The Barney Bunch
- This article is about the real-life users behind the Barney Bunch. For the fictional version of the group used in videos, see The Barney Bunch (fictonal).
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The Barney Bunch is a small, niche community of users that forms the backbone of the entire Speakonia Community. The group primarily creates videos of children's show characters, cartoon characters, and mascots as being homosexual deviants engaging in over the top escapades and swell shenanigans using Speakonia for their voices. While there have been many attempts at unifying the community, the group is very much fractioned, with some individuals sticking to crating certain types of videos. Activity has also fluctuated over the years as well, with many high and low points.
History
Newgrounds and First Generation (August-October 2005)
The Barney Bunch first began life as a trolling group on August 25, 2005 on Newgrounds, founded by BarneyPoop (Tim C.) and StrawberryBarney. According to SBB's YouTube profile, the group originally went under the name "The Barney Crew" before the "Crew" was replaced with "Bunch". They started out making simple Flashes featuring children's show characters and mascots like Barney the Dinosaur, Big Bird, Krypto the Superdog, Clifford the Big Red Dog, the Wiggles, and Ronald McDonald being portrayed as homosexuals, with explicit text to speech voices provided by Speakonia. What started as a simple in-joke quickly developed a decent-sized community of users, with members like SovietBarney, L, and DiaperBarney quickly joining. StrawberryBarney would soon upload Drew Pickles is REALLY REALLY Gay! and BarneyPoop was so amused by it, it helped popularize Drew Pickles and the character quickly became the new face of the community. The group would also engage in file-swaps, replacing old Flashes with their own in the Newgrounds portal, often with over the top, ALL CAPS, porn-esque names.
By October, however, backlash from the general Newgrounds community resulted in many BB flashes to be deleted and several members ended up being banned. Things took a heel turn when HIT Entertainment, the owners of Barney and Friends, threatened legal action towards Newgrounds over the Bunch's activity. This resulted in Newgrounds blacklisting and removing the term "Barney" from their search engine for several years. Some old BB content from those days still remained, and the group continued to inhabit Newgrounds for several more years, having claimed to return on Clock Day 2007 with a link to their (now long abandoned) Tripod website.
The Big Move and Second Generation (April 2006-2009)
By 2006, the Barney Bunch was declared "DEAD FOREVER" for the first time in its 18 year history following their ban from Newgrounds. However, StrawberryBarney did some scouting on a small Silicon Valley startup known as YouTube.com, where on April 20 he uploaded the very flash he submitted to Newgrounds the prior year, Drew Pickles is REALLY REALLY Gay!, and helped the Barney Bunch, and in a way the entirety of the Speakonia Community, establish themselves on the site. Newgrounds veterans such as L and SovietBarney, as well as several others, soon began uploading their content to YouTube, and several of them can still be seen today but, unfortunately, most of them are now considered lost. A handful of members would establish themselves on the site YTMND, posting various sites in the style of what was on Newgrounds. This wave of Barney Bunch video-makers was retroactively dubbed as the "Second Generation", with those who were active on Newgrounds being the "First Generation".
2007/2008 saw the first known BB collab on YouTube: in which just like YouTube Poop collabs, a user announces a video collab, and other users send in entries and then that user combines them all into one big video. Several of these existed prior on Newgrounds. This first YouTube collab was courtesy of MrBadBarney, although this has been taken down. According to Skewt, Blood, soon to be an icon in the Speakonia scene, was a known participant of this collab. Many other users such as Sammyt3hSnake were also active around this time, and while he was close to the main Barney Bunch on YouTube, he broke off into doing his own unique videos. Other users who emerged at this time included BooNube and PanicPagoda, the latter of whom made more experimental videos. This would also be the time that the popular Drew Pickles Goes To videos were introduced, and quickly became a hit for the community and the default video style for years to come. The Pube Muppet, a character created by Drunkmagikoopa on Newgrounds, was also adopted into the community and turned into a rival for the fictional Barney Bunch.
