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Theme Park Worldwide

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Pause. Huge mistakes have been made and people are angry.

Id have given him the benefit of the doubt if not for the comment deleting which was a real p*ss take. The apparent racist comments were silly but forgivable. Supporting alleged child abusers and continuing to make videos as if nothing has happened... Not so much.
 
Also Alton Towers were working directly with Shawn a few weeks ago and posted some videos of him on their Facebook, which are still up.
 
RicketyCricket said:
Pause. Huge mistakes have been made and people are angry.

Id have given him the benefit of the doubt if not for the comment deleting which was a real p*ss take.
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Totally agree I'd also add the caveat that TPWW as a media business need to follow the rules and act like a media company.
 
The right thing to do straight away a few days ago would be:

"We at ThemeParkWorldwide are concerned about allegations that have come to light regarding some of the contributors who feature in our videos.

We'd like to assure everyone that we're taking them seriously, and as investigations are taking place we're not able to comment further at present.

In the meantime, we'll be taking some time out, and would like to assure everyone that whilst investigations are ongoing the people concerned will not be appearing in any of our future content."

The right thing now would be something along the lines of:

"We at ThemeParkWorldwide are concerned about allegations that have come to light regarding some of the contributors who feature in our videos.

We'd like to assure everyone that we're taking them seriously, and as investigations are taking place we're not able to comment further at present.

We know many of you have concerns about our initial response. We admit we got this wrong, and we sincerely apologise. We hope this statement is a step toward rectifying this.

We're now going to be taking some time out, and would like to assure everyone that whilst investigations are ongoing the people concerned will not be appearing in any of our future content."
 
@Craig @khalichanan just to clarify what I was trying to say in my post about the racist screenshots....

My intention was never to make that sound more important than the people coming forward with the allegations. I fully support people who do come forward, and can completely understand why others then get the courage to come forward afterwards.

I was trying to make the point about people posting things (that may or may not be true) when what they are posting is not connected to the original allegations - and in the case of these screenshots, not even related to the people accused. In this instance, I can only see the reason someone posted them was to try and stir up hatred towards Shawn; and that's what makes me think they could be fake. If the messages were directly linked to the allegations then that is different.

Don't get me wrong, if it transpires that TPWW were complicit with what was happening then they deserve to face the full force of the law.

Anyway, if I caused any offence with my post I apologise and if you think I need a spade to dig the hole even deeper, please feel free to send one!
 
RicketyCricket said:
The apparent racist comments were silly but forgivable.
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Forgivable? They weren’t slips of the tongue or misinterpreted remarks.

If real, the screenshot shows Shawn commenting on the fact the train he is on has brown people on it. Questions whether he is ‘in England’ and then shows emojis with brown people and a gun next to them, implying they should be shot.

This is pure racism. Hardly forgivable.
 
With the whole Black Lives Matter - it doesn't sit well on top of the mountain of allegations.
With the deletion of comments as well.....


Call the Fire Brigade.
 
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AT86 said:
Forgivable? They weren’t slips of the tongue or misinterpreted remarks.

If real, the screenshot shows Shawn commenting on the fact the train he is on has brown people on it. Questions whether he is ‘in England’ and then shows emojis with brown people and a gun next to them, implying they should be shot.

This is pure racism. Hardly forgivable.
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I'm in no way condoning it and completely agree that it is a terrible, racist comment.

However I know people who have said similar things in the past, have apologised for it, feel genuinely ashamed and have educated themselves to be a better person.
 
Personally, I do feel slightly more comfortable now that Shawn has released a statement. To me, it at least shows that he is taking it very seriously, and I think leaving these people out of the videos is a very wise move.

With regards to Shawn’s past comments; I admit that Shawn’s comment regarding ethnic minorities was not a good thing to say at all, however as @RicketyCricket says, I have my suspicions that Shawn may have said it a very long time ago. He might not think this now; over just the past few years, he’s travelled so many places, and I’d imagine that in itself would be quite an eye-opener for him.
 
Matt N said:
Personally, I do feel slightly more comfortable now that Shawn has released a statement. To me, it at least shows that he is taking it very seriously, and I think leaving these people out of the videos is a very wise move.

