If Pewdiepie can grow up, why can't the grumps?

If Pewdiepie can grow up, why can't the grumps? 

lucaszeca

Because they can't take criticism therefore they can't improve. It's very simple really.

Pewdiepie got immense amounts of hate but instead of "never reading the comments", he took his job seriously, fixed what was wrong, listened to the the fans, increased the quality, edits his own videos, stopped overusing jokes, doesn't try hard to be offensive, etc. He improved as a let's player but also as a human being.

I don't remember Arin ever improving in anything ever. He calls himself a improv comedian and yet uses the same "jokes" like singing about dicks, awful beatboxing, burping, poppy ass dicks, etc every week. Compare his 2012 and 2016 version playing Ocarina of time, he never learned anything in 4 years, be it on gameplay (still sucks and blames the game) or comedy ("lol swearing" and "funny" voices).

Not even hating on Arin but the show will never improve as long as he keeps blaming everything on haters. If he didn't have his animation and GG legacy he would be unpopular as DarkSydePhil.

[–]VenchairJon-Dan Era, 2013 

I still can't spot when he moved from singing to beatboxing, I remember back during the kirby superstar play through how often he'd burst into song.

[–]BoxTar9215Barry Era 

If it wasn't for him, this remix

 wouldn't exist. I miss these times, man. So much good, creative stuff was born from it.

EDIT: as for when he moved to beatboxing, its always kinda been there, like with Naughty Bear with the "Dip My Balls In The Sand" thing, or his rapping nonsense which was actually funny in their Godzilla VS game. No idea when it became his "shtick" tho.

[–]CHiLLSpeaksJon Era 

Because they can't take criticism therefore they can't improve.

Simple as that. You don't get physically stronger by never getting hurt. The body tears and heals itself, able to endure more where it was once torn. Likewise, you don't learn to fix what's wrong by ignoring it. You have to take the time to acknowledge it and figure out a new method of doing it or improving the method altogether.

I recently went back to play Wind Waker and decided to kind of race Arin for fun, just to see if he's really as "dumb" or "bad at games" as many suggest he is. While playing, I realized that there hasn't been much improvement in conversation on the show from then to now (a few days off from 2.5 years). Then they were often out of sync with each other (Arin'll sometimes make a joke and Dan won't catch it or will take it in another direction and vice versa), "ass dicks" is the go-to thing to yell, there's always a silly face that makes some silly noise, jokes run on way past their time, etc.They still are and do all these things today. These are all criticisms that have been brought up playthrough after playthrough but keep getting ignored.

[–]SubtleMockery

Because they can't take criticism therefore they can't improve.

Simple as that. You don't get physically stronger by never getting hurt. The body tears and heals itself, able to endure more where it was once torn.

This is incredibly medically inaccurate.

[–]CaptainCupcakezGrep Era

This is incredibly medically inaccurate.

So you're intent with saying "you're wrong" to the guy but can't say why?

[–]CHiLLSpeaks

Probably should've put "muscles" instead of "the body".

[–]SubtleMockery 

Wait, so your lesson is "always do whatever huge groups of people tell you to do"?

[–]Jasfile 

I feel like the Grumps are going through these exact same changes, but in reverse. They started out being very self-aware and constantly joking about their "line of work" and about selling out, phoning it in, etc. And now they've gone as corporate as possible, referring to themselves as a company (I get it, it's the official term under which they pay their taxes, but that's not my point), lacking not all, but quite a bit of self-awareness and have basically become what they had joked about in the past.

[–]DyngusDayEveryDayGrep Era 

The company, the office, work, my job, my boss. Dan has at least twice unironically referred to Arin as "my boss". I think that's when I knew there was no hope.

I've suggested before that Arin has Creative Benjamin Button Disease. He was born with as much ability and drive as a person could have only to regress as time passes. Your comment and this thread strengthen my case.

[–]WaferDiscoGrant Kirkhope Era 

Ya know, meat tends to taste better with sauce...

[–]WaferDiscoGrant Kirkhope Era

"Because criticism is bullshit, fuck off" - Arin, probably at, some point

But in all seriousness, I can actually respect Felix for addressing a problem that a part of his fanbase had with his current videos and explaining why they're like that instead of just ignoring the fans, which would probably be easier.

[–]Sir_Palkia

I dont watch PewDiePie but after seeing that video, my god i have so much respect for him. You can see the genuine emotion in his face and hear it in his voice when he brofists the camera. A shame Arin would rather die than address legit criticism

[–]thham_mach_rulg

I think the "silent majority" Grump demographic got a lot younger over time and the Grumps just tried to match that. When it started, the show almost definitely had a primarily 16+ demographic, the age range where you'd be watching JonTron, and where you would have seen Egoraptor videos on Newgrounds when he uploaded them.