The Unestablished War and Third Generation (2009-2011)
Main article: The Unestablished War
2009 saw the introduction of the "Third Generation". Unlike the First and Second Generations, the Third Generation fully embraced the Drew Pickles Goes To videos with their constant breaks of the 4th Wall, long ass lines, and homosexual shenanigans ramped up to 11. Much of this was not seen in the content produced in the First and Second Generations, and, according to Blood, were usually associated with "poorly executed videos". Nevertheless, users such as YTComedyChannel365, MrCaptainJeff, DrewPicklesAintDed69, HappyTheHomo45, and many, many others cranked out some classic and legendary videos around this time. This would also be around the time that bigboyrats, a channel set up by two brothers, would appear on the scene, and provide Barney Bunch-esque gag dubs of Rugrats episodes, inspiring many members to try out Speakonia dubs of their own. But this newfound peace would not last long.
During the summer of 2011, conflict began to arise in the community, with users like RCDeschene, MrCaptainJeff, timmyt333, BakaSurvivor2102, Pwnisher248, and several others arguing over the addition of characters to the fictional Barney Bunch and wider Speakonia lore, and what and what was not "established", among other issues. It resulted in the formations of OldSchoolSwellness and SwellDrewTube, with OSS intending on making videos using only "established" characters and ideas, while SDT wanted more creative freedom when it came to characters and lore. This event was referred to as the "Unestablished War of 2011", and 2011 essentially became Year 0 for the community, after which nothing was ever the same again. This conflict was marred by moments such as the increased prevalence of Yogi Bear, the term "unestablished", the rise of Speakonia groups like the Humongous Bunch and characters like Maid Marian and Brony Drew Pickles, among several other things. Also at this time, a small faction of the community formed known as the Foot Fetish Community, which seem to have taken inspiration from the main Barney Bunch users, though their approach to videos and lore is much different and more quality-driven.
Revitalization, Blood's Return, and Fourth/Fifth Generation (2012-2015)
By 2012, many of the users involved in the Unestablished War had either retired or had their channels terminated. The OldSchoolSwellness channel had since shut down, but the SwellDrewTube channel remains up as of 2021, albeit inactive. By this point, the Barney Bunch remained scattered and decentralized, marking the beginning of the "Fourth Generation". In late 2014, a quadrilateral of users consisting of Scoot69 (Skewt), Prime8NStuff, and dildosdildo123, came together, and helped the Barney Bunch become a connected entity once again by creating the Barney Bunch Google+ community, though its now inaccessible following the closure of G+ in 2019. In February 2015, Blood returned from his long hiatus after seeing the reverence shown for his legacy by users such as Skewt and Prime, but by May had re-entered hiatus after a run of spam videos.
First Renaissance and Sixth Generation (2016-2017)
Main article: Barney Bunch Renaissance
The beginning of 2016 saw the start of a new golden age for Barney Bunch content, with many original users who previously retired returning, chief among them BarneyBunchCompany and classic-era veteran Life Or Death, Blood's partner in crime. There was also an influx of new users such as such as Mister Incognito, droo pikilz , and SavageBoy69Alt. It also saw the rise in infamy of a user called FNAF Fanboy Exterminator. Summer 2016 is now considered the "Barney Bunch Renaissance" and the community's greatest creative peak since the 2006-2009 days. This era saw the resurgence of collaborative videos, as well as the newly-adopted Blood-style videos, which quickly replaced the growingly stagnant Goes To videos, and the "Trap Videos" in which instead of dialogue, the videos instead feature terrible music (mostly involving the band Anal Cunt), inspired by videos Prime had been making featuring looped bits of metal songs instead of actual dialogue, and the popularity of the Wiggles as the default characters to use in videos. The BB Renaissance came to it's peak in July-August 2016 when ToiletPranker, considered a master of Barney Bunch videos who had been inactive since 2012, re-emerged and re-uploaded some classics that were previously lost.
