Has MovieBob been fired from ScrewAttack?

crimson5pheonix

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Silvanus said:
crimson5pheonix said:
Well nobody here that I've seen have demonized an entire group of people, called them the scum of the Earth, and hope for their death based on what Bob's said, so I'd say there is a noticeable gulf between Bob and his critics.
Demonising groups of people is remarkably common, particularly down in R&P. That's kind of beside the point, though, which was how the conversation inevitably swings in that direction (and hard), regardless of the relevance to the topic.
Once again, I have not seen demonizing an entire group of people, calling them the scum of the Earth, and hoping for their death based on what Bob's said. Nobody here is as bad as Bob. You're not going to be able to equate people criticizing Bob to Bob himself. Until someone here says "All SJWs should be killed because they're all like Bob." By all means, rip into that guy.

crimson5pheonix said:
He really is just that bad and no amount of apologism is going to change that.
Once again: I am not apologising for him. I can offer two cents on the conduct of other forum-goers without being accused of supporting someone I've not said anything supportive of. Let's not start accusing eachother because we're not being loud enough in our condemnations.
You came into this thread saying it's hypocritical to criticize Bob by trying to draw parallels between them and Bob where any parallels are very weak. It's apologism. Even the people who would agree with him think he's a prick. He is noticeably worse than anybody here.
 

Roboshi

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Silvanus said:
There are different expectations, I suppose. I just would have expected that if people considered it such terrible behaviour, they wouldn't engage in it.
I think one problem there is that you're judging every individual in this forum by the actions of the very worst members. I've been reading this topic pretty closely and I haven't seen one instance of the sort of behaviour Bob has been guilty of. In fact I'd say the worst people have said about him was that his videos were not that good and if you can't critique a video on a forum that contains video content where can you do that?

We are judging one person because of that ONE persons actions but you are calling it hypocritical because we are sharing a forum with people who are just as bad, as though every member of this forum is keeping a tally of the actions of every other member. If you can find evidence of any one of us here doing the kind of shit Bob did then by all means call them out on it. But don't assume the entire forum acts as some sort of hive mind just because we happened to visit the same URL.
 

Strazdas

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Fappy said:
He can be somewhat insufferable sometimes, but I generally find him entertaining/informative. He's no RedLetterMedia in regards to movie review content, but he's still worth a watch imo.
i found him entertaining too when he wouldnt spend 90% of the review drooling over some hot actress, but in comparison, the GoodBadFlicks we got now are a thousand times more informative.
 

kitsunefather

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Silvanus said:
Well, it's a thread related to MovieBob, sure. But then, MovieBob's commentary usually has some connection with the topic at hand, too; it's just that people don't want him griping about personal dislikes.
For what it's worth, I had no problem with his personal gripes being part of his show. Often times, he would include it in an entertaining way, or I found personal amusement in guessing with friends when the complaint about Amazing Spider-Man or Transformers was going to happen.

I found a dislike for him with his "no bad tactics, only bad targets" thought process, and his conceit that everything boils down to a battle between good and evil, and if you "stand with evil" then you deserve whatever harm comes your way. I'm a "gray area" kind of person, and I find his willful refusal for discussion, coupled with his hate-filled and often ill-informed diatribes, to be reprehensible.

All that said, I do hope he finds some kind of peace and success in his ventures; I just hope it includes some humility and humanity.
 

spartandude

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Maybe they got sick of hearing him complain about The Amazing Spiderman non stop and wanted him to do something else.
 

MatParker116

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There under Rooster Teeth's control now and some of what Bob covers could lead to Gavin or Burnie deciding against renewing his deal.
 

Silence

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Smoketrail said:
the silence said:
Just proof that you reap what you sow.
So no bad tactics just bad targets then?
You know, exactly that is why I, personally, did not really attack MovieBob. He has problems, they don't go away by adding to them.
He pretty much is a bad target.

But common people don't realize that, and that is exactly why he gets so much hate, because he did spread so much.
 

