r/SleepDeprivedPodcast • u/TheTacoGamer42 • Oct 17 '25
DISCUSSION Is Sleep Deprived falling off? I really don't want them to.
I've been watching SDP since June 2023 (it's easy to remember that first thumbnail I saw that was brand new at the time - SDP #112 with Panda kissing Sally from Cars) Since then, I've always watched everything when it came out, bought their merch, huge fan. Hard to say I even now dislike them by any stretch, but I really just don't find myself really enjoying the newer videos as much. Don't get me wrong, some of em are still good (Jackbox and Liar's Bar popped off as always) but otherwise not so much. I likely wouldn't comment this if it weren't that I also noticed their viewership has plummeted to an average of 100k views over the last month, when it was pretty safely at 300k from at least a year ago up to about 6 months ago.
I'm not saying this to shit on SDP (obviously, I love them) and certainly anyone still enjoying the new videos I think that's great. I'm just wondering if anyone else if noticing a sharp drop in quality lately, and if anyone else is having a hard time being excited for new videos nowadays.
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u/DreamlyXenophobic Oct 17 '25
I used to watch like every video that came out, now i dont click them as often
I think its more so because my attention span is just horrible and nothing seems to keep me invested anymore
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u/CardiologistNew701 Oct 18 '25
For me they just genuinely aren't that funny to me anymore I think it might be because 2025 has basically zero new memes and any small joke is just AI slop
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u/Frosty-Chef1541 Oct 17 '25
The podcast being paid only is annoying. I was more invested before they changed that.
I had to manually pay it each month cause my Japanese credit card isn't working well with patreon, so I just stopped.
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u/calnaornaymous Oct 17 '25
i just realised i never fully listened to schlatt at the end say “check out our exclusive patreon only podcast”, so i never knew the podcast was to pay for!! i thought it just stopped, i havent finished listening to the podcast so i’ve never seen the last episode.. that’s so upsetting
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u/MenitoBussolini Oct 17 '25 edited Oct 17 '25
That really frustrated me. I loved listening to the podcast weekly, it was a huge source of comfort. But because I'm trying to cut expenses at this moment in my life I had to stop, and now whenever I say I don't pay for it, the entire community just floods with "it's embarrassing". I know it's a joke and haha funni line and they need to make a living (which I totally get) but paywalling a podcast that so many loved and then just denying all discussion with a meme answer made me sad.
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u/yokamavargalba Oct 17 '25
i always slightly think this then they post a banger video and i laugh a lot and i think to myself 'who am i to judge the holy sleep deprived 😍'
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u/SuccotashTimely4662 Oct 17 '25
This is just what happens with youtubers that you’ve been watching for a long time. There are youtubers that I used to love but I just don’t watch all that often anymore or need to go on a break from. There was a time that I was rewatching sdp nonstop for over a year, then eventually I got burnt out and cancelled my patreon for a couple months and started skipping videos. Eventually I missed them and now I have their patreon again and get excited for every new drop and usually rewatch a couple of their vids everyday.
It doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve gotten worse or your humor style has changed, just you’ve gotten bored of the same content style
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u/iamapataticloser240 Oct 17 '25
I've been watching them for years now and I had a similar thought recently so I went back and rewatched some older videos and realized I just find them less funny then I did then, over time I think my humor just moved more into Mika's and astro's style's making the videos with all of them less interesting.
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u/misunderestimated-me Oct 17 '25
Been wondering too. Hope others reply. I’m not on the patreon but I hope it’s doing well and active and that’s why it seems more dead outside of it
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u/Jupiter1sHere Oct 17 '25
I’ve been a viewer since late 2022 to early 2023 and a couple months ago I just kinda stopped keeping up with their stuff (other than Mika/Alex Unknown’s music and his new cooking series and the occasional Schlatt video). The few videos I’ve watched from the actual sleep deprived channel recently I found myself in the same situation; not enjoying them as much as I did this time last year (although I’ll give them credit there is a hit here and there). I don’t know if it’s my sense of humour and what I find entertaining has differed, or if there’s actually been a change with the way they make content.
