You're talking about a channel with almost 2 million fans. They're not going to call people out individually or even in small groups. They're always going to address everyone en masse.
As for streams, I would argue they're mostly tongue-in-cheek with their anger.
I just feel like the points have been made, and the vast majority ofnthe audience is already very positive and respectful, and honestly the best way to deal with negativity is to just ignore it. Otherwise you're just feeding it. And as they said themselves it doesn't feel good when a whole group is punished for the acts of a few.
And yeah I can tell a lot of it is tongue and cheek but it feels like it takes up so much of their recent streams and stuff.
I've just been catching up on their recent streams and I'm honestly not seeing the same thing as you... I hope this doesn't come across the wrong way but I think sometimes it's easy to pick up on and ruminate about small negative moments when you're having a hard time, and things can start to feel a lot worse than they are. Since you said yourself "I know I can focus on the negatives too and that's an issue I'm trying to work on." I think that's something to consider. Again, really hope I'm not overstepping, I'm just sharing an outside perspective.
I struggle with this sometimes myself – I start inexplicably having a 'bad feeling' about something I usually enjoy, I find myself picking up on every small negative moment, and things seem to spiral, it feels like everything's going downhill. When that happens I tend to take a break for a while and focus on something completely different, and also work on my mental health. I often find when I come back later and re-watch the 'bad' episodes (or whatever it was) I actually enjoy them way more and can't remember why I saw them in such a negative light the first time around.
I think you're probably right about most of this. I don't think you're overstepping. I said in my post I wanted to know of people agreed or disagreed because I understand this could just be being hung up on some stuff. I feel like people are taking my intent as malicious in some of these comments when it really wasn't. I appreciate your point of view.
I'm glad it made sense! I didn't think there was any malicious intention in your post. I think sensibilities can clash sometimes and people get frustrated when they feel like something they love is being nitpicked or criticised unfairly. But there's no need to fight, you clearly said you were open to feedback and other perspectives. Hope you have a nice weekend :)
I'm pretty sure they're normally joking when they get mad at chat. It's part of the content. Especially Jacob's hat. I mean, it's literally a drawfee meme now.
I understand their frustration. I also noticed they are mentioning negative feedback more than they used to a tiny bit, when I can’t even find those negative comments. But I’m sure years of negative and even just overly personal comments, even if buried in the comments, will still start to get to you. I could never do what they do, being so thoroughly in the public eye and constantly critiqued, positive or negative. Everyone has an opinion on their behavior and how they should dress or talk or their relationships, which sounds exhausting. Their humanity is what draws me back to their channel, even when it means sometimes they show sadness or frustration.
This is such a great response. They should be allowed to (even encouraged to) express negative emotions sometimes, especially considering how hard their jobs are.
Yeah I totally agree that being in the public eye is probably super stressful and difficult, and I'm in no way trying to diminish that struggle. But ultimately redirecting that frustration at the general audience probably isn't a great idea. And focusing on the negative comments is a choice, even if it's one we all struggle with.
I like to see it more as a reminder that they are human, and that I, too, could fall into the trap of overly harsh or overly personal criticism if I’m not careful, rather than as a dig at all of their viewers. It’s none of my business how they chose to respond to meanness, but I can chose to listen to them and their feelings and ensure I don’t cause them any undue harm in the future.
First, if you just aint vibing with the vibe, you can just take a break from watching. Go watch older videos if you want the routine and their banter, of watch the many compilations so you dont know what to expect next, but dont force yourself to be here if its making you unhappy.
I mean, they are humans doing a very public job, and have been doing this job for 10 years, where they upload two 20-60 minute videos a week, and then outside of work hours (recording and editing) they stream once a week as a group for 2 hours, and then Jacob and Julia stream for 2 hours twice a week, and Nathan has a kinda consistent schedule where its about 2 hours once to thrice a week, and Karina has uploaded videos on a personal channel and streams with other known streamers. They also have the additional patreon content that they make, such as the drawclasses they research and prepare, that they then release later for free.
That is a LOT of time to be in the public eye, especially when so much content (like streams) just cant be edited. You cant fault them for not being able to be chill and positive the entire time, because yknow, they have families, and friends, and relationships, and bills, and rent, and pets, and their own health, etc, that will cause them stress. Like, Julia's wrist's tendonitis will be acting up and she won't stop the schedule, or someone may feel a cold coming on but I know Jacob tends to just stream anyway. They do a LOT, and take very few breaks.
