The Giant Beastcast: Episode 278

If Vinny had invited the guest on the podcast and apologized/responded in the exact same way everyone would be praising his actions and accepting his apology. Only difference is it's coming from Abby so some are not willing to give her the same credit for intentions and her actions.

This is coming from someone that really does not understand Abby or enjoy much of her content (I feel the same way about Ben and think it's because I'm in my late 40s) but I'm not going to take the opportunity to bash her for something her boss has clearly moved on about. If you trust in Vinny you should also accept his handling of the situation.

@kennneth said:

Good to know. The general site policy of keeping past mistakes online feels like a Jeff thing, and with Vinny out last week I wondered if maybe Jeff made the decision. I just think there's a world of difference between keeping an old mistake online, and posting a known mistake (with no in-show disclaimer).

This is something I feel strongly about but I don't know how much I want to argue it right now, for fear of being lumped in with the weirdo Abby haters. Abby's great, and the mistake was pretty obviously an issue with the GB vetting process overall.

How many of you getting all worked up about Abby have emailed FanByte, the actual platform of this person to voice your displeasure?

So sorry to hear about Thelma, Alex. It sounds like you gave her a great life, though.

My SO's cat is considered geriatric and has been losing weight over the past year. We've been living together for most of his life, so I've been mentally preparing for whenever he passes. I think what's important to focus on is what you did to give them a better life than they would've had without you. Considering how many cats don't have loving homes, being a caregiver means you gave an incredible gift to them. Protection, love, food, healthcare, scritches. It's sad when they leave us, but what matters is what we did to make their lives as pleasant as possible while they were here. I don't know you and won't pretend to, but I feel confident assuming you were probably an awesome cat guardian. Take some solace in that.

Not saying you shouldn't feel sad, just sharing the thoughts that have helped me cope with the impending departure of my own furry friend. I hope you and your partner are doing well. These things can't be rushed, but whenever you're ready I hope you consider adopting. 2020 has been a rough year for shelters, with reduced donations and increased occupancy being commonplace. Take your time grieving, though. It's necessary and healthy.

Sorry if this is weird to read coming from a stranger, I'm just a dude who really loves cats and I teared up hearing a comrade mourn a fallen feline.

Alex, sorry to hear the news. We support you.

A lot of concern trolling in some of these comments...

It's very telling how some people are using this to paint the crew ( esp. poor Abby) in the worst light possible to "call them out." Some of you seem fixated on weaponizing the crew's commitment to creating a safe space in the industry to fight some culture war against the "mean SJWs."

Nobody cares that your problematics faves ( Pascual, Nicholson, the CAH ahole, etc.) got "cancelled." There's no hidden agenda or double standard, regardless of how bad you want there to be one. Giving the benefit of the doubt to the people calling out injustice does not mean we should give the same benefit to the people committing injustice. It's not inconsistent, it's a false equivalence. And you should stop.

We need to be kind to the people committed to make this godforsaken industry a better place because they will always make mistakes. And if they really care, they will own up to those mistakes. Most abusers are really good at covering their tracks, and inevitably, some will fall through the cracks of any sort of vetting.

The expectation that the crew must be perfectly aware of every person's past is as ridiculous as it is in bad faith.
The crew will continue to do their best to speak out against toxic individuals, and when allegations are brought into light, the crew will speak out because they are decent human beings.

If you can't accept this, go find another website. Because you won't be able to straw man them out of it.

@splodge: Anyone asking for more is not doing so in good faith.

@sethmode: A lot of concerned trolls out here rn.

It really isn't. It's not a bad look to call out abusers and own up to mistakes. Condemning abusers is not sanctimony or moralizing.

What the hell are you talking about?

Has anyone in the crew ever been accused of abuse?

"A website prone to sanctimony and moralizing" Christ. Are you new to GB? Your profile says you joined in 2010 but clearly you've been visiting a different website than I have for the past 10 years.

honest question to staff: You all said you didn't try to pre-order. is that because you assume you will get one from Sony? If you didn't have that option would you have been trying to pre order with everyone else. It's hard to think you are that into games and gaming but don't want to be part of the first group playing on the new consoles.

@crimsonjester: I can’t speak for the staff of course, but I can say that there are almost certainly going to be more preorders made available to meet the demand over the next two months. So it’s likely that most people who want to preorder one will be able to eventually.

