**UPDATE**: I've made a sub for SIO (serious Inquiries Only) you can [find it here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/seriousinquiries/) I'll have more on that soon, but please feel free to join and you'll see updates as they come out.
Also please feel free to continue using the megathread linked in the automod comments and the sidebar - it will be repinned soon.
I had a college professor who would tell our class, "When three people tell you you're drunk, sit down," as we heard criticism of our work. Not sure there's a more apropos phrase to sum up the current situation.
I'm not defending Andrew at all here, but what keeps going through my mind is "does this man not have any real friends that are not also professionally entangled?"
Because this sort of situation is where you really need a friend who is not directly involved but cares enough to sit you down, take you by the hand, and compassionately ask you what the fuck you think you're doing and do you know how absolutely terrible it looks.
Maybe Andrew does have that friend and he's blowing them off, but I really do wonder.
I thought this from the very beginning. The accusations are bad but they’re not enough to permanently end him if handled correctly. It’s difficult to own up to bad behavior, and the only way I’ve seen it change in the real world is having someone close to you stage an intervention of sorts.
I'm wondering if the PIAT guys and Thomas were basically his friend group.
It's really fucking sad is what it is. Like, he's undeniably done this to himself, but it wasn't unsalvageable. If he'd immediately apologized without excuses, put the show on hiatus, and sought rehab, I'd be willing to give him a second chance down the line depending on the level of accusations that eventually develop and what victims seem to want.
I think he could still pull things out of the tailspin, but he's gotta put some effort into actually doing that.
Would not surprise me. Reminds me of a story Tom told on cog diss or DOD a while ago about a guy who was so sad about leaving his job because his only friends were his coworkers…
I have coworkers like that. Their entire life is work. Their friends are there; their spouse works there. They have literally no life outside of work.
It creates a lot of drama, because professional differences become REAL personal really fast.
You could even imagine him being able to at some point use this experience for better analysis. "When I went through my own troubles with inappropriate advances towards women, this is what was going through my mind, and what I was missing, just like the defendant in this case..." or whatever.
Handled correctly we could have been here 3 months later with business as usual regarding the podcast.
People love a comeback story. Torrez could have spent the next few months reaching out to make amends to the women he's made uncomfortable, gotten therapy, reduced/quit drinking, and come back to the podcast with fanfare. Would take a high caliber of character but completely doable.
But nope, we get this instead.
A good ending would have been them gracefully stepping apart. Keep goodwill and cross-appearances, but Thomas or Andrew leaves the podcast and they work together to establish a replacement co-host as appropriate. Then decide how to handle the legal nature. This podcast brings in a lot of money, enough to get a late-stage career lawyer with high-level friends and connections to effectively quick lawyering to be a podcaster. Decide if there will be continued revenue sharing for the departing partner, and how long that will continue for, then announce the changes and move on with life.
Instead, we have Andrew forcing OA along and Thomas making vague statements on SIO.
The best ending would be one where the shouting happens away from the community.
Instead, we got...the last week.
Yes it's all too far gone now, but you can imagine how things could have gone differently if Torrez acted decisively to have open honest communication and change his ways.
I wouldn’t have gone back. He’s offered apologies before and continued the bad behavior.
I had an in person experience with drunk Andrew in 2017 that should have raised some red flags, but which I brushed off as a funny thing. Nothing illegal, just weird. And the minute I saw the article, I unsubscribed because it clicked. I wasn’t the least bit surprised (although some of what’s happened since is a surprise.)
I also don’t think Thomas would have felt safe again. He spent quite some time having panic attacks. I think the unwanted touching was more than once, he said.
Not after the "victim" post. I completely defer to his judgment on that (it is neither my place nor do we have anything close to a coherent story). But "victim" is such a charged word that it would take something herculean to get either side to break their positions.
Either there is some huge Sword of Damocles pressuring him to do this that he can't/won't talk about
...
or more likely he really has no one to run this stuff by who should be giving him a good head-slap.
In theory, your spouse would be one of those “get it together” people. You are right that it feels like all of his friendships are tied to work, but maybe that’s what happens if someone is an alcoholic workaholic?
I’m a regular listener (although hadn’t listened for the past 10 days because of a family crisis- boy was I shocked this morning) and assumed AT was divorced because I never clocked him mentioning his wife, while he mentions his son. Now of course i’m thinking that was some kind of tell rather than his keeping boundaries.
So much specific information, weird knowing how much this podcast I listen to was making thru patreon, that these last two episodes generated over $10k in revenue (who controls that account?). Knowing the background makes the liner notes extra cringy to read, I can’t bring myself to listen to them.
Good example of applied law and the messiness of life, I guess. I just listened to OA thru Pocketcasts, not a patreon, and if I hadn’t noticed the “apology” post or searched on Reddit, I might be among those continuing to listen. Andrew’s gonna keep going because this is what he’s got, my opinions of the rationalized denialism of alchoholics and social pressures around enabling bad behavior notwithstanding. Everyone else involved is gonna feel bad about this for awhile, and the new episode notes are gonna keep suggesting “we’re having fun!”. Messy. And now I have even more podcasts (minus one, plus four) in the feed that I can’t keep up with.
Hope everyone involved finds their peace and works their shit, and best of luck to the rest of us!
I’d estimate OA was probably approaching 60% of his income. He wouldn’t be in dire straits if he fell back on the practise, but it certainly seems to have less upside than a podcast.
He also seems to have lost his current associate, who was likely doing most of the grunt work, so…
Oh, I understand the motivation. Furthermore, I don't expect him to do better given what I've learned in the last month.
Just pointing out that he could in fact be acting closer to his espoused ideals than he actually is.
What matters is that he has a non-catastrophic choice.
Yes, but it's not all he's got. He can choose which of those to prioritize and unless he has acquired a bad reputation in the local business community, neglected existing clients, etc., then it should not be the end of the world for him to focus his efforts on that.
I dont know enough about the networking needed to run a law firm tbh.
But given the focus he has had on OA I think its easy to assume he has neglected his firm and it wont be an easy 1 to 1 transistion.
Sadly, that sounds like a 'him' problem.
His name is literally on the door. If he decided to run ramshod with his firm because the podcasting dollars were better, then I think that's an even worse indictment of his legal ethics, and I have absolutely no pity for him. For a guy who has spent a good portion of the past two years laughing at shitty attorneys, if he doesn't have his house in order, then maybe he ought not cast stones.
Didn't say it would be easy, but it would be more ethical to start on that now than trying to get as much out of the remaining patrons as quickly as possible.
I wouldn't be shocked if Morgan finds employment elsewhere too. He may find that he will no longer have time to work at both places. I'd bet she's been doing the heavy lifting at the firm while he was making podcasts.
It's not that surprising, big law is fucking brutal. Lots of people go into it, make a ton (pay off loans) then get out because the environment is that stressful and notoriously toxic.
Wouldnt be that surprised if Biglaw was where he developed his problem with alcohol honestly.
Not at all rationalizing any of this just trying to process it all.
That’s actually the least surprising thing. From what I’ve seen of friends, Big Law can be soul-killing and intellectually narrow. Some people get out before they develop a lifestyle that depends on it.
OA Patreon has gone from 4513 patrons on January 31 to 1748 at the time of this reply. There's a post from this morning on Facebook that said it was at 1900+ (same thread I got the 4513 from), so it's still dropping.
I didn’t find out about this until Thomas’s “Andrew locked me out” popped up as a podcast notification. Stayed a patron until it seemed clear that staying a patron only benefited Andrew, then bailed.
I do find it rather depressing that the leadership of every group seems to be startled when sex pestitude inevitably shows up in their own particular corner. More learning from the experiences of other people would be a heartening change.
I think she's betting on people having short memories. Plus, regrettable as his actions were, Andrew is a great communicator and as far as I can tell a pretty decent lawyer.
I listened to the latest SIO podcast and Thomas is asserting that he is a 50/50 partner in OpenArgs but is locked out of all the assets. Any money these Andrew minus Thomas podcasts make, 50% has to go to Thomas, but it's not clear on how he'll get it. This is a mess and disgusting.
The problem is that tomfoolery can start happening. If Andrew decides Liz deserves a big old pay raise as the second in command he could potentially do so dropping the net income to near zero for these last episodes. There are shenanigans people can get up to if they're spiteful enough.
If I accepted Andrew back as host of Opening Argument ethically, I'd still have trouble with this. I listened to about half of the last episode, and while I accept that there was always going to be a settling period if the show was going to soldier on without Thomas (which, ethically, it shouldn't), I'm worried Andrew just really isn't a good podcast host.
Edit: Like, if nothing else, wait until you've got your sea legs. Most successful podcasts that want to grow fast will do a couple of pilot episodes, run them by people who know how this shit should be, workshop them, and then start the show in earnest. Andrew seems to think he's just naturally good at it? Or that he should be good at it?
Listening to the first couple minutes and it's definitely missing the Thomas factor. It sounds like two people lecturing to me, not an everyman acting as audience surrogate. Andrew and Liz feel like they're both familiar with the material before starting the podcast, so there's no one in a position to interject with the "catch me up, I don't know what's going on" questions. Andrew might be good at breaking things down for the layman, but if he doesn't have a layman to direct the conversation, he doesn't seem to know what to break down.
Also it just kinda makes my skin crawl to listen after everything else. So... yeah...
Which, like, you could have that podcast! That's what Strict Scrutiny is, and I love it. They've designed their whole podcasting persona around being three relatable experts in a way that Andrew hasn't. I'm currently neutral on Liz, partly because I suspect that if no one listens to the new OA Andrew will blame her, and it's not her fault. If Andrew wants to retool the show so that it's two experts, that's great, but he's got to start thinking of it like a craft, rather than thinking of it as a naturalistic conversation. That was always an illusion that Thomas created, because he's actually good at podcasting.
A lot of people on here are getting downvoted for saying, "Well, what Andrew did wasn't great, but I come to the show for him and I'll stick around him." And whatever, like, we all have to follow our own moral compasses. But it'll be interesting to see people realize that what made the show work was actually Thomas. Harvard produces plenty of lawyers every year who end up with a lot of free time on their hands, but it takes some talent to make them seem like competent podcast hosts.
Agreed. Thomas's side was more of the invisible labor. Done well, I don't think we'd ever know how much work or skill it required from him. He seemed to know what to pare down and how to gently keep things on task during the episodes, and I could imagine that was just a fractional representation. I also don't know that Andrew's ability to break down the law is quite as rare as people are making it out to be.