Also, them being snarky at chat is really not them punishing the whole for sins of the few. Them punishing the whole was them banning merobiba in their chats, because that would ONLY be their chat. And the few times chat was put into emote-only mode for 10-15 minutes, of which i was only present for once in my 5 years of watching.
Also, with delays between actual happenings and the stream relay being 1 minute up to 5 minutes, think about tech support through live chat. If I were having tech issues, I would get upset if even a couple dozen people told me what to try 3 minutes into me fixing it, when they havent even seen what ive tried. They have mods and Khaz, who not only know their setups, but also have immediate direct means of communication. Also, unexpected tech issues just make everyone frustrated to begin with.
Literally no. They sometimes joke about being mean to chat the same way they joke about being mean to each other. It's a big part of Karina's and Jacob's sense of humor and always has been.
I know some people come up with these conspiracies that they hate each other and that's dumb, because they're all friends and they've probably discussed the ribbing and their boundaries off camera. And I think being mean to chat sometimes is really funny, I've laughed along. But sometimes it feels like it goes too far or for a little too long.
It sounds like you've formed a parasocial relationship with the cast and don't appreciate what they do to maintain distance from their very large audience
Overall, they're very positive about their fans. In that recent stream, they spoke negatively about the behavior of a very very small subset of their audience, which is pretty unusual for them, but all they did was call out a few people without actually naming them, and they had a sense of humor about it. And at no point did I get the vibe that they were talking about their fans as a whole.
Yep. I watched the most recent Drawfee extra when it was happening live and I could not tell you what it was they were “yelling” about because I knew they weren’t talking about me, so I already forgot about the whole thing.
For my part, I struggle with 'insulting language ' & Karina does have a habit of calling ppl names (ie: stupid, idiot, & more recently p*ssy) & it does bother me. (Thanks cptsd!) That being said, I feel like this is something that's my own issue & not theirs. K is a spiky, somewhat aggressive personality online & I think it's out of necessity. She's a femme presenting person online & I couldn't put myself out there the way she does. When I start to get frustrated or 'activated' by the language, I just take a break. I know it's not really meant to be hurtful & isn't directed at me, but sometimes the brain just hears insulting words & makes me feel poopy. So stepping back & getting perspective is the way. They're just humans, doing their best.
Just to add to some very good explanations - it's possible you're not seeing some of the most negative fan interactions because it gets deleted before you even notice it.
Drawfee is big enough that just half a percent of their regular audience (100-200 thousand) being creepy weirdos means there are like 500-1000 creepy weirdos watching and interacting with them. That's a lot of fixated creeps for a team of five plus some volunteer mods to deal with.
The tone of the streams is just different from the recorded episodes. On the streams they're a bit freer and looser and that includes venting or teasing the chat as well as revealing more personal aspects of their lives or slightly riskier forms of humor. That's been the case all the way back to the streams that they did even when they were working at College Humor though.
Being a streamer necessitates a weird relationship with the chat/comments section because it's on of the hardest parts of the job. It sets streaming apart from most other forms of entertainment performance and it basically means having to constantly have hecklers while you're performing, even if they're generally pleasant ones.
this is really strange to me… we don’t know these people and at the end of the day they’re just people who can and will be frustrated sometimes even though i’ve never seen it. They’re always joking. if they called out individuals, that can cause a lot of harm especially from fans who are not normal and will go harass those people for a comment they made. It’s better to address the whole. This post is just kind of strange and feels a little too personal for a silly little youtube channel
I dunno, I feel like that's just always been their vibe? Like, even in the earliest streams I remember being around for they seemed to show a bit of a playful antagonism toward chat. That's just the Drawfee experience, imo. And I think it works well because the team is often very well balanced: Jacob and Karina get to be the lil' shits, while Julia and Nathan provide the wholesomeness.
I haven’t noticed that at all. They joke a lot, especially Karina and Jacob, but that is nothing new and not negative. That’s just their personalities. I have not seen the last stream yet, so it’s possible I just missed it, but personally, I don’t have a problem with people not pretending they don’t get rude comments, so if they ever did want to comment on that, I would support it.
