Madison Reeves on why she left LMG
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remember when linus spoke out against unionizing :)
That and the “We don’t discuss wages.” remark. Screw that mentality. And from what Madison wrote, If promissory estoppel is a thing in Canada, then it sounds like she had a strong case. Especially if there was any paperwork.
There’s tons of shit they could get LMG for. But it seems that they intentionally hired people that don’t know any better, and it’s no real fault of their own since they just are appearing to use predatory hiring processes. It’s ridiculous to think everyone young should know employment law.
Surely verbal contracts are still enforceable in Canada like they are in the US, assuming Madison can prove they happened.
Linus "spoke out" against unionizing by saying that he couldn't legally do anything to stand in the way of his employees unionizing and wouldn't want to stand in their way if they ever decided to. But he wants to make a workplace where people don't feel the need to and if they did then he would see it as a personal failure.
There's plenty to criticize Linus for right now, but I don't think that his "anti-union" stance is one of them
Edit: in the context of these allegations, then yes, his employees certainly should unionize if the actual criminal crimes in this thread are even partially true. And if that happens then I will be singing Solidarity Forever for the LMG employees, but until that happens and we see how Linus responds to that this is just not a good read on Linus' stance towards unions.
Edit2: it feels weird to have posted what could be seen as a defense of Linus under this particular post. I'm not a Linus Stan, Just a union advocate that wants criticism to be levied where it's actually called for and this doesn't seem like it is
I'm not saying he meant anti-union by that line, but that's classic anti-union line saying my employees don't need unions.
Very much in line of "unions means less money for you" statement.
Yeah the whole "I love unions, but we at this company are a family so we don't need that", is peak anti-union talk. Throughout history it's been used by people who are horrible to their employees.
Exactly. If I was really concerned about my employees etc. I would want them to have a union with power that could match mine to argue their needs and concerns. If he had a union a lot of these problems and mistakes that he's having likely wouldn't have occurred.
True. If he said that line in response to a statement about wages. I can't say that I exactly remember the context in which he made that statement, but I believe that it (ironically, given this post) had more to do with workplace culture than wages.
An genuine employer who isn't against unions and has their employees wellbeing as a top priority should encourage the employees to unionize.
Fair point, well made. I would love to live in a world like this one day
If I ever start a corporation and if for some reason it isn't a workers co-op, I will make the employees unionize. I see little reason other than absolute profit maximization to not treat your employees as a great asset, assuming they're doing reasonably well. But I'm a dirty socialist so..
Dirty? Nah, you're fresh as hell, comrade. Workers co-ops are great
I guess I have my own special version of pessimism where if I see an employer not actively hiring Pinkertons I think if it add a little w for workers these days
I'm not convinced.
I have two uncles who worked for the same company, in different departments but in similar roles. Both were engineers, one was a CAE, and the other an ME. The CAE was not part of a union, and the ME was. They had a comparable lifestyle, so I assume they made a comparable salary (they live about a mile from each other, in a similarly sized house, drive similar cars, take similar amounts of vacations, etc).
Here's the work history of my unionized uncle:
And here's the work history of my non-unionized uncle:
This is obviously a very small sample, so it's hardly enough evidence to say whether unions are a net positive or net negative. So whether a union is better for you depends on a lot of factors, such as:
But one thing that should be universally true is that openly anti-union employers should be avoided.
That wasn't quite the point. What would be a good reason for a well meaning, rocking employer to not encourage unionization?
Lots of reasons:
An awesome employer shouldn't discourage unionization, and ideally they'd encourage attempts to unionize, but they wouldn't recommend unionization, assuming the employer intended to maintain control and monitor managers throughout the chain. If the employer can provide all of the benefits employees would get through unionization, unionizing merely adds extra BS that employees and employers need to deal with.
Alright, so let's take a look.
No escaping this one.
What does the employer have to go through the union for?
If the employer is rocking, why would union members vote to strike?
This doesn't feel right but I can't quite put my finger on why so I'll reserve judgement for now. 😄
I can see the extra layer of overhead in the case when everything is perfect, but given the incentives in traditional for-profit corporations I can't see that case ever being realistic. In addition, even if a company is perfect today, the way corporations are structured makes it incredibly easy for that to change especially if there's no worker-controlled counterbalance to such change. So just on the basis of that, if I'm an awesome, perfect employer, and I presumably want this to go on, because that really is part of being awesome, I should want to create this counterbalance against change for the worse. Assuming a for-profit, not-a-co-op corporation that is. It looks to me like this overhead is the price of preserving this perfect environment over the long term. Doesn't that make sense?
Benefits, and depending on the union's rules, salary adjustments. Some unions also require informing them of schedule changes.
The reverse is also true, employees may need to go through the union depending on the union's rules.
Idk, perhaps communication issues w/ management? Over-zealous union leadership?
The point is, the employee isn't empowered here, they're subject to whatever the union agrees to do.
My uncle went through multiple strikes, few (if any) he actually agreed with, but had to deal with being out of work. He wished he wasn't union so he could just continue working.
Sure, which is why it absolutely depends on the type of organization. Something owner-operated has a much lower risk of unexpected awful changes than something publicly traded.
