In this episode, we discuss the many documentaries covering the life of Chris-Chan and how they've affected their subject's life. Background art by Mijo. HOSTS bernievidz - / bernievidz cybershell - / cybershell13
It's so fucking wild to me that someone would look at what's become of Chris' life and then immediately think "Yeah man I really want to permanently embed my name into this history". It's like being jealous of all the people who have their names listed on the 9/11 memorial
@@carlosemilio5180 Yeah. There's an episode where there's a school fire and everyone has to evacuate, Arthur was afraid his dad died. One of the kids stayed home and felt left out and jealous over everyone talking about it and pulled the fire alarm for attention. Which is appropriate, wanting to be part of some tragedy is kinda childish, so are people like the ideas guys and isabella
I feel like the point that needs to be made is this is not just a story, or an internet fable. This is someones life. This stuff actually happened. It’s comedic looking at it from afar when Chris does it to themselves but there were people who would look for Chris Chan and mess with them. Chris is no hero mind you, but to be fair there are no heroes in Chris Chan’s story. Only Victims and Villains, and sometimes it overlaps.
I do think the sympathy for Chris grew especially during the Idea Guys/Sockness "saga" where Chris was getting notably worse mentally (This is where the dimensional merge lore started) in 2017. There were clear bullies and Chris was not the instigator in most of these instances
I think it all started after Bob died and the house burnt down. People suddenly realized their own mortality and that Chris probably wasn't gonna be around forever. Of course then the gamestop incident happened. But yeah I have never heard anyone defend the ideas guys. Trolling was always sadistic and messed with CWC's loose grip on reality, but this entered extortion and physical territory that you can still see the influence on to this day
Personally I lost a lot of sympathy with how hard Chris has gone in on the the dimensional rift bullshit. It's a very clear escape mechanism to avoid dealing with anything remotely close to the real world. Chris was failed terribly by his parents and after Bob died the majority of his troubles were self inflicted, from hitting the one dude with his car to pepper spraying the GameStop employee, with most trolling having not much impact on whatever lead to those major life decisions.
Man, you're right about the earlier internet having more respect for "look but don't touch" rules. I was on Portal of Evil back in the day, and they took that VERY seriously as part of the board culture. Anyone caught doing it would be savaged. I'm curious when, exactly, that changed.
All the people ostracized or banned from places that enforced rules like that congregated in the few places that didn't. Once that happened they all just egged each other on and validated each other's desire to roll around in the shit, so to speak.
To clarify on the page that was made to trick Chris, it was actually a bait page made by Clyde Cash claiming the wi-fi receiver of the PS3 was actually tracking bug. The hope was that any user that was actually Chris would be dumb enough to comment on this, which Chris did under the JenkinsJinkies persona. Once the trolls on the cwcki were sure this was Chris, (which Chris helpfully confirmed by creating the surreal Coffee Place article) Jinkies was directed to a fake troll forum called Trollin’ Train which contained a (also fake) bounty list for trolling accomplishments against Chris. The top bounty was 9,001 dollars for the destruction of the PS3 which Chris very ignorantly thought they could claim, which is what led to the PS3 destruction videos. This all sounds like a bunch of bullshit writing it out lol.
@@shukterhousejive Liquid Chris is the best saga, from a more innocent time, before it all became truly insane and cruel. And it honestly seemed to get under Chris' skin in a way that nothing else seemed to. Also, wasn't BlueSpike the one directly before Liquid too? It's like we got a taste of how sadistic this could become, then there was the last "good" Liquid saga before it all went wrong.
The takeaway from all the Chris-chan nonsense shouldn't be "how could we have stopped this?", it should be "how can we make sure this doesn't happen to anyone else?"
It was Chris’s fault that people harassed them. They were grossly racist and homophobic, and had assaulted women multiple times. And it was all public.
Glad too finally hear about people talking about Sachumo, I feel like he deserves a lot of credit for only being a highschooler, and putting together a really well-thought well rounded documentary about Chris it seems like the popular thing to do nowadays is to make a documentary about Chris. That’s very half hearted and I think it doesn’t do the whole story justice, if there’s any justice to be had in the Chris Chan saga.