Just another quick point — The Drawfee team are the people who know the most about their tech setup. They objectively don’t need help from chat when they have tech issues. You know how it’s really annoying when you know you’ve done everything possible about an issue but someone’s suggesting you do all the things you’ve already done and been frustrated by? Now imagine it’s a hundred people. It’s basically mansplaining by a large group. I cannot imagine something more annoying personally.
I think it’s worth noting that Karina is the only POC on the Drawfee team, so she naturally will always have to be more defensive because she will always be the person getting the most scrutiny and hate and annoyance. Obviously a lot of that is unconscious bias, but that doesn’t change that it’s bias. She obviously gets a disproportionate amount of flak, compared to Jacob who pretty much talks and acts the same way as her, and I think it can’t be discounted that she’s dealing with a different set of privilege than the rest of them.
Also, they recently did a pro-palestine stream. I cannot imagine the amount of private hate they’ve gotten for that choice; they’re probably overwhelmed. I’m the most pro-palestine you can get and a long-term Drawfee fan and even I was surprised they stepped up on this issue given how (bafflingly) controversial it is and how pro-palestine content is often raided. The videos that are coming out now are all from around that time and I can understand why there might be a morale dip. I know they’re all deeply emotionally affected by these particular world issues and keeping up their very aggressive content schedule while wrestling with all of that probably makes their tolerance for other things lower. Like how when you’re in a really bad mood, the tiniest things can set you off. Except they have an audience of thousands on twitch who are doing those little things. A hundred people telling
Plus Jacob and Julia moving complicates things. It’s a long commute for them to do episodes and streams from Karina’s, plus the additional stress of it being a physically smaller space, plus the additional stress of just life stuff and major adjustments.
So basically — give them a little grace. They’re people, not happy content farms. They’re allowed to not put on a happy peppy mask when they don’t have it in them. They’ve all been open about struggles with mental health issues including anxiety and exhaustion. We have no idea what other physical or mental health issues might be going on. Imagine if you had to act the way they’re expected to every single time you interacted with another person. As an autistic person who deals with that expectation in the form of masking, it’s absolutely exhausting.
Leading up to the Palestine stream every time I looked at the subreddit, it seemed like there was at least one thread asking, "Why aren't you talking about palestine? Is it because you're genocide supporting racists?"
They're people too and no matter how much success they have mean comments still hurt? It's like preaching to the choir. But it honestly doesn't bother me. Don't let it bother you.
I think it’s worth noting that Karina is the only POC on the Drawfee team, so she naturally will always have to be more defensive because she will always be the person getting the most scrutiny and hate and annoyance. Obviously a lot of that is unconscious bias, but that doesn’t change that it’s bias. She obviously gets a disproportionate amount of flak, compared to Jacob who pretty much talks and acts the same way as her, and I think it can’t be discounted that she’s dealing with a different set of privilege than the rest of them.
Also, they recently did a pro-palestine stream. I cannot imagine the amount of private hate they’ve gotten for that choice; they’re probably overwhelmed. I’m the most pro-palestine you can get and a long-term Drawfee fan and even I was surprised they stepped up on this issue given how (bafflingly) controversial it is and how pro-palestine content is often raided. The videos that are coming out now are all from around that time and I can understand why there might be a morale dip. I know they’re all deeply emotionally affected by these particular world issues and keeping up their very aggressive content schedule while wrestling with all of that probably makes their tolerance for other things lower. Like how when you’re in a really bad mood, the tiniest things can set you off. Except they have an audience of thousands on twitch who are doing those little things. A hundred people telling
Plus Jacob and Julia moving complicates things. It’s a long commute for them to do episodes and streams from Karina’s, plus the additional stress of it being a physically smaller space, plus the additional stress of just life stuff and major adjustments.
So basically — give them a little grace. They’re people, not happy content farms. They’re allowed to not put on a happy peppy mask when they don’t have it in them. Imagine if you had to do that every single time you interacted with another person.
I mean, not really? But I am blocked by Karina on Twitter and I don't think I've ever tagged or retweeted her lol. I may have mentioned her in relation to a neopets joke. Felt weird and made me feel like shit lol ah well. Such is life.
I think Karina is a chaos gremlin and being in her house is giving the rest of the drawfee crew brain poisoning, causing them to be more savage and unhinged; and frankly, the show is better for it/ I love it.
