The collapse of Channel Awesome

[Kitten Champion]

Here is the link to the video.

[I am going to talk about non CA stuff but instead Lindsay Ellis stuff and Lindsay Ellis used to work for CA as the Nostalgia Chick]

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Warners (Part 3/2)

Wow.

She has a Dark Universe shirt. I'm jelly.

[Dragonus45]

The cover-ups of repeated sexual harassment claims by multiple creators against multiple different creators and that whole disgusting revelation about JewWario though...that I can't forgive.

The revelation that he supposedly "groomed" a consenting adult? Or at least has been accused of such as is currently to busy being dead to defend himself. Yea that is just awful.

Justin was grooming female fans for sex at cons.

The management knew and took no action.

It stayed sub rosa then he killed himself so it was quietly forgotten until the general dissatisfaction with the site boiled over.

Yep, he totally groomed that adult 18 year old. Very awful of him. Shame about him being to dead to ever defend himself against all this. Unless we get any real evidence here can we not slander the dead.

[DaOldeWolf]

Yep, he totally groomed that adult 18 year old. Very awful of him. Shame about him being to dead to ever defend himself against all this. Unless we get any real evidence here can we not slander the dead.

Channel Awesome made that possible. When they were trying to refute the accusations from the compilation, they showed evidence that pointed towards JewWario being behind some of the sexual harrassment. (due to info from the date and the letter J being visible in the evidence they gave).

[Dragonus45]

Channel Awesome made that possible. When they were trying to refute the accusations from the compilation, they showed evidence that pointed towards JewWario being behind some of the sexual harrassment. (due to info from the date and the letter J being visible in the evidence they gave).

Unless they want to come out with more details of what they know that second one is insubstantial wind. Literally all we know is that someone accused him of sexual assault and CA decided to fire him over it but admit nothing since there was no desire from the alleged victim to file a report on the matter. We don't know what, if any, investigating they did before firing him or what evidence they did or don't have. Literally %90 of the document that started all this complaints that CA were incompetent at basic aspects of production and marketing early and had no idea how to handle business. But this one time we start treating them like geniuses who could do no wrong?

[Lemmy]

I'm not sure what to make of all this mess... Some of it are unsubstantiated accusations. However, many of them are very similar to other accusations that happened in the past and involved (and fit the profile) the same people, so I'd dare say they hold at least a good amount of truth in them. Some of the accusations are pretty dumb, though... The fuss about the so-called "rape joke" is stupid. Linday agreed and even helped script that scene. And it isn't even a rape joke! Metal-kara is assimilating her and the joke is that Filmbrain mistakenly thinks they are having sex.

That said, the accounts of sexual harassment, specially from Michaud (or however the hell his name is spelled) seem very accurate. And do fit the type of personality he seems to have. It's no surprise that he is one of the most hated guys in CA. The mismanagement is probably just incompetence. The Walker brothers deluded themselves into thinking they are amazing producers, but they've failed time and time again to create anything above NC's quick gag humor (Demo Reel was garbage! And their attempts at a game show was mind-blowingly awful! How they managed to spend 80k on that is either criminal or of such incompetence that it should be told in history books!).

In any case... I stopped following CA years ago, so this mess doesn't change anything for me.

[LaZodiac]

The revelation that he supposedly "groomed" a consenting adult? Or at least has been accused of such as is currently to busy being dead to defend himself. Yea that is just awful.

Yep, he totally groomed that adult 18 year old. Very awful of him. Shame about him being to dead to ever defend himself against all this. Unless we get any real evidence here can we not slander the dead.

So what happened here is that an anonymous person revealed this to Obscuras Lupa while she was creating the document, and it was added in because people where in the know verified it. Among other things, like the big R that happens with these sorts of people.

Channel AWesome, in retalation, posted chat logs showing that the time frame was wrong (in truth they were chat logs of a different event) and they blurred out the names...except they did enough of a bad job at blurring out the names that people could clearly see it said Justin, aka Jewwario. The time this took place was around the time he "left" CA, and they say in the posted chats that CA posted themselves they're gonna fire him, but let him leave of his own accord publically.

