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| birth_place = [[Utah]], U.S.<ref name="Vice" />
| birth_place = [[Utah]], U.S.<ref name="Vice" />
| nationality = American
| nationality = American
| channel_name = LeafyIsHere
| channel_name =
| channel_url =
| channel_url =
| years_active = 2011–2017, 2020
| years_active = 2011–2017, 2020

Revision as of 04:29, 7 May 2022

LeafyIsHere
Personal information
Born
Calvin Lee Vail

(1995-08-18) August 18, 1995 (age 29)[1][2]
Utah, U.S.[1]
NationalityAmerican
YouTube information
Years active2011–2017, 2020
GenreCommentary[3]
Subscribers~4,910,000 (before channel was terminated)[4]
Total views1,200,646,447 (before channel was terminated)[4]
Associated actsGradeAUnderA
100,000 subscribers2015
1,000,000 subscribers2016
Last updated: August 21, 2020

Calvin Lee Vail (born August 18, 1995), better known as LeafyIsHere or simply Leafy, is an American former YouTuber and former Twitch streamer who, from the years 2011 to 2017, and 2020, made reaction, drama, and Let's Play videos, but is mostly known for commentary.[3]

Beginning in 2016, Vail was involved in several conflicts with other YouTubers which led to allegations of cyberbullying. Vail was permanently banned by YouTube in 2020, citing repeated violations of their harassment policies.[1][5]

Career

Vail started his channel in 2011, and began uploading content that same year. He focused primarily on Gaming Let's Plays. His videos often included him playing Minecraft. Later that year, he made commentary, talking over gameplay footage of video games, including Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Superhot. This relatively new style of content helped his channel to grow rapidly.

Rise

Due to the style of Vail's content, and the way the YouTube algorithm would promote videos, he began to grow rapidly in April 2015, but only had less than 30,000 subscribers at the time. With this, he would pass 100,000 subscribers in August 2015. Additionally, in August, the "Reptilian Army" meme had begun after. His fans would often spam "Hisssss" and "Kys" on videos. Leafy passed 200,000 subscribers in September 2015, and half of a million in the later half of December 2015.

In 2015 and 2016, Vail was the target of a swatting campaign, with repeated calls to the police between December 2015 and February 2016. At that time he resided in Layton, Utah.[6]

In January 2016, Leafy got into drama with a then inactive YouTuber named MrBlackDarkness666 when he made a video reacting to him, leading to MrDarkness claiming to have put a curse on Calvin in a video. Despite this, they began to be on somewhat friendly terms, after making peace on DramaAlert. This led to the MrBlackDarkness666 channel see a huge boost in subscribers.

According to Bryan Menegus of Gizmodo,[7] Vail mocked a man with a learning disability in 2016, and had previously made fun of a man with autism, known as TommyNC2010. After TommyNC2010 began to receive hate from Vail's fanbase, YouTube and Reddit communities, including YouTuber h3h3productions, supported and rallied behind TommyNC2010, prompting Vail to release an apology. This was the first time he had seen a mass amount of hate. On March 23, however, Leafy published a rant on h3h3productions. Eventually, h3h3productions unlisted his video on Vail, and the video announcing the unlisting of the original video made on Leafy. In 2016 Leafyishere would do videos reacting to the internet troll Dominic Schmidt.

Later on, LeafyIsHere surpassed one million subscribers in early February 2016, two million in early April 2016, three million in the late May 2016, and then four million in July 2016. That month would also be his channel's peak month, where he garnered over 120 million views, and 600,000 subscribers. Despite his rapid growth, his channel would experience a decline, beginning later in July.[8] Many have speculated that YouTube's executives had something to do with LeafyIsHere's downfall, as his channel had begun to slow down suddenly around July 28, 2016, and he would never gain more than 20,000 subscribers in a single day in August or September of that year.[9] The amount of views he gained per day also began to drop around this time.

