oh my god i actually drew that creeper in the thumbnail at 2:27 back in 2010 when i was 14 years old and i guess leafy found it somewhere and used it. so fucking surreal.
i don't really mind, it was just some silly thing i made on deviantart and at some point i think people started spreading it around without a source. the most surreal thing by far was when i was playing tf2 (this was before i knew the drawing had gotten any popularity) and i suddenly saw it on a wall as someone's spray. i was like ".....wait isn't that........WAIT."
@@annie_the_great Did you not just speak your mind in this comment here? Cyberbullying is against the RU-vid rules, if that's what you consider being no longer a viable platform for discussion then I hope you stay away from the vulnerable online, as it seems your idea of discussion is the harmful type that makes RU-vid unsafe. People haven't "become" anything. It's just that the sensitive and marginalized are finally starting to obtain a voice now that places like RU-vid are fighting against oppression. You are the one who is having a meltdown and failing to hold opposing thoughts in their head. By not understanding WHY leafy is banned and WHY what he was doing is banworthy, you yourself are guilty of what you accuse us of. I honestly don't get why you don't understand this because you yourself accuse ppl who are offended by Leafy as being unable to hold opposing thoughts in our brains, but it's clear you yourself are unable to hold two points of view in your mind at once, and are incapable of including a mind that wishes online platforms allow for safety from bullying. BTW none of this matters because Leafy broke RU-vid terms of service for years, went away, and came back while continuing to break said TOS. It's no surprise he's banned.
@refresh I understand that, I see it as a need for balance. Believe it or not people saw Leafy as a role model. I'm all for not making yourself the easy target I think that's an important lesson, and taking some ridicule can be an effective way of learning it. I just think sometimes things go too far and I also like to see the authority or a professional step in when necessary (like removing bad behaving accounts from some internet spaces)
@refresh np, I'm still firm that Leafys ban is a positive thing but you've provided a lot of nuance, of course I have no intention of sucking up to google or RU-vid as a corporation, that doesn't mean I can't praise certain decisions as progress, even in small increments. It is good to read the replies, I dont think there's a need for every comment to try and change someone's mind, just offer a perspective.
@@DanzelGlovington Bans and censorship can never be positive. Even if a person is universally despised, allowing them to be censored creates an amazingly "slippery slope" that quickly hurts everyone, like the hysteria we see on the modern surface web. The belief that anything is bad or morally wrong is subjective and giving the power to make those determinations for everyone to an entity will inevitably lead to that entity's subjective opinion being enforced upon those who disagree with its beliefs. Just wait until something comes up that you disagree with Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc about and then tell us it's positive.
@@bluesolace9052 probably not gonna be unbanned since its been a month. But yeah according to leafy, RU-vid emailed em that their looking into his requests to be unbanned.
Hey you know how leafs work, trees create them as small sprouts before they become big bright and green leaves. These leaves will absorb all the sunlight. But in the autunm, the tree will slowly kill of its leaves by cutting it off from the food supply the tree has been sustaining his leaves with and drains all last remaining power out of those leaves before they fall off and are left to wither away. Then next year, no traces of those leaves will be present and others will have taken its place. You could almost say his name forshadowed his own fate.
I remember that at one point I loved returning home and watching his content. It took me like 4 months to realise how repetitive his content got. He was quite the beast and now he serves as a fascinating study.
I remember watching his videos aswell as idubbbz's videos, thinking they were the 'good guys' and thinking keemstar and h3h3 were the 'bad guys', but after a while I just started watching leafy less and less because he became less interesting, and then idubbbz made his content cop, after which I completely stopped watching leafy videos.
The combination of All Caps, a cartoon of Saint Patrick, and colored footage of snakes to lead into the reptilian section was just one of the unexpected moments of brilliance in this documentary about a youtuber. Very well done as always.
@@justsomegoosewithinterneta4199 all caps by the great MF DOOM. one of the best rap songs of all time by the best do ever do it in my opinion, you should definitely check it out along with his Madvillainy & MM..Food albums.
