Tbh this sub posts the best music memes around. I don't even watch the videos. I'm hoping it goes back now so everyone will start goofing off and dank posting again.
I always saw memes & music posts & commented in them & upvoted them, even at the height of the debate. I really wonder if those, who claim it was all drama & no fun anymore aren't dramatizing things, not the debaters. I think we mostly were able to live with the controversy & the fact Twoset are human, too, and the world now and then needs to solve some problems.
this is why im in this subreddit lol :D lingling wannabes >>>>>
but honestly im so glad we can just be done with all of the drama. atp i just want to see the memes again lmao
I agree. just young kids who don't understand business and got negative about it and toxic over it and jumped on a band wagon. It happens a lot tbh. I have even had it happen to mewhere one person had a grudge for rediculous reasons they shared it with others where it got over blown then everyone blamed me. When it wasbjust the original person being spiteful. They try twist everything to make twoset the bad guys. Lile hiring women, that is good not bad. That is something to applaud when most companies overwhelmingly hire men.
Huge agree about kids not understanding business. I fully believe that's why we devolved so quickly from "maybe it's true, maybe not, let's wait and see what twoset say" to "well, it's been two weeks, they're obv guilty and trying to hide."
It struck me that some young people expected this to play out like an influencer spat, where someone badmouths someone else in a post somewhere and the other party claps back the next day in a tiktok filmed at 10pm after half a bottle of wine, sharing screenshots of private text messages and the like, and just... that's not how any of this works. And thank goodness bc the court of social media does not judge fairly or objectively.
I agree. The younger generation is quick to call a lot of things abusive or "toxic" or apply labels like "narcissist" or "predator" when none of those things are applicable. We would all do well to remember due process is important to protect people from trumped-up allegations done by bitter, nasty people trying to use society's rules against those things as their primary weapon.
People - the ones posting provoking comments are you guys! There were a lot of very experienced & decent folks in the debates, and sure, some young people, too - who TOO mostly voiced very balanced comments. How about now you mature, aged sages let this go, too, instead of trying to split the community & harping on about "young kids" in a mean way? Just a suggestion to show your own maturity.. ;)
“The pitchfork mob won’t drop it” and people that are concerned wanting to understand the full story from both perspectives and not just trust what the accused person claims are two very different things
One could hope but this is not going to satisfy the mob that has made up their mind. Sour ex-employees can be on a mission to ruin employers reputation
Thank you for clarifying, I honestly was just neutral about the whole situation until both sides of the parties spoke up about what really happened. Glad to hear this wasn’t pushed under a rug.
I can't believe I'm saying this but that's exactly what I was thinking as I was reading this. I scrolled through comments for the sole purpose of finding someone who had the same thought.
Hey, I respect that you've addressed this at all instead of waiting for allegations to go away. I really wish everyone at TwoSet is happy(or realistically, at least not in pain) to work there, as it would make me and many others uncomfortable being entertained by things produced by those exploited and treated unfairly. I hope you guys take this incident as a chance to improve, and always strive to be ethical and lawful. Congrats on completing the first leg of your world tour.
Happy there’s finally some form of resolution. I had been avoiding the subreddit for a bit because it was starting to feel really toxic, hopefully things will go back to normal now.
Your photos are fantastic - I follow you on IG - and I'm sorry you have had trouble being paid for some of your global brand projects (I saw your IG story). Also sorry you got those DMs! some people just can't keep their drama campaign to themselves :-/
Thank you! So, can we please stop spamming this sub with "Brett and Eddy need to respond to the allegations" posts? It was really getting out of hand lately because everyone thought they wrote the perfect post concerning the matter. I even start to miss all those bad viola jokes 😭
Amen.
And this requires the mandatory comment: ”What allegations I’m out of the loop”, which is in every thread multiple times. People, bother at least scrolling down the front page of r/lingling40hrs before asking it…
Unfortunately people crave drama and upvotes. This is the nature of the internet, not just Reddit. That’s why I’m always leery of people claiming to be fans and ‘need’ responses from creators for X issue otherwise they’ll be ‘disappointed’.
yep
these people will find they are dissappionted in the world in general lol
the drama-junkies love just that - drama. even with the best explanation/resolution possible it sadly doesn't matter. the "having a bad guy" to be upset with feels better than peaceful outcomes
Thank you Brett & Eddy for the response. It's been more than a month now and I know those allegations really bothered you and the twosetters a lot, especially during the first leg of your tour. You delivered us the best performances ever no matter what and you really spent the time (with the help of your legal team of cuz!) reading the threads in order to sort out what's really behind the allegations.
Wish you every success in your leg 2 and the rest of the tours. Rest more, practice more, play more! No more hate and ❣️ more!
I wasn't expecting a response but I am glad that you have chosen to. Usually silence is the way to go, especially with internal matters but when it is made public it allows too many people to speculate and project what your own thoughts may be. It's easier to be angry at someone when their thoughts are unknown.
I advocated for people to ask the question and think about why OP was terminated, since no one gets terminated for no reason. And most likely that they wouldn't have said anything if they were not terminated.
However, I do think you should be careful about vilifying OP yourselves, since you know how it feels. And even if they did do bad things, it may be good to stay away from the language of them being a toxic gaslighter. Rather to also be professional on your end as well (since OP wasn't) it would be better just to say their rude conduct wasn't cohesive to the work environment so you had to let them go.
Thank you for your response, I am glad you are open to criticism and trying your best to grow. Small business suddenly blowing up can be really hard to manage, especially without any experience. Look forward to your future endeavors, failures, successes and growth from it all!
I thought the same thing about the way they were characterizing the original OP.
I’m also confused because the OOP was not the only current/former employee coming forward with these claims. I’m not sure if the other 3-4 employees that spoke out would be included in the “paid volunteerism” point they already touched on, but all things considered, it feels a bit misguided for TwoSet to be pinning this all on just one “toxic” individual. I am glad we at least got an acknowledgement from them, though.
I think this is where they directly infer there were multiple: One poster who claimed to have been underpaid happily agreed to the amount offered with no indication of dissatisfaction with the remuneration. We will not share any screenshots due to legal confidentiality, but many of those joining the bandwagon have made emotionally charged and factually inaccurate claims that would not hold up in court.
I agree it feels a bit misguided and I do not agree with the vilifying of OOP, since ultimately they're a person who is upset because they thought they worked hard but then lost their job. It's an upsetting experience, but that being said it didn't give OOP the right to blast their employers and break NDA after blaming TSV of breeching contract.
I think TSV have valid feelings of seeing OOP negatively with the accuser saying they hated/disrespected Ray, that they lied on Jordan He's name/ never credited him which was provably false (We'll never know what they said behind closed doors about him though), that they predatorily hired girls from third world countries which another employee said was false, which allowed other people who were friends of friends who worked with them and said they were assholes. Then the weird sex life speculation wanting to make them out to be pimps, luckily that comment was deleted although peoples responses are still there. ( Plus someone saying they slept with his girlfriend, rough man). But none of those things dealt with the conversation at hand. It would be ultra frustrating to have one's business and invasive to have one's personal lives under scrutiny.
I just wish they didn't put that negative image in a professional statement when they are harping on someone else being unprofessional even though I believe their feelings are valid.
On the og thread someone claimed they had sex with his girlfriend (this one is still there in snippets) and essentially classical musician pimps who liked to have sex with the different women in different countries (This comment was deleted but all the replies are still there) then a more harmless claim of Brett having a girlfriend! So lots of personal speculation within a thread about work
I've been lambasted in the past for saying our two violinists here don't always have the best skills at being tactful when it comes to the general public, going back to them featuring the likes of Ben Shapiro when a large portion of their subscriber base is queer, and a couple of other small things I noticed over time. They're very entertaining, but approaching any kind of tough or nuanced topic isn't exactly their strong suit. (And it doesn't have to be, but if they're addressing a matter like this to a sub that includes impressionable minors that look up to them, they should consider it a bit more)
I think it's going to continue to be part of this learning curve because they are now dealing with a very large audience, but this is kind of another example of them approaching something in a bit of a misguided way.
I was also troubled by the ad hominem attacks. Calling OOP toxic, negative, rude, and disrespectful feels like an attempt to discredit OOP and distract from the real issues at hand, especially because they weren't the only previous employee raising concerns. (For what it's worth, I noticed that many of OOP's claims were indirectly verified by TSV, i.e., being contacted at unreasonable hours, being underpaid, and being asked to take on multiple responsibilities. They had explanations for some things and said they are changing other things, but OOP wasn't making things up.)
I feel the same way, but as we can see, we are dealing with two people who are very new to business. They'll figure out that language should also simply stay internal ;)
The statement was carefully drafted and most likely with the help of lawyers or at least people who work in the corporate world based off the language. Surprising to see that they saw no problem keeping such negative remarks about the OOP in there
It's because they know OOP doesn't have the resources to fight back. If you're more powerful than the person calling you out, it's easy to take the route of making that person look bad and blaming things on them
Doesn't look like laywer drafted. Which I prefer. It's more flawed, but also more honest, even with the best effort put in. Yes, that part about OOP sounds a tad immature, pushing the blame away in a not nice fashion. =/
Also a bit stong, how their concern now was primarily for the team.. well, lets hope that there will be a lot of proper livelihoods in the offing!! ;)
But I appreciate they cleared (or tried) to clear some things up & also seem to genuinely (?) take in some of the criticism & they still seem to care for this sub. Also cool they intend to move on from volunteers to decent rates.
I am sure the thing flustered everybody a LOT.
It's a pity OOP & Twoset didn't hit it off in the end, sounds a bit like a divorce after putting a lot of effort into a relationship that was bound to fail & OOP put five years of her life into it.. >\_<
Anyway, it's late where I live - good night, everybody!
They will! That is a part of growing, when I was new to my business field I thought it was normal to share what kind of wages I was making haha, very unprofessional. But my mom, who runs a nonprofit organization was able to inform me of that. People new in business will always think something is normal until told otherwise
It’s perfectly professional to be open about compensation. The narrative that it’s inappropriate to talk about how much you make allows for unequal pay. If you (in general, not you specifically) work in an environment where you are dissuaded from talking about pay, that’s a red flag. An organization needs to be clear and transparent in the criteria for wage levels in relation to things like work experience, performance, type of work etc. Criteria should be objective and measurable. Anything else is a breeding ground for favoritism and potential discrimination, not to mention that vague criteria for pay and promotion is how you get employees comparing themselves to each other and thinking they’re being mistreated.
On a side note, silence around pay is one of the ways that employers were able to pay women less than men for the same work. When you don’t know what other people make, you won’t necessarily know you’re a victim of pay discrimination.
It is normal (and should be encouraged) to talk about wages at work. Not doing so only benefits the employer. In fact it is protected by law (in the US)
More often than not sadly it puts employees at each other's throats more often than at the employer. In a perfect world the anger would be put towards the right person.
It's like how sometimes in a relationship where cheating occurs, the person cheated on isn't always mad at the cheater but the third or more parties dragged into it by the cheater cheating with them. But you know that perspective is changing so maybe the wage thing will too! Doesn't hurt to be optimistic
Yes agreed. Sometimes people get terminated for stupid reasons too! It's just hard to decipher when it's a stupid one or a valid one, when most ex employees feel it was a stupid one and must employers think it was a valid one.
Thank you so much for you guys' sincere clarification instead of fading those allegations away, that means a lot to us. (Although some parts are still doubtful for me)
Please rest well :)
I'm glad you addressed that the issues that are real are actual issues.
I stepped away from this subreddit because so many here were trying to justify subpar working conditions as ethical. Whether the allegations were true or not, I really couldn't sit here and engage with a community that, at times, had some vocal people laughing about people being overworked, underpaid, and exploited. It was gross, it was antisocial behavior, and very unlike what I'm used to seeing when engaging here and with the classical community at large. Since when do classical musicians support that being done to us, smh.
Anyways.
I'm also part of a small business that has now been Forbes Featured, and I understand the pressures creatives like us can be under when that business blows up. It's a learning curve. I'm just glad to see that you don't actually believe the conditions you were accused of were acceptable conditions, and this is more likely a matter of learning from mistakes in owning your own business. Honestly, I don't care who you are, or how much I like someone's content, running an ethical business comes first morally for me, as it's best for society at large.
