Last night, at approximately 2AM ET, a former employee, Madison Reeve, posted a thread on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, accusing Linus Media Group of cultivating a toxic work environment and encouraging a work culture that was detrimental to her health as well as sexual harassment directed at her by Linus Media Group employees.
“I chose to quit my role at LTT because it, and the working environment I was facing, were ruining my mental health,” her statement begins. “My work was called ‘dogshit’ I was called ‘incompetent’. When I would reach out to managers and try to get help with these situations, I would be told to ‘put on my big girl pants’ and be ‘more assertive’.”
Reeve went on to accuse the company of barring her from videos after she reported being “grabbed multiple times in the office” and being told to “calm my tits” and “stop being such a bitch.”
Madisons’ thread: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1691693740254228741.html
(Content warning: self harm)
I firmly disagree with this post. People should not just “rely on their instincts,” which have proven time and again to be highly inaccurate and subject to bias. This is starting to look like what those “body language experts” do, and those people have lower accuracy than a coin toss in controlled experiments.
The only reliable way to tell if someone is lying is through actual evidence. What we know so far certainly paints LMG in a bad light, but I will continue to wait for more information to come out.
I agree, I always feel like the “I always knew X was a bad person” discourse that always pops up in the wake of this stuff indicates that like. Somehow you had more knowledge than anyone else about this. It’s basically just fueling your own ego as a result of a situation like this. You don’t know these people, what makes people feel like a gut instinct suffices as sufficiently damning evidence? Like, it’s fine to not like someone and abstain from engaging with them accordingly. That’s okay. But going “I always knew that he was bad” does no good.
Obviously listen to Madison, trust victims and support them (do note that this doesn’t mean not to listen to further developments and adjust your moral judgment accordingly, come what may) but that doesn’t mean to indulge yourself and over-justify your ability to judge someone you’ve never had an interaction with based on vibes alone, that’s a pretty unhealthy pattern to fall into in my opinion that has negative effects long term that don’t benefit anybody.
It’s basically just fueling your own ego as a result of a situation like this.
Every pitchfork mob situation is about ego stroking ultimately. It’'s outgrouping, them vs us. And people with prejudices find it just so perfect to spew their bullshit and get some validation. It’s why racists love yellow media.
I don’t know the truth in this situation and for all I know this guy (and his entire crew for that matter) could be horrible people. But to base that off of prejudice is childish, and I’m sad that it’s infecting beehaw.
As I said, I have no super powers of observation and that everyone is born with good instincts on this. It’s taught in classes on protecting yourself from predators: believe your instincts.
I counter your argument with this: some people get heavily invested in internet celebs and in order to protect their own egos will gaslight themselves in to believing “nah, he’s a good guy”.
You’re not wrong that people will tie their sense of self up with internet celebrities and refrain from criticizing them accordingly but that doesn’t mean that instincts for someone whom you have ever met justify showing up to vindicate yourself in a thread like this. If you were a victim in a position like this, do you think seeing people say “oh I always knew he was bad” makes you feel any better for putting your faith in someone like this? Do you think that Linus, if he were innocent (not saying he is or isn’t I’m using it to illustrate a hypothetical) wants to see people saying they always thought he was a horrible person if this all shakes out in a way that absolves him of Madison’s abuse with LMG? Who does it benefit to say that you always knew someone was bad?
Trust your instincts, absolutely. You don’t need to engage with someone if you don’t think they’re good people. But saying “I KNEW” implies you had perfect information, it implies that you’re smarter than dozens of other people about how a situation like this would eventually resolve. That doesn’t benefit anybody, it’s better and more productive to go to the victims, support them, listen to them, and let them speak their piece because ultimately situations like this have to be about them, not about you and how you got a bad vibe from someone on a YouTube video or a Livestream or a few tweets.
Evidence is better than instinct, no argument there. But you don’t always have access to evidence, and ignoring your instincts to jump on a fan bandwagon is ill advised.
