Chris Chan: A Comprehensive History

"Chris Chan. Arguably the most documented person in history.

His antics have been witnessed by millions, with many always keeping a close eye on him, waiting to see what he does next.

What made him this way? What is the attraction? What keeps us fascinated?

This is the story of Chris Chan."

- Geno Samuel's opening narration for the series, usually condensed to the last two lines after the premiere; starting in Part XLIV, feminine pronouns are used instead.

Chris Chan: A Comprehensive History is a documentary webseries created by Geno Samuel, which began in February 2018. It is, as the name suggests, an extensive, in-depth documentary about Chris's life, similar to Sachumo's. However, while Sachumo's film is an abridged summary of Chris's life for newcomers, Geno's videos go into greater detail, with most videos being between 35 to 45 minutes in length, with a decent portion of this being tied to the playback of Chris's own audio and video. As of Part LXXIII, the documentary series is 2 days, 3 hours, 26 minutes, and 3 seconds long.

The series is in chronological order, taking several videos just to cover Chris's life before his internet fame, with a significant portion of the series (28 episodes) dedicated to the troll-influenced events of 2009 and 2010 – trolls had prodded Chris into producing many calls and videos at the time, which the series utilizes for playback. It presents the events of Chris's life in a mostly objective light, allowing watchers to pass their own judgment on Chris and the people around him. Nonetheless, Geno occasionally slips in dry, blunt observations over Chris's shortcomings, along with summaries of how Chris's problems manifest themselves and worsen over time. Furthermore, he also manages to maintain a completely neutral, deadpan tone of voice when discussing the absolute absurdities present in Chris's life, and he reads spelling errors precisely as they are written, which leads to some of the documentary's most humorous moments despite being an overview of Chris's life.

Geno's narration also reflects Chris's changes in identity throughout the series, initially referring to him as "Christopher" before changing it to "Christian" in the first episode and using masculine pronouns for the bulk of the show's run, eventually shifting over to calling Chris "Christine" and using feminine pronouns by the time that the series reaches the events of late 2014, when Chris began to transition. It remains to be seen if he will eventually revert to using masculine pronouns during Chris's extended period of being "possessed" by Sonichu through most of 2020 and part of 2021, although he has used masculine pronouns to describe Chris's past antics after this period in time. Beginning with Episode 61, Geno began altering the theme music to represent the Idea Guys saga. Since the saga in question ended in Episode 62, Geno has said that it would be reverted back in Episode 63, although a distorted, reversed version of the theme has consistently played over the credits since then.

The series is still ongoing, its latest episode covering events up to late October 2018, and though Geno initially predicted that it would be around 50 episodes long by the time he reached the present day, the fiftieth episode ended up only reaching the events of mid-2016. Geno has since predicted that he would reach modern Christory by the eighty-ninth episode, meaning that he has a laid out plan for the documentary. Once he's "caught up" with Christian Weston Chandler's Adult Chronicles, Geno plans to continue the series incrementally until it ultimately reaches its logical conclusion. It will take a while to get to the present, in any case.

The documentary series has inspired a considerable amount of new discussion related to Chris, which has predictably produced more weens who mistakenly think that "modern" Chris acts like he once did during the so-called "Classic Era" – much of the context behind trolling was never publicly released by Chris's trolls, making it appear as if many of Chris's actions during troll sagas were his own ideas. The documentary itself eventually ended up being a part of Christory in a more direct fashion, as several people who would go on to interact with Chris either found out about him, or were influenced by, the series. Furthermore, Chris is aware of the series, and has commented on it several times over Twitter and YouTube, usually expressing approval of Geno's attention to detail.

