Simply Smuglogical: Not Like Other Youtubers, Just Like Other Ass-holos - Part 3

[Boredartist]

If ben wants to hog the spotlight like the faux intellectual he is, he should make his own channel for privileged white male commentary videos. Having a master's isn't even that impressive, tons of people have them. Just shows that you can afford one lol.He comes off as such a prick.

[DeeBeeMee]

Wow, so Ben's retired and it sounds like Christine is going to too. I think I'm jealous.

[melissa_1983]

lol yeah I came here to comment on Ben quitting his job. Oh I'm sorry..."retiring"

Remember how fucking smug they were about how they "weren't like other youtubers" and had full time jobs as well as doing youtube? He's started livestreaming on his Bentendo channel. He did a hummus stream where all he did was eat hummus and rate it. He came off as so smug and so pretentious that it made me want to punch him in the face.

[DeeBeeMee]

lol yeah I came here to comment on Ben quitting his job. Oh I'm sorry..."retiring"

Remember how fucking smug they were about how they "weren't like other youtubers" and had full time jobs as well as doing youtube? He's started livestreaming on his Bentendo channel. He did a hummus stream where all he did was eat hummus and rate it. He came off as so smug and so pretentious that it made me want to punch him in the face.

Ha! At least most of us (I) can admit that I'd love to give up my day job and have enough cash to just sit home and eat hummus all day.

That whole "not like other YouTubers" thing has really backfired, eh.

[chipn dip]

I bet Beyyyyn's colleagues all heaved a collective sigh of relief when he retired tho.

[wreck]

I feel like we've all been expecting this for a while, lol

[Boredartist]

What a surprise. The yOuTuBe cAnT lAsT fOrEvEr couple have become full time youtubers. Oh wait, they're old so it's rEtIrInG and not quitting. We're not your average youtubers, everyone!

[Treefood666]

If ben wants to hog the spotlight like the faux intellectual he is, he should make his own channel for privileged white male commentary videos. Having a master's isn't even that impressive, tons of people have them. Just shows that you can afford one lol.He comes off as such a prick.

he wouldn't. for the longest time, he wouldn't make his own channel or do his own content because he knew people only cared about him in the context of cristine. and then the only branching out he did for a sec was video games, which he also didn't/wouldn't do cause he couldn't do the speedrunning thing at higher levels anymore (plus i know he probably sees it as juvenile now thanks to gaming youtube). its like with julien and jenna marbles. he only really has started doing his "own" stuff now because he's become associated with the podcast and more "Serious" content, so he can live his public intellectual dream.

[unwelcome]

At least Julien has a personality whether Jenna Marbles is with him or not. Can't say that about Ben. He never had that workaholic drive that Cristine has anyways, so it doesn't surprise me he quit as soon as he could.

[someoneyeah]

Did anyone see the vacation tier list podcast episode before it got deleted? Apparently Ben deleted it because the comment section wasn't nice towards Cristine.

I didn't get to watch the episode, so I don't know her exact reasons as to why she's so averse to traveling. She used to travel with Ben for YouTuber events and such, but these days it seems like she doesn't leave the house as Ben gets everything for her. I understand that covid-19 is a valid reason to stay home, but with the vaccines, most people are relatively okay traveling again. Perhaps she's developed some type of agoraphobia during quarantine? I also don't know why Ben can't solo travel without her. The whole "Ben-deserves-a-vacation" has become such a long-running joke that I really do believe he wants to travel but Cristine is holding him back.

[void40525]

Did anyone see the vacation tier list podcast episode before it got deleted? Apparently Ben deleted it because the comment section wasn't nice towards Cristine.

I didn't get to watch the episode, so I don't know her exact reasons as to why she's so averse to traveling. She used to travel with Ben for YouTuber events and such, but these days it seems like she doesn't leave the house as Ben gets everything for her. I understand that covid-19 is a valid reason to stay home, but with the vaccines, most people are relatively okay traveling again. Perhaps she's developed some type of agoraphobia during quarantine? I also don't know why Ben can't solo travel without her. The whole "Ben-deserves-a-vacation" has become such a long-running joke that I really do believe he wants to travel but Cristine is holding him back.

i didn't see it either, but why wasn't the comment section nice to her? isn't being an antisocial "sock" her entire brand?