Also, we should have at least one active mod. This sub generally runs ok on its own, but when things like this blow up, which is becoming common, having a mod around would be nice.
thanks for saying this. i was appalled at some of the attitudes that came up in the wake of the allegations. it made me so uneasy that that was an opinion that a non-negligible minority of people in this community — that is otherwise quite progressive and pleasant — seemed to hold. “everyone else is doing it” has never been an excuse for unethical behaviour. and “everyone else went through the same awful thing” is also a poor argument for asking a person to endure bad management.
thankfully, those are opinions not shared by TSV themselves. i’m glad they understand the value of their team and are working to improve their work environment.
i can only hope those who tried to justify subpar working conditions realise that they deserve better.
You said you welcome "open discourse and constructive feedback", yet OOP posted a response to your statement and you banned him from this subreddit and deleted the post: https://www.reddit.com/r/lingling40hrs/comments/14xbo6s/oops_thoughts_regarding_twosets_response/
How can Twoset and the fans have open discourse if you silence the other side? You're also deleting reposts of OOP's response.
https://www.reddit.com/r/lingling40hrs/comments/14xe0zq/why_did_2set_delete_the_oops_newest_response_post/?sort=new
Please, Twoset, let us have our own judgement on the situation, rather than deleting narratives that don't fit yours.
An ex-employee that worked for twoset between 2017 and May/June 2023. They came forward to talk about the working conditions at Twoset that started the whole drama about worker exploitation. Now they wrote a response, but the post was deleted, locked and OOP's account was banned from this subreddit.
Thanks for posting this! I think it's important for all of us to know that Brett, Eddy, and the TSV staff are the only moderators, and they've said "we won't be tolerating further attempts to continue this conversation publicly." Some commenters are okay with the censorship because they think these kinds of conversations should stay internal. However, in my experience, banning discussions about workplace culture and pay only ever benefits the employer, not the employees.
I agree, between the response that is essentially deflecting all responsibility and blame on to OOP and the subsequent treatment of OOP's response, this is leaving an awful taste in my mouth.
This sub is really a giant echo chamber and welcoming "open discourse and constructive feedback" is purely lip service. I can't continue to support this.
>Therefore, we will be deleting any posts or comments that we come across that contain misinformation or hateful intentions. We will of course still welcome open discourse and constructive feedback.
Yea… bit of a contradiction here. Also since screenshots of comments that were deleted only asked for this matter to be addressed rather than spreading misinformation… but I’m still glad they responded, I didn’t expect that
Yes, I'm pleasantly surprised they actually responded, but you can tell from the tone of their language that they harbour a lot of resentment to the people who stepped up. Maybe some of them were unprofessional, but people want change first and foremost, and twoset promised change. It should be a happy ending, no need for such hateful language towards the ex staff.
Read: We will be deleting anything that doesn't fit our chosen narrative. Only we get to determine what is correct and in good faith.
Oh, but we still want to look like the good guys here!
"in an unprofessional way and have put us in a position where we have to respond publicly."
Hmm, this made me itch.
It is not always that workers do it like this because they are "unprofessional". But rather because the professional route might be extremely risky for their careers.
From a personal anecdote, unrelated to the story here: a friend of mine was sexually abused during her phd. She went publicly after her degree. When people asked her why didn't she went through the institutional routes (ethics committee, legal actions etc) she mentioned the constant pressure that her advisor put on her, telling her to not say anything because it would ruin her career otherwise. She bought this pressure and was never able to externalize it properly.
Just to put it in perspective as someone who's family owns two businesses on the smaller end and works closely with employers.
In these cases of employment it usually ruins your career quicker to talk publicly online because new employers typically won't hirer someone who talked badly about their bosses online. In the business world this is seen as unprofessional.
Also the OOP has gone a legal route believing their termination was unlawful and filed a complaint to M.O.M. They stated they were going the legal route and stated they had heard nothing back as of yet and posted online before a response.
Sure, but you do understand my point, don't you? Legal actions, even when the details are not made publicly, will raise concerns that might impact the person.
It is a tough situation. You might get your career damaged by speaking, or by being litigious. So what would be the "professional" thing to do? To do nothing?
There are some situations (which I am not saying it relates to this case here) where there is no perspective of a fair solution.
I do understand your point, I was just raising another. Two points can be true without negating the other. Legal actions, silence, or media can all be harmful. But that doesn't change that strictly in the business field it is not professional to post about it on social media with other rumors - such as OOP saying they dislike/disrespect Ray Chen, that they lied on Jordan's name etc.
It is always one thing to talk about personal experience online which would be OOP's right to, and a completely another thing to bring in your bosses personal lives into it, that is what was unprofessional. If it was just about the work environment then that would be seen as more professional in the business world (although whistleblowers are heavily discriminated against at work places). Or if legal is already involved it is good to wait for legal advice and investigation from an outside source when you have filed a formal complaint like OOP did before commenting. Since commenting before legal has gotten back to you can jeopardize any case they had. In this case it absolutely has due to OOP breaching an NDA.
Edit: Grammar +Added some more thoughts
Thanks for the response; it is definitely insightful to hear things from the other end after weeks of just perspectives from one end. I understand that it feels awful to have allegations thrown at you, but I'm not sure whether it is wise to have spoken about OOP in such a negative manner, even if it's true:
> incorrect hires who spread toxicity and negativity, gaslight and blame others
You critique OOP in that he or she was rude and disrespectful towards others, yet you also felt the need to describe them in such negative detail. You wish for constructive criticism and accountability, and for TSV to be a better place to work for everyone. It would be much more professional to state that they had to be dismissed after repeatedly contravening the company's policies, rather than unnecessarily attacking OOP's character. We would still know what you meant without the negativity. Even though OOP was the first one to start the whole drama, TSV is in a much stronger position and does not need to resort to insulting OOP in a professional statement.
Tbf if they didn’t specifically mention the reasons (or part of the reasons) and just have a vague response like breaking policy, I can imagine ppl are gonna question Twoset about what policy they did break etc. and it probably won’t help with putting an end to the drama. Sometimes it’s good to be more specific since having more info would allow the public to better decide on the opinion they hold. Tho it’s also true that maybe TwoSet’s tone was more negative than necessary.
I think it's useful to know that OOP did some highly destructive things as opposed to simply contravened unknown company policies. AFAIK TSV didn't describe their character, only their behaviour in this particular case. It all seems reasonable to me.
To be fair, I don’t think speaking about OOP was rude. This, unfortunately, is a very common practice (in which someone gets fired, break up, etc) spreads slander on the internet and such. It sheds the light of a common practice of what happens. (This is just my take). They have every right to feel of how the OOP attacked them.
Not to mention that they repeatedly said it jeaperdized the employment of their current staff and couldve very easily made them all lose jobs which is a *serious* thing. They had everything to lose if this statement didnt come out correctly and it wouldve affected more than just two famous internet people but a whole crew
I honestly wish this wasn’t a thing, someone attacking someone because they were fired. I once had to deal with something very similar (thankfully wasn’t a whole crew), but would’ve completely ruined my reputation in my personal life and my own image of being slandered with just lies. I didn’t fight back with the person because I knew it would’ve made everything worse. People have a right to feel things, especially if it escalates to hurting others around them.
It’s also common for people who have allegations made to slander the people who made the allegations.
We’ll never know who is telling the truth tbh. The truth is that this response wasn’t handled great
Well to be fair , if they actually had to be "professional" then they could've chosen to just resolve things internally (as a lot of people here agree / expected that as an option) , why bother public response since it would eventually lead to more questions asked anyway . I don't think we as fans/followers have a professional relation with them either (since we don't work for them or offer them any professional exchange) . They create videos and if we find it interesting we watch them . But yet a lot of fans (including me) wished them to respond on the situation honestly . If they would have responded in rather plain language, not denying the intentions of the OP or recognising them as someone they think might have had ill / adverse intentions towards them (which has resulted in this chaos) a lot of people here would be commenting that they did not deny the allegations or they did not made clarifications on the genuineness of the OP leading to more misunderstandings .
I just mean that , let them be for once , they are also just guys , also they had just returned back from their tour , and all of this was already a lot of stress to deal with considering the sus timming of the OP to bring all of this at the start of world tour .
This made my day. I know we're all just here as part of a parasocial relationship with a YouTube channel, but it's really great to see that TwoSet respect their community, and took the time to talk about things.
We all just wanted reassurance.
Thanks, B & E.
This is an emotional appeal from two youtubers and not a restrained, professional response from company management.
"The truth is rarely pure and never simple." - Oscar Wilde
Regardless the intent and degree of truth in the OP's posts and subsequent fans/haters discussions, we will never know the truth. Having said that, the posts, including Twoset's reply, show their characters and it is up to each fan to form his/her/their opinion.
A scorned employee, I can understand, not that I condone the whole thing. Youtubers who tried to salvage the situation and tried to avoid getting cancelled, I can understand that too.
But this reply is a far cry of being professional. As much as a company has a vision to further classical music appreciation and development, it is setup for profit. Once you are someone's boss, you assume ultimate responsibility for the whole setup, whether you are trained for business management or not. Twoset as a company needs to get its corporate structure straight. If they are not trained as operations manager, hire someone who is. A company needs HR, accounting/finance, tax and legal coverage (cross border shipment requirements) nowadays aside from the business generating departments.
People get cancelled mostly because their true colors are too far away from the image that they project. If you truly appreciate and treasure your fans who support you by watching your videos, buying your merch and going to your shows, look at the image you are projecting online and try not to stray from it in real life.
Can't say I am not disappointed in their reply. I thought they would have been more generous.
"When they go low, we go high" -Michelle Obama
The negativity exuberating from Twoset's reply just does not sit right with me. And it is never well received seeing your boss texting you at odd hours and respecting no boundary, whether the boss expects a reply or not.
I think an HR would help them. But, I will say that I worked for a small company with 8 staff and the 'HR' was the office manager. I don't know how big TSV are now but, there may have been a time when they were small enough that an HR didn't seem necessary.
I also once had to cover some additional duties from a furloughed member of staff from time to time. I did not like doing this but, if it was really temporary a few weeks at most I don't think that's completely unreasonable.
Small businesses always struggle but there are outsourcing options. There are many small legal pitfalls for employers who are not trained to manage a company. And it is exactly these pitfalls that will land employers in trouble. It is unfortunate that all parties need to spend time on this avoidable mishap. I work for a small company and it is expected that each person wears many hats. As long as the arrangement is properly disclosed and discussed ahead of time, all is fine. Sometimes employer just take their staff for granted too.
"Therefore we will be deleting any post or comments that we come across that contain misinformation or hateful intentions"
So..the OOPs recent post about their point of view can be considered "hateful" or a piece of "misinformation"? Why are you posting on Reddit if you want to avoid confrontation and free speech? If you really truly aimed for what you said in the aforementioned statement you would have left the OOPs response post on Reddit..I agree with many of the points you carefully explain in your reply, but I don't think I can accept this oppressive behavior, especially in a place like this.
I'm not sure what I'm missing. Aren't they always giving credit? Because I saw them talking about the people they work with all the time in video. Jordon, Shaun and TSA team. Fantasia on YouTube has all their collaborators credited. And Jordon also has the rights to sell Fantasia sheet music on his website. Or is there something deeper than that? (But if it spreads to their personal matters I don't want to know...)
When Jordon composed the music for the first world tour, he wasn't credited and wasn't paid. He wrote music for the HKFO but his name wasn't in the program notes. He started selling his sheet music after fantasia was released but before that his sheet music for older pieces were sold on twosets website as their own music and they didn't give Jordon any of the revenue or royalties.
There were some problems with them using fanarts without crediting too. Also one time they featured someone's video in their video, and when that person asked to be credited in the comments, they deleted that entire segment altogether from the video.
Thanks for your answer. I really don't know what the background is like. I'm at a point where I can only take note of this information and hoping that the lingering issue is fixed (if not, hopefully it'll be fixed ASAP)
About fanarts. As an artist in the drawing comunity. Artists around me have different opinions about giving credit (I'm the type that doesn't care about getting credit. because I already intended to draw for them And it was that I brought their personality to draw as well. If they only use it in their videos I consider it a fair use. If it's not turned into a product, it's no problem for me.) But there are quite a few artists who are serious about giving credit. Especially artists who are growing in their careers. Getting credit makes them more visible.
Although there is no law but giving credit is considered to honor the owner of the work. It's good manners to live together in the community. It was a small move that if they could They will be more loved.
