Skyscraper
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Nemesis
Just had a read. Obviously I'm going to remain neutral (we all should), but yikes.
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Theme Park Worldwide
- Thread starter He111epard
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Skyscraper
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Nemesis
Surely they would've known before the stream went live that people would ask about the allegations? Plus people probably asked in the chat why they were deleting them, which woudn't have helped.
Thameslink Rail
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- The Smiler
I watched through the whole stream. People mentioned the allegations in the chat frequently, one person left a superchat (donation) with a message about the allegations that was deleted very quickly. Shaun did not mention the allegations in the livestream and continued as usual.
Skyscraper
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Nemesis
That's not great that other parks are getting dragged into it as well, but I understand why some people may be concerned.
Matt N
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Shambhala (PortAventura Park)
Do we think that the parks could potentially take any action against Shawn or the channel in light of these allegations?
If this gets much bigger, I think Shawn could be forced into doing something other than hiding the messages. He may have to make an actual statement on his social media channels. There’s only so big that you can let something like this get; I’ve heard of internal dramas from within TPW before (for example, when Dean left the channel in 2016, and I’ve heard that Shawn’s departure from Alton Towers may not have been as civil as some might believe.), but I’ve never seen anything quite on this scale before and quite this serious.
If this gets much bigger, I think Shawn could be forced into doing something other than hiding the messages. He may have to make an actual statement on his social media channels. There’s only so big that you can let something like this get; I’ve heard of internal dramas from within TPW before (for example, when Dean left the channel in 2016, and I’ve heard that Shawn’s departure from Alton Towers may not have been as civil as some might believe.), but I’ve never seen anything quite on this scale before and quite this serious.
It’s just getting grimmer by the second. I think tpww need to think about what they should be doing next instead of trying to carry on like nothing’s happened. It’s fine just deleting and hiding tweets and not giving clarification on anything to start with but in time this will reflect badly on them. It might not be that bad now but if anything goes further with the investigation and it appears on local news or something like that then they won’t know what hit them. End of the day yes tpww is not directly involved but they give the platform for these average people to become popular. I think they need to think long and hard about what they do next as this isn’t going away for a long time.
Matt N
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Shambhala (PortAventura Park)
The thing that could make it especially bad for them is that there are even seemingly allegations (not of sexual harassment, of different things) against Shawn himself. For example, the first allegation of racism and the allegation to do with autistic people are both squarely against Shawn himself and not anyone else on the channel.
EDIT: Mods, I apologise if I’m going into too much depth. Feel free to delete my post if it violates the guidance Craig placed a page or two back.
EDIT: Mods, I apologise if I’m going into too much depth. Feel free to delete my post if it violates the guidance Craig placed a page or two back.
Those accusations have nothing to do with the pending investigation so far as I’m concerned the longer he lets them keep being shared and not speaking out about them the worst it will get.
The parks may decide that TPWW doesn’t fit with their friendly family safe environment and refuse entry / photography while allegations are being investigated.
I guess it depends on how many people question them about how safe is it to visit etc.
I think I saw someone mention that Towers has unfollowed TPWW on twitter which if true shows they are distancing themselves.
Matt N
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Shambhala (PortAventura Park)
They are still serious allegations, however, whether they are to do with the investigation or not. The key issue here seems to be abuse, harassment and hurtful actions within the TPW community in general, and I do think that allegations of various forms of abuse against Shawn himself are unfortunately related to that.
Ooh, that’s interesting. Did they previously follow TPW? If so, then that could be a definite sign of them trying to distance themselves. I don’t know whether I’m looking into it too much, however...
As I’ve said; buckle up, guys, because I fear things could get pretty nasty on this front by the time parks reopen...
Craig
TS Administrator
I'm not defending TPWW by any means, but want to shed a bit of light on their potential reasoning behind their initial decisions. I think the thing that has to be remembered is that this is someone's livelihood and sole source of income, so the choices that they make are ultimately an aim to protect that in addition to trying to address the incidents raised. There are >200k subscribers to the channel, and a small percentage of those were aware of all this that was going on when things first kicked off, and at the time it was one single accusation that was in the spotlight.
Looking from the outside on this one, they had two choices:
On the subject of the allegations, the sheer number of people coming out with their own incidents is beyond worrying. Speaking on a personal level, I do believe them. Stan culture amongst Youtubers is rampant, and the larger a channel is the more intense it can be. For participants in those Youtube channels to exploit their fame to manipulate and abuse their fans is beyond disgusting, even more so for a channel with a predominately younger fanbase.
Looking from the outside on this one, they had two choices:
- Acknowledge the allegations and say they're unacceptable if true, say they're being investigated privately and in the meantime say they're taking a break and/or the people involved won't appear in videos whilst this is being looked into. You then publicly state the outcome before resuming normal content (e.g. individuals no longer appearing etc). The risk of that is that the issues are then exposed to a wider audience, which could potentially make the situation worse.
- The sweep under the carpet approach. Remove all reference to the allegations, try and carry on through it in the hope that it'll go away.