With regards to Shawn’s past comments; I admit that Shawn’s comment regarding ethnic minorities was not a good thing to say at all, however as @RicketyCricket says, I have my suspicions that Shawn may have said it a very long time ago. He might not think this now; over just the past few years, he’s travelled so many places, and I’d imagine that in itself would be quite an eye-opener for him.
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He had no choice but to make a statement. If he didn't he'd be stuck in Oblivion's hole, unable to climb out.
 
I do think it was a good decision to remove those involved, however.

I must say, though, that does beg the question; who will be left for Shawn to film vlogs with? As those allegations encompass quite a lot of Shawn’s current cohort.
 
Steve74 said:
To be fair, most of his videos I prefer have just him in it
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I think I’m the same. I find Shawn himself a really interesting person to watch, and honestly, I think doing videos with just him might be quite a good path for him to go down in the future, as it would seem the other stars of his videos may well have been the cause of most of the issues here.

Personally, as nice as it always was to have some of the other guys in the videos, they were never really a pivotal part of the videos for me, and as Shawn has now distanced himself from those accused, I would still enjoy his videos if it was only him in them, personally.
 
This whole affair has only just come to my attention today, and it's really, really sad.

I wouldn't class myself as a hardcore enthusiast (yes, yes, I know I post here from time to time) - and to be honest I'd fallen out of love with theme parks until I stumbled on TPWW. I've really enjoyed the content the last few years (I remember a couple of summers ago being hooked on one of their European roadtrips) and feel cheated, in a way, that this website may have - on the face of it - facilitated or at the very least turned a blind eye to potentially illegal activity.

To those questioning the motives for alleged female victims coming forward with their claims of inappropriate behaviour, shame on you - this is why abuse victims so often stay quiet. I also don't buy any defence of the seemingly racist remarks Shawn made, regardless of how many years ago they were or how young he was, and he should apologise for them if the screenshots shared online are accurate.

There's so much to unpick here, but probably best left until the police have concluded whatever investigations they deem necessary. Again, it's just very sad.
 
I don’t want to speculate on the details of the allegations however, I do have some of my own experience seeing these people off camera which make me feel that these allegations have some truth to them.
It was at fright nights a few years ago I saw them. They were very obnoxious, especially Crump. I remember him chanting loudly in the queue line. I can imagine he may not be respectful of people’s boundaries as he comes across as quite an “in your face” kind of personality. (My assumption)

They have never been people I aspire or look up to, I see them more as entertaining enthusiast stereotypes. In fact I’ve made a mockery of them many times. They are not the most pleasant people off camera for sure. Franklin was always a complete weirdo and I was under the impression that TPWW distanced themselves from him a few years ago now as he stopped appearing in videos.

If they are abusing their influence as YouTube personalities to basically stalk and hit on girls, then I find this disgusting. I just hope the theme parks stop legitimising these kinds of people with special treatment. I’d be quite happy for the whole vlogging trend to stop tbh. Just get back to enjoying days out without recording it all. The rides are what we are all here for, not self-promoting, egocentric personalities looking for internet fame.

Don’t trust any of these vloggers on YouTube.
 
It will be interesting to see how parks handle this. As we've seen the 'Vlogging' industry has grown massively. I've not been to Towers for many years so i'm not sure how prevalent it is but I know on a recent trip to Disneyworld I noticed quite a few vloggers around the place.

The Theme parks have up until now embarrassed the vloggers, they are great for marketing, showing people new rides, building enthusiasm for a place. As any vloggger/influencer they are very cheap marketing for the parks and the creator makes a cut of the ad revenue or gets a free day out.

I love filming at parks with my friends but there definitely seems to be an arrogance to some of these (not pointing any fingers) vloggers who think they are part of the press without following any of the rules that the press have to follow specifically in regards to impartiality and permissions.
 
What a sorry state of affairs this has become. With so many people coming forward now with their stories, it just casts serious doubts over TPWs credibility as a family-friendly channel.

It's difficult to know whether Shawn knew about the activities of some of his associates. One would like to assume he did not, so it's both unfair and unreasonable for him to be guilty simply by association. However the fact he kept silent on it and deleted posts has certainly not helped him and only made it look like he was covering for them, even if that was not his intention. (Of course, if he did know then that's a totally different ballgame)

It's hard to predict what will happen next. It looks like Shawn is taking the "business as usual" approach but I'm not sure people are happy to move on; at least, not yet.
 
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