In light of the incest reveal, Geno, like everyone else, was utterly flabbergasted by the extremely dark turn that Christory took. Geno then announced, via his Patreon, that the series would be taking an extended hiatus following the release of Episode 59. He explained that he felt that it would be potentially tasteless and exploitative to continue the series immediately after Chris's appalling actions came to light, so he informed his patrons that he would not be completing and releasing new episodes of the series until early 2022. During that time, Geno redirected his attention to work on his other documentaries and music projects. The series officially resumed on 24 February 2022, Chris's 40th birthday.

History
Geno attempted to monetize his GenoSamuel2 channel. On 13 June of that year, when it was his turn to be reviewed by YouTube staff for the monetization program, they instead issued community guideline strikes due to the clips of bullying featured in the videos, and as a result his channel was terminated. Geno confirmed that he did send an appeal form, but YouTube never gave him his channel back. Fans reuploaded all of the episodes made prior to the strike and Geno created a new backup channel on YouTube where the series would be uploaded from then on.

A week later, Geno revealed on the backup channel he would be taking a long break from the videos, stating that he was getting tired of always having to have Chris in his mind when making the documentary. He said that he will continue working on them sometime near the end of the year.

On 3 January 2019, he announced on his Twitter in the form of a teaser poster that the series would be coming back on 24 February 2019, which also happens to be Chris's birthday. The new series contains updated audio, additional and corrected information and some modifications to prevent another takedown. He also mentioned that he would not be monetizing the videos out of respect.

Geno said that Chris knew of the original run of the series and approved of it.

In July 2020, Geno announced the series would go on hiatus again until August; however, the series resumed slightly earlier than expected, as Part 41 premiered on 31 July.

On 14 September, Geno posted a message explaining why he decided to use feminine pronouns to refer to Chris beginning from Part 43:



On 31 July 2021, Geno decided to put the series on hiatus following the release of Episode 59, in light of the incest situation. He had originally planned to do so after Episode 60, but opted to take a break from the series for multiple reasons.

On 1 October 2021, Geno was featured on TrashTaste, a podcast featuring a group of anime YouTubers, thereby exposing Chris to millions of weebs everywhere. In the podcast Geno expressed his desire to also follow his other passions, not wanting to be known as "The Chris Chan guy". When asked how many episodes were possibly left, he replied maybe another 10 episodes. He also said if the opportunity arises… if I can get something done with Netflix, this could be a stepping stone.

On 24 February 2022, Part LX (60) was released, ending the series' 208-day hiatus.

April Fool's jokes
Occasionally, Geno will play a prank involving the series on 1 April.

On 1 April 2021, Geno commemorated April Fool's Day by changing the title of the series to Donald Trump: A Comprehensive History, and altered the thumbnails of every video in the series to include images of him. The content of the videos themselves, however, remained unchanged. Chris did not take kindly to this, privately messaging Geno over Twitter to complain about the alteration.

On 1 April 2022, Geno did another April Fool's Day joke by changing his username to Tekken Time Bomb and swapping all of the titles and thumbnails of the videos with clickbait on subjects unrelated to Chris, renaming the playlist "Freshest Videos". Nonetheless, the titles and thumbnails all cleverly alluded to details discussed in the videos themselves.

On 1 April 2023, Geno uploaded what appeared to be Part LXXIV (74), which began as one would expect it to begin, however it took a sharp turn, revealing it to be an April Fools joke and showing a plotline imagining Chris realising that the Dimensional Merge was a delusion and Dimension 197 didn't exist, selling all his toys and video games and getting a job at a local Target, followed by him leaving the Internet and eventually marrying. It ended with a major-key version of the Comprehensive History theme song and a "THE END" card. Photoshops and AI-generated audio of Chris and Ben Saint were used to create the illusion. The video was unlisted the following day, but is available to those who have the link.

Mentions by Chris
In August 2019, Chris, while in his phase of role-playing as Magi-Chan, began "binge-listening" to the series (suggesting that, like with the Sachumo documentary, Chris couldn't bear to actually watch the videos). Chris would make comments on the videos as Magi-Chan via Twitter, and as himself in YouTube's comment section.

