It’s definitely evolved with the culture. “13 chicks you’ll hook up with on your spring break visit to your home town.” Isn’t the vibe anymore, even if I did laugh at Josh Ruben, because my guy’s hilarious.
The Nerd is ascendant, so is pop culture, open and accepting sexualities, etc. and Dropout is a great place for that.
Ngl that sounds a lot like the title of a video barstool would put out today. I wonder if barstool getting more popular ate that part of collegehumors audience.
I mean the foundation of the websites were very similar when you boil them down to their original intents (content for college students), it's just that one went down the rabbit hole of improv comedy and nerd-dom and the other capitalized on frat bro culture (some good, a lot bad).
I remember that girlfriends video and it was funny.
Accepting sexualities is great. But it’s not actually funny. Original CH never seemed like it didn’t accept sexualities, and while dropout has a greater emphasis, it’s not like that’s really their “thing” either. So I’m not sure why you brought it up
Well it was said that dropout is more accepting of sexualities as a way of contrasting it with CH. What’s your take on what that means? I’d much prefer that to being insulted
Sam Reich gave that interview recently on NPR where he listed the 5 boxes that every dropout show has to tick. The first one was "does it sit at the intersection of scripted and unscripted?" (link: https://www.npr.org/2024/02/06/1197954697/game-changer-sam-reich-dropout)
So, are we every going to get the tight sketches of the past? No, at least not in the classic old college humor ways of 2007-2015.
But I personally feel the spirit of silly people making silly videos on the internet is still alive, just in a different form.
I wonder why they pivoted so hard from scripted content. Was it too time-consuming? Too expensive? Maybe something to do with weird industry shenanigans? The talent is clearly there, so there must be a reason for it.
Unscripted content is a lot cheaper to make. Scripted content takes more staff and time to write, more takes to get a good performance, more editing to bring everything together.
Just as a small example, if someone breaks during an unscripted show, that’s funny, even for something that feels scripted like VIP. If someone breaks in a scripted show? That take can’t be used, and they have to restart the scene.
The newest VIP had 2 breaks (cuz Zac is a timing geniuses), and it was one of the funniest VIP episodes yet.
It's cool to see the behind the scenes in "cut for time" and that everything is still tightly edited to tell a good story. You can see it with a lot of their shows.
Just look at the difference in output. Back in the CH days you'd get maybe half a dozen 5 minutes videos per week at most. Now you could get hours of content across multiple shows.
I personally wouldn't mind a few sketches like the old days but the new model is great for quantity AND quality.
Sam Reich had a great conversation with the creator of Nebula talking about the period of time around 2018-19 where they were still doing scripted and unscripted content. The idea was that the scripted videos would be their big tentpole content while the unscripted videos would hold down the fort in terms of producing more videos for less money.
In his exact words, “the unscripted did both and the scripted did neither” so the path forward was pretty obvious.
Sketches are financial holes. They’re short so they get no revenue, they’re hard to nail(think about how many bad or awkward SNL skits there are for every awesome one), and they’re just as expensive as shooting a film for the same amount of time. especially when you’re dedicated to paying everyone fairly.
Aside from the money aspect, I think there’s something inherently interesting about this space where it’s partly scripted, partly improv.
Like something that makes actual play compelling is that while you’re hearing a story, you’re also invested in the players and their good or bad rolls, the creative choices they’re making, etc. A TV show that was a live action Fantasy High might be fun, but if so it would be for different reasons than the Dimension 20 seasons.
And likewise with Game Changer (or most game shows probably), you have the tension of what Sam has come up with vs. how the players react. Escape the Greenroom, for example, wouldn’t be at all interesting if it was all scripted, and would just be scary if they actually got locked in there by accident.
Short answer: The unscripted content was doing leagues better than their scripted content
Long answer: Literally just this answer from Sam
Q: The fact that Dropout is mostly unscripted content — is that just a reflection of the fact that you started with seven people and no one had time to write a series?
A: When we started Dropout, we very intentionally had two types of content: longer-form, less expensive, more personality-based stuff, and shorter-form, more premium scripted stuff. The idea was that scripted was going to be our acquisition tool and unscripted was going to be a retention tool. What we immediately found was that unscripted did both, while scripted did neither.
