The Fall of Zaid Magenta: A Critique From A Former Fan · 2:55am Oct 21st, 2023
So…Zaid Magenta is apparently now gone off of YouTube as of a few days ago. I just found out about this after reading TheClownPrinceofCrime’s blog post on it earlier today and this was…honestly something that was bound to happen sooner or later. Now I don’t know what exactly went down as I haven’t been exactly following Zaid’s shenanigans lately, so if y’all could fill me in, I’d really appreciate that. I know some other people on YouTube have covered this already, so I think I need to do some catching up in order to really see what really happened. But if y’all want to know my thoughts on this…I’m ultimately glad he’s gone, as much as it hurts for me to say.
This is going to be another one of my classic rant/personal thoughts posts that y’all seem to like, so buckle up as I got quite a bit to say as a former fan. I previously referenced him in a post I made a long time ago about his horrible review on the G5 IDW Discord comic arc. By that point, I had already lost all my former respect for him and I think I had good reason to. Because the guy was just…horrible, that’s what I’ll describe him as. Not only did he jump on every single hate train in existence, threaten those he didn’t like, act super cocky to the point of arrogance, get himself involved in quite a few controversies, but that every time he acted like he grew from those situations and learned his lesson, he never did. I honestly used to be a huge fan of his back in the day. I watched his videos religiously and I honestly really respected him. When he reviewed something, he called it how it was and didn’t care what anyone else thought in the process, a mindset that helped influence the way I think to this day. So he did have a big impact on my life. But now, I feel nothing after learning that he’s gone.
I don’t think it’s controversial for me to say that since FIM ended, Zaid’s channel fell off dramatically. Not in terms of view count, but more so down to his personality. He became so much more rage-filled, angry. The first sign of this that I began go notice was his video on how the Season 9 Grogar twist ruined Discord, in which, yeah, it did, but the way he went about it was…I don’t know, it just felt off. Just the way he carried himself, the descriptions he was using, the language…the differences between his videos “now” and his FIM reviewing days were like night and day. It’s like MLP was the only good thing left in his life and since that was now gone, he just…spiraled down to the point of no return. Then came his “review” on Cuties and…wow. Now the one thing he did succeed at was convincing me not to go anywhere near that pile of dogshit child porn, but his tone it was next level angry and this is when I began to notice…the threats, the fiery rhetoric, the fever, the rage…the way he wished the worst possible things to happen to its makers. I felt like I was witnessing someone’s downfall from sanity. I had still defended him up until that point (heck, I even made friends with one of his fans and we’re still friends to this day), but it was that video where I began to fall off and I became less and less interested in his content. I began to realize that the sort of fiery clout-chasing hate videos weren’t my style and I began to distance myself from him, only watching his FIM reviews out of nostalgia.
Then came his A New Generation review, which, let’s be real, it wasn’t that bad, though 2023 me definitely feels like giving 2021 me a slap in the face for letting such blatant misinformation slide like that. I watched it out of curiosity and never felt like watching it again, only picking it back up last year to debunk for the defense videos. It was just so tone-deaf and blinded by nostalgia and I never appreciated how he blatantly misrepresented elements of the film to form a false narrative. Even though it wasn’t as bad, the inflammatory rhetoric was still there and it was like he literally fed off of being as angry and negative as possible. I didn’t like how he called the Mane 5 carbon copies of the Mane 6 as even past me could tell that was some bullshit. I didn’t like him at that point and I outright stopped watching him altogether as his style of content was just getting more and more aggressive and I hated how cocky he was getting. The dude has a superiority complex, let’s just put it like that.
Now I basically forgot about him for a good while as I moved on to other things and YouTubers, but then I heard of his big controversy and…while what he did was definitely very disgusting, I wasn’t really an active follower of the whole debacle, so the whole thing really didn’t mean much to me. But Zaid did come back to the Internet via an apology video in which he gave a rundown as to what happened and apologized to all who he had hurt. He also pledged to work on improving himself and get back into his previous mindset. Now I unfortunately fell victim to this ploy and I began to believe that I would finally see the return of the positive ponytuber I fell in love with back in the fandom’s heyday.
