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as someone who had to sign a NDA for TLC (my mom and sister were on my 600 lb life) i know all the lies they put out there, so i signed the NDA so my mom and sister could get the surgery, but since i wasnt a good actor or good to film they straight wrote me off like i was dead. they made my mom say "oh yeah ______ is no longer with us" and then flashed a fuckin baby picture of mine on screen, shit was sooooo fuckin funny when i saw it Edit: for those wondering, the statute of limitations on it is over hence why I can talk about it, if you really want to find it you can given my context clues. That’s all.

so glad other people also feel like My Crazy Obsession often portrays harmless communities/hobbies/people as freaky or something to be embarrassed about

The saddest thing is that they could have just said "here's a fictionalized drama, made by people who actually came from the Amish community," and it could have been super successful and respected as an "authentic voice" with almost no major changes. They just feel a need to lie about what it is. Also, I think a friend of mine wrote that SCMTTER episode.

TBH the fact that the people on Breaking Amish were ever Amish at all is beyond my expectations for TLC. I expected them all to be actors through and through

Quickly before TLC get angry

This man is like a neo-modern archaeologist: digging up the not-so-distant past that many have forgotten about...

One of the funniest things about "mediums" is that when told to prove their ability on the spot they always use the "i can't turn it on and off like a faucet" excuse. Then how are you able to book tv appearances and tours where you'll have to perform months ahead of time?

I like that you touched on the fact that most of the items in the Extreme Couponers Stash was all non-essentials. I ex was one of these people, so we had an overstock of non essentials, non-perishables, and cereals in our house. We couldn't afford rent, but we could afford $!00 in Laundry Detergent for 20 bucks... "We didn't spend $20, we SAVED $80" she would say... There's a difference between Using coupons to save money, and obsessing over a high you get for seeing numbers go down.

The Extreme Couponer type shows ruined couponing for people as well. It used to be much easier to use them and actually get good deals. But worse than That, the people on this show are hoarding that shit they dont need. The least they could do is donate all the stuff they really dont use.

There was a lolita fashion episode of my strange addiction. I remember reading that the people featured on it weren't actually told they were being filmed for my strange addiction- they thought it was just a documentary and only after it aired did they realize how dirty tlc did them. Venus though, had a very controlling mother who probably worked with the crew to ham it up.

When TLC actually had legit documentaries, I enjoyed it. One of my favorites that they did was around Halloween about vampires. They went into the mythology, vampires in different cultures, and the impact on literature, tv, and movies. It was really interesting.

Learning that the MythBusters actually don't like each other at all made me crack up. I could tell even as a kid that Adam and Jamie wanted to fight each other, more than a few times.

I wish the Long Island Medium was real because I think it would be hilarious if the only real psychic was just an extremely Italian American woman from Long Island.

The girl from the Furry My Strange Addiction episode got so much harassment from the Furry fandom because she was seen as an 'over the top attention seeker' and because the episode painted furies in such a negative light. If I'm not mistaken she left social media altogether

I went to a live show and Theresa started yelling at this girl and even kicked her out (this was a huge theater so in front of thousands of people) because she didn’t want to forgive her loved one who hurt her. The girl didn’t even say Theresa was faking. Theresa was like ‘no matter what he did he is asking you for forgiveness.’ I can’t remember what happened exactly because it was YEARS ago but the girl was clearly having a breakdown and it was obvious this dead person did something beyond evil to her. After that show I stopped watching her.

My Strange Addiction did an episode on "living dolls" which did not do any favors for the lolita fashion community. The one girl was shown to wear her outfits constantly and couldn't get a job because of her refusal to wear "normal" clothes. They showed her trying to apply for jobs while in lolita. Like lolita can be a sort of lifestyle for some people (these dresses can be expensive af, I can understand wanting to get your moneys worth out of them) but it's like the furry episode, we don't constantly wear our dresses everyday and everywhere. Many I know only do so for special events and group meet-ups. The show also followed a guy who was obsessed with turning himself into a Ken doll and had gotten a shit ton of surgeries in order to do so. This was cuz the ep was about people addicted to being "living dolls." As if this guy and lolitas are comparable in the slightest. The worst part is that the girls, one girl at least, was told by the producers they were filming a documentary about the fashion subculture and weren't fully informed they were filming for My Strange Addiction. It could've been worse, like at least TLC didn't go the "p*do-enabler" angle with the community most people on the outside take due to the unfortunate name "lolita" (Japanese borrowed the name because it sounded like an old fashioned young girl). But the whole thing reeked of trying to make the community look like a bunch of freaks.