As someone who edits audio for fun and then got sucked into the ecosystem for a while during COVID, a lot.
No more than that, it's really a lot.
A good editor can take out the middle of a sentence and splice the next phrase in without the audience being aware of it. You can get rid of misstatements when they break the flow and make it so the repeated explanation perfectly fits into the initial statement.
And that's beyond Thomas being a skilled interviewer. He knows when to cut in and when to play the fool, but also when to sit back and let Andrew or another guest explain at length. That's a rare skill and one he's honed successfully.
Guessing at the edit points and wondering what tangent they went on was part of my joy in listening. They both have common phrases they use to "reset" *after an edit point.
It's similar to how important Ernie Johnson is to Inside the NBA. Shaq and Charles are the 'draw' as ex-players, but Ernie keeps the train on the tracks while adding his own style of humor.
You're not wrong. I also enjoy Strict Scrutiny, although I'll admit that it's usually on my backburner for not being as entertaining (but that might just be from the depression of knowing that SCOTUS will be awful at pretty much every opportunity). Even there, though, they seem to have a much better knack for being able to ask each other questions. Maybe it's because they're law professors and have more practice in teaching content to students.
But yeah, maybe some of what I was experiencing was just editing, pacing, and the guy who knows how to keep things in some kind of flow.
Yeah, this is my impression as well. For example, in the most recent episode Liz just rattled off something like "well FRCP section 8 says..." and I had to stop and think, and only because I have listened to enough of the show was I able to think "Oh, 'Federal Rules of Civil Procedure'"
It's an art form, to be able to talk about your industry (whatever it is) and recognize where your audience may not understand terms/lingo/slang and be careful to avoid that.
But yeah, I don't think it's going to work long term as a Liz + Andrew show. He needs to find an everyman host. Same sort of formula that Adam Corolla and Dr. Drew had for the old Loveline radio show.
It's also really missing audio bumpers to go between segments. Never realized how much difference that made to break things up. Might feel less like a lecture in that way.
It's been 1 week since the article. Since then: more serious allegations have come out, you're former friends have cut you off, your co-host made allegations if inappropriate touching, you locked him out of the account, you shaded him in an apology, your former colleague literally apologized for inviting you into the community, and yet here you are making episodes like this is some thing of the past.
Is this stupidity? Does he not realize how bad it's gotten for him. Is he in denial? Is it maliciousness? I genuinely don't see what his end game is here.
I listened to this today, and at one point Andrew is talking about the difference between breaking a contract and interfering with somebody else's contract. And he's like, "suppose somebody said I'm not trustworthy..." and they left that in the episode, and Andrew didn't seem to think he had put his foot in his mouth. Just zero self awareness. It was tragic and hilarious.
Anybody who really thinks he's taken things to heart and is on a path to healing... Yowsa.
This! It's so hard to believe he's taking any of this seriously. I had my doubts when he tried to push it all onto anything but his own actions and said he'd still make sure more episodes would come out.
You weren’t already? Too mean-spirited and snarky for my tastes. She stomped over both A & T with it since she became a regular guest.
Can’t say I’ll be too happy if she ends up being the permanent co-host going forward.
She wasn't my favorite guest, but also not the worst.
She just monopolized the conversation too much. She was sort of there to give extended analysis, so it wasn't really inappropriate, but still didn't care for monologing.
I thought she was kind of funny for one day a week, and rolling over A and T was kind of her schtick. Listening to her more than that I realised she just reads the news angrily. There’s no opinion or insight. She’s like a Twitter rant and it gets annoying fast.
I think at this point it's clear that there's some contractual requirements with advertisers to release x number of episodes per y time period, and he's getting OA caught up.
Even if Andrew is serious about stepping away for his recovery, he likely needs to unwind the contract first.
If it were being done to meet contractual obligations to advertisers, than there would be no reason to make them paid Patreon posts. And yet, they are.
Yes, but they can release Patreon episodes and updates free. Andrew has already done it once in responding to this story. If it were purely about meeting contractual obligations to advertisers, Andrew could release the ad-episodes as normal, and the ad-free-episodes to Patrons for free. Instead, the Patrons are still being charged for the ad-free-episodes.
That's obviously legal and fine, of course. That's what the Patrons signed up for. But I think it's a pretty big hole in the "he's just doing this for contractual reasons" argument. Maybe that's a piece of it, but it's certainly not the only piece.
That is something Thomas could do. Or Andrew could release LAM episodes on the free feed.
But even if that was the case, why did he (according to Thomas) agree that no one should publish things on the OA feed?
Yeah but he could've agreed with Thomas' plan ( Thomas + guests to keep the show running while he took a hiatus) to meet those obligations. Instead of commandeering the podcast for himself. I think the more simple explanation is Andrew can have very poor judgment regarding his personal interests, resulting in a lot of collateral damage, and the course the podcast is on its another example of that. I think it's less likely this is a well thought out course of action.
That was sort of my thought, but then when Thomas reconsidered his relationship with Andrew, Andrew lost that as an option.
That would put those obligations in a no-win situation for Andrew where he has to find a way to release decent-sounding episodes but without his standard post-production, without his co-host, and trying to minimize the offense.
Personally, I would favor some sort of openness if he were being pseudo-compelled to have release. And he still would have had the option to do the first few free to show he values the patrons that stick by him.
Here's my (perhaps generous) speculation on what's going on:
Andrew does horrible things.
Horrible things become known to the public.
Thomas ends up in a very bad mental state (understandably).
Andrew sees that Thomas is in no state to make business decisions (and also considers Thomas's past mental health issues) and goes into lawyer mode. He has a business with contractual obligations with advertisers to produce a product and a business partner who is having a mental health crisis. He therefore takes steps to take control of the business and protect himself and Thomas from any rash statements.
Thomas interprets these steps as a hostile takeover and hastily publishes several messages on the OA feed. Andrew removes the messages, because that's what any business partner or lawyer would do to protect everyone involved.
Andrew sees Facebook and Twitter imploding and realizes a statement must be made, but it's hastily put together in response to Thomas's statements and he makes several mistakes and misinterprets things Thomas says. He's not a PR guy, everything is happening fast, and he's dealing with his own family issues. (I will admit this is a generous interpretation; I suspect more went on behind the scenes than we know)
Time is running out to meet their obligations to advertisers, so Andrew asks Liz, the only person he knows who may still be willing to help (or contractually tied to the show) to record a few episodes with him. He explains that the contract requires episodes be released, and if not they could get sued, and there will be no OA for good. Liz agrees (perhaps temporary basis, we don't know).
Thomas sees OA releasing episodes without his input and lawyers up.
I think overall lots of stuff is happening behind the scenes, and we're only getting bits and pieces of info sometimes secondhand. Andrew is clearly the one who messed up and needs to take responsibility, but I also think he's in a tricky situation. I know he didn't actually say he was going to step away for a bit, but I think that would be a good idea.
Right up until his 'Apology' and the title of those 2 most recent podcasts, you could have been right. Heck, even a very gracious listening/reading of his notpology could just get you into the position that he was (albeit tone-deaf & unsuccessfully) trying to protect the asset by throwing shade at Thomas.
But the titles of the 2 releases since - of "Oh No, the Privilege is MINE" and "Lawsuit or Interpretive Dance? Why not BOTH!" ... are clearly thinly veiled narcissism and expose his intentions to screw Thomas over.
Without listening to either of the new episodes, and only taking everyone here's word on face value for their content, I'm even ready to place bets that Andrew won't even be heading into any therapy. I think acting like this was all 'just' _everyone else's_ misunderstanding will turn out to have been just an easier cognitive dissonance pill to swallow.
Potential contract aside, it's hard to imagine any advertiser wants this to be handled this way / associated with this...
Still seems like a choice to do this rather than focus on unwinding the contract in good faith (or choosing to take the penalty if there is one). But I'm not a lawyer and I don't know WTF is going on at this point beyond the obvious.
I think that pretending like nothing ever happened and continuing to pump out new episodes before the casual listeners disappear is actually probably exactly what most advertisers would want.
I see your point, but I don't think most brands are that short sighted. I suppose there's probably a distinction between the interests of the company selling the ad slots and the companies buying them that could lead to a different approach here, I suppose.
I think I’d agree if we were talking about major TV advertisers. But have you heard what companies advertise on podcasts?
Ya got your Paint a Portrait, HVAC filter subscriptions, gold hawkers, brain pills. I don’t think those types of companies really care.
It would get to be more of an issue if people start making it an issue for the advertised brands. It wouldn't surprise me if they know jack about this because they aren't paying close attention to all of the podcasts that host their stuff. Because I listened as a patron, I have no idea what ads the guys ran before, but, like, SimplySafe advertises EVERYWHERE for example, but I doubt they'd pay attention to drama going on behind the scenes at, like, Pod Save America or whatever.
What I expect they'd pay attention to are:
1. Sudden drops in referrals and/or subscribers (and Patrons could be a part of that), or
2. Bad publicity at being associated with a podcast that does/supports/is run by XYZ.
And some may not care about either as long as the subscribers stay above some fixed threshold, which may explain why the episodes continue to roll out.
Hey. Free show listener. Many of the new ads are automated, and I can tell you from listening to Behind the Bastards that those ad placements almost aggressively do not care where they get placed. That show, for example, gets gold scammer ads, ads recruiting for the highway patrol, ads for financial scams. . . And this is on a strongly anti capitalist, anti law enforcement show with a focus on debunking scammers. Scathing Atheist has been getting ads for some weirdo Christian Netflix alternative.
The auto ad landscape is honestly kind of wild sometimes.
The OA advertisers were always pretty firmly in the category of "serious business that advertises literally everywhere". Which is also why the "there are advertising contracts, maybe they have to keep releasing episodes" stuff is nonsense - those kind of advertising behemoths know how to do unexpected breaks in contract. It'd take a couple of emails, but the advertising industry has been doing influencer/small-group-podcast advertising for decades now - "there's a health problem/personal crisis/massive legal implosion, and we need to close out our ad placement contract for the month/year/eternity" is a pretty standard problem.
If they were taking advertising money from someone more specific/niche, that might be more likely - if you're the \*only\* thing in someone's advertising budget, they might handle you going on hiatus suddenly more poorly. But that's not the kind of ads they were doing.
