Watcher

Watcher is a YouTube channel created by Ryan Bergara, Steven Lim, and Shane Madej, former BuzzFeed employees who left the company in 2019. They named the channel after an episode of Buzzfeed Unsolved, the eerie case of the Watcher.
Bergara, Lim, and Madej left Buzzfeed to launch this channel. When the trio left Buzzfeed in 2019, they quickly announced they were launching Watcher, which airs BuzzFeed-esque videos on YouTube.
After leaving Buzzfeed, Ryan and Shane continued to collaborate with the company to work on the popular web-series Buzzfeed Unsolved, a ghost-hunting and comedy show created by Bergara and hosted by both men. The duo opted to sign contracts with BuzzFeed, enabling them to continue the beloved series, while also working on Watcher. Bergara and Madej stayed with the company long enough to deliver a whopping 12 seasons of Unsolved, with the final two airing throughout 2021.
Similarly, Lim continued to work on the popular food-centric Buzzfeed web-series Worth It with co-hosts Andrew Ilnyckyj and Adam Bianchi after announcing his departure from the company, with the trio completing the show in April 2023. Ilnyckyj and Bianchi have since become contributors to Watcher following their departures from BuzzFeed, with both working on the series "Food Files" with Ryan and Shane.
On April 19, 2024, Watcher announced the launch of their independent subscription service as a platform to release upcoming content, as well as their departure from YouTube full-time. They have since backtracked their plan three days later after intense backlash from fans.
==Shows==
*Ghost Files: Ghost Files was released on September 23, 2022. It is the most successful series on Watcher, with its first episode having over five million views. It is regarded as the successor to BuzzFeed Unsolved: Supernatural.
*Puppet History: One of the most popular series on Watcher so far, Puppet History recounts historical events through a puppet show. The show combines Madej's love of history (Madej hosted a popular series on Buzzfeed called Ruining History), eccentric storytelling, and creating music (these latter two interests of Madej's were brought to the audience's attention through the "Hot Daga," a major bit from Unsolved).
*Too Many Spirits: Ryan and Shane get drunk and read ghost stories.
*Dish Granted: Steven challenges himself to create a guest's dream dish in a set period of time.
*Spooky Small Talk: Ryan hosts interviews in a haunted house. (So far the series, which currently is one season of four episodes, has been filmed solely at Knott's Berry Farm).
*Are You Scared?: Ryan reads spooky stories to his co-host, Shane, in this series that mixes comedy an horror in a similar manner to Unsolved. 
*Weird Wonderful World: Shane takes Ryan to eccentric locations and they partake in unique activities, such as roller derby or bird-watching.
*Top 5 Beatdown: Ryan, Shane, and a guest individually make a "top five" list for a trivial topic (i.e. cereal, holidays, sports) and compare.
*Tourist Trapped: The first show announced on Watcher, this series has yet to grow beyond one episode. The idea is that Shane and Ryan are to explore a particular city, each planning out a few different activities to try in that city with the other. While Shane prefers to try more niche activities such as bowling or visiting an art exhibit, Ryan is an avid fan of theme parks. So far the show has only been filmed in Los Angeles, where Bergara and Madej currently reside.
*Homemade: Steven pits a professional chef against homemade cooking.
*Social Distancing D&D: This one-season series took place during the height and towards the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Bergara, Lim, Madej, and Katie LeBlanc met completely virtually throughout the series—distance being part of the premise—to play Dungeons and Dragons.
*Watcher Weekly: In this series released once every week, the founders of Watcher discussed happenings at the company and answered audience questions, among other things.
*Making Watcher
*Grocery Run
*Eat Like Me
*Pretty Historic
*Worth A Shot: Hosted by Ricky Wang.
==Controversy==
===Planned switch to paywall content===
On April 19, 2024, Watcher announced the launch of their independent subscription service as a platform to release upcoming content, as well as their departure from YouTube full-time. The announcement was negatively received by their viewers and fans, particularly due to the $5.99/month subscription fee and the original decision by Lim (the CEO) to remove their back catalogue on YouTube which was later reversed.https://variety.com/2024/digital/news/watcher-goodbye-youtube-subscription-streaming-service-1235974091/ Many have alleged that the company suffered financial mismanagement despite having numerous advertisements per video and funding their content through their Patreon, merchandise and ticketed live shows, and that resorting to this move was an act of greed, a sentiment echoed by MoistCr1TiKaL and Coffeezilla who both negatively reacted to Watcher's plans.Greed Ruined These Youtubersthese youtubers accidentally killed their channel Watcher was negatively compared by many to other services such as Dropout and Mythical Society. The announcement video, "Goodbye YouTube", received over 213,000 dislikes against 32,000 likes as of April 22, 2024, and the channel itself began losing subscribers.
On April 22, 2024, Watcher, in an update video, apologized for the handling of the announcement that they deemed insensitive, and announced that, while they would continue to operate the new platform, all forthcoming content would be eventually released to their YouTube channel a month after, effectively abandoning their plan for paywalled-only content. Additionally, they announced that all Patreon members would receive a free subscription. The changes received a more positive reception from fans, although criticism continued specifically about how the subscription service was unnecessary given their various revenue streams, as argued by MoistCr1TiKaL.They Apologized
Jacksfilms indirectly referenced the controversy in "Leaving YouTube", a parody of the two aforementioned videos.
==Channel milestones==
===Subscriber milestones===
==References==
Category:American YouTubers
Category:Users who joined in 2015
Category:One million subscribers
Category:Two million subscribers