FillerDmon

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Roboshi said:
I generally try to avoid MB myself, he got a cameo in an extra credits video and I just skipped it the moment he turned up.
While I can understand wanting to not hear politically charged views, I think you should go back and watch that Extra Credits. He doesn't actually speak in that episode; he just provided insight for the movie perspective, since Extra Credits mostly focuses on the gaming end of media. It's still Dan narrating, and it doesn't at all sound as if there's any creator bias in talking about it. It's a very solid episode.

That said, what's this about the Extra Credits folk attacking someone on Twitter? o_O
 

Silvanus

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crimson5pheonix said:
Once again, I have not seen demonizing an entire group of people, calling them the scum of the Earth, and hoping for their death based on what Bob's said. Nobody here is as bad as Bob. You're not going to be able to equate people criticizing Bob to Bob himself. Until someone here says "All SJWs should be killed because they're all like Bob." By all means, rip into that guy.

[...]

You came into this thread saying it's hypocritical to criticize Bob by trying to draw parallels between them and Bob where any parallels are very weak. It's apologism. Even the people who would agree with him think he's a prick. He is noticeably worse than anybody here.
This is misrepresentation. I have not said people here are engaging in the same kind of rhetoric; I've not said it's hypocritical to criticise him. Unless you're going to engage with what I actually wrote, we can end it here.

If criticising somebody's critics is automatically apologism for that somebody, that's frankly absurd.

Roboshi said:
I think one problem there is that you're judging every individual in this forum by the actions of the very worst members. I've been reading this topic pretty closely and I haven't seen one instance of the sort of behaviour Bob has been guilty of. In fact I'd say the worst people have said about him was that his videos were not that good and if you can't critique a video on a forum that contains video content where can you do that?

We are judging one person because of that ONE persons actions but you are calling it hypocritical because we are sharing a forum with people who are just as bad, as though every member of this forum is keeping a tally of the actions of every other member. If you can find evidence of any one of us here doing the kind of shit Bob did then by all means call them out on it. But don't assume the entire forum acts as some sort of hive mind just because we happened to visit the same URL.
No, I'm not judging people by what the worst are saying. Their behaviour reflects only on themselves. I'm not going to spend time justifying something I did not say.

What I criticised was the tendency for any thread that mentions him-- even if he hasn't done anything new, even if the topic is unrelated-- to feature a dozen people prefacing their comments with how much they hate him, how terrible he is, fuck him. He provokes reactions like Emmanuel Goldstein. It's just silly.

kitsunefather said:
For what it's worth, I had no problem with his personal gripes being part of his show. Often times, he would include it in an entertaining way, or I found personal amusement in guessing with friends when the complaint about Amazing Spider-Man or Transformers was going to happen.

I found a dislike for him with his "no bad tactics, only bad targets" thought process, and his conceit that everything boils down to a battle between good and evil, and if you "stand with evil" then you deserve whatever harm comes your way. I'm a "gray area" kind of person, and I find his willful refusal for discussion, coupled with his hate-filled and often ill-informed diatribes, to be reprehensible.

All that said, I do hope he finds some kind of peace and success in his ventures; I just hope it includes some humility and humanity.
Very fair. He alienated a great number of people, and it's not too hard to see how.
 

Trunkage

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AzrealMaximillion said:
Gizmo1990 said:
I knew Portnow did it as well but I seem to remember that Moviebob jumped on the opportunity as well. Guess I was misremembering. Side note, what the hell happened to Portnow? I have been liserning to old Co optional podcasts at work (do data entry and it is a great way to hold back the bordem) and the podcast where he was a guest they seemed to get along great. How do you go from that to attacking a guy while he is literly in the middle of a chemo session?
He took the Jason Schrier approach and through TB in the pro-GG camp for even saying GG had some good points. Even though TB remained neutral on the matter due to a personal friend of his getting legit harassed by a pro-GG prominent figure. It backfired because it was classless. It was well known that TB was going through chemo so James probably couldn't reach him privately to discuss the matter. He chose to do it publicly and fucked up because he was factually wrong.

He's still working on Extra Credits though they did lose a chunk of fans a while back when they made a video about what makes a game, "a game" and followed up with a video telling their audience they're wrong for disagreeing with them. The video came out when indie walking simulators with no fail states started winning GOTY awards, so it was basically in defense one genre of game.
The same Jason Shrier who was on the cooptional podcast Feb last year? like 6mths later after GG? I don't remember anything about them fighting. I guess Ill have to relisten
 

Tono Makt

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Slice said:
Is it weird that I have no idea who this person is? Youtube "celebrity" I assume?
Just shows you're really, really new to the Escapist - like having not been here until the last year.

