbara) rooted in jealousy I guess. She's had life on easy street her entire life imo.
3) Only 1 founder was there. This is not a good look.
half the founders were not even with the company anymore.
Your second point is so true, but not just her specifically. A lot of these people are going to start a twitch channel or another podcast/patreon becasue that's all they know how to do.
To be honest, RT has been dead or at the very least, still born, for at least about five years. Warner Bros. putting the final nail in the coffin was going to happen sooner than later. You only need to take a look at the views from their older videos and compare to the newer ones and you see a HUGE disparity in the numbers.
For a channel that has 9 million subscribers, a majority of their videos can’t even get 1/100th (hell, recently some didn’t even get 10k views) of the viewership. That’s woefully bad.
I think the overwhelming consensus for RT is "Oh, it's over? That's sad, but I saw it coming five years ago."
An interesting mirror to this - The recent Linus Tech Tips controversy. Granted they're not entirely analogous, but when they experienced a big controversy, they shut down all production for what seemed like a week, and made two apology/explanation videos. I don't think they were particularly guilty of the mobbing they were a victim of, but I think the approach they took is in line with what you wanted out of RT and RT's various controversies: a very sober, serious approach that addresses community concerns directly. And I think they've rebounded wonderfully.
According to their podcast, both Burnie and Ashley have been in contact with the people at rt, hell, Barbara was on their show the day the shutdown was announced. He could be in Austin because he lives in Scotland now and had apparently just gotten home from Houston where he was dealing with a family medical emergency and a back to back Transatlantic flight at the last minute is pretty hard to pull off
Rooster Teeth got exactly what they deserved.
When they told me and other fans we weren’t welcome because of our political views, they lost any shred of sympathy. Akira Toriyama will be remembered forever for his contributions to culture, rooster teeth will be forgotten in a few months and they deserve it.
The world has changed since 2014. I agree that bringing up politics everywhere is bad, but in this day and age, we can absolutely choose not to accept certain opinions. Because we know what they lead tk
@@ileutur6863 man, I jumped ship as soon as Trump started running. Jack Potato talked about him more than trump talked about himself. Then the rest couldn't help themselves and crap all over the part of the fandom that had other political views, so I left. But then they turned on each other! that was the funny part.
@@ileutur6863 you can choose not to accept certain opinions but in the end it'll burn you one way or another, exhibit A - Rooster Teeth.
Things that killed RT:
Being corporatized - the feel of the company was never the same. Cross-company videos and pranks became rarer and rarer, because it became more of a strict professional environment.
Mishandling of the live action department - what happened to on the spot? Million dollars but? 10 little roosters?
Some really poor movies: Lazer team 2, bloodfest
Genlock: both its absurd budget and the scandal of turning your animation dept into a sweat shop
The 2020 pandemic- slowed down and interrupted a ton of production that was either abandoned or significantly delayed
RWBY X Justice League: Seriously, who asked for this?
Scandals - fuck haywood and kovic.
Shows just losing interest over time: Let's face it. RT started with RVB. They went several years with some secondary stuff, but RVB was what they were known for. Then they started AH, and also made RWBY. Both incredibly popular, and carried them when rvb fell in popularity. RWBY then had mixed reviews after Monty passed. And do you know why AH eventually failed? Competition. It started the Lets play genre, but commentary and banter over video games are such absurdly competitive genres now. So people found other content creators, which is partially why new AH members didn't get the easy recognition that their predecessors got. So with RVB with 1 foot in the grave (and frankly had a great conclusion with season 10), RWBY struggling to carry the load, and AH being just one of thousands of gaming content creators, it lost the market share it once had.
Rooster Teeth was a burning ship on fire and people were abandoning ship for years, im surprised it was afloat for this long. In the last AH video i think Michael made a point of how we ended it, we did not let AH die, we ended it. BULLSHIT! It died hardd you guys didn't take it behind the shed with a shotgun, you guys shot yourselves in the foot so many times and bled to death slowly throughout the years
AH was wimpering on the ground while they ept saying "it'll be okay it'll be okay" before Warner took the shotgun and put the ol girl down.
They really thought alienating their fanbase would save them from legitimate criticism and garner new viewers for revenue. "If YoU dOn'T lIkE iT dOn'T wAtCh." And we said okay.
