Why Epic Meal Time (Eventually) Failed 

Been watching this channel for ages. Always wondered if we would get one! You did a great job and it was accurate too! I really enjoyed watching this.

I have to admit; hearing someone describe the early 2010s as "the early days of youtube" makes me feel so, _so_ old.

I was obsessed with Epic meal time when it was at its peak. I don’t think they did anything wrong, there’s just only so long you can make that type of video before people lose interest. They still killed it during their time.

"watch me eat 45 strips of bacon!" is entertaining for about 3 minutes, and this guy made it work for 10 years. Honestly, hats-off to him. That's amazing.

TL;DR: They basically kept making food abominations until there were no more abominations left to create. "When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer."

"business just got in the way of it being fun" this literally describes modern youtube videos compared to how it was when it started.

Credit to him where credit is due. A lot of these huge creators that decline go off the rails and become massively bitter but this guy seems to be very humble and relaxed about it. Good for him!

Buddy of mine is a dentist. There’s a video we watched where Harley’s first line was “call up your dentist-tell em he’s a bitch!”. To this day!, whenever I see my dentist friend I still drop this line and we still, to this day, laugh is if we heard it for the first time. Thanks Harley!

I feel like we set youtubers to higher standards than other mediums. Epic Meal Time didn't fail, it had a run longer than most tv shows, and many many more viewers. It was a gigantic success. I think its cause we see RU-vid channels as people rather than seeing them like shows.

Harley needs to understand that his personality was a big part of it. He can do other things that aren't food related and people will watch

It’s crazy that 2010 is looked at as “the early days of RU-vid” considering the fact that I was in college at the time. I always considered 2006-2009 to be the early years of RU-vid for me.

It's not entirely Epic Meal Time's fault why they declined, people just move on and sometimes things that used to be fun and interesting don't hit like they used to.

Epic Meal Time wasn't a failure, all good things eventually come to an end and EMT ran its course. There's nothing wrong with that. I don't know a single person who didn't love EMT.

Nowadays we have Nick Avocado trying to eat an entire beached whale

Same with Annoying Orange and Channel Awesome. They both seemed like fun novelties initially, but they began feeling trapped in an alorythm that they couldn't control, and with many key figures leaving the company due to mistreatment they had recieved. And now barely anyone talks about them anymore.

This basically describes the difference between early 2010 youtube and late 2010 youtube, it shifted from fun videos with friends to businesses. It’s still entertaining but just isn’t the same

Harley was my substitute teacher in highschool lol Hes a great guy im glad for his success

Met Harley at a LA comic con, he was just hanging out and me and my friend asked to take a picture with him and he politely obliged. He was a really nice guy.

honestly, props to him to staying true to the channel even if it's receiving less views. 9/10 content creators in his situation would have quit ages ago.

Man, i remember these guys back in the day. At my office we used to watch their new episodes at one guys cubicle.

I lived right next to those guys. That OG mcdonalds ( RIP it was remodeled into the modernist hell Mcdonalds ) was literally at the end of my street.

I remember a coworker showing me this channel in early 2012 and fell in love with it. We’d always talk about the latest episode at work. Good times.

im pretty sure these guys also invented the term "youtube money"

This happened to me too! You can only sing Smashmouth over so many songs until it gets old. I'm very lucky that I was able to slightly rez my channel a few years ago with my drumming videos. I really enjoy making those and the response has been pretty great.

Alex Perrault saying " I was'nt treated fairly considering the value i brought to the show" is one of the funniest shit ever , the dude was just there , like an NPC , not moving, not talking , just eating , not much more lmao

Basically what I am learning from SunnyV2 is that everything on youtube is a cycle of rise and fall....eventually the world just sorta...gets tired of you and moves on.

This was one of those huge channels that would show up in your feed every now and then over a couple of years. You took it for granted as a part of your social media environment, then one day it's gone and you slowly forget about it, flash forward a couple of years and it takes stumbling upon a random video like this highlighting what happened to ever even get the memo.

What made EMT great for me was Harley, his jokes, quips, attitude and personality is top notch. In its prime EMT was the most hilarious channel on youtube by miles. But all good things have to end

Loved their content. But omg what a different space the internet was.

