Basically a twitch streamer not being able to adapt to a working envoirenment. Streaming games all day long to working at least 8h a day is a big difference tbh
Yeah, these people just can’t adjust to the real world of (checks notes) being inappropriately touched by coworkers and being silenced and threatened when speaking up about it.
I cant think bad of a person who I watch since years and who has helped me get into this tech space without hearing his argument first. I don’t know why all you guys are hating on him for no reason 😣
Working 8 hours a day gets a lot harder when everyone above you in the company is actively working against you.
Not to mention, if you read a little further down they mention multiple instances of sexual harassment with basically no response from HR. That is absolutely unforgivable.
Of all the takes you could have taken from this you chose this steaming pile of shit.
After I came forward about being assaulted, Someone accused Linus of inappropriate conduct on twitter.
He came over to my corner and started BERATING HER. Calling her insane, mentally ill, an attention seeker, and just digging into this poor woman who had felt wronged by him.
Is this “adapting to a working environment” to you?
This might sound like im a fan boy but i just can’t imagine Linus doing that. She already was in such bad from all the stuff. She might have made it up to be something really big without it being that as well
I never publicly made any statements regarding my time there because I feared even more backlash from a community that was already attacking, defaming, and sending me death threats.
Fuck man, pretty much nobody should have to deal with that.
I was actually called a tattle tale
Been there done that.
“snitches get stiches” is the phrase I’ve been told many times
I was told I was arguing, when I was trying to discuss my point of view.
This too
I remember getting told off for taking my sick days, as in the days you’re entitled to.
I am still, to this day, hesitant to take days off from this kind of shit
I was asked to twerk for a co-worker at one point.
I know some ladies who were asked by the CFO of a previous company to jump in place while to get a company t-shirt that other employees received.
I was told I was chunky, fat, ugly, stupid. I was called “removed” I was called a “removed”
I was called “stupid” to my face in an open office with fifty other staff in the room.
I was also the one tasked with managing the Only Fans account.
Something I said I didn’t want to do.
I had to read comments from people talking about how they wanted to fuck me and my co workers.
I saw peoples dicks, and vagina’s.
I said no, and was told only a little longer.
You should never be obligated to do things you don’t want to do. No job is worth it.
Please don’t attack individuals who don’t actually have power at this company, most of them are blameless or powerless to actually change anything.
This absolutely. For every one person who speaks up there are usually multiple tens who do not.
Also “why didn’t you take legal actions”
Many of them don’t know better. Many of them feel like they’re trapped: they require the paycheck and so they feel obligated to endure abuses.
… Or, at least, that’s been my experience with employers. To be clear: I do not, and have not, worked for LMG. I’m not trying to make it about me, just trying to relate. It’s unfortunate easy to relate.
She’s got some tough issues and I wish her to have better employment opportunities in the future.
These days I work for a company where “everything is awesome” and I get to work on really cool things every day without too much drama. I wish everyone could do that. I certainly couldn’t have without deciding to leave an abusive employer. I encourage everyone to seek better employment if you feel like you can relate to any of the issues she’s brought up.
So here’s some tips. There’s a lot to unpack though.
keep a personal record. Keep it at home. If it’s on a computer or phone then keep it on a personal one so you still have it if you do quit or are fired. Write down the good times and the bad times.
if you’re hourly, make sure to include your clock-in and clock-out times
if anything comes up, your personal records can be admissible in court
if nothing comes up then at least you can look back at your records and remember how often good things or bad things happen. it will help you to make decisions objectively and judge your emotions for them
Sending unsolicited sexually explicit messages (even just text) or images is a federal crime and can be included in sexual harassment claims. If your employer does not address the problem then your employer may be held accountable. It’s important that you keep records of your complaint to your employer and their inaction!
So, learn about harassment and discrimination laws. Everyone has a right to not be harassed (sexually or otherwise) or discriminated against. You can file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Office or your state’s equivalent (not all states have an equivalent).
I’m not party to the accusations. Things can be interpreted many ways. So I tried to keep an open mind and my response fairly applicable to anyone in general.
It’s clear that someone is being deceptive. I have no idea whether it’s some of the LMG team or Madison. I have to trust someone claiming to be a victim though.
These are serious, possibly criminal, accusations that Madison is making on a very public platform. Big accusations like this honestly belong to the courts and I hope that courts will figure out the truth – that’s what they’re there for. If it all just boils down to PR and settlements out of court then IMO that is a miscarriage of justice for every would-be third party victim of harassment.