A lot of owner-operated businesses don't intend to sell to someone else, the owner will just shut it down when they're done operating it. So "long term" in this sense is until the owner retires. And if they do intend to sell, they could at that point encourage the employees to make any employment adjustments needed.
Lol, sounds like what someone with a reputation to uphold would say if he hated the idea of his workers unionizing.
It's manipulative doublespeak meant to discourage unionization.
The employer is by nature profit-seeking and all communication must be viewed through this lens.
Wow, that would be the last straw. You have a link to his comments?
It was a wan show a while back if I remember right (not op), but basically trashed unions and said businesses should do better and vaguely acted like all the employees of the world could just quit and find something better on a whim if things were actually bad where they worked.
Which is all fine. His position was literally "I can't and won't do anything to stop it except for treating everyone to enough money that they won't bother to do it"
That's about as inoffensive as you can get. You're twisting it into being some anti union thing.
Unions are not just for getting higher wages. They're not even just for when conditions start to get worse. Unions should be there for the best as well as the worst working conditions. Unions serve to maintain good and improve bad conditions, it's not about going against the "boss", it's about actively or passively defending the workers' conditions.
Would you trust your boss' lawyer saying "the trial will be fair, you won't need a lawyer"?
And none of what Linus said goes against that. The employees are fine to form a union if they ever feel the need.
They always say that.
And some of them mean it. It's just incredibly hard to tell one from the other, so always protect yourself first.
And here I thought they were just sometimes a little inaccurate on the information they presented. Holy shit it's so much worse.
Yeah, I'd say it's about time for LTT staff to unionise.
I think that "taking care of people" smacks of the same rhetoric as "we're like a family" and "I like to think that all staff are considered equals here" and just about any other lie I've heard from exploitative upper management types.
Pepperige farm remembers.
I always figured LTT was a boy's club, considering how few female employees they have, but I had no idea the environment was that bad. Rather naive of me, tbh.
Ugh, I don't think I can continue watching anything from LTT anymore. 😭 I hope Madison is doing better these days.
Edit: I've zero issues blocking bad actors. =)
It's a lot of techies and IT guys. Sadly it's basically expected that there will be a toxic environment for women. It's HR's job to put a stop to that shit so the company does not get sued. However, when the boss' wife is the head of HR and the boss is the one allowing the toxic environment, it gets swept under the rug until it becomes a huge issue.
She isn't the head of HR.
Downvote if you want, but it is true.
She isn't anymore. She was previously.
Yeah, I believe when the company was a lot smaller.
.. Did you really just insinuate that unsubbing from a channel is the same as "canceling" them? LOL
Begone, foul troll!
The other side has spoken, and Linus is attempting to plaster over things instead of addressing them head on.
They have spoken. Both sides had their say. This is the reaction to that.
Yeah they just want to change their wOrKfLoW..or something like that. To be honest, this is something that needs to be run through the justice system. If there was sexual harassment, then some people need to be tried for those crimes. This is a culture that cannot be changed along the lines that Linus Sebastian suggested. Justice needs to be served, however, I don't think she really wants to relive this. My mother was sexually harassed by her boss (an optometrist)..it was pretty hard on her.
As someone who has self immolated in order to bring sexual assault to light... I see all the signs of darvo in the responses from LMG and Linus, and it turns my stomache.
It's not just the one employee though. Gamer Nexus has been calling out LTT for inaccuracies too. The ethics of LMG seem dubious at best and the are lots of other options so why keep watching LTT?
Cry me a river you fucking homonculus people have the right to decide they don't want to watch the boys club anymore
When LMG releases a video supposedly addressing everything... doesn't address it... then actively removed any mention of it in the comments of the video (I've had 2 comments removed myself). It's safe to assume that LMG doesn't have anything they want to add to the topic. I'll just presume that I've heard all sides of the story.
Maybe let both sides talk before picking a side? Or I guess you can just unsubscribe like a child.
Lol this fanboy
Fanboy because I'm not reacting like a child before I hear both sides?
Look up super mega.
Matt came with receipts that showed everything he was accused of was a lie.
Great. So the other 5M times women come forward like this can be ignored because one time it was proven otherwise.
1 time? You're ignorant.
No, because you've posted SEVENTEEN TIMES today simping for Linus. You keep repeating "wait for both sides" even though Linus already responded directly to the GN piece and his response was GARBAGE, which is the main reason a lot of people are unsubscribing. Madison's problem isn't the only issue, it's just another thing we're throwing onto the pile.
If this was a male employee you wouldn't be arguing this hard with the accusations.
lmao. You seem to be projecting.
What a stupid thing to say. Unsubbing is a mature response.
Waiting for both sides to tell their story is the mature response.
It's a sub. Why are you acting like unsubbing is such a terrible, immature response?
Exactly. OP can easily resub once each side has said their piece and OP feels comfortable that any issues were resolved.
It's also not like YouTube won't recommend you channels that you unsub from. I had to into a 3rd party channel blocker because it kept recommending me AvE even though I very much don't want to see that channel anymore.
Sure, but I can also ignore most of that by just going to my subscriptions page. I don't mind seeing irrelevant videos, I'm just not going to click on them.