Man it was crazy to see over 3 mil subs but not even getting over 70k views and remembering when it was a few hundred thousand subs and millions of views
Yeah it was a shambling corpse uncertain of where it wanted to go since about mid-2015. Stunk up the joint for years and only is now been given a burial.
How did those diversity hires and hating your fans ended working RT?
The last RT podcast I watched was after Matt Bragg got fired. It just made no sense for someone as hard working for so long to be let go. But sure, keep the new personalities. I waited anticipating their response during the podcast so I could have a better understanding but nope, nothing. Just swept it under the rug like everything else. It was nice to drink with you during your livestream where we all can share our thoughts.
thats one that really fucking aggravating, especially when, as you noted, they still kept the newer, less desirable, more annoying personalities...
Roosterteeth was the main set of channels I watched in high school. I watched thrm all time, I'd come home from school and load up RUclips to check out what was new. Around 2017 at the latest I think I judt stopped watching them. Learning about Ryan's ordeals years after the fact fucked me up. He was my favorite of the AH crew. I knew this day would come eventually. Making yourself so huge on RUclips and actually brcoming a full fledged company with over 100 seperate employees and thrn priortizing youtube as your main platform is scary buisiness. Recently I watched a vod of Ray's where we reacted to a lot of his best moments throughout his internet career and seeing all the old AH stuff honestly made me emotional. Seeing all the modern stuff RT does just hurts so much knowing how well off thr company used to be. Sometimrs you really need to stop and ask yourself, "do you ever wonder why we're here?" It really is one of life's greatest mysteries.
It always felt to me like no one at RT ever wanted to be the person to step up and take responsibility for what was happening. It consistently felt like there was never a true leader and never someone who would put their hand up to deal with situations as they arose.
Jack was a hypocrite and wouldn’t stfu about his political opinions and was judgmental. He loved when they went woke. He just butthurt they went broke haha
Someone places a block in minecraft
Jack - AHAHA TRUMP WALL AHAHA
I chalk it up to they failed to take accountability for what happened to led to the shut down. I also watched a bit of the livestream and I tuned out after ten minutes when it felt like to me that they weren't gonna talk about where things went wrong. I made an extensive comment on another video about Geoff's response on the stream last night that I will just post here:
Well, as someone who was a fan back in the heyday who had been soured by all the controversies, the woke pandering, the humor drying up, the content getting more stale with every passing year, and the original guys leaving; I'll admit... This was a long time coming and it still kind of hurts, but I'm not nearly as broken up about it as Geoff is. Now if this happened 10 years ago, I would've been all torn up over this. However, I'm getting the feeling that none of these guys here understand where things went wrong. I also recall Geoff speaking defensively about the company after the layoffs. I bet he was remembering that in this video and realizing he was just living in an echo chamber. He coped about how Rooster Teeth suffered before, but they still stayed alive. Rooster Teeth wasn't gonna recover and with each passing controversy, so the writing continued to be written on the wall. I haven't watched anything these guys uploaded in AH or Let's Play because the videos just aren't what they used to be, as well as some of those shows coming to an abrubt end. RvB wore out its welcome by the end of season 13, I'd say. RWBY died with Monty Oum and RT thought they could drag it out like RvB. Anything after that was as generic or disinteresting. I would talk about all of the controversies, but then this comment would be extraordinarily long. Longer than it is already. You had a good run, Rooster Teeth, but by about the 14-15 year mark, your days were numbered. Machinima waits for you in the hole.
Why wasn't Gavin there? Isn't he still an RT employee (for now ofc)?
Gavin's just been kinda tired of making internet content and public appearances in general after that crazed nutcase purchased a gun, broke into his house, and tried to murder him out of jealousy for his relationship with Meg. Even if Rooster Teeth hadn't been on an extremely sharp decline, could you blame him?
@@makubesohaan3922 makes sense, I wonder what he'll do now that RT is over
RIP akira toriyama unlike RT you will be missed
Akira joins Kenpachiro Satsuma in heaven now.
That's a wild fucking take. We've been missing rt way longer than dbz man
I remember years ago, when Geoff said “Y’all just want the company burn”. I can’t say what everyone else wanted, but I didn’t.
