Levar Burton calls out Rooster Teeth for "toxic company culture" against his daughter Mica

Ragaar31 · Jun 4, 2020

I watch Achievement Hunter these days, and I'd say the entire cast is full of progressive liberals. They've all been supporting black lives matter recently and pride month. I can't speak for the past, but their new stuff seems to genuinely have the right messaging. I dunno.

Also weird to see Funhaus accepted so easily. I like them, but I always think their humor is a little edgier. They do racist voices sometimes and show rule 34 content. But none of you seem to have a problem with that.

lupe121283 · Jun 4, 2020

Ragaar31 said:
I watch Achievement Hunter these days, and I'd say the entire cast is full of progressive liberals. They've all been supporting black lives matter recently and pride month. I can't speak for the past, but their new stuff seems to genuinely have the right messaging. I dunno.

Also weird to see Funhaus accepted so easily. I like them, but I always think their humor is a little edgier. They do racist voices sometimes and show rule 34 content. But none of you seem to have a problem with that.

In regards to the rule 34 stuff, they voted and stop doing them for the last year or this year. They also kind of stop doing the drunk streams (aside from the covid-19) was due cuz they felt icky exposing their audience to that type of thing since they are sometimes young. Rule 34 was from their days with Bruce green and he doesn't work there anymore. I'll have to check later today to see if they did a rule 34 for the special they did of demo disk with bruce.

Syder · Jun 4, 2020

Ryan. said:
RT has been going downhill for me for years and it took them way too long to get rid of Joel (he had gone really right wing)

Joel was liking/RTing terrible stuff for years and, because he's a Day 1 member of the crew and voices a popular character in their flagship show, Rooster Teeth kinda just ignored it.

They love to portray themselves as progressives but it's mostly all about public platitudes. I'm glad that some of their staff are at least publicly recognising their failings.

thenexus6 · Jun 4, 2020

Alot of shady stuff is creeping out about RT for a few years now, i've been into them since like 2005 so its kinda disheartening. I really don't follow much they do anymore.. I love Funhaus, and just check out the RT podcast really, and I enjoy the GMOD videos. Don't care for much else.

They come across as this super friendly, creative, welcoming everyone vibe, but that is clearly not the case.. What a shame.

The RT community is super toxic, and apparently so are some people within the actual company. Anytime I post on their subreddit anything remotely negative i've always been completely downvoted to hell. A little funny actually.

Mesoian · Jun 4, 2020

I get why and it's fine and whatever.

I'd still like to trade Elise back to Easy Allies though.

iksenpets · Jun 4, 2020

I haven't really paid much attention to RT outside of the early RvB days, but just from the outside they've always seemed a bit... shambolic. But also, I'm just now learning that Mica Burton (who admittedly I'm mostly familiar with from seeing her crop up on Twitter from time to time) is Levar Burton's daughter, so awareness, not my forte. Good on her for speaking up though.

jdmc13 · Jun 4, 2020

Mesoian said:
I get why and it's fine and whatever.

I'd still like to trade Elise back to Easy Allies though.

Splitting up James and Elise between shows would truly be the darkest timeline.

King Kingo · Jun 4, 2020

Every other moment, I hear a horror story from Rooster Teeth, that company needs to sort itself out.

Kroze said:
Keep in mind that Rooster Teeth is now owned by WB as well....

Not really, Rooster Teeth is under Otter Media which is subsidised under WarnerMedia. Their corporate structure never really changed because AT&T had a stake in Otter Media before they acquired Time Warner.

lupe121283 · Jun 4, 2020

Mesoian said:
I get why and it's fine and whatever.

I'd still like to trade Elise back to Easy Allies though.

