Badabun is a Mexican YouTube channel maintained by the Badabun Network, which also has ties with large Spanish language YouTubers such as Werevertumorro, Rayito and Juan De Dios Pantoja. It is the most-subscribed YouTube network channel. As of June 24, 2021, Badabun currently has over 44.5 million subscribers, and it is the most-subscribed channel in Mexico. The channel currently ranks the 31st most-subscribed on June 24, 2021, while also becoming the most-subscribed Spanish-speaking channel. Despite of this, Badabun is considered one of the most hated YouTube channels.
The channel is well-known for producing its "Exponiendo Infieles" (or "Exposing Infidels") series, in which host Lizbeth Rodríguez interviews couples to check their faithfulness.
Channel History
Early YouTube Years (2014-2018)
The channel was created on October 13, 2014, but its first video was posted on December 5. The themes of his videos at the time were trivia and random themes. However, in 2017, they started making videos with performances, as well as creating some series.
Series, Subscriber Increase, Channel Growth, Criticism And Controversies (2018-2019)
In 2018, Badabun continued with some series that managed to have a positive impact on its story, gaining many daily subscribers and a good fan base. However, series such as Exponiendo Infieles and Patitas al Rescate were the ones that increased the growth of the channel.
The theme of Exponiendo Infieles was that the presenter, Lizbeth Rodriguez (previously the presenter was another person, but was replaced), went to the street and looked for couples, offering them acceptable amounts of money in exchange for checking their cell phones for a few minutes. Despite the fact that at the beginning of the episodes they began calmly, they ended with fights and attacks, with the couples breaking up. Patitas al Rescate, on the other side, was about Tavo Betancourt, searching for abandoned dogs on the streets of Mexico to help them and send them to a better place.
Those series were the ones that drove Badabun to success, however, those series were criticized, for the fact that Badabun made believe that Exponiendo Infieles were real events, when they were really paid actors pretending to be couples. Many also criticized the fact that in the end there would always have to be an aggressive or violent act on the part of the couples. Patitas al Rescate, despite receiving support from the people due to the actions of Tavo Betancourt, also received enormous criticism due to the yellowishness and exaggerations of the program, as well as many people criticized Badabun for leaving the animals lying on the street to capture better shots for their videos.
Badabun not only published videos about series, but also continued the videos of trivia and created some animations. However, many of those videos generated negative interest because they were ideas taken from videos from smaller channels, as well as stealing thumbnails and content. Cases about the trivia videos or the plagiarism of Meet Arnold were the most notorious. Videos where Badabun talks about the subject of HolaSoyGerman and the positive repercussion that the YouTuber had, were harshly criticized towards the company. Other popular Badabun videos were also criticized for sexualizing women and for bringing "junk TV to YouTube", as well as intimidating and deleting videos from YouTubers that simply criticized the company's content, even simply for referring to the company because of its name. They have been frequently accused of using bots because of the strange growth of the channel, although this has not been confirmed.
Biggest Controversy, Subscriber Loss, and Channel Status Decline (2019 - Present)
Badabun was charged with homophobia, intimidation of his own members, and sexual harassment. Because of this, Badabun received backlash, resulting in a loss of more than 1 million subscribers. They also had a recent controversy over a fake Speed Run, even though the video was uploaded in 2017. The apology video, uploaded in 2021, is controversial in the Spanish-speaking community.
Currently, their videos do not receive even a bit of the amount of views they received in past years, receiving just over 50,000 views on each video, although some videos could exceed 100,000 views, but knowing the number of subscribers that the channel has, it's very little. Along with the few visits, they also receive many dislikes, and with many people mocking the decay of the channel.
Controversies
Intimidation
Cases have been found in which Badabun has censored videos that use its brand without its authorization. These have been removed from users and channels with fewer subscribers with respect to the Badabun channel, either because they contain criticism or opinions towards said channel:
- Turbo Plant: A video was uploaded which consisted of denying the phenomenon of "Momo" by taking the most viral videos of said content, among one of many taking the Badabun video, in which Andrea Zúñiga appears, who manages to contact Momo. Later, this user uploaded a video telling what has happened to him under the name Time to tell what BADABUN did to me.
- Woshingo: This user had a video in which he gave his opinion regarding the channel and the type of content it had, with the name of Badabun and cynicism. Later, he received a strike by Badabun and was accused of a crime that was article 191 of the Penal Code of the United Mexican States. He explains all this in his video that he later uploaded called HOW NOT TO TAKE THE CRITICISM.