I didn’t want Rooster Teeth to have gone down the path they took and become another statistic of folded companies. But it’s the path they gleefully took.
I stopped watching their content on a regular basis around the mid to late 2010’s, when things became hyper political, and when they started inserting Politics like they did, they were losing fans. And the Jacks started saying “F Off, we don’t want you here “, I don’t they realized that when fans left, they took their wallets too.
Well It’s hard not to watch RT burn when it was already doing so. Especially after 2020 when it was in life support. At that point it was a case of when not if.
@@azurai3934 I agree, 2020 was the clear that RT was dying. Not because of the lockdowns, but because of the scandal. Ryan wasn’t a background character or someone who would appear from time to time. He was a pillar, and was loved for his antics.
@@azurai39342020s RT was just a Corpse with animatronics making it move.
2014 fullscreen getting RT is what killed the company. It was a slow poisoning as well.
@@trebot9292266 A lot of people have said that, hell I believed when that happened, it wouldn’t be good. But no one knew that it would become a WB company.
And correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t this happen to Machinima?
It’s nice the RUclips channels will still be around, but there’s still a bunch of exclusive content on the website that will become lost media if the website shuts down. First membership shows like Achievement Haunter, Last Laugh, Hardcore Tabletop, Arizona Circle, exc. Even regular gameplay videos have edits on RUclips and were often better on the website. Funhaus videos on the website completely cut out the video’s sponsor bit and generally contained fewer censorship edits like swears. There’s also the plethora of uncut raw Funhaus gameplay videos called Fullhaus that will be lost as well as the NSFW versions of videos. I really hope that someone who still has a first membership can archive these website exclusive content.
It's not a guarantee that the channels will stick around. I think RT and associated channels will end up like Machinima
@@subliminal6211 True, because the old Inside Gaming Machinima channel did stick around for a few years before all of its content was removed. The same could happen here.
@RealKaiserRyu But I bet there are a bunch of people who are going through and archiving a ton of content rn
Nothing says going broke like calling your audience ists and phobes and telling them all to leave 🤣🤣
I stopped watching after Ray left.
Honestly he made the best decision of his life when he left that company. lol
I agree with much you had to say here, but something I rarely hear mentioned, but I think is the core reason many people stopped watching Rooster Teeth, was when they sold. Please understand that I find the "Corporate sellouts!" take to be a bit overdramatic. I don't begrudge the cofounders. Those guys earned any money they got from that sale and I hope they have enough to retire comfortably and never work another day in their lives. But frankly, the sale killed any sense of community, micro culture, and any illusion of it being a cottage industry formed by a ragtag group of gamer goofs. From that moment forward it became corporate.
Again, I don't blame them. They gave us 2 fantastic decades and they don't owe us anything more, but everything ends and maybe this is the way it had to be.
I can agree with that sentiment as well. Ultimately, when the company was sold much of the overall management shifted and I do think it caused a lot of people to skip out or flee for their lives essentially. I mentioned it in another post, but I think it was 2020 or so when they were doing the AH podcast and had Ray return and he was extremely confused to why Trevor of AH Kids was now running the show or had been for a while at that point.
“Why are we here?”
“It’s one of life greatest mysteries isn’t it? I mean, are we the product of some cosmic coincidence, or is there really a God watching everything? You know, with a plan for us and stuff. I don't know, man, but it keeps me up at night.”
“What? I mean why are we here out in this canyon?…. What was all that stuff about god?”
This isnt an airport, You dont need to annouce your departure - So reads RT gravestone
AH got boring when it became a political talk show. Hard to shut my brain off from real world issues when i watch you play GTA and other games using guns, while bitching about the president (at the time) and those that own firearms in real life. Dont be a hypocrite, too late now.
I am not intending to “Hate” I just want to speak honestly to how I feel, and think I am owed that as a fan of RT, financial investor into their films, bought Merch, shared videos and watched loyally for 15 years.
I am completely confused by the level of delusion that is being displayed by these people, you’d think by their reactions that the company was going so successfully but the big bully mother company are just turning off the lights on them.
Radical acceptance is a good mindset to have in order to move on, but you wont go on to be successful if you cannot own up to the failures of the past and learn from them.
