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Nick Robinson (Polygon) involved in sexual harassment allegations [Suspended]
- Thread starter Bowlie
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So, here's my thinking on the matter when I see a take like this, I know it's preferred to be forgiving and to believe in second chances but I can't help but think why give a guy like this the opportunity? There's countless people out there who are just as if not more talented than Nick Robinson and manage to not sexually harass people. Why not raise up those people instead of spending an iota of effort on giving scumbags a chance to salvage their careers? It almost feels normalizing of such behavior (not at all accusing you of not coming from a good place with your sentiment, just sharing my own).
ClosingADoor
Member
His wake up call can be that he switches industries, because if all this is true, I don't see any publication wanting that linked to them. And neither should they. I don't care about his comedic skill and how good of an entertainer he is when he apparently can't even grasp how sexual harassment is wrong.
Emperor_Uriel
Member
I think the core difference is that Robinson didn't actually commit any crimes, whereas Ghomeshi was accused of serious assaults (though, for the record, he was found not guilty and cleared of all charges).
Robinson's actions were piggish, unprofessional and inappropriate and Polygon has every right to terminate him, but we can't criminalize a person being a creep online. Not unless we suddenly want hundreds of thousands of teenagers and single men in their thirties to have criminal records.
chrominance
Member
I was more addressing the comments in this thread asking why people didn't come forward sooner, or how it could be that people knew this guy was a creeper and didn't do anything (with an implication that this is actually evidence of his innocence). I agree that the severity of the alleged offenses are completely different.
There is a not enough here for me to have an opinion of Marks guilt or innocence.
If he did it, he should be fired. If not, he keeps his job. He does seem a bit of a asshole but is that enough to be fired?
Yeah but people say
People say a lot of things and gossip gets spiced up to make entertaining. If you reverse the sexes here would you have the same opinion?
Nobody should be terminated from a job on hearsay and because that's how people are in this industry I am also not thrilled that this ball for rolling by someone angered by an unrelated tweet.
That said, I can also sympathise with the women since due to possiblity of litigation most companies would try to downplay sexual harassment. But going public would bring on the wrath of people who have shown outright hate for victims of proven cases of this type of abuse. Truly a shitty position to be in.
I just don't know enough yet.
If he did it, he should be fired. If not, he keeps his job. He does seem a bit of a asshole but is that enough to be fired?
Yeah but people say
People say a lot of things and gossip gets spiced up to make entertaining. If you reverse the sexes here would you have the same opinion?
Nobody should be terminated from a job on hearsay and because that's how people are in this industry I am also not thrilled that this ball for rolling by someone angered by an unrelated tweet.
That said, I can also sympathise with the women since due to possiblity of litigation most companies would try to downplay sexual harassment. But going public would bring on the wrath of people who have shown outright hate for victims of proven cases of this type of abuse. Truly a shitty position to be in.
I just don't know enough yet.
We don't come forward because more often than not, we are ignored, shunned, mocked, or even fired. I and 6 other women had pages of written complaints about a coworker who was sexually harassing us. We took them to management who immediately brought in HR to cover their asses. I was told I had to "be nice" to my harasser because he was really a good guy.
I swear just typing that made me feel enraged all over again and it happened quite a while ago.
I swear just typing that made me feel enraged all over again and it happened quite a while ago.
Well yes, even though sexual harassment towards women is much more common and often much more severe nobody should be a victim of it regardless the gender.
funkystudent
Member
Good to see VOX has taken the first baby step of suspending him.
Very curious how they are gonna handle it considering the progressive image they like to project.
Very curious how they are gonna handle it considering the progressive image they like to project.
GiantBombGamer
Member
Well thats because we are talking about Nick, not this Mark person.
The fact that an unrelated tweet got this ball rolling is largely irrelavent. If anything, his flippant attitude bit him in the ass and people finally said "enough is enough with this guy", and I'm glad it happened. There is no room in this industry, or any industry, for the things he's been accused of doing to multiple women.
lol clearly
You're right that there are people likely a lot of them who would be far more entertaining were they given his career position, (hopefully) without stooping to this kind of behavior. But a lot of people have come to like Nick's brand of humor (moreso on Polygon's videos, where he's barely abrasive at all), and there's no way to copy or supplant it exactly. A lot of people are losing entertainment that they could consistently count on getting multiple times a week. The cost's worth it to ensure people can feel safe and secure, but that's still a big loss.
I don't see it as trying to normalize things, so much as it seeing the good Nick has to offer and wishing that it didn't have to come with such baggage.
InaudibleWhispa
Member
Just being a female involved in a gaming controversy can mean a ton of grief, rage and abuse for literally years following you everywhere you go, it's easy to see why you'd be scared to say anything. There's also the fact that there is a history of nothing happening (hence the praise for Polygon's handling of the situation), which means they could've got all that abuse, and severed important connections in the industry. Thankfully everyone is taking it seriously and, as far as I can tell, the victims have managed to remain anonymous avoiding abuse.
