Where Are They Now? Here's What SammyClassicSonicFan289, Also Known As Sammy Harbors, Has Been Up To Since His Viral YouTube Tirades

SammyClassicSonicFan, real name Sammy Harbors, was once an internet lolcow, infamous for his many YouTube videos in which he would pop his gasket over the video game and media franchise Sonic the Hedgehog.

For many internet users, Sammy Harbors was just one in a long list of Sonic-obsessed internet weirdos, like Chris Chan, whose obsession with the character had seemingly driven them to near insanity.

But Sammy Harbors rose above. After a months-long stint making videos that followed the basic template where Sammy would pick an aspect of Sonic or its fandom to get mad about and then film himself having a nuclear meltdown over all the ways in which his favorite cartoon hedgehog has been wronged by the world at large, Sammy logged off, touched grass and reinvented himself.

Today he's a few years out from a computer science degree at Purdue and is doing better for himself than most Zillenials his age.

Here's a recap of the Fricklord's grand entrance to internet memedom, and how Sammy Harbor became one of the few massively bullied internet memes that managed to reinvent themselves without losing sight of what they love most.

Who is SammyClassicSonicFan and What Was His Early Internet Content?

SammyClassicSonicFan, or as he is known in more formal circles, Sammy Harbors, began making YouTube videos in 2013 about his obsession at the time: Sonic the Hedgehog. Looking at Sammy's videos today, you wouldn't immediately guess that he was a full-on teenager at the time he first began posting Sonic content.

He was probably 14 going on 15 and looking skinny as a beanpole, with his large-rimmed glasses exaggerating his wide-eyed glare to comedic proportions. His screams upon getting riled up about the state of the Sonic fandom, Sammy's PG-13 screams of "FRICKIN' FRICK" would make his already high-pitched voice crack repeatedly.

Sammy didn't always start out this way. His inaugural video was posted on April 19th, 2013, and showed him detailing his favorite Sonic titles at length, a calming soundtrack from his favorite game looped over the smooth presentation, and thoughtfully written paragraphs detailing why each game deserved to be on the list.

But Sammy was not able to keep his composure for long — it only took two months for him to encounter what he deemed to be disrespectful rubes besmirching Sonic's good name online by perpetuating half-baked theories like "The Sonic Cycle."

On July 15th, 2013, Sammy posted a now-classic video he captioned, "Stop Hating on Sonic." The video acted as a fervent defense of the Sonic franchise against critics who called it corny, childish or past its prime.

The description of the video gave a fair overview of why Sammy felt the way he did. He wrote, "I am fed up with the Sonic haters. Sonic has been redeemed, yet people continue to bash Sonic for the pettiest of reasons."

"In this video, I will explain why Sonic haters are obnoxious trolls, why Sonic is a good franchise once again, and why the 'Sonic Cycle' is dead." Sammy's baseline thesis about Sonic was only accentuated by his highly violate attitude throughout his video, which gave his fans choice quotes like, "If there's anything you guys should be hating on, it's FIRST-PERSON-FRICK-PERSON-STUPID-FRICKING-DUMB-FRICKING-IDIOT-FRICKING-PURSE-FIRST-PERSON-SHOOTERS!!!"

How Did SammyClassicSonicFan Go Viral?

Sammy's July 15th outburst went viral online back in mid-2013, racking up over 150,000 views before he closed up his first channel for good. Sammy started getting reposted to 4chan, Tumblr and other sites where the supposedly "sane" Sonic fans and haters dwelled, and began attaining a sort of lolcow status on certain corners of the internet.

Other YouTubers made "best of" compilations of his videos, poring over hours of footage to find what they thought was the most cringe or embarrassing content for their own amusement.

But it wasn't until an ill-fated October 7th, 2013, upload that Sammy experienced real meme fame and the unbridled hatred that sometimes comes with it. In a video titled, "Rant Against the Sonic Fanbase," Sammy hit decibel levels hereby unknown on early YouTube.

Dressed in a red shirt and a Mario backpack, Sammy went on a hysteric rant against new-gen Sonic fans he blamed for the franchise getting endless reboots, even as his "Classic" Sonic games saw no progress.