SM, I understand you sympathise with the creative talents and state this is not their fault, to a large extent I agree. However, I do think the employees are not half as talented as they think they are. Maybe technically, ability to edit, run a stream, write, etc, but the talent on screen suck. I don’t find anyone from RT in the last 4 years compelling, clever or even funny.
They were never forthcoming about departures and problems. They never owned situations. I actually do not care for the bad apples because any company that employees over 100 people are mathematically going to have some people among them guilty of horrific things. But they never owned those situations.
They started asserting values onto the community and their content that made them SOOO unfunny. Forgetting that often something is funny because we know it is wrong, immoral, stupid, etc.
I never wish anyone to fail, so good luck to them all, especially the Funhaus crew!
I mean, I think they knew the writing was on the wall but they're still allowed to be sad about the closure of a company that some have been working for a better part of the 2000/2010s
@@oilerfan871 I agree 😊
Couldn't have said it any better. They seemed to have an attitude similar to Disney. They were at one point the biggest gaming youtube channel and it seems they still feel like they're living in the glory days. They were pioneers in the youtube gaming space but times changes and they did very little to keep up. It's very much a peaked in high school vibe. The reality is from the start they were unwilling to take constructive criticism. Then 2016 came around and it brought the worst out of a lot of people. Ended up alienating their audience and I can't help but think that was a symptom of the toxic workplace.
@@TheCubanMissile-sb8jf Also well said. Not many people have mentioned the political situation of 2016 but indeed it was a big deal.
Another overblown, overdramatised and needlessly fearful time in history. I even remember Barbara begging people to go vote because she did not want to get deported back to Canada. That was actually quite extreme.
It wasnt a goodbye stream. It was an informational stream saying they dont have answers yet and will give everyone a chance to say goodbye in later videos.
Fair point. But it certainly felt like a farewell stream to me. I‘m curious to see whether they will do another ‚final‘ stream with more of the bigger personalities taking part. But I appreciate your comment.
@@TheSneezingMonkey have you seen Burnie and Ashley's podcast talking about this news? They did a whole episode on about RT shutting down
@@Shak2k11 whats their channel/ site? i havent been able to find anything about them
@@The8thblock its on spotify, i just typed in Burnie Ashley podcast and it came up. I the good morning somwhere.
@@Shak2k11 I found it literally right after. All that came up was his appearances on the rt podcast, but finally found it after adding ashley
Not surprising considering most of the new hires were for Diversity's sake.
Alfredo, Kye, and Joe were interchangeable in terms of personality.
Fiona was as grating as younger Michael was.
The only one who really stood out to me personally was BK, but I'd stopped watching by that point so only say her a little bit.
Sorry to say it, but.... After Ryan was forced to leave, I knew it was over. (He was a monster and Had to go, this I understand. Doesn't mean I don't miss the personality I thought I knew)
I caught much of it. It was a bit off putting that when the founders were being praised on Joel got zero acknowledgement. I can’t remember her name but she was basically the moderator of the stream mentioned him when she got hired. I get that he left bad taste when he left but that doesn’t take away from he was a founder.
Agreed, seems relationships are paper thin. You don’t have to agree or like the person to respect and acknowledge them. Ghosting existence is worse.
I don't think they wanted to talk about how badly they treated Joel. His personal politics weren't far left like many of the others so they had him come in to record his lines for Caboose, and as soon as he was done, told him he was fired and to not come back. Pretty scummy.
I see the farewell livestream as a sort of funeral for Rooster Teeth. The people in that room are mourning the death of something they loved, that's not the time to start airing out dirty laundry. Yes there were a lot of problems with Rooster Teeth, especially in the later days, but that discussion belongs at the wake after the funeral, not in the eulogy.
True. I think my point about addressing their scandals and the feedback from the fans in a more extensive way, was less about this specific stream. It should‘ve happened a long time ago imo. But I understand there are potential legal implications etc. So it’s not all that easy. You’re making a fair point. I guess I‘m just a bit bitter because I feel it was never treated fairly. As the fans would’ve deserved. But I appreciate your comment.
