Late last year, workers behind the scenes of Theorist Media took an uncommon step in the YouTube space, verging on unprecedented: They announced their intention to unionize. Arm in arm with the International Alliance Of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) and the Writers Guild Of America West (WGAW), workers sought recognition for the often-invisible labor performed by countless writers, editors, and producers in a Wild West that’s nonetheless got Hollywood sweating bullets: “By unionizing, our goal is to help raise professional standards and bring them in line with the broader entertainment industry,” a Theorist Media worker said at the time. “The work we do is real, and it deserves real protection.”
But more than half a year later, Lunar X, the parent company of Theorist Media, is still refusing to play ball. Despite a supermajority of cards signed, the company won’t voluntarily recognize the union.
"We are at a bit of a standstill," a Theorist Media worker, who was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, told Aftermath. "We are not planning on staying at a standstill forever.”
“We're trying to put more and more pressure on the company to do the right thing and recognize the union, and that has definitely become way more public," IATSE local 700’s Preston Johnson, who’s helping Theorist Media workers organize, told Aftermath. "There’s a lot of power in the story of these workers organizing, because they love what they do so much and they’ve been willing to fight for so long despite management refusing to move.”
Theorist Media now represents a constellation of YouTube channels, each with millions of subscribers, but it all began with Matthew “MatPat” Patrick’s Game Theory videos back in 2011, which evolved into their own channel and, eventually, a genre of media analysis focused on lore, secrets, and of course, theorizing. The Game Theorists’ videos played an outsized role in popularizing the way fans now scrutinize games and shows—and the way creators often cater to those obsessive fans. Series like Undertale and Five Nights At Freddy’s might not have achieved generational ubiquity without The Game Theorists. Love it or hate it, the channel’s influence cannot be denied.
"Seeing that these people—who I admire a lot and who worked very hard—were not just making more than me, but are able to retire from working if they want to [really put things in perspective].”
While Patrick remained the face of Theorist Media for more than a decade, he and his wife/COO, Stephanie, sold the channel to German media company Lunar X in 2022. Ultimately, Patrick decided to retire from YouTube in 2024, imparting Game Theorists, Film Theorists, Food Theorists, and Style Theorists to a new batch of creators. By that point, Theorist Media hadn’t been a one-person show for quite some time; modern YouTube videos are often far more involved than a lone person talking at a camera, and while not everyone is MrBeast, they can still require entire teams for writing, editing, and production purposes. On top of that, Theorist Media now also runs a “Theoryverse” subscription service, which necessitates even more shows.
The Theorist Union would encompass around 20 Theorist Media workers responsible for writing, editing, production, sound design, and thumbnail imagery, among other things. While they’ve yet to reach the bargaining table, workers to whom Aftermath spoke expressed interest in better pay and greater job security—especially in light of the fact that Patrick, Stephanie, and a manager were able to functionally retire following their time at Theorist Media.
"Seeing that these people—who I admire a lot and who worked very hard—were not just making more than me, but are able to retire from working if they want to [really put things in perspective],” said a Theorist Media worker. “Pretty much most of us are still on a paycheck to paycheck kind of [arrangement]. We figured that something in the math wasn't quite right."
This worker also described a situation in which management promoted a head editor to showrunner, only to cancel the show and claim there was no room for them to return to their old job. The terms of their severance were also not great.
"We were already organizing,” said the worker, “but that moment was a big fire under everyone's butts to be like 'We need protection.' If they can fire [that editor] like that and offer them pretty much nothing, then none of us are safe."
Aftermath reached out to Lunar X, but the company declined to comment.
Theorist workers want a union. Supermajority signed union cards. It's time for @teamtheorist.bsky.social + Lunar X to recognize them today! #TheoristsUnite @mpeg700.bsky.social To join the conversation, visit our social toolkit with access to shareable info: docs.google.com/document/d/1...
