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Ben Kuchera's Allegations of a Toxic Work Environment at Penny Arcade
Posts
Rereading the post now with the wisdom of my years or whatever it seems like T&G were probably pretty frayed by the time that show came around due to doing a book publicity tour and were primed not to enjoy the experience.
Tumblr doesn't seem to put the year in its header, so it's not obvious unless you go to the listing of all his posts that Jesse Thorn's posting is from October 2016, not 2020 (though he does say at the start that it was "six years ago". So "to this day" was referring to 2016, not 2021 (though six years is still an awfully long time, mind you)
[edit] I'm slow
Six years past the original date is still a long time to hold a grudge. I also wouldn't be surprised if he continues to get messages about it to this day.
Though I think it's less about "one particular group of people who took a grudge and continue to stew in it for 10+ years" and more about things like:
- New fans reading the entire archive of the comic (as new fans of online comics have a tendency to do), coming across that incident and getting mad, then venting their anger on Jesse Thorn
- People who, when they hear about Jesse Thorn, think "guy who was an asshole to Mike and Jerry", the same way that when I read about JonTron online I think "white supremacist." And for a fraction of those people, when they happen upon the name and think the thought, they decide to go act on it on Twitter.
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
Huh...maybe it doesn't pre-date the Glorious Edict, then, based on the language in that OP? I've lost track of when it went into effect.
Interesting to note that the majority of people posting on the first page are no longer regulars of this forum. Many haven't posted in years.
My Backloggery
Just... wow. That's fucked.
I knew nothing about that thread, though, because back then I only posted in Mass Effect and Dragon Age threads.
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
A googling shows references to it back in 2010.
Then I jumped off a cliff because of reading the things I thought were clever 10 years ago, when in actuality I was an unbearable asshole.
I guess that's what we should take away from this story: all of us were assholes 10 years ago and we're trying to do better. That's all we can do, acknowledge when we fucked up and keep trying to be less of an asshole as time passes.
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Yeah even six years is.. woof.
That article was written over 30 years ago.
Edit: Wait, I couldn't have joined in 2009. I remember posting here from my old house and I moved in 2009. Are join dates based on the migration to vanilla or something?
Mine goes back to 2005 so no I don't think the migration affected that.
If you were around pre-edict you would remember it. They were nasty times.
I only have a vague recollection of the before times. The "phorum" was really weird though.
I do get the impression PA might be kinda informal.
2010ish makes sense to me. Honestly the edict still feels new to me which is weird lol
To be fair, I still hold a nearly 11 year old grudge over what Jay Leno did to Conan O'Brien.
:sad: :so_raven:
But are you sending Leno hate mail / tweets about it?
Like I can barely be bothered to to a supportive fan brigade of things like when John Oliver etc used to try and direct fans to give a like or something to some video.
I can’t imagine how empty people’s lives are who feel the need to start new beef on behalf of someone else.
MWO: Adamski
Me either. I kind of vaguely remember the comic, but beyond thinking it was a kind of a weird comic and a non sequitur, I simply moved on. But after reading Jesse Thorn's explanation, which seems mighty believable, that comic has not aged well. I get that sometimes things just don't work out, that doing PR can be a brutal slog with a bunch of media phonies, and sitting through a podcast that's not going well would suck, but this guy invites you into his house as a guest, and you go home to your little tree house and write that comic and news post? Blows my mind.
Interestingly, you can tell how hyper aware he is too of the power PA wields. He basically had to keep his mouth shut and play coy and hope it would all blow over. I would have been calling the PA office next day to be like.."you two realize that I'm a real person in the real world with professional relationships, and you just made me out to be a serial killer that keeps people's heads in his fridge? If you had an issue with show you could have just you know...talked with me about it first."
No. No it was not. It wasn't.
It was like two years ago tops.
No, shut up, TWO OR THREE YEARS TOPS.
Yeah it was the news posts (and follow-up later by Gabe) that really stood out to me as egregious at the time, but now I can see the comic for what it is as well. And even then it was entirely in keeping with how they dealt with Jack Thompson, Harlan Ellison, and Squidi, so it wasn't surprising once they decided Thorn was an asshole. It is a testament to Robert Khoo's ability that Gabe and Tycho never managed to entirely destroy their own brand.
He actually rescued them from being completely stripped of their brand by one of their early publishing deals. Khoo did a lot of work (for free that first year) just based on the potential he saw in Penny Arcade, and quite a bit was demoing out the disasters G&T had already wrought before laying an actual foundation. It's very impressive and I'd love to read a book about it someday
His wikipedia page literally has a section titled, "Temperament"
Ah man, lets not start speaking ill of the dead.
Unless it's to rehash the legendary, and probably fictional, jelly bean incident.
So he pretty much saved their butts.
Ellison was very litigious. He would go after anyone that tried to rip him off. It would have actually been a good idea to be friends with him.