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YouChew
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YouChew (formerly YouChewPoop) was the former community portal for youtubepoop.com, yet it later became a site unto itself after Conrad Slater retired as administrator during the shenanigans surrounding Planet Freedom. Conrad Slater bought the domain name because he thought it was funny. (He was wrong.) The site ran from 2007 to 2018, a considerably long lifespan considering its niche subject.
To this day people claim to be a little grossed out by the term YouTube Poop so the idea of actually eating Poop must surely conjure such imagery to give reason to quit making or watching Poop altogether and instead turn their attention to re-dubs, bad slideshows, AMVs, Vlogging, and other kinds of YouTube Pollution. This led to the eventual name change from "YouChewPoop" to "YouChew".
Anyway, YouChew was pretty much the hub of the pooping community. It was a discussion grounds where poopers can talk to each other about poops, share good (or bad!) ones, and even give advice. At the same time, a lot of casual conversation was had, showing that poopers really are just like you and me. (See, we aren't a cult. Take that, bloggers!) In addition, there were many news articles, events, and other things that occur, and some things occurring in the past have become landmarks and fondly-remembered parts of poop history.
The Site
YouChew comprised of three main parts, with some other additional elements. By far the most active part of the site was the forum, which has been called the heartbeat of the YouChew community, as it is where the most communication takes place. The News Page, also called the Front Page, provides semi-professional as well as outright unprofessional news coverage of site events as well as reviews of media. Finally, the site also contained the Chewiki; a place to learn about Youtube Poop and memes. The Chewiki has been revived under YTPedia, which you are reading right now, though with much of the fat trimmed and the relics of aughts Internet updated to the current times.
The News Page
- Main Article: YCP News Office
The News Page was controlled most directly by Crazy Luigi, the final Editor-in-Chief of the YouChew Writing Staff. He and his editors led the site's team of writers and attempt to provide enjoyable and informative pieces of writing for the viewers of the front page.
Conrad Slater created the News Page and was the first contributor of articles, the first of them chronicling the site's creation and development.
The Forum
With several hundred regular users at its peak, the forum was the most active place on the site. "The Forum" has been used to describe two discussion boards: the first incarnation, which used Lussumo Vanilla software; and the second incarnation, which initially used PHPBB3. The Vanilla forums were for a long time archived, but in August of 2011 the posts and accounts from Vanilla were merged into the current incarnation thanks to the efforts of tabull.
History
Conrad Era (2007-2008)
Conrad Slater was the first administrator and moderator of the forum, as well as its creator, first creating a site titled youtubepoops.com on May 23, 2007 and then later creating the forums themselves on June 4, using Vanilla forum software. Conrad was not sure if the term "Youtube Poop" was the proper nomenclature at the time. Nonetheless, he charged forth with a bold vision of unifying the often-time bizarre video remixes into a curated community of art. So strong was his vision and belief in the potential of Youtube Poop as serious art, that in a much different time when such a name was acceptable, Conrad begins a crusade against 'poorly made YouTube Poops' and deems anything of inferior quality 'AIDS'. This is one of the many early tipping points towards Conrad leaving the site and the community at large. As you could imagine, reception for this effort was not very warm. Following his tenure, the administration led by Thereisnospork303 and RabbitSnore took over following the Planet Freedom incident.
Preceding Planet Freedom by roughly a month, The Pachinko Machine was a very (very) shortly-lived offshoot forum (the first of many throughout the history of the forum) named after an obscure Power Rangers in-joke passed around the community. The site was 'hosted' by a user named Cloggedone, who was no more than 11 or 12 at the time. He enlisted another user, Dopply, to help in installing, configuring, and running the site. While the legacy of the board is oft-forgotten (one snapshot on the Wayback Machine is all that is left), it convinced the owners of Planet Freedom that Dopply was capable of admining the technical aspect of YouChew and helping to continue the site.
The more popular (and relevant) of the two offshoot forums, Planet Freedom was created by a user named Thereisnospork303 and his best friend RabbitSnore as a means to provide a more comfortable place for YouChew members to reside and revitalize the community. At this point, YouChew was dying as a consequence of the intense elitism seeping through every topic and Conrad growing bored of keeping the site up. PF was the shot of adrenaline the community needed.
