The Rise and Fall of the McElroy Fandom 

Speaking as someone who is not a content creator by any means, but is an oldest daughter with two younger brothers, Justin's quote breaks my heart. To think that their fame has reached such heights that they can't just be a normal family anymore because their family is now a company and a brand is just so sad to me.

It's a good thing my best friend Sarah warned me about parasocial relationships.

I feel like half the comments are “OMG I love the McElroys, I didn’t know people turned on them! What happened?” And the other half are “lmao I don’t know who these people are, I’m just here to watch the Canadian”

I'm mostly used to people turning on e-celebs because they turned out to be secret klansmen, terf Karen's, or rapists. Hearing the McElroys are being mildly iffy businessmen or kind of pretentious is honestly a nice change of pace.

Imagine saving up money at your dead end minimum wage job to go see your favorite podcasters live and the show is full of other fans trying to show they are the main character

News to me: - that the internet has "turned" against the McElroys - that there was a peak of mcelroy and we are past it

"why isnt this character named Taco a Mexican??" *I'm at my fucking limit.*

I love the “my very trans co-writer who is trans…” part because it sounds like “The poison for kuzco the poison chosen specially to kill Kuzco, Kuzco’s poison. That poison?” 😂

If podcasts are like vibing with friends, listening to a video essay is like listening to your adhd friend infodump to you about something they’re hyperfixating on a certain topic and you just listen to them and chill while you do something else

POV: Your wine aunt has to babysit you for the day and she rants to you the entire time.

Main take away from this video: I'm glad I've always experienced McElroy Brother content in a vacuum by myself and never got involved in the fandom lol.

"It must be nice to be on a podcast where it isn't obvious who the least popular host is" - Travis McElroy, Death Blart 2021

As a Mexican I can confirm, most Mexicans dont give a fuck if a character named taco is Mexican or not. Sidenote: Tacos were not a Mexican invention, its one of those foods múltiple cultures figure out on their own.

I feel like every discussion of parasocial relationships needs to be accompanied by the clip of BDG saying "I'm not your friend and you have no say over what I do with my body"

i think part of the reason BDG’s “you’re not my friend and you have no say over what i do with my body” got some backlash is because people found him through the mcelroys, and his explicit setting of boundaries was kind of a shock to some fans who were used to griffin your dm and best friend. and i know griffin was being somewhat facetious there, but the impact was still people seeing him and his brothers as friends

I once attended a TAZ live show where the brothers prefaced right off the bat that they wouldn’t be able to meet and greet after the show because of travel and having very young children. The crowd responded in a loudly disappointed way that made the brothers clearly uncomfortable, to the point that Griffin had to say something in their defense and I felt pretty embarrassed to be lumped in with a crowd that would try to make them feel bad for having families. (I also don’t know how to describe it the crowds response wasn’t just an “aww” but also not a full “boo” though I think I remember a few folks boo-ing)

"Everybody who's dead shut up!" - me, when I drunkenly stumble into the cemetery at 3am

"I'm not gonna name them because they aren't paying me" is how we should all treat brands imo

ah yes another sarah z video where she talks about something i don’t know and don’t care about for 2 hours and i listen intently the entire time

So, the real funny thing to me about the Taako-is-a-racist-name thing is that Taco is actually a legit, fairly common boys' name in the Netherlands. (I had a teacher named Taco.) If only the boys had known this, they could've just claimed that Taako is Dutch, lmao. I know this probably wouldn't actually have helped, but I would've loved it anyway.

As of 2023 I believe the McElroy brothers are more healthy people with a more healthy fandom.

