Chris-Chan / CWC / Christian Weston Chandler

About

Christian Weston Chandler (b. Christopher Weston Chandler), also known as Chris-Chan and CWC, is a YouTube vlogger and creator of the webcomic Sonichu. Around late 2007, Christian became a trolling target by Encyclopedia Dramatica and 4chan, due to his low quality body of work, unusual behaviors, and extreme reactions to hostility.

Online History

Early Life

Christian was born on February 24, 1982 in Charlottesville, Virginia^[1] and was raised in Ruckersville, Virginia for the majority of his life. Early in his life he was diagnosed with autism, though it is not sure when exactly this took place. He took interest in Sonic the Hedgehog from the time the earliest games came out, and later took interest in Pokémon as well. In 1994, his name was legally changed from Christopher to Christian after having it misheard by Leonard Bearstein of the Leonard Bearstein Symphony Orchestra, an animatronic musical project.^[2] In March of 2000, Chris created the Sonichu character after he was not allowed to use copyrighted characters in a school project, instead combining two preexisting characters to create an “original” character.^[1] After graduating from high school, Chris enrolled at Peidmont Virginia Community College, eventually obtaining an associates degree in Computer-Aided Drafting and Design. During this time at the college, Chris had been expelled for a year after attempting to pick up women via signs.^[3] Because of this, the dean of the college, Mary Lee Walsh, became a recurring villain in the Sonichu comics. Over the course of this expulsion, Chris began work on the first issue of Sonichu, completing it in March of 2005.^[4] Although it had originally focused on the Sonichu and Rosechu characters, the comic eventually turned focus toward his life.

Discovery by 4chan

Although he had had an online presence since at least 1999,^[10] Chris managed to escape the eye of trolls until 2007, when a drawing of Sonichu was posted on 4chan.^[11] Though the picture was anonymous, its source was later traced back to Chris, and his comic, website, and YouTube channel were thus discovered. After becoming aware that 4chan users had discovered him and reacted negatively to his content, Chandler attempted to reason with them by posting a video to his YouTube channel, a mirror of which can be seen below.

Sagas

Note: Only the more notable sagas are listed in detail here. For a more comprehensive list view the timeline below, or click here to be redirected to the “Saga” page on the CWC wiki.

Due to the large amount of drama arising from Chris, many have commonly agreed to separate different times of his life into “sagas” referring to the focus of certain trolls and other individuals.^[28]

Megan Schroeder / Adam Stackhouse / ED Sagas (2005-2011)

Megan Schroeder was a real-life friend of Chris’s whom he had met in 2005.^[5] Though she did not have any romantic interest in him, he tried to win her over anyways, going as far as to write her into the Sonichu comic. In 2007, Chris entered the Chop Chop Master Onion’s Rap Showdown, a Sony-held contest promoting the PlayStation Portable version of PaRappa the Rappa, in an attempt to get her to love him. At the same time a man named Adam Stackhouse created an entry with his sister which ultimately won first place (shown below, left).^[6] Chris, dejected, accused Adam of cheating to win, to the point that he made a video of himself shooting a picture of Adam (shown below, right).^[7] Megan told Chris that she was glad he lost and was disturbed by Chris’s obsession with her. ^[8] Despite this, the two were still friends until March 2008.

Soon after the creation of the Encyclopedia Dramatica article, Chris discovered it for himself. Distressed by the amount of negative attention toward him, the large amount bizarre sexually-themed troll art on the page, and a blurry photo taken of him without his consent, he declared war on the website, denouncing it as “slander”.^[12] He went on to start a flame war by creating several sockpuppets, attempting to write himself in a positive light, blanking the page, deleting sections of the article, getting into arguments on the talk page for the article, and uploading his own Rule 34 images, including the infamous ShecameforCWC.jpg, a pornographic image Chris had drawn of himself fingering Megan, to counteract the troll art.^[13] Megan discovered the picture, and after this, broke off all communication with Chris.^[9] In July of 2008, Chandler uploaded a video to vent his anger to the trolls and clarified that the woman in ShecameforCWC.jpg was Megan and not his fictional daughter as some had theorized (shown below). By Spring 2009, Chris had given up on editing the article, though he still attested that it was inaccurate and hateful. The page is still available on the Encyclopediadramatica.se version of the wiki.^[14]

Blanca / Jimmy Hill Sagas (2008-2009)

Blanca Weiss was the identity taken on by several trolls some time in 2008.^[49] The first trolling attempts were shared by three trolls who contacted Chris via instant messaging and telephone, and were able to keep Chris from posting videos for some time. The saga culminated with Chris sending the Sonichu medallion he wore at the time to one of the three trolls, Ickeriss69, who destroyed it on camera (shown below, right).^[50]

The second trolling attempts were carried out by Encyclopedia Dramatica troll Lordsillynipples, who successfully impersonated Blanca, and was able obtain pornographic photographs from Chris. These were leaked on September 11, 2008. ^[51] Though the Blanca saga ended by the end of the year, Chris did not seem believe that Blanca was a troll until 2010. It is unknown, however, whether he still believes she was a real person.

