As of me writing this, it’s been a little less than a week since I had published this project. Before I say anything else, I would like to thank everyone for the overwhelmingly positive response—I had, surprisingly enough, received pretty much zero hate. There’s been a few responses clearly made in bad faith, which I do not care about—I’m not gonna dignify people who do not care to engage with my argument with a response—but otherwise, everyone has been incredibly kind. For that, I thank you all.
This positive response to the project, however, has been the only good thing to happen in regards to QSMP 2.
Despite my best hopes and the traction this project has received, none of the creators have taken any responsibility or demanded any kind of accountability. Furthermore, Quackity Studios continued to show their ass by using stolen GenAI backgrounds for their announcement posters and inviting known bigots to their server. This, of course, is not surprising in the slightest. As Ana has expressed on Twitter:
the last thing i'll say on the matter is: don't expect someone to foster a safe space for marginalized people and/or care about artists when you saw how they treated people "without platforms" both behind the scenes and publicly. some people only care about their bottom line.
this is just what they did before in another font: disregarding people in search of personal glory and financial gain, fuck people's safety and comfort bc who cares about other human beings. someone who treats people like shit, will turn around and do the same to you.
trust me, we would know.
A lot of people came out of the woodwork to protest the use of GenAI in the announcement posters—which is all well and good, but, really? You can excuse workplace abuse, but you draw the line at GenAI? Do you think artists having their art put into generative models are the only people having their labor devalued in this situation? Why is that? Why would you qualify the others' devalued labor as not real labor or deserving of lower wages in comparison?
Some of the participants referred to “legal processes” as their reason for not talking about workplace abuse. This is a non-defense. There’s no “legal side” to this. Thinking there is any kind of lawsuit going on is, at best, naive: in what alternate universe can Quackity Studios both launch a massive, (seemingly Twitch-sponsored) project and be in the middle of a lawsuit at the same time?
Some of the participants said that they’d talked to Quackity and were reassured that everything was fine. This is also a non-defense: not only Quackity is (by everyone’s admission!) not part of the administrative team (and is therefore, apparently, not in control of the workings in his company), he is the person at fault here. If you found out someone was a victim of domestic abuse, would you be asking the abuser if everything’d been sorted out? No! Why would the perpetrator tell you the truth?
(And this behaviour is especially gross for the creators who are colleagues with some of the exploited ex-workers—is supporting a server run by people who exploited and abused your co-worker not at least a little bit embarrassing for you?)
At this point, even if any of the participants end up pulling out, I do not care. These creators have proven that they do not care about victims of abuse; that they refuse to engage with any kind of critique; that they’re irresponsible and cannot be trusted even with an ounce of influence.Â
Which isn’t to say, of course, that them pulling out would be a bad thing—I still encourage everyone to pressure their favorite creators to rescind their participation and lower the risks of any further workplace abuse taking place. But even if Tubbo decided to quit QSMP 2 tomorrow, I already know how he treats serious issues, and cannot trust him ever again.
I feel very dramatic saying all of this, but this is how I feel. Watching these creators has been a huge part of my life for the past 5 years, and seeing this behaviour feels like having a part of my heart ripped out and stomped on. I am grateful for all the connections and friends I’ve made, but I don’t think I can ever go back to properly enjoying MCYT content after all of this.
It’s a shame. In case you couldn’t tell, I cared a lot.