TharpDaddy
Member
Yeah, it's difficult. I think it's a situation where 0 effort should be given by other people towards salvaging his career. This is a bed of his making and he's hurt a lot of people, including close friends. He has serious soul searching to do.
I think it's hard for me to have a good perspective on because I enjoyed his content so much. There's more to him as a person than the issues that caused this, people are complex. I like to think that he can get help for those and the Nick that brought me a lot of happiness can come back without them, but it's probably for the best that he doesn't.
streetsahead123
Banned
Is that the guy from Moxy Fruvous?
Princess Magnificent
Neo Member
I assume you wouldn't have been very happy if you confided in a friend about the sexual harassment and their immediate reaction was HOT DIGGITY, WHAT A SCOOP FOR ME!
I'm not saying you're unreasonable here. I'm not even saying you're unreasonable, but (something). I'm merely worried that, internet communication being what it is and lacking all nuance, someone is going to think I'm attacking shiba5 here, which I'm not.
Too late for an edit I guess. LOL
Human Trashcan
Banned
what the fuck are you saying
I think they're trying to downplay sexual harassment.
Change that last about to towards and I agree with you. We need more information on what NICK did.
The OP is: (in order of post, not chronologically)
* Most recent event (Vox suspending Nick)
* The tweet that started a snowball of passive aggressive remarks that turned into an avalanche of more and more obvious accusations of Nick Robinson having a history of harassing women in the industry. (in one way or another)
* Further statements by other people (close colleagues / friends: Griffin McElroy (Polygon), Ben Pack and Matt Kessler (Podcast)) that give insight in how people close to Robinson feel about what they've been told about their friend
as well as:
* Further statements by victims and acquaintances of victims to corroborate the allegations
Yes would be great if he himself would come clean about this and understood his own wrongdoings. The responsibility is on him.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say.
Narpas Sword0
Member
I don't think that's it. I think they tried tried to draw parallels between what Shiba went through and what Nick's accusers did, but then they really lost the thread. They mentioned that they feared the ambiguity that you can sometimes get on the internet, but it's more that they didn't take the time to organize their thoughts.
Botched condolences, basically.
With regard to the actual Overcooked talk last night, I think the thing that gets me most is that he wasn't even blaming the devs. He was angry at the publisher for shipping something obviously buggy and then asking for proof.
Obviously, this stuff had been simmering in the background for a long time and would have come out eventually, and as a result I'm incredibly thankful that it came out sooner rather than later. But if he hadn't been such a douche in those tweets that it made him seem like he was angry at having to help a small dev team, it probably wouldn't have happened this week.
EDIT:
I think their other point was that even though other people in the industry knew what was up, it would fucking suck if you told your friend something in confidence and then "Nick Robinson sexually harasses a woman" goes up as a hot sclusie on their site the next day.
Obviously, this stuff had been simmering in the background for a long time and would have come out eventually, and as a result I'm incredibly thankful that it came out sooner rather than later. But if he hadn't been such a douche in those tweets that it made him seem like he was angry at having to help a small dev team, it probably wouldn't have happened this week.
EDIT:
I think their other point was that even though other people in the industry knew what was up, it would fucking suck if you told your friend something in confidence and then "Nick Robinson sexually harasses a woman" goes up as a hot sclusie on their site the next day.
Ouch. really sorry you had this. I hate that this event already has legions of shitbags keen to defend Nick regardless of what happens. Even if he confesses everything and more his supporters will blame the victim.
Twitter didn't exist back then, but instead HR held a meeting, brought in everyone from the department (people who had no idea what was going on) and blasted us in front of them. It was called a "witch hunt", and one person who spoke up was fired.
I threatened to sue the shit out of them and suddenly upper management got involved and fired the whole lot of them - including the HR person.
Would you like to know what set off the chain reaction of people finally coming forward about the sexual harassment? I was sick of his shit and asked to be moved to a different cube in the next aisle away from him. They refused to even do that much. It snowballed from there.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
This came up a little earlier in the thread:
We often delete posts to protect privacy or end derails. In this thread, deletions have focused on:
a) People talking about whether other popular personalities are sexual harassers, often by name
b) People having a conversation about whether they find Nick Robinson physically attractive
c) Derails around thread whining (i.e. the thread should not exist, people claiming they're leaving the thread and then coming back because they're giant babies, angry yelling at people doing one of the two previous things)
In your case, we removed a post complaining that thread had a lot of posts, and your quoted it to disagree and say it should have a lot of posts. Your post is benign, but in order to stem the derail, it is important to make sure the original post is actually removed, not copied a hundred times. But surely if you think about this for even ten seconds you know this. We have removed approximately 0.5% of the posts in the thread for one of these reasons, and most of the posts we removed were posts quoting the posts we had actually intended to remove.
In the future, if you have questions about moderation, please address them to moderators in PM rather than making the thread about moderation policy.
