- [Voiceover] PewDiePie
hasn't always been
  the king of YouTube.
  In years long past, YouTube
  was ruled by channels
that today many people
wouldn't even recognize.
And in this video, we're looking
   at Five Successful
   YouTube Channels
  That Lost Their Popularity.
  Coming in at number
  five is Fred.
 It's likely that many
 of you weren't around
  for Fred's reign of
  terror over YouTube
during it's early days,
   and if you aren't familiar
   with Fred Figglehorn,
 in many ways, you lucked out.
  Fred was essentially
  the PewDiePie
  of live action
  skits back in 2007.
And just like PewDiePie,
Fred was the largest
  and most successful
  channel on YouTube.
 In fact, Fred was the
 very first YouTuber
  to amass over 1
  million subscribers.
 Fred's success didn't
 end there though.
  Nickelodeon created
  three Fred movies,
   and even launched
   a Fred TV show.
   Eventually though, Fred's
   YouTube popularity waned,
  and his Nickelodeon
  show was cancelled.
After realizing his time was up,
   Fred's creator,
   Lucas Cruikshank,
 sold the Fred channel
 to a third party,
   but it seems like they've
   gotten a raw deal.
  As often Fred's
  videos now struggle
  to surpass even
  20,000 views despite
  Fred's channel still having
  over 2 million subscribers.
 In a way, Fred's story
 is a tale of tragedy.
  Fred's rapid rise to
  fame came at a time
  when most YouTube
  videos couldn't even
 be monetize by their creators.
 As a result, Fred never made
 as much as Youtubers do today.
 And because Fred rose to fame
 in 2009, rather than 2015,
  Fred's creator never became
  a YouTube millionaire,
  and never fully
  reaped the benefits
  of being a king of YouTube.
Number four, RayWilliamJohnson.
 The place is new York City,
 New York and the year is 2009.
  A Columbia student by the
  name of Ray William Johnson
launched an online show
called Equals Three,
   and quickly gained a
   massive YouTube following.
  If you haven't seen
  Equals Three before,
   the show typically
   involved viral clips found
  from around the webs with
  Ray William Johnson's jokes
   and commentary
   interspersed between them.
   As everyone likely
   already knows,
 Ray's show was
 quickly a huge success
  and at one point, he was
  the most subscribed channel
 in all of YouTube, but today,
  Ray isn't even among
  the top 20 channels.
 What happened is that Ray's
 view count began to stagnant,
and in 2014, he stepped
down as the host
   of his Equals Three show,
 and vowed to moved
 onto bigger projects.
  - I'm the kind of person who
  has to keep moving forward,
  and has to keep being
  creative or I get depressed.
I'm just being 100% honest here,
like this show isn't fulfilling
me creatively anymore,
 and I have to move on.
- [Voiceover] In the
wake of Ray's departure,
   Equals Three struggled to
   find a replacement host
   that could live up
   to Ray's legacy,
   and Equals Three's latest
   host has only received
   a massive backlash
   from Ray's fans.
  Today, Ray's videos struggle
  to reach the view counts
they once did, and as
of this video's release,
   Ray's channel is
   hemorrhaging subscribers,
   and his view counts are
   dropping to all-time lows.
Number three is MissHannahMinx.
   Hannah Minx was a
   famous YouTuber,
who was best known for her
Japanese Word Of the Week show.
 Her videos on Japanese
 language and culture,
as well as, ahem...well
other reasons,
   catapulted her to
   YouTube stardom.
   Of all the entries on this
   list, Hannah's departure
from YouTube is probably
the most mysterious.
   She ran a fun and
   popular channel
   with hundreds of
   thousands of subscribers,
 and millions of views.
 But suddenly stopped uploading
 video in October 2013.
And the truth is, no one really
knows what happened to her.
 Theories range from
 Hannah getting married
to suspicions that sheer volume
of hateful comments she received
  drove her away from YouTube.
 But we'll probably
 never know the truth.
  Number two is XJawz.
When gaming channels on YouTube
 were still a
 relatively new thing,
 games like Call of Duty
 could quickly propel channels
  to fame and success.
One of these channels was XJawz,
  during the height of
  his YouTube success,
   XJawz bragged about making
   $30,000 in a single month,
 and he would show off
 his expensive cars,
   and spend his days hanging
   out with celebrities.
 But often a YouTubers
 rapid rise comes
 with a meteoric fall.
   XJawz blew most of
   his YouTube money,
   and became addicted to
   Adderall and other drugs.
 As XJawz's life
 started to fall apart,
 he realized it was
 best to leave YouTube
  to fix his personal issues.
Today, XJawz's views
are at an all-time low,
and by every metric,
his absence from YouTube
   has destroyed his
   YouTube channel,
making the tale of XJawz, a tale
 of euphoric highs
 and devastating lows.
  And number one is FailBlog.
Fail Blog was a YouTube channel
   that showcased fail videos
   from around the internet.
  This channel's viral content
  made Fail Blog quickly shoot
  up in popularity, but
  ironically, the biggest fail
   on Fail Blog was
   Fail Blog itself.
  For whatever reason,
  Fail Blog moved away
 from posting the
 fail videos that made
them famous in the first place.
 And instead, started a
 show called FAILCAST,
and the show was almost
immediately a flop.
   The show often wouldn't
   even surpass 20,000 views,
  leaving many of Fail Blog's
  fans to wonder what happened
to the channel and
videos they once loved.
  The ultimate failure
  of Fail Blog came
  when Fail Blog released its
  final video in 2014 titled,
   Nine Ways Jesus Could Have
   Turnt Up the Last Supper.
 The style of humor was
 weak and watered down,
  and ultimately
  completely unrelated
   to the channel's
   once great videos.
 The final video Fail Blog
 released, now over a year ago,
  has a comment section filled
  with people reminiscing
  about the days when
  Fail Blog was great.
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  Thanks for watching, and
  we'll see you all next time.
