Former 343 Employee Uploads Another Video Saying No Force Crunch

[B-Dubs]

I cannot believe this needs to be said, but legitimate reporting is hard. It takes time, sometimes weeks, months, or even years to get the interviews and information needed to publish a story. It isn't a process that takes 20 minutes and a handful of phone calls. Journalists don't sit on huge stories until the right time, they put them out when they have the information. Especially at legitimate outlets with a reputation for trustworthiness.

Can we not start and then perpetuate rumors about negative stories being held so that they can do the most damage to a platform manufacturer. It's literally just a way to discredit legitimate reporting and a form of platform warring.

 

[Star-Lord]

He really shouldn't have to feel obligated to "clear up" confusion that he didn't cause in the first fucking place. To be frank. This is absurd.

Click to shrink...

100% agree, I just think people get themselves in a tizzy when one person has a different experience then others. Like this 343 employees maybe loved staying late and others didn't.

 

[cyrribrae]

You know, this is probably out of scope for Jason, but I'm wondering if there are any industry-wide developer surveys that seek to define and track attitudes toward crunch among developers. I imagine that everyone has very different ideas of what crunch entails and what aspects are ok or not, and I bet we'd have seen some movement writ large over the last several years. But.. I bet there's lots of devs (in fact, I KNOW) who don't believe that crunch is bad at all or who justify certain parts of it.

I doubt that any such resource already exists, but it seems like it would be an invaluable tool to understand in aggregate and also perhaps in more specifics.

Crunch is SO, SO context dependent. I pulled innumerable all nighters working through grad school or providing therapy (man, in retrospect, don't I seem singularly unqualified for that.. haha), but I'd never consider doing something like that when I was teaching middle school students about science through hikes and backpacking trips. In another life, I fought wildfires - yes, some literally interminable days on that job. But overall, I thought all of that was reasonable. Heck, context doesn't even have to make sense. I'm more likely to keep at an Excel project way late than I am if I'm writing a letter or a report.

Fake edit: Oo, just looked to see if there have been crunch surveys done - and yes! GDC does their annual State of the Game Industry one. Makes sense. I see information on how much devs worked and how often they self-pressured vs forced by management (15%, so it's not THAT rare, let's be honest). But, it also seems that the number of people overworking seems to be limited. That doesn't mean it's EVENLY distributed, and again, it doesn't tell us about attitudes.

Does it happen (or is it more egregious) when it happens to writers vs programmers vs artists. Are there differences in attitudes when people are immigrants from different parts of the world vs being US natives or even different parts of the US. I can imagine attitudes toward crunch in Asia differ vastly from expectations in Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and Latin America.

I don't agree in this case, because the japanese video was taken out of context by resetera and then "journalist" made articles around the translation and thread of resetera. This isn't good journalism. Even when we ignore the fact he reached out to some journalist (dunno if it's Jason) and they didn't even respond. Shows you all you need to know about many game journalist.

Crunch is bad obviously, so this isn't me defending crunch. But the journalism on display here is shocking.

Click to shrink...

Just for the sake of correctness, it was Mandarin Chinese :p not Japanese.

 

[cLOUDo]

Threadmark the post of jason
Everyone should read it before reply

 

[Fafalada]

Companies should always give employees the option to work extra overtime if they want to. As long as they are paid for it

Click to shrink...

Vast majority of contracts (in tech especially) have a clause along the lines of "compensation includes reasonable overtime".
Ie. you're getting nothing for it, as you're not an hourly employee.

More importantly most people volunteering for it convince themselves it's fine, so the rest that don't are always under peer pressure, intentional or not.

 

[Gareth]

Threadmark the post of jason
Everyone should read it before reply

Click to shrink...

Can't even get everyone to watch the video before replying, lol.

 

[cyrribrae]

Can't even get everyone to watch the video before replying, lol.

Click to shrink...

This is what I was gonna say lol. Let's start by reading the OP and watching a short and very well-organized video XD

 

[nekkid]

Threadmark the post of jason
Everyone should read it before reply

Click to shrink...

Yeah let's worry about people watching the video the thread is actually about before we worry about someone else's thoughts.

 

[Sulik2]

I've worked IT for a long time and been around software development for a long time. If someone puts in a long day and there is a policy of getting a day afterwards to make up for it, is a damn rarity. And works wonders for not getting burned out. If that point is accurate, then to me 343 is nothing like something like naughty dog with is insane crunch culture.

