Lmao Linus immediately jumped back into the “we’re only human, feel bad for us” thing
Yeah, I couldn’t watch past Yvonne’s section, it just felt like a corporate ad tbh.
Then you missed where they dropped an opportunity to show a new screwdriver variant coming to LLTStore.com 🤦
I just find that screwdriver to be the most pretentiously bad product. Still a product that’s half as good as something from Klein or wiha, or Milwaukee, or Greenlee, for three times the price. He put all that money into a designing a cheap but overpriced Chinese piece of junk, when there are already great screwdrivers used by professionals for years and years. Linus was so arrogant he didn’t even think that somebody’s already made a superior product with established tooling. But no, he has to reinvent the wheel and design a screwdriver nobody’s asked for
People buying this haven’t worked for a mid to large sized company. This is internal corporate coolaid bullshit. Nothing ever comes from this lip service. It’s just cringe
Personally felt it was the right thing, and earned some respect back from me. They need to address Madison’s accusations separately (which are damning), but they certainly had positive movement with the points raised by the community / GN.
Each of the department heads outlined their shortcomings and how they were being addressed. It felt genuine and sincere, and certainly not the generic bullshit you usually get from a corporate PR team on damage control. I hope they follow through enacting those plans, and it has a positive impact to both their quality and working environments.
The only bit I hated was Linus’ section (and this is meant to be a criticism, not a personal attack).
He opened up with a joke that Luke will have a lot to do curbing his (Linus) own behaviour, had a brief moment of sincerity, but went back to immediately defending himself and their actions. He didn’t fully acknowledge what his “emotional” response actually did, nor a personal response/apology to both GN/Billet Labs for it. There was no real acknowledgment he will address his own shortcomings. It honestly felt like someone who acknowledges he’s wrong (purely based on number of internal members telling him he’s in the wrong), but doesn’t agree nor accept it.
I mean the monetizing of the video was in pretty poor taste. They plugged they’re merchandise multiple times. They joked about the video being sponsored twice. All of which screams, we don’t care about what we did just don’t take away our money.
The video was still then being defensive.
They never apologized to GN or Hardware Unboxed.
Sex jokes too enlight of sexual harassment and employee mistreatment claims.
They rushed the video out too, it’s a culmination of most of the things wrong with lmg. If they had taken their time with this and taken it seriously I would have probably given them points and been very surprised, but this was absolutely bs pr. Totally unapologetic and insincere. Even if they do change anything I don’t believe it’s because they want it, itll be because they’ll be out $$$.
They also need to reconsider they’re hr, pretty significant conflict of interest there… then again hr isn’t there for employees protection anyway…
The “haha, we’ve made an oopsie” tone of the video (sponsorship jokes, plugging their store link, possible sex joke, deflecting to “I’m just a human” instead of fully taking the blame) don’t sit right with me. I was also hoping they would address Madison’s comments on why she quit.
I think Madison’s post happened after the video itself was planned, recorded, etc, so it’s understandable why that’s not addressed. But Linus really has to address what she’s said on the forums ASAP at least, because there’s a lot of damning claims towards his company from her. Like seriously, wtf Linus?
Also, they should stop deleting all mentionings of the Madison thing on the apology video as they doing are now, makes it all seem very disingenuous and fake.
I really want to make a joke about how they could have added an annotation on the video to address it and how it would have taken “$500 of people’s time” but her post was super gross (about the company, not her) and that’s more of a poison pill for a company than the sloppiness IMHO.
I don’t watch LMG content and I have intention of starting to so I don’t have a dog in this fight but I always thought of LMG as “decent content but too over the top and silly for me”, the “decent content” part is in question now and the workplace allegations leave a bad taste in my mouth for sure.
I thought this video was very well done aside from:
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“I don’t agree with ALL the criticisms” - ok, then expand on that
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Store plug - read the room, I thought the sponsor joke was ok but then they did it twice and plugged the store.
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“6 9’s” - didn’t we just talk about filtering for sexual innuendos? Look I don’t give a fuck but, again, read the room
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Linus’ whole section - it really felt genuine then he came on and came off as a petulant child
Thats not a sex joke, that’s just a server uptime thing
Between this and Madison’s tweets I hope the good people can get out and the company dies.
I couldnt find too much but apparently sexual and emotional abuse https://www.dexerto.com/tech/ex-linus-tech-tips-employee-alleges-mistreatment-and-poor-conditions-2251613/
…the company dies.
Oh for fucks sakes we have an edgel0rd over here. You can just stop watching the channel if you don’t like them.
