Alpharad

Alpharad, formerly known as AlpharadTV, is an American YouTuber who is known for creating highly edited videos of gameplay with humorous and observational commentary. He is best known for his comedic montage series "How to Play 101," in which he uses gameplay of a certain game or character as the basis for primarily visual and text-based jokes. He is also well known for his frequent Overwatch content and the popular "Not" series, which is the closest any of Alpharad's series' have ever been to rivaling the popularity of "How to Play 101," with the current most viewed video on his channel being his Overwatch video titled "NOT PALADINS".

Over time, Alpharad has drastically shifted the style of his content. Starting with making comedic montage videos for Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, he's transitioned into more improv commentary-styled videos, starting with his Splatoon series Squid Stuff, and later, A Story for Glory. He has gone on record saying his video titled "Overwatch: KUNAI WITH CHAIN," published on September 6, 2016, marked the point in which his channel began changing exponentially for the better, as he was less than proud of the content he had uploaded as a whole prior to that video's release. While "Overwatch: KUNAI WITH CHAIN" was when his video quality saw a resurgence, Alpharad's video "TENGEN TOPPA CASTLE CRASHERS," which he recorded with his friend Turvis and YouTube personality WEEGEE THE GOD, was the video he was most proud of at the time because of how well he felt he edited it, as well as the "enjoyability" of the video in general and how he undertook the task of highly editing a video that was about 18 and a half minutes in length. He reached half a million subscribers (500K) on July 29, 2017.

Alpharad has also helped create a Super Smash Bros. Melee mod entitled Silly Melee, which changes characters' behaviors and makes gameplay more "silly," as well as a Let's Play channel called Friends Without Benefits, in which he plays games alongside his friend dad_as_heck, with Major Duncan, Deezus, and WEEGEE THE GOD joining the channel about 8 months after its debut in June 2016. Turvis was announced to be on the show in September 2017, but was proclaimed off the show about 2 months later due to family-related issues and personal apprehension.

On January 17, 2016, in his video “HOW TO PLAY AS SUBSCRIBERS 102,” Alpharad announced a series titled Replay Hut as a way to include more replays into a single video without having to compromise the time he's required to spend fully editing submitted clips in a fashion similar to the “How to Play 101” series; the first episode of Replay Hut aired two days later. Replay Hut is a community-based series in which viewers submit clips and highlights from various games to Alpharad’s subreddit page in hopes of being featured in the next installment. While this series of videos used to be hosted on his main channel and used to only feature Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U submissions, Replay Hut has since evolved into its own separate YouTube channel, starting after the 39th episode of the Smash 4 subseries in July of 2017. Replay Hut has branched off to other video games since then; the new channel’s creation marked the debut of the Overwatch, Rivals of Aether, and Project M subseries of videos being added to the Replay Hut series, as well as an “Anything Goes” subseries in which the community has the freedom to submit a clip or highlight of anything they desire, video game or otherwise, in an attempt to incorporate as much diversity as possible into the channel and as a way to determine which video game has the representation necessary for the birth of a potential new subseries of Replay Hut videos. This series is currently edited by Deezus of Friends Without Benefits.

Series
(*) = Uses his typical standard of live commentary over footage.


 * How to Play (Super Smash Bros. 4 character) 101 - Montage videos of trick shots, combos and otherwise impressive or silly gameplay in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. Each episode focuses on a specific character, using on-screen commentary as a means for 'dialogue' between the characters. It is credited as setting the standard for gameplay montages, with several memes being spawned from his style of editing, including airhorns, no-scope, and various other gimmicks.
 * How to Play (Video Game) 101 - As above, but with a specific game. It used notable less editing tricks and effects, and focuses on regular gameplay. On April Fools 2015, he uploaded a parody call 'How to Play with Cats' where he did just that. The year after, he played with one cat, Frasier.
 * Replay Hut - Montage videos of fan-submitted footage of gameplay. Focused on Super Smash Bros. while on his own channel, before getting it's own channel of the same name and accepting other games.
 * The "NOT" Series * - Alpharad plays a game with rediculous similarities to more popular titles. The games are usually plagiarised rip-offs, or otherwise heavily inspired by the original. The name comes from his format of titling these videos i.e. 'NOT OVERWATCH' being based on Paladins gameplay, another online team-based shooter.
 * Who is the Best?  *  - Alpharad plays against friend and YouTuber Turvis exclusively as a single character from the Super Smash Bros. roster, while challenging Turvis to beat said character. He has covered Cloud, Kirby, Luigi, Captain Falcon, Bayonetta, and Donkey Kong. It often ends with Turvis being very angry.
 * Steam Cleaning  *  - Over time, Alpharad built up a large library of Steam games he never got around to playing. This series is dedicated to playing each one, ranging from obscure to popular. A few of the featured games received their own video.
 * Opening the DMs - Alpharad, alongside friend and YouTuber Major Duncan, reads the messages they receive on Twitter. They answer questions and respond to comments, with some comedy around it. It is one of the few instances where he appears live on camera. Despite being in every episode, people consistently ask if Major will appear on the show. This upsets him greatly.
 * Friends Without Benefits Highlights  *  - Back while his side channel Friends Without Benefits was still growing, he featured some of it's videos on his own channel to increase awareness. It quickly ended as FWOB became more popular and earned it's own following.
 * Clickbait?!  *  - Alpharad and a random guest create thumbnails for fake videos using the most clickbait-y conventions possible.
 * On For Glory  *  - Parody tutorials of people playing and teaching the viewer to use a character in Super Smash Bros.. Alpharad imitates the stereotype of a typical player of certain characters and pretends to teach the viewer about the tricks and methods these people commonly use, which are often the lazy and unimpressive techniques used by bad or new players. For example, in Captain Falcon's episode, titled 'FalconXFalcon', he mimicked the aggresive and reckless playstyle most people associate with the average Cap. Falcon player. Some of these use intentionally bad editing techniques and audio setups to capture the inner n00b of these people.
 * A Story For Glory  *  - A series with a few hudred episodes, Alpharad plays online in Super Smash Bros. and tells a story or some anecdote of his past. This was one of his most popular series and spanned over several years. He revealed in this series that his name is not Jacob, which is his middle name, prefering it over his actual name of Paco.
 * Mario Maker Minus * - Alpharad plays some of the more famous or difficult levels made in Super Mario Maker. He also plays levels submitted by fans.
 * Challenge Mode * - Alpharad plays casual fights against popular or professional names in the Smash Bros. community.
 * Squid Stuff * - Alpharad plays Splatoon online.
 * Stream Highlights * - Highlights of his stream. One of the few instances where he appears live on camera.

Trivia

 * He is a very good boy.
 * Alpharad occasionally changes his YouTube banner for brief periods of time.
 * One of Alpharad's goals for his YouTube channel was to have the most viewed video on his channel not be a video in the "How to Play 101" series.
 * This goal was achieved in May of 2017 by "NOT OVERWATCH."
 * Despite announcing Season 2 of "Challenge Mode," Alpharad has only released a single episode of this second season. This episode featured EVO 2016 Champion Ally and was uploaded to his channel on August 4, 2016.
 * The model Kate Upton has been mentioned in every episode of Alpharad's "Clickbait" series in some capacity.