Last time I did a deep dive on an Encyclopedia Dramatica article relating to video game reviewers, and nobody really seemed to care. Today I'm going over a topic that is more or less no longer as relevant as it was in the past. Why the hell am I doing this now? Well I had to go for a root canal... twice, faced friction at work, I have assignments due tomorrow night- fuck me I need to relax.
Background
Sonic Brain Fart alludes to a short video series created by the BlackBusterCritic, or Jamin Williams, dedicated to analyzing Sonic fans of the batshit variety. In some respects he can be considered the grand-pappy of drama culture, calling out people who typically deserve it and inspire division for better or worse. But compared to others, Jamin had class. He's a skilled debater, knows his shit, and doesn't just pick on any ordinary individual.
These days Jamin had gotten into discussions relating to video games and calling out Microsoft's initial practices with the Xbox One, but his past videos will be remembered for inspiring and ushering in a particular subset of internet culture.
Why Sonic?
This should go without saying, especially for a topic relevant to videos that are now over a decade old, but it is important newcomers get caught up to speed. The Sonic the Hedgehog fandom is peculiar, to say the least. It had attracted some of the most unsavory characters over the years, and inspired some pretty hilarious results.
Now yes, there are and have been far worse fandoms then and now, but Sonic's fandom was particularly egregious and screamed the loudest. Insanity varies depending on which sector of the Sonic series you focus on, between the games, the cartoons and the comics, especially so for the former. I like Sonic games the same way I like b-movies, I'm an outsider who would rather watch hours upon hours of hot garbage than the mainstream schlock that people run into a ground, and only turn a blind eye because it's hard to hold them to similar standards held by, let's say, Minions.
My biggest issue with the Sonic fandom is how territorial they can be, and this is especially common with the comic fandom. Say one bad thing about the comics, namely Ian Flynn's contributions, and be ready to have one person try to convince you otherwise. This even goes for most of the games, and I feel people tend to turn the other cheek on certain parts, like the classic fandom (there was more to it than Richard Kuta, and I have a feeling classic fans have a similar mindset to MovieBob when he wrote his book)
"Let down because of Yoshi's Island destroying Bob's headcannon of Mario being born in Brooklyn, thus envisioning himself as Mario would be much harder to do."
Fortunately, the more infamous fans had either changed for the better or no longer have the frequency they did in the past, and I consider The Loud House to have a far worse fandom.
Ground Rules
For my deep dive I'm gonna focus solely on individuals covered in the Sonic Brain Fart series. A full video had to have been made on them in order for it to count, though one exception will apply. SolidMario will not be covered as that was outside of the Sonic drama.
I won't focus so much on the then, rather the aftermath. Also this will not be in chronological order.
KingMasterReview
KingMasterReview was a video game reviewer who happened to be quite interested in Silver the Hedgehog. He is one of the milder topics on this list, and most of what he was called on can be chalked up to being a stupid teenager, it's a known fact that we all become stupid when we become teenagers.
KMR, or Aubrey, claimed that Silver the Hedgehog was real and living with him. While this seems like a sign of someone who's one notch close to snapping, there is a reason for this. Aubrey was a big fan of Spax3 back in the day, and Spax had inserted the Noid into his reviews, treating him like an interactive character. Aubrey decided to follow suit with his own reviews and hold Silver to a similar standard, it seems.
Also this should go without saying, but the fuck frenzy that occurred at the end of Jamin's video on him was a joke.
Aubrey did post a response to Jamin's video, and Jamin's reaction to it is floating out there somewhere, but he never reached a similar level of notoriety compared to others. He continued posting for a while before going quiet, then posting an update video, then some more silence, and now it looks like he's returned, he even did roasts on WingsOfRedemption and DarkSydePhil.
All I can say about Aubrey is that back then he was just a dumb teenager, we all were, and that he was a better Silver fan than Sonic93.
Also in an ironic twist he considered Sonic 06 to be shit, Silver was just a takeaway for him.
Alix Henriol
Going from 10 to 100, let's try and keep this brief. Alix Henriol was the founder of Sonic Passion, a forum dedicated to discussions relating to expressing sexual desires relating to Sonic characters. Also she considered Sonic real and in a relationship with her.