We already have their response though? They continue deleting comments that even bring it up. That alone should tell you everything.
Stop licking their boots; there are better tech channels.
Yup. Some favorites:
I've also liked Hardware Canucks, Hardware Unboxed, and JayzTwoCents (dropped this hard since it became ridiculous imo), but I haven't watched anything from them in a couple years so I can't really recommend them.
I watch LTT a handful of times per year, and usually it's not really my thing (more hype than content imo).
Can confirm that Gamer's Nexus and Optimum Tech are absolutely superb. You can tell those guys are doing it for the love of the game. LTT is vacuous in comparison.
Another I didn't mention is Level1Techs, though they tend to focus more on server hardware and less on weird gaming tech (though they do gaming reviews as well).
Thanks for this recommendation! I love SFF pcs.
His production value is fantastic as well. I hope you enjoy. :)
But we wont hear llts response to this.. lol
If she had several tweets of bullshit about the company, it might not have been like this 100%.. but ill bet that this is just one out of several people who felt screwed working there
Linus?
Both sides HAVE spoken. The fire was stoked by the shitty LMG response.
I'm confused about your comment. Why assume it's childish to act in a way that distances you of any drama?
Why that us vs. them attitude of name calling someone as childish? How is that any different of the childish behaviour that is being hoisted upon in the first place?
Perhaps that's an indication that a side is already being chosen?
Anyway, don't take my comment in a wrong way. I really have no dog in this fight. I barely know who this Linus guy is. I just dislike seeing people being rude to each other, unneedingly escalating discussions by being unkind.
Exactly. I stopped watching LTT when I felt they produced childish content a few years ago (first it was the clickbait titles, then stupid thumbnails, then annoying ads). So I unsubbed for much less than a sexual harassment case.
Watch other channels, there's plenty of good content out there depending on what you're interested in. I mostly watch Gamer's Nexus and Optimum Tech these days for tech stuff, but there are a few others I watch with some regularity.
And this is why Lienus hates unions so much, cause it would have held him and his company accountable for the nasty, abusive shit they do behind the scenes.
Am I missing something? When had he expressed his hatred for unions? As a union man, if he had said something like that it would've pricked my ears. As far as I know, he's said that he doesn't want his employees to feel like they need a union, but wouldn't stand in their way if they wanted one, which is about as good as it gets for a North American business owner.
If this stuff is true then they should unionize immediately. Solidarity Forever
Edit: I'm not going to double down. This was a blind spot for me, maybe because my union is already established and fairly strong, but I'll hold this L and learn from it
in one of the WAN shows he went on a big handwringing tirade about how "unions means I'm a failure as an employer" with undertones of "You wouldnt want to make me a failure by unionizing, right?"
Okay. So I'm not missing something. I guess I heard him say that it "would be a personal failure for him as an employer" as him taking personal responsibility for his employees' treatment. A charitable interpretation, but just a difference of opinion.
I can see how people can interpret what he says as soft anti-union, it's just weird to see you and others say things like this as if he's sober sort of Robber Baron.
Edit: I'm not going to double down. This was a blind spot for me, maybe because my union is already established and fairly strong, but I'll hold this L and learn from it
Employers by nature seek profit above all.
Unions by nature seek improved wages and conditions for the employees above all.
Since the positions are diametrically opposed, we must evaluate all employer speech concerning unionization through this lens.
What I see is an employer trying to keep his reputation use deceptive doublespeak to discourage unionization among his employees.
That's may be true for publicly traded companies, but for privately owned companies, that's not necessarily true, especially owner-operated businesses like LMG (I know he hired a CEO, but Linus seems to be very involved still). Profit is certainly a concern, and it needs to be a concern for the long-term viability of the company, but employers can be driven by something else. For example:
LMG could absolutely fit that mold. He seems to still have a passion for the tech first, though he has been shilling his merch a lot harder over the last couple years, so maybe his mindset is changing.
My point is that companies don't necessarily seek profit above all else, but they do need to seek profit at some level to maintain the long-term viability of the company. That said, most companies do seek profit above all else, and you should absolutely have that be your default assumption, but leave room for owner-operated shops to actually care about their products and customers above profit.
Again, I disagree. Maybe unions start that way, but they operate like any other political entity where they largely want employees to keep paying the union dues, and the union management likely wants to increase their own salaries. So their focus is on doing something so they can convince members to increase their dues, and that something doesn't necessarily have to be in the best interests of the members, it only needs to be convincing enough that people will agree to the dues increase.
That said, unions are probably more likely to seek improved conditions for their employees than an employer, just make sure your union leadership is good so you don't get screwed over by nonsense. Some unions operate more like HOAs, where it's more of a power trip than an actual mutually-beneficial relationship.
I see the same, but that's because when in doubt, I prefer to side with the weaker party. I still want to see more facts emerge before I start urging others to avoid LMG, I'm not going through that effort on a hunch.
Yeah, for me, a company having a union shouldn't really have much of an effect if they are actually treating their employees well.
What wage discrepancies would there be to negotiate? Why would there be any arguing over allotted sick time? Why would an employee have a grievance against a company that they would need legal support for?
