Madison reveals experiences working at LMG

[bvvfbQsy5DmWyzTwcSLMWCMYYS]

1 minute ago, Apologize_to_madison said:

Trust me bro™ we are at 63 pages now

Everything is misogyny, unless everyone blindly follows the allegiations of a woman 200% without questioning anything.

 

This happened to me at a previous workplace. There was a casual gathering in the evening and everyone had gotten drinks in their hands. A (young, new) woman employee shows up 30 minutes late, so I make the arrangements so that she gets a drink too.

 

This was interpreted in a way that I was trying to hit on her, and somehow got turned into a shitshow, that I had to deal with for some half a year.

 

If the person who showed up late happened to be my dead grandpa as a zombie, or Jesus, or an Alien, I would've still gotten that drink to them, because you know, common sense.

 

Anyways, the atmosphere towards the average male is pretty cool nowadays. Embrace yourselves everyone. The future is going to be a bumpy ride.

[IronArm]

5 minutes ago, Clasmir said:

Keep the above in mind.

I had assumed that some of those 'terrible people' were the result of making things 'public'. 

 

Is that not true?

I am sure that it added to it, but she was already being harassed by people. 

 

The amount of victim blaming you do is impressive. Are you saying she should have just kept her mouth close? That sounds like a GREAT way to think. It is rather easy to see which side of the fandom you sit on (hint: I referenced it in my last comment). 

 

Would love to keep hearing your expert opinion on how people with traumatic experiences should handle things. 

[jitteryzeitgeist]

2 minutes ago, HesCalledTheStig said:

I doubt he’s hiding. I’m sure he’s been told to stand down. 

The best thing Linus can do for anyone and anything right now is to let someone else do the talking.

[Vilacom]

2 minutes ago, Apologize_to_madison said:

Do the right and have EVERY manager apologize to Madison publicly including Linus for every single lie and threat he personally said and especially for ignoring it.
I regret not buying the the solid copper cooler I would have sent it to GN to do some real justice and actually do a real review.

This is horrible for everyone because GN has to take massive risks to do the right thing but they know they will get black listed by LTT
Anyone that supports Madison or GN has to watch their backs and be careful with the community
Madison is scared because LMG has millions it can spend for legal fees to sue them into the ground

It's questionable at this point why Emily doesn't appear in videos have they been barred too?
What kind of bullshit does Emily have to deal with daily? Is Linus just going to tell her to calm her tits too?

I've been a fan of LTT for a very long time I remember watching 7 gamer 1 CPU after a math exam and wanting to create a budget version of that project so I could play video games with my friends. I bought myself a LTT swacket because I thought I made me look cool back then but now what LMG has become makes me sick now.

Linus if your reading this what the actual fuck for thinking you failed your employees if they ever try to start a union they clearly fucking need one after all this bullshit you put them through

You uh, you dont understand how unions work clearly, they're not some magic system of justice, they're not anything more than a structured way for disputes and more official ways for grievances to proceed.  SA/SH still happens and goes unreported in union jobs, unions often encourage people to not file official reports to management or outside sources and attempt to deal with things directly within the Union itself. 

Please understand, I am a member of a union, I think literally everyone should be a member of a union, they are an incredible force for worker's rights and compensation.  But they are still just groups of people with their own priorities, motivations, flaws, biases, and more.  In the last six months in my local there have been two instances where union members have very nearly come to blows over scheduling, shit talking and drama is rampant, and you still have to deal with all the usual bullshit of problematic employees but you also have pressure to keep it "in house" and not bring in outside pressure from the union, and finally its important to remember that a unions job is to ruthlessly represent the best interests of the majority of the workers as decided by democratic processes within those workers.  If that means fucking the consumer, they do it, if most of the people just dont like someone and decide to hang them out to dry its very easy for that to happen as well.  

Unions are not some universal fix to everything, they are just another official channel to go through that in theory provides more weight to any individual employee.   It does not mean there is no way to screw someone over and act in bad faith.

 

[That Guy]

Wow, the sheer volume of accounts created on this forum in the last day or two, solely to criticize LMG, the employee's and other people on this forum is unbelievable. With even more of allegations coming out, we need to understand that everyone in this situation are real people.

 

I am upset by the situation, and I'm sure many of you reading this are as well, feeling upset is acceptable and understandable. However, resorting to making threats and engaging in bullying only brings you down to the very level you claim to despise. Let's strive for more constructive conversations, remember these are REAL situations and allegations coming up against the company and people in it. For the sake any victims with real experiences please don't rush to conclusions as well, this can only cause more harm.

