MovieBob leaving The Escapist

[RJ 17]

Though what I do find funny is people getting mad at him putting his politics or whatever into movie reviews. I mean this is mostly a gaming site and clearly people aren't aware that movie critique evolved into something beyond "is it good or bad?" way before Bob started doing it. Gaming still hasn't gotten there yet unfortunately and several people appear to not want it to get there but him trashing on Amazing Spider-man or Man of Steel again and again to make a point or bring up troubling metaphors is something other movie critics have been doing for years. He will be missed. Hopefully if he could only maintain one show I'd like it to be The Big Picture. That way I can at least get my trivial nerd knowledge that won't benefit me in any way shape or form in the real world.

While I do agree that it's absolutely silly to get upset about what Bob said on The Big Picture because it was indeed his Soapbox Show, I think that wanting to bicker with him about allowing his political beliefs to filter into his movie reviews is fair enough. There will, of course, always be bias in things such as reviews, is it so wrong to want to poke at someone's obvious political bias if they do absolutely nothing to cover it up? Indeed, Bob is just expressing his opinion and he's completely free to do that, even if it's in movie reviews...and other people are just as free to argue those points since he's putting them out there. It is, as with most everything on the internet, a clash of opinions. If you put your opinion out there, you shouldn't be at all surprised if countless random jackasses attack you for that opinion.

That's why I rarely ever post in the Religion and Politics forum...I don't like my in-box being filled with 40 people going to great lengths to rant about just how wrong my opinions and beliefs are.

Personally, I don't like political bias in my movie or game reviews. Why? Because you're essentially saying "I don't like this game/movie because it promotes ideas/opinions/beliefs I disagree with because of my own personal political ideas/opinions/beliefs." While that's certainly a fair-enough factor to have as PART of the reason you enjoy or dislike a game/movie, it shouldn't be the primary factor in your opinion. I want to know WHY the game/movie is bad in as close to an objective break-down as possible. For example:

I thought his review of American Sniper was the best/most unbiased review he's done in a long time. Why? Because he actually broke down why it fails as a movie based on lack of metaphor, over-all plot, purpose, destination, message, etc. That's a review I can appreciate because it looks at the major critiquing categories and says "This is why this movie fails based on this, this, and this." It's not just saying "This movie fails because it promotes the American War Machine and is designed to placate to the flag-waving middle-America crowd."

Counter this with his review of White House Down: "I love this movie because it has nifty action sequences and paints those with political beliefs opposing my own as a bunch of racist nazi terrorists."

 

[byte4554_v1legacy]

He will not be missed. By me anyway. Between actively insulting gamers, pretentious posts, and some...less then relevant/wanted videos, I'm happy to see the end of him.
Now then. I didn't always hate him. In fact, I used to watch his movie reviews more than I watched extra credits, unforgotten realms, and Zero Punctuation combined. They were the highlight of my week. But as time went on, he slowly became more and more obnoxious, pretentious, and rude to the point where I just couldn't stand him anymore. And then, recently, I saw his twitter feed. Holy shit, wow.

So, yeah. See ya.

 

[thehorror2]

For me to leave the escapist, they'd have to become a worse games-news site than Gamespot, IGN, etc. Which they have not, so far, done. It's a bit upsetting how they seem to be kicking their best content-producers to the curb. Not even making it hostile to them so they leave, just firing them outright.

 

[WarpedMind]

As a content consumer I am slightly sad to see him go, I did enjoy his film reviews and columns, or at least I used to.

But as a person, this couldn't come soon enough. Bob really is one of the most despicable people I know of who still manage to maintain a job as a online "personality".

You have to look long and hard for moral demagogues as smug and insufferable as Bob, men who believe in their own surpassing righteousness so much that literally anything is justified as long as it is done against people they considered "The Enemy".

I hope he lands on his feet, but I'd rather if it's in a McDonalds than anywhere that I have to look at him.

 

[Elader]

Looks like I will actually be renewing my Subcription to this site when it comes up. I could not believe how unprofessional that guy was. My work is very, very lenient to what we say/do on social media sites, but wow, I would have been let go in a heartbeat with half the stuff the dude said. My enjoyment of the site went up quite a bit when I stopped reading/watching the stuff he contributed towards the end. Hopefully they can get someone who contributes to the site as prolifically but in a more positive and enjoyable manner.

 

[Story]

Wow so much ire against Bob! I knew people didn't like him, but I didn't know it was this bad.

Reguardless, I'm personally sorry to see him go if only because he was one of the most active contributors to this site and seeing him fired means that The Escapist has become an even emptier place. I wish him the best going forward.

 

[Aurion]

Well. I'm sure that the Escapist will have to either deal with a reduction in overall content/eyes viewing or find replacements.

And yet, this doesn't really affect my viewing of the site any. So my reaction is a shrug.

I figured out pretty quickly that Moviebob wasn't up my alley, if only because movies are something I indulge in occasionally- most recent two I've watched are Selma and Big Hero 6. And that's pretty much it for like the past year.

The sharp increase in shrill ranting over the past year or so made him a lot tougher to just ignore, unfortunately. I think I said in another thread about him that if I wanted loony rants from a self-appointed guardian who behaves like a five-year-old on a playground towards anyone who disagrees with him I'd go watch Fox or MSNBC, which pretty much still covers what I think of his politics. And that's despite agreeing with the overall thrust of his politics more often than not.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Just Yahtzee left, if he left there would be nothing on the site worth watching. Its going to be difficult to find some one to fill both Jim and Bobs place.