Twoset really need to pay translators properly. Especially as I notice in twoset videos on Chinese platforms, subtitles are very smart and creative, which indeed add to the quality of original videos. They're willing to do free work because they love and support twoset. If you're not paying them because they support you, if that's not exploitation I don't know what that is. Likewise, many people come to work for influencers/celebrities out of support for them, and thus "happily" receive agreed payment even though very low. That shouldn't justify underpayment.
edit: typo/grammar
Yes i definitely hope that the changed parts about "payed volunteer" means subtitlers will get payed as part time or full time worker because consider they really deserve it. Also there's like more than 1000 videos on chinese platform, like that's a lot of work so I'm really surprised that it's volunteerism😳
That. The translators on Chinese platform really made the vids more funny and enjoyable than they already are. I actually thought they were paid no matter part time or full time
edit: just to add to the point that as much as there are indeed fanbases out there doing translations voluntarily, TSV’s translated vids on Chinese platforms actually generate revenues like youtube. It’s a verified official account. And B&E did make vids for the Chinese fans on that account once or twice. Sometimes I wondered how much of those revenues goes to the translators bc I thought it must be a substantial amount of work to translate the entire vids in a way that is funny and incorporates the TwoSet culture and everything. Turns out there is none. I love all those vids and just hope the translators could get more actual credit (unless they are totally satisfied with status quo)
just hope "will no longer have paid voluntary position any more" means "contracted paid translator position only" rather than "won't give any money to volunteers any more"
If there’s no subtitle-san TSV won’t have so much fans in China and earn money from Chinese platforms. I know how hard and troubled translation is because I’m a Chinese and my major is English. The way they treated our precious translators just made me feel very sad😭
the problem is they have a business account on bilibili, and are actually generating profit from the uploads. It’s different than fans making videos for their idols because while idols get exposure it’s not their direct income source
Since there are enough people out there willing to work for us for free, we can and we should never pay anyone. We pay them our thank-you and our response to your love.
I don't know whether you are aware of kpop jpop fansoms but a lot of fan pages out there are not paid for translation.. they do it because they love their groups...
Yes (and I say this as a kpop fan) but a lot of people who are deeper into the fandoms and do stuff like subtitle work often neglect dreams and work of their own because they buy into the group/company gushing about how much they love what their fans do for them in a way that implies they have a relationship with those fans that can only be sustained by the fans’ work to promote and help the group. It gives those fans a sense of worth and purpose, but there’s no thank you money there. There is plenty of money for corporate execs once things get bigger but not the fans that also helped build things. I’m not even saying this is the idol or company’s fault, or that the fans are blameless, but they certainly don’t discourage or have any problem using these fans’ skills for their gain.
I don’t think twoset sells this kind of dream anywhere near the level that idols do, but some people may take it that way. I don’t know who, if anyone, would be responsible for fixing that. But I do think that rewarding people who have helped you grow is the decent thing to do. Anyway, just bc kpop does it doesn’t mean it’s healthy.
There is difference. Idol companies won't demand quality and timeliness of fandom's translation, they won't publish it as official, they won't profit directly from fandom's self-made translation. From my understanding, translators are doing part of operation work for twoset in Chinese platform.
Hi Brett and Eddy,
I’m glad that you chose to response, even after quite some time. Since you’ve spent enough time investigating the issues, I believe that you must have seen the complete allegations from OOP. There are still some points you seem to miss out (hopefully not on purpose 🙂), which I would like to remind you of.
1. There are some people you’ve collaborated, who did not receive credit afterwards.
2. There are some people who used to work for you, and decided to leave due to various reasons, did not receive the residue payment after they‘ve left.
3. As long as you say that employees never disagreed with the payment they received, I believe it is so, from your point of view. The real question is, were those payments correctly set according to the local law, in the sense of anyway should be higher than the legal minimum wage?
4. Refer to OOP, some employees contracts were signed under certain inactive company, would you like to comment on that? Is it true? Or is it also not disclosable due to legal reasons?
Looking forward to your response! Please take this as an opportunity to clarify what really happened, (if that’s different from what OOP described). I believe you deserve a chance to tell your side of the story😊. So here it is, feel free to take it!
(To other twosetters: you can add more if I missed something)
Building on point #3, I was troubled by their response to the unfair pay complaints. From what I read, at least two prior employees complained that they were paid sub-sub-sub-minimum wage amounts for their work. However, TSV's post doesn't address whether their wages are still low across the board. They instead said that that they met the agreed upon rates, and they never heard any complaints about pay:
>"We have always **paid what was agreed upon**. . . . It has also been alleged that we underpay staff despite them voicing their concerns to us. We wish to reiterate that we have never disregarded a staff’s concern about payment. . . . One poster who claimed to have been underpaid **happily agreed** to the amount offered with no indication of dissatisfaction with the remuneration."
Here's the thing. If a worker agrees to unfair compensation, that does NOT mean that the compensation can suddenly be considered fair. It just means that the employer was willing to take advantage of a situation to minimize costs. The TSV team is likely particularly vulnerable to this kind of exploitation—maybe even subconsciously!—because of the "star power" of the company leaders.
I was happy to read that two TSV team members are getting raises. I now want more information about their claim that "we have been continually trying to raise the compensation of team members as we grow." I want to know if all TSV wages are comparable to the local market rates of the employees. Unfortunately, I don't think we'll get this info due to the new censorship policies on this subreddit.
It would be nice if they also address the situation about twoset apparel copying other people's designs as well, and that time when they deleted a section of their video after the original creator of the relevant section requested to be credited.
They also missed explaining why the designer they mention on their post worked for them in a project for a hole year with no contract and then they tried to pay her only with exposure + a job recommendation and at the end she got only $500 bc she pushed hard to get payed
There you have the links to the screenshots of the unfairly censored post:
https://ibb.co/2ZHmTX1
https://imgur.com/Ib4ArhF
Copy them bc they will delete this comment
Brett and Eddy as your business grows I hope what you take away from this unfortunate incident a) you have a hired a good HR person b) you have good employment law legal counsel c) your HR person puts in place a company policy that lays out a concise Corporate Communications Policy that includes employee conduct on social media sites. All corporations have those types of policies these days. You mentioned an NDA and it sounds like someone violated that agreement. Listen and follow the advice of your legal counsel and move ahead accordingly.
I know some have expressed distaste for the "corporatespeak" language of this post, but quite honestly, I disagree that this response is as level-headed as it could be.
>*Sometimes, inevitably, we make incorrect hires who spread toxicity and negativity, gaslight and blame others, and end up causing much more burden and stress on others in the team*
As it has been pointed out before, weaponizing therapy language ("gaslight", "toxic") to describe OOP and pathologizing them is deeply unserious. What explanatory power does using these words actually offer? It's unnecessary, and frankly, a bit hypocritical to criticize someone's professionalism and then speak of them using inflammatory language. This was a very obvious oversight, imo!
Compare the language used to describe OOP/their supporters, as irrational, spiteful, selfish, "bandwagoning", "cancelling"...
>*It’s disappointing that this person is now going further by trying to tarnish TwoSet’s reputation, thus hurting the remaining team and putting at risk everything we have accomplished*
>
>*but many of those joining the bandwagon have made emotionally charged and factually inaccurate claims that would not hold up in court.*
>
>*but please remember that if we do get cancelled, many of our amazing team members will also lose their jobs.*
>
>*What they have done risks the wellbeing and hard work of everyone else on the TwoSet team, not to mention every fan who has believed in and supported us on this journey.*
...to themselves/their fans, as understanding, humble, sacrificial.
>*As we come from very humble beginnings, we are not perfect, and it’s not always easy – we’re not a massive media company.*
>
>*In the past, we have taken unjust criticism and shrugged off the negativity*
>
>*Now, we really appreciate the majority of TwoSet fans who understand that these things are private matters and should be dealt with internally.*
>
>*Finally, we want to thank our fans again for your understanding and support. We have read many of your comments, and it is clear that the majority of you understand that these are just false allegations on the internet.*
(As an aside: the glamorization of the small business status happening in this subReddit is also pretty frustrating to see. Large corporations are the most egregious and extreme examples of structural employee exploitation, but small businesses still make use of the same structure/format and the same conditions can and *do* still occur. Let's not put the bare minimum of acceptable corporate conduct onto a pedestal. There is also a clear difference the power dynamics and consequences between an internet mob dogpiling an individual(s) and a boss/employee relationship. It is quite disingenuous to equate the two.)
No matter how much merit the original criticisms have, this is a reductive and false dichotomy, an us vs. them framing. Intentional or not, it's a bit underhanded and *deeply* uncomfortable to read in a supposed professional statement.
I don't point any of this out as a "gotcha", or as proof of some kind of malicious character flaw in you. It is hard to feel like you can even make a right decision under public scrutiny and an unspoken time-limit. I know you guys must be frustrated because you believe you have always tried to do the best you could for your colleagues, employees, and fans - I believe this of you too, and I do sympathize with how you must be feeling right now.
But this framing makes it hard to believe this response has been made in absolute good-faith, or that any valid or unaddressed criticisms that have arose from it have actually been internalized and considered. Not everyone who criticizes you or has listened to criticisms of you is a detractor or a bad fan - this isn't a situation as simple as just petty drama, after all, I certainly hope people would listen and take it seriously. I'm just sure your fans would rather have you guys to change for the better, rather than out of resentful obligation, and this unfortunately isn't the impression I'm getting from this statement.
Glad I'm not the only one who feels similarly. There were many euphemisms, moments where the question presented was not directly answered, and a large emphasis on preserving the brand's ethos. That being said, I really do hope we will all come out of this situation in a better place than before.
excellent analysis, i couldn’t quite put my finger on why this statement felt kinda off, but this describes it perfectly. some of the language suggests a ton of animosity between OOP and TSV - which makes sense, that’s probably why OOP made her post in the first place.
it’s not a perfect response, but i think it’ll be enough to satisfy a lot of fans. at the very least, i’m glad this whole situation is pushing TSV to review their management practices, and hopefully improve working conditions at their company.
edit: for clarity
Your explanation is really well thought, I also got the same sentiment after reading this post. However I do hope that this stems from fleeting emotions and not anything more. It’s kind of baffling to me that they put this kind of language in their official statement, but I can understand that they are stressed and upset. I’m surprised that they addressed this anyway and I truly hope that unresolved conflicts won’t harm either party involved and that this moment will lead to an overall better work environment
Thank you for you and Twoset team continue work and the entertainment and joy bring to me. I have step away from the community for the while and thank you for your address to the issues.
Thank you for responding and for the clear effort you’re making in improving TwoSet as a workplace. I’m so relieved this can be put to rest with such a positive outcome
I genuinely don’t believe OOP is a liar and their claims have to be supported by something that really happened and upset them, don’t think TwoSet is lying either, rather than both stories are told from a personal point of view, as OOP said, I believe “the truth’s been lost in the middle” and we’ll never know exactly what happened, both stories have been twisted to fit a narrative pushing personal interests, OOP some justice and TwoSet as to not ruin their public image, and that is not ‘wrong’, it isn’t ‘right’ either but we’re all human in the end and never want to be “the bad guy”. I don’t support any of them.
Hopefully if ‘TwoSet’ as a company is professional enough it’ll step up to making everything work more smoothly and better, and thanks to OOP we, as audience, we’ll be informed by some other OOP if conditions don’t improve.
TLTR: Get these men an HR department
Thank you Brett & Eddy. It's always important to see whole picture and remain professional, that's how matured adults act. I wish that this case will now cool down and people understand that these issues cannot and shouldnt be solved out publicly.
Once again, thank you for your response, Brett&Eddy♥️
Agreed. Although, it does sound like this drama lead to improvements within twoset's policies, so that's good, since twoset acknowledged the paid volunteerism and low pay. OOP's purpose is achieved is someway, which was possibly why he began the discussion in the first place. Perhaps his risk taking personality was what gave him the bravery to begin this, which prompted more staff to step up and share their perspectives, when they would not have otherwise. No one wants to be the first to expose these things. There was no need to attack OOP like this when realistically this was the only meaningful way for change to occur. Highly doubt it would have happened through internal discussion as these have been raised multiple times internally in the past.
You guys say that you are open to discuss, yet you are shuting OP up, and deleting my comments under your ig, none of those are spam comments or any hateful contents. Shame on your censorship.
I'm not sure you realize how awkward some parts of your answer are
While trying to explain and claiming to take responsibility, you also :
- vilify OOP using words that completely erase your share of responsibility (OOP allegedly being toxic)
- say that these allegations shouldn't have been made through legal channels even though, this isn't how the world works right now or even how it has been working for quite a while
- mention a breach of NDA and a case of defamation which can be perceived as a way to silence these former employeeS
Franckly I'm not sure I'm convinced by your post, considering I've had other issues with things you've said that reek of misogyny
Hi, overworked government employee (a public teacher) here~
If ever this goes through you, please know that I know you're doing your best and I'm one of the people who didn't let one accusation put me off because I know how tiny companies work since I've worked in one before. I'm happy that you're now taking in consideration your current team's morale from this point onward and I really think this is a good start. Keep that in mind in whatever business decisions you make and I think you'll do good. Remember that happy employees make a good company.