 

I hope everyone have a great day/night.

 

-That Guy

[coopa]

10 minutes ago, Razercake said:

I vaguely remember a good while back Linus talked about them having a proper HR department now, or something along those lines. so I don't think she is the head of HR anymore, which would be good. However I could be misremembering.

That would be less concerning, but Yvonne and Linus would still have a vested financial interest in a report that exonerated LMG as the owners. I'm not implying that they would do anything improper, but the thought doesn't leave ones mind.

Hiring a third party investigator removes any doubt over the fairness of the review and that it is intended to get down to the truth - good and bad.

[jitteryzeitgeist]

2 minutes ago, bvvfbQsy5DmWyzTwcSLMWCMYYS said:

Everything is misogyny, unless everyone blindly follows the allegiations of a woman 200% without questioning anything.

 

This happened to me at a previous workplace. There was a casual gathering in the evening and everyone had gotten drinks in their hands. A (young, new) woman employee shows up 30 minutes late, so I make the arrangements so that she gets a drink too.

 

This was interpreted in a way that I was trying to hit on her, and somehow got turned into a shitshow, that I had to deal with for some half a year.

 

If the person who showed up late happened to be my dead grandpa as a zombie, or Jesus, or an Alien, I would've still gotten that drink to them, because you know, common sense.

 

Anyways, the atmosphere towards the average male is pretty cool nowadays. Embrace yourselves everyone. The future is going to be a bumpy ride.

I've never wanted to hear the other side of the story to something more in my life.

[IronArm]

38 minutes ago, DakotaCx said:

I don't see her DMs obviously, but looking through her @s on Twitter, she seems to be doing fine. She has +11k followers over the past day, the overwhelming majority of the tweets since her reveal appear to be supportive, sympathetic, etc. I think she'll be just fine on this one. 

Thanks for the expert opinion on how people dealing with trauma are based on how many followers they get on Twitter. 

[HesCalledTheStig]

3 minutes ago, jitteryzeitgeist said:

The best thing Linus can do for anyone and anything right now is to let someone else do the talking.

Exactly. And if the company is already addressing the issue, there’s a chance they may have been told not to say anything at all.

[schwarzerrogen]

12 minutes ago, Razercake said:

I vaguely remember a good while back Linus talked about them having a proper HR department now, or something along those lines. so I don't think she is the head of HR anymore, which would be good. However I could be misremembering.

Theoretically neither she or Linus should be on any HR team. They have vested interest in the company and therefor cannot be legally impartial.

[Taf the Ghost]

8 minutes ago, schwarzerrogen said:

One thing I'd like to see, is what LTT's compliance status is regarding Workers Compensation Act, s. 21 WorkSafeBC Policy Item P2-21-2. Has this training been provided, is it being adhered to? Is there even an independent and above C-suite HR representation in place? If not, that's a major legal issue. If found not in compliance I'm pretty sure GBC can heavily fine and enforce compliance onto LTT, and those fines are fucking massive and damaging. Then you get into the Federal mandates for workplace harassment... it won't be pretty.

 

Source of knowledge: This is my literal job in a different province, being a Workplace Harassment and Sexual Harassment educator for both employees and managers.

Linus: Get a fucking HR team, make them independent of the c-suite and ownership, get compliant with the BC requirements, and enforce basic worker rights as mandated by law. Not hard to do.

They have an HR team and have for a while. It's even come up on WAN about injuries and reporting requirements. Madison has made declarative statements about violation of BC employment law, from what I can tell.  And she's known she could file these even back as far as the Glassdoor post, which was a while ago. 

 

There's a reason I don't think this ends well for Madison, and this is definitely why you don't late night Twitter post about major legal issues.

[DakotaCx]

Just now, IronArm said:

I was just using the "number of jokes you had to come up with" as an example to explain the creative pressure put on a single person running the social media account with millions of fans. A comparsion to the rest of the organization with multiple people isn't a great comparison. The other is that those teams (and several people have mentioned this) often have heavy workloads. People handle excessive workloads different, especially when it is something they are passionate about. Now, in those other scenarios if someone needed to back off a bit because they would being overworked - they could possibly ask someone to cover something for them - if just one day or one project. Madison didn't appear to have the luxury because she was the sole Social Media person at the time. 

 

Those still come with a number of difficulties. Those videos require you pulling time away from people who are trying to do their jobs, have more seniority than you, and are likely overworked as well. Additionally, those videos still have to fit into the LMG standards and not do anything to upset sponsors or partners. 