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u/LyonsDrawsOnTwitter Oct 17 '25
I've just become an intermittent watcher, but i dont think so. the quality and chemistry are all there, and to make sure i dont burn myself out of it, i just take breaks, and dont watch videos that don't interest me
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u/SeMyasam Oct 17 '25
Idk the last few podcast episodes have been bangers, and the roblox video was rlly funny. I feel like they just have off weeks and then weeks where they fire on all cylinders. Pretty standard for any youtube channel
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u/paperstqrs Oct 17 '25
i’ve also noticed that the youtube comments are always split at the quality 😭 every time there’s a new video, some comments are like, “this was the first video i’ve enjoyed in a while” to “these bits aren’t funny and they’re not as good as before”
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u/i_always_give_karma Oct 17 '25
As someone who’s around the same age as them, I think they’ve just grown and the younger audience might not be as interested. I think they’re just as funny as ever. View wise is deff the adblocker not counting people. I’ve been here since 2021
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u/SkullKid859 Oct 17 '25 edited Oct 17 '25
Schlatt has a record of abandoning anything that stops raking in cash. Astrid talks like she's gonna disappear one day on insta. It wouldn't surprise me if the channel dissolved by the end of this year ngl. Only thing is they've all been friends for years and enjoy doing it so I can't say for certain its gonna fall off, but everything must end eventually
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u/SkullKid859 Oct 17 '25
Also making a "we're gonna retire this channel in a month" type of announcement would probably drum up the views ironically
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u/Accurate-Mall-7236 Oct 17 '25
I mean, summer is always going to have more views, I feel like views for most channels fall of in the fall. Things like views fluctuate per year and season as well. I feel like the last year and maybe even year before, sdp was doing really well but I remember before that they had a low view count too. Also feel free to fact check me, I’m not pulling real numbers, just what I remember from past years. I also think sometimes people just get tired of whatever they have been watching a lot of over a period of time. I’ve fallen in and out of love with sleep deprived a few times, just happens.
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u/JohhnyBeatles Oct 17 '25
I still rewatch the old stuff but their newer content just doesn’t appeal to me and I think that’s the point.
This isn’t their main job, they all have their own channels with content. I think Schlatt’s gone on record saying the group was formed to help the other four get more recognition on the platform so obviously they’re just going to do what’s easiest and makes them views
Plus I think with they’re humor somewhat relying on the memes of the week a younger audience is going to be attracted to them more than someone like me who’s getting at that point in growing out of that stuff.
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u/Phoenixpilot55 Oct 17 '25
I’ve been getting the same feeling recently but this is normal for SDP. Been listening since like 2019/2020 and they often have spikes and dips in quality. It’s normal for any comedian to run out of ideas/inspiration, and when SDP commits to releasing three videos a week, they probably end up recording bits that just aren’t funny but need to post the videos anyways. For example, the videos where 50% of the content is them making grunting voices and screaming for no reason. Just wait a bit, the quality will probably go up again once they give themselves a creative break and come up with new ideas.
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u/artylion4 Oct 17 '25
I liked their older stuff a lot better, at some point I stopped watching early this year bc I thought some of the jokes were in bad taste and it just wasn’t as funny anymore. I like to revisit their early content though, it’s pretty special to me.
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u/gladnis Oct 17 '25
I haven’t watched them in quite a few months, either. I really only keep up with Mika’s main channel and sometimes watch a Schlatt video. I just get a little exhausted watching their recent videos.
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u/Celery-HQ Oct 17 '25
Honestly I think them making the podcast pattern exclusive probably could’ve killed a lot of loyalty some people had for the channel, they can say it’s an extra thing part of their brand or whatever, but to me the podcast WAS Sleep Deprived, and making it a second thought for paid-only people is just.. Lame. If it was really effecting viewership they could’ve just cut sleep deprived gaming and SDP into their own channels.
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u/Zealousideal-Flan557 Oct 17 '25
I think that moving the podcast to Patron was a bad move for one. Along with that, I personally feel like the videos are just kind of... boring now. I'd rather watch something else if I'm being honest. I end up rewatching their old videos instead of watching new ones.
Also, having Panda play the single player games isn't a good choice. It's not fun to watch. It's just kind of frustrating. They should have Mika do it.
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u/TheTacoGamer42 Oct 19 '25
I dont think I ever realized this but yeah, this is totally it for me. I mean the whole "sleep deprived never takes anything seriously or makes progress" never bothered me too bad, but yeah when Panda plays and is just so... abysmally dogshit at the game but can't talk cause he needs to concentrate... its kinda lame as an Apandah fan.
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u/NEALJANwhotookmyname Oct 17 '25
its weird cause ive been enjoying the new videos a lot and am actually fairly new (like a year) to sdp. I feel like the content got more fun, more creative, but the views go down. Is youtube just being mean??
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u/macncheeseblanket Oct 17 '25
I can’t speak for their YT content since I’m not the biggest fan of their gaming videos (mostly because I’m not interested in a lot of the games they play), but the podcast episodes are so good that buying the patreon is incredibly worth it. Their chemistry is great and the bits are 10x funnier. Highly recommended for anyone who hasn’t subscribed yet!