In English class, we're reading Shakespeare, specifically Macbeth, and I feel like it's pretty similar to what happened with Leafy. Macbeth is about a Scottish warrior who sees a chance to become king and takes it. To do so, he does horrible things, he kills the king to take his place, and after becoming king, even stabs his best friend Banquo in the back simply to maintain his position. In the end, his power corrupts him, and eventually, even his own people turn on him. His downfall ended up being because he let his lust for power get to his head. The English army, a force far greater than his, came to his castle and even still he believed himself to be invincible, until it was far too late. Leafy saw making commentary videos tearing down people lower than him as an opportunity to be king of RU-vid I guess you could say. All the while not realizing he was doing anything wrong. He stabbed his friend Keemstar in the back to maintain his place on top. He kept doing bad things, treading deeper and deeper into dark water, until a force came in and stopped him, call it Content Cop, or RU-vid. Leafy rode the wave all the way down, and never really realized his mistake, and looking back it makes you think. Was it really Leafy's fault? The tale of leafy is a classic Shakespearean tragedy, Leafy started as a good meaning boy, who saw an opportunity, and taking it, he became successful, but not realizing it his once noble actions became negative, and his lust for power took control of him, his hamartia. The crisis happens, Peripeteia aka TommyNC, leafy makes his first error in judgement (making fun of an autistic kid) setting him in an unknowing downward spiral. He continues on his path, not learning from his actions all the way until the catastrophe, in Macbeth's case the raid on his castle, or in leafy's case, the raid on his channel. In the end, both of them perished, but started with good intentions, but they both begin to corrupt, and finally, ride their fading wave until it crashes overtop of them. Lol if only leafy paid attention in school
But who was Leafy's Lady Macbeth? Was it not she who tempted Macbeth to sin in the first place? Was it not she who destroyed the good man that once was?
King Chungus I’m with you on this. The sub count that continued to rise was as deceiving as Macbeth’s wife. The more subs Leafy got, the more untouchable he felt he was.
If a Leaf falls in the woods and no one's around to see it, does it make a sound? #LeafyWasAnInsideJob Edit: I made a follow-up to this video where I answered some questions and interviewed other RU-vidrs who were close friends with Leafy. Check it out here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-iSYhBL14gOA.html
i cant believe this video is 5 years old already, Its so mind boggling that i first saw this when i was 15 and have kept coming back to this video because its just THAT good
he needs to make an update vid dude like a full idubbbz documentary and downfall/decline, not that i care that much abt leafy or idubbbz or anything but this guy made all of ts feel so captivating and important 😭 love emplemon for real❤️
Your theory about RU-vid burying Leafy surreptitiously seems highly likely to me. The only thing that makes it a bit questionable to me is that Keemstar was also included in the Tower Dog memo. However, it's also likely the Keem would have been better equipped than Leafy to work something out with RU-vid behind the scenes.
It is an interesting theory, but we have never seen such a thing happen again. It is more the combination of many factors along with his hubris that was his real downfall. Besides, Leafy's content is not sustainable as his audience inevitably grows up and move on. Drama Alert will be on a similar path as RU-vid cracks down on content creators behaving badly which is Keemstar"s bread and butter.
Did Leafy have a big community/following outside of the RU-vid platform? Keemstar has about 2.5 million followers on Twitter... Even if he's censored on RU-vid, his promoting a new upload on Twitter would seemingly help his views stay at least stable and relevant. Especially since he tags other big creators, getting even more attention. Leafy posting on social media seems like it would be a yell into the void, reaching only his most dedicated fans.
TicTacP leafy hated twitter. It was also hacked at some point and never got it back. He was just like fuck it. I see where he's coming from. Twitter is such a worthless time suck. But if you're trying to be a successful RU-vid creator these days you gotta be on all the social media
Found your channel while stuck in an airport all night due to a canceled flight, gotta say you're really helping me through this shit XD Great vids man.
Another fantastic upload. For me personally, as someone who watched all of this unfold in real time as it was happening 2 years ago, this is great to see. These events are truly historic for internet culture, and Leafy's rise and fall serve as the perfect cautionary tale, to me, of how to grow a You Tube channel, and how to destroy it. Sad really, as even though I am not a fan of his content like I was as an edge lord 14 year old, I still think back fondly on those times, when RU-vid drama was more entertaining and brutal, the commentary community was a force to be reckoned with, and Leafy reigned king. Twas a different time, and now seeing Pyrocynical slowly move away from commentary and NFKRZ try to resuscitate his dying channel is sad for me, but I guess in the end, this is how things were meant to pan out. Once again, great video, can't wait for more, and keep up the good work.
