The review and video journal website Channel Awesome has come under fire in recent months from several former contributors. Citing mismanagement, poor working conditions, communications problems, they describe an environment which has been troubled for years. Each of these issues stemmed from the website’s owners, Doug Walker, Rob Walker, and Mike Michaud. Discussions of this on Twitter, particularly with video creators Allison "Obscurus Lupa" Pregler and Lindsay Ellis, gave rise to the #ChangetheChannel hashtag. This in turn led to other former members releasing a multitude of new stories previously unknown to the public.
These stories have since been compiled into a sixty-nine page document titled Not So Awesome, which outlines a multitude of failings. Previously unknown stories listed in the document include, but are not limited to:
- Beth Elderkin of io9 fame being paid only an hour per day during multi-hour shoots thanks to contractual loopholes
- Benjamin “Benzaie” Daniel, a years long contributor, not being forewarned that his video archive would not be transferred during a website jump from one website platform to the next.
- Abrupt policy alterations with no prior forewarning. A move which led to the removal of Jon “ChaosD1” Burkhardt from the website thanks to being one day late with a video release due to a medical emergency.
- A threat issued to now Anime News Network editor Jacob “JesuOtaku” Chapman, stating that he would be fired for criticising the website in public.
The article itself goes into extensive detail, with some stories covering years at a time and citing multiple failings from the website’s very inception. News of these stories has led to the departure of several members. Among these is nine-year contributor Lewis Lovhaug of Atop the Fourth Wall, Diamanda Hagan, and Chuck Sonnenberg of SFDebris.
Channel Awesome itself has since responded with an open letter via social media, but this has been met with heavy criticism by fans and former members alike.
This has been...chaotic, to say the least. I've been a fan of all the contributors for a long time, and I knew the site was run by some shady people, but seeing all this was a gut punch.
ReplyDeleteNo arguments there in the slightest. I seem to be one of the few how actually enjoys most of the NC skits in his reviews, and a lot of the new blood which joined the website. There's no way I am going to support it from here on unless they make some dramatic improvements though.
DeleteOh, finally. I liked the skits too, but yeah, it's really depressing how far the site has fallen.
DeleteThis is rather unfortunate to look back at, seeing a lot of mismanagement and poor ideas completely kill the site on top of their piss-poor handling of their reply accidentally outing one of their former (and dead) producers as a sexual predator. Turns out they knew yet they tried to keep that sort of thing quiet since it could reflect badly on them (and according to another producer, they wanted to eventually hire him back before his suicide).
ReplyDeleteSuffice to say I don't have any pity for TGWTG after reading the article. I have pity for their producers and I wish them the best, but this was ultimately a group of people who wanted to pretend as if they were a company without feeling the need to act (or look up how to act) like one.
Yeah, I wish I had anything more to really say on this, but it's obvious that they had far more skeletons in their closet than anyone realised. I think part of the problem was that the Walkers wanted to have an independent company but none of the responsibilities of leadership or management, resulting in a snowballing series of problems. I'm just glad that most of the creators involved were able to walk away from this without too great a loss thanks to Patreon or the likes.
Delete