It’s true that just about any online platform has to deal with sexually explicit content. But OnlyFans has a particular reputation about it. So if LMG has an OnlyFans account and she was managing, producing for, or interacting with it then I most certainly believe she’d have been exposed to sexually explicit material. If I were to investigate, I’d start truth-finding from there: find out what management’s policies are/were with regards to dealing with that content and find out what actual actions were taken for that content. Subpoena OnlyFans to produce copies of the content and correlate their own reports of whatever action LMG claims to have taken. From there, the rest of the accusations will fall into place with weight.
I’m a citizen of the USA and have only worked for US businesses. I don’t know about Canadian law (nor am I a lawyer in the US) but I would be surprised and saddened if they don’t have a strong legal system to protect victims.
Thanks for this! I’m a male manager of a team of mostly men and one woman, and we have a handful of other women on our broader team.
Fortunately, our company has never done any of this nonsense, and I hope nobody in our department (or company for that matter) would ever think of it. Our head of HR is female, as is our department’s HR rep, and we did a big push for DEI training over the last couple of years (the best company meeting imo was a Q&A with a panel of women, immigrants, and racial minorities). That has mostly run its course, but we still have mandatory, short, digital trainings every year, and a longer in-person one for new hires that repeats every few years for existing hires.
I’m going to bring up some of these points with the women on my team and ask them politely to let me know if they have anything they’d like to mention. It’s hard enough to attract women in my field (software development), so I want to keep whatever women we can find. But if my company is not a healthy working environment for anyone on my team, I would prefer they leave than continue somewhere they don’t feel comfortable, but I’d like the opportunity to try to fix the problem first.
So thanks again! I hope you’re in a better work environment now.
I have been in the tech industry for almost 30 years. These things she talks about are not new and will keep happening unless more people talk about them. I gave that Linus guy a listen once or twice, was never impressed. His fans are delusional, this thread contains a few of them!
Agreed. However, I still want to see facts, because it is possible that she’s exaggerating. Until I see facts, I’m going to believe Madison.
That said, I rarely watch LTT or any related channels. I find them to be shallow, often click-bait, and their merch advertising is incredibly annoying. I get my tech news and entertainment from other channels, such as Gamer’s Nexus, Level1Techs, Louis Rossmann, OptimumTech, Tech Ingredients, and SomeOrdinaryGamers.
I don’t understand the rabid following LMG has, but I do try to be objective in my criticism. I think GN’s coverage recently was pretty revealing (the one about testing quality), especially when paired with this article.
I don’t know, that’s why I want to see more facts about the situation.
So that’s why I’m defaulting to believing the victim until I have evidence to the contrary. She has provided her side, I’m waiting for LMG to provide theirs.
I have never felt the need to use YouTube for anything aside from classic comedy clips, music, gameplay clips and trailers. So, YouTube personalities like these pass me by. I’m one of those types who instantly closes a video if I hear commentary or talking over it. I don’t want to hear that shite.
Maybe it’s because I grew up without YouTube, unlike my daughter. She watches so much utter shit on there, unfortunately.
However, I have watched one LTT video before when doing some electronic engineering classes, and we were shown one to explain some thing I can’t remember. I do remember saying the guy seemed like a right prick, to the chagrin of others in my class. A smug, know-it all prick.
I’m like you, grown up without YT and I rarely watch it, for some video clip, or when I need to check how to disassemble my laptop or washing machine. I never watched a “YouTuber” or never ever went to twitch
Always record your conversations. And use phones with two party call recording and/or screenshot everything. It is how I have exposed multiple scumbags over the years, and continue to.
If you live in one of those “one party consent” places, buy a phone with which you can call record both ends, because if the abuser does not care about law, why should you? The state will not help you until you present evidence.
I am beginning to feel that LMG, MrBeast, Pewdiepie, all these “big” creators are big pieces of shit that just sanitise everything before presenting us the mister nice videos on YouTube. And just about everyone with a large social presence is like that. I remember the death of that kid years ago, due to Linus, and how that reddit post sometimes surfaces up.
Its about as much for the kid, in the form of his father’s testimony, as Madison says for herself. We do have to trust these testimonies by trying to decipher facts, and using a combination of facts, good conjectures and sniffing the moral intent of the claimant and the accused in the situation on a case-by-case basis.
LMG fans back then squashed the testimony about the kid in the same way they are trying to hate on Madison and are trying to call GamersNexus irrelevant drama poster. I myself have been called “drama poster” dozens of times for being the sole person to document and bring up issues and bad actors in privacy community for years, and can always sniff out what is behind the flesh of a person.
I’d argue the two things are different in the fact that in this case Madison is talking about direct actions by LMG employees, not the channel’s fanbase.
