We don't know if that's how he feels because he didn't say anything about an ad buy, he said they "killed stories to protect their business" which could mean any number of things. The vagueness means we don't know if he's talking about them killing a story about how Dickwolves was dumb and M&J's response to the backlash was dumb, killing a story because it was hot garbage that didn't pass muster and he resented being overridden as EiC, or what you said and it was about them killing a story because it involved an advertising partner.
+8
HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
We don't know if that's how he feels because he didn't say anything about an ad buy, he said they "killed stories to protect their business" which could mean any number of things. The vagueness means we don't know if he's talking about them killing a story about how Dickwolves was dumb and M&J's response to the backlash was dumb, killing a story because it was hot garbage that didn't pass muster and he resented being overridden as EiC, or what you said and it was about them killing a story because it involved an advertising partner.
what no lol. did people not actually read my post. I mean he FEELS upset by it. Emotionally. like in his brain. What I actually said was:
He wrote a story. It conflicted with an Ad Buy. He was told he can't publish the story. He's still mad about it.
You don't need specifics, that's what happened, the specifics don't matter. Do you care? that's a different question.
He was at a company retreat and felt that his ideas were made fun of. He's still mad about it.
Again, you don't need more specifics, it doesn't matter what actually happened, what happened is how he felt. Do you care?
He was at PAX, their Ad guy made a joke that felt threatening to him. He's still mad about it.
He didn't defend the company during dickwolves and got a talking to. He's still made about it.
Like what more do you need here?
In all of these cases the specifics don't matter, the only thing that matters is how he feels. The question you guys need to ask yourselves is do you care?
G&T being kinda shitty for years off and on is irrelevant. This is just about how Ben feels.
(for me on a personal level I think his series of tweets was a bit silly as he's treating these work interactions as they're the most important thing in the world. Clearly they aren't BUT FOR HIM they are and have effected him for years)
Now it doesn't matter if the full facts of these statements are right or wrong and if you think that's what I'm saying you're missing the point
People aren’t obligated to agree with him based on how he feels about anything. He’s welcome to feel however he wants about how things went in the past, that doesn’t mean his interpretation of those events is correct, and no one is obligated to just accept that.
It does matter whether he’s right or wrong, and so far the lack of detail makes it difficult to understand his complaint.
Kill a story to protect their business is such a vague statement.
Story about what? Human rights abuse? Corporate malfeasance? How BG2 was actually a terrible game? Why Hitler was right and we should all wear lederhosen?
What?
There's a difference in protecting a business because "this will upset game companies" and "this will get us all sued and sent to prison" and "Nobody will read us ever again if we publish something this stupid".
Like what more do you need here?
In all of these cases the specifics don't matter, the only thing that matters is how he feels.
He's attacking PA in a public forum, in a way that could very likely negatively affect their business. Whether or not his feelings are justified or borne out by what actually happened very much matters. He's potentially defaming someone.
Besides, this is a discussion thread for the accusations. Whether or not his attacks are justified is very much the only thing to talk about, otherwise the thread title would be 'Ben Kuchera is very upset" and it would be a very short thread.
Like what more do you need here?
In all of these cases the specifics don't matter, the only thing that matters is how he feels.
He's attacking PA in a public forum, in a way that could very likely negatively affect their business. Whether or not his feelings are justified or borne out by what actually happened very much matters. He's potentially defaming someone.
Besides, this is a discussion thread for the accusations. Whether or not his attacks are justified is very much the only thing to talk about, otherwise the thread title would be 'Ben Kuchera is very upset" and it would be a very short thread.
Ok, but you excised the rest of my post that addresses your point here.
Unless you think he's just outright lying, he's not defaming anybody. He's highlighting his lived experience. People aren't arguing about whether or not this should be discussed. They are arguing about what constitute's "proof" here. What Ben said is good enough for some people (ie: Me) but not for others (ie: most people in this thread).
0
SummaryJudgmentGrab the hottest iron you can find, stride in the Tower’s front doorRegistered Userregular
edited February 2021
I believe Kuchera when he says he felt a certain way, but I also think it's really weird and exploitative of #MeToo-type Twitter posts for him cloak it in that language while also delivering none of the details that give veracity to those stories
Also, to me, its kind of ??? that he's like "I can't give specifics because of retribution" but he didn't weight what it would look like for future employers to have a guy who might tweet about you a decade later with no receipts
I believe Kuchera when he says he felt a certain way, but I also think it's really weird and exploitative of #MeToo-type Twitter posts for him cloak it in that language while also delivering none of the details that give veracity to those stories
Also, to me, its kind of ??? that he's like "I can't give specifics because of retribution" but he didn't weight what it would look like for future employers to have a guy who might tweet about you a decade later with no receipts
When did he say this? As far as I can tell, he gave as many specifics as he felt were relevant, and it's just people in this thread who are upset with the level of detail. I don't think he took himself to be saying anything that was intentionally vague. I think he thought he was giving enough detail to accomplish his goal, which was to get this stuff off his chest. Obviously a lot of people in this thread disagree, but he's not reading this thread, so that's irrelevant. I don't get the sense from the tweets that he was purposefully holding back or being obscure. (In fact I think he was quite clear enough, but we've been over this in the thread so many times I don't see what it would help to relitigate it all over again.)
He did also kind of equate Mike and Jerry to Trump and other super shitty people, which is super weird. The implication of a statement like that about penny-arcade the company right after discussing those awful people might have some gross implications. But I don't know what they are and the fact that he was unwilling or unable to provide details feels telling.
