TomSka (Thomas Ridgewell)

opendoor · Sun Nov 04, 2018 3:31 am

Double-posting, but if anyone likes Tom's vlogs, this last one is pretty special.

(Don't read the comments before you watch).

kavat · Sun Nov 04, 2018 8:49 am

opendoor wrote: Sun Nov 04, 2018 3:31 am Double-posting, but if anyone likes Tom's vlogs, this last one is pretty special.
(Don't read the comments before you watch).

I feel so dumb, I watched that a few days ago but didn't pick up on that at all. Reading the comments now made me realize that there was something going on.

Well done, Tom

Sun Nov 04, 2018 5:32 pm

I was glad for the head's up here! I noticed some unusual things as I watched, but I wouldn't have thought to put them together.

lesterchuu · Sun Nov 04, 2018 9:54 pm

i dont really watch his stuff much except on a whim but your posts got me curious and man...this is genius (also cz im such a cat with a weak self restraint, i ended up looking at the comments halfway through oops)

kavat · Sun Mar 24, 2019 6:20 pm

I want to highlight these videos because they're so good. I love Echo, I love them together and I appreciate their dark sillyness a lot.

kavat · Wed Apr 03, 2019 5:31 am

Pretty suspicious to post this on April 1st but it seems like Last month is indeed over. I totally understand why but it's still very sad. I've enjoyed following along with Tom and the boys for the last few years.

Considering what's going on in the main thread I enjoyed Tom talking about his thoughts for the future and how he's considered stepping away from the internet. It's still not a conversation I think is owed us as an audience but I appreciate his honesty and hearing his thought process around his work. Idk, I'd like to hear what others think of it.

ETA: I just realized it has been posted in the other thread oops

wiccamoody · Fri Apr 05, 2019 3:56 pm

A bit of an odd question, but as a very casual tomska viewer I wouldn't know - does anyone have receipts of some kind of impression of him working with IRL for merch? If there isn't, that's chill, but it would be interesting to have that documented in one place if anyone has any idea!

fancybum · Fri Apr 05, 2019 6:43 pm

obsessivelymoody wrote: Fri Apr 05, 2019 3:56 pm A bit of an odd question, but as a very casual tomska viewer I wouldn't know - does anyone have receipts of some kind of impression of him working with IRL for merch? If there isn't, that's chill, but it would be interesting to have that documented in one place if anyone has any idea!

That was a thing for a bit (confusedpanda's post in that thread, if the link is wonky), but then he went with some other company that messed up shipping prices (or something? I remember Tom being pretty frustrated with the launch whenever it finally happened). I mostly just remembered him having the site with IRL, but I don't know if there are more receipts than that (if that even fully counts as a receipt since the sites don't work now lol). I don't recall Tom ever saying anything outright about IRL being an option he was negotiating, though.

Might as well put this in his actual thread as an fyi:

So maybe they'll get him yet.

Sat Apr 06, 2019 4:13 pm

Wow, straight white cis man with influence and platform makes joke that is badly worded in a way that can be misinterpreted by people spreading hateful messages, deletes original joke but reposts as a screenshot for transparency, apologizes, expresses regret, and clarifies his intentions/where his support lies.

Weird how all of that is actually possible and doesn't even seem that hard to do.

CubeZ_ZOlO · Tue Jul 16, 2019 6:14 am

Ok his whole pride month set of stuff was a total bop, and I definitely learned some new stuff, but dude, he's asserted that he was straight like 50 times in those videos alone. The more someone insists they're straight the more they make me actually think about their sexuality.

We currently live in a heteronormative society. He doesn't need to clarify that he is in fact heterosexual. People will just assume he is. Telling us once in a while is more than enough.

Otherwise he does air more on the line of edgy with his humour, but it is obvious where his intentions lie. He does stuff in bad taste yes, but in the end we all do. It's what makes us human.

it would probably help if he put some time between retracting his stuff and issuing a statement tho.

kavat · Tue Jul 16, 2019 8:28 am

CubeZ_ZOlO wrote: Tue Jul 16, 2019 6:14 am Ok his whole pride month set of stuff was a total bop, and I definitely learned some new stuff, but dude, he's asserted that he was straight like 50 times in those videos alone. The more someone insists they're straight the more they make me actually think about their sexuality.

