Red Letter Media

[Bessie]

We exist, we just checked out of the e-fighting about it forever ago. The dangerhair infestation happened to us before just about anyone else.

Was that Atheism+? I cannot keep up with these cultural coups.

 

[augment]

Atheism+ was a horrid abortion and a herald of things to come. The alphabet pod-people would develop from a similar archetype, ever growing and infesting any community on the internet and then spreading to real life. I still maintain the dangerhairs showed up as a carefully orchestrated sabotage-ops by the NSA after occupy wall street.

 

[Immortal Technique]

Is there an archive of RLM videos somewhere? I really like watching their older videos, and I'm thinking with the intense scrutiny they may be getting now or in the near future some videos might disappear. I know they've already removed some videos over the years so I wouldn't be surprised if more disappeared. I was hoping someone has already made a torrent or something.

You should already have a VPN. Connect to a European server (this doesn't work with North America IPs anymore) and type 'ss' right before youtube and enter.

It will bring you to this site, that will allow you to download any youtube video.

It's only 720p, but it's just a bunch of guys talking and making jokes. It's how I downloaded their catalog of Wheel of the Worst to my drive. The page might try to goat you into buying their premium service, but just click for the "low resolution" download and you'll go to the 720p screen. So, save whatever are your favorite vids.

 

[Dom Cruise]

Atheism+ was a horrid abortion and a herald of things to come. The alphabet pod-people would develop from a similar archetype, ever growing and infesting any community on the internet and then spreading to real life. I still maintain the dangerhairs showed up as a carefully orchestrated sabotage-ops by the NSA after occupy wall street.

It's so creepy how that happened, how these cult like people spread into almost everything.

 

[SteelPlatedHeart]

Anytime atheism got brought up as being a superior thing, I just remember that one two-parter South Park where Cartman freezes himself to get the Nintendo Wii sooner, with three different groups of atheists fighting wars with each other over what their name should be, becoming exactly what they mocked.

 

[Dom Cruise]

Anytime atheism got brought up as being a superior thing, I just remember that one two-parter South Park where Cartman freezes himself to get the Nintendo Wii sooner, with three different groups of atheists fighting wars with each other over what their name should be, becoming exactly what they mocked.

That's what I always think of as well and it's funny how the premise of the episode, people just finding something else to fight over, is exactly what happened.

 

[Hard Toothbrush]

Is there an archive of RLM videos somewhere? I really like watching their older videos, and I'm thinking with the intense scrutiny they may be getting now or in the near future some videos might disappear. I know they've already removed some videos over the years so I wouldn't be surprised if more disappeared. I was hoping someone has already made a torrent or something.

What @Immortal Technique said a few posts above mine works well enough, but if you want to DL stuff without any online services that try to force you into premium stuff Dear Leader made a video about downloading videos off the Internet. I wouldn't be surprised if those services just use youtube-dl and gatekeep better download options behind a paywall.

This is the link to the website. There's also great documentation about using it in a more advanced manner, like automatically downloading entire playlists or auto-naming the videos for you etc.
Regarding removed videos, check out RLM's website. For example, I've found their joke Transformers reviews there even though they privated/deleted them off of Youtube.

 

[KrewlKween]

It'd be a real trip to meet these guys, but they didn't do convention appearances (at least after they really took off) or anything like that, right?

The fact that they don't do the usual eceleb stuff and that they are a little more mysterious is part of what makes them more interesting than other Youtube channels.

They went to cons in the early days to promote their movies, the youtube stuff was still second to all of that. I can't remember which Mike interview it was but there was one I read from when Plinkett took off and Half in the Bag was new and Mike had this attitude of "yeah we started a new show and we'll see where it goes but when I get bored of it I'll move on to something else". Seems like he never expected HitB to get big. Once the series started overshadowing their movies and the Plinkett reviews, they stopped going to public appearances. Didn't need to promote anymore.

 

[Dom Cruise]

They went to cons in the early days to promote their movies, the youtube stuff was still second to all of that. I can't remember which Mike interview it was but there was one I read from when Plinkett took off and Half in the Bag was new and Mike had this attitude of "yeah we started a new show and we'll see where it goes but when I get bored of it I'll move on to something else". Seems like he never expected HitB to get big. Once the series started overshadowing their movies and the Plinkett reviews, they stopped going to public appearances. Didn't need to promote anymore.

I know they did make convention appearances in the early days, in fact I remember one video that showed a clip where they were screening the Phantom Menace Plinkett review at a con... to an almost empty room, imagine if they held a con screening today.

I think they should (or should have) still made the occasional con appearance just to give the fans something special after they went big.

 

[frozenrunner]

Consider that Max Landis grew up around some of the most famous people in Hollywood and still turned into a giggling idiot of a fanboy when he wound up on their set.

I just assumed Landis is a sperg.

 

[Mola Ram]

I just assumed Landis is a sperg.

I assume that of most of us here.

 

[Megaroad 2012]

imagine if they held a con screening today.

mike gets in a car crash during a deadly winter blizzard and is rescued by his number one fan.

 

[Stab You in the Back]

I know they did make convention appearances in the early days, in fact I remember one video that showed a clip where they were screening the Phantom Menace Plinkett review at a con... to an almost empty room, imagine if they held a con screening today.

The room would be completely empty!