 

That seems to be an unfortunate side of working for LMG. There seems to be little "off-time" and there is always supposed to be working - which never creates a good working space.

 

She was and if what she is saying is true, there was little proper management (based on how things have been at LMG, misproper management seems very likely). 

 

It is fair to ask questions, but my compliant is that people seem complete unaware about even if all her points are correct and 100% truthful how difficult it is. People sitting behind a keyboard, not dealing with the trauma, telling her what she should and shouldn't do - in addition what is and isn't acceptable. 

 

Asking questions is fine, but people need to use their heads on what the situation and scenarios would have been like.

I don't disagree with the overall take. 

And I'm not speaking directly to her for that reason. I'm in no position to do so. I'm here to discuss it with other interested people because I find it interesting. There's really no other reason for my involvement, I'm not going to sway hearts and minds nor will most of those commenting here. But I do find the discourse helpful in seeing the other point of view as well. I think keeping a level head as opposed to the people who registered today just to say "F You" or try and burn it down helps with positive engagement amongst each other as well. 

I think the management issue is real, and the workload issue is real, that's been brought up by multiple employees, not just her. I don't do that job, I don't know what it entails, I'm just speculating and overall it seems doable, but again.. who am I? I work in medicine, I don't know how to meme. 

However, I do see a lot of generational issues brought up by her that I've heard parroted in multiple courses I've taken throughout my education. I do think that plays a part in some of her perspectives. I'm almost motivated enough to go digging around through my textbooks to find a really good chart that echos a lot of what she seems to complain about (alleged assault/harassment aside)



 

[DarithINAbby]

11 minutes ago, Apologize_to_madison said:

Do we think what Madison went through with LTT is exaclty what Emily is now going through behind the scenes? It's clearly not a supportive work environment it's as toxic and fast pace as possible

Emily, is the uber smart tech person that use to be on alot correct? I believe she used to call herself andy?

[Guest]

50 minutes ago, Reclus said:

Again the only person that knows nothing here is you. And now you are deliberately misinforming to score points on an internet forum.

Suing Someone for Harassment [Step-by-Step Guide] (donotpay.com)   

Interesting link, but the described actions occurred in Canada.   Workplace harassment is typically covered under the human rights code in Canada, and may or may not be a criminal matter, depending on the nature of the harassment.   I am not a lawyer, but it is unclear whether Madison's experience would fall into the category of a criminal matter in Canada.

 

IMO, the best organization for Madison to contact would be either the BC Human Rights Clinic:

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/law-crime-and-justice/human-rights/human-rights-protection/sex-discrimination-harassment.pdf

or WorkSafeBC:
https://www.worksafebc.com/en/health-safety/hazards-exposures/bullying-harassment

I have no knowledge of whether she has or has not already done so.   

[DakotaCx]

2 minutes ago, IronArm said:

Thanks for the expert opinion on how people dealing with trauma are based on how many followers they get on Twitter. 

Wasn't really the point, but thank you for the comment

[schwarzerrogen]

Just now, Taf the Ghost said:

They have an HR team and have for a while. It's even come up on WAN about injuries and reporting requirements. Madison has made declarative statements about violation of BC employment law, from what I can tell.  And she's known she could file these even back as far as the Glassdoor post, which was a while ago. 

 

There's a reason I don't think this ends well for Madison, and this is definitely why you don't late night Twitter post about major legal issues.

If they have an HR team, it sounds like one of the least effective or useful ones I've ever seen. If employees are getting yelled at and belittled, and are being pressured to not take legally protected sick days, or any of the other alleged wrongs that Madison reported, that HR team should have been involved. If they were and nothing was done... that's grounds for legal action, especially if the employee has receipts of reporting to HR and the HR team can't provide theirs.

[cbale2000]

18 minutes ago, IronArm said:

You would never be able to review the evidence, regardless. You think you are going to just able to get a bunch of court documents instantly? 

 

Even if Madison had all the evidence anyone would ever need, it would still be a extremely lengthy process in which she would constantly be bombarded by hate messages from the idiots in the LTT community (see the EVIDENCE from Linus having to tell his own community to stop and they didn't stop harassing the kid with the play button). 

 

The people that are jumping to a conclusion aren't thinking logically either, but neither are the people that are like: "sHe ShOuLd JuSt SuE iF sHe HaS eViDeNcE!!!" Because these people clearly lack the understanding or knowledge about how long the process is, what it is like trying to go against a company worth $100,000,000, or how people deal with trauma. 

 

Call me old fashion, but I like to see people actually thinking about things before making comments.