On the subject of the allegations, the sheer number of people coming out with their own incidents is beyond worrying. Speaking on a personal level, I do believe them. Stan culture amongst Youtubers is rampant, and the larger a channel is the more intense it can be. For participants in those Youtube channels to exploit their fame to manipulate and abuse their fans is beyond disgusting, even more so for a channel with a predominately younger fanbase.
Alsty
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Fury 325
I'm not sure how they can respond. I think it's somewhat unfair to drag the parks into this. You're asking them to take sides in a dispute that they're not party to and which is subject to potential legal action.
Craig
TS Administrator
Yup I think Towers will possibly make some decisions privately, but I don't think it's something they need to address or be dragged into in the public domain. From a guest safety point of view (which is what people seem to be alluding to when contacting them) Towers is a public place with extensive security procedures in place. Dragging them into it is not really required.
Matt N
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Shambhala (PortAventura Park)
The allegations keep pouring in, I’m afraid... a new one was put on there not long ago.
Buckle up, because I think the next few days could be nasty... I’m still shocked by some of the reports coming in, and I’m not really sure how to feel. In many ways, I feel guilty for having so blindly supported the channel over the last 5 years. At the same time, I feel unsettled and a little hurt, not just by the sexual harassment & abuse claims, but also by some of Shawn’s alleged comments. As someone on the autistic spectrum, Shawn’s comments about autistic people in particular hit a nerve with me.
As everyone keeps saying, I’m trying to remain as impartial as possible; as the saying goes, innocent until proven guilty. However, if any of those allegations are remotely true (and to be honest, I can’t see why so many people would choose to lie about those types of encounters with various members of TPW), it is a real shock to the system to hear things like this coming out of a channel that I’ve supported immensely over the last 5 years.
I have tried purposely to keep myself out of the dramas of the enthusiast community, but hearing things like this about a channel I love just hit a little too hard for me. If these allegations are true, then I do feel shocked and a little deceived, in a sense. Shawn and his community all seem wonderfully welcoming and friendly on camera, so it really saddens me to hear that this allegedly isn’t the case, and just reading those allegations against people who seem so nice was really quite unnerving, and was a rather startling eye-opener for me.
If there’s one thing that really saddens me about the theme park community, it’s that for a group of people united by such a niche interest as theme park enthusiasm, we are all so deeply divided against one another. I fully appreciate that not everyone will agree with each other, as I have managed to exhibit so many times over my 3 years on this forum, but all of the cliques and little “tribes” as it were on some platforms are one of the things that make me very scared to tread any further than the forums, and in many ways, I wish this wasn’t the case. This community deserves to be a welcoming place for any person with a budding interest in theme parks, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, anything like that, and for the most part, I have found the community to be a welcoming one. However, in order to make the community all the more inclusive, I really hope that we can settle our divisions and get along a little. Even if we don’t agree with one another, I think it would be a wonderful thing if different groups of enthusiasts could coexist in a more civil manner.
Buckle up, because I think the next few days could be nasty... I’m still shocked by some of the reports coming in, and I’m not really sure how to feel. In many ways, I feel guilty for having so blindly supported the channel over the last 5 years. At the same time, I feel unsettled and a little hurt, not just by the sexual harassment & abuse claims, but also by some of Shawn’s alleged comments. As someone on the autistic spectrum, Shawn’s comments about autistic people in particular hit a nerve with me.
As everyone keeps saying, I’m trying to remain as impartial as possible; as the saying goes, innocent until proven guilty. However, if any of those allegations are remotely true (and to be honest, I can’t see why so many people would choose to lie about those types of encounters with various members of TPW), it is a real shock to the system to hear things like this coming out of a channel that I’ve supported immensely over the last 5 years.
I have tried purposely to keep myself out of the dramas of the enthusiast community, but hearing things like this about a channel I love just hit a little too hard for me. If these allegations are true, then I do feel shocked and a little deceived, in a sense. Shawn and his community all seem wonderfully welcoming and friendly on camera, so it really saddens me to hear that this allegedly isn’t the case, and just reading those allegations against people who seem so nice was really quite unnerving, and was a rather startling eye-opener for me.
If there’s one thing that really saddens me about the theme park community, it’s that for a group of people united by such a niche interest as theme park enthusiasm, we are all so deeply divided against one another. I fully appreciate that not everyone will agree with each other, as I have managed to exhibit so many times over my 3 years on this forum, but all of the cliques and little “tribes” as it were on some platforms are one of the things that make me very scared to tread any further than the forums, and in many ways, I wish this wasn’t the case. This community deserves to be a welcoming place for any person with a budding interest in theme parks, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, anything like that, and for the most part, I have found the community to be a welcoming one. However, in order to make the community all the more inclusive, I really hope that we can settle our divisions and get along a little. Even if we don’t agree with one another, I think it would be a wonderful thing if different groups of enthusiasts could coexist in a more civil manner.
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It’s going to get worse and worse over the next few weeks unless they do the right thing and put out a statement or just go offline for a few weeks to let it cool down.
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