Common YouTube channel TheOdd1sOut allegedly laid off its complete animation group with out warning on Thursday, in keeping with affected artists.
TheOdd1sOut is thought for making animated storytime movies that includes cute marshmallowy characters. The channel was created by James Rallison in 2014, and has since amassed over 20 million subscribers. Movies about having awful roommates, the awkwardness of calling incorrect numbers, and Rallison’s experiences working as a sandwich artist at Subway have all amassed over 100 million views.
The layoffs have been confirmed by affected artists together with RushLight Invader, David Toons, Ant Fart, and Viscuvania. In a thread on X, Viscuvania writes, “…please perceive that I’m simply as misplaced as you guys are with why precisely [Rallison] dropped your complete group on a whim. We have been left with little to nothing to go off of. We had no thought this might occur.
“We weren’t given any heads-up about [Rallison’s] determination and neither was something alluding in direction of it aside from perhaps lulls in work. We don’t know what’s up and I’d actually recognize it if you don’t direct the blame on the group for any of James’ selections.
“It actually does suck how shortly one thing that feels so secure might be taken away from you instantly.”
TheOdd1sOut franchise has expanded past YouTube movies, with a 2022 animated Netflix sequence and 5 books printed between 2018 and 2023. Nevertheless, over the previous few years, there’s been a stark decline in viewership for the channel, from tens of thousands and thousands of views per video to single thousands and thousands.
The sudden layoffs—which have but to be confirmed by Rallison himself—are a bleak reminder of the monetary precarity that many artists dwell with. At-will contract employees don’t have any authorized protections in opposition to surprising termination.
It’s additionally a reminder that influencers are usually not your folks. It’s simple to consider that Rallison is as good and easygoing in actual life as he presents himself on-line, however content material creation is a enterprise like every other. He’s now not only a child who used to work at Subway, he’s a boss answerable for doing proper by his staff.
