This may be a weird take, but I think it kind of may tie in with the whole wrestling-esque 'character' schtick, and not typically sharing much of their personal life.
I'm not familiar with what they did before YouTube. But the channel sure talked about wrestling a lot. (I think I remember at one point they themselves actually wrestled?) They were/are presenting themselves in the videos as more of a 'character' or celebrity on YouTube than a more typical vloggy/millennial type person's channel typically would, or someone who doesn't you know, deliver videos from a podium like a dictator or something lol.
When I watched wrestling, I identified with "Macho Man" the character, not "Randy Savage" the individual. I don't know what baseball team Randy liked, what town he was from nor what he went on to do after wrestling. All I know is "OH YEEEAH" and the Sunglasses, you know what I mean?
Wrestling characters often go through big changes, character 'arcs' if you will, and these aren't always received positively by their existing fans. Sometimes they can cause a mid-tier wrestler to rise to top billing, but other times they can knock A-listers down a peg because the new direction doesn't connect with the core audience as much for various reasons. In any case, some people identified or related to 'Jim', over the years, and that's why some of them subscribed.
On any great television drama, a character can change their looks, and even their entire personality, throughout the course of the series. Sometimes, the more outlandish changes could happen within th
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It took a long time to build their channel up to 100k. If some of the subscribers drop off now, but they stay at it and keep making videos, I think James Stephanie can continue to build their channel up to the previous levels or higher, as people who may not have related or subscribed before, but now do, have the time to find the newer content and subscribe.
Not trying to make excuses or say that many of the unsubs aren't indeed narrow-minded people, but
having a channel that is so based on a "character" makes it inherently vulnerable to any changes, or even perceived changes to said character, in my opinion.
Easy Allies has done a couple videos over the last month about Isla coming out as trans, and while it looks like their sub count has been kind of flat, it hasn't seen this kind of dramatic drop off looking at the stats on socialblade. That channel is different though, you watch EZA for the individuals, they talk about their SOs and pets and personal lives, and I think that just makes their channel kind of a different beast.
Or perhaps they attracted different subscriber bases because of their style and content. While the laid-back EZA crowd is more open minded, the amped-up Jimquisition crowd is more insecure, narrow-minded and prone to rage-quit something - whether it's a game, a publisher, or a YouTube creator?
Either way, I'm no expert just a straight guy. But I myself am also a YouTube creator, and have occasionally watched their vids before, so wanted to put my thoughts out there.
