History

This page is dedicated to learning more about the history of Couches n' Cables / Jukedama. This is written by members from the channel, so information that is not cited can be confirmed by CNC members themselves. This page labels the major events that happened throughout the channel's lifetime, along with the history of members joining and leaving. Sources of inspiration will also be referenced here. This page also contains the history of logos and channel art featured on Couches n' Cables / Jukedama.

Formation Era (January - September 2017)
Ever since Justin started recording YouTube videos in 2014, he wanted to start up some sort of multiplayer gaming channel, similar to a channel called "WiiLikeToPlay". While no major opportunities arrived for a while, the closest he got was when he recorded a modded Minecraft series with his sister, Taylor (who would later become a member of Jukedama) during late 2016.

Sometime in early 2017, during Justin's sophomore year of high school, he talked to 3 friends (Kevin, Dakota and Marco) about meeting up and recording video games together. On March 5, 2017, the four planned to meet up and attempt to record their first videos. In the end, Marco did not show up, although Taylor joined to make up for the absence of a 4th member.

On their first session, the members recorded Nintendo Land and New Super Mario Bros U. The videos were recorded very roughly; Justin used three phones to record gameplay, game audio and voice audio. Originally, the plan was for Justin, Kevin and Dakota to release the videos on each of their own channels. Later that day, they ultimately decided the best route was to create a new YouTube channel where Justin would edit and upload the videos. They named the channel "JKDM Gaming"; each letter was associated to the first letters of Justin, Kevin, Dakota and Marco.

After uploading their first videos, the team refined their name to "Jukedama Gaming", where the channel would now represent the first 2 letters of the main members. Justin also quickly made a temporary logo for the channel, which is posted above. The second Jukedama session was recorded only by Justin, Kevin and Taylor, and the third session was only Justin and Taylor. At this point, it was becoming apparent that inviting members would be a hassle; nobody could drive themselves yet and the group was often busy with school. To compensate, on April 3, 2017, Justin invited a 6th member, Kyle T. Like the others, Kyle T had troubles showing up consistently. It was around this time that Kevin made the first artwork of members and the first channel art.

However, a new problem was at the hands of the members. Since the start of the channel, certain lets plays were recorded with specific people; for example, Kevin and Justin would record Super Mario Galaxy 2, and Justin, Kyle and Taylor would record Super Mario 3D World. Since so many combinations of members were possible, the channel had 12 different lets plays active by May of 2017. On June 27, 2017, Justin invited Hunter into Jukedama to replace Marco, who clearly was unable to participate since he had not yet come over for a session. Unfortunately, after recording Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash and Wii Play, Hunter decided he would not want to participate as he did not enjoy recording video games for YouTube. To replace Hunter, Nick and Cameron were simultaneously invited to the channel. Cameron was first seen on July 24, 2017 in the Wakeboarding Unleashed series, while Nick was first seen on July 28, 2017 in the Super Bomberman R series. Another new member named Justine was also supposed to join, however she never got invited or arrived for sessions. With 8 potential members, another channel art was made by Kevin.

Ultimately, the two new members had the same problem as the others; everyone was simply too busy with school or personal situations to show up consistently for the channel. Jukedama now had 18 unfinished lets plays and members who had trouble participating frequently.

Unstable Era (October 2017 - July 2018)
While Cameron had recently joined the channel, he also gave Justin his old capture card, an Elgato HD60 to use for recording future videos. This was a huge step up from the previous way of filming with phones. The first video with capture card footage was episode 5 of the Burnout 3: Takedown series. Even though the channel now used capture card, some videos still needed to be recorded with phones, as some consoles were a hassle to move into the new recording setting.

Although the members had a better way of filming, new software inevitably led to more problems. Many videos uploaded during this time contained frame stuttering, audio de-syncing, and screen tearing. Not to mention, the group still had to use a phone to record voice audio, and it would take some time to upgrade their microphone setup.

There was also the fact that Jukedama had 18 lets plays running at once. To make matters even more chaotic, A Super Mario Odyssey series got introduced in order to capitalize on the new game, although it never gained much attention. In total, Justin ended up canceling 8 series, including the Mario Kart 8 and Burnout Revenge lets plays. Others were finished short, like the PvZ: Garden Warfare series. A total of 8 series would be continued throughout the next few months, and some, like the Super Mario Galaxy 2 series would take over a year to finish. Since Justine never showed up to the channel, Justin invited a new member, Alex, who would take her place. Kevin made his character art, and Justin finished a third channel art containing Alex. Additionally, a new logo was developed; it would then be used in the channel for the next two years. To increase promotion, a Jukedama Twitter account was also created.

