I think people bitching about Jake Weddle's interview are kinda missing the point- it's not really about
his story, it's about establishing a broader pattern of behavior. Weddle is the guy who was willing to go on camera, on short notice, for little to no compensation, and risk his career. Of course he's gonna be a character.
I also think the "starts with littering ends with hiring a chomo" was an intentional choice to try and create narrative escalation. Whether that worked for you or not, eh, but I think Dogpack structured the interview questions specifically to start with petty negligence and end with the most morally offensive.
Weddle's actual allegations, backed up by the on screen screenshots, paint the picture of a reckless "move fast and break things" ethos.
- He was hired with the promise of being on camera, then not included in videos without much explanation. I agree the "you're too big a personality" sounds like a cope he's hung onto over the years
- He and other writers were paid below industry standard and let go when they tried to negotiate.
- He was brought back as a day-rate contractor with less bargaining power
- High pressure sales tactics were used by the company to get what they need to shoot and within the company to get compliance
- He alleges a small group of creatives, led by Jimmy, would come up with click bait ideas and then pay people to execute them quickly and sloppily without any oversight or questions about "why are we doing this in this way, is this safe, etc" because whatever, everyone gets paid, they signed a waiver, etc.
I do want to pause there because I think this is where Jimmy created his own little North Carolina Hollywood. Once he got a million dollars, he realized he could give 1% to 10% of his money away to make people do just about anything he wanted, and make more money doing it. He found Weddle, and others, "whore number". And I do think that's part of why Weddle was crying- it's humiliating to admit he was willing to degrade and physically harm himself so a man he hated would give him money, and that he didn't even get the money he was promised.
Then, in the context of that reckless and exploitative work culture, they bring up "Delaware" who was previously convicted of sexually abusing a child but not directly accused of doing something at Beast, and tease another part fully focused on sexual misconduct at Beast the Jimmy knew about. The escalation makes sense and works for me, although this part I agree was much less polished than the first. But yeah, my long and rambling point is that this is really a set dressing episode to bridge from "ethics in YouTube" concerns to "This is criminal" concerns by establishing a work culture that was high pressure, sloppy, callous, and exploitative. In order to establish that culture, they had to get someone to speak on the record- and they got Weddle.
(Also I do think that's a genuinely fucked idea for a YouTube video, because the entire point is to get a break down on camera. The fact they tried to make him do something so psychologically dangerous so they could edit a month of suffering down to a 30 min video, or paid him to walk barefoot for 15 hours when they would just edit that down to a 1 min clip,
is fucking deranged and unnecessary.)