I first came across this thread when there were maybe a handful of replies. I was clearing out the open tabs on my phone the other day and was delighted to see that it has since generated so many pages of discussion.
I hate-watched Joel for years. I first discovered him and Lia after their videos were incessantly pushed on my YouTube recommendations during the summer of 2018. I quickly discovered that they were irksome and irritating but their videos make great background noise for when you were packing a suitcase or cleaning or whatever.
I have lived vicariously through seeing them struggling to maintain “influencer careers“ over the last few years. Honestly, their entire existence is like something from Lisa Kudrow‘s series The Comeback. Two people who act like the second coming of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie… except their core audience are 50-year-old white people in loveless marriages from Redneckville, USA. Pure car crash content.
You can tell that Lia has some interest in the performing arts whereas Joel just wants to be famous at any cost. His entire online existence (and means of self-validation) appears to be recalling past glories of when he “almost“ receive this job or “nearly“ had an audition for something else. It’s never about what he has achieved – it is always about what he almost achieved.
You really get the impression that the evangelical Christian upbringing from his parents has really messed him up. Although he acknowledges the aged Americans in his audience, I often feel like he is extremely conscious that his parents are watching every video. He is always holding himself back to the point that they are the invisible elephant in the room and every video. He seems extremely uncomfortable on his new podcast and I am almost certain that it’s because his parents are at the forefront of his mind was the other panellists gaggle on about bottoming or whatever. Not only does he feel uncomfortable about the sex aspect but a lot of their pop culture references appear to go over his head – he barely speaks and when he does, he has mentioned Gemma Collins in all three of the episodes he has appeared on so far. I don’t think he will last on that show for long.
It is interesting that he never mentions how his older brother’s coming out in any way influenced his own decision to remain closeted for so long. Surely it had some impact? I have absolutely no idea but I can only infer that his older brother’s revelation of his sexuality didn’t go down very well in the family/school/community etc and that this pushed Joel deeper into the closet. Who knows?
On a superficial level, there are so many little things about his persona that are equally irritating and compelling: the way he pronounces it “Chris-chun”, that awful house he has bought, the weird humble bragging peppered through every video, the way he says “comment down below if you would like to see more content like this!“ because he has no idea what space he occupies online. Is he an animal vlogger? Is he an Instagay? Is he and that housemate the online version of Kirstie and Phil? He genuinely can’t decide.
His entire online existence can be summed up in one word: tragic.
I don’t think that the 4 Poofs audience are taking to him…