Channel Awesome members, along with Republic of Molossia president Kevin Baugh, in their special Kickassia. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Let me see if I can summarize this well enough. Channel Awesome was until recently what’s known as an “aggregator” site, a place that hosted other videos, created a community where people could interact and set-up crossovers with other reviewers. It was pretty much one of the first, and led to the birth of other sites including one I was on, the late Reviewers Unknown. Channel Awesome was responsible for the rise of a new type of review, one that fully analyzed what movies and other media did right or wrong, willing to spoil the whole story to give it a proper scrutiny, as well as doing so with jokes, skits, and storylines. This made the review as much an entertainment source as the medium being analyzed.

Then came that infamous day, when one former contributor got tired of people acting like her time on what was basically the Carnegie Hall of internet reviews was the best thing ever and finally let out all of the problems she had during her time on the site. Other contributors, including a few who were still on the site, started sharing their stories all over Twitter. Soon stories none of them had heard before were coming out. It wasn’t just mismanagement of the anniversary movies or other “backstage” failings. There was talk of harassment, sexual harassment, and even sexual assault! Soon a document was created to condense these stories in one spot. (I’ll link to the condensed version but there is a link to the full version in the Google document.) But what really sent most of their contributors away was the response, attempting to blame the producers and accuse them of lying. And that’s when things took a turn for the worse, something that shouldn’t have been possible.

In the document one “Anonymous 1” accused one of the former producers of “grooming” her as a sexual plaything. She thought the other producers knew but they didn’t. All agreed to avoid names not only to protect the victim but the perpetrator more out of respect for his family, and you’ll see why. However, in CA’s response their (poor) attempt to prove they handled the situation properly not only revealed a second victim (who later came forward on Reddit) but was so poorly censored that it was easy to figure out who the sexual predator was…Justin “JewWario” Carmichael.

This news was probably the most devastating yet. After “J-Dub” left Channel Awesome, appearing for a time on the video game review site Retroware, he retained and increased his level of popularity with livestreams and content focused on games from Japan that were still playable to US audiences and even gained financial backing for his passion project, the Japanese superhero parody FamiKamen Rider. (The Famicom is the original Japanese name for the Nintendo Entertainment System.) Also, he had committed suicide in 2014. There was a huge funeral at I believe ConBravo or MAGFest. He was very much beloved.

There was even a tribute movie which I helped promote on this website because I also believed in his work. Farewell, FamiKamen Rider was an original movie based on his planned concept, done out of pocket by his friend Kaylyn “MarzGurl” Saucedo and her husband Josh. It featured other friends in cameos or as other characters, plus some original performers who didn’t know Justin except as JewWario if that. To create such a work only to learn the man was capable of such horrible acts has to hurt. In what she hopes is her last video on anything related to Channel Awesome for a while, Saucedo goes into her thoughts on the whole mess…and helps me figure out what to do with my postings as well.

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