The post you're about to read is a collaborative post by me and my good friend Hayden Silbermann from Geeks + Gamers.
Our post is our opinions (or reactions) the announcement by theFineBros. creating ReactWorld and the backlash from controversy. I hope you enjoy it.
Any potentially offensive terminology mentioned in any of the below videos are of the YouTubers themselves and absolutely do not necessarily represent any of our views, which are in written form.
And a big thank you to Hayden for joining me for this.
Enjoy...
Andrew: The Fine Bros., one of YouTube’s biggest and brightest personalities.
Their “React” franchise videos are extremely popular, garnering millions of views in each clip of each franchise, making them millions of dollars richer and one of the most popular and successful personalities of the Internet era.
It’s too bad the guys and their videos suck, are devoid of creativity and entertainment, and have no tact, grace, soul or kindness.
It’s too bad the guys and their videos suck, are devoid of creativity and entertainment, and have no tact, grace, soul or kindness.
Hayden: Frankly, there was a time I found them funny. They had some relatively humorous cartoons and quick summaries of films, TV shows, and whatnot. The Kids React videos were even a bit cute… for a while. Then, they realized how popular those were getting and started milking the cash cow for all it was worth. Teens React, Elders React, YouTubers React… it began getting ridiculous.
A: And I’ve never seen their videos (hell, I’ve never even seen their faces til this point), but I had recognized their success and popularity, as they at least deserved all of it at first. Then this happened…
On January 26, Benny and Rafi announced a plan to trademark the word “React” and license their video franchise concept to other people around the world on a website called “React World”.
At first when I read about the React World announcement, I rolled my eyes and thought “Who would want to make a video doing the exact same thing these two men do?”, “Who would watch them?” and even more so “What good would come from this? It’s not like they would make money from this, especially some money from them. (or so I thought, as I later learned they DO get paid for their contributions)”. And when Hayden showed me the article of the trademark plans, I got furious. So furious, I didn’t even know how much fury could exerted.
And I get mad a lot.
Also, there's this spat they did against Ellen DeGeneres, claiming she stole their "concept" for a joke on her talk show in 2014 asking kids to discuss technology from the last century.
Uhh, hello? She didn't sit them down in front of a screen and watch videos of old technology products! She showed them those things up close.
It's not even close. That riled me up even more.
Also, there's this spat they did against Ellen DeGeneres, claiming she stole their "concept" for a joke on her talk show in 2014 asking kids to discuss technology from the last century.
Uhh, hello? She didn't sit them down in front of a screen and watch videos of old technology products! She showed them those things up close.
It's not even close. That riled me up even more.
Fortunately, Hayden helped calm me down by showing me some things that make true cruel fun of them. Look no further to start than this video. It’s a parody of their entertainment “empire” by a guy named “psychicpebbles”.
While the video on people reacting theFineBros themselves never happened, it’s still spot-on and prophetic in that they still make React videos on any group of people watching a video and giving reactions on it. It’s still a thing.
H: And this reaction video by MrRepzion, which includes an "update" from Benny and Rafi, which is not only brutally rage-filled and, but is also awesome.
H: And this reaction video by MrRepzion, which includes an "update" from Benny and Rafi, which is not only brutally rage-filled and, but is also awesome.
A: If anything, theFineBros. never really were one channel I’d definitely keep my close tabs on. But after this...no. I don’t think I’ll ever even think about thinking about them.
H: This completely ruined their image. They showed their true colors and paid the price for it in their loss of subscribers. (Check that hilarity out here) No amount of backpedaling or disingenuous, half-assed apologies will make up for this fiasco. I can bet that they’ve been having incredibly restless nights for the past couple of days. They try to hide behind their seeming “nice guy” nature, but they are complete scum. Plain and simple.
A: Agreed. If theFineBros ever need to try to expand their network again (which will probably be never), they need to remember the biggest blunder of the Internet, when they tried to screw people out of the “hard work and effort” for their own, making more money and coming close to making the biggest media pile of shit ever.
Hello,
We’re here to apologize.
We realize we built a system that could easily be used for wrong. We are fixing that. The reality that trademarks like these could be used to theoretically give companies (including ours) the power to police and control online video is a valid concern, and though we can assert our intentions are pure, there’s no way to prove them.
We have decided to do the following:
1. Rescind all of our “React” trademarks and applications.*
2. Discontinue the React World program.
3. Release all past Content ID claims.**
The concerns people have about React World are understandable, and that people see a link between that and our past video takedowns, but those were mistakes from an earlier time. It makes perfect sense for people to distrust our motives here, but we are confident that our actions will speak louder than these words moving forward.
This has been a hard week. Our plan is to keep making great content with the help of our amazing staff. Thank you for your time and for hearing us out.
Sincerely,
Benny and Rafi Fine
H: One issue with this apology was that it wasn’t even in a video…
A: Another is that they haven’t even addressed the controversy in the way we expected.
H: One thing I’ve noticed unfortunately is a lot of antisemitism in their criticism. As awful as they are, they do not deserve slurs or epithets of any kind. While they are seemingly perpetuating the “greedy Jew” stereotype (I know it’s not true; don’t worry), it’s not cool at ALL to say the things they’re saying.
A: Absolutely. What they did was wrong, but do they really need to be called such cruel names like that? I swear, people can be much bigger assholes than the assholes we’re talking about.
In the end, theFineBros are one of the most egotistical, money-hungry, self-serving and pathetic YouTube personalities ever, and they previously weren’t as hated as iJustine, Smosh, ShayTards, Fred Figglehorn and Shane Dawson (God, I despise that guy.)
My sincere thanks to Hayden Silbermann for joining me for this dual crossover post.
I deeply appreciate, dude.
My sincere thanks to Hayden Silbermann for joining me for this dual crossover post.
I deeply appreciate, dude.
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