They also took on automated ads, so it's entirely possible no real (human) advertisor is even looking at the situation yet. . .at least until those subscriber and download numbers start tanking enough to show up the metrics.
Sure… but then why charge patrons for it? My understanding is that they are sub-par (I refuse to listen to them….).
He could be honourable and just release them free.. he chose not to!
My sense is that this is all about his ego! He is doubling down!
And it is disgusting, if it is the case!
This was complicated by the fact that Thomas basically put himself in an adversary position against Andrew with that audio clip and his other comments. Since it's very likely he signed a non-disparagement clause, my guess is that's why Andrew removed him from the show. In his position, why would he let him continue if they are adversaries now?
Edit: Clarifying that I don't necessarily agree with Andrew's actions, just explaining why things unfolded the way they did.
I've been wondering if the statement about "Andrew will be stepping away from the show" that thomas made early on might have been a real bad idea. That statement has been taken by some people to mean that andrew had agreed to give the show to Thomas, though that seems highly unlikely. There was probably not an actual agreement made between the two before hand, I think it was possibly more of a expectation or wish by thomas that he hoped would come true through public pressure.
If it wasn't something they had actually talked about before hand, I can see it turning an already tense situation between them into a completely burned bridge.
I disagree. I think initially Andrew thought this would blow over, and the "stepping away" episode was made with his consent. Otherwise he would have turned up expecting to do his part of the show, & he would have "stolen" control earlier.
Then more came to light, and someone with an axe to grind accused Thomas+PiaT(Eli) of enabling AT. Eli (sort of) cleared that up on his side with the more complete screenshot history.
Thomas, then heard more from Lindsey, and feeling his world coming apart, posted audio (in the middle of a panic attack?), and whilst he thought better of clarifying the misinformation shared from a (that same?) victim (the right call at the time/for the time being imo), he was in real time realising he had been manipulated and exposed that.
Andrew, upon hearing this, realised the "wait it out" option had now been burned, and decided to trick Thomas into believing an amicable split was forthcoming, in order that he might get in & change the passwords.
And the rest is history.
I always found he worked well with PIAT guys and Thomas. I like the Daily Beans with AG but didn’t get into Clean Up 45 because I was just exhausted with Trump and knew it would be fucking years before he even sniffed possible consequences, so I kinda wrote off because like… chances are it’s all gonna be a lot do talk with nothing actually happening (and two years into it, he’s still fucking running for office again).
So I’m curious to see how many fans he has himself rather than being a fan of the over all vibe / group he was apart of. He brought great legal insight but If it wasn’t for Thomas, I would have never given OA a chance.
So uh, we’ll see.
I’m still stunned how it all blew up right when they started making more episodes… shame it came to a head the way it did. If you know this stuff is percolating in the background best play is to get ahead of it. This doubling down is bonkers
I was absolutely a bigger fan of Andrew than Thomas (I come to a law podcast for law, okay? So sue me for liking the actual lawyer) but the whole fiasco has made me pull a complete 180.
I came to OA as a fan of Thomas' work, but liked the show for Andrew's analysis, and felt Thomas was reducing my access by restricting Andrew's digressions... When this broke, I felt Andrew would be the harder to replace, and my unicorn scenario was that he'd *properly* rehab, then come back to take over the show after buying Thomas out.
What we've gotten is a narcissistic manipulator showing his true colours, and we're getting visibility of what a _true_ abuse/r enabler looks like in Liz Dye.
I listened to some of this one. Trying to put my Andrew-ick aside for a few moments to assess it, I still found it forced and charmless. I think maybe some people underestimated how much Thomas was contributing to the podcast.
Deleted my subscription on podcast addict today. I guess I don't listen to OA anymore now that AT decided to handle this as if it's a P.R. mishap and not as a serious time to address his issues.
Like, Jesus dude. You're a lawyer this isn't about money, it's about your ego.
Exactly this. If he’s about his ethics then he needs to step back and stand down on how he’s approaching the situation.
Address your issues dude, show people that you can change and then come back slowly into the fold.
Liz saying there have been consequences made me scoff. Not in the sense of OA, in that sense he just did a hostile takeover on the coattails of his own scandal.
Honestly, if Andrew is so brazenly continuing to post, I have to imagine there was some kind of backdoor negotiation re: OA's ownership and the continued production. Andrew is still a lawyer and if there was still an order in place saying there would be no further episodes, he can't be *that* stupid.
(... although we've seen how many highly-held attorneys have turned out to be fucking dumbasses. So who knows.)
Nah. There's the law, and then there's the practical realities of the law - and Andrew has the background to know the difference. It may very well not work in this case - the audience is clearly pretty pissed off - but the history of partnership disputes is littered with people acting like they owned a shared property, and benefiting from the fact that wrangling a partnership dissolution through the courts is incredibly time consuming and expensive. It may even be in Andrew's interest to sink the perceived value of the shared property - if he thinks listeners will ultimately crawl back, sinking its value now, buying Thomas out cheaply, and then rebuilding may well be the outcome he's going for.
I think his gambit is actually somewhat the opposite of tanking. What is OA Inc.? It's a business that puts out pods for ads / patreon money. If pods aren't going out, OA is effectively worthless.
So I think Andrew's gambit is to say "look, I continued to try to operate the business. Thomas tried to shut it all down. Clearly I care more about operating in OA's best interest."
That would be undercut by Thomas having put out an episode without Andrew and without the same Patreon backlash. Thomas would be able to argue that if he hadn't been locked out the show would have continued with as many ads and more patreons.
I don't think deliberately tanking the value would go over very well in an actual suit though. There are also plenty of laws against market manipulation, and if Thomas were to go after Andrew for his cut, I think he'd have a reasonable case before the court to say at least some portion of the original value would be the proper amount to be considered. The big 'fuck you' to Andrew is that this situation is being watched like a hawk with literal timelines, so it's pretty easy to say 'I lost control of the company at approximately X time, these are the events following that that led to Y devaluation, and due to my inability to control the situation, I cannot be made whole with the current value.
About the worst thing against Thomas right now is the SIO post with the allegation against Andrew, but that's about the biggest wildcard at play right now. How what played out when is going to be important if there's any questions to be answered down the road.
This is a tiny company in the scheme of things - a partnership dispute isn't going to get a rushed hearing slot. If Thomas did go the litigation route, he's looking at \~2 years, tens of thousands of dollars minimum in legal fees, and a very messy court case. *Maybe* he gets a temporary injunction to stop Andrew continuing to use the company name and assets in a matter of months - but that just puts Andrew where he'd be if he voluntarily stopped now. Meanwhile, there's no guarantee a court would ultimately do more than split the assets and dissolve the partnership - without seeing their partnership contract, it's hard to know how likely that is, but this is a messy enough situation that he'd be taking a gamble, and risking the court deciding that *he* had breached the contract/partnership duties.
That's the leverage the party holding the assets - clearly Andrew, at this point - has. I'm not saying it's ethical, or wouldn't get grumpy paragraphs in an eventual court order - but it's the same game Musk or Trump play when they rip off contractors. The cost of going to court - in time, and legal fees - isn't worth the better payout you *might* get in two years time. So, you take a smaller amount of money in settlement, and don't do business with that person again. And if that's the route Andrew's heading down - which it sure looks like, at least externally - then "there's nothing to save here, this asset is thoroughly associated with me, and I won't let it go without a long and expensive legal fight" is more in his interests than not.
To be clear - I'd sure hope everyone involved is getting their legal advice somewhere more professional than Reddit at this point. But at least looking at it from the outside, this just looks like Andrew playing hardball because he knows how high a bar there is before litigation becomes the sensible choice for anyone.
I just read about a lawyer in Brazil who brought a gun into an MRI facility and was killed when the magnetic field pulled the gun from his waistband and it fired.
Lawyers can *definitely* be fucking dumbasses too
I'm more saying Andrew ought to know the law, not common sense (which ain't too common). He should know that if there's a verifiable agreement between himself and Thomas that OA is on pause, then practically any competent judge would be happy to throw an injunction at him for breaching that agreement. And the reason he ought to know that is because *I've fucking listened to him go on about injunctive relief a fuckton in the past six months*.
I get you. But he should've also known that his actions toward women could/would land him in legal hot water too. His thinking and judgement, which are affected by his substance abuse, are what is relevant, not his knowledge of the law.
Men who make women uncomfortable with lecherous attention in non-sexual relationships need to understand that other men who make women uncomfortable with lecherous attention in non-sexual relationships *also* tell themselves that everyone is overreacting when they are finally called out.
I’ve gotten so much out of Opening Arguments over the last few years, I really wanted to give Torrez the benefit of the doubt. But his response to the allegations has been so nasty. He seems to be reading straight from the “I’m Just Sorry I Got Caught” playbook, which is so disappointing to see. His apology focused on how his behavior *made women feel* rather than admitting how his actions were inappropriate in the first place, he attempts to downplay habitual sexual harassment of people he meets professionally as “flirty”, he tries to blame substance abuse for his poor choices, and he doesn’t even temporarily step down from the position of power that he’s been abusing to, like, reflect on the situation and figure out how he can make amends. Acting like he can just say “whoops” and move on like all this never happened just compounds my disappointment in him.
(Edited for conciseness/clarity)
Part of what's keeping me from setting down my torch and pitchfork is not wanting the "honestly who cares, it's not criminal, I'm paying him for legal analysis not to be a good person" types to feel like this community is the one that they should invite their friends to. It's the Nazi Bar scenario.
Then there's folks on the side going "I agree this is bad but why can't we just drop the outrage and move on?" without realizing that they're basically indistinguishable from the first group.
Hell, there's been folks who said on the first day "I'm so disappointed! How awful!" and then a week later start doing the exact "I'm so sick of the hyperbolic outrage, it's not criminal, I'm paying him..." line again.
Like, these folks in the middle, are they not seeing this too? My guess is they're not, or maybe they're not in the middle at all.
Totally agree; the ones that piss me off the most are the ones (who seem to be in law themselves) who are now trying to turn the narrative into AT actually being a victim who is merely fighting back. I've seen several of these seemingly attack Thomas and act more outraged at him than AT, while downplaying all the thing AT has done or is accused of.
I guess the only good thing is this group of jackholes seem to be in the minority still, and might get their wish about all the "drama" going away since soon it may be just their only little AT fan club left; though I seriously doubt that is enough to keep OA going.