Admittedly, I began watching this video in bad faith. I'm a massive fan of the McElroys who can say honestly that their content, as well as the sense of community that comes with it, has pushed me through some of the darkest times in my life, and I was worried you would attack this interest fundamentally. Thus, I was caught a bit off-guard when you recognized and addressed this concern. I appreciate well-structured criticism of the works we love, and I'm glad I was able to sit through this and understand the perspectives you gave in this video despite my biases going in. TAZ Balance was my gateway drug into the McElboy canon, and until now, I've been rather reluctant to reflect on its many flaws, representationally or otherwise. Even the works we love are not devoid of flaws, and what they can accomplish for us is separate from their intent(s) as content. This isn't some dramatic "thank you for helping me see the light" post, just a legitimate response to your essay as way of thanks for tweaking the way I appreciate content going forward. Once again, my personal consequence was not your intent, but appreciated nonetheless. Also any future readers please rate below how pretentious this looks, deuces ✌

The sheer whiplash from "let's talk about the McElroy brand" cutting to "'Among Us' is a game--" broke my neck.

I feel like all the campaigns after the first forgot a fundamental thing all dnd nerds know: If your campaign starts as Lord of the Rings, it quickly devolves into Monty Python, or else everyone gets bored. But when you start out at Monty Python? Those are the campaigns that end up getting the heartfelt speeches and the character deaths that make the whole table cry.

A long time ago I had a realisation that I pretty much never want to go to a live recording of any podcast I listen to, not because I don't want to see my favourite creators live, but because I actually don't want to be around that many of their fans. This realisation came after listening to a MBMBaM episode.

me: i know almost nothing about these men let’s see what she has to say Sarah: Lin Manuel Miranda snuck two McElroyisms into Hamilton She Strikes Me Right Between My Ribs

I guess this shows the difference between 'casual fan' and 'member of the fanbase' - as a member of the former, I wasn't aware of any of this!

As someone who binge listened to all of TAZ in 2021 without really looking up fandom content for a more genuine listening experience, the start of the bingus sequence made me think I'd slipped into an alternate reality for a couple of minutes

as a guy in a wheelchair, whenever i meet someone i flash a quirky side smile, press my pointer fingers together, tilt my head and ask “y-y-y-y-your prob-b-b-b-b-b-b-bably w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-wondering about the wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wheelchair, huh?” my eyes then proceed to roll back in my head as i recite the wikipedia entry about my genetic condition and it’s history in the classic british man text to speech voice for the next hour and a half.

"People auditioning to be the 4th McElroy Brother" is way too generous. Questions during live shows felt like kindergarteners who don't know how to ask questions and instead want to overshare at the expense of the audience.

Sarah: the mcelroy brothers are- Me: not experts and their advice should never be followed

48:06 okay but the bisexual character falling for the first female person she meets has me feeling _very_ represented

im just imagining being a grown adult and being lectured to about what bad people do and how we all need to have fun

Wait, people were arguing that because a character was named Taco they HAD to be Mexican? Really? Did they not see how that would be even MORE racist?

i’ve been a huge fan of the mcelroys for years, but the fandom has always made me SO uncomfortable with the whole “sweet soft boys” thing. it feels super weird to infantilize grown men like that. it also just feels way too over-familiar of a way to speak about someone you don’t know, and almost creepy.

God, learning about the Bingus phenomenon, I'm suddenly hoping Sarah dusts off her Tumblr historian credentials and covers the Goncharov phenomenon someday.

Sarah Z: The first episode is two hours long and is dedicated mostly to introducing the characters. Me, a DM and a player: What? Why's that so bad? Sarah Z: Not the player characters. Travis' non-playable characters. Me: Oh. Oh. Oh no.

Feel like this hot take about parasocial relationships manifesting not just as perceived personal friends but personal enemies is a rather poignant point... Gonna sit on that one for a while

You know that tumblr post of that photo that says "I don't know who the McElroy are and at this point I'm too afraid to ask" and the OP rb with the comment "I've been informed this is in fact one of them"? That's literally all I know about them

I played D&D with a group of people I met through a friend. Start playing and one player has a character named taako and wanted to invent tacos. I remember thinking, well that's odd and feels forced. Now I finally understand, so much of what he did makes sense now.

It sounds like there are much higher expectations of the McElroys than there ought to be. It’s been wise of them to not get wrapped up in defending themselves. Too often we see someone experiencing backlash, dig in their heels and try to fight and justify their viewpoint leading to just giving up on even the appearance of being good.

