Why is that odd? It's actually the trend. In last 60 years we watch 4-8 corporations buy up thousands of IPs, websites, magazines, newspapers, and media channels... All in the name of information control!
goes to show you that if you think you’re fighting against the machine but you have companies like Amazon, or Disney backing you… you’re not on the side you think you are
@@patrickmarsh2538 It's a play on how the word "euthanasia" sounds, especially in certain accents. Say it slowly. Euthanasia. "Euth...an...asia" -> "Youth in Asia." Replacing the "euth/youth" part with "young" gets around RU-vid autodetection of a big "no-no word."
This comment's a bit late, but there's a concrete connection between Disney and Paranoia that I haven't seen mentioned yet. Fox Family channel aired a game show called Paranoia in April 2000. It didn't do well, and was quickly cancelled. Fox Family was bought by Disney in July 2001. If they were looking to explore using that IP, or ensure searches for it would direct to Disney instead of its original contents, it makes sense they'd want that domain name.
So, I used to go on this site when I was in high school. The reason it's not very well known today is simple, it went out right around when Google was going online. It's hard to express how much of a game changer Google's search methodology was. The vast majority of pre Google internet is forgotten because it largely relied on word of mouth to get traffic. If some company, like Microsoft, didn't buy it up, like with so many use net group archives, it was left to the periphery of the public memory. The most likely reason Disney bought this is simple, it's a single, common, word url. Many corporate giants buy as many of these as can be had for the purpose of domain squatting. They might use it, someone with a lot of money may want to use it in the future, etc. So they just buy up all they can.
This is what I was thinking as well. Either it was a project idea that they eventually made into a redirect site, buying up unique and OG url addresses, or a mix of the two. The same thing happens with OG usernames in many different online profiles/games. People are literally hacking these profiles just because they're worth so much, I have no doubt if normal everyday people go to such lengths for these names, what would a corporation do?
@@LeonTichy oh man, you are asking me to reach like over 20 years into my past. Hmm... Well in 1999 there was a streaming service, that, starting in 2000, also was on TV, owned by the Sci Fi Channel (yes pre Syfy) called exposure. It was a lot like a proto Vimeo. Independent film makers could post their stuff there. For 1999-2002 it did amazingly well at streaming full screen video, with decent picture, and little delay. Lots of great stuff on there back then. Cool site of the day was a staple back then. It was just a daily recommended site and you could look back through the archive of recommendations. In a sort of similar vein there was links from the underground. It was more of a blog, but it discussed new and interesting websites, things happening online, and a bunch of stuff. The Church of the Subgenius was a staple of the early web. Though it did pre-date it. In the early to mid 90s there was a site called youngmonkey that was mostly focused on electronic instruments, synths, etc. and the production for them, the hobbiest culture around electronic synth music, etc. Spent a lot of time on their as I was big into Industrial music at the time. There was a very old, like within months of the WWW being debuted, web comic called Dr. Fun. I remember liking it, but I can't remember if it was actually any good. It was ground breaking and created a new media genre, though. art.net was important. IIRC it was mostly stuff being shown in California, but it was the first major source to view art online. Hell.com was a private online community for artists interested in using the WWW as a medium for art. They had a cryptic public facing site that caused a lot of talk. They, occasionally, had public displays. Very interesting, cutting edge stuff, some of which is still talked about today ala the amz in site or 973-eht-namuh-973.com/. There is more, I might update as I think about it.
Regarding your point about why Disney owns the domain, if that was the case wouldn't there be far more listed domains attributed to being owned by Disney on HackerOne as was mentioned in the video?
Disney likely bought it to serve as the domain for a film/game/property called 'Paranoia' that they may have had planned at some point but never did anything with
I think it's more likely they ended up with the website as part of a company acquisition, I agree they were probably keeping it for a potential project
My theory is it might've been like another "super hornio brothers" sitch, i.e. disney mightve felt they didnt want anyone to see it, so they just bought the domain out to prevent any further attempts to reopen it.
@@littledreamerrem7021 You think that's wild, wait till you hear about the Disney vault of porn. TL;DR Anything an Animator makes while under Disney's pay role is officially Disney property. And since Disney has a propensity towards being horny and bored, they make a lot of NSFW artwork of their characters. What that effectively means is Disney basically has a vault full of officially licensed smut of every character they have ever featured in a movie - a statement I'd rather not have an opinion on, regarding what THAT entails.
@@humblemestizo5442 oh, i know! I would kill for a peek into that vault. Though, considering the age of some of Disney's protagonists...nevermind, I'm out. Someone else can have that one.
