Fake company called "Bully Hunters" goes out of business as people discover the scam

[AlTech]

"The Bully Hunters" were an organization consisting of elite gamers which would go after people who were targeting women and harassing them in video games such as in CS:GO and Overwatch. They also allegedly helped men being bullied but that was a secondary objective.

 

The way their service was supposed to work is that you'd be able to download their tool from their website and they'd join your game and they would go after the person that was harassing you. And then they'd be kicked and banned from the game.

 

Some of the claims made by "The Bully Hunters" such as a purported claim that 21 Million female gamers are sexually harassed in video games, were generally untrue and false information.

 

It is suspected that "The Bully Hunters" was created to market products to people. It is also suspected that their promotional live stream featuring allegedly real harassment was faked in order to make people think their service had value.

 

Since the failed livestream in which their service was showcased, their twitch channel and website no longer exist.

 

Edit: It appears this whole "The Bully Hunters" thing was an attempt to sell gaming headphones by Steelseries via a marketing firm based in Chicago.

 

Quote

Marketing firm FCB Chicago, who headed up Bully Hunters, has issued an apology. “We recognize our efforts were less than perfect and apologize—to our supporters, the gaming community and most importantly to those that continue to be bullied,” the firm said in a statement to Kotaku. “This issue deserves more ways to end it and we look forward to continuing to find them. Until then, we hope the conversation around ending sexual harassment in gaming grows even stronger.”

 

This is really sketchy stuff and I would encourage people not to buy products from Steelseries going forward.

 

Sources:

https://kotaku.com/bully-hunters-organization-claims-to-hunt-down-harasser-1825296538

 

And a reminder that Political Discussions are against the Community Standards.

[givingtnt]

damn
bunch of hacks

[Vode]

What a complete load of shite.

[Guest The Viking]

more info here for those interested:

 

 

basically it was a promotion for steelseries headsets, using fake data and promoted by a woman who herself harassed other users. 

[Misanthrope]

I'm really not seeing how this is worthy of the news section. In fact I really don't see how this can end up on anything more than a trap to incite political discussions that are against the code of conduct anyways.

[AlTech]

 

Just now, Misanthrope said:

In fact I really don't see how this can end up on anything more than a trap to incite political discussions that are against the code of conduct anyways.

This was posted to let others know about this. This isn't meant to be a political discussion as you said it's against the CS.

[AshleyAshes]

1 minute ago, Misanthrope said:

I'm really not seeing how this is worthy of the news section. In fact I really don't see how this can end up on anything more than a trap to incite political discussions that are against the code of conduct anyways.

The worst part is, the opening post is basically entirely wrong and even WEIRDLY out of date with talk of 'It is suspected that' and such.  It was literally revealed weeks ago that 'The Bully Hunter's' was NEVER real.  It was an entirely staged advertising stunt for Steelseries headsets.  Even the scripts for the stream have been publicly released.  Even @AluminiumTech doesn't seem to know, he uses phrases like 'The way their service worked is' when THE SERVICE NEVER ACTUALLY EXISTED.

[Drak3]

2 minutes ago, Kumaresh said:

For people without such mental resilience, I guess we still haven't figured out a perfect solution.

Perhaps don't play the game?

 

No, scratch that, can't expect people to take it upon themselves to avoid a totally avoidable, and extremely minor problem.

[Froody129]

So this was sponsored by Steelseries!?

 

I can't believe this is a thing. My brother was telling me about this a couple days back and I called bullshit, thinking it was a clickbait article or something 

[AshleyAshes]

Just now, Kumaresh said:

DERP

 

I never saw that. Now I look like a blithering idiot for having posted that wall of text. 

Let's go back to something OTHER THAN ANGRY 'DEBUNKING' YouTube videos.

 

https://kotaku.com/bully-hunters-organization-claims-to-hunt-down-harasser-1825296538

 

This article covers the initial event on the 16th but then it has an 'update' as more information is released:

 

Quote

Update - 1:45 PM, 4/17/18: Marketing firm FCB Chicago, who headed up Bully Hunters, has issued an apology. “We recognize our efforts were less than perfect and apologize—to our supporters, the gaming community and most importantly to those that continue to be bullied,” the firm said in a statement to Kotaku. “This issue deserves more ways to end it and we look forward to continuing to find them. Until then, we hope the conversation around ending sexual harassment in gaming grows even stronger.”

Yup, this was posted on APRIL 17th but somehow with @AluminiumTech deciding it was news today, one week later on April 24th, couldn't even provide the week old information that the entire thing was fake and run by a marketing firm on behalf of Steelseries.

 

So eager to say 'HEY LOOK, THIS ANTI BULLYING TEAM ON THE INTERNET GOT SHUT DOWN.  SERVES THEM RIGHT' he entirely missed that the whole damn thing was a commercial for headphones in the first place.

 

Seriously guys, exercise some media literacy and learn when you are looking down the barrel of a commercial.