By December of 2017, both Alex and Nick decided to leave the channel because they were busy and had a lack of interest. As a result, Jukedama went on a month long hiatus. On January 3, 2018, Justin returned to the channel with the Minecraft Industrial Modded series, and later the Super Mario Power Star Frenzy lets play. During February, Justin hosted a "Superbowl Special" which included special guests Alexa, Dean and Hunter; the group recorded Nintendo Land instead of watching the game. Throughout the next few months, the members would work towards completing their old lets plays that were started up during the formation era. Dakota ended up having her last appearance on March 9, 2018, and Kyle T had his last appearance on April 20, 2018. With majority of the members busy once again, Jukedama took another break until late June.

With an absence of active members, Justin re-invited Hunter to the channel and hoped he would have more of an interest now that videos were recorded more professionally. He ended up willing to return to Jukedama, and helped out with recordings while other members couldn't come. Nick also mentioned he would like to return to the channel, although he never made any appearances during this time.

Side Series Era (August 2018 - September 2019)
On July 31, 2018, Justin announced in an update video that he would be moving Jukedama to his old channel. With Jukedama relocated to Justin's main channel, let's playing as a whole was now considered a part of Justin's channel. He also started a series called "JRreviews" so his channel could be more associated to gaming as a whole. On August 17, Reece joined the channel after deciding on a whim to join Justin, Kevin, and Cameron for Justin's birthday session. By the end of the day, Reece stated he had fun and wanted to join Jukedama as an official member.

Since Reece joined, sessions became a lot more frequent due to Kevin and Reece's high availablity. Justin therefore decided to move his main series "JRmysteries" onto a separate channel, although it never gained much attention and the channel was quickly deleted.

On October 6th, 2018, Justin and Kevin started up a new series, Super Mario Party, the first series that didn't end up getting cancelled since 2017. During this session, Kevin invited Michael to join as a 4th main member. Unfortunately, his first session with the group did not get publicly released. This was because Justin had bought new microphones (a pair of Rode M5s) for the channel in which the capture card software conflicted with. Thankfully, Justin fixed the software issue so the microphones could be used for many sessions to come.

With Michael and Reece as consistent members of the channel, Jukedama finally had 4 members who could frequently come over for sessions. Therefore, Dakota, Taylor, Kyle T and Nick could finally leave the channel so they could focus on other important tasks. Cameron and Hunter remained side members because they were slightly less busy than the others.

Jukedama took yet another hiatus after November 4, 2018 due to Michael and Reece wanting to just hang out with friends and not worry about recording videos. Therefore, Justin, Kevin, Reece and Michael ended up going on driving adventures while forgetting about the channel. Justin released a joke video about the "Yoshi evades taxes" meme during this time.

Finally, on December 28th, the group came back together and met up for a new session where they would play Super Smash Bros Ultimate. The first episode got released on January 5, 2019. The members also finished the Wakeboarding Unleashed and Super Mario Odyssey series, opening the door for more lets plays. Additionally, the group planned to release monthly compilations; the first one would be edited by Kevin. With new types of videos on the channel, Justin decided to put "JRmysteries" back on Jukedama and invite the concept of side series videos.

Unfortunately, during the middle of January, Cameron announced that he would be moving away to a different state later that summer. To fill the gap, Justin invited Jackson to the channel as another side member. His first appearance was during the New Super Luigi U Deluxe series. During February, the first side series videos were released, with one of them being Reece's "Reece Plays" (singleplayer reviews and gameplay) and the other Jackson's "Cross Beat" (music album reviews). Justin was also concurrently releasing a few more episodes of his "JRmysteries" series as well. While three of the members were uploading content, Michael, Kevin and Hunter had difficulty getting their content released. Michael initially decided upon releasing "Michael Mondays", where he would upload random videos on Monday. Hunter decided upon "Movie Hunts", which would be movie reviews. Kevin chose to make "Game Sketches" where he would talk about artwork and design in various video games. Even though these series were decided upon, none of the three inactive uploaders ever released their content. Nonetheless, Justin made channel artwork to advertise the new side series portion of Jukedama.

