Top 10 YouTube Channels that Were Good but Went Downhill
We haven't had a title quite like this. This is about YouTube channels that were good but eventually went downhill. Yet YouTubers are people and channels are things. Some of them I subscribed to, but once their channels took a downward fall, I unsubscribed.
Logan Alexander Paul (born April 1, 1995) is an American YouTuber and social media personality. In addition to posting on his own YouTube channel, he has run the Impaulsive podcast since November 2018. As of January 2022, he has more than 23 million subscribers on YouTube... read more Logan Paul used to have a decent channel (though hard to watch due to the rather intense vlogging techniques). However, on New Year's Eve 2017, during a trip to Japan, he captured a dead body on camera at a forest he called the "Suicide Forest," filmed it, and laughed at it. He made fun of it too.
He got so much hate and trouble for that. This was his absolute lowest point ever. His channel has never been viewed the same way since then. His "apology" video seemed pointless, and he monetized it. YouTube changed its guidelines in the wake of this one-of-a-kind scandal. He committed among YouTube's biggest scandals of all time.
Yet he even tased a dead rat and made fun of it even after the "apology" video. He eventually decided to quit daily vlogging for other projects. Like I said, his channel was fine but went downhill, WAY downhill, and that's an understatement.
Smosh is an American sketch comedy YouTube channel created by Ian Andrew Hecox and Daniel Anthony Padilla. Anthony Padilla created a website called smosh.com in 2002. He was later joined by his friend Ian Hecox. Smosh used to have one of the best, funniest, and most popular YouTube channels for more than a decade, with countless funny stunts. But eventually, on June 14, 2017, the founder Anthony Padilla announced he left the rest of Smosh and moved onto his own channel (which didn't even grow nearly as big, just ~4.8M subs compared to the whopping ~25.1M Smosh has).
The whole Smosh channel just collapsed into an absolute wreck. Now their videos aren't nearly as funny or entertaining anymore. They've gotten more random and are getting no more than a few thousand views (as opposed to the millions the ones with Anthony grew). Glad I unsubscribed to them knowing there's no more point watching this channel that went from a masterpiece to a disaster.
Fred Figglehorn is a fictional character created and portrayed by American actor Lucas Cruikshank. He rose to prominence in the early days of YouTube. In 2013, Cruikshank retired the character because he could no longer do the Fred voice. There was also a Fred movie trilogy that lasted from 2010 to... read more What was one of the most popular channels (and the first to ever hit and pass 1M subs), a skit channel about a character talking in a sped-up voice with anger management issues in situations with crazy parents (an original storyline), didn't even make it into the first decade of use.
Lucas Cruikshank (the real guy who played the Fred character) decided to sell the Fred channel to kids on August 28, 2014, after less than 7 years (before he turned 21), putting his beloved and original fame to a permanent end. The Fred channel now has just ~2.93M subscribers since the beginning and is no longer active (not even by the kids he sold it to). Even I unsubscribed from it.
He had mixed reviews as many loved him and many others hated him, but at least it was more original than many (if any) of the YouTube channels we have now.
George Kusunoki Miller (born September 18,1992), better known professionally as Joji and formerly known on YouTube as Filthy Frank and Pink Guy, is a Japanese American R&B singer, comedian, songwriter, rapper, and former YouTuber. Founded by Joji Miller, it became one of the most popular channels on YouTube and also relied on skits and stories. He grew 6.61M subscribers throughout his time on this channel.
Eventually, after growing into music and developing a neurological condition that led to periodic seizures, he quit Filthy Frank after just over 8 years, so it didn't even make it into one decade. He gave it up, and it just died. Another channel I unsubscribed to.
Filthy Frank had a reason to quit. It was because of medical reasons.
What was one of the top comedy channels went downhill halfway through its current lifespan (in 2015), and the newer episodes aren't as good as the older ones.