But it could also be he doesn't want to talk about it, which I get, but I also can't do much more than say "yeah work sucks man, I get it".
Our society is pretty much two-tone right now, where you're either evil or good. The difference between that worldview and a more gray one is that if you see the good in a person that did a bad thing, you'll try to work it out with them. If you think they're all the way evil, you won't bother.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
He did also kind of equate Mike and Jerry to Trump and other super shitty people, which is super weird. The implication of a statement like that about penny-arcade the company right after discussing those awful people might have some gross implications. But I don't know what they are and the fact that he was unwilling or unable to provide details feels telling.
But it could also be he doesn't want to talk about it, which I get, but I also can't do much more than say "yeah work sucks man, I get it".
This 100% did not happen. He tweeted about Trump and Limbaugh in the context of speaking truth to power. Not in the context of comparing them as people.
0
EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
He did also kind of equate Mike and Jerry to Trump and other super shitty people, which is super weird. The implication of a statement like that about penny-arcade the company right after discussing those awful people might have some gross implications. But I don't know what they are and the fact that he was unwilling or unable to provide details feels telling.
But it could also be he doesn't want to talk about it, which I get, but I also can't do much more than say "yeah work sucks man, I get it".
That didn't happen, and I'm not sure why people keep asserting it did.
+2
jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
He did also kind of equate Mike and Jerry to Trump and other super shitty people, which is super weird. The implication of a statement like that about penny-arcade the company right after discussing those awful people might have some gross implications. But I don't know what they are and the fact that he was unwilling or unable to provide details feels telling.
But it could also be he doesn't want to talk about it, which I get, but I also can't do much more than say "yeah work sucks man, I get it".
That didn't happen, and I'm not sure why people keep asserting it did.
He brought it up 2 minutes after the "Evil people" tweet.
He did also kind of equate Mike and Jerry to Trump and other super shitty people, which is super weird. The implication of a statement like that about penny-arcade the company right after discussing those awful people might have some gross implications. But I don't know what they are and the fact that he was unwilling or unable to provide details feels telling.
But it could also be he doesn't want to talk about it, which I get, but I also can't do much more than say "yeah work sucks man, I get it".
This 100% did not happen. He tweeted about Trump and Limbaugh in the context of speaking truth to power. Not in the context of comparing them as people.
I mean the context was trump caused a death, he's sick of side stepping around saying evil people aren't evil, then immediately segued into penny-arcade the company being awful with about 10 tweets worth of things they did to him.
I absolutely don’t think that it was intentional even a little bit, but implicit association by proximity is definitely a thing.
I don’t think it really factors into anything though, other than reinforcing that he didn’t really start the Twitter rant with the expectation of it becoming about his time at Penny Arcade, but rather that the whole thing was a stream of consciousness that he lost control of
I absolutely don’t think that it was intentional even a little bit, but implicit association by proximity is definitely a thing.
I don’t think it really factors into anything though, other than reinforcing that he didn’t really start the Twitter rant with the expectation of it becoming about his time at Penny Arcade, but rather that the whole thing was a stream of consciousness that he lost control of
I can absolutely agree with that, I do that myself. Something shitty makes me think about something else that's shitty even though they're not in any way equivalent to each other.
+1
jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
I absolutely don’t think that it was intentional even a little bit, but implicit association by proximity is definitely a thing.
I don’t think it really factors into anything though, other than reinforcing that he didn’t really start the Twitter rant with the expectation of it becoming about his time at Penny Arcade, but rather that the whole thing was a stream of consciousness that he lost control of
There was a 12 minute gap between the "trump caused a death" and "evil people" tweet. There was a long sequence of 2-3 minute gaps afterwards during the tirade, including the gap between the "Evil People" tweet and the first PA tweet. The "Evil People" tweet was done to kick off the Penny Arcade tirade.
It's definitely a thing that a talented writer would be aware of. It may not have been intentional to lump PA in with Trump and Limbaugh, but there is enough of a connection to at least imply it. Which is all you really need if you want to color the opinions of the reader.
More details would be nice, but the biggest issue is the writing itself has all kinds of implications that are not borne out in the details provided. It could very well be those implications are true, but the evidence provided doesn't support them. Which is why you have essentially two sides to this whole conversation. Ben left it up to the reader to decide what happened, so people react based on what they assume because of the language and associations used, or lacking detail to assume anything, wish for more to make a judgement.
I believe Kuchera when he says he felt a certain way, but I also think it's really weird and exploitative of #MeToo-type Twitter posts for him cloak it in that language while also delivering none of the details that give veracity to those stories
Also, to me, its kind of ??? that he's like "I can't give specifics because of retribution" but he didn't weight what it would look like for future employers to have a guy who might tweet about you a decade later with no receipts
When did he say this? As far as I can tell, he gave as many specifics as he felt were relevant, and it's just people in this thread who are upset with the level of detail. I don't think he took himself to be saying anything that was intentionally vague. I think he thought he was giving enough detail to accomplish his goal, which was to get this stuff off his chest. Obviously a lot of people in this thread disagree, but he's not reading this thread, so that's irrelevant. I don't get the sense from the tweets that he was purposefully holding back or being obscure. (In fact I think he was quite clear enough, but we've been over this in the thread so many times I don't see what it would help to relitigate it all over again.)
This goes back to some insightful comments earlier in the thread about what people think Twitter is for, but as far as I'm concerned... you don't go out in public, get on stage, and talk shit about a former employer to forty-one thousand people just because you feel like you need to get something off your chest. You do that because you want the crowd to take your side, and share your negative opinion. You don't talk to a stadium full of people without a goal in mind that involves those people.
