How Ned Fulmer's dramatic Try Guys exit shaped the company's future forever

Upon parting ways with BuzzFeed and launching their own independent YouTube channel in 2018, The Try Guys rode on massive success in their given niche for four strong years. Their company, 2nd try, is still putting out amazing content for its audience. But things have changed a lot since original team member Ned Fulmer left in 2022.

In early October of that year, Try Guys fans became aware that someone had spotted Ned with another woman at a public club in New York. This woman was not only not his wife, but she was also a company employee who worked under him. He was her boss, and cheating aside, it was soon revealed that the relationship had been ongoing and was far from appropriate.

The incident quickly became a widespread scandal the guys could not contain. The Try Guys first released a statement that they had parted ways with Fulmer, then soon after released a video that very quickly went viral explaining their side of the story.

The inappropriate relationship was discovered over Labor Day weekend that year, and those at the company had already been handling the situation when Reddit threads and news articles began circulating. The team had already spent weeks consulting with lawyers, PR and HR professionals by the time the news began to break.

The above video revealed that Fulmer had been removed formally as a manager and employee of the company on September 16, and that the remaining front-facing members of the team had not rushed to make the announcement due to the sensitive internal nature of the matter.

It was revealed at that time that there were a number of videos the channel would never be releasing due to Fulmer's involvement in their production, which cost the company as a whole a lot of money. The team also dedicated time and valuable resources to removing Fulmer from other videos the channel did end up releasing.

It was revealed earlier this year that this incident cost 2nd try millions of dollars in brand deals due to the viral nature of the scandal Fulmer had created. This is one of many reasons The Try Guys have since launched a subscription service to provide the company and its employees with a more stable income source (in addition to ad revenue and Patreon support, which are ofen less reliable income sources).

In Eugene Lee Yang's farewell video explaining his departure from the company earlier this year, he revealed that he would have left the company much earlier if Fulmer's actions hadn't forced a hard shift and rebrand of the company in 2022. He pushed his other projects aside to help his team recover from its many losses.

In many ways, The Try Guys have not been the same since October 2022. But not all of its many changes are bad. They have since expanded their cast, launched new video series, and are continuing to embark on endeavors such as the upcoming Eat the Menu live tour across the United States.

The Try Guys are not what they once were. But in some ways, a nearly company-collapsing event has resulted in the channel releasing bigger and better videos than ever before, likely with many more planned for the months and years to come.