In reference to wanting a documentary about the people who trolled Chris, there actually is a documentary series called "beneath the bridge" about Chris's various trolls, although I think it was discontinued as the last upload was three years ago
God I love this podcast. I never knew I needed two nerds discussing internet stories all while maintaining a mature tone and an objective perspective. Definitely recommending this series to my homies.
It's just bullying rebranded as "trolling." Chris-Chan is a terrible person who has done terrible things, but none of that justifies neurotypical people manipulating, gaslighting, and harassing an autistic person for over a decade for their own amusement. Or people making 70-part "documentaries" about Chris-Chan's every facebook post like they're observing an animal in a zoo.
Talking about not knowing much about trolls, there's one that caught my attention exactly because of that reason. It was Emily, the one who had a date with Chris and Bob and was taken by the Pickle later. We don't know who she actually is, only that she lives in the same town or county as Chris (she later stated she bumped into him and worrying he'd recognize her, but that didn't happen). There was an effort put into covering her identity, just like with the other early trolls. Also, kind of a "hot take", but Liquid Chris isn't the best troll, he's just the least bad (or the most entertaining) one.
@@mlgfurry Gibi is both stupid and confident which makes him infuriating. He's done several mistakes throughout the Chris saga like accidentally helping Bella throw someone under the bus. He also seems like he has some autism spectrum traits. It all reeks of someone who enjoyed the gamergate era like Boxxy, Jim Sterling, and so on.
@@FilthyTea personally, I don't like Gibi because his content can be summarized by "Chris bad and problematic" as if he tries to have a higher moral ground against Chris or something. Plus, many people who covered Chris chan extensively turned out to be just as bad as him, just a bit more functional (Dillin Thomas being the prime example). Not sure if that's the reason though.
The worst gibi has done was that when news just got out of chris and barb's...relationship, he took bella's story at face value and it wasn't until a little later when Bella was revealed to be a horrible person and it made gibi look like an idiot for taking bella's side. The cwcki also just doesn't seem to like gibi that much and a lot of people just take the cwcki as fact when there's clear biases in it.
The art for this episode is next level, I feel like it honestly is weird for people to do a chris-chan documentary since the extensive one is still ongoing and too large to compare to. Like you can't cover chris-chan in 30 minutes you're either in for the long haul or not at all. The only other one I've watched would be the Ben Saint ones focused only on Sonichu since the Geno Samuel ones are mostly focused on Chris, and it has it's own issues as most everything with chris-chan does. Chris-Chan is one of the most interesting things on the internet, and the aspect of the internet's ongoing reaction is like it's own thing you could study for so long.
I don't think I can ever have sympathy for Chris-chan, not after the last "arc" in the story, but do recognise how the trolling didn't help and more than likely made Chris-chan worse, but man what happened was extremely fucked up and kinda changed my few.
Same. Every time I read into the details of Chris Chan in the past, I just can't be sympathetic. Almost everything is purely selfish, egotistical and manipulative. I can't separate that from Chris' poor upbringing, autism, and online trolling. Especially the codependency with the internet. IIRC there were a lot of people who tried to help Chris (principally convince him to get off the internet), but he shut all of them out of his life. The end result of his completely delusional behavior and actions were a result of secluding himself with people who were obviously telling him what he wanted to hear and manipulating him along the way.
This channel needs more recognition, I have been watching Bernie for 2 years and Cybershell for over 7 years and when this channel uploads, its like the highlight of my day to listen to the podcast while working out.
Definitely my biggest problem with Genos vids after like part 50 it’s like 95% tweets and Facebook post. And like y’all said I get that it’s supposed to be definitive history of christory but half the time I’m skipping or just bored at those parts because their is no real substance to them they just fill like filler
if you guys make a patreon for netlore i will seriously consider subscribing to it, this is some great stuff. i’m not even really a podcast person but this is one of the few that actually grabs my attention
The first twelve episodes of the Geno Samuel doc has the absolute best arch, I really recommend at least watching the first 12 they go all the way up until the blue spike reveal
@@Amahankage2004 I feel that's not really a fair comparison. Sure, Twitter IS objectively a hellscape of a site, but at least in it's inception it wasn't conceived as a way to document or keep tabs on a random weirdo on the internet. I do agree a site like that would have popped up without Chris regardless though, I mean hell Encyclopedia Dramatica is about the same tier of internet gossip insanity and that predates KF by at least three years.