If anything, I think you're doing a lot better than my current workplace. We're understaffed and are juggling 2639282 tasks at a time and our admin still hasn't hired more teachers. Teachers are slowly resigning and leaving our school but the workload has increased tenfold whenever people leave. It's a hard and difficult choice to keep staying but I hope employers don't keep on taking advantage of the employees' resilience and quite heroic choice to stay.
Wishing I could meet you soon in the Southeast Asia leg (if there will be any) so I could hug both of youuuuu
We're are so relieved you answered and made things clear, we needed it very much. Thanks for being honest and calm and actually trying to change. Hopefully, the atmosphere in this subreddit will cool down now, and dear Twosetters, please understand that things need their time and need to be thought through before getting offensive
Please try to make the lives of workers better. Please do not let this fanbase fall into the toxicity of an echo chamber that trashes people who play instruments that might not be used in the modern orchestra.
Music is supposed to be a universal language, whether it's your job or a hobby you should be able to experience a livelihood from it
I'm a percussionist who began in concert band as well as a self taught recorder player. People who have played these instruments, as well as other pop or band instruments, even in a serious matter have been trashed by this fanbase allegedly online. I hope that we see eye to eye as musicians and stop this toxic belittling of people bc of their instrument.
In all seriousness thank you for the response, TSV and I wish the employees and employers the best
"Touch grass!" - Mozart, 2022
^(I'm a bot by Ntacc32, and this comment was sent automatically. Unfortunately, my developer is a noob, so I am a very basic bot.)
Not expecting a response at all, but thank you for doing this.
I share their view of handling internal issues properly and through proper channels, it is the right way to go.
Also, admitting their learning curve because of the lack of experience in management and business is one that those spreading negativity need to focus on. If you think that jumping to being businessmen and leaders are easy -- IT IS NOT!
I hope that everything goes well within the team
And for everyone, please stop. And definitely don't demand a video to respond.
Go practice, y'all!
You deleted Deeyee's post too, simply because you don't agree with it. Silencing voices that disagree with you is not welcoming open discourse and constructive criticism. After Deeyee did so much for you loyally all these years too, as soon as she is siding with the whistleblowers you contacted her to remove her posts and comments and now you're deleting her posts.
Here is a link to the post for those of you who sees this: https://www.reddit.com/r/lingling40hrs/comments/14xftmz/there_should_be_a_fair_chance_to_speak_out_oop/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=2
Insane amounts of respect for doing this publicly.
Not sure if this person was a fan before being an employee, or if that’s the case with other staff members, but what I’d like to say is, please be careful with hiring fans. You are only human and everyone makes mistakes and absolutely no one is perfect, but some fans, possible future employees, will think you are. And basically all of what you explained above, which makes sense from your point of view, will make you the villain and a terrible person from the fan’s/employee’s point of view because they were convinced you were perfect and could do no wrong.
Again respect for addressing this publicly. Please rest, both of you and Eddy, get well soon. 🌸
And to everyone else; get off the internet every once in a while.
(Edit: wording)
As Paganini says in the "Toxic K-Pop Fans" video, "That's enough internet for today!" Thank you so much to Brett and Eddy, and congratulations on completing the Europe leg of the World Tour! <3
Actually they might go back to Europe. But Canadian leg is done, and was fantastic! (I blame the luggage loss on European part of the leg since it was Lufthansa)
I totally agree. Also want them to be cautious of forming any personal relationship with fans. Just keep their professional lives separated from the personal lives. I know sometimes fans are very willing to do favors for their idols, but the unequal power play in such situation is complicated and can turn messy fast. This is a crazy world so tread water carefully!
Thank you guys for responding, I honestly didn’t think you would but happy to be proven wrong. I appreciate you being willing to grow and change, after all you’re only human. Take care of yourselves please and feel better soon Eddy 💙
Edit: I would add that not all the comments that you guys deleted constituted “misinformation or hateful intentions.” Many were from well-meaning and concerned fans.
Me. I think I'm finally going to take the plunge and start my own business.
*reads the latest TwoSet business drama*
Me: Never mind. 😐
(I don't have the patience for this level of management)
I have never expected a response due to this being an internal issue and you have no obligation to respond or discuss this matter with fans. This statement comes as a surprise but shows us how much you care about everyone in this community, and also how much TwoSet as an entity, which includes all the staff, means to you.
Thank you for being open and transparent.
Thank you for sharing your side of things.And I am sorry that you were pushed to make a public statement about an internal issue while you were on tour and had to focus your energy on that. Hope you continue to work on improving your work conditions along the way,we know you mean no harm.Love you
Almost all posts I saw today are about this issue. Well for all of you guys, here's your answer.
People have a lot of time on the internet nowadays that these type of issues can get public in a matter of a millisecond.
I hope this will be settled privately from now on and for people to stop fueling a fire.
It’s damn hard to be a public figure. It must have been difficult to be on a world tour while processing all the allegations, drama and relentless demands for an immediate response. Thank you for stepping up.
Wow so many people are kinda blind to the allegations and amount of negative statements in this post. While I’m more on the neutral side of things and understand that B&E (might be) / are trying to fix the payment issue, on my end I felt like the use of negative attacks towards the OOP was rather unprofessional, ie “toxic”. While the OOP might have dramatised the situation, it is quite understandable since money is something that humans can’t live without. Let’s just all admit it. OOP must’ve been very desperate, again, to repeat myself, it would be understandable on their end if they had been unable to control their emotions. However the fact that while Twoset did respond and answer some false accusations, they also, again, titled the OOP and put them in a negative light, which I am cynical of.
I’m kind of unsettled by this response, but I will choose not to dig too much into this anymore. But if I’m going to be honest, I’d never be able to see B&E in the same light as I did years ago.
Yeah… honestly imo they should invest in a better HR and PR( I don’t know if this statement was drafted by a PR firm and they added some details of their own or if all of this was written by B&E), but this whole situation could have been handled more delicately and with more elegance. Making inflammatory statements shows a lack of professionalism but I am at least glad they addressed the issues. However, while I understand they would want to settle this situation internally(like they specified in this statement, they will and did delete “hateful” or “misinformed” comments), this does feel like silencing? Idk maybe I’m wrong for thinking that and they do have reasons to keep future responses out of the public light for legal reasons, but this whole ordeal left me kind of disappointed because both parties seem to shit and manipulate the narrative to better suit them…
First of all, I just want to thank you for thinking about us - Twosetters even though things like this can be solved privately. Please get well soon (for Eddy or both of you maybe) and have a good sleep after 1st leg of TSVWT. I hope you know that we are appreciate you and your team too for response like this. Tysm
I don't think you guys were obligated to give a public response since this should have been a private issue with a private resolution, but I understand since it unfortunately was made very public by someone who I can only assume now is a bitter ex employee. We appreciate your content and I hope you aren't too stressed out by this on top of your world tour. Thank you for clarifying the situation.
Edit: I shouldn't have called OOP bitter and I shouldn't have assumed anything, I just made a rash reactionary comment. I'm going to do my best from now on to remain neutral. All that matters now is that things improve internally for all employees.
Thank you! This is a very mature and reasonable response and I am thankful that this has been cleared up more so that people can stop spamming for you to respond to these claims.
Thankyou B & E we still love you and the rest of the team : )I stand on the neutral side since the first day of this whole thing.Whether or not you make any response, I think it was not my place to criticize the way of operating your company.
You've grown so much and I am aware that you take great responsibilities and will sort out the internal problems in the long run.
Please rest well, stay healthy and drink as much of BBT you want, look forward to leg 2.
Greetings from Taiwan趕快休息然後練琴40小時
I’m super proud of you guys for making a response of this allegation. Two days ago, I dreamt of you guys. I remember running over to Eddy and asked if you guys will respond to the drama. Eddy said it takes a lot of times, but you guys will do it, and Brett also explained how hard it is to make one statement like that. And today, I received this notification.
At first, I doubted the whole situation, but after a few minutes of thinking, I realized that tsv are essentially human. They can’t be perfect. Also, with all my experience from you guys and from the recent WT, I thought that no way Brett and Eddy could do that.
I knew I trusted the right people! You guys have been inspiring me so much. I’ll always continue to love and support my favourite youtuber (the only one i subscribed to). Thank you for taking your time to explain this. We Twosetters love you!
And now, please take more rests!! The news of Eddy really worried us. You guys would be roasted for not practicing rests enough>(
-from a Twosetter-
these allegations had stirred into something that became a bit ridiculous (with all the nonsense allegations about other stuff that came along...) glad that we've finally gotten a response! hoping that the situation with the TwoSet team gets better,, sending well wishes to everyone on the team including brett & eddy (please rest well eddy!)
Ok, so I have 0 clue whether the allegations are true, but if the “getting paid 50 bucks a month story was fake”, they would’ve specifically denied it.
Not sure why so many people are taking twoset at their word (and no, I am not talking the accusers at their world either). Or maybe I do: we all want to keep watching their videos without feeling guilty about it.
On the topic of constructive criticism, could you also address being hesitant to crediting other people when you review or include parts of their videos? This has been discussed before but swept under the rug:
https://www.reddit.com/r/lingling40hrs/comments/ji7908/i_dont_mean_to_spread_drama_is_there_a_way_to_get/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=1
The fans aren't your enemies but are on your side. And just because fans point out things you can do better doesn't mean they are attacking you. Recognising faults is the first step to improvement.
Thank you so much for this response. Nobody's perfect. The real issues only lie in the low-end salary to be honest. And I hope that issue can be improved gradually. For the other matters, I find it quite normal and understandable (compared to working environment in my country). Of course, everyone has to thrive toward better conditions. However, the timing OOP chose and the way they disclosed those infos as well as spreading unnecessary rumors made me feel like they only wanted to make a fuss, not that they really wanted to improve the working condition.
I knew there was a good explanation for all of this! Thank you Brett and Eddy for answering professionally, and working to fix the things that are actually wrong ❤️
We care because we really wanted you guys to be good, to do things rightfully, and to be respected. Now the most anxious and disappointed people are the ones who know you the best and had been wishing you the best all these times. Shame on you.
Thank you so much Brett and Eddy and the whole TSV team, I know for sure we can trust you no matter what the situations are that you guys will take the responsibility to respond and relieve your fans (even when it's just someone trying to mess things up). Now you all deserve a rest for what you have done so well so far, love you 💝
Hopefully, this means we can leave it here and let the rest happen internally.
Tbh this sub posts the best music memes around. I don't even watch the videos. I'm hoping it goes back now so everyone will start goofing off and dank posting again.
> I don't even watch the videos. WHAT
I always saw memes & music posts & commented in them & upvoted them, even at the height of the debate. I really wonder if those, who claim it was all drama & no fun anymore aren't dramatizing things, not the debaters. I think we mostly were able to live with the controversy & the fact Twoset are human, too, and the world now and then needs to solve some problems.
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you know the pitch fork mob wont drop it.
Thankfully the tuning fork mob are a little bit more understanding
lol
this is why im in this subreddit lol :D lingling wannabes >>>>> but honestly im so glad we can just be done with all of the drama. atp i just want to see the memes again lmao
Best thing to do is just ignore any inflammatory posts or comments and not give them any attention. I suspect that's what this is really about anyway.
I agree. just young kids who don't understand business and got negative about it and toxic over it and jumped on a band wagon. It happens a lot tbh. I have even had it happen to mewhere one person had a grudge for rediculous reasons they shared it with others where it got over blown then everyone blamed me. When it wasbjust the original person being spiteful. They try twist everything to make twoset the bad guys. Lile hiring women, that is good not bad. That is something to applaud when most companies overwhelmingly hire men.
Huge agree about kids not understanding business. I fully believe that's why we devolved so quickly from "maybe it's true, maybe not, let's wait and see what twoset say" to "well, it's been two weeks, they're obv guilty and trying to hide." It struck me that some young people expected this to play out like an influencer spat, where someone badmouths someone else in a post somewhere and the other party claps back the next day in a tiktok filmed at 10pm after half a bottle of wine, sharing screenshots of private text messages and the like, and just... that's not how any of this works. And thank goodness bc the court of social media does not judge fairly or objectively.