Hey, don't take her away from Funhaus. She is the best there:

WE BLUE OURSELVES - Avatar Gameplay

"Shit! I forgot to write the scripts for next four Avatar films! Get me my mini-sub, a mayonnaise jar full of adderall, some FernGully slash-fiction, five ca...

youtu.be

Mesoian · Jun 4, 2020

jdmc13 said:
Splitting up James and Elise between shows would truly be the darkest timeline.

lupe121283 said:
Hey, don't take her away from Funhaus. She is the best there:

WE BLUE OURSELVES - Avatar Gameplay

"Shit! I forgot to write the scripts for next four Avatar films! Get me my mini-sub, a mayonnaise jar full of adderall, some FernGully slash-fiction, five ca...

youtu.be

IMO, her output was never stronger or more hilarious then when she was on Mandatory Update.

But again, I get it, it's fine.

The Hobo · Jun 4, 2020

Mesoian said:
IMO, her output was never stronger or more hilarious then when she was on Mandatory Update.

But again, I get it, it's fine.

Elye confesses to mass earwig murders and you're just okay with that?

Mesoian · Jun 4, 2020

The Hobo said:
Elye confesses to mass earwig murders and you're just okay with that?

I guess I'm burnt (I'M BURNT!)

Genesius · Jun 4, 2020

Funhaus is the only RT content I've really enjoyed but Bruce and Lawrence left and that was a real blow.

Beedig · Jun 4, 2020

The Hobo said:
I think this has most of it

The guy in the orange is annoying.

Lunatic · Jun 4, 2020

Beedig said:
The guy in the orange is annoying.

I think its the same guy who made this?

OrangeAtlas · Jun 4, 2020

Lunatic said:
I think its the same guy who made this?

ArchedThunder · Jun 4, 2020

Ryan. said:
RT has been going downhill for me for years and it took them way too long to get rid of Joel (he had gone really right wing)

What was the straw that broke the camel's back for them to finally get rid of him?

Syder · Jun 4, 2020

Afrikan · Jun 4, 2020

The Hobo said:
I think this has most of it

You will rarely..and I mean RARELY have an opportunity to see someone be this honest and open. That was a great opportunity for that audience to witness and learn from that, they should have felt privileged. For most of that audience (at least the vocal ones) to take it as her being "soft"...LOL.. She is WAAAAAAY more brave than them... than myself.... than many in the world.

ArchedThunder · Jun 4, 2020

Syder said:

This is really good to hear.

timedesk · Jun 4, 2020

Afrikan said:
You will rarely..and I mean RARELY have an opportunity to see someone be this honest and open. That was a great opportunity for that audience to witness and learn from that, they should have felt privileged. For most of that audience (at least the vocal ones) to take it as her being "soft"...LOL.. She is WAAAAAAY more brave than them... than myself.... than many in the world.

Yeah, the idea that people would attack her for being open like this is just gross. The fact that the company did nothing to help her is even worse. We talk about how the gaming community has become so toxic, and stuff like this is how it festers. Companies not standing by their talent and allowing internet bigots and cretins to feel catered to.

Afrikan · Jun 4, 2020

timedesk said:
Yeah, the idea that people would attack her for being open like this is just gross. The fact that the company did nothing to help her is even worse. We talk about how the gaming community has become so toxic, and stuff like this is how it festers. Companies not standing by their talent and allowing internet bigots and cretins to feel catered to.

This is exactly what happened with the NFL. All they had to do was say, "Colin Kaepernick is exercising his 1st amendment right in a peaceful way. Bringing awareness to a serious issue. We have no problems with it." And everyone stay on message. Quick simple answers. As if it's a normal feeling to have.

You'll maybe lose some of your fans... but most would conform or not care enough to complain after a while imo. You get to these people before the other side (toxic community) tells them how to feel. You make it seem normal, before the other side does.

Like you said, it should have happened on this show as well. The moment any toxic energy was thrown her way, the company should have had her back. Stayed on message.

Slatsunus · Jun 4, 2020

ArchedThunder said:
What was the straw that broke the camel's back for them to finally get rid of him?