Is it weird that I find "making an ass of yourself sometimes" and "problematic attempts at including minorities" to be refreshingly mundane reasons for fans to turn on creators? Have I set the bar too low because of how many celebrities turned out to be child groomers or espoused actual Nazi ideology? Not to say that the other stuff doesn't deserve criticism and improvement, because they very much do, but there's a level of moral decay I've come to expect from celebrities that just hasn't been reached here, and I'm oddly relieved?

This is it. The moment I finally find out how many McElroys there are. Update: I'm still not sure.

I cant imagine how depressing it must've been for Travis to see Bingus become so organically popular out of pure spite from the fans

As someone who doesn't use Tumblr and someone who found MBMBAM through RU-vid, i didnt know people cared this hard.

so was anyone gonna tell me the mcelroys knew lin-manuel miranda and that he put references to their speech into hamilton or was i supposed to learn that in the sarah zed feature film myself

I promise you, if they had made Taako a Mexican it would've been ACTUALLY offensive.

I think the complaint about shifting from a fantasy setting to a scifi setting in the flashback arc is unhinged considering the story had huge scifi fantasy stuff since the end of the very first arc, where they fly up to a moon base???

the whole "don't say 'lovers' bc not all couples make love" is so fucking weird to me, as an asexual person, because I just always assumed people said lovers bc it's people who... love each other... idk, maybe it's just me, but it feels really weird, as well as very self-righteous SJW that doesn't include any of the people it's trying to "defend", and is just so disingenuous, I just... ugh, I hate it so much.

to anyone who's capital-w Worried they're gonna find out something they dont like in this video: its mostly an overview about how the fandom of the mcelroys has shrunk significantly due to - them setting themselves up to have a fandom turn on them due to the parasocial nature of alot of their content (not necessarily bad in itself) - serious flaws in taz graduation (which, even as ppl who liked parts of grad, i agree its still bad) from both a "bad storytelling" perspective & a "harmful tropes" perspective - other stuff some of them (mostly travis) have done on social media, which is kinda Yikes but not like "this person is actively evil" (travis being paternalistic on a livestream & performatively doing the "no homo but this man is attractive" on twitter (but then admitting he was doing it to get attention & apologizing for it & saying he'll change his behavior)) if you just listen to the mcelroys casually & arent someone who views them as The Best Thing or engages with The Fandom™, you'll probably come away feeling basically the same, just more aware of the negative aspects of stuff they've made. its levelheaded criticism. (also, maybe you will decide you dont want to give any attention to them. thats fine too. the point is its not an unambiguously awful jk rowling type situation) i guess if you are extremely invested in the mcelroys being Good Good Boys who've Done Nothing Wrong you may dislike it or feel upset, but if thats the case, i would encourage you to rethink how you conceptualize media made by internet content creators who arent your friends.

Yknow when I first watched this video I was like “man thank god I don’t have any super deep parasocial feelings for the content creators I watch that’d be weird” and then the Gus Johnson thing happened and it felt like my whole world view was shattered. Like I felt really genuinely hurt and angry and betrayed and just so sad for Sabrina…so now I’m back to this video to remind myself why getting way too attached to content creators is bad actually

The online space have become so perverse that online people are being condemned for not acting like brands, while brands online are pretending to be people.

I once watched Griffin give a talk at some university about his podcasting career, trying to be as insightful and uplifting as possible, and once the Q&A section rolled around half the people bombarded him with completely unrelated questions about his favorite pokemon or whatever. This one person straight up said they didn't have a question and then tried to force "fuck, marry, kill" with his family's taz balance characters on him... absolutely unhinged

The McElroys are really funny but seeing people try to replicate the “good good boy” speech they do is so unbearably cringey

Taking a look back at this video again 2 years later it just seems even weirder than it did at the time that this is video is billed as a "Rise and Fall" story. I genuinely think some of the funniest episodes of MBMBAM ever have come out in the last year. Their youtube channel has posted lots of really hilarious videos recently. I've been thinking that Travis, especially, has been on a roll comedy wise lately. I haven't been listening to TAZ but that's just because my podcast listening habits have changed not because I've heard it's been bad. They're family brand really seems to be thriving right now. I, personally, just fully ignore the online fandom and just enjoy their shows. I recommend it.