Fun thing about the coupon stuff: I used to work at a grocery store. Close to closing time we would have several men come to my register, the one all the way in the back with carts full of women's feminine products and diapers. Completely clearing the shelves and coming in with freshly clipped coupons right from the magazines in bulk. They managed to clear out some of the most important stock just to stock and resell it at their own stores, whilst buying it for cheap or completely free. It was legal and they were smart to know the limits of each coupon, but we would have to deal with customers at night who couldn't get diapers or panty liners cuz of these dudes.

Hmm love TLC enabling actual pedophiles, rapists, and child neglect because of the sweet content it provides… ugh

I went to university near the Amish and have some ex-amish friends. Living along the Amish, I learned a lot of them are hypocrites when it suits them and use technology. I can't believe this show had us hooked 😂

Extreme couponing was actually real towards the beginning, but after it got popular, they changed what typed of coupons you can get / how they work in stores. My mom was on the level of some of those people, so I experienced it firsthand and can say yeah, what they did in later episodes was 100% for show because we couldnt do that stuff anymore lol

Growing up I never knew TLC as the learning channel and just thought it was a channel for crappy reality shows the fact they try to pass these shows off as educational is so disappointing.

reminder that the guy who turned "the learning channel" "history channel" and "discovery channel" from educational material into the reality TV dumping grounds is also now in charge of the entirety of warner brothers and everything they own, from DC comics, rooster teeth, harry potter, and all of WB's history.

Since I’m in my early 50s, I remember when TLC actually had legitimate educational shows. It’s such a shame about what has happened to the Discovery family of networks. I don’t watch any of those garbage networks anymore.

Extreme Couponing is my personal trigger. I used to work in retail and there was always at least one customer who had to get at least $500 worth of groceries with a coupon for each item, and would get mad when their total didn’t go all the way down to zero.

Extreme couponing used to be one of my favorites because i liked the idea of people building a food bank for their neighborhood

TLC was a decent documentary channel till around 1995. I remember someone explaining wtf went wrong when people started discussing how sh!t the History Channel became online back in the 2000s. Apparently the latter saw the former do that and the ratings jump, so followed suit a decade later.

The amount of enemies I've made with extreme couponers so I wouldn't lose my job when they attempted to buy out the entire store is way more than I was expecting.

My TLC flex: as a kid I had to/got to travel for my parents work, and one of the flight attendants on our way outta town was featured on What not to Wear. She was SO sweet, admitted to loving when people recognized her, and right away confessed to keeping all of her clothes (the trash can thing is just for the Drama of it all), and she immediately reverted back to her old look upon returning from New York lol. Wonder how she’s doin

My wife's uncle actually had his story featured on Sex Sent Me to the ER. I actually never asked which episode, because, quite frankly, I don't want to know about the sex life of my wife's uncle. The one thing I do know is he said they deeply, deeply exaggerated the event for TV. I mean, of course they do, but it is good to have actual proof.

It sucks because the coupon show actually affected extreme couponers in real life including my family who used to do extreme couponing and donating all the extra stuff to charities

Back in the '90s TLC lived up to its name, The Learning Channel. They had educational television. A show that I personally liked, I can't remember the name of it was but you got to watch actual surgeries with the blood and everything. They were birthing stories. A couple of my favorite shows as a kid were Zoobilee Zoo and Zoom, both were TLC shows. It didn't always used to be trash. It used to be a pretty good channel.

I was a cashier around the time Extreme Couponer was on the air. The show inspired a LOT of people tondo the same thing, and it took a lot of restraint on my part to not take a swing at most of them. Especially when they showed up when I was about to go on a break or go home, because they took a long time to deal with.

That cat couple is relationship goals honestly.

Dude my mom was a ER nurse and the amount of wierd stuff she pulled out of guys is incredible; deodorant caps"plural", cellphone, turned on vibrator, corn 🌽

I was a cashier at a grocery store for a while and I absolutely HATED when the couponers came through my line as did my co workers. Several managers let them get away with everything. Drove us insane. However, they finally banned them from all the locations in that city.

I didn't know about the coupon fraud in the show until a few months ago when i rewarched the entire show. I was disgusted at how the people did their hauls and all the excess unused items. When i saw it back in college, it was inspiring and a friend gor into it as she understood coupon language well. I remember finding a book by a couponer where she mentions how the show is not good, is not how most couponers are and is harming the coupon community. Sure enough, any practices mentioned in the show were not available in reality or became not available in time. It's interesting listening to the book years later too. TLC sure ia special.