Don’t totally disagree with everything you’ve said, but they literally said it wasn’t a goodbye stream. Just a quick reaction stream to communicate to the fans the little information they know and some feelings. They said it came together very quickly and not everyone was available.
Fair point. But it certainly felt like a farewell stream to me. I‘m curious to see whether they will do another ‚final‘ stream with more of the bigger personalities taking part. Even we disagree, I still appreciate your comment.
@@TheSneezingMonkey The tile of the video was literally "NOT our goodbye stream"
Hey really good video. I'd like to expand on two points you made.
1. The political stuff. I know people love to bring it up constantly about Roosterteeth being too political because they were woke or whatever, but my counter would be that those same people wouldn't care if the company was expounding pro Trump rhetoric or whatever. So I think the problem was more so that Roosterteeth told members that if they didn't agree politically to leave rather than tell them, "hey we may disagree, but you guys want to listen to us talk about what goes on in our lives and this is what we believe so even if you don't agree on everything, maybe you might find common ground on some specific ideas." But telling them to leave in general was more the bigger issue IMO
2. Roosterteeth not addressing scandals in more consistent long-form content than just one-off videos. I think what made Roosterteeth such a big success is that they were on the ground floor in regards to the parasocial relationship with their audience. In regards to the site or fans eventually working at RT, guardians at RTX or whatever, so there were many ways for fans to interact with RT members or work at RT. So when these scandals hit and they tried act like they fucked up and then tried to move past it and put barriers between fans and RT like a business/customer relationship it was really the kill shot in what made RT a success to begin with and RT wasn't in a position to change course on how they could successfully operate since they didn't have some widespread appeal. Their reach was because they were a niche company that had a very significantly dedicated fanbase, so to make it more of a commercial "we pump out content, you watch" type of transactional arrangement wasn't going to work.
I am a Trump supporter and I still think it would get very annoying very quickly if they were touting rhetoric that was conservative if it weren't liberal. Rooster Teeth was not and should never have gotten involved with politics. Rooster Teeth was not originally meant to be a political company, unless it was satire that goes both ways. Which they did make satire to that in the past, like with Pongo the puppet being an affirmative action hire. I bet you they wanted to forget that video at some point because it goes against the left leaning beliefs the company had. It also doesn't help that they're also based in Austin, Texas. A very liberal city in an otherwise red state.
The problem is, if they started being pro trump when all of their content was about gaming and gaming related challenges. They would have lost the other half of their fans. RT didn't JUST start sharing their opinions, they slandered and attacked ANYONE who even criticized their shows.
The problem is, taking something that is apolitical. Making it political, and then attacking people who weren't even political.
You can express your opinion, but people don't like being called racist because they don't like the content that is being made. Or being called racist because they don't agree 100% on the current news item.
RT became very political, and even people on their side of the political isle were not there to support the company. They lost fans from both sides. Because their focus shifted from friends playing games, to pushing political rhetoric and pumping out shows to appease their corporate masters.
@@ClayChoShow You are pretty spot on with that comment.
I can largely agree with you on the 2nd, but I disagree on the first. Keeping in mind, this is me personally.
I watch a lot of political content. Crowder, tim pool, destiny, tyt. People I both disagree and agree with. I go into those knowing I'm going to be getting politics.
When I had a long, rough work day and just want to unwind, I used to put on Rooster Teeth. But then that turned into a political lecture, which is what I was trying to avoid. I wanted to watch more cunning stunts, not be subjected to an argument about the security of mail in voting.
Now I've rotated into other creators. Some are right wing, some are left. Very occasionally, it will come up in a video, but it's not the focus, and even if it's someone I wholeheartedly agree with, if they're going off on some political rant when all I want is to watch true crime, I'm going to eventually unsubscribe from them, too.
@@3rdStreetAVolitionite You do realise that's not how politics works, right? RT had liberal people in it since day one, even with the edgy humor you could tell there was an attitude of equality all around. The world became more heated, so did they. I'm not saying I like it, I'm saying etf did you all expect
That wasn't the goodbye stream. They are gonna do an actual goodbye stream at a later date.
