LMG Sponsor Complaints

[QwertyChouskie]

4 hours ago, jubjub said:

If dbrand wants to be edgy then whatever but making fun of an Indian last name in this way just seems so utterly stupid. While it's probably not racially motivated by any means it does come across and look as incredibly racist. And the fact that they know it looks racist and choose to still double triple down does make it actually kinda racist. At the very least they don't care if people see them as racist.

As far as I can tell, Dbrand Twitter's whole shtick is that they roast anyone and everyone for anything and everything.  It's a dumb marketing strategy because individual tweets in a vacuum can easily look like blatant racism, even though in the context of the brand as a whole it is just Dbrand being edgy against everyone whenever possible.

 

To be clear, I'm not saying the tweet wasn't in poor taste (I think their whole Twitter is in poor taste), but it's very unlikely to be racially motivated when you look at the context.

 

Which actually puts Dbrand in a loose-loose situation: If they apologize, it looks like they are admitting the tweet to be racist, but if they double down, obviously people will be mad.  That's the kinds of problems you create when you choose "super edgy/roast everyone" as your Twitter marketing strategy...  Probably the best Dbrand could do at this point is tweet something like "CS robot #147 has violated our vague edgelord level specs and therefore was executed by firing squad."  Or just wait for the thing to blow over, as it has every time in the past.

[jubjub]

46 minutes ago, QwertyChouskie said:

As far as I can tell, Dbrand Twitter's whole shtick is that they roast anyone and everyone for anything and everything.  It's a dumb marketing strategy because individual tweets in a vacuum can easily look like blatant racism, even though in the context of the brand as a whole it is just Dbrand being edgy against everyone whenever possible.

 

To be clear, I'm not saying the tweet wasn't in poor taste (I think their whole Twitter is in poor taste), but it's very unlikely to be racially motivated when you look at the context.

 

Which actually puts Dbrand in a loose-loose situation: If they apologize, it looks like they are admitting the tweet to be racist, but if they double down, obviously people will be mad.  That's the kinds of problems you create when you choose "super edgy/roast everyone" as your Twitter marketing strategy...  Probably the best Dbrand could do at this point is tweet something like "CS robot #147 has violated our vague edgelord level specs and therefore was executed by firing squad."  Or just wait for the thing to blow over, as it has every time in the past.

I mean clearly the original intent wasn't racist but they also clearly don't care about looking like racists. What an actual reasonable adult would have done is say sorry and quickly clarify that they weren't trying to be racist. They've said something that appears incredibly racist (calling Indian's shit in reference to their skin colour is a pretty classic racist insult around the world) and instead of being upset that they accidentally made themselves look racist they just tripled down. If they have no problem looking like racists tbh maybe they just are. Idk about you but if I accidentally said something that looked racist I wouldn't flame people on twitter I'd try and make sure people know I'm not racist first before doing anything else.

[Haredeenee]

2 hours ago, deamonSLINKY said:

Epomaker is refusing to respond to my request for a Refund!

 

I ordered the RT100 after seeing it on the LTT scorpion chair video on Jan 29th. I have asked for updates about my order 3 times and typically received a response within 24 hours. After waiting 2 and 1/2 months I saw that I could have it in 2 days if I ordered on Amazon. After 3 days of asking for a refund I have still received no reply. Reviews on their own website seem to share the same problem of not getting any refund. I appreciate that LTT isn't doing any more sponsor spots with them until the resolve issues, but I just lost $125 because I relied on them vetting their sponsors ahead of time.

 

Has anyone else had success in getting a refund? 

Go to your bank and immediately start a chargeback saying it was fraudulent as you've received no product, be prepared with links to online reviews of other customers having this issue. 

[Vangeli]

19 hours ago, Kalamordis said:

I get they're edgy, but this is just yikes... bit far? - Noticed lots of people tagging Linus / LTT on Twitter over it so, just placing this here. 

 

Their usual crap humor doesn’t bring the racist a-holes out to cheer it on and add to it; ignoring this and doubling down was the wrong move. Definitely needs to be adequately addressed.

[Zenull]

this (perosnally) feels like a non-reaponse. Felt like they are saying they'd do it again because they'll just try to pay their way out of it.

 

Didn't even address any changes etc to prevent future stuff like this. Feels like they are taking a "pay for good PR" approach while not addressing what actually happened or what they will do beside send money to the X user.

 

Say if they're going to be policy changes and/or staff changes to prevent future.. incidents.. and without knowing if they're going to be changes I'm not sure if dbrand doing stuff like that in the future is something LMG should endorse as that was just kinda racist (in my opinion!)

