Hey, this entire situation has honestly been traumatizing for me--speaking as a marginalized person who is still doing community work for Extra Credits (for example, something I do is run the official EC tumblr) and knows the details of everything that happened (I've been working for over a year-and-a-half now with the other EC folks). I got to witness plenty of the before, during, and after of the breakup that happened, as did the rest of us who were/are friends with both these people--and what we saw does not in any way line up with Soraya's description of events.
After the breakup happened (which was a whole year before Soraya actually left), friendships in the team became divided as everyone started to feel like they had to socially split up and "pick sides” (of the breakup; there was no mention at any point of harassment claims until well after Soraya left, which is when the internal company investigation happened. Soraya declined to participate in being interviewed but I believe everyone else was interviewed). Dan and Carrie were eventually cut off from Soraya entirely, until after they left the company and formed their new channel, which I know hurt them a lot as it was a very close friendship they valued.
It's been really heartbreaking for me to see #metoo get perverted and misused in this way--the relationship between James and Soraya was, from what I understand, not healthy for either of them, and breaking up was absolutely what needed to happen for them. But apparently it doesn't matter that we conducted a transparent third-party HR investigation and looked at all the chat logs/emails/etc., and it doesn't matter that nobody at EC has ever experienced toxicity or harassment from James, because it's much easier to just sling around judgement from the outside and assume that everyone is universally problematic and awful, instead of maybe considering that this was a bitter breakup between two individuals that was leveraged to try to tear apart a friend group (and in that sense, I guess it partially succeeded?).
The rest of us still work at EC because we believe sincerely in the mission of EC to share good things with the world, and in trying to do the right thing. If people are going to think that I'm an "apologist" (such a fun witch-hunt word) because my version of facts is different than their hearsay on Twitter, there's pretty much nothing I can do about that, but it's been so incredibly hurtful for me to keep seeing people try to tell me what I should think/believe, even though I actually witnessed what happened, talked to everyone involved about what happened, and have come to my own conclusions.
James and Daniel have hitherto been the most prominent faces of our team, but Extra Credits has always been made possible because of MANY people... some of us are queer, some of us are commies, some of us live halfway across the world, but we all love making things that can inspire people to be better and to do good. Heck, this experience has taught us all a lot about how to run EC as a more professional business instead of just “friends doing things” and already it’s created a healthier work environment for everyone who currently does work for EC or produces work for EC in the future. I really hope that’s a lesson other small businesses can learn and improve on.
Honestly this would have more reach being on my Twitter but I am already really stressed out by Twitter so I’m posting this on a blog I literally haven’t used since college. I’ve been going to therapy for a month or so now and have been working on coping mechanisms so that I can actually do my job properly again instead of worrying about rumors and feeling external pressure to quit my job.
Q: “well why doesn’t EC post all this juicy gossip details from their official accounts and why was the statement so vague yadda yadda ydadd”
A: maybe because there’s already a lot of GGers aware of EC’s presence and influence, and while I don’t agree with Soraya’s version of events I don’t think she deserves to get any more hate and harassment than she might have already experienced by being thrown in the spotlight unnecessarily. I genuinely hope that she is able to heal from the pain and bitterness of the breakup, if she hasn’t already. Breakups suck, a LOT.
So yeah, basically the only genuinely toxic thing about this whole situation has been people making up stories and rumors about how the rest of us should supposedly feel about working with James/Extra Credits. Spoiler alert, if any of that was true we would have all quit by now (because it was something we took really fucking seriously!) and Extra Credits would have ended in April of this year, but that didn’t happen. It just really hurts when the stories/rumors are coming from other marginalized people because I understand all too well how power dynamics work in our society, and I think it’s incredibly important for people to speak out against abuse and oppression when it happens. If I was on the outside of this situation, I would probably take Soraya’s word too without a second thought, just because I and everyone else is so burned out right now on all the other abuse and oppression that happens regularly in the entertainment industry.
But, this is my personal experience about this one particular thing, and my feelings about it.
god it feels cathartic to actually write this out. worst case scenario, I post this and no one believes me, so things aren’t any different than they were before.