 

[j7vikes]

"Forced" is such a misnomer when it comes to crunch. A boss might not come to you and say "You have to work 60hour weeks or you're fired" but if (almost) everyone at a developer is crunching then how volontary is it really?

Click to shrink...

I think something that could help these people (even if it seems like utopia) is forcing people not to crunch. I manage an agency and we work in child welfare. I have people who could easily work 100 hours and still not get all the things they would want to get done. A combination of not enough state money for more employees AND people who are so dedicated that they pressure themselves to extremes. I try really hard to monitor individual people and see what type of hours they are working. I'll often "force" late starts, leaving work phones and computers at the office, etc.

We really try hard to pick up other teammates. So when one had to work 17 hours because they drove a kid to a new home 5 hours away we really try and make sure that person has built in off time coming to them. I can certainly admit though I have been guilty of breaking our rules on myself and working lots of hours at times before someone reminds me that it seems like I'm the one who needs the break.

"Forcing" someone to work 70 hours is worse than someone working 70 hours because they are passionate of course. But you must work 70 hours and you chose to work 70 hours are both unhealthy and in the long run will have adverse effects. It's not enough to say we don't crunch if your employees are crunching themselves for whatever reason.

 

[Filipus]

I've commented on this before but the habit Era members have to post stuff based on titles makes this forum AWFUL sometimes.

Also, kind of disgusting that this poor man reached out to all this websites to clarify stuff and no one got back to him. That's honestly the part that bothers me the most.
We all expect these gaming websites to just post clickbait articles and we are "okay" with that but no one even tried to reach the source or answer him to update their articles???

Either way, just hoping that Jason article about crunch, which will surely come, isn't word limited like some of his other articles. We need deeper dives into the nuances of the situations AND the ways to fix it.
Or just write a third book! (Patiently waiting on the second to arrive any day now)

 

[cLOUDo]

Can't even get everyone to watch the video before replying, lol.

Click to shrink...

Yeah let's worry about people watching the video the thread is actually about before we worry about someone else's thoughts.

Click to shrink...

That's the minimum standard
But the reply of jason is important as well
(specially after a lot of people are shitting on him)

 

[Spacejaws]

I think something that could help these people (even if it seems like utopia) is forcing people not to crunch. I manage an agency and we work in child welfare. I have people who could easily work 100 hours and still not get all the things they would want to get done. A combination of not enough state money for more employees AND people who are so dedicated that they pressure themselves to extremes. I try really hard to monitor individual people and see what type of hours they are working. I'll often "force" late starts, leaving work phones and computers at the office, etc.

We really try hard to pick up other teammates. So when one had to work 17 hours because they drove a kid to a new home 5 hours away we really try and make sure that person has built in off time coming to them. I can certainly admit though I have been guilty of breaking our rules on myself and working lots of hours at times before someone reminds me that it seems like I'm the one who needs the break.

"Forcing" someone to work 70 hours is worse than someone working 70 hours because they are passionate of course. But you must work 70 hours and you chose to work 70 hours are both unhealthy and in the long run will have adverse effects. It's not enough to say we don't crunch if your employees are crunching themselves for whatever reason.

Click to shrink...

I've been in this position too and there's a flip side to the problem too. Where if you are comfortable working 70-80 hours your coworkers might not be and thats completely fine, but performance metrics and increasing workload managers start asking well if so and so can hande the extra work why can't you?

In my previous job I would have to set schedules and would have to often argue that something was too much work and the answer would be 'have they ticked the overtime box?' which is fucking disgusting reaction and 'well X branch does it fine, why can't they be like X person'. It was contracted work so if you didn't put in the overtime you were within your rights but after 8 months theres no garuntee your contract gets renewed and you would get the impression if you didn't tick that little overtime box you were not a team player.

But all voluntary of course.

 

[Filipus]

I think something that could help these people (even if it seems like utopia) is forcing people not to crunch. I manage an agency and we work in child welfare. I have people who could easily work 100 hours and still not get all the things they would want to get done. A combination of not enough state money for more employees AND people who are so dedicated that they pressure themselves to extremes. I try really hard to monitor individual people and see what type of hours they are working. I'll often "force" late starts, leaving work phones and computers at the office, etc.