Also, if you have a relatively powerful PC, there’s plenty of reasons to wait. If you’re not dying to play the Demon Souls remake, there’s not going to be a lot of exclusive stuff for a while.

Yeah, compare the GB response here, regarding unclear allegations of emotional/workplace abuse ( not sexual abuse as far I can tell) and an honest mistake from Abby's part, to the response to highly publicized allegations of sexual abuse and assault against Temkin and Holowka--one of them whom the site and the senior members of the crew had a professional relationship with.

What a dangerous double-standard! It's almost as if these cases have very little in common and called for entirely different responses!!!

Please stop peddling this stupid false equivalency/hidden agenda garbage.

@garwalk: great post. thx!

What is the weed podcast that Abby mentions she, Jeff, and Alex were all on together? Or is she just talking about one of the E3 vlogs from a couple years back?

@onemanarmyy: why is Bakalar on the set of the upcoming Quiet Man movie.

@merxworx01: Because Bakalar is a FMV star.

@onemanarmyy: thank god, I was worried that he was going to waste his talents interviewing 8k Bidets. Well I'll keep my Disney+ membership then buy a $30 ticket when The Quiet Man 2: 'How's the Running Around' eventually releases in VoD.

@merxworx01: I don't know what an 8k bidet would be, but I want it.

@refused: I understand, but I stand by what I said and I don't think they've done anything wrong. I still don't know what exactly Merritt K has done and I have read all of the shit in question. The idea that Abby should have vetted better when many people are unclear on what Merritt did that was wrong is indicative of the idea that there was no right way to handle this for some (not say you).

Im also not saying Merritt hasn't hurt people, I'm just saying that if looking for something bad knowing such a person is bad after the fact brings up questionable results, how can you expect someone to vet a person with the same resources? Regardless of previously stated intention to do better.

don't apologize, Abby. It's insane that people somehow expect you to be intimately familiar with Twine drama from 5 years ago, none of which mentioned anybody by name

About Mary's nickname being Mazza. In Ozzy and New Zealand, it is common for names like Barry, Gary, and Aaron to be swapped to Bazza, Gazza, and Azza. this is usually done with any name when the second and third letters are A and R.

I didn't know the Merrit K situation either but I do know you had the best intentions Abby and appreciate what you were trying to do. I enjoy you as part of GB. Thanks Abby and thanks GB for being up front as always.

I've been a subscriber for the last 6 years, and watched just about every video on the site from 2014 - 2019. My subscription ended a few weeks ago, and I haven't re-subscribed because there was no fall sale like there usually is.

Something about this place just isn't the same. I don't know why I'm really bummed out about this whole situation. I didn't find anything conclusive about Merritt. But this whole non-apology (again) from Giant Bomb when Giant Bomb has spent years criticizing exactly these types of non-apologies I think is the final straw for me. Some genuine people here were hurt by last week's podcast for valid reasons. I appreciate them voicing their disappointment, and I don't think an actual apology is too much to ask for. This wasn't it.

@sawdustscientist: So it's not the best, though pretty good. :)) There is still a gpu to be released between the 3080 and the 3090. probably a ti.

I think you did the best job possible addressing this issue Abby. I am so happy to hear this hasn't dampened the chances of more podcasts with new guests. I loved that new voices with different points of view were brought into the Beastcast. Please keep up the awesome work Abby!

@brainscratch: Abby did nothing wrong and I feel her statement was as far into "apology" territory as she needed to go. No one is infallible and the controversy around the guest still feels manufactured and in bad faith.

The Beastcast is richer because of Abby. Abby definitely looked and sounded like this experience emotionally deflated her. I personally look forward to seeing a broader range of guests at GB in the future.

This has been bothering me all day. If people just want to put a warning in front of a podcast warning people about an abuser who has appeared on one, two and half hour podcast, that's fine, but it does seem that Abby's involvement is colouring some peoples opinion here.

My question is if it's not, what about Max Temkin? He has appeared on numerous podcasts and videos over a years-long period. Going back and listening to old bombcasts, reading old GOTY lists or watching GB infinite you are more likely to run into content with him in it than this one appearance by Merriet K.