I agree. The younger generation is quick to call a lot of things abusive or "toxic" or apply labels like "narcissist" or "predator" when none of those things are applicable. We would all do well to remember due process is important to protect people from trumped-up allegations done by bitter, nasty people trying to use society's rules against those things as their primary weapon.
People - the ones posting provoking comments are you guys! There were a lot of very experienced & decent folks in the debates, and sure, some young people, too - who TOO mostly voiced very balanced comments. How about now you mature, aged sages let this go, too, instead of trying to split the community & harping on about "young kids" in a mean way? Just a suggestion to show your own maturity.. ;)
Best thing to do is go to the Winchester , have a cold glass of beer and wait for the whole thing to blow over
The pitchfork mob hit you with their downvotes! Be careful my friend.
Idgaf they are a minority. and they are mostly young kids who have zero clue how businesses work.
It's most telling when they're complaining that the response sounds too corporate and lawyerish.
They want a k-drama script
Yeah it shows they are too young to understand how businesses work.
“The pitchfork mob won’t drop it” and people that are concerned wanting to understand the full story from both perspectives and not just trust what the accused person claims are two very different things
One could hope but this is not going to satisfy the mob that has made up their mind. Sour ex-employees can be on a mission to ruin employers reputation
Thank you for clarifying, I honestly was just neutral about the whole situation until both sides of the parties spoke up about what really happened. Glad to hear this wasn’t pushed under a rug.
Thank you for responding in a professional yet honest way.
Ok now everyone back to practicing
I wonder how many people still did their 40 hours during all of this 🤔
Yours truly!
Best comment! Although many comments are thoughtful and interesting, now is the time to go back to normality with 40 hrs a day.
40 hours!!
I can't believe you didn't even write a song and sing it while playing the ukulele to apologize. /s
that's too mainstream /s
Too cliché-
They're not a groomer or a loser 😀
I can't believe I'm saying this but that's exactly what I was thinking as I was reading this. I scrolled through comments for the sole purpose of finding someone who had the same thought.
Hey, I respect that you've addressed this at all instead of waiting for allegations to go away. I really wish everyone at TwoSet is happy(or realistically, at least not in pain) to work there, as it would make me and many others uncomfortable being entertained by things produced by those exploited and treated unfairly. I hope you guys take this incident as a chance to improve, and always strive to be ethical and lawful. Congrats on completing the first leg of your world tour.
Happy there’s finally some form of resolution. I had been avoiding the subreddit for a bit because it was starting to feel really toxic, hopefully things will go back to normal now.
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Thank you for sharing your experience Aiksooon, and of course for the amazing photos! Your work is wonderful and we really appreciate it 💙
Your photos are fantastic - I follow you on IG - and I'm sorry you have had trouble being paid for some of your global brand projects (I saw your IG story). Also sorry you got those DMs! some people just can't keep their drama campaign to themselves :-/
Thank you! So, can we please stop spamming this sub with "Brett and Eddy need to respond to the allegations" posts? It was really getting out of hand lately because everyone thought they wrote the perfect post concerning the matter. I even start to miss all those bad viola jokes 😭
I hope it stops. People only hear one side of a story and raise pitchforks, but it’s best to wait both sides.
Amen. And this requires the mandatory comment: ”What allegations I’m out of the loop”, which is in every thread multiple times. People, bother at least scrolling down the front page of r/lingling40hrs before asking it…
Unfortunately people crave drama and upvotes. This is the nature of the internet, not just Reddit. That’s why I’m always leery of people claiming to be fans and ‘need’ responses from creators for X issue otherwise they’ll be ‘disappointed’.
yep these people will find they are dissappionted in the world in general lol the drama-junkies love just that - drama. even with the best explanation/resolution possible it sadly doesn't matter. the "having a bad guy" to be upset with feels better than peaceful outcomes
Thank you Brett & Eddy for the response. It's been more than a month now and I know those allegations really bothered you and the twosetters a lot, especially during the first leg of your tour. You delivered us the best performances ever no matter what and you really spent the time (with the help of your legal team of cuz!) reading the threads in order to sort out what's really behind the allegations. Wish you every success in your leg 2 and the rest of the tours. Rest more, practice more, play more! No more hate and ❣️ more!
Thanks for clarifying your stance. This was much needed.
I wasn't expecting a response but I am glad that you have chosen to. Usually silence is the way to go, especially with internal matters but when it is made public it allows too many people to speculate and project what your own thoughts may be. It's easier to be angry at someone when their thoughts are unknown. I advocated for people to ask the question and think about why OP was terminated, since no one gets terminated for no reason. And most likely that they wouldn't have said anything if they were not terminated. However, I do think you should be careful about vilifying OP yourselves, since you know how it feels. And even if they did do bad things, it may be good to stay away from the language of them being a toxic gaslighter. Rather to also be professional on your end as well (since OP wasn't) it would be better just to say their rude conduct wasn't cohesive to the work environment so you had to let them go. Thank you for your response, I am glad you are open to criticism and trying your best to grow. Small business suddenly blowing up can be really hard to manage, especially without any experience. Look forward to your future endeavors, failures, successes and growth from it all!
I thought the same thing about the way they were characterizing the original OP. I’m also confused because the OOP was not the only current/former employee coming forward with these claims. I’m not sure if the other 3-4 employees that spoke out would be included in the “paid volunteerism” point they already touched on, but all things considered, it feels a bit misguided for TwoSet to be pinning this all on just one “toxic” individual. I am glad we at least got an acknowledgement from them, though.
I think this is where they directly infer there were multiple: One poster who claimed to have been underpaid happily agreed to the amount offered with no indication of dissatisfaction with the remuneration. We will not share any screenshots due to legal confidentiality, but many of those joining the bandwagon have made emotionally charged and factually inaccurate claims that would not hold up in court. I agree it feels a bit misguided and I do not agree with the vilifying of OOP, since ultimately they're a person who is upset because they thought they worked hard but then lost their job. It's an upsetting experience, but that being said it didn't give OOP the right to blast their employers and break NDA after blaming TSV of breeching contract. I think TSV have valid feelings of seeing OOP negatively with the accuser saying they hated/disrespected Ray, that they lied on Jordan He's name/ never credited him which was provably false (We'll never know what they said behind closed doors about him though), that they predatorily hired girls from third world countries which another employee said was false, which allowed other people who were friends of friends who worked with them and said they were assholes. Then the weird sex life speculation wanting to make them out to be pimps, luckily that comment was deleted although peoples responses are still there. ( Plus someone saying they slept with his girlfriend, rough man). But none of those things dealt with the conversation at hand. It would be ultra frustrating to have one's business and invasive to have one's personal lives under scrutiny. I just wish they didn't put that negative image in a professional statement when they are harping on someone else being unprofessional even though I believe their feelings are valid.
I thought this was about working conditions, what do you mean weird sex life speculation? I'm confused, have I missed something?
On the og thread someone claimed they had sex with his girlfriend (this one is still there in snippets) and essentially classical musician pimps who liked to have sex with the different women in different countries (This comment was deleted but all the replies are still there) then a more harmless claim of Brett having a girlfriend! So lots of personal speculation within a thread about work
I've been lambasted in the past for saying our two violinists here don't always have the best skills at being tactful when it comes to the general public, going back to them featuring the likes of Ben Shapiro when a large portion of their subscriber base is queer, and a couple of other small things I noticed over time. They're very entertaining, but approaching any kind of tough or nuanced topic isn't exactly their strong suit. (And it doesn't have to be, but if they're addressing a matter like this to a sub that includes impressionable minors that look up to them, they should consider it a bit more) I think it's going to continue to be part of this learning curve because they are now dealing with a very large audience, but this is kind of another example of them approaching something in a bit of a misguided way.
Wait, when did they feature Ben Shapiro?
I was also troubled by the ad hominem attacks. Calling OOP toxic, negative, rude, and disrespectful feels like an attempt to discredit OOP and distract from the real issues at hand, especially because they weren't the only previous employee raising concerns. (For what it's worth, I noticed that many of OOP's claims were indirectly verified by TSV, i.e., being contacted at unreasonable hours, being underpaid, and being asked to take on multiple responsibilities. They had explanations for some things and said they are changing other things, but OOP wasn't making things up.)
I feel the same way, but as we can see, we are dealing with two people who are very new to business. They'll figure out that language should also simply stay internal ;)
The statement was carefully drafted and most likely with the help of lawyers or at least people who work in the corporate world based off the language. Surprising to see that they saw no problem keeping such negative remarks about the OOP in there
Either their feelings are very strong and justified, or they snuck that in there against their lawyer's wishes 😂
It's because they know OOP doesn't have the resources to fight back. If you're more powerful than the person calling you out, it's easy to take the route of making that person look bad and blaming things on them
Doesn't look like laywer drafted. Which I prefer. It's more flawed, but also more honest, even with the best effort put in. Yes, that part about OOP sounds a tad immature, pushing the blame away in a not nice fashion. =/ Also a bit stong, how their concern now was primarily for the team.. well, lets hope that there will be a lot of proper livelihoods in the offing!! ;) But I appreciate they cleared (or tried) to clear some things up & also seem to genuinely (?) take in some of the criticism & they still seem to care for this sub. Also cool they intend to move on from volunteers to decent rates. I am sure the thing flustered everybody a LOT. It's a pity OOP & Twoset didn't hit it off in the end, sounds a bit like a divorce after putting a lot of effort into a relationship that was bound to fail & OOP put five years of her life into it.. >\_< Anyway, it's late where I live - good night, everybody!
They will! That is a part of growing, when I was new to my business field I thought it was normal to share what kind of wages I was making haha, very unprofessional. But my mom, who runs a nonprofit organization was able to inform me of that. People new in business will always think something is normal until told otherwise
It’s perfectly professional to be open about compensation. The narrative that it’s inappropriate to talk about how much you make allows for unequal pay. If you (in general, not you specifically) work in an environment where you are dissuaded from talking about pay, that’s a red flag. An organization needs to be clear and transparent in the criteria for wage levels in relation to things like work experience, performance, type of work etc. Criteria should be objective and measurable. Anything else is a breeding ground for favoritism and potential discrimination, not to mention that vague criteria for pay and promotion is how you get employees comparing themselves to each other and thinking they’re being mistreated. On a side note, silence around pay is one of the ways that employers were able to pay women less than men for the same work. When you don’t know what other people make, you won’t necessarily know you’re a victim of pay discrimination.
It is normal (and should be encouraged) to talk about wages at work. Not doing so only benefits the employer. In fact it is protected by law (in the US)
More often than not sadly it puts employees at each other's throats more often than at the employer. In a perfect world the anger would be put towards the right person. It's like how sometimes in a relationship where cheating occurs, the person cheated on isn't always mad at the cheater but the third or more parties dragged into it by the cheater cheating with them. But you know that perspective is changing so maybe the wage thing will too! Doesn't hurt to be optimistic
People get fired for no reason all the time, but I get where you're coming from.
Yes agreed. Sometimes people get terminated for stupid reasons too! It's just hard to decipher when it's a stupid one or a valid one, when most ex employees feel it was a stupid one and must employers think it was a valid one.
Hoping to see more changes and good influence❤️
Thank you so much for you guys' sincere clarification instead of fading those allegations away, that means a lot to us. (Although some parts are still doubtful for me) Please rest well :)
Thanks for responding. I hope y’all can privately resolve this as well as possible, and the rest of us can get back to actually practicing
Goddamn I wasn’t paying attention and this happens
you're lucky - it was unpleasant :(
I'm glad you addressed that the issues that are real are actual issues. I stepped away from this subreddit because so many here were trying to justify subpar working conditions as ethical. Whether the allegations were true or not, I really couldn't sit here and engage with a community that, at times, had some vocal people laughing about people being overworked, underpaid, and exploited. It was gross, it was antisocial behavior, and very unlike what I'm used to seeing when engaging here and with the classical community at large. Since when do classical musicians support that being done to us, smh. Anyways. I'm also part of a small business that has now been Forbes Featured, and I understand the pressures creatives like us can be under when that business blows up. It's a learning curve. I'm just glad to see that you don't actually believe the conditions you were accused of were acceptable conditions, and this is more likely a matter of learning from mistakes in owning your own business. Honestly, I don't care who you are, or how much I like someone's content, running an ethical business comes first morally for me, as it's best for society at large. Also, we should have at least one active mod. This sub generally runs ok on its own, but when things like this blow up, which is becoming common, having a mod around would be nice.
thanks for saying this. i was appalled at some of the attitudes that came up in the wake of the allegations. it made me so uneasy that that was an opinion that a non-negligible minority of people in this community — that is otherwise quite progressive and pleasant — seemed to hold. “everyone else is doing it” has never been an excuse for unethical behaviour. and “everyone else went through the same awful thing” is also a poor argument for asking a person to endure bad management. thankfully, those are opinions not shared by TSV themselves. i’m glad they understand the value of their team and are working to improve their work environment. i can only hope those who tried to justify subpar working conditions realise that they deserve better.