Yeah, I really don’t get that viewpoint. Look at GN’s track history, they call out a company and then leave it at that. That’s it. Sometimes they include clips as a meme (e.g. the Gigabyte “exploding” PSUs), but they don’t make multiple videos covering the same topic. If a company improves, they will make a video recapping the issue, the company’s response, and an updated analysis of if they think that was an appropriate move or not.
So I really don’t see GN as a drama channel, they tend to have well-researched content, give companies a chance to explain themselves, etc. I don’t know if GN did that this time (it was a long video), but they did provide many examples of the types of issues they found.
GN is by far one of the highest journalistic integrity channels out there on the entirety of YouTube. When liars and trolls want to defend something, the first thing they attempt is to discredit the critic as whiny/drama/tattletale or similar words. Source: I have been in that position in privacy community for years, and despise these kind of fanboy cult trolls. They are by far one of the worst kinds of people on the internet, alongside harassers and criminals.
One step worse imo is the “we’re more successful than you,” as if that’s a real argument, which Linus seems to also be pulling. And he’s not the only one, xQc did the same thing when he was challenged on his conception of Fair Use as it relates to “reaction” videos.
To be honest, I think ‘founders syndrome’ vibes have been radiating from their content for years. Owner-operators are often some of the most toxic employers.
I’ve noticed Linus be visibly mean to his employees on camera multiple times and I don’t even watch that much. I figure if that’s what he’s willing to do on camera it’s probably a lot worse off camera.
Madison was a person chosen for ROG reboot (Asus sponsored LMG to make PCs with people after they made a video explaining why they should get one) and her video was really popular (5th most viewed on LTT channel with 12mil views) and people enjoyed her personality/dynamic. Later, there was a job offering posted for social media manager/coordinator and she ended up getting the job, after that you can read what she says happened (not saying it did, not saying it didn’t, just saying what we do know). She also posted about some of this stuff before I’m pretty sure, but I don’t remember exactly what she said (it was in the same vein as this, but I’m pretty sure this is more in detail though).
Time will be the real proof, but it's already refreshing to see someone besides Linus being referenced as taking corrective action. This is what Terren was hired to do. I wonder if Linus is actually prepared for the decisions he may make in the coming months.
I’ve heard similar before about her being HR in addition to CFO, but I went to confirm on their site and they don’t list anyone as HR staff that I could find.
Holy fuck. I’ll never give LTT another view. Fuck Linus and his company. I hope the good people there get out and find success, but anyone that stays has no integrity in my opinion.
imo this is an extreme reaction when the story has barely matured and we dont know whats true. I feel like the reactions by people at lmg have been decent so far, but time will tell what becomes of it. hopefully for everyones sake they fix their problems like they seem to be on track to doing.
I don’t think the reactions by people at LMG have been decent, but I also think “never” is a bit of a strong word. I’m waiting to see details, and until then, I’m going to believe Madison, especially given the revelations by Gamer’s Nexus about focus on profit (i.e. video quantity) over quality. The culture there just seems to be wrong.
That said, I’d love LMG to prove with actual facts that things aren’t as bad as this article makes it out to be.
Out of curiosity, what do you think LMG should do differently? I think the sponsor jokes are not appropriate but I’m curious what else people have issues with.
That’s a pretty broad question, so I’ll refer you to the Gamer’s Nexus video. It’s kind of long @ 44 min, so here’s a rough summary:
give employees more time to ensure videos are high quality
take down inaccurate videos until the issue is resolved
provide text summaries of highly technical videos, with strikeouts for any corrections so a history of changes is preserved; this helps with referencing them later on platforms like Reddit, Twitch, and Lemmy (i.e. I can quickly quote sections)
And specifically as it relates to Madison’s post, make a serious response that addresses each point, ideally pointing to some internal code of conduct and what processes they follow when similar things happen. If there are gaps, highlight those and explain what exactly is going to change, if anything. Just saying the equivalent of “she’s full of crap, but we’re hiring a third party just in case” isn’t the right approach. Even if the case ends up being nonsense, it at least shows a level of transparency to viewers and employees.
This sounds like the ramblings of someone lacking certain mental faculties. "I purposefully cut my leg open so badly I would have to go to the ER to get it stapled back together. " What? What?
I’m sorry you feel that way, but we shouldn’t jump on the bandwagon and entertain someone who didn’t do the right thing. You’re the kind of person who sides with the time blindness girl too, I bet. Then you run around accusing others of being insecure. ;)
I know that I do not know enough about self-harm, but I’m going to say that self-harm is super common (e.g. smoking), glorified, but its effects are at the same time shamed, which makes it difficult for people already facing difficult social situations (e.g. Madison R. at LMG). I don’t condone self-harm. LMG’s workplace toxicity didn’t help.
Derailing is bad talking infrastructure, ADHD exists, TikTok sucks.