Spoiler

(because of the coronavirus)

 

[KrewlKween]

I know they did make convention appearances in the early days, in fact I remember one video that showed a clip where they were screening the Phantom Menace Plinkett review at a con... to an almost empty room, imagine if they held a con screening today.

I watched that one recently and had the same thought. So much has changed for them in 10 years.

It's funny to me Mike still holds that one big break review as his crowning achievement, but the current fans probably don't agree. And while it was big online a decade ago, it wasn't even big enough to fill a screening room. It was just "some guy made funny thing". Literally no one cared WHO made it. RLM YT and twitter bios both read "RLM is responsible for the 70 minute Phantom Menace review as well as Space Cop, Half in the Bag, and Best of the Worst". He still sees it as a big enough thing to mention first. If you asked anyone who happened to know what RLM was what they're "known for" 10 years ago they would have said Mr. Plinkett and/or that specific review, not any of their films or Mike's other projects. Ask them today and you'll likely not hear Plinkett reviews mentioned at all. There are probably fans who have never even watched them. I'm not saying those reviews are irrelevant because they're not, but they've evolved so far beyond it.

I guess my point is it's amazing to me that Mike and co managed to leverage one big viral early YT moment into the legacy they have today. Mike had been hustling for yeaaaaars making weird films and going to cons trying to gain exposure and recognition for his work and got nowhere until his 30s. He made a bunch of talking fruit films thinking that was going to be his big thing. No one cared. Short films with his friends like Feeding Frenzy. No one cared (at the time). Nothing got a wide appeal like the SW review. Then he kept them around with HitB, something he didn't even think would find an audience, yet is arguably his most popular creation. Completely eclipsing what he was once "known for". The channel didn't take off until he and Jay came in front of the camera.

And now he has that exposure he slaved for for years and almost seems to regret it.

 

[Dom Cruise]

I watched that one recently and had the same thought. So much has changed for them in 10 years.

It's funny to me Mike still holds that one big break review as his crowning achievement, but the current fans probably don't agree. And while it was big online a decade ago, it wasn't even big enough to fill a screening room. It was just "some guy made funny thing". Literally no one cared WHO made it. RLM YT and twitter bios both read "RLM is responsible for the 70 minute Phantom Menace review as well as Space Cop, Half in the Bag, and Best of the Worst". He still sees it as a big enough thing to mention first. If you asked anyone who happened to know what RLM was what they're "known for" 10 years ago they would have said Mr. Plinkett and/or that specific review, not any of their films or Mike's other projects. Ask them today and you'll likely not hear Plinkett reviews mentioned at all. There are probably fans who have never even watched them. I'm not saying those reviews are irrelevant because they're not, but they've evolved so far beyond it.

I guess my point is it's amazing to me that Mike and co managed to leverage one big viral early YT moment into the legacy they have today. Mike had been hustling for yeaaaaars making weird films and going to cons trying to gain exposure and recognition for his work and got nowhere until his 30s. He made a bunch of talking fruit films thinking that was going to be his big thing. No one cared. Short films with his friends like Feeding Frenzy. No one cared (at the time). Nothing got a wide appeal like the SW review. Then he kept them around with HitB, something he didn't even think would find an audience, yet is arguably his most popular creation. Completely eclipsing what he was once "known for". The channel didn't take off until he and Jay came in front of the camera.

And now he has that exposure he slaved for for years and almost seems to regret it.

I often forget about Plinkett to be honest, these days Plinkett is probably the thing they're known for the least, it's easily been eclipsed by Half in The Bag and Best of The Worst.

In a way that's a shame as the Plinkett reviews were amazing achievements, but these days it feels weird not to have them on camera.

 

[Ravana]

It's good to leave Plinkett behind. Better to do different things like they have than get pigeonholed into a single thing

 

[Super Hans]

I think that the early Plinkett reviews were successful because of the time they were released. Having watched them again fairly recently, they were full of stuff more befitting of somebody like MovieBob than a professional who actually cares about the quality of their work. Mostly bad editing, like Mike speaking at a normal, slurring drunk volume and then a loud klaxon going off. Fine for a one-off joke, but something puts the viewer off when done as a fixture. What 2020 YouTubers put out has to be more refined than the wild west of 2010 YouTube because there was a acceptable amount of badness due to the new medium.

 

[ditto]

I think that the early Plinkett reviews were successful because of the time they were released. Having watched them again fairly recently, they were full of stuff more befitting of somebody like MovieBob than a professional who actually cares about the quality of their work.

I tried watching them again recently as well, and there's a bit of the Seinfeld Is Unfunny trope effect going on. Every second YouTube movie reviewer has aped the same gimmicks and styles that it's hard to appreciate how original it was for the time.

If RLM were still only doing Plinkett today and nothing else it would be just drowned out and kinda sad.

 

[fuckthisshit]

Wow, calling Plinkett badly edited is not what I'd've expected.

Their younger fans thinking it's aged badly cause it's not woke is more in line lately.

Plinkett was great and it's mostly due to the fact that I don't particularly want to see bits of those videos plastered all over Twitter with some sort of 'Reminder- this was always trash' type rant thread that I'm glad they're being forgotten.

 

[Preferred Penne]

I just rewatched the Plinkett review of Star Trek Generations. While it's odd to watch the early stuff without all the Plinkett lore and expected music cues, it's also refreshing to see him simply focus on the movie at hand.

His TNG movie reviews came before the Star Wars prequels, which is odd to think about too.