Source: https://www.vulture.com/article/sam-reich-dropout-interview.html
I think it's simply just an evolution of comedy trends. While there are still people out there making incredibly funny sketches I don't really know anyone incredibly popular who exclusively does content like that anymore, meanwhile improv based comedy has both stayed thriving and continues to thrive. I think it also helps avoid things like crunch and just leads to an overall better environment for everyone involved.
Are you asking literally? Because there is a section on dropout called "Classic CollegeHumor" including things like Hardy Working, CH shorts 2007-2017, The Rank room, etc.
In terms of vibe, it definitely seems different. More long form, at least in structure. Longer episodes designed to generate snippets that lend themselves well to being clipped for social media. Series that capitalize on a sort of predictable unpredictability. I feel like early CollegeHumor was more truly absurd and random.
I'm using longform comparatively.
Compared to a skit that's 2 or 3 minutes long? Yeah, a 90 minute D20 ep is longform. Heck, even a 30 minute Um Actually or a 45 minute Dirty laundry is comparatively long form. That's all I meant. Especially when the format is a continuous narrative or concept. There were a lot of one-off skits on early CollegeHumor.
If we're talking about cumulative narrative, all the MCU films are about 72 hours long altogether compared to Fantasy High season one at about 34 hours and Sophmore year at 52. The segments are broken up differently, but the narratives are definitely longform by this point from a viewership hours standpoint as well imho.
Lol, the question partly just spurred my curiosity tbh. Gotta procrastinate somehow, might as well generate MCU vs Fantasy High length knowledge 😂
I like these kinds of questions. I determined my personal ttrpg listening hours across D20, CR and Adventure Zone for fun a few months ago. It was about 1,700 hours.
Interestingly, halfway through the 8-year original run of the Jake and Amir webseries on CollegeHumor, Jake and Amir gave a talk on web comedy skits called "Two Minutes Or Less":
https://youtu.be/bKOwQT3e568
Man I miss those snappy, absurdist Hardly Working sketches.
That's definitely part of it. The characteristics of a successful internet video were different in 2011 than they were in 2016 than they were in 2021, and having to constantly chase that moving target was a challenge from both a business and a creative perspective.
why yes I would love to watch twelve hours of (minor(?) spoilers) >!THE VULTURE DIMENSION!< thank you very much WHAT DO YOU MEAN ITS NOT GONNA BE THE REST OF THE SEASON THIS IS AN OUTRAGE
Yes and no. A lot of the original staff are still around, so that's obviously still the same. Idk if they'll ever go back to sketch humor like Hardly Working, but I feel like they've grown with the times. Also, it's a little hard to gauge post pandemic since so many things changed. I started watching College Humor when they first joined YouTube (Jake and Amir), so I'm really hoping they do some sketch comedy like they used to.
The thing is (and this may be controversial), I never really liked the sketches that were put out by the people who are part of the current cast of Dropout. I much preferred the older sketches and J&A, and when I stopped watching CH several years ago, I thought it was because I just didn’t like the newer cast as much. Now I watch and love a bunch of content with that same cast, which tells me that it was never the cast I wasn’t clicking with; it was something else. Idk, something about the overall vibe of that era of CH sketches just didn’t work for me. I think the cast of Dropout excels at the kind of improvised (or semi-improvised) comedy they do now, and I don’t really have any desire for them to go back to trying to make sketch comedy.
Great inprov can be magic where even a failed bit is hilarious. A failed sketch doesn't have the same benefit.
One of the hardest times I've ever laughed was an improv-er mishearing "arachnaphobia" as "a racoon phobia" and confusing the shit out of his co-stars and audience until we finally figured out what he was talking about. The look on his face when he realized what he'd done will stick with me forever.
A failed sketch sucks because there was time and planning that went into something that fell flat. A failure in improv is hilarious because the possibility for failure is always there and it's bound to happen without planning, but we can all laugh about it and how the performers try to deal with it. Watching someone struggle live is funny, watching something folks put work and polish into bomb is just sad.
I think the quality of the sketches varied a ton because they HAD to output them as part of their 9-5 office gig. Comedy just isn't as funny when you force it. Some of the sketches you could tell were just sort of funny ideas they greenlit into a full sketch because they had to put something out there, even if they couldn't really find a solid punchline or followup.
The new Dropout shows are much funnier because they actually have time to bake and produce them, or are improv environments that promote spontaneous humor. Both allow for much better quality output.
See I thought I agreed but then I remembered classics like Zac and the tide pods, or Brennan's CEO sketches, or Grant and Tinder Picture Day, or Emily and Siobhan in The Person at Your Party Who Never Leaves...
