Let's talk about the drama with Cody Schwab... 

if you took all of cody's plays, frame for frame, and instead put the tag as "mango" with mango's playercam people would be calling it the greatest plays of all time. just sayin ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Hard to take the community seriously when the same community is fine with Leffen but randomly antagonize Cody and Hbox.

And then people get mad when Cody defends himself.

online communities make me sad. a large portion of it is spent shitting on people instead of being positive cody is fucking killing the game right now and deserves recognition and respect for it i keep hoping every event that its the return of Mang0, but i also am just stoked to see some great matchups people forget that these players are real humans with feelings and dedication

people just gotta stop reading twitter. Like... everyone just needs to ignore twitter.

Armada has shared on his stream as well when he was rank 1 and how people treated him and cheered for him to lose. Armada was discussing about when Zero was rank 1 in Sm4sh and how Zero worked hard to earn that position, and there will always be haters that want to not just see you fail, but actively talk shit. Hell we had MkLeo, also a non-controversial nice top player in Ult, and people would talk shit about his playstyle being "boring" when like Armada just played very tactically.

Asumsaus' video on Cody bouta go crazy ngl

"People love to see the smaller guy go on top, because maybe the smaller guy getting on top reminds them of themselves" - Hungrybox 2024

You forgot "the better you are, the more TARGETED you are" considering your issues and other players in other smash scenes. It's different than the regular FGC largely as dominant players are praised, though that has more traditional faces and heels than Smash where the only real heels is Leffen and to a more reasonable extent, you. It's a powerful thing to hear you admit Mang0's funny. If anything Cody should be celebrated as he seems to be newer blood in a scene in dire need of it, though I feel Ultimate's going that way as well

Saying that Cody is too dominant is hilarious. It's like we all somehow forgot that he had to play a tiebreaker set to secure the #1 spot last year. The Cody-Zain rivalry is very much alive, folks. Don't sleep on the competition just because Cody has won two of the year's three majors so far. Oh, and Cody isn't some perennial titan who could never be toppled by anyone. He spent the entire pandemic getting his ass mopped up by Zain and Mango only to triumph at Summit 12. You liked him back then because he was the underdog. Now it's his time at the top

People think Cody is boring?! boy they better don't see any Ultimate Sonic gameplay... they're gonna have an aneurysm

No way people are giving Cody shit for using vyvanse aka ADHD medication?

Crab mentality type shit. Cody is so hype. Love to see them killing it.

HUNGRYBOX CHECKED HIS WATCH??? Sorry but that was the dumbest drama of all time. Melee community be crazy

I feel this energy within my own close friend group. We used to play smash religiously, and more often than not, I would win (legit 90%< of our matches). This made me a constant target, and it made me feel like a villain. I was very rarely congratulated or patted on the back, and everyone only wanted to see me lose, see me rage, etc. And this skewed their perception of my playstyle as well, as they often accused me of using cheap tactics which simply weren't true. They would complain that I should switch characters more often, because somehow it was impossible for them to adapt to my Wii Fit Trainer, of all characters. It's not like I'm being carried by my main or anything. I've been maining Wii Fit for years, and I would literally only play if my friends were playing with me. I wasn't sitting at home drilling Wii Fit Trainer combos that I'd seen on RU-vid or anything like that. I would simply improvise and adapt my playstyle depending on what my friends were choosing/doing. But yeah, it sucks when you just want to have fun and are very competitive, of course your gonna try to win as much as possible! But a lot of the time when I win, the energy in the room is just so unpleasant. I don't have a desire to switch to my secondary or tertiary fighter unless I can tell my friends are excessively tilted, and even then it doesn't always help because I honestly think Mr G&W and ROB are far more irritating than Wii Fit (and just objectively better ranking fighters). Sometimes we reach an agreement to just all select random, to avoid the salt. Anyway, that's all, that's my rant.

7:06 agreed, but also I think a decent portion of melee viewers don't care about good melee. They have certain players they think are cool and lame, not in the game but irl, and they want the cool guys to win and the lame guys to lose. It feels very middle / high school, probably because that's how old these viewers are lol. To be clear there is nothing wrong with having favorite players, but deciding you hate someone because "they're so cringe" and they're good at the video game you like watching is insane.

If I ever become a top melee player I'm gonna make sure to permanently cap myself at rank 2 so that the community never turns their pitchforks on me

Cody needs to start mewing

first time hbox wasnt neutral during an argument. this man experienced it 1st hand, PLAYING PUFF TOO! DAMN!