@@Amahankage2004 Except Twitter has lot more purpose then ruining people's lives. There's thousands of different communities doing own things and most of it is harmless. But KF was made for one purpose: stalk and make fun of and ruining people's lives until they go total spiral or self-delete themselfs. Also I know that kind of site would have happen regardless, but it doesn't change that KF exists because of this.
Love these podcasts, it's really unique to talk about these old internet moments both with the level of research expected of modern RU-vid but also the empathy and care that felt more rare at the time
Just so you guys know, this is my favourite podcast, and one of my favourite youtube channels. The idea of netlore is just so interesting and the topics you guys choose are really unique and fun to listen to. I also like how your videos inform on the same level of a video essay without having the whole 'video essay' feel. Instead it's just two guys talking about a random obscure internet topic. Keep it up, and I'll def sub to a Patreon if you ever set up one!
There is no other podcast out there quite like this one. Big thanks to you guys for spotlighting and providing critical commentary on these often overlooked but incredibly culturally important topics. Keep it up and I’ll keep listening!
The list of most documented people in history can be summarized as follows: 1. The Prophet Muhammad (see Islamic hadith literature and all the little unpleasant details it records) 2. Chris-chan (because of course) 3. Samuel Pepys (whose extensive diaries still don't tell us if he liked his fanta with an extra ingredient)
Fwiw as someone who was watching this person from basically the start, while the wiki popped up initially as a troll, it relatively quickly became a home to multiple people who were sympathetic towards and tried to protect Chris. None of the actions of the trolls are really excusable but Chris really was their own worst enemy.
Tbh, the "protectors" are nearly as bad. They instantly made White Knighting their personality. It wouldn't have lasted without obsessive, patronising curators who documented all her self-report and ways to get on her nerves. If they wanted to help, they'd have been trying to stop her updating them.
I think the best Chris-chan documentary is the one by TheGamerFromMars, since it's greatly condensed into only 5-hours across 4 videos which will tell you everything you need to know about Chris as a person and why they became such an Internet phenomenom More importantly, that documentary is very unbiased: it actually has a small interview with Chris before *the incident* and it never tries to paint them in a negative light like so many others do (despite of what happened shortly afterwards, and the documentary kinda coming out to ride on the buzz of their arrest), but rather present the facts as they were and let people draw their own conclusions on how they feel about Chris-chan: sometimes you might sympathize with them, sometimes you will feel very sorry for the people around them, sometimes you will find the whole situation depressing and sometimes you will find Chris being a detestable individual besides their mental illness due their unwillingless to ever get better in life
The actual first, real in depth look at CWC that i saw was the, now defunct "It came from the internet". It was several podcast episodes going over CWC and their many exploits. I want to mention, this was before the Sachumo doc had aired. It Came From The Internet, formally on the Random Assault Podcast, youtube channel. These episodes are still available, they were moved to the main host's personal channel Odie Esty.
While I think it’s okay to document Chris’ life, it’s an awful idea to interact with Chris whatsoever for 2 reasons. 1. They’re Chris 2. You don’t want your legacy to be controlled by the CWCki or Farms, because they’ll obsess over you more than your own family.
I use to play a MUD and Chris Chan themself literally played it and got involved with the game's storyline. The whole game was very player driven, so the devs (who were players) joked like "Haha what if we added the shit Chris says happens" and it literally ruined the game for like a year. Basically Chris caused an actual genocide with acid rain that made you a zombie. In game you would lose health while outside, you couldn't buy anything, and after dying enough you became a Zombie and couldn't play the game properly. There's more context but it's kind of humorous lol but players of the time said it was horrific. There was some outside thing that was meant to end that saga but it was pushed back a bunch over and over.
@@eletgres519multi-user dungeon, text based precursor to mmo’s. Like a shared text adventure where people can influence the game for others and themselves. Popular before computers could handle graphics or online.
I find the discussion about potential trolls and acting as if they're suddenly being tempted to harass Chris because of the documentation and urge to be included to be weirdly off base with jumping to a ton of conclusions. It's the similar fear mongering used for untold generations by pointing out the extremes while pretending they're the norm rather than the exception. It's like looking at Christory as if it all happened in the span of like a year when obviously that isn't the case.
i still have hope in my heart that on his deathbed, chris is gonna go: "uughh, my actual name is Jake, im a method actor from Jersey, you have been trolled"
I had heard awhile ago about a Netflix documentary on Chris Chan being in the works, which I was moderately excited for, but hearing Bernie's take here has made me think about whether or not it's a good idea.