A company that truly wants to treat it's employees well should already be on board with all of that stuff. In fact, I'd almost even argue that they should want a union.
Yeah, in the unlikely event I was ever in such a position, advocating my hypothetical employees to unionize for their own interests against mine (no matter how much I may try to cede or be considerate) seems like the bare minimum. Other options would maybe include making it a workers co-op or something.
You are a union man? Go speak with your fellow union people who work with negotiations and forming chapters and ask them what it means when a company says "we are pro unions but we feel it isn't a good fit for us and we would have failed as a company if our employees would feel like they would need one".
Hint: it's something like "get the fuck out with the union shit, I'll fire y'all"
Fair enough. I'm not going to double down. This was a blind spot for me, maybe because my union is already established and fairly strong, but I'll hold this L and learn from it
I would just like to give props to you for owning up and listening to the information. I do not in any way think that you were wrong in your reasoning, just that there was more context that is likely relevant which you hadn't been privy to, and once you were informed of it you reevaluated. Not everyone does that and I think a very valuable part of this community is when people do that (I know I'm not always particularly good at it myself).
Nah, don't take an L. Some people who say that genuinely mean it, and I think an owner-operator business like LTT might fit the bill for someone who does actually mean it.
That said, it's the same weasel-language that many corporations use that are actually anti-union and would be willing to squash a union if people started to unionize. I see some of that at my place of work (I'm not in a union, no talk of a union), but again, I know my immediate leadership to know that their heart is in the right place, but that they could be forced to do something they don't like from higher-ups (e.g. we are going from 2-days in-office to 3-days in-office due to higher-ups, we'll see if my boss actually campaigns for going back to 2-days in-office once the initial fervor dies down).
Yeah I remember listening to that WAN show, double speak for sure.
Yep, he got caught with his manipulative word play this time by GN, but it also gives context for everything he's said in the past and puts new light on them, because this isnt something people just wake up and decide to do one day. Its something they do their entire life.
Why would "you wouldn't want to make me a failure by unionizing" convince anyone not to unionize? You think poorly treated employees give a shit about their boss' feelings? Put down the armchair psychology textbook and listen to the guy, he flat out says he supports unions and workers' right to organize against antagonistic leadership.
he said he supported unions, but doesnt want a union at his business.
he said we should call out bad companies, until its his company thats being called out.
Says he cares about employees, but ignores sexual harassment, abuse, and overworks them beyond capacity.
He says a lot of shit, until hes on the receiving end of it.
Are you dense? He doesn't want a union because in his mind, correctly, it would mean he's a terrible person. Not every workplace needs a union.
He types all this out, but has the audacity to call me the dense one.
I swear to god, these linus fart huffers..
Based edit. Also, happy you’re in a union <3
Meanwhile, Dave Oshry being a fucking chad (yes I know he lives in NZ, but he's from the US)
::: spoiler spoiler :::
Sorry to anyone for whom spoilers don't work
What a shit place to work at. Linus sounds like a real "winner".
The dude has always seemed so smarmy to me so hearing this really isn’t that surprising. I’m happy they’re getting their comeuppance but doubt it will be as much as they deserve.
A few years back I remarked that Linus always came off like a bit of a douchebag. I was at the time heavily downvoted, but holy fuck. This is worse than I expected.
I watched like five minutes of a video like 10+ years ago and found it obnoxious. Reddit has such a hard on for him. Maybe it’s because I’m old, but I cannot stand his style.
When you say you're old, how old do you actually mean? I'm in my mid 30s and I feel exactly the same way.
…I’m in my mid-30s hahahaha
This is definitely stuff designed for kids.
I'm a similar age and have a similar experience w/ LTT. I'll occasionally watch a video because an early-20s coworker really likes it (something to talk about I guess), but I'm not a fan in any way. I mostly look at it as "what the average person thinks" and I don't expect any actual analysis.
I dunno. Run through a browser news tab and it has more than a few stories about Linus/LTT, like this and this.
He and his/team's content always came off to me as basement dwelling PC gamers trying to be real IT professionals. Garbage content and apparently a garbage company.
I'm neither close to this (I've seen a few LTT vids here and there) nor that interested in dogpiling or anything ... but this is exactly what LTT/LMG and Linus himself always felt like to me and it always kinda creeped me out. Like I'd watch something and get that feeling of, am I the only one seeing that or is it me?
No. I'm just a "level 1" tech that have been doing this for many years, and I've always seen him and most of his channels as unprofessional, with the exception of the person now named Emily.
Linus himself didn't seem like a great tech to me, mostly because he seem to struggle with anything else than Windows. I don't care that much about hardware because I have been gravitating around hosting, mainframes (IBM i) and corporate so his channels and benchmarks are not of great interest to me. But that experience helped me see in his other tech videos that he was not serious.
And the way he "used" his employees to do anything unrelated to their job definition was weird. Like, I'm a tech and can install cable, but there's people that you should hire for that. It's not my job to move desks around or paint the walls while also having to do my regular tasks. Should have been the same with his employees.
He gave the impression of being someone that will use the "we're just one big family" excuse to get his employees to do anything, while talking superficially about Windows computers and pushing merch.