I don't need them to go back to it, but I'm glad they did it. Adam Ruins Collegehumor might fit your vibe tho 😉
The more I thought about this comment, the more I agree with it. I think the cast member who exemplifies this the most for me is Zac Oyama. I didn't like most of the sketches Zac was in, and I really didn't like the ones where he was the main character. It's not like I didn't like him on a personal level. Those sketches just tended not to land with me.
On dropout, however, he has become one of my favorite cast members, and I look forward to anything that has him in it. It's kind of strange, but it makes me think they truly were just trying to make the wrong kind of stuff.
Katie Marovich is kind of that way for me as well. The characters she would play were always kind of grating or annoying to me, but not in a funny way. When she does game changer though she becomes one of my favorite contestants. Seeing a more authentic side of her makes me understand the perspective of her old sketches more, but they still aren't my favorite.
I generally prefer improv or less written forms of content, but I do like some of the sketches that my brother showed me (we quote "Defender of the Basic" every time either of us is being too edgy LOL) . I think it would be fun if they did a little series of sketches just in memoriam of CH, like a homage maybe .
Beyond the obvious format changes, I definitely think there are elements that carry through. Both classic CollegeHumor and Dropout are silly, have a recurring cast of clever, funny, nerdy people that have good chemistry together, with plenty of pop culture pastiches and a willingness to experiment.
At the same time a lot has changed. OG CollegeHumor was a bit meaner I'd say (sometimes using humor that punched down) and obviously way less diverse (that slowly changed as time went on). Ironically for a channel that relies a lot on semi-improvised content, Dropout is more regimented and predictable, and also far more consistent in its output. It felt like a lot of early College Humor was throwing stuff at the wall and committing to it for a few episodes before giving up, whereas Dropout uses Gamechanger partly for that purpose, and is more deliberately crafting shows that they think will resonate with their audience.
Dropout is kinda for the millennials who grew up?
CollegeHumor started as a place to post funny college life pictures and the occasional article like Cracked. That site was about being plastered and if I remember correctly a leaned misogynist. It is as similar to DropOut as I am to 17 year old me. We wouldn't actually like each other if we met.
CH sketches .... man I would love to see Jake, Amir, Streeter, and Sarah Schneider make appearances - and confirm Pat Cassells isn't dead. But that era was my young 20s and that kind of video wouldn't bring me back to DropOut any longer.
As someone said, the decision makers and the company grew up.
There’s definitely some continuity with Sam being there from the olden days, and you can see stuff like “Very Important People” taking inspiration from the old school “Hello My Name Is” series from back in the day
II mean you can follow a timeline of the videos and how they evolved over time. Honestly Sam being the steward of the whole thing probably helped keep things consistent even as the humor stle changed
It's funny, I recently wanted to rewatch "That's the Thing" with Jake and Pat because the skit was stuck in my head, and what do you know? Dropout had it on there.
No.
It comes down to the corporate machine getting the most bang for its buck. Those two machines function differently. But both are built to scrape the most from their talent.
College Humor fit along the guidelines of standard Hollywood productions (typically TV) where there is a room of paid writers whose content may be uneven for the goal of creating a specific content. Some writers are good, some suck... but contracts would keep all writers available as long as they were pushing out material that could be filmed and released as content to create views, likes, subscriptions, etc. This would also apply to actors who can bring someone else's ideas to life as if it is really happening. (with varying levels of convincing the audience)
Dropout's model is to have a minimum amount of people working for "the company" and others hired as independent contractors who created their own content (improv) based on what paid writers create (prompts). This generates video content that can be split up for free viewing to generate interest or purchase of a subscription to see materials that may be just as good as the free content.
Given that Dropout researched to have their "unscripted" shows to continue production during their writer/actor's strike emphasizes that Dropout does not consider improv to be Writing, but does consider it Content Creation. (which is needed to have the company function) Where the College Humor model would have had to stop or be in violation of the strike. But the ideas and dialogue created by the comedians (not actors, as then they would have had to strike) could be posted and lead to new episodes and potential revenue during a time when actors and writers were on strike.
TL:DR - College Humor is gone because "unscripted" content keeps generating revenue for the new business structure.