After people did the snopping needed to realize it was Justin, all the people who were in the know (the very few who knew the truth, and those who learned it while compiling the document) came out. I believe (though this part may be inaccurate on my part) that even his wife has confirmed that the stories about Justin Carmickle raping and grooming people are in fact true.

I'm sorry but your hero killed himself because he was fired for being a rapist.

[DaOldeWolf]

Unless they want to come out with more details of what they know that second one is insubstantial wind. Literally all we know is that someone accused him of sexual assault and CA decided to fire him over it but admit nothing since there was no desire from the alleged victim to file a report on the matter. We don't know what, if any, investigating they did before firing him or what evidence they did or don't have. Literally %90 of the document that started all this complaints that CA were incompetent at basic aspects of production and marketing early and had no idea how to handle business. But this one time we start treating them like geniuses who could do no wrong?

I think that it is really deplorable how they tried to "hide" the identity of alleged person. They gave enough information to let everyone know who was the person accused from sexual assault. No one would be capable of knowing the truth if CA hadnt let that out in a misguided attempt to defend themselves. I am not saying JewWario commited the crime or not but that they basically showed who were the accusations against. I can believe they are incompetent enough, they would let info out that they shouldnt have.

This is one of the reasons I think I hate them more for their answers than for the list.

[Dragonus45]

So what happened here is that an anonymous person revealed this to Obscuras Lupa while she was creating the document, and it was added in because people where in the know verified it. Among other things, like the big R that happens with these sorts of people.

The account in the doc was about an adult. A legal adult who directly states they consented. Kinda crappy of him to cheat on his wife but that doesn’t make him a rapist.

Channel AWesome, in retalation, posted chat logs showing that the time frame was wrong (in truth they were chat logs of a different event) and they blurred out the names...except they did enough of a bad job at blurring out the names that people could clearly see it said Justin, aka Jewwario. The time this took place was around the time he "left" CA, and they say in the posted chats that CA posted themselves they're gonna fire him, but let him leave of his own accord publically.

I find it funny how smoothly people switch from, “Channel Awesome have no idea how to do anything and are bad” to “Channel Awesome are crack investigators who assuredly only had pure reasons for this firing and had no alternative motives like preventing even a potential scandal.”

After people did the snopping needed to realize it was Justin, all the people who were in the know (the very few who knew the truth, and those who learned it while compiling the document) came out. I believe (though this part may be inaccurate on my part) that even his wife has confirmed that the stories about Justin Carmickle raping and grooming people are in fact true.

His wife has made zero public comments that I can find. And Holly Brown is hardly the most reliable source about how true or untrue this totally unproven anonymous with zero presented evidence made against a dead man is and she is the one who “verified” the totally anonymous reddit poster who claimed to be the alleged victim.

I'm sorry but your hero killed himself because he was fired for being a rapist.

Im sorry you feel the need to confuse facts and allegations when talking about one of my heros.

[Cikomyr]

Justin was grooming female fans for sex at cons.

The management knew and took no action.

It stayed sub rosa then he killed himself so it was quietly forgotten until the general dissatisfaction with the site boiled over.

What does it mean, "grooming [...] for sex"?

I know what grooming is, its just.. i mean, its not like it has rape-y undertones. It sounds like he was dressing them or doing their hair. But its obviously because i have no idea what the idiom means

[DaOldeWolf]

What does it mean, "grooming [...] for sex"?

I know what grooming is, its just.. i mean, its not like it has rape-y undertones. It sounds like he was dressing them or doing their hair. But its obviously because i have no idea what the idiom means

I am not an englsih native speaker and I might be wrong on the definition but from what I understand, grooming in this case is trying to manipulate someone with gifts or favors to gain something from that person usually sexual.

[Cizak]

The revelation that he supposedly "groomed" a consenting adult? Or at least has been accused of such as is currently to busy being dead to defend himself. Yea that is just awful.