 

[Westaway]

This is still a smaller loss than those guys who did Apocalypse Lane and Doraleous.

 

[markljlewis]

So much for it being amicable of a leaving. He also retweeted a bunch of "Fuck the escapist!" tweets, too.

You seem to have conveniently missed three tweets previous to that one: https://twitter.com/the_moviebob/status/566598584116576256

"Just wanna be clear about something: I do NOT "want" any fans/followers of mine to stop reading/visiting The Escapist.....obviously, I'm unhappy with how A LOT of things worked out there, for me and in general, but I can tell you with 100% sincerity that....good people work there, whose livelihoods depend on your traffic. And I don't endorse "punishing" THEM because you're upset about me.!

 

[The Bucket]

I dunno, for me, it wasn't so much that what he said offended me (it didn't, especially since it very clearly wasn't meant for me -even if had been, one guy on Twitter is not going to cause me to lose any sleep), it's that what he did was incredibly unprofessional. This is the kind of thing you expect from teenagers on 4chan. If I went on a raving Twitter rampage like he did, I'd absolutely lose my job. If this did in fact cause him to lose his job, I honestly think justice was served. He was poorly representing his field of journalism which is exactly what they didn't need at that time. It made me respect him less and as a result, really turned me off of his work.
As for his political stuff encroaching on his reviews... eh. It annoyed me (even though I share most of his political views), but it certainly didn't stop me from watching his stuff.

I should end this by saying that I don't think he's a bad guy. I just think he made a mistake. If that mistake is in fact at least part of why he's now job hunting, I hope he learns from it. I wish him good luck in his future endeavors.

The Critical Miss guys have done a lot of the same as well honestly.

Grey is pretty outspoken, and I disagree with a fair amount of what he says, but i'd never characterize any of his tweets as bile or particularly hateful.

 

[Objectable]

Something interesting that hea has said.
Just wanna be clear about something: I do NOT "want" any fans/followers of mine to stop reading/visiting The Escapist...

? Bob Chipman (@the_moviebob) February 14, 2015 [https://twitter.com/the_moviebob/status/566598584116576256]

...obviously, I'm unhappy with how A LOT of things worked out there, for me and in general, but I can tell you with 100% sincerity that...

? Bob Chipman (@the_moviebob) February 14, 2015 [https://twitter.com/the_moviebob/status/566598844910034944]

...good people work there, whose livelihoods depend on your traffic. And I don't endorse "punishing" THEM because you're upset about me.

? Bob Chipman (@the_moviebob) February 14, 2015 [https://twitter.com/the_moviebob/status/566599178604662784]

 

[J Tyran]

Having opinions is fine but he could be really nasty about his. A lot of the things he said could have been stated without being as inflammatory.

If I went on Twitter called "JtyranFromDFDS" (not my real name obviously) and kept ranting about how the companies customers were awful, subhuman fascists I would expect to get sacked. Probably after the first occurrence too, when you associate your employers into your social media entity in any way you have to maintain standards.

 

[grey_space]

My Views on Bob were always mixed. Sometimes he was a bit of an ass but overall I feel it's a shame he's gone.

I'd be interested to read the Escapist's official stance on the subject.

With everything else that happened recently content seems pretty thin on the ground at the moment.

They'd want to be bringing new talent to site sooner rather than later.

 

[chiggerwood]

snip.

I wouldn't be so certain, I called him a noxious bastard and got a warning, so you may still need to edit your post.

 

[chiggerwood]

I've lost 13 pounds, got some fine cigars for my birthday, and Moviebob's leaving the Escapist. Damn this has been a good month! Shit, all that has to happen now is Brutal Doom V20 come out and it'll be perfect. Now on a more serious note, I really do hope we get some more good content in here, there are good and entertaining people out there, I just think that the Escapist needs to hold a talent drive or something like that, just throw a bunch of different stuff at the wall and see what sticks

 

[MiskWisk]

Well, on one hand, I am sad to see someone leave the Escapist both for the damage this does to content production and because a man is no longer getting income from what has been a steady paying job. While I expect him to land on his feet, it is always a bad time for people to be between jobs.

On the other hand, I cannot conjure up much sympathy at all for Bob as a person. His recent actions have been appalling and I found myself enjoying his content less and less. I stopped paying attention to his stuff a couple of months before the whole GG rant/meltdown which really just turned me from "apathetic" to "disliking" him. I can't even say this is undeserved (if he was actually fired) considering he was warned to stop posting stupid stuff on twitter and he ignored the warning.

 

[TKretts3]

-SnipSnap-

I understand that, but I'm not just going to keep coming to this site every day just to click around and view ads. I come here for the content, and losing so much content means losing a large reason why I still visit the site. Granted, there are still other things that I come here for (Critical Miss, ZP), but I'll certainly visit the site less with Bob gone. Not because I want to punish The Escapist, but because there's just less reason for me to visit anymore.

 

[Signa]

If this happened a year ago, I think I would have been disappointed. Now, after so many forceful opinions and antagonistic comments, I'm just shocked it didn't happen sooner. I'm glad now. We don't need someone making this place darker than it already is, especially someone who is in a position of influence.

 

[fix-the-spade]

I'll wait for an official announcement and see where that goes. Gotta stay positive!

Based on previous interactions between creators and Defy Media, they either didn't pay Bob, decided not to pay Bob anymore or offered Bob a massive pay cut.

It's not like they haven't got form for this, ah well, add this to Gametrailers for sites I read less and less.