It looks like the rising bandwidth cost is quite the obstacle for TWiT and its dwindling savings. When it was reported that free video from Cachefly will be no more, we knew bad news was on the horizon. The next batch of cancellations seems to be the video shows that do not make money. That means you Padre! And it means Know-How!
What could be the result of that long meeting? Who could want to be in a room with FMCP that long? Well it appears that the future of Know How is in jeopardy, for this was posted shortly after.
An amazing bit of Triangulation-level-research by a contributor noticed a meeting on Leo’s calendar with Lisa and Padre in the Tea Room, the meeting was followed by a desperate plea for viewers from Padre. Remember folks, don’t trust this site, it’s made-up facts, according to Leo.
Update: Featured Commenter
“The Patrick Klepto” posted a truly genius comment that deserved to be featured in the article:
“Padre is good friends with video. They realized they were misusing video. So instead if sprinkling video throughout the network, maybe there’s a show that video would like to do. Not a show that it CAN do, but a show that specifically fits its talents and its passion.”
I have been listening to these three great minds (below) for quite some time. These are three advocates of free speech and three self-proclaimed journalists, who think that Twitter is a cesspool and *needs to close, and Redditt needs to grow up and trash the “bad” subreddits. Facebook is fine because Zuckerberg, a man obsessed with profit, already unilaterally decided that on his site, home to billions of people, a kid in flip flops, all alone will decide what you can say.
In 1980 you would be shunned if you said gays should be allowed to marry. In 1960 you could be lynched if you screamed blacks should use the same toilet as whites. In 1940 Germany you could be shot for advocating hiding a Jew in your home. In 1520 you went to jail for proposing that the Earth is flat.
Sometimes the majority is wrong: true that.
Maybe free speech has some draw backs, like trolling, but it is still kinda important, heck it’s even in some documents in famous museums.
We can either let hipsters with beards running websites determine what is allowed and what isn’t, or we can just like, sorta allow all free speech, like how the founding patriarchs of America intended. Jeff Jarvis or Thomas Jefferson? Lance Ullanoff or John Adams? Sometimes, once in while, here and there, the unpopular opinions are even right. Some of those opinions even change the world. (Albeit, not the ones about the TWiT CEO)
I can cut them some slack when curtailing opinions on a small medium like an irc, but don’t these intellectuals realize that if the pillars of the internet, Facebook, Twitter and Reddit, disallow free speech, it sorta creates a problem. Kinda like if all the TV stations refused to air what they don’t like. Yea, I kinda sorta make sense sorta.
Just to be clear douche-bags; having the pillars of the internet prohibit free speech is effectively prohibiting free speech.
Perhaps Jeff Jarvis should have to deal with someone calling him a shill on Twitter and Leo should have to deal with someone calling him fat. There is a reason lady justice holds a scale, some issues are more important than others. Lastly, whenever you take “haters” and put them in a ghetto away from normal people you excasserbate the problem. If you’re a lone racist in a crowd of normal people you will be quieted. If you are a racist amongst racists you create peer pressure to be even racist-ier.
Full disclosure I could not care less about Free Speech, it’s just the hypocrisy I can’t stomach.
UPDATE: This is in response to a comment: I am well aware that these are public companies and they are not bound by law to comply with any Free Speech doctrines. Yet, I feel that companies of their size should voluntarily adhere to these Free Speech principals in order to retain credibility as a platform.
* Per Jason Cortez – they never said “it needs to close” that was an assumption by the author regarding the critique of these sites for allowing trolls **Please alert me in comments for spelling and grammar mistakes ***Sorry for America centric notions but that’s my hometown. And all you other countries like California copied us anyway.
Leo Laporte has millions of fans worldwide. He is the host of a nationally syndicated radio show. He was once known as the President of the Internet. A few people don’t like him and put together a wordpress blog about him, some made Twitter accounts and some made funny videos and others did both.
Laporte identified one member of this group, Bruce, who is responsible for about 5% of the content. Laporte then used his pulpit to ridicule this man, make up stories about him and blame him for the actions of countless others in an attempt to divert attention from, well you know what. Laporte got only one fact right, Bruce does cross fit and like all Vegans, Crossfit enthusiasts and people without TVs, he can’t shut up about it. But everything else Leo says is untrue.
Bruce grew up in a small Canadian fishing town to a family without a penny to their name. He was often forced to work after school as his friends played ice hockey. He was chastised for being smart and having an interest in computers. But he never fought back and always turned the other cheek.
That was until Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Bruce enlisted in the American army and fought bravely in the Persian Gulf War, where he was awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor and two Purple Hearts. The medal was earned for single handedly rescuing his entire four hundred man brigade who were captured by a savage band of Iraqi Republican Guard with ties to the Taliban, ISiS and weapons of mass destruction. Unfortunately he took machine gun fire to his spinal cord and was told he would never walk again.