Bob Chipman used to be 1/3 of the Big Three here at the Escapist - Yahtzee, MovieBob and Jim Sterling. You came on Monday for the Jimquisition with Jim, on Tuesday for the Big Picture with Bob, Wednesday for Zero Punctuation with Yahtzee and Friday for Escape to the Movies with Bob. From the start of GamerGate, Jim and Bob decided to let their personal politics interfere with their work and customer relations (up to and including Bob essentially doing his damndest to alienate a large portion of his audience whose views on things had not evolved like his had) and decisions were made that caused Bob and Jim to both leave the Escapist.

Suffice to say, most people on this site know exactly who you're talking about when you just say "Bob". Heck, if you just said "Bob" without offering more context, quite a few of us would immediately think you were talking about Bob Chipman.
 

LordLundar

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FillerDmon said:
That said, what's this about the Extra Credits folk attacking someone on Twitter? o_O
The short of it was Totalbiscuit was calling out game "news" sites like Polygon and Kotaku for not disclosing relationships between the writer and the subject, pointing out that FCC regulations require it for youtube personalities and it should be the same for the "news" sites. This occurred a few months after the non-disclosure scam that microsoft tried to pull with Machinima that TB was asked to participate in but refused because of that issue.

Well, at one point shortly after TB went in for chemo treatment (this was before his cancer meta-stated) and made an announcement that he would be off of Twitter for a while as a result. At this time there was a convention going on that James Portnow was a panel guest on and was asked about something relating to Gamergate. Portnow, as part of his answer proceeded to call TB a hypocrite saying he never disclosed that his Guns of Icarus video was sponsored. Portnow also put it out on his Twitter feed saying the same thing. Well, someone recorded Portnow's statement and both it and the Twitter posts got to TB causing him to call out Portnow saying that all his sponsored videos had proper disclosure (the one Portnow referred to TB did not say in the video that it was sponsored but he did say the dev was playing with him and had sponsored labels all over the video page). Portnow said he didn't expect TB to be back on so quick and deleted his tweets making the accusations but TB said the damage was done and Portnow was on TB's personal blacklist regarding any collaboration with him or any of the EC group who was backing Portnow's statements.
 

Silvanus

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Tono Makt said:
From the start of GamerGate, Jim and Bob decided to let their personal politics interfere with their work and customer relations [...]
What did Jim do wrong?

The show was always opinionated; it was kind of the basis of it. What edged it into becoming an interference with the work?
 

SolidState

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Silvanus said:
Tono Makt said:
From the start of GamerGate, Jim and Bob decided to let their personal politics interfere with their work and customer relations [...]
What did Jim do wrong?

The show was always opinionated; it was kind of the basis of it. What edged it into becoming an interference with the work?
When he decided his personal friendships were more important to him than calling out unethical behavior or sticking up for consumer rights.
 

Lupine

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Silvanus said:
the silence said:
Just proof that you reap what you sow.
More to the point, it's indicative that people are unable or unwilling to adopt the standards they hold others to.
Not to be that guy, but yep seems about right.
 

Tono Makt

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Silvanus said:
Tono Makt said:
From the start of GamerGate, Jim and Bob decided to let their personal politics interfere with their work and customer relations [...]
What did Jim do wrong?

The show was always opinionated; it was kind of the basis of it. What edged it into becoming an interference with the work?
It wasn't the show for either Bob or Jim - it was the reactions on Social Media and Twitter in particular. Bob was (and continues to be) outright horrid, but Jim was handcuffed by the reputation he had spent years cultivating as a firebrand Consumer Advocate and his growing evolution into the SJW movement. GamerGate put those at odds, and Jim was unable to navigate those murky waters - he w/couldn't take on the Media, he w/couldn't take on the Pundits, and he was tepidly against the consumers in ways that seemed like he was doing the least he could do to appease his new allies/friends while not completely alienating his own viewership. That may seem like the best course of action, but this was at the height of the GamerGate conflict and neither side was willing to give Neutrals much of a chance. You were either Pro or Anti, with nothing in between.