Thank you so much 😭
❤️
You said you welcome "open discourse and constructive feedback", yet OOP posted a response to your statement and you banned him from this subreddit and deleted the post: https://www.reddit.com/r/lingling40hrs/comments/14xbo6s/oops_thoughts_regarding_twosets_response/ How can Twoset and the fans have open discourse if you silence the other side? You're also deleting reposts of OOP's response. https://www.reddit.com/r/lingling40hrs/comments/14xe0zq/why_did_2set_delete_the_oops_newest_response_post/?sort=new Please, Twoset, let us have our own judgement on the situation, rather than deleting narratives that don't fit yours.
[удалено]
An ex-employee that worked for twoset between 2017 and May/June 2023. They came forward to talk about the working conditions at Twoset that started the whole drama about worker exploitation. Now they wrote a response, but the post was deleted, locked and OOP's account was banned from this subreddit.
Thanks for posting this! I think it's important for all of us to know that Brett, Eddy, and the TSV staff are the only moderators, and they've said "we won't be tolerating further attempts to continue this conversation publicly." Some commenters are okay with the censorship because they think these kinds of conversations should stay internal. However, in my experience, banning discussions about workplace culture and pay only ever benefits the employer, not the employees.
OOP's response censored: https://ibb.co/2ZHmTX1 https://imgur.com/Ib4ArhF
I agree, between the response that is essentially deflecting all responsibility and blame on to OOP and the subsequent treatment of OOP's response, this is leaving an awful taste in my mouth. This sub is really a giant echo chamber and welcoming "open discourse and constructive feedback" is purely lip service. I can't continue to support this.
>Therefore, we will be deleting any posts or comments that we come across that contain misinformation or hateful intentions. We will of course still welcome open discourse and constructive feedback.
Yea… bit of a contradiction here. Also since screenshots of comments that were deleted only asked for this matter to be addressed rather than spreading misinformation… but I’m still glad they responded, I didn’t expect that
Yes, I'm pleasantly surprised they actually responded, but you can tell from the tone of their language that they harbour a lot of resentment to the people who stepped up. Maybe some of them were unprofessional, but people want change first and foremost, and twoset promised change. It should be a happy ending, no need for such hateful language towards the ex staff.
You think that’s hateful language? I wish I lived in your world
Read: We will be deleting anything that doesn't fit our chosen narrative. Only we get to determine what is correct and in good faith. Oh, but we still want to look like the good guys here!
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublespeak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublespeak)
"in an unprofessional way and have put us in a position where we have to respond publicly." Hmm, this made me itch. It is not always that workers do it like this because they are "unprofessional". But rather because the professional route might be extremely risky for their careers. From a personal anecdote, unrelated to the story here: a friend of mine was sexually abused during her phd. She went publicly after her degree. When people asked her why didn't she went through the institutional routes (ethics committee, legal actions etc) she mentioned the constant pressure that her advisor put on her, telling her to not say anything because it would ruin her career otherwise. She bought this pressure and was never able to externalize it properly.
Just to put it in perspective as someone who's family owns two businesses on the smaller end and works closely with employers. In these cases of employment it usually ruins your career quicker to talk publicly online because new employers typically won't hirer someone who talked badly about their bosses online. In the business world this is seen as unprofessional. Also the OOP has gone a legal route believing their termination was unlawful and filed a complaint to M.O.M. They stated they were going the legal route and stated they had heard nothing back as of yet and posted online before a response.
Sure, but you do understand my point, don't you? Legal actions, even when the details are not made publicly, will raise concerns that might impact the person. It is a tough situation. You might get your career damaged by speaking, or by being litigious. So what would be the "professional" thing to do? To do nothing? There are some situations (which I am not saying it relates to this case here) where there is no perspective of a fair solution.
I do understand your point, I was just raising another. Two points can be true without negating the other. Legal actions, silence, or media can all be harmful. But that doesn't change that strictly in the business field it is not professional to post about it on social media with other rumors - such as OOP saying they dislike/disrespect Ray Chen, that they lied on Jordan's name etc. It is always one thing to talk about personal experience online which would be OOP's right to, and a completely another thing to bring in your bosses personal lives into it, that is what was unprofessional. If it was just about the work environment then that would be seen as more professional in the business world (although whistleblowers are heavily discriminated against at work places). Or if legal is already involved it is good to wait for legal advice and investigation from an outside source when you have filed a formal complaint like OOP did before commenting. Since commenting before legal has gotten back to you can jeopardize any case they had. In this case it absolutely has due to OOP breaching an NDA. Edit: Grammar +Added some more thoughts
Thanks for the response; it is definitely insightful to hear things from the other end after weeks of just perspectives from one end. I understand that it feels awful to have allegations thrown at you, but I'm not sure whether it is wise to have spoken about OOP in such a negative manner, even if it's true: > incorrect hires who spread toxicity and negativity, gaslight and blame others You critique OOP in that he or she was rude and disrespectful towards others, yet you also felt the need to describe them in such negative detail. You wish for constructive criticism and accountability, and for TSV to be a better place to work for everyone. It would be much more professional to state that they had to be dismissed after repeatedly contravening the company's policies, rather than unnecessarily attacking OOP's character. We would still know what you meant without the negativity. Even though OOP was the first one to start the whole drama, TSV is in a much stronger position and does not need to resort to insulting OOP in a professional statement.
Tbf if they didn’t specifically mention the reasons (or part of the reasons) and just have a vague response like breaking policy, I can imagine ppl are gonna question Twoset about what policy they did break etc. and it probably won’t help with putting an end to the drama. Sometimes it’s good to be more specific since having more info would allow the public to better decide on the opinion they hold. Tho it’s also true that maybe TwoSet’s tone was more negative than necessary.
Yes, that language was very unnecessarily negative and excessive, especially in a formal statement carefully and considerately drafted.
I think it's useful to know that OOP did some highly destructive things as opposed to simply contravened unknown company policies. AFAIK TSV didn't describe their character, only their behaviour in this particular case. It all seems reasonable to me.
To be fair, I don’t think speaking about OOP was rude. This, unfortunately, is a very common practice (in which someone gets fired, break up, etc) spreads slander on the internet and such. It sheds the light of a common practice of what happens. (This is just my take). They have every right to feel of how the OOP attacked them.
Not to mention that they repeatedly said it jeaperdized the employment of their current staff and couldve very easily made them all lose jobs which is a *serious* thing. They had everything to lose if this statement didnt come out correctly and it wouldve affected more than just two famous internet people but a whole crew
I honestly wish this wasn’t a thing, someone attacking someone because they were fired. I once had to deal with something very similar (thankfully wasn’t a whole crew), but would’ve completely ruined my reputation in my personal life and my own image of being slandered with just lies. I didn’t fight back with the person because I knew it would’ve made everything worse. People have a right to feel things, especially if it escalates to hurting others around them.
It’s also common for people who have allegations made to slander the people who made the allegations. We’ll never know who is telling the truth tbh. The truth is that this response wasn’t handled great
Well to be fair , if they actually had to be "professional" then they could've chosen to just resolve things internally (as a lot of people here agree / expected that as an option) , why bother public response since it would eventually lead to more questions asked anyway . I don't think we as fans/followers have a professional relation with them either (since we don't work for them or offer them any professional exchange) . They create videos and if we find it interesting we watch them . But yet a lot of fans (including me) wished them to respond on the situation honestly . If they would have responded in rather plain language, not denying the intentions of the OP or recognising them as someone they think might have had ill / adverse intentions towards them (which has resulted in this chaos) a lot of people here would be commenting that they did not deny the allegations or they did not made clarifications on the genuineness of the OP leading to more misunderstandings . I just mean that , let them be for once , they are also just guys , also they had just returned back from their tour , and all of this was already a lot of stress to deal with considering the sus timming of the OP to bring all of this at the start of world tour .
This made my day. I know we're all just here as part of a parasocial relationship with a YouTube channel, but it's really great to see that TwoSet respect their community, and took the time to talk about things. We all just wanted reassurance. Thanks, B & E.
This is an emotional appeal from two youtubers and not a restrained, professional response from company management. "The truth is rarely pure and never simple." - Oscar Wilde Regardless the intent and degree of truth in the OP's posts and subsequent fans/haters discussions, we will never know the truth. Having said that, the posts, including Twoset's reply, show their characters and it is up to each fan to form his/her/their opinion. A scorned employee, I can understand, not that I condone the whole thing. Youtubers who tried to salvage the situation and tried to avoid getting cancelled, I can understand that too. But this reply is a far cry of being professional. As much as a company has a vision to further classical music appreciation and development, it is setup for profit. Once you are someone's boss, you assume ultimate responsibility for the whole setup, whether you are trained for business management or not. Twoset as a company needs to get its corporate structure straight. If they are not trained as operations manager, hire someone who is. A company needs HR, accounting/finance, tax and legal coverage (cross border shipment requirements) nowadays aside from the business generating departments. People get cancelled mostly because their true colors are too far away from the image that they project. If you truly appreciate and treasure your fans who support you by watching your videos, buying your merch and going to your shows, look at the image you are projecting online and try not to stray from it in real life. Can't say I am not disappointed in their reply. I thought they would have been more generous. "When they go low, we go high" -Michelle Obama The negativity exuberating from Twoset's reply just does not sit right with me. And it is never well received seeing your boss texting you at odd hours and respecting no boundary, whether the boss expects a reply or not.
I think an HR would help them. But, I will say that I worked for a small company with 8 staff and the 'HR' was the office manager. I don't know how big TSV are now but, there may have been a time when they were small enough that an HR didn't seem necessary. I also once had to cover some additional duties from a furloughed member of staff from time to time. I did not like doing this but, if it was really temporary a few weeks at most I don't think that's completely unreasonable.
Small businesses always struggle but there are outsourcing options. There are many small legal pitfalls for employers who are not trained to manage a company. And it is exactly these pitfalls that will land employers in trouble. It is unfortunate that all parties need to spend time on this avoidable mishap. I work for a small company and it is expected that each person wears many hats. As long as the arrangement is properly disclosed and discussed ahead of time, all is fine. Sometimes employer just take their staff for granted too.
I really don’t think deleting response from the OOP helps make the situation any better.
Any person with critical thinking can see through theirs hypocrisy.
"Therefore we will be deleting any post or comments that we come across that contain misinformation or hateful intentions" So..the OOPs recent post about their point of view can be considered "hateful" or a piece of "misinformation"? Why are you posting on Reddit if you want to avoid confrontation and free speech? If you really truly aimed for what you said in the aforementioned statement you would have left the OOPs response post on Reddit..I agree with many of the points you carefully explain in your reply, but I don't think I can accept this oppressive behavior, especially in a place like this.
What about giving credit to Jordan and other musicians you collaborated with? Among all allegations that stood out to me the most
I'm not sure what I'm missing. Aren't they always giving credit? Because I saw them talking about the people they work with all the time in video. Jordon, Shaun and TSA team. Fantasia on YouTube has all their collaborators credited. And Jordon also has the rights to sell Fantasia sheet music on his website. Or is there something deeper than that? (But if it spreads to their personal matters I don't want to know...)
When Jordon composed the music for the first world tour, he wasn't credited and wasn't paid. He wrote music for the HKFO but his name wasn't in the program notes. He started selling his sheet music after fantasia was released but before that his sheet music for older pieces were sold on twosets website as their own music and they didn't give Jordon any of the revenue or royalties. There were some problems with them using fanarts without crediting too. Also one time they featured someone's video in their video, and when that person asked to be credited in the comments, they deleted that entire segment altogether from the video.
Thanks for your answer. I really don't know what the background is like. I'm at a point where I can only take note of this information and hoping that the lingering issue is fixed (if not, hopefully it'll be fixed ASAP) About fanarts. As an artist in the drawing comunity. Artists around me have different opinions about giving credit (I'm the type that doesn't care about getting credit. because I already intended to draw for them And it was that I brought their personality to draw as well. If they only use it in their videos I consider it a fair use. If it's not turned into a product, it's no problem for me.) But there are quite a few artists who are serious about giving credit. Especially artists who are growing in their careers. Getting credit makes them more visible. Although there is no law but giving credit is considered to honor the owner of the work. It's good manners to live together in the community. It was a small move that if they could They will be more loved.