I believe his goal was to hit back at PA because he's always felt mistreated. I don't know if that's a defensible feeling because his posts are clear enough that all forty-one thousand people he told from his public stage know who he was talking about, but vague enough that he can both avoid a defamation lawsuit and also not be disputed based on facts or alternate accounts. I think it was intentionally vague, because despite his ups and downs he has made a career as a writer and he knows how to communicate information.
What he did wasn't benign. If he believed it was just about his own personal journey, I can tell you that my twitter conversations have proven how wrong he was - lots of people instantly assumed the worst and proceeded to tell their friends what absolute garbage people M&J are for inflicting this nightmare on Kuchera. Ben has pretty clearly harmed M&J in the short term, and that is both the most obvious outcome of his action, and (I believe) the one he intended.
Exactly how much human misery are Mike, Jerry and the penny arcade report responsible for? Because to be talking about them as part of a train of thought that includes Trump (a man who caused incalculable human misery years before he ran for president) and Rush (who vomited toxic right wing talking points for decades) implies that they are guilty of some similar acts.
Ben actually has posted more on twitter, but mostly he's been dragging his banks for apparently demanding payments during his bankruptcy. I'm assuming he no longer works at Polygon (tho it's still in his bio so who knows). He's made a few more vague posts but for the most part it seems he's really just having a tough time.
Idk I'm not gonna speculate too much. Suffice to say after all the shit that happened to Gawker I'm inclined to think there's a lot of shady things going on behind the scenes in games journalism. I think people were quick to try to downplay things Ben said as normal when they probably shouldn't be. The general consensus was "yeah that probably sucks if it's true, but it happened to me and will continue to happen to other people." It's easy to dismiss things like that when you're not in the room, experiencing them. It's easy for people to downplay your problems from afar and say, oh doesn't sound that bad.
He wrote a story. It conflicted with an Ad Buy. He was told he can't publish the story. He's still mad about it.
You don't need specifics, that's what happened, the specifics don't matter. Do you care? that's a different question.
These things that I am quoting did not “happen”. I am putting that in quotes because I don’t know if they happened but that Ben did not even allege them to have happened.
How ben feels matters. But how ben feels also is not what happened. And what happened mattered. Because “killing a story because it was bad for business” and “killing a story because it conflicted with an ad buy” are not the same thing. There are plenty of times for which the money side of an organization legitimately gets to tell the editorial side of an organization what it gets to print which is normal and does not raise to the level of an ethical breach. And because that both of these things are true we need more information to know what to make of the allegations.
As an example: my parents would sometimes enter my room without my permission during a time I was living with them. I asked them not to because I felt violated when they would. It’s a pretty minor thing but the notion of having a space that was mine own and private was valuable to me. And if I complained about this on twitter and said I was violated it would indeed matter how I felt about it but at the same time it would matter that the violation was objectively relatively minor. And if I told you only that my “privacy was violated” or that “I felt violated” while comparing them to Trump and Rush you would probably assume a lot more than “entered my room when I wasn’t there to do innocuous things”. Even though my privacy was violated and I did feel violated does not mean that the rest of what happened does not matter. My parents were not monsters as would be implied by the language given without other context.
Hence Bens allegations are in a weird spot. He has said that what happened hurt him, but the specifics that he did give are things that are objectively minor and should not have hurt him on an ethical or professional footing. The specifics we have is the “joke” about “getting the clicks up to support the ad buys”... which as has been noted is a legitimate job of a content creator in a web publishing business and a legitimate concern to bring to your writers.... and on top of this maybe wasn’t even done by someone at PA since the language here is kind of unclear as to whether or not this was a PA person or an industry person. (I thought it had to have been PA but others definitely thought it implied industry)
Maybe the joke was offensive and threatening, but that doesn’t seem to be what was alleged, rather what was alleged was that the content of the joke was an ethical breach. Except it clearly wasn’t as described.
I believe Kuchera when he says he felt a certain way, but I also think it's really weird and exploitative of #MeToo-type Twitter posts for him cloak it in that language while also delivering none of the details that give veracity to those stories
Also, to me, its kind of ??? that he's like "I can't give specifics because of retribution" but he didn't weight what it would look like for future employers to have a guy who might tweet about you a decade later with no receipts
When did he say this? As far as I can tell, he gave as many specifics as he felt were relevant, and it's just people in this thread who are upset with the level of detail. I don't think he took himself to be saying anything that was intentionally vague. I think he thought he was giving enough detail to accomplish his goal, which was to get this stuff off his chest. Obviously a lot of people in this thread disagree, but he's not reading this thread, so that's irrelevant. I don't get the sense from the tweets that he was purposefully holding back or being obscure. (In fact I think he was quite clear enough, but we've been over this in the thread so many times I don't see what it would help to relitigate it all over again.)
He definitely thought he was being specific enough that he was scared he might get retribution, which seems silly to me since he didn't say anything of substance worth retaliating over.
I'm so scared to say it, but I feel like I have to be honest. Penny Arcade was the only company I've ever worked for that killed stories to protect their business. Seeing folks working for them question the integrity of the gaming press in public makes me literally ill.
I'm shaking and freaked out having tweeted this, I'm still scared of the power of those folks, but just remember they spent years putting profit over reporting and the truth, and it cost me my job. I am deeply, deeply ashamed that I've been quiet for this long. I'm so sorry.