That was until he met a little red headed girl diagnosed with a terminal disease. Bruce couldn’t bear to see her give up. She promised that if he were to walk again, she’d fight the illness. Needless to say; Bruce began to walk again without a pesky spinal cord and that little girl beat her disease and became President of Canada. (Prime Minister, Czar, Supreme Leader or whatever it’s called there) Bruce was overjoyed.
That was until, while on a field trip, Bruce was bitten by a radioactive spider. This bite gave him super powers so he went on to fight crime by night and do tech support by day.
Ok maybe that is not 100% true but it’s closer to reality than the tall tale Leo has spun which Padre regurgitates. More-so, at least one member of Leo’s staff and one of the illustrious chat-mods was in Drama with myself, Bruce and many others when HelloWorld came on the scene. (Helloworld is the name of the guy who produces the content driving the #soupguzzler batty) Those people have told Leo that he is way off base and they are not the same person. #Soup actually came up with a Hulk/Dr Banner parallel to explain the glaring differences between Bruce and Helloworld rather than accept reality and the physical laws of space and time.
Nevertheless he continues to publicly malign an individual with full knowledge that, not only is he making a poor guess, but he is blatantly wrong. Leo doesn’t care, what’s important to him is that he gets people to stop talking about his incident and if he disparages an innocent someone publicly, well F it.
5/27/2015 CEO/Wife Lisa Laporte “But it seriously crosses a line when it becomes targeted harassment, cyberstalking, and there are threats of violence–especially when your children are in the crosshairs.”
Seriously, threatening children? Seriously? And this “threat” that no one saw just happened to occur on the same day Leo accidentally released a picture of his penis on the live stream. Are there really people over the age seven who believe this fabrication?
A quote from one of Leo’s mentally stable fan base:
<cr1> Leo, you are experiencing what China is doing to the rest of the internet on a smaller scale
Post Script: Something is up with the mods, I think they may be getting tired of defending Leo. One thing is certain, whatever he says publicly is going on is not what is actually going on. Paying mods is odd.
Fact: If you are in the public eye you have to deal with critics.
True: Haters can go too far and warrant a reaction……
However, I have not seen Skieast cross any lines. I have seen him point out that the host of a show can’t host. He may have even committed the crime of saying a show sucks. Does this give Leo permission to dox him and threaten that he is coming “up North” to see him? And must his rabid dog rush to his aid?
Should I be afraid to say that the guy playing Kingpin on Daredevil is doing a terrible job because the actor may come after me? They are breaking social etiquette and protocol. This is not the first time. Someone contacted my office via fax and set me on my #drama path. I was also the recipient of &Dan giving out my name in his chat to remind me who-is -boss. Did Leo intimidate Skieast? No, all he probably did was encourage him and others to do more.
No one sees themselves as the bad guy, not Attila the Hun, Mussolini, Saddam Hussein or Osama Bin Laden. We all must occasionally look at ourselves. Has Drama gone too far? Yes, and I have to look at myself for that. Do you think the Petalumaites ever introspect? Have you ever heard an apology uttered from Keller street?
So don’t lump Skieast in with anyone else, we are all responsible for our own actions. I ask again, what did Skieast do? What if Skieast was a 14 year old kid and actually felt threatened? Doesn’t TWiT champion shutting down Twitter because* someone tweeted a gamer girl that they want to kill her?
Critics are important. If TWiT does not have a woman on after rotating through 15 guests or if TWiT has 70 hosts/independent contractors and not one is black maybe they should be called out. If they destroy peoples hard work (Framerate, NSFW) maybe fans have a right to know. The reason they get mad is because the illusion they built is coming down. That is it.
An AMA is supposed to be a love fest, no critics (trolls) allowed.
Does anyone want to play a game with no rules? It would get out of hand.
*I do not actually follow the gamergirl story so my details are probably wrong.
From time to time here at TotalDrama we take a break from the unrelenting #scoups and hard-hitting news stories and we do a “comedy piece”—but only rarely.
Most of the time on this blog we are laser-focused on award-winning journalism pieces that really make a difference. So it is with a light heart that we turn our attention to one of the major clowns operating within the TWiT Shithouse: Jason C. Cleanthes, aka EffenDunn.
He’s a dumbass. Not just any run-of-the-mill dumbass. He’s a major league dumbass. I mean like World Series closer dumbass.
OK. Well that was it. Hope you found that funny. Well, at least he likes animals. He’s also quite the little cunt commenter on Kickstarter; taking a bunch of projects to task for piddly reasons. Go get ’em, dumbass!
Exposing The Dark Underbelly of TWiT, Leo Laporte, and Failed CEO Lisa Laporte