Boy…was I WRONG!! Not too long afterwards, he released his infamous video on the Discord arc and that upload right there cemented to me that he had not changed one bit. Still doing the inflammatory monologues, still bringing up Disney and the Star Wars sequel trilogy in a desperate grasp for relevancy, still blatantly misrepresenting elements to form a false narrative. And this video was probably even worse than his previous ones and you’ll see why once the second defense video comes out. But if you want any spoilers, he basically begins it by going after Nadia Heart Retro, someone who rightfully criticized his awful takes. So the first thing MLP-related you do after promising you’ve changed is to go after a person who gave you constructive criticism on your awful ANG review and basically do a victory lap on them because you think that the comics, which aren’t even canon by the way by your own admission, somehow prove your point about G5 as a whole. Nice…And the worst part about that Luna motherf*cking video was that at the end of it, he had the audacity to cast judgement on Make Your Mark without even seeing it, and even ADMITTING that he had no plans to see it! And he uses that to draw a conclusion about the entirety of G5!! Dude, you didn’t even watch the motherfucking show!! And you’re already trying to form a narrative on the entirety of this generation?!! Then why did you…I-UUUUUUUGGGH!!!!
That was the last straw and it cemented to me that he was not going to change AT ALL. Honestly, he didn’t mean anything in his apology and he didn’t follow up on anything he said!! He did not “re-review” A New Generation like he promised, he did not dial back on the aggressive language, he didn’t stop grifting, he…What was even the point?! It was almost if his rebrand was just a publicity stunt and nothing else!! He had fooled me, and he had fooled all of his dumb sheep into believing him. So I told myself I would not be fooled again and abandoned his channel altogether once again. I occasionally checked back every once and a while to see him clown on the Disney remakes, which is probably the lowest effort content he put in, mainly because those kinds of hate grifting videos get clicks no matter what, meaning that you don’t have to try at all in order to pull in a couple thousand. Seeing him resigned to low effort Disney hate content, I felt confident that I wasn’t missing out on anything.
And now he’s gone off of YouTube. Good riddance. While it is sad that he had to go out like this, it was bound to happen sooner or later. In going down all these hate trains and spreading so much negativity, he had basically lost his identity and I don’t feel bad for him in the slightest. He could’ve kept relevancy if he just stayed out of all those controversies, didn’t jump on all the hate trains in existence in order to chase after the skeptic alt-right views. But he chose not to do that and instead, he fooled everyone into thinking he changed TWICE! I don’t have any sympathy for him and honestly, you shouldn’t either. MisAntroPony died when FIM ended. And his rebrand into Zaid Magenta didn’t make things any better. It was just a cover up so he could continue doing the same shit. At this point, I think that the Old Guard falling off of the fandom is ultimately a good thing as that will allow us to rebuild without awful people like Zaid letting their nostalgia for G4 drive them insane. If he stayed on this platform, then I dread what else he was planning before sense got the better of him and he left.
Now obviously, there’s still a lot to this story that I don’t know and I’m going to do some further research in order to find out what caused Zaid to delete his channel. But honestly, I hope he stays gone. No one wants to see him ever again. Whatever relatively positive YouTuber we once knew isn’t here anymore. So we’re not missing anything by taking the time to saying farewell to an era for good, and I hope he stays gone for his own mental health because he was clearly never cut out to be a public figure. As Mr. J said in his own post, the internet isn’t a place for him to harass and bully users. It’s better for him in the long run.
Anyway, that’s all I have to say. This post is my final goodbye to his channel. It’s certainly not the last you’ll be hearing me speak his name as I still need to release the defense video on the G5 Discord IDW comic arc. But in terms of further shenanigans, I’m glad that we’ll never have to hear about any more ever again.
Link to Mr. J’s blog bringing the situation to light: https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/1024933/goodbye-zaid-magenta
But what do you all think? I certainly was surprised on hearing this news, but I’m ultimately glad it happened for his and our sakes. But feel free to let me know what you think down below. With that being said, I will be seeing you all sometime soon. Bye!!
Honestly, the less haters we have around, the better. He won't be missed, I'll tell you that.