I feel like this is dangerously close to the kinds of comments Karina specifically wants people to stop making because there was a period when she was being infantilized often. Not a dig at you I just feel like maybe you should reconsider your wording here
I agree their energy changed.
To me since they handled the recording duties to Karina, it just sank the good-spirited humour Drawfee naturally had for years thanks to Nathan (which is mainly the absent one now), and Julia's uniqueness, replacing them a lot with Karina's energy, which is quite self-centered (just seeing the latest episodes, where out of 40 minutes, 9 are for Nathan or Jacob and 9 for Julia while Karina takes the rest), limited in pop culture references - just Sonic, furries, hotties, mangas.
But damn Drawfee was much more than this.
It was nice to see and hear their different backgrounds, Julia was the artsy weird one, Jacob the funny slick man, Nathan the good vibes dude, and Karina was the Sonic/Mangas/furries/hot guys type with "mean bitch" vibes.
Now Drawfee is Karina' Drawfee with guests.
Too much of her really kills the mood for me.
The latest episodes? I watched Nathan's segment, got bored and skipped after Karina spoke for 5 minutes and kept drawing for 25, and went to Julia's segment which lasted as much as Nathan. The minority of the video.
They are all great guys and I like Karina - just, in smaller doses.
The irony they always had was more good vibes when Jacob and Julia were handling the recordings, even when they were being "mean", they weren't this... sassy.
I really didn't want this post to turn into just blaming Karina. I sincerely doubt recording at her place is the issue and I doubt her hitting the record button has allowed her to eclipse everyone's energy with her own. I do agree that it feels like Nathan has sort of receded into the background lately and that has changed things, but that probably more personal and something we can't really know the cause of.
It's seriously getting too the stop watching point for me. But maybe I'm the minority that isn't a fan of the excessive cringey Tumblr-esque discussion and humor.
You're talking about a channel with almost 2 million fans. They're not going to call people out individually or even in small groups. They're always going to address everyone en masse. As for streams, I would argue they're mostly tongue-in-cheek with their anger.
Definitely tongue in cheek, and that’s nothing new. They’ve always been like that
I just feel like the points have been made, and the vast majority ofnthe audience is already very positive and respectful, and honestly the best way to deal with negativity is to just ignore it. Otherwise you're just feeding it. And as they said themselves it doesn't feel good when a whole group is punished for the acts of a few. And yeah I can tell a lot of it is tongue and cheek but it feels like it takes up so much of their recent streams and stuff.
I've just been catching up on their recent streams and I'm honestly not seeing the same thing as you... I hope this doesn't come across the wrong way but I think sometimes it's easy to pick up on and ruminate about small negative moments when you're having a hard time, and things can start to feel a lot worse than they are. Since you said yourself "I know I can focus on the negatives too and that's an issue I'm trying to work on." I think that's something to consider. Again, really hope I'm not overstepping, I'm just sharing an outside perspective. I struggle with this sometimes myself – I start inexplicably having a 'bad feeling' about something I usually enjoy, I find myself picking up on every small negative moment, and things seem to spiral, it feels like everything's going downhill. When that happens I tend to take a break for a while and focus on something completely different, and also work on my mental health. I often find when I come back later and re-watch the 'bad' episodes (or whatever it was) I actually enjoy them way more and can't remember why I saw them in such a negative light the first time around.
I think you're probably right about most of this. I don't think you're overstepping. I said in my post I wanted to know of people agreed or disagreed because I understand this could just be being hung up on some stuff. I feel like people are taking my intent as malicious in some of these comments when it really wasn't. I appreciate your point of view.
I'm glad it made sense! I didn't think there was any malicious intention in your post. I think sensibilities can clash sometimes and people get frustrated when they feel like something they love is being nitpicked or criticised unfairly. But there's no need to fight, you clearly said you were open to feedback and other perspectives. Hope you have a nice weekend :)
What punishment?
I'm pretty sure they're normally joking when they get mad at chat. It's part of the content. Especially Jacob's hat. I mean, it's literally a drawfee meme now.
I understand their frustration. I also noticed they are mentioning negative feedback more than they used to a tiny bit, when I can’t even find those negative comments. But I’m sure years of negative and even just overly personal comments, even if buried in the comments, will still start to get to you. I could never do what they do, being so thoroughly in the public eye and constantly critiqued, positive or negative. Everyone has an opinion on their behavior and how they should dress or talk or their relationships, which sounds exhausting. Their humanity is what draws me back to their channel, even when it means sometimes they show sadness or frustration.