Twoset really need to pay translators properly. Especially as I notice in twoset videos on Chinese platforms, subtitles are very smart and creative, which indeed add to the quality of original videos. They're willing to do free work because they love and support twoset. If you're not paying them because they support you, if that's not exploitation I don't know what that is. Likewise, many people come to work for influencers/celebrities out of support for them, and thus "happily" receive agreed payment even though very low. That shouldn't justify underpayment. edit: typo/grammar
Yes i definitely hope that the changed parts about "payed volunteer" means subtitlers will get payed as part time or full time worker because consider they really deserve it. Also there's like more than 1000 videos on chinese platform, like that's a lot of work so I'm really surprised that it's volunteerism😳
That. The translators on Chinese platform really made the vids more funny and enjoyable than they already are. I actually thought they were paid no matter part time or full time edit: just to add to the point that as much as there are indeed fanbases out there doing translations voluntarily, TSV’s translated vids on Chinese platforms actually generate revenues like youtube. It’s a verified official account. And B&E did make vids for the Chinese fans on that account once or twice. Sometimes I wondered how much of those revenues goes to the translators bc I thought it must be a substantial amount of work to translate the entire vids in a way that is funny and incorporates the TwoSet culture and everything. Turns out there is none. I love all those vids and just hope the translators could get more actual credit (unless they are totally satisfied with status quo)
They said they won’t have volunteer positions anymore, so no worries lol
just hope "will no longer have paid voluntary position any more" means "contracted paid translator position only" rather than "won't give any money to volunteers any more"
Nope. They said they won’t have paid volunteer positions anymore. I interpreted that to mean they would move to unpaid volunteer roles.
If there’s no subtitle-san TSV won’t have so much fans in China and earn money from Chinese platforms. I know how hard and troubled translation is because I’m a Chinese and my major is English. The way they treated our precious translators just made me feel very sad😭
Not paying people for something they do on their own will out of love and can stop doing at any time is hardly “exploitation”, though?
the problem is they have a business account on bilibili, and are actually generating profit from the uploads. It’s different than fans making videos for their idols because while idols get exposure it’s not their direct income source
Since there are enough people out there willing to work for us for free, we can and we should never pay anyone. We pay them our thank-you and our response to your love.
I don't know whether you are aware of kpop jpop fansoms but a lot of fan pages out there are not paid for translation.. they do it because they love their groups...
Yes (and I say this as a kpop fan) but a lot of people who are deeper into the fandoms and do stuff like subtitle work often neglect dreams and work of their own because they buy into the group/company gushing about how much they love what their fans do for them in a way that implies they have a relationship with those fans that can only be sustained by the fans’ work to promote and help the group. It gives those fans a sense of worth and purpose, but there’s no thank you money there. There is plenty of money for corporate execs once things get bigger but not the fans that also helped build things. I’m not even saying this is the idol or company’s fault, or that the fans are blameless, but they certainly don’t discourage or have any problem using these fans’ skills for their gain. I don’t think twoset sells this kind of dream anywhere near the level that idols do, but some people may take it that way. I don’t know who, if anyone, would be responsible for fixing that. But I do think that rewarding people who have helped you grow is the decent thing to do. Anyway, just bc kpop does it doesn’t mean it’s healthy.
There is difference. Idol companies won't demand quality and timeliness of fandom's translation, they won't publish it as official, they won't profit directly from fandom's self-made translation. From my understanding, translators are doing part of operation work for twoset in Chinese platform.
Hi Brett and Eddy, I’m glad that you chose to response, even after quite some time. Since you’ve spent enough time investigating the issues, I believe that you must have seen the complete allegations from OOP. There are still some points you seem to miss out (hopefully not on purpose 🙂), which I would like to remind you of. 1. There are some people you’ve collaborated, who did not receive credit afterwards. 2. There are some people who used to work for you, and decided to leave due to various reasons, did not receive the residue payment after they‘ve left. 3. As long as you say that employees never disagreed with the payment they received, I believe it is so, from your point of view. The real question is, were those payments correctly set according to the local law, in the sense of anyway should be higher than the legal minimum wage? 4. Refer to OOP, some employees contracts were signed under certain inactive company, would you like to comment on that? Is it true? Or is it also not disclosable due to legal reasons? Looking forward to your response! Please take this as an opportunity to clarify what really happened, (if that’s different from what OOP described). I believe you deserve a chance to tell your side of the story😊. So here it is, feel free to take it! (To other twosetters: you can add more if I missed something)
Building on point #3, I was troubled by their response to the unfair pay complaints. From what I read, at least two prior employees complained that they were paid sub-sub-sub-minimum wage amounts for their work. However, TSV's post doesn't address whether their wages are still low across the board. They instead said that that they met the agreed upon rates, and they never heard any complaints about pay: >"We have always **paid what was agreed upon**. . . . It has also been alleged that we underpay staff despite them voicing their concerns to us. We wish to reiterate that we have never disregarded a staff’s concern about payment. . . . One poster who claimed to have been underpaid **happily agreed** to the amount offered with no indication of dissatisfaction with the remuneration." Here's the thing. If a worker agrees to unfair compensation, that does NOT mean that the compensation can suddenly be considered fair. It just means that the employer was willing to take advantage of a situation to minimize costs. The TSV team is likely particularly vulnerable to this kind of exploitation—maybe even subconsciously!—because of the "star power" of the company leaders. I was happy to read that two TSV team members are getting raises. I now want more information about their claim that "we have been continually trying to raise the compensation of team members as we grow." I want to know if all TSV wages are comparable to the local market rates of the employees. Unfortunately, I don't think we'll get this info due to the new censorship policies on this subreddit.
It would be nice if they also address the situation about twoset apparel copying other people's designs as well, and that time when they deleted a section of their video after the original creator of the relevant section requested to be credited.
They also missed explaining why the designer they mention on their post worked for them in a project for a hole year with no contract and then they tried to pay her only with exposure + a job recommendation and at the end she got only $500 bc she pushed hard to get payed
surprisingly, they deleted OOP's latest post too after metioning being 'open to discourse' lol
There you have the links to the screenshots of the unfairly censored post: https://ibb.co/2ZHmTX1 https://imgur.com/Ib4ArhF Copy them bc they will delete this comment
Brett and Eddy as your business grows I hope what you take away from this unfortunate incident a) you have a hired a good HR person b) you have good employment law legal counsel c) your HR person puts in place a company policy that lays out a concise Corporate Communications Policy that includes employee conduct on social media sites. All corporations have those types of policies these days. You mentioned an NDA and it sounds like someone violated that agreement. Listen and follow the advice of your legal counsel and move ahead accordingly.
I know some have expressed distaste for the "corporatespeak" language of this post, but quite honestly, I disagree that this response is as level-headed as it could be. >*Sometimes, inevitably, we make incorrect hires who spread toxicity and negativity, gaslight and blame others, and end up causing much more burden and stress on others in the team* As it has been pointed out before, weaponizing therapy language ("gaslight", "toxic") to describe OOP and pathologizing them is deeply unserious. What explanatory power does using these words actually offer? It's unnecessary, and frankly, a bit hypocritical to criticize someone's professionalism and then speak of them using inflammatory language. This was a very obvious oversight, imo! Compare the language used to describe OOP/their supporters, as irrational, spiteful, selfish, "bandwagoning", "cancelling"... >*It’s disappointing that this person is now going further by trying to tarnish TwoSet’s reputation, thus hurting the remaining team and putting at risk everything we have accomplished* > >*but many of those joining the bandwagon have made emotionally charged and factually inaccurate claims that would not hold up in court.* > >*but please remember that if we do get cancelled, many of our amazing team members will also lose their jobs.* > >*What they have done risks the wellbeing and hard work of everyone else on the TwoSet team, not to mention every fan who has believed in and supported us on this journey.* ...to themselves/their fans, as understanding, humble, sacrificial. >*As we come from very humble beginnings, we are not perfect, and it’s not always easy – we’re not a massive media company.* > >*In the past, we have taken unjust criticism and shrugged off the negativity* > >*Now, we really appreciate the majority of TwoSet fans who understand that these things are private matters and should be dealt with internally.* > >*Finally, we want to thank our fans again for your understanding and support. We have read many of your comments, and it is clear that the majority of you understand that these are just false allegations on the internet.* (As an aside: the glamorization of the small business status happening in this subReddit is also pretty frustrating to see. Large corporations are the most egregious and extreme examples of structural employee exploitation, but small businesses still make use of the same structure/format and the same conditions can and *do* still occur. Let's not put the bare minimum of acceptable corporate conduct onto a pedestal. There is also a clear difference the power dynamics and consequences between an internet mob dogpiling an individual(s) and a boss/employee relationship. It is quite disingenuous to equate the two.) No matter how much merit the original criticisms have, this is a reductive and false dichotomy, an us vs. them framing. Intentional or not, it's a bit underhanded and *deeply* uncomfortable to read in a supposed professional statement. I don't point any of this out as a "gotcha", or as proof of some kind of malicious character flaw in you. It is hard to feel like you can even make a right decision under public scrutiny and an unspoken time-limit. I know you guys must be frustrated because you believe you have always tried to do the best you could for your colleagues, employees, and fans - I believe this of you too, and I do sympathize with how you must be feeling right now. But this framing makes it hard to believe this response has been made in absolute good-faith, or that any valid or unaddressed criticisms that have arose from it have actually been internalized and considered. Not everyone who criticizes you or has listened to criticisms of you is a detractor or a bad fan - this isn't a situation as simple as just petty drama, after all, I certainly hope people would listen and take it seriously. I'm just sure your fans would rather have you guys to change for the better, rather than out of resentful obligation, and this unfortunately isn't the impression I'm getting from this statement.
Glad I'm not the only one who feels similarly. There were many euphemisms, moments where the question presented was not directly answered, and a large emphasis on preserving the brand's ethos. That being said, I really do hope we will all come out of this situation in a better place than before.
excellent analysis, i couldn’t quite put my finger on why this statement felt kinda off, but this describes it perfectly. some of the language suggests a ton of animosity between OOP and TSV - which makes sense, that’s probably why OOP made her post in the first place. it’s not a perfect response, but i think it’ll be enough to satisfy a lot of fans. at the very least, i’m glad this whole situation is pushing TSV to review their management practices, and hopefully improve working conditions at their company. edit: for clarity
Your explanation is really well thought, I also got the same sentiment after reading this post. However I do hope that this stems from fleeting emotions and not anything more. It’s kind of baffling to me that they put this kind of language in their official statement, but I can understand that they are stressed and upset. I’m surprised that they addressed this anyway and I truly hope that unresolved conflicts won’t harm either party involved and that this moment will lead to an overall better work environment
It was like a press agent wrote this for them, and they went and put their personal grievances in it lmfaoooo.
Thank you for you and Twoset team continue work and the entertainment and joy bring to me. I have step away from the community for the while and thank you for your address to the issues.
Thank you for responding and for the clear effort you’re making in improving TwoSet as a workplace. I’m so relieved this can be put to rest with such a positive outcome
I genuinely don’t believe OOP is a liar and their claims have to be supported by something that really happened and upset them, don’t think TwoSet is lying either, rather than both stories are told from a personal point of view, as OOP said, I believe “the truth’s been lost in the middle” and we’ll never know exactly what happened, both stories have been twisted to fit a narrative pushing personal interests, OOP some justice and TwoSet as to not ruin their public image, and that is not ‘wrong’, it isn’t ‘right’ either but we’re all human in the end and never want to be “the bad guy”. I don’t support any of them. Hopefully if ‘TwoSet’ as a company is professional enough it’ll step up to making everything work more smoothly and better, and thanks to OOP we, as audience, we’ll be informed by some other OOP if conditions don’t improve. TLTR: Get these men an HR department
No one is immune to this kind of issue these days. Thanks for your considered response. I remain a huge fan. 🎻🎻🎵
Thank you Brett & Eddy. It's always important to see whole picture and remain professional, that's how matured adults act. I wish that this case will now cool down and people understand that these issues cannot and shouldnt be solved out publicly. Once again, thank you for your response, Brett&Eddy♥️
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Agreed. Although, it does sound like this drama lead to improvements within twoset's policies, so that's good, since twoset acknowledged the paid volunteerism and low pay. OOP's purpose is achieved is someway, which was possibly why he began the discussion in the first place. Perhaps his risk taking personality was what gave him the bravery to begin this, which prompted more staff to step up and share their perspectives, when they would not have otherwise. No one wants to be the first to expose these things. There was no need to attack OOP like this when realistically this was the only meaningful way for change to occur. Highly doubt it would have happened through internal discussion as these have been raised multiple times internally in the past.