The revelation that he, from a position of power, coerced at least one woman to do things willingly and forcefully assaulted at least one while she was unconcious.

Yep, he totally groomed that adult 18 year old. Very awful of him. Shame about him being to dead to ever defend himself against all this. Unless we get any real evidence here can we not slander the dead.

It's always so convenient when they're dead, no? It's one of the best get out of jail free cards ever. A dead monster is still a monster. The ones alive and in need of support are his victims.

The fuss about the so-called "rape joke" is stupid. Linday agreed and even helped script that scene. And it isn't even a rape joke! Metal-kara is assimilating her and the joke is that Filmbrain mistakenly thinks they are having sex.

So it's a joke about a forceful act of dominance between a man and a woman that's so similar to rape that it gets mistaken for it... but it isn't a rape joke. Got it.

Anyway, yes, Lindsay was able to re-work that scene to make it better. It doesn't change the fact that she had to "fix" it in the first place, nor that CA is singling her (notice that pronoun) out when Linkara too was against it.

[Ramza00]

Wow.

She has a Dark Universe shirt. I'm jelly.

Be jelly but ...I can't think of the right Tolkein quote ... so I will instead use the ROTK song...

And all will turn /
To silver glass /
A light on the water /
Grey ships pass /
Into the West

I am going to cherish it always but that's becoming a problem because it's cheap crap and is already starting to show wear between washes.
https://twitter.com/thelindsayellis/...91952197140481

[Lemmy]

So it's a joke about a forceful act of dominance between a man and a woman that's so similar to rape that it gets mistaken for it... but it isn't a rape joke. Got it.

Anyway, yes, Lindsay was able to re-work that scene to make it better. It doesn't change the fact that she had to "fix" it in the first place, nor that CA is singling her (notice that pronoun) out when Linkara too was against it.

It gets mistaken for sex, not rape. And if if it were a rape joke... So what? At worst it's an unfunny joke or in bad taste. There are plenty of jokes about acts just as harmful and evil. But making a bad joke, even one about a sensitive issue, shouldn't be anywhere near the same ballpark as actual sexual harassment, which CA has been accused of covering up multiple times now, sometimes with very strong evidence... Like that creepy chat log of Michaud.

I'm not defending CA. Even if it turns out that only 10% of the claims against them are true, they still have a lot of serious **** to answer for, but "made a rape joke" is not among them... Although how they allegedly treated Lindsay after it probably is.

[Man on Fire]

The revelation that he supposedly "groomed" a consenting adult? Or at least has been accused of such as is currently to busy being dead to defend himself. Yea that is just awful.



Yep, he totally groomed that adult 18 year old. Very awful of him. Shame about him being to dead to ever defend himself against all this. Unless we get any real evidence here can we not slander the dead.

Does that matter how old the victim was? It they didn't gave him their premission it's still a sexual harasssment.

[2D8HP]

A for profit enterprise lacks decency?


I'm shocked — shocked! — to find that is the case!

Implying there's something special about this melange of blatant exploitation and toxic, manipulative, and heavy-handed labor discipline? There isn't. It's what anyone who can get away with it eventually sinks to, and with the collapse of the strike rate as well as other indicators of labor militancy over the last decades, has gotten and will get more common and more brazen. It was normal and is being normalized.

That's about the size of it.

---

Here is the link to the video.

Spoiler: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Warners (Part 3/2)

Show

Thank you for that.

[BeerMug Paladin]

Count me in with zimmerwald and 2d8hp.

[Dragonus45]

Does that matter how old the victim was? It they didn't gave him their premission it's still a sexual harasssment.

If you are going to attempt to rescind consent after the fact by claiming you were groomed as if you were a child who was unable to consent then age is literally the most important factor.

[Cikomyr]

Was it with a minor?

Was it consensual?

Did he had authority over her?

I mean.. lies and manipulation are creepy, but they arent illegal behavior.

[GloatingSwine]

Was it with a minor?

Was it consensual?

Did he had authority over her?

I mean.. lies and manipulation are creepy, but they arent illegal behavior.