I don't know a ton about Cody, but I'm hyped for the idea of ppmd to return to the scene

The big issue I have with the angle of "People cheer for the underdog because they can relate to them" etc, is that it highlights the fact that your choice to support the underdog is a product of ego. Your support for them is related to how it makes YOU feel. In many competitive games, I like to find out who the dominant #1 player is, the guy who's head-and-shoulders better than everyone else, and then see how far they can go. How long they can retain the crown, how big they can force the gap that everyone else has to fill. If you LOVE a game for the game itself, then you should love a display of excellence in that game. There's a great appeal to the sportsman who can run rings around the "top-top players" and make it look like they're playing an entirely different game. The fact that "your guy" has to get owned by them is an unfortunate byproduct of that as far as your own feelings are concerned, but the game and the competitive landscape do not care what your feelings are. Full disclosure, I am a Hungrybox fan. (No shit if I'm commenting on this video.) When there's a supermajor with all the top players, it's Hbox's sets that I'm eagerly waiting for, and I'm always hoping that THIS is the one where he pulls through and wins big again. As we all know, that's been pretty uncommon in recent years, largely because of both Cody and Zain having great records VS Hbox, so I have as much reason as anyone else to see them matched up and go "Oh, here we fucking go again." But I do not resent Cody/Zain having their #1 placements during their respective times just because they often beat my favourite player. Scaling the mountain is an incredible achievement no matter who does it, and I'd never wish for a #1 player's downfall in and of itself.

there is a video that documented how Cody got to this point, just wish I didn't forget it 😭😭

Literally got to talk to cody for a bit after genesis X and he was so chill and even joked around with us before he left, sad to see this happen to him out of all people…

I will never see Cody the same after his reverse pop off against hbox

Smash really has a bad habit of fucking over their best players. Let them win, goddamn it.

One thing that's weird about Zain being ranked one is that it was connected to the implosion at the end of 2022. I think that just distracted from it a little bit

The real problem is people complaining about z jump after dismantling all of pools, with their also heavily modded controllers. If you don’t like z jump, ban modded controllers all together otherwise, skill issue cry about it

they'll always hate on the #1. Hbox, Zain, Cody, the list keeps going. It's only when Zain was #1 that this whole narrative of marth is lame started emerging. Hbox was called lame at #1, etc. Now people are hyped when he does well. Cody's skill people say has to do with Z jumping, ridiculous.

Let’s remember that Leffen wasn’t banned for making up false Me Too allegations against a disabled man and bullying him into revealing sensitive info about his reproductive health. But TOs are more than comfortable banning people for their political beliefs, and the community sees no problem with dragging Cody through the mud over his medication, and reassigning buttons (a common function built into most fighting games). Some of the people who play this game have issues, man.

I’m glad I watched the 2 hour Cody documentary before his insane Battle of BC 6 and seeing the greatness is amazing. We got to appreciate greatness when we have it

counterpoint: amsa could win everyevent for the next 2 years and i 100% doubt people would be ganging up on him. same with any char/non top tier outside top 5

This is zomba in a nutshell. He's the savior we need but get scrutinized for every tiny mistake he makes. He's basically Prime Hungrybox Jr

as someone who's on reddit too much, they're complaining more about z-jump, especially in the last few months and weeks than him being boring.

Someone made a video titled Cody the most unlucky melee player of all time or something like that. It's a good watch

unrelated but I hate that there is so many numbers on screen I don’t know the meaning of.. could someone explain please

Someone actually did make a documentary on Cody's performance throughout Melee, I think you should check it out. Would give everyone that perspective of what he endured to make to where he is now.

@Bronol ya pas une idée de vidéo sur cody ?

two things I really like about cody, while still wishing amsa won, is he does it all colorblind bro literally has a handicap and hes still this much better than every other player. The other thing is what he said with "if you have a problem with me winning, come beat me" because thats how tournaments work, cody isnt going to throw just because people got tired of him winning

I love cody. I like watching him play I like watching his streams and when he used to do videos with marss and wadi and them at panda like he just seems like a great guy to me. no one's perfect but he seems solid.

Well said. What I like about Cody: dude plays a mean fox, grinds hard and (from what little I've interacted with him) is chill.

riddles is fun to watch!

Dax Shepard has said that we are inherently storytellers and the fall is the last story to tell when somebody is at the top (we also love the redemption after the fall)

"Ripping him apart from every angle because we're bored." preach

This is a dope video. Appreciate it.