By September, the Renaissance began to wane following a domino-effect of events. First came Life or Death's many account deletions and eventual disappearance in December, followed by Skewt's first and only channel termination in November, then came SavageBoy making some rather infamous comments about monetizing the Barney Bunch which lead to widespread backlash from the community, and finally YouTube almost implementing the infamous "YouTube Heroes", though it quickly got canceled due to nobody really wanting or liking the idea. This lead to Blood starting the "Barney Bunch Weekly Contest", where each week, a user would host the contest and have other users submit entries for it, and whoever made the best video would host the next week. He announced it on October 14 in a near 20-minute video. This idea was eventually done away with in 2017 with user Nobody Nobody being the last to host, after he willingly relinquished his title as host of the contest and declared the it to be cancelled forever. All in all, the contest is believed to have lasted from 30-40 weeks, although the exact amount is unknown. 2016 ended with the revolution having fizzled out into a downward spiral. However, 2016 was so significant in the history of the BB that on December 29, user Alfardo released a retrospective video on the past year.
Wiki Saga (2017)
Main article: Wiki Saga
2017 is referred by those in the community as the "Wiki Saga", since the community became incredibly involved in hosting a new Barney Bunch wiki that eventually got deleted, and culminated in an all out assault on the Barney Bunch Shoutwiki which was taken offline shortly after. It also saw the creation of a new Google+ page known as NewSchoolSwellness. NSS mostly consisted of many of the then-active users at the time: Skewt, Prime, Firestorm, Shelltoon, and others, with some barely active in video making but still involved in other matters. The NSS page spawned a Discord server which was criticized by SavageBoy as drifting away from it's main purpose entirely.
Downward Spiral, VidLii Revival, and Seventh Generation (2018-2019)
Main article: Second Barney Bunch Renaissance
2018 marked the lowest point in the Barney Bunch's entire history, as many legendary users from the Fourth Generation either retiring (as was what happened with Skewt), or having their channels terminated off YouTube (as was what happened with Prime). The Barney Bunch came to be in a state comparable to the start of the Fourth Generation period of 2012-14, scattered and decentralized. The one user worth noting during this time was SwellFusion, who quickly won the community over thanks to his high quality editing which took BB videos to places they never went before.
By 2019, many members of the community, both old and new, quickly migrated over to a new video site known as VidLii, and took advantage of the site, kickstarting a new Renaissance and ripping the community out of the downward spiral. There was also another shot at reunifying the community when SavageBoy created a new Barney Bunch Discord server, with many veteran users having joined it, in addition to creating a new wiki on Miraheze. This Second Renaissance eventually petered out after Blood was banned from VidLii and a bunch of other events by August.
Post Renaissance, Eighth Generation, Beginning of the Speakonia Dark Age (2020-2022)
As a new decade rolled in, another shift began to happen within the community. During the early and middle half of 2020, activity was still fairly high, with a few new additions to the community, kicking off the Eighth Generation. Perhaps notable was the introduction of IronYoshi1212, whose more story-driven videos quickly garnered attention from both veterans and newcomers alike. The fifteenth anniversary of the community took place on August 25. Many well known members such as Blood and SavageBoy went into retirement, while some like DrewPicklesTheDark returned after notable absences to start producing content again. Activity also moved away from VidLii, with YouTube now being the center-stage of the community once again.
2021 was a fairly quiet year for the Barney Bunch, with many of the members of the Second Renaissance having retired or became inactive. The Blood style, which had been the dominant video format since 2016, began to be phased out as the Goes To videos saw a small resurgence in the community, along with the additions of the more plot-driven videos provided by IronYoshi and DrewPicklesTheDark, who released his Great Speakonia War series. Another channel, Thirteeniverse (later renamed Shakeverse), showed up later in the year and provided high-quality and fast paced Drew Pickles videos, quickly winning over the community, though this success was tragically cut short following the passing of one if the channel's members, Gary21115/WaRnEr, in early 2022. The Miraheze Speakonia Community wiki would shut down after months of inactivity, leading to a new one opening on Fandom which, despite some skirmishes with what could be posted there, was the defacto wiki for information on the community until its closure in 2023. During the later half of 2021, IronYoshi would create a Speakonia Community server on Discord, and several key community members would join.
