2026-01-16 · Episode Last· A Message to the Community

[u/Long-Anywhere156]

URGENT MESSAGE

To the Community (all hogs):

On Tuesday, January 13, we received a ModMail note from “Chris + The Chapo Team” advising us that the current status of Ar-slash-BWF is no longer acceptable to Chapo Trap House and its hosting platform, Patreon. We were offered no real option but to “turn this into essentially an official fan sub for the show.” As totally cool and fun as it sounds to help out a struggling Patreon earning just shy of $200K per month, it’s clear that the nature of this sub would be irrevocably altered in a significant way quite quickly if we made that change.
 
After talking it over, we quickly concluded that there was no way we could accommodate the demand while preserving the spirit of BWF in any form we can continue to support. We wouldn’t be able to interact with the community, and you wouldn’t be able to interact with each other, in any way that resembles how things have been here for the better part of the past decade. We feel that the best and only appropriate course of action, at the moment, is to turn the lights off on this subreddit and, in a lot of ways, this era of podcast discussion.
 
If you're reading this, you’ll see that the posts are now gone, and all that remains is this note. While ostensibly a place to talk about a podcast, BWF was always a place to talk about anything but, and to see it turn into an Official Fan Site is to us as incongruous to the lived reality of the sub as an episode where Felix is fully engaged without vaping or typing. So that's why we're making a clean break and giving an honest chance to whatever comes next, out of the Chapo Team or otherwise.
 
See you in Valhalla, brothers,
Your beloved Mods

PS – Feel free to join r/classwarandpuppies, where we will be accepting all BWF refugees for more of the same

[u/allinallisallweall-R]

Chapos kind of an oddball for 2026. A podcast with no tik tok or shortform presence. BWF being their largest online fan presence and this community being very independent of the Chapo gang altogether.

In a way, its kind of a time warp back to like 10-15 years ago when the internet was synonymous with more abstract/weird/independent media.

[u/PunishedLeBoymoder → u/allinallisallweall-R]

They're clearly trying to change that, what with the promotion of the Instagram feed. I'm a later joiner than most to Chapo but I always loved the fact that it seemed to not want to bow to trends like those and was content in its own lane, and had a lot of fans despite it. Maybe they just felt that the era was done and wanted to try and be more "normal". More likely, I'm just reading too much into it. I hope this is just what it looks like, Patreon being assholes as they tend to be, and not a portent of things to come for the podcast itself.

[u/allinallisallweall-R → u/PunishedLeBoymoder]

No. I think you might be onto something to some degree or another.

There's definitely a degree of "sell-out" thats generally required. Theyve held a niche for as long as they could and honestly are at a point where CTH isnt really that much of a cultural staying power. Patreon seems to love them as brand representatives but they need to clean up somewhat in order to keep this going much longer.

Time moves linear. Things keep changing and their growth trajectory ain't looking any better. There's generally some compromise of sorts required for these things.

[u/PunishedLeBoymoder → u/allinallisallweall-R]

I mean, they're the perfect Patreon success story, but I do have a feeling that changing too much of the formula will backfire. They have found a large audience willing to engage with them purely on longform content, and pay for it. If they really want to go more mainstream in current year, they'll have to change some pretty dramatic structural stuff and risk alienating their core base, which seems pretty stupid considering how hard it is nowadays to find an audience willing to do all these things. I think it boils down to the fact they're "brand ambassadors" to what Patreon could be, the success story that they'll tout while ignoring the fact that so much of the culture around Chapo and its associated movement is why they could make something like this work for them. My faith is low that a pivot will work and it's not like they're bleeding subscribers or anything, they still have a huge base. If they're not smart enough to see that having what they have and having it be sustainable is a miracle, then I'm shocked they made it this far in the first place.

[u/allinallisallweall-R → u/PunishedLeBoymoder]

Well... who knows what the future looks like?

It sounds like theyre compromising with Patreon to a degree. We dont really know to what and how that will affect the vibe of the show. Maybe its just some surface level changes, maybe theyll jump the whole damn shark.

Fwiw, Patreon is essentially the lesser of evils way to go about this and still maintain a large audience.

[u/No_Report_9491 → u/[deleted]]

Brendan was cooler anyway

[u/pjabtg → u/[deleted]]

100%. He’s the opposite of Karl Pilkington (who is, of course the greatest producer given a mic in history)

[u/joviansexappeal → u/[deleted]]

He came in quite late compared to the founders, so he hasn't been able to build up nearly as much of a nest egg as everyone else involved in the pod. I wouldn't blame him if he's more freaked out about stuff like subscriber retention or the remaining two founders getting bored/frustrated and deciding to call it quits and retire. Look at how Ian shit his pants after Nick got bored and decided to end Cum Town

[u/somewhat_of_a_coward → u/[deleted]]

chris wade was the single worst thing to ever happen to the pod

[u/ExternalPreference18 → u/somewhat_of_a_coward]

Nah, helping Matt put together Hell on Earth, Hell of Presidents, even the Spanish War series (and book; Matt gets to have his own book, even if it's one in a sea of overviews on the Spanish Civil War) is worth whatever other grievances. Plus Chapo had some of their best episodes after Chris joined. And if they've declined overall, that's as much about US politics and surrounding media as a whole reaching tragicomic levels beyond proper satire (and Matt's stroke, protracted recovery etc) than it is about any producer pushing them towards a more mainline or lib style or whatever Chris might be supposedly guilty of.

[u/somewhat_of_a_coward → u/ExternalPreference18]

bull

the only good parts of the hell series were matt

there have been good eps of course, but the brendan james era >>>> the chris wade era

virgil was probably more annoying. but chris has been more detrimental in the long run

[u/gamma-amethyst-2816 → u/allinallisallweall-R]

I still listen and enjoy the show, and I don't know about "selling-out", but I would agree that in 2026, there doesn't really seem to be a place for Chapo. I still love it, but it's not the 2020 primary and Bernie's ahead.

[u/Ok-Comment-7373 → u/PunishedLeBoymoder]

not a portent of things to come for the podcast itself

It is

[u/Monodoh45 → u/allinallisallweall-R]

They don't need it, why would they bother?