And finally, I just gotta ask everyone else on staff to not take public criticism so hard, because I think some of the responses have been hurting us even more. This spat with Jebailey? I understand why it's frustrating, but we cannot turn it into a personal matter. We have to handle it like it's professional, even if some of us don't think HE'S handling it professionally. Because it's a bad look for us in the public eye.
I mean, that SRK article about FR's problems? I was one of the sources for it. I personally corroborated about 75% of the details in it. I didn't go OUT OF MY WAY to spout off about anything; I just happen to post on the same forums that the author does, and the author was saying that he was gonna write up a post-mortem on FR and he was already in touch with some staff getting details from them. I thought to myself, "well, if this article is going to come out anyway, then I should at least comment on stuff that's already come out and at least make sure the details are accurate to the best of my knowledge." That was basically it.
And if you actually read the article, it's very even-handed. Nowhere does it say "FR is a bad event that you shouldn't go to." It just identifies issues, makes some suggestions on what needs to be addressed, and says that the whole FGC needs to learn from this and that we gotta improve... That is EXTREMELY fair. So having some of us (not naming names) spout off about "well I was never contacted by the writer about this" or "THIS IS JUST A HIT PIECE AND THEY'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THEIR FIRST CHANCE TO BURY FR. WE DON'T GET NO RESPECT.". (Some were flat-out uninformed about their rebuttals too, saying that the bit in the article about Tekken's stream time being cut was a lie... when it was MY STREAM that was involved and DID get changed.)... Like, this is all SUCH a childish reaction. It makes us look like we can't take criticism and that we're burying our heads in the sand. And I KNOW that isn't the case! I KNOW how much we all care! I know how much we're talking about it and how we're scrambling RIGHT NOW to fix things. But the PUBLIC doesn't know this! All they see is us being stubborn and doubling down!
I mean, do you know what people were talking about on Twitter on Tuesday? "Well, we tried to reach out to Shin Blanka for his input, but he's going to be on The On Blast Show instead." "We do want to help, but I wish he believed us and reached out to us and wasn't going on OBS instead." "That place is the WORST outlet in the FGC to get your side of the story out." "Get ready for 5 hours of JamesMK trashing others for no reason, and Triforce spouting off the usual nonsense."
Like, I can't stress this enough: James Fink cannot help us. The On Blast Show CANNOT. HELP. US. It can ONLY hurt us. Literally THE ONLY THING that place is known for is for being a hotbed of toxic garbage. The only two things I think of when I think of OBS is JamesMK ranting about how "Keits and Jebailey are faggots who guzzle each other's cum" (almost verbatim quote; what a super professional host) and giving Triforce and others a platform to hurl as many rocks at others as possible. This is far from a niche opinion. This is what those guys are KNOWN for. EVERYWHERE. Larry might be tight with James or something, and that's cool, but we've gotta think about the kind of "help" that we ask for. We coulda reached out to UltraChen instead. I'm just saying.
Look at it this way, and imagine that this is just the perspective of an average tournament goer who goes to Final Round and CEO every year and who doesn't have much insight into the behind-the-scenes drama:
"Well, Final Round is always really hype, but sometimes it's a mess and this year it was kind of a bigger mess than usual. CEO is also really hype, and it's always a well-oiled machine. The CEO guy criticized Final Round for being run poorly, and even though it might not have been the most professional criticism, everything he said was true. But then the Final Round guy, instead of addressing how he was going to solve those issues, just dug in his heels and said that the other guy was out to get him and then went on a show whose only function seems to be making more enemies. It just looks like they can't accept criticism and I don't have much hope that they're gonna change."
It's just... not good. Sometimes there are battles that you cannot win, and the best course of action is to just not fight those battles. We have to stop looking at professional criticism as if it's a personal attack (even if it actually IS personal and the guy is just trying to make it LOOK professional), and our reflex cannot be to respond with personal attacks in kind. We hurt ourselves when we do it. SRK is not out to bury us. Most of these other TOs who have criticized the event are not out to bury us.
I went for a lot longer on that last bit than I wanted to, but I had to get it all out.