In the mind of Social Justice Warriors, asking a woman uncomfortable questions about employment policies or corporate culture at a high-profile business is “gross”. This is not a mischaracterization of the situation, but rather an actual development that unfolded when The Escapist advertised an upcoming interview between Escapist’s Victor Lucas and Riot Games senior editor Ellie Pyle, which contained a clip of Pyle being flummoxed with the difficult questions and responding in an uncomfortable way. This caused Social Justice Warriors to go on the attack against The Escapist.

The original article was a teaser for an upcoming interview that was going to be part of The Escapist’s new Recon segment featuring Victor Lucas. The two minute teaser basically had Lucas asking Pyle about the culture at Riot that led to the breakdown and the controversy and her thoughts on that. Pyle struggled to compose a suitable answer, and attempted to seek some guidance from the PR person off camera who told her to “answer honestly”. The teaser ends before we find out exactly what Pyle has to say about the situation after gaining her composure.

The teaser didn’t stay up long after being posted up on February 6th, 2019.

If you check the current page now, the teaser page and the video have been removed.

This came after lots of Social Justice Warriors, including Zoe Quinn, former Riot employee Daniel Z. Klein who was fired for advocating discrimination, Polygon’s Chris Plante, and Danny O’Dwyer, began taking Victor Lucas and Russ Pitts to task for publishing the teaser, as outlined in a tweet by Game Objective’s Brad Glasgow.

The gaming media clique is going after @Victor_Lucas and The Escapist for an interview with Riot that was uncomfortable. Here they are complaining about the interview, including Chris Plante, Zoe Quinn, Adam Cronover (?), Danny O’Dwyer, et al. https://t.co/EHX83eP3gy — Brad Glasgow (@Brad_Glasgow) February 7, 2019

Some of the tweets in the thread claimed that the interview was “gross” and “rage” inducing.





The response from the Social Justice community to the teaser clip didn’t just result in the clip being taken down, it also resulted in Lucas posting an apology on February 7th, 2019, where he states…

“We never meant to offend anyone with our first taste of Recon. We knew our teaser clip was uncomfortable, but the subject matter itself is uncomfortable and I believed that Ellie Pyle’s struggle to express herself after the PR person she was working with encouraged her to be honest and open was a remarkable unfiltered look at how painful something like Riot’s abuse scandal is. It affects everyone. It is a more powerful clip because of that rawness and the effort to find the words. “But it’s also true that we are too close to this material and we have erred with our first release of out-of-context footage. I am deeply sorry for this. To Ellie Pyle most of all, to all of our friends at Riot, and to anyone we’ve hurt with the release of this material, I’m sorry. That was never the intention.”

He goes on to explain that there is hours of more footage and that the clip that they teased was the most uncomfortable part, but also explained that due to the sexism and harassment allegations that circulated discussion of Riot Games in the media sphere last year, he felt he had to broach the subject during the interview.

He finishes up by saying that he hopes that people enjoy the first season of the show…

“So what do we do from here? We launch the show. If you’ve seen the teaser, you’ve seen the most uncomfortable couple of minutes in the hours of interviews we shot. The material you’ll see in Recon is made up of studio visits and casual conversations about the culture and people that work together to make incredible things. The process of traveling to these studios and conducting these interviews has been some of the most gratifying work I’ve been able to do in my 25 years in this industry. I’m hoping you’ll watch and enjoy the first season.”

Some of the people in the comment section agreed with deleting the teaser clip and apologizing, others felt that The Escapist had no spine and was kowtowing to the demands of unstable people.

Brad Glasgow offered a more nuanced and mature perspective on the subject matter, explaining that what we saw was honest and real, raw and unhewn – a challenging moment between the journalist and the seemingly impenetrable corporate facade.

I’ve often said if you’re not challenging your subject, then you’re not doing a real interview. This interview is challenging her. I’m not a fan of the production. I’m not a fan of him suggesting to her what she could say. But it’s not a bad interview. — Brad Glasgow (@Brad_Glasgow) February 7, 2019

I’m also not a fan of the new The Escapist and hate having to defend them. But the truth is they’re under a concerted attack for not toeing the same, monotonous Social Justice line that the other media outlets have committed to. — Brad Glasgow (@Brad_Glasgow) February 7, 2019

This isn’t the first time that The Escapist has had to retract an article after offending the sensibilities of far-Left Social Justice Warriors.

Editor-in-chief Russ Pitts also took down an article discussing ethics in video game journalism after being besieged by harassment from the very same people who falsely claim #GamerGate was about harassment. The irony is stranger than fiction.

I suppose in reality, it’s becoming blatantly clear for all the Centrists™ and Moderates™ still ignorantly proclaiming “both sides are bad” that it doesn’t matter what #GamerGate attempted to do, there is no pleasing Social Justice Warriors. They aren’t trying to be fair, they’re not trying to be balanced, they’re not trying to find a middle ground or even terrain. They simply want to tear down and destroy, as evident with the fact that they are willing to drag one of their own allies through a gauntlet of fire and brimstone if they even remotely dare step out of line.

(Thanks for the news tip Blaugast)