Adam Dahlberg (born: January 17, 1993), better known online as Sky Does Everything or NetNobody (formerly SkyDoesMinecraft), is an American YouTuber, video game commentator, and former animator who gained prominence for their precursory Minecraft appeal, referring the Minecraft gold ingot item as "budder"... read more Adam Dahlberg (his real name) used to do Minecraft on this channel, and it became the #1 channel about Minecraft (one of the most popular games of all time). But then he quit, putting this channel downhill to its death.
I chose to unsubscribe since it's no longer being used and since he's no longer relevant.
Calvin Lee Vail (born August 18, 1995), known online as LeafyIsHere or simply Leafy, is an American former YouTuber and former Twitch streamer who, from the years 2011 to 2017, and 2020, made reaction, drama, and gaming videos, but is mostly known for commentary. Leafy was actually a good commentary YouTuber. It was his fanbase that took everything out of control. He was obviously satirical about his roasting of the internet. So it was his fans who ruined his career, not Leafy himself.
It had better days before plummeting in a downward spiral with bad content that was rude and violated many rules. I unsubscribed once it went downhill. Later, he quit due to burnout, and the next year YouTube terminated his channel. He had over 5 million subscribers.
It was a thing for years and made Daniel Howell and Phil Lester incredibly popular. Dan was once named DanIsNotOnFire, and Phil was named TheAmazingPhil. For 8 years (not even the first decade), they later went on indefinite hiatus in 2019, putting the channel into a standstill and making them less relevant to this day.
It was originally entertaining enough to subscribe to, but it's impossible to know when they'll use it or if they ever will, so I decided to unsubscribe.
Daniel and Phil are the best, but they should be in Locke & Key season 5.
Jake Joseph Paul (born January 17, 1997) is an American social media personality and professional boxer. He initially rose to fame on Vine, before playing the role of Dirk Mann on the Disney Channel series Bizaardvark for two seasons. Throughout his career, Paul has become the subject of many controversies... read more His channel wasn't originally as bad as it has become. It eventually became racist (with him eventually saying the N-word) and it all went totally downhill from there. He became creepier and had a worsening influence on people.
Good thing he isn't growing very popular anymore. I'm glad I didn't even subscribe to him in the first place.
What was once one of the most popular comedy skit channels on YouTube took a sudden drop after TikTok star Ondreaz Lopez (from the Lopez Brothers) decided to date Hannah out of the blue. She does vlogs now, and they are pretty generic to say the least. There are no more than one, two, or three things going on in them as opposed to her skits, which had a lot more going on.
Not to mention, Hannah is 28 and Ondreaz is 23, even while engaged. Yet Ondreaz is the brother of Tony Lopez, who has a history of racism and sexual abuse. I originally subscribed to her channel in 2017, but she ruined it in September 2020, making me unsubscribe.
Plus, she grew subscribers really fast in the past (now ~7.68M), but now she is losing many subscribers (like ~10K). Some of her videos used to get over 1M views per day (including the lyric video of "Hard 2 Face Reality" by Poo Bear, Justin Bieber, and Jay Electronica, which now has ~212M views). Now her latest videos (or vlogs) get much less than 1M views per day, even less than 100K views per day.
Plus, she has been giving friends tattoos illegally (without a license), which is dangerous and can cause harm and infections to others. She really went downhill in 2020.
Daniel Robert Middleton (born 8 November 1991), better known online as DanTDM (formerly TheDiamondMinecart), is a British YouTuber and gamer known for his video game commentaries. His online video channels have covered many video games including Minecraft, Roblox and Pokémon. Honestly, basically all people who got onto Minecraft circa 2012 and originally aimed at adults have basically turned into man-children.
He was once good, but he doesn't post relevant content anymore.
His channel was one of the most successful and historic as he's done more daily vlogs than anyone else in history (from 2009 to 2019). A whopping 3,653 in 10 years. He decided to end his historic project to move onto other things and has been along with the stress he's been through in his daily vlogging days.
His channel was the greatest vlog channel in history, and now it's not even growing big anymore. Now he's just somebody that we used to know.
