Yeah, I spent most of yesterday watching (the guy who does Down the Rabbit Hole videos) Fredrik Knudsen's archived live stream reading and reacting to it, a fair few producers showed up in the chat for confirmation and support of the exposure
I had mixed feelings about the departure of Spoony back in the day and kinda felt like there was no reason for me to enjoy the site much afterwards, he was my main draw, and could easily be found elsewhere at the time. I don't defend the guy, but I knew even before he was diagnosed something was going on, so his behavior was understandable (inexcusable, but understandable), I did not feel the same way about how Channel Awesome handled their end though, publicly trash-talking him and stuff
So I haven't really followed them for a few years, but they were still on my radar, mostly because I had friends who still liked the Critic, and I'd randomly watching Phelous, Bennet's, and Joe's stuff privately on YouTube, so they were never really very far out of mind
I would have had a hard time guessing this kind of BS was going on behind the scenes. The ignorance and incompetence doesn't really surprise me. The anti-intelligence and sexism kinda does. But the other outright evil stuff is beyond the pale. And unless Michaud leaves, I hope the site suffers irreparable PR from this. I think his departure would be the ONLY plausible remedy, and even then, Doug and Rob would have a lot to answer for, and have to reign in other psychopaths like Greg and a few others. There's just so many things that can't be justified. At all. There honestly should be legal action for more than a handful of things. And like Fredrik said in his stream, it's likely that this document means that nobody is even interested in legal action at this point, they just wanted to clear the air and set some records straight. Which is noble. But I think more could or should be done. But it's not for me to decide
Regardless, it's all very sad, and was so easily avoidable, if people could keep their petty egos in check. I hate the fact that people who were loyal and regular and used the side to support a family were immediately let go for just one screw up, missing one day for a video that the main site probably wasn't even going to promote properly. Just lots of egomania and anger issues and power plays all over the board
Edit: Also, Channel Awesome's non-apology was outright insulting to read. The whole sorry-not-sorry BS people do when they're sorry you're mad, but not sorry they said the thing to upset you. Which basically means they're not even sorry you're mad, they're just sorry that they're being cast in a bad light. The end