As my name implies, I wish I could just be over this... But I'm not so I'm here.
Hi.
I started watching the Blabs and other Disney vloggers when Galaxy's Edge had its soft opening at Disneyland. Long story short, the Blabs stood out-- greatly helped by Spencer's fantastic night footage of Galaxy's Edge--and I started skimming through their history (and the Disney Bears and even a few Periscopes) to see what I had missed.
Which led to good discoveries and bad ones. I've never been the type of person to just blindly adore things. When I'm a fan of something, there are always things I don't like about it too. The Blabs were no exception. I NEVER thought they were perfect, I just wish I had jumped ship sooner.
The Covid vlogs are what finally got my family to stop watching. The privileged entitlement and the laser-focus on what they COULDN'T HAVE finally killed it for the entire household.
And here's where I start to feel like, "Hi, I'm 'Weren't Here' and I've been sober for a year and a half..." Sometimes you just need to get it off your chest.
A few moments that stood out:
(well, besides the cheating, lying and grifting)
Spencer throwing a silent fit over Katie teasing him about an earlier rant he made about green lights being hard to produce.
Katie recounting the story of arguing with an older patient FROM SWITZERLAND because she believed he was lying about the Matterhorn being a real mountain.
I could go on, but I'll leave it at these two moments because I remember them as early warning signs.
About the "green light fit"... I mean, everyone gets upset, and sometimes when friends tease you it can cut more deeply, but THE WAY he handled it was a "true colors" moment for me.
Just because a man seems generally laid back and nice doesn't mean he can't [hurl verbal or physical abuse/emotionally manipulate/just plain SULK] with the best of them. Just like Tim Tracker, he's let his calm demeanor make him a wolf in sheep's clothing and it works phenomenally well because people are drawn to a calm demeanor and can't imagine a guy like that EVER getting mad about ANYTHING (let alone taking it out on his loved ones in insidious ways, either in plain sight or behind closed doors).
Spencer gets off easy around here in comparison to Katie, but I do think he's his own form of dangerous. I genuinely hope it's not a serious form of danger, and more that he's just a little b¡tch. But tormenting ex-girlfriends and escalating things to the point that someone is working on a restraining order against you... That's a PREDATOR. It doesn't matter how chill he is most of the time. IMO, he is very definitely reaping the consequences of the life he's sown.
And as for the Matterhorn fiasco...
As a fellow Disney fan who also grew up going to the parks: WHAT?! How can you be that dumb?! I've known that since before I can even remember!
I also have a hard time believing she's made it through life never hearing that it was real before. I strongly suspect that whenever it came up she either wasn't paying enough attention or her brain Etch-A-Sketch'd whatever picture she was forming of a real life Matterhorn mountain, and instead, drew a crude picture of a flower.
Because willful ignorance is a totally cute personality trait and people buy you presents for acting like that!
What bothered me about it wasn't that she didn't already know the Matterhorn is a real mountain (okay...that bothered me too...it's always disconcerting when people reach new levels of stupid), it's THE WAY she handled it that set off the red flags.
Arguing with a patient who is older than you...and from the country in question...because heaven forbid she learn from it or spend 2 seconds on Google.
She chooses belligerent ignorance over a learning opportunity. Repeatedly.
And after she told this story, she was *really hoping* everyone else in the group would confess that THEY ALSO didn't know the Matterhorn is real so she could simultaneously feel validated for her stupidity AND superior for dropping that truth bomb ("WOW, the Matterhorn is real! Who knew?!").
Look, everyone has flaws. And YouTuber's flaws get pointed out to infinity. That's another reason why I've stayed away from posting here for so long. It's not really the forum I wanted to contribute to.
NO JUDGEMENT TO THE PEOPLE HERE!
Knowing that other people see it too has made me feel more sane. It's just that at this point in my life, I don't want to spend my time complaining about Youtubers online. I just want to be OVER IT, you know? But poison is poison, and "not watching" was not enough to forcefully eject the Blab poison from my veins. I think I need to try a less passive treatment. So here I am.
The funny thing is, if I could have respectfully voiced my concerns on YouTube--you know, DIRECTLY to the people with whom I had the concerns--without being seen as a Big Old Mean Meany, I probably would have just said my piece and be done with it. By trying to create this oh-so-positive community of blind worshipers and non-critical thinkers, they've completely lost touch with reality and any viewers who live in reality.
Because, "Hey, I'm getting sick of all the Halloween videos," is valuable feedback for content creators. And if one person feels that way, probably other people feel that way. Comments like that shouldn't have to be met with a barrage of stans going, "Shut up!" "Don't watch, then!" "Why do toxic people always have to voice their negative opinions?!" "Don't let the haters get you down, KT and Spence, everything you do is perfect."
Because even if a content creator decides to keep doing the Halloween <or insert subject here> videos, it's still helpful to have a finger on the pulse of your viewers, or POTENTIAL viewers. Not checking that pulse is the reason their channel is DYING.
The Blabs have repeatedly proven that they ARE NOT content creators. They are people who want all of your money and none of your lip.
I REALLY don't want to give them my head space anymore, but simply not watching hasn't released all the toxins that are still floating around in my brain because of them. I think what's still bothering me is the lingering feeling that I should have said something. The whole 'evil triumphs when good people do nothing' sentiment.
Which sounds dire when applied to the Blabs--they are killing their channel all by themselves, thankfully. And this is unlikely to ever be a matter of life and death, but I know that there are still viewers out there who are completely blindsided by the "haters" and I don't want my silence to be part of the problem.
Spencer and Katie are showing us who they are, but sometimes (especially when people are LIARS) it's hard to read the signs.
What I ultimately hope is for their channel to crash and burn. Then I hope that they break up and seek professional help so each of them get to a healthy place in life. Because despite everything, I can still see how they might have something positive to offer the world. But even if not, if they could just stop pumping their Best Life brand of toxicity into the air that would STILL make the world a better place.
@The Real Deal