During March of 2019, the group invited Tyler into Jukedama as the 7th member. However, after his first session, he decided that he did not want to return to the channel. Instead, Jackson invited Marcus to join, and he first appeared on April 1st for an April fools video, although he did also participate in lets plays. Later in April, Tyler tried another session with the group after getting pressured by Michael. In the end, Tyler decided to join under the condition that he didn't have to release side videos since his computer wasn't working.

On May 4, 2019, the members re-introduced singleplayer lets plays into the channel, starting with Jackson's Minecraft Survival and Justin's Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. Additionally, Justin let Tyler borrow his old laptop, meaning he could now release his own side series videos under the name "The Bottom Floor". Michael decided to change his solo series to "Mikecast", which ended up getting two videos, although they were both uploaded by Justin. Kevin also changed his series into "Kevin's Korner", which got a total of two videos. Later in May, Hunter decided to leave the channel once again because he felt disconnected with the rest of the group. On July 4, the group uploaded their most popular series yet, Bloons TD 6 Coop which would end up getting over 10K views. Prior to this, the only series that did remotely well was the New Super Luigi Wii Dark Moon series back in 2017 on the old Jukedama channel. To help keep up with videos, Justin and Jackson invited Kyle G. into the channel on August 8th as the new 8th member, although he only ever came over for one session. Justin once again updated the artwork to include Kyle G. On August 15, 2019, Justin hosted a Jukedama birthday special that included the main members along with Nick and Hunter, who previously left.

The next series, Super Kirby Clash, was released on September 7 and ended up even more noticed than the previous one with about 17K views. While views were reaching numbers that the channel has never seen before, some members were now having difficulty showing up, as Reece, Kyle G. and Marcus were all either busy or did not want to come over. Marcus ended up leaving the channel during late September.

Consistent Era (October 2019 - March 2020)
To fill the gap of Marcus leaving, Nick re-joined the channel on October 5, 2019 since he was no longer busy with school. At this point, the channel had a total of 6 active members, as Kyle G. and Reece were unable to come over consistently. Reece and Kyle G both ended up leaving the channel in November.

With members who were all happy being a part of the channel, Jukedama had the longest period of time with the same group from November of 2019 to February of 2020. Justin, Kevin, Tyler and Michael remained main members, while Nick would show up to sessions occasionally, and Jackson would help out by uploading singleplayer videos. For the most part, Jukedama was stable and members could show up consistently.

On November 1st, the group released a series on Luigi's Mansion 3, which would include all 6 of the members though the lets play. On December 20th, they also released a lets play on Garfield Kart Furious Racing, which included most of the members and had some of the strangest gameplay in the history of Jukedama.

Jackson released a lets play on December 31st about Pokemon Shield; his second major singleplayer series for Jukedama. During the series, an unknown person named "Studio71_1_2" copyright claimed one of the videos. This was a frighting experience for the members, as more copyright claims could have led to the channel's unwarranted termination. Thankfully, no more claims were made, although Jackson's save file got corrupted and the Pokemon Shield series was left unfinished after episode 12. During January, former member Taylor created the latest and greatest art which included the current members of the channel. Taylor has mentioned that she was willing to become the new designer for channel art when new members join.

In February of 2020, the group finished the Minecraft Experimental Multiplayer series which had a whopping total of 74 episodes; the most episodes in a series ever. With that lets play out of the way, the group planned a Lego Star Wars: The Original Trilogy lets play, which would end up being the last full lets play before the Coronavirus pandemic.

During this time, Michael mentioned that he wanted to be considered a side member on Jukedama so he wasn't pressured into coming over for every session. Therefore, William was introduced to the channel to help make up for a lack of showings by Michael. William's first session was the first few episodes of Lego Star Wars: The Original Trilogy.

On March 10, Dylan joined the channel as an additional member to help out with recording videos. However, the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2x series he featured on ended up getting cut short due to COVID-19. On March 17, Justin publicly notified the channel that recordings would strictly be online or singleplayer to help out the situation of the world.

Online Era (April 2020 - September 2020)
With the Coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world, Jukedama sessions were forced to change drastically during this time period. Justin could no longer host in-person sessions at his house, so everyone had to record by themselves or meet up online. In order to record the Animal Crossing: New Horizons series, Kevin let Tyler borrow his capture card; the same one Cameron gave Justin back in 2017. Justin worked on a series of his own, the Super Mario 64 DS lets play, and Jackson began his series on SSBU: World of Light. With the extra free time, Justin also made an updated Jukedama logo for the channel.