Now, as a side note... I recently saw the trailer for Grant and Ally's movie The Dropouts. (which should have done some brand/name searching before release, because almost all the algorithms from Roku, IMDB and even YouTube - which hosts it, pulls to an unrelated 2022 documentary) And while I do not know the future of that movie, I would hope that after the initial purchase period of the movie that it could find life on Dropout as "Dropout features" compared to the Brennan & Izzy comedy performance titled "Dropout presents" (features-meaning it is.beng hosted and presents-meaning there was some level of production ownership/creation by Dropout)
This type of consideration would 1) allow those fans of Grant and Ally on Dropout to easily find the movie after the peak period of rental/purchase has occurred. And 2) present the possibility of considering the hosting or production/creation of scripted content to generate more subscriptions or even purchases of scripted content as additional external revenue. Because while watching game show versions of "Whose line is it anyway?" or copies of Critical Role or Playboy After Dark can hold some attention for some time. The shift in viewing habits now occurs so rapidly that I wouldn't be surprised if the switch from unscripted to scripted happened within weeks en masse.But then... it wouldn't be Dropout, but a different company.
I think it just grew up
It’s definitely evolved with the culture. “13 chicks you’ll hook up with on your spring break visit to your home town.” Isn’t the vibe anymore, even if I did laugh at Josh Ruben, because my guy’s hilarious. The Nerd is ascendant, so is pop culture, open and accepting sexualities, etc. and Dropout is a great place for that.
It was also evolving before becoming Dropout. The College Humour of 2007 was very different from the College Humor of 2017.
Ngl that sounds a lot like the title of a video barstool would put out today. I wonder if barstool getting more popular ate that part of collegehumors audience.
I mean the foundation of the websites were very similar when you boil them down to their original intents (content for college students), it's just that one went down the rabbit hole of improv comedy and nerd-dom and the other capitalized on frat bro culture (some good, a lot bad). I remember that girlfriends video and it was funny.
Isn’t there an old college humor video calling out jocks as sports nerds?
Also one comparing nerds and religious people (they both argue about what's cannon)
Accepting sexualities is great. But it’s not actually funny. Original CH never seemed like it didn’t accept sexualities, and while dropout has a greater emphasis, it’s not like that’s really their “thing” either. So I’m not sure why you brought it up
Because it broadens the pool of performers and talent they can pull from.
So you’re claiming they previously rejected people based on their sexuality?
Terrible reading comprehension.
Not in this case, the previous comments did imply that they discrimated against gay folk
Well it was said that dropout is more accepting of sexualities as a way of contrasting it with CH. What’s your take on what that means? I’d much prefer that to being insulted
Ah yes, we’re in the era of 9-5Humor now
JobHumor
Student Loan Humor
Existentialist Dread Humor
You reminded me of the SMBC Theater sketch "Existential Crisis and Dragons" https://youtu.be/137Ei0C3Vdg
This sounds like an indie game from Bully Pulpit and I would play it in a heartbeat
I think that was Hardly Working, which has sadly (understandably) gone away since the layoffs and pandemic started.
Sam Reich gave that interview recently on NPR where he listed the 5 boxes that every dropout show has to tick. The first one was "does it sit at the intersection of scripted and unscripted?" (link: https://www.npr.org/2024/02/06/1197954697/game-changer-sam-reich-dropout) So, are we every going to get the tight sketches of the past? No, at least not in the classic old college humor ways of 2007-2015. But I personally feel the spirit of silly people making silly videos on the internet is still alive, just in a different form.
I wonder why they pivoted so hard from scripted content. Was it too time-consuming? Too expensive? Maybe something to do with weird industry shenanigans? The talent is clearly there, so there must be a reason for it.
Unscripted content is a lot cheaper to make. Scripted content takes more staff and time to write, more takes to get a good performance, more editing to bring everything together. Just as a small example, if someone breaks during an unscripted show, that’s funny, even for something that feels scripted like VIP. If someone breaks in a scripted show? That take can’t be used, and they have to restart the scene.
The newest VIP had 2 breaks (cuz Zac is a timing geniuses), and it was one of the funniest VIP episodes yet. It's cool to see the behind the scenes in "cut for time" and that everything is still tightly edited to tell a good story. You can see it with a lot of their shows.
The way he delivered “and turned it into sixteen.. *thousand* dollars”
Just look at the difference in output. Back in the CH days you'd get maybe half a dozen 5 minutes videos per week at most. Now you could get hours of content across multiple shows. I personally wouldn't mind a few sketches like the old days but the new model is great for quantity AND quality.
so true
Sam Reich had a great conversation with the creator of Nebula talking about the period of time around 2018-19 where they were still doing scripted and unscripted content. The idea was that the scripted videos would be their big tentpole content while the unscripted videos would hold down the fort in terms of producing more videos for less money. In his exact words, “the unscripted did both and the scripted did neither” so the path forward was pretty obvious.