Rabbit/TINS Era (2008-2010)
The modern incarnation of YouChew (you can almost consider it 'The Next Generation' in terms of canon) began on March 30, 2008. The aforementioned Planet Freedom was shut down in a deal to seize site ownership of YouChew from Conrad Slater. Thereisnospork, or TINS as he is more commonly known, was now the new official owner. RabbitSnore was his second-in-command, and Dopply was the tech guy. With new ownership came new software: PHPBB3 replaced the very buggy Vanilla as the forum software. The new crew were all woefully unprepared for the grueling duties of admining an ever-growing website, but at least they had the foresight to upgrade to a server that didn't crash every two minutes. RabbitSnore in particular helped to greatly estabish the Youtube Poop Tennis section of the forum, inaugurating its first generation of Tennis Fucks and helping organize the first site sanctioned tennis tournaments, and also helped to refine and make major contributions to the early Writing Staff, which at that time also included a Review Crew. His brother Black_Puffin contributed much to the visual look and aesthetic of the site during this era.
Whether the joke originated on 4chan or Youchew's running joke made it there, Cory in the House (and its abysmal video game tie-in) became legendary in internet history around this time. This particularly poor spin-off inspired the forum's first real life interaction, and kickstarted the many community activities users would partake in over the years. On August 12, 2008, User JimPaladin proposed that a copy of Cory in the House for the Nintendo DS should be signed by various forum members and sent around the country (if not globe). This effort went well, until Cory became unfortunately lost sometime in March 2009 to the vast ether of the postal service or forum user Bigfatpoopscooper's venerable DS collection. Seeing as how the aforementioned user has not shown his face since assumedly receiving the cart, it's very likely that he took the Cory and ran. One can only hope that signed copy of Cory in the House triples the value of his collection.
Harrison Ford Day began on September 20, 2009, marking a long-lasting annual tradition. The Ford celebration was based upon the suggestion by user SeductiveBaz that the term 'YouTube Poop' should be replaced with 'Harrison Ford'. On this day, the forum skin and many avatars are replaced with the hunky (and now aging) Hollywood star, and all references to YTP are replaced with Fordly accenting. Additionally, the most infamous, hysterical E3 show that was ever had happened on June 14, 2010, and the forum's collective participation in and revelry of it kickstarted a long running tradition of community E3 shenanigans that continue beyond the forum into the present.
The earliest years of this version of YouChew were the most active, but also harbored the worst attitudes. It was a byproduct of the acerbic mid-2000s Internet environment, with some trolling-heavy threads like the Worst of DeviantArt and even hostile treatment of some forum members themselves (such as kinghomer45). Pretty much everyone on the site was a teenager back then, and most have matured and admit their attitudes in those days weren't all that great.
The inaugural YouChew Festival was held from March 21, 2010 to April 6, 2010, celebrating the website's second and final incarnation's anniversary, and the community as a whole's third anniversary. However, it outstayed its welcome and lasted an extra month, finally ending on May 7, 2010. The event was received amazingly by the community, and it became an annual forum mainstay for the rest of its duration. As a result of the Oz incident described below, though, the record of the 2011 Festival has disappeared forever.
Dopply Era (2010-2011)
On July 24, 2010, Dopply and the other administrators decided to update to the Invision software due to constant glitches with the PHPBB3 software. The update did not remove any posts and almost everything remained intact. The new software also contained features such as a point system, reputation, status updates, blogs, and a shop. The abilities of the software were tested out in a notable incident involving the bombastic song 'One of Us' from the poorly animated CGI Donkey Kong Country cartoon being played endlessly on loop in every nook and cranny of the website. The userbase was torn between a line of love and ape, but there was no denying it was a day to remember.
TINS and RabbitSnore stepped down not long afterwards, passing the ownership baton to Dopply. The staff overall would soon see a large influx of new blood, with about a dozen promotions happening throughout the rest of 2010 and 2011.
October of 2010 would see the start of another classic annual YouChew tradition - the Halloween Festival. During the festival, users dressed up as a character of their choosing - basically temporarily changing their username and avatar while roleplaying as said character. For some years, users could also give virtual candy to the costumes they liked best. For the first couple years, people roleplayed all over the forum, but this proved overwhelming and eventually Halloween roleplay was restricted to a roleplay-specific section.
