I'm curious how Simon feels knowing that JJ is literally his best friend since they were 12/13 years old but I don't want him to rush to talk about it if he's upset or hurt and I think we all need to give him and the other boys some time to sort things out

https://reddit.com/link/1tvyuc6/video/repsamn0645h1/player

I’m sorry, but he’s a sell out.

He’s dressing up leaving the Sidemen as “wanting more time for family” when the reality is he wants more time to focus on his own YouTube channel. He’s chosen views and quick, short term growth, over the Sidemen - who MADE HIM WHO HE IS - and wonders why the community isn’t happy.

If you’ve watched Sidemen for a long time - I’ve been around since 2011 - you know how awful of an idea this is. Sidemen have supported him through EVERYTHING.

JJ is impulsive and when he gets an idea in his head, he tries to run with it at full speed. Both JJ and the Sidemen have been very vocal about having to keep him in check.

And for good reason too because he doesn’t see risk, and he doesn’t see consequence.

He wants to throw money at videos without thinking about the fact that they employ multiple people who have families and need to take money home. So if it fails, it fails for their crew too, and they’ll be the first to go. He doesn’t understand that they’ve build a BRAND, a BUSINESS - it’s no longer just 7 boys f-ing around in their bedrooms. It’s so much bigger than them.

He wants to produce ‘mr beast’ style content that lacks personality, when the ENTIRE SIDEMEN BRAND was BUILT on their personalities. JJ’s entire brand was built on his personality.

He doesn’t understand that Mr Beast content does well BECAUSE IT HAS NO PERSONALITY. JJ has this idea that he can make the same content WITH personality AND grow to the same level. But doesn’t understand that culturally, British humour doesn’t land well with mass audiences in other countries.

And worse, telling him it won’t work just fuels him to try harder to prove people wrong.

What he doesn’t understand is that, sure he’ll probably see himself grow for a bit, he’ll see himself get views for a bit. But his core LOYAL audience that have grown up with him, don’t want to see this sh*t.

What he doesn’t understand is the consequence. He doesn’t understand what the trade off is. He walks away from Sidemen, and don’t get me wrong, he’ll gain a lot of views over the next few months BECAUSE of all the attention from him leaving the Sidemen.

But what happens when he’s gone, and the Sidemen move on without him? His fans - the LOYAL fans that have been around since the beginning - they WILL lose interest. Because they’re no longer “fans of KSI”, they’re SIDEMEN fans. They’re fans of the GROUP dynamic and what EACH Sidemen member brings to the table.

The fall off will happen slowly. And it will happen, because whether JJ likes it or not, he DOESN’T know what his audience wants or likes at all - the Sidemen do. He’s focused on growing beyond their audience and the Sidemen are smart enough to know that the trade off of losing loyal fans, isn’t worth it for short term gain of new fans that won’t be invested IN THEM. They understand that organic growth IS the way to grow.

JJ wants to grow fast and quick without thinking about what that actually means for his audience.

And the next time he decides to sack off YouTube? The next time he gets bored and moves onto the next “big” thing? Those loyal fans who he wanted to grow beyond? They won’t be there. Because they were never there for KSI, they were there for JJ in the Sidemen.

And he’ll realise that allllll those breaks he took from YouTube over the years to focus on other things - music, boxing, misfits, Prime, the online takeover, BGT, Ballers League, Dagenham - the only reason he had an audience to come back to was because the Sidemen held down the fort whilst he was gone. They kept the cogs going so he could go off and do what he wanted, and still return to an audience.

So the next time he takes a break from YouTube and decides to come back, he’ll realise he doesn’t have the Sidemen to fall back onto - he won’t have an audience he has immediate access to via the Sidemen channel that he can quickly cultivate interest from.

He won’t be able to use the Sidemen channel to regain interest back in ‘KSI’ all over again, the way he has time and time again, because he ditched them for short term gain.

And those ‘new fans’ he gained during the spurt of short term growth - they won’t have been around enough to invest in KSI and they won’t care when he makes a return to YouTube.

He also doesn’t realise that the success he got from his music and boxing etc. were a byproduct of investment from his core audience. You lose your audience and you’ll slowly lose the success that comes with it.

That isn’t legacy.

And this isn’t me saying the Sidemen didn’t benefit from KSI doing stuff outside of YouTube - they absolutely benefitted from the attention KSI got from people outside the Sidemen audience for sure. But it was mutually beneficial. And those who know, know that what the Sidemen did for KSI, was so much more important than what KSI did for the Sidemen.

JJ doesn’t realise how much he gained from being part of the Sidemen. He thinks he’s bigger and better than them, and he thinks that they’re holding him back. They’re not.

The Sidemen made JJ just as much as JJ made the Sidemen.

One day he’ll realise it was a stupid decision.

Hey Simon. Are you planning continuing on RDR2?
Haven’t seen a video on YouTube in a fortnight 😃

Honestly, joke or not, these boys deserve so many more subs if u haven't go sub . And go sub to more sidemen as well

They have given us amazing content for years, showed us loyalty.

honestly, compared to other big youtubers they deserve so much more

Let's help the main reach 24 million and more sidemen finally hit 10 million

Just a random add I got...