 

[GoStormPlays]

15 minutes ago, Zenull said:

this (perosnally) feels like a non-reaponse. Felt like they are saying they'd do it again because they'll just try to pay their way out of it.

 

Didn't even address any changes etc to prevent future stuff like this. Feels like they are taking a "pay for good PR" approach while not addressing what actually happened or what they will do beside send money to the X user.

 

Say if they're going to be policy changes and/or staff changes to prevent future.. incidents.. and without knowing if they're going to be changes I'm not sure if dbrand doing stuff like that in the future is something LMG should endorse as that was just kinda racist (in my opinion!)

 

I'm pretty sure the audience understands they won't be racist in their tweets anymore lol

[jubjub]

36 minutes ago, GoStormPlays said:

I'm pretty sure the audience understands they won't be racist in their tweets anymore lol

They didn't even mention the fact that they used a very specific racist stereotype used against Indians lol. They apologised for "we made fun of a guys name" which just makes it seem like people are mad that they made fun of a random persons name. That's not the point at all and it shows dbrand really can't hit the mark at all. All that's happened is dbrand saw how much backlash it was getting and decided to pay their way out of the situation and to make an absolutely awful apology that's effectively trying to gaslight people and control the narrative.

Absolutely atrocious apology from dbrand here that doesn't address anything that actually matters and is trying to steer people away from the fact that the tweet was seemingly incredibly racist. Fuck this company they're really not showing any good faith here at all.

Bonus tweet for people reading this thread:

Making a joke immediately after doing something controversial is so stupid but at least that's something LMG can whole heartedly support given their own track record.

[Haredeenee]

Looks like they apologized but not really.

"hey sorry we were racist we gave him money that makes it better, no we'll keep doing it tho"






Same Energy 


 

[Vangeli]

1 hour ago, Zenull said:

this (perosnally) feels like a non-reaponse. Felt like they are saying they'd do it again because they'll just try to pay their way out of it.

 

Didn't even address any changes etc to prevent future stuff like this. Feels like they are taking a "pay for good PR" approach while not addressing what actually happened or what they will do beside send money to the X user.

 

Say if they're going to be policy changes and/or staff changes to prevent future.. incidents.. and without knowing if they're going to be changes I'm not sure if dbrand doing stuff like that in the future is something LMG should endorse as that was just kinda racist (in my opinion!)

 

 

I, uhh, honestly a bare-minimum boilerplate bs corpo response that actually had any mention as to why it was wrong and wasn’t dismissive would’ve shockingly been better than this.

 

This isn’t good enough. Throwing money at the guy and promising to do it again is disrespectful. Their shtick crossed a line and I can’t trust them to do right and stamp down racism—accidental or not—that they foster given the response here.
 

Earlier before their response, I was joking to myself that they’d stay quiet and lean on WAN Show to do actual crisis PR for them but that seems like a terrifying possibility at this point…
 

At the very least, if device skins were still appealing to me I’d start looking elsewhere. The shtick isn’t worth it.

[ddrowuhaway]

2 hours ago, Vangeli said:

 

I, uhh, honestly a bare-minimum boilerplate bs corpo response that actually had any mention as to why it was wrong and wasn’t dismissive would’ve shockingly been better than this.

 

This isn’t good enough. Throwing money at the guy and promising to do it again is disrespectful. Their shtick crossed a line and I can’t trust them to do right and stamp down racism—accidental or not—that they foster given the response here.
 

Earlier before their response, I was joking to myself that they’d stay quiet and lean on WAN Show to do actual crisis PR for them but that seems like a terrifying possibility at this point…
 

At the very least, if device skins were still appealing to me I’d start looking elsewhere. The shtick isn’t worth it.

Huge fucking sigh of relief that at least this forum understands that the "joke" was tasteless at best and implicit racism at worst. 

 

The comments on r/linustechtips are all such a huge cesspool. Hopefully here is a better representation of the LTT community and not that sub. 

 

Actually nvm maybe this thread is more the anomaly considering Linus's tweets just handwaving it away by saying dbrand "stepped up." Yikes. And then compares an ethnic name to westerners having names that "mean" dick. Wow 

[jubjub]

Linus either missing the point entirely or being gaslit by dbrand. Either way it's a horrible look... Linus really needs to just stop engaging on social media when it involves controversy. It's just a straight up skill issue he can't involve himself without stepping in it. For someone who talks so much about the weight of ~100 people relying on him for their livelihood he sure does love to do incredibly stupid shit for no reason. Maybe he should get to know Elon, they have that in common.
 

