I just think we should love everyone. And if someone spends a dollar to get to a yoyo contest they should be met with love and respect. Everywhere and by everyone.
Ben is lucky af
He gets to represent a massive company that has done a lot of good for yoyoing. And instead uses that power to spread hate like this. AND. dropped Evan not that long ago for stuff like this.
Its a painful day in our community.
And im so anti cancel folks. But I wish Hans would take control of his company and clean up this mess for the good of our community.
Colin Beckford doesnt have a mean bone in his body.
18 Likes
fradiger
(the world is a beautiful cat and i must meow meow meow)
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I think it’s important to also acknowledge the damage having someone like that at the head of YYF does to the perception of the yoyo community. We want the yoyo community to be a community where yoyoers of all races and cultures can feel safe and empowered to enjoy the hobby, having someone making comments like that at the helm of YYF sends a message that the community is not that.
What are you talking about? That post specifically left out his name to not “ruin” or “cancel” him. Who here is even trying to do that?
4 Likes
JeiCheetah
(J̵̡̥̦̳̗͎̤̯̟͓̞͔͔̻́͛͐̒͋̔̈́͂̃͝ͅͅ E I H W Δ N̸̢̢̡͙͖̝̩̟͎̹̻͔̳͕̙̗̈̆̆͋̈́͛̀̑̒̂̀̈́̇̚͘͠ͅ)
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If you find someone who’s had a history of this behavior who literally said this comment to a POC getting called out as “cancel culture” then I feel you have no place in this community as well.
I had a similar comment during the last fiasco with Ben. But then I learned that he’s got quite the track record of saying stupid stuff. And then this happens. At some point, dude needs to take some serious accountability or YYF needs to make him take accountability.
I’ve dabbled in creating drama for marketing purposes in the past. There’s no such thing as bad press. It’s a bit too late for it now but by talking about it, Ben and by extension YYF win. Best way to handle this situation is to just ignore it, and they tried by not mentioning who it was but it’s inevitable that people will find out. Not much we can do now except wait for it to blow over.
I hear ya. But you don’t ignore racism. Thats what we’ve been told to do for a long long time.
There is no bad press is just a saying. There is definitely bad press and these comments could definitely hurt YYF’s bottom line, and definitely hurt the company’s reputation. Less brands will want to work with them. Honestly if I was Gentry I’d be launching my own business tomorrow .
Ben seems like the type of guy that will let his words get away from him, but that is no excuse. He should know better but clearly doesn’t. It will be up to YYF to make up for the bad blood he has stirred, especially after he did so in front of the entire yoyo community and after the Nagao situation.
As someone who has worked in finance and IT for most of my career. Yes there is bad press. If you lose trust in your customer base you can spiral quickly and no longer be relevant in the market.
Perception is reality and if folks feel you’re problematic enough they will think twice before buying your product. At some point one persons bad behavior reflects on the whole of the company.
Sad thing is yyf is a pillar of support for the contest scene. Booting yyf out of the league would do some massive harm to the contest scene in the form of monetary support. So Ben can act out and often get away with it because of backlash is harsh enough it hurts everyone not just yyf…not to mention the sponsored players and all the new players who come from experiencing yff products and events.
This is absolutely the wrong approach. The way to foster an inclusive and welcoming community is to vocally and persistently call out racism/other forms of discrimination and make it clear that it has no place here. Ignoring bad behaviour only serves to embolden the perpetrator, make it clear to other people with similar views that they can get away with similar behaviour and worst of all make those targetted by racism feel unsafe and unwelcome.
YYF is not going to generate more yo-yo sales from this incident. They are not getting additional exposure from this (everyone who would hear about this incident will already be familiar with YYF as they would be part of the scene regardless). The best result from Ben/YYF’s perspective is that we all stay quiet and eventually the community moves on and they get away with it.
The only way that positive change will occur is by the community demanding change and making sure that we don’t allow this to be ignored.
It’s the same reason you don’t tell a kid to do something 5 times before insisting. All you’ve taught is that you aren’t serious til the 5th time. Also, you shouldn’t have to be told that making other people feel bad/uncomfortable/excluded isn’t ok, but if you do need to be told, it has to happen immediately and decisively
This statement caught my attention. What was the “other nonsense” that was said? It seems as though anything said immediately afterwards has great relevance to the context of the statement in question.
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