One of the great things about Youtube is that you can watch it anywhere there’s internet access. In bed, on the couch, or even in the bushes outside your ex’s house while you wait for them to come home. However before Youtube there was something called movies. These “movies” were typically shown only in gigantic rooms where you were forced to sit in uncomfortable chairs. There you had no control over when your entertainment started or stopped or even who you watched it with. It was madness, pure, unadulterated madness.
However, for some insane reason the stars of Youtube occasionally decide to make a foray into cinema. Probably for the money. Youtube is not a particularly profitable medium and becoming less so by the second. But this isn’t about the uncertain future, this is about the occasionally regrettable past!
Speaking of regrettable, remember Fred?
10. Fred Figglehorn (Lucas Cruikshanks)
Fred Figglehorn was inexplicably popular in the earlier days of Youtube for reasons that escape me to this day. From what I can tell, his videos consisted of him shrieking about things in an excessively high-pitched voice. So obviously, some Hollywood executives decided that this is what America wants. So they greenlit not one, not two, but three Fred movies. Three. The first one has a 0% Rotten Tomato score and is widelt considered to be the high point of the series. The movies also feature John Cena (What?) s Fred’s dad and the blonde friend from iCarly as Fred’s friend. The sequels feature zombies and summer camp respectively. I refuse to watch them but I sincerely hope Fred dies at the end of Fred 3.
Anyway, here are all the John Cena scenes.
9. Felicia Day
Okay so technically this is cheating a little because she was an actress before becoming a Youtube star. That being said, she founded the hugely popular Geek and Sundry network on Youtube, as well as achieving fame with her web-series The Guild. Besides, I make the rules so I decided who makes the list.
Anyways, before and after making it big on Youtube, Felicia Day was in a bunch of movies. Let’s pick the most embarrassing one. She was in the direct to DvD sequel to Bring it On, Bring it On Again.
No word on what kept her out of the sequels Bring On Some More, Bring It On As Well, and Keep Bringing It Until You Can’t Possibly Bring It Further.
8. Smosh
Who is Smosh? What is Smosh? Apparently they make a bunch of wildly popular Youtube videos that I personally have never watched. But statistically speaking, you do! Anyway, in 2015 they decided to make a movie, along with other Youtube stars like Jenna Marbles, Grace Helbig, and Epic Meal Time Guy. It also featured actual B-List celebrity Michael Ian Black! Also, Stone Cold Steve Austin? Is every Youtube movie required to have a pro wrestler? Weird.Despite this star-studded cast it received a rather flacid critical reception. Still better than Fred the Movie, so they’ve got that going for them!
7. Hannah Hart, Mamrie Hart, and Grace Helbig
It’s been really great watching Hannah Hart evolve from drunkenly attempting to make a grilled cheese sandwich, only to find out she doesn’t have cheese, to becoming an LGBTQ icon and heading a media empire. Does she even still do my drunk kitchen? It’s less funny now that she’s actually decent at cooking. But that’s not important right now. What is important is that she, Mamrie Hart, and Grace Helbig got together to make a movie called Camp Takota.
I actually watched this one and it was really good. It definitely received a much better critical reception than the other movies on this list (so far). The three women seem to be best friends in real life as well and it really shows in their performances. They also apparently made another movie last year called Dirty Thirty but I have not seen that one since I just now found out it existed. I imagine it is also quite good but I make no guarantees. I’m not some kind of psychic movie person. Like the guy from Split. That was a terrible movie. Let’s move on.
While you may not know them by name, you are almost certainly familiar with their epic take downs of the Star Wars prequel trilogy featuring the character “Mr. Plinkett”. These reviews ended up being longer than the running times of the movies they were about, which is a bit unusual as far as reviews go. Their channel is also full of reviews of other popular movies as well as their most popular series where they skewer older, cheesier movies.
Anyway, the boys at Red Letter Media are also in the business of making movies, with their most recent output being 2015’s Space Cop, an intentionally schlocky take on the sci-fi genre.
They also released a documentary about making crappy movies called How Not to Make a Movie, as an attempt to explain how they came to make their first movie, Gorilla Interrupted. Holy crap, that’s really what they called it?
Ugh.
5. Freddie Wong
Freddie Wong is one of the cofounders of Rocket Jump studios, makers of popular short videos, as well as film-making tutorials. Along with his brother Jimmy Wong, he also made the web-series Video Game High School. “But that’s not a movie, it’s a web-series.” Well it was later cut together into a movie and released on Netflix, so it counts. Again, I make the list, I make the rules. Besides, have you seen the production values on some of their shorts? Incredible. I think they at least deserve a mention.
Anyway, it was a pretty good movie/series, and the second on this list that I actually watched. I am wildly unqualified to be writing articles about Youtube.
Remember Vine? Those magical little six second movies that brought us so much joy? Well the boys and girls at five second films did it first, and they did it better. For years they released a five second short every single day, often featuring famous cameos. Then they decided to focus their efforts on a much, much longer feature: Dude Bro Party Massacre III. Originally based on one of their infamous five second shorts, I am told that there isn’t actually a DBPM 1 or 2.
Fun Fact: this film actually has a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the complete Polar Opposite of Fred the Movie.
3. Roosterteeth
Red Versus Blue took the internet by storm when it first came out, practically creating the machinima genre single handedly. Apparently they are even still making episodes, though I personally stopped watching after season five. Since then they have taken off on Youtube, creating Achievement Hunter, Screwattack, and more and even produced a very popular anime series, the poorly spelled RWBY. However, they also made a feature film, a feature film that enters the slot as the third entry on this list I have seen. Congratulations guys!
Lazer Team came out in 2015 and centered around four small town guys who find the four seperate parts of a high-tech armor and then shenanigans ensue. Shenanigans all day long. It was pretty good.
2. Jimmy Tatro
Jimmy Tatro makes short vidoes, mainly centering around the fact that he looks like a typical frat guy. Not my sort of thing, but he has 2.7 million subscribers, whereas I have several Facebook friends who assure me they will buy my book “when they get the money”. It’s $12 Chad. You’re not going to break the bank. How is art supposed to flourish in this modern age if we do not take on the financial burden of supporting it? Anyway, he played Rooster in 22 Jumo Street, a character known for being a muscular, vaguely homoerotic football player, so a typical frat guy. Jimmy Tatro’s perfect role!
But yeah, he was actually pretty good in this movie, and I’m now up to 4 out of 10 for movies I’ve actually seen! Thanks Jimmy! You keep on rocking that frat boy style.
1. iJustine
Justine Ezarik, or iJustine, is a “Lifecaster”, which sounds like some sort of weapon from the Star Wars MMORPG but apparently it’s just a fancy word for vlogger. She became famous early on for her viral videos but has also managed to score cameos in a number of tv shows and films, such as the Wedding Ringer, and Lazer Team. But more importantly, she was in Sharknado: The 4th Awakens. Yep, apparently there were 4 of those movies and she had a cameo as “Assistant”.
Sure, that’s probably not the role she would want to be known for, but she also starred in the Annoying Orange TV series and frankly that kind of thing can’t go unpunished.
