Leaving Friends Without Benefits

I feel pretty uncomfortable posting this, but it's honestly been a long time coming. I wanted to condense this to a formal announcement on the FWOB channel, but this news is a weird parasite that I desperately want to get off of my chest. I honestly knew in March of 2017 when the channel had new, dedicated life with the addition of three new members, that I would someday have to move on. I realized it in the middle of our first episodes as a group. My recent absence wasn't really leading up to this. I just happened to get too busy and then decided to give in to what I knew what I have been needing to do for a while now. With this said, I plan on leaving the Friends Without Benefits channel officially within the next couple months. I am doing one last series with each member as a send-off: Shovel Knight with Major, Shadow Forces with Cade, Kingdom Battle DLC with Dillon, and finally finishing Spelunky with Don. On top of this, the first 30-ish episodes of Persona 5 and about 10 episodes of Kingdom Hearts with Major will both be put on the FWOB Patreon within the next few months.



It hurts me to say this, but I'm sure some have been aware of it as viewers: I genuinely don't feel like I fit in anymore. As I was recently browsing r/FWOB, it surprised me how many people have caught onto it. The brand of FWOB is something that I don't recognize and I felt like it grew without me. I don't feel up to par on inside jokes and I don't feel like I have the same synergy with the rest of the cast in the same way that they do with each other. This is not to any fault of FWOB Members, but this is my own personal problem that I've been struggling with for a while. I really have been trying to improve and find ways to mesh within the group, but I really don't think it's there. I don't want anyone to blame the other cast members, because it really is just that it's out of my comfort zone.



Another thing that added to my genuine discomfort was my role in Mario Party, as silly as that sounds. I think Mario Party being a constant series on the channel, allowed us a platform to show our personalities at large and that perception carried over into every other series. Being that a lot of my wins in Mario Party came from "luck," I felt like I became a heel to the show at large. Which, if you know me at all, is a role I'd never feel comfortable playing. I was stuck in limbo trying to be myself without acting like I was pandering against my role, which again, felt even more uncomfortable.



This acts as a hard cut between Alpharad and FWOB as soon as the Spelunky finale goes live. I won't be in standard series, I won't be appearing in Mario Party, and I won't be promoting the channel. I really want to use this upsetting scenario and make the best out of it. I want to use this time to focus on my own channel and find more time to function as the Creative Director for Panda Global. I really had a lot on my plate and I had to make a decision to eliminate one of my tasks and sadly, FWOB made the most sense.



I've been talking to Don the past few weeks about this and I even mentioned it to Major about 6 months ago. This twitlonger is really scattered simply because I don't know how else to do it. Even though I am sad to leave the channel, I really do think that it should be a celebration that I feel comfortable enough to leave the channel and still believe in the success of it to come. FWOB has its own identity and even though it doesn't match up to my own, I'm just proud it has an identity at all.



When FWOB started with me and Don, I was really happy. Sure, that didn't last for long, but it was a very genuine experience of two best friends playing video games. Even though the channel has changed a lot, I'm honestly really happy to see it continue on without me.



Major and Don mesh well together, Cade and Dillon are practically the same person, and then there's me: the busiest one who didn't really have a static member who I meshed well with on camera. All in all, I do find it bittersweet. I'm mainly just happy that the channel will live on with such a bold identity that it has now. It's no longer Alpharad's lets play channel and is now the host of a community for boat crazed 12 year olds and insane analysts for a children's party game.



Thanks for having me, the only fanbase on the internet.



Boat.

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