Then, to combine that tidbit with the rest of the story, well… it just doesn’t seem possible.
I mentioned it on another reply, but I’ll say it here as well. I’m sure that the LTT facilities have camera and audio feeds everywhere. Pretty sure there was an episode about it as well. You mean to tell me that all of this happened in a technology company where everything is auditable? That none of it occurred digitally, where it’s tracked?
This person didn’t go to the police because the story is a fabrication. And they didn’t say anything at the time, because there was likely clear proof of the false claims.
I’m going to copy and paste my comment from another post here:
If this is true this is bad. Like, really bad
I say “if” just because I don’t really know what the facts are, I just know what some people are claiming
To be clear, I’m not saying it didn’t happen, I’m just saying that, at the moment, it’s just Madison saying these things did happen and Linus essentially saying they didn’t
My question is if she had such a bad experience, why hasn’t anyone else said anything, or at least put an anonymous negative review on Glassdoor or something? Did she just have a awful experience that was unusual, or is everyone/a large number of people treated like this? I don’t think it’s the second or it would’ve come out already and from more than one source (and the turnover is pretty low for LMG if I’m not mistaken, so that also doesn’t make sense), but I don’t really know. That’s really the crux of the situation, is I just don’t know. I’m glad they got an outside investigator though; hopefully that’ll clear everything up
That’s why I said “essentially saying they didn’t”. He’s doing it for business reasons, but at it’s core, his message was he wasn’t aware of it and didn’t think it was happening, while Madison was saying he did know and didn’t care Maybe one is lying, maybe both are, maybe neither are. At this point, we really can’t know until something like that third party investigator releases their results
People don’t speak up for many reasons. Retaliation is a big thing: if you speak up then your job there is toast whether or not you’re still employed there. You still “have” to work with or around the people you’re accusing, until and unless you leave. Have you ever had to work with someone who’s abused you? It’s… not fun.
If you need the money, you’re kind’ve stuck: if you quit then you have to have a savings account to keep you afloat while you look for another job. While you’re looking for another job, your accusations here can prevent you from getting another job. Whether or not you leave, you still have to deal with the fallout: investigations take time, especially your time. If you have to take time off of work (eg, to see an attorney or visit a court) then that time might not be paid – can you afford to take that time off? Worse; you might even have to pay someone for that time (eg, an attorney). Can you afford that? That’s especially true if your compensation barely meets your financial obligations such that you’re not really able to put away savings. There’s a term for that: wage slave. Those costs are partly why there’s government agencies designed to help you.
Thoughts about cost is just the tip of the iceberg. Many don’t realize that they’re being abused. A lot of people don’t realize that others might also be victims too. Some people trivialize it. Friends around you tell you that it’s “normal” behavior or that it’s normal for coworkers to “socialize” and banter, that they didn’t mean anything about it. People start to second-guess themselves.
When’s the last time your company gave you anti-harassment training? If it’s been more than a year (or never) then you might want to speak up about it and ask for it to be provided. Or, reach out to your government agency and ask for some training guidance.
or at least put an anonymous negative review on Glassdoor or something?
Glassdoor is notoriously business-friendly. It’s fairly trivial for businesses to have reviews removed.
I knew speaking up publicly wasn’t very likely for most for the reasons you talked about and I was more expecting anonymous complaints, maybe didn’t phrase that part well
For the anonymous negative review, I didn’t mean just Glassdoor, I meant in general we haven’t really heard very much negative about working at LMG besides it’s somewhat stressful because of the fast pace at which everything runs. If it was as bad for everyone as Madison claims it was for her (reiterating, not claiming it didn’t happen, just we don’t know anything definitively yet) then at least one other person in the 100+ person company would have contacted someone like the Verge or Coffeezilla or anyone else who does news/exposés. Even if most were trivializing it, there should be at least more than just Madison realizing it with how bad she was saying it was. Also, she talked about some of her coworkers apologizing to her for others’ actions, so at least some of them realize that not everything is just “normal”
For the anonymous negative review, I didn’t mean just Glassdoor, I meant in general we haven’t really heard very much negative about working at LMG besides it’s somewhat stressful because of the fast pace at which everything runs. If it was as bad for everyone as Madison claims it was for her (reiterating, not claiming it didn’t happen, just we don’t know anything definitively yet) then at least one other person in the 100+ person company would have contacted someone like the Verge or Coffeezilla or anyone else who does news/exposés. Even if most were trivializing it, there should be at least more than just Madison realizing it with how bad she was saying it was. Also, she talked about some of her coworkers apologizing to her for others’ actions, so at least some of them realize that not everything is just “normal”
I’ve been at companies with 150+ employees where people didn’t speak up in official complaints about perceived or observed issues. We’d all go to a bar after work and talk about things after a few drinks. I don’t know how many things weren’t mentioned at the bar and I certainly didn’t go to every company social event. “Keep things in the family” was a strong sentiment. Were things mentioned online? I’m aware that we did end up with some very poor Glassdoor and Indeed reviews – those were shared directly to me by former employees. But those eventually disappeared. So, after some time, generally nope.
