Fans Think One Member Helped End the Derp Crew — Here's What Happened

Gaming content creators are immensely popular on YouTube. In fact, it's the most widely-watched type of content consumed on the platform.

In fact, in 2020 alone, over 100 billion hours of gaming-focused content was consumed by users on the video sharing platform, and there doesn't seem to be any shortage of demand for content in this vertical.

One popular gaming group, The Derp Crew, hasn't put out collaborative content in a long time. Leaving fans of the team to wonder: what happened?

The team consisted of individual streamers, friends, and YouTubers who would play games together and post a series of video logs and skits. Primarily, Derp Crew content featured ChilledChaos, Smarty, GaLm, ZeRoyalViking, Tom Fawkes, and Aphex Arcade.

Questions about the team surfaced after after nearly two decades online.

In a February 15, 2020 video, Viking recorded a video explaining why the group is no longer putting together videos of their gaming sessions online.

From the top, he explains that The Derp Crew didn't effectively "disband" due to drama or any spats they had with one another.

He went on to state that they are still friends and regularly hop on games together. But that they just aren't posting videos of their sessions.

Viking references a video uploaded by Chilled who explained that he was "burnt out" by regularly posting content on YouTube.

He said that Chilled wanted to focus his efforts on Twitch gaming, rather than managing the multi-camera setups for their YouTube gaming sessions, and editing all of that content together.

Viking said that he speculates everyone in the Derp Crew experienced burnout in some capacity or another.

Furthermore, each member of the crew responded to this burn out in different ways. While Chilled wanted to record more multiplayer set ups, Viking says that he focused on playing with other streamers or recording himself playing single player gaming sessions.

Other members, like Chilled, headed towards Twitch streaming instead.

Ultimately, he said that everyone in the crew's goals shifted throughout the years, and trying to keep everyone on the same track proved to be a tall order to satisfy unilaterally.

Viking went on to state at the time that he wanted to branch out more and diversify his content, which included streaming. So he did just that. He also added that he doesn't feel as if The Derp Crew could ever really "disband" as it was never an official business entity.

Viking mentioned that each individual member of the Derp Crew didn't want to become too overly reliant on one another. Which he said he was guilty of doing himself in the past with another gaming group he was a part of called The Creatures.

He says that he didn't want to be codependent on other folks just to make content. This is why he began posting more of his own content.

And at one point in the video he says that managing "the business side of things" with personal friendships was a challenge for The Derp Crew.

In a Twitch clip shared by Chilled, he addressed some of the problems that occurred between members of The Derp Crew. His remarks paint a different picture than the one presented by Viking, suggesting that there was indeed some behind the scenes drama between content creators on the team.

Aphex seemingly corroborated that there was indeed some drama between a member of The Derp Crew, specifically GaLm, in a Twitch clip of his own.

Redditors in this forum post mentioned that GaLm's management of fan donations and tempestuous interactions with other members of The Derp Crew is what ultimately caused the team to stop uploading content together.