If this hurts my ability to find writing work later because companies are scared I'll repeat their bullshit years after I was fired, I can always try to find a welding apprenticeship or something. I just want to do honest work, and now it's going to be easier to do so.
+3
HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
I think it's pretty clear that he feels the people running PA have clout in the games industry which could damage his career (whether this is true or not is another matter)
I still don't know what that retaliation would even be? Do Jerry and Mike have a lot of pull with magazines or something I don't know about? I feel like the reason things like Pax and Child's Play exist is because they don't feel like they were being heard, and in Child's Play's case, I remember they were trying to counter how shit gamers were being treated by the media and by people like Jack Thompson on top of doing something nice for the Seattle Children's hospital which struggled to have things for the kids that were there. My memory is a little hazy on that last part because it was so long ago at this point and the news articles barely exist (there's a few pictures left of the truckload of things forumers and readers all donated).
"I'm very happy with PAR, and if this is how it ends, that's not too bad," Kuchera wrote. "We had a good run. We didn't fix game journalism, but the whole idea of it being broken and needing a white knight to run in and make everything better was arrogant and more than a little pigheaded. There was good game writing before PAR, and there's going to be good game writing after we go away. I'm just so very happy that I was able to contribute to that flood of ideas in even a modest way, and I wanted to thank you very, very much for coming along with us."
"I think they're [PATV and the PAR] beautiful and useful and important; I use them every day. It's possible that you do, too. I hired people to run them, or paid them, and I am making their lives worse by doing this. Losing Ben is especially painful — he did everything we asked of him, and more. The only comfort is knowing that everyone affected by this is excellent, as is attested continually by their excellent work, and will certainly land on their feet. We've tried to connect the dots for them where we can. Still hurts."
Back then, everything was not just amicable but magnanimous. This is part of why I keep bringing up the enormous severance Ben was given. Being able to take 6 fucking months to land on your feet is a treasure, a blessing that ought to outweigh a lot. I feel like there's a lot of privilege involved in Kuchera having an ethical crisis about his work back then when the severance he got and allowed him to avoid a financial one when the business shut down.
One additional point. That article makes it crystal clear why the PAR was shut down, and it had nothing to do with putting profits over reporting the truth like Ben alleges. In fact it had nothing to do with Ben at all.
"I'm very happy with PAR, and if this is how it ends, that's not too bad," Kuchera wrote. "We had a good run. We didn't fix game journalism, but the whole idea of it being broken and needing a white knight to run in and make everything better was arrogant and more than a little pigheaded. There was good game writing before PAR, and there's going to be good game writing after we go away. I'm just so very happy that I was able to contribute to that flood of ideas in even a modest way, and I wanted to thank you very, very much for coming along with us."
"I think they're [PATV and the PAR] beautiful and useful and important; I use them every day. It's possible that you do, too. I hired people to run them, or paid them, and I am making their lives worse by doing this. Losing Ben is especially painful — he did everything we asked of him, and more. The only comfort is knowing that everyone affected by this is excellent, as is attested continually by their excellent work, and will certainly land on their feet. We've tried to connect the dots for them where we can. Still hurts."
Back then, everything was not just amicable but magnanimous. This is part of why I keep bringing up the enormous severance Ben was given. Being able to take 6 fucking months to land on your feet is a treasure, a blessing that ought to outweigh a lot. I feel like there's a lot of privilege involved in Kuchera having an ethical crisis about his work back then when they severance he got and allowed him to avoid a financial one when the business shut down.
One additional point. That article makes it crystal clear why the PAR was shut down, and it had nothing to do with putting profits over reporting the truth like Ben alleges. In fact it had nothing to do with Ben at all.
How Ben thought back then has little to do with how he feels now.
The fact that he got a severance has absolutely nothing to do with anything.
It's hardly proof of anything, but it's absolutely a data point of the employers not being utter monsters. Six months of severance is a whole lot of severance. In no way does severance mean ethical boundaries weren't breached, but he's the one who brought it up. It's not entirely irrelevant.
+10
HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
Or he was just lying?
But again regardless currently he feels upset about it, facts be damned. I don't get the direction of this thread, like how dare he be upset over something because he feels it!
What are we trying to do here, prove that he should feel differently?
I mean, in contrast, I'm pretty sure I'm about lined up for around a year of severance if my job decided to get rid of me without cause, based on what has been granted others over the years, and I've been here (in various capacities) for nearly two decades.
Granting a generous severance package doesn't mean there weren't negative aspects of working on PAR. It doesn't preclude Ben feeling abused or traumatized. Nor do words from both sides being neutral or even positive. On a corporate level, it's fairly common for the public facing elements to be rosier than the private reasons/situations involved.
But the generosity shown along with the lack of an NDA raises questions for me.
If he's afraid of burning down his career, why say anything in the first place?
Because he wants to get it off his chest and repair damage he feels he did to the community and his readers by failing to stand up for what was right.
Okay, but what was right? If he's not under NDA, something approaching a decade has passed, and PA are far from titans in the industry, why not remove the guesswork? A week has passed and we're still batting around hypotheticals, because as I've said a few times now, we're left with our imaginations on the specifics, and we've managed to note real and hypothetical situations where the vague allegations provided could be a reason to rise up against G&T's tyranny, or a nothingburger.