Man, as someone that works retail, I've learned couponers are some of the worst customers a good percentage of the time. A good few tried to break the coupon law, and they would get furious if we didn't take their coupon. They would hold up a busy line, just to get a manager to come by, tell them they can't use the coupons, and would just keep standing in the line and make noise until we just, inevitably let them do it. It irritated me because they would just come back every month, and we'd be in the same circle, and it only told more people to do it....until we got proper security. What happened after that, I do not know, I left after a couple more months.

Stan, the adult baby, was abused and is trying to relive his childhood through age regression. He is the sanest out of all the others on strange addiction

I only found out recently that TLC stands for “The Learning Channel”. I just assumed it was a play on the saying “it needs some TLC”, as in “Tender Loving Care” 🤔

30 years ago TLC was watchable. As soon as they started with the reality shows we quit watching it. The same happened with Discovery channel, our kids learned a lot watching them and then one day there was a “documentary” on mermaids. I was curious and watched with them as I kept explaining to the kids that it was actually a movie and not real. That was the last time I allowed them to watch because that’s when the “night time cryptid hunt” shows moved to prime time. It was sad to see how channels I could trust our children to watch became toxic.

"orders his sisters to go dumpster diving for two more coupons" Bro's living the actual real life Pikmin

The couponers who proudly show off their stash of like 10 lifetimes worth of shampoo as if it’s impressive

I remember as a kid asking my mom about the couponing thing since usually coupons have limits on how many you can use per purchase, and she said it was different in other parts of the country or something. Feel a bit validated now xP

“Just because your dad is dead, doesn’t mean you can’t make him proud right now.” Is something I’m going to keep in the memory bank and hope to use it for any moment when possible.

As someone who works on the TLC KZfaq Channel, I have to edit the craziest/fakest shit. 💀

First rule of furry club? You don't talk about furry club. Second rule of furry club? You don't talk about furry club. Seriously though, virtually every single regular TV show dramatizes it and blows it out of proportion for drama because 90% of it is just the same cosplay stuff other nerds do, but with animals instead of comic book characters and that is just not exciting. So that one is not unique to TLC.

I had a friend that was on breaking Amish. She already had left the Amish community and they make you pretend to be Amish and leave it again.

Don’t forget TLC gives platforms to people like the Duggars, Plats and browns. On top of that the xenophobia and racism that’s often put proudly on display in the 90dya fiancé franchise

I actually remember my first exposure to TLC being their airing of Magic School Bus reruns during some morning block. To think that was when they were such educational program as…Trading Spaces Family…and What Not to Wear.

As a born and raised long islander I'm very proud of Billiam for knowing to say "on long Island" and not "in long Island" Also i used to work at a shoe store and I've met Theresa Caputo. Massive b**ch.

My sister did couponing for a while and the hilarious reality of the people who do extreme couponing is yes they are saving a tremendous amount of money but they don't necessarily need a 3-year supply of Dawn dish soap do they?

oh man my mom got into couponing because of that Extreme Couponing show and let me tell you, we hardly ever touched the stuff she bought. She STILL sends me cheap soaps and the like that I'm pretty sure are from nearly 10 years ago. I have never met a person with more toothbrushes than my mother

I know a couple people who were on the same TLC show. Drama is truly all they care about. At least for this specific show, it wasn't scripted, but they 100% were pushing a narrative through the questions they asked and how they edited it. The show got cancelled after one season because, honestly, it was BORING. But that was the problem - they wanted to push for something exciting to happen, but they were literally just filming everyday people going about their lives.

The honey booboo and dugar situation is going to be hilarious and horrifying at the same time. Can't wait to be even more depressed at the exploitation!

I had to spend a couple nights awake overnight in the hospital two years ago and TLC played Extreme Couponing in the early hours of the morning and I got to watch the episode with the 15 year old bossing his family around. I remember the good old days when it played during times when normal people would be awake and able to watch the show. FYI, TV options aren't so great in the hospital, especially late night/early morning.

I gotta say, the people who "de-valued" their homes to make something they think is awesome are living their best lives.

I never knew I needed a Billiam TLC saga, but I am glad it's happening.

The through-line of these recent videos chronicling the downfall of HBO Max is my favorite thing

TLC definitely altered my brain chemistry as a child, istg... I was very into those Mircle of Childbirth shows of the late 90s/early 00s, and sometimes they got pretty dramatized, especially with the umbilical cord being wrapped around or when the baby doesn't cry right away. Turns out, those things are pretty common and normal! Still, it made me a little panicky when my baby was born -- she was completely fine btw, the cord wasn't tight at all and they just used a nose sucker bulb to suck the liquids out and she started crying, all within like ten seconds of me literally saying "*GASP* Oh no!"