Turkey Tom yeah I was a long subscriber of leafy drama alert every channel listed in this and saw it all unfold interesting to have seen this history as it happened I've seen the rise and the chaos and the fall of leafy interesting now I never witch hunted anyone like most in that fan base just enjoyed the videos of all of them interesting to look back on all that now saw keemstar idubbz leafy all them very chaotic time period with the drama and such
you can tell EmpLemon really wants his channel to die. Telling people to unsubscribe didn't work so now he went and exposed RU-vid's closed-door conspiracy to kill off Leafy's channel, ensuring a retaliatory measure against him.
@@tomhill3248 I am subscribed to over 500 channels, what is your definition of good, ill keep on supporting them through ad revenue, thanks. That would cost me around 50,000 a month if I was to support every channels I consider good and deserves revenue. Thanks and go fuck yourself.
to out myself, I was an absolute leafy stan back in the "golden days" of his channel. I was a full out edgy teen actively hating on everyone leafy made a video about. Around the time where the mysterious decline of views occurred, i stopped watching him aswell. For me the content just grew stale over time. The videos were always the same and got boring. I also started reflecting and looking back at the videos from him I once thought were "the greatest and realest videos on youtube" and was almost disgusted by myself. Realizing hes always just picking on people smaller than himself, who cant defend themself. Realizing that its just always the same insults he uses about small things or funny appearances the "victims" most of the time have no real control over. The content cop coming after this realization was just the final nail in the coffin for me, pointing out many more things wrong with these kind of videos. Maybe there was a secret youtube shadowban too, but I can imagine that a lot of leafy fans felt like I did around that time, getting bored of the repetitive edgy content, aswell as "growing up" and realizing that edgy ≠ funny
I stopped watching him when he started only dropping reaction videos hating on peeps but I remember him from his story time videos. Recently found a channel that reposts old leafy videos and I gotta say, the old story time videos where surprisingly really entertaining and pure. It's sad to go through and see how he gradually gave in to his edgy tendencies though
im in the same boat, i started watching him when he had like 80k subs and he was great, the story times were hillarious and the whole "this dude is so real" was very appealing. The whole making fun of ppl was pretty hillarious for a while too until, as you said, it just got stale... I realized he was often punching down and its not really entertaining watching a grown ass probably millionare at this point making fun of like 13 year olds every single day. i miss when he was a small youtuber who just made funny edgy vids and story time, actually i dont think i would enjoy that today but who knows. I was a HSSSS BOI and this is my story lol
i liked him too but i never attacked anyone for it, i just thought he was funny also after the mysterious algorithm change I did watch him much less but i occasionally came back also i rewatched some of the old storytime videos recently and i actually liked them a lot
this is one of the best videos ever, well researched, well scripted, well edited, i've watched all of your commentary videos and this is your best. have you noticed that gameplay reaction commentaries are being popularized again? all the old commentators that were friends with leafy like nfkrz and pyrocynical went in different directions and leafy just rotted, the leaf went orange/red just like his sub count...
wow.. I just watched through that whole thing and I have to admit, I never thought I would watch a documentary about a youtube nerd for almost an hour and not get bored. The production quality was insane and the effort and research put into it almost makes me question how much effort actual documentary producers put into their own works. Incredible video putting a less common view on a subject that I was also once part of. Thank you, for letting leafy go.
I had to check the video time when you said "Almost an hour." It honestly did not feel like 51 minuets. I guess that foes to show you how interesting he makes the topic seem.
@@travv88 I don’t see how people will just collectively decide to suddenly have common sense. Seems like humans get dumber every day. The saying goes “A person is smart, a group of people is stupid”, but honestly I think it’s the other way around. As a species we’ve achieved a few amazing things. But if you look at your average person you wouldn’t think we’d be capable of anything.
@@Omnihilo_ There is a dysgenic process going on right now in the Western world, I believe it is being done intentionally. It is plain to see, glad you can see it.