10 years is NOT a failure, I will always watch the EMT videos with love and hunger.

Although it would have been great if the show kept running forever, I get that it probably got very hard to keep that level of sarcastic, over the top passion going. Honestly, I'm also kind of glad the show ended, in that, although it was fun to watch this crazy stuff get eaten, I always felt this twinge of "Man, if they keep doing this, their health is going to suffer longterm", kind of the way it has with mukbang stuff. I do think it would be cool if they got back together to do some kind of activity together, maybe just hang out and catch up, or some kind of outdoor competition. The chemistry and atmosphere was so fun to watch. It would be cool if they recaptured some of that.

it's sad that most of the current generation will never experience so many channels at the start of RU-vid. Makes you think about how your parents feel when you don't understand their 'heroes'.

I knew these guys a few years ago but I never expected them to go down like they did. RU-vidrs in 2010 are now failing because they can’t keep up with the new trends and algorithms

Harleys voiceovers were comedy gold. So many quotable lines that made the videos so funny and rewatchable

I always wondered why the epic mealtime guys didn't partner up with some of the food challenge channels - Watching them cook an epic meal, and then watching a professional eater scarf it all down as a challenge would have been fun to see

“Businesses just got in the way of being fun” is probably the case for every “successful RU-vidr”

This is another one of your videos, in a very short binge, after which I feel compelled to check out ExACTly the thing that you're talking about. I had always heard of Epic Meal Time but never watched, for some reason. Some of their featured guests and cooking techniques look legit and interesting, so yeah, I'm going for it. Thx very much! 😄👍

imagine feeling so entitled to a piece of the pie when all you do is wear glasses and ear food that's put infront of you

I'm from the same town as them, and it was crazy to see it blow up. I was 16-17 years old and working with Alex Perrault at a burger joint and by the next year Muscles Glasses was a "household name".

This is something I've heard about quite a few times, where people started off making videos just for the fun of it but then once it started bringing in money they got more and more serious about it and it became more about business than having fun, and other people can notice that too. It seems like when people have success with their videos it's important for them to also keep having fun.

I didn’t even know this existed like half your videos but you do such a great job they are entertaining as hell bruh and on top that your voice is soothing.

Fast food lasagna will remain one of my favorite RU-vid videos of all time. Just with the natural reactions of the fast food workers alone when they hear all the food they are ordering 😂

i couldn't really agree with the term "failed" They had their moment in the sun and did well with it, not many channels can do the same cookie-cutter content for 10 years and still be as successful at their peak. Epic meal time had a great fun and was amazing to watch when it first came out!!

Epic Meal Time was great, but it was something that couldn't last forever. The fact that it got on like it did and lasted as long as it did is just a testament to how well Harley and Co. did their jobs. I don't think anyone could have expected that to become a full time gig when they started. It was also an idea that could only be taken so far. There's only so much you can do with a straightforward concept like that, and they did it. From what I understand they've all moved onto different projects from that jumping off point, so I don't think Epic Meal Time failed. I think it ran its course.

My brother and I would spam watch EMT's videos when we were younger because we always dreamed of making those giant calorie intaking foods but we never did end up making any of them. Im glad the channel ran its course and is now in the sweet sweet life of retirement which means they can do whatever the hell they want!

sunnyv2 is great, ive never known a youtuber of an intro or outro whcih they are not talking about sponsorships or themselves, good on you sunny, this is half the reason why i watch sunnyv2, other half is coz im interested, its easy to watch a straight to the point, i love it

This guy right here was my substitute teacher in highschool! Dudes a fricking legend in my eyes and always will be

Should have partnered with mukbangs and pivoted that way. It would feel authentic and benefit from a fresh audience and energy. Could do themes and each request for a cuisine would stave boredom. It would be a win-win.

Epic meal time did not fail. It lived a full life. They still post lesser extreme food vids. Their run was legitimately epic

This video aged like wine now that Harley is self destructing

Why is it that when a successful RU-vid channel eventually falls off everyone says that they eventually failed? Yet when a successful TV show eventually runs its course(not goes out with its own planned written finale) people still consider that TV show to be a success? I don't see this channel as failing at all. It just ran it course. Maybe there was things behind the scenes complicating things, but that is true of almost every successful business in the world. Besides to this day Harley is still pretty active on RU-vid and social media and I'm sure is doing just fine. As I'm sure are the others. To say it failed is misleading and I honestly never even really watched their channel, so I don't really care much about them. They just basically reached their end game, or their final season, if it was a TV show.