We often delete posts to protect privacy or end derails. In this thread, deletions have focused on:
a) People talking about whether other popular personalities are sexual harassers, often by name
b) People having a conversation about whether they find Nick Robinson physically attractive
c) Derails around thread whining (i.e. the thread should not exist, people claiming they're leaving the thread and then coming back because they're giant babies, angry yelling at people doing one of the two previous things)
In your case, we removed a post complaining that thread had a lot of posts, and your quoted it to disagree and say it should have a lot of posts. Your post is benign, but in order to stem the derail, it is important to make sure the original post is actually removed, not copied a hundred times. But surely if you think about this for even ten seconds you know this. We have removed approximately 0.5% of the posts in the thread for one of these reasons, and most of the posts we removed were posts quoting the posts we had actually intended to remove.
In the future, if you have questions about moderation, please address them to moderators in PM rather than making the thread about moderation policy.
Bobo Dakes
Member
At the VERY least we should take a look at ourselves and reassess our personal behaviors toward women and other peers. A comment that stood out to me is, what if he didn't think what he was doing was that bad (certainly no excuse), but I'm now looking back at times I was "just joking" or "being flirty" and I feel embarrassed in retrospect. Thinking back to things I've seen, people I've heard stories about and now I'm realizing how common all of this is.
Even when I hear stories like this about people I know, I don't have anyone to tell and it's not my place to do so. I see why people sat on this information.
At first, this was just "WHELP guy I don't like FUCKED up, let me sip this tea and watch him get dragged", but this thread has been really informative.
________________
Also, this is a super competitive industry and many people are hungry for his spot and I'm sure many of them are just as talented and don't sexually harass women.
Even when I hear stories like this about people I know, I don't have anyone to tell and it's not my place to do so. I see why people sat on this information.
At first, this was just "WHELP guy I don't like FUCKED up, let me sip this tea and watch him get dragged", but this thread has been really informative.
________________
Also, this is a super competitive industry and many people are hungry for his spot and I'm sure many of them are just as talented and don't sexually harass women.
Nrocinu777
Neo Member
ugh sad to hear this has happened for so long.
EDIT: Perhaps I was too fast to judge. My apologies.
EDIT: Perhaps I was too fast to judge. My apologies.
Emperor_Uriel
Member
Is any of that being accused? Criminal harassment and menacing typically involves repeated unwanted advances towards a single person.
Having just come off of reading an Atlantic article about how 65 million Americans have criminal records, many of which resulted from the increased prosecution of non-harmful social faux-pas (don't sleep on a bench in public, don't shout curses in the middle of a crowd, J-walking, etc), I'm really not keen on the idea of criminalizing piggish online behavior.
There's something to be said for people that own up to their behavior and try to make amends. I don't really care for Jim Sterling but it seems like he's massively come around for the horrible, inciting troll he used to be during his days at Destructoid.
Nick is likely a predator and a creep and obviously hasn't acquitted himself well but if he legitimately wants to be a better person later on after whatever soul searching, therapy and good amount of time is taken I think a "trust but verify" stance is more than fair. Besides, I don't think he would come back to make video game content for a website anyway. That part of his life is probably over now. No website will touch him if the allegations bear out.
Who is the "we" in this situation? Not to be rude, but I'm comfortable with my behavior toward women. It's something I consider fairly regularly, so I don't need to "reassess".
If you mean society as a whole, then certainly, but not everyone struggles with what you mentioned.
-MD-
Member
I've been banned for this type of comment before.
Particularly as, again, though I will agree their comment was worded rather badly, they weren't disagreeing with or insulting shiba.
aPizzaStainedSlob
Banned
So, is there any actual evidence or is everyone lynching a person's life and career over allegations?
There's quite a difference between sexually harassing multiple women and sleeping on a park bench.
Seriously? Think about what you're typing.
What "actual" evidence would you like to see? And given we all know what that would probably be, why would you feel entitled to see it?
I know I also want to see his dick pics
Bobo Dakes
Member
No need to be so defensive, no one accused you of anything. There were several posters in here questioning if what he did was that bad, which made me wonder what they do in their personal lives. Reassess just means, take another look at it. Shit, I was reading this thread for half of yesterday thinking I was this considerate guy, thought back to something and was like "yeah, that was pretty douchey on my part, I owe someone an apology". I'm not calling everyone here a predator.
Wanna rethink that metaphor buddy?
Yes and you aren't entitled to it because it's really personal shit for the victims, sorry.
There is enough evidence for his closest friends to quit his podcast and for VOX to suspend him. That's good enough for most people since those harassed shouldn't be forced to share their DMs with the public
bizzarewars
Banned
Literally none of his close friends and coworkers are defending him. I don't know what else could be more damning.
I mean, people he has worked with aren't defending him. If that doesn't show you that something is up, I don't know what will (and no, we don't need to see the evidence ourselves)
aPizzaStainedSlob
Banned
I am entitled to evidence as much as everyone else given the potential victims put this into public domain.
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