I ended up asking YouTube not to recommend any of his channels.
I don't think it's fair to criticize his usage of employees... He's operating a media company and all of his upgrades are essentially glorified media operations. Everyone on camera is a media personality playing a role.
The point isn't to get cable installed, it's to have an engaging personality on camera doing something interesting. Getting cable installed is a happy coincidence.
Wasn't all the "work" explicitly recorded for use as content? (And they hired a painter anyway)
My heart breaks for Madison because as a woman in tech myself, many of her experiences sound familiar. HR leaders, in many companies, exist primarily to serve the executive team and play PR for them. I've met very few who truly have employees backs and even they're considered rebels. The best option most of the time is to leave the company because even if they call in a 3rd party, it's lawsuit prevention and not an attempt to fix things. If anyone is in a situation where they're the victim of inappropriate behavior and the company brings in their lawyer to talk to everyone, do not talk to them. They're just gathering information so they can refute claims if litigation is presented. They work for the company, not you.
Fuck man, pretty much nobody should have to deal with that.
Been there done that.
"snitches get stiches" is the phrase I've been told many times
This too
I am still, to this day, hesitant to take days off from this kind of shit
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 called "stupid" to my face in an open office with fifty other staff in the room.
You should never be obligated to do things you don't want to do. No job is worth it.
This absolutely. For every one person who speaks up there are usually multiple tens who do not.
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.
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).
https://www.eeoc.gov/
This is an excellent and thoughtful response. Thank you for taking the time.
Agreed. Also thanks to you for noticing and hilighting the value of their response. An equally awesome move.
There is great content here on Lemmy. A welcome change from that other place if I might say. Cheers.
Thanks :)
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.
Whether or not the accusations are true or not, you gave excellent life advice imho.
Onlyfans might indeed have something to say here. Let us hope they do.
Are US and Canada law similar in that aspect?
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.
What the actual fuck
I mean, in hindsight, I don't know why I assumed differently. If it looks like a bro club...
Makes you wonder about Maxine leaving now.
No it doesn't. She moved far up North to be with her boyfriend. Can you stop trying to make shit up?
Wondering why previous employees left after the workplace is revealed to be a toxic, abusive shithole is not making things up.
But it is speculation.
Which, as you may note by your own word choice, isnt "making things up"
Its speculation based on new information.
Yes speculation. Reasoning based on inconclusive evidence; conjecture or supposition.
Thats the same reason I gave a really crappy company for leaving too. Not saying it's the exact same situation, but just wanted to point out that people sometimes lie to protect their place in their profession.
Especially if you're "enemy" has a fanatic fanbase. You come up with a reason that doesn't set the fanboys on a rampage against you. I think this is a fair thing to wonder.
Exactly, especially in the SM space where you'd likely want to get LMG to help you get off the ground, or at least a channel friendly with LMG.
Get out of here if you're just going to keep defending a $100 million corporation like it's your job
Defending? She literally said that..
And as others have pointed out... what she said falls perfectly in line with what someone afraid of recriminations would say, when trying to quietly exit a toxic workplace.
Seriously... are you Linus? I am failing to see why you have so much skin in this.
I'd like to think that it's generally safe to assume that a company doesn't conduct itself in this manner, but employers will always be incentivized to exploit it's workers so we must be ever vigilant.
Wow. I’m glad she spoke up and I hope she’s doing better now. I hope more people at LTT are empowered to speak out/leave by her courage.
Just imagine how bad it is, behind closed doors and with the Cameras off, considering what the employees said in that LTT employee opinion video on camera, that GN repeatedly referenced, that they were over worked and didnt have time to make anything right.
Update: LMG to hire external investigator on this matter.
Tip for LMG: don't have the founder's wife be head of HR.
She's not - Yvonne is accounting and business, I've never heard of her as being remotely involved with the HR department.
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.
I believe Linus said they have an external HR contract now. Yvonne was HR when they were much smaller.
That makes sense
HRs job is to protect the company... from employees. So they dont sue.
So they pressure the leadership: you cant do this, because then X will sue.
You cant do that coz then the government will give us a large fine etc etc
Thwy are not there to help the employees. At all. Ever. Lol.
This is the leat surprising information anyone could have told me about working for LTT/LMG. Time and time again, tech jobs and game dev jobs in workplaces run by "old internet edgelords" always (always) results in shit like this.
Jesus Christ on a motorbike. They have no idea what they had with her, does she still create content?
Here you go!
I'm disappointed. Jesus of all people should know how dangerous it is to ride without proper gear. Where's the helmet? Where's the armor? And, Christ... are those Sandals?? ATGATT!
He's fine. If he gets into an accident he'll just get back up in a little bit.
A little bit? It'd probably take a few days.
At least 3 if I'm not mistaken.
What is dead may never die.
Good bot
Wonderful.
She is on twitch and youtube https://linktr.ee/suop
It seems they may be deleting comments urging them to address Madison's experience on their apology video too.
Do you have proof of that. Cause if true this is really bad.
I think they were early on. I caught the comments within an hour of the video being posted before there were a gazillion comments and after hitting refresh, the initial comments with mentions of Madison were gone. There were some more, refreshed again and any of them older than 10 minutes were gone. By the time I made a couple comments, the comments seemed to be sticking around.