If you wanted a more comparable situation it'd be like someone making fun of a black person with the name kunerash and saying it sounds like coon rash. Doesn't sound so good when you put it that way does it? Maybe if Linus reads this he can realise how idiotic his comparison is.

[Erioch]

28 minutes ago, jubjub said:

Linus either missing the point entirely or being gaslit by dbrand.

Oh, 100% he gets it.  He just doesn't care.  Money is money.

[Cev]

7 hours ago, jubjub said:

Linus either missing the point entirely or being gaslit by dbrand. Either way it's a horrible look... Linus really needs to just stop engaging on social media when it involves controversy. It's just a straight up skill issue he can't involve himself without stepping in it. For someone who talks so much about the weight of ~100 people relying on him for their livelihood he sure does love to do incredibly stupid shit for no reason. Maybe he should get to know Elon, they have that in common.
 

If you wanted a more comparable situation it'd be like someone making fun of a black person with the name kunerash and saying it sounds like coon rash. Doesn't sound so good when you put it that way does it? Maybe if Linus reads this he can realise how idiotic his comparison is.

Tone deaf, really. Yes, people make fun of conventionally white names; people make fun of white people for a lot of things. The reason why it's less controversial is because white people are not historically or contemporarily oppressed or marginalized for the colour of their skin. Also, two things can be wrong at the same time.

 

Normally I don't really mind the "banter" corporate accounts who interact with everyone casually; the Opera GX account is a good example of this. The problem with dbrand is that they are just unfunny and only go for low-hanging fruit insults, or just call you the F word; there's no substance to their posts. Really just wish they'd get someone actually funny and witty to run the account.

[Haredeenee]

1 hour ago, jubjub said:

Linus either missing the point entirely or being gaslit by dbrand. Either way it's a horrible look... Linus really needs to just stop engaging on social media when it involves controversy. It's just a straight up skill issue he can't involve himself without stepping in it. For someone who talks so much about the weight of ~100 people relying on him for their livelihood he sure does love to do incredibly stupid shit for no reason. Maybe he should get to know Elon, they have that in common.
 

If you wanted a more comparable situation it'd be like someone making fun of a black person with the name kunerash and saying it sounds like coon rash. Doesn't sound so good when you put it that way does it? Maybe if Linus reads this he can realise how idiotic his comparison is.

Dude really thought listing a bunch of western first names is the same thing lol 

[saintlouisbagels]

As a Vietnamese-American.. I think everyone is overreacting and I side with Dbrand and Linus.

Our currency is literally "dong". One of our national foods Pho is constantly used as pun for like "pho sho" and "pho king" etc. etc. "Phuc" is a common name.

 

Everyone relax and take a "phuc"ing joke.

 

It's like White people getting offended over White people wearing a kimono when in reality Japanese people are flattered by it.

 

5 hours ago, jubjub said:

If you wanted a more comparable situation it'd be like someone making fun of a black person with the name kunerash and saying it sounds like coon rash. Doesn't sound so good when you put it that way does it? Maybe if Linus reads this he can realise how idiotic his comparison is.

Linus has literally made fun of Yvonne Ho's last name.

Conflating "shit" in Chitransh to "coon" in Kunerash makes you sound more racist than Dbrand's original tweet my guy.

[rdzwaard]

Not happy about my Apos Linus Tech Tips keycaps order. They advertise them as "Full-size, compact, and everything in between", but the set does not contain a 7.0u spacebar. So it is not compatible with my new Bauer Lite 65% keyboard. I reached out to them to return the set. But I need to pay the shipping fee myself, which is more than half the value of the set. 

[BaidDSB]

3 hours ago, saintlouisbagels said:

As a Vietnamese-American.. I think everyone is overreacting and I side with Dbrand and Linus.

Our currency is literally "dong". One of our national foods Pho is constantly used as pun for like "pho sho" and "pho king" etc. etc. "Phuc" is a common name.

 

Everyone relax and take a "phuc"ing joke.

 

It's like White people getting offended over White people wearing a kimono when in reality Japanese people are flattered by it.

 

Linus has literally made fun of Yvonne Ho's last name.

Conflating "shit" in Chitransh to "coon" in Kunerash makes you sound more racist than Dbrand's original tweet my guy.

Yeah you don't speak for me. I'm Indian and I say this isnt talked about enough.

 

Also Linus shows again he leared jackshit from his controversy.

 

No wonder Madison wont get justice.

