MovieBob leaving The Escapist

[bossfight1]

I honestly haven't seen any inflammatory tweets from Bob - anytime I can remember him insulting someone, it was in response to them being unpleasant to him or a colleague.
But then, I don't visit Twitter all that often, so I might have missed a few.

I've honestly enjoyed Bob's work on the Escapist, so this is... man. Best of luck to him. I hope he gets the same level of success Jim's been getting on his exodus to YouTube.

The Escapist is looking more and more like a sinking ship as people leave, isn't it? Really sad - been coming here for the past seven years, so it's hard to watch it losing its most prolific contributors like a sinking ship ditching cargo.

 

[Sleepy Sol]

Yes... I think, every time I hear about something bad going on, it's always twitter.

It kind of makes me reluctant to go near it. I never did understand the concept behind it in the first place...

The descriptions for many of my youtube videos mention 'getting a twitter' sooner or later...

But every time I think about it, I think, do I really want to be involved with this service that seems rife with either getting massive attention drawn to some stupid off-hand remark you make, or alternatively (and just as likely, especially for someone like me), getting bombarded with tons and tons of random abuse.

More so than any other part of the internet, twitter seems like the place where you have to be super-cautious about what you say, and have an incredibly thick skin to survive...

Ugh. Quite scary if I think about it too much...

I think part of the problem with Twitter is how easily labels can be applied to a person based on the nature of every tweet only being 140 characters long.

You don't exactly get to say anything that's really substantial in terms of content unless you just post an image link or something.

It can result in a great amount of misunderstandings just because it's really impossible to explain yourself without writing up a twitlonger or something (or taking to a much better medium of productive discussion like this forum). If you look at my Twitter activity on my profile, it seriously gives off a much different impression of who I might be or what I might think just from the people I decided to tweet at/retweet/whatever. And what I choose to vaguely support. There are no finer details, and no specifics.

From that, someone could label me and spit venom at me based on quick assumptions rather than an actual conversation with me. And it's just an inevitability because of the site's nature.

It has its uses, but I try to purely use it as a comedy machine. There's never going to be anything there that accomplishes much in most cases to me.

What's funny is that I very much view this as the place where you have to be cautious about what you say.

I get perhaps a little bit too loose with my snarky wordings on Twitter.

 

[Orange_Lazarus]

Well very recently he was going on about how great the recent SVU episode was for pooping on gamers. Which was honestly a little disturbing no matter which side of GG you're on.

 

[AuronFtw]

Time to rename "The Escapist" to "Zero Punctuation [font color=gray](and stuff)[/font]"!

This is a hilarious and accurate summary of the state of this site now.

OT: Wasn't a fan of moviebob. Being actually ignorant of the hatred and bile he spewed toward gamers, my dislike of him stemmed entirely from his hyper-SJW commentary on "movie reviews" that often had very little to do with the movies. Reading his twitter makes me sick, if I had known about this shit before I'd be one of the people filing complaints about him. That crosses the line from "unfunny boring content" to "douchebag that doesn't need to be employed on a gaming website." Good riddance.

 

[Basement Cat]

Well, I often disagreed with him--especially his tendency to wear tunnel visioned glasses when it came to politics--but with Bob leaving after Jim the only regular content left that I come here for is Yahtzee and Critical Miss.

And I haven't even watched ZQ this week. Dunno why.

Spoiler: If the Escapist doesn't start providing some content beyond this:

Then I don't see myself renewing my PubClub membership next November.

Where's the content to bring us here, Escapist? Where's the content?

 

[Jake Martinez]

Bob's Twitter rant yesterday was pretty awful. I'm certain that it probably broke the Escapist's communication and social media policy - if this is the reason why he got canned, then I'm somewhat surprised because man I didn't think they'd hold anyone to that. I mean, my work does, but if you go by how other people act on Twitter, it's unusual to say the least.

That being said, this is probably an overall good thing for the Escapist. They have a new EiC, they've cut back so they now have some funds to spend on acquiring new content and since things have accelerated recently from "print" websites to Youtube, this gives them the opportunity to go shopping for some new talent and explore maybe even having their own channel.

Frankly, I kind of feel that a lot of people who have left in the last couple of years are quickly becoming relics of the past. This media landscape changes really fast and the only reason why I think Yahtzee still has some life is because of how strict his format is. This is actually one of the reasons why I think TotalBiscuit is so popular as well - His WTF is...? videos follow a very specific format that people like and he doesn't really deviate from it except for little side stuff that never replaces the main content.