We really try hard to pick up other teammates. So when one had to work 17 hours because they drove a kid to a new home 5 hours away we really try and make sure that person has built in off time coming to them. I can certainly admit though I have been guilty of breaking our rules on myself and working lots of hours at times before someone reminds me that it seems like I'm the one who needs the break.

"Forcing" someone to work 70 hours is worse than someone working 70 hours because they are passionate of course. But you must work 70 hours and you chose to work 70 hours are both unhealthy and in the long run will have adverse effects. It's not enough to say we don't crunch if your employees are crunching themselves for whatever reason.

Click to shrink...

I have a question. If you feel you don't put any kind of pressure when it comes to working overtime (you don't reward them, you actively try to stop them from doing it, etc...) why do you feel it's your responsibility to stop people from working on things they are really passionate about?

Do you feel that if you don't step in, a culture of "why isn't x working as hard as me" develops?
Or it's because you genuinely care about these people and don't want them to kill themselves over work?

If it's the second, and the "fault" is really all in people's passion for their work, then don't you think they should be able to do as they please? (I don't necessarily agree with this statement, just really curious on your opinion as a manager).

 

[LhommeCornichon]

I've commented on this before but the habit Era members have to post stuff based on titles makes this forum AWFUL sometimes.

Also, kind of disgusting that this poor man reached out to all this websites to clarify stuff and no one got back to him. That's honestly the part that bothers me the most.
We all expect these gaming websites to just post clickbait articles and we are "okay" with that but no one even tried to reach the source or answer him to update their articles???

Either way, just hoping that Jason article about crunch, which will surely come, isn't word limited like some of his other articles. We need deeper dives into the nuances of the situations AND the ways to fix it.
Or just write a third book! (Patiently waiting on the second to arrive any day now)

Click to shrink...

Actually it's representative of the world today and how social medias work (take a look at the comments under shared articles on FB or under YT videos).

And you're right regarding the most bothering part. People not reaching him back his baffling. It must have been so hard for him.

The first book of Jason was really insightful, nothing was black or white and align with every time a worker in this business shared his experience.

 

[seroun]

It's a pity that the words of the dev have been twisted like that and while obviously crunch is a problem, the media outlets that used this could've been forthcoming and could've spoken to him to maybe get more details or just clarify stuff. Let's try not to take single lines of cut information at face value. Crunch in the videogame industry and the exploitation of the workforce is a problem to solve, and understanding devs who might be passionate (and therefore might be pushed psychologically into crunching more easily) or simply can't translate everything well because English is not their first language should not be a barrier to that. Let's try to be more empathetic.

I hope the dev stays well and that people don't treat him as a news source. He's just going off his experience and that's okay.

 

[Messofanego]

Threadmark the post of jason
Everyone should read it before reply

Click to shrink...

Where is it?

Has it been reported to be threadmark?

 

[JigglesBunny]

People thinking that a journalist holds back a story so that they can drop it at a specific time to cause the biggest impact on that article's subject have no idea how journalism works. That's fucking ridiculous.

Some of y'all need to take off the tinfoil caps.

 

[headspawn]

How did Jason get dragged into this?

His article isn't even out yet.

 

[RowdyReverb]

This highlights one of the major issues with WFH that I brought up in another thread- the dissolving barrier between work life and home life. People are working at odd hours and losing track of how much of their time is being devoted to work. Furthermore, because employees are working beyond business hours, employers are becoming more and more accustomed to requesting work to be done outside of business hours.

Honestly, I feel like WFH is going to exacerbate crunch culture more than help it unless there are specific protections put in place. But even this is going to be impractical because employees enjoy the flexibility of choosing when they work. It's just very hard not to fall into the trap that this man fell into, working late into the night, losing track of time, etc. People need to be able to physically leave work to define barriers in their time.

 

[wwm0nkey]

How did Jason get dragged into this?

His article isn't even out yet.

Click to shrink...

Rumors have been posted around the net and here about him holding back an article, thankfully (and probably obviously too) they were false. Now that rumor can die like it deserves to

 

[Weltall Zero]

Now I feel like the title once again is taking a quote from the video which is out of context, a better title would have been something like "Former 343 Employee Uploads another video saying his earlier statements were taken out of context" and having a direct link to the video in the post instead of just a quote to Klobrilles (good) but not complete summary.

Click to shrink...