This actually makes me anxious about RU-vid. After watching this, it's pretty clear that YT was likely behind Leafy's demise. My question is: *will they do it again?*
Now here’s an informative program that’s actually entertaining. Unlike what’s been on tv recently, good job once again mah boi. (Also, 42:40 THERE I AM GARY THERE I AM!!!)
I used to work at one of those third parties being hired to monitor content, relevance and what not by the algorithms used by big sites...and yeah what EmpLemon says is really fitting to the way those sites operate behind the scenes. Of course most of those employees are under NDAs so it will still take some years for more testimonies to come out.
I used to be subbed to him. I think your RU-vid murder theory might be valid cause I remember there was a point his video's just flat out stopped appearing on my feed. I remember having to actively search his channel to see if/when he uploaded. And that got tedious enough to where I lost interest in his video's, then gradually lost interest in his genre all together.
I don't remember when, it was years ago, I got a recommandation: a Leafy video. I ignored it at first, but it never went away, so I watched it. It hooked me so I kept watching and watcing and then more recommendations of Leafy's videos appeared and I kept watching. I gave in to this type of videos and subscribed to him. I started to watch his videos regularly since, back then, I was too an edgy and angry teen. But then I grew bored of him. I stopped watching his videos and finally, I unsubscribed from him. And then something happend. I noticed that youtube erased every hint of Leafy from my recommandations. Every time I got recommended a type of video I stopped watching, Leafy crossed my mind. I wondered what happend to him, why suddenly I stopped seeing something that once bombarded my recommandations? I didn't even got recommended H3H3's video about Leafy, not even content cop. Not even one video from Keemstar about him (and because of this I didn't even knew about these 'dramas' between Leafy and others untill 1-2 years later). I thought 'wow youtube finally understands when people don't want to watch certain things anymore??' so I left it like that, plus I didn't cared enough to give him a search. But it was still curios how he just disappeared into thin air from my youtube way before that big fall he experienced.
This same thing happened to me, minus the edgy teen part, back then I was very tame and his videos were like shock value jokes to me, hense why I watched them
Ikr if a movie came out about a guy like Leafy, who starts out making innocent content but then rides a toxic trend to fame, and then you see him mishandle his celebrity status making more and more enemies, until his tragic downfall when everyone (even the megacorporation of his own platform) turns against him, that'd probably be a fucking good movie
I already knew the vast majority of this, but something about the way this is presented made me stay from start to finish, it felt so fresh! Seriously, this might be the only video on RU-vid over 20 min that I’ve sat all the way through. Keep these coming!
Thats the thing behind the meme I already knew was a degenerate and the video didn't interest me much. This was much more captivating as I witnessed parts of Leafy's existence first hand and didnt only hear about how bad he was.
HAHA ISN'T IT FUNNY? I was going to ask..they basically shadow banned him right? He’s acting like this is a conspiracy but RU-vid does it all the time. I know this video was awhile ago but still..
2015-2017 was an entertaining but oddly toxic time for RU-vid. It was like the entire internet collectively went through it’s edgy, mean, insecure teen phase. Even as someone who was as once subscribed to him for a bit, I’ll always look back on Leafy as an immature nobody with an equally immature fan base that gave him an overinflated ego that he couldn’t keep in check. The kind of content creator who probably never should’ve become popular in the first place. It’s kind of ironic how he took the massive gamble to overhaul his content which resulted in his spike in popularity, but he didn’t take the same risk in his brief return and chose to hide his newer videos under the guise of clickbait drama that made everyone turn on him in the first place. And while the Content Cop video may not have been the killer of Leafy’s channel, it certainly exposed one fatal flaw with his character: Don’t talk shit if you can’t take a hit.
I would argue that phase started in 2014. 2005-2013 seemed like the Golden Age of RU-vid and when you compare the content that came after it, there was a lot more edginess as said. I never paid attention to Leafy during his popularity but did notice the effects he had on the platform.
He gained great success. He was far from a nobody and is a multi-millionaire today, my guy. And immature, yes but on the internet. That was his persona online. You just let it get to far up into your head. Haha!
All star had to do was make a farewell video for tf2. But instead he made a series of videos passive agressively making fun of the game that made him famous, like what the fuck?