Surely someone who worked in Social Media and was (allegedly) subject to regular abusive interactions could have covertly hit "record" on their phone for at least one of them? It doesn't even appear to be illegal in Canada to do so (one-party consent for recording, via Section 184). A single audio/video clip uploaded to social media would put basically all the doubt to rest immediately. Obviously, hindsight can be 20/20, so maybe that idea just never occurred to her, or she wasn't in the right mental state at the time (for one reason or another). An actual investigation would ideally prove this one way or the other, even without such a recording, but for the general public in the "court of public opinion" in the absence of an actual investigation, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask an accuser to provide more than just a claim.
 

6 minutes ago, IronArm said:

 

There are things that go beyond just making the social media outreach. I am sure that particular things couldn't be said and that trying to remain relevant while not making any of the sponsors upset also impacted the workload. Plus the creative pressure for just one person. Think about how many jokes you know. Now you have to tell 5 new jokes a day, evey day. How long would you last before you are starting to scramble for ideas on new jokes - oh and the jokes have to be vetted by other people and fit within a set ruleset. That is more pressure than most people think. 

 

A single person making two videos a week is fairly manageable for a single person? What are you basing that on? Social Media role doesn't equate to being a writer - that is why LMG has writers AND social media managers now. Those are different skill sets. Would you get a plumber to fix an electrical issue you are having at your house - since they both work in home-repair? I'm curious what kind of work you do because I could possibly have a better analogy for you.

 

She may have been bad and over-exaggerating the pressures of her workload - almost everyone does. People still working for X company and those no longer. In most cases, former employees don't have good things to say about their previously employers. 

 

But you are saying is  "Oh this girl is mad at her former employer, so we don't really need to take her sexual harassment statements as seriously" <- You do get how messed up that sounds. Like if you or someone you care about talked about their boss and also that they were sexually harassed would you have a similar opinion? Regardless of "how bad" the sexual harassment was, it was still sexual harassment in the workplace - WHICH ISN'T OKAY AT ANY LEVEL.

 

Yes, the people that want to completely cancel LTT aren't approaching the situation logically either - but don't let that side of the argument take away from the valid criticism and the potential harm that was done to a young female while she was working there. Sympothy doesn't cost you anything. 

Again, if you look at the actual social media content posted by LTT, it's barely about "remaining relevant". You could spend 30 minutes on Reddit every day to find most of the meme-content they're making minor modifications to and posting. This isn't highly-creative stuff. Could you start to run out of material at times? Perhaps, but a lot of meme formats are recycled these days anyways, so I don't think that excuse works.

We don't know much about the paywalled Floatplane content (perhaps someone with an actual subscription could enlighten us), but there's a wide-range of what I could imagine being posted, considering the other content they had her working on. We also don't know the extent of her involvement in the Floatplane videos, did she mean she just had to "be in them" or was she recording and producing it all herself? If they expected the same kind of production value as other LTT content, I can't imagine she didn't have a production team working with her to at least some extent.

I thought I made it clear in my post that I don't intend to discount the accusation completely, but ultimately the burden of proof is on the accuser, and so far her posts on this issue have raised questions as to the plausibility/veracity of the claims; and in the age of both real and fake #MeToo accusations, we can't entirely discount the possibility someone might use the current situation at LTT as an opportunity to gain clout over an accusation that it might be impossible to either prove or disprove completely. My intention is just to point out that this accusation, in it of itself, is not some rock-solid evidence some people on here seem to think it is. This is, again, not to say it should be discounted completely, but that people aught to take a more neutral stance on it until more information is available.

[Taf the Ghost]

5 minutes ago, Vilacom said:

You uh, you dont understand how unions work clearly, they're not some magic system of justice, they're not anything more than a structured way for disputes and more official ways for grievances to proceed.  SA/SH still happens and goes unreported in union jobs, unions often encourage people to not file official reports to management or outside sources and attempt to deal with things directly within the Union itself. 

Please understand, I am a member of a union, I think literally everyone should be a member of a union, they are an incredible force for worker's rights and compensation.  But they are still just groups of people with their own priorities, motivations, flaws, biases, and more.  In the last six months in my local there have been two instances where union members have very nearly come to blows over scheduling, shit talking and drama is rampant, and you still have to deal with all the usual bullshit of problematic employees but you also have pressure to keep it "in house" and not bring in outside pressure from the union, and finally its important to remember that a unions job is to ruthlessly represent the best interests of the majority of the workers as decided by democratic processes within those workers.  If that means fucking the consumer, they do it, if most of the people just dont like someone and decide to hang them out to dry its very easy for that to happen as well.  

