| “ | WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO SAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY | ” |
―Fresh Cut Slim | ||
Karl Keeton[1] (born: September 30, 1994),[2] better known online as Fresh Cut Slim (or Slim for short) and formerly Charmx,[3] is a Canadian YouTuber, musician, comedian, game developer, animator, and writer, who mainly posts music that he writes and composes. He was known for wearing his signature beanie in his old YouTube videos.[4]
History[]
Early channels[]
Karl began YouTube in 2008,[5] but most of his old channels are unknown, one of his earlier known channels being called TheCriticalBastard or TCB (initially called DoYoTing). The channel is still up today, but it is abandoned, and the videos are no longer available (Some, however, have been archived and reuploaded by TheCriticalBastardArchive). In some later videos where he would talk about his past, he claimed to have gone through many channels beside during that period, but it is unknown if there were any channels before TCB. He also has mentioned that he started getting into YouTube because he wanted to make people laugh and smile.
Charmx[]
In April 2014, Karl created the first "Charmx" channel, called CharmxGames. Throughout this period, he slowly transitioned his videos from gaming to reaction.
On June 6, 2015, he created a second reaction channel called Charmx2, for the reason of too many requests.
In February 2016, he ended his original CharmxGames channel to avoid a third copyright strike. Charmx2 became his main channel and was renamed "Charmx" after a while. A new Charmx2 channel emerged on February 17, 2017, initially dedicated to Reddit-type reactions which were growing popular at the time.
By mid-2017, the Charmx channel was also developing problems with copyright strikes. He created another channel, called Charmx3, on July 22, 2017, for YTP reactions.
Not long after, the original Charmx era came to an end when the Charmx channel, with 813,011 subscribers, was terminated on August 14, 2017, due to multiple copyright strikes, and when "My Last Video" was posted the day before at 11:00 AM. A little while later, Charmx3 was repurposed and renamed to Charmx.
In November 2017, another Charmx3 channel was made, again for YTP reactions. By 2018, Charmx2's content transitioned to TNTL challenges and meme compilations. From then on, the three Charmx channels managed to keep their identity without any more repurposing.
For the most part of his time as Charmx, Karl lived in his parent's house and would record in the basement alone. He did not like living there and made a 2018 resolution to make enough money and move out of the house. To do so, however, he was using YouTube's monetization feature, and had to censor (or completely edit out) inappropriate or controversial words, actions and graphics in videos to avoid demonetization. Karl soon realized he needed to gather income elsewhere not only from YouTube, so he worked on various side projects in an attempt to earn more money. At the end of 2018 however, he didn't manage to get out of the house. It wasn't until the end of 2020, two years later, that he found a studio-style apartment to move himself into. Once he moved, he did a vlog and a house tour to celebrate.
Karl's recognition in the YouTube community was mostly from people who enjoyed the type of content he did. As a result, his fanbase was always very supportive and criticism was minimal. However, as a reaction YouTuber, the algorithm would get increasingly out of his favor, and he preferred not to reach out of his comfort zone to try and bring more of an audience in. In the latter years, most of his fans had already been watching him for a while, and Karl was beginning to lose motivation, as well as feel burnt out from his schedule.
Schemes like Article 13, COPPA, and the DMCA copyright laws made Karl very paranoid about the future of his channels. Combined with the fact that he still censored content to a very high standard, this was making it very hard for him to find any motivation. In the start of 2021, he made a video called "This had to happen, I'm sorry." It was posted after he wiped all the videos from Charmx2 and Charmx3, fearing that they would be taken down with a more damaging result if he didn't do it himself. He paused all YTP reactions completely, before returning to them on Charmx3 again a short while later, while reactions on Charmx continued as normal, until March 31, 2021.
Quitting YouTube[]
On March 31, 2021, Karl officially announced the "end of his channel" in a video titled, 'This is my last video.' In it, he stated that the video was public because he either passed away or got fed up with YouTube, stating that he couldn't express himself freely without putting his channel's good standing at risk. In his second last video, however, he made it abundantly clear that he was just fed up with YouTube and hadn't passed away. He was getting Community Guidelines strikes on older videos and was unable to fight for them.
He also stated that he wanted to be forgotten by the internet, and that he wanted to live a normal life because he was afraid of getting recognized in public. The last video of his was primarily focused on scriptural teaching, because he was a Christian, and felt it to be his duty to say something about his faith and what he believed in before signing off.
At first, people speculated that these videos were an early April Fools' joke since the videos were uploaded the day before April Fools' Day (March 31, 2021). After a couple of days, however, it was obvious that the retirement was not an April Fools' joke. He said in his second last video that he deleted the videos from all of his channels, but the videos were all just made private.