In my opinion? none of this is really enough for me to be "turned off" of the mcelroys. These people are human people with human lives who do human things. Their lives are not their careers. I love MBMBAM and TAZ, and have more than once fallen into a parasocial relationship/hyperfization with content creators, so I try my best to moderate myself when it comes to consuming content. I don't participate in the fandom and have only viewed them from an isolated experience. It only saddens me to hear that they have become more of a personality for the internet than they are perceived to be just... regular dudes. Travis is my favorite out of the three, and while I'm not blind to his flaws, I'm not going to harshly analyze or criticize him He's a human dude. Same with the other brothers, and Clint! And if the McElroy's biggest problem is that they stumble with representation, but still make an earnest effort, and the REAL problem is with the fanbase? That's alright by me. If you search for purity, you will be searching forever.

This brought up a related point in my mind- Is anyone else frustrated by the people who act like media and representation is the be all and end all of activism? Like I promise you it isn’t. People who make mistakes in representation are not even remotely on the level of the truly horrible people out there who have much more to learn.

“if you’re a content creator, you’re probably going to do sponsorships for companies you don’t always 100% agree with, and it would be hypocritical for me to condemn them for that.” -missed opportunity to plug raid shadow legends

To be honest I have never enjoyed socializing with the mcelroy fandom online. they have always been rabid and ready to tear the brothers or other fans apart.

I'm not gonna watch this because it will make me tremendously sad for the McElroys because I've seen what their fandom does. I left a McElroy group after one of their Monster Factory episodes was released to the group erupting in discourse about how it was 'encouraging the death of a disabled baby' [this was about a video game character the brothers made, look up their Crusader Kings video, it's amazing] and I was just like . . . This can't be real. Y'all can't actually be mad about this. This can't be the thing that gets your ire. I feel like the Internet put the McElroys - human beings - on a pedestal and then searched for ways to tear them down. But anyway I wanted you to know I'm sorry I can't watch this but I'm glad it exists.

I envy the people who are here to learn about something they don’t care about because I feel like I’m about to have a comfort blanket set on fire OTL

I'm glad this is more of a rundown of the McElroys generally that takes the good and the bad without performatively pretending they're suddenly terrible now or secretly always were. The biggest drama at play is "their new D&D show was bad" and "Travis is kinda cringe and obnoxious". It's refreshing to see a massive essay like this *not* in response to some horrendous new info that came to light.

I’ve listened to them occasionally and had no idea there was actually a “fandom”. Makes me sad that people can’t just create anymore without becoming an “empire” or “brand”

Man I love this channel. "hey what's going on with a fandom I've never heard about for a podcast I didn't know existed? Dunno, better check it out, this could be big"

my favorite thing about this comment section is everyone spelling taako’s name wrong

i was wondering why “brothers who played dnd for an audience” sounded so familiar even though i don’t know these guys but i just realized... i own their book. i purchased the graphic novel version of “the adventure zone” completely unaware of its origin

Every time I've been enjoying something on my own and then learn about the fandom, I happily go back to enjoying it on my own while ignoring the fandom. Fandoms just get pulled inherently toward toxicity because the most toxic people always pull the hardest.

I love the idea that Taako being white is racist because Mexicans have to invent tacos, but also all the main characters being portrayed with darker skin is racist because it’s blackface. If there’s anything that perfectly sums up the McElroy fandom, it’s that.

ok listen I'm half Mexican and I've not experienced any McElroy content ever but I am SO GLAD they didn't make Taco Mexican and I cannot believe people found it PROBLEMATIC that they didn't make Taco Mexican oh my goodness

I feel like the words of a certain Brian David Gilbert work quite well here: "I am not your friend and you have no say over what I do with my body"

As a McElroy content vacuum consumer, my one foray into the circlejerk TAZ subreddit completely turned me off the fandom. Came looking for art and memes, left with someone who hoped Griffin's wife got canceled because his reaction would be sooooo funny. Wtaf.

