They Apologized

How is this a proper apology?? Where's the interpretative dance? Where's the gaslighting? No cringe poems?

"Shane finally saw a ghost, the ghost of his career." This comment had me wheezing

They left buzzfeed and then made all the financial mistakes buzzfeed made. You don't HAVE to build elaborate sets, you don't HAVE to hire all your friends, you don't HAVE to constantly travel. There are bigger channels than them that are literally just a dude in a chair.

people LOVED the low quality shit. small office, old ass decorations, and blue and yellow text on a black screen? 10/10. it was so good cause their personalities not the quality (watcher had some bangers too ngl but they kinda ventured pretty far from the content i liked)

How far has society come that public figures acknowledging what they did wrong while apologizing is now a high standard for an apology

the thing that has bugged me the most during this whole situation is shane's wife's tumblr post. she said something about how it's hard to pay people fairly and also make a survivable wage. girl... your wedding venue alone cost $50k and you wore THREE DIFFERENT wedding dresses. last week you posted about a $100 TOTE BAG you bought. don't pretend you're struggling or barely making a "survivable wage" edit: I'm not saying she can't spend her money how she wants to. I just think it's annoying when rich ppl act like they are struggling financially

You touched on what the community suspects is going on: mismanagement behind the scenes. Specifically, the impression we get is that they've hired too many people, and have wildly inflated production budgets. As an example: they've got a lets-play series called Survival Mode. How many people do you think need to be involved in making a lets-play series? There's two people on screen, plus an editor, plus to be generous maybe someone to handle the lights, cameras, and microphones. Four people tops, right? For their latest Survival Mode episode, on top of the 2 people on screen/playing the games, they had a director, producer, tech director, editor, post-production supervisor, production coordinator, gaffer, camera operator, sound mixer, PA, DIT, and assistant editor. That's 14 people working on one episode of a lets-play. (There were more people credited, but I'm limiting this to people who presumably had hands on producing *that episode*, unlike for example the logo designer, executive producers, head of development, and head of production.) Thanks to u/Shitfaced-Crusader on reddit who raised this to the greater community's attention

I would have paid $6 to see the absolute chaos crisis-mode the office must have been in the whole weekend

they were at their best when it was just blue and yellow text on a screen. they really never needed more production value than that

When they were describing Ghost Files costs thats when it clicked for me. I watched their supernatural on buzzfeed and was really enjoying it, but with watcher it didn't hit the same... thats probably because on buzzfeed they went in maybe couple of people and a few small cameras on tripod. You can tell ryan was actually scared there. I bet its less scary when you go into an abandoned building with crew of 15 people and lots of equipment. Didn't feel genuine for me anymore

“We need to pay our employees a fair wage” brings on two more people and starts up worth it again

I do fully believe that they are mismanaging their money and don’t know how to budget properly. None of these 3 guys know anything about running a business. Shane and Ryan fully backed out of their executive roles in the company to make Steven the sole CEO. And Steven, frankly, is the one whose content specifically revolved around buying, eating, and/or making very expensive food. From my perspective, he doesn’t have the best grasp on sound financial decision making. Honestly Charlie, you should get in contact with them and see what the hell is going on over at watcher hq 💀

You’re right about their ads. Their fan base has actually complimented them on their sponsored bits several times and said they watch them willingly because of how fun they are. I can’t believe they would find it hard to get sponsors at all.

They should've posted the apology on the Watcher platform and put the preview on YouTube.

I think they shot themselves in the foot pretty badly here. One of the things that separated Watcher from other YouTubers or entertainment ventures was their extremely loyal and active fanbase. If the situation was that they needed money right now or the channel would shut down, they genuinely could've just asked the fanbase point blank and the fans would've been there. Now, no matter how loyal the fans were originally, there's always gonna be a bad taste left in your mouth when you think of the company.

No ukulele, apology declined.

The comment section on Watcher's announcement was majestic. It turns out you either die an independent youtube channel or live long enough to see yourself become Buzzfeed again.

can’t believe they said they would have to end the channel if they didn’t do this??? there were A LOT of other options, cut your own salaries, fire some of your staff if necessary. their audience already throws TONS of money at them, they said it themselves, live shows merch patreon etc., it’s not the audience’s responsibility to pay your 25 employees. could’ve just made some necessary cut backs but instead greed took over and permanently damaged their brand. sad really.

This reminds me of when the fine bros tried to trademark the word “react.” It showed that they were completely out of touch with their audience and now it’s how people remember them. I doubt people will just forget this.

"really odd mismanagement" It's this one. Everything I've glimpsed from their behind the scenes makes it seem like they have no idea how to manage their money as a business and they aren't hiring anyone to do that. Ghost Files should not be taking six figures an episode to produce.