[unwelcome]

So, I checked their community tab on their channel where they still have a poll about where they should go on vacation, I checked some reddit posts. I’ll put some of the posts here:

This episode of the pod just made me sad. For someone who in every other way is so brilliant, cristine's obstinate anti-travel 'tude makes me so sad. Travel expands your perspective, and I would have thought she'd be into that. Alas..
--
i’d probably say hawaii isn’t a good idea. a lot of native hawaiians have talked about tourism and how it hurts more than it helps. maybe look into it a bit before deciding
--
I see a lot of people (43%) voted for Hawaii and I just wanted to put a comment out there. I’m not the most educated on the situation, however I know that locals don’t want people to be vacationing there at the moment. There’s a water shortage (I think?) and vacationers have been very disrespectful to the wildlife and nature. I know that you both would be respectful, but I think everything else still stands. The people of Hawaii are struggling and would like tourism to go down right now. There are loads more information about why locals are against tourism atm that is easily accessible on google. Sorry I am not the most informed but I did want to comment this so that y’all know.
--
Not sure how accurate this is but I saw this on their reddit from user AnderElessedil
"I've been watching Ben's stream and he just confirmed that the podcast was taken down due to the criticism Cristine was getting. They did see the Hawaii discourse but that wasn't really a factor. He also has mentioned multiple times that him only serving Cristine's needs and not vice versa isn't true, that it's just a stereotype and a trope they play into. So I imagine the comments about how Cristine "never does things for Ben" upset them, among others.

Honestly, I'm a little disappointed that Ben said that "usually our audience is really respectful and thoughtful so the few times they aren't it is disappointing." If you're acknowledging that your audience generally tends to be nice and thoughtful then shouldn't that engender at least a little bit of reflection as to why the reaction was different this time around? Oh well. This already feels like old news at this point lol."
--
I don't think it has to do with those comments but rather with Cristine's overall dismissive attitude towards traveling and experiencing other cultures. A lot of top comments pointed out how negative this whole episode was, how frustrated they were with Cristine for calling travel "a waste of time" and basically dismissing Ben's wish to get out of Canada. I even remember seeing several comments saying they were not able to finish the episode because they couldn't take Cristine's attitude anymore. It was the only SimplyPodlogical episode for which they received tons of negative feedback.
--
yes, I watched it and I agree that Cristine’s comments were a bit off-putting towards traveling. I was actually surprised on how easily she dismissed places just because they were “too far away”
--
It's because cristine got a lot of slack on that video for her attitude through out the whole thing. It was a hard episode to watch.
--
she even griped about money... when their last podcast was talking about how they have enough money to live out the rest of their lives comfortably if YouTube went away. Lol.
--
I didn't finish that episode and when i went back to finish it, it was gone. I felt a little sad because I thought Ben put work into this one and it was his interests. Before I stopped watching to do something, I did hear Cristine's comment of not being able to go somewhere because she struggles to appreciate other cultures. That was the why not just go to Florida instead of Hawaii debate. I thought maybe it got taken down because of that. She is probably really stressed right now
--
Yeah she mentioned it briefly in the recent gaming stream that they took down the pod episode

She didn't go into it, but Ben touched on it in his gaming stream and confirmed it was cause of the comments becoming negative about Cristine not wanting to go on vacation when Ben really does. I thought there was some valid criticism/advice but def some were more mean-spirited.
--
GIVE THE TEA SLAVE HIS VACATION SO YOU CAN GET YOUR PEACE AND QUIT ABOUT IT SO HE SHUTS UP AND JUST HANDS U YOUR TEA
--

From reddit:

Related to this judging by these comments (missed this one before it was removed), I listened to the Ben Went To Australia episode today and in that one there's also a whole section where Ben attempts to highlight the positives of visiting Australia to Cristine but she is dismissive and makes some excuse about spiders, even though she then goes on to mention she killed a spider at home in Ben's absence. I think there's nothing wrong with having different opinions but I do think that they have quite a core value difference regarding travel. I guess it makes a lot of sense that Ben is the one who has retired from his government job entirely. That episode was otherwise quite fun with an Aussie slang quiz and stuff, but I can see there being a theme here... It's not that I can't understand her attitude, on some level it's good that Cristine sticks to her opinions, but she can be quite dominant about it, which can be uncomfortable to listen to?
--
I had to stop listening. There was no drama but Simply was very dismissive of every trip idea and reduced places with thousands of years of history to "ok but how long is the travel? I'm not going, I can watch videos on youtube".

