Based on what I've heard of him, Leshem turned a career making soap operas into one of those "high-energy brand power" sort of consultancies, the marketing equation solved to its limit that disgusts everyone when they think about "marketing." He and his wife represent a big Hollywood power couple -- she's high up at Warner Brothers and responsible for movies like Se7en and Benjamin Button, he's responsible for cultural triumphs like "USA Rock Paper Scissors League" (sponsored by Amp Energy, a PepsiCo brand, of course).
This article should explain a lot, from Variety in 2003: http://variety.com/2003/scene/news/branded-tv-bubbling-up-fr... -- I have no doubt in my mind that Matti Leshem showed up on set thinking "YouTube vehicle for Pepsi" and acted accordingly. Which should tell you a lot about Pepsi, honestly.
This guy:
"Also, how are yo, pretty lady? :)"
"I will kiss you on the vagina if you do"
"Ill still kiss your vagina"
"Let me know if you need a penis for anything in the meae future *near"
"Like. My penis. For your vagina"
[Too explicit for me to feel comfortable leaving readable]
http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/19d66708hxa9zpng/original.pn...
http://kotaku.com/she-was-harassed-by-a-games-reporter-now-s...
If you have a few examples of these I'd be very, very much obliged.
I'll bet Polaris tries to push the "it was all Matti's fault" angle that the Indie Statik article had. But I'm assuming Polaris knew exactly what they were getting themselves into when they got Matti on board for this, given the information you shared.
Probably because he had no idea who the guy was.
I hope it, but I doubt it.
This whole story reads like a some tech people got rolled by a couple of Hollywood types. It sounds like the only intentional asshole was their producer guy.
Props to all of them who told the producers to diaf.
Technically he was a contractor and not an employee of Polaris. He didn't get fired (you can't outright fire contractors), the remainder of his contract was canceled. I suspect this is due to some perceived breach of the contract related to his reporting on GAME_JAM.
The author mentioned upfront that he didn't necessarily expect to come out unscathed after the article, but he stuck to his guns and did what he felt was right. Respect.
"CLARIFICATION: @PolarisTweets never let me go! I am still there in my old capacity. It was really scary miscommunication, thank God."
To be honest, his writing in that article is terrible and his ability to miscommunicate something like that is scary.
I think they get too close to their subjects too often for my liking, but the most part it's not a bad read.
Personally, I had no trouble following the article.
> ...but Matti pushed the angle. And as the challenge went on we discovered that he had cornered Jon in a room to try and get him to speak poorly of Zoe, the only negative “story” they could muster out of all fifteen contestants.
> “Two of the other teams have women on them. Do you think they’re at a disadvantage?” Silence. It was like the wind was sucked out of the room behind the barrier, but the floor was so loud only the two all-male teams heard the question. Mark answered diplomatically that the teams actually had a huge advantage by having more viewpoints, though everyone was strong regardless because of their skill. Matti cut him off, pulled back the camera, and coughed, “Stop filming. We’re not getting a story here.”
It's a pretty long article, so here's a TL;DR:
Maker Studios is a very large YouTube network (the one that was just bought by Disney for $500 million). They tried to create some sort of game jam, and invited some teams of indie devs to participate. It devolved into being some sort of awful corporate-backed reality show, and the devs were consistently disrespected. The guy with the misogynistic quotes above was the main problem, according to a lot of the people there. Trying to push contention, etc, for the sake of the "reality" aspect of it.
That dude got sacked, and the devs all walked away. Apparently the whole thing cost $400,000.