— Writers Guild of America West (@wgawest.bsky.social) December 10, 2025 at 10:17 AM
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Initially, IATSE, WGAW, and workers mostly attempted to turn the heat up internally—to take a kind of high road rather than dragging Lunar down into the dirt publicly. After the initial announcement, which garnered press attention, this included signing letters and delivering them straight to the CEO of Lunar X, as well as displaying pro-union profile pictures in work Slack. But as days and weeks passed, it became apparent that management would not be easily moved. The company still refused to recognize the union.
"One of the major challenges with unionizing in a digital space is the fact that most of us are not physically in a single office somewhere," another Theorist Media worker told Aftermath. "We are all over the world, all over the country, and it isn't as simple as just walking up to your coworker and presenting them with a piece of paper they can sign or physically going to your boss in numbers and making the demand. ... Those are just numbers on a screen. The physical aspect of old-school boots on the ground organizing has been taken away.”
Another issue is that as far as a union push like this goes, Theorist Media workers are largely alone in the lawless land of YouTube.
"Watching other places within the media space unionize, once there's a call to unionize, a lot of the time [management] is just like 'OK,' because they know that unions mean business,” said another Theorist Media worker. “The film sets, a lot of them get voluntarily recognized pretty quickly once there's enough cards. Whereas this space, there's no precedent here. It's not like we could point to ten other groups and be like 'Hey, they also got voluntary recognition.' It's the final frontier of media right now."
This worker, who also has experience on more traditional sets, added that the current YouTube status quo makes things harder for everyone, not just those at Theorist.
"There's such a range of how people get treated in the YouTube space, whereas working between NBC and HBO on the sets I've been on, there's not much of a difference. They're run by the same people, in the same way,” they said. “Versus social media, you go on A or B set, it's totally different—a totally different vibe, a totally different space, and it's a little bit harder based on the creators themselves. Everything's so personal and there's a face to everything, unlike NBC where it's just, like, a scary businessman who nobody really [knows]."
In recent months, IATSE, WGAW, and workers have opted to break cover and make the struggle known more widely. But even videos and social media posts outlining workers’ needs, in their own voices, failed to make waves on social media or draw Lunar X to the bargaining table. Then all involved came to realize that they were sitting on a secret weapon: fans.
A couple incidents woke this particular sleeping giant: IATSE made a public Instagram post in May calling on Patrick—no longer part of Theorist Media, but nonetheless an influential voice—to acknowledge the union push and support “former colleagues that helped you build [Theorist’s] success from the ground up.” Years after his departure, Patrick remains nearly synonymous with Theorist Media, and in the world of content creation, one familiar face is worth more than a million impassioned entreaties from people fans haven’t heard of.
"I personally think that after MatPat left, a lot of our audience kind of disengaged from the channels,” a Theorist Media worker told Aftermath, “because it was like watching your favorite character leave a TV show or watching the host of a game show you like leave. It's like 'Well, I only stayed for them.'"
"In general if you mention Theorist Media, [people] are like 'I don't know what that is,'” said another Theorist Media worker. “And then you're like 'Do you know MatPat,' and they're like 'Oh yeah.' So that is a way to get people that might not have engaged with the brand for a while back."
This also provides a potential source of leverage: Theorist Media’s viewership dropped following Patrick’s departure, and while workers say that management has claimed it’s since stabilized, that doesn’t mean the company’s metrics can afford to take another big hit if, say, fans pull their support due to outrage over Lunar X’s failure to recognize the union.
"I personally think that after MatPat left, a lot of our audience kind of disengaged from the channels.”
But the sword cuts both ways: YouTube is a choppy sea in the best of times, and one or two unfavorable algorithm shifts could send workers careening overboard.
"This is a worry that predates [Patrick] retiring, that I've heard also across the industry of YouTubers. It's a volatile, volatile industry,” said a Theorist Media worker. “We are very aware that any day it could just all collapse, so that was another [indication] that we need to have severance in our contracts."
While Patrick still hasn’t publicly spoken about the union, IATSE’s post managed to get fans talking.
