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  • It is good they are taking public steps to change their corporate culture, but it is clear they had a top down culture of not taking harassment seriously. Hate to share a reddit link, but this video: https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/15t1mzn/mandatory_meeting_the_after_madisons_departure/ purports to be from when Madison left. The language here is not the language of a corporate culture that takes harassment seriously. Especially since James didn't get immediately corrected.

    If they want to win back the viewers (and likely sponsors) they are losing or have lost because of all of this toxicity, they are going to have to continue to publicly show they are committed to improving not only their culture to move away from a harassment friendly, grindset focused content farm, to one worth our time (and sponsor dollars).

    • I guess I’m kinda naive. “You gonna dance on that table, or just stand on it?” doesn’t sound like a sex joke to me, but that’s what people are calling it.

      • Maybe it's being in corporate america for a while, but holy shit that made my head literally swivel back to the video after kinda paying attention. That is definitely not something you say in corporate america, let alone literally listening to a speech about harassment.

        You never even get close to anything sexual in corporate america. Just steer clear. I don't care if it's funny, or you think it's funny, or if you think everyone else will think it's funny, you don't. You avoid the topic completely. Make the joke later at home or with your friends but not in the workplace.

        Even if the joke is only partially offensive, it's offensive. (If you aren't sure if it is or not - you don't make the joke. You're instincts are trying to tell you it's not the right place) You don't do that in the office, and to do that seconds after the meeting it shows how fucking terrible it is there. I'll be honest, I was taking Madison's allegations with a grain of salt, but that just solidified to me what the culture is like. If they don't have HR nipping that shit in the bud, what else are they letting fly

        • I agree. I was caught off guard because it didn’t show up on my radar at all. It’s not like I thought “eh, it’s only a little bit racy”. I just missed the sex implications completely.

          • for sure, and yeah you probably wouldn't make that joke then, but the person who did clearly knew what they were saying and still decided to. Freaking read the room man. (them, not you)

            • I just can't help but think that if I had made that sort of comment in that sort of meeting, every boss or office I've worked for would have immediately taken corrective action, either publicly calling me into a separate meeting or by advising how such comments aren't acceptable and noting how it violates policy.

              The fact that it was just ignored is so much more indicative of the culture than I think just about anything else in the video.

              • Exactly, he should have called it out, right there. Yeah embarrassing for the person, but they should be embarrassed.

                That, right there actually is what we're stopping. That sort of joke was okay in the past, even up to this meeting, but no longer going forward. That's the last one, and this is this entire group's one and only warning

          • Yeah, I think the connection between being on a raised platform and dancing is stripping. Making this a horribly tone deaf, if not intentionally undermining, joke.

            … I took a second to consult ChatGPT…

            Other connections seem to be all related to a performance of some type. I very much doubt this joke was not about stripping.

            That’s actually kind of fucking disgusting behavior. Like I’ve said elsewhere, they make stupid throwaway sexual jokes in so many videos, it’s easy to imagine it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

      • If I Google "table dancing" (in a fresh new browser I just installed on incognito mode with a VPN and everything + I never watch porn or search this stuff or anything, so it's not just customizing it to be sexual for me - I encourage you to try this yourself) the first result in the Wikipedia article about it, which reads:

        A table dance, or bartop dance, is a dance performed at (or on) a table or bar, as opposed to on a stage. It may be an erotic dance performed by a sex worker or it may be done as a leisure activity.

        As you keep scrolling down, the next thing it shows is images of erotic dancers table dancing, the next thing is a list of nearby strip clubs, the next result is the dictionary.com entry for table dancing which reads:

        a form of entertainment in which naked or scantily dressed women dance erotically at the tables of individual members of the audience, who must remain seated

        The next result is videos of erotic dancers table dancing. And so on, and so on.

        So, yeah, there's definitely, without a doubt, a strong sexual/erotic connotation/connection to the term and the joke they made.

      • I think its more the implication that Linus looked like stripper on the table. But I appreciate that could be a stretch. I'm more concerned by a) instructing people to go directly to the person harassing them with no managerial oversight first, b) implying harassment complaints are drama, c) suggesting that its not their job to resolve harassment complaints by down playing them as "interpersonal problems" and d) intentionally or unintentionally suggesting that if you have a problem you are going against the fun environment, which instantly puts a harassment victim in an us vs them environment.

        I'm coming at this from a lawyer perspective, as I am a lawyer (albeit not an employment or harassment lawyer) and I've witnessed first hand how harassment and discriminated employees are not respected by management. I've seen how that impacts people's mental health and how, especially for younger women, it creates a toxic cycle where it can be extremely difficult to leave because you've internalized the harassing and discriminatory experience to the point of thinking "well, who else will hire me? I can't just get another job."

        I realize if you have not experienced that or witnessed that, its hard to understand how a toxic environment can lead to that mindset. So hearing someone joking around in an emergency all company meeting may not immediately seem problematic. But when the subject of the meeting is harassment, and a high ranking manager just jokes around like its not a big deal, and that joke is tacitly approved of by the executive level (where there isn't immediate correction), it all strikes me as a corporate culture that doesn't respect the seriousness of harassment.

        I'm also biased as my office literally just had our annual harassment training yesterday.

      • Me too I guess. I can see it if I really try, but it seems a stretch.

65 comments