YMMV / PhantomStrider

• And You Thought It Would Fail: In light of the #ChangeTheChannel controversy and the general perceived decline in quality of The Nostalgia Critic, many were expecting the worst with the "10 Banned Fast Food Commercials" video when it was shown that Doug Walker would be doing a collab. However, people refreshingly noticed that Strider served almost as a Morality Pet role to Doug, keeping his jokes from getting too predictable or overblown and making his performance almost feel like a classic Nostalgia Critic video.
• Animation Age Ghetto: Strider is a firm opponent of this audience reaction, as he believes cartoons should be able to be enjoyed by parents and kids.
• Crosses the Line Twice: In his "Worst Sitcoms of All Time," he discusses Heil Honey I'm Home!.
  PhantomStrider: The story is basically Eva Braun, Hitler's wife, is angry at him for being too busy with, you know, The Holocaust!
• Ensemble Dark Horse: DarkStrider. Even though he only appears sporadically in his videos, he is very prominent in fanart.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • With The Mysterious Mr. Enter, due to their (former) mutual respect of one another, and Enter's desire to do a crossover. They’ve even mentioned they’ve talked to each other on their respective reviews of Big Mouth.
  • Same can be said for The Nostalgia Critic after his surprise appearance.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • His Top Ten Creepiest Animated Movies episode featuring The Nostalgia Critic would wind up coming out not long before the whole "Change the Channel" controversy erupted, in which several Channel Awesome producers came out alleging years of mistreatment and mismanagement at the hands of the Channel Awesome higher-ups and Doug Walker himself.
  • At the end of his Top 6 Best and Worst Blue Sky Studios films, Josh wishes them luck under the ownership of Disney. Not long after the video was uploaded, Disney shut the company down during the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • At the end of his video titled "The Worst Cartoon's 3 Lost Episodes", he describes series creator John Kricfalusi as "sad, bitter, spite-filled, damaged, and miserable" based on what Strider saw in the series. Less than two weeks after the video was uploaded, Kricfalusi was accused of sexual misconduct along with creating an overall toxic work environment, making what Strider said about him sound almost polite by comparison.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • His speech towards the end of his Top Ten Worst Family Guy Episodes of All Time, especially when he puts the links to suicide prevention hotline both on the screen and in the description. It really shows how much Josh cares about his audience.
  • In his Worst Gumball Episodes list, when discussing his number one choice (The Girlfriend), he put links to domestic abuse hotlines on screen and in the description.
  • In "Top 6 Worst Religious Animated Movies", he clarifies that #2, a boychild's LEGO stop-motion retelling of Jesus' story, is only on the list from an objective standpoint; he hopes for his work to become popular in theaters. He also spends much of the segment giving praise, like attention to detail with props and being a faithful retelling of the original story without dramatization or sugarcoating.
  • As a tribute to SpongeBob SquarePants creator Stephen Hillenburg, who had recently passed away of ALS, he did a crossover video with The Mysterious Mr. Enter, counting down his ten favorite Sponge Bob episodes. Strider and Enter also give each other a sincere goodbye at the end of the episode, complete with their avatars hugging.
  • Even in his more negative videos, PhantomStrider always tries to end things on a positive note.
  • In his Top 10 Darkest Youtube/Web Cartoons list, he states that regardless of whether he likes the animation or not, he does say that he respects the creators for making them in the first place.
  • Corrupt Strider gets this when, while discussing Don't Hug Me I'm Scared he states that he finds the show both unsettling and beautifully done. He also says that he cannot wait for the television premiere and recommends that viewers give it a look.
• He Panned It, Now He Sucks!: See here.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: His name, considering how Minecraft added two creatures called Phantom and Strider at completely different points in time.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "That is such a stupid Hippy-dippy haircut! I hate it, I hate it! Ugh..."^ExplanationTwo of Strider's complaints about Austin & Ally are that Austin's haircut is ugly, which he expresses with said quote. It has since become a Running Gag.