“The fact that Theorist Media has declined to recognize the union [is troubling],” wrote one fan in a Reddit post that garnered hundreds of upvotes, “especially when one of the stated reasons for the union was to achieve fair pay and better working conditions and the other amounts to trying to improve the [entire] industry, something MatPat and Steph also seem concerned about right now given their recent work with Congress to establish a committee for creator's rights. The union effort, if anything, should be fully in line with Mat and Steph's goals with that, almost making one wonder if Mat and Steph weren't motivated by some of the issues they were seeing in-house. That's also speculation, but it all paints a troubling picture of what direction Lunar X is pushing the company on the backend.”
Aftermath reached out to Patrick but did not receive a reply as of this publishing.
Then, in June, Theorist Media parted ways with Fish, a producer who also featured on the company’s livestream.
"Very recently, we had our head of production, who was also an on-camera talent for our livestreaming channel, let go,” the Theorist Media worker said. “That was the first time the audience really noticed a big change from behind the scenes, and only then did they actually realize what was going on for this entire time. Then they realized all at once, and a bunch of fans started to catch on."
Send a message to the CEO of Theorist Media/Lunar X to help Theorist writers get the contract they deserve! vist.ly/58wc7 #TheoristsUnite
— Writers Guild of America West (@wgawest.bsky.social) June 24, 2026 at 7:52 AM
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From that point on, fans began to make petitions, send emails, share posts on social media, and regularly talk about the union in Theorist-associated subreddits. Now the movement has actual momentum.
“Any chance [fans] can to make our cause visible, they will take,” said the Theorist Media worker. “It took a while, but they're finally doing it now.”
It’s been a learning process for unions and workers alike.
"I think we've gotten a lot smarter, especially as our friends at WGA and IATSE get to know our content better, because this is a whole new world for the entertainment unions,” said another Theorist Media worker. “It requires a different strategy, different plans. Within entertainment unions, fans don't matter as much with traditional media. NBC is going to see a bunch of fans be like 'We don't like NBC' [and think] 'What are they going to do? Take it out of their cable plan?' For us, fans impact our business way more. They could take away their views almost instantly."
Newfound leverage comes at an opportune time, because the Theorist Media Union’s other path to recognition goes through the National Labor Relations Board, an entity that’s not exactly in great shape to expeditiously uplift a nascent union right now—or do much of anything else, for that matter. Trump has spent much of his second term denying the NLRB the quorum it relies on to make major decisions, which led to a “historic” backlog of cases. Now, even with the quorum restored and another (Republican, of course) nominee on the way, the NLRB continues to move in slow motion.
"In an ideal world, [Theorist Media and Lunar X] would voluntarily recognize us, even with the best NLRB,” said a Theorist Media worker. “In a less-than-ideal but better-than-now world, after they rejected us, we would have a much easier time attempting to take an election with the NLRB. But I have personally been following what appointments are happening there, and ... the more recent appointees are less worker friendly."
"For us, fans impact our business way more. They could take away their views almost instantly."
There remain additional levers that unions and workers could pull. It is conspicuous, for example, that aside from a video posted earlier this year by a small leftist channel called The Valley Labor Report, the Theorist Media Union has almost no presence on YouTube—despite it being the place where the lion's share of Theorist fans congregate.
Theorist Media’s prospective union members have traveled a long road to reach this point, and there’s a decent possibility that no matter which way things ultimately go—voluntary recognition or NLRB—the end won’t come any time soon. But workers are prepared to fight the good fight for as long as it takes.
"We are still people, even if we are not on camera, and we need to be treated as such and fairly, because especially nowadays in a very digital industry, it seems like we are starting to prioritize artificial intelligence and cutting corners,” said a Theorist Media worker. “The things that we do and the art that we make for mass consumption is still art, and if at baseline we can get it recognized, then we can actually get down to brass tacks and get a fair contract that we feel we deserve."
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Steven Asarch