He wasn't making fun of the game, he was making fun of the whiny dipshits that begged him to play more TF2 when he clearly didn't want to. Ironically, he became a whiny dipshit in the process.
@@ijneb1248 >*BLEGH* THAT FUPA THOUGH LMAO LOOK AT HIS BEANIE >ethan about to say something insensitive or racist cuz he is that out of touch" >this episode was brought to you by *insert sponsor* >raises eyebrows while reading questions off a preproduced google doc this mans never was good we were just immature anyone besides reddit moved on ehtan isnt funny whatsoever
To this day this video stands as a master piece. The music, the editing, the comedy, the perspective, everything about this video is timeless yet only something that could have been made in the final years of that era. Many of us consider it our childhoods, i don't have a name. All i know is that I miss this era, 2016-2020 was something else. But despite everything the world keeps getting stranger.
Well him coming back and gaining a shit ton of subscribers, kinda proves that he was supressed by RU-vid. Because his videos were not deliberately demonetized.
DammitSinged he doesn't have a day job. He's rich. Hes been in Europe travelling for the past 7 months. I talked to him like 2 months ago. He said he was thinking about making a comeback but he's afraid everyone still hates his guts. I feel bad for him. He's actually a pretty cool dude
He could make a comeback by "trying to reform", and then go back into his old habits... because as much as people threw hate at him, it was just the bandwagon effect. Once he seems to be reformed, people will grow bias for him, and then he can go back to his old ways. "I'm reformed!" -> RU-vid remonitizes his videos -> new viewers come in -> toxicity subtly returns -> remains partially reformed to keep the viewer gates open (and I don't use "toxicity" in a negative way... toxicity is good for entertainment)
i mean he could quite honestly pull it off, member sam pepper? that nigga is currently streaming with ice poseidon and has an average of 1k viewers on his stream
2 years late, but... It's more of "RU-vid brought the gun, loaded it, and Leafy pulled the trigger, then iDubbz took the credit for the kill allowing RU-vid to get away with it."
I feel that this theory emp had is also a larger narrative RU-vid slowly changing rules over time. But I wonder if team RU-vid will ever go against the makeup community because of drama surrounding it.
Others have said it, but you are one of the most captivating people I have ever listened to on youtube, and I've been on youtube a LOT since it first existed. I believe you will continue to have great growth, and at a young age too! Im not much older but as someone trying to grow in the virtual space, you are an inspiration!
No, if the time to make and edit this video was put into some low-effort vlogs, then they would be a lot more views... It really sucks that the actually good content on RU-vid is pushed to the bottom by videos that take a hundredth of the time to make.
Your videos are fantastic. These are some of the only videos I see where no one is saying stuff like “pin me” or “17:41 lol” or “wow so deep” or some idiotic childish one off remark. These comments are long paragraphs, reflecting and more often than not adding to the topic of the video. It is highly impressive that emp has been able to keep his audience, and keep his intelligent audience. If only leafy had been able to do this, we may look at him through a different lens. Not to mention, these videos are incredibly well researched. Emp goes into the deepest corners of the internet to find his evidence, and find his points, and is able to keep the visuals intriguing and active for 51 minutes. I just can’t imagine how much time emp took to create this. And I’m grateful people like emp are willing to take their time to entertain us. I would wholeheartedly take this over National Geographic.
This is amazing. One of the best movies I've watched on RU-vid. I was never really a fan of Leafy's repetitive content, but I did think he was a funny guy. And I did love what he did to RU-vid in 2016. It was awesome to see the top RU-vidrs interacting like they did in the early days of Smosh, Lisa Nova and Daxflame. The 2010-2015 era of RU-vid didn't really have RU-vid celebrities in this sense. Leafy brought that back and made RU-vid what it is today.
Leafy's story is a a tragedy in the sense that the protagonist falls from grace, doomed to an existence of lurking in the shadows while his former comrades like Pyro went on the path to glory; but also it was also an epic victory as justice was served to someone who thrived off of hate leeched off of drama. And in the end, It was his weird chin that did him in. This story is just so poetic
Not to sound too much like an English teacher, but you displayed some impressive critical thinking and thorough research in this video, not to mention successfully creating a well made visual aesthetic (a.k.a. nice editing, man). Excellent Job! Definitely one of the better video essays I've seen in recent years.
