hi guys! just letting you know in response to being notified about an uptick of hate and negativity in the epic fandom (mostly on tiktok) , Ryan Donaldson, the main business strategist of the EPIC team, has issued a statement essentially saying its the creator's fault that they experience so much hate because they drive the algorithm to give them more hate comments by responding to it.
Nowhere in the video does he say that he doesn't condone this sort of behavior, which is weird considering that he was a large contributor in creating and curating the fandom. He repeatedly pushes the idea of 'banning and moving on,' saying that Stories from Styx experiences more hate because Casper responds to hateful comments and implies that he may have hired "abusive collaborators" (whatever that means). Nowhere in this video does he talk about the role of the audience in defining the behavior of a fandom space. Ryan then plugs epic by talking about how positive everyone involved in the project is . Generally a dogshit response
Ryan is @ tiktokdungeonmaster on well. Tiktok
what is this guy yapping about
I want to know what he means when he says the hate is the creator's fault
ryan never said "it's a creator's fault if they experience hate", he said that a creator needs to be mindful of how they engage with hate comments because the algorithm will unwittingly supply them with more hate as a byproduct of that engagement. it's an admittedly impersonal response, but it's sound business advice, as to be expected from someone whose whole online presence and personality is based around business
i never said Ryan said "it's a creator's fault if they experience hate." i said it's essentially the message. I can rephrase: he ESSENTIALLY said that whether or not a creator experiences hate depends on their actions taken to address that hate, while saying nothing about who causes it OR why they're experiencing hate in the first place. If i'm getting this right from him, the weight falls entirely on the creator.
2. from someone who has engaged in the community and took a large part in building it like Ryan, this is absolutely not a satisfactory response. This is not about business, this is about addressing large-scale harassment in a community.
sure, business is a lot of his online presence, but it remains that this is an issue specifically stemming from the treatment of the COMMUNITY. That's why pushing business advice doesn't work here. The concerns raised to Ryan by Casper had nothing to do with the actual content of creators and everything to do with how fans have been reacting to it.
Placing creators as the main focus/cause of hate instead of addressing the shitty behavior of the audience that perpetuates it comes off as dismissive at best. Again, nowhere does Ryan say that he doesn't support this behavior, even though he literally also represents and communicates for EPIC and its logistics on the account I listed. Thanks
Tldr its shitty that Ryan puts the spotlight on the creators rather than the audience and this is definitely not a business matter
apologies, i did partially misinterpret your previous argument. although i do see your point, it's not ryan's job to hold the community accountable for toxic fan behavior. it absolutely DOES need to be held accountable, but he responded with business advice because that's the part he plays within EPIC's community. he also implied that he doesn't support toxic fan behavior by putting emphasis on the difference between unnecessary "brutal" honesty and "kind" honesty while highlighting how unnecessary it is for fans to bring negativity into a situation by playing devil's advocate.
whether ryan should be commenting on this is a different matter, and my take on this is that if the community is to be held accountable, it needs to be done by a cast member closely associated with the building of EPIC's community (such as teagan) or by jorge himself.
at the end of the day, ryan didn't address fan behavior because it's not a variable that can be controlled directly (unlike an app's algorithm) through business strategy, which is his area of expertise. we can't even say for certain if a PSA from someone with a strong ethos would stop the harassment and unacceptable fandom behavior. i think that unfortunately this business-sided response is all we'll get for a long while, and while that in of itself is wrong, this is likely all ryan can comment on. i truly do wish he'd say more, but ultimately, he is a businessman, so even if this isn't a business matter, that's all we're getting. here's to hoping jorge himself makes a statement at some point, because the fandom situation is awful at the moment.
you make good points! im sorry if my wording was a little harsh haha.
i guess i was trying to say that even if ryan is commenting as a businessman, he should be more aware of his association and role in EPIC, especially if he is the only one from the team speaking about this about the moment. at EPIC's scale, hinting at stuff is basically the same as not saying anything about it--he was very clear about the responsibility of creators but, as you said, implied that he doesn't support toxic fan behavior. I don't think that's enough.
besides that, as pretty much everyone has said, he's a businessman. The central part of the concern raised by Casper was fan behavior, which raises the question of why he was the one to respond if it's not really his business AND he didn't say anything explicitly. why him? if this continues, i hope someone else takes over this situation instead of ryan. this definitely could've been handled better lol
thank you! :D
the harsh wording makes sense, and i don't blame you in the slightest. this is a tough situation on all sides and it's primarily driven by emotion; it's a good sign that you care so much. i agree that as a representative of EPIC (and also practically the only one besides jorge himself), ryan should do more to address the problems within the community, but he's probably taken into account the possibility of how little change a statement could actually affect.
i do think that in the absence of jorge, ryan becomes the de facto responder to things like this, but that raises the question of if it should even be him that responds to fan behavior in this manner. it may not be too late to change things, but the way ryan was going about a solution (the ol "ban and don't bother" method) is ineffective at best and allows a bad situation to fester at worst.
you make really good points as well, and i think we can agree that the community could benefit from having a vast amount more of common sense and kindness :]
