| “ | Hey guys! PIEGUYRULZ here! | ” |
―Intro | ||
Alex (born November 4, 1993), better known online as PIEGUYRULZ and also known as A.J., is an American retired YouTuber who was known for reviewing cartoons marketed towards children, primarily Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network. At the time he retired from making YouTube content in 2023, Alex had over over 75 thousand subscribers and had made 756 videos.
Content[]
Alex discussed cartoons and occasionally live action shows. He mostly discussed SpongeBob SquarePants, Steven Universe, Adventure Time, and Nickelodeon in general. Alex also had a secondary channel, Pieguy Plays, where he did Let's Plays on video games based on cartoons. His most successful series was Every Episode of SpongeBob Reviewed, and had several other successful series, including Spongey Bits, Square Theory, and Bottom of the Bakery.
Alex began making videos in 2008, and grew a loyal fanbase in the mid-2010s primarily through his SpongeBob content. In 2020, he announced he was retiring from SpongeBob content as he lost interest in the series. In 2022, Alex didn't upload any videos or host any streams past April, with Alex later going dark on all social media platforms by August. In 2023, he announced that the channel has run its course, and no more future videos would be uploaded, having lost his passion for making videos and the animation industry as a whole.
Biography[]
Career[]
Alex began his YouTube career in April 2008, and started out with a series called Animal Crossing Abridged, which ran for 16 episodes. He made his first rant video that November, a three-part series Nick Rant: The Worst and Most Neglected Shows. In November 2009, Alex made his first SpongeBob SquarePants video, a two-part series called spongebob rant. In 2012, he made three rant videos about three SpongeBob episodes he disliked, SpongeHenge, The Splinter, and Face Freeze. Later that year he did a review of the SpongeBob christmas special "It's A SpongeBob Christmas!".
In 2013, Alex began his most successful series, Every Episode of SpongeBob Reviewed, which he made with the intention of reviewing every episode of SpongeBob. He was inspired to make the series after noticing a post on the SpongeBob fansite SpongeBuddy Mania. By the time he retired the series in 2020, he had covered the first ten seasons in addition to the first two films, The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie and Sponge Out Of Water. It would become his most successful series, which led to Alex making two spin-off series about SpongeBob, Spongey Bits and Square Theory. Alex got a lot of subscribers after his crossover with The Mysterious Mr. Enter, and there was also an increase after he was given a brief shout-out in RebelTaxi's Incredible Crew Review. His appearances in some of Nathaniel Bandy's videos also helped increase his popularity, with Alex becoming one of the most successful SpongeBob content creators throughout the mid-2010s. SpongeBuddy Mania received a steady stream of new members from Alex's fanbase, due to it being regularly referenced in his SpongeBob Season Reviews. He would later quietly stop mentioning the site in 2018 due to major controversies arising with its administration.
In 2015, Alex began his second most successful series, Bottom of the Bakery, where he discussed bad episodes of Schneider's Bakery shows. He followed this up with the series Bizzaro Bakery, where he discussed good episodes of live action Nickelodeon shows in this series; more specifically, he discussed episodes that take the concepts of the previous Bottom of the Bakery episodes and does them way better
Alex also made videos on shows such as Adventure Time and Steven Universe, doing a series of videos called Adventure Time TVlogs where he discussed newer episodes of Adventure Time. The show used to be the main series he talked about on the channel. Alex later retired the series because he didn't have much to say during Season 6 and had stopped regularly watching Adventure Time due to falling out of love with the show. In 2018, Alex began a podcast with MonstersReview called RE-Cast, where they talked about episodes from cartoon that have a similar plot and they discussed about them. They also invited guests on podcast, including Chuggaaconroy and Nathaniel Brandy. The podcast ran for 69 episodes, concluding in 2021. In 2018, Alex also began the series Every Episode of Teen Titans (2003) Reviewed, which was supposed to cover all five seasons of the show (and presumably the finale movie Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo), but due to low viewership and a creator breakdown, only Season 1 was ever reviewed.
Outside of his main channel, Alex also had a secondary channel, Pieguy Plays, where he did Let's Plays of video games based on cartoons, typically SpongeBob. He played Revenge of the Flying Dutchman, Battle for Bikini Bottom, Nicktoons Unite!, Ed Edd n Eddy: The Mis-Edventures, and The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie game.
In 2020, Alex opened up in an update video about a creator breakdown he went through following the "Every Episode of SpongeBob Season 10 Reviewed" video; the combination of getting double-crossed by a close friend, backlash over the SpongeBob Season 10 review itself, switching to exclusively hosting the RE-Cast podcasts, and an overall loss of passion for reviewing and analyzing SpongeBob and Schneider's Bakery shows left Alex at a creative dead-end where he was uncertain of what to do with his channel anymore and at times considered just stopping making YouTube videos altogether. On top of that, he lost an entire family section to COVID-19 during the making of a Disney+ video. He also stated in this update video that he didn't feel any passion making SpongeBob season reviews anymore, saying the last time he felt that drive was probably around the Season 6 video. He specifically cited the Season 10 video as one that he approached entirely out of obligation and was a slog to produce.
In 2021, Alex used the format for his series Every Episode of Adventure Time Reviewed, which he intended to discuss every season of Adventure Time, but ultimately only discussed the first two seasons. The final episodes of Bottom Of The Bakery and Every Episode Of Adventure Time Reviewed both ended on a note that there were more videos to come, but neither show would receive any instalments. Alex wouldn’t upload any videos or host any streams past April 2022, with Alex later going dark on all social media platforms by August of that year. It would take until the release of a community post in March 2023 to confirm Alex had retried from making content online.
Retirement[]
On March 22, 2023, Alex announced he was leaving YouTube, having put off saying goodbye for a year. In his farewell message, he said that he had lost his drive for content creation and the animation industry as a whole. Though a major factor was just growing up and becoming a different person his channel no longer reflected, he also felt harshly about many aspects tangential to his channel. This included the large number of creators in animation who have been exposed as abusive individuals, YouTube doing nothing to deal with the sexual predators on their site, and the increasing toxicity of media discourse souring his interest of expressing opinions online.
Trivia[]
- Regarding the name PieGuyRulz, it was initially created for Cartoon Orbit with its random name generator (at least the Pie-Guy part, anyway). The name he goes by in Real Life is A.J.
- When Alex was struggling to make his Season 11 review of SpongeBob, he toyed with the idea of doing a full re-review (as in a completely new script and rankings) for Season 1. In the process of rewatching Season 1 however, Alex came to the conclusion he no longer found any episode of SpongeBob to be funny or engaging after watching the show so many times. This resulted in him scrapping the re-review of the first season and all seasonal reviews after the 10th season.
- At one point Alex planned to remaster his reviews of SpongeBob Seasons 1-3 to add in the Piecons and bring its visuals up to the standards set in the Season 4 review. He also had plans to cover the top 10 best and worst episodes of the entire series. With the discontinuation of the SpongeBob review series and his later retirement, these plans were scrapped.
- Alex planned to review every season of Adventure Time and its follow-up mini-series Adventure Time: Distant Lands. Ultimately, he only reviewed the first two seasons prior to his retirement.
References[]