For what it's worth, Sammy seems to be making a pretty prescient critique of Western media and gaming franchises and their insistence on making sequels for old franchises specifically in an effort to sell slop to newer fans. Except, all this salient critique gets drowned out in a nuclear-volume screed about fans eating up the "fantasies spewed" out at them by "poop merchants."

Still, the video gave us one of Sammy's most iconic dialogues to date, "CAUSE YOU FRICKIN' FRICKS JUST CAN'T EVER BE QUENCHED! Your-your FANTASIES CAN NEVER BE QUENCHED, CAN THEY? YOU FRICKING FRICKS! WHEN WILL YOU LEARN?! WHEN WILL YOU LEARN?! THAT YOUR ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES!?"

Some reuploads of this specific dialogue have racked up millions of views online over the last decade-plus, and the scene regularly makes an appearance in meme compilations to this day.

Sammy's fame was further bolstered by larger YouTubers like Chadtronic making videos reacting to each of Sammy's monologues in turn, introducing his own, often older audience to young Sammy's content.

As things would have it, Sammy's harmless pastime stopped being an inside joke some YouTuber users snickered about, and became a wider internet phenomenon that eventually came back to bite him.

Why Did Sammy Harbors First Leave YouTube?

In December 2013, less than a year into his making Sonic content, someone doxxed Sammy's email account. Sammy's parents were understandably freaked out by this huge breach of privacy and forced him to shut down his original YouTube channel. SammyClassicSonicFan, as we knew him then, was history.

Sammy made a few disparate attempts to bounce back online in 2014 and 2015, making a home movie called "SammyClassicSonicFan's Adventure" and a sequel named, "SammyClassicSonicFan's Adventure 2: Who's That Imposter?"

The video shows the kid running around his backyard play-acting as though various items he owned were rare artifacts, like the "Fire Mario Backpack" that supposedly gave him the fireball ability. Sammy's parents eventually found his account and forced him to shut it, saying that being online wasn't the best idea for him psychologically.

Still, in 2015, Sammy reuploaded all of his original content to a SammyClassicSonicFan Archive page, alongside its original descriptions.

Why Did Sammy First Voluntarily Quit YouTube?

In February 2016, an older, more somber Sammy released an update about his life in recent years. In the vlog, Sammy said he had been suffering from depression for many years, but that his illness had only worsened in early 2015. In turn, this made him become unmotivated to do the things he loved, including making YouTube videos.

He expressed gratitude towards his supporters but said that he felt undeserving of the attention adding that he would make a decision about quitting the internet based on fan poll.

Ultimately, Sammy terminated his channel without a final goodbye. Fans reuploaded this video after he nuked his account, gathering over 1 million views in nine years.

What Is Sammy Harbors Up To Now, And Where Can I Find Him Online?

Tommy's hiatus didn't last for too long. In 2016, he made an Instagram where he posted regular updates about his life, including the news that he was going to start college at the Indiana University–Purdue University in Indianapolis in 2017.

Sammy seemed to thrive at college, posting vlogs actually recorded outside in the sun. He now spoke with a calm and confident attitude that his fans were happy to see in his new videos.

He still made Sonic-themed content, as seen in this video in which he discussed Sonic: Team Racing, but he had now also diversified his content into anime, other video game franchises and general life updates.

In 2023, Sammy Harbors was even vindicated for his nuclear outburst in his "Leave Sonic Alone" video, with Sega releasing Sonic Superstars, a release with side-scrolling gameplay similar to the Sonic the Hedgehog games released for the Sega Genesis in the 1990s.

Sammy's review of the game shows him giddy with excitement for a game that's exactly what he and other Classic Sonic fans have been asking for years, and his comments show his fans showering him with congratulations and greetings.

In April 2022, Sammy even collaborated with Chadtronic, the YouTuber that first introduced his videos to a wider internet audience, to react to some of his sillier older uploads.

Even though Sammy isn't as active on social media as he once was, you can find him on YouTube on his account @sammyclassicsonicfan289, and his Instagram under the handle @the_imperishable_sammy_zenith.

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For the full history of SammyClassicSonicFan, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information. To see the rest of our "Where Are They Now" series, you can find them all here. Stay tuned for next week's editorial!

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