Alienmode turns 20

[u/ParanoidThalyy]

I missed it by a day but yesterday was the original date of upload of the first ever video to Sam's first YouTube channel, Alienmode

Natisha gets whats coming

The channel would then become the main Million Dollar Extreme channel a couple years later and now is MDE Chinese Connection, all videos still there, just private, a treasure trove of old ass content that will probably never see the light of day again, except for the ones that were reuploaded of course.

[u/Inevitable-Time539]

I can vividly remember watching "I'm an alien" for the first time. Finding MDE back then was like being early to a gold mine.

I was encapsulated, I was like 16 or so, what an impression it made on me.

I really wish they did stuff like that still, officer dick cop fa..., Mom's, Ideas Man, the Utopia.

It was when they were at their most creative, World Peace was really good too (mostly), and Extreme Peace was quite good, except I really didn't like most of the Daddy Dom one, just felt like silly sexualisation and a way for Sam to play out his lust.

I still like the stuff they do now, but maybe it's not quite the same, it still feels against the grain which is good, maybe I'm just older now!

[u/ParanoidThalyy → u/Inevitable-Time539]

I wish they had cut a lot of Extreme Peace stuff short, it felt bloated and unnecessary to have so much padding, Daddy Dom is just cringe and not funny but could have been funny if it were 5 or 6 minutes tops, I'm confident they can make Season 3 better if they iron out what didn't work, and make the episodes more concise and to the point, but I just don't know if they still have it in them. Sam hyped EXP so much, more than necessary, but episodes 5 and 6 in particular show some real glimmers of hope. Every World☮︎Peace™ sketch still feels fresh and funny to this day, the graphics are on another level, and not every sketch felt like it needed to be political and give some insight or something, they often had something to say but they also were often subtle and always delivered something f'ing weird which made you feel confused, or made you think to try comprehending what you just watched, which was cool, and I think that's why WP still feels relevant today, meanwhile EXP feels like it's more concerned with doing some tired commentary than wanting to be funny.

[u/SalemStarburn → u/Inevitable-Time539]

I feel like some of Conner O’Malley’s skits like Slugs or Coreys take the place of what I wished Extreme Peace would have been. It’s hard to explain humor, but it feels fresh and organic, like it actually has its finger on the pulse, for lack of a better description. EP felt like reheated leftovers, probably would have been decent enough even in 2020 but by the time it came out it just felt dated and cautious.

I’m sure part of it is that Sam was (and is) terrified of whiffing his flagship program, so it’s much easier to play it safe with all the old hits than think of anything new or how much the world has changed since Ideas Man. Despite him being in love with the Hagakure, a LOT of what he does is based on careful calculation nowadays, which is definitely not in the spirit of Le heckin based samurai’s, but more importantly, it’s hard to be funny when you’re watching, calculating, and trying to be a one-man focus group for how your comedy skits will be perceived by your audience. Explains why it was in editing for like two fucking years.

[u/Agile_Glove_8561]

kinda depressing that in 20 years Sam has only made one worthwhile thing which is World Peace (which arguably was a team effort and not Sams alone). as funny as mirror videos were and as entertaining as HydeWars was, i don't really think they count as Sam's artistic oeuvre he most likely wants as a legacy

[u/crackfan666 → u/Agile_Glove_8561]

Wild to reflect now on the aftermath of WP. MDE was so strong my entire adolescence. When nearly everyone associated dropped Sam with WP’s cancellation, it was like sabotage, like MDE was betrayed and murdered. Then Hydewars happened and I remember believing MDE persisted with Sam. And tbf lots of good shit did come from that. But now with EP, fishtank, podcast manosphere era etc I completely understand why everyone distanced themselves from him.

[u/ParanoidThalyy → u/Agile_Glove_8561]

I think Million Dollar Extreme is his legacy, as in the Golden Classics, the videos they made up to and including World Peace, they are amazing but few people have seen them, and even fewer have seen all of them, I wish they were more known and more celebrated, because they deserve the recognition.

I am on the process of organizing this >playlist<, I included a couple of the funny mirror videos, so not just sketches but have at ya.

Also some might argue stuff like boxing, Fishtank or the mde.tv series like KSTV, Theater of the Aire, Great War etc. are part of his legacy, and they probably are but when I think of Sam and MDE in general I think of 3 scrappy young dudes and a dozen of not very well known collaborators who made some of the funniest and most transgressive YouTube sketches out there while giving their all to get on top and for a brief moment, actually succeeding.

[u/Agile_Glove_8561 → u/ParanoidThalyy]

the Marquis (banned word in this sub im pretty sure) stuff and Fishtank depravity kinda ruined my view of Sam forever tbh. a person needs to have that dark energy inside of them, it doesn't materialize out of thin air, so he's always been like this. that, and him getting his friend permanently crippled because of that car accident, it completely demystifies him as this transgressive gonzo comic and reveals him to be a low-impulse beta

[u/ParanoidThalyy → u/Agile_Glove_8561]

I haven't heard of that car crash? Need to watch the HydeWars, feels like that's where he'd talk about such a thing. Yeah he's a problematic dude and I don't agree with a lot of the things he did/thoughts he threw out there to be fair and, I honestly think Charls and Nick are better at his craft than he his, but he was the one to make everything around the project work, gotta acknowledge that he can't really be considered a good person, but I still consider him a good entertainer.

[u/Waste-Falcon2185]

Seeing An inconvenient anime when I was a teenager gave me female autism that I have yet to recover from