Lindsay Ellis

Lindsay Ellis is a video essayist, media critic, author, and former YouTuber who started making videos in 2008 as The Nostalgia Chick, the female counterpart to Channel Awesome's The Nostalgia Critic. In 2014, she left Channel Awesome to focus on her own channel, where she makes more serious longform video essays on film analysis. Many of her most popular videos involve her critique of Disney films, however she is also known for her series on the Transformers Bayverse.
In 2021, Lindsay retired from YouTube and from social media. She continues to make videos for Nebula, a subscription-based, creator-owned platform.Lindsay Ellis' Nebula channel. Accessed March 20, 2024. (archive link)
==Content Creation Timeline==
===The Nostalgia Chick===
The Nostalgia Chick was a character Lindsay played as part of the larger 'universe' of Channel Awesome/ThatGuyWithTheGlasses characters. Lindsay became the Nostalgia Chick in 2008 after 'winning' a talent search run by Doug Walker.Nostalgia Chick Winners As the Nostalgia Critic's counterpoint, her videos were of a similar comedic vein, though (originally) about media specifically targeted at a female audience. Like The Nostalgia Critic, she had a catchphrase ("I remember it because the dudes don't"), ongoing gags, and interactions with the other characters on the channel. Her first review was Pocahontas,Nostalgic Woman: Pocahontas a movie she revisits on her own channel nearly a decade laterPocahontas Was A Mistake, and Here's Why! in a way that showcases the differences between her critique styles then and now.
As time went on, The Nostalgia Chick stopped reviewing purely girl-targeted nostalgic media, and started branching out. This branching out eventually lead to her leaving Channel Awesome and her work as The Nostalgia Chick in 2014.Farewell Channel Awesome, and a pre-emptive FAQ
===Eponymous Work===
In 2014, Lindsay left Channel Awesome to focus on her own content, and because she felt the Nostalgia Critic 'brand' was not one she felt comfortable with anymore. She started posting videos to her own channel, and with her own creative freedom. Her eponymous work involves longer videos with a more serious (though often still dry) tone. She often touches on films within the context of history or as part of a larger movement; for example, Disney films as part of the corporation of Disney itselfe.g., "The Revisionist World of Disney: Mary Poppins, Walt Disney and Saving Mr. Banks", Transformers as it relates to Marxism"Marxism!: The Whole Plate Episode 9", part of The Whole Plate series which examines film and film theory via the Transformers series. or The Hobbit films and their impact on New Zealand politics"The Hobbit: The Desolation of Warners (Part 3/2)".
===Other Work===
Outside of her own channel, she also hosts a literature-specific review series It's Lit! with PBSIt's Lit! homepage.
Beyond video essays, she's also been involved with other non-critique projects. She created and directed a documentary short called The A-Word (occasionally stylized 'The Ayy Word') that followed her personal journey in getting an abortion and the stigma of abortions in generalThe A Word. Along with her friends Elisa Hansen and Antonella Serra, and under the portmanteau/pen-name Serra Elinsen, she helped write Awoken, a monster romance parody about H.P. Lovecraft's classic monster Cthulhu.Awoken by Serra Elinsen on Amazon The process of conceiving, writing and selling it is chronicled at the Booze Your Own Adventure Youtube series. In 2020, she published her first novel, Axiom's End.
===Involvement with #ChangeTheChannel===
In 2018, current and former members of Channel Awesome, including Lindsay Ellis, published a large document detailing various corporate issues including sexual harassment, sexism, improper labor practices, layoffs of sick and injured employees and endangerment of co-workers, among other things.ChangeTheChannel: A Short Summary Of Events This document and the ensuing events were later named after the hashtag ChangeTheChannel, which was sparked by the revelations therein.
===2021 Retirement from Social Media and YouTube=== 
In Dec 27, 2021, Ellis stated in a locked Patreon post that she regretted being a part of the online community, that she had been traumatized by it, and that she was stepping away from content creation. Though the goodbye was meant to be exclusive to Patrons, fans posted the essay openly on the subreddit for Lindsay Ellis.Lindsay on Twitter: "Goodbye", Reddit. Dec 27, 2021 (Accessed 4/8/2022) Since her announcement, she has not made any more YouTube videos, deleted her Twitter, and has stopped making Patron exclusive video content. She does, however, continue to make videos for Nebula, a subscription-based, creator-owned platform. In early 2022, fans of Ellis on Reddit speculated briefly on what her retirement meant for her writing,On the status of the noumena series, Reddit. Jan 6, 2022. (Accessed 4/8/2022) but the final book in her novel trilogy Noumena was published in 2024.
==Fan Responses==
Criticism of Lindsay Ellis ranges from sexist commentary to feminist critique. Why do people target Lindsay Ellis so much?
 
Lindsay herself has critiqued her own older work as The Nostalgia Chick, calling it "too nitpicky" and part of an unfortunate trend of online media criticism.400k Q&A
==Involvement in Fandom==
Lindsay has mentioned an involvement in fandom, specifically writing and publishing fanfiction, at different points in her work, though she has not publicly linked her real name to a fannish identity. She is known to have been in the fandoms for Transformers and Phantom of the Opera. In her published novel series, Noumena, Ellis left references to the Transformers fandom by naming two characters Star and Scream in Esperanto. She also referenced Beast Wars: Transformers and Michael Bay's Bayverse films by quoting "the whole plate."
In a video about her personal journey to becoming a published author, Lindsay credited fanfiction for helping her realise that she was capable of finishing stories:
In July 2020, Lindsay took part in a guest post for The Organization for Transformative Works in which she spoke about how she came to be involved in fandom.
==Hugo Award Nomination==
In 2019 Lindsay - along with her co-creator Angela Meehan - was a finalist for a Hugo Award in the category of Best Related Work for the video essay series The Hobbit Duology, in the same year and category that the Archive of Our Own was nominated (and subsequently won).
In a tweet referencing this, Lindsay wrote, 
In her July 2020 guest post for the OTW, Lindsay also joked, 
==References==
Category:YouTube RPF
Category:YouTubers
Category:Noumena
category:Video Essayists
Category:Commentators
Category:Industry