"Dev taken out of context in video explaining that he had been taken out of context". Contextception.

May be because of another thread here, but even as someone against crunch and zero interest in Halo, I'm starting to wonder how many shits the average poster really gives about devs, vs just having another avenue to shit on the specific corporations they already dislike.

That's fair but people could read the OT it takes like 5 seconds lol

Click to shrink...

On Era? Ahahahah.

 

[808s & Villainy]

but I'm starting to wonder how many shits the average poster really gives about devs vs just having another avenue to shit on the specific corporations they already dislike.

Click to shrink...

 

[Negotiator117]

working into the morning hours is a sign of a bad culture at a workplace, whether its forced or not. i'm saying this as someone who pulled some all-nighters myself when working on my phd and yes i'm well aware that 343 is far from the only crunching developer in the business

Click to shrink...

You even watch the video?

 

[Negotiator117]

How did Jason get dragged into this?

His article isn't even out yet.

Click to shrink...

He posted a comment confirming a 343i article is coming.

 

[Weltall Zero]

Click to shrink...

Because people trip over themselves defending abstract, faceless devs when it suits their needs, but when they actually come across any actual dev in the forum, they waste not ime lecturing them on how to do their job, that they're taking unnecesary risks by relying on any sort of revenue (as if there was such a thing as riskless game development), that a game selling 1000 copies is a success, take offense that a dev is correcting them, imply they're actually lying about being a dev, etc. etc. That's all in a single thread BTW.

That's when the topic is actually about game development; when it's about an entirely unrelated topic, you can instead expect to look at your tag and accuse you of viral marketing when disagreeing with them, if not actively looking up your game to use as an attack avenue.

 

[shadow2810]

This highlights one of the major issues with WFH that I brought up in another thread- the dissolving barrier between work life and home life. People are working at odd hours and losing track of how much of their time is being devoted to work. Furthermore, because employees are working beyond business hours, employers are becoming more and more accustomed to requesting work to be done outside of business hours.

Honestly, I feel like WFH is going to exacerbate crunch culture more than help it unless there are specific protections put in place. But even this is going to be impractical because employees enjoy the flexibility of choosing when they work. It's just very hard not to fall into the trap that this man fell into, working late into the night, losing track of time, etc. People need to be able to physically leave work to define barriers in their time.

Click to shrink...

its not really WFH issue, it's more of Covid issue making his kids staying at home so he had to spent his work time with the kids

 

[Amauri14]

gaming media reporting nothing but clickbait news?

absolutely not shocking

--------

crunch is crunch, no matter how "forced" it is

Click to shrink...

To be fair, sadly such behavior is not just exclusive to gaming media.

 

[NinjaScooter]

starting to wonder how many shits the average poster really gives about devs, vs just having another avenue to shit on the specific corporations they already dislike.

Click to shrink...

it's becoming readily apparent this is what drives a vast majority of the discourse around here.

 

[j7vikes]

I have a question. If you feel you don't put any kind of pressure when it comes to working overtime (you don't reward them, you actively try to stop them from doing it, etc...) why do you feel it's your responsibility to stop people from working on things they are really passionate about?

Do you feel that if you don't step in, a culture of "why isn't x working as hard as me" develops?
Or it's because you genuinely care about these people and don't want them to kill themselves over work?

If it's the second, and the "fault" is really all in people's passion for their work, then don't you think they should be able to do as they please? (I don't necessarily agree with this statement, just really curious on your opinion as a manager).

Click to shrink...

Great question and I will be the first to tell you that I'm not pretending to have any of the right answers nor say the things we have implemented are correct or the way to do things. To me (really company wide not like I came up with everything we do) it's not about saying you can't do more. We have people who work over 40 hours all the time and 60 isn't rare either. Obviously if we have a situation where a child is unsafe we aren't thinking about "well crap most of us have 50 hours we can't do this."

I think we view it more as preventative. I've been in jobs (and at this) where you are passionate and you do love what you do. Where you think (or expect of yourself) that talking a break makes the whole thing collapse or you are far too busy to do that. But I know for me I'm more effective when doing some self care. And I believe that for the people I work with as well. I have had a lot of people say something to the effect of they didn't realize how much they needed that break.

I think a lot of companies do safety stuff that people might not "choose" to do if they had their way. Construction helmets that may be uncomfortable. Safety regulations that maybe the average person there think makes the job more annoying and what are really the odds of that killing someone?