Several people, including myself, would bottle up the problems and just decide to leave after the bottle filled. It’s not healthy to keep that bottle full and it’s a personal decision about whether to raise the concerns or find employment elsewhere.
I’m no saint. I’ve made mistakes and I’ve had some talkings-to about them, both at the bar and outside of it. I’ve learned from them. It’s important for everyone to admit when they make mistakes and talk about what they’ve learned from them. It’s part of the reason why anti-harassment is one of the things I’m passionate about.
So I’m speaking from third party (w.r.t. LMG) experience. So, back to the topic at hand.
Perhaps people did speak up about LMG but those complaints didn’t weren’t public or didn’t gain public traction. For example, I remember some drama about Linus and Naomi Wu a few years ago. What came of that? Those events aren’t (as far as I’m aware of) related to Madison Reeves. But honestly it doesn’t matter except that, if true, it can set a pattern.
I don’t think anyone should assume that people would have spoken up about issues prior to Madison. Even if someone did, Madison’s statements deserve to be viewed on their own merit regardless of other people’s statements. Now that the accusations are public, if they bring other statements public, then those can be viewed in their own light as well.
Perhaps there’s someone from LMG who will provide a contrasting experience. That would be interesting. Even if that happens, quite honestly, the investigation should default to being private until and unless one party chooses to share more information.
Madison’s statements deserve to be viewed on their own merit regardless of other people’s statements
I honestly and wholeheartedly agree with this. Anytime there’s a problem of this nature it should be looked into and investigated. My main point is just, at this point, it’s hard to definitively know the exact, full truth (again, just to be clear not saying it didn’t).
the investigation should default to being private until and unless one party chooses to share more information
Given how personal and private this investigation is, I wouldn’t want the specific details to be released unless Madison/others who were hurt want to reveal their own details. However, I would hope whoever does the investigation would reveal simply if this is true or not and if so to what extent (like is everything Madison said 100% true, is most of it, is a little, or none of it)
Edit: Apparently the CEO said they will publish the findings of the external investigation, which is good. He seems like he wants to tell the truth, so that’s good.
I would hope whoever does the investigation would reveal simply if this is true or not and if so to what extent (like is everything Madison said 100% true, is most of it, is a little, or none of it)
Keep it balanced. The investigation should only state what changes to the company are recommended as a result of the investigation. If staffing changes are recommended, then no statement of why. Further information is relevant only to the parties involved. Anything else can cause further problems.
I just found out the CEO said they will publish the findings of the external investigation, and I think they won’t release anything that’s personal unless the victim themselves wants it released as that would just make the situation worse (on top of just not being a nice thing to do)
I know she did, but what I was saying was why didn’t anyone else (on Glassdoor or anywhere else) (also the downplaying isn’t very good, it was someone’s legitimate feelings even if you/others disagreed with them)
I only see two other reviews on their Glassdoor which are both positive, but that isn’t a lot so it’s hard to draw a definitive conclusion
Sure, it’s not a great indication. Everything I’ve seen so far, and the leaked 2021 meeting with James seeming to have made a sexual joke at the end of a sexual harassment meeting… it’s not looking great.
If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck… it might be a duck.
I’m a bit confused on how it supports her decision though, can you explain? (not saying it doesn’t, I’m just not into a ton of zoomer tiktok stuff and think there’s something I’m missing)
I forgot to mention that she showed support on a different platform, twitter .It all occurred at the same time, that’s why I lumped it all together. Can’t link since I don’t have an account. I’m pretty sure I saw people mentioning Max’s twitter support in the comments of the reddit post. It was in the form of a liked tweet which is big because everyone can see your liked tweets.
The old version of the post works but not the redesign for some reason.
Apparently to the zoomers its a big think to like a tweet since everyone can see that you liked it. Its like a sly “retweet”. Retweets are when you just post the same tweet to your followers.
There was a meeting the day after Madison quit, and at the end of the meeting, James seems to have made a joke about sexual harassment. It wasn’t a great look. That meeting recently leaked.
