Hamm Mann

Connor Bowman Halcrow (born: ) better known online as Hamm Mann, is an English YouTuber who resides in Manchester, England. He is most well known for making dubs of Alan Becker's "Animation VS" series using the Mercenaries from Team Fortress 2. Hamm doesn't have a schedule that he makes videos for as he almost never sticks to the same game for content, with the only three exceptions being , Roblox and most recently JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Heritage For The Future.
==History==
Connor created his channel on December 28, 2013, with the username being his own name. He uploaded his first video on April 23, 2014, using the YouTube video editor for most of his posts. Every now and then during his phase his uploads were from the built in recorders from the Talking Tom series of mobile games. 
The first big shift in content came on December 5, 2015, as that was when Connor found out that Roblox had a built in video recorder. The quality wasn't very good, but it was enough to supply him with the first big shift of content on his channel. 
The next shift in content came on January 5, 2017, when Connor was gifted a webcam for Christmas, and often recorded videos of his webcam with no editing whatsoever. This is often regarded as the "darkest time" for the channel. 
The next shift in content came on August 15, 2017, after a Capture Card that was bought by his parents arrived, this resulted in Connor making multiple videos with the capture card in the span of three days and uploading them at the fastest upload rate his channel has ever done. 
On September 20, 2017, YouTube removed the site's built in video editor which would have left Connor without an editing software, but an editing program called "TotalMedia ShowBiz" was bundled in as a CD with the capture card his parents bought him which allowed him to continue editing videos. 
==The birth of "CHAL Gaming"==
Exactly one year later, The first name change for the channel would go into effect, changing the channel's name to CHAL Gaming, "CHAL" being a shortened version of his own name, Connor Halcrow. 
On November 12, 2019, CHAL made a design that he would use for the better part of 2 years so he didn't have to use his webcam, as he was starting to hate those videos with a burning passion. The design was an 8-Bit depiction of himself with a red shirt, black pants and shoes, blue glasses and a black cap with the words "CHAL" in bold red text. 
The next massive shift in content was on July 12, 2020 when CHAL found out about a freelance editing software that could replace his more outdated editing software he was using at the time, this ended up being the first time a video on CHAL's channel was uploaded in 60fps. 
==The birth of "Hamm Mann"==
The start of his Team Fortress 2 content came on October 15, 2020 when CHAL decided to split his channel in half with a new alias, this also came with a change to his username, that being "CHAL Gaming // Hamm Mann". Hamm Mann was intended to be a side channel for whenever he felt like making Team Fortress 2 content. 
The first chance for the spotlight came on April 3rd, 2021. On that day CHAL's channel got a massive algorithm boost thanks to a clips channel he was running at the time, and due to everyone coming to this algorithm boost, he made the bold decision to remove CHAL Gaming altogether and rebrand to just "Hamm Mann", which in the long run was a good decision. This also marked the point where most of the Roblox content was to disappear as for the next few months the only content on the channel was Team Fortress 2. 
Around this time was when he made his most successful video, "Animation VS Minecraft dubbed by the TF2 Mercs" was initially meant to be something to fill in the gaps between projects, but a few months after the video released it hit the algorithm harder than any of his videos beforehand, and that prompted him to make a full collection around the time it did blow up. 
On July 31, 2021, Hamm would make a now deleted community post pointing out a channel that had the same name as LazyPurple with the intention for people to be ironic and sarcastic towards it. Hamm didn't pay it much mind when it was happening, and when he checked on the channel two weeks later, he would then make another post mocking how the channel had changed it's name. Hamm didn't look into what his viewers were actually saying to this smaller channel, as it's commonly believed that the channel got harassed into changing their name rather than doing it because they wanted to. Hamm mistakenly thought thought that the community would be "in on the joke" in regards to how they would react. 
Within one day, the clips channel halted all uploads, deleted all it's community posts and gave ownership of the channel to the original LazyPurple, where it still remains without any new uploads since this transfer was made. This resulted in the people from the Clips channel coming to dislike bomb Hamm's more recent uploads at the time, most prominently being an update video.
Through September of 2021, Hamm would take a mental health break to recoup himself after losing control of LazyPurple Clips, and came back a month later with a slower uploading schedule due to Hamm starting college around the same time. 
==Post Clips Era==
On April 16, 2022, Hamm made a community post about how he was burnt out with a consistent upload schedule, which was evident with his shaky upload schedule beforehand, and in that community post he explained how he is still going to be uploading videos, however the consistency and branding of things would for the most part vanish, as he wanted to have no restrictions on when he should and shouldn't post. 
On October 13, 2022, His profile picture was changed to depict his Team Fortress 2 loadout in a pose where his body is bending back in the background with a large piece of ham in the foreground. 