 

Funny enough if you go into the comments on that article you can see my OWN comment from the 16th, prior to the update:

 

Quote

Something about this feels almost too engineered? Like, in real life I can only imagine some gamers going ‘Well start a bully hunting team and take on the griefers!’ and the idea fizzling out in a few hours. This seems... Weirdly well setup for it’s launch. Like I half expect t his to be some kinda ad company’s stunt for some... Thing?

Yup, that's called 'Media Literacy' guys.  It's called knowing when something isn't right and someone is actually just trying to sell you something even if you can't quite figure out what they are selling.

[Tech_Dreamer]

over-hyped white knights , go out & help real ones , oh wait , that's not easy.

[aezakmi]

Quote

they'd join your game and they would go after the person that was harassing you

 

lol what

 

oh man this century sucks, how do I go back?

[AshleyAshes]

8 minutes ago, Kumaresh said:

@AshleyAshes Could you post a comprehensive passage detailing how this whole thing is BS and have a moderator mark this thread as solved ?

 

And as to why people actually believed this company was real ( yours truly included ), it has to do with the fact that many people don't have faith in the basic intellectual capabilities of others, and believe that some people could genuinely come up with such idiotic ideas and not realize how idiotic they are. I've seen real examples of such things take place.

 

But the fault is also on YOU the reader for not exercising enough thought either.  You say 'People are stupid enough to do this' but in turn you are also saying 'I'm stupid enough to fall for this'.  Like, that's what this is.

 

I mean, let's use some basic critical thinking skills:

Quote

Steelseries/Bully Hunters:  "WHAT UP!  We have made an actual company of GRIEFER MERCENARIES and you can PAY US and we'll grief your enemies in video games!  Here's our stream of our guys in action, btw, BUY STEELSERIES HEADSETS, THE OFFICAL HEADSET OF BULLY HUNTERS!"

 

Microsoft/Sony/Blizzard/Ect: "We are all perfectly A-Okay with this and will in now way use are literal armies of lawyers to stop your paid griefer service on our platforms."

 

 

See, in order for you to have fallen for this you have to think THAT'S how that went down.  That's how you can tell it's fake as shit.  You can't offload the responsibility for falling for this on 'because others are stupid'.  Thinking this is real is a personal failure of your own inability to avoid being easily duped.

[Guest]

I really don't like these schemes because they downplay the fact that some people do get bullied online and its quite a significant issue. I expect there were a few people really needing help who got let down. 

 

IMO simply going offline in this day and age is becoming harder with services like FaceBook. I myself need to go on FaceBook as we have class groups on there etc for my university course. 

[Notional]

23 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

The worst part is, the opening post is basically entirely wrong and even WEIRDLY out of date with talk of 'It is suspected that' and such.  It was literally revealed weeks ago that 'The Bully Hunter's' was NEVER real.  It was an entirely staged advertising stunt for Steelseries headsets.  Even the scripts for the stream have been publicly released.  Even @AluminiumTech doesn't seem to know, he uses phrases like 'The way their service worked is' when THE SERVICE NEVER ACTUALLY EXISTED.

That is not correct. Steelseries was not the only sponsor. Vertagear and CyberpowerPC was duped too. This was yet another intersectional feminist/neo marxist driven nonsense push (21 million female gamers harassed?!?). But yes, the sponsors, like most, had in good faith joined up to support this. And like every time these ideologues try to push their nonsense, both gamers and sponsors lose out heavily.

 

I'm glad these hacks are done. What an idiotic project from day one.

[Tieox]

 

All the sense this thread makes in one image.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Kierax said:

All the sense this thread makes in one image.

Quite so. That Mercedes is way over the line. 

[The Benjamins]

59 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

 

 

This is really sketchy stuff and I would encourage people not to buy products from Steelseries going forward.

 

 

why?

[AshleyAshes]

Just now, Notional said:

That is not correct. Steelseries was not the only sponsor. Vertagear and CyberpowerPC was duped too. This was yet another intersectional feminist/neo marxist driven nonsense push (21 million female gamers harassed?!?). But yes, the sponsors, like most, had in good faith joined up to support this. And like every time these ideologues try to push their nonsense, both gamers and sponsors lose out heavily.

 

I'm glad these hacks are done. What an idiotic project from day one.

Yes!  It was the 'intersectional feminist/neo marxist driven nonsense' who did this!  And that's why it was run by Foote, Cone & Belding, one of the world's largest advertising agencies on the world who do ads for the likes of Taco Bell and Oreo cookies!  Cause that makes sense!

 

Look, I know you guys really love taking the 'EVIL FEMINISTS' angle but honesty, it's stupid.  Any such idea isn't based in reality.  This was run and funded by an ad agency who had a pretty silly idea.  It was commercial from the get go.  There was never any actual way to hire the 'Bully Hunters'.  It was a fake stream and then the ad company found out that they weren't exactly keying into the gaming culture like they thought they could.