My question is if she had such a bad experience, why hasn’t anyone else said anything, or at least put an anonymous negative review on Glassdoor or something? […] (and the turnover is pretty low for LMG if I’m not mistaken, so that also doesn’t make sense)
Indeed, why is that? Why would she have such an abnormaly bad experience at this particular company? I can’t seem to think of any particular traits that she might have which would have caused her to be treated differently. If sexist comments and sexual harassment are such a problem, then why do people like Gary, James, Ed, Nick, Colton, or Luke apparently seem blind to it? I have no idea what disparity in the distribution of power could possibly account for this phenomenon!
The fact she is a woman is different than the majority, however there are other women at LMG and most likely/hopefully, not all the men at LMG are sexist so most likely at least one person from one of those camps would object/want to do/say something (I would hope little to none would be sexist, but we don’t work there so we don’t know)
But the point she is a woman makes it more likely/harder is entirely valid, yes
The fact she is a woman is different than the majority, however there are other women at LMG
I don’t know how to respond to this without speaking condescendingly. I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to trust me when I say that women can still be subjected to workplace harassment in situations where they aren’t literally the only girl in the building. I’ll leave it at that unless an actual woman wants to step in and expand on this subject further.
not all the men at LMG are sexist so most likely at least one person from one of those camps would object/want to do/say something
That’s just how power works. If you’re in the minority, your needs and concerns get less attention. If you’re in a very small minority, they become practically invisible. Organizations aren’t immune to this. Sexist outcomes can and will readily emerge from systems where none of the individuals directly intend to do a sexism.
As evidence, I’ll point to the statistic itself. A gender gap as steep as this one doesn’t happen by random chance. The only way you get this far skewed is with a feedback loop.
I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to trust me when I say that women can still be subjected to workplace harassment in situations where they aren’t literally the only girl in the building.
I didn’t mean it didn’t happen, what I meant is there are other people who would be going through the same thing she did. I understand that it happens that’s why I said your point about her being a woman is valid
That’s just how power works. If you’re in the minority, your needs and concerns get less attention. If you’re in a very small minority, they become practically invisible. Organizations aren’t immune to this. Sexist outcomes can and will readily emerge from systems where none of the individuals directly intend to do a sexism.
Again, I think you missed my point. I’m not saying it didn’t happen (or did; we still don’t have the report from the investigation), rather I’m just wondering why no one else said anything (again, just to be perfectly clear, I’M NOT SAYING IT DID OR DID NOT HAPPEN I’m just trying to understand the situation and how we got to this point. Maybe she was directly under a single person who was really bad. Maybe all the women are treated bad. We just don’t know, at least not until the results from the external investigation come out.)
You’re of course within your rights to remain unconvinced, but I fail to understand the mindset that would lead a reasonable bystander to look at what Ms. Reeves has said thus far and think “there’s a significant chance that this is untrue”. Why? For what purpose? She stands to gain nothing by lying unless you start imagining that a much broader conspiracy is somehow at play.
If you’re willing to entertain the idea of a hitherto unsubstantiated conspiracy from one side, then why not also suspect that LMG will conspire to hire a crooked auditor or otherwise hide unflattering findings? Why take anyone’s word for anything?
What I was trying to say is I’m not really taking anyone’s word for anything, I’m just trying to put the puzzle pieces together about what might have happened to result in the statements and facts we do know (which are really not a lot)
I fail to understand the mindset that would lead a reasonable bystander to look at what Ms. Reeves has said thus far and think “there’s a significant chance that this is untrue”
My mindset is this: I don’t know Madison, nor do I know Linus or anyone else at LMG. So I don’t really trust either them (more specifically I don’t immediately believe what either say without other reasons to believe it), since all I’ve seen of them is what they’ve allowed people to see of them. However, just because I don’t immediately take what they say as fact doesn’t mean I dismiss what they say; rather instead it means I want to look into and figure out whether it is true
This dropped a few hours ago, so let’s wait a bit and see. Often times rot gets exposed in waves. One skeleton falls out of the closet and then a bunch of other skeletons follow.
Even if Madison is the only employee that ever experienced this (doubtful) that is already horrific. She isn’t claiming that it was a single small incident that might have been a bad joke or a misinterpretation of some comment. It’s a bunch of incidents, so not like one thing got blown way out of proportion.
Why has nobody else said anything before? There’s tons of reasons why that might be the case. First, maybe people have and it has remained internal/supressed. Maybe other instances were more “mild” and the victims didn’t feel the need to quit. Maybe the other victims were too frightened, felt they had too much to lose, were pressured more harshly.
I’m standing with Madison until proven otherwise. There have been plenty of hints of this sort of thing for a while, and like I said, scandals tend to come in waves. Nobody says anything for a long time until something bad enough happens that triggers the cascade of testimonies.