This needs no deep discussion, but why did this happen? It seems this was all done for attention, as she had since distanced herself from Sonic Passion and in 2018, made a full address of the situation on her Instagram. Given that a lot of people never get the hint, that's fair to do. She was essentially an attention whore, and if she was serious she would've kept the site up for much longer.
Interestingly, she and Jamin had left off on good terms, he referred to her somewhat positively on a much later video about a certain visitor to her site, but when we get there.
Chasethehedgehog
On the surface Chase seemed to just be your typical deviantArt user, who just so happened to be a fan of Sonic. Now that is true, but what sets him apart from others like him is his ego, and his art legitimately making me prefer doctored screenshots. It is likely Jamin covered him long before Chase became more infamous, and moved to his then active TwisterFiendish account.
One thing I find kinda interesting is that through a commission, Twister made a piece centered on Sonichu and a more obscure fan abomination named Sonic Thorndyke. The latter is the creation of a more obscure loon named Blazesonic. If you want more info, this article is the only surviving thing detailing the guy: https://encyclopediadramatica.online/Blazesonic
Quick sum up, he is a Kingdom Hearts fan that made a crossover comic, and has a Pikachu recolor in Sora's clothes. somehow he managed to slip under Jamin's radar.
Where was I? Oh yeah, Chase had abandoned his TwisterFiendish account and I guess it's safe to say he moved on and has a new profile.... somewhere. To prevent any unwarranted harassment I won't try to seek them out.
Guptill89/MichaelDragon800
This was a double feature, and will be treated as such in this entry.
Guptill89 has never been liked. Beforehand he was a frequent commentary topic, and that's not going into his schtick. He, or his persona, likes the old days. He didn't like bad words in reviews, he doesn't like logo rebrands (though on logo simplification he would be ahead of the curve). I don't know if this was a cleverly crafted persona meant to poke fun at prudish types, I don't know if it has something to do with him being from Maine (albeit southwestern Maine).
But, for more seasoned viewers, that's not what he's known for. At some point, he decided to do a list about the ten hottest Sonic females. When going by the game's characters, only one of them is 18, yikes. He doesn't explicitly say he wants to fuck them, granted, but why call it the "hottest Sonic females", why not just call it the "Best Sonic females". Not to mention, calling the Sonic series "hot chick heaven" can either be trolling, or a self-signed death warrant.
The list was covered by Jamin in a separate commentary, and made up a quarter of his discussion on Guptill in the dedicated Sonic Brain Fart episode. He had covered how out of touch Guptill is on a lot of his opinions, that's for sure.
Let's just say Guptill did not handle any of this well. He lashed out over the commentary, even walked out on an interview when it was brought up. In this situation, admit to making it, say whatever motivated you, and maybe step away from the internet for a while. It worked for CallMeCarson, and besides, at least he didn't groom any actual minors.
Yeah, that's the thing about looking back on old punching bags, people have come that made them pale in comparison. You're gonna tell me Guptill is worse than Cosmodore? Or EDP445? Or MiniLadd? Or ToonKriticY2K?
To show you how desensitized people became over the incorporation of fictional minors, Dumbsville reacted to Guptill's list and just took the piss out of it, he didn't really see him as a threat. In a way this kinda benefited Guptill, as now any comments relating to the list would be carried on in a more lighthearted manner.
But on Guptill, though I certainly found his list to be in poor taste, I gotta say, his content beyond that list (like everything but that list), is unique, for better or worse. I've never seen regular YouTubers use the tech, aesthetics, the like he did, he made me curious. It seems thankfully what happened on YouTube didn't cross over to his personal life, if his Facebook is anything to go by. Also to be clear, his YouTube and Facebook profile are the only legitimate Guptill profiles.
MichaelDragon800 is interesting, to say the least. At first I thought he was just a passionate fan caught under foot, but let me tell you, he's weird, and an asshole, and one I have no sympathy for. He landed a spot on Sonic Brain Fart because of a comment he made on Guptill's list, in relation to the content no doubt.
Michael strikes me as a man with absolutely no self-awareness, and a bad attitude. He tried to do Brentalfloss' schtick, he can't sing. He does things you'd expect to see from a child with an imaginary friend, and, even now, has a thing for tap dancing, which for the record was an aspect to his coverage. An additional con is that the only thing that changed about his art is that he graduated from paper and magic markers to a computer program.