Unions are not some universal fix to everything, they are just another official channel to go through that in theory provides more weight to any individual employee.   It does not mean there is no way to screw someone over and act in bad faith.

 

I find the constant Union Posting on the forums/around LMG/LTT both funny and annoying. Unions are first, foremost and always political organizations. They only operate well if they're small, tightly run and have very limited scope. Otherwise they're corrupt, massive failures. There's a reason private unions are almost completely dead in the USA. (Unions fail some of the most basic Political Theory reasons around pure democratic systems. It isn't rocket science why they rarely work well.)

 

But it's also clear that's there's a large enough chunk of people that think Unions are some spiritual blessing and/or a vehicle for their own power.

[Guest]

Lol I got banned from r/LinusTechTips for a comment that was on their side, against Madison 

[mMontana]

"They aren't consistent" is the new "She's blatantly lying". Without risk for being sued or receive allegation for defamation.

[bvvfbQsy5DmWyzTwcSLMWCMYYS]

7 minutes ago, jitteryzeitgeist said:

I've never wanted to hear the other side of the story to something more in my life.

 

5 minutes ago, justin one said:

get over it lil bro you're probably just weird

Yep, this is exactly the type of answer that the empowered HR people gave me  Meanwhile none of the other people found the situation anything but polite from my part to include the person.

 

Well whatever, after the dust settled I fired her. Go be empowered somwhere else

[RadeonChan]

I sincerely hope that these allegations are true for Madison's sake, as with this thread on Twitter and this quite damning statement, she's painted herself into a corner that will either result in her being sued by LTT for defamation, or LTT's reputation being permanently tarnished and actually spell the end for the company.

Since the latter doesn't seem like something that would go on without at least SOME pushback by LTT, I fully expect there to be some legal action taken against Madison if this isn't cleared up fast.

This is an incredibly difficult thing to see happening as a fan of LTT for over a decade. On one hand, i'd like to believe that these allegations aren't true, and there's some incredible misinformation being thrown around, but on the other hand I'd really like consequences for LTT if even half of what Madison has outlined turns out to be true.

 

Either way in this situation, there aren't really any winners. If it turns out to be true the entire company is going to basically be done and everyone on staff will be out of jobs with a permanent reputation attached to them for working at a company filled with vile and toxic employees. If it turns out that Madison is being untruthful, it's clearly indicative of deeper issues and problems that she may be facing personally, and she will have to face some major legal repercussions for attempting to defame an entire company.

 

I think there are theoretically better ways to handle this than with a thread on Twitter, but the reason those are theoretical is because she doesn't have that many options as a young woman in the tech industry. Speak out in the moment and seek legal counsel and potentially face blacklisting in the industry, being known as someone who "doesn't keep their mouth shut", or, wait 2 years to speak out when the company in question is vulnerable enough that the entire internet is paying attention to what's happening in hopes it cushions the blow to your personal reputation as a woman in the industry.

This whole thing makes me sick to my stomach.

[LienusSebauction]

Just now, bvvfbQsy5DmWyzTwcSLMWCMYYS said:

 

Yep, this is exactly the type of answer that the empowered HR people gave me  Meanwhile none of the other people found the situation anything but polite from my part to include the person.

 

Well whatever, after the dust settled I fired her. Go be empowered somwhere else

Cool story brah.

[starsmine]

6 minutes ago, schwarzerrogen said:

If they have an HR team, it sounds like one of the least effective or useful ones I've ever seen. If employees are getting yelled at and belittled, and are being pressured to not take legally protected sick days, or any of the other alleged wrongs that Madison reported, that HR team should have been involved. If they were and nothing was done... that's grounds for legal action, especially if the employee has receipts of reporting to HR and the HR team can't provide theirs.

They have one... NOW.
They didnt when she worked there.

[castlev]

11 minutes ago, DarithINAbby said:

Emily, is the uber smart tech person that use to be on alot correct? I believe she used to call herself andy?

Emily was Anthony, one of the more knowledgeable on staff, a great addition to the videos, and I truly liked the videos with him and Linus more than the others. He's been a tech bro most of his life, his brain doesn't suddenly change to automatically be offended by everything just because he became she, so I'm sure Emily is doing just fine and still well liked over there. Like I said, Emily was my favorite back when she was in front of the screen a lot.

 

That's way different from some young person that hasn't been there long, demanding pronouns in their twitter bio, making sexual innuendos on camera, then turn around when it happenes to them and suddenly it was mean spirited and harassment. If you've lived long enough, you learn that events can be framed in many different ways and still be factual.