Return[]
The two farewell videos remained public for nearly three more years until they were removed for good on October 23, 2023. Later that same day, all four of the channels were modified, removing all personalization and changing the usernames to "unbrandedacc," "unbrandedacc2" up until "unbrandedacc4." Changing the display name actually stripped the main channel of its verification tick which it had had years before Karl left. The profile and banner pictures were also removed from his Twitter account. Initially it was unclear why this happened - some thought that he'd been hacked on multiple Google accounts, others hoped that this was a hint at his return, and some believed that he sold the channels himself.[6]
Over the next few weeks, the main channel received a succession of modifications while the other channels remained as they were. New theories from fans were brewing almost every day as to what was going on, but the real question as to whether it was Karl's doing or not remained unanswered. On November 10, 2023, a new banner was added to the main channel, hinting that an event would occur regarding the channel later on that day at 6:30 P.M. EST. Once that time came, several major alterations were made to the channel, such as the name being changed to "Fresh Cut Slim", a new profile picture being uploaded, and the banner being changed yet again. The most significant change, however, was that two videos were published to the channel, both of which contained separate music tracks accompanied by a 3D animation. Along with the two listed videos, there were also several private videos in the channel's two created playlists.
The identity of the channel owner still remained unknown, though many people took the stance that it could very well be Karl making his return to YouTube after nearly three years of inactivity. It was agreed by many through the comments section and his old subreddit that the singer in both videos sounded strikingly similar to Karl, and there were also other factors hinting that that was the case.
On November 11, 2023, Fresh Cut Slim released an update video confirming that this was in fact him, discussing where he's been lately, what he's been doing in life, and what was going to happen to the channel.
Since his return, Karl has making videos on camera, albeit with a mask on. Initially the mask covered his face, but he has cropped it twice now to reveal his mouth and nose, so that viewers could see and hear him better. He has his old beanie as well but feels too hot wearing both, so just wears the mask.
In his return video, Karl revealed that his music career started roughly a year and a half ago. During that time, he had learned to make animations on Blender and has had his mental state improved. He had also been working long hours in a full-time job, which he did not particularly like [7][8]. He later revealed that he had been laid off from the job since, making content creation easier to tend to, but in spite of that he was keen to find more work.
Music[]
Karl's initial return to YouTube in 2023 was very focused on his journey as a music artist. Shortly after the Fresh Cut Slim rebrand, he made a community post saying:
| “ | This is a new journey and i want to thank everyone who stays with me on it. I know this is new compared to what your used to, but the past is the past. I have no wish to be on camera, but i still love you. I work a job that i am not, and regret choices i have made in the past. Oh to go back. I am an entertainer and an artist, I know who I am now. | ” |
―Fresh Cut Slim | ||
As of February 2025, he has released six albums, seven singles and one EP. His most popular music video is "The Way It Goes" which is a part of the "New Kid" album.
As a music artist, he has now expanded to multiple social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and Reddit. He is interactive on all and posts previews or links to his music as and when they come out on YouTube. He also has an official website for posting lyrics to his songs and fan content.
Reaction Content[]
During his time as Charmx, Karl would react to trending videos on his main channel. This consisted of content from SML, SMG4, TheOdd1sOut, JaidenAnimations and Game/Film Theory primarily among other popular channels. Most non-reaction videos, like updates and subscriber specials, were also posted on his main channel. He also engaged with media outside of YouTube, such as subreddits.
He used Charmx2 to react to meme compilations and TNTLs.
He made Charmx3 as a result of too many YTP reaction requests. From then on reactions to YTPs were uploaded there. FlyingKitty videos, however, were reacted to on the main channel due to their popularity.
By September 2020, he had started playing games on his channel a lot more and wanted a separate place for them. Thus, the Charmx Plays channel was born. This channel remains as "unbranded" today.
Since coming back to YouTube, Karl has done a number of reactions to fan YTPs, as well as SML videos, the official trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI, a video from TheOdd1sOut and other trending videos. Initially uploading the reactions on Fresh Cut Slim, he quickly moved non-music videos to Fresh Cut Content, which was formerly Charmx3, and expanded from traditional reaction content to gaming, skits, and TNTLs. His schedule on Fresh Cut Content has now gone to being daily.
The former Charmx2 channel was also rebranded to Fresh Cut Shorts, where he has uploaded highlights from Fresh Cut Content, usually where he has made a joke in a video and done some editing for it. These are uploaded in both the original ratio and in a mobile 9:16 adaption for YouTube Shorts. He has also used this channel for videos that may not perform so well such as rant videos and certain YTP reactions.