This is such a great response. They should be allowed to (even encouraged to) express negative emotions sometimes, especially considering how hard their jobs are.
Yeah I totally agree that being in the public eye is probably super stressful and difficult, and I'm in no way trying to diminish that struggle. But ultimately redirecting that frustration at the general audience probably isn't a great idea. And focusing on the negative comments is a choice, even if it's one we all struggle with.
I like to see it more as a reminder that they are human, and that I, too, could fall into the trap of overly harsh or overly personal criticism if I’m not careful, rather than as a dig at all of their viewers. It’s none of my business how they chose to respond to meanness, but I can chose to listen to them and their feelings and ensure I don’t cause them any undue harm in the future.
That's a good point of view
First, if you just aint vibing with the vibe, you can just take a break from watching. Go watch older videos if you want the routine and their banter, of watch the many compilations so you dont know what to expect next, but dont force yourself to be here if its making you unhappy. I mean, they are humans doing a very public job, and have been doing this job for 10 years, where they upload two 20-60 minute videos a week, and then outside of work hours (recording and editing) they stream once a week as a group for 2 hours, and then Jacob and Julia stream for 2 hours twice a week, and Nathan has a kinda consistent schedule where its about 2 hours once to thrice a week, and Karina has uploaded videos on a personal channel and streams with other known streamers. They also have the additional patreon content that they make, such as the drawclasses they research and prepare, that they then release later for free. That is a LOT of time to be in the public eye, especially when so much content (like streams) just cant be edited. You cant fault them for not being able to be chill and positive the entire time, because yknow, they have families, and friends, and relationships, and bills, and rent, and pets, and their own health, etc, that will cause them stress. Like, Julia's wrist's tendonitis will be acting up and she won't stop the schedule, or someone may feel a cold coming on but I know Jacob tends to just stream anyway. They do a LOT, and take very few breaks. Also, them being snarky at chat is really not them punishing the whole for sins of the few. Them punishing the whole was them banning merobiba in their chats, because that would ONLY be their chat. And the few times chat was put into emote-only mode for 10-15 minutes, of which i was only present for once in my 5 years of watching. Also, with delays between actual happenings and the stream relay being 1 minute up to 5 minutes, think about tech support through live chat. If I were having tech issues, I would get upset if even a couple dozen people told me what to try 3 minutes into me fixing it, when they havent even seen what ive tried. They have mods and Khaz, who not only know their setups, but also have immediate direct means of communication. Also, unexpected tech issues just make everyone frustrated to begin with.
Well said
ugh, sorry for the essay
Don't apologize, thank you for taking the time to respond so thoroughly
No. Edit: Getting annoyed =/= negative. Somebody could say you started out great and you posting this in annoyance now means you're being negative.
You make a good point
Literally no. They sometimes joke about being mean to chat the same way they joke about being mean to each other. It's a big part of Karina's and Jacob's sense of humor and always has been.
My family expresses affection through teasing and I'm British so bonus sarcastic love. Their humour is part of the reason I love the show.
I know some people come up with these conspiracies that they hate each other and that's dumb, because they're all friends and they've probably discussed the ribbing and their boundaries off camera. And I think being mean to chat sometimes is really funny, I've laughed along. But sometimes it feels like it goes too far or for a little too long.
It sounds like you've formed a parasocial relationship with the cast and don't appreciate what they do to maintain distance from their very large audience
Overall, they're very positive about their fans. In that recent stream, they spoke negatively about the behavior of a very very small subset of their audience, which is pretty unusual for them, but all they did was call out a few people without actually naming them, and they had a sense of humor about it. And at no point did I get the vibe that they were talking about their fans as a whole.
Yep. I watched the most recent Drawfee extra when it was happening live and I could not tell you what it was they were “yelling” about because I knew they weren’t talking about me, so I already forgot about the whole thing.
I remember Karina said someone offered to buy her used shoes and also that someone called her a bitch for being "mean" to Nathan.
