Dattebayo Downsizes Trolling Department, Cites Falling Revenues
2008/04/23
Dattebayo Fansubs, LLC, announced today that it has dramatically downsized its trolling department. Dattebayo’s Head Data Analyst, Interacti, stated, “Trolling revenues, in terms of units of human misery, are down 73.31% from last year. With profits like that, we just can’t justify the salaries we’re paying our Chief Trolling Officer and his staff.” According to the latest data, over 95% of the responses to DB’s “Bleach 166 HDTV” troll were positive, with similar numbers for their “Bleach Movie Diamond Dust Reballion” troll. Interactii continued, “In the past, nearly every troll we released resulted in hundreds of annoyed, angry, or confused responses, with just a few dozen people who would comment that they ‘got it’. Now we get people commenting on how obvious the trolls are, but they download them anyway because they enjoy them. Even when people are trolled, they no longer get upset, they just write ‘Oh, funny, you got me.’ Where is the anger? Where is the outrage?”
Dattebayo began to notice a shift in the community when they released their second statement concerning YouTube and other streaming sites. According to Lafnear, one of Dattebayo’s timers, who also works in the Trolling Department, “When we released our first statement regarding YouTube, which incidentally, was not even a troll, on April 16, 2007, there was a huge backlash from angry fans.” DB’s reputation, according to sources in the community, was at an all time low. “However, when we released our second statement later that year, which claimed, falsely, that we would cease all fansubbing activities unless our episodes were taken off YouTube and other streaming sites, we got so much support from our fans, it was ridiculous. That’s when we knew things had to change.”
Dattebayo has attempted to revitalize its trolling in the past few months by introducing new models and systems of trolling. Zarharva, Dattebayo editor, typesetter, and mastermind behind the “Diamond Dust Reballion Troll”, stated, “The old style of trolling just wasn’t working anymore. People were fed up with us telling them we were going to drop Naruto unless they downloaded Pokemon. We knew we had to make some changes.” However, claims that DB would delay episodes due to fan hate mail, that Bleach episodes would explode if downloaded from other sites, and even a recent announcement that Dattebayo would be changing their fansubbing process by implementing unnecessary steps and delays have failed to bolster falling trolling profits.
Chief Trolling Officer and Dattebayo encoder timecop was not happy to hear that his trolling responsibilities had been reduced to almost nothing. “Do they really think I'm in this because I love encoding? If someone doesn’t do something about this, I may have to look for a group that can better appreciate my unique talents. I hear zomgSubs is looking for staff. This Trolling Department would be nothing without me. After all, they can’t keep firing me if I’ve already quit.”
DB’s former Trolling Headquarters, a defunct onion factory on the outskirts of Seattle, Washington, has already been sold. It is scheduled to be demolished and will be replaced with a Super Wal-Mart and several dozen Starbucks.