On March 7, 2023, Hamm decided to make a speedrun for a game called "Your Bizarre Adventure" (Often abbreviated to simply "YBA"), as he had recently became a moderator for the page, and YBA had been treated like dirt on speedrun.com for years. Constantly being rejected from being a category, and when it finally got it's big break there was almost no support from it. However when Hamm Mann became a moderator, the page got a complete makeover, Adding multiple categories, a fresh look for the page, an official discord channel rather than reusing YBA's main discord, and Hamm was at the front and centre of it, setting a WR for every category (With the exception of the individual boss fight categories and the Steel Ball Run wipes) in just under a month, and topping it off by releasing strategy guides for anyone who wanted to get into running the game itself. He would break his Storyline Fresh Account record on August 20, 2023 by over a minute, and he still holds that WR. Though he has since been banned from the game after starting to make content of a reupload of the game. 
On April 9, 2023, Hamm would release his highest quality video, "A Collector's Guide To iPods", as for one video he was able to change to a top tier video editor (Final Cut Pro) as this video was intended to be his big college project for the year. This is because Hamm Mann would take a course in media for 2 years and each year involved a "Final Major Project" where you have four months to make whatever you want. Hamm decided to make a huge collector's guide for iPods, and since the college computers had Final Cut Pro on them, he could use that to edit it. The video itself did okay in terms of views, and he would receive his results on August 24, 2023 (1 day before his 18th birthday) where he passed the course. 
==The day the algorithm chose Hamm==
On September 6, 2023, His series about making the TF2 Mercenaries dub the "Animation VS" series by Alan Becker struck a groove with the algorithm more than any videos he had made in the past, and even more than it did at the start of 2022, out of nowhere gaining him 10,000 views in only one day, a far cry from his typical 100 at worst. It was this boost that allowed him to enter the youtuber partner program only two days later. This significant view boost would then be accompanied by yet another algorithm boost, pushing forward all of his TF2 Dub videos, A few of his older videos and 1 Update video deeper into the algorithm, which resulted in a peak daily viewer count of 72,830 and a peak subscriber count of 520. This would slowly start to die down over the coming days, and Hamm would end with over double the subscribers he had before this and over 5 times the viewer base. 
It would take another two months for the algorithm boost to completely flatline, where after uploading a Rivals Of Aether video on November 27, 2023, his daily views would then dip back into the triple digits the next day. Though this boost to everything also helped him achieve over a million collective video views, and he still had over triple the amount of daily views he got beforehand. 
It is worth mentioning that since the algorithm has abandoned the channel, Hamm's subscriber count would go on a downward trajectory for months due to the people with notifications on likely getting tired and annoyed at his variety videos appearing in their suggested when they subscribed for the dubs. Hamm has been very vocal about his opinions on this, stating that this doesn't effect him in the slightest, even going as far as to tell those specific viewers to "fuck off". 
==The Fortnite ARG==
On December 3, 2023, Hamm Mann would release a video called "Special Delivery", a video which acted as a surprise teaser for a video to release later on, with it ending with a note that said "Ur fucked on the 28th!". It was unknown at the time as to what this meant, but it aligned with the channel's 10th anniversary. 
Then exactly ten days later, at 11:34 AM, a community post was made with the caption "I'm not safe", and a picture of a graph spiking upwards. It was also unknown at the time what this was referring to, as the screenshot didn't show any text relating to the picture. 
Then exactly one day later, down to the minute, another post was made with the title "It never ends", Showing a picture of the mobile version of YouTube with a popup saying "Unsubscribed from penguinz0". But the difference here is that it had the image of a thumbnail of his cropped, showing a section of the thumbnail for the video "Fortnite Is Actually Amazing Now", seemingly giving an answer as to what all of the vague comments were alluding to, as at the time Fortnite was having the biggest growth of players it had ever had since it's release. 
Exactly one day later again, seemingly confirming a pattern, A text only community post was sent in only morse code, simply saying ".. - / ... - .. .-.. .-.. / .-- .- - -.-. .... . ... / -- . .-.-.-", which directly translated to "IT STILL WATCHES ME". 
The next day, Hamm would post a quiz, with the question being "Is there a light at the end of the tunnel?", with the 4 different options being "Moistcritikal", "Acai", "SaltyDKDan" and "Jimmy Here", all of which being youtubers that within the month of the post being made all made a video related to Fortnite in some way. Even though the "Answer" was Salty, when the reasoning for the answer would pop up, it would simply say "NO". 
One day later, Hamm would post a picture with the caption "Save me", and the image would be the thumbnail for Jimmy Here's video "If I laugh, the video ends #189", which featured the picture of Peter Griffin's Fortnite model on the thumbnail, along with some text stating "He's here!", The video itself would have more references to Fortnite than any of Jimmy's other work, hence why there was probably a community post made in reference of it. 
