Tim Lieder

I met Ellis at a convention and she seemed nice. This was after the "Change the Channel" document came out and I had only read a few parts such as Ellis talking about the lack of professionalism when they filmed those terrible movies. I skimmed the rest and saw the videos. It was a very entertaining drama for a time. Years later, I realized that while I still liked many of the former CA creators, my favorite was Brad Jones of Cinema Snob who actually stayed with Doug and the gang. And got doxxed for it. It sounded like a bad time but for most of the creators and had I any talent in the way of making videos in 2008 (and the money to pay for the equipment that I would have needed at the time) I would have been begging to be a part of Channel Awesome and I would have been horrified at the way they treated the video producers with that document to this day. Maybe.

But years later and we discover that Alison Pregler changed her story several times and that Linkara's main complaint was that they wouldn't let him use the CA studios for his terrible movie and that the guy who was grooming teenagers still waited until they were legal before starting up with them (which is still disgusting behavior but not something you can publicly fire someone for. Else Justin Roiland would have taken his shit in the eyeballs writing and gone away by season 3 when problems first popped up because of...check notes...women in the writer's room).

So the whole Channel Awesome drama sounds more like a dysfunctional work environment than anything. And I've called out dysfunctional work environments so respect. But also "holy shit you guys went through hell" became "well yeah that sucks but all jobs suck". I enjoyed some of the new drama videos, but they got old. Linkara is a mess but the people who are obsessed with Linkara are mostly rightwing trolls. Beyond the "Hey, his ex-girlfriend is related to an asshole I used to know in college" I really had no interest in bullshit about woke mobs and videos going "No, Ancient Aliens is totally not racist guys." or videos going after Linkara for hating on Frank Miller or those really bad 90s artists like Liefield. No real desire to hear about how Frank Miller is against the "woke mob" and seriously, I could live the rest of my life without hearing or seeing "woke" as an insult (so please G-d, take out DeSantis sooner than later)

And then another video comes out about how breadtubers are eating each other. It is a popular topic for the YouTube videos I watch. And I skimmed it because leftists fighting leftists is not exactly a concern. Emma Goldman left the new USSR with stories about Trotsky murdering strikers. That's the only kind of leftists canceling leftists story I care about.

But this video got to Lindsay Ellis and holy fuck she's still whining about the "woke mob" and how it was ONLY ONE TWEET. (with a side note about how Raya and Last Airbender were both multi-million dollar properties because BOO!!! Capitalism!!!) But it wasn't only one tweet. It was a lot of tweets. That tweet was the one that got her in trouble enough to leave Twitter, but I was on Twitter. I followed her. She was painfully unfunny, always angry and exhausting. I might have stopped following her when she wouldn't stop about the last season of Game of Thrones. While I don't expect everyone to agree with my take (Daenerys was a monster from season 1 when she murdered a rape victim and the final season made perfect sense) I do not want to see the condescending take that only Lindsay Ellis is correct when it comes to Sansa being a bitch and Danerys' actions in King's Landing making no sense (which you would have to ignore three season of her advisors telling her not to burn everyone alive and her reluctantly agreeing).

But her video on Game of Thrones was the first one that I just skipped. It used to come up in my algorithm all the time and every time I would skip it. I never got past the Robert Moses part.

I did watch Mask Off.

I enjoyed Mask Off because I was still a fan and how dare that "woke mob" go after her for JUST ONE TWEET and a lot of other stuEf WHICH THEY HAD TO DIG UP!!!!

The thing is she never actually admitted to any wrong doing. She never indicated that she was even curious as to why people were upset. She just kept defending herself. And then she kept defending herself for other stuff. And two hours later, she got a lot of praise from her fans.

Now that I see her again still whining about "getting canceled" and hawking her mediocre science fiction books I realize that I fell for a bad faith game. The "Pity ME! I'm a woman getting attacked by people and I'm hyperventilating over here and about to cry and the big bad WOKE MOB is ATTACKING ME. Won't someone think of MEEEE!!!"