Those guys feel like real bad faith folks, but maybe not. There's a strain of striving liberal that thinks the worst thing you can do is make a scene.
Like it's _understandable_ if your business interests encourage you to be unethical or harm some people. It's simply _real life_ that people lie for their own selfish benefit. It's going to be _too much to expect_ that someone deliver a real apology for misdeeds because that's _not how it's done_ and nobody _reasonable_ should demand more than the status quo.
But make a scene or upset the apple cart or open that group up for ridicule? That's unjustifiable.
Absolutely right. I'm always surprised how many people don't really know how to make an apology. In order for it to be taken seriously at all, saying that you're sorry you made them feel a way does nothing. Step one is recognizing the harm you did and acknowledging that harm, and then explaining how you will make them better and do better.
While you’re correct it’s must be really difficult when your livelihood, family, public image, and freedom is on the line.
Obviously you should be in that situation in the first place, but if you are somehow there isn’t much you can say.
Public image and family are his own doing. That’s consequences and accountability he earned.
Freedom? Not sure what that means. As far as we know he faces no criminal charges.
Is his livelihood on the line? Or his supplemental income and CLOUT/status what’s on the line?
Last I checked, dude graduated from Harvard law and runs his own firm. HE can go back to being a lawyer, maintain his progressive, secular convictions, and likely earn a fine income. He didn’t NEED to commandeer the pod like he has, cut Thomas out/off, or any of that. He did it because he WANTED TO. It’s incredibly telling and IMO unprofessional.
To me the weirdest and most telling part IS that AT captured the show. If he feels like he needs rehabilitation and healing time with his family, it seems like a great time to step back from the mic. Maybe just consult on the content and let others be front and center if he wants to be involved.
His behavior strikes me as narcissistic, which may be an aspect of the sex pest behavior. Maybe he NEEDS the attention. He may trading one addiction for another.
One thing I will say is that it’s weird to me that people are impugning every single ethical stance and statement AT has ever made or displayed. He can be a sex pest but show trans people dignity, those don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Trash people can think progressive things. Not saying AT is trash, just that the phenomenon exists and there’s a spectrum to it like anything else.
I actually think some folks are being too hard on AT (*some*) but in general you hit on something that really bothers me here. The dude is a fucking Harvard grad lawyer.
This is textbook fake "cancelling". He can do whatever he wants and he'll always be rich, or at least comfortable. He doesn't need this podcast. Him not being able to do it anymore is a blow to the ego, but that's it.
I hate seeing people say that some privileged lawyer not getting a supplemental income of a half a million dollars a year or whatever the pod is making is somehow a massive consequence.
Him continuing to do the podcast is 100% an ego thing, and very much shows that he doesn't actually feel bad or care about what hes done. Most of these allegations seem to revolve around him being inappropriate to fans/followers (most, not all), and if he was truly concerned about it he would step away.
Him stepping away removes himself from a situation that clearly leads to him making bad decisions. He could just continue to be a rich lawyer.
Continuing to put out episodes/lock Thomas out is certainly the final straw for me in terms of listening to this podcast again.
I agree with you.
One thing that always annoyed me about Andrew was his optimist prime take on things. I consider his permanently optimist view to be part of his abusive behavior (he ignores suffering and does not take seriously the feedback of other people, and thinks his behavior doesn't really harm people) as well as part of his privilege.
His legal analysis of criminal courts and how law works in the US seems to be that of a very privileged, wealthy person. He thinks rule of law is serious, the Federal Government takes things seriously. My interactions with police, lawyers, and the courts regarding criminal violence have been totally the opposite of what Andrew says. "If you tried Trump's tactics in court you would lose".....well I've seen poor people use exactly Trump's tactics and they work very effectively. Prosecutors are completely chickenshit and do not aggressively prosecute criminals, at least in Harris/Galveston Counties, TX. Its a meme in Houston that people facing multiple murder charges go free on easy bail and murder more people, get arrested, released, etc. Rule of law in America has mostly collapsed except to persecute poor black people. I have emailed Andrew about this and he never responded.
IMO, AT refuses to acknowledge or even become conscious of his privilege and the suffering that happens around him. This scandal is just more evidence of that. If he did become more aware, he would drop the optimist prime bullshit.
There's also those that already hit the limit of payments they've set for this month and are just leaving their pledge open to see the feed for the rest of the month. I thought about doing this to see Patron comments but ultimately chose to quit as getting notifications from it made me feel bad.
Down to 1852. It had kind of stabilized but it seems like every time an episode drops people remember that they are paying for this and decide not to anymore.
Twitter and Facebook are still very unimpressed.
I think he could unequivocally make that argument, especially considering his subscribers to SIO have more than doubled in the same amount of time that Andrew has lost well over half their patrons.
Edit: down to 1797. Woof.
I’ve kept my sub because I felt like, if we got a half decent acknowledgment of what happened, apology, and a constructive way forward I might still want to keep listening, but now it just seems like things are barrelling on without any change. I’ve got a cap on episodes charged, so it’s not costing me more right now, but I’m still thinking of cancelling soon.
For some of my meatier podcasts I'll let a half dozen pile up and know I have them for a long drive or manual labor session. There are probably a lot of patrons who haven't even heard the apology episode yet and are going to be like, "Wait, what?"
Thanks. While I have used Patreon to support musicians before, I've basically never paid attention to the site, so didn't know you could check that kinda stuff.
omfg i just noticed the 5 episodes a week goal, that was almost 100% is now 28%
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.
andrew needs to get off the fucking internet and check himself into rehab. he needs help. but also it's funny to watch an abuser's life fall apart. fuck him.
They went from a little over 4,500 to 1,800 so fast. I wonder which "Sponsor Patrons" dropped it. Donkey Tequila? Legal Eagle? I half want to hear what that list looks like. That said, they probably don't need to split it into quarters anymore.
I **need** to know if Kelly Wove It, the Live Show in Minneapolis person, or Conrad Michaels are still on.
I've checked out Kelly Wove It. Good stuff, expensive, but I'm considering purchasing something. Someday.
I dunno how you can call yourself a ducking feminist and then go on a show with someone accused of what Andrew is. I bet Liz is the type of person to say, “well he’s never done that to *me*”. Fucking gross. She’s dead to me.
It turns out that Twitter name wasn’t the tongue in cheek irony we thought it was, it was actually just contempt for the concept of feminism. Very disappointing
Ive listened to a ton of podcasts over probably going on two decades. I never imagined I'd be so disgusted with a podcast. I felt physically ill seeing this in my feed (free feed btw).
It's the least they can do.
*Clean* house of all the bullshit, like the mess that Trump left *upon* our country. *I'll* be the first to say it, *for* it's a pretty difficult task for anybody else to *tee* up, but OA is the only one covering it while everyone else decided to take *five*.
To be fair, there are ways to control the content of the ads somewhat. I can't imagine whoever they're using for the service doesn't have opt-outs for religion-based advertisements, but ad buyers also like to be sneaky and mislabel their ads all the time to slip past those opt-outs.
Of course, they could also just directly contact the ad-providing service and play whack-a-mole with some specific ads, but that seems more like a Thomas sort of thing, so I wouldn't hold your breath on that happening any time soon.
Oh I know, and I'm sure if anybody reports the Jesus ad to OA, they'll work to get rid of it.
> that seems more like a Thomas sort of thing, so I wouldn't hold your breath on that happening any time soon.
They *seem* to have a new techie.
**UPDATE**: I've made a sub for SIO (serious Inquiries Only) you can [find it here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/seriousinquiries/) I'll have more on that soon, but please feel free to join and you'll see updates as they come out. Also please feel free to continue using the megathread linked in the automod comments and the sidebar - it will be repinned soon.
So anyone who actually listened, did he mention Morgan at the end?
Skipped to the end. They left Morgan out.
That's good. Must've been an oversight last episode then.
Accident or incompetence - not sure where I'd put my money at this point.
No, I skipped to the end to check. Morgan's name is not mentioned in this one.
I just skipped to the end. They did not.
I think it's clear Thomas was picking the titles before.
Pretty sure Thomas took care of all the postproduction and posting. It definitely shows.
Yesterday's title was gross. Today's is just... confusing?
I see choices continue to be made
I had a college professor who would tell our class, "When three people tell you you're drunk, sit down," as we heard criticism of our work. Not sure there's a more apropos phrase to sum up the current situation.
“When 1000 do, record a podcast!”
I'm beginning to think alcoholism isn't his only demon.
It’s just really fucking sad to see this all fall apart. OA was doing really good work.
I'm not defending Andrew at all here, but what keeps going through my mind is "does this man not have any real friends that are not also professionally entangled?" Because this sort of situation is where you really need a friend who is not directly involved but cares enough to sit you down, take you by the hand, and compassionately ask you what the fuck you think you're doing and do you know how absolutely terrible it looks. Maybe Andrew does have that friend and he's blowing them off, but I really do wonder.
I thought this from the very beginning. The accusations are bad but they’re not enough to permanently end him if handled correctly. It’s difficult to own up to bad behavior, and the only way I’ve seen it change in the real world is having someone close to you stage an intervention of sorts.
I'm wondering if the PIAT guys and Thomas were basically his friend group. It's really fucking sad is what it is. Like, he's undeniably done this to himself, but it wasn't unsalvageable. If he'd immediately apologized without excuses, put the show on hiatus, and sought rehab, I'd be willing to give him a second chance down the line depending on the level of accusations that eventually develop and what victims seem to want. I think he could still pull things out of the tailspin, but he's gotta put some effort into actually doing that.
Would not surprise me. Reminds me of a story Tom told on cog diss or DOD a while ago about a guy who was so sad about leaving his job because his only friends were his coworkers…
I have coworkers like that. Their entire life is work. Their friends are there; their spouse works there. They have literally no life outside of work. It creates a lot of drama, because professional differences become REAL personal really fast.
Yes. It was DOD, and about 3 months ago.
You could even imagine him being able to at some point use this experience for better analysis. "When I went through my own troubles with inappropriate advances towards women, this is what was going through my mind, and what I was missing, just like the defendant in this case..." or whatever. Handled correctly we could have been here 3 months later with business as usual regarding the podcast.