2022 proved to be one of the roughest years for the Barney Bunch since 2018, marking the beginning of a dark period in the community's history. The terminations of users such as Skewt is Back, ToiletPranker, and NintendoMaster2010 on YouTube caused outrage within the community, especially given that the listed channels had not been active in several years, in addition to YouTube heavily age-restricting almost every new upload the community made. VidLii also faced backlash as kremlin/pro-Putin propaganda became rampant on the site, causing a majority of remaining Barney Bunch users there to stop using it. There was also the loss of several beloved creators, notable Garry21115 of Thirteeniverse and Blood, who passed away in August 2021, only for the community to find out a year later. In late August and early September, several members of the Discord server began adding an absurd number of new Speakonia groups and doing almost little to nothing with them, causing backlash among many veteran members.
That said, the year wasn't all doom and gloom, as there was a large surge of new community members including RoboticBloxxer, Slim Pickles, CalciferBarney, and DuchessTheSponge to name a few. A handful of veterans would also return such as SavageBoy and BarneyBunchCompany, albeit brief. This year would also be one that the community took a big priority on saving past work so it would not be lost to time, mainly through the Internet Archive and Tracle, the latter of which was considered a prime YouTube alternative up until a skirmish broke out between the Tracle and Speakonia communities in October, resulting in a site-wide ban of Barney Bunch content the following year. This would also be the year that events and collabs would make a return, notably Krypto Week to coincide with the release of DC League of SuperPets, a week celebrating the Pube Muppet's 20th birthday, and a collab hosted by RoboticBloxxer to coincide with the year's Barney Bunch anniversary. 2022 proved to be so much of a significant year that, much like Alfardo did with 2016, IronYoshi would make a retrospective video covering the highs and lows the year had to offer.
Expansion Beyond YouTube, Dark Age continuation, and Ninth Generation (2023-present)
After the Eighth Generation ended on a sour note, it seemed like 2023 and the Ninth Generation would bring more of the same. Tracle had initiated its aforementioned site-wide ban on Barney Bunch/Speakonia content, giving its members a deadline to remove their videos before the staff would do it themselves (though by that point the community had already jumped ship following the skirmish the past October). Fandom had begun purging any Wikis relating to the Barney Bunch, including the Speakonia Community Wiki. YouTube was still age-restricting both new and older uploads, with a CEO change seeming to not help matters. The community experienced the tragic loss of another veteran member with dildosdildo123, who passed away in April after a battle with cancer. Many of the key players who helped spearhead the Eighth Generation, including RoboticBloxxer, IronYoshi, and DrewPicklesTheDark, had either became significantly less active or decided to retire for the time being. Despite this, the community still marched forward. The Tracle ban initiated a desire to seek out more alternatives, with Internet Archive, Odysee, and Rumble being the top picks, as well as some members trying to station themselves on past sites like Dailymotion and Newgrounds, with little success. One of the most notable events was the return/revival of Shakeverse's Drew Pickles series, which had remained dormant after the death of Gary21115. Some members also started to get ousted due to past or current actions surfacing.
Future
As of today, the Barney Bunch remains mostly on and off as far as activity goes. The main Discord server has disabled invites (though the Speakonia Community one is still active), and activity on VidLii has decreased significantly save for a few key members like ToiletPranker and DrewPicklesTheDark joining. So if you happen to be browsing YouTube and you come across some videos of a bunch of children show characters and mascots with funny robotic voices talking about their homosexuality, you can stop and appreciate it, because there'll Never Ever be another online community like it.