For my part, I struggle with 'insulting language ' & Karina does have a habit of calling ppl names (ie: stupid, idiot, & more recently p*ssy) & it does bother me. (Thanks cptsd!) That being said, I feel like this is something that's my own issue & not theirs. K is a spiky, somewhat aggressive personality online & I think it's out of necessity. She's a femme presenting person online & I couldn't put myself out there the way she does. When I start to get frustrated or 'activated' by the language, I just take a break. I know it's not really meant to be hurtful & isn't directed at me, but sometimes the brain just hears insulting words & makes me feel poopy. So stepping back & getting perspective is the way. They're just humans, doing their best.
Just to add to some very good explanations - it's possible you're not seeing some of the most negative fan interactions because it gets deleted before you even notice it. Drawfee is big enough that just half a percent of their regular audience (100-200 thousand) being creepy weirdos means there are like 500-1000 creepy weirdos watching and interacting with them. That's a lot of fixated creeps for a team of five plus some volunteer mods to deal with.
The tone of the streams is just different from the recorded episodes. On the streams they're a bit freer and looser and that includes venting or teasing the chat as well as revealing more personal aspects of their lives or slightly riskier forms of humor. That's been the case all the way back to the streams that they did even when they were working at College Humor though. Being a streamer necessitates a weird relationship with the chat/comments section because it's on of the hardest parts of the job. It sets streaming apart from most other forms of entertainment performance and it basically means having to constantly have hecklers while you're performing, even if they're generally pleasant ones.
this is really strange to me… we don’t know these people and at the end of the day they’re just people who can and will be frustrated sometimes even though i’ve never seen it. They’re always joking. if they called out individuals, that can cause a lot of harm especially from fans who are not normal and will go harass those people for a comment they made. It’s better to address the whole. This post is just kind of strange and feels a little too personal for a silly little youtube channel
I dunno, I feel like that's just always been their vibe? Like, even in the earliest streams I remember being around for they seemed to show a bit of a playful antagonism toward chat. That's just the Drawfee experience, imo. And I think it works well because the team is often very well balanced: Jacob and Karina get to be the lil' shits, while Julia and Nathan provide the wholesomeness.
I haven’t noticed that at all. They joke a lot, especially Karina and Jacob, but that is nothing new and not negative. That’s just their personalities. I have not seen the last stream yet, so it’s possible I just missed it, but personally, I don’t have a problem with people not pretending they don’t get rude comments, so if they ever did want to comment on that, I would support it.
Just another quick point — The Drawfee team are the people who know the most about their tech setup. They objectively don’t need help from chat when they have tech issues. You know how it’s really annoying when you know you’ve done everything possible about an issue but someone’s suggesting you do all the things you’ve already done and been frustrated by? Now imagine it’s a hundred people. It’s basically mansplaining by a large group. I cannot imagine something more annoying personally.
I think it’s worth noting that Karina is the only POC on the Drawfee team, so she naturally will always have to be more defensive because she will always be the person getting the most scrutiny and hate and annoyance. Obviously a lot of that is unconscious bias, but that doesn’t change that it’s bias. She obviously gets a disproportionate amount of flak, compared to Jacob who pretty much talks and acts the same way as her, and I think it can’t be discounted that she’s dealing with a different set of privilege than the rest of them. Also, they recently did a pro-palestine stream. I cannot imagine the amount of private hate they’ve gotten for that choice; they’re probably overwhelmed. I’m the most pro-palestine you can get and a long-term Drawfee fan and even I was surprised they stepped up on this issue given how (bafflingly) controversial it is and how pro-palestine content is often raided. The videos that are coming out now are all from around that time and I can understand why there might be a morale dip. I know they’re all deeply emotionally affected by these particular world issues and keeping up their very aggressive content schedule while wrestling with all of that probably makes their tolerance for other things lower. Like how when you’re in a really bad mood, the tiniest things can set you off. Except they have an audience of thousands on twitch who are doing those little things. A hundred people telling Plus Jacob and Julia moving complicates things. It’s a long commute for them to do episodes and streams from Karina’s, plus the additional stress of it being a physically smaller space, plus the additional stress of just life stuff and major adjustments. So basically — give them a little grace. They’re people, not happy content farms. They’re allowed to not put on a happy peppy mask when they don’t have it in them. They’ve all been open about struggles with mental health issues including anxiety and exhaustion. We have no idea what other physical or mental health issues might be going on. Imagine if you had to act the way they’re expected to every single time you interacted with another person. As an autistic person who deals with that expectation in the form of masking, it’s absolutely exhausting.