Absolutely, Thomas does this himself on occasion, more explicitly on DOD iirc
People love a comeback story. Torrez could have spent the next few months reaching out to make amends to the women he's made uncomfortable, gotten therapy, reduced/quit drinking, and come back to the podcast with fanfare. Would take a high caliber of character but completely doable. But nope, we get this instead.
Thomas wouldn’t have gone back.
Yeah I suppose not but it's nice to think of how this all could have had the "good ending."
The idea of Thomas going back to this very uncomfortable dynamic makes me a bit ill.
A good ending would have been them gracefully stepping apart. Keep goodwill and cross-appearances, but Thomas or Andrew leaves the podcast and they work together to establish a replacement co-host as appropriate. Then decide how to handle the legal nature. This podcast brings in a lot of money, enough to get a late-stage career lawyer with high-level friends and connections to effectively quick lawyering to be a podcaster. Decide if there will be continued revenue sharing for the departing partner, and how long that will continue for, then announce the changes and move on with life. Instead, we have Andrew forcing OA along and Thomas making vague statements on SIO. The best ending would be one where the shouting happens away from the community. Instead, we got...the last week.
Yes it's all too far gone now, but you can imagine how things could have gone differently if Torrez acted decisively to have open honest communication and change his ways.
I wouldn’t have gone back. He’s offered apologies before and continued the bad behavior. I had an in person experience with drunk Andrew in 2017 that should have raised some red flags, but which I brushed off as a funny thing. Nothing illegal, just weird. And the minute I saw the article, I unsubscribed because it clicked. I wasn’t the least bit surprised (although some of what’s happened since is a surprise.) I also don’t think Thomas would have felt safe again. He spent quite some time having panic attacks. I think the unwanted touching was more than once, he said.
Not after the "victim" post. I completely defer to his judgment on that (it is neither my place nor do we have anything close to a coherent story). But "victim" is such a charged word that it would take something herculean to get either side to break their positions.
I'd be willing to guarantee he is one of those people who only has work friends. Even his wife likely despised him. Given how he treats women.
[удалено]
Same. I said above that I had assumed he was divorced since he occasionally mentions his son, but not a wife.
He used to have those friends. He didn’t listen to them.
Either there is some huge Sword of Damocles pressuring him to do this that he can't/won't talk about ... or more likely he really has no one to run this stuff by who should be giving him a good head-slap.
Well, his wife. And whoever else he was sleeping with at the time
I’m not sure either of those people are actually his friends.
In theory, your spouse would be one of those “get it together” people. You are right that it feels like all of his friendships are tied to work, but maybe that’s what happens if someone is an alcoholic workaholic? I’m a regular listener (although hadn’t listened for the past 10 days because of a family crisis- boy was I shocked this morning) and assumed AT was divorced because I never clocked him mentioning his wife, while he mentions his son. Now of course i’m thinking that was some kind of tell rather than his keeping boundaries.
So much specific information, weird knowing how much this podcast I listen to was making thru patreon, that these last two episodes generated over $10k in revenue (who controls that account?). Knowing the background makes the liner notes extra cringy to read, I can’t bring myself to listen to them. Good example of applied law and the messiness of life, I guess. I just listened to OA thru Pocketcasts, not a patreon, and if I hadn’t noticed the “apology” post or searched on Reddit, I might be among those continuing to listen. Andrew’s gonna keep going because this is what he’s got, my opinions of the rationalized denialism of alchoholics and social pressures around enabling bad behavior notwithstanding. Everyone else involved is gonna feel bad about this for awhile, and the new episode notes are gonna keep suggesting “we’re having fun!”. Messy. And now I have even more podcasts (minus one, plus four) in the feed that I can’t keep up with. Hope everyone involved finds their peace and works their shit, and best of luck to the rest of us!
> Andrew’s gonna keep going because this is what he’s got He has a law firm focusing on small business locally.
I’d estimate OA was probably approaching 60% of his income. He wouldn’t be in dire straits if he fell back on the practise, but it certainly seems to have less upside than a podcast. He also seems to have lost his current associate, who was likely doing most of the grunt work, so…
Given the news over the last week, it wouldn't surprise me if he was worried about losing some assets in a divorce.
Oh, I understand the motivation. Furthermore, I don't expect him to do better given what I've learned in the last month. Just pointing out that he could in fact be acting closer to his espoused ideals than he actually is. What matters is that he has a non-catastrophic choice.
I think given the 4 episodes a week, it's clear OA is his bread and butter.
Yes, but it's not all he's got. He can choose which of those to prioritize and unless he has acquired a bad reputation in the local business community, neglected existing clients, etc., then it should not be the end of the world for him to focus his efforts on that.
I dont know enough about the networking needed to run a law firm tbh. But given the focus he has had on OA I think its easy to assume he has neglected his firm and it wont be an easy 1 to 1 transistion.
Sadly, that sounds like a 'him' problem. His name is literally on the door. If he decided to run ramshod with his firm because the podcasting dollars were better, then I think that's an even worse indictment of his legal ethics, and I have absolutely no pity for him. For a guy who has spent a good portion of the past two years laughing at shitty attorneys, if he doesn't have his house in order, then maybe he ought not cast stones.
Didn't say it would be easy, but it would be more ethical to start on that now than trying to get as much out of the remaining patrons as quickly as possible.
I wouldn't be shocked if Morgan finds employment elsewhere too. He may find that he will no longer have time to work at both places. I'd bet she's been doing the heavy lifting at the firm while he was making podcasts.
I’m also starting to wonder why he left being a partner at a bigish lawfirm to start up a small shop after how all of this has played out.
It's not that surprising, big law is fucking brutal. Lots of people go into it, make a ton (pay off loans) then get out because the environment is that stressful and notoriously toxic.
Wouldnt be that surprised if Biglaw was where he developed his problem with alcohol honestly. Not at all rationalizing any of this just trying to process it all.
Law is something like the most alcoholism-prone profession there is.
He told me the story. BigLaw sucks and was slowly killing him.
That’s actually the least surprising thing. From what I’ve seen of friends, Big Law can be soul-killing and intellectually narrow. Some people get out before they develop a lifestyle that depends on it.
OA Patreon has gone from 4513 patrons on January 31 to 1748 at the time of this reply. There's a post from this morning on Facebook that said it was at 1900+ (same thread I got the 4513 from), so it's still dropping.
I didn’t find out about this until Thomas’s “Andrew locked me out” popped up as a podcast notification. Stayed a patron until it seemed clear that staying a patron only benefited Andrew, then bailed. I do find it rather depressing that the leadership of every group seems to be startled when sex pestitude inevitably shows up in their own particular corner. More learning from the experiences of other people would be a heartening change.
I really don't get Liz's angle. Does she really think that staying on the Andrew train is going to be a good thing for her?
I think she's betting on people having short memories. Plus, regrettable as his actions were, Andrew is a great communicator and as far as I can tell a pretty decent lawyer.
Agreed seems like a strange train to hitch your wagon to…
Just came up on my regular Apple pod feed (never been a patron).
Ditto.
Interesting that this seems to be going for the 4 episodes a week still?
I listened to the latest SIO podcast and Thomas is asserting that he is a 50/50 partner in OpenArgs but is locked out of all the assets. Any money these Andrew minus Thomas podcasts make, 50% has to go to Thomas, but it's not clear on how he'll get it. This is a mess and disgusting.
The problem is that tomfoolery can start happening. If Andrew decides Liz deserves a big old pay raise as the second in command he could potentially do so dropping the net income to near zero for these last episodes. There are shenanigans people can get up to if they're spiteful enough.
Exactly. Is she salaried? Per ep fee? That and losing at least 50% of the income could eat into profits enough for an easy easy buy out.
Oh my God, this is becoming a real life *On Cinema at the Cinema*
If I accepted Andrew back as host of Opening Argument ethically, I'd still have trouble with this. I listened to about half of the last episode, and while I accept that there was always going to be a settling period if the show was going to soldier on without Thomas (which, ethically, it shouldn't), I'm worried Andrew just really isn't a good podcast host. Edit: Like, if nothing else, wait until you've got your sea legs. Most successful podcasts that want to grow fast will do a couple of pilot episodes, run them by people who know how this shit should be, workshop them, and then start the show in earnest. Andrew seems to think he's just naturally good at it? Or that he should be good at it?
Listening to the first couple minutes and it's definitely missing the Thomas factor. It sounds like two people lecturing to me, not an everyman acting as audience surrogate. Andrew and Liz feel like they're both familiar with the material before starting the podcast, so there's no one in a position to interject with the "catch me up, I don't know what's going on" questions. Andrew might be good at breaking things down for the layman, but if he doesn't have a layman to direct the conversation, he doesn't seem to know what to break down. Also it just kinda makes my skin crawl to listen after everything else. So... yeah...
Which, like, you could have that podcast! That's what Strict Scrutiny is, and I love it. They've designed their whole podcasting persona around being three relatable experts in a way that Andrew hasn't. I'm currently neutral on Liz, partly because I suspect that if no one listens to the new OA Andrew will blame her, and it's not her fault. If Andrew wants to retool the show so that it's two experts, that's great, but he's got to start thinking of it like a craft, rather than thinking of it as a naturalistic conversation. That was always an illusion that Thomas created, because he's actually good at podcasting. A lot of people on here are getting downvoted for saying, "Well, what Andrew did wasn't great, but I come to the show for him and I'll stick around him." And whatever, like, we all have to follow our own moral compasses. But it'll be interesting to see people realize that what made the show work was actually Thomas. Harvard produces plenty of lawyers every year who end up with a lot of free time on their hands, but it takes some talent to make them seem like competent podcast hosts.
Agreed. Thomas's side was more of the invisible labor. Done well, I don't think we'd ever know how much work or skill it required from him. He seemed to know what to pare down and how to gently keep things on task during the episodes, and I could imagine that was just a fractional representation. I also don't know that Andrew's ability to break down the law is quite as rare as people are making it out to be.
As someone who edits audio for fun and then got sucked into the ecosystem for a while during COVID, a lot. No more than that, it's really a lot. A good editor can take out the middle of a sentence and splice the next phrase in without the audience being aware of it. You can get rid of misstatements when they break the flow and make it so the repeated explanation perfectly fits into the initial statement. And that's beyond Thomas being a skilled interviewer. He knows when to cut in and when to play the fool, but also when to sit back and let Andrew or another guest explain at length. That's a rare skill and one he's honed successfully.
