Exclusive: First Rise & Fall of the Escapist! Founder Alex Macris

[@HappyWarrior]

Watch Part 2 On Second Wind w/ JM8 here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nXnMq4qrirmbrMU Thank you to everyone for watching the episode with Alex Macris. For our longterm viewers my second video ever was with Alex & I didn't handle it the best, so we went back to the drawing board with my editor Chris & tried it again. Thanks again to Alex for agreeing to the interview & all of you guys for watching. If you like what you saw here today pls check out our other interviews like this one: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jZaqqIematmYiq8

[@ZolYinPodcast]

30 minutes in so far and loving it. Great interview. Love these high quality deep dives with creators like Alex Macris. Hope to see more interviews like these from you in the future. Quick aside on the mention of Extra Credits: Extra credits represents that shift where the gaming side of the internet went from very interesting to very toxic and obsessed with politics. They started out as wholesome and then mutated into something else.

[@HappyWarrior]

Thanks for watching, I remember that shift. All of a sudden gaming youtube got more political, around 2014 / 2015 all of a sudden we start seeing MatPat getting a bit political for example. Til that point it was pretty apolitical for the most part & i think you are right Extra Credits made a big impact for that change & as we now know that ended up really hurting that channel.

[@unicornkaz1970]

Another solid interview 🎉😊

[@HappyWarrior]

Thank You, I live to serve

[@WR3CK4G3firstandonly]

Banger interview, absolute banger.

[@HappyWarrior]

Thank you :0) I really appreciate that.

[@Klaw117]

It's interesting seeing how everything went down behind the scenes. I'm glad to see Macris is doing well though and that he wasn't treated as badly as some of us might have thought. I always liked how he tried to be more reasonable even as everything was descending into a dumpster fire. Thanks for the excellent interview. EDIT: Now I know why this sounds so familiar, you uploaded it back in November 2022. Did you re-upload it to clean up the quality and also tie it into your Second Wind interview?

[@HappyWarrior]

No problem, thanks for watching. Sharing stories with thoughtful viewers is why i do it.

[@kstarler]

This is interesting. I was a paid member at the Escapist when this happened and remember seeing the forums degenerate rapidly. I'd never heard of Alex and couldn't figure out what had happened, but now it all makes sense. It's funny that several of the other properties he was in charge of were ones I was interested in, and lost interest in around the same time because they all got political.

[@Gator159]

I've really soured on the entire thing after listening through the frost files

[@rayz0101]

I was on the side of the Gamers. 🗿🗿

[@SYXG98]

"I've politically always been a libertarian" Well that confirms everything. Thanks. Now I know why the Escapist was such a shitshow.

[@HappyWarrior]

What's wrong with libertarians?

[@SYXG98]

@@HappyWarrior Ideologically they are the epitome of the phrase "The road to hell is paved with good intentions".

[@SYXG98]

Libertarians of the American variety is a self-destructive ideology that pretends to be about 'freedom' or whatever but its more about the freedom of being able to unjustly control people you don't like.

[@HappyWarrior]

I guess I'd argue other ideologies better fit that description. Perhaps it's not about ideologies but dishonesty in general seems to pervade our culture.