Coming back to this video is like returning home after a long journey. This video introduced me to the McElroys, and The Adventure Zone, which kickstarted my appreciation and love of TTRPGs. The fanart, the dubs, the campaigns, the handbooks, the dice, the literal red robe I have hanging in my office...it all started here. I became friends with my current partner through a Discord server listening party I hosted for TAZ Balance. It all started here. Thank you, Sarah. It's so bizarre to think about, but you changed my life for the nerdier in just a couple hours. If this is the impact you have on people so early into your life, then you're truly going to be amazing. Sorry for the corny joke. I had to.

As a 30 year-old, I about had a heart attack when I realized peak McElroy culture was FIVE YEARS AGO.

In my opinion, labelling ANYONE a “woke” icon or something is not right. No one can have all experiences and knowledge to be aware of every single issue and culture. Let alone labelling some straight cis white guys as these is is just unfair. But I think the fact that they managed to improve themselves and be better about general issues is amazing

So I just came across the Taco thing, and man the fanbase is so toxic about that. They never described Taco, but the fans decided someone called Taco MUST be Latino and thus the McElroys are secretly racist the whole time! Even though it was the 'fans' that took it and decided to make someone called Taco latino. Man I swear Twitter and Tumblr fans could murder someone then blame video games for teaching them the concept of violence, it's on that level of intelligence

What's strange is that Amnesty is easily my favorite thing that the McElroy family has ever done. Maybe it just really spoke to my vibe.

I feel like I am extremely in on the joke with this video. Saz will say "the kind jokes and teasing you really only get from siblings" and I'll go "ah yes, dry fettuccine"

Sarah is right; “That’s a Christmas to Me” is the absolute best bit and there should be much much more of it.

The Adventure Zone Balance Arc is some of the best storytelling I have ever taken in. It’s hysterically funny, poetically played, and deeply meaningful. We got into MBMBAM December 2018 on a road trip to Disney and it changed our lives. We eventually got into D&D (my husband is on his way to DM as I type this) because of the McElroy’s and have enjoyed countless laughs. My motto is “support good people doing good things” and the amount of money this family has raised for charity and the time they put in truly makes a difference. All that being said… we’ve been to two live shows and the fan base has been 50/50. We’ve met some super great people but the amount of entitled weirdos who almost demand their differences in life become the McElroy’s whole reason for existing is so bananas. I love that you have found a community that is accepting of you as not all who are “different” have that but you have to let them be who they are and not hold this family up to wild standards. You can almost tell now they’re afraid to say anything. I think we can all agree not a single person in this family is malicious, they want to make people laugh and enjoy life and they’re ultra talented in that regard. I feel for them that their fan base has them hostage.

The sawbones popularity outside of the mcelroy fandom isnt surprising. It never did much for me, but I have a bunch of friends who are docs and nurses and they adore it as a fairly inclusive show with actually funny comedy chops, something you dont see a lot of (Theres definately an under served* market there.). *Underserved is one r from undeserved, to be specific I mean "not enough people are doing it".

i like how sarah was talking about trying not to be too jarring before immediately following up with “among us is a video game-“

My take on the centaurs is that it sounds like they took a bunch of tropes that are extremely common in D&D and the fantasy genre as a whole without recognizing that they had roots in indigenous stereotypes. The sad truth is that the summary you gave is extremely familiar to me, and I highly doubt it was a conscious decision to base them on indigenous people. This isn’t to say that the McElroys have no responsibility here. When imitating other stories you need to be aware of stuff like this, and I definitely think they need to apologize. But I think the genre as a whole really needs to reexamine these tropes because it is FAR from unique to TAZ.

the among us clip makes me physically cringe. I think most people have at some point or another been Travis in some situation but oh my god watching the recording makes me cringe. If one of the many times that I have made a fool of myself was captured on video, I would probably never leave the house again.

I've never played DnD. I've never heard of the McElroy brothers. And yet I watched a 2-hour video about a spinoff podcast from another podcast about something I don't know. This is because of the satisfying parasocial relationship with my good friend Sarah Z.

"Feels like a radio play written by Travis , in which the rest of the family are actors without the script." Oof that one got me. Honestly the hardest part of dming for me is not doing this thing.