Around the same time of the Blanca saga, another troll, under the guise of English association football personality Jimmy Hill, claimed to be the true creator of Sonichu, and had turned the series into a successful franchise in the United Kingdom.^[52] Chris, offended by the portrayal of the Sonichu universe in Jimmy Hill’s version (Sonichu as a homosexual, Chris as an evil robot, etc.), as well as the supposed plagiarism of his work, addressed him several times, starting in a video from September 11, the same day as the first nude leaks.^[53] In a video dated October 13, Chris addressed Jimmy more directly (shown below, right).^[54] However by February of 2009, Jimmy’s site was no longer being updated, and Chris decided to stop paying attention to him.

The Clyde Cash Sagas (2008-2010)

Clyde Cash, is a pseudonym for a troll who is considered to be Chandler’s arch enemy. In December of 2008, Clash claimed that his younger brother, Ryan Cash, killed himself when Chris spontaneously announced he would stop publishing Sonichu.^[15] Cash began to harass Chandler several times, and Chandler responded with an apology video towards Cash (shown below, left). Around this time Chris drew an image of his new “sweetheart” named PandaHalo, who Cash, as an act of revenge on Chandler, told him he had raped PandaHalo who in turn supposedly became pregnant.^[55] He later posed as a Nintendo web designer named Gregg Mays in order to take a hold of his website and blackmail him into making a video stating he was gay (shown below).

After that, he impersonated Nintendo game director Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime, convincing Chris that a Sonichu game was considered and rejected by Nintendo.^[56] Chris also uplaoded a video directed towards Miyamoto in a bid to to prove to him that he is the real Christian Weston Chandler, and not a troll (shown below, left). Later, Clyde was able to troll Chris in real life by not only getting another individual, Robert Simmons V, to act similar to Chris and actually talk to him,^[16] but by sabotaging a date with another girlfriend (who turned out to be another real-life troll) via sending a man in a pickle costume to the same location as the date.^[17] Clyde was claimed to be killed on May 22, 2009, though this was later proven to be false. The image of Lee Hotti became associated with Clyde after Lordsillynipples, the same troll who impersonated Blanca, told Chris that this was what Cash actually looked like.^[18] In March of 2010 Chris would upload a video in which he addresses his rage to many trolls, specifically Cash, and goes so far as to play out a scenario in which the two of them meet, ending in Cash’s death (shown below, right).

Bluespike / Julie Saga

BlueSpike was a troll who met Chris in December 2008, under the alias of Julie, a girl who wanted to be Chris’ girlfriend. Over the course of their relationship, Bluespike used his alias to divulge private information from Chris, typically of a sexual nature, and eventually led Chris to making a video of himself using an inflatable sex doll while yelling Julie’s name. ^[58]

During this time, BlueSpike assumed another identity under the alias of Max, claiming to be Julie’s younger brother while still maintaining the Julie persona as a seperate character. Over the course of an hour on March 3rd 2009, Max had managed to get into Chris’ PlayStation Network account and threatened to sell it on Ebay and stop Chris from seeing Julie altogether, unless Chris said “Billy Mays is the mayor of CWCville,”, whilst putting his Sonichu medallion into his anal cavity.

Ivy Saga

In March 2009, Chris met another troll by the name of Ivy who Chris believed was his girlfriend until later that year. The result of Ivy trolling Chris resulting in him implementing her as a character into Sonichu and many videos about him declaring his love for her, in the form of music videos, sexual content, and later, a marriage proposal. ^[28]

The saga officially came to an end in July 2009 when Chris learned that ‘Ivy’ had committed suicide, which he would later reference in the Sonichu comic as a tribute to her. ^[61]

Liquid Chris / Kacey Sagas

Liquid Chris was a troll who appeared in late June of 2009, claiming that Christan was an impersonator and that he was the real Chris. ^[19] He was able to bait Chris into reacting to him, and soon after a “CWCivil War” trying to prove who was the real Chris-chan broke out between the two, despite Liquid being an obvious imitator. The highlight of this was a karaoke competition, which the real Chris later retracted after losing. ^[20] After a two month long period of inactivity, Liquid’s at the time supposed girlfriend Kacey managed to gain contact with Chris, and pretended to almost be tricked by Chris into going to his house. ^[21] She pretended to break up with Liquid until she “learned” that Chris was tricking her. Liquid ended his trolling on November 6 with a video saying that he was given permission to marry Kacey. ^[22]

Asperchu / CWCipedia Sagas

Asperchu is a Sonichu parody comic written by Alec Benson Leary, first released on December 4, 2009. ^[23][24] Chris discovered the comic soon after after being sent several homoerotic pieces of artwork featuring the Sonichu and Asperchu characters. ^[25] On January 19, 2010, Chris posted a twelve-page portion of Sonichu featuring the Asperchu characters not only being saved from Alec, but also being rewritten into versions of themselves less insulting to Chris, along with an ultimatum insisting that these incarnations were now Asperchu canon. ^[23] Chris soon apologized for the trouble he was causing. ^[26] This was, however, seemingly taken back, as Chris soon after uploaded the final pages of Sonichu #10, depicting Alec and the staff of his Asperchu wiki being brutally murdered in various ways. ^[27]

