Madison Reeves on why she left LMG

remember when linus spoke out against unionizing :)

I always figured LTT was a boy's club, considering how few female employees they have, but I had no idea the environment was that bad. Rather naive of me, tbh.

Ugh, I don't think I can continue watching anything from LTT anymore. 😭 I hope Madison is doing better these days.

Edit: I've zero issues blocking bad actors. =)

And this is why Lienus hates unions so much, cause it would have held him and his company accountable for the nasty, abusive shit they do behind the scenes.

My heart breaks for Madison because as a woman in tech myself, many of her experiences sound familiar. HR leaders, in many companies, exist primarily to serve the executive team and play PR for them. I've met very few who truly have employees backs and even they're considered rebels. The best option most of the time is to leave the company because even if they call in a 3rd party, it's lawsuit prevention and not an attempt to fix things. If anyone is in a situation where they're the victim of inappropriate behavior and the company brings in their lawyer to talk to everyone, do not talk to them. They're just gathering information so they can refute claims if litigation is presented. They work for the company, not you.

I never publicly made any statements regarding my time there because I feared even more backlash from a community that was already attacking, defaming, and sending me death threats.

Fuck man, pretty much nobody should have to deal with that.

I was actually called a tattle tale

Been there done that.

"snitches get stiches" is the phrase I've been told many times

I was told I was arguing, when I was trying to discuss my point of view.

This too

I remember getting told off for taking my sick days, as in the days you're entitled to.

I am still, to this day, hesitant to take days off from this kind of shit

I was asked to twerk for a co-worker at one point.

I know some ladies who were asked by the CFO of a previous company to jump in place while to get a company t-shirt that other employees received.

I was told I was chunky, fat, ugly, stupid. I was called "removed" I was called a "removed"

I was called "stupid" to my face in an open office with fifty other staff in the room.

I was also the one tasked with managing the Only Fans account.

Something I said I didn't want to do.

I had to read comments from people talking about how they wanted to fuck me and my co workers.

I saw peoples dicks, and vagina's.

I said no, and was told only a little longer.

You should never be obligated to do things you don't want to do. No job is worth it.

Please don't attack individuals who don't actually have power at this company, most of them are blameless or powerless to actually change anything.

This absolutely. For every one person who speaks up there are usually multiple tens who do not.

Also "why didn't you take legal actions"

Many of them don't know better. Many of them feel like they're trapped: they require the paycheck and so they feel obligated to endure abuses.

... Or, at least, that's been my experience with employers. To be clear: I do not, and have not, worked for LMG. I'm not trying to make it about me, just trying to relate. It's unfortunate easy to relate.

She's got some tough issues and I wish her to have better employment opportunities in the future.

These days I work for a company where "everything is awesome" and I get to work on really cool things every day without too much drama. I wish everyone could do that. I certainly couldn't have without deciding to leave an abusive employer. I encourage everyone to seek better employment if you feel like you can relate to any of the issues she's brought up.

So here's some tips. There's a lot to unpack though.

• keep a personal record. Keep it at home. If it's on a computer or phone then keep it on a personal one so you still have it if you do quit or are fired. Write down the good times and the bad times.
  • if you're hourly, make sure to include your clock-in and clock-out times
• if you live in a single-party-recording-consent state, then record your conversations
• if anything comes up, your personal records can be admissible in court
• if nothing comes up then at least you can look back at your records and remember how often good things or bad things happen. it will help you to make decisions objectively and judge your emotions for them

Sending unsolicited sexually explicit messages (even just text) or images is a federal crime and can be included in sexual harassment claims. If your employer does not address the problem then your employer may be held accountable. It's important that you keep records of your complaint to your employer and their inaction!

So, learn about harassment and discrimination laws. Everyone has a right to not be harassed (sexually or otherwise) or discriminated against. You can file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Office or your state's equivalent (not all states have an equivalent).

https://www.eeoc.gov/

What a shit place to work at. Linus sounds like a real "winner".

What the actual fuck

I mean, in hindsight, I don't know why I assumed differently. If it looks like a bro club...

Wow. I’m glad she spoke up and I hope she’s doing better now. I hope more people at LTT are empowered to speak out/leave by her courage.

Reading that made me sick to my core

This is the leat surprising information anyone could have told me about working for LTT/LMG. Time and time again, tech jobs and game dev jobs in workplaces run by "old internet edgelords" always (always) results in shit like this.

Update: LMG to hire external investigator on this matter.

Jesus Christ on a motorbike. They have no idea what they had with her, does she still create content?

I believe her.

I have been in the tech industry for almost 30 years. These things she talks about are not new and will keep happening unless more people talk about them. I gave that Linus guy a listen once or twice, was never impressed. His fans are delusional, this thread contains a few of them!

I'm going to copy and paste my comment from another post here:

If this is true this is bad. Like, really bad

I say "if" just because I don't really know what the facts are, I just know what some people are claiming

To be clear, I'm not saying it didn't happen, I'm just saying that, at the moment, it's just Madison saying these things did happen and Linus essentially saying they didn't

My question is if she had such a bad experience, why hasn't anyone else said anything, or at least put an anonymous negative review on Glassdoor or something? Did she just have a awful experience that was unusual, or is everyone/a large number of people treated like this? I don't think it's the second or it would've come out already and from more than one source (and the turnover is pretty low for LMG if I'm not mistaken, so that also doesn't make sense), but I don't really know. That's really the crux of the situation, is I just don't know. I'm glad they got an outside investigator though; hopefully that'll clear everything up

It seems they may be deleting comments urging them to address Madison's experience on their apology video too.

Jesus, that is beyond awful. I'm really sorry she had to go through so much bullshit and I'm really glad she's speaking up.

Yikes.