Unfortunately for William and Dylan, both of them did not have good ways to continue helping out with the channel during this time period. While William was in the process of buying an old microphone from Justin, he never actually got around to it, so William did not have a way to record his own voice. Dylan, on the other hand, was much more busy with work. William mentioned that he wanted to return to the channel once Justin can host in-person sessions again.

On April 11, 2020, the members started the Craftdama Modded Minecraft series; this was the first fully online session in the history of Jukedama. Coincidentally, the members talked about starting a Minecraft server series for months before the pandemic. With this new lets play started, Taylor returned to the channel to help out with finishing the Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga series and to participate in online sessions. A new member, Chris, also joined the channel in order to help out with online sessions, although he has stated that he does not want to participate in Jukedama once in-person meetups continue. Additionally, Michael decided after the Craftdama Modded Minecraft series that he does not want to participate in further videos.

The Bloons Monkey City Versus series was created on May 11, 2020, which was the first series to ever feature perspectives from each of the member's recordings. The series featured Justin, Taylor, Tyler and Jackson, as each of them competed to see who could get the furthest. This new form of playing completely changed up the way the initial game is supposed to be played. The members stated they would like to do more "versus" lets plays in the future.

The next multiplayer series, Minecraft Dungeons, did fairly well and was the first online series to break 1,000 views on the channel. Around the same time, on June 15, the members played Bombergrounds in a one-off video that featured old member Kyle T. While he mentioned he wants to return to the channel, Kyle had yet to appear in any future videos. On a related note, William returned to the channel after buying Justin's microphone and first participated in the UNO Multiplayer series on June 19.

With William back in the channel, the members could release constant at a more stable rate, since Kevin, Tyler, Jackson were also relatively available during this time. However, in late June, Jackson mentioned that he planned on leaving the channel in August once school returns and he moves near his campus. This was officially announced in a new series called Jukedama News, where Justin talked about news relating to the channel such as new videos, events relating to the members, and more.

Since Jackson was planning on leaving, Justin brought in a new member; coincidentally also named Jackson; to replace him. Additionally, the new Jackson wanted to record a solo series featuring special guest Tommy. This was announced in the August Jukedama News video. The members also concluded their Terraria Coop series around this time, which was originally going to be Jackson's last appearance in multiplayer videos during the school year. Afterwards, on August 20, the Towerfall series was released, which was the first in-person session to be recorded since March. The in-person videos included Justin, William and Kevin. The members stated they were planning to record as much as possible before William had to move away, in which he would not return until next year.

After the three had finished the Towerfall and Kirby Star Allies lets plays, Justin had lost a bunch of motivation to record lets plays and wanted to change up the channel. Rather than recording and uploading most of the content, he wanted each member to have their own portion of the channel where they would upload weekly. This is similar in concept to the side series era; but videos would be restricted to just gaming content and there would be no Jukedama gaming lets plays.

Silent Era (October 2020 - February 2021)
By late September, most of the members have determined what videos they planned to upload for the channel. Some decided to keep releasing lets plays, like Kyle and Nick, but others wanted to try new things, like Justin's planned review series. In addition, Jackson R. ended up not participating in the new channel, and Jackson O. returned since the new format would have been less tasking. Justin also invited a new member, Ryan, since the new channel would require more uploaders. At this point, the new lineup for the channel was Justin, Kevin, Tyler, Taylor, Jackson O, Kyle T, Nick, William, Ryan and Chris.

On September 28, Justin had started his final solo lets play on the channel, the Wakeboarding Unleashed Replay, which would be a 100% series playing through one of his favorite childhood games of all time. While lets plays were still planned to exist, they would no longer be hosted or uploaded by Justin.

In October, the members had completely figured out what they would be uploading. Justin's series, JReviews, would be video game reviews on various good or bad games, similar to the original JReviews from the side series era. Kevin's series, Kevtacular's Korner, would be online group one-off gameplay. Tyler's series, The Bottom Floor, would be random solo lets plays, but they always had a twist. Taylor's series, Taylor's Wild Ride, would be ironic one off videos that also feature Justin. Kyle's series, The Halo Hunt, is a continuation of his solo lets plays through the Halo games. Nick's series, The Psynetic Experience, would be a continuation of his Pokemon Platinum series; though he planned to feature other games while continuing the same concept in the future.