A user by the name of Homsar.com! joined the community on November 18, 2010, and his posts were a little more than unique. His tenuous grasp of the English language provided many laughs - no malice intended, of course. However, just like kinghomer45, YouChew was not as forgiving as it later became and may have been a bit harsh with him at times. That said, his introductory thread (with the GIF spam that follows) is etched into every member's head who happens upon it, and it became a mainstay of the forum folklore.
On February 6th 2011, the forums were moved to the domain youchew.net with a new faster server, as part of Dopply's renovations to the site. Having "poop" in your site name or URL is confessedly not the most professional looking.
On January 29, 2011, user and former moderator Dillrod90 organized a community meetup, which was held at the annual Ohayocon anime convention. Multiple users from around the country attend, making the event considered a huge success at the time. However, rather dark and horrifying details surfaced in the years that followed regarding the exact character of the event's organizer, something that had hidden, lasting traumatic effects on certain parts of the community and played a very decisive role in the eventual closure of the forums.
Although the exact date is lost, a forum user named Mei Ling was banned around March 2011. Mei Ling was infamous for claiming to be the English language voice actress for Amy Rose in the Sonic franchise. This probably should have been a tip off for events to come; in addition, he posted numerous photos of models in the 'Post a picture of yourself' thread, which we also accepted as fact. In an extremely unfortunate oversight, Mei Ling may have been a possible sex predator using the website to attract vulnerable people. His identity and gender were forged in efforts to continue his disgusting ways, before enough evidence mounted against him to allow the forum to take appropriate action. Thankfully, he was never seen again following this.
Shortly after the 2011 Youchew festival, Oz, who had been on Tech Staff (a group that was since dissolved due to the general inactivity of most of its members) for several months, showed his true colors and nearly succeeded at causing a rift within the community, but in the end failed and was irreversibly banned. As there would've been risk in continuing to use the forum after Oz left his mark, for a couple of weeks the community migrated to Planet Freedom as a temporary refuge and the main forum had to be restored to a February backup, which was the most recently usable backup from before Oz's impact. The Oz incident remains the darkest stain on YouChew's history, and while the forum would last for years yet, there was an indisputable change in its atmosphere.
Post-Oz Era(2011-2012)
The immediate period following Oz's removal were one of great paranoia amongst some members of the moderator staff and tight enforcement of forum rules and community behavior was commonplace during this time, a factor that both twisted the perception of newer members coming into the site (namely one in particular, Silverstreak) and alienated some of the less serious members of the forum. Because of this, A brief rift occurred between during the Tennis Fucks and Moderators around Summer 2011 due to the off-site participation of banned members in site-sanctioned tennis tournaments, something was partially solved via the promotion of former Tennis Fuck DaftPunkYoshi to a moderator position to serve as a mediator between the two staffs. Over time tensions quieted down and relations improved, with some moderators and admins later even becoming regulars to the Poop Tennis Cafe. This overall period is regarded as the beginning of a maturation age for the forums and a signalling of a changing of the guard in YTP, as many old names began to retire in great numbers, leading to a momentary decline.
This period was however not without its high points. In one of the weirdest video memes to ever occur, a series of videos pitting a singing DK from the aforementioned Donkey Kong Country cartoon against a crashing plane on a hillside proved extremely popular and made for a solid series of videos in May 2011. The following month, in a long-time reckoning, famous user MasterFurryX (known for his unique idioms and spelling mistakes) shares his thoughts on the then-upcoming Starfox 3DS. While it may not have been the Starfox Wii he had wanted, the forum was still juaous.
Tabull Era (2012-2016)
The complete antithesis to Oz in terms of Tech Staff members was tabull, who was always able and professional in his work and would become promoted to administrator in mid-2011 due to his technical prowess. Dopply would relinquish site ownership to SuperYoshi in late 2011, though Dopply would later return to the staff. Under a year later, site ownership changed once more with tabull becoming head admin in the Autumn of 2012. He would go on to hold up the fort for four years and more or less doubled the site's lifespan. He also hosted the site privately at his own place after many server hops, enabling the site to breathe easy in regards to survival for the time being.