Sometimes it feels like the fandom is harder on people who try for representation than people who don't

Of all the topics covered here the one that sticks out to me the most as something that, for lack of a better turn of phrase, makes me feel sad, and that's the fact that they get criticism for their alleged poor handling of inclusivity or whatever you what to call it. The fact that they've spent so much time and effort TRYING, an amount that, comparably speaking dwarfs any other media I've personally consumed, and then get criticized for "doing it wrong" blows my mind. This, IMO, is the sort of thing that makes cis het white dudes like me actually avoid trying to be inclusive for fear of being criticized by the folks we're trying our best to include. For example, if we focus on the wheelchair to try to bring attention to the struggles or awkwardness or challenges they may face, its not good and we're alienating disabled folks. If we just mention someone is a person of color and then don't give any more details about them perhaps in a well-intentioned attempt at avoiding stereotypes or tropes or whatever, we're "half-assing it" or "not genuine". Folks need to realize that there is NO way to please everyone and at the end of the day the most important thing (IMO) is intentions, and to that extent I can't fault the McElroy family at all. They mean well, they're trying harder than most other folks in the space, the fact that they get so much hate is antithetical to the causes they're trying to support.

I literally never heard of McElroy before now, and I had NO idea two of the McElroy brothers founded Polygon, holy crap!

thank you for also mentioning that jasmine masters coined “and i oop,” it’s crazy how many people don’t know that

"you really do get a vibe of family closeness when you listen." I like to point out how they start each episode by introducing themselves as "YOUR (oldest/middlest/sweet baby) brother." They're OUR brothers. All of our brothers. Brothers of all humankind.

emily writing the tokenizing section was genius and hilarious, as a very trans indeed trans person who is trans as well i was very confused until it was revealed emily wrote it, i could feel sarah sweating through the screen. god bless, beautiful.

I've never seen a community/audience that is less fun than that of the McElroys. Eventually, they were tiptoeing around everybody, because their "problematic behaviors" were being pointed out at every turn, regardless of intent or if anybody was actually offended. As their brand became more and more focused on being nice guys, they had less and less freedom to experiment with anything comedy-wise, lest they offend somebody by making a joke that Centaurs might find it off-putting to see people on horses. A hell of their own making, and very unfortunate.

NEVER appeal to superfans. It's just a sugar high; you will eventually crash.

If they wanted to destroy capitalism, helping the training bears unionize probably would have gone better than a heist

They are imperfect people genuinely trying to do their best. If you’ve been recorded for this many hours over this many years, you’re going to going to make mistakes. Not to say we can’t give constructive criticism to them, because of course they should learn and become better when they make mistakes. But we just cannot expect perfection from people.

after watching the the full video a lot of this seems like terminally online folks needing hobbies. My biggest "problem" with the Mcelroys is that they feel too safe any more. And this really turned into more of the rise and fall of the TAZ fandom.

There's got to be a middle ground between the uncritical, toxic positivity, and the unrelenting nit-picking negativity that fan communities tend to fall into. There should absolutely be room for critical thinking and criticism within a fan community, but if I go to engage with a community of other fans, I'm doing that because I want to talk about something I like. If I go to a community of fans of a Thing and the entire vibe is that nobody actually likes the Thing, that's an unhealthy community dynamic, and it's not something that's generally solvable by creators. The only perceivable solution to me is for people to stop engaging with things that are bringing us more frustration than enjoyment. Critical thinking is important and good, but if it's ruining your ability to actually enjoy the media you're intentionally choosing to consume, you have two solutions: either lighten up on the criticism, or stop consuming that media and find something else that you'll actually enjoy. This can be a difficult task and a really difficult conclusion to come to, especially when people have formed part of their identity around liking a particular piece of media. But at this point knowing when to disengage from something is a vital life skill.

oh god i almost literally died of second hand embarrassment from the travis among us part

It never ceases to amaze me how chronically online, fandom rabid and inflammatory people can be. I only really loosely knew of these guys from seeing them around, but now I'm just bummed for them. Lol.

Idk if this woman is filming from her home or not but if I had a window like that I’d spend all day standing there looking outside