Max moderated the memorial panel for Ryan Davis at the first PAX after his passing. If users who were not around back then got curious about why Ryan meant so much to a chunk of the community and staff, that his passing is still brought up every year, it's not unreasonable to say they could watch that video in a few years and have no idea of the accusations against Max. Is every time you cast a vote on which video to play next on GB Infinite, should it warn you if you are casting a vote to watch content with Max in it?

I hate this term, but, it does seem like a slippery path to go down. Should all abuser who have or may appear, even if it is once, get the same thing applied to the beginning of their content?

A mistake was made, acknowledged and apologised for. Why is that not good enough? Can we move on?

It's crazy to me that some people are fine with hating on Abby for what she allegedly "should have done," Yet I don't see any heat on people like Danika Harrod, 2 of the mcelroys, Alex Navarro. Granted these people follow a lot of folks and maybe things got lost in the shuffle. I 100% give them the benefit of a doubt. Yet Ben Pack likes her tweets even now and no one bats an eye, they just feel like ganging up on Abby, I call bullshit

does it suck that abby didnt use the words 'im sorry' yeah it does

but if you listen you can hear it in her voice.. you can hear how sad she was that this happened.. 2 or 3 different points where her voice almost breaks like shes about to cry

so at this point.. we remember this and we as a community stay committed to holding people accountable.. make our own personal decisions about how to engage with content.. and stop getting sucked into the trap of feeding bad faith brigaders in this community

if anyone else on this site made this same mistake most people would have been hugs and smiles and the folks that are part of the community merrit hurt would be told to fuck off

it is only because ABBY made this mistake that 2/3rds of yall on in these comments

i want to be VERY CLEAR I'm not saying that we pretend this doesn't happen.. I'm saying this doesn't need to carry on for 8 more weeks

The crew’s fixation on the Series S’s storage capacity is really weird to me. One, a disc system is going to use the same amount of storage as nothing runs off the disc anymore. And two, both PS5 models have 825 GB storage. Why isn’t there a complaint that it can’t match Series X’s 1TB storage? Where’s the cutoff of complaints?

And for Jeff who asked “why buy and Xbox this year?” Why would anyone by a 30-series graphics card? Your 9-10-20 card plays all the same games. It’s such a weird criticism coming from a tech guy like Jeff.

Come on. That was clearly an apology, even if the exact words "I'm sorry" weren't said. People are nitpicking if they can't see that.

And about the Alexis Alexander revelation (or non-revelation), he's told the story before, and it was definitely on the Beastcast. It was a while ago, but he said something to the effect of "I was named Alex twice" and went on to explain the story. I'm kind of shocked that none of the cast remembered it, because it stuck in my mind.

Thank you for addressing this Abby. Not a perfect apology I guess, but it's live and difficult to do, so I hope everybody understands there might be a word missing. The intent seems to be there to me. To demand more from Abby seems petty, and to demand the podcast to be taken down seems unreasonable considering the podcast itself was pretty good in my opinion.

I also hope that there wasn't anybody thinking you invited this person on while knowing about these allegations. Everything about this seems to point that it was a mistake, that you thought this was a good person. Not like there aren't any other possible guests you could've picked from, that would still be less represented on this site or in general. I have no doubt about Abby's intentions.

I also want to point out that I don't think this was a problem created by Abby. This guest seems like she was accepted by the majority of the crew. She's been on camera behind the scenes, was followed by multiple people of the crew, and there was that charity stream. I can easily see Abby looking at the rest of the crew, and thinking the vetting was done. I don't blame Abby specifically for making this mistake, everybody that created that feeling of "she's fine" contributed to that mistake. This is a difficult problem, which guests do you vet? It's not reasonably to vet every guest all the time, but I think that this guest should've been vetted (can't really tell if she was at this point). As long as the guest was on some major part of the site, then I don't think you need to vet them (as long as the comments don't indicate otherwise at least).

Seems that the show notes are in the "subtitle" field in the actual mp3 file. This also cuts off right at 254 characters, so even that doesn't include the complete show notes. I'm assuming that the producer's note would've been appended to the show notes in that field then, and that there's no other field that gets read by the general podcast apps. So that field wouldn't even be able to hold the complete producer's notes if you removed the show notes. Seems that that's not a good way to communicate important problems then.