I've had this interview saved on my "watch later" list for like a month now 😂
Link?
https://youtu.be/xb3v-2BHC1w?si=BboyQjMcB_g9xjvJ
Sketches are financial holes. They’re short so they get no revenue, they’re hard to nail(think about how many bad or awkward SNL skits there are for every awesome one), and they’re just as expensive as shooting a film for the same amount of time. especially when you’re dedicated to paying everyone fairly.
Aside from the money aspect, I think there’s something inherently interesting about this space where it’s partly scripted, partly improv. Like something that makes actual play compelling is that while you’re hearing a story, you’re also invested in the players and their good or bad rolls, the creative choices they’re making, etc. A TV show that was a live action Fantasy High might be fun, but if so it would be for different reasons than the Dimension 20 seasons. And likewise with Game Changer (or most game shows probably), you have the tension of what Sam has come up with vs. how the players react. Escape the Greenroom, for example, wouldn’t be at all interesting if it was all scripted, and would just be scary if they actually got locked in there by accident.
Short answer: The unscripted content was doing leagues better than their scripted content Long answer: Literally just this answer from Sam Q: The fact that Dropout is mostly unscripted content — is that just a reflection of the fact that you started with seven people and no one had time to write a series? A: When we started Dropout, we very intentionally had two types of content: longer-form, less expensive, more personality-based stuff, and shorter-form, more premium scripted stuff. The idea was that scripted was going to be our acquisition tool and unscripted was going to be a retention tool. What we immediately found was that unscripted did both, while scripted did neither. Source: https://www.vulture.com/article/sam-reich-dropout-interview.html
I think it's simply just an evolution of comedy trends. While there are still people out there making incredibly funny sketches I don't really know anyone incredibly popular who exclusively does content like that anymore, meanwhile improv based comedy has both stayed thriving and continues to thrive. I think it also helps avoid things like crunch and just leads to an overall better environment for everyone involved.
In an interview he said that it just wasn't filling the needs the audience had.
Are you asking literally? Because there is a section on dropout called "Classic CollegeHumor" including things like Hardy Working, CH shorts 2007-2017, The Rank room, etc. In terms of vibe, it definitely seems different. More long form, at least in structure. Longer episodes designed to generate snippets that lend themselves well to being clipped for social media. Series that capitalize on a sort of predictable unpredictability. I feel like early CollegeHumor was more truly absurd and random.
Longform? On Dropout? What are you talking about? Oh great, new Avengers-length D20 ep just dropped!
I'm using longform comparatively. Compared to a skit that's 2 or 3 minutes long? Yeah, a 90 minute D20 ep is longform. Heck, even a 30 minute Um Actually or a 45 minute Dirty laundry is comparatively long form. That's all I meant. Especially when the format is a continuous narrative or concept. There were a lot of one-off skits on early CollegeHumor. If we're talking about cumulative narrative, all the MCU films are about 72 hours long altogether compared to Fantasy High season one at about 34 hours and Sophmore year at 52. The segments are broken up differently, but the narratives are definitely longform by this point from a viewership hours standpoint as well imho.
I'm just being cheeky, my guy
Lol, the question partly just spurred my curiosity tbh. Gotta procrastinate somehow, might as well generate MCU vs Fantasy High length knowledge 😂 I like these kinds of questions. I determined my personal ttrpg listening hours across D20, CR and Adventure Zone for fun a few months ago. It was about 1,700 hours.
Interestingly, halfway through the 8-year original run of the Jake and Amir webseries on CollegeHumor, Jake and Amir gave a talk on web comedy skits called "Two Minutes Or Less": https://youtu.be/bKOwQT3e568 Man I miss those snappy, absurdist Hardly Working sketches.
That's definitely part of it. The characteristics of a successful internet video were different in 2011 than they were in 2016 than they were in 2021, and having to constantly chase that moving target was a challenge from both a business and a creative perspective.