Ngl whenever Hbox is out, I tune out lol

3:44 and especially a game thats been going for so long and the best character has been largely agreed upon for so long

Chaler’s video on Zain and Cody was very enlightening.

The very first tweet reminded me of one of your tweets^^

Cody even made a video saying something nice about every top player. This large amount of negativity towards him really seems to hurt him, as it did with every top player that experienced it and it is just awful to see. I don't want to see new Armadas or Zeros getting bullied out of the game they love. For me I think of Cody very highly and found his videos, where he explains how to train and get better more effectively, very helpful and interesting. He is not my favorite top player, but he doesn't have to be and being number one as solo Fox is one of the most impressive things I have ever seen in Melee. Keep it up Cody!

Whats the song? Is it from octopath 1 or 2?

Great video. Transcends the melee bubble since its totally applicable to how the real world works :)

Cody is ok, weatballz is better and my favorite player

i like watching spacies and have always liked cody's sets

I mean there was no ranking back then, but I thought KEN was the first person to be #1 with a solo character, or am I missing something?

Its just sad how in this community you cant be good without getting hate

the emplemon video really brings this point back to talk every time

THAT JAMES FRANCO MEME PIC HAD ME DYING

Mango and Hbox both have a nice beard

what's the song used in the video

I'm not always keeping up with melee's meta and playerbase, so I am a little out of the loop. But I wanna say that this controversy makes no sense to me. Cody is the only Fox player that I ever get excited about watching. I believe it started when I watched Cody play against Hungrybox a couple years ago. Hungrybox had just beat down another Fox player, but then Cody gets on the screen, and it was a whole 'nother world. I can't recall but I'm almost certain he won that game, and made it look stylish. After that, I knew this Fox was something special. And I've been a Cody fan ever since. He's the only Fox player that I become excited to see on screen. And that remains true today, even if he is the top player. Cody is an inspiration. I wanna see Cody's 20XX Fox.

Random drama

A great discussion HB

7:29 Same thing happened to Leo tbh Like he was loved as #1 until people started to say "But what if he lost though😮" and then people wanted to see him lose and not succeed to let other people win And then, he fell recently and GUESS WHAT, now people want to see him back on top again, like more than ever.

I love being both an Hbox and Mang0 fan because I get to see the two very different styles of opinion.

I loved MKLeo when he was ranked 1 for ultimate

I kind of get it, just because Melee itself is an underdog esport. So when a whole community identifies with that underdog identity; it naturally paints a consistent rank 1 as a villain, or at the very least a final boss to overcome. It's not right or cool. But I get it.

Crazy how people bash Cody for being boring, and then support Sonix

Preach, HungryBox

God I hate the melee community, no community loves complaining more than this one, and on the few moments where things are going well (last year was incredibly exciting, a historic new number 1 was crowned in spectacular fashion with a first to 10), people will randomly just start turning on players?? Same shit happened on Zain, hbox was already controversioal before but I remember people cheering against armada because he"won too much". They clown on everyone that wins for making the game boring and call them washed when they lose

Another small thing to concider is how we humans react to other peoples feelings. If you see a player constantly losing to another Cody, then you start seeing frustration or sadness both before and after the matches. And for some, if not most, watchers that feeling reaches us as well and we start pointing fingers at Cody for making player X sad, angry or wanting to give up their carrier. The whole thing feels so unnecessary but it feels like it happens to everyone in different capacities once they get to the top :/

I don't care what other people say, Cody is super fun to watch. His sets with Zain have been classics for a long time and he actually has a really interesting story if you've followed it from the start. Hopefully people turn around to him in the long run.

Button remapping being an issue for some melee players is really ridiculous. Nearly All modern games have button remapping. I sort of understand the issue with notches but obviously if you're going to bend noches then you need to enforce analog control sticks for all controllers which means the box conttoller would have to change. One of the issues is that fox is too good and making controllers good enough to control him properly makes him overpowered there is a solution we could use... Pal Nerfs him in a decent way. Mostly gets rid of his ridiculous recovery and makes him a proper glass Cannon. That Nerf to Fox is still a net buff to any other top tier that gets nerfed. Plus buffed yoshi

The last time I went to a Smash Melee tournament, little Hungry box would've still been a pre teen... Good Lord where has the time gone

I think people didn't get as upset about Zain because Zain never won a bunch of tournaments in a row. He would typically win 2 tournaments in a row max. Cody won 6 offline events in a row. Not all of them were majors, but they all had a top 3 opponent like Zain or Jmook. It's really fascinating, because in 2022, the narrative was that "7 different people are winning majors, we'll never get anyone as dominant as Ken or Armada or Hbox ever again, all the top players are just going to trade tournaments from here on out." And then Cody in late 2023 through early 2024 legit had a Ken-level streak of dominance. He did the thing, the thing that people said was impossible in the post-Slippi era. It's actually very impressive.