Decline

In September and October 2016, Leafy would be involved in major controversies that led to his downfall, primarily starting with iDubbbz's "Content Cop" video on him. He had amassed nearly 4.83 million subscribers on September 24, 2016, before the subscriber total declined. After the start of October, he would lose around 80,000 subscribers per month. During this time, his channel saw a rapid decline in views, going from 120 million in July to less than 20 million in November. Even after the start of 2017, his channel failed to recover until 2020. Eventually, he slowed his uploading schedule down and went on a very long hiatus beginning in December 2017.[10]

Controversies and Content Cop

The LeafyIsHere channel was a drama, commentary, and storytime channel. On the channel, Vail mainly commented on gossip involving online content creators and made videos telling life stories. He had made rants on popular YouTubers such as h3h3productions, Onision, Keemstar, and others.[3]

In 2016, YouTuber iDubbbz featured Vail in an episode of his Content Cop series, accusing Vail of being extremely insecure while bullying others in his videos, among other criticisms, causing his channel to receive massive negative attention and mockery. Soon after, Leafy himself responded, but it failed to sway many people's opinions. iDubbbz uploaded a Content Deputy on Leafy sometime around this as well. In October, one of his ex-animators, known as HeyWatchYourMouth, uploaded a video saying Vail never gave him enough credit or attention and had uploaded his animations on his second channel without permission.[11][12] Also in 2016, Vail accused YouTuber Evalion of supporting Nazism and antisemitism. Shortly after Vail drew attention to her, Evalion was banned by YouTube.[13] Later that year, Vail's statements regarding transgender vlogger Milo Stewart, in which he criticized the concept of gender identity, were taken down by YouTube for harassment.[14]

In 2019, iDubbbz's Content Cop video criticizing Vail was taken down after it was determined to be in violation of YouTube's guidelines.[15] However, re-uploads of the video exist on the website. The original Content Deputy video is still up.

Return to YouTube

Due to his break and the controversies in 2016, he would decline to 4.15 million subscribers[16] at some point around the start of 2020. Additionally, he would gradually gain less and less views every month due to his lack of uploads. After a two-and-a-half-year hiatus Vail returned to YouTube with a video insulting iDubbbz in April 2020, following which he resumed posting frequently. Every month after his return, he would gradually gain more and more monthly views until August, gaining nearly 30 million in July 2020. In July, Vail began criticizing Twitch streamer Pokimane and her supporters based on speculation about her personal life. He had published many videos mentioning her until his termination.[17][3]

Terminations

On August 21, 2020, Vail's YouTube account was terminated while at around 4.91 million subscribers.[17] This was the second time he nearly reached 5 million subscribers. According to The Verge, Vail's channel had three violations in the previous three months, such as cyberbullying and encouraging viewers to disrupt other people's streams. A YouTube spokesperson said the channel had repeatedly violated YouTube's policies on harassment.[5] Following the ban, Vail began streaming frequently on Twitch.[18] He has also posted on competing video platform StoryFire.[5] He also got into conflicts with YouTuber Ethan Klein. After this, he uploaded on his second account called "LeafyIsntHere", but that was terminated soon after.[18]

On September 11, 2020, Vail's Twitch account was also banned. Earlier that day, Vail had tweeted about receiving a strike on his account from Twitch for "hateful conduct and threats of violence against a person or group of people". Twitch did not comment on the ban or indicate whether it was permanent.[18]

On May 4th 2022 Vail was indefinitely suspended on Twitter after responding to a Tweet by Elon Musk citing a CNN article about who funds organizations with "why are they all jewish" [sic].[19]

Other returns

While his main channel had been banned, Vail would occasionally make new YouTube channels beginning in late 2020. However, these would usually be terminated quickly after. These channels gained subscriber totals in the tens of thousands.

In December 2020, an account pretending to be him and posted a video on the 3rd. The video was titled "Im actually back... (LeafyIsHere)". However, Vail himself never mentioned that he returned on this account. Sometime after, this account was terminated. Later in December 2020, on the 24th, Vail posted a video on a new channel called [20]"Weafy" as he was hired by a company called RedBloom.LLC. This video was titled "what really happened to leafy" in which he discussed his ban from YouTube and also said that YouTube would be part time for him. Despite this, the channel would be terminated four days later on the 28th of December while having amassed at least 87.3K subscribers and over 200,000 views.

However, in August 2021, Vail returned on an account called "Lucky". He uploaded a few videos, one being about Ethan Klein. In early September 2021, his channel was terminated. At that time, it had around 24.5K subscribers. The channel gained over 70,000 views. In mid-December 2021, Vail would regain access to his Twitter account. Vail would return for a fourth time in late December 2021 on an account finally called[21] "LeafyCast", where he published a few videos. In January 2022, he premiered a video which gained over 700 concurrent viewers at its peak. The channel was later terminated in the middle of January 2022. This channel had gained over 20,000 subscribers and over 65,000 views.