This is, in fact, no defence of his character.

Justin Carmichael was in indefensible **** of a human being. (NB: Obtaining sexual consent by deception may, in fact, lead to criminal prosecution. As it did for Justin Rowe who used Grindr to deliberately infect men with HIV)

[Cikomyr]

This is, in fact, no defence of his character.

Justin Carmichael was in indefensible **** of a human being. (NB: Obtaining sexual consent by deception may, in fact, lead to criminal prosecution. As it did for Justin Rowe who used Grindr to deliberately infect men with HIV)

Really? I call bullcrap. When you say "someone went to jail because he lied in order to infect people with HIV", i am not going to assume the reason he went to jail is because he lied.

Daryll Rowe went to jail because he was convited of commiting bodily harm on other people - or the intent to do so.

Lying isnt illegal, unless you use it as a mean to defraud someone or its to legal authorities.

[GloatingSwine]

Really? I call bullcrap. When you say "someone went to jail because he lied in order to infect people with HIV", i am not going to assume the reason he went to jail is because he lied.

Daryll Rowe went to jail because he was convited of commiting bodily harm on other people - or the intent to do so.

Lying isnt illegal, unless you use it as a mean to defraud someone or its to legal authorities.

Again, this is no defence of a person who uses deceit to obtain sex.

That person is scum and should be called out as such as often and publically as possible.

[The Troubadour]

*sigh* Can we have at least one thread about this whole cluster**** that doesn't have people defending sexual coercion from a person in a position of power by saying "it's not rape"?

Lying isnt illegal, unless you use it as a mean to defraud someone or its to legal authorities.

If lying about something prevents people from giving fully informed consent, that's either rape by deception or rape by fraud, depending on the jurisdiction.

[dps]

The revelation that he, from a position of power, coerced at least one woman to do things willingly and forcefully assaulted at least one while she was unconcious.

The woman whose story is in the link you provided isn't the same one as the "grooming" story is about. Assuming that the woman in the link is telling the truth (which I am in no position to judge one way or the other), then yes, the guy was a rapist. But that doesn't mean that "grooming" someone else for sex necessarily involved an assault or anything else illegal. If the person who was "groomed" was an adult capable of giving consent and in fact did give consent, then the only issue with it is the cheating on his wife (which I find pretty vile--I wouldn't cheat on my wife, and think guys who do give all husbands a bad name), which isn't anything anyone in the modern world considers criminal (even though it's technically still illegal in many jurisdictions).

[Zevox]

At the moment it's not entirely clear. Apparently Doug Walker had changed his personal Facebook page to indicate that he had "worked" at Channel Awesome instead of currently being a producer. There was a new Nostalgia Critic video posted subsequent to this, but that doesn't really prove anything one way or another as they reportedly maintained a buffer of 2-3 videos.

One possibility that comes to mind to explain both is that Doug didn't leave, but the decision has been made that the channel/website will shortly cease to exist, and Doug just jumped the gun on updating his Facebook page. After all, at this point there's not really a purpose to Channel Awesome being a thing, with almost everyone having left - and if there's even an iota of truth to how they thought about the other producers, in their minds it's just Doug and Brad left, since Larry wasn't one of their bigger names. And they're sure not going to attract new people after this.

Anyway... yeah, what a mess. I kind of stopped watching most of Channel Awesome's stuff years ago (about the time Nostalgia Critic started doing reviews of currently-in-theaters movies with mock-up scenes portrayed by Doug, Tamara, and Malcom, which I just didn't like watching as much, and even before then the amount I watched had been in decline for a while) so this doesn't affect me much now, but it's really sad to see something I used to love turn out like this. Hope everything works out for all the former producers there - and doesn't for Mike Michaud, if even a decent fraction of what's been claimed about him is true.

[Anonymouswizard]

Was it with a minor?

Was it consensual?

Did he had authority over her?

I mean.. lies and manipulation are creepy, but they arent illegal behavior.

