Not a fan boy, I actually find him a little annoying. He is clearly a narcissist, and has trouble taking constructive feedback gracefully, but he drinks the good community koolaide.
He told people about adblockers, and ublock, even while asking people not to use it.
His people in his company are asked not to run ablockers because it would be hypocritical
He isn’t perfect, but for the most part, he practices what he preaches, he does get introspection (eventually, heh), and tries to build the community and world he would want to live in.
The recent drama is necessary to improve processes. I’m sad to see all the brigading, but gathering on my life experience I consider him upstanding, and of good moral character.
He told people to use regular adblockers… but went on a major rant where he condemned Sponsor Block. You know why? Because adblocks are better for his income - he wants to sell advertisers into an ad type they can “guarantee” every viewer will have to watch. Adblocks boost their rates, SponsorBlock tanks it. Making a video showing how to block ads boosts the “Linus is a community driven host!” perception too.
What these waves of “I kinda still like Linus” posts are missing is the controversy here isn’t a bad word, or a random mistake: it’s mistreatment and sexual harassment on an employee.
I agree. Sometimes its easy to forget that these online celebrities are people. Linus is a person, as flawed as any of us. He let his ego get in his own way, and took sharp criticism of his company as personal attacks - which is an obviously easy thing to do. The important thing to look at is whether or not LMG / he learns from this, which I’m sure they will.
The only truly concerning thing to me is the Maddison stuff. That I’m reserving my judgment for. I don’t doubt her account of things, but it’s simply one side to a story. That she self harmed to get a day off is very worrying, but it’s also a massive red flag. That is a pretty extreme escalation. Clearly she wasn’t stable, but did LMG cause the instability or just contribute to it? Either wouldn’t be ok, but she was a person acting abnormally - and that’s a lens that deserves extra consideration.
I don’t intend to stop watching LMG for the time being, and I’ll withhold my judgment for now.
I’m with you. I think the level of hate they’re getting is crazy, you’d think they assaulted someone or worse.
I think it’s more about his refusal to own up to his shit.
For me at least, watching GN’s video made me more disappointed than anything. I wasn’t angry, just let down. But I fully expected LTT to own their shortcomings and promise to change things moving forward.
But then Linus doubled down defending himself, lying, and playing the victim. It was only then that I lost respect for him and my disappointment turned a bit towards anger. Their “apology” video and Madison’s accusations have only furthered that.
