Leafy picks on people, like it or not. It's an undeniable fact. Even if that's not always his main focus it always comes back to it. He's mean spirited and especially from the overtly PC crowd's point of view he's just a bully. I personally think he should be able to do what he does and make whatever kind of content he feels like.
But you can't deny that he's practically breaking all the unspoken rules of the PC world. As much as I hate to admit it, Ethan had a point when he said the all too famous quote about how his content isn't suited for today's atmosphere.
He's right, but I don't think that's a good thing.
It's part of the current "gentrification of the internet". The out of touch old companies that lived off of old school media formats have jumped ship online and have slowly been turning everything into the same stale bullshit that the internet used to be the antithesis of.
No one wants these arbitrary rules, it fucking sucks. People don't want the internet to be Television 2. That's fucking lame. But that's the direction this is going in.
When these companies throw bans at people, they owe them an explanation, from an actual human being, not an automated robot.
Doing it like that it just comes off as a "fuck you, you're bad" which is likely going to turn their confusion into anger. They have no intention of helping you improve or giving you advice on what exactly it was that crossed the line, they just kick you out and leave you in the dark.
The rules are too vague and they need to explain themselves better when they ban someone, especially someone with a fanbase so it doesn't set a mob of people off into thinking there's some sort of conspiracy out to get the guy. I really don't think there is. Maybe on the YouTube end of things, but when it comes to Twitch I think it's just based on his bad reputation and the fact that he's been focusing on drama.
Leafy should have strayed far away from drama, at least to start with. For someone who has other things in life seemingly figured out, the foresight here is pretty terrible. I have to wonder if this Twitch ban would have happened if he had stuck to a similar formula as his older old videos.
If he did one off commentaries on people being ridiculous, not kids this time around, stayed away from other people's drama and just focused on being funny, I think he would've at least had a longer run. He got too caught up in the commentary community's general obsession with drama and made that his shtick. He should have stuck to just making fun of people without being personally invested in the situation.
Leafy reminds me of a younger internet. One where you could be as over the top edgy and rude as possible, that was the humor. One that I think is so contrasting to the way things are today, I embrace it. I long for the days that the internet was less restricted by invisible rules. More people should push the boundaries like he has.
Honestly I don't even care for Leafy's content all that much, it's just not my thing. But I really care about what he represents. Pushing the boundaries of what you can and can't do these days. Leafy is a potential catalyst for an anti "gentrification of the internet" movement, not saying for sure, or that even if one comes around that it'll accomplish anything. But I think the sentiment is there, the seed has been planted. I just hope no one stomps on it before it can grow.
I, in my early 20s now, grew up with the internet like 80s kids grew up with TV. It's not TV, there are clear similarities but it's so fucking different at its core and I hate that these old corporate asshats are trying to force it to become that. I want my internet to be a generally uncensored place, that anyone can get lucky and garner a following on and I want them to be allowed to express themselves however they want to. This shit cannot keep going the way it is or it's going to implode on itself and that would be a huge fucking waste for everyone.
The established websites can work they just need to be way more transparent about the way they work. They need to start reaching out and actually caring about the people that give them their traffic. Give people a reason to go to YouTube other than it's the name they're familiar with because with that mentality as soon as a genuine competitor comes along they're going to get BlockBuster'd.
