Cow Chop was a Russian-American gaming channel created by YouTuber personalities UberHaxorNova (James) and ImmortalHD (Aleks), along with Creature employees StaleRender (Aron), MrJoeExtreme (Joe) and ModestCube (Trevor), they were later joined by ex-Machinima employee HungryHundar (Brett), who became their manager. On their channel they created a variety of types of videos such as, video game let’s plays, skits, and other humorous content.
History[]
Cow Chop was created on February 26th, 2016 however, the first video was uploaded on April 1st, 2016. Because of the videos release date, many believed the channel to be an April Fools joke. However, James later responded to the claims and tweeted that is was an official channel. They also stated that it is similar to their old streaming channel a few years back. Cow Chop made most of its 2016 videos in a house they called the “Cow Chop House”, the line up originally consisted of James, Aleks, Trevor, Joe and Aron. Though through 2016 they were joined by Brett, who became their manager, as well as Asher and Anna, employees they hired through Craigslist, and later on Jorel, a behind the scenes intern. The crew was kicked out of the Cow Chop house after a fan sent videos (which included them setting fireworks in the basement and breaking a door down) to the company that owned the house.
During this time Cow Chop had started making plans to move to LA, which was made possible through fans signing up on ”Rooster Teeth First“, but in the mean time they moved to a place they called the “Barn” which they rented cheaply as it used to be a meth lab, during this period Jorel made most of his on camera appearances before his internship ended. During early to mid 2017 Cow Chop finally made their move to LA, renting a warehouse where they produced their content until the end. At the warehouse they were joined by Jakob and Lindsey, as well as a new intern called Jacob. Aron left the team before the move to LA, as he did not want to relocate. In November of 2017 Joe left the group, as he wanted to focus on his family and return to school, around this period Matt joined as a behind the scenes employee. During 2018 Trevor and Anna left, with Trevor getting a goodbye mini series on the channel and Anna releasing a statement on Twitter. Alec and Abby started their internships, with Alec later being hired. At some point in 2018 Tony and John joined the crew, but were off camera. In September of 2018 Asher was let go by Cow Chop, citing that he had a low work ethic and would show up late and not finish his work on time. It appears that Asher and the rest of Cow Chop have ended on bad terms.
In early 2019, James, one half of the duo that created the channel, had an accident while filming a skateboard scene for a video and broke his leg, later on James announced that he would leave the channel in order to pursue a solo YouTube and Twitch career. In response, Aleks posted a video on the channel called "James is Leaving Cow Chop". He explains how the decision is of no surprise and outlines the plan for the rest of the group. Because of contractual obligations, Cow Chop wound up remaining active until the end of the 2019 year. James‘ leave caused the channel‘s subscriber count and views to drop noticeably.
Alec wound up appearing in most of the years content along with Aleks. Jakob, who had stopped appearing in content in mid 2018, also returned on camera. Around the summer of 2019 Garrett and Adri joined the group as interns but were later both hired. In September of 2019 Alec and Lindsey left the channel, as Alec wanted to pursue OFFCANNY, his channel with Jakob, and Lindsey moved to work at Funhaus. Matt also left in November of 2019 on bad terms with the crew, as he wanted to appear in more content, though Brett stated that Matt never approached them about his issues, and that they would’ve listened to him if he had.
During late 2019 Garrett was in most of the content along with Aleks, with Tony, John and Adri appearing in more content, Jakob once again took a back seat, focusing more on the production side. On December 31st, 2019, after ending all of their other shows and doing their Christmas special, Cow Chop uploaded its last video titled “THE FINAL INTERVIEW.” A sequel to their first ever video after the channel trailer ”THE SUCCESS STORY”.
Content[]
Cow Chop uploaded a variety of content such as;
- Wrong Side of YouTube
- Amazon Prime Time
- Original Skits
- Behind the Cow Chop
- CCTV (podcast)
- CC Food Lab & Test Kitchen
- Guinness World Records
- Photoshop Battles
- Woah, That’s a Let’s Play!
- Foreign Import
Members[]
Final[]
- Aleks (2016-2019)
- Brett (2016-2019)
- Jakob (2017-2019)
- Garrett (2019-2019)
- Adri (2019-2019)
- John (2018-2019)
- Tony (2018-2019)
Former[]
- James (2016-2019)
- Aron (2016-2017)
- Joe (2016-2017)
- Anna (2016-2018)
- Trevor (2016-2018)
- Asher (2016-2018)
- Alec (2018-2019)
- Lindsey (2017-2019)
- Matt (2017-2019)
- Abby (2018-2018)
- Jorel (2016-2017)
- Jacob (2017-2017)
Trivia[]
- The channel was associated with The Creatures, a group of people who played various games until April 28th, 2016 when James tweeted that both him and Aleks left The Creatures to dedicate all of their time and efforts to Cow Chop.
- As a goodbye to employee Trevor, he and Aleks had a mini series called “Woah, That’s a Let’s Play!”, where they “played” games while messing around in an RV on the road to the Grand Canyon.
- During an episode of Amazon Prime Time, James gifted Aleks a fish which Aleks called Stan, after his Uber Driver. The fish was later given to intern Jorel, who went on to give monthly updates and pictures of his and Stan’s adventures, up until Stan’s death in April of 2018, a full year after he had been bought.
- Jorel pestered James for over a year with emails to get a job back at Cow Chop.
- Employees Jakob and Alec started their own channel, OFFCANNY during the final year of Cow Chop.
- On March 17, 2019 (the day before James announced his departure from Cow Chop) the channel reached its highest subscriber count of 938,060.
- The Cow Chop set was referenced on NoPixel, a Grand Theft Auto V role-play server James and Aleks frequent on, and both James and Aleks have reacted to it , as well as reacted to each other's reactions to the set.