I've had 2 comments deleted. Can't prove it because when a comment is deleted from a video it's removed from your YouTube profile as well... but I'm sure you can test yourself.
Don't think so I can see it.
It shows up for me (although I have already watched it if that changes how it works)
Jesus, that is beyond awful. I'm really sorry she had to go through so much bullshit and I'm really glad she's speaking up.
I believe her.
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.
What is she exaggerating? It's her perspective. The things she described are not exaggerating.
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'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
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.
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"
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.
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).
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.
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)
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.
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 just don't know.
It's possible their turnover is low enough that a Glassdoor review would be easy to figure out the author, even if anonymous
She did write a review on Glassdoor, and Linus downplayed it then IIRC
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.
It very well might be... though I hope (less and less now) it's just a weird pigeon
Edit: That recording of the team meeting with James' joke really doesn't help
A former employee of LTT responded to Madison's departure announcement supporting her decision to leave LTT.
Here is the tiktok of the employee vagueposting about a possible toxic work environment. (Name is Maxine).
https://v.redd.it/ihu19dp22u981
That link doesn't work cuz the post is deleted, but here's an archive of it
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.
https://old.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/rwid1w/maxine_vagueposting_about_why_madison_actually/
I wasn't aware of that leaked meeting. What are you refering to ?
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.
Ah yes this one. Quite awful indeed.
Linus is not declaratively stating it didn't happen, he's using PR doublespeak to minimize his legal exposure down the road.
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
the review on glassdoor is hers.
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
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.
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.
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.
She did leave a 1 star review in glassdoor when she quit.
I know she did, but what I was saying was why didn't anyone else
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
They may have but the company has the opportunity to get those removed
Yes, see the comment I made to [email protected] in the same thread
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.
If you are in a similar situation... remember that you don't have to say "yes" to everything at work! It's the professional thing to say "no" when it's appropriate instead of overworking yourself and lowering the quality of your work.
If my workload means I consistently have to put in more than 8 hours a day, it's my responsibility to report that. I have a contract for 40 hours a week, I'm not a slave.
I mean... Yes there is? The law?
So do you believe contracts in the US are unenforceable, or...?
Employment contracts in the US are quite rare. 49 out of 50 state are at-will employment (Montana being the exception), so they can fire you for any or no reason, excluding a small list of illegal reasons.
Then I'll start looking for another job... What kind of absolute dead end jobs are you guys working, that you have to be completely spineless? No wonder that conditions are getting worse and worse.
A lot of folks here haven't actually entered the real world yet.
A lot of folks are also missing a backbone.
It is your duty to at least state how much work you already have and let the boss decide what to do.
I had a boss who acknowledged it and told me that it's fine if i'm not too accurate for couple of things.
Not saying anything, burning out and just delivering shit work non-stop isn't going to help either you or the employee, your job is to do your best and your boss has to figure out the rest.
Although i have to say i quit that job, because doing half-assed work is nothing which fulfills me.
I didn't say she didn't do any of that, considering her story, it wasn't just the workload, nothing to gain from an environment this toxic. If you have any legal grounds to stand on, use it.
I think it's kinda weird there is not one proof of it happening yet, not a recording or anyone talking for or against it, we'll see how things turn out.
Idk, that's a very core part of our company's culture.
I'm a SWE at a manufacturing company, so I'm certainly in a privileged group. However, the whole company has been pushing the narrative of empowering individuals to say no (i.e. the andon cord at Toyota). And given how frequently it's brought up in company emails (esp. in incident analysis communications), I have reason to believe it's actually being done at the plants. Our company's #1 stated priority is safety (due to the nature of the products we produce), and saying "no" is a huge part of that. We as SWEs have complete power to say "no" (we make our own estimations for work), and I believe our manufacturing workers have a similar ability to manage their workload.
If I’m understanding the concern (and this is me doing my own interpretation, so please tell me if I’m wrong here) is that she did not have the support needed to do so. At a normal company, a social media manager would be backed by a team that prepares professional videos / images / maybe even copy for use in marketing. Stuff like press releases and whatnot would be orchestrated and well planned to ensure the message comes across as needed.
From what I read, her language implies to me that she was expected to be a one-woman production line with all of the added responsibilities of a team. At least if you want to have the production quality that I think LMG would expect for their socials.
Yikes.
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.
Christ. I didn't care too much about the gamers nexus video, but this sounds awful.
Poor girl. I remember the ASUS ROG video where lots of fans (me included) were screaming to Linus "hire her!" thinking about the fame and the dream job... Never chase your idols!
The shit about telling her that she tries to be funny because she doesn't have any other skills. Wow, that's completely fucked up. I couldn't even imagine someone close to me saying something like that let alone someone who has direct authority over me.
Thing is though, if that is true where comedy is one of her strongest aspects, what's wrong with that? She was obviously very fun and charismatic to get noticed by them in the first place, in my opinion people should be put in roles that best suit them and can show off their talents rather then putting them in roles that almost directly set them up for failure. In the videos I saw her in I honestly thought she was very funny and likeable.