Like I said no idea if what we do is anything special or magical and we definitely don't always practice what we preach as sometimes we simply don't have that choice.

 

[Deleted member 15227]

Because people trip over themselves defending abstract, faceless devs when it suits their needs, but when they actually come across any actual dev in the forum, they waste not ime lecturing them on how to do their job, that they're taking unnecesary risks by relying on any sort of revenue (as if there was such a thing as riskless game development), that a game selling 1000 copies is a success, take offense that a dev is correcting them, imply they're actually lying about being a dev, etc. etc. That's all in a single thread BTW.

That's when the topic is actually about game development; when it's about an entirely unrelated topic, you can instead expect to look at your tag and accuse you of viral marketing when disagreeing with them, if not actively looking up your game to use as an attack avenue.

Click to shrink...

goddamn, thank you.

 

[Jquail]

This is the nature of working to a deadline of any sort. I know that as I approach one I always end up working harder because I'm making extra tweaks or polish it changes towards whatever I put together. Nobody forces that on me. I'm just personally driven to do something the best I can .

Click to shrink...

The crunch that's typically discussed in gaming isn't just "working to a deadline," it's something that lasts months, sometimes years.

I do (or should say did, pre-pandemic) a lot of community theater as a sound designer and actor. Usually we work pretty casually because it's ostensibly volunteer work. But the week leading up to a plays premiere is called "tech week" in which we put everything together and dial in all the cues, costume changes, get the lighting just right, etc. 12 hour days are not a rarity. It can be pretty grueling work and again, it's basically volunteer. People are coming in off work and on weekends to basically work another job. We all grind through it because we love theater, but not gonna lie: tech week always sucks. I bet it's even crazier in larger, big budget productions.

However

That's just a week. One week. Sometimes with a day off thrown in just because. Despite the fact that, on paper, this is almost identical to "crunch", in practice, it's completely different simply because it only lasts a week. If you're working 80 hour weeks for a deadline that's a year, maybe even 2 years away? That's not simply "working for on a deadline" or "aw shucks, I just love the craft is all."

The fact is: crunch in video games is a very specific thing and it's not simply born from passion.

Other thing to note: unions significantly changed how this process works in theater. And there's a trickle down effect because the kind of stuff I work doesn't have the budget for union actors and designers, but the culture is still imprinted by those practices. Stage managers add in breaks and time off to the schedule because, at this point, that's what's seen as professional. We have to stop letting our passion blind us to a better, more efficient, more humane way to do things.

 

[EvilBoris]

Does any company actually FORCE crunch?

Click to shrink...

Gamers expectations drive it unfortunately.
What happens if you find a game breaking bug 3 days before release?

The crunch that's typically discussed in gaming isn't just "working to a deadline," it's something that lasts months, sometimes years.

I do (or should say did, pre-pandemic) a lot of community theater as a sound designer and actor. Usually we work pretty casually because it's ostensibly volunteer work. But the week leading up to a plays premiere is called "tech week" in which we put everything together and dial in all the cues, costume changes, get the lighting just right, etc. 12 hour days are not a rarity. It can be pretty grueling work and again, it's basically volunteer. People are coming in off work and on weekends to basically work another job. We all grind through it because we love theater, but not gonna lie: tech week always sucks. I bet it's even crazier in larger, big budget productions.

However

That's just a week. One week. Sometimes with a day off thrown in just because. Despite the fact that, on paper, this is almost identical to "crunch", in practice, it's completely different simply because it only lasts a week. If you're working 80 hour weeks for a deadline that's a year, maybe even 2 years away? That's not simply "working for on a deadline" or "aw shucks, I just love the craft is all."

The fact is: crunch in video games is a very specific thing and it's not simply born from passion.

Other thing to note: unions significantly changed how this process works in theater. And there's a trickle down effect because the kind of stuff I work doesn't have the budget for union actors and designers, but the culture is still imprinted by those practices. Stage managers add in breaks and time off to the schedule because, at this point, that's what's seen as professional. We have to stop letting our passion blind us to a better, more efficient, more humane way to do things.

Click to shrink...

I understand, you also have the side of it where poor management expects certain things because it's the "norm", I think this is partly what is spoken about when toxic work environments are brought up - but perhaps this is less about the crunch and more about day to day work commitment.
I imagine it's super common when you will have quite a young base of employees without the same life commitments too.
What I think has been brought up in the past is when shitty managers then take anybody who is unwilling/unable to meet the same level of passion/commitment and hold that against them.