Ian Carter, better known online as iDubbbz, is an American YouTube personality and comedian, most well known as the creator of YouTube channels iDubbbzTV, iDubbbzTV2, and iDubbbzgames, as well as comedy video series Content Cop, Bad Unboxing and Kickstarter Crap. He was known for doing Content Cop, but lately, he doesn't do that anymore.
This is kind of cheating, as the YouTube channel is merely another outlet for the website. Regardless, the downfall of Channel Awesome in 2018 was one of the biggest bombshells to hit YouTube.
Even then, the quality of the videos from its biggest content creator, Doug Walker, has been going downhill for quite some time now.
Formerly, he used to be a healthy vegan YouTuber, but later his content fell from grace when his mental and physical health started to decline. He slowly transitioned to mukbangs, which generally received positive reception.
Starting in mid-2019 to the present, controversy started between other YouTubers and celebrities, likely caused by the decline of his mental health as drama ensued. To this day, he is eating more junk than he should, and thus that contributes more to the weight gain he is experiencing.
Logan Thirtyacre, born on November 17, 1994, is also known as SuperMarioLogan. He is an American YouTuber and puppeteer who creates YouTube videos with puppets and plush dolls. Jeffy is a very problematic character, using autism as a joke. I mean, the fans like to pretend he's just really, really stupid, but several videos contradict that.
Shane Lee Yaw (born July 19, 1988), known professionally as Shane Dawson, is an American YouTuber, writer, comedian, actor, director, musician, and media personality who began making Youtube videos in 2008. He became one of the first people to rise to fame on the video-sharing platform YouTube. His channel used to be good and took a different, still entertaining path with conspiracies and documentaries. He even invented the biggest makeup sale in history (with the Conspiracy palettes).
Then after that, the drama took a downward route. Before that, his history involved sexual abuse on a cat. Yet he admitted doing the same to Lucas Cruikshank (who did Fred), and eventually, this channel and his other channel shanedawsontv got demonetized. A true legend once talented, now bad.
How is he not in the top 3? He went from being one of the most beloved YouTubers to being the most hated for the creepy things he said about his cats, "joking" about pedophilia, and making inappropriate comments to children. This dude is a pedophile and a zoophile.
Zoe Elizabeth Sugg is an English YouTuber, vlogger, businesswoman and author. She is also known by her YouTube username, Zoella. Once the most popular YouTube beauty channel in the UK took a dark turn when she sold her fans and eventually lost some of her subscribers. She left her main channel Zoella without prior announcements. Her substitute channel (under her real name Zoe Sugg) only has ~4.88M subscribers compared to the ~11.6M subscribers Zoella had.
Yet her current videos aren't nearly as good either, and she never gave Zoella a chance to hit 12M after all.
She always had some problems (such as being a con artist), but she really crossed the line when she launched TanaCon, an online fan convention named after her. It was disorganized yet took place at the Anaheim Marriott Suites (which could only hold 1,018 people).
5,018 tickets were sold to people too quickly in advance, and security measures forced everyone to endure torture such as waiting in line for 7 hours in hot weather with no food, water, or anything. This led to second and third-degree sunburns (which indicate a severely increased risk of deadly skin cancers), and the people that went never got to meet their idols.
Yet she apparently laughed at a dead body there too. A double whammy. It was the fan convention equivalent of the Fyre Festival disaster and is the reason Tana Mongeau created a scandal like no other.
Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O'Connell, known professionally as Billie Eilish (born December 18, 2001) is an American singer and songwriter, best known for her songs "When the Party's Over", "Bury a Friend", "Everything I Wanted", "Happier Than Ever" and especially "Bad Guy".
He used to be a daily vlogger and took daily vlogging to a whole new level with detailed quality. He did it all until 2016, though he went back to it before moving away from New York after 18 years to go to L.A., California, and then quit daily vlogging again for good.
Now he's not growing big anymore.
It was a good channel until she moved on from Wednesdays With Liza to Liza On Demand. She quit her original comedy in 2018 and is now a YouTube Premium star. Yet she isn't even posting frequently on her main channel anymore.
He used to post such epic content, and now he doesn't post such anymore.