Anyway, I guess my point is that there are a lot of really good Youtube people out there right now that have their own set-up/studio and produce good content. It might make more sense for the Escapist to strike up deals with several of them to provide original content for the site instead of carrying the overhead of employing people full time to do this. It gives them the flexibility to try out new stuff until they get some hits.

I'm actually cautiously optimistic that this is the direction they are heading in.

 

[CrystalShadow]

At least there was one good thing recently... 8 bit philosophy shows some promise that there will be something...

I'll wait and see, I suppose. I've been disappointed for so long it barely even matters anymore...

8-Bit Philosophy is on Youtube. The episodes shown here are months old. Its the same situation as Game Theory - already established Youtube channel posting some of their older content here. Neither are original content.

I shouldn't be surprised, to be honest. That sounds about right for this place these days... >_>

I mean, what do I even watch here anymore? Game theory is something I only care about intermittently at best, and, you know. It's on youtube.

Feed dump is something I watch regularly, but... It's on youtube. AND it shows up in my feed more than a day before it shows up here...

What did I watch here anyway, after all my favourite things that originally interested me vanished (as I said, 2012 was a bad period)... Zero Punctuation. (still here) Anything LRR did (most of which is in other places, and always has been. The escapist only ever had a small fraction of exclusive content from them), Jimquisition, Moviebob...

That's about it for the content they've had in the last few years. The rest of it bored me too much to watch more than maybe once or twice a year.

LRR can be found elsewhere. Jim & Bob have left, So... Just Yahztee? Yeah, no. That's pretty sad. Especially given that once upon a time there were about 7 or 8 things worth watching on a regular basis that were exclusive to the escapist...
It's... Disappointing...

Spoiler: Stuff that was said

Yes... I think, every time I hear about something bad going on, it's always twitter.

It kind of makes me reluctant to go near it. I never did understand the concept behind it in the first place...

The descriptions for many of my youtube videos mention 'getting a twitter' sooner or later...

But every time I think about it, I think, do I really want to be involved with this service that seems rife with either getting massive attention drawn to some stupid off-hand remark you make, or alternatively (and just as likely, especially for someone like me), getting bombarded with tons and tons of random abuse.

More so than any other part of the internet, twitter seems like the place where you have to be super-cautious about what you say, and have an incredibly thick skin to survive...

Ugh. Quite scary if I think about it too much...

I think part of the problem with Twitter is how easily labels can be applied to a person based on the nature of every tweet only being 140 characters long.

You don't exactly get to say anything that's really substantial in terms of content unless you just post an image link or something.

It can result in a great amount of misunderstandings just because it's really impossible to explain yourself without writing up a twitlonger or something (or taking to a much better medium of productive discussion like this forum). If you look at my Twitter activity on my profile, it seriously gives off a much different impression of who I might be or what I might think just from the people I decided to tweet at/retweet/whatever. And what I choose to vaguely support. There are no finer details, and no specifics.

From that, someone could label me and spit venom at me based on quick assumptions rather than an actual conversation with me. And it's just an inevitability because of the site's nature.

It has its uses, but I try to purely use it as a comedy machine. There's never going to be anything there that accomplishes much in most cases to me.

What's funny is that I very much view this as the place where you have to be cautious about what you say.

I get perhaps a little bit too loose with my snarky wordings on Twitter.

Lol. I suppose in some ways you do have to be careful here too. Though in an entirely different way.

Thing is, stuff said here mostly just risks arguments or getting banned from the site itself.

Stuff said on twitter seems to have more extreme consequences for some reason. (witness the rumours that it's Bob's twitter feed that has resulted in him being fired, or any number of other stories spreading all over the internet that always seem to revolve around tweets that someone supposedly made...)

 

[Queen Michael]

Pity. I really like his stuff. I'll make sure to keep following him, though.

 

[IPunchWithMyFists]

Cool, with the departure of Jim Sterling and Moviebob, let's just get Yahtzee somewhere else and I never ever have to visit this God-forsaken site ever again.

 

[Silvanus]

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.

They could indeed, I agree. But a man has lost his job, and a few tweets rather pale into insignificance.