I'm a age regressor/little, and it upset me to see people trashing it without knowing what it means for some people. I regress because of childhood trauma among other things, but there's a video on here that interviewed Kate from Extreme Cheapskates, and she talked about her appearance on the show and how it affected her. Its so heartbreaking to watch

Why is it when Billiam explains these shows they sound ten times better than actually watching them?

With My strange addiction, i wonder how fake the woman with the baby wipe addiction was, where she was too scared to use the shower so she only washed with baby wipes. The show made it sound like she was /touched/ by her father after he got out of the shower and thats why she was scared of them.

20:29 "and i NEEDED TO believe in something" And that specific vulnerability is exactly what they prey on to financially exploit your grief

Breaking Amish not getting a Better Call Amish spin-off was a missed opportunity (even tho they most likely all came out before better call Saul, they should have known smh!!!!)

I remember a time when TLC actually WAS “The Learning Channel.” There were shows about space, dinosaurs, anatomy, traveling, and I’m about 75% certain THEY started, “Shark Week” (I can’t confirm that, so correct me if I’m wrong). I have NO idea what happened, but when they fell, they fell HARD.

On the Breaking Amish thing, the Amish have a thing called Rumspringa where they’re allowed to go out and experience the modern world, less than 15% stay in the modern world, 85-90% return to their amish ways. Which to be fair, if you’ve seen the modern world, I don’t blame them.

When I was a teen (late 90s) and early 20s, they stilled air documentary/informative shows. They had a show called Trauma: life in the ER which was amazing and intense. I learned what the aging disease is, primordial dwarfism, and other rare genetic disorders. But then Discovery bought them and turned them into reality trash.

Ok I grew up on Long Island so I had a interesting relationship with the Long Island Medium show since they often filmed near areas I frequented, so I really only watched it occasionally for the novelty of going 'oh I've been at that store'. Outside that though Terissa always just felt...weird-like very pushy about giving readings while also saying really nothing worthwhile during them that wasn't generic. My middle school gym teacher actually knew the woman since they lived in the same neighborhood and once went on about how real her 'powers' were because of one time she gave her a reading-where only like...vague things were in the supposed message from her loved one (might've been her mother?). Kinda not the greatest look to try to exploit someone's grief to look important.

What's sad about TLC isn't the content but the fact that it dominates in the ratings demos WITH that content. They make garbage and people absolutely eat it up.

TLC!!! Somehow, the channel that was the first time I'd ever seen different minority groups like Little People, trans people, and people with OCD and DID. It was somehow the most diverse channel for me as a kid/teen.

6:12 “Abe is just a guy with a trampoline” Idk why but that and the accompanying footage of him just casually jumping on the trampoline with a cowboy hat on made me laugh. I’d say my humor is broken but it’s always been like this

My mom was a avid watcher of "Long Island Medium." When I told her it was fake she refused to believe me. When I explained how they do cold/warm readings she rolled her eyes. But I noticed after a week she wasn't watching it anymore. Generational differences are crazy.

You'll never seen someone with more dead eyes than a cashier on Extreme Couponing

God the shows Say Yes To The Dress, My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding, Bridezillas, and 4 Weddings had such a strange hold on me for a short while during my teen years. And god watching some old clips????? MBFAGW & Bridezillas were/still is/forever will be such crazy and ridiculous shows. And then for them to take 'the worst bridezillas to appear' and then make a show called Bridezillas Marriage Boot Camp?? Insane.

I had to unironically go back because "My Strange Obsessions" is so stupidly close to "My Crazy Addictions" that I actually thought he was making a joke because of how easy it is to just be like "This stuff actually isn't that weird at all, when you think about it." And I think that says way more about how manipulative Obsessions is than I ever could. Who cares if someone wants to bone in a fursuit? Fuck it. If being a dog when you have a consensual relationship makes you happy then you're probably doing something more right than the "Had sex at his dad's funeral" guy.