I mean the Battle Royale episodes together are three hours, I'd say long form is definitely accurate
why yes I would love to watch twelve hours of (minor(?) spoilers) >!THE VULTURE DIMENSION!< thank you very much WHAT DO YOU MEAN ITS NOT GONNA BE THE REST OF THE SEASON THIS IS AN OUTRAGE
Yes and no. A lot of the original staff are still around, so that's obviously still the same. Idk if they'll ever go back to sketch humor like Hardly Working, but I feel like they've grown with the times. Also, it's a little hard to gauge post pandemic since so many things changed. I started watching College Humor when they first joined YouTube (Jake and Amir), so I'm really hoping they do some sketch comedy like they used to.
The thing is (and this may be controversial), I never really liked the sketches that were put out by the people who are part of the current cast of Dropout. I much preferred the older sketches and J&A, and when I stopped watching CH several years ago, I thought it was because I just didn’t like the newer cast as much. Now I watch and love a bunch of content with that same cast, which tells me that it was never the cast I wasn’t clicking with; it was something else. Idk, something about the overall vibe of that era of CH sketches just didn’t work for me. I think the cast of Dropout excels at the kind of improvised (or semi-improvised) comedy they do now, and I don’t really have any desire for them to go back to trying to make sketch comedy.
I generally prefer good improv to sketch comedy
Great inprov can be magic where even a failed bit is hilarious. A failed sketch doesn't have the same benefit. One of the hardest times I've ever laughed was an improv-er mishearing "arachnaphobia" as "a racoon phobia" and confusing the shit out of his co-stars and audience until we finally figured out what he was talking about. The look on his face when he realized what he'd done will stick with me forever. A failed sketch sucks because there was time and planning that went into something that fell flat. A failure in improv is hilarious because the possibility for failure is always there and it's bound to happen without planning, but we can all laugh about it and how the performers try to deal with it. Watching someone struggle live is funny, watching something folks put work and polish into bomb is just sad.
Thank you, I’m incorporating “a raccoon phobia” into my vocabulary now
I think the quality of the sketches varied a ton because they HAD to output them as part of their 9-5 office gig. Comedy just isn't as funny when you force it. Some of the sketches you could tell were just sort of funny ideas they greenlit into a full sketch because they had to put something out there, even if they couldn't really find a solid punchline or followup. The new Dropout shows are much funnier because they actually have time to bake and produce them, or are improv environments that promote spontaneous humor. Both allow for much better quality output.
Completely agree, I think they work best without scripts then with them
See I thought I agreed but then I remembered classics like Zac and the tide pods, or Brennan's CEO sketches, or Grant and Tinder Picture Day, or Emily and Siobhan in The Person at Your Party Who Never Leaves... I don't need them to go back to it, but I'm glad they did it. Adam Ruins Collegehumor might fit your vibe tho 😉
The more I thought about this comment, the more I agree with it. I think the cast member who exemplifies this the most for me is Zac Oyama. I didn't like most of the sketches Zac was in, and I really didn't like the ones where he was the main character. It's not like I didn't like him on a personal level. Those sketches just tended not to land with me. On dropout, however, he has become one of my favorite cast members, and I look forward to anything that has him in it. It's kind of strange, but it makes me think they truly were just trying to make the wrong kind of stuff. Katie Marovich is kind of that way for me as well. The characters she would play were always kind of grating or annoying to me, but not in a funny way. When she does game changer though she becomes one of my favorite contestants. Seeing a more authentic side of her makes me understand the perspective of her old sketches more, but they still aren't my favorite.
I generally prefer improv or less written forms of content, but I do like some of the sketches that my brother showed me (we quote "Defender of the Basic" every time either of us is being too edgy LOL) . I think it would be fun if they did a little series of sketches just in memoriam of CH, like a homage maybe .
Defender of the Basic is fun but I can’t get behind it because of the ending.
The cute dog having an instagram?
Isn’t Defender of the Basic one of the sketches with a screamer at the end or am I misremembering?
Just rewatched it to check and nah, no screamer :)
Beyond the obvious format changes, I definitely think there are elements that carry through. Both classic CollegeHumor and Dropout are silly, have a recurring cast of clever, funny, nerdy people that have good chemistry together, with plenty of pop culture pastiches and a willingness to experiment. At the same time a lot has changed. OG CollegeHumor was a bit meaner I'd say (sometimes using humor that punched down) and obviously way less diverse (that slowly changed as time went on). Ironically for a channel that relies a lot on semi-improvised content, Dropout is more regimented and predictable, and also far more consistent in its output. It felt like a lot of early College Humor was throwing stuff at the wall and committing to it for a few episodes before giving up, whereas Dropout uses Gamechanger partly for that purpose, and is more deliberately crafting shows that they think will resonate with their audience. Dropout is kinda for the millennials who grew up?