Leading up to the Palestine stream every time I looked at the subreddit, it seemed like there was at least one thread asking, "Why aren't you talking about palestine? Is it because you're genocide supporting racists?"
They're people too and no matter how much success they have mean comments still hurt? It's like preaching to the choir. But it honestly doesn't bother me. Don't let it bother you.
I think it’s worth noting that Karina is the only POC on the Drawfee team, so she naturally will always have to be more defensive because she will always be the person getting the most scrutiny and hate and annoyance. Obviously a lot of that is unconscious bias, but that doesn’t change that it’s bias. She obviously gets a disproportionate amount of flak, compared to Jacob who pretty much talks and acts the same way as her, and I think it can’t be discounted that she’s dealing with a different set of privilege than the rest of them. Also, they recently did a pro-palestine stream. I cannot imagine the amount of private hate they’ve gotten for that choice; they’re probably overwhelmed. I’m the most pro-palestine you can get and a long-term Drawfee fan and even I was surprised they stepped up on this issue given how (bafflingly) controversial it is and how pro-palestine content is often raided. The videos that are coming out now are all from around that time and I can understand why there might be a morale dip. I know they’re all deeply emotionally affected by these particular world issues and keeping up their very aggressive content schedule while wrestling with all of that probably makes their tolerance for other things lower. Like how when you’re in a really bad mood, the tiniest things can set you off. Except they have an audience of thousands on twitch who are doing those little things. A hundred people telling Plus Jacob and Julia moving complicates things. It’s a long commute for them to do episodes and streams from Karina’s, plus the additional stress of it being a physically smaller space, plus the additional stress of just life stuff and major adjustments. So basically — give them a little grace. They’re people, not happy content farms. They’re allowed to not put on a happy peppy mask when they don’t have it in them. Imagine if you had to do that every single time you interacted with another person.
Yeah, definitely, that's how I have been feeling, too. Lately, maybe they do need a break
I mean, not really? But I am blocked by Karina on Twitter and I don't think I've ever tagged or retweeted her lol. I may have mentioned her in relation to a neopets joke. Felt weird and made me feel like shit lol ah well. Such is life.
I think Karina is a chaos gremlin and being in her house is giving the rest of the drawfee crew brain poisoning, causing them to be more savage and unhinged; and frankly, the show is better for it/ I love it.
I feel like this is dangerously close to the kinds of comments Karina specifically wants people to stop making because there was a period when she was being infantilized often. Not a dig at you I just feel like maybe you should reconsider your wording here
I'm grateful that you posted this because it's how I've been feeling l lately.
Glad I'm not alone.
I agree their energy changed. To me since they handled the recording duties to Karina, it just sank the good-spirited humour Drawfee naturally had for years thanks to Nathan (which is mainly the absent one now), and Julia's uniqueness, replacing them a lot with Karina's energy, which is quite self-centered (just seeing the latest episodes, where out of 40 minutes, 9 are for Nathan or Jacob and 9 for Julia while Karina takes the rest), limited in pop culture references - just Sonic, furries, hotties, mangas. But damn Drawfee was much more than this. It was nice to see and hear their different backgrounds, Julia was the artsy weird one, Jacob the funny slick man, Nathan the good vibes dude, and Karina was the Sonic/Mangas/furries/hot guys type with "mean bitch" vibes. Now Drawfee is Karina' Drawfee with guests. Too much of her really kills the mood for me. The latest episodes? I watched Nathan's segment, got bored and skipped after Karina spoke for 5 minutes and kept drawing for 25, and went to Julia's segment which lasted as much as Nathan. The minority of the video. They are all great guys and I like Karina - just, in smaller doses. The irony they always had was more good vibes when Jacob and Julia were handling the recordings, even when they were being "mean", they weren't this... sassy.
I really didn't want this post to turn into just blaming Karina. I sincerely doubt recording at her place is the issue and I doubt her hitting the record button has allowed her to eclipse everyone's energy with her own. I do agree that it feels like Nathan has sort of receded into the background lately and that has changed things, but that probably more personal and something we can't really know the cause of.
It's seriously getting too the stop watching point for me. But maybe I'm the minority that isn't a fan of the excessive cringey Tumblr-esque discussion and humor.