At least on Tuesday evening the comments were very civil but saying how it's hard to relate to a person who has the means to travel and chooses not to and how Ben should travel alone and experience all the trips he wishes to experience.

The fact that they deleted it honestly kinda made me like them less. Just seems like Cristine can't take any criticism. Unless the comments turned into something worse since I last read them, which is then fair enough
--
Agreed, their reaction to it turned me off from them temporarily. I still enjoy their content overall, but the whole taking it down without warning or communication thing and then hearing Ben mention on his stream, days later and to a very small audience, that he was "disappointed" with their fans was just eyeroll-worthy.

Also the discussion of traveling to Hawaii didn't bug me at first, especially since the podcast was just talking in hypotheticals, but then Ben tried to minimize concerns about traveling to Hawaii (in the same stream on his channel where he expressed his disappointment) by saying "just because one person makes a video on TikTok it doesn't mean anything"—as if countless Indigenous activists on the islands haven't been vocally telling tourists to please stay away for years now and even more so recently since the pandemic began. Overall I think their hearts are in the right place but every so often their white privilege and settler privilege in particular absolutely shows itself.
--
Plus, she was complaining (lightly) about a 14 hour travel day to get there as “wasted” time.
---
I had two problems with this podcast and I'm just throwing out my opinion here.

Imo, Ben didn't do enough research on certain locations that would be described as exotic. He was clearly trying to find places that would fit to Cristine's likes, the cat island and tea house. But for other places like the beach, he didn't seem to put any thought into it as much. He would just name a fancy resort or hotel and basically say that that's all they needed. And don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with staying in a fancy resort for a vacation. But that kinda rubbed me the wrong way. There's more to Greece and Indonesia than just pretty beaches. Idk, I just felt weird about it. At some point, he mentioned something about just staying in the four seasons and I literally clicked off and didn't finish the video until later that day.

Cristine just seemed frustrated with everything. She would get annoyed when Ben would recommend staying at a fancy place. She didn't like that Ben didn't look into every detail of a trip. She didn't like the travel times. It kinda felt like she would rather talk about literally anything else. That's just not fun to listen to. It kinda felt like she was complaining.

I feel like it's a combination of bad research, shallow reasoning why she doesn't want to travel anywhere, tone-deaf dismissal and ignorance to anything relating to other cultures and traveling, being rich and complaining about prices, and people getting tired of cristine shooting down everything Ben says. Even with travel anxiety there has to be a better way to express it than only complaining. People don't find their old repeated inside jokes cute anymore either.
The thing is, most of their videos are this way. As soon as they talk about something they don't know about, people keep correcting them respectfully. Like the Ben goes to Australia video, while most people are positive, there are so many corrections needed. I guess in this case, they really got on people's nerves
I thought they already talked about travel several times, why did they feel the need to make an entire video out of this?

[HereSalem]

I think I've worked out what's bugged me for a long time. Obviously I enjoy Simply, otherwise I wouldn't have watched her for so long, and I do think her heart's in the right place, and her reluctance to travel clearly stems from her anxiety issues. However, the vacation stream finally twigged for me what I find "off" about her.

She's so incurious. like yes, the travel thing is mainly about anxiety, but some of her other comments... she just has no curiosity or even INTEREST about anything outside her own skill set or sphere of experience. She constantly talked about how she couldn't see the point of "wasting time" travelling to see something she could look at a photograph of, like girl... I promise you seeing the colosseum in real life in NO way compares to a google image search?? Or just wandering the streets of wherever you're going, finding little restaurants, sampling the local food, taking in the atmosphere? Finding a hidden trail that leads to an incredible view of nature? Speaking to people who live in a totally different way to you and sharing your stories? As for the "wasting time" on a plane or a train... um as opposed to just sitting around in your house 24/7 which is what you do already? relax. You can take a laptop on a plane, you could probably spend the whole flight working since that's what you seem happiest doing.