Yeah and another reason why the main guys weren’t there because they were in a meeting all day before they announced the shutdown so you can imagine the stress and sadness they felt for a company that ran for 21 years and people just hate because they don’t take the time to listen or will never do nothing as successful in their life
Agreed man, nothing but facts in this, the scandals and loss of identity in their videos is what made them lose their magic and ultimately led to the shut down and they didnt even wanna address that
I know that a lot of the audience wants to hear about the problematic stuff during the live stream but did people serious believe they would talk about it? I feel like that is the last thing these guys would want to bring up during this stream. Yeah it's the "goodbye" stream let's talk about the allegations of Ryan Haywood and Adam Kovic.
It was an hour and a half of self soothing, coping bullshit.
Edit: This sounds harsh and I obviously feel awful for the people losing their jobs, but literally NOBODY took accountability for anything that drove this once beautiful company into the ground.
rooster teeth failed because it became a company and wasn't just a bunch of friends running a youtube channel
people left the group but had to be replaced but because this wasn't just any other company the new people just didn't fit it right
hiring people for diversity just amplified the differences in the people working there and led to a sad ending
because the original people were so much better than the new it led to less views which meant less money, so yes it was the new people that indirectly and accidentally killed it
If geoff actually cared about those employees, he would have spoken up and stopped the company from going woke
I remember the AH group, on their website, only allowing 1 or 2 days to talk about Haywood. Then they banned any and all future discussions making many who didn't follow religiously confused about what happened.
There was probably some ndas involved not allowing them to bring up a lot of the problems it’ll probably come out in the next few years as former employees talk about it on streams and such
I think a lot of people are reeling from this still in the company. I wouldnt be surprised if Matt/Gus are still grappling this on their own or away doing something else. Either way im not going to judge anyone within the first 24 hours with two corporate responses. Some of the twitter posts like Lawrences have been interesting, Im still invested to the point where I want the tea though
There was 0 responsibility taken and when they addressed the chat they just got angry and talked about how easy it is to block people and make sure you give your favourite roosterteeth employees money to support them
i think that the worse thing about the general managment of the company was that some of the cast members had to aproach the controversies by their own. when the Ryan controversy exploded, Jack and Michael were the ones to showed up to adress the situation and i was like "where were the official statements?? why the higher ups are not involved??" and it showed how painfull was for them, not only as members of AH, but as their friend, as well.
i was such a HUGE part of the community. i wanted to even work for/with RT for the logest time. but after mismanagement of content kept happening and the content got worse because it kept getting dumbed down and the toxic fanbase paired with toxic cast and crew who will attack you for having a different opinion is what pushed me away.
and that isn't everyone at the company. i don't have every person. but generally they pushed people away while trying to playcate their audience . i get choked up thinking about the past i had with them and the great memories i had that are now tainted from my personal experience.i it all hurts.
Ya, I said for years they needed to stop being a workplace that had equity. The sexism is what brought me to RT, the wokeness drove me away
You're expecting a company made up of a bunch of artists not to be liberal and open minded?
@@ileutur6863 duh!
I'm keeping an eye on RT's remnants and get some people to try and pressure Dillongoo into starting RWBY over from scratch
😂 start it over from scratch what a terrible idea
@@subliminal6211 if we have people keeping constant surveillance, things won't go bad
@broden4838 Just finish the story how it is. It's not even that bad.
@@subliminal6211 You know, I personally feel like ever RWBY episode from 2015 onwards were nothing but forged copies, so, my answer is NOT to finish the story.
@@broden4838did they bring Monty back from the grave? If the answer is no, then leave his work alone. Roosterteeth already butchered it once and alienated his brother. Let the mans legacy keep what little quality remains.
The elephant-in-the-room point was genuinely such a heinous part of that pathetic stream. To see something so close to you be so underhanded is jarring. Not a word about Kdin, Micah, or the layoffs...
Ehhhh i dont really think they needed to own up to anything or anything like that, not in this particular case. This was most likely a result of wb profit margins and nothing else. Theyve killed entirely finished movies for the tax write-off, lets not act like they just killed RT because of questionable behaviour or something.
life lesson go woke go broke!