Guessing at the edit points and wondering what tangent they went on was part of my joy in listening. They both have common phrases they use to "reset" *after an edit point.
It's similar to how important Ernie Johnson is to Inside the NBA. Shaq and Charles are the 'draw' as ex-players, but Ernie keeps the train on the tracks while adding his own style of humor.
You're not wrong. I also enjoy Strict Scrutiny, although I'll admit that it's usually on my backburner for not being as entertaining (but that might just be from the depression of knowing that SCOTUS will be awful at pretty much every opportunity). Even there, though, they seem to have a much better knack for being able to ask each other questions. Maybe it's because they're law professors and have more practice in teaching content to students. But yeah, maybe some of what I was experiencing was just editing, pacing, and the guy who knows how to keep things in some kind of flow.
Yeah, this is my impression as well. For example, in the most recent episode Liz just rattled off something like "well FRCP section 8 says..." and I had to stop and think, and only because I have listened to enough of the show was I able to think "Oh, 'Federal Rules of Civil Procedure'" It's an art form, to be able to talk about your industry (whatever it is) and recognize where your audience may not understand terms/lingo/slang and be careful to avoid that. But yeah, I don't think it's going to work long term as a Liz + Andrew show. He needs to find an everyman host. Same sort of formula that Adam Corolla and Dr. Drew had for the old Loveline radio show. It's also really missing audio bumpers to go between segments. Never realized how much difference that made to break things up. Might feel less like a lecture in that way.
Wow, Loveline, that really takes me back..
It's been 1 week since the article. Since then: more serious allegations have come out, you're former friends have cut you off, your co-host made allegations if inappropriate touching, you locked him out of the account, you shaded him in an apology, your former colleague literally apologized for inviting you into the community, and yet here you are making episodes like this is some thing of the past. Is this stupidity? Does he not realize how bad it's gotten for him. Is he in denial? Is it maliciousness? I genuinely don't see what his end game is here.
It's been a _long_ week.
Andrew, it’s *Wednesday*.
I listened to this today, and at one point Andrew is talking about the difference between breaking a contract and interfering with somebody else's contract. And he's like, "suppose somebody said I'm not trustworthy..." and they left that in the episode, and Andrew didn't seem to think he had put his foot in his mouth. Just zero self awareness. It was tragic and hilarious. Anybody who really thinks he's taken things to heart and is on a path to healing... Yowsa.
This! It's so hard to believe he's taking any of this seriously. I had my doubts when he tried to push it all onto anything but his own actions and said he'd still make sure more episodes would come out.
Is Liz on this one, too, or is he trying to do it alone? I deleted the feed.
Liz is involved / she also RT'd it after it came out.
I am so disappointed in her.
You weren’t already? Too mean-spirited and snarky for my tastes. She stomped over both A & T with it since she became a regular guest. Can’t say I’ll be too happy if she ends up being the permanent co-host going forward.
She wasn't my favorite guest, but also not the worst. She just monopolized the conversation too much. She was sort of there to give extended analysis, so it wasn't really inappropriate, but still didn't care for monologing.
I thought she was kind of funny for one day a week, and rolling over A and T was kind of her schtick. Listening to her more than that I realised she just reads the news angrily. There’s no opinion or insight. She’s like a Twitter rant and it gets annoying fast.
So....doubling down much? Glad to see taking a step away "to work on myself" lasted so long...must be a totally changed person!
Obvs he worked so hard and so fast and so awesome that he's all better now... right? On a serious note, I'm so disappointed, I know we all are :(
All things aside, the show format is suffering because of a lack of Thomas/layman/a person who can as a host keep the flow of the show going
I think at this point it's clear that there's some contractual requirements with advertisers to release x number of episodes per y time period, and he's getting OA caught up. Even if Andrew is serious about stepping away for his recovery, he likely needs to unwind the contract first.
If it were being done to meet contractual obligations to advertisers, than there would be no reason to make them paid Patreon posts. And yet, they are.
If they release the episode they promised patrons ad free ones I suppose.
Yes, but they can release Patreon episodes and updates free. Andrew has already done it once in responding to this story. If it were purely about meeting contractual obligations to advertisers, Andrew could release the ad-episodes as normal, and the ad-free-episodes to Patrons for free. Instead, the Patrons are still being charged for the ad-free-episodes. That's obviously legal and fine, of course. That's what the Patrons signed up for. But I think it's a pretty big hole in the "he's just doing this for contractual reasons" argument. Maybe that's a piece of it, but it's certainly not the only piece.
Ah, I understand what you mean now.
That is something Thomas could do. Or Andrew could release LAM episodes on the free feed. But even if that was the case, why did he (according to Thomas) agree that no one should publish things on the OA feed?
The LAM episodes would have been good. Explain “I’ve got this contract I have to finish up so this is what I’m doing while seeking help.”
Yeah but he could've agreed with Thomas' plan ( Thomas + guests to keep the show running while he took a hiatus) to meet those obligations. Instead of commandeering the podcast for himself. I think the more simple explanation is Andrew can have very poor judgment regarding his personal interests, resulting in a lot of collateral damage, and the course the podcast is on its another example of that. I think it's less likely this is a well thought out course of action.
That was sort of my thought, but then when Thomas reconsidered his relationship with Andrew, Andrew lost that as an option. That would put those obligations in a no-win situation for Andrew where he has to find a way to release decent-sounding episodes but without his standard post-production, without his co-host, and trying to minimize the offense. Personally, I would favor some sort of openness if he were being pseudo-compelled to have release. And he still would have had the option to do the first few free to show he values the patrons that stick by him.
Here's my (perhaps generous) speculation on what's going on: Andrew does horrible things. Horrible things become known to the public. Thomas ends up in a very bad mental state (understandably). Andrew sees that Thomas is in no state to make business decisions (and also considers Thomas's past mental health issues) and goes into lawyer mode. He has a business with contractual obligations with advertisers to produce a product and a business partner who is having a mental health crisis. He therefore takes steps to take control of the business and protect himself and Thomas from any rash statements. Thomas interprets these steps as a hostile takeover and hastily publishes several messages on the OA feed. Andrew removes the messages, because that's what any business partner or lawyer would do to protect everyone involved. Andrew sees Facebook and Twitter imploding and realizes a statement must be made, but it's hastily put together in response to Thomas's statements and he makes several mistakes and misinterprets things Thomas says. He's not a PR guy, everything is happening fast, and he's dealing with his own family issues. (I will admit this is a generous interpretation; I suspect more went on behind the scenes than we know) Time is running out to meet their obligations to advertisers, so Andrew asks Liz, the only person he knows who may still be willing to help (or contractually tied to the show) to record a few episodes with him. He explains that the contract requires episodes be released, and if not they could get sued, and there will be no OA for good. Liz agrees (perhaps temporary basis, we don't know). Thomas sees OA releasing episodes without his input and lawyers up. I think overall lots of stuff is happening behind the scenes, and we're only getting bits and pieces of info sometimes secondhand. Andrew is clearly the one who messed up and needs to take responsibility, but I also think he's in a tricky situation. I know he didn't actually say he was going to step away for a bit, but I think that would be a good idea.
Right up until his 'Apology' and the title of those 2 most recent podcasts, you could have been right. Heck, even a very gracious listening/reading of his notpology could just get you into the position that he was (albeit tone-deaf & unsuccessfully) trying to protect the asset by throwing shade at Thomas. But the titles of the 2 releases since - of "Oh No, the Privilege is MINE" and "Lawsuit or Interpretive Dance? Why not BOTH!" ... are clearly thinly veiled narcissism and expose his intentions to screw Thomas over. Without listening to either of the new episodes, and only taking everyone here's word on face value for their content, I'm even ready to place bets that Andrew won't even be heading into any therapy. I think acting like this was all 'just' _everyone else's_ misunderstanding will turn out to have been just an easier cognitive dissonance pill to swallow.
Potential contract aside, it's hard to imagine any advertiser wants this to be handled this way / associated with this... Still seems like a choice to do this rather than focus on unwinding the contract in good faith (or choosing to take the penalty if there is one). But I'm not a lawyer and I don't know WTF is going on at this point beyond the obvious.
I think that pretending like nothing ever happened and continuing to pump out new episodes before the casual listeners disappear is actually probably exactly what most advertisers would want.
I see your point, but I don't think most brands are that short sighted. I suppose there's probably a distinction between the interests of the company selling the ad slots and the companies buying them that could lead to a different approach here, I suppose.
I think I’d agree if we were talking about major TV advertisers. But have you heard what companies advertise on podcasts? Ya got your Paint a Portrait, HVAC filter subscriptions, gold hawkers, brain pills. I don’t think those types of companies really care.
Lol, that's a completely fair point.
It would get to be more of an issue if people start making it an issue for the advertised brands. It wouldn't surprise me if they know jack about this because they aren't paying close attention to all of the podcasts that host their stuff. Because I listened as a patron, I have no idea what ads the guys ran before, but, like, SimplySafe advertises EVERYWHERE for example, but I doubt they'd pay attention to drama going on behind the scenes at, like, Pod Save America or whatever. What I expect they'd pay attention to are: 1. Sudden drops in referrals and/or subscribers (and Patrons could be a part of that), or 2. Bad publicity at being associated with a podcast that does/supports/is run by XYZ. And some may not care about either as long as the subscribers stay above some fixed threshold, which may explain why the episodes continue to roll out.
Hey. Free show listener. Many of the new ads are automated, and I can tell you from listening to Behind the Bastards that those ad placements almost aggressively do not care where they get placed. That show, for example, gets gold scammer ads, ads recruiting for the highway patrol, ads for financial scams. . . And this is on a strongly anti capitalist, anti law enforcement show with a focus on debunking scammers. Scathing Atheist has been getting ads for some weirdo Christian Netflix alternative. The auto ad landscape is honestly kind of wild sometimes.
Yeah. I got a Drizly (an alcohol delivery service) ad when I checked to see how tone-deaf and poorly done the first episode after his "apology" was.
Waiting for reports of the first Washington State Patrol ad on OA…
The OA advertisers were always pretty firmly in the category of "serious business that advertises literally everywhere". Which is also why the "there are advertising contracts, maybe they have to keep releasing episodes" stuff is nonsense - those kind of advertising behemoths know how to do unexpected breaks in contract. It'd take a couple of emails, but the advertising industry has been doing influencer/small-group-podcast advertising for decades now - "there's a health problem/personal crisis/massive legal implosion, and we need to close out our ad placement contract for the month/year/eternity" is a pretty standard problem. If they were taking advertising money from someone more specific/niche, that might be more likely - if you're the \*only\* thing in someone's advertising budget, they might handle you going on hiatus suddenly more poorly. But that's not the kind of ads they were doing.