Characters[]
- During Karl's time as Charmx, he would strictly wear his beanie in every video he was in and never took it off on camera. This led fans to curiosity about what his hair looked like, and he was asked frequently if he would ever do a "hair reveal." He promised to do so when ONE of his channels reached 1,000,000 subscribers. In August 2020 his main channel achieved this milestone, so he took off the beanie as promised, albeit with a bandana and sunglasses covering his face. As it turned out, he didn't have hair at all. Karl's new appearance turned the video into a sketch, aided by a greenscreen and some special effects. He deemed his bald character as an antagonist, named the "Bald Bastard." This character returned in a couple of future videos.
- On August 5, 2018, Karl did a video, showing him wielding a huge zucchini and pretending to use it as a weapon, for which he was known as the "Zucchini King". Four days later, Grandayy asked him to participate in his 1,000,000 subscriber "meme election" special, with a scene to say he's voting for him as a meme elect. Karl accepted, and decided to do this scene with two zucchinis in hand.
- On September 24, 2019, Karl returned to being the "Zucchini King" with another big zucchini.
- On August 6, 2020, Karl brought back the "Zucchini King" with, once again, two "large, hefty, rotund, colossal, voluptuous, gartantuan, brobdingnagian, thicc" zucchinis.
Personal life[]
As explained in an old video, before YouTube came around, Karl was at a very dark place in life. He had his suicide date planned out until discovering YouTube and his own religion. Every now and then during his career he would feel burnt out, and he was known to suffer from bi-polar disorder. In the video, "This had to happen, I'm sorry." he also said that he was on schizophrenia medication, and he admitted to not taking the full dose.
Karl was known to have two dogs and a rabbit. He also has at least one brother, but nobody in his family ever featured in his videos, with the rare exception of some talking in the background. He is also known to be an uncle.
Trivia[]
- Before doing YouTube, Karl once worked at a pizza restaurant.
- After his main channel had been taken down in 2017, he would re-upload an old video once in a while. Other fan channels do so to this day.
- His favorite memes were the "My name's Jeff" meme and the "You've been Gnomed" meme, although he didn't like being gnomed himself.
- Some of his least favorite memes included the "Big Enough" song scream, the Drake and Josh door hole meme, WHY WEREN'T YOU AT ELF PRACTICE!!, the Burger King Foot Lettuce meme, Thanos Car, the "ooh la la" meme, and the Peter falling down meme. However, in some cases, the meme would be twisted in a way that made him laugh.
- All of Karl's tweets and media from his old X account are still public. His new account gives the most detailed information on his progress with music.
- He used to be a fan of The Walking Dead.
- One of his most successful reaction series was YouTube Poops. Over 500 YTPs of himself have been made by fans.
- He crowned Charmx3 as a backup channel in the event that his main channel got taken down again.
- He is a victim of road rage and was once involved in a car accident.
- On 3rd August 2017, he was diagnosed with bronchitis. He has since been cured.
- For a few years he drove a 2003 Hyundai Elantra. It was this car that initially revealed his secret bald head, as in one old video he was showing the flimsiness of the car and just so happened to record his reflection from the window.
- In early 2021, after moving, he was asked about the car in a YTP he reacted to. He said that he had replaced the Elantra with a truck/SUV (namely a Toyota Rav4) for the practicality.
- He has released a self-made and self-published children's book. His original graphic artist was very inefficient, and he had to do the graphic art himself in the end. He has stated he won't reveal the name of the book for privacy reasons.
- He is a victim of doxing, very much due to the fact he hid a lot of information.
- He edits videos himself with DaVinci Resolve, having previously used Adobe Premiere Pro.
- He has had a bobblehead "companion" on his side ever since March 3rd, 2018. The toy resembles Captain America and is known as "Cap". Cap would give his opinions of the video on certain reaction videos via a text to speech package.
- After moving into his own apartment, he stated in a Q&A that he had left Cap in his parent's house and that he didn't know where he could've put him since there was no place in the background of his videos to place Cap down.
- Captain America's voice can be found as the Scottish accent at www.text2speech.org.
- He had two fans who dedicated their entire channels to him which formerly reuploaded some of his older videos, including some of his first-ever videos from his CharmxGames channel. The channels were called CharmxFanChannel/CFC and TheCharmx1sOut. Some time before his retirement, CharmxFanChannel/CFC was personally contacted by Karl asking if he could stop re-uploading his old videos, and since then he has uploaded memes of him and others instead. TheCharmx1sOut has not been active for a number of years.
- When he drinks coffee, he drinks it with a straw.
- He made an Android game in which he was working for 1200 hours in an attempt to get money, however he made very little and has seemingly took it down since.
- He wanted to publish a game on Steam, but since he retired his progress with the game is unknown.
- His dwarf rabbit, Joey, died around 2018. One of his dogs also died, but the other one was still alive as of his retirement.