They were the "Jackass but food oriented" of my college years, lmao. I had acquaintances from uni who actually met Harley as he lived in Toronto at the time around when they were gaining popularity.

Ahhhhh, glad I got to see Epic Meal Time through the entire course of its run... Such an Iconic channel! Loved it!

I’m 24 and don’t really come to RU-vid to watch huge lots of food being made. At 11-13 years old, this is all i would watch. It was so fun ! Me and buddies in middle school did nothing but binge watch these guys.

I remember showing this to my friends a decade ago and they seemed unstoppable at the time, but a decade later (literally became a doctor in that time) they have hardly any views and it sucks. I really feel like the cooking lessons ruined the channel imo.

Completely forgot about this guy, excited to hear what happened to him and stuff, thanks for another epic documentary Sunny

2030: What happened to SunnyV2?

the music in the old videos really brings back that nostalgia

I think it at least partly has something to do with viewers growing up, getting over wastlefulness as well. When I was 15, sure yeah I loved all that stuff. Now I'm closer to thirty and my interests have changed. I feel like we're all trying to become less wasteful so EMT is a bit passé.

I remember watching Epic Meal Time with the boys at their place after school, talking about the ridiculousness, the grossness, laughing until my stomach hurt, etc. It really was good. Then, after some point, we all just stopped talking about it. I don't remember when, but it came and went like a flash in the pan for me in school. I remember looking up the channel some time later in college and thinking "dang, this is kinda boring". I wasn't there for the transition to their later videos, but for me it really felt like the show was missing everything that made it great in the first place. It wasn't serious - regardless of Harley's character's attitude; it was super silly and absurd. This gave it exceptional meme value, even at a time when meme culture was just coming around. And the gravitas of the earlier videos really made them feel "Epic" while, as you pointed out, the newer stuff just kinda felt casual. That Epic-ness was what made them all the funnier, because even though the show was absurd and over the top, the characters taking it all seriously only made it funnier. In hindsight, trying to keep a meme show going for 10 years probably wasn't the optimal route. But I sympathize with Harley who had to think about his employees, his friends, his family, and himself. It's very easy to get stuck in a "known" format and trying to expand into actual serious content would've been very difficult. It's the reason that a lot of creators have second and even third channels, to help them find new formats that work and capitalize on them.

I remember back in the day I wore an EpicMealTime shirt walking into Pluckers. It was like a celebrity had walked in. People screaming “EpicMealTime!!” High fives, point and laughing “wooo’s!” It was so much fun. RIP

They should have gone down the hot-sauce route. seems like that became the food meta

You definitely nailed this one. It hit during a specific cultural boom that accelerated them to the top, but that bubble burst and they didn't pick up anything that would keep the attention of their audience for the long term. It was definitely possible, but they probably felt like it was too much of a gamble to shy away from what made them successful in the first place.

"Business just got in the way of being fun". Wow. I feel like for a lot of the channels that were amazing in the beginning when they were just friends having fun and showing organic relationships which eventually collapsed, this has been a recurring problem

I went back and looked at their channel, it feels like a lot of their old videos got deleted. Their collab with smosh, the video with Arnold and his tank, the Jamie Oliver filet o fish, maybe they just got lost in there but I swear they’re totally gone. They were a lot of my old favorite videos too. Glad I got to watch them at their peak

We have done adaptations of some of their recipes. It was fun, but they tended to be a lot more expensive than you might realize, until you start to add it up. We did the "Fast Food Lasagna", the "Breakfast Of Booze", and the "TurBaconEpic Thanksgiving".

Hi Sunnny, been watching you since your Boogie Vids, still remembering your Fortnite Vids, just wanting to say I still highly enjoy watching your videos. Idk if you need to hear this but nothing but respect for your incredible rise. Greetings from Germany!

5:43 Important note: when Harley says Muscles Glasses wanted to be paid more than Harley himself... that is meant to mislead you. Harley drew a modest salary for his work on the show, but as owner all the profit after expenses went to him (and his brother). The bulk of the money went to ownership, and salaries were relatively small business expenses.