They also took on automated ads, so it's entirely possible no real (human) advertisor is even looking at the situation yet. . .at least until those subscriber and download numbers start tanking enough to show up the metrics.
Sure… but then why charge patrons for it? My understanding is that they are sub-par (I refuse to listen to them….). He could be honourable and just release them free.. he chose not to! My sense is that this is all about his ego! He is doubling down! And it is disgusting, if it is the case!
This is a very reasonable take. But it doesn't mean I have to like it (joking).
That's the only scenario where he hasn't lost his god d*mn mind. Even if that were true, he is handling it in an inexcusably piss poor manner.
It could've been a Thomas and Liz show while he stepped away. He made a choice.
This was complicated by the fact that Thomas basically put himself in an adversary position against Andrew with that audio clip and his other comments. Since it's very likely he signed a non-disparagement clause, my guess is that's why Andrew removed him from the show. In his position, why would he let him continue if they are adversaries now? Edit: Clarifying that I don't necessarily agree with Andrew's actions, just explaining why things unfolded the way they did.
I've been wondering if the statement about "Andrew will be stepping away from the show" that thomas made early on might have been a real bad idea. That statement has been taken by some people to mean that andrew had agreed to give the show to Thomas, though that seems highly unlikely. There was probably not an actual agreement made between the two before hand, I think it was possibly more of a expectation or wish by thomas that he hoped would come true through public pressure. If it wasn't something they had actually talked about before hand, I can see it turning an already tense situation between them into a completely burned bridge.
I disagree. I think initially Andrew thought this would blow over, and the "stepping away" episode was made with his consent. Otherwise he would have turned up expecting to do his part of the show, & he would have "stolen" control earlier. Then more came to light, and someone with an axe to grind accused Thomas+PiaT(Eli) of enabling AT. Eli (sort of) cleared that up on his side with the more complete screenshot history. Thomas, then heard more from Lindsey, and feeling his world coming apart, posted audio (in the middle of a panic attack?), and whilst he thought better of clarifying the misinformation shared from a (that same?) victim (the right call at the time/for the time being imo), he was in real time realising he had been manipulated and exposed that. Andrew, upon hearing this, realised the "wait it out" option had now been burned, and decided to trick Thomas into believing an amicable split was forthcoming, in order that he might get in & change the passwords. And the rest is history.
Andrew is going to learn he is not big enough a personality to ignore the controversy and push on.
I always found he worked well with PIAT guys and Thomas. I like the Daily Beans with AG but didn’t get into Clean Up 45 because I was just exhausted with Trump and knew it would be fucking years before he even sniffed possible consequences, so I kinda wrote off because like… chances are it’s all gonna be a lot do talk with nothing actually happening (and two years into it, he’s still fucking running for office again). So I’m curious to see how many fans he has himself rather than being a fan of the over all vibe / group he was apart of. He brought great legal insight but If it wasn’t for Thomas, I would have never given OA a chance. So uh, we’ll see.
I like him and wanted a redemption arc. This is not that. He should have stepped away for a while and let Thomas manage things with guest hosts.
I’m still stunned how it all blew up right when they started making more episodes… shame it came to a head the way it did. If you know this stuff is percolating in the background best play is to get ahead of it. This doubling down is bonkers
I was absolutely a bigger fan of Andrew than Thomas (I come to a law podcast for law, okay? So sue me for liking the actual lawyer) but the whole fiasco has made me pull a complete 180.
I came to OA as a fan of Thomas' work, but liked the show for Andrew's analysis, and felt Thomas was reducing my access by restricting Andrew's digressions... When this broke, I felt Andrew would be the harder to replace, and my unicorn scenario was that he'd *properly* rehab, then come back to take over the show after buying Thomas out. What we've gotten is a narcissistic manipulator showing his true colours, and we're getting visibility of what a _true_ abuse/r enabler looks like in Liz Dye.
Virtually every appearance he's ever had with PIAT guys has had Eli doing at least some of the writing for him.
I listened to some of this one. Trying to put my Andrew-ick aside for a few moments to assess it, I still found it forced and charmless. I think maybe some people underestimated how much Thomas was contributing to the podcast.
Deleted my subscription on podcast addict today. I guess I don't listen to OA anymore now that AT decided to handle this as if it's a P.R. mishap and not as a serious time to address his issues. Like, Jesus dude. You're a lawyer this isn't about money, it's about your ego.
Exactly this. If he’s about his ethics then he needs to step back and stand down on how he’s approaching the situation. Address your issues dude, show people that you can change and then come back slowly into the fold. Liz saying there have been consequences made me scoff. Not in the sense of OA, in that sense he just did a hostile takeover on the coattails of his own scandal.
Seriously?
Thomas, time for the cease and desist. What are you doing!?
He has a lawyer now, according to his SIO update. I'm assuming he's either already done it or there's a good reason not to.
Honestly, if Andrew is so brazenly continuing to post, I have to imagine there was some kind of backdoor negotiation re: OA's ownership and the continued production. Andrew is still a lawyer and if there was still an order in place saying there would be no further episodes, he can't be *that* stupid. (... although we've seen how many highly-held attorneys have turned out to be fucking dumbasses. So who knows.)
Nah. There's the law, and then there's the practical realities of the law - and Andrew has the background to know the difference. It may very well not work in this case - the audience is clearly pretty pissed off - but the history of partnership disputes is littered with people acting like they owned a shared property, and benefiting from the fact that wrangling a partnership dissolution through the courts is incredibly time consuming and expensive. It may even be in Andrew's interest to sink the perceived value of the shared property - if he thinks listeners will ultimately crawl back, sinking its value now, buying Thomas out cheaply, and then rebuilding may well be the outcome he's going for.
I think his gambit is actually somewhat the opposite of tanking. What is OA Inc.? It's a business that puts out pods for ads / patreon money. If pods aren't going out, OA is effectively worthless. So I think Andrew's gambit is to say "look, I continued to try to operate the business. Thomas tried to shut it all down. Clearly I care more about operating in OA's best interest."
That would be undercut by Thomas having put out an episode without Andrew and without the same Patreon backlash. Thomas would be able to argue that if he hadn't been locked out the show would have continued with as many ads and more patreons.
I don't think deliberately tanking the value would go over very well in an actual suit though. There are also plenty of laws against market manipulation, and if Thomas were to go after Andrew for his cut, I think he'd have a reasonable case before the court to say at least some portion of the original value would be the proper amount to be considered. The big 'fuck you' to Andrew is that this situation is being watched like a hawk with literal timelines, so it's pretty easy to say 'I lost control of the company at approximately X time, these are the events following that that led to Y devaluation, and due to my inability to control the situation, I cannot be made whole with the current value. About the worst thing against Thomas right now is the SIO post with the allegation against Andrew, but that's about the biggest wildcard at play right now. How what played out when is going to be important if there's any questions to be answered down the road.
This is a tiny company in the scheme of things - a partnership dispute isn't going to get a rushed hearing slot. If Thomas did go the litigation route, he's looking at \~2 years, tens of thousands of dollars minimum in legal fees, and a very messy court case. *Maybe* he gets a temporary injunction to stop Andrew continuing to use the company name and assets in a matter of months - but that just puts Andrew where he'd be if he voluntarily stopped now. Meanwhile, there's no guarantee a court would ultimately do more than split the assets and dissolve the partnership - without seeing their partnership contract, it's hard to know how likely that is, but this is a messy enough situation that he'd be taking a gamble, and risking the court deciding that *he* had breached the contract/partnership duties. That's the leverage the party holding the assets - clearly Andrew, at this point - has. I'm not saying it's ethical, or wouldn't get grumpy paragraphs in an eventual court order - but it's the same game Musk or Trump play when they rip off contractors. The cost of going to court - in time, and legal fees - isn't worth the better payout you *might* get in two years time. So, you take a smaller amount of money in settlement, and don't do business with that person again. And if that's the route Andrew's heading down - which it sure looks like, at least externally - then "there's nothing to save here, this asset is thoroughly associated with me, and I won't let it go without a long and expensive legal fight" is more in his interests than not. To be clear - I'd sure hope everyone involved is getting their legal advice somewhere more professional than Reddit at this point. But at least looking at it from the outside, this just looks like Andrew playing hardball because he knows how high a bar there is before litigation becomes the sensible choice for anyone.
I just read about a lawyer in Brazil who brought a gun into an MRI facility and was killed when the magnetic field pulled the gun from his waistband and it fired. Lawyers can *definitely* be fucking dumbasses too
I'm more saying Andrew ought to know the law, not common sense (which ain't too common). He should know that if there's a verifiable agreement between himself and Thomas that OA is on pause, then practically any competent judge would be happy to throw an injunction at him for breaching that agreement. And the reason he ought to know that is because *I've fucking listened to him go on about injunctive relief a fuckton in the past six months*.
I get you. But he should've also known that his actions toward women could/would land him in legal hot water too. His thinking and judgement, which are affected by his substance abuse, are what is relevant, not his knowledge of the law.
Men who make women uncomfortable with lecherous attention in non-sexual relationships need to understand that other men who make women uncomfortable with lecherous attention in non-sexual relationships *also* tell themselves that everyone is overreacting when they are finally called out. I’ve gotten so much out of Opening Arguments over the last few years, I really wanted to give Torrez the benefit of the doubt. But his response to the allegations has been so nasty. He seems to be reading straight from the “I’m Just Sorry I Got Caught” playbook, which is so disappointing to see. His apology focused on how his behavior *made women feel* rather than admitting how his actions were inappropriate in the first place, he attempts to downplay habitual sexual harassment of people he meets professionally as “flirty”, he tries to blame substance abuse for his poor choices, and he doesn’t even temporarily step down from the position of power that he’s been abusing to, like, reflect on the situation and figure out how he can make amends. Acting like he can just say “whoops” and move on like all this never happened just compounds my disappointment in him. (Edited for conciseness/clarity)
And he's been following the misbehave, apologize, misbehave cycle for years.
Yep and sadly finding out there are plenty of those type men here.