  • "Why is there a banana on your desk?"^ExplanationStrider has a banana on his desk in almost every video. That is because it's his Trademark Favorite Food. Said phrase is usually seen in his comment section, some even complain about the banana not being there. It got to the point that when Strider makes a video on green-screen, he makes sure that the banana is included.
  • Some of Strider's reactions^note particularly when he's scared or disgusted are popular stock reaction shots in the cartoon community.
• Moe: Boo is pretty adorable. Just look at him!
• Moment of Awesome:
  • In his "Worst Movies of All Time" list, we get the unexpected appearance of one of if not the biggest video critics of all time...
  • His verbal takedown of Peppa Pig's episode "Mr. Skinnylegs", where George befriends a spider and the show says that spiders aren't scary or harmful. Strider then spends the rest of the segment pointing out just how dangerous that line of thinking is, especially in his native Australia, where there are plenty of dangerous spiders (and, incidentally, where that particular episode ended up banned for largely the same reason). He even backs up his point by showing news articles about how deadly their spiders are.
  • The mere fact that he made sure that none of the gruesomely detailed imagery was shown when he talked about "Mr. Garrison's Fancy New Vagina". In other words, he actually fought himself through the episode, editing every shot of the operation out, just so his audience doesn't get to see it. He also calls Trey Parker and Matt Stone out for their hypocrisy of showing a disgustingly accurate representation of a sex change operation but censoring comparatively harmless things, like female characters flashing their breasts.
  • It's minor, but he proves that he can give credit where it's due in "Top Five Best/Worst Cartoon Network Games" when he puts Ed, Edd n Eddy: The Mis-Edventures and Operation: V.I.D.E.O.G.A.M.E., which are both based on shows he doesn't like, in the honorable mentions. He even admits that, while he doesn't like the shows they are based on, it's not fair to judge them just because of that; they are both extremely solid games that he recommends to anyone.
• Narm Charm: His videos practically run on this. At any other time, a guy in his late twenties dancing awkwardly to pop music in transitions, reenacting bad sitcom clichés and talking about bad cartoons in a very varied vocabulary would be downright cringeworthy. But because it's Strider, it's kind of adorable.
• Nausea Fuel: His "Top 10 Worst Cartoons" list includes several shows that seem to have been created solely to shock, disgust, and offend viewers as much as humanly possible, mainly through ridiculous amounts of on-screen bodily fluids and absolutely hideous character designs, including Mr. Pickles, Mega Babies, The Brothers Grunt, and King Star King. Watching the entire video from beginning to end requires a stomach of titanium.
  YouTube commenter: Do you know why Strider is a legend? He had to watch at LEAST 1:00 of each and every one thing on this list.
• Seasonal Rot:
  • From 2021 to present, Strider's content has noticeably started to become lacking in variety, as most of the videos he uploads are mainly focused around SpongeBob SquarePants and LEGO with not that many other different shows or franchises he likes or has heard of being put in the limelight.
  • 2022 has seen him stray even further from making lists on cartoons, instead focusing on other things, namely what he considers the worst food.
• Tear Jerker:
  • His speech about the infamous scene in "Brian's a Bad Father" is quite depressing, especially with the dramatic, quiet music and his no-nonsense, serious talking with the viewer.
    Let me sweep in frankly for a second. Sorry to break the video with this live action. If you ever feel suicidal thoughts, call this number in the U.S.^note 800-273-8255 and this number in the U.K.^note [phone]. I've also attached other countries in the description. Sorry to show you this "joke." You deserve better. And with that out of the way, let's continue the review.
  • His speech about Marvin Marvin and how it saddens him that it just existed. Not helping is that Lucas' popularity broke him a little.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Boo, Strider's animated companion, is everywhere; he's in his profile icon, appears at the beginning of every single one of his videos, and is in Strider's merch. However, he never really plays a role in Strider's videos^note outside of his own video, "Boo's Clues", which is rather odd considering he's the closest thing Strider has as a mascot. Strider himself even points this out a few times.

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