"Loud is What We Do" - the tale of how Roosterteeth managed to set a trap to catch racist fans

BACKGROUND

I've written about Roosterteeth before, but the more I dig into their current problems the more amazed I am at just how badly a once-hip online media company has messed up.

Let's Plays require a careful balance - you want to feel like you're watching six friends play a game together, and not separate Twitch streamers all shouting over each other. This is a concept that RT have completely forgotten over the past few years by hiring solo Twitch streamers and expecting them to work well together.

LAYING THE BAIT

One of their most recent hires - Ky (a Twitch streamer) - annoyed the fanbase from her very first video by screaming like a banshee with an mic that is 5x louder than anyone else's. One user politely suggests that RT's army of editors do something about it, giving evidence (see the attached picture for her soundwaves on the right compared to someone else's on the left). However nothing changes even though the fanbase keep begging RT to fix it. Well bazinga, it turns out the RT userbase fell right into a trap that had been carefully laid for them to weed out racists.

THE FANBASE FALLS INTO THE TRAP

These complaints - even though they had nothing whatsoever to do with race - allowed Ky to start complaining on Twitter - some choice quotes:

everyone yells, but we [black women] get the shit

I BABY - I GET SCARED - I SCREAM

I'm working on my gain lvls but if you think that's gonna make me, any less loud & expressive?

And a fellow RT employee (a married woman in her mid-thirties with two children who recently decided to go by they/them pronouns) weighs in to defend:

@AchievementHunt is loud and they're right on our decibel

And just like that this has become a racial issue, RT expertly turning a complaint about audio levels into an issue about racism from the fanbase. RT capitalises by releasing a line of "LOUD IS WHAT WE DO" merch, which appears to have sold at least 15 t-shirts and hoodies. All but the five remaining hardcore RT suckups think this is dumb, but who cares about the dirty racist horde?

Of course the videos are still unwatchable and view counts are circling the drain, but that doesn't matter.