On the next day, Hamm would post a poll, with the caption being "Where am I supposed to go?" and the responses being "Nowhere, it will be added as a cameo anyway.", "Nowhere, if it's all surrounding as it is, just give in already.", "Nowhere, it's a """good""" game anyway." and "Nowhere, it's the end of the line, so just accept it already.". Interestingly out of all the results, the most voted one by a landslide would be the third option. 
The penultimate post would go up on the next day, featuring a photo of the recently added "Champion Racers Bundle", being a direct import of the racing suits from the 2023 season of Formula One. The caption simply states "why must you always walk where I may tread? it's never enough for you to just linger. kill my dogs and put their dying screams as the death sound, why don't you.". 
The final post would be sent one day later with the caption "this. ends. now." Showing the overlay of an unlisted video with the title "How Fortnite nearly ended my life I Hamm Mann", finally revealing what all the posts had been building up to. A few hours later, a video with a slightly altered title would appear as a premiere, the title being "How Fortnite nearly killed me I Hamm Mann". And the date, as the teaser alluded to, was set to December 28, 2023. The channel's 10th anniversary. The video would be a 23 minute long video half dedicated to why Hamm doesn't like the game, and half dedicated to how much the game's community despised him. 
==The Post ARG Era==
On December 23, 2023, while Hamm was working on a teaser for the upcoming video, YouTube had kicked him from the YouTube Partner program due to "Reused Content", specifically focusing on his Alan Becker dubs. Hamm Mann would make a response video on the 26th showcasing how he edited the videos and pointing out the sheer amount of videos that still have advertisements running while still doing the same thing he was doing. This response ended up failing, and Hamm was kicked from the partner program. 
Hamm stated in a community post on New Years Day that he would not be making an attempt to get back into the Partner Program, as not only would he have to wait until march to be let back in again, but he would also have to delete a lot of the videos that hit the algorithm. Due to Hamm Mann being actively focused on preventing lost media, he stated that he would not be reapplying for the partner program because of this. Hamm also revealed how much money he made during the time that he was in the partner program, with the grand total being £853. 
On April 23, 2024, exactly one decade after his first YouTube upload, Hamm would release his final video for Your Bizarre Adventure, a 44 minute long competition where he invited four different speedrunners of the game (Darkinators, Malky, Mystily and Piski) to do various speedrunning related challenges with the winner getting whatever Hamm's most valuable skins were, due to the likelihood of all of his accounts being banned shortly after the competition took place due to promoting a copy of the game. The very end would feature a 1 on 1 fight between Hamm and Mystily to settle the score on which player was the better speedrunner, and in the end after coming down to the wire, Mystily reigned victorious. (Volume Warning)
On June 12, 2024, Hamm would make the decision to sunset his original channel's TF2 focused design due to the fact that he had quit playing Team Fortress 2, and so he switched up his channel's branding and design to match up with his own original character, Junichiro. The picture was made at some point in July of 2022, as Hamm had been using it as his profile picture for Discord ever since then.
On June 19, 2024, Hamm would make a long post on r/tf2 where he reflected on everything that happened when he ran LazyPurple Clips, what that taught him, how much money it earned him, why he used his community page as much as he did, etc. This post didn't get seen by many people, but it was positively received from the people who did see it.
==Delisted Debriefing==
From January 4th 2024, Hamm started purchasing Steam Games that would be removed from the steam store either within that week or at some point within 2024. The reason as to why was unanswered for a few months. 
On April 29, 2024, Hamm Mann would reveal why he had such a large collection of delisted games, as it was for a series he was starting up named "Delisted Debriefing", a series where he reviews games he bought which were pulled from digital storefronts in one way or another, having a tier list for how dire each delisting was which ranged from "Physical copies still exist" to "Basically lost media". The time in which the series started is also thought to be due to the "Stop Killing Games" movement started by Accursed Farms, which is evidenced to with Hamm Mann directly referencing the campaign in the first video.
==The HFTF Era==
On July 31, 2024, exactly years after leaving LazyPurple Clips, Hamm would have his third algorithmic boost, this time to a lesser extent than the previous two, but the viewers that came from this algorithm boost were more open to watching Hamm's variety content rather than just watching his most popular videos, so it was arguably just as potent. 
On August 8, 2024, Hamm would release his first video on JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Heritage For The Future, which had only previously played as a one-off back in 2020. Out of all of the videos released around the time it was posted, it was easily the most viewed out of all of them, as in the first few days of it's publishing the video had circulated around the Fightcade community far more than Hamm was anticipating. He even got directly recognised by someone the next time he loaded into the game. This video's release would also mark the final time that the original Hamm Mann outro would be used at the end of a video, as from this point onwards it was replaced to discascosiate himself with Team Fortress 2. 