Not shaming furries and especially ABDL, as long as it's not harmful? You just got yourself a new subscriber, my friend. Thank you for bringing this world a tiny bit closer to harmony. 🥺

0:59 I can 100% confirm Amish people know what texting is because I’ve received a text from an Amish guy telling me that I can pick up my mower from his engine repair shop.

i always felt weird about their "freaky eaters" show, they claimed they were going to help the people on the show but their version of help usually just ended up being "hey let's make fun of this person who's going through something for the entire run time!" and would usually just chalk it up to being picky/spoiled or whatever when a lot of the time the people either had eating disorders or were going through some kind of stress in their life. people don't starve themselves or cry/vomit/whatever at seeing certain foods because they're "picky", it's a legit problem, but no one takes it seriously and this show did not do anyone any favors lmao as someone with autism who has safe foods, i hate the idea that it's just being spoiled or childish, i hate being that way and if i could eat more stuff i would, no one enjoys being picky and only eating a handful of things

I remember when they used to have all sorts of documentaries, it was like a cross between The History Channel and Discovery Network, which also aired shows that actually lined up with their respective names. They kinda started veering off course in the 2000's but after the writers strike in 2007 everything changed to shows that didn’t need writers and they completely abandoned their roots once they realized it was more profitable to air reality and pseudoscience.

My mum used to watch all kinds of "probably inappropriate for children?" shows whilst I was in the room and I completely forgot Sex in the ER was one of them! I vividly remember in one episode a couple thought it would be hot to melt a giant gummy bear and then lick it off each other except liquid sugar gets really hot so they got 2nd or 3rd degree burns... my poor pre-pubescent eyes 😮‍💨

The Extreme Coupon show, only heard about it through other channel/s that mention it. I thought that shit was REAL! And had the thought that coupon restrictions were put in place a little more recently, like AFTER these shows aired and then some. Learning they did full-blown CRIMES, ON CAMERA, is actually even more WILD. I hope they do it again.

I remember once seeing a documentary on TLC about a murder of a (poor) child pageant, and they mentioned that shows like Toddlers and Tiaras to be very harmful. I lost all respect for the channel that day.

Breaking Amish has always been so bizarre as someone who lives right next to the largest Amish community in the world. It was so clearly fake, it sucks that so many people ate it up.

The way we constantly push home ownership as freedom and then shame people who freely alter their homes and make them what they desire, thus decreasing the 'investment'.

I (I'm guessing like most of us here) was born mid 90s, so I had a front row seat to watching as directv list of watchable channels kept shrinking and shrinking, as discovery, history, tlc, all slowly turned into the joke of stations they are now. It's so depressing.

this is how almost every reality tv show works. It's truly all constructed with barely anything "real" left. If you look into how a basic tv show is made it becomes clear very quickly, how much more difficult it is to make a "real" show versus the ones you covered. TLC is particularly shameless about it, but it's really every reality tv show with almost no exceptions.

I live in PA. I promise you Amish people aren't like this. They KNOW what technology is, they just don't use it.

I remember just putting an episode of Extreme Couponing on once and it made me so angry. The person on the episode asked her church to pray for her to receive coupons for that episode. Her prayers were answered and all that stuff she bought went in her basement. Like it couldn't go somewhere else, like a food bank, homeless shelters, veterinary clinic, etc. Definitely tells you the audience they're targeting.

TLC: Talk, Lie, Craft a shaky story to cover up the lies and rambles and fail horribly

I remember a time when TLC used to have learning stuff on it (and Discovery). They used to show some pretty gruesome surgeries and whatnot.

I’m old enough to remember when TLC was just starting out. They showed a lot of different surgical procedures, filming in different teaching hospitals around the country. It was actually real at that time, so you kind of had to have a strong stomach to watch it.

I remember when TLC was "Tender Loving Care" and most of their programs was medical related. Like legit ER nurses, OBGYN nurses, radiology techs, ect ect. If you had to have a specialist certification to do it in the hospital there was a TLC program about it. .... And then the Duggars happened....

Just a reminder that your favorite cartoon was probably scrapped in favor of shows like this in the past couple years.

The learning channel? More like the lying channel am I right?

I clean my local library and one day the vacuum there was taken out with a sign on it that said something along the lines of "DO NOT Use! Someone was in the men's room trying to... entertain themselves with the vacuum." Needless to say, we used a different vacuum after that.

I knew a coworker would do couponing and then sell the products in bundles for cheaper then store prices.

Extreme Couponing is the only one l've watched, and even without learning it was fake, l was still baffled by it. In my country, coupons specifically say things like "50 % off, only 1 coupon per purchase" or "Only 6 items per customer". You'd never be able to cheat like they do on the show. (I also thought the people should be re-selling things to their neighbours to get something good out of these silly purchases. Because you don't need 600 maxipads for $30 when you're born a man.)

Anyone else remember TLC kid’s block ready set learn? Man I loved watching that in the morning.

Adult babies or littles or those who experience age regression just get so much hate. Its not hurting anyone. Everyone involved is a consenting adult. You don't have to like it, it can make you feel uncomfortable, but you don't have to openly hate it, bully those who do it, or try to get people to stop doing it.