Hard to say, but he's been gone for awhile, it was just confirmed by himself recently

TheGamingNewsGuy · Jun 5, 2020

Seems to me RT is kinda hastily course-correcting itself fast

DWarriorSN · Jun 5, 2020

Podcast directly addressing this situation from RT.

thetrin · Jun 5, 2020

Jag said:
I don't know what a Rooster Teeth is, but if it got Levar Burton pissed off then fuck them.

They originally created Red vs. Blue and then....did other stuff after that? Really don't know what they do now.

mugurumakensei · Jun 5, 2020

thetrin said:
They originally created Red vs. Blue and then....did other stuff after that? Really don't know what they do now.

they're kind of a premier content creator for animated web series. They also do a ton of live talk show format things relevant to geek culture.

Deleted member 4034 · Jun 5, 2020

Milk said:
This thread is weird to me. You'd think RT is a bunch of bible-thumping Trump lovers by these replies.

Nearly every single public-facing personality within RT is hardcore liberal. For as long as the company's been alive, they've made it clear they support everyone's rights, etc. They've spent the past four years berating Trump.

Now, that's all public-facing of course, and the company has dozens of other employees that we don't see and we don't know their beliefs. I'm not saying I don't believe Mica. I certainly do, I'm not just going to naively assume that the company's a bunch of angels just because the personalities always seem happy and support liberal beliefs. Businesses usually have something to hide in the cracks. They did have that whole controversy about grinding their animators into dust, and there's no excuse for that. But hell, we also have someone in this very thread who says they've done contract work with RT before and they'd do it again.

End of the day, I feel awful for Mica not being properly supported when she should have been. But they've obviously made progress in those regards in the years since she's left. Someone's already posted Michael's tweet straight up telling misogynists to fuck off out of their audience, in defense of Fiona, another female employee. Geoff seems to have called Mica right away to discuss this stuff with her, going by recent tweets.

The problem is most of those examples you list happened this week.

A lot of podcasts I listen to made an effort to pull in more black people this week and on one hand, points for trying, but let's be honest would those same people be on this week let alone this season had last week not happened.

People are trying and improving and a lot of this stuff is lip service upfront.

Trumpers are easy to be mad at, but I think it's fair to call out the liberals who didn't realize their complicity especially when enabling that sort of community which a lot of them admitted to doing this week.

Sure, people grow, but you don't have to wave any criticism away with that right away like they're above needing to hear any new lessons or stories.

You can hurt a lot of people in the ways described here while being a "hardcore liberal".

OrangeAtlas · Jun 5, 2020

Even if this is reactionary, even if this is just to save face, it should still ensure Rooster Teeth ends up being a more supportive environment for its minority employees and a more diverse workspace.

It's inexcusable what happened to Mica from the company and the community, but hopefully she ends up being the last one.

Syder · Jun 5, 2020

I'm a big fan of Geoff, personally. He's always come across very progressive, open-minded and bohemian.

Seeing him accept, and cry openly about, the fact that he had become socially out of touch takes a lot, regardless of what RT as a company are doing.

I'll always respect people like Geoff.

Reven Wolf · Jun 8, 2020

OrangeAtlas said:
Even if this is reactionary, even if this is just to save face, it should still ensure Rooster Teeth ends up being a more supportive environment for its minority employees and a more diverse workspace.

It's inexcusable what happened to Mica from the company and the community, but hopefully she ends up being the last one.

This is my thought as well.

As with the video there isn't really an excuse, but it does seem like there will be an actual positive change. At least that's what I hope.

Valkerion · Jun 8, 2020

Bobo Dakes said:
The problem is most of those examples you list happened this week.

A lot of podcasts I listen to made an effort to pull in more black people this week and on one hand, points for trying, but let's be honest would those same people be on this week let alone this season had last week not happened.

People are trying and improving and a lot of this stuff is lip service upfront.

This right here. It's true that there is a vast number discrepancy between PoC to invite and what not that are on the same level as some of these channels but man... we wil see if there are still guests of different backgrounds 3 months and beyond down the line.

Levar Burton calls out Rooster Teeth for "toxic company culture" against his daughter Mica

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