[itswildfire]

As an ethnic Indian, I have to say I am pissed at dbrand. A lot of people (especially Linus on Twitter) playing it down and comparing it nicknames or jokes have not walked a day in the lives of Indians who live in the western world (and I'm not even from India, they have it way worse). For some reason or another, racism against Indians is just seen as fine and funny (as Pewdiepie showed).

 

What's even more annoying are the creators in dbrand's pocket that were quiet during the furore and as soon as they said they gave him 10k, started posting jokes about how they want to be made fun of for 10k too. I specifically want to bring up this Jerryrigseverything tweet:

 

in the replies:

 

• Nick Light responds making a joke. Not that big of a deal. But again, this is a racism issue. I'd like LMG staff to take it more seriously.
• Zack tells someone (an Indian) that they should be happy for the person dbrand insulted because he received 10k. He should be happy he was racially abused. Let that sink in.

Linus commented on Twitter that "unless he's [the person that was insulted] mad, I'm not mad". Well, he is mad. And called dbrand a racist company.

The fact that Linus continues to make excuses for dbrand and even say its not racist, comparing it to white nicknames and saying he has no way of knowing if the person is Indian is ridiculous. Sure, Linus. The guy called dbrand racist and tagged the Prime Minister of India just for fun lol (and yes, he did it before Linus' tweet).

 

What's even more annoying is Linus' wife is Singaporean. At no point did he think to ask her, "hey, do you think this is racist?" (Singapore is multi-ethnic and has a lot of Indians). Instead, he said "my sister-in-law has a white last name. Showing up after making reservations is fun lol." Aren't we trained during equality training to always check to make sure everyone feels comfortable and not feel discriminated in any way? Why is the white guy being the arbiter of racism?

 

So the lesson from all of this is that if you're a big company working with a creator, don't just sponsor a random video, be a channel sponsor and pay the big bucks. Creators will even back up your racism.

 

 

 

 

[LogicalDrm]

51 minutes ago, rdzwaard said:

Not happy about my Apos Linus Tech Tips keycaps order. They advertise them as "Full-size, compact, and everything in between", but the set does not contain a 7.0u spacebar. So it is not compatible with my new Bauer Lite 65% keyboard. I reached out to them to return the set. But I need to pay the shipping fee myself, which is more than half the value of the set. 

Is it non-refundable shipping fee like what Amazon does or do they refund it with rest of the order? Making customer pay for return shipping is somewhat standard procedure. Especially if its international shipping. The difference with good and bad customer service comes whether they refund shipping fee or not.

[SteveBinLaden]

1 hour ago, itswildfire said:

As an ethnic Indian, I have to say I am pissed at dbrand. A lot of people (especially Linus on Twitter) playing it down and comparing it nicknames or jokes have not walked a day in the lives of Indians who live in the western world (and I'm not even from India, they have it way worse). For some reason or another, racism against Indians is just seen as fine and funny (as Pewdiepie showed).

 

What's even more annoying are the creators in dbrand's pocket that were quiet during the furore and as soon as they said they gave him 10k, started posting jokes about how they want to be made fun of for 10k too. I specifically want to bring up this Jerryrigseverything tweet:

 

in the replies:

 

• Nick Light responds making a joke. Not that big of a deal. But again, this is a racism issue. I'd like LMG staff to take it more seriously.
• Zack tells someone (an Indian) that they should be happy for the person dbrand insulted because he received 10k. He should be happy he was racially abused. Let that sink in.

Linus commented on Twitter that "unless he's [the person that was insulted] mad, I'm not mad". Well, he is mad. And called dbrand a racist company.

The fact that Linus continues to make excuses for dbrand and even say its not racist, comparing it to white nicknames and saying he has no way of knowing if the person is Indian is ridiculous. Sure, Linus. The guy called dbrand racist and tagged the Prime Minister of India just for fun lol (and yes, he did it before Linus' tweet).

 

What's even more annoying is Linus' wife is Singaporean. At no point did he think to ask her, "hey, do you think this is racist?" (Singapore is multi-ethnic and has a lot of Indians). Instead, he said "my sister-in-law has a white last name. Showing up after making reservations is fun lol." Aren't we trained during equality training to always check to make sure everyone feels comfortable and not feel discriminated in any way? Why is the white guy being the arbiter of racism?

 

So the lesson from all of this is that if you're a big company working with a creator, don't just sponsor a random video, be a channel sponsor and pay the big bucks. Creators will even back up your racism.

 

 

 

 

There are several issues with this take.

