#crew biscuits

I was not in the mood to listen to the Crew biscuits in the summer - mostly because I had so much other stuff going on - but I just spent a pleasant couple of hours listening to the ones with Stevie & Alex, and Stevie & Kevin, while cleaning and doing chores. I was planning on listening to the older podcasts with Rhett&Link, but I saw these Crew ones on the list and thought I'd give them a chance. I'm glad I did.

I know many people here aren't interested with the crew that much, and I guess I'm one of them, but to be fair these are actually quite nice conversations. Kevin has a bad habit of losing himself in his stories and extending them too much (something I can relate to), but the one with Alex was quite funny. I even learned that Link forgets new crew members' names regularly, and was delighted by the fact that there had been another Alex before this Alex, and he didn't need to learn a new name or start a new email account.

I was also impressed with all the things about the guys I wasn't familiar with before, and the stories about how they became to work for Mythical Entertainment were interesting.

But are these two Crew biscuits the only ones where they just talk about themselves without a specific topic? Was the feedback for the crew episodes so negative they chose not to post the other ones (Stevie suggested there'd be one with Mike, but all I can find are these two, and the ones with Ellie & Lizzie and Micah & Colin are totally different - and I haven't listened to them yet)?

Hi, Anon. By now, a lot of others have covered this topic more eloquently than I’ll be able to, but I didn’t want you to think I was ignoring you. So, here’s my observations of some of the reasons why people are upset:

1. Some people didn’t know to expect another crew-central episode: In their intro last week to the first Crew Biscuit, Rhett and Link did discuss the fact that we were going to be receiving a “handful of Crew Biscuits” while they worked on Buddy System. Let’s be honest, though, there are many people in the fandom who don’t like Alex and choose not to watch/listen to anything with him in it. That’s a valid choice. But, if this led to them not watching/listening to R&L’s intro to the episode, they might not have known to expect another crew episode this week. I believe it came as a shock to some.

2. The Topic of this week’s Crew Biscuit: The initial Crew Biscuit episode was Stevie interviewing Alex. Link said in the intro that through the upcoming episodes, “You’re gonna gain insight into the lives of the people that we work with” (at the 2:50 mark). If you listened to/watched Alex’s interview, you probably did gain some insights about him (I did). Stevie and Alex both made references to future Crew Biscuit interviews. So, I assumed (as did others) that we could expect a similar format in the coming weeks. This seemed like the logical expectation, and would allow people to curate their listening/watching experience. (Don’t like a crew member? Cool. Don’t watch their Crew Biscuit.) Now, admittedly, I haven’t listened to this week’s episode, so I could be wrong, but it doesn’t seem like it’s going to follow that format. The way the topic is presented in the thumbnail seems less like an insight into the lives of Lizzie and Ellie, and more like clickbait. And, yes, people can decide not to watch it, but when you’re expecting one thing and get something else, it can be upsetting.

3. Calling it an Ear Biscuit: This relates a bit back to the first point of some people not knowing to expect crew, but... Some are upset because of the lack of consistency in naming the episodes. I understand that the episode is labeled as a CB on podcast services, but here’s what I’ve noticed people having a problem with: In the initial video clip of Stevie and Alex last week, Stevie starts it off by saying, “Welcome to Crew Biscuits!” But, the video with Lizzie and Ellie today begins with Ellie saying, “Welcome to Ear Biscuits!” If it’s a Crew Biscuit, call it that and be consistent. (Stevie seemed to recognize the importance of the distinction between an Ear Biscuit and a Crew Biscuit; she even had Alex sign underneath the table instead of on top with regular EB guests.) This isn’t something that will upset everyone, but, again, this is what I’ve observed.

4. Deleting comments: Someone on the crew is deleting comments on the YouTube video that were constructive criticisms (x,x). Had these fans been jerks in their comments, deleting them would be completely justified. But, these comments were simply fans expressing their opinions. It’s not sitting right with some (myself included) that once a criticism reached the top comment spot, it was deleted, even as other criticisms were left, buried further down in the comments. Is whoever deleted the one in the top spot worried that Rhett, Link, or Stevie might read it? (We know they don’t have time to read every comment on every video, but they may see ones at the top.) I was also thinking about what Link said in EB 99 about gaming the YT system. I won’t pretend to have any real knowledge about the way YT algorithms work, but Link did say, “To be clear... liking and commenting on a video feeds in, in ways that we’ve only guessed over the years” (starts around 6:27). If a comment isn’t defamatory, hateful, or harmful, isn’t it to the benefit of Mythical Entertainment for them to leave the comment so more fans are interacting with/about the video? It doesn’t seem like deleting these comments is being done with the best interests of Myth Ent in mind.

Why do people seem to dislike the crew so much?? I don’t understand. They’re literally essential to the production of a lot of the things we get from Rhett and Link. If we didn’t have the crew then Lord knows we wouldn’t get nearly as much content from RandL. The crew do research, collect resources, edit episodes of GMM and EB and a TON of other stuff that helps RandL give us all of the content that we have. And now RandL are away filming season 2 of Buddy System, another project they wouldn’t be able to do without the crew helping to keep everything else afloat - and, somehow, RandL managed to write a whole book and are in the process of planning a stage show, but do you see any decline in the quality of what they produce? No? Because of the crew! Also, may I point out that GMM episode lengths are going to DOUBLE in autumn, which no doubt will require more hard work from the crew. Do you see what I’m getting at here? Sooo, they can’t do EB this week and all I see is people having hissy fits? And not just about Crew Biscuits this week but also about the fact that the crew have their own channel and about the content that they put on there. I just don’t get it. The crew are part of the mythical family. Like it or not they are a HUGE part of everything RandL do. And frankly, I think they deserve more respect than a lot of the community (at least the portion of the community I’ve seen on here) are giving them. I also think it’s great that we get to see more of the crew with their own channel! And now with Crew Biscuits too! They’re very much part of RandL’s mythical family and it excites me that we’re getting to know so much more about them. They work just as hard as RandL to deliver us the content that we enjoy so much. Without the crew, I doubt it would be the same. They deserve our love and respect just as much as RandL do.

I feel a little bit like some people are acting like spoiled babies.

It’s more like a regular Ear Biscuits rather than the stupid assignment type ones Rhett and Link do with the crew. We heard a bit about Alex’s past and what he does now and stuff like that. So it has a little bit of insight into what goes on behind-the-scenes.