- On September 14, 2019, he revealed he was dyslexic, which may be the reason why he always seems to botch words.
- On October 15, 2019, he made an update video about talking how his parents planned to kick him out of their house later the next year unless he started paying rent or actually moved out. In the middle of 2020 he had plans to move in with a friend, which later ceased.
- His favorite SuperMarioLogan characters are Mario, Jeffy, Bowser, Bowser Junior, Chef PP, Cody, Joseph, Brooklyn T. Guy, Goodman, Richard Goodman, Jackie Chu, Tyrone, Patrick Coleman, and Black Yoshi.
- His least favourite SML character is Toad because of how he cannot stand him and his voice and Judy Nutkiss because of how she was weird.
- His favourite SMG4 characters are Mario, Chris and Swagmaster.[citation needed]
- His least favourite SMG4 character is Toad because of how he cannot stand him and his voice.
- He was parodied by ExplosmEntertainment as "Charmo" in the comedy cartoon series "Channelate." This named stuck to him within his own community and was used in a few YTP titles based on him.[1]
- His least favorite game is Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy.[9]
- He said that if his main channel ever hit 2 million subscribers, he would possibly shave his beard off.
- On January 12, 2021, he announced his decision to quit Charmx2 and Charmx3 due to a mixture of complications. All videos from both channels were deleted, and his main focus was to be on his main channel, Charmx, as well as the newer channel, Charmx Plays. After a while, he got active with the two channels again, but never brought any old videos back - it was up to others to re-upload what they had saved.
- Karl was also worried that SMG4 was not okay with reactions to his videos, so he had to delete the past SMG4 reactions. But someone on the Twitter showed the video of SMG4 talking about reaction videos to Karl, where he acknowledged that SMG4 doesn't mind the reaction videos, then he decided to react to SMG4 again.
- Ever since March 31st, 2021 when he left the Charmx persona, many of his subscribers have began to unsubscribe from his channels. This was presumably due to an absence of activity on them.
- The main channel (Fresh Cut Slim) dropped below 1 million subscribers around the first four days of August 2023.
- He had a significant spike of unsubscriptions when he rebranded the channel, even after he let on that it was still him.
- The only way his old content can be watched is by watching re-uploads from fans, and despite Karl himself stating that he doesn't want people re-uploading his old videos, some still do.
- Some fans found a live stream from the Fresh Cut Content channel which had been offline since it started on December 10, 2017. It had been unlisted and discovered by Playstation users due to a glitch. It had been titled "Charmx3 Live Stream" and was removed a few months into his return.
- He underwent surgery in early 2024 and was able to take a break from his job and focus on YouTube as a result. He did not give details about the procedure.
- He has not given any thought on what he would do in the event that his channel hits 1,000,000 subscribers again, now that the count has been below that for some time. Generally, the count on all his channels has remained stagnant even months into his return.
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.
- 10,000 subscribers: August 2017
- 50,000 subscribers: August 2017
- 100,000 subscribers: September 11, 2017[10]
- 200,000 subscribers: December 28, 2017[11]
- 250,000 subscribers: February 13, 2018[12]
- 300,000 subscribers: April 6, 2018[13]
- 400,000 subscribers: July 18, 2018
- 500,000 subscribers: October 2, 2018[14]
- 600,000 subscribers: January 10, 2019
- 700,000 subscribers: June 1, 2019[15]
- 800,000 subscribers: November 18, 2019[16]
- 900,000 subscribers: April 9, 2020[17]
- 1 million subscribers: August 13, 2020
Decline[]
- Under 1 million subscribers: August 1, 2023
References[]
- ↑ https://open.spotify.com/album/49hZFV0Z7yp28xNnfthqIQ^
- ↑ https://youtu.be/6fqkPuMnY1s?si=RKDosu8GaQicq1Nk&t=728
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaKqsix3p96ZGUKlJxwhhhru_aJxG_MSV
- ↑ "wait is charmx actually bald?" - Reddit
- ↑ https://youtu.be/6fqkPuMnY1s?si=RKDosu8GaQicq1Nk&t=728
- ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/Charmx/comments/17f745w/what_does_everyone_think_of_whats_going_on/
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/post/Ugkx-0bAIYgR_lVJZb28jJYVA4Pck_Eo8aZd
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3ABb8xeVx4
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AEx3_Ql_Xc
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7jE1zISKAY
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p1aTfWddVo
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JnRQCVENo8
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM4PtYhvhUY
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6ngqFOJ2m0
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKC7D5nFC14
- ↑ https://twitter.com/CharmxOfficial/status/1196508010761334784
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=110&v=PqD9hYFIlnA&feature=emb_logo