Geno's documentary could definitely get that guy a job. Not to say that it's all high quality all the time, but the sheer amount of content and research required to produce it is honestly insane, even by modern standards. I can't think of any amateurs (and relatively few professionals) that have put *that* much work into recording one person's life. This is like over 50 hours of video all together and it's *still* going.
He's essentially just reading from already-existing resources like the wiki or the farms. I wouldn't call the videos "research" the way you'd normally use the term because very little is original, or even originally *compounded* (as in, most stuff is pulled, in order, verbatim, straight from the sources he's using). I'd liken it to praising someone for being an author/writer, when their channel is one of those "spooky stories from Reddit" video pits. I can sort of admire the work ethic and regularity, but it's just putting already-existing work in an easily-digestible format. A counterexample of someone I genuinely respect as a researcher and for making original and engaging work on RU-vid would be Fredrik Knudsen; his Down The Rabbit Hole series is fantastic.
@@GuyDude-hk8uyThat's a fair point, it was definitely more... let's say properly synthetic in the beginning than it is now. I wouldn't put him on the level of, say, PopArena or Knudsen, or hell even Defunctland in terms of *quality* of work. Like you say, more of a nod to the literal work and the fact that it's all on Chris.
8:51 It's so true that there are a 100+ other Chris Chans out there. I find it interesting to hear about people like that and some I know of will never get the attention that Chris had. I believe there are several reasons to it. To become a "Chris Chan" on the internet, you need: -Unsupervised/unlimited access to the internet. -Know how to upload things to the internet -Reply to hate comment and make "reply" videos targeting them. -Incredibly gullible. -Use copyrighted material, change it a bit, and claim it as original. (That's usually how people find them) -Have a r@cist/s@xist/selfish/egotistic mindset. (Gives people a moral reason to bully them) -Commit a crime (Gives people a big reason to hate them) -Always believe you are right and never wrong. If you're wrong, it's other people's fault. -Have an obsession -Telling everyone everything about your life Having all 10 of those traits is really rare. I've seen "lolcow" type people becoming admirable because they never react to hate comments and they don't have hateful beliefs. I'd say most "Chris Chan" type people have about 3-4 of those traits. Usually it's just "Have an obsession", "Using copyrighted material", and "Know how to upload things to the internet". But sometimes you still get people that have all 10 of those traits, Cyraxx and Daniel Larson.
Cyrax has all those characteristics, but he doesn't have the magnitude of autism that Chris has. Also, Chris didn't get taught any of the coping mechanisms most autistic kids do. Chris' biggest problem is his inability to discern someone with good intentions, and trolls. If he hadn't been so relentlessly trolled, I doubt if anybody would have heard of him. All those years, the only coping mechanism he had, was Sonichu. Imagine.
@@theMoporter True! He could also qualify for "Use copyrighted material, change it a bit, and claim it as original." because, you know, the whole "Grabbing a historical failed artist dictator, changing him, and then pretending he was him in a previous life". Tho, I don't think he technically committed any crimes. I might be wrong. So he might qualify for 9/10 of those traits.
@@Lilybun But Chris isn't violent. Nor has he ever shown any interest in kids. Chris' behaviour hasn't 'escalated' he's autistic. Like, really, really autistic. He's not bi-polar. And Chris isn't ''most people''. He's an emotional toddler. His actual real life superpowers are stamping his feet, holding his breath until his face goes blue and . . . sulking? Is sulking a superpower? Whether it is or not, Chris poses very little actual risk to anyone. It's scarier to see how people are trying to make out he's some kind of monster, and he isn't. He's just a big, smelly retard who identifies as an electric Hedgehog Pokemon deity. He aligns his chakras with crystal ffs! He didn't know who Billy Mays was. He has the social skills of a backwards, timid six or seven year kid. And he doesn't seem to have been socialised at all for long periods of his childhood. He learned about women from Bob. Who was hardly much of an expert, seeing as how he got stuck with Snorlax. And Barb taught him how to be mommy's special little man. And very little else.
We will never see another individual like Chris and the whole "keeping track of their life" ever again, or at the very least not for a long time... Crazy to think about.
