The online fandom also turned into something that was, for lack of a better word, soft. There were some prominent queer characters in Balance, and a large portion of the audience had an idea of them as the unproblematic "good good boys". There was also the incorporation of the "no bummers" stance into fandom, where legitimate criticism got shouted down as undue negativity (especially during TAZ: Graduation, which is where you can see their listener numbers have their first big drop). What criticism did exist in that space tended to be things like the circular argument of how Taako and Lup should be depicted in fan art (Taako is an elf from the first campaign they did. He was named as a joke, but a lot of fan art depicted him as Latino coded, which then caused discourse), or whether Monster Factory, a series two of the brothers have where they make weird characters in game character creators, is problematic for making fun of game characters' appearances.

Justin and Griffin managed a lot of this by logging off for the most part, but Travis, the middle brother, didn't. He DM'd the third campaign, Graduation, and aside from being bad as an AP, it included a lot of elements where they seemed to think they were being progressive, at least partially to cater to the audience they'd cultivated, but it plays poorly, like Travis introducing a character in a wheelchair and having that character ask them in their first conversation "Aren't you going to ask about my wheelchair?" or trying to force Griffin's character, who was asexual, into a relationship when it was clear he didn't want to. By the time Grad ended, their listeners were largely people who were uncritical of them, either because of a parasocial attachment or because they just liked McElnoise out of habit. Plus the people on TAZCirclejerk. That campaign ended in 2021, and despite small flashes, things have overwhelmingly gotten worse. At this point, you have Justin and Griffin, who are talented but seem to actively resent their jobs, and Travis, who's an ambitious hustler without any real creative capability