[11] Fantano graduated from Southern Connecticut State University in 2008, earning a liberal arts degree concentrated in journalism, communications, and political science.

[8][15][16][14] In 2010, Fantano removed older reviews that contained music clips in order to avoid violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

[20] In a later interview, Fantano acknowledged that there had been some "grubby, closed-minded, young, aggressive male" viewers on the "thatistheplan" channel and disavowed what he saw as the "toxic and problematic" side of internet humor, stating that the incident had led him to be more vocal in his advocacy for social justice issues.

[22][23] Later that year he curated a charity compilation, The Needle Drop LP, which consists of tracks performed by "artists that have either been featured on the site or reviewed favorably in the past".

He discusses his relationship with Fantano, calling him a "plaid-shirt-wearing motherfucker" and admitting that he had "fantasized about murdering" him after he had issued negative reviews of his albums Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Supermarket.

During his livestream reaction of the album, Fantano expressed shock after hearing the song, saying that he felt "overemphasized" and that "there never should have been any reason Logic should [have hated] me in the first place".

"[16] In September 2020, New York Times culture correspondent Joe Coscarelli described Fantano as "probably the most popular music critic left standing".

According to Coscarelli, Fantano has successfully brought an "old art to a new medium" and has revitalized the record review format for a younger generation of music consumers.

[54] On July 24, 2023, Fantano was named as a defendant in a lawsuit from video game developer Activision over a viral audio clip he had recorded on TikTok about pizza slices.

Activision claimed that Fantano had asked for "substantial monetary damages" for the company's use of the audio in an advertisement for custom Crash Bandicoot trainers, or to be "prepared to defend a lawsuit".

[58] Falling in Reverse frontman Ronnie Radke filed a defamation lawsuit against Fantano on August 20, 2024, claiming that the latter had "acted in malice" and "engaged in fraud" in posting commentary about the singer in a 2023 video titled "This Guy Sucks".