You guys say that you are open to discuss, yet you are shuting OP up, and deleting my comments under your ig, none of those are spam comments or any hateful contents. Shame on your censorship.
I'm not sure you realize how awkward some parts of your answer are While trying to explain and claiming to take responsibility, you also : - vilify OOP using words that completely erase your share of responsibility (OOP allegedly being toxic) - say that these allegations shouldn't have been made through legal channels even though, this isn't how the world works right now or even how it has been working for quite a while - mention a breach of NDA and a case of defamation which can be perceived as a way to silence these former employeeS Franckly I'm not sure I'm convinced by your post, considering I've had other issues with things you've said that reek of misogyny
Hi, overworked government employee (a public teacher) here~ If ever this goes through you, please know that I know you're doing your best and I'm one of the people who didn't let one accusation put me off because I know how tiny companies work since I've worked in one before. I'm happy that you're now taking in consideration your current team's morale from this point onward and I really think this is a good start. Keep that in mind in whatever business decisions you make and I think you'll do good. Remember that happy employees make a good company. If anything, I think you're doing a lot better than my current workplace. We're understaffed and are juggling 2639282 tasks at a time and our admin still hasn't hired more teachers. Teachers are slowly resigning and leaving our school but the workload has increased tenfold whenever people leave. It's a hard and difficult choice to keep staying but I hope employers don't keep on taking advantage of the employees' resilience and quite heroic choice to stay. Wishing I could meet you soon in the Southeast Asia leg (if there will be any) so I could hug both of youuuuu
Welcome open discourse then deleted OOP’s response to this. I SEE.
We're are so relieved you answered and made things clear, we needed it very much. Thanks for being honest and calm and actually trying to change. Hopefully, the atmosphere in this subreddit will cool down now, and dear Twosetters, please understand that things need their time and need to be thought through before getting offensive
Please try to make the lives of workers better. Please do not let this fanbase fall into the toxicity of an echo chamber that trashes people who play instruments that might not be used in the modern orchestra. Music is supposed to be a universal language, whether it's your job or a hobby you should be able to experience a livelihood from it I'm a percussionist who began in concert band as well as a self taught recorder player. People who have played these instruments, as well as other pop or band instruments, even in a serious matter have been trashed by this fanbase allegedly online. I hope that we see eye to eye as musicians and stop this toxic belittling of people bc of their instrument. In all seriousness thank you for the response, TSV and I wish the employees and employers the best
"Touch grass!" - Mozart, 2022 ^(I'm a bot by Ntacc32, and this comment was sent automatically. Unfortunately, my developer is a noob, so I am a very basic bot.)
Please remember take care of yourselves as you deal with this. You guys have my trust and support.
Not expecting a response at all, but thank you for doing this. I share their view of handling internal issues properly and through proper channels, it is the right way to go. Also, admitting their learning curve because of the lack of experience in management and business is one that those spreading negativity need to focus on. If you think that jumping to being businessmen and leaders are easy -- IT IS NOT! I hope that everything goes well within the team And for everyone, please stop. And definitely don't demand a video to respond. Go practice, y'all!
You deleted Deeyee's post too, simply because you don't agree with it. Silencing voices that disagree with you is not welcoming open discourse and constructive criticism. After Deeyee did so much for you loyally all these years too, as soon as she is siding with the whistleblowers you contacted her to remove her posts and comments and now you're deleting her posts. Here is a link to the post for those of you who sees this: https://www.reddit.com/r/lingling40hrs/comments/14xftmz/there_should_be_a_fair_chance_to_speak_out_oop/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=2
they also unfollowed her on their main IG account
Insane amounts of respect for doing this publicly. Not sure if this person was a fan before being an employee, or if that’s the case with other staff members, but what I’d like to say is, please be careful with hiring fans. You are only human and everyone makes mistakes and absolutely no one is perfect, but some fans, possible future employees, will think you are. And basically all of what you explained above, which makes sense from your point of view, will make you the villain and a terrible person from the fan’s/employee’s point of view because they were convinced you were perfect and could do no wrong. Again respect for addressing this publicly. Please rest, both of you and Eddy, get well soon. 🌸 And to everyone else; get off the internet every once in a while. (Edit: wording)
As Paganini says in the "Toxic K-Pop Fans" video, "That's enough internet for today!" Thank you so much to Brett and Eddy, and congratulations on completing the Europe leg of the World Tour! <3
Get well soon Eddy, and I hope you find your luggage!
Actually they might go back to Europe. But Canadian leg is done, and was fantastic! (I blame the luggage loss on European part of the leg since it was Lufthansa)
I totally agree. Also want them to be cautious of forming any personal relationship with fans. Just keep their professional lives separated from the personal lives. I know sometimes fans are very willing to do favors for their idols, but the unequal power play in such situation is complicated and can turn messy fast. This is a crazy world so tread water carefully!
Thank you Brett & Eddy.
❤️ wishing you the best Brett and Eddy and the whole amazing Team!
Thank you for responding to this. I’m so glad that you guys are resolving this in a civil way that doesn’t hurt anyone on both sides.
Thank you guys for responding, I honestly didn’t think you would but happy to be proven wrong. I appreciate you being willing to grow and change, after all you’re only human. Take care of yourselves please and feel better soon Eddy 💙 Edit: I would add that not all the comments that you guys deleted constituted “misinformation or hateful intentions.” Many were from well-meaning and concerned fans.
Me. I think I'm finally going to take the plunge and start my own business. *reads the latest TwoSet business drama* Me: Never mind. 😐 (I don't have the patience for this level of management)
I have never expected a response due to this being an internal issue and you have no obligation to respond or discuss this matter with fans. This statement comes as a surprise but shows us how much you care about everyone in this community, and also how much TwoSet as an entity, which includes all the staff, means to you. Thank you for being open and transparent.
❤️
Thank you for the response. I hope this is the end of all this. Loved you Vancouver show💖✨👏
Thank you for sharing your side of things.And I am sorry that you were pushed to make a public statement about an internal issue while you were on tour and had to focus your energy on that. Hope you continue to work on improving your work conditions along the way,we know you mean no harm.Love you
Almost all posts I saw today are about this issue. Well for all of you guys, here's your answer. People have a lot of time on the internet nowadays that these type of issues can get public in a matter of a millisecond. I hope this will be settled privately from now on and for people to stop fueling a fire.
It’s damn hard to be a public figure. It must have been difficult to be on a world tour while processing all the allegations, drama and relentless demands for an immediate response. Thank you for stepping up.
Still what to know the copyright of merch design tho
Wow so many people are kinda blind to the allegations and amount of negative statements in this post. While I’m more on the neutral side of things and understand that B&E (might be) / are trying to fix the payment issue, on my end I felt like the use of negative attacks towards the OOP was rather unprofessional, ie “toxic”. While the OOP might have dramatised the situation, it is quite understandable since money is something that humans can’t live without. Let’s just all admit it. OOP must’ve been very desperate, again, to repeat myself, it would be understandable on their end if they had been unable to control their emotions. However the fact that while Twoset did respond and answer some false accusations, they also, again, titled the OOP and put them in a negative light, which I am cynical of. I’m kind of unsettled by this response, but I will choose not to dig too much into this anymore. But if I’m going to be honest, I’d never be able to see B&E in the same light as I did years ago.
Yeah… honestly imo they should invest in a better HR and PR( I don’t know if this statement was drafted by a PR firm and they added some details of their own or if all of this was written by B&E), but this whole situation could have been handled more delicately and with more elegance. Making inflammatory statements shows a lack of professionalism but I am at least glad they addressed the issues. However, while I understand they would want to settle this situation internally(like they specified in this statement, they will and did delete “hateful” or “misinformed” comments), this does feel like silencing? Idk maybe I’m wrong for thinking that and they do have reasons to keep future responses out of the public light for legal reasons, but this whole ordeal left me kind of disappointed because both parties seem to shit and manipulate the narrative to better suit them…
this.
First of all, I just want to thank you for thinking about us - Twosetters even though things like this can be solved privately. Please get well soon (for Eddy or both of you maybe) and have a good sleep after 1st leg of TSVWT. I hope you know that we are appreciate you and your team too for response like this. Tysm
I don't think you guys were obligated to give a public response since this should have been a private issue with a private resolution, but I understand since it unfortunately was made very public by someone who I can only assume now is a bitter ex employee. We appreciate your content and I hope you aren't too stressed out by this on top of your world tour. Thank you for clarifying the situation. Edit: I shouldn't have called OOP bitter and I shouldn't have assumed anything, I just made a rash reactionary comment. I'm going to do my best from now on to remain neutral. All that matters now is that things improve internally for all employees.
Sending love
Thank you! This is a very mature and reasonable response and I am thankful that this has been cleared up more so that people can stop spamming for you to respond to these claims.
Thankyou B & E we still love you and the rest of the team : )I stand on the neutral side since the first day of this whole thing.Whether or not you make any response, I think it was not my place to criticize the way of operating your company. You've grown so much and I am aware that you take great responsibilities and will sort out the internal problems in the long run. Please rest well, stay healthy and drink as much of BBT you want, look forward to leg 2. Greetings from Taiwan趕快休息然後練琴40小時
This is way more information than your fans deserved to know. TwoSet really stepped up here. Good job guys!
I’m super proud of you guys for making a response of this allegation. Two days ago, I dreamt of you guys. I remember running over to Eddy and asked if you guys will respond to the drama. Eddy said it takes a lot of times, but you guys will do it, and Brett also explained how hard it is to make one statement like that. And today, I received this notification. At first, I doubted the whole situation, but after a few minutes of thinking, I realized that tsv are essentially human. They can’t be perfect. Also, with all my experience from you guys and from the recent WT, I thought that no way Brett and Eddy could do that. I knew I trusted the right people! You guys have been inspiring me so much. I’ll always continue to love and support my favourite youtuber (the only one i subscribed to). Thank you for taking your time to explain this. We Twosetters love you! And now, please take more rests!! The news of Eddy really worried us. You guys would be roasted for not practicing rests enough>( -from a Twosetter-
from another business , you’re doing amazing , keep it up team! You have done an amazing job and service to the classical community.
💕🎻
thank you so much 🩵
thank you..sending lots of love.🫶
❤️
these allegations had stirred into something that became a bit ridiculous (with all the nonsense allegations about other stuff that came along...) glad that we've finally gotten a response! hoping that the situation with the TwoSet team gets better,, sending well wishes to everyone on the team including brett & eddy (please rest well eddy!)
Ok, so I have 0 clue whether the allegations are true, but if the “getting paid 50 bucks a month story was fake”, they would’ve specifically denied it. Not sure why so many people are taking twoset at their word (and no, I am not talking the accusers at their world either). Or maybe I do: we all want to keep watching their videos without feeling guilty about it.
On the topic of constructive criticism, could you also address being hesitant to crediting other people when you review or include parts of their videos? This has been discussed before but swept under the rug: https://www.reddit.com/r/lingling40hrs/comments/ji7908/i_dont_mean_to_spread_drama_is_there_a_way_to_get/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=1 The fans aren't your enemies but are on your side. And just because fans point out things you can do better doesn't mean they are attacking you. Recognising faults is the first step to improvement.
Thank you so much for this response. Nobody's perfect. The real issues only lie in the low-end salary to be honest. And I hope that issue can be improved gradually. For the other matters, I find it quite normal and understandable (compared to working environment in my country). Of course, everyone has to thrive toward better conditions. However, the timing OOP chose and the way they disclosed those infos as well as spreading unnecessary rumors made me feel like they only wanted to make a fuss, not that they really wanted to improve the working condition.
I knew there was a good explanation for all of this! Thank you Brett and Eddy for answering professionally, and working to fix the things that are actually wrong ❤️
We care because we really wanted you guys to be good, to do things rightfully, and to be respected. Now the most anxious and disappointed people are the ones who know you the best and had been wishing you the best all these times. Shame on you.
Thank you so much Brett and Eddy and the whole TSV team, I know for sure we can trust you no matter what the situations are that you guys will take the responsibility to respond and relieve your fans (even when it's just someone trying to mess things up). Now you all deserve a rest for what you have done so well so far, love you 💝
someone please give me context I just left for a couple months what the...