The Surfshack Tito and CWC Exile Sagas

In March of 2010, Chris attempted to disconnect himself from the Internet. ^[28] It is commonly believed his former pastoral counselor Rochelle “Rocky” Shoemaker was behind this exile. ^[29] Although he was seemingly gone, Chris was, in reality, still around, contacting yet another potential girlfriend (see below), posing as a troll named “JenkinsJinkies” on the CWCki ^[30], and uploading various animations for Flipnote Studio. ^[31] He was also covertly photographed at several Fridays After Five events in Charlottesville, VA. ^[32] This saga ended in late August, when three videos leaked of Chris destroying his PlayStation 3. ^[33]

Jackie / Tomgirl Sagas

Jacklyn “Jackie” Romy was a troll who represented herself through a fake alias nicknamed “Jackie” accompanied by a picture of an anonymous female taken from a set of amateur adult photographs (shown below, left). Chris first got into contact with her in April of 2010,^[42] and the two corresponded via email for several weeks over the course of the month. During this period, Jackie discovered Chris’s online presence, which culminated into a video on April 21st where Chris describes what sexual acts he would perform on her (shown below, right).^[43][44]

Disgusted by his seeming unwillingness to be in a stable relationship, Jackie broke off communication with Chris until July.^[45] She attempted to give Chris advice on how to improve his life, which he ultimately ignored. In September 2010, she asked Chris to draw pictures of he and herself having intercourse, to which he obliged. He also made several videos targeting Jackie’s ex-boyfriend, and, through October, recorded several videos of him cosplaying in order to impress her, mostly as various cartoon characters. The Jackie saga ended after Chris stopped replying to her emails at the end of the same month, and to many it is still unclear whether “Jackie” was an online troll pretending to be a female interested in Chris or if she actually was real.

In late March of 2011, Chris sent an email to Jackie about a new interest he had picked up: crossdressing. ^[46] At the end of April, Surfshack Tito leaked images of Chris dressed in women’s clothing. In May, he joined the now defunct Tomboys and Tomgirls of Virginia forum, and was soon found out in the next month. ^[47] Over the course of August, Chris made a series of videos, named the “Calling Out” series, in an attempt to get trolls to apologize to him; only Surfshack Tito met his demands. ^[48] The Tomgirl Saga ended in September with the death of Chris’s father, Robert Chandler.

GAMe PLACe Saga

From dates as early as 2002 to 2008, one of Chris’ favorite places to hang out in Charlottesville was the local hobby and game store, the GAMe PLACe, owned by Michael Snyder. Chris enjoyed coming to the store because they sold video games and trading cards, and held weekly tournaments of the Pokemon Trading Card Game which Chris, at the time, had an interest in. It is also where he met Megan and became friends with her before the events of the ED saga occurred. ^[60]

However, during his time at the GAMe PLACe, Chris would repeatedly be warned by the store’s staff and Michael himself for numerous behaviors and incidents he caused, including racism, yelling at children, poor sportsmanship in card games and video games, and disrupting the shopping experience of other customers. This information was revealed by two trolls under the aliases of Mimms and Lucas, who experienced viewing the behavior first-hand when Chris was a regular customer. ^[59]

In August 2008, Chris was officially banned from the store by Snyder and was legally not allowed to come back, which would lead Chris to try and convince Snyder to appeal his ban by continuously sending emails to him, trying to sneak in the store itself and making apology videos through his YouTube channel at the time, to no avail.

On October 28 2011, Chris and his mother, Barbara ‘Barb’ Chandler, were arrested under the allegation that they had been trying to hit Michael with their car. Chris was sentenced to community service, one year of probation and mandatory psychiatric treatment on July 10 2012, nine months after the initial incident occurred. ^[57]

Reception and Spread

Chris has been received negatively by many sources, mainly for his low quality body of work, peculiar behaviors, extreme reactions to trolls, homophobia, racism, use of autism as a crutch, gullibility, questionable cleanliness, and obesity. In particular, his vlog from April 28, 2009 has been picked up and commentated on by both comedy website Fark.com and the nationally syndicated Opie and Anthony Show^[35][36] , and the peculiar I Got A Fish was discussed on G4’s Web Soup and the May 12, 2009 episode of Boston radio show The Toucher and Rich Show. ^[37][38] Chris was placed at the top spot on Heavy.com’s “20 Worst Internet Losers” list. ^[40] Comic book reviewer Linkara of Atop the Fourth Wall fame has called both Chris and Sonichu bizarre, and has stated he will never review Sonichu because he’d rather not pay any attention to Chris. ^[34] Notable voice actress Tara Strong, in a response to an accusation Chris made about her encouraging trolling with her video “Twilightlicious”, stated that she “hope[s] … [to] never meet the guy”. ^[41] Flash animator Henry Partridge has referenced Chris and Sonichu in several animations, including Nicolas Cage Wants Cake. ^[39]

Search Interest

External Sources