1. We all know dbrand would've made the same joke regardless of race. If I was German and had the last name Dichlover, they would make fun of it. If they make fun of everyone regardless of race, it would be hard to call them racist. In fact, if they only didn't make fun of x person's last name because of their race, it would probably be racist considering viewing a race as more protected than other's is somewhat discriminatory.
2. Going off of that, there is no such thing as a safe space on the internet. Yes, you can create a website that can eventually ban those you deem offensive, but never one that will 100% block any offense. I understand we should have higher standards for dbrand, but my point is that you should not go on the internet expecting not to be offended, as it seems many of the people outraged at this statement have.
3. The creator's responses are all normal. I think it says something about how reasonable your outrage is when many reasonable people aren't outraged at all. It almost makes it seem like... you're being unreasonable.

[itswildfire]

14 minutes ago, SteveBinLaden said:

There are several issues with this take.

1. We all know dbrand would've made the same joke regardless of race. If I was German and had the last name Dichlover, they would make fun of it. If they make fun of everyone regardless of race, it would be hard to call them racist. In fact, if they only didn't make fun of x person's last name because of their race, it would probably be racist considering viewing a race as more protected than other's is somewhat discriminatory.
2. Going off of that, there is no such thing as a safe space on the internet. Yes, you can create a website that can eventually ban those you deem offensive, but never one that will 100% block any offense. I understand we should have higher standards for dbrand, but my point is that you should not go on the internet expecting not to be offended, as it seems many of the people outraged at this statement have.
3. The creator's responses are all normal. I think it says something about how reasonable your outrage is when many reasonable people aren't outraged at all. It almost makes it seem like... you're being unreasonable.

1. The fact that dbrand thinks it's ok to make fun of peoples names is part of the issue, in my opinion. It crosses the line from playfully edgy to downright cyberbullying, especially considering the size of their audience compared to the people they are responding to.

 

2. I never called for a safe space.

 

3. I don't think the creator responses are "normal". But you have a right to your opinion, SteveBinLaden.

[jubjub]

5 hours ago, saintlouisbagels said:

As a Vietnamese-American.. I think everyone is overreacting and I side with Dbrand and Linus.

Our currency is literally "dong". One of our national foods Pho is constantly used as pun for like "pho sho" and "pho king" etc. etc. "Phuc" is a common name.

 

Everyone relax and take a "phuc"ing joke.

 

It's like White people getting offended over White people wearing a kimono when in reality Japanese people are flattered by it.

 

Linus has literally made fun of Yvonne Ho's last name.

Conflating "shit" in Chitransh to "coon" in Kunerash makes you sound more racist than Dbrand's original tweet my guy.

I literally grew up alongside Indian friends getting called shitstain's and similar because of their skin colour and because of the Indian hygiene stereotype. There's so many variants on shit/poo/kaka used to insult Indians because of race. So fuck off with that shit I've seen how the word's been used throughout my life to belittle Indian friends of mine and it's not okay. Just because you're ignorant doesn't make you right.

Far more respectable response on twitter from Marques Brownlee... at least there's an actual adult in the tech youtuber space

 

[itswildfire]

10 minutes ago, jubjub said:

I literally grew up alongside Indian friends getting called shitstain's and similar because of their skin colour and because of the Indian hygiene stereotype. There's so many variants on shit/poo/kaka used to insult Indians because of race. So fuck off with that shit I've seen how the word's been used throughout my life to belittle Indian friends of mine and it's not okay. Just because you're ignorant doesn't make you right.

Far more respectable response on twitter from Marques Brownlee... at least there's an actual adult in the tech youtuber space

 

Thank you for speaking up.

 

Linus is going to look like an idiot in 24 hours. He's defended dbrand while his two biggest "rivals" in the tech space are minorities. MKBHD has already spoken and there's no way Arun is going to keep quiet.

[Erioch]

57 minutes ago, jubjub said:

I literally grew up alongside Indian friends getting called shitstain's and similar because of their skin colour and because of the Indian hygiene stereotype. There's so many variants on shit/poo/kaka used to insult Indians because of race. So fuck off with that shit I've seen how the word's been used throughout my life to belittle Indian friends of mine and it's not okay. Just because you're ignorant doesn't make you right.

Far more respectable response on twitter from Marques Brownlee... at least there's an actual adult in the tech youtuber space

 

Man, I just like Mr. Bownlee more and more these days.

[IkeaGnome]

11 hours ago, Cev said:

The reason why it's less controversial is because white people are not historically or contemporarily oppressed or marginalized for the colour of their skin.

So racism is wrong sometimes, but okay other times?