James Pumphrey is Leaving Donut

Donut Media's James Pumphrey's deleted post raises question as to what is next for the social media star. Donut also makes a post that makes things even more interesting.

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[TheDvsshoe]

If James leaves, Donut is officially done.

[DokiMin]

Donut died the day when the stopped making Up to speed wheelhouse and etc..

[minormunitions]

It started going down hill when we quit hearing “MOW POWA BABIE!”

[joshlewis]

Moral of the story: Never ever sell out.

[AliasHSW]

Zach and Jeremiah are killing it BigTime on their second video premiere. 100k views within 3 hours of its debut.

[Pete_Finch]

I'm a lawyer who at one point worked in that corporate private equity world (never, ever again - I burned those bridges with the biggest flames I could). Legitimately, their entire job is to make as much money for themselves (not investors or anyone else) as they possibly can, and if that requires destroying the company they've acquired a controlling stake in, even better. They buy failing companies, or even companies who aren't failing but want an influx of cash, and proceed to gut them by any means possible. With creatives, they'll make sure that those creatives now have to answer to middle/upper management beancounters who have never created a thing in their lives. It's a problem across all spheres, but ESPECIALLY with creatives. Oh, and everyone I worked with in private equity was almost without exception a huge POS.

[HondaCL]

Nolan is the new face of Donut. I hope everyone does well and we all get lots of great new content. Just hope it doesn’t result in a Hoonigan 2.0 situation.

[someperson]

I think an overlooked story with Donut is that Nolan started talking about how Insurance companies are spying on you via technology and suddenly Donut is sponsored by Allstate and all criticisms have been silenced.

[darrinsheppard]

OG Donut was legit! Up to Speed, Money Pit, etc. great stuff.

[the_spikerman]

Fun fact, non-competes are not valid in California where Donut was located.

[andrecorona]

I may be in the minority, but I dig the variety that these splits create. When Car Throttle lost Alex, we as viewers gained a lot of content, new channels, characters, and tons of collaborations. While I am sad that this indeed feels like the end of Donut as we knew it, I’m ever more excited to see what BigTime has in store.

[mrbuttons]

Look at that video from a couple months ago when they raced their daily drivers. They had their "VP of corporate business" who was a guy in a suit with his Tesla. It was really strange and he seemed out of place among the other staff.

[Gkitchens]

I hope James also runs his own channel, he was my favorite at donut. But for all three of them to leave donut might not ever recover

[kylea-d]

James was/ is the reason half the people liked/watched donut, i mean everyone else was great too but there was just something about james that made you feel more apart of the experience, he made you feel like one of the boys too, made you feel at home as if you were there

[zoninable]

James has been really stressed looking now I know why.

[MidwestRider]

Zach and Jeremiah used the phrase "contractual obligations" which most likely means they had a contract for X amount of videos and they need to finish those out. Most contracts have steep penalties if broken, like if they don't do those videos, then they have to pay back a certain amount of money.

[oscararellano]

I can feel the energy left donut years ago

[ThePigeonStoop]

Wouldn't be surprised if James randomly showed up on BigTime

[greelsdisc]

Private equity is evil and they most times do not understand the “magic” that make the most businesses they buy. They only care about money and don’t get that the money will come if you keep the magic, but they will never understand. It is sickening and this isn’t just a YouTube thing this goes for private equity buying franchises and ruining families and lives. I’m part of a franchise where that happened. 29 years and they changed the franchise model I was in, Line-x, and ruined it.

[SMLChase]

I experienced this exact situation on a much smaller scale in the motocross industry. It’s sad but it’s almost the cycle of a popular media group; Starts with passion, gets bought out, corporate world takes over, passion is gone… and boom. Looks like BIGTIME has a few of the filmers/editors from donut as well. And they’re using the same posting schedule…. Crazy to see the impact it’s already had on donut in a week. Props to the boys for stepping out on there own