Given the direction the Escapist moved during that time, Jim would have been gone anyway - the Escapist moved into a more neutral camp, removing people who were strongly Anti-GG and hired more neutral people in their place. And Jim had made it clear where he wanted to stand. Now that he's essentially independent, he's free to stand where he wants.
 
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There's also the fact that while he DOES know his movies (I listened to the extra credits episode he helped co-write and it was pretty good actually), he's not so good on games.

I stopped taking the Overthinker (Which I used to really like) seriously at all after he defended Other M and then doubled down on it. I mean, GOD, how does someone miss the broadside of the barn that badly?

If anyone wants to complain about bad female representation in games, it should START with how Samus went from a strong, thoughful/introspective independent bounty hunter able to confront her fears (and with a rare soft side) into -> An overly emotional wuss who somehow suddenly loved taking orders and being under Adam's thumb the whole time, who was too unable to function on her own that she never thought to go "Oy, Adam, I'm in a volcano area, mind if I turn on the Varia suit? I mean, it's heat protection not a weapon that threatens the stability of the station, right" and who on confronting her arch nemesis (Who she has killed between 2-5 times by this point) instead of arming up to fight (or even snapping into a berserk "How many times do I have to kill you?!" rage), she breaks down like a child. -_-

I mean, that's a textbook case of ruining one of the first and best female heroes in games, and the only way he could have missed the point harder is if he'd deliberately aimed in the wrong direction and the point was in another country altogether. I'm still flummoxed by the whole thing.
 

Something Amyss

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Tono Makt said:
Given the direction the Escapist moved during that time, Jim would have been gone anyway - the Escapist moved into a more neutral camp, removing people who were strongly Anti-GG and hired more neutral people in their place.
Well, as long as you consider people who now take shots at "SJWs" and liberals and progressives and so-called "cultural marxists" neutral. That sounds more like "they fired the people I disagree with and hired people who agree with me." Which is basically what happened. And that's fine, it's not my site. The only downside is the hit the community took from it as people were either harassed away or just got sick of it. But this whole "neutral/apolitical" thing isn't even remotely true.
 

crimson5pheonix

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Silvanus said:
crimson5pheonix said:
Once again, I have not seen demonizing an entire group of people, calling them the scum of the Earth, and hoping for their death based on what Bob's said. Nobody here is as bad as Bob. You're not going to be able to equate people criticizing Bob to Bob himself. Until someone here says "All SJWs should be killed because they're all like Bob." By all means, rip into that guy.

[...]

You came into this thread saying it's hypocritical to criticize Bob by trying to draw parallels between them and Bob where any parallels are very weak. It's apologism. Even the people who would agree with him think he's a prick. He is noticeably worse than anybody here.
This is misrepresentation. I have not said people here are engaging in the same kind of rhetoric; I've not said it's hypocritical to criticise him. Unless you're going to engage with what I actually wrote, we can end it here.

If criticising somebody's critics is automatically apologism for that somebody, that's frankly absurd.
Then what was the purpose of this:

Silvanus said:
MovieBob cannot be mentioned, it seems, without the thread spiralling into a hate session.

A little ironic, given that the most commonly recurring complaint about the guy is that he couldn't keep his distaste for people out of unrelated topics.
or this:

Silvanus said:
the silence said:
Just proof that you reap what you sow.
More to the point, it's indicative that people are unable or unwilling to adopt the standards they hold others to.
or this:

Silvanus said:
Roboshi said:
The main difference there is, Bob is supposed to be a guy who wants to make his business making content on the internet. You act like an insufferable ass on a forum you get a block or a ban or something, but you try doing it at your job.

It's about being a professional and conducting yourself in a professional manner versus just being someone making dickish comments on the internet.
There are different expectations, I suppose. I just would have expected that if people considered it such terrible behaviour, they wouldn't engage in it.
You don't want people here expressing their distaste of Bob and you're trying to get people to stop by trying to draw parallels between them and Bob. This is downplaying Bob's behavior, there is no parallel between saying "Bob has issues" and "anybody who likes Bob deserves to be harassed".