@@humblemestizo5442 it’s not while under their payroll it’s if it includes their copyright characters. If Anyone makes a porn for example with their characters, they have the rights to it, not the creator
@@AngerMaker413 I didnt know it was just with their copyrighted characters, the impression i got was that anything created while WORKING at Disney was Disney's property. Guess that makes a bit more sense, but still. Hard to see through the "legalese" of it all.
The fact that disney owns this site is incredibly strange, the only rational explanation I could think of is that perhaps disney had the idea for some project that'd be called paranoia, as many companies do that with their creations. As like most people, I'm shocked how little coverage there is on this site though. It seems like something nexpo or slightly sociable would cover in a quick video, but as far as I can tell you're the largest outreach this has gotten so far. I hope some fresh eyes could figure something out about it.
More likely it was part of a mass big-name site acquisition thing. It could have been associated with a project and that's why it linked directly, but I think it was more likely that it just was getting some traffic still so someone redirected it to disney's website.
The closest I could think of was there was a RPG called Paranoia years ago that was published by a company that also published a Star Wars RPG, and Disney now owns Star Wars, so I was wondering if the brand Paranoia had eventually failed back to Disney with some other IPs from the Star Wars licensing that they used to take control of this web site... who knows? Great video!
Paranoia has had multiple editions over the ensuing years, none published by anyone owned by Disney as far as I know. But "The Computer is Your Friend" header is a line from Paranoia (the rpg), so perhaps the rpg was one of KevinTX's' inspirations.
Paranoia (the RPG) is not owned by Disney. It's owned by the creators and currently has a license to be published by Mongoose publishing. Mongoose also, as a note, does not own it.
As always fantastic video. I do have a couple of theories. You mention that Disney never released a film called Paranoia, but I think that it either could've been a working title (something a movie is titled while in production before it's release), or something from a cancelled project that never saw any information go public. The other theory I have is that Disney decided to try and snap up popular domain names to try and re-direct traffic to their site, or just take the name in case of future movie projects.
The second one, they partly did it for the clicks - as well as control ANY information (negative mostly) that could’ve existed on the site previously. In addition, preventing it from ever existing again either. Then there may have been the sanctimonious notion of directing people (particularly children) towards something viewed as more wholesome. It’s a win all ways round for them, but top execs made the call, so it would be naive to assume their intents would’ve been purely altruistic. Fate though, laughs at the irony of it all, I’m sure. The only blow back is people assuming there is something EXTRA sinister about D*sney...and well, based on rumors of child trafficking and inappropriate sexual behavior and harassment of employees...it may still be an accurate theory. The company atm is BIG TIME into social engineering and making propaganda for political interests.
also wanted to mention, i might be missing context here about why this author was brought up twice in this video in reference to it being sort of mysterious or intentional, but Poppy Z Brite is a real person and a real author who transitioned and is now called Billy Martin. he's an excellent writer and currently has a patreon. all his books are interesting and worth reading. again sorry if im missing something it just sounded like maybe PZB was thought to be a code name or a mysterious reference of some kind. he's just a horror author irl.
yeah sorry about that, at the time of making the video i had no clue he transitioned, but some commenters have let me know so thank you! i brought him up in the video because an old book of his, "love in vein" was mentioned in my last video about an r/tipofmytongue post. it just felt coincidental running into that book again in my next video!
It's crazy to think people of my age already make content of this quality. Usually people that make these internet deep dive commentaries are closer to their 30's than their 10's. Since you couldn't solve the mystery at the end that reminded me of Lemmino also not being able to finish his hunt for the Universal S. If it's possible can you try to take a crack at that symbol's origin? Thanks for the deep dive Kylie!!
This video was just recommended to me, and I am amazed by how good your videos are for how few subscribers you have. My guess would be for why Disney owns it is that they likely purchased it for a project that a subsidiary was making, and then the project was cancelled at some point, and they just decided to keep the domain to avoid negative brand associations (which might have backfired now that we're all talking about this mystery)
Wow, this video was such a weird nostalgia trip. From the content itself, the imagery, the music... everything is so well put together it's so "eerily nostalgic", I don't really know how to put it... I've truly been blessed to make this find, damn...
mark my words this channel is gonna be as big as barely sociable and reignbot one day. this is some genuinely really well researched and put together in a very professional way. glad to have stumbled onto this channel
Excellent one, extremely intriguing! It's really annoying "running out" of mysteries to follow as they become explored and solved, and while this one might be the opposite (unsolvable) it remains seriously neat anyway. Thanks for making us aware of this cool page and story, and have a nice day
sometimes the unsolvable ones are the coolest! you get to ponder any theories you want about the unsolved mysteries which can be fun. thank you so much!