Best case scenario, LTT is a toxic workplace that overworks its employees, places profit and marketability over quality data/reviews, and is more and more in bed with corporate powers vs consumers.
Sad, I grew up with LTT through my tech journey, now bye-bye to yet another company/project that fell to the effects of capitalism and enshitification.
CEO said the external investigation’s results will be made public, so I’ll wait to make my opinions then. However, if it turns out they’re true, then they’ll lose a large part of their fanbase, including me.
I dunno, Linus recognized the fact he is not a good CEO and hired a replacement to fix that problem. If the investigation comes back that there were issues and the perpetrators are purged from the company (or at least severely sanctioned) then I’m willing to give Terran a chance to right the ship
I should clarify: if the allegations are true, then they will need to handle it well to convince me to stay. If they just do a mediocre job then I’ll probably just dip
This reads like every rape apologist asking why the person didn’t react like your idea of an “ideal victim”.
To be clear I’m NOT saying that you would ever help create a permissive environment that passively encourages the type of behaviors described in her post, my question is just why you’d feel compelled to write 750 words of “I’m just asking” around your structural dismissal?
Wouldn’t you realize that you’re parroting a rhetorical style that has been used to justify and paper over mistreatment of women in business and personal settings? If this were a good faith statement why would it repeat every trope trotted out by Joe Tacopina?
I just don’t know, I’m not saying I do or do not think that OP’s statement is an example of unwitting enrollment in institutional sexism, or whether I do or do not think it’s trolling.
I don’t think OP has any reason to side with Linus here, I think the thrust is just that there’s only two pieces of evidence here, and both from people with opposite motives.
I’m more likely to believe Madison here, but I think there’s a good chance she’s overreacting too. It seems she was treated poorly, and that makes it easier to justify exaggeration.
I’m not particularly hopeful that an external investigation will really help here (after all, they’re likely being paid by LMG), so I’m hopeful that some current or previous employees can corroborate at least some of the claims.
So I guess I’m kind of siding with the OP here, I’m going to reserve judgement until I have more evidence. If I had to pick today, I’d probably side with Madison because her motives to lie are weaker.
I never said that OP was “siding with Linus”, I said OP was using a rhetorical style that can be used to dismiss/minimize claims from pretty much anybody, regardless of the situation.
I wanted to call OP’s attention to the fact that that style of argumentation is used in bad faith more often than not.
More than a couple people in my life have been sexually assaulted and if you’ve ever actually been close to somebody who has, the callousness of the “well why didn’t you…” line of nitpicking is glaring.
Oh, I completely agree. I think the default should always be to side with the victim, even if there’s a good reason to doubt them.
I just think we sometimes go too far and ignore the other side when it doesn’t line up with what the victim says. Weigh the evidence and the motives of each party before making a decision. The bigger the power difference between the two, the more you should suspect the larger party of malice.
I’m more reacting to the strength of the language here, not the general idea.
I had a false accusation of sexual assault leveled against me in a court filing (as soon as we got in front of a judge it got tossed). It is pretty awful to have something like that stated about you in an official document, even when the outcome is “Dismissed”.
And fwiw, to take the Carroll case in NY, I thought the line of argument “she can’t remember what year it was?” was a pretty reasonable thing to have doubts about.
I’m talking about social media reactions here, not police policy.
The police should always assume innocence unless you have proof to the contrary, because the opposite is a potential loss of liberty for innocent people. If you’re a regular joe, you should side with the victim until the other side posts evidence to the contrary, because the opposite is potentially normalizing bad behavior of people in power.
Even if the external investigators are good and it is truly the intention of upper management to get to the bottom of it and they are fully prepared to fire anyone who did something wrong, (I’m not casting doubt on their motives) I truly believe that the external investigation will clear them or they’ll point to 1 person and fire them.
Reason being is memories fade, fear of reprisals, people make excuses or believe certain things weren’t as they were, and there is likely not a lot written down.
Unfortunately, it’s likely to be a he said/she said situation.
True. However, I can hope that, as a small-ish SM company, they’ll care enough to be more transparent than that.
$100M sounds like a lot for a company, but that’s still pretty small potatoes when it comes to companies. Some bad press could see a lot of viewers leave and the company could go under (or drastically scale back) very quickly. That’s just the nature of SM.
I think you’re probably right, but I’m optimistic that LMG will do more than most larger corporations do. I’m not expecting it though, just hopeful.
why you’d feel compelled to write 750 words of “I’m just asking” around your structural dismissal
I wasn’t trying to dismiss what Madison said she went through, I want her to get justice if she went through it. I was trying to just say there are a few pieces of concrete evidence and the rest is he said she said, and I was also just trying to think aloud about what factors could have coalesced into the current situation.