References

  1. ^ a b c Kiberd, Roisin (August 5, 2016). "YouTube's Trolls Are Crying Censorship Over Cyberbullying Rules". Vice. Archived from the original on July 5, 2020. Retrieved August 24, 2020.
  2. ^ Vail, Calvin (August 18, 2016). "Thanks for all the birthday wishes, you guys are seriously crazy No but seriously, I really appreciate it <3". Twitter. Archived from the original on September 16, 2020. Retrieved January 14, 2021.
  3. ^ a b c d D'Anistasio, Cecilia; Grey Ellis, Emma (July 31, 2020). "PokimaneBoyfriend and the Scandalous Reign of Drama YouTube". Wired. Archived from the original on August 3, 2020. Retrieved August 22, 2020.
  4. ^ a b "LeafyIsHere's YouTube Stats". Social Blade. Archived from the original on August 24, 2020. Retrieved August 24, 2020.
  5. ^ a b c Alexander, Julia (August 24, 2020). "YouTube permanently bans controversial creator LeafyIsHere". The Verge. Archived from the original on August 24, 2020. Retrieved August 24, 2020.
  6. ^ Reavy, Pat (August 4, 2016). "Popular Layton YouTuber target of 'swatting' pranks". KSL.com. Archived from the original on October 2, 2020. Retrieved August 7, 2020.
  7. ^ Menegus, Bryan. "YouTube Star Makes Money Bullying People With Learning Disabilities [Updated]". Gizmodo. Archived from the original on June 12, 2020. Retrieved June 12, 2020.
  8. ^ "leafyishere Monthly YouTube Statistics - Socialblade.com". December 18, 2016. Archived from the original on December 18, 2016. Retrieved March 23, 2022.
  9. ^ "leafyishere Monthly YouTube Statistics - Socialblade.com". May 24, 2019. Archived from the original on May 24, 2019. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  10. ^ Teti, Julia (March 31, 2020). "Leafy Returns To YouTube For 1st Time In 2 Years To Call Out IDubbbz & Fans Go Wild — Watch". Hollywood Life. Archived from the original on July 3, 2020. Retrieved July 14, 2020.
  11. ^ Alexander, Julia (December 16, 2019). "YouTube is growing up, and creators are frustrated by growing pains". The Verge. Archived from the original on August 17, 2020. Retrieved July 14, 2020.
  12. ^ Romano, Aja (December 13, 2019). "YouTube just made sweeping positive changes to its harassment policy. So why all the backlash?". Vox. Archived from the original on May 14, 2020. Retrieved August 24, 2020.
  13. ^ "Eva Lion, la youtubeuse fan d'Hitler". L'Express. May 31, 2016. Archived from the original on August 22, 2017. Retrieved August 7, 2020.
  14. ^ "Trans Activist Milo Stewart's Never-Ending War on Trolls". The Daily Dot. October 17, 2016. Archived from the original on September 3, 2019. Retrieved August 7, 2020.
  15. ^ Dodgson, Lindsay. "PewDiePie announced plans to take a break from YouTube, but it's not the first time the platform's biggest creator has struggled with burnout". Insider. Retrieved July 14, 2020.
  16. ^ "LeafyIsHere's YouTube Stats (Summary Profile) - Social Blade Stats". socialblade.com. Retrieved March 23, 2022.
  17. ^ a b Samuels, Alexandra (August 22, 2020). "Leafy banned from YouTube after targeting Pokimane". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on August 24, 2020. Retrieved August 26, 2020.
  18. ^ a b c Grayson, Nathan (September 11, 2020). "Twitch Suspends Leafy, The Banned YouTuber Who Harassed Pokimane". Kotaku. Archived from the original on September 13, 2020. Retrieved September 12, 2020.
  19. ^ "https://mobile.twitter.com/LeafyIsHere/status/1521780298056314881". Twitter. Retrieved May 4, 2022. {{cite web}}: External link in |title= (help)
  20. ^ "Weafy's YouTube Stats (Summary Profile) - Social Blade Stats". socialblade.com. Retrieved March 23, 2022.
  21. ^ "LeafyCast's YouTube Stats (Summary Profile) - Social Blade Stats". socialblade.com. Retrieved March 23, 2022.
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