Like I said I did remember hearing about him and how much is reputation is something else even during the g4 that's probably how I discover him either Slice of Life or Crusade and the lost mark and I did remember he made a couple of rants about some brony analysis mostly his infinite rant was the golden Fox One and my God that was crazy what he said to him okay I will admit his opinions can be blunt and he gets very angry which that's pretty unhealthy for him he probably do need to get some help and probably stay away from social media and I remember he really rant about season 10 comic and new generation and again it was his opinion but I felt like some of them were pretty not necessarily how he described it it's not as terrible as he sees it or thought about it but he just hates it like there is no tomorrow well I just hope whatever he's doing he probably need to just stay away from social media and probably get some help maybe this will be the time that he will have a normal life I hope he does feels better at least
Feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders with never having to hear him again.
And probably also yours since I don't see any reason to have his video in your defense video anymore
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I still feel like it’s important. I have his videos already saved in my photos, so both the A New Generation and Discord comic arc reviews will still be talked about. As the mission is to debunk as many hate videos as possible, his video is the only review I see of Issues 1-10, so it’s still a necessity to debunk. If anything, I’d be getting the last word in with both defense videos before we can leave his legacy behind forever. Plus, no way am I going back into the editing room and removing over 30 whole minutes of juicy material just because he’s gone. It’s counterproductive, at least how I see it.
And I also did remember when he uploaded his review about new generation and probably he's not going to like it too much but I checked it out to see what he thinks about it and wow he really did not let up all the hatred towards the new generation he was full on ranting on it it was worse when he attacked the season 10 comic and I get it he doesn't like it but he didn't have to go on the attack on it like an atomic bomb and I've been noticing throughout season 8 and 9 he's been really starting to hating what was going on here and probably that's why Mixmaster likes him so much and that's another toxicity fandom right here as well but anyway yeah it was really crazy how he changed for the worst and how his review is becoming a little bit more aggressive and he keeps saying that he'll be careful next time but it felt like he keeps forgetting about it and I think it's about his anger issue which evidently that should have been the red flag during his earlier years of YouTube and he really do need to stay away from social media because the way he's been acting there's something else and it's too bad I kind of did like his videos even though some of them were pretty negative but I gave him a chance until he really blew it I thought he will change I guess I was wrong that's one of the most unfortunate events
Wow… I’ve never watched this person, but from the way you described him, it makes very glad that I came across you and not that guy. Good riddance to him and away from this community I’d say.
Damn. Sounds like this guy really lost it.
Not all ex-bronies are bad; Josh Strife Hayes, a YouTuber who focuses on MMO content, mentioned in a video that, although he no longer watches MLP (he dropped out around Season 4), he has positive memories of it and doesn't judge anybody who still enjoys it.
A shame many G5 critics can't take a leaf out of his book.
Even before all the controversy came to light, I never really liked him in the first place. Not just with his overly negative reviews, but his attitude in general just irritated me.
Even so, I can't believe he would go this far. I mean, openly insulting and threatening someone is bad enough, but making separate accounts for the sole purpose of harassing them is just straight up vile!
Whether or not he ever ends up feeling genuine remorse for his behaviour, I think he's lost the right to ever show his face online again.
Coming from someone who dealt with this overtly toxic and manipulative prick. (I was one of the many people he threatened to slander in his "hatedom documentary"). This guy should stay off of the internet if he knows what's good for him.
I and many others kept calling him out for the way he attacks people over opinions different from him (aside from Cuties, which anyone who defends that movie is a different level of unhinged that deserves hate), using burner accounts (he used those on not just Cartoonshi, but he used it on his detractors both on Twitter and DeviantArt. He death wished them and used them to middle finger his audience with blackmail and threaten to destroy their lives in the process like some anime revenge villain).
I won't act like 40% of his detractors do take it a step too far, but Christian Thomas Diaz has proven that he is no better than they are, and his behavior would only lead his haters to continue badgering him to stop and change and to see him finally get kicked out from the echo chamber that he used as a shield (aka The Senate) is very damning.
Goodbye Zaid, and never come back!
It’s become crystal clear since long before now that a huge majority of this fandom are now devoting their lives to bashing G5 mindlessly and refusing to even give it a chance because they’re still clinging to G4 like some holy gift from the gods. That is just sad. And also really pathetic.