Either he had too much pride or no awareness, let's be real, nobody liked him back then, and he is the most apprehensive compared to others. For perspective, I had tried to be nice to him, and the one time he responded he just brushed me off. Then in 2015 I caught him lashing out in regard to My Little Pony, we got into an argument and he blocked me due to previous drama I was involved in.
I had better interactions with Spax3 and Richard Kuta, though the former didn't go anywhere, and at least Spax only got into trouble beyond what he was infamous for in later years, but not now.
Whatever the case, Michael can go fuck himself as far as I'm concerned.
Charles Hamilton
The rapper? Yes, the rapper. Charles Hamilton is a somewhat known rap artist, who seemed a little too eager to express himself. He followed a self-instilled belief system, which happened to be based around Sonic. For instance, he associated loops in the Sonic games with the circle of life. I cannot do justice in describing it. Look, express yourself, but keep things you can't explain properly to yourself, I cannot offer any kind of defense. Also, Rihanna the Hedgehog, something he made, which may be lost to time. He played this seriously.
This episode in Charles Hamilton's history somehow managed to remain off of his Wikipedia article, aside from one other element, his fixation on the color pink, albeit on a short footnote. Apparently he had beef with Soulja Boy at one point, owed to Hamilton being a Sonic fan and Soulja Boy being a Nintendo fan (and Soulja Boy had quite a presence online before he got big.)
Other than that it seemed this wasn't enough to kill Hamilton's career. He put out an album in 2018 and it got decent reviews, that's something I guess. These days people only give a shit if it's politically motivated.
Also interesting fact, Jamin's video on Charles Hamilton had been lost for the longest time, and only turned up recently when Jamin's original channel was somehow reactivated. At most all that survived was an archive of a response video made by SunaTheHedgehog, which Jamin responded to.
Chris Chan
Okay, do I really have to explain who Chris Chan is? At this point everyone and their grandmother knows who Chris Chan is. Jamin wasn't even the first to discuss Chris, but at the time, how could people not discuss Chris Chan? A lot of us know the ups, downs and the potential conclusion to the Chris Chan saga, about all I can say new is that her raping her mom was, in a twisted way, a sign of clarity and Chris realizing her parents led her to the rut she is in, and knowing her reputation, decided to go out with a bang.
This wasn't to shed her virgin with rage status, a hooker did that.
PaulandAmy
And here's that exception I alluded to. Nearly everyone knows what happened to Paul, but what he has done is so egregious it's worth mentioning.
Paul Rhodes is to Alix Henriol what KingMasterReview was to Spax3, inspired but taking that inspiration too far. While Aubrey was able to shirk his past, Paul wasn't so lucky. He had been on the internet as far back as 2004 with his own personal website, and an old deviantArt account that had only recently been discovered. He also had a Photobucket, second deviantArt and a YouTube channel which has since been purged.
Most you saw of the YouTube was a rant video and a display of his can collecting. He was a member of Sonic Passion, though it's unknown for sure how long he harbored his boner for Amy Rose. Eventually, he decided, fuck it, and decided to rape four girls. Probably butchered that, but it happened.
Now, Rhodes' arrest led to a big stigma, that unchecked obsessions with fictional characters would lead people to act on them in real life. To a degree, that is still true, though with Rhodes, the girls he raped were anywhere between 3 and 8. If this were to do with Amy, he would've gone for someone the age of 12, even had details of him forcing the girls to cosplay as Amy. Yeah, picture that.
This happened back in 2012, with the earliest release being slated within four years per approval by the parole board. It's been nearly a decade, so who knows if he's back out there?
Conclusion
The peak of Sonic the Hedgehog crazies, in hindsight, marked simpler times, where we can lay back and poke fun at people who deserved it, they were the bottom. But since then, other fandoms had reached similar heights. Danny Phantom's fandom housed a murderer, Steven Universe's fandom has a 95% toxicity rate, PowerPuff Girls is basically a sealed drum in itself, with what the fandom does and is about.
While Sonic has and will maintain its dubious legacy with its fans, it's no longer necessarily the worst fandom in general.
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