 

[rokkerkory]

Poor guy feel bad for him. Hope it doesnt affect his career like interviews and whatnot.

 

[Jquail]

Gamers expectations drive it unfortunately.
What happens if you find a game breaking bug 3 days before release?

I understand, you also have the side of it where poor management expects certain things because it's the "norm", I think this is partly what is spoken about when toxic work environments are brought up - but perhaps this is less about the crunch and more about day to day work commitment.
I imagine it's super common when you will have quite a young base of employees without the same life commitments too.
What I think has been brought up in the past is when shitty managers then take anybody who is unwilling/unable to meet the same level of passion/commitment and hold that against them.

Click to shrink...

For sure. I'm also thinking about something Austin Walker brought up on Waypoint Radio awhile back about how we should maybe move away from using the word "crunch" in this specific discussion because the more damning issue is the "death march." Dragging out deadline after deadline, leading to literal years of trying to hit hundreds of deadlines. Which, as you said, is a poor management issue. Crunch has certain connotations in other industries that don't seem to line up with how it's implemented in game development.

 

[Jquail]

Edit: I deleted this post not because I thought I was wrong, but because this forum is hell scape and it was a waste of time even wading in. I haven't read any responses (I enabled "ignore thread", believe me or not). Whatever the takes were, I'm sure they were hot.

 

[shadow2810]

Imagine posting a really long post but skipping the main issue

I actually sent email message to some of the websites and the youtube creators wanting to offer more context for what I said and neither of them got back to me

Click to shrink...

 

[Baji Boxer]

Holy shit, look, I feel for the guy, but here's the thing:

He said what he said.

In a published video.

On the Internet.

Publicly accessible to everyone with an internet connection...

ABOUT WORKING ON HALO INFINITE!!!!

Like, this is purely an example of why one should be extremely careful about what you say and how you say it in public. And he said as much in the follow up. He specifically said he regretted saying what he said. Because of course he does! But turning around and getting angry with journalists for publishing it... I mean, I get it, we've all had our words taken out of context, but he still said it. He didn't even really refute that he said those things. He just clarified that he didn't think they were a big deal (which is a whole different conversation that this thread has proved incapable of having, re: the very nature of our cultural obsession with over working ourselves). That's it. Every bullet point he brought up was like, "They said I said this... and I did say that, but what I meant was!"

And hey, he's human. Shit happens. But that's still on him. This isn't a case of a journalist writing a story and publicly sharing their source's identity without permission. This is the definition of "on the record." They don't have to follow up with him. The guy stepped in it. I'm not saying he deserves what he gets or anything. I wish this industry wasn't such a dangerous place for people to simply speak their minds, especially when it's not really coming from an antagonistic point of view. But if you want to target your rage, target it at the giant corporations who may use this story as a weapon against his future employment prospects.

But blaming journalists for running with this story is fucking stupid. Full stop.

Should someone have followed up with him? I guess. But they don't really have to because–and I might've already mentioned this–here's the thing:

He. Posted. The. VIDEO!

It's publicly available information! I don't care if it was in mandarin and got translated. I don't care if it was on his watercolor video page. Guess what: a lot of people speak mandarin. A lot of Halo fans who do water coloring may want to watch a video tutorial by someone who worked on Halo. It wasn't on his private Patreon tier or Discord channel. Anyone could've picked up on this. This is simply what happens when you say stuff like this in...

A PUBLICLY PUBLISH VIDEO ACCESSIBLE FOR ANYONE TO WATCH ON THE INTERNET.

Getting angry at journalists over this has either G*merg*te or console war bullshit written all over it. Grow up.


(No good will come of posting all that, this forum sucks, I should just log off, but I spent way too long writing it so fuck it. This is what the "ignore thread" function is for. Have a nice day, y'all.)

Click to shrink...

If you're hating the forum but can't stop yourself from writing long emotional posts, maybe ask for a self ban?

 

[Mdot]

Imagine posting a really long post but skipping the main issue

I actually sent email message to some of the websites and the youtube creators wanting to offer more context for what I said and neither of them got back to me

Click to shrink...

I wonder who he actually reached out to. Would love to see their response.