These videos made me so hungry. Cool RU-vidr I’m glad I grew up watching

Couldn't trust a couple JEW brothers? Get outta town!

Man me and my mates, we used to love watch epic meal time, good video

I love that the video ended with a small clap for Harley. He really never did give up or blame anyone for the channel's decline. It will always be a fond memory of early RU-vid.

weird timing, had a youtube night with mates trying to answer this question - great story :)

Totally forgot about this channel! Used to love it

If you were to look at this like a TV show, 10 years is a MASSIVE success!

Harley taught history at my high school… but I never got to have him as a teacher since I came in a year after he left. I missed out big time.

My RU-vid journey will have gone full circle once someone makes a "SunnyV2's Rise to YT Stardom & The Shit Storm That Was His Demise" video

seeing that list at :33 gave me chills. Prime of youtube imo

Respect to the entire crew for keeping the channel going for so long with such a limiting format, like you said

This shows that it's really, really hard to stay relevant on RU-vid. You gotta give it up for some of the top dogs that have managed to grow year after year because you can't just pick a format and sit on it. You gotta be changing, evolving all while handling all the business behind the scenes. It's a crazy business, if anyone thinks being a RU-vid personality is easy, they're kidding themselves.

EpicMealTime coming back and beating world records for "the biggest" of different foods and then giving it out to the homeless in the area they cooked it, would be an amazing comeback story.

THINK IT. DREAM IT. DO IT.

It was never a sustainable business, and Harley went all in. Reminds me of the death of microwave show. Dude hated what put him on the map. I'll admit I flat out forgot EMT until this video popped in my recommendations. Muscles Glasses was his Teller, and he didn't get that.

The time that you took for this vid is a masterpiece

And these days Harley likes to subscribe to Anisa’s only fans, and try to actively hinder froggy fresh from taking part in CC 2. Damn Shame.

so sunny has gone up like 20k subs today. gg matey

This video made me think about how difficult it probably can be for bands to stay together once they experience success. The ones that continue to improve and maintain healthy relationships are probably the ones that keep the same desire to create and enjoy music as they had in the beginning.

The breakup part of it is reminiscent of what happened with Super Best Friends in a way. Hearing that Matt and Pat no longer got along was heartbreaking.

Every great channel out there was great due to the fact that the creators behind the content did it for FUN, and that it was something they enjoyed doing and did it without expecting it to be so popular or big in the RU-vid community, once something becomes mainstream and you start to go down the road of having to come up with new ideas just to generate income is gonna eventually go down in flames...

Just relapsed on Meth after 12 years without it. Now I’m bout to watch every single video on this channel 😂

Me and my friend sometimes talk about EMT. It’s like the perfect case study. Let’s be honest, RU-vid wouldn’t be the same if they never made EMT. I think they really hold a special spot in a Lot of peoples heart.

Awesome analysis, SunnyV2. I remember when Epic Meal Time was in the top 10 most subscribed and have always wondered why the channel fell off, so I really appreciate this video.

I mean, I think there's only soo much you can do with the premise of "Make incredibly unhealthy food behemoth, then eat it" for it to remain interesting forever, times change after all and people change.

Same problem Smosh had, they went corporate, got fired, lost their fanbase immediately afterwards.

I don't care about 90% of the channels you spotlight but still watch every one of your videos. Very well made content, props to you!

I still remember finding this channel in June of 2020 and thinking how great the content was. Now he’s at 3/4 to a million subs and I’ve realized how far he’s come

I literally loved their channel so much I bought their cook book and pans/pots

This mini documentary was very well done.

wow, that was a painful comparison between the old and newer videos. Like everyone else, I loved these guys in 2010-2011. I remember looking up their channel in like 2015 or so and was blown away by how soulless the content seemed. Hope they are doing well

I remember my interest going down the toilet with Epic Meal Time when they had that episode where they got a limo, women, and started throwing money around, yelling “bacon strips” at passers by. They went from dudes you wanted to drink, chill, and have a greasy meal with, to a bunch of rich, entitled looking douchebags in one video. That is the image that sticks with me.