I've wanted entertaining Chris Chan content for a long time, and audibly shouted "WHAT" in my bedroom when I saw this in my recommended. First of all, I love the background art! Sachumo making his documentary for a high school project stumbled into "how can I paint this negative internet figure in a positive light," and GenoSamuel was the first time someone asked, "how can I make a Netflix-length documentary of this internet figure?" The latter was a self-fulfilling prophecy; GenoSamuel thought he was removing clips but unknowingly made it long to shock outsiders as "the most comprehensive history."
im not a huge christorian or anything.. i came in pretty late (2017-ish?) i got pretty acquainted with all of the classic stuff people made fun of him for through wiki readings and the like.. and i reached a point where it was starting to get hard to find videos and stuff that didnt just repeat the same kind of stuff. i had this deep curiosity for this strange internet person, and geno samuels documentary was a life saver for me in that it filled in the gaps and gave context to everything i wanted to know. the appeal it has for me nowadays is also that i get to see all the stuff i saw happen from 2017ish onwards be dissected.. and i get to see stuff i missed that was going on elsewhere in the chris chan-verse!
Actually, the fact is Chris was found over 15 years ago, not by a documentary, but by a few scattered forum posts just a few people happened to have some overlap in visiting, connecting seperate communities together to expose him to those who would screw with him for years to come. So, to put any of this on Geno is asinine. Chandler wasn't scrubbed from the internet at any point before Geno made his doc: all of it was still out there, even more than was around when Chandler was initially found, increasing the likelihood that if people with ill intent found Chandler once, they would again, documentary or no. All people have their own agency to make and do of information they stumble across as they will. Geno isn't in control of other people's agency.
I don't think it's that cut and dry. Sharing information isn't a neutral act. If I tell a thief when a rich snob is going to leave their house unguarded then even if I'm not omitting the crime myself I've become an accomplice when they decide to break in. Someone else could have told them, or they could have just observed things themselves and figured it out on their own, but if I am the source of info then I am not a mere bystander. As Cybershell pointed out, despite trying to be as neutral as possible, proclaiming to an audience of millions that someone is the most gullible person in the world and will believe anything you tell them is of course going to get some bad actors to try and target them. Intentional or not, malicious or not, it's a direct line of cause and effect between Geno making his documentary and his fans harassing Chris. That said, I don't know how much I personally can blame him. I wish that he had never made his videos, but I don't think he acted maliciously. I think he knew what the risks were of giving Chris another spotlight and acted despite that, but I can't bring myself to say he was wrong to do so.
@@metalsonic8888 No, it really is that cut and dry. You can't both blame Geno for making the doc as the reason Chris gets trolled and ignore the fact he was trolled when he was absolutely unknown (that's called cognitive dissonance). And going to need a LOT of citation for "his fans harassing Chris" claim. Watching the documentary doesn't make someone Geno's "fan." You are attributing a LOT of motive and a LOT of malice to take this stance, and TMDNWU, toobz. By the way, nice job starting out with a false equivalency. Really undermines everything you wrote from there on out. "If I tell a thief" Oh so you know he was a thief then, as opposed to you telling a random person and them just turning out to be a thief? See, that little difference there? That's called nuance (that thing you're pretending you're approaching the topic with). Geno didn't approach people he knew had ill intent and hand them over hours of documentary. "If I am the source of the info then I am not a mere bystander" doesn't hold much when you already assumed the person you approached is a thief, now does it? You dug your own "at fault" grave there. Your analogy poses you directly approaching something with ill intent; Geno released it to the masses, with no control over who it would reach, when, and what they would do with it. Of course you can't bring yourself to say Geno was wrong. Because he wasn't. Just like he wasn't at fault.
@@e.m.dubois5463 I'm not going to address this whole thing, but why do you assume in my alleged false equivalency example that I knew the person was a thief? The intent was that they were a random person that I told and that they then turned out to be a bad actor. I guess apologies for not spending more time setting the stage. Also the citation for introducing trolls via his documentary is in this video. One of them mentioned that a guy wanted to be part of Christory and reuploaded some of Geno's videos while they were down and started messing with him. Also a cursory glance at the cwcki for Geno lists others influenced by him.