On August 12, 2024, Hamm would end up releasing his final dedicated video on Team Fortress 2, which would not only showcase the final TF2 match played by Hamm, but would also answer a lot of questions that were previously left in the dark near the beginning of the video, including revealing who he had switched his main to after teasing it in a community post 9 months prior, which ended up being Pyro. The video also lost Hamm a few subscribers due to them only being here for TF2 content, which he would make a mocking community post about. This video's release would also mark the final time that the original Hamm Mann icon would be seen in a video thumbnail, as from this point onwards it was replaced with his modern icon. 
On August 14, 2024, Hamm would take note of how successful the HFTF video was doing and would quickly release a follow up video called "Devo is Overpowered", directly taking a page out of EX Falchion's book, which marks the shortest time in which a game had become a main stay after being played on Hamm Mann's channel. Hamm also followed this up with a community post, confirming that HFTF was here to stay. 
On an unknown day in June, 2024, Hamm Mann would buy three of his friends a copy of Forza Horizon 4, a game that he had previously covered on Delisted Debriefing. They would then proceed to play the game for about a month, for reasons that were not initially explained. 
On August 25, 2024, Hamm would post a video called "The Encore Project", which explained that the reason they were playing the game for so long was to complete the "Encore" achievement due to the fact that the achievement would be unobtainable a month or so after buying the game. The video itself broke down the process and history of the lengths they went to get the achievement. In the end, out of the four people who were brought along to try and get the achievement (Hamm Mann, Benji, Tony McSony, Kcwacw1), only two would end up completing it (Hamm Mann, Tony McSony) with the other two failing at 25% completion and 47% completion respectively. 
==Trivia==
* When Connor made the pre-set description that would appear underneath all of his videos after rebranding to Hamm Mann, he would completely misspell the world "surprise", instead putting in "suprise", and also rather than putting in an explanation mark to make even the punctuation correct, he put another question mark. This is manually corrected for some of the more recent and successful videos, but most of his videos still have it as a joke.
* Connor has a very bad habit of never making part two's to his videos. Whenever he makes a promise that there will be one, there is a VERY good chance that the part 2 will never come. Some examples of videos that never got their part two's are "Mario And Luigi: Partners In Time but we all control a different button", "Hamm Mann VS Starched Silliness", "The YBA Speedrun Beginners Guide" and "The Physical Collection", Although a clip of the last video's sequel has appeared in the video "Loading..." as a teaser with nothing emerging from that.
* Connor actively preserves prototypes of old video games that appear on Ebay, even having a video of how he preserved one disc. He also shows distain whenever something becomes lost media. A perfect example is MsBreezy, as Hamm considers her videos a personal favourite, and her channel getting so suddenly delisted at the dawn of 2024 got under Hamm's skin, as he would point out in a community post how "Lost Media gets lost so fast, that even things that people see with lost media not even being at the forefront of their mind can disappear within a single blink".
* Connor is no stranger to appearing in video collabs, with his most prominent example being his appearance in the 2nd part of Jack Duripper's YTP Collaboration "Stone Ocean: Retold" where two out of three of his entries would end up in the final collab, with one of them being an intentional roast on how Jack edits his own YTP's. Hamm would also joke about this in the final section where people were saying their own messages to the viewers, where Jack would then briefly switch the text to "Fuck u" to get back at him. Hamm would later make a YouTube comment joking about it saying "Tha(fuc)k you too jack!", but it would get auto flagged by YouTube, so he had to change the comment to "Thanks jack. I would love to say more, but YouTube would smite me.", Which Jack would then heart.
* Connor has a fascination with Formula One, which he has expressed in quite a lot of his videos, Making a video on an F1 fangame, and dropping a plethora of references within his videos, often making digs at 7 time world champion Lewis Hamilton, which is evident by his favourite season of the sport being 2021, with 2009 as a close second.
* Connor is very good friends with the YouTuber Ceekos, and he partially tributes that towards being the reason why he picked up HFTF.
* Despite Hamm Mann rebranding his channel in 2024, he had hosted two polls in the past on whether he should change the design of his YouTube channel to match up with what he would eventually do in 2024, and interestingly enough, both times the voters would decide to keep the original channel's design, even getting to the point of the 2nd poll being a complete washout. [1] [2]
==Milestones==
=== Subscriber milestones ===
* 100 subscribers: April 12, 2017
* 1,000 subscribers: May 21, 2021
* 2,000 subscribers: September 8, 2023
* 3,000 subscribers: September 11, 2023
* 4,000 subscribers: September 22, 2023
* 5,000 subscribers: October 16, 2023
==== View milestones ====
* 1,000,000 views: October 29, 2023
Category:Gaming YouTubers
Category:English YouTubers
Category:Users who joined in 2013