Sounds like they needed a zoomer to help liven up the vibe but weren't willing to stop shitty traditionalist work environment that zoomers all around the world are starting to wise up and stand up to.
As much as people want to see (maybe not so much now) LTT as a progressive company, this shit just makes it obvious they are just playing the same capitalist game as every other huge company in the world.
Good job LTT, you managed to go from a home-grown and likeable team to a giant faceless corporation that plays the same game as all of the other big dogs and act just as terrible. Everything your company stood for when it started has been completely shit on and thrown in the dumpster.
Why is it that when companies start making good money, increasing that cash flow becomes the sole focus of all daily operations and and values fall to the wayside? Honestly thought shit like this would be better in Canada than US 😂😂
Understatement of the fucking century. I mean I know they got some data wrong but this is Blizzard level of workplace harassment.
With the assault and shit that's straight up criminally illegal.
I'm so sorry for her; she probably gets the love she deserves now but it shouldn't have taken so long and it's time to start from scratch with this company.
Edit: See my other comment below, looks like in Canada the legal system can fuck you over with legal costs in these matters https://lemmy.zip/comment/1760082
It is. So where is the police report? She said she was groped on several occasions (which is sexual assault) and quit the job by her own decision, so why not throw the men who groped her under the bus?
I 100% get the fear of a witch hunt from LTT fans (which are overall dumb and rabid most of the time, just read the YouTube comments), but now that she openly accuses them she should file a police report.
Otherwise this is just throwing accusations around at an opportune time, I'd much rather have this proven in court and the men punished (which would also uncover more systemic problems inside of LTT).
Linus did say a year ago:
Now that she openly accuses them I'd expect some action there to go with.
I am tired of reading these things. I am absolutely aware these are done in good faith to have some neutral instance to deal with this, but it not the reality. If you are low on money, you are right out or a bit later, if you are an "undesirable" person, you will lose, and if you lack time, energy and mental health going through the paperwork will break the last bit you had and money too.
Yeah, the whole “it didn’t happen if it wasn’t reported to the police” thing is shit. There is unfortunately too long of a list of reasons as to why someone would be unable or unwilling to report these types of things and the attitude of the OP you’re replying to is on the list.
You would think after watching the droves of men and women coming forward during the me too movement would show people that coming forward at the time is extremely difficult and often not possible.
Ah darn, in Canada this is a bit fucked, true. Just found this: https://lernerspersonalinjury.ca/sexual-abuse/sexual-abuse-cases-who-pays-the-legal-bills/
In Austria and Germany (as far as I'm aware, I'm not a lawyer) when it's criminal charges the state sues. So you report it to the police and then it's out of your hand pretty much (besides being a witness). If you want extra compensation you can go the civil case route afterwards as a victim.
Similar to if you stab me and the police notices then they don't ask me if I want to sue you. They'll charge you all on their own as it's a criminal matter, not a civil one.
To follow on from my previous comment... I'm sure you've seen multiple cases in your own country where the police / courts decline to charge or prosecute someone based on lack of physical evidence
True, we also have the whole Rammstein issue at the moment (But that's even more complicated, as the girls were all adults and consented to it at first).
I'm not sure what the recording laws in Canada are, LTT has a hundred cameras around every day and Madison wrote she got regularly assaulted. If it's legal there I'd film myself to have proof.
Overall I just don't like the timing, the drama was a year ago and now that other (more objective drama) gets brought up Madison unpacks everything and piles it on top? She was already in public back then and it's bullshit that she believes the employer handbook would be an NDA covering sexual assault allegations (like Linus himself wrote back then, no NDA can do that in Canada). The other stuff in the post? Totally fine, that's criticizing internal processes. But mixed right in there are serious criminal allegations.
Just to further your opinion:
Only ~30% of sexual assaults get reported according to this: https://www.rainn.org/statistics/criminal-justice-system
And psychologists will probably tell you that after the assault there is shame, embarrassment, fear of repercussions due to power dynamics and anxiety about what will happen. Of course this doesn't mean our society is dysfunctional, as we already managed to get a lot of systems in place to drive up this figure, but they're all far from perfect, and we need more studies and more improvements to do victims of SA better justice.
She will almost certainly find it very, very hard to prove the offence. Police and courts are usually reluctant to prosecute something on a 'he said, she said' basis. I can see why she'd not go down the police route with that, without even taking into account the massive power imbalance in terms of wealth / influence
Regarding Canada, I do find this: https://globalnews.ca/content/8797002/can-you-get-fired-recording-conversations-work/
So it seems 100% legal to record yourself even at work. Both audio and video? Which would make it rather easy to provide at least some proof (verbal abuse mostly, but if someone groped her at her desk then filming that might have worked too).
She also wrote:
I had co-workers come to me saying "I didn't like how you were treated, glad you got out." And only then did I realize it wasn't me.So that would mean there might be additional witnesses? I'm really hoping several of them actually come forward and talk about this then.
Sounds like she got witch-hunted tbh. Management was unhappy with Linus hiring her without going through the proper channels and pushed her out.
I thought it was weird they gave her a behind camera job when she was so clearly good at being a presenter. To me it seems like Linus felt threatened or jealous of how much the audience liked her.