- Oxlack Investigator: In this case Oxlack Castro relates what happened before the Controversy with DrossRotzank called DROSS Vs BADABUN THE TRUTH! INFORMATION YOU DIDN'T KNOW @OxlackCastro. Oxlack was explaining that he has a video on his channel where he gave a logical explanation for the event of the collapse of the Artz Pedregal that took place in Mexico City. It is mentioned that Badabun's channel uploaded the video after Oxlack's only that it is narrated by Víctor González and antagonizing DrossRotzank. He also relates that he contacted Víctor González to find out if Oxlack could collaborate in Badabun. In a few weeks it became known that Víctor González revealed Oxlack's WhatsApp number in revenge for the aforementioned video, but this received support from the people who dialed his number.
Plagiarising Meet Arnold
Badabun was accused of plagiarism when making a video called What if you are buried alive? which was very similar to the one made by the Meet Arnold channel. After that the video was deleted, to be later re-uploaded with the comments blocked.
Controversy with DrossRotzank
In August 2018, there was a controversy between these 2 YouTube channels, after Badabun said, in one of his videos about the collapse of a shopping center in Mexico, that Dross mentioned that a person who appeared in that video was a time traveler, which Dross, on his secondary channel, denied. Badabun continued the fight, reaching out to contact Dross' friends to speak ill of him in exchange for subscribers, which was reported to Dross himself.
Lies in his videos
This topic is very broad since he has been accused of spreading false information, especially in videos related to Dragon Ball, The Simpsons, SpongeBob, Pokémon. Also for hiring actors pretending to be passers-by.
Controversy with HolaSoyGerman
January 23, 2019, Germán uploaded a video called HolaSoyGerman vs Badabun, on his channel JuegaGerman. In itself, in the video, Germán asked his followers in a real and joking way, to subscribe to HolaSoyGerman, so that Badabun does not reach the first place so quickly, despite the fact that HSG is inactive. The video quickly gained views and support from the Hispanic community, causing its followers to create accounts to subscribe to HSG and Badabun's followers to unsubscribe from it. Currently, the video has more than 1 million likes. Famous YouTubers like Fernanfloo , Gonzok and Enchufetv showed their support for German.
Although the battle was created by the Chilean YouTuber himself, it was not controversial until Badabun spoke about it in 2 of his videos. The first video titled This will change your opinion from Badabun, shows Tavo Betancourt, Lizbeth Rodríguez and Carolina Díaz. Lizbeth begins by saying that 50% of the company's profits went to good causes. Tavo later mentions that he hopes YouTubers will stop competing for subscribers and help form good causes. Carolina ends by saying that they will build ambulances and dog shelters. However, Badabun was criticized by the community for the reason of raising the issue of rescuing dogs and hints towards Germán.
Weeks later, Badabun hid his subscribers from the battle, to reactivate them after a while. Later, Badabun uploaded another video with Leo Osuna and Bryan se la sabe entitled Who will reach 40 million first? Badabun or HolaSoyGerman ?, in which they ask high school children about which of the two will reach that number first, where all the children said Badabun. The company received much more criticism from the community, in addition to being accused of having bribed the children to say Badabun. On April 24, 2019, Badabun finally ended up beating HolaSoyGerman, to people's concern.
Intimidation towards its own members
The most current controversy and the one that caused great hatred towards the company. On December 5, 2019, Juan de Dios Pantoja (a former Badabun member) posted a video on his YouTube channel along with 5 other former Badabun members: Kim Shantal, Alex Flores, Queen Buenrostro, Kevin Achutegui and Deni Alfaro, who, together, explain everything negative that the company has had, such as sexual harassment, homophobia and labor exploitation. It should be noted that Badabun closed the Jukidog channel, which was part of Juan de Dios Pantoja, so it can be said that all the commotion started from there. Thanks to that video, Badabun fans immediately unsubscribed from the company, causing him to lose more than a million subscribers. It should also be noted that, after the controversy, Badabun has not uploaded more videos, when before he uploaded it between 3 videos daily. Tavo Betancourt and Carolina Diaz made videos regarding the situation, with titles referencing themselves as if they were leaving Badabun or the truth it caused. However, they received criticism and reported the videos as false, for these reasons:
- Both have not left Badabun, unlike the others, who made videos about it.