It's so much easier to spot when Anne Rice claims that a "lynch mob" is coming after Paula Deen for saying the N word. Amazing how much the term "lynch mob" is invoked by the people who would be smiling for pictures around a real lynching. But Lindsay is complaining about the "woke mob". So that's totally different.

Woke isn't just a new N-word for people who prefer dog whistles, right?

This annoyance and suspicion that I've been wrong about someone had me googling. My work is light this week. I have ADHD which is weird because it involves obsession. And I found an article from last June where she was AGAIN complaining about getting canceled. I mean that was the point of the article "Lindsay Ellis reflects on being canceled" but it was all about how she was at a video maker convention and how she got negative feedback, but she's totlly OVER IT now and there's a daughter that she popped out so she's totally mature these days guys.

Also she really wishes she could come back to video making because she wants to make an entire video about how Prince of Egypt sucks.

Oh and it's the same complaint. THis was a Mask Off point in the video where she said that she was sorry to Jews for getting too critical of the death of the first born scene. That was followed by her saying she owed MovieBob an apology for being dismissive.

But those tweets where she's giving the most obvious and dumb take are still up there. She's going on tweet after tweet about hwo G-d commits genocide and it's framed as a good thing. And when the fact that Egyptian society started out killing children in the beginning of the movie, her fans turn to this "well two wrongs don't make a right". And I don't want to be that guy, but come on, that is such a superficial take on the story. The POINT of the death of the first born is that every revolution, no matter how righteous, no matter how beneficial in the long run comes with the death of innocents. But Lindsay Ellis would prefer to have the G-d is all puppies and daisies perspective and she's offended by anything that has any moral ambiguity or tragedy.

Didn't have an interest in reading her books before now. Have even less interest now.

But the big issue is that no matter how many people went after Lindsay Ellis for "just that one tweet", they are nothing compared to her millions of fans who are eager to go to the fences for her. Weaponized white women tears is what we are talking about. Go on and try to find blogs or tumblrs or even tweets that are critical of Lindsay Ellis. Google Lindsay Ellis bully, Lindsay Ellis racist, Lindsay Ellis bad take, Lindsay Ellis problematic.

You know what you're going to get? Maybe TWO critical articles about how she did wrong. There's an indigenous blogger who did not appreciate her Pocahantas take and REALLY didn't like her purposeful ignorance of the racism in the Twilight series in that "Sorry Stephanie Myers" video. But the rest of the entries will be support. Lots and lots of support. Just blog after tweet after blog where the person writes about the horrors of WOKE MOB and how they were really bad to go after Saint Lindsay Ellis for joking about Harriet Tubman slash fiction or making a joke about Zack Snyder's mother hating him days after his daughter committed suicide (there's even a Tumblr post where legitimate criticism of Lindsay Ellis is met with "you're a Zack Snyder fan" and then a self-righteous annoucement about getting blocked for that bad faith argument).

The weird thing is the fact that after I say "MAsk Off" I was still a Lindsay Ellis fan but the ice was cracking where you couldn't see it. So when she posted another video I didn't rush to see it. What I met with eagerness was avoided. Then when she made the annoucement that youtube was over for her, I didn't care. I was actually relieved. I got a lot of leftist videos decrying the woke mob because of course I did, but I had moved on.

Now do I like 2-3 hour video essays? Not sure.

But this feels like when I stopped watching Glee or stopped reading Piers Anthony. At the time I thought that I was just finding different interests. Only later on something reminded me of Glee or Piers Anthony and I realized that I hated both Glee and Piers Anthony.

Lindsay Ellis is not as bad as either Glee or Piers Anthony. But I've moved on from the point in my life when I would ever want to hear from her again.

I guess looking up the articles about her was a way to confirm that to myself.

So fuck, maybe it's like when I was done with Christianity once and for all. I went to a lot of evangelical websites in hopes of talking myself out of it, but I had decided to become Jewish. And guess what, that's the opposite of Christianity.

And Prince of Egypt rocks.