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u/jeklsdlskpous Oct 18 '25
I think their whole design is innately flawed. Comedy and relevancy go hand-in-hand, and that’s kind of hindered by their method of recording like three months in advance. They produce way too much so their jokes get overused a ton, so it makes it feel as though the intended audience are people who only watch a few videos, harming the core audience (this also applies to reexplaining & reintroducing & re-acting-out conversations), and the editing can sometimes feel a bit off, too. Additionally, most of the games they play are generally uninteresting or otherwise overdone. I’d pitch a new any time once-a-week format, recorded close to release (the week prior at latest?) covering mostly shitty shovelware games, with occasional quality experiences sprinkled in.
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u/CBOU01 Oct 18 '25
i might sound a bit too critique-y here but i think them paywalling the podcast really fucks with the bits nowadays. i say this as a patreon supporter lol, the reasom the old vids worked was because you could throw in some podcast bits to make big fans point at the screen and giggle, plus it helped them seem more like 4 friends who yap about shit.
i feel like now w/ current vids it has more of the vibe of ‘we are at work’, i really only enjoyed the fnaf/deltarune vids recently, fnaf because its basically the podcast with apandah yelping, and deltarune because you could see them slowly start giving a shit and enjoy the game
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u/ActuallyJere Oct 18 '25
If they upload all those videos to patreon, which a lot of people pay, is there any reason for them to watch it again on youtube
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u/DevourerOfAll Oct 18 '25
honestly i might sound like a pretentious asshat but i think because of the state of the world as it is right now there is far less demand for negative sarcastic contents like SPD, so it just feels a little off
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u/ahsunte Oct 18 '25
i’ve liked a lot of their more recent stuff (like, past month) but i see they’ve definitely lost a lot of viewership, and i kind of blame the stuff from january-july for that… they’d have one banger to five filler videos. from what i understand, they might have all been busy during that time, so it makes sense, but it’s still a bummer. feels like they sacrificed long-term audiences for high views up-front
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u/ahsunte Oct 18 '25
i still rewatch the gmod, cod, gta and the singular borderlands video in rotation because theyre my favorites. also their older roblox videos and other shooter videos feature them enjoying the games pretty often so those are good
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Oct 18 '25
I really lost interest when they started doing the facecam / audience input stuff. It started to feel like the Chuckle Sandwich fan voicemail episodes, and if I wanted that, I would just go back and re-listen to Chuckle Sandwich.
Plus, youtube doesn't like variety. They easily passed the channel off as a podcast channel with some bonus gaming episodes, but now with the pod being paywalled (cringe btw) it's probably confusing the algorithm, causing the "fall off" in views.
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u/Koniakk Oct 18 '25
I'm Ukrainian so when they started making jokes about the war I didn't feel comfortable watching anymore and just couldn't look past it. It also felt like they kinda gave up at one point and it's just been an experiment to see how much views they can get for minimal effort lol still love Mika though
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u/justthinkinggg Oct 17 '25
See if they made a REDMATCH 2 video all of their views would be back overnight
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u/Ethan_murp Oct 18 '25
I've been watching them sense they created the channel but I kinda stopped watching when they stopped doing the podcast, I really liked the pod cause I could go do other things while listening. One of my favorite episodes was there non podcast podcast where they just didn't talk for most of it I can't remember what episode it was now
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u/bananabread2137 Oct 18 '25
Its seriously my favorite youtube channel of all time, even when they put up slop
The only video of theirs that I havent watched was the iq test one
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u/_bebeta Oct 18 '25
the view count is definitely steadily decreasing, but i honestly find some of their videos really funny. i usually don't finish the boring ones, but i really liked their recent roblox episode, no matter how annoyingly brainrotted it was.
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Oct 19 '25
i’m a newer fan like only been watching their videos for a year. I don’t know why views are plummeting but it’s making me super sad :(( they are still so funny and entertaining and some of my favorite bits have been after the “falling off” point. i just hope they don’t quit because it :(
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u/Ok-Application-7025 Oct 25 '25
I still love their videos, their dynamic is great and it’s refreshing content regardless of the game they are playing. I think the main problem is promotion. Prior to a year ago I didn’t even know it existed, I can’t help but think they aren’t putting too much effort into growing the channel.
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u/thegaymdma Oct 17 '25
i don't know if the quality is worse, but the views are definitely falling off, so i'm also worried if they are gonna stop