Kusari

Kusari is a 19-year old documentary YouTuber and full-time college student most well known for his three-part docuseries about Daniel Larson. All 3 parts of the docuseries were released in 2023, with each episode being released in March, July, and December, respectively.

Kusari's first Daniel video "The Daniel Larson Documentary - Part 1" is a 2.5 hour-long introductory documentary about Daniel’s origin story and life up to the events of the Las Vegas Arc. The video is revered in the community for its concise detail and accuracy, especially for a brand-new YouTuber. Although the video has received some criticism for its lack of context regarding specific events as well as some writing and pacing similarities to Turkey Tom’s video on Daniel, it is widely liked. The documentary received over 125k views in its first 2 weeks, and is one of the most watched deep dives of Daniel Larson on the entire platform, having reached one million views on November 8th, 2023.

Kusari’s involvement in the Daniel Larson community started when he began teasing and advertising his documentary in the subreddit, which caused moderate buzz in the reddit and had people looking forward to it. However, Kusari claims at the end of his documentary and in several comments that he had been following Daniel and had been aware of him since July 2020. The night the video released, around 50 users watched the premiere on YouTube live.

Kusari used The Daniel Larson Wiki multiple times in his two videos, and cited it several times as key points of reference. He says that the wiki and the Subreddit are his two primary sources of info for his docuseries, and also noted that Turkey Tom’s video, The Daniel Larson Curator, Papa Gut, PERK 30, and other archive channels and redditors provided valuable info about Daniel and helped him with his research for Part 1.

His three other videos on Daniel, one being part 2 to the original documentary (covering the events of the Travel Arc to the Dog Arc), a follow-up update video he made shortly after the documentary’s release (now unlisted), and part 3 to the docuseries, can be viewed on his channel. Although many consider Part 2 to be an improvement from Part 1 in terms of Kusari’s narration, pacing, and documentation of events, it has been pretty moderately criticized in the comments section for mispronunciations of certain city names like Wichita and Tuscon, and the frequent usage of flashing lights and strobe effects without an in-video warning. Kusari, however, has since apologized for this in the pinned comment of the video, and added a strobing/flashing lights warning in the description of the video for photosensitive viewers. The video currently sits at 475,000 views.

He has gained over 22,000 subscribers since the start of the series, with him noting on social media that before the doc’s upload he had no videos and just over 100 subs. He is typically regarded as the most well-known channel that is actively following and documenting Daniel’s antics in video/documentary format. However, despite this, later controversies regarding the third installment of the documentary have resulted in Kusari's reputation slowly beginning to sour, espeically on the Daniel Larson subreddit and on Twitter/X.

Part 3 of the series was released on January 10th, 2023, following the immense success of Parts 1 and 2. The reception for this installment was mostly positive, although it did spark a significant amount of controversy. The controversy stemmed from Kusari's decision to include the Caretaker Call as a notable event in the video. Many individuals were upset by this inclusion, believing that Kusari had not conducted enough research on the topic and had included the call due to poor judgment. The validity of the call remained unverified and was highly speculated to be a fake caretaker. On the other hand, some viewers believed that Kusari intentionally included the call to present the interview as 100% real in order to generate more views. Kusari addressed these concerns in a YouTube community post and a comment on the video, clarifying that this was not the case. He explained that he had actually added a textual disclaimer in the video, stating that the validity of the call remained uncertain. Despite his attempts to clear up the situation, the backlash continued, with many people criticizing Kusari for not taking proper accountability for his poor judgment and instead defending himself. In response to the backlash, Kusari hinted at the possibility of quitting making Daniel content on his community tab, which sparked a significant amount of discussion on the subreddit with mixed reactions. Some individuals empathized with him and defended him, considering his age and new status as a YouTuber, suggesting that he may not know how to handle controversy effectively. However, others criticized him for being "egotistical" in being defensive of his work. After taking a break from social media for a few days, Kusari eventually returned to online activity. Despite the controversy damaging his credibility as a documentarian and his reputation as a YouTuber, his content is still generally well-received by the Daniel Larson community.

Since “The Daniel Larson Documentary”, parts one and two and three, Kusari remains semi-active in the Daniel community, occasionally posting to the Reddit, although not as much since the Caretaker Call controversy. He remains active on Twitter/X, and frequently interacts with members of the greater YouTube commentary/video essay community.