Warner Bros. Discovery is shutting down its subsidiary Rooster Teeth Productions, resulting in much reminiscing about the company’s history. However, it’s impossible to discuss Rooster Teeth’s legacy without acknowledging its controversies.
Rooster Teeth was founded over two decades ago by Burnie Burns, Matt Hullum, Geoff Ramsey, Jason Saldaña, Gus Sorola, and Joel Heyman. It didn’t take long for the company to gain recognition, as its first production was Red vs. Blue, a web series that almost immediately stirred interest and reached critical acclaim on its platform, Machinima. The company only continued to grow, soon expanding well beyond web series into gaming, podcasts, and live-action and animated productions. Eventually, it was acquired by Warner Bros., but it simply wasn’t profitable enough for the studio.
At first, the studio hoped to pass ownership of Rooster Teeth to another company but failed to find any interest. As a result, the production company is being dissolved, though Warner Bros. will try to sell the rights to the company’s podcasts, as well as RWBY, Red vs. Blue, and Gen: Lock, to prevent their cancelation. An estimated 150 employees and countless contractors will lose their jobs in the wake of the shutdown.
The news is disappointing to fans and devastating to the company’s dedicated employees. Yet, the company’s leadership may be partially responsible for its downfall, considering their controversies likely turned away large portions of the fandom.
Rooster Teeth’s alleged toxic workplace controversy
The biggest controversy Rooster Teeth faced was in relation to multiple accusations of a toxic workplace environment in which employees were overworked, underpaid, harassed, and discriminated against. Its toxic workplace culture emerged when the company was hit with numerous incriminating Glassdoor reviews. A flurry of reviews published in 2019 contained concerning allegations about the low quality of the company’s management and work culture. Accusations included employees being under constant crunch and not being paid overtime. The constant demand for overtime and lack of pay meant employees likely worked hundreds of hours for free.
Most of the accusations pertained to the animation department and resulted in Rooster Teeth’s Head of Animation, Gray Haddock, stepping down. However, those reviews were only the tip of the iceberg. In 2020, former employee Mica Burton addressed her 2018 departure, stating, “I didn’t leave because of the community, I left because of the company.” While she didn’t go into details about her experience, she did mention a lack of support from her co-workers and being “abandoned, blacklisted, ignored, and most of all not believed” by the company. Her father, LeVar Burton, re-tweeted her statement and accused Rooster Teeth of “blatant racism.”
While the Burtons called for change in the company, there’s little evidence change was made. In 2022, former employee Kdin Jenzen made a blog post on TwitLonger, detailing all of their terrible experiences with Rooster Teeth. She explained she was hired as a contractor in February 2013, a position she held for ten months before being promoted to full-time. However, all the work she did in those months was completely unpaid. When she mentioned this fact during their full-time hiring, she was told of the unpaid work, “It’s been so long already, it’s not really a big deal, is it?”
Meanwhile, for years at Rooster Teeth, Jenzen was given a homophobic slur as a nickname. Since the slur couldn’t be used during recordings, she was referred to in videos as a variation of the slur: Fugz. As a result, many fans also referred to Jenzen as Fugz, unaware of what it actually stood for. The nickname only stopped when she came out as a transgender woman. However, Jenzen says the nickname was replaced by further harassment and mistreatment, as fellow employees and her manager took credit for their work, refused to allow her in videos, and even lied to audiences that she wasn’t present despite being in another room finishing extremely long shifts. In her first department, Jenzen’s shift was usually 7:00 AM – 9:00 PM, which turned into 7:00 AM – 11:00 PM when she shifted departments.
Until 2020, she says she was also underpaid by $30,000. For years, their salary was $40,000, while the next lowest-paid person’s salary was $70,000. Jenzen also detailed being unable to access benefits, including health insurance. She emphasized that the company’s “Founding Fathers” were all aware of the mistreatment towards her and other minority groups but did nothing about it.
Jenzen’s allegations and many of the Glassdoor reviews were confirmed when Rooster Teeth issued an apology for “the hateful and harmful behavior that occurred in the past.” Rooster Teeth co-founder Geoff Ramsey and former creative director Gavin Free both admitted to partaking in the mistreatment of Jenzen and using the homophobic slur, with both issuing direct apologies to her. However, Jenzen responded to Ramsey, claiming she had asked him back in 2020, when Burton first spoke out, for the company to publicly address its issues, but it didn’t.
Unfortunately, Jenzen has also been involved in their own fair share of controversies. Shortly after she made the allegations, internet users uncovered multiple videos of Jenzen using racial slurs. Additionally, she made another blog post in which she levied allegations against Rooster Teeth regarding its mistreatment of the company’s Black Excellence BRG. Later, the company’s HR specialist issued a statement on behalf of the BRG, which disputed some of Jenzen’s claims and also criticized what seemed to be Jenzen using them to defend and make herself look better.
Of course, Jenzen’s own controversies don’t change how Rooster Teeth treated her, Burton, and likely countless other employees. On top of that, several of the company’s former employees have had severe accusations and charges levied against them. Ex-employees Ryan Haywood and Adam Kovic were fired after allegations arose that they had groomed young fans, while Vice President of Product Research and Engineering Michael Quinn was fired after being arrested for domestic abuse. Vic Mignogna was also dropped from the company following sexual assault allegations.
There have been a lot of victims of Warner Bros. Discovery’s aggressive corporate shakeup and cost-cutting measures. While one can bemoan Rooster Teeth as the latest victim of the industry giant, one also can’t forget Rooster Teeth’s own contribution to its demise amid a flurry of controversies that no doubt disheartened and turned away countless supporters.
(featured image: Rooster Teeth)
