Colin Worobetz, former writer at Linus Media Group, has also chimed in regarding Madison Reeve’s allegations, claiming the following on his Reddit account.
“…the story as she’s told it in the posts today is as I remember it back then.”
The entire Linus Tech Tips apology rings pretty hollow to me. I'm tired of them reiterating, "oh we'll be transparent about this." Yes, transparency is good, but having outside people read your dogshit homework isn't better than putting the effort into doing your homework right in the first place. They offload a lot of things to the community that benefit them to do so, while actively hiding things from the community that might harm their brand.
Which brings me to Madison Reeve. Are the allegations really shocking to anyone at this point? There have been numerous reports in the past that Linus Media Group cultivates an incredibly misogynistic "boy's club" that's hostile towards women. Linus saying, "They aren’t consistent with my recollections" is completely horseshit. Of course they're not consistent with your recollections. When you treat your company like a frat house, I'd imagine harassing women probably doesn't seem so bad. It's like a bunch of white people at a country club trying to figure out what a microaggression is. The lack of diversity at LMG should be the biggest red flag ever. While Madison's allegations are new, similar allegations are not, so where was the transparency then?
Also speaking to transparency, what about the wage theft? What about the burn out? What about the (apparently not illegal until recently but highly reprehensible) practice of forbidding employees from discussing their pay? Where's the transparency there? Linus and LMG have never addressed the criticisms whatsoever. The egregiously anti-labor employee handbook was leaked, yet they didn't feel like that criticism was worth addressing, as it doesn't benefit them to do so.
Seeing people look at their apology video and soften on their stance about LMG is driving me insane. Fixing some of their testing errors is not the issue. Their entire corporation is the issue. Until they agree to diversity-inclusive hiring practices (the channels desperately need more women presenting the content), more rights for their workers with equitable pay and a healthy work/life balance, warranties for their products, all in addition to the quality-related issues with their videos, I really don't see how anyone can have an interest in LMG's content.
The standard rebuttal is, "that's just capitalism", but if you've predicated your brand on not being a greedy capitalist, then your brand really falls apart when you treat your employees and consumers the same way that any other greedy capitalist does.
(1) I worked in a controlled substance industry (liquor) for ten years. Place a bar code on everything, and implement a scanner system. It's a pain, but it can trace breakage, loss of product and redirects products back to their internal 'home'.
What a mess of an apology video #linustechtips#LTT
Monetized with 2 merch plugs
Spreading in jokes to break the tension
Leaking value of the Billet Labs prototype which they didn't want to make public
Lying about emailing them before the controversy
1/What I’m about to say about Linus Tech Tips should be nothing new to anyone who sees my content. While I respect how he has built an impressive business, I stopped watching him years ago as he’s made too many factual mistakes and such, he’s an entertainer not a tech professional. Linus has never had to actually work in a proper professional tech setting, he went from NCIX to this media empire, he leaned into the entertainer side but cut corners on the tech education
»My time at this company brought my mental health to an all time low.
You could talk to anyone who was around me during my employment and they would confirm it.
I would not have recommended anyone I knew to work there, especially with my experiences as a woman in the office.«
»There is a system of micro-managing and a level of distrust because the amount of content they have to push out daily is so insane, no one gets a break.«
"What do we do now?" - LMG's response to the recent controversies (youtu.be)
At least, some of the recent controversies.