ACTUALLY HAPPENED

ACTUALLY HAPPENED is a former English YouTube channel and media digital platform owned by TheSoul Publishing (a company based in Limassol, Cyprus) that uploaded videos of animated storytimes sent by people on the internet, similar to Storybooth.
== Content and Origin ==
The main difference between the two channels was that ACTUALLY HAPPENED uploaded videos daily on their YouTube channel. In contrast, Storybooth used to upload 2 videos every week (now it is barely active). However, both channels had their videos being on YouTube's trending page (usually twice a week).
After the success of Storybooth and ACTUALLY HAPPENED, several channels popped up, such as My Story Animated, Share My Story, Dory Story etc. began appearing, trying to capitalize on the animated storytime genre. The main difference between them all is that Storybooth's stories are either real or realistic-sounding, while the copycats often have/had unrealistic and/or straight-up fake stories.
ACTUALLY HAPPENED continued to upload videos until May 31, 2020, with their final video being called, "I Sent My Girl To An Asylum Because I Got Tired Of Her". Afterward they turned all videos from their channel to private on June 8, 2020.https://youtu.be/MdWgpGkJ6hc, now private
== Controversies ==
=== Fake Stories ===
Most of the stories appeared to be fictional as some of them were inappropriate and/or emotionally manipulative, trying to get as much of watchers' attention as possible.
Jarvis Johnson made three videos that explained his proof that the stories were fake, showing an interview email from TheSoulPublishing gathered by an anonymous person who was looking for a scriptwriter job at TheSoulPublishing, in which the interviewee sets the guidelines that the stories on ACTUALLY HAPPENED have to follow. This included requirements such as believably, engagement, and topic diversification.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzsSLpAgNcQhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCDG6ck6mCg Many people agreed with him.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWqaUHFhE8Mhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEWMeP9rQUQ
Even if some of the videos might be false, some of them actually come from other people's stories (even if they weren't sent to ACTUALLY HAPPENED, but found on Reddit or Twitter). This may be due to the fact that in the aforementioned email, one of the guidelines was that the scriptwriters were allowed to use stories from Reddit and Twitter "as references".
Many people think that this controversy is the reason behind them shutting down. This is unlikely, however, since similar channels are still active. Although not officially confirmed, it is speculated the channel was shut down due to relatively low performance when compared to other channels from TheSoul Publishing such as 123 GO! and 5-Minute Crafts.
==Subscriber Milestones==
==Trivia==
* Some of their videos include illustrations of the banner's characters as Easter Eggs.https://youtu.be/1jzXT3TIeF4?t=103, link now private
*There are total of 16 channels (3 of them already changed series). Most of them aren't English, like ASÍ ES LA VIDA (Spanish) or Это жизнь (Russian). All of non-English channels made their videos private on June 4th.
**One of the channel was Actually Happened Like - used to publish videos in vertical format. It was deleted on September 9th, 2020.
* Some of the videos show characters from other stories when they share an art style. 
** For example: In "I Bought Myself A Girlfriend", Nick from "I Found My House On Fire With My Dad Inside", Ryan from "I Met My Secret Uncle, Now I Know Why They Hide Him From Me" and Dave from "My Brain Is Slowly Dying, I Have One Year Remaining" can be seen.
*Some of the videos might give bad influences to children due to the absurd and hyperbolic situations illustrated in the video.
** For example: "My Parents Locked Me Up In Basement For Days Because I Was A Bad Girl", "I've Had 3 Foster Families, And I've Seen Things", "My Parents Have Their Views On Raising Girls. I Had To Save My Lil Sis!", "I Made My Mom Choose: Me Or My Stepdad. She Chose Him!", and "I Earn More Than My Parents But They Take Everything" show abusive behavior from adults towards children and might influence young viewers to rebel against their parental figures.
**Other stories might seem to not have sense when compared to titles like "I Was Going To Marry My Gf Until I Met My First Love. I'm A Cheater". The main character said that he doesn't want to be a cheater after he met his first love, even if the title says he is a cheater.
*Since the series were cancelled many enthusiasts of it decided to reupload the videos. Among them there was even the series' animatorhttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpANXtEQOEvfxJlroVPJkOHpKiWMyrQHj. There was also petition created with restoring the series in mind.https://secure.avaaz.org/community_petitions/en/thesoul_publishing_lets_bring_back_all_of_the_actually_happened_videos/
*On the Spanish Wiki, there were claims that the channel hid all of their videos just for clickbaithttps://youtube.fandom.com/es/wiki/GENIAL?oldid=226555. This isn't the case, however, as some of the channels are still active, just under new brands.
*Their channel was accused for making fake content, which is why it disappeared.
==References==
pl:PRAWDZIWE HISTORIE
fr:INCROYABLE MAIS VRAI
it:STORIE VERE
pt-br:ACONTECEU MESMO
ru:Это жизнь
zh:真實故事
zh-tw:真實故事
ko:속닥속닥
ja:私たちの実録日記
vi:CHUYỆN KỂ CÓ THẬT
Category:Animation YouTubers
Category:Cypriot YouTubers
Category:Users who joined in 2018
Category:One million subscribers
Category:Two million subscribers
Category:Three million subscribers
Category:One billion views