I've noticed this chronic lack of curiosity before, I could just never tell exactly what it was. like she jokingly nicknamed herself "cristine the science queen" when she did her 'experiments' (loosely termed, she just mixed shit up) but despite her level of education, she was pretty dumb about some very basic chemistry and physics, like stuff that seemed to be basic common sense to me, stuff that's easily picked up by just reading random books or talking to people or observing shit in the world. I notice it occasionally when she's talking about a field that isn't specifically hers. She knows a lot about statistics, naturally, but doesn't seem to have any excitement or drive to learn about anything that exists outside her front door, or that she's not already interested in.

Ben is kinda seld-important and privileged but at least he wants an opportunity to expand his horizons. It's sad they don't agree on that.

[void40525]

^ totally agree. she gave off similar vibes on that one podcast they did with matt (who loves to travel and immerse himself in different cultures).

[someoneyeah]

So, I checked their community tab on their channel where they still have a poll about where they should go on vacation, I checked some reddit posts. I’ll put some of the posts here:

This episode of the pod just made me sad. For someone who in every other way is so brilliant, cristine's obstinate anti-travel 'tude makes me so sad. Travel expands your perspective, and I would have thought she'd be into that. Alas..
--
i’d probably say hawaii isn’t a good idea. a lot of native hawaiians have talked about tourism and how it hurts more than it helps. maybe look into it a bit before deciding
--
I see a lot of people (43%) voted for Hawaii and I just wanted to put a comment out there. I’m not the most educated on the situation, however I know that locals don’t want people to be vacationing there at the moment. There’s a water shortage (I think?) and vacationers have been very disrespectful to the wildlife and nature. I know that you both would be respectful, but I think everything else still stands. The people of Hawaii are struggling and would like tourism to go down right now. There are loads more information about why locals are against tourism atm that is easily accessible on google. Sorry I am not the most informed but I did want to comment this so that y’all know.
--
Not sure how accurate this is but I saw this on their reddit from user AnderElessedil
"I've been watching Ben's stream and he just confirmed that the podcast was taken down due to the criticism Cristine was getting. They did see the Hawaii discourse but that wasn't really a factor. He also has mentioned multiple times that him only serving Cristine's needs and not vice versa isn't true, that it's just a stereotype and a trope they play into. So I imagine the comments about how Cristine "never does things for Ben" upset them, among others.

Honestly, I'm a little disappointed that Ben said that "usually our audience is really respectful and thoughtful so the few times they aren't it is disappointing." If you're acknowledging that your audience generally tends to be nice and thoughtful then shouldn't that engender at least a little bit of reflection as to why the reaction was different this time around? Oh well. This already feels like old news at this point lol."
--
I don't think it has to do with those comments but rather with Cristine's overall dismissive attitude towards traveling and experiencing other cultures. A lot of top comments pointed out how negative this whole episode was, how frustrated they were with Cristine for calling travel "a waste of time" and basically dismissing Ben's wish to get out of Canada. I even remember seeing several comments saying they were not able to finish the episode because they couldn't take Cristine's attitude anymore. It was the only SimplyPodlogical episode for which they received tons of negative feedback.
--
yes, I watched it and I agree that Cristine’s comments were a bit off-putting towards traveling. I was actually surprised on how easily she dismissed places just because they were “too far away”
--
It's because cristine got a lot of slack on that video for her attitude through out the whole thing. It was a hard episode to watch.
--
she even griped about money... when their last podcast was talking about how they have enough money to live out the rest of their lives comfortably if YouTube went away. Lol.
--
I didn't finish that episode and when i went back to finish it, it was gone. I felt a little sad because I thought Ben put work into this one and it was his interests. Before I stopped watching to do something, I did hear Cristine's comment of not being able to go somewhere because she struggles to appreciate other cultures. That was the why not just go to Florida instead of Hawaii debate. I thought maybe it got taken down because of that. She is probably really stressed right now
--
Yeah she mentioned it briefly in the recent gaming stream that they took down the pod episode

She didn't go into it, but Ben touched on it in his gaming stream and confirmed it was cause of the comments becoming negative about Cristine not wanting to go on vacation when Ben really does. I thought there was some valid criticism/advice but def some were more mean-spirited.
--
GIVE THE TEA SLAVE HIS VACATION SO YOU CAN GET YOUR PEACE AND QUIT ABOUT IT SO HE SHUTS UP AND JUST HANDS U YOUR TEA
--