To make a quick point on the last part about people caring which then makes more people care about it along with the sunk-cost fallacy, it's like an ouroboros that just keeps feasting on itself
I’d like to argue that Daniel Larson is in a similar vein. We know about his upbringing, although a lot less, but due to his consistent posting and people searching to interact with him, he’s approaching Chris Chan levels of lolcowery
I finally got around to watching episode and damn, it really sucks that so many people think its ok to decide someone else's gender based on if they're a good person or not
It's less about "good person" and more about 1) the truthfulness of the identification (Chris literally said he was a woman so he could try to get with lesbians) and 2) the dude doesn't pass. It just is what it is, forcing your gender on someone is useless if the person doesn't have any reason to buy it. People can cope and argue that it's because he's a bad person, and that sounds good, but in reality it's just because he does a shit job at making people think he's a woman. He is not a woman trapped in a man's body, he's a very entitled, very mentally ill man. If he didn't make it obvious his claims are not truthful there would be less misgendering, if he looked or acted like a woman there would be less misgendering. At the end of the day there is not really much "woman" to him so calling him "she" just won't feel right to most people.
@@wingusdingus4958 youre doing the exact thing i was talking about saying trans people aren't trans based on them not passing or being mentally ill is a very bad standard to have. it hurts more innocent people than it "owns" chris-chan. trans people being trans isn't "forcing their gender on someone" and it's not something to 'buy' judging from your comment im assuming you dont care about any of these things anyways though
@@samcandles BEING trans isn't forcing, but requiring other people to gender you a way that doesn't fit what you are presenting them with is forcing. You can say that mental illness or passing are bad standards to have (I would disagree), but you insult trans people when you act like Chris chan isn't far past the line in either of these categories, and it gets worse when you consider he literally just wants to have sex with lesbians. Acting like there can be no people who are lying about their gender insults the real effort people go through to pass and to be accepted as the gender they want to be perceived as, because they were truly and honestly born in a body that does not suit them. I am not looking to "own" Chris chan, I feel incredibly sorry for the guy, but I am also not going to insult women or trans women by pretending he is in either of those groups.
@@wingusdingus4958 associating gender with a specific presentation and taking away someone's right to be gendered properly based on that is just transphobia btw! but anways.. not every trans person can ""pass"" an arbitrary standard.. there are other trans women who look similar to christine that exist to me saying things like this is far more insulting than the alternative. regardless of the person it is really gross to psychoanalyze someone and decide if they're trans or not, and even worse if you're doing it based on appearance. if she looked like an ideal generic female beauty standard, would you still misgender her??
@@samcandles Not every trans person can pass, but they can certainly make an honest effort. And no, if Chris put actual effort into presenting as a woman I would not "misgender" her. Although her reasons for transitioning would still be dubious. I'm not even saying that he needs to be some 10/10 smoking hot babe who is submissive and breedable (I hate women like that anyways) but there has to be SOMETHING there if you're going to start off with such a wacky reason to transition. Again, there are two things, the dubious reasons behind it, and the lack of effort put in. If he had either better reasons (an actual feeling of being born in the wrong body) or he attempted to present more like a woman in appearance or in actions. Also there is not a need to psychoanalyze Chris to know that he became trans because he was hoping to find his lesbian sweetheart. By tying the rest of transgender people to Chris, you make it seem as if they are all as unwell as him, that they are equally not the gender they claim to be. YOU create transphobia. YOU are the reason that trans people are being killed. Because people think that every trans person is like Chris when they are not.
TBH Chris's gender is one of his least important aspects, I am firmly of the camp of not recognizing Chris as trans because that's both an insult to trans people and Chris has a long history or transphobia and trying to get CIS+Straight added to the Queer community and all sorts of other stuff, however it's a pointless aspect to argue about, so I say everyone should just call him whatever pronoun they will.
I was also introduced to chris chan through the original sachumo doc in 2016-17. and while I'm not some kind of early adopter its been really interesting and weird to see this internet saga I was fascinated by when I was a teenager blow up to almost mainstream proportions, to the point where friends I never told about CWC know who they are, and to the point where if I asked my mom if she knows who CWC is I wouldnt be surprised if she said yes.
11:00 I watched my first chris chan docu when I was around the same age and I thought I was crazy for thinking I could end up like chris. Genuinely reassuring to hear someone else have that same view.