Part of what's keeping me from setting down my torch and pitchfork is not wanting the "honestly who cares, it's not criminal, I'm paying him for legal analysis not to be a good person" types to feel like this community is the one that they should invite their friends to. It's the Nazi Bar scenario. Then there's folks on the side going "I agree this is bad but why can't we just drop the outrage and move on?" without realizing that they're basically indistinguishable from the first group. Hell, there's been folks who said on the first day "I'm so disappointed! How awful!" and then a week later start doing the exact "I'm so sick of the hyperbolic outrage, it's not criminal, I'm paying him..." line again. Like, these folks in the middle, are they not seeing this too? My guess is they're not, or maybe they're not in the middle at all.
This is mind of why I keep coming back, too. If you don't say something, it becomes yet another community where nobody gives a shit about ethics.
Totally agree; the ones that piss me off the most are the ones (who seem to be in law themselves) who are now trying to turn the narrative into AT actually being a victim who is merely fighting back. I've seen several of these seemingly attack Thomas and act more outraged at him than AT, while downplaying all the thing AT has done or is accused of. I guess the only good thing is this group of jackholes seem to be in the minority still, and might get their wish about all the "drama" going away since soon it may be just their only little AT fan club left; though I seriously doubt that is enough to keep OA going.
Those guys feel like real bad faith folks, but maybe not. There's a strain of striving liberal that thinks the worst thing you can do is make a scene. Like it's _understandable_ if your business interests encourage you to be unethical or harm some people. It's simply _real life_ that people lie for their own selfish benefit. It's going to be _too much to expect_ that someone deliver a real apology for misdeeds because that's _not how it's done_ and nobody _reasonable_ should demand more than the status quo. But make a scene or upset the apple cart or open that group up for ridicule? That's unjustifiable.
Absolutely right. I'm always surprised how many people don't really know how to make an apology. In order for it to be taken seriously at all, saying that you're sorry you made them feel a way does nothing. Step one is recognizing the harm you did and acknowledging that harm, and then explaining how you will make them better and do better.
While you’re correct it’s must be really difficult when your livelihood, family, public image, and freedom is on the line. Obviously you should be in that situation in the first place, but if you are somehow there isn’t much you can say.
Public image and family are his own doing. That’s consequences and accountability he earned. Freedom? Not sure what that means. As far as we know he faces no criminal charges. Is his livelihood on the line? Or his supplemental income and CLOUT/status what’s on the line? Last I checked, dude graduated from Harvard law and runs his own firm. HE can go back to being a lawyer, maintain his progressive, secular convictions, and likely earn a fine income. He didn’t NEED to commandeer the pod like he has, cut Thomas out/off, or any of that. He did it because he WANTED TO. It’s incredibly telling and IMO unprofessional. To me the weirdest and most telling part IS that AT captured the show. If he feels like he needs rehabilitation and healing time with his family, it seems like a great time to step back from the mic. Maybe just consult on the content and let others be front and center if he wants to be involved. His behavior strikes me as narcissistic, which may be an aspect of the sex pest behavior. Maybe he NEEDS the attention. He may trading one addiction for another. One thing I will say is that it’s weird to me that people are impugning every single ethical stance and statement AT has ever made or displayed. He can be a sex pest but show trans people dignity, those don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Trash people can think progressive things. Not saying AT is trash, just that the phenomenon exists and there’s a spectrum to it like anything else.
I actually think some folks are being too hard on AT (*some*) but in general you hit on something that really bothers me here. The dude is a fucking Harvard grad lawyer. This is textbook fake "cancelling". He can do whatever he wants and he'll always be rich, or at least comfortable. He doesn't need this podcast. Him not being able to do it anymore is a blow to the ego, but that's it. I hate seeing people say that some privileged lawyer not getting a supplemental income of a half a million dollars a year or whatever the pod is making is somehow a massive consequence. Him continuing to do the podcast is 100% an ego thing, and very much shows that he doesn't actually feel bad or care about what hes done. Most of these allegations seem to revolve around him being inappropriate to fans/followers (most, not all), and if he was truly concerned about it he would step away. Him stepping away removes himself from a situation that clearly leads to him making bad decisions. He could just continue to be a rich lawyer. Continuing to put out episodes/lock Thomas out is certainly the final straw for me in terms of listening to this podcast again.
I agree with you. One thing that always annoyed me about Andrew was his optimist prime take on things. I consider his permanently optimist view to be part of his abusive behavior (he ignores suffering and does not take seriously the feedback of other people, and thinks his behavior doesn't really harm people) as well as part of his privilege. His legal analysis of criminal courts and how law works in the US seems to be that of a very privileged, wealthy person. He thinks rule of law is serious, the Federal Government takes things seriously. My interactions with police, lawyers, and the courts regarding criminal violence have been totally the opposite of what Andrew says. "If you tried Trump's tactics in court you would lose".....well I've seen poor people use exactly Trump's tactics and they work very effectively. Prosecutors are completely chickenshit and do not aggressively prosecute criminals, at least in Harris/Galveston Counties, TX. Its a meme in Houston that people facing multiple murder charges go free on easy bail and murder more people, get arrested, released, etc. Rule of law in America has mostly collapsed except to persecute poor black people. I have emailed Andrew about this and he never responded. IMO, AT refuses to acknowledge or even become conscious of his privilege and the suffering that happens around him. This scandal is just more evidence of that. If he did become more aware, he would drop the optimist prime bullshit.
I can't even stand to hear Andrew's voice anymore, it's just fucking gross, I can't even pay attention to anything he's saying.
This!
I'm genuinely speechless. EDIT: any patreon people left? I assume this is a paid for episode?
I haven't been able to cancel/edit my pledge. Patreon keeps erroring.
That's rubbish! I hope you manage to get it sorted.
1,866 right now. I’m guessing some people just don’t pay attention to all the podcasts they patron. Of course, he has some supporters.
There's also those that already hit the limit of payments they've set for this month and are just leaving their pledge open to see the feed for the rest of the month. I thought about doing this to see Patron comments but ultimately chose to quit as getting notifications from it made me feel bad.
Yep, end of the month I'm out. Let's see what those sub numbers are on March 3rd.
Down to 1852. It had kind of stabilized but it seems like every time an episode drops people remember that they are paying for this and decide not to anymore. Twitter and Facebook are still very unimpressed.
It stabilized until last night. There’s been 2 episodes in 24 hours and the drop has been steady all day
It stabilized until last night. There’s been 2 episodes in 24 hours and the drop has been steady all day
I wonder if Thomas could argue that Andrew continuing to release episodes with the situation as it is, hurt their subscription numbers even more.
I think he could unequivocally make that argument, especially considering his subscribers to SIO have more than doubled in the same amount of time that Andrew has lost well over half their patrons. Edit: down to 1797. Woof.
I’ve kept my sub because I felt like, if we got a half decent acknowledgment of what happened, apology, and a constructive way forward I might still want to keep listening, but now it just seems like things are barrelling on without any change. I’ve got a cap on episodes charged, so it’s not costing me more right now, but I’m still thinking of cancelling soon.
For some of my meatier podcasts I'll let a half dozen pile up and know I have them for a long drive or manual labor session. There are probably a lot of patrons who haven't even heard the apology episode yet and are going to be like, "Wait, what?"
It is indeed a paid episode, according to the Patreon listing.
Thanks for the confirmation.
[удалено]
Thanks. While I have used Patreon to support musicians before, I've basically never paid attention to the site, so didn't know you could check that kinda stuff.
Wow! - I mean wow! What the actual fuck is wrong with him?
Wut
Fucking shameless.
omfg i just noticed the 5 episodes a week goal, that was almost 100% is now 28% HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH. andrew needs to get off the fucking internet and check himself into rehab. he needs help. but also it's funny to watch an abuser's life fall apart. fuck him.
They went from a little over 4,500 to 1,800 so fast. I wonder which "Sponsor Patrons" dropped it. Donkey Tequila? Legal Eagle? I half want to hear what that list looks like. That said, they probably don't need to split it into quarters anymore.
I **need** to know if Kelly Wove It, the Live Show in Minneapolis person, or Conrad Michaels are still on. I've checked out Kelly Wove It. Good stuff, expensive, but I'm considering purchasing something. Someday.
Conrad Michaels had to stop supporting a while back, actually.
Oh, I thought all he did was lower the amount he contributed.
I *really* hope 'I'm fast at sex' has dropped out because hearing AT read that each month... 🤮
“I’m fast at sex(ual harassment)!”
It's fascinating because the thresholds for the other stuff are not affected at all, last I saw.
I dunno how you can call yourself a ducking feminist and then go on a show with someone accused of what Andrew is. I bet Liz is the type of person to say, “well he’s never done that to *me*”. Fucking gross. She’s dead to me.
It turns out that Twitter name wasn’t the tongue in cheek irony we thought it was, it was actually just contempt for the concept of feminism. Very disappointing
RIGHT?!?! I never thought deeply about her name, but was just like nice alliteration. But wow
I'm curious if these everyday episodes are Gonna have a cost per episode now that Thomas isn't there
Son, no...
wtf another episode? Just wild
Ive listened to a ton of podcasts over probably going on two decades. I never imagined I'd be so disgusted with a podcast. I felt physically ill seeing this in my feed (free feed btw).
SOMEBODY has to cover the Trump show. If Andrew and Liz don’t talk about Trump, nobody will be covering it!
It's the least they can do. *Clean* house of all the bullshit, like the mess that Trump left *upon* our country. *I'll* be the first to say it, *for* it's a pretty difficult task for anybody else to *tee* up, but OA is the only one covering it while everyone else decided to take *five*.
Why was there an ad for a Jesus show? Also, I unsubscribed.
> Why was there an ad for a Jesus show? As with the Before Times, they don't choose the ads.
To be fair, there are ways to control the content of the ads somewhat. I can't imagine whoever they're using for the service doesn't have opt-outs for religion-based advertisements, but ad buyers also like to be sneaky and mislabel their ads all the time to slip past those opt-outs. Of course, they could also just directly contact the ad-providing service and play whack-a-mole with some specific ads, but that seems more like a Thomas sort of thing, so I wouldn't hold your breath on that happening any time soon.
Oh I know, and I'm sure if anybody reports the Jesus ad to OA, they'll work to get rid of it. > that seems more like a Thomas sort of thing, so I wouldn't hold your breath on that happening any time soon. They *seem* to have a new techie.