Proud of her for going public. I've faced a lot of the same bullcrap in the workplace as a guy, I can only imagine how miserable it is with gendered harassment on top of it.
This is heartbreaking to read. I'm done with LTT after this and I hope this leads to waves within the company.
That is absolutely shocking. She is such an amazing personality and is being thrown unter the bus so hard. Really wish her all the best. Unsubscribed from the out of touch coorperation being focused on money only (which is in "some way" natural of course but never should the care for the employees being put aside, no thank you)
Holy shit that's insane
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:
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.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=FGW3TPytTjc&
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
How come anytime I read about this guy it always involves his groupies sending death threats?
So many of these fuckin YouTube content farms are like this. Reminds me of the rooster teeth fiasco
What’s really creepy is, Linus let’s his employees and wife model in underwear to peddle his merch. I mean, what’s the job description there? You are a writer and an underwear model?
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=ceWZslOfEjs
https://piped.video/watch?v=mUF4afxMpQk
https://piped.video/watch?v=EN9JzxzDXU0
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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Yep, I'm never watching Linus after this.
Linus always gave me creep vibes, especially that horrible fake laugh he has. Add to that all of the times others in his videos jibe at him for being a horrible boss, in a "joking" kind of way that always seemed like they were more than jokes. I did wonder why Madison didn't appear in more videos, and I'm glad she's out of there now. I have unsubscribed from LTT on YouTube and I'm glad I never got around to buying any merch.
Who?
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).
Not to be mean, but perhaps her work wasn't that good? Is it possible to have mental health issues and have your work not be good?
You have the empathy of a pebble.
Great value add. Did you have any input or just here to assert your domineering intelligence? Back to reddit, maybe?
This sounds like the ramblings of someone lacking certain ["domineering intelligence"].
No, for real, I insulted you, because you did not show any motivation to understand how self-harm works and what Madison R. meant.
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.
Please, for the love of everything good, do some reading on mental health. You're way off base.
Should I just google, "mental health," or should I take your word? I've worked in Behavioral Health for over a decade.
This was really weird to read. Self harm like this is normally associated with pretty severe mental illness.
Like what did she think they were going to do if she called in sick? Beat her up? Definitely a strange part of the story.
She probably should have kept that part to herself
Exactly.
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.
Why am i seeing gossip on technology? Mods should not allow these sorts of posts
It's the biggest tech outlet with major accusations, sure just ignore it.
But why post?
Let's wait for both sides before picking. The internet has a history of the "victim" lying.
We shouldn't witch hunt but this should be taken very seriously.
As for history of the victim lying... Never fall into this toxic mindset, even if it does happen you should never rush to this conclusion either. It's disgusting
Sitting here waiting for both sides is disgusting? Fuck off lol.
No implying that people in this position have a history of lying is disgusting.
It discounts and underlays the seriousness of the situations and discredits them without due process
Edit: removed personal attack, my apologies I should take issue with the content not the user
They do. But I guess go off and be outraged without a response from both sides.
You're a child.
Like I said don't witch hunt but don't dismiss her either, which you have tripled down on at this point.
I'm not outraged I expect due process, what grosses me out is your attitude
My attitude of WAITING FOR BOTH SIDES TO SPEAK BECAUSE THERE'S A HISTORY OF VICTIMS LYING is disgusting?
I'm not dismissing anyone. I'm fucking waiting for both sides because of history.
I can tell you 5 content creators that were cancelled and proved with receipts they were completely innocent in the past couple years. By then, the damage was done, and people didn't care to listen to the accused.
So ya. Call me any childish names you want because I said I want to wait for both sides.
No stop moving the goal posts, you said they often lie whether true or not is Irrelevant.
Given the power imbalance tactics like this have been used in the past silence people that were otherwise completely within their rights.
I'm not saying that Linus did all these things and I agree with you that there needs to be a due process what I'm taking issue with is your language.
Removed mine, you're right I should take issue with the content not the user. Thank you
Thank you. I'm taking down my comment.
I think their response was covered in her post(s).. lol
They've not responded to her. If you think what SHE is saying they said is a response, it's not.
Yep. There was a situation like that with LTT and Naomi Wu before, turned to be just drama.
Hovewer, given her and LTT staff characters, I tend to believe most of what she said. Though, I expected Max to come out with it, not Madison.
True, but the scale is completely different, Madison worked there for years and Naomi Wu was just a random idiot.
I'm all for covering both sides and this needs to be addressed.
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.
How dare they expect human decency? Goddamn GenZ are SO entitled.
How do you know thats true? We only heared ONE PERSON for now. She could very well be lying or overexaggerating for sure.
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 😣
Ah yes, being groped by a man and being called a retarded removed is totally her inability to conform to working a desk job
You're a brain dead twat
Please don't use personal attacks.
Of all the takes you could have taken from this you chose this steaming pile of shit.
Is this "adapting to a working environment" to you?
I see employee abuse.
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
Well, I guess we will have to wait and see what the external investigation results will be.
At this point it's word against word so all we can do is wait, you trust him and I don't.
I hope you're right, better one liar than a whole company with an abusive work environment.
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.