End of Fwoosh Weekly with Robo

I just posted this as its own thread as well. You beat me to it. Here's what I originally said along with the sources.

This was posted to the Fwoosh Patreon by Robo this morning:

And this was posted to VeeBee's Instagram account this morning:

View this post on Instagram

I'm not sure what that means for the forum (as Robo seemed responsible for a good deal of the maintenance), or even whether this post will stay up, but I thought it was worth posting and discussing.

I actually thought Robo owned The Fwoosh until just now. I thought he was a welder by trade, worked as a welder at least part-time, and part-time ran this site and did the YouTube so he could write off toys as a business expense.

It sounds like there was some differences between whoever owns The Fwoosh and Robo and Veebs. I'm guessing whoever owns The Fwoosh will remove this thread if speculate in a disrespectful way. So perhaps it's best to just keep this thread as a "Thanks for the good work guys, best of luck"

@ben Pabs owns Fwoosh.

But I was under the impression Pabs, Robo, and Veebs were very close friends, so it's shocking to see Veebs and Robo stepping away, and it honestly does make me sad, even if that's a bit silly. Veebs and Robo have been the face of Fwoosh, and in my honest opinion, they've been the face of fun and positivity in toy collecting. To me they're so intertwined with what Fwoosh is, that I'm struggling to imagine what, even IF, it's going to be without them.

About (thefwoosh.com) has some details about staff roles, but yes, to the extent this was largely a three-person operation it seems, both Robo and Veebs leaving is a huge change. 

Paul Wolf (pablolobo): CEO and Founder
Brian Rutherford (RoboKillah): Chief Operating Officer
Nic Wood (VeeBee): Chief Content Officer/Editor-in-Chief 

Man, end of an era. I've not been a regular on here for most of it, and would barely call myself that now, but for the last 20 years, Robo and Veebs were the public face of the Fwoosh, and it was great seeing them step into the Youtube space and champion a throughtful, respectful, and very down-to-earth approach to engaging with the community and being amabassadors for the hobby.

I wonder if the Fwoosh is going to be moving more towards being a toy company? It's always been a bit murky to me as to how that all works.

Very glad that Robo is going to keep doing the youtube thing, because he's one of my favs out there, and here's hoping they both keep doing their livestreams. I could do with more toy talk and less food talk, but that's just me, and what else are you gonna talk about 2 hours into a stream when the toy news is all chewed up?

Here's hoping the forums can stick around though, it's so great having somewhere that isn't Reddit or Facebook to talk toys in an actual forum setting that just can't be beat.

This is truly the end of an era. To have the privilege of getting to Know both Robo and veebs for the past 20 years, all the way back from the Fwooshnet's humble begining has been an amazing time. I feel like we should throw a virtual retirement party for these two. No one will ever replace these two titans. Godspeed guys. We wish you both nothing but the best

Sad to see them both go, and like others I wonder what that will mean for the forums and Youtube channel. 

I do wonder if the writing was on the wall over the past year.  Another, fairly long, downtime for the forums with lost data again.  The Fwooshcast and other content, outside of The Weekly, seemed to become more hit and miss.  The livestreams took a dive for a while where there didn't seem to be anymore regular schedule.  (of course life can get in the way)

Things seemed to pick back up in the latter part of the year. 

So I guess we'll see how it goes.  I think the landscape is changing for toy collecting, and especially content creators.  I find the longer term guys aren't as high on my watch/subscribe list as they used to be.  Secret (formerly Toy) Galaxy, Pixel Dan, Shartimus, and honestly even Robo and Veebs.  All of them still do content, but I find they aren't as prominent for me anymore.  I still check them out, but frankly not as regularly as other content creators. 

I think it comes down to me having, more and more, a preference for livestreams over created content.  I would rather hop on to a livestream and listen in to the flow of talk about the latest news or unboxings, or just shooting the #$%^.  The premade stuff isn't as interesting to me anymore.  Of course I still check in, but I usually look for the live stuff first.

Anyway all the best, as always, to Robo and Veebs, and I'll keep checking them out.

As someone who joined up maybe relatively late (4 years ago), I've never totally understood who all were considered "The Fwoosh" and where the boundaries of Fwooshdom lay. What was a job, what was a hobby, and what was a term I'm going to now trademark - a "jobby". Especially since they do toy production. 

I know Robo seemed to be at least responsible for this forum, so I am interested to see if a replacement owner arises, and if The Fwoosh will be putting forward new faces to do reviews, The Weekly, etc. Regardless, I will follow Robo and Veebs wherever they may go, truly the Bert and Ernie of the toy world. 

But which ones which??

A bummer for sure. Been visiting the forums far longer than I've been posting, and yeah, I always saw Robo as the "face" of Fwoosh in an odd way. I'll definitely keep tabs on whatever he and Veebs do next; even without meeting either, they've become a regular part of my life that would be a bummer to miss out on. Excelsior, my friends.

Posted by: @hopethisworks

↑

so I am interested to see if a replacement owner arises

 

 

Again, just to be clear, Robo was never the owner and Fwoosh doesn't need a replacement owner because the owner hasn't gone anywhere, as far as I'm aware. Pabs just isn't super active on forums and hasn't been for pretty much as long as I can remember.

Is there a story for why they left?

@theknightdamien sorry, I meant replacement owner for the forums, not The Fwoosh in general. While Robo may not have owned it in a business or financial sense, it seemed to be something he was particularly responsible for creating and maintaining. So, a replacement Forum Master? Forum creator? IT guy? I dunno the term.

Saw Veebs' post on Instagram and came here to see if there was any chatter. And Robo is leaving too! Like others have said, this is a huge change and while I hope they move on to bigger and better things for themselves, it feels like such a blow. Fwoosh has been part of my collecting for 20 years now, and those two are a huge part of what the Fwoosh is. Really wishing the best for both of them - and more than a little anxious about what their departure means for this community.

@hopethisworks Got'cha! I imagine it's likely Pabs will just take over managing the forums - probably with the help of some of the guys that did it previously. OR we're looking at the Fwoosh, as a toy forum, just not existing either very soon or the next time it has a small conniption fit and dumps all our data. Not a comforting thought but definitely a possibility. Especially if the reason for this split is that Pabs is taking Fwoosh more in a 'toy company' direction and less a 'toy reviews/discussion' direction.