Leaving aside the question of legality, somebody can still be a horrible/bad person. I don't think most people are saying it's definitely illegal, I think they're saying 'it's creepy and doing such things systematically is not cool bro'. The document of grievances even mentions that what he did in this situation wasn't so much illegal as scummy.

As somebody who has had problems with greyness and consent (slightly fuller details in the Relationship Woes and Advice thread), you can be complete scum without intending anything bad. Now unfortunately not only is mind reading technology a thing of the future (so you'll have to trust me to say that what I did was based on poor reading of signals) so is resurrection (so we need to use two of our genie wishes to read JW's mind and see if it was intentional or not).

The entire point is that it was creepy, almost certainly overstepped professional boundaries, and went unpunished for a long time. As well as the other things that might have happened that would be illegal.

I'm honestly rather upset that this came out after his death, because it a) stops him from giving any form of explanation (while I suspect he can't give a legitimate one I might be wrong) and b) means that everything else about him is going to be overshadowed, certainly for the immediate future. Not that I think it should have remained hidden, scumminess whether legal or not shouldn't be kept out of sight when known and it's better that this has come out now than it never coming out, but because it leave us in this situation where this is all that'll be talked about with regards to him for the next however long it is.

[Cikomyr]

*sigh* Can we have at least one thread about this whole cluster**** that doesn't have people defending sexual coercion from a person in a position of power by saying "it's not rape"?

Re-bullcrap. I expressedly point out in the post you quoted "is the person being in a position of authority?" as a standard for legally unacceptable behavior, alongside consent and underage.

If lying about something prevents people from giving fully informed consent, that's either rape by deception or rape by fraud, depending on the jurisdiction.

You should do more research before mentioning these examples, because a summary research points to Rape by Deception being applicable for very specific circumstances, which has to do with someone's disclosure of their identity to allow enlightened conseny. Ex: it is a crime to slip in a woman's bed to make "consensual" love to her because she aesumed you were her boyfriend.

Lying that you are a millionaire and getting a woman to sleep with you is creepy, but it is not illegal.

So, were any of Justin's actions illegal? Because i dont see why his employer should be held accountable for his employees' not-illegal actions just because they are morally objectionable.

[Vinyadan]

Now unfortunately not only is mind reading technology a thing of the future (so you'll have to trust me to say that what I did was based on poor reading of signals) so is resurrection (so we need to use two of our genie wishes to read JW's mind and see if it was intentional or not).

That's not going to work...



I'd never expected this video to actually be topical in more than one way.

[dps]

So, were any of Justin's actions illegal? Because i dont see why his employer should be held accountable for his employees' not-illegal actions just because they are morally objectionable.

Well, generally speaking, we don't hold employers liable because one of their employees turned out to be a rapist, anyway. And they apparently did fire Jewario because of the allegations, even though they allowed him to save face by officially quitting rather than being fired, so I guess even they weren't OK with him raping someone.

[The Troubadour]

Lying that you are a millionaire and getting a woman to sleep with you is creepy, but it is not illegal.

Look up Sabbar Kashur, Eran Ben Avraham and Mario Ambrose Antoine, and next time take your own "advice" to do better research.

Well, generally speaking, we don't hold employers liable because one of their employees turned out to be a rapist, anyway. And they apparently did fire Jewario because of the allegations, even though they allowed him to save face by officially quitting rather than being fired, [...]

(Emphasis mine.)
Most of the criticism to CA's handling of the case seems to center around that, actually, that they left him in a position in which he could sexually assault someone else again, instead of releasing some kind of statement which still protected the victims' identities.

[zimmerwald1915]

Well, generally speaking, we don't hold employers liable because one of their employees turned out to be a rapist, anyway. And they apparently did fire Jewario because of the allegations, even though they allowed him to save face by officially quitting rather than being fired, so I guess even they weren't OK with him raping someone.

Not in the criminal law. But we do make civil penalties available to victims of workplace sexual harassment or assault. In the US, under Title VII, the employer is the only liable party; it has no individual liability.

So as far as that goes, you've got it exactly backwards.