Chris's interest in the series continued after his phrase of role-playing as Magi-Chan ended, eventually watching the series as opposed to just listening.


 * "quite curious, when you think about it, from the Animal Crossing Video, Christine calls for Sonic Heroes being GameCube exclusive; she gave premonition to the Nintendo-Exclusive Sonic titles."


 * He noted exactly which cartoons and games Megan Schroeder had introduced him to over a decade prior "just for the record and Megan's reference", those being Soul Calibur and Tekken OC Yoshimitsu, also saying he'd been a fan of My Little Pony and Sailor Moon before meeting Megan.


 * "You made me laugh when you stiltedly read, 'You don't have to tell me twice. But back in the Stone Age...' Just simply how you said it cracked me up. Reminder, the end of that joke is, '...you Really needed to tell them twice'; you couldn't get it through their heads at all."


 * Chris viewed his past homophobia with regret.


 * Chris commented on Part 24 in YouTube's comment section, claiming that he had known Alec Benson Leary was a troll, among other dubious remarks:


 * Chris tweeted on Part 31, about the 100 2270 video he filmed on 7 October 2010:

In summer 2020, during Chris's phase of role-playing as Sonichu, Chris continued commenting on the series.


 * About Part 38, Chris laughed about the goofy facial expressions he had made in Message for John Kyle.


 * About Part 39, an angry Chris complained about Geno reading an e-mail from the LoveYouLongTime E-mails, 2013-2014 collection in which Chris had privately talked about shoving his own penis into his buttcrack. He also whined about Geno's coverage of the house fire.


 * About part 42, Chris commented on the Brushfire Video:


 * About part 44, Chris thanked Geno for referring to him with his preferred pronouns, as the series had entered the point of Chris's transgenderism.

After the Sonichu spirit possession ended, Chris still commented on videos- albeit as Chris himself, once more.


 * About Part 52, Chris commented on his distaste of Donald Trump and the predictions he made.


 * About Part 54, Chris made a joke regarding the episode's Roman numbering (LIV).


 * About Part 56, Chris promoted the as-of-yet unreleased next episode of the series, claiming it would cover the events of the Idea Guys saga.

Part 57 did not, in fact, bring up the Idea Guys. They eventually made their first appearance only by Part 59.


 * In July 2021, The WCT and Chris discussed the series and potential upcoming episodes. Chris believed that "the ten and a half months when Sonichu Prime and I were body-swapped" would be one of the last sagas people would find entertaining.

What is the attraction?
In his 100k subscriber Q&A special uploaded in December of 2020, Geno answered a question Chris had posted from the CwcvilleGuardian account. Roleplaying as Sonichu, Chris asked what Geno believed to be the draw of himself and life story.

Geno answered Chris's inquiry at 1:10:28 as the final question of the video, stating that he found it fascinating due to how it cannot be replicated today and how Chris and various trolls created an entire fantasy world which Chris lived – and continues to live – in:

Influence
"I first fell in love with Christian Weston Chandler and thought I had a big brother when I watched the original run of Geno Samuel's documentaries."

- Jacob Sockness

Geno's documentary is often noted for either introducing many people to Christory or having an influence on it.


 * Jacob Sockness : An enabler who wanted to have sex with Chris.


 * The WCT : A member of the Watchmen white knight/enabler group. While it's unknown whether WCT knew of Chris prior to the Comprehensive History, WCT was "fascinated" by the series itself. WCT was also in GenoSamuel's Discord server where he met the Watchman member Naught.


 * Bella: A troll who Chris confided in about his incestuous relationship with his mother.


 * The Suitress : A young woman and enabler who became infatuated with Chris. While she claimed to have been introduced to Chris through Deadwing Dork, she would also watch the series on end, and become an active member in the CWCSphere soon after.


 * KwaiiSandbag: An enabler who role-played as a psychic and influenced Chris to end his phase of role-playing as Sonichu.