There was a game show called Paranoia broadcast on the Fox Family channel between April and May 2000, predating the acquisition of the domain by Disney. Fox Family would later be sold to Disney in October 2001 and renamed to ABC Family. So that may be why Disney bought the domain.
the claim, disney bought it is false. the proper way to find the owner is a whois search, since everyone can redirect their own site to everywhere. but! you found the right track. owner of the site is ABC, Inc. it makes sense, they redirect it to their parent company.
There was a short-lived game show called Paranoia. Not sure the year or network it aired on, but if it aired on the ABC network around the time Disney bought the domain name, that could explain it. (ABC was/is owned by Disney)
was in the year 2000! this might finally be it. kinda strange to buy it 3 years after since it only had 10 episodes but this theory is the one that has made the most sense.
it's so interesting to hear about things before my time that are just... gone like that. it makes it all the more terrifying that you could lose an obscure forum if you're simply not paying attention hard enough.
This literally feels as well made as a whang video and other similar channels - I'm genuinely shocked you don't have more subscribers and I know everyone here in the comments agrees when I say we hope your channel gets the attention it deserves!
I remember once reading that nintendo bought an erotic movie parody of mario, but they never sold it themselves, so the website may have had something similar but disney related
11:32 There are, however, some indications that KevinTX did approve of at least some of the disturbing content on the site. The site's homepage contained a message criticizing those who were offended by the site's content. Also, some of the website's sections containing information on how to manufacture drugs and providing locations where prostitutes could be found were actually officially created by the website itself, not its individual users. There also was a suspicious statement from KevinTX featured on the website in which he criticized American child pornography laws as being an infringement on civil liberties.
It’s cool that you started it off with Windows 96! Kind of has the same uneasy but comforting and nostalgic feel that a lot of these videos and websites from old internet have.
0:15 is Zefrank1's Teddy Has an Operation. It's so funny seeing that video be the most popular in his channel as someone who has come to his channel only recently due to his true facts videos. I can only imagine the amount of nostalgia people have with that video, I can definitely see it being creepy for back in 2013, but nowadays it just looks actually cute lol.
oh hey, i forgot he made that video! so insane that people know him for that or for his recent videos, ive been a fan since way back when :P i even appeared in one of his videos as a kid if i remember correctly!
my assumption is that disney bought up a bunch of influential sites after they went under, to try and take advantage of nostalgia. you remember something that you liked, go to the website, boom, disney.
Ok, I know this off topic but I love how multiple of the background music you used are from Super Paper Mario Edit: I just saw your channel banner and that you made a video on Super Paper Mario. Happy to see another enjoyer of that game
i am DEEPLY fascinated by this. youve changed my brain chemistry, even just a little bit. i saw this vid yesterday and cant get it out of my head. the pages from '96 talking about how to find... kind women willing to do favors is the craziest thing ive seen. they list places I LIVE NEARBY. its absolutely insane. i hope to see more videos covering this!!!!
Your videos are SO high quality. always happy to see uploads from you. they're also somehow mysteries I've never heard of which is great to see. keep it up
i imagine all the original creators of this lost media stuff just look st the videos like “omg i have to get my stuff to them” and then they’re just never heard
I'm a big fan of this type of content because the internet is such a massive place and I like to think I know an okay amount but I'm always surprised by videos such as these. Keep making high quality content!
i didn't expect a reference to poppy z brite in this video! i'm not even finished yet but i've already subscribed, i'm really excited to see what else you'll cover in the future and to watch what you've already posted.
Just started watching Nexpos video about this, and was like… I already know all of this, have I seen this video? Is this an old video, and realized I watched your video a year ago!
This video was great! This is something I've actually never heard of before, which is awesome when there's a lot of repetition in some this genre on youtube. I really like your presentation and I was shocked that you didn't have at least 100k subs yet! I really bet you'll blow up soon, especially since your videos are so polished already. It's also always nice to find new women to watch when like 70% of my subscriptions are dudes LOL. I'm excited to work my way through your backlog :)
I forgot about paranoia. It was one of those sites that should have been blocked by school but wasn’t. I spent a lot of time on it from grade school through middle school. The websites connected to it were a bit of everything from anime fan sites to gore. The 90s were a weird time to surf the web unsupervised.
You’ve got such unique high quality content, plus I’m so happy to see a woman as a creator in the creepy/internet mystery space. I feel so much more comfortable here 💕🖤subscribed ofc :)
It feels oddly relieving having an obscure music taste that you have nobody to share it with but then watching a youtube video with a background music selection composed exactly of that music taste
YEAP. Holy heck, the surface web, like, the idea of a hotline being odd is like, normal? That was just how people made websites. Some things needed uh, management. I can say I saw some HORRENDOUS things I shouldn't have just by searching for innocuous things in the late web 1.0, and while I wouldn't want accidently finding someones explicit material when looking for animal videos as a kid to come back as a normal thing, I still really miss the rich personalization, strange sites and passion that went into every place in the old web.