Need more than a new logo to bring back something as big as rooster teeth from the brink of death
time to dump your rooster teeth stock guys
*Not gonna lie I only recognised less than ten people there (With two of them arriving later on during the stream) and they were Barb, Jessica Vasami, Jack Pattillo, Chris Demaris, Geoff and Kerry. Now before you say anything I have only known about RT and their scandals for the past 2 years due to the fact that I got into RWBY towards the end of 2022 although I actually first became aware of them in 2015 because of Monty’s death.*
It doesn’t matter what the company is about as long as the content is entertaining!
They didn't care for the controversies.
It certainly feels that way. But I‘m not sure. Someone else commented that it was probably the upper management and NDA‘s stopping them from talking about it. But I personally feel they did care. It’s just not in the ‚corporate handbook‘ to bring sth like that up in a livestream like this. But there in lies the problem. RT never was a company that should be run using a corporate handbook.
@TheSneezingMonkey it was all over when they acquired by wb. Wb is run by a bunch of boomers who don't know how run a company and are out of touch Especially when they really hurting this year.
I got into this channel at around 15 from the heist videos and stayed as a pretty consistent viewer because of Michael and Gavin mainly, there play pals or really anything with them is immaculate to me. I still loved watching videos with the entire crew although jack was always my least favorite because of how easily offended he would get and was passive aggresive because of fuckn jokes. It still crushed me to watch him and michael talk about ryan being a monster. I think the downfall for me is once they continued adding people after jeremy and matt who fit perfectly. Also to add a little more perspective I lived my childhood in detroit and then moved to mississippi at around 13, all of my family is very one sided politicly as Republican and it rubbed off on me when i was young to the point were I was a child apart of that echo chamber. I started getting into podcasts especially being Jre because of random clips and then become a full on fan and its helped me realize to look for the perspective in people.. so i never got mad when they take jabs at Trump or republicans because if i was I was born in their shoes, look like them, am surrounded by the same people and have the same experiences then i would do that as well but to make a stand politicly, as if any of them are journalists or even reading past headlines, why do you feel the right to throw your opinions onto kids.. Ill always love Gavin, geoff, ray, michael, jeremy and respect the rest for what they did for my childhood but its definitely best to shoot the horse. I still hope Gav and Michael do content together. Also barbarra does OF… what the fuck…. Absolutely shameless.
I will miss them but happy for the happy times they gave.
Ryan Heywood is probably just smiling ear to ear
the comments on GUS are bad.... phone in when your at the doctors? seriously? hes having surgery FFS use your head, i think hes more worried about coming out of surgery alive than phoning in on a spontaneous live stream.
Burnie has had no online presence and no affiliate with rt since 2019/20 4 yrs ago, why should he RANDOMLY turn up for a a spontaneous live stream, he has 2 young kids to look after and now lives on a farm in scotland....
gaving is also in another country filming slow mo content, under contract, its not like he can just jump on a plane and be there in 10 mins to jump on a random unscheduled live stream...
the thing is that gus has a history of disappearing when they need to talk about anything difficult
and as a top boss at a company with hundreds of people losing their jobs yes it is reasonable to expect 5 minutes of his time to ring in
@@cestfixement your an idiot, so during surgery you expect him to make a phone call to something that wasnt planned, he might not of even known himself they was doing this. think with your head - they might not of even told him knowing he was going into surgery, did you even think about that?
@@cestfixement you have such a child mind set, the guy was in surgery, he might not of known it was even going on, think with your head. they might not of even told him about it due to them knowing he was going into surgery.
@@wilson3387 20:51 in the stream, in the spiel its said he wanted to be here, so he knew it was on, he could have asked to pass on a quick message - even just to say he'll be up soon to chat and say goodbye, I doubt he was actively in his procedure at the time, there's no mention I can find of surgery also
Honestly im guessing most people are more sad that akira toryama (hope i spelled it right)) died than roosterteeth closing down
I haven't watched any RT content for the better part of 5 years now, plus the occasional controversy that came out through the years made me even more disinterested in consuming their content. Everyone saw their closure coming, it was a matter of when not if, and the stream was filled with mostly unfamiliar faces, so I really didn't think this was gonna get to me. But fucking hell, I grew up with Roosterteeth. The AH crew were my Tom and Jerry. Seeing Jack there, and especially Geoff brought a big lump to my throat. The company responsible for a big chunk of my childhood is now officially shutting down, and it stings really fucking bad. Feels like the universe finally ripped the band-aid out all the way and I've officially entered the adult phase of my life.