From reddit:

Related to this judging by these comments (missed this one before it was removed), I listened to the Ben Went To Australia episode today and in that one there's also a whole section where Ben attempts to highlight the positives of visiting Australia to Cristine but she is dismissive and makes some excuse about spiders, even though she then goes on to mention she killed a spider at home in Ben's absence. I think there's nothing wrong with having different opinions but I do think that they have quite a core value difference regarding travel. I guess it makes a lot of sense that Ben is the one who has retired from his government job entirely. That episode was otherwise quite fun with an Aussie slang quiz and stuff, but I can see there being a theme here... It's not that I can't understand her attitude, on some level it's good that Cristine sticks to her opinions, but she can be quite dominant about it, which can be uncomfortable to listen to?
--
I had to stop listening. There was no drama but Simply was very dismissive of every trip idea and reduced places with thousands of years of history to "ok but how long is the travel? I'm not going, I can watch videos on youtube".

At least on Tuesday evening the comments were very civil but saying how it's hard to relate to a person who has the means to travel and chooses not to and how Ben should travel alone and experience all the trips he wishes to experience.

The fact that they deleted it honestly kinda made me like them less. Just seems like Cristine can't take any criticism. Unless the comments turned into something worse since I last read them, which is then fair enough
--
Agreed, their reaction to it turned me off from them temporarily. I still enjoy their content overall, but the whole taking it down without warning or communication thing and then hearing Ben mention on his stream, days later and to a very small audience, that he was "disappointed" with their fans was just eyeroll-worthy.

Also the discussion of traveling to Hawaii didn't bug me at first, especially since the podcast was just talking in hypotheticals, but then Ben tried to minimize concerns about traveling to Hawaii (in the same stream on his channel where he expressed his disappointment) by saying "just because one person makes a video on TikTok it doesn't mean anything"—as if countless Indigenous activists on the islands haven't been vocally telling tourists to please stay away for years now and even more so recently since the pandemic began. Overall I think their hearts are in the right place but every so often their white privilege and settler privilege in particular absolutely shows itself.
--
Plus, she was complaining (lightly) about a 14 hour travel day to get there as “wasted” time.
---
I had two problems with this podcast and I'm just throwing out my opinion here.

Imo, Ben didn't do enough research on certain locations that would be described as exotic. He was clearly trying to find places that would fit to Cristine's likes, the cat island and tea house. But for other places like the beach, he didn't seem to put any thought into it as much. He would just name a fancy resort or hotel and basically say that that's all they needed. And don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with staying in a fancy resort for a vacation. But that kinda rubbed me the wrong way. There's more to Greece and Indonesia than just pretty beaches. Idk, I just felt weird about it. At some point, he mentioned something about just staying in the four seasons and I literally clicked off and didn't finish the video until later that day.

Cristine just seemed frustrated with everything. She would get annoyed when Ben would recommend staying at a fancy place. She didn't like that Ben didn't look into every detail of a trip. She didn't like the travel times. It kinda felt like she would rather talk about literally anything else. That's just not fun to listen to. It kinda felt like she was complaining.

I feel like it's a combination of bad research, shallow reasoning why she doesn't want to travel anywhere, tone-deaf dismissal and ignorance to anything relating to other cultures and traveling, being rich and complaining about prices, and people getting tired of cristine shooting down everything Ben says. Even with travel anxiety there has to be a better way to express it than only complaining. People don't find their old repeated inside jokes cute anymore either.
The thing is, most of their videos are this way. As soon as they talk about something they don't know about, people keep correcting them respectfully. Like the Ben goes to Australia video, while most people are positive, there are so many corrections needed. I guess in this case, they really got on people's nerves
I thought they already talked about travel several times, why did they feel the need to make an entire video out of this?

I feel like Ben thought that a little peer pressure from the comments might change Cristine's position, but it clearly backfired cause he deleted the video. He was kinda wrong for that, but at the same time Cristine's attitude was also a problem. Travel seems like a strong passion for Ben. Imagine if Ben shot down Cristine's interests in nail polish, oatmeal, tea, or cats...

[chipn dip]

Can Beyyyyn not go travelling alone?