Around this same time, tabull also created a project to send cards around the world. These cards would be signed by members of the site, to be stuck onto a yet-to-be purchased physical server for site hosting. It was a revival of the same idea JimPaladin had in 2008 with an ever more personal meaning, and recieved a great degree of participation.
Youtube Poop overall experienced a revival from late 2013 to 2014 due to the medium reaching its 10 year anniversary, marked by the creation date of SuperYoshi's I'D SAY HE'S HOT ON OUR TAIL. Around the same time, The least expected crossover ever occurred with Dominoes meeting Japanese sensation virtual idol Hatsune Miku, giving the community its new revelry fuel for the period. On April 16, 2015, YouChew's Game Challenge events kicked off, with the first dedicated to the much-maligned Donkey Kong 64. The contests typically involved beating a game or multiple games to win real life prizes and forum medals. For DK64, users who achieved the very difficult 101% were rewarded with a physical Golden Banana and Congratulations sticker in the mail.
Two very critical moments in the site's history occurred in 2015 that would come to define the future direction of the forums. In early April, a user named Hoipendaddy, notorious for infiltrating the forums with spam not by his own hand, but with the hand of other members under his influence with his encouragement, was finally banned from the forums after an extended period of time being considered a problem but without direct on-site evidence. This marked a precedent for bannable offenses now potentially coming in the form of off-site behavior and harassment.
The other occurred on October 20, 2015. Due to external events, stalwart administrator NegroTed bowed out of the site staff and forum at large. Through a very emotion-filled night, the forum had its darkest hour. Off site abuse and turmoil occurred, and nobody involved emerged unscathed. The forum only slightly recovered from the damage inflicted; the atmosphere of the site changed very suddenly to a mature and reserved one, with an increased focus on moderator reliability, which would last for the final three years of the site's lifespan.
tabull instigated a few more major contributions to the site. These included the December 2015 revival of the Design Staff, its initial reincarnation being the one and only all-women-identified staff on the forum, which would later lead to the creation of a new forum skin called 3-Eyed Blue Luigi derived from that year's Christmas skin and the Youchew Trading Cards in April 2016. Beginning at the start of 2016 would also be the Youchew Best of the Year, cataloging YouChew's tastes built from a wide swathe of nominations. tabull retired from site ownership and admin duties in August 2016 in light of the stresses ownership incurred, and would pass on the head admin role to the final owner of YouChew, Whelt.
Whelt Era(2016-2018)
YouChew saw a gradual decline in activity in its final years, suffering both from continued drama and an increasing community divide between older members (who were often no longer interested in YouTube Poop) and the younger members (many of whom largely used YouChew for its Poop sections). These factors culminated in its closure in 2018, although the community lives on through splinter groups. The veteran members moved on to Neon Castle, a short-lived site that continues as a private Discord server, while the YTP-focused ones now peruse YTPMania, which continues the focus on YouTube Poop. Additionally, many former YouChew members (including those who are no longer part of any official communities) remain connected to one another through social media.
The Site Boards
Conrad originally intended the forums as a place where poopers could engage in creative discussion about the visual medium of YouTube Poop. Along the way, however, the forums also spawned additional sections where people could talk about art, TV shows, and many other subjects. YouChew had a wide variety of sections, as detailed below, although in the forum's final few years the slowest sections were merged into more active ones. Below is the layout of the early forums, before sections like Poop Tennis and Poop Collaborations had their own subforums.
Forum Center
- Introductions - Feel free to make yourself at home, and leave a good first impression on your peers.
- Site Discussion, Questions, and Suggestions - Suggest ideas about the site, collaborate, and ask questions so you can learn.
- Forum Announcements and Rules - Read up on the rules and important moderator announcements. Protected; only moderators and administrators can post.
- The Hub - An area where people could collaborate on projects, many of which were overly ambitious and few of which saw completion. Later hidden from public view in light of that poor success rate.
- Articles - Along with the Home Page, it is one of two places where the Writing Staff's articles can be read and commented on.
