Spend all of five seconds looking at Portnow in person and it’s obvious he’s a total narcissist. Cult of personality and all that jazz around it. So they paid some firm to give them the answer they wanted to hear? Big surprise. Just overly elaborate gaslighting.
He’s not JUST a youtuber anymore, but he and his company are still super active there, so I’ll call it close enough for the thread: Chris Hardwick from The Nerdist turns out to be an abusive shitheap.
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I just finished reading the same post by Chloe Dykstra. Jeez, this is harrowing. Fuck Hardwick. Not sure what to make if her not naming him in the piece.
Unsure. I could speculate a number of reasons, ranging from wanting to avoid Nerdist/hardwick fans from going on the attack before the word got out, not wanting to tip him off too quickly, giving him plausible deniability to give him room to privately apologize, wanting to focus on the acts rather than the big name involved, I don’t know.
I wavered on actually explicitly naming him, but frankly, people figured out it was him literally instantly(she gives more than enough detail in the post, ranging from the age difference, to describing him as being someone who went from podcast to ceo of a media empire - only a 20 year age difference when she was in her 20s, she’s sure as fuck not talking about Leo Laporte), and every other discussion about it has already named him, so I figured that there was nothing to be gained by obfuscating what’s already widely known and trivial to figure out.
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For some reason I am simultaneously seeing a lot of discussion about the corporate changes at Tabletop/Geek & Sundry, Nerdist, etc. Something about the original famous talent selling or being bought out, and then leaving to start again under new brands because they fought with the new bosses.
I’d never heard of hardwick before reading that and this but I’d heard of another guy who had a youtube channel called The Nerdest, who does a long series of fallout 4 (previously new vegas) challenge runs of varying levels of absurdity. The ones that stand out in my head are the no, pip boy and the pacifist run, both in fallout 4. I was thinking it was him and sorta disappointed as, while they’re far too long to watch, I appreciate that they exist.
Then I looked it up, yeah his channel’s name is The Weirdist
Well I guess I’ve just never heard of this hardwick guy again.
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I knew about it because back in the day it was the big podcast in the nerd space that had all the credentials and notoriety due to nerd celebrities. I remember at its peak we were just walking around an early NYCC, but they had their own booth and were interviewing all kinds of peeps.
I think the story is that the dude was Wheaton’s roommate, and that’s how he had connections and such.
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With Hardwick, it’s much simpler. Legendary pictures bought out his brand in 2012, and he decided not to renew his contract again when it ran out in February this year. He moved his own podcast off the network, but he’s currently still CEO of Nerdist until Legendary finds and onboards someone to replace him. Apparently, no real fights, he just wanted to move on to a new venture, ID10T, which is focused on merchandising and Live events rather than broadcast/online media.
Basically, a stand-up comedian and actor who started a podcast, used his Stand-up connections and his connection to Wil Wheton(his ex-roommate in college) to make more links with famous people, and built a brand around interviewing famous nerdy and nerd-adjacent people on the show, along with trying to encourage them into stand up comedy, etc. As the podcast got big(because he’s interviewing a bunch of people of direct interest to basically the largest broad podcast demographic) it turned into a deal with Legendary Pictures, who then poured money into the brand as he turned it into a broadcast empire, did a bunch of deals with various TV networks to host (or have people under his brand host) aftershows for TV shows popular with geeks(ie, Talking Dead, After Discovery, Dr Who companion etc).
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Also, as a continuation from the story about Extra Credits above - Will Overgard, former live production lead of Extra Credits, has come out with his story of his firing, and confirms Soraya’s story.
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I’m only familiar with Hardwick from his image as I’ve sometimes seen briefly seen commercials for his Nerdist show on BBC America while fast-forwarding through commercials while watching Doctor Who (never bothered getting his name). Something about him always struck me as some sort of sleazy bastard. I guess my initial impressions were not far from the truth.
I think I sort-of mentioned being annoyed with it on the old forum, but what tipped me off that something was off about the guy was how he’d always tell stories of being an overweight alcoholic, or more accurately, how he’d tell those stories. It was always the same stories, with the same “vulnerable yet honest” emotional tone, in the same way, consistent as a metronome. People don’t work like that, the story changes every time you tell it, depending on the situation, the people, the conversation that led into it, you focus on different details. Even telling the same story five minutes apart, you tell it differently. It stopped feeling like he was telling a story, and more like he was doing a bit, and then more like acting. I got real skeeved out by that after a while, just as a gut feeling, and stopped listening.
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Hardwick has responded. Basically exactly what I figured - he pulled the “Vulnerable yet honest” schtick he’s so fond of, basically denied everything other than being a garden variety shitty boyfriend(But in a way that avoids actually taking responsibility for that), repeated his claims about Chloe allegedly cheating on him(which she already mentioned in her post, and specifically pointed out was untrue), and tried to make himself the victim. It’s the classic, textbook abuser response - Downplay their actions, deflect with accusations, deny wrongdoing.
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So it turns out that MatPat isn’t the only bad apple of the Game Theorists. His collaborator Ronnie Edwards (creator of Digressing & Sidequesting, which he rarely updates) has been harassing multiple developers at E3.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHIBbjUeE0Q
I’m so glad that Gaijin Goombah posted his final video at that channel recently. Now that the last good show has left GT, I don’t have to keep checking into that hot mess.
I guess this goes here:
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ArenaNet is a game company, not a YouTuber.
“MMO writing is hard because so many variables.”
“Nuh-uh, it’s hard cause there’s too many branching options.”
ArenaNet is a game company, not a YouTuber.
The firing was a result of an argument with a youtuber. The thread also talks extensively about how the YouTuber in question manipulated the argument by playing to the crowd and coated his unwarranted criticism and pretense of knowing better in nicety. The thread also talks about how society as a whole accepts aggression and barging in with half-baked ideas born from presumption from males, directly talking to the underlying reason why shitty YouTubers are popular.
Of course, what is more is how a mob formed around a shitty YouTuber and a company let itself be bullied by that mob into firing people.
Anyone who isn’t malicious or dangerously ignorant could see through that “youtuber’s” “argument.” Just as with gomergate before, I have zero sympathy for people who were “tricked.” These things are obvious from even a casual glance unless one is willfully ignorant.
Arenanet wasn’t bullied by the mob. Arenanet is (for whatever reason: I don’t care why) part of that mob.
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Reading further, the mob seems like they’re mostly upset at the issue that started the first tweet “thread”. I’ve never played Guild Wars 2. But then dragging in arguments from authority and mansplaining into things is guaranteed to increase the drama overload.