But the best demographic for YouTubers is the 12-15 year olds. Kids in the early years of secondary school have no responsibilities, so they can happily put in three hours a day towards watching a Let's Play channel and get more of those ad revenue dollars in the Grump account (they're also much less likely to know what adblock is, or to be watching on a phone.)

I feel as though Arin has picked up on that, hence moving towards the "family-friendly" style and poopy-ass-dicks humour. It brings in a steady flow of views and it's easy. Pewdiepie, having some self-awareness and also caring about the quality of his life's work, has realised that you can appeal to the younger demographic without churning out daily videos of you clipping the mic.

[–]CapsuleJX

From what I've seen, the 12-15 range is probably more likely to be watching on a phone if anything.

[–]thham_mach_rulg 

Exactly. Can't block the YouTube ad on an iPhone.

[–]dreggemanGrep Era 

but you can skip them if you press >> enough

[–]GrumplogicEarly Jan Era 

Why can't the grumps do the same thing?

Because as they get older their target demographic, with the most free time, stay the same age.

[–]ArabianAftershock 

they grew down

[–]squelp

This is off topic, but I gotta say Mr. Pewdiepie not only do I have newfound respect, you've gotten GAT. dayum handsome over the years.

Pretty great video. Thank you for sharing.

[–]AvelrahI just don't like Arin

It's the beard I think. But yes, I didn't really respect the guy until now. Now, I can see that HE grew while Arin just became worse to me.

[–]squelp 

I liked him back in the day. Let's be real, he was one of the original cream of the crop guys when let's players weren't in abundance, and the few that did exist either didn't commentate at all, or had zero personality.

I'm in my early 20s now. So younger-me didn't mind the humor he used because I knew he was just fucking around. That, and I was young. We all thought kinda dumb shit was funny when we were younger. So I never had a problem with the guy.

His fans are mainly what I have a problem with. And back in the "old days" I remember his fanbase being a lot better than what they became. But hey, look at game grumps. Same shit happened.

By "newfound respect" I mean I kind of stopped paying him any mind once I moved on from his channel. I never really hated him like others do. But seeing him genuinely grow and become a pretty wise person makes me proud of that weird swedish kid I used to watch. Seems like a super genuine, really kind dude. Every now and then I go see what he's up to.

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[–]AvelrahI just don't like Arin 

It's the beard I think. But yes, I didn't really respect the guy until now. Now, I can see that HE grew while Arin just became worse to me.

[–]AFlyingNun 

Serious talk: I've never had anything against PewDiePie.

Like look, do I like his channel? Hell no. Of course not. He just screams and all the preteens in that giggly phase where you'll laugh if someone spontaneously says "BANANA" just eat it up.

But does he seem like a bad guy? Not at all. I mean he technically never even "sold out." Society frowns upon sellouts not because of the money transaction or the popularity, but because it's essentially proof that someone has compromised their art down towards making profit. Like I know a painter in Austria, and when me and my mom went to visit him, of course we looked at his work. Amongst the paintings were 1-2 where he said "oh no don't bother with those. That's just some gaudy thing I paint from time to time to sell to little old ladies who love this shit. I make good money now but sometimes there's a pause between paychecks and then I make those to cover it." Cool! Makes sense. But imagine if he made more off those gaudy sellout paintings than the paintings that actually meant something to him? That'd be...kinda disgusting, no? I mean that's like losing a part of yourself; you lose what you're passionate about and throw it out the window just to make a profit. If I were to visit him and find he only sells that meaningless crap now, I'd find that pretty sad. Like it's his choice and all of course, but even he wouldn't be able to deny there's a sense of tragedy to that.

But PewDiePie never sold out. This was always a job for him. And you know what? More power to him. I have no reason to dislike the guy and I'm sure he's a nice enough fellow, he just blatantly sells sub-par content to pre-teens. If he had an ego about it or thought he was God's gift to man...? Oh hell yeah, release the hate. He'd deserve it for such an unwarranted ego. But that doesn't seem to be the case, so while I won't be watching his channel, I wouldn't mind chatting with the guy if the opportunity arose to do so.

But with the Game Grumps...? It feels like selling out. It's forced laughter, it's playing what's popular, it's video games overtaking music and animation, and it's constant goals of trips to Japan and the like.

In that sense, PewDiePie can improve because we've never been given evidence he's the type of guy to blatantly sell himself out. No, he was lucky enough to FIND that market of pre-teens before anyone else. If people sell out, they typically copy PewDiePie, but for him himself, he never had to make a concious decision to change his style. No, he was just lucky and already had the right one. The Grumps however, we've seen what they WANT to do and what they actually do. The goal is clearly money, and so long as money guides their decisions, there will be no progress.

[–]OffBrandDrinks

While Pewdiepie grew, Arin regressed (which, in turn, made the entire show regress)