We currently live in a heteronormative society. He doesn't need to clarify that he is in fact heterosexual. People will just assume he is. Telling us once in a while is more than enough.

Otherwise he does air more on the line of edgy with his humour, but it is obvious where his intentions lie. He does stuff in bad taste yes, but in the end we all do. It's what makes us human.

it would probably help if he put some time between retracting his stuff and issuing a statement tho.

His whole thing is being an edgy straight white dude, who's also a feminist and an ally (because he sure has a lot of queer friends). You have to remember that his core audience is still edgy straight white boys, so I think it's his way of saying "hey, you can like guns and bad taste jokes while also not being a dick".

One thing that he has messed up in the past is clarifying the line of laughing With the queer community and laughing At it. An example is the tweet alittledizzy quoted above, another is the Straight Ally video he did with Ash Hardell a couple of years ago. People just didn't get the joke (and then you can question if it was funny to begin with, but that's a different discussion).

So him talking about how straight he is, might be his way of going "I know my privilege here and if you are straight, you should too".

I'm also suspecting it might be a running joke parodying how people often say "you can be gay in private just don't shove it in my face" by doing just that but with his straightness.

CubeZ_ZOlO · Wed Jul 17, 2019 4:22 am

kavat wrote: Tue Jul 16, 2019 8:28 am
CubeZ_ZOlO wrote: Tue Jul 16, 2019 6:14 am Ok his whole pride month set of stuff was a total bop, and I definitely learned some new stuff, but dude, he's asserted that he was straight like 50 times in those videos alone. The more someone insists they're straight the more they make me actually think about their sexuality.

We currently live in a heteronormative society. He doesn't need to clarify that he is in fact heterosexual. People will just assume he is. Telling us once in a while is more than enough.

Otherwise he does air more on the line of edgy with his humour, but it is obvious where his intentions lie. He does stuff in bad taste yes, but in the end we all do. It's what makes us human.

it would probably help if he put some time between retracting his stuff and issuing a statement tho.
His whole thing is being an edgy straight white dude, who's also a feminist and an ally (because he sure has a lot of queer friends). You have to remember that his core audience is still edgy straight white boys, so I think it's his way of saying "hey, you can like guns and bad taste jokes while also not being a dick".

One thing that he has messed up in the past is clarifying the line of laughing With the queer community and laughing At it. An example is the tweet alittledizzy quoted above, another is the Straight Ally video he did with Ash Hardell a couple of years ago. People just didn't get the joke (and then you can question if it was funny to begin with, but that's a different discussion).

So him talking about how straight he is, might be his way of going "I know my privilege here and if you are straight, you should too".

I'm also suspecting it might be a running joke parodying how people often say "you can be gay in private just don't shove it in my face" by doing just that but with his straightness.

oh I hadn't seen it in the light of him acknowledging his privilege before, but I did see some the comedic value in saying it so many times. I'll definitely keep the latter in mind next time I go around to rewatch his videos.

I was one of those edgy white boys (who thought he was straight), and his comedy in a way did show me that you can be edgy but still be an ally. My edgy comment wasn't me dissing him for it at all, and I'm sorry if it appeared that way.

flarequake · Wed Aug 14, 2019 7:21 pm

Tom’s team and Big Potato have a muffin/asdf movie game. Chloe Dungate/Scarf Demon’s voice is distinctive, so is Tom’s, don’t recognise the others, but Elliot and Eddie maybe.

obvsly · Wed Aug 14, 2019 7:52 pm

So happy for them! I wanted to order The Bestest One (30£) but then it shows that shipping fee to Thailand is also 30£

I suddenly remembered why I didn't buy Truth Bombs either.

kavat · Thu Jul 30, 2020 9:01 am

I think this video should be here for archive purposes.

He starts off addressing some old deleted videos containing racist and homophobic jokes. He takes full responsibility for them and apologizes to the people he offended, and for normalizing that type of humor.

The latter I think is really important, he had a big following of young boys who probably thought this kind of behavior was okay because someone they looked up to showed that it was, causing even more harm in the long run. When people say "this was just internet humor in 2010" he was a big part of that.