[Boredartist]

She's so incurious. like yes, the travel thing is mainly about anxiety, but some of her other comments... she just has no curiosity or even INTEREST about anything outside her own skill set or sphere of experience. She constantly talked about how she couldn't see the point of "wasting time" travelling to see something she could look at a photograph of, like girl... I promise you seeing the colosseum in real life in NO way compares to a google image search?? Or just wandering the streets of wherever you're going, finding little restaurants, sampling the local food, taking in the atmosphere? Finding a hidden trail that leads to an incredible view of nature? Speaking to people who live in a totally different way to you and sharing your stories? As for the "wasting time" on a plane or a train... um as opposed to just sitting around in your house 24/7 which is what you do already? relax. You can take a laptop on a plane, you could probably spend the whole flight working since that's what you seem happiest doing.

I've noticed this chronic lack of curiosity before, I could just never tell exactly what it was. like she jokingly nicknamed herself "cristine the science queen" when she did her 'experiments' (loosely termed, she just mixed shit up) but despite her level of education, she was pretty dumb about some very basic chemistry and physics, like stuff that seemed to be basic common sense to me, stuff that's easily picked up by just reading random books or talking to people or observing shit in the world. I notice it occasionally when she's talking about a field that isn't specifically hers. She knows a lot about statistics, naturally, but doesn't seem to have any excitement or drive to learn about anything that exists outside her front door, or that she's not already interested in.

Totally get what you mean. I had a friend like this, they also had really bad anxiety and had zero interest in anything other than what they were already interested in. Going anywhere with them was a nightmare. They had to be 101% sure of whatever was on a street before they would even consider setting foot anywhere. Wanna go to a museum? Why? What's in it? Idk, never been there. Why would you wanna go in then??? Why not? Seems fun. I can google the info at home anyway, plus I don't care about x culture. It's all the same anyway. Wanna try x food? Nah. I'd rather have what I usually have. x food looks bad anyway.

I understand having anxiety (I have my days too) but these people are exhausting to be around.

[super awesome]

I think I've worked out what's bugged me for a long time. Obviously I enjoy Simply, otherwise I wouldn't have watched her for so long, and I do think her heart's in the right place, and her reluctance to travel clearly stems from her anxiety issues. However, the vacation stream finally twigged for me what I find "off" about her.

She's so incurious. like yes, the travel thing is mainly about anxiety, but some of her other comments... she just has no curiosity or even INTEREST about anything outside her own skill set or sphere of experience. She constantly talked about how she couldn't see the point of "wasting time" travelling to see something she could look at a photograph of, like girl... I promise you seeing the colosseum in real life in NO way compares to a google image search?? Or just wandering the streets of wherever you're going, finding little restaurants, sampling the local food, taking in the atmosphere? Finding a hidden trail that leads to an incredible view of nature? Speaking to people who live in a totally different way to you and sharing your stories? As for the "wasting time" on a plane or a train... um as opposed to just sitting around in your house 24/7 which is what you do already? relax. You can take a laptop on a plane, you could probably spend the whole flight working since that's what you seem happiest doing.

I've noticed this chronic lack of curiosity before, I could just never tell exactly what it was. like she jokingly nicknamed herself "cristine the science queen" when she did her 'experiments' (loosely termed, she just mixed shit up) but despite her level of education, she was pretty dumb about some very basic chemistry and physics, like stuff that seemed to be basic common sense to me, stuff that's easily picked up by just reading random books or talking to people or observing shit in the world. I notice it occasionally when she's talking about a field that isn't specifically hers. She knows a lot about statistics, naturally, but doesn't seem to have any excitement or drive to learn about anything that exists outside her front door, or that she's not already interested in.

Ben is kinda seld-important and privileged but at least he wants an opportunity to expand his horizons. It's sad they don't agree on that.

Is anyone here an old Gomi/Smugnom reader? Someone on there called KERF “incurious” and it became the defining description for her. I remember it so clearly because it struck me as possibly the best, most descriptive, all-encompassing ‘insult’ you could ever give to anyone, without being nasty or mean (or a “hater,” I guess, in today’s parlance). And you’re absolutely right, it suits Cristine perfectly too, more and more as time passes.

[retteg]

Following.


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[doublebatch]

Looks like she's quitting YouTube.