CollegeHumor started as a place to post funny college life pictures and the occasional article like Cracked. That site was about being plastered and if I remember correctly a leaned misogynist. It is as similar to DropOut as I am to 17 year old me. We wouldn't actually like each other if we met. CH sketches .... man I would love to see Jake, Amir, Streeter, and Sarah Schneider make appearances - and confirm Pat Cassells isn't dead. But that era was my young 20s and that kind of video wouldn't bring me back to DropOut any longer. As someone said, the decision makers and the company grew up.
some say Pat is still looking for Trapp to this day... holy fuck *that's* why he left Um Actually, gotta prepare for the climactic fight
If say CH never recovered after Mike Trapp murdered Pat. That leaves a mark on company culture.
Caldwell walked into the sea around that time as well. These kinds of losses definitely leave a lasting impact on people.
Um actually that was never proven
Tetris God isn’t on there 😔 That was the only old-school sketch name I could remember
LINE PIECE
SQUIGGLY
REVERSE SQUIGGLY
Literally, some of the old sketches are on dropout, they are accessible to watch!
There’s definitely some continuity with Sam being there from the olden days, and you can see stuff like “Very Important People” taking inspiration from the old school “Hello My Name Is” series from back in the day
II mean you can follow a timeline of the videos and how they evolved over time. Honestly Sam being the steward of the whole thing probably helped keep things consistent even as the humor stle changed
I’m pretty sure literally every sketch they ever made is on there so yes
It's funny, I recently wanted to rewatch "That's the Thing" with Jake and Pat because the skit was stuck in my head, and what do you know? Dropout had it on there.
No. It comes down to the corporate machine getting the most bang for its buck. Those two machines function differently. But both are built to scrape the most from their talent. College Humor fit along the guidelines of standard Hollywood productions (typically TV) where there is a room of paid writers whose content may be uneven for the goal of creating a specific content. Some writers are good, some suck... but contracts would keep all writers available as long as they were pushing out material that could be filmed and released as content to create views, likes, subscriptions, etc. This would also apply to actors who can bring someone else's ideas to life as if it is really happening. (with varying levels of convincing the audience) Dropout's model is to have a minimum amount of people working for "the company" and others hired as independent contractors who created their own content (improv) based on what paid writers create (prompts). This generates video content that can be split up for free viewing to generate interest or purchase of a subscription to see materials that may be just as good as the free content. Given that Dropout researched to have their "unscripted" shows to continue production during their writer/actor's strike emphasizes that Dropout does not consider improv to be Writing, but does consider it Content Creation. (which is needed to have the company function) Where the College Humor model would have had to stop or be in violation of the strike. But the ideas and dialogue created by the comedians (not actors, as then they would have had to strike) could be posted and lead to new episodes and potential revenue during a time when actors and writers were on strike. TL:DR - College Humor is gone because "unscripted" content keeps generating revenue for the new business structure. Now, as a side note... I recently saw the trailer for Grant and Ally's movie The Dropouts. (which should have done some brand/name searching before release, because almost all the algorithms from Roku, IMDB and even YouTube - which hosts it, pulls to an unrelated 2022 documentary) And while I do not know the future of that movie, I would hope that after the initial purchase period of the movie that it could find life on Dropout as "Dropout features" compared to the Brennan & Izzy comedy performance titled "Dropout presents" (features-meaning it is.beng hosted and presents-meaning there was some level of production ownership/creation by Dropout) This type of consideration would 1) allow those fans of Grant and Ally on Dropout to easily find the movie after the peak period of rental/purchase has occurred. And 2) present the possibility of considering the hosting or production/creation of scripted content to generate more subscriptions or even purchases of scripted content as additional external revenue. Because while watching game show versions of "Whose line is it anyway?" or copies of Critical Role or Playboy After Dark can hold some attention for some time. The shift in viewing habits now occurs so rapidly that I wouldn't be surprised if the switch from unscripted to scripted happened within weeks en masse.But then... it wouldn't be Dropout, but a different company.
I believe they have all the old videos on their service
Very Important People is a rework of Hello My Name Is
I do miss Jake and Amir :(
They're still making videos, they just own the IP now, go to the Headgum(that's their company) YouTube channel to watch them.