Rooster Teeth, A Gaming And Fan Community Owned By Warner Bros Discovery, Apologizes For “Hate And Mistreatment” After Former Staffer Complains About Slurs And Unfair Pay

Rooster Teeth, a gaming-oriented digital content creator and fan community owned by Warner Bros Discovery, has apologized for “hate and mistreatment” after complaints were lodged by a former staffer.

Kdin Jenzen, who worked for the Austin, TX-based company as a content creator and editor from 2013 to July 2022, went public with her experiences in a post shared on social media last weekend. She alleged the company, which was founded in 2003, fostered a culture in which she was overworked, underpaid and repeatedly called a homophobic slur in the workplace.

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“Within a few weeks of working at Rooster Teeth I was given a nickname, that nickname was a slur. Every day I came into work I was called” that common slur, Jenzen wrote, “but they could not use that name in content so when anyone was recording I was called ‘Fugz’ instead. For any fans who used that nickname for me for years, that’s what you were calling me. I couldn’t say anything about it, I had reported the use of that nickname for years to HR, and nothing was ever done about it and the videos that use that nickname for me are still up.”

As her tenure continued, Jenzen says she was routinely putting in 16-hour days, with only occasional bonuses and a salary she discovered was $30,000 below where it should have been based on her position, performance and qualifications.

“As a company, we sincerely apologize for the hateful and harmful behavior that occurred in the past. We must do better. We are sorry,” the company said in a Twitter thread on Tuesday night. The thread elaborated on a number of steps the company has taken, and said that the company was instituting a slowdown in its output this week so that workers can “reconnect with one another.” It added, “We’ll be back to making content next week. Do not harass any RT staff. Many of them are actively working to make Rooster Teeth a better place.”

Rooster Teeth, whose web series Red vs. Blue put it on the map, was previously part of Otter Media, which was a subsidiary of AT&T. Last April, Discovery and WarnerMedia sealed a $43 billion merger, with AT&T remaining a stakeholder but no longer controlling the entertainment company and Rooster Teeth became a part of WBD.

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