There's also the problem that even the show notes can be a bit hidden in apps, I know I've listened to episodes without even seeing those, since it just plays the next episode without me needing to look at them. I think the best way to address this issue would've been by appending a bit of audio to the episode, surely that would've been possible since it's a simple mp3. Again though, thank you for addressing this in this show then, since now at least most people have heard it.

It also sounds that Abby was the only one responsible for the guest list. That doesn't sound like a good way to handle that. I have no problem with Abby picking the guests, but having multiple people look at a situation drastically cuts the amount of mistakes that slip through. Not saying that that would've necessarily helped here though, since I'm still incapable of finding any of this without looking at these comments. But I can see there being situations where it would help. Clearly it's important to do this right, and anything important shouldn't be left to a single person. If I'm mistaken about this, and there was some back and forth, then I'm sorry.

Maybe another way to let less of these errors slip through is by announcing the guest list earlier, to let people comment on it. I've seen people react to the announcement tweet with these allegations, so maybe if that tweet went out earlier the crew could've reacted to it and change the guest list or something. Though I assume these guest lists come in hot, so I don't know how much earlier you can reasonably post these guest list. Not sure how useful that also will be in practice, considering there will probably be a lot of noise in the comments, and going through them all to not let anything slip through is probably hard.

Again, thank you Abby for trying to create a unique episode, having different voices, and addressing this. And if any of this sounds condescending, then I apologize. I hope this was constructive, but without knowing the specific internal processes I'm assuming a lot here based on almost nothing.

Since everyone is piling on Abby I'm going to take this opportunity (since there is likely never going to be another one) to make a small complaint that has nothing to do with the guest last week.

@ybbaaabby When you upload the episodes you always leave the title in the id3 tag empty and I have to insert a title myself. It drives me CRAZY! So if you could remember the next time you ever do an episode to fill out the id3 tag I would appreciate it 🙏 Thank you!

thanks Abby for talking about head on

One of the biggest weeks in gaming in a while and it was so ho-hum attitude about the PlayStation showcase:( pretty dull attitude that was pretty sad for such an awesome show

Another great episode and Vinny's new setup is looking great. That new camera really does make a difference. Looking forward to the Drew stream on Sunday.

I'm definitely a Vinny when it comes to talking to yourself out loud. It doesn't help that I'm also an east coast Italian American. I definitely make fun of myself when I screw something up working around the house or having to clean up gross stuff.

I had no idea there were abuse allegations against Merritt! this was disturbing, I’ve been listening to fanbyte all year and they’ve never addressed it. much more concerned with their lack of accountability in this case than GB having her as a guest, very disappointed in those folks.

Sending love your way Alex!

About Bakalar's Stanley Cup prediction, I'm surprised how little credit people are giving Dallas. As a Blackhawks fan, I probably pay a little more attention to Dallas than a lot of people out east do, but the Stars are very, very good. After taking care of Vegas in 5 games, I'd actually give them the edge in the finals. And game 7 is scheduled for September 30th, so we'll have a champion by the end of September.

Dear Abby, I've been a user since day zero of Arrow Pointing Down (pre-GB) then I was away for a few years for school. I missed most of the Dan saga unfortunately, but I got a nice sniffing of his outings. The Abby saga is great, and I am enjoying the crap out of it. You're hilarious, and fit so well with the vibe. It's that spicy smoked paprika that makes the chowder of GB that much tastier. As to who the meat is, I'm afraid to wonder.

Also, I'm very sorry Alex about your kitty.

@thisismrle: I’d say an explicit ’I’m sorry’ isn’t needed, but I did find the response to it to be quite dismissive and hollow. It came across like ‘I didn’t know guys, can’t do much about it now’. A disappointing response to a situation that has clearly had a strong effect on a lot of people.

I have no problem with the ‘mistake’ made by having her on the podcast, can’t expect GB to be perfect, however the response was lacking.

I love that we are in this age of apology for other people’s bullshit. I think we all know none of the cast actually want those kind of people on their show/site and then just getting on Abby for not begging forgiveness is really stupid. She addressed it so good on her. I also don’t use Twitter so idk who this chick is at all and it took a few searches to find who I think this is.

@splodge: seriously. I also think it would just be a big fuck you to the other gals to take it down. Anything with Mary on it is gold. There are some comments that border on bullying to remove the video which is no better than whatever this chick did.