Roosterteeh under fire after an ex-employee exposes everything wrong with the company

[FakeSympathy]

TL;DR (In her own words)

• Feb 2013 - Nov 2013. Unpaid Contract Work
• Fugz = F*gg*t, reported to HR nothing was done
• 2013 Christmas "Bonus" $100. Long time members disapproved of said bonus
• 14hr work days, rush orders for same or next day videos
• "Any time I brought up mistreatment or that “making fun of people in content only encourages the community to hate us” - I was waved away saying “IT’S JUST A JOKE! Ignore the comments!”"
• RT crunch caused pneumonia, no recovery period on return
• Crunched harder, physically isolated "people even IN the company forgot I worked"
• RT never fulfilled their deals promotion deals
• 15 hr work days
• 2016 came out as Trans, Transphobia harassment started
• Acting Manager lied to the community and harassed me, HR did nothing and enabled harassment
• Founding Fathers knew and did nothing. Said “too nice to work at Rooster Teeth” and "just quit and find somewhere else to work"
• RT did not properly support medical insurance coverage
• End 2020 Position Producer/Director, paid $40k. Next lowest paid person was $70k.
• 2019, forced to move to LA or get laid off. RT never paid moving costs. COVID forced remote jobs thus SAVING my job
• RT INCREASES crunch during COVID
• 2021 Anniversary Stream Event. Had LIFE SAVING surgery, majority work stolen by coworker and blamed production failures on me during MEDICAL LEAVE.
• BRG created to help with representation issues, mid 2021 RT said "we've done enough for the queer community" PRIDE stream events still mostly Cis/Het talents
• Mistreatment of minorities in RT ignored "“the company is going through a lot right now just leave it alone"
• Unpaid for VO work during tenure at RT, May Marigold and RWBY Fairy Tales included.

She received wave after wave of support from other former staffs, as well as apologies from current staff has well. She accepted some of those apologies, because some of them already knew about the whole thing but only apologized now.
Handful of good people. Bad Company.

 

[thebobmaster]

Here's one of the apologies from a current staff member, Gavin Free.

 

[BrawlMan]

There were always suspicions of shady activity at RT since 2015. This only further proves the point. Sue their asses.

 

[Casual Shinji]

At this point I'm more familiar with RT's bad reputation than with anything good they actually made. But then I was never really that familiar with Rooster Teeth at all.

I'd joke that those edgey, shock chickens are coming home to roost for a lot of these types of channels, but I'm sure there'll be zero consequences.

 

[meiam]

Wait, she kept working there, for close to a decade, even after not getting paid for almost a full year? If all of that is true then its inexcusable from RT, but why keep working there?

 

[thebobmaster]

Wait, she kept working there, for close to a decade, even after not getting paid for almost a full year? If all of that is true then its inexcusable from RT, but why keep working there?

She was probably paid for her work with Achievement Hunter, which was her main gig at RT. Not defending this at all, because doing any work and not getting paid for it is inexcusable, just explaining why she stayed there.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Wait, she kept working there, for close to a decade, even after not getting paid for almost a full year? If all of that is true then its inexcusable from RT, but why keep working there?

Sometimes in abusive relationships people stick around for reasons.

 

[thebobmaster]

A couple more people at RT have chimed in. Keep in mind, both Samantha Ireland and Arryn Zech voice main characters in RWBY, so the recasting threat is especially WTF.

 

[Fieldy409]

Alannah Pierce from Funhaus talks about Kdin and also talks about how stressful working for Roosterteeth was for her.

 

[laggyteabag]

Its not really surprising that Rooster Teeth is stuck in another controversy at the moment. They seem to jump from one controversy to another, without ever making any headlines for anything good.

RT can no longer claim to be the scrappy underdog making silly Halo machinima anymore. They transformed into a full-on production company over a decade ago, and as companies get larger, the corporate bullshit creeps in too. Now it is just content, and bullshit.