The other members, William, Ryan, Jackson and Chris, still had their series plans, but wanted to wait a bit before uploading them. William would upload William's Weeb World, where he would play lets plays or one-offs with special guests. Jackson's series, Couch Crashers, would be 4-player in person one offs featuring Justin, Chris, and a different Kyle. Ryan would upload R34N's Ramble, which would be podcast-style videos on discussion of various games. Chris would upload Christerviews, which would be one on one interviews with another person on their favorite childhood games.

However, this new era of the channel was cut short; as Justin uploaded their last side series video on November 2nd. Afterwards, things went completely silent for a whole month, as none of the members uploaded anything or posted about Jukedama. Finally, on December 1st, Justin sent a community post explaining that they are going on a break from the channel for an undefined amount of time. He explained that he was burnt out from managing content that others had to upload, and really did not like recording online.

On December 31st, Justin released a cryptic video titled "all end", which used a song by Autechre also called all end; a melancholy drone piece that lasts for an hour long. Many viewers claimed they didn't understand the video or thought it was too depressing; however at the end of the video, technically at the start of 2021, Justin contained a preview of his next intended project, called "The Jukedama Show".

The Jukedama Show was meant to be a revival of the JRmysteries style Justin once did during the side series era. He released the first episode on January 11th, and intended to release more, however due to a lack of popularity and simply not having enough time to upload this style of video within a timely manner, Justin cancelled this project as well.

Finally, on February 13th, Justin released an update video that actually explained in-depth his feelings about uploading to the channel and described why he had a lack of motivation to publish anything within the past few months. In short, he explained that online recordings wore him out, trying new things wore him out even more, and he wanted to return to classic Jukedama in-person let's plays. Justin originally said he planned to revive Jukedama over summer, however in following updates he wanted to come back much sooner. As such, Justin ended up deciding to come back in March.

Revival Era (March 2021 - Present)
With Justin returning to in-person let's plays, he had many plans to figure out, including who the members would be, what their recording setup would include, and of course, what their new channel name should be called. Justin decided to bring back Kevin, Tyler, William (who would temporarily go by Matthew), Michael and Ryan. To improve the quality of their videos, Justin invested in 4 headsets that would make for more comfortable and higher quality voice recording. Finally, while there was some hesitation on their new channel name, Justin ultimately decided upon Couches n' Cables. Of course, a new channel logo and background art was created. Their first upload was on March 10, 2021. They had began a Bowser's Fury lets play, a Mario Kart 8 Deluxe series, and made a Plants vs Zombies versus one-off. While let's playing would be the groups main content, they decided upon releasing weekly one-offs, weekly podcasts, and like before, monthly compilations. Ryan's first in-person appearence was on March 17th, and the channel's first podcast was on March 24th. On the same day, the group began their Overcooked: All You Can Eat series which needed to be recorded at William's house; this is the first time in 3 years a session was not recorded at Justin's house. In addition, this series contained special guest Nick who had not appeared in a lets play since the UNO series. Their first compilation was uploaded on April 10th.

While things were going well with the new channel, Couches n' Cables began to fall apart in late May and early June. Michael had lost motivation to record yet again, Ryan was preparing to move out for college, and William had personal problems that prevented him from wanting to participate. Once again, the channel was dormant for the next 3 months, with no updates from the members. Finally on September 7th, Justin released a community post that explained why they took a huge break and why they were silent about their haitus. The group retuned to the channel on September 11th with the Pokemon Let's Go Eevee series.

With the channel back up and running, Justin decided to make some changes that relieved some stress. Firstly, they would no longer upload podcasts or compilations since they did not recieve much attention. Secondly, the group would not upload consistant one-offs since it was tasking to come up with ideas for them every single week. Additionally, Justin wanted to find two more members to make up for the absence of Michael and Ryan.

In early October, Justin invited new members Daniel and another Kevin (who would later go by Jacob). Daniel's first appearence was on October 17th during the Ultimate Chicken Horse series, and Jacob's first appearance was on November 7th for the Mario Party Superstars series. The new members proved to be fairly active and would continue to appear in future uploads.