This has got to be one of the best and if not most well researched videos on the site. This was such a nostalgic trip for me because this marks the time where I used RU-vid the most. I subscribed to leafy when he had around 30-40k subscribers and was familiar with DramaAlert and Grade and Idubbbz through other means (Minnesota Burns, Jinx Content Cop, etc.) so I got to watch all of these events through all of these years unfold through my eyes from everyone's perspectives, and to be honest, this is the best and most accurate retelling of the story I've ever seen anyone even attempt (trust me, I've thought of tackling this beast of a topic before as well lol). Props aside, I also think your theory on Leafy being the first demonetized channel is pretty interesting, and plausible, but it also brings up the question that if this truly were the case, without Leafy, would demonetization and the strict regulations on RU-vid today even exist? I believe that Leafy existed as a catalyst for every major change to the site since 2015-16, as well as the many personalities who would gain massive subscriber counts as he fell. I think you missed a good opportunity to bring up Pyrocynical in this though, because he's like the "Good Future" version of Leafy in a multiple endings video game. He was almost identical to Leafy at the time in terms of content, and even fanbase, yet he didn't make all the same mistakes that Leafy did, for lack of a bigger subcount and a bigger ego, thus with minor tweaks to his content after Leafys decline, his channel thrived. All of the possibilities you talked about in the end exist in Pyro so it's really interesting to actually see what Leafy could've been, but then again, without his downfall, people like Pyro's success, or others who adapted the genre wouldn't have even been possible. Longass comment aside, tl:dr, I really loved this video, was really nostalgic and accurate, Leafy represented what would happen if a common channel got big overnight and was ultimately one of the most influential villains the site ever had. Kthanks bye nerdout over :)
agreed on most of it, though I thought the theory on Leafy being the catalyst all the addpocalipse was common knowledge. Still is interesting to see how one person is kind of responsible if not the original patient of demonetization and the hole mess that came out of it.
this is something that I've been saying for a while now. I've been using youtube sense its initiate launch. This platform's algorithm has slowly become not about what you want to watch but what youtube wants you to watch. I miss the golden days of youtube.
I've watched this masterpiece about 30 times now and every time you bring up Idubbbz and that western music comes on, my heart starts to flutter as I remember those days on RU-vid. I watched it all unfold. Keep your hand on your gun. Jesus christ it gets me every time.
The Leafy Content Cop being on trending as a cover up seems more likely than I want it to be being that RU-vid has gone out of its way to keep Content Cop off tending since then.
Woah. Okay, that was a lot to take in. This was more than a simple recount of events. You dug deep into the impact of Content Cop, and also a potential major conspiracy on RU-vid's end. I haven't been this blown away by a video in a while. If this doesn't pick up big-time, I won't know what to think. You definitely deserve it.
"There is point for that" Just wanted to say opposite, because I forgot to add "no". Rly, there you have deep analisys and original series of "2 min meme review"! Why ever getting rid of Emp?
Rusty the channels that were caught up in the 2016 drama storm are either much different or incredibly successful, both even. Some are no longer active. It’s insane
So you prefer today’s state of RU-vid, where every mature content creator is forced to tone down their humor due to the fear of demonetization? I said one of the *many* golden ages. Personally, I find the 2015-16 era a lot of fun to talk and reminisce about. At least it wasn’t as boring as today’s state of things.
Dayum, never thought I'd watch almost an hour long video about a RU-vidr's downfall but glad i did. I started watching RU-vid at the end of 2016, so there were a lot of things i had heard of but didn't know the whole story. I've never watched Leafy's videos but i kind of want him to make a comeback to see what would happen. And great advice/moral, will definitely keep that in mind as a RU-vidr.
Leafy just didn't change his content much and got boring. Watching a guy talk shit about kids and weirdos on the internet just got stale after a while.
FrostBug So what's wrong in that? Yes, i started using it in place of TV at the end of 2016 but i was still using it casually before. And it didn't take me that long to familiarise with the platform, that's why i started my own channel and I'm satisfied.
Leafy calling him and Ethan friends after like 20 messages is a common theme. Hes "friends" with a lot of people but leafy just uses them until they don't suit him anymore.