The 750 words of “I’m just asking” are just from a combination of I talk/explain a lot and I also just wanted to be very clear that I wasn’t dismissing the subject because I am staunchly anti-harassment and abuse (also people on the internet notoriously can misinterpret/misunderstand things, including me)
Yup, I worked at a small-ish company (~50 employees) and it would be very easy to identify an anonymous post. ~100 employees isn’t that much larger, so I’m guessing most people know each other there (see Dunbar’s Number).
So I, for one, would probably hesitate to leave a negative review, especially in a social space like YouTube where you could potentially call in a collab to get a new channel up and going.
My current company is a few thousand, and my office is ~200 people (half on a separate floor), and I just don’t know more than ~30. So there seems to be a point where there’s enough people that I don’t go out of my way to get to know others. But I’m guessing at LTT, most people in each building know each other because the company is small enough.
This question has been asked a million times. It has been shown time and time again that whether more people come forward has no correlation to how common something is. This is mostly because it’s really hard to do so while being bullied (which is really just abuse).
Even an outside investigator might have issues getting the real story, and is biased due to being on the same payroll as all the other employees. I have had personal experience with this: an outside investigator called in to resolve a conflict with a person whose bullying had previously caused multiple people to quit. It was resolved “amicably” (which is to say not at all). An employer only gives a damn so far as their bottom line goes, and that goes for Linus too. This investigator is going to come in and tip-toe around LMG’s and Linus’s involvement in this, mark my words.
Again, to summarize, Linus saying the things didn’t happen is exactly why people don’t come forward: my word vs the boss.
I mean another piece of evidence is that she had really choose a hard path to walk IF there was nothing going on. She could have just left and kept this bridge unburned if their was nothing to this.
In this situation, one thing that is essentially certain: something happened which led to Madison leaving the company. The reason why is what is being looked into right now (aka are Madison’s claims true)
Never knew she quitted LTT. Back then I was so happy for her for getting her “dream job”, she seem so happy.
She is charming and I love every second of her on screen. She was having a huge approval from fans for every videos she was on, even though there’s not much of them, only a handful afaik.
I was wondering why she wasn’t appear in more videos but then I just thought since her main role was social media, she needs to focus on that.
Now I feel really bad for her after reading the whole thing.
For now, I’ll give LTT the benefit of the doubt and waiting for their response.
I just typed a whole response and it just got deleted ugh. I’m going to just summarize what I’m saying:
I think this is terrible if it happened, but if it did then why hasn’t anyone else had the same thing happen to them/talk out about it/post something anonymously? Not saying it didn’t, just wondering how we got to this situation and what the actual facts are. I’ll be waiting for facts from a third party to make my final judgement though (think I got it all)
I was in a state of shock reading through these allegations, plain and simple. They aren’t consistent with my recollections. They aren’t consistent with our internal processes. They aren’t consistent with our company values. We pride ourselves on maintaining a safe and inclusive environment. In addition to our existing report systems (both anonymous and otherwise) we’ve proactively reached out internally today to encourage members of our team to report any workplace bullying or harassment they might be experiencing so we can take quick and decisive action. Our HR team will be conducting a more thorough assessment of the allegations, and when we are ready, we will release a more complete statement. For now I would ask that we allow our team the time they need be as thorough as possible.
Also forgot to add, the new CEO Terran Tong is also hiring an outside investigator to look into it. I would like for those results to be made public
It’s only fair, right? Always hear all sides of the story before judgement.
Remember recently, a video on social media of a white “karen” seem to try stealing a bike from a black man and try to “play victim” by crying? Turned out she’s a nurse that rented that bike first and was harassed by the man to the point she’s crying and yelling for help?
I honestly have no idea. Right now I don’t believe I’ll ever watch LTT videos the same way just because I know behind cameras the whole thing might be a shitshow. But probably the result of this whole investigation might change my mind
You do understand that it’s incredibly hard to prove workplace harassment beyond reasonable doubt? Which is why victims almost never go public? Since nobody believes them and want to hEaR bOtH sIdEs?
This isn’t two ex lovers arguing, this is workplace harassment ffs.
It makes sense to hear both sides when the sides are equal - like Depp vs Heard. But when you get an entire novel written about workplace harrassment and abuse, I don’t care what the PR dept will cough up. Specially after hearing the response to GN video.
Give me other ex-employees, give me third party investigations, but I absolutely do not give a damn about the company response.
“The number of daily items the Social media role at the time was expected to fill was incredibly high. I was expected to post 3 tweets, 2 Instagram posts, and 2 TikToks minimum per day. I was also expected to plan, film, edit, and post 2 Floatplane exclusives per week”
I think saying “incredibly high” is an exaggeration
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