Its hard to show some empathy when he calls people like me Sub-human and a Rapist.

Then don't comment. It's not the time.

 

[Muspelheim]

Oh, dear. Oh, dear, oh dear, oh dear.

I just hope it's not connected to the Retarded Conflict of Babies; the Waste of Time & Effort(tm).

It's a bit of a shame. While uneven, at least his work had some interesting points now and then.

Time to rename "The Escapist" to "Zero Punctuation [font color=gray](and stuff)[/font]"!

Hey! No need to be so curmugeony about things! Turn that frown upside down, Mister! It's the positives that count!

 

[Orange_Lazarus]

The issue with Twitter is just that a lot of people use their real names (or whatever name they use to represent their employer) instead of using an anonymous handle. It's a bad idea unless it's required for your job or something. If it's the latter then it's probably a smart idea to behave professionally.

 

[Orange_Lazarus]

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.

They could indeed, I agree. But a man has lost his job, and a few tweets rather pale into insignificance.

If I owned a company and I found out one of my employees (using his real name) was saying my customers were a bunch of terrible people online I'd fire him in a heartbeat.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

Good. If only he would leave the internet.

The lesson, kids, is don't do Twitter. Ever.

Or, don't be an asshole on twitter.
This must be the fifth time I've seen someone try to defend his idiocy.

They could indeed, I agree. But a man has lost his job, and a few tweets rather pale into insignificance.

Yeah....if it were only "a few tweets"

Then don't comment. It's not the time.

The Escapist is not your hugbox.

 

[Pyrian]

Time to rename "The Escapist" to "Zero Punctuation [font color=gray](and stuff)[/font]"!

It's the positives that count!

Exactly! Highlight the positive! Otherwise we'd rename it "The Escaping"! Because that's what the content is doing... XD

 

[Ryan Hughes]

Well, yeah. I mean Movie Bob was one of the last things keeping me here on the Escapist. Sure, I actually disagreed with him quite a bit, but it is difficult to argue that he didn't have his reasons for believing what he did. I'd say I only agreed with him roughly 60% of the time, but even when I disagreed, his arguments were well thought-out and reasonably -if not always- intelligent. With the loss of Sterling, Yahtzee, Gavin and Seamus are the only reason to keep coming back here. Miracle of Sound is still rather irregular and can be seen on YouTube, and well, maybe I will just follow Yahtzee and Seamus on twitter.

It doesn't even seem as though he willingly left, but was pushed out by the management. . . This is simply baffling, as they should be attempting to retain all their profitable shows now that Jim has left. I cannot justify visiting on any regular basis for a podcast and some news that is often reported much later than on other sites. I certainly don't mean to be over-dramatic, but I do not think I am the only person who feels this way, either. I just cannot see what the management is thinking.

 

[Silvanus]

The Escapist is not your hugbox.

Nor is it a soapbox.

Or, at least, it gets bloody tiresome when threads are used as one, when the subject matter should otherwise be pretty sensitive.

EDIT: To avoid derailing the thread, I won't respond again. Otherwise I'll be doing (partially) what I was hoping to stop.

 

[hiei82]

So... Extra Credits, Jimquisition (didn't care for it myself but still objectively a big hit), LoadingReadyRun, The Big Picture, Escape to the Movies (Miracle of Sound having shifted to occasional updates for admittedly good reasons)... Yeah, that leaves what? CriticalMiss, FeedDump, and Zero Punctuation? I guess they added 8-Bit Philosophy and Game Theory but I already watched the former on YouTube and the later never.

Escapist... Is there something wrong? Do you need to talk to someone?

 

[Orange_Lazarus]

It doesn't even seem as though he willingly left, but was pushed out by the management. . . This is simply baffling, as they should be attempting to retain all their profitable shows now that Jim has left.

The thing I've learned about business is that not everything is about business. I saw a really great co-worker (who sold a lot more than me) fired for downloading porn at work. I mean, from a purely financial standpoint it was a bad idea but... the guy was downloading porn at work... He.. couldn't wait until he got home?

The other thing is that the owner of this business really doesn't care about money. She just enjoys being a employer, having a few employees and going to work. Nobody is getting rich but at the same time everyone is happy/stress free. I know that sounds really crazy but it's true. My point is that maybe profitability isn't everything to the people that run this place? Sometimes that can be a good thing.