 

[Fieldy409]

Its not really surprising that Rooster Teeth is stuck in another controversy at the moment. They seem to jump from one controversy to another, without ever making any headlines for anything good.

RT can no longer claim to be the scrappy underdog making silly Halo machinima anymore. They transformed into a full-on production company over a decade ago, and as companies get larger, the corporate bullshit creeps in too. Now it is just content, and bullshit.

yeah but look at the views on Rooster Teeth videos these days. They're so low now. I don't think the company is going to last.

 

[BrawlMan]

yeah but look at the views on Rooster Teeth videos these days. They're so low now. I don't think the company is going to last.

Not to distract from the subject, but how have you been Fieldy? I think the last time I saw a post from you was in 2020(?).

 

[Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)]

Internet-based tech companies just have toxic work environments from what I heard. A bunch of people who were just nobody's who let fame and power make them assholes.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Here's one of the apologies from a current staff member, Gavin Free.

That's not an apology. That's Gavin saying "please don't be mad at me I don't do that anymore."
I don't see the words "I'm sorry" anywhere in there.

Seriously though, the worst part about all of this is how Rooster Teeth always presented themselves as a very liberal company. They always tried to show themselves as a fun place to work that really cared about their employees, but just like every other company it seems like the only employees they cared about were the ones at the top.

Burnie loved to talk about the new toys he was buying, the trips he was taking, and it turns out that all of that was affordable to him just because he was horrendously underpaying his employees, which he could do because there was always a line of people who wanted to work at Rooster Teeth just based on their reputation.

Honestly, I outgrew Rooster Teeth's content over a decade ago and haven't really watched anything they've produced recently, but I had fond memories of watching Red vs Blue with friends in high school and now my fondness for that is gone, and that makes me sad. I truly do believe that they used to be fun good people when they were a small company of friends working together, but it seems we can't have anything nice when success and money are involved.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

yeah but look at the views on Rooster Teeth videos these days. They're so low now. I don't think the company is going to last.

When they're pumping out 20 videos of garbage a day on each separate channel that they own I'm not shocked that the videos per video are low. It seems like they're trying really hard to replace quality with quantity for the sake of the algorithm.

 

[Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)]

yeah but look at the views on Rooster Teeth videos these days. They're so low now. I don't think the company is going to last.

Honestly Death Battle was probably the only thing still worth watching from the company. they been doing some good stuff recently.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Internet-based tech companies just have toxic work environments from what I heard. A bunch of people who were just nobody's who let fame and power make them assholes.

Doesn't help if they go from a bunch of mates mucking around with videos to a real business without noticing or being aware of the difference.

Looking a bit Nostalgia Critic here.

 

[Fieldy409]

Not to distract from the subject, but how have you been Fieldy? I think the last time I saw a post from you was in 2020(?).

Haha it might have been. I remember wading into the covid arguments here. I drift away then remember this place and come back. It's a nice feeling that someone missed me haha.


Yeah I'm not bad. Got a forklift licence, started working as a picker in a warehouse and I'm dating a cute Korean woman. So the last two years have been good.

 

[Fieldy409]

Honestly Death Battle was probably the only thing still worth watching from the company. they been doing some good stuff recently.

I didn't know death battle was Roosterteeth.

I still love and laugh hard at Funhaus videos but I see their views are so low it worries me.

 

[BrawlMan]

Honestly Death Battle was probably the only thing still worth watching from the company. they been doing some good stuff recently.

I thought that was a Screw Attack thing. RT must have picked it up when Screw Attack shutdown. Death Battle I liked some of the time, but it got too repetitive. One Minute Melee I found way more interesting by comparison. Granted, I have not touched OMM in years and don't even know if that exists anymore.

Haha it might have been. I remember wading into the covid arguments here. I drift away then remember this place and come back. It's a nice feeling that someone missed me haha.


Yeah I'm not bad. Got a forklift license, started working as a picker in a warehouse and I'm dating a cute Korean woman. So the last two years have been good.

Glad you are doing good.