I don’t think they’re beyond redemption. My hope is that Linus can take a step back and let the CEO work on improving the workplace culture. No idea if he’s up to the challenge but time will tell
Maybe, but spare a thought for the ordinary people who would lose their jobs as a result.
They seem to have an excess of testosterone and are too sloppy, but unethical and worthy of cancellation is typical internet outrage over reaction.
Changes nothing after what Madison has said about her experience working for them. LTT has had ethics and journalistic issues for most of its life, but it’s come clear that it’s deeper and more sinister than even I had imagined.
After reading that, I fully expect their plans “to improve” will involve abusing and blaming staff unfairly. Seems like they’re already doing that when they blame “human error” for the videos being bad rather than taking personal responsibility, as management should.
Yup. Most of their journalistic problems are self-imposed by Linus and his demand for super expensive equipment for no purpose but cloutchasing/content farming.
The obsession with an 8K editing workflow and hosting their own poorly-managed content server has already led to staff losing hours of work multiple times (though it indeed made them some ✨content✨).
I can only imagine how stressful it is working as an editor for a man who completely replaces your hardware and workflow on the whims of whatever tech trend is popular on twitter.
This situation sucks and was something I would have been willing to see through. But after reading the thread from Madison this morning I’ve decided to cancel my Floatplane subscription. While the accusations she makes are currently accusations, they’re pretty damning and worth taking seriously in case they are more than allegations. I await LMG’s response to her thread, as I feel that will be the deciding factor in whether or not I continue to consume and support anything LMG does going forward.
Her thread: https://twitter.com/suuuoppp/status/1691693740254228741
Gonna pop the ThreadReader link here for those who don’t want to log into Twitter: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1691693740254228741.html
On the Floatplane thing, I am a bit worried for DankPods, who put a lot of backing into Floatplane after he got screwed over by Twitch. This whole thing might have some collateral damage towards the other creators on there, including him. Was considering subscribing to Floatplane for him and his drum streams before this.
I may not agree with a lot of things Madison does as a content creator, but what she’s described in that thread is absolutely egregious. This goes so far beyond “trust me bro”, and is already bathing in the gas that the company is actively lighting under them. Makes me wonder what kind of NDA and contract all of them have, to keep it hush-hush. I’m worried for the people there
what she’s described in that thread is absolutely egregious
*If true and complete.
None of us were there, none of us know what happened, none of us knows the context of anything discussed. There’s a universe where everything she described is misinterpreted banter and she’s just an overly sensitive whiny zoomer. There’s also a universe where everything she described is an understatement to the unfathomable conditions she may have been subjected to, and Linus is a prototypical millennial edgelord piece of shit who can’t read a room, and gets off on belittling those under his domain.
It’s important, I think, to not be impulsively reactionary towards individual accusations. Doing so disincentives discourse and transparency. I’m going to let this play out for a bit before I make any decisions with my wallet. If Madison deserves the benefit of the doubt, so does LMG.
Ha, Nebula is not the answer, either. It’s a gated community that doesn’t even have a way to sign up as an uploader. They expect you to make it on YouTube first before they consider moving to their network, and then you’re doomed to constantly advertise for Nebula for the rest of your career.
So you would create in 3-4 days, the co tent she has to create each days…
A former employee shitting on their employer during a scandal to draw media attention has been the oldest trick in the book. If more stories come forward or others corroborate the individual claims, it’s worth notice. Until then, all I see is someone who took a high pressure job, couldn’t hack it, and now they’re trying to cash in on the negative experience for media attention.
One party versions are always … tricky. If this was the case then people that support her need to step up and talk. It is hard to belive a company with such ethics also had good enough enviroment for a colleague to transition and publicly anounce it to the world. Something is off…
Exactly. Something doesn’t smell right. If she wants to corroborate her story, she can start by showing her ER report for the supposed incident where she self-harmed to get out of work. That would be an easy paper trail to share and since she’s already disclosed that information, she wouldn’t be giving anything else up.
Words themselves have no value in these instances.
Exactly this ^
Until there’s actual evidence put forward (and not just her word), I’ll happily defer pulling out the guillotine and grabbing my pitch fork.
I get the community as a whole is rightfully shitty with how LMG has handled themselves over the last week, but I’m certainly not taking her accusations alone at face value, regardless of how abhorrent they are
Absolutely, the criticism from gamers Nexus was fair and earned by LMG, but these allegations are not only completely separate from the issue with quality, they’re completely unsubstantiated. Should she start corroborating her story with things like the ER report from her reported incident of self-harm, or other employees confirm her story and are willing to state that they actually witness these accusations, that would be another story.
