When I see Jeff or the other staff tweet stuff like this I wonder if they spend any time interacting with the community they're defending.
Just on this page of replies, 400 posts in, are people saying:
- they're sick of "gender bullshit talk"
- that women criticizing the hiring decisions of men is unprofessional
- that suggesting a site with nine white/male/straight staff members hire someone who isn't at least one of those things is trying to "force societal change"
- And plenty of posts that boil down to "la la la, let's just ignore the horrible things a large part of this community are doing, aren't the new hires great, EVERYTHING IS AWESOME!"
Add in the conduct in the chat during the E3 live shows (and at all other times, really), the way the community reacted to Patrick being hired and most of the content he posted the first year he was here, and honestly Jeff's steadfast refusal to deal with his communities shitty behavior beyond blanket "don't be a dick" comments, and I don't see how anybody can defend this place. Sure, you can like the site and the content it kicks out (I do) but the "community" that has sprung up around it? Toxic. The occasional cool piece of Giant Bomb/Video Game mashup art or animated podcast story doesn't make up for that.
For another way to handle a toxic community, look at Badass Digest. http://badassdigest.com/2014/01/14/badass-digest-is-run-by-a-bunch-of-female-comic-book-lovers/ Their Editor-In-Chief Devin Faraci can be at turns insightful, eloquent, and a raging asshole, but he takes responsibility for the site he created and spends loads of time combating any harassment that goes on there, beginning with a strict "If you even seem to be indicating an alignment with the MRA community you are perma-banned". I don't think that asking Giant Bomb to take a similar line is asking too much.
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