Egoraptor Criticizes a Sr Pelo Video, Twitter Implodes

If there's one thing recent events have taught us, it's that the internet goes absolutely nuts for drama between YouTubers, and no channel has attracted drama quite like the Game Grumps. Game Grumps grew into one of the most popular Let's Play channels on YouTube by playing video games in humorous 10-15 minute clips for over seven years, developing a large network of friends, celebrities, and peers. They've also developed a fanbase that can be fickle to the point of bloodthirsty whenever a whiff of scandal passes through their periphery, beginning when JonTron suddenly (and perhaps acrimoniously) left the channel in 2013. Rumors and gossip about the group's current and former members, which include Arin Hanson (aka Egoraptor), Dan Avidan, Ross O'Donovan, Suzy Berhow, and Barry Kramer, are often a hot topic of discussion in the Game Grumps subreddit. To give you a sense of the fanbase's vigor, Hanson, the de facto leader, once made a brutally affecting apology video--the kind YouTubers usually make in the event of hardcore personal disasters--for not doing a week of Halloween-themed episodes. Wednesday evening, the vultures of drama again descended upon Hanson, this time for the very serious crime of criticizing a YouTube video.

Here's the story: on July 30th, Sr Pelo posted a video parodying YouTube "StoryTime" Animators, channels like TheOdd1sOut who tell stories about their past in animated videos. A StoryTime Animation is often fairly serious and intended to be relatable to an audience that may be going through similar things. Sr Pelo's video parodies tropes of the genre, such as the blasé content, sometimes-poor animation quality, and overuse of jokes relating to the storyteller's anxiety. Several times in the video, an audience stand-in character will appear to dramatically declare, "Wow, that is relatable!" Pelo also takes specific shots at regular StoryTime animators by parodying their characters. Eventually the video devolves into a nonsensical police farce before showing Sr Pelo himself at the end.

Arin Hanson, aka Egoraptor, was not a fan of the video, saying on Twitter, "This is mean. I got made fun of like this all the time when I made cartoons and it fucking sucked. It didn’t give me a thick skin or make me a better artist or make me think more about what I was doing, it just hurt. The fact that all the people patting you on the back for this cartoon are old school-newgrounds types with very few “STAs” commenting speaks volumes. You can use this thread to pretend it’s all in good fun, but it’s not fun, it’s mean. It hurts." Thus began one of the dumbest shitstorms in recent memory.

First came the "Arin can't take a joke!" crowd, who responded to the comment in the modern Twitter parlance: by depicting Arin as a clown.

Then came the "Arin is a hypocrite!" crowd, who seemed most upset at Hanson's shot at "old school-Newgrounds types." Hanson got his start as Egoraptor on old animation site Newgrounds, growing popular with the Awesome Series. It appears in his response that Hanson was reminiscing about the harsh criticism he received from elitist-types on the site, and relating how he didn't take such criticism in good fun. Naturally, someone found a comment in which Egoraptor was particularly harsh to an animator. They also found an old video where Hanson laughed at his wife saying the n-word eight years ago. Oney also jumped in to call Hanson a hypocrite and hurl some insults.

Then came the "stop dog-piling on Arin!" crowd, who jumped into the fray in an effort to temper the vitriolic response to Hanson's tweets.

Meanwhile, Sr Pelo himself tweeted that there was absolutely no bad blood between himself and Hanson, that he wished Hanson no ill will, and that he and Hanson had talked about things in private.

Nevertheless, Hanson tweeted out a whole-ass Notes app apology in which he apologized for the dumb things he'd done online in the past, which still wasn't enough for a huge swath of buzzards.

In summary, Arin Hanson didn't take Sr Pelo's video in the spirit intended, feeling it was reminiscent of harsh criticism he received while posting at Newgrounds. In response, people threw a shitload of hate at him for a) not being able to take a joke, b) insulting the Newgrounds community, and c) distancing himself from JonTron and Oney. This entire saga, now in its second day, is a lesson on why you should never, ever, under any circumstances, tweet anything.