 

It's Occam's razer here, it's irrational to believe 'This was yet another intersectional feminist/neo marxist driven nonsense push' when it was actually funded and run by a giant advertising corporation. And I really don't understand why you'd want to paint giant corporations as 'foolish, hapless morons who can be sucked into throwing money at anything just because 'the intersectional feminist/neo marxists said so'.

[App4that]

2 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

Yes!  It was the 'intersectional feminist/neo marxist driven nonsense' who did this!  And that's why it was run by Foote, Cone & Belding, one of the world's largest advertising agencies on the world who do ads for the likes of Taco Bell and Oreo cookies!  Cause that makes sense!

 

Look, I know you guys really love taking the 'EVIL FEMINISTS' angle but honesty, it's stupid.  Any such idea isn't based in reality.  This was run and funded by an ad agency who had a pretty silly idea.  It was commercial from the get go.  There was never any actual way to hire the 'Bully Hunters'.  It was a fake stream and then the ad company found out that they weren't exactly keying into the gaming culture like they thought they could.

 

It's Occam's razer here, it's irrational to believe 'This was yet another intersectional feminist/neo marxist driven nonsense push' when it was actually funded and run by a giant advertising corporation. And I really don't understand why you'd want to paint giant corporations as 'foolish, hapless morons who can be sucked into throwing money at anything just because 'the intersectional feminist/neo marxists said so'.

So, false flag? 

[AshleyAshes]

1 minute ago, App4that said:

So, false flag? 

A false flag operation would require subterfuge and for the operation to be a distraction.

 

Everything from the get go was tied to FCB.  There was no hiding it beyond the simple 'The internet is full of morons who often don't even read articles beyond their headlines'.

 

Heck, check out this article:

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-video-games-bully-hunters-20180419-story.html

 

Quote

But one thing they didn’t have was experience. Keisha Howard, founder of a female-centric video game consultancy and event organizer called Sugar Gamers, said that was evident when she had discussions with FCB Chicago about the concept.

 

She said she was bothered by the idea that girls and women need saviors to protect them from gaming bullies. She also was concerned about the title FCB Chicago focused on — Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, or CS:GO, a hugely popular first-person shooter game with a notoriously rough-and-tumble culture.

 

“They went for the biggest bear and didn’t do their research on the game,” Howard said. “It was easily torn apart by hard-core gamers who absolutely understand that title.”

FCB said the campaign wasn’t a marketing opportunity for brands, but several companies and organizations still lent their support, including SteelSeries, a Chicago-based maker of gaming accessories, and the Chicago chapter of the National Organization for Women.

So let's go over how this conversation and how it basically went:

 

FCB: Hello women oriented game consultancy agency, we'd like to consult you on your brilliant plan!

Sugar Games: This is a pretty stupid plan guys.

FCB: Who the hell even ASKED YOU!?  We'll show you!  We're an ad agency, we know what the cool gamer kids want!"

 

When a literal women oriented game consultancy agency thinks your plan is bad and later goes on the record in the media saying such, your ad agency is for sure making bad decisions, and that consultancy agency which is a lot more likely to staff by some so called 'intersectional feminist/neo marxists' than a GIANT AD CORPORATION WOULD, maybe this was not so much the 'intersectional feminist/neo marxist' and just 'corporate greed with a bad plan'.

[Volbet]

Wait, people didn't know FCB was behind this? I think that news broke on the same day as the initial stream. 

 

So essentially FCB managed this in the best way possible. The whole thing sank and they managed to leave all the on-screen talent to take all the trash. 

FCB can take their paycheck and the streamer can take all the abuse. 

[AshleyAshes]

5 minutes ago, Kumaresh said:

I guess it was rather foolish of me, but I fell for this idea hook, line and sinker due to my mindset against the "Marxist Feminist agenda" or whatever you may call it. And given the current attitudes of such companies toward certain unsavory types of feminism, I was actually willing to believe they wouldn't take issue with "griefers", since SURELY they wouldn't take the side of harassers on such an issue and work against people who want to fight against harassment. 

How does it feel to know that you can be so easily be baited into believing things, that companies that exist to sell you pizza bagels and diet cola can then abuse your lack media literacy and eagerness to buy into certain ideologies for their own attempts at financial gain?

[App4that]

Just now, AshleyAshes said:

A false flag operation would require subterfuge and for the operation to be a distraction.

 

Everything from the get go was tied to FCB.  There was no hiding it beyond the simple 'The internet is full of morons who often don't even read articles beyond their headlines'.

 

Heck, check out this article:

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-video-games-bully-hunters-20180419-story.html

It is a tricky distinction. If they're simply catering to SJW's and don't mind them looking foolish, then yeah not a false flag. If they knew the SJWs would look foolish in the end, weeeeeeeeeell. 

[Silentprototipe]

This was always super sketchy to me since the start so im not surprised and im somewhat pleased it failed for the reasons it did