YouTube Poop
- Poop Listings - Show off your own poops and get some compliments to boost your
egoconfidence, or constructive criticism to help you improve the quality of your work. Or just use it for more views; we don't care. Also a great place to laugh (mockingly) at the various meme-filled poops new users tend to post. You can also show off other people's poops, and hopefully brighten up somebody's day. You can learn plenty from poops you post there. - Poop Talk - Discussion of YouTube Poop itself takes place here. Discuss sources that are used, or just talk about various poops and some of the culture.
- Media Library - Exchange sources, software, and find out the source of a certain clip.
- Poop Collaborations - Here, you can make a Poop Collaboration and have others join in your fun. The helpful Tennis Café staff can help you lock the thread of an completed/dead collab, answer your questions, or have them move a collab thread to another sub-forum as necessary.
- Collabs: Sign-Up/Wanted - These collabs have just started and are awaiting more poopers to sign up. Once enough people have signed up and begun pooping, they move to "in progress".
- Collabs: In Progress - Collabs that are in progress; they may or may not have a full roster of poopers. If you come early enough, you might be able to squeeze in.
- Collabs: Completed - These collabs have been finished. The collab video was put together and each user has sent their contribution.
- Collabs: Canceled and Failed] - Collabs are risky business. Some are successful, and the rest don't make it out alive. This is a life-or-death situation, and if "death" occurs, this is basically where they end up. The road not taken...
- Poop Tennis - Arrange YouTube Poop Tennis matches here. The Tennis Café staff also have administrator powers here, and can help with the same stuff as in the Collaboration forum.
- Tennis: Wanted
- Tennis: In Progress
- Tennis: Completed
- Tennis: Forfeited and Failed
- Tennis: Tournaments - The epic poop matches.
- Tennis Season - Again, the epic matches.
- Tennis Archives - Not as nostalgic as the archives of the regular site material, but possibly the best next thing!
Chat Center
- Off Topic Chat - Read about real-life situations that wouldn't fit anywhere else, or (almost) escape from it all and talk about nothing.
- Forum Games - Relax, laugh, and play some games here.
Media Center
- Gaming - Chat about games - old, new, or upcoming - and your opinions on them.
- Film, Television, and Videos - Talk about movies, Internet videos, and rant about Cartoon Network's latest shows.
- The Internet - Advertise a fun website you found, and chat about other stuff found on the Internet.
- Art and Images - Chat about various art-related stuff, post various images related to a certain topic, post said art you may or may not like, and even show off some of your own artwork.
- Music and Audio - Discuss your favourite types of music here, such as music-related news or simply talk about your favourite songs.
- Writing and Literature - Post a story you're working around and get praise and criticism like a Poop. Read other people's literature, and even talk about books in general. Later merged into Off Topic Chat.
- Computers and Tech Support - You can talk about computers here, and it is also the place to go to if you're having any technical issues. Later merged into Off Topic Chat.
- Food and Cooking - Because YouChew talked about pizza too damn much, this containment board was established. The last brand new section. Later merged into Off Topic Chat.
Site Peripherals
- Hall of Fame - Reminisce towards some of YouChew's most memorable and most magical times we've ever had.
The Vanilla Forums had a very similar system, though boards were often split into more specific categories (such as a board specifically for Sony Vegas tech support). Perhaps one of the most prominent old boards, however, was the "Showroom of Shame", where users showed off bad poops they found. The Showroom of Shame does not exist as a board on the new forums.
En Grande
It's also quite a little shindig where the peeps and the gents can shimmy all around up on each other, before you get busted by the po-man-chu in the white baron cap. Also known as SnabbitRore, the ultimate king of swing, the jungle V.I.P, and the local solid rabbit. Nobody knows about the influx of news from the news, or if the newcomers are really just bringers. Outside and all that, no one could really tell from what we see around there, except the Sonic things and all the threads with made by the Sonic things and also some other things, not always Sonic. COMBOS.
Also, it's the website that hosted the previous "Chewiki" incarnation of this very wiki.
Trivia
- On October 22, 2010, Pimpsahoy returned to the forums. This caused both the spam and the porn forums to be revived for one day. It was the best day ever to those who participated in it. And for those who didn't, well they wish they were there. Some believe that it should be considered a holiday.