Cody has never been one of my more favorite players, but he has absolutely earned everything he's achieved in melee, and I have nothing but respect for him as a player. And anyone who who attacks a human being because they play a video game in way that you don't like needs to grow up and live in the real world, it's really not that deep.

So this guy is basically the Sonix of the Melee community. He starts doing well in tournaments, and then salty players go and harrass him on Twitter. And then they wonder why Nintendo doesn't like the Smash community.

You are right with most of the stuff, but to round it a little bit, I think people just have more tolerance to someone who is always winning and is always on the spotlight when he has an engaging personality or a more spectacular playstyle. That's the case with Mango, Zain and future Moky

yeah i dont get the argument against using z for jump. i personally find claw very uncomfortable. i get cramp in my hand very quickly when i play claw. so id be someone who would use z tbh, as i would actually be able to play the game for longer than 10 minutes before my hands start to fail me. i dont think there should be a restriction on using z if its just for the sake of being comfortable, which i presume is why cody does it. its not like it gives any advantage no?

Anthor problem I think is that online hardly anyone says anything positive on the internet and when they do it all gets submerged in the endless swirl pool of b*tching and moaning that goes on online

Leo is a big example of this now but to a lesser extent on the amount of hate but not everyone misses him

That pressure at 0:27 was gorgeous

It's like that scene from Spider-Man where the Green Goblin explains how the people of New York don't want to see a hero, they want to see a hero fall.

People like the journey of someone trying to succeed, not when they finally made it and become successful.

The new heel on the block. I love it

This is why I've never tried to dive super deep into the Smash community. That toxic part of it that threw crabs is always going to be a part of it (and I suspect it isn't too far removed from the anti-Steve and anti-wobbling contingents), as opposed to communities like the speedrunning communities where stuff like this rarely happens and sorts itself out with constructive conversation.

Song?

I remember 2 years ago when the only players he couldn't beat were mang0 and zain I thought that he just looked like a smash player and disliked him from then on. Kinda fucked up but he's just straight up auraless

The community itself never impresses me always finding negativity and not trying to stay postive. I saw cody at a tournament before and dude is super awesome and nice. Trying to start shit with Cody is super stupid. Let Cody be cody.

It might be a stretch, but Kuroda is pretty much always considered the best sf3 player and he absolutely did not main chun or yun.

It just shows human nature, people rather see someone better than them fall, than succeed

Ya know Hbox, this is a great take.

10:40 I think it has a lot to do with Underdog Mentality. Kinda like in that EmpLemon video a few years back (Yes, that video is 4 years old now). Smash players, more specifically Melee players were seen as lesser by the larger FGC. Less skilled, more immature, and incapable of being good at other games since they got top rank in a party game over a "real fighting game". Once someone they saw as an underdog is no longer the underdog and becomes the unstoppable force, they start to turn on them.

I'm glad that we've had so many "rank 1s" in Melee. It's Cody's time in the spotlight, he just isn't used to it yet. Sure beats Smash 4 and Ultimate when it comes to rank 1 variety. It's hard to follow in the footsteps of Mango, HBox, Armada, Leffin, etc. when they all have huge personalities and fanbases.

melee community slowly killing itself .. yay keep it up guys reminds me of why i don't actively follow the scene anymore IRL it's best community, but online it's the worst.. jeez Let's go Cody btw

Even though it was mentionned in the video, I still don't think people understand how wild it is that no one in over 20 years had been able to bring the "undisputed best character in the game" to the #1 spot. Not only is Fox on top of the tier list, but he's the most played character. I'm not saying Fox shouldn't be #1 on the tier list, but it should at least be up for debate if you look at the history of top level play. Hats off to Cody for pulling it off.

So would you say he's the Pete Sampras of super smash?

The Smash Community drama never ends does it?

TLDR: Don’t player hate. Appreciate ❤

I just want all the Melee scenes hate to be directed to the person we all hate: Nintendo!

It's true what they say, figure out who you are before you become famous. When you know who you are, neither insults nor praise can touch you.