If we're not meant to do anything with it, then why do it publicly? If it's meant to be a call to action, where are the confirming details, not just from Ben, but others; it was a very common element in the MeToo tales that one stepped forward and several others would confirm harassment, abuse or assault, it seems rare that these things happen one time and one time only. Surely there were others who could corroborate things like the public talking down, either because they were there or because Ben shared that experience with them and can speak to his views expressed at the time? Or others who have been maligned and can confirm that it was some hot bullshit working there?
The contrast with MeToo style language has been noted many times, but an aspect I don't think has been referenced is that those allegations often weren't alone for long. The strip and its founders have had controversies and even moments that went sideways, or haven't aged well, or were perhaps flat out bullshit, fine, but it's one thing to be like 'sexualizing a Strawberry Shortcake character was kinda gross' and another to be like 'I fear for my livelihood and this gives me panic attacks'.
People can be afraid, and fears can be irrational. Fears often are irrational! I've had irrational fear responses to situations that were, in hindsight, not really that big a deal. Freaking out over something that is nearly a decade buried, having something weigh on you long enough to need to get it out there, feels like it should be more of a story than just vague assertions and letting us fill in the gaps, abuse madlibs style.
That this much time has past without further updates clarifying things isn't changing my view that the vagueness is intentional. If he was really worried about his career, why pick the public fight? He could have striven to be better and more strident as a part of the profession without needing to throw mud on this particular era. If it needed to be an open accounting of things for him to feel better as a journalist, why limit that clearing to a handful of tweets.
Sounds like an article in the making, a retrospective of PAR from someone who was involved, if not written personally, then in conjunction with someone whose reporting he trusts to treat the material fairly.
A hawt taek on Twitter long on expressed pain and fear but light on details doesn't seem to do proper service to... anything.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
+6
jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
But again regardless currently he feels upset about it, facts be damned. I don't get the direction of this thread, like how dare he be upset over something because he feels it!
What are we trying to do here, prove that he should feel differently?
No.
We're trying to state that just because someone feels something, it doesn't mean it's socially valid.
It's valid for those feeling it, and nobody should tell them they feel wrong, but we should not flex the frame of social justice to meet the needs of every single person who feels slighted.
I'm not going to advocate someone getting shot over shoplifting as a norm because one person was waving around a dangerous weapon and threatening others. I'm also not going to advocate berating the guy because he's obviously had a horrible goddamned time somewhere along the line, and I hope he's in therapy for it.
But it really does feel, if you look at the cadence of his tweets leading up to the PA twitterdump, that he got himself a bit worked up and then proceeded to equate the PA guys (or at least associate them) for being "evil" and him needing to stand up to them, but giving zero details.
And if he feels that way, good on him. But I sure don't think it's even within the same moralistic ballpark to begin a cancellation campaign against the PA folk for claims that are nebulous at best (and, for some, even if they were substantiated, there's numerous ways they can play out where they are absolutely not diametrically opposed to journalistic ideals of integrity.)
But again regardless currently he feels upset about it, facts be damned. I don't get the direction of this thread, like how dare he be upset over something because he feels it!
What are we trying to do here, prove that he should feel differently?
No. We're trying to figure out how we should feel about it.
If i told you that I didn't like a particular brand of tissue paper because they hurt me you might wonder how i was hurt by the tissue paper company. Is it worth your time boycotting this tissue paper company over their actions? Should you avoid that tissue paper company when buying when you can but not worry about it if you cannot? Should you take action to divest your holdings in the parent company of the tissue paper company because their actions are so heinous that it warrants immediate action? Should you speak out publicly about that tissue paper company?
Well in this case knowing the particulars of the tissue paper companies damage is material. If they literally shot my dog and then pissed in my cherios this is super different than if i bought a box that was supposed to have 250 tissues but only had 240 tissues.
edit: To be clear i think that "He wrote a story. It conflicted with an Ad Buy." is a serious ethical breach and i would legitimately think worse of PA for having done that. And were i involved in dealing with or hiring people who had management roles in PA i would actually take that serious ethical breach into consideration when making said determinations. But i think that "He wrote a story, it was killed because it was not on brand for PA" is not a serious ethical breach and would not take that into consideration when doing the above. These things are materially different and knowing what happened matters to how i interact with the PA brand (to the limited extent that I do)
Goumindong on
+4
ButtersA glass of some milksRegistered Userregular
I believe Kuchera when he says he felt a certain way, but I also think it's really weird and exploitative of #MeToo-type Twitter posts for him cloak it in that language while also delivering none of the details that give veracity to those stories
Also, to me, its kind of ??? that he's like "I can't give specifics because of retribution" but he didn't weight what it would look like for future employers to have a guy who might tweet about you a decade later with no receipts
Also, his general description of working for Mike and Jerry sounding like working for John Gotti.
What are we trying to do here, prove that he should feel differently?
I would think it's very obvious that people are trying to ascertain whether Penny Arcade was actually a toxic working environment, as Ben's 40 thousand followers now seem to believe.
Nobody is denying Ben the right to feel the way he does and I don't know why people keep bringing it up. But what he has posted on Twitter can, by itself, cause demonstrable harm.
Whether or not Penny Arcade actually is a toxic environment is the point of the discussion. You know, the allegations that are in the title of this thread. Is Penny Arcade a toxic working environment? "Ben Kuchera is upset so it must be" is not a conclusion.
Ben's upset could be a PA problem. Or, it could very well be a Ben Kuchera problem. Which one it is is worthy of discussion.
And I, at least, think it matters whether or not a brand that has been part of my life for 20 years is evil?
Spaffy on
ALRIGHT FINE I GOT AN AVATAR
Steam: adamjnet
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But again regardless currently he feels upset about it, facts be damned. I don't get the direction of this thread, like how dare he be upset over something because he feels it!