Never knew she quitted LTT. Back then I was so happy for her for getting her "dream job", she seem so happy.

She is charming and I love every second of her on screen. She was having a huge approval from fans for every videos she was on, even though there's not much of them, only a handful afaik.

I was wondering why she wasn't appear in more videos but then I just thought since her main role was social media, she needs to focus on that.

Now I feel really bad for her after reading the whole thing.

For now, I'll give LTT the benefit of the doubt and waiting for their response.

If you are in a similar situation... remember that you don't have to say "yes" to everything at work! It's the professional thing to say "no" when it's appropriate instead of overworking yourself and lowering the quality of your work.

Christ. I didn't care too much about the gamers nexus video, but this sounds awful.

Poor girl. I remember the ASUS ROG video where lots of fans (me included) were screaming to Linus "hire her!" thinking about the fame and the dream job... Never chase your idols!

Wow. LTT, LMG, and Linus are just plain shit (given this, other reports, GN's latest videos, and how Linus has responded). I'm still quite glad I never bought into their hype. Now I know to actively avoid the idiots.

The shit about telling her that she tries to be funny because she doesn't have any other skills. Wow, that's completely fucked up. I couldn't even imagine someone close to me saying something like that let alone someone who has direct authority over me.

Thing is though, if that is true where comedy is one of her strongest aspects, what's wrong with that? She was obviously very fun and charismatic to get noticed by them in the first place, in my opinion people should be put in roles that best suit them and can show off their talents rather then putting them in roles that almost directly set them up for failure. In the videos I saw her in I honestly thought she was very funny and likeable.

Sounds like they needed a zoomer to help liven up the vibe but weren't willing to stop shitty traditionalist work environment that zoomers all around the world are starting to wise up and stand up to.

As much as people want to see (maybe not so much now) LTT as a progressive company, this shit just makes it obvious they are just playing the same capitalist game as every other huge company in the world.

Good job LTT, you managed to go from a home-grown and likeable team to a giant faceless corporation that plays the same game as all of the other big dogs and act just as terrible. Everything your company stood for when it started has been completely shit on and thrown in the dumpster.

Why is it that when companies start making good money, increasing that cash flow becomes the sole focus of all daily operations and and values fall to the wayside? Honestly thought shit like this would be better in Canada than US 😂😂

I thought it was weird they gave her a behind camera job when she was so clearly good at being a presenter. To me it seems like Linus felt threatened or jealous of how much the audience liked her.

Proud of her for going public. I've faced a lot of the same bullcrap in the workplace as a guy, I can only imagine how miserable it is with gendered harassment on top of it.

@magnor Phew ... Looks like there isn't everything shiny there.

This is heartbreaking to read. I'm done with LTT after this and I hope this leads to waves within the company.

I remember getting told off for taking my sick days, as in the days you're entitled to. This no days off, "grindset" culminated in the real moment I realized I had to leave. I purposefully cut my leg open so badly I would have to go to the ER to get it stapled back together. It was genuinely the only way in my mind to take a day off without being harassed for a reason why.

Holy shit that's insane

That is absolutely shocking. She is such an amazing personality and is being thrown unter the bus so hard. Really wish her all the best. Unsubscribed from the out of touch coorperation being focused on money only (which is in "some way" natural of course but never should the care for the employees being put aside, no thank you)

Seems like a real shit hole place to work

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Always record your conversations. And use phones with two party call recording and/or screenshot everything. It is how I have exposed multiple scumbags over the years, and continue to.

If you live in one of those "one party consent" places, buy a phone with which you can call record both ends, because if the abuser does not care about law, why should you? The state will not help you until you present evidence.

I am beginning to feel that LMG, MrBeast, Pewdiepie, all these "big" creators are big pieces of shit that just sanitise everything before presenting us the mister nice videos on YouTube. And just about everyone with a large social presence is like that. I remember the death of that kid years ago, due to Linus, and how that reddit post sometimes surfaces up.

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How come anytime I read about this guy it always involves his groupies sending death threats?

I have never felt the need to use YouTube for anything aside from classic comedy clips, music, gameplay clips and trailers. So, YouTube personalities like these pass me by. I'm one of those types who instantly closes a video if I hear commentary or talking over it. I don't want to hear that shite.

Maybe it's because I grew up without YouTube, unlike my daughter. She watches so much utter shit on there, unfortunately.

However, I have watched one LTT video before when doing some electronic engineering classes, and we were shown one to explain some thing I can't remember. I do remember saying the guy seemed like a right prick, to the chagrin of others in my class. A smug, know-it all prick.

Well, guess who feels vindicated today! Me!

So many of these fuckin YouTube content farms are like this. Reminds me of the rooster teeth fiasco

What’s really creepy is, Linus let’s his employees and wife model in underwear to peddle his merch. I mean, what’s the job description there? You are a writer and an underwear model?

Yep, I'm never watching Linus after this.

Linus always gave me creep vibes, especially that horrible fake laugh he has. Add to that all of the times others in his videos jibe at him for being a horrible boss, in a "joking" kind of way that always seemed like they were more than jokes. I did wonder why Madison didn't appear in more videos, and I'm glad she's out of there now. I have unsubscribed from LTT on YouTube and I'm glad I never got around to buying any merch.

Hmm

Who?

Not to be mean, but perhaps her work wasn't that good? Is it possible to have mental health issues and have your work not be good?

This sounds like the ramblings of someone lacking certain mental faculties. "I purposefully cut my leg open so badly I would have to go to the ER to get it stapled back together. " What? What?

Why am i seeing gossip on technology? Mods should not allow these sorts of posts

Let's wait for both sides before picking. The internet has a history of the "victim" lying.

Basically a twitch streamer not being able to adapt to a working envoirenment. Streaming games all day long to working at least 8h a day is a big difference tbh