When you become a popular and recognizable media figure, by default, you’re sacrificing  anonymity and privacy to your craft. Many YouTubers struggle relentlessly with separating their career from their personal life because people crave authenticity. People go to YouTube for raw and unfiltered content, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing until you go too far to achieve that feeling. 

The recent drama surrounding YouTuber CoryxKenshin and his fanbase demonstrates this tension well. If you’ve been on the platform long enough, you probably know of the CoryxKenshin channel. If you don’t, Cory is a YouTuber who plays a variety of video games and has built his channel upon being a space where viewers can relax and have fun after a long day of school or work. Since Cory joined the platform in 2009, he has amassed about twenty-three million loyal subscribers whom he has dubbed the Samurai community, known for being one of the most wholesome fandoms on the platform for years, referred to as, “the most goated community on YouTube” by Cory himself. 

Even with the CoryxKenshin channel being known as such a wholesome space, recently, there has been a lot of ongoing issues surrounding Cory’s frequent inconsistent upload schedule and lack of communication about the breaks he takes and the overwhelming portion of the Samurai that has been engaging in an aggressively parasocial attitude towards Cory, where they’re acting like they know him personally and try to intrude on his personal life.

To understand this situation, you first need to understand the parasocial dynamic Cory has with the Samurai. The reason why Cory has amassed so many subscribers from the same formula most YouTubers follow is because of his very authentic interactions with the viewer. Cory’s videos feel like you’re sitting in a room with a friend, watching them play a video game; you’re not really doing much, but it’s still a shared experience. Pair that feeling with Cory’s hilarious personality, relatability, the fact that a lot of his fans have grown up watching him, and you have a connection that feels less like YouTuber and viewer and more like two long-time friends. Since people go to YouTube for this authentic feeling, it’s no wonder Cory has gained such popularity.

But even with such a loyal, close-knit fanbase, the one issue that has persisted throughout Cory’s YouTube career is him taking long breaks without any communication beforehand with literal radio silence for weeks to months at a time. When Cory returns from these breaks, he usually has an explanation for why he’s been gone, and the channel goes back to normal. However, after his return, his consistency usually plummets to a few uploads a month, without ever fully addressing the problem at hand. Cory’s videos are still very high quality, but when consistency and communication are lacking, everything starts to crumble.

The borderline parasocial connection between Cory and the Samurai is how the CoryxKenshin channel strives, so when he ditches the Samurai for so long and so often, it’s hard to re-establish that connection again; the Samurai feel as if he doesn’t care about his channel, which makes his fans feel as if he is less authentic as a result.

As senior Shawn Negron, a long-time fan, put it, “When Cory left for the first time, it was very hurtful as a follower because he had up to that point been so adamant at keeping everyone in the know of what he was doing. So when he left, it was like he disappeared without a trace. You couldn’t have guessed when he was coming back.” This has proved to be a big factor in driving the wedge between Cory and the Samurai apart. 

This wedge grows larger when you factor in the aggressively parasocial fans within the Samurai who have overstepped Cory’s boundaries multiple times. These fans have been called out by people all over the internet, by Cory himself multiple times, and even people in the Samurai for fighting for Cory like their lives depend on it, and going to extremes like harassing Cory and those associated with him, and looking up Cory’s personal information. The things these fans claim to be defending Cory from are either basic criticisms of his channel, questioning his loyalty to his fans, or obvious rage bait of people hating on Cory to get a reaction out of his fans. These parasocial fans are putting Cory on a pedestal and treating him like the best thing that has ever happened to the internet.

This situation reached its most pivotal moment about three months ago during Cory’s most recent break. This break was the straw that broke the camel’s back. At the time, Cory was telling the Samurai that the channel was going to be very active because he was playing all the games he missed when he took his one year break, his longest break of his YouTube career, which the Samurai was still in shock from. The channel was active but only for a few days and until he up and left for three whole months. The aggressively parasocial fans within the community were also getting even more aggressive, making the short time Cory was gone feel like a whirlwind of drama and discourse everywhere.

Cory responded to all of this drama with a video, the main point of it being the title, “I’m Just a Regular Guy,” which he touches on throughout the video. Cory takes accountability for his inconsistency and abysmal communication but later shifts to addressing the Samurai. He expresses how uncomfortable he is by the fact that there are people going to war for him on the internet like they’re his best friends and emphasizes that he doesn’t like seeing the community “turn into a cult.” He also said that he doesn’t want them to engage with any negative content surrounding him period. He even admits that he  “despises being important to so many people.” 

Contrary to the situation, Cory is someone who hates the spotlight and values his privacy. Never in his wildest dreams did he think he would become so popular, but he follows that up by saying, “I’m genuinely just trying to remind everybody that I’m just a regular guy. I like playing video games, I like recording myself playing video games and I love making YouTube videos. So even if I might despise being important or mattering to so many people I think that’s triumphed by my love for making YouTube videos.”

That being said, Cory also recognizes that the parasocial fans and the loss of privacy and autonomy come with the YouTube territory, which says a lot about how we engage with YouTubers and the platform as a whole. 

YouTubers’ authenticity shouldn’t rely on their fandom’s perceptions, or get backlash for wanting to exist as an individual away from their YouTube career. This is what makes Cory’s case such a good example: Cory’s authenticity isn’t shaped by the Samurai, it’s shaped by himself. He’s able to call out his community for its faults while also taking accountability for his own. Cory’s not saying he’s just a regular guy as an excuse for his inconsistent upload schedule and lack of communication, he’s telling the Samurai community as a whole to chill out. The craving for authenticity makes people lose sight of what YouTube is about: watching videos and having fun.

As consumers of YouTube videos, we have to recognize that YouTubers aren’t here to be put on a pedestal, or even be our friends. Cory has been on this platform for almost 16 years, he has uploaded about 1,700 videos all recorded and edited by him. He and countless other YouTubers put their heart and soul into their craft which should be treated as such. YouTubers should be uplifted by the quality of their craft and the effort they put into it, not brought down by how close they are with their fandoms or how raw their content is. Keep YouTube about the videos not the drama.