What are we trying to do here, prove that he should feel differently?
No. We're trying to figure out how we should feel about it.
If i told you that I didn't like a particular brand of tissue paper because they hurt me you might wonder how i was hurt by the tissue paper company. Is it worth your time boycotting this tissue paper company over their actions? Should you avoid that tissue paper company when buying when you can but not worry about it if you cannot? Should you take action to divest your holdings in the parent company of the tissue paper company because their actions are so heinous that it warrants immediate action? Should you speak out publicly about that tissue paper company?
Well in this case knowing the particulars of the tissue paper companies damage is material. If they literally shot my dog and then pissed in my cherios this is super different than if i bought a box that was supposed to have 250 tissues but only had 240 tissues.
I think it's pretty safe to say that nobody on these forums (by and large) are leaving due to Ben's tweets and I can't imagine tweets with no backing evidence is changing anybody's minds here who posts about Gabe and Tycho. We can have another 27 pages of I don't even know what but it just feels like a lot of these posts are "well ben shouldn't feel this way and unless he gives facts he should just move on" which is a weird take.
But again regardless currently he feels upset about it, facts be damned. I don't get the direction of this thread, like how dare he be upset over something because he feels it!
What are we trying to do here, prove that he should feel differently?
No. We're trying to figure out how we should feel about it.
If i told you that I didn't like a particular brand of tissue paper because they hurt me you might wonder how i was hurt by the tissue paper company. Is it worth your time boycotting this tissue paper company over their actions? Should you avoid that tissue paper company when buying when you can but not worry about it if you cannot? Should you take action to divest your holdings in the parent company of the tissue paper company because their actions are so heinous that it warrants immediate action? Should you speak out publicly about that tissue paper company?
Well in this case knowing the particulars of the tissue paper companies damage is material. If they literally shot my dog and then pissed in my cherios this is super different than if i bought a box that was supposed to have 250 tissues but only had 240 tissues.
I think it's pretty safe to say that nobody on these forums (by and large) are leaving due to Ben's tweets and I can't imagine tweets with no backing evidence is changing anybody's minds here who posts about Gabe and Tycho. We can have another 27 pages of I don't even know what but it just feels like a lot of these posts are "well ben shouldn't feel this way and unless he gives facts he should just move on" which is a weird take.
Posts
Assumes facts not in evidence
but it also doesn't matter, it's how he feels
We don't know if that's how he feels because he didn't say anything about an ad buy, he said they "killed stories to protect their business" which could mean any number of things. The vagueness means we don't know if he's talking about them killing a story about how Dickwolves was dumb and M&J's response to the backlash was dumb, killing a story because it was hot garbage that didn't pass muster and he resented being overridden as EiC, or what you said and it was about them killing a story because it involved an advertising partner.
what no lol. did people not actually read my post. I mean he FEELS upset by it. Emotionally. like in his brain. What I actually said was:
Now it doesn't matter if the full facts of these statements are right or wrong and if you think that's what I'm saying you're missing the point
It does matter whether he’s right or wrong, and so far the lack of detail makes it difficult to understand his complaint.
Story about what? Human rights abuse? Corporate malfeasance? How BG2 was actually a terrible game? Why Hitler was right and we should all wear lederhosen?
What?
There's a difference in protecting a business because "this will upset game companies" and "this will get us all sued and sent to prison" and "Nobody will read us ever again if we publish something this stupid".
He's attacking PA in a public forum, in a way that could very likely negatively affect their business. Whether or not his feelings are justified or borne out by what actually happened very much matters. He's potentially defaming someone.
Besides, this is a discussion thread for the accusations. Whether or not his attacks are justified is very much the only thing to talk about, otherwise the thread title would be 'Ben Kuchera is very upset" and it would be a very short thread.
Steam: adamjnet
Ok, but you excised the rest of my post that addresses your point here.
Unless you think he's just outright lying, he's not defaming anybody. He's highlighting his lived experience. People aren't arguing about whether or not this should be discussed. They are arguing about what constitute's "proof" here. What Ben said is good enough for some people (ie: Me) but not for others (ie: most people in this thread).
Also, to me, its kind of ??? that he's like "I can't give specifics because of retribution" but he didn't weight what it would look like for future employers to have a guy who might tweet about you a decade later with no receipts
But it could also be he doesn't want to talk about it, which I get, but I also can't do much more than say "yeah work sucks man, I get it".
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
This 100% did not happen. He tweeted about Trump and Limbaugh in the context of speaking truth to power. Not in the context of comparing them as people.
That didn't happen, and I'm not sure why people keep asserting it did.
He brought it up 2 minutes after the "Evil people" tweet.
I mean the context was trump caused a death, he's sick of side stepping around saying evil people aren't evil, then immediately segued into penny-arcade the company being awful with about 10 tweets worth of things they did to him.
I don’t think it really factors into anything though, other than reinforcing that he didn’t really start the Twitter rant with the expectation of it becoming about his time at Penny Arcade, but rather that the whole thing was a stream of consciousness that he lost control of
I can absolutely agree with that, I do that myself. Something shitty makes me think about something else that's shitty even though they're not in any way equivalent to each other.
There was a 12 minute gap between the "trump caused a death" and "evil people" tweet. There was a long sequence of 2-3 minute gaps afterwards during the tirade, including the gap between the "Evil People" tweet and the first PA tweet. The "Evil People" tweet was done to kick off the Penny Arcade tirade.