- The videos were uploaded on their main channels, unlike the others that uploaded it on different channels because Badabun closed those main channels.
- Both videos have a characteristic background like the ones Badabun uses
Plagiarised by WatchMojo
After so long without controversy, Badabun returned with a new plagiarism, this time with the company WatchMojo.com plagiarizing his video 10 most painful bites! which copied the title, the thumbnail and the script of the video, earning a great hate and hate, although the video so many dislikes, if it received a great wave of hateful comments.
Fake Speedrun
In 2017, Bababun posted a now infamous video called Pasando Super Mario en 5 minutos, in which they claimed that they had completed Super Mario Bros in 5 minutes. In January 2020, a YouTube channel by the name of Karl Jobst uploaded a video calling out Bababun for faking the speedrun by splicing footage from other legitimate speedrunners such as Darbian and Kosmic and compiling them into the aforementioned speedrun attempt. One of the biggest mistakes in the making of the fake speedrun is that they used a TAS (Tool assisted speedrun) as the main piece of stolen footage, making the entire speedrun in general flawed.
In January 2021, Tavo Betancourt, the performer of the fake speedrun, apologized for the speedrun in a video on his channel called PIDO PERDÓN A LA COMUNIDAD GAMER (Speedrun de Mario) (English translation here). The video was covered by EZScape on his EZScape Speedruns channel the same day. The apology video is hated within the Spanish-speaking community, but is better received elsewhere.
Subscriber Milestones
Note: The following dates are according to Social Blade. Dates may vary by one or two days due to differences in time zones.
- 1 million subscribers: December 16, 2016
- 2 million subscribers: June 10, 2017
- 3 million subscribers: September 13, 2017
- 4 million subscribers: November 9, 2017
- 5 million subscribers: December 9, 2017
- 6 million subscribers: December 31, 2017
- 7 million subscribers: January 18, 2018
- 8 million subscribers: February 8, 2018
- 9 million subscribers: March 2, 2018
- 10 million subscribers: March 22, 2018
- 11 million subscribers: April 6, 2018
- 12 million subscribers: April 22, 2018
- 13 million subscribers: May 8, 2018
- 14 million subscribers: May 20, 2018
- 15 million subscribers: June 3, 2018
- 16 million subscribers: June 14, 2018
- 17 million subscribers: June 26, 2018
- 18 million subscribers: July 4, 2018
- 19 million subscribers: July 13, 2018
- 20 million subscribers: July 23, 2018
- 21 million subscribers: August 2, 2018
- 22 million subscribers: August 16, 2018
- 23 million subscribers: August 31, 2018
- 24 million subscribers: September 15, 2018
- 25 million subscribers: October 4, 2018
- 26 million subscribers: October 25, 2018
- 27 million subscribers: November 10, 2018
- 28 million subscribers: November 24, 2018
- 29 million subscribers: December 7, 2018
- 30 million subscribers: December 19, 2018
- 31 million subscribers: December 28, 2018
- 32 million subscribers: January 4, 2019
- 33 million subscribers: January 9, 2019
- 34 million subscribers: January 16, 2019
- 35 million subscribers: January 28, 2019
- 36 million subscribers: February 12, 2019
- 37 million subscribers: February 27, 2019
- 38 million subscribers: March 26, 2019
- 39 million subscribers: April 25, 2019
- 40 million subscribers: June 3, 2019
- 41 million subscribers: July 15, 2019
- 42 million subscribers: August 24, 2019
- 43 million subscribers: November 7, 2019
Decline
- Below 43 million subscribers: December 7, 2019
Regrowth
- 43 million subscribers: April 12, 2020
- 44 million subscribers: February 2, 2021
- 45 million subscribers: October 11, 2021
Video View Milestones
- 1 billion views: November 12, 2017
- 2 billion views: February 9, 2018
- 3 billion views: April 20, 2018
- 4 billion views: June 12, 2018
- 5 billion views: July 21, 2018
- 6 billion views: September 16, 2018
- 7 billion views: November 11, 2018
- 8 billion views: December 22, 2018
- 9 billion views: January 17, 2019
- 10 billion views: February 15, 2019
- 11 billion views: March 28, 2019
- 12 billion views: May 18, 2019
- 13 billion views: July 11, 2019
- 14 billion views: August 31, 2019
- 15 billion views: November 29, 2019
- 16 billion views: April 24, 2020
- 17 billion views: January 11, 2021
- 18 billion views: December 4, 2021