This isn't their farewell stream. There's definitely gonna be one that has more finality to it but I really don't know if I wanna watch it.
I keep archives of rvb seasons 1-14 on 6 seperate hard drives. Idgaf let it burn
lol. that's what I call a backup. xD
Jack patillo really doubled down on the wokeness lol
Double down in caring about the future, yeah real woke stuff
You don't know what woke means
@@frankybenefort7202 supporting criminals and also supporting disarming innocents is woke.
Team Nice Dynamite not being there was a tragedy.
And a certain someone who was told some times years in advance about certain people’s behaviors, yet did nothing. Skates off in to podcasting like nothing happened.
Hey Misty. I hope you’re okay and thanks for your comment.
We have set up a community Discord where several ex RT employees and ex friends of RT personalities hang out and have shared their stories with me. I would love to chat with you there. Of course only if you‘re comfortable with that. The link is in the description.
In any case, all the best and take care.
You lose again death battle we reign supreme I love this content man good rant about death battle I love this concert
Rip dragon ball creator 🐒🐉
Do you think maybe they weren't allowed to speak on issues? Maybe they were only allowed to say certain things. Maybe when they're officially off the books, the individual members will speak more about everything.
Going off what you said how it would be uncomfortable to talk about what wemt wrong amd who is responsible well so was bringing politics into gaming and entertainment. Whatever someone's political views are I for one dont want them in my entertainment and thats what RT became
rooster teeth is the facing image of embarrassment, poor (and i mean REALLY POOR) choices that continued to stack up over the years. Fans have not been in line with what they produce for the shows anymore and are sick and tired of RT constantly letting them down and no REAL change happening. Im sad to see them go and at the same time im glad to see then go down hard, that stream cast was nothing more than showing the world who is responsible for the downfall of the company. Im a long time RWBY fan as it was my first anime I loved, and literally once season 4 rolled out, i knew it was gonna crash and burn into the steamy pile of shit it now is, horrible fight choreography and sloppy story writing, and when people might complain, but the show was founded on fighting and the unique style and powers and colors the worl of RWBY provided to animation, despite the rough animation, go back to seasons 1-3, and look and the show anywhere season 4+, and the light RWBY was had faded, and i can say this for other shows.
What a luke warm send off. I know RT has had a rough past 10 years with all the controversies and layoffs but not seeing MOST of the founders and mainline talent was a bummer. I havent watched RT content in about 8 years and I didnt recognize about 90% of who was there to say goodbye. Truly a sad day
It wasn't the official send off idk y yall are saying this. This stream was impromptu, they'll have the official send off stream at a later date
What is this channel going to do without RT
You’ve clearly not actually looked at my channel. Rt videos don’t even make up 5% of my content.
Can anybody send me the post show from the off topic podcast, episode #65 - the sabbatical? Thanks
I'm sad to see Rt go but ngl I think it probably should have stopped along time ago it's hard to let go of something go but rt in my head was kinda like a flower it was fantastic and pretty but it started to die and should have been pruned but it wasn't because it was so pretty, I really hope the employees r ok
I just want to know, who hired those loonies to bring down the company? I knew after what happened to Ryan, hell opened up the gates. I feel bad for the OGs and Geoff building an empire, take a few controversial steps to crumble it down.
I loved the company have watched them since RvB Battle Creek, (season 3 iirc) but I just couldn’t take the political crap.
Was that stupid video from them about the 2016 election.
Great video!
My only disagreement is regarding the thing about how they only addressed the controversies with the apology videos and then went back to regular videos. Only because I don’t know what the alternative is other than continuing?
Thanks Tom. Well I guess my point is to really discuss this in depth. With fans. Potentially with the victims. Maybe even those who participated...for example in the bullying of Kdin. In my mind it would have a therapeutic effect.
I understand that it also has legal implications. And they're probably under some kind of NDA to not talk about it. But the way it was handled, felt wrong. It felt like it was never really cleared up. But that's just my opinion.
@@TheSneezingMonkey That’s actually a good point about the victims, it definitely would’ve made it seem more of a human response now I think about it!