The Couch Chris Saga is the first saga of the South Center Age, and takes place in Josh's first apartment(as well as partially in his dad's basement) from Summer 2012 to February 28th, 2013. It is named as such for the predominant screentime of the first Homeboy in Josh's videos, Couch Chris - a high school friend of Josh's who would initially start as a friend in need who quickly became a freeloader, and then a parasite.

• Josh Saunders: Fresh from his stint in the Boxelder Job Corps and in desperate need of money, Josh attempts to find gainful employment and move up in the world, fighting for his independence.
• Couch Chris: The first of many gothic freeloaders, and the de facto star of this saga.
• Stephanie: Playing only a minor role, Stephanie would appear on occasion as Josh's steady, albeit long-distance girlfriend.

Following the ultimately disastrous Job Corps Saga and its blazing conclusion, Josh has found himself at home once more with a series of new rules. Clint would hand Josh an ultimatum: Find a job in two weeks, or get another Punishment Haircut. While the proof is spotty at best, it is also believed that Clint threatened to have Josh sent to a group home for people with Asperger's. Facing the threat of having to deal with other tards, Josh would throw himself wholeheartedly into the hunt for a new job, determined to keep a roof over his head, and his hair under it.

While uploads were frequent during this saga, many of these videos have been lost to time. One such video is “My life story”, a video where Josh would detail his life, openly and emotionally admitting to his spotty relationship with his father, which the two would attempt to mend at this point. Josh would continue to work on his next album, The Darkness, which “Chronicled [his] life before Job Corps, during Job Corps, and after Job Corps” while successfully acquiring a job as a table cleaner at a local Wendy's, where he would earn $8.25 an hour; $3.10 higher than minimum wage in Wyoming.

During his time off work, Josh would spend much of his time hanging out with Chris, a high school friend. In this time, one of the few videos saved of this time, “Relationship Advice”, would be uploaded to the channel. In it, Josh would talk about his long-distance relationship with Stephanie, the kind of hijinks he and Chris would get up to, and his numerous suicide attempts. Out of these suicide attempts, two were alarmingly recent: The first when Josh walked out onto the highway at night after Chris' van broke down, thinking he would be unable to make it into work the next day, and the second when he attempted to strangle himself with his amp cord, which reportedly did nothing after ten minutes. While professing his feelings quite heavily for Stephanie in the same video, a while later Josh would cheat on Stephanie with a girl named Kayla in exchange for a cigarette. While Josh did come clean, it would be some months later. Stephanie would opt to stay in the relationship for now.

While he was making money from his job at Wendy's, Josh still craved independence. Numerous times before moving out, Clint would remove the cords from his computer, hindering Josh's ability to make videos and continue work on The Darkness, his fourth album. In a video uploaded via Chris' dad's laptop, “A new video”, Josh would say that the main reason for this was that he was not paying a share of the electricity bill. This event and other cord-removing events would strain the Clint-Josh relationship and strengthen Josh's resolve to find an apartment. Additionally during this time, Josh would once again attempt to infiltrate the troll community by uploading another video to his alter ego YouTube account PeachMonster666, where in a rare moment of self-reflection he mocks his own inability to play the guitar while also calling himself a fag.

In September 2012, YouTube user Trappped would visit Casper, Wyoming to do a documentary on Josh, releasing a trailer for his project, although it would not be released for years to come. Josh would also release his possibly long-awaited fourth album, The Darkness, on TuneCore at this time. The album is nearly 5 hours long and attempts to portray the tumultuous life of Josh Saunders over music. One track, “Daddy Dearest”, even has a sample of Clint tearfully lamenting how Josh has changed into something hateful and violent. Josh would have little presence during the month of October, but he would post a video titled “trying to explain my self” where he would dispel rumors that he was dead, and recite a poem about how he felt, as Goths often do.

The main reason for his radio silence was actually because Clint had been looking for an apartment for Josh, which would eventually result in