The Try Guys have officially downsized from three to two members, announcing that Eugene Lee Yang has departed the team.
Yang’s exit comes nearly two years after the original four-part comedy group, best known for their YouTube sketches, fired Ned Fuller after it emerged that he had been cheating on his wife.
Now, Keith Habersberger and Zach Kornfeld remain the sole hosts of the channel. The forthcoming season of The Try Guys will be the final content featuring Yang as he leaves to pursue other career endeavors.
“Part of this is bittersweet. We’re gonna miss working with Eugene. He has been one of the true collaborators of both of our lives. But we’ve had a long time to process this,” Kornfeld told Rolling Stone in a new interview. “So we’re very excited for him, very excited for us, and just feeling very energized by this whole moment.”
“Eugene leaving is something that is sort of necessary for us to keep moving forward,” Habersberger added. “Things change. THE TRY GUYS ’ original cast already came to an end once, But now it’s sort of getting a better finite ending.”
Along with the news of Yang’s exit, The Try Guys have shared that they will be launching their own ad-free subscription streaming service and app, 2ndTry TV. The service will cost $4.99 per month.
“We’ve been doing this for 10 years, we have seen both the joys and the limits of algorithmic media making. We’ve obviously benefited from it greatly ourselves,” Kornfeld said, “But we’re at a point where we find that our taste and our audience’s taste is at odds with what algorithms, specifically, the YouTube algorithm rewards. And so by doing 2ndTry TV, we’re creating a space where we can bet on ourselves and bet on our fans to support the shows they want to see.”
They said that they won’t be leaving YouTube for good. Instead, they said they plan on using it in tandem with their new platform, while also using it to encourage fans to shift over to 2ndTry TV.
“Look we’ve done our drama once. I don’t want to do it again,” Kornfeld said. “It was very clear to us from the beginning, that for this to work, you cannot take away from your audience, you have to give more. Our job now is to prove to people that we’re making stuff that is worth their time.”
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Referring to Fuller’s scandal, Kornfeld said: “It’s not a great feeling to go viral for someone else’s misdoings. While the media circus surprised us, I know we remain incredibly proud of how we navigated an unfortunate situation. We certainly as individuals, and as a team here paid the price for something we didn’t bring upon ourselves. That said I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“I want to keep doing cool stuff. I hope certainly the next time we’re global news it’s for something sick as hell,” Habersberger said. “I hope that the thing we’re most known for hasn’t happened yet.”