Hi! Paranoia was acquired by Disney due to a show they acquired the rights to. There’s actually lots of domains they’ve done this with that had unsavory content. Disney just doesn’t want their content associated with that. Take care!
You know, I wonder if they purchased the domain because of the defunct alien encounter ride experience thing they had. Given it's history, it would make sense in order to lure in more people who would enjoy more "adult" and "horror" experiences like they wanted in the park! It closed early due to a multitude of reasons, but this could have been for the resurgence of the ride or even for Lilo and Stitch.
Just found your channels and was absolutely shocked when I saw you have less than 4k subs?! Like what?! You deserve such a bigger following!! Following now, and can’t wait for you to absolutely blow up on here at any moment when the algorithm hits the sweet spot for you!! ❤
I love the irony of the review that calls the site "well preserved" at the time, while today having it become almost completely forgotten and entirely wiped from the internet
In the late 90s/early 2000s there was a rush by big companies to buy any domain name they thought could be valuable in the future, my guess is Disney acquired the domain this way.
Interesting video! As a heads up, Poppy Z Brite actually transitioned since then and goes by Billy Martin. His website doesn't reflect that but his blog and other social media does.
The only thing i guess can come closer to it, is disney at some point thinking about creating a movie or show called by this name and them trying to get the domain the ealier the better.
I don't know anything more than anyone else, but I think there's several solid possibilities. 1. Disney may not have intentionally bought it, per se. It could have been owned by some other company that Disney acquired. Rather than give up the domain, they're just having it redirect until such a time they might need it. 2. One of Disney's films or shows may have used that domain as part of a storyline. If they're showing a character typing that domain, navigating a website, etc, it's prudent to own that domain because people who watch the show/film will be like "lol is there anything actually at that website?" A simple redirect to Disney is much better than... well, imagine a troll seeing an unowned domain being shown on screen, buying it, and turning it into something adults only. I think there's literally a law that phone numbers used in film/tv have to be owned by the studio so random people don't get assigned those numbers and get calls from weirdos; similar philosophy here. 3. As others have said, there could be-or could have been-some sort of project affiliated with Disney where Paranoia was/is the intended title. I don't have a unique spin on that, though. It's possible.
I just found this channel and i love it tbh The weird background videos and music, another girl of about the same age interested in creepy and weird internet history, and the watching of the Disney conspiracy theories as a kid getting you into the whole mystery thing So ig what I'm trying to say is that you slay
It's likely the word "paranoia" was to be associated with a property Disney were considering producing at some point. Even if it was only in the planning stages, the legal department would have given the order to buy all names and trademarks that could possibly be associated with the product to prevent domain name squatting and trade mark infringement and whatnot. It's not so much a conspiracy as a corporate marketing strategy.
I keep rechecking the sub count, cannot believe you have less than 5k! Insane. Amazing quality and amazing video length!! Hopin' more discover this! :)
Wonderful video! I love these types of deep dive videos, especially ones about old internet. They’re interesting. This is the first time I’ve heard Pilotredsun music outside of videos specifically talking about him, and was surprised to hear Warsaw here. Keep up the good work!
Perhaps the domain name in question appeared in one of Disney's shows as an in-universe website, so the company bought the domain name as a way to redirect curious people to their main website.
Really well done video! You deserve way more recognition as the information complained in this was so well put together and laid out. I see a lot of people mentioning the Disney thing a lot and while there’s plenty of explanations for that, what I’m left wondering about the most is where is KevinTX today? He’s just left no recent trace aside from what you’ve covered?
thank you! i'd be super interested in seeing what he's up to today too. i also found his amazon account but didn't want to put it in the video since i'm not sure if he wants privacy or not. the account was still pretty active and leaving reviews though. if i spent more time looking into it i think i could probably actually find him. i've thought about it because i'd like to show him the video and i think it'd be cool if he was down to chat about the site.
I'm binge watching your videos and I just noticed the amount of subs!! I thought it would be a +300k subs channel because of the quality. You'll soon get there, keep up the good work girl
Thanks for taking me back with this one, almost forgot about this site. Paranoia was great fun, you did a pretty good job at explaining more or less what it used to be. It's was a fun place for edgy kids (me) back in the day to browse and yea the stuff on there was way more brutal than Rotten, Rotten was Paranoia-lite. It also had a lot of guides on hacking and tech tips as well, it was everything a younger degen like myself needed to get their entertainment.