More details would be nice, but the biggest issue is the writing itself has all kinds of implications that are not borne out in the details provided. It could very well be those implications are true, but the evidence provided doesn't support them. Which is why you have essentially two sides to this whole conversation. Ben left it up to the reader to decide what happened, so people react based on what they assume because of the language and associations used, or lacking detail to assume anything, wish for more to make a judgement.
This goes back to some insightful comments earlier in the thread about what people think Twitter is for, but as far as I'm concerned... you don't go out in public, get on stage, and talk shit about a former employer to forty-one thousand people just because you feel like you need to get something off your chest. You do that because you want the crowd to take your side, and share your negative opinion. You don't talk to a stadium full of people without a goal in mind that involves those people.
I believe his goal was to hit back at PA because he's always felt mistreated. I don't know if that's a defensible feeling because his posts are clear enough that all forty-one thousand people he told from his public stage know who he was talking about, but vague enough that he can both avoid a defamation lawsuit and also not be disputed based on facts or alternate accounts. I think it was intentionally vague, because despite his ups and downs he has made a career as a writer and he knows how to communicate information.
What he did wasn't benign. If he believed it was just about his own personal journey, I can tell you that my twitter conversations have proven how wrong he was - lots of people instantly assumed the worst and proceeded to tell their friends what absolute garbage people M&J are for inflicting this nightmare on Kuchera. Ben has pretty clearly harmed M&J in the short term, and that is both the most obvious outcome of his action, and (I believe) the one he intended.
Or is it possible that Ben was drunk posting?
Polygon published an article with his byline yesterday, so unless something weird happened he's still there.
These things that I am quoting did not “happen”. I am putting that in quotes because I don’t know if they happened but that Ben did not even allege them to have happened.
How ben feels matters. But how ben feels also is not what happened. And what happened mattered. Because “killing a story because it was bad for business” and “killing a story because it conflicted with an ad buy” are not the same thing. There are plenty of times for which the money side of an organization legitimately gets to tell the editorial side of an organization what it gets to print which is normal and does not raise to the level of an ethical breach. And because that both of these things are true we need more information to know what to make of the allegations.
As an example: my parents would sometimes enter my room without my permission during a time I was living with them. I asked them not to because I felt violated when they would. It’s a pretty minor thing but the notion of having a space that was mine own and private was valuable to me. And if I complained about this on twitter and said I was violated it would indeed matter how I felt about it but at the same time it would matter that the violation was objectively relatively minor. And if I told you only that my “privacy was violated” or that “I felt violated” while comparing them to Trump and Rush you would probably assume a lot more than “entered my room when I wasn’t there to do innocuous things”. Even though my privacy was violated and I did feel violated does not mean that the rest of what happened does not matter. My parents were not monsters as would be implied by the language given without other context.
Hence Bens allegations are in a weird spot. He has said that what happened hurt him, but the specifics that he did give are things that are objectively minor and should not have hurt him on an ethical or professional footing. The specifics we have is the “joke” about “getting the clicks up to support the ad buys”... which as has been noted is a legitimate job of a content creator in a web publishing business and a legitimate concern to bring to your writers.... and on top of this maybe wasn’t even done by someone at PA since the language here is kind of unclear as to whether or not this was a PA person or an industry person. (I thought it had to have been PA but others definitely thought it implied industry)
Maybe the joke was offensive and threatening, but that doesn’t seem to be what was alleged, rather what was alleged was that the content of the joke was an ethical breach. Except it clearly wasn’t as described.
He definitely thought he was being specific enough that he was scared he might get retribution, which seems silly to me since he didn't say anything of substance worth retaliating over.
https://www.polygon.com/2013/12/6/5183840/the-penny-arcade-report-is-shutting-down
Back then, everything was not just amicable but magnanimous. This is part of why I keep bringing up the enormous severance Ben was given. Being able to take 6 fucking months to land on your feet is a treasure, a blessing that ought to outweigh a lot. I feel like there's a lot of privilege involved in Kuchera having an ethical crisis about his work back then when the severance he got and allowed him to avoid a financial one when the business shut down.
One additional point. That article makes it crystal clear why the PAR was shut down, and it had nothing to do with putting profits over reporting the truth like Ben alleges. In fact it had nothing to do with Ben at all.
now I'm even more confused
The fact that he got a severance has absolutely nothing to do with anything.
It's hardly proof of anything, but it's absolutely a data point of the employers not being utter monsters. Six months of severance is a whole lot of severance. In no way does severance mean ethical boundaries weren't breached, but he's the one who brought it up. It's not entirely irrelevant.
But again regardless currently he feels upset about it, facts be damned. I don't get the direction of this thread, like how dare he be upset over something because he feels it!
What are we trying to do here, prove that he should feel differently?
Granting a generous severance package doesn't mean there weren't negative aspects of working on PAR. It doesn't preclude Ben feeling abused or traumatized. Nor do words from both sides being neutral or even positive. On a corporate level, it's fairly common for the public facing elements to be rosier than the private reasons/situations involved.
But the generosity shown along with the lack of an NDA raises questions for me.
If he's afraid of burning down his career, why say anything in the first place?
Because he wants to get it off his chest and repair damage he feels he did to the community and his readers by failing to stand up for what was right.
Okay, but what was right? If he's not under NDA, something approaching a decade has passed, and PA are far from titans in the industry, why not remove the guesswork? A week has passed and we're still batting around hypotheticals, because as I've said a few times now, we're left with our imaginations on the specifics, and we've managed to note real and hypothetical situations where the vague allegations provided could be a reason to rise up against G&T's tyranny, or a nothingburger.
If we're not meant to do anything with it, then why do it publicly? If it's meant to be a call to action, where are the confirming details, not just from Ben, but others; it was a very common element in the MeToo tales that one stepped forward and several others would confirm harassment, abuse or assault, it seems rare that these things happen one time and one time only. Surely there were others who could corroborate things like the public talking down, either because they were there or because Ben shared that experience with them and can speak to his views expressed at the time? Or others who have been maligned and can confirm that it was some hot bullshit working there?
The contrast with MeToo style language has been noted many times, but an aspect I don't think has been referenced is that those allegations often weren't alone for long. The strip and its founders have had controversies and even moments that went sideways, or haven't aged well, or were perhaps flat out bullshit, fine, but it's one thing to be like 'sexualizing a Strawberry Shortcake character was kinda gross' and another to be like 'I fear for my livelihood and this gives me panic attacks'.
People can be afraid, and fears can be irrational. Fears often are irrational! I've had irrational fear responses to situations that were, in hindsight, not really that big a deal. Freaking out over something that is nearly a decade buried, having something weigh on you long enough to need to get it out there, feels like it should be more of a story than just vague assertions and letting us fill in the gaps, abuse madlibs style.
That this much time has past without further updates clarifying things isn't changing my view that the vagueness is intentional. If he was really worried about his career, why pick the public fight? He could have striven to be better and more strident as a part of the profession without needing to throw mud on this particular era. If it needed to be an open accounting of things for him to feel better as a journalist, why limit that clearing to a handful of tweets.
Sounds like an article in the making, a retrospective of PAR from someone who was involved, if not written personally, then in conjunction with someone whose reporting he trusts to treat the material fairly.
A hawt taek on Twitter long on expressed pain and fear but light on details doesn't seem to do proper service to... anything.
No.
We're trying to state that just because someone feels something, it doesn't mean it's socially valid.
It's valid for those feeling it, and nobody should tell them they feel wrong, but we should not flex the frame of social justice to meet the needs of every single person who feels slighted.
I'm not going to advocate someone getting shot over shoplifting as a norm because one person was waving around a dangerous weapon and threatening others. I'm also not going to advocate berating the guy because he's obviously had a horrible goddamned time somewhere along the line, and I hope he's in therapy for it.
But it really does feel, if you look at the cadence of his tweets leading up to the PA twitterdump, that he got himself a bit worked up and then proceeded to equate the PA guys (or at least associate them) for being "evil" and him needing to stand up to them, but giving zero details.
And if he feels that way, good on him. But I sure don't think it's even within the same moralistic ballpark to begin a cancellation campaign against the PA folk for claims that are nebulous at best (and, for some, even if they were substantiated, there's numerous ways they can play out where they are absolutely not diametrically opposed to journalistic ideals of integrity.)
No. We're trying to figure out how we should feel about it.
If i told you that I didn't like a particular brand of tissue paper because they hurt me you might wonder how i was hurt by the tissue paper company. Is it worth your time boycotting this tissue paper company over their actions? Should you avoid that tissue paper company when buying when you can but not worry about it if you cannot? Should you take action to divest your holdings in the parent company of the tissue paper company because their actions are so heinous that it warrants immediate action? Should you speak out publicly about that tissue paper company?
Well in this case knowing the particulars of the tissue paper companies damage is material. If they literally shot my dog and then pissed in my cherios this is super different than if i bought a box that was supposed to have 250 tissues but only had 240 tissues.
edit: To be clear i think that "He wrote a story. It conflicted with an Ad Buy." is a serious ethical breach and i would legitimately think worse of PA for having done that. And were i involved in dealing with or hiring people who had management roles in PA i would actually take that serious ethical breach into consideration when making said determinations. But i think that "He wrote a story, it was killed because it was not on brand for PA" is not a serious ethical breach and would not take that into consideration when doing the above. These things are materially different and knowing what happened matters to how i interact with the PA brand (to the limited extent that I do)
Also, his general description of working for Mike and Jerry sounding like working for John Gotti.
I would think it's very obvious that people are trying to ascertain whether Penny Arcade was actually a toxic working environment, as Ben's 40 thousand followers now seem to believe.
Nobody is denying Ben the right to feel the way he does and I don't know why people keep bringing it up. But what he has posted on Twitter can, by itself, cause demonstrable harm.
Whether or not Penny Arcade actually is a toxic environment is the point of the discussion. You know, the allegations that are in the title of this thread. Is Penny Arcade a toxic working environment? "Ben Kuchera is upset so it must be" is not a conclusion.
Ben's upset could be a PA problem. Or, it could very well be a Ben Kuchera problem. Which one it is is worthy of discussion.
And I, at least, think it matters whether or not a brand that has been part of my life for 20 years is evil?
Steam: adamjnet
I think it's pretty safe to say that nobody on these forums (by and large) are leaving due to Ben's tweets and I can't imagine tweets with no backing evidence is changing anybody's minds here who posts about Gabe and Tycho. We can have another 27 pages of I don't even know what but it just feels like a lot of these posts are "well ben shouldn't feel this way and unless he gives facts he should just move on" which is a weird take.
Well we might add 27 more pages if in response to this post more people pop in with posts asking if we care and saying that it doesn't really matter to whether or not we care what PA actually did. When i think we have explained sufficiently in 27 pages that we do think it matters what PA actually did to whether or not we care.