Chris Hardwick

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Famous person: blogger, podcaster, founder of Nerdist, gameshow host, talk show host, Chris Hardwick has pretty much lost his career. Nerdist has scrubbed his info from their site that he founded as if he is no longer the founder. Does this make sense? I could see them taking out any positive things and profiles and just listing his name for historical purposes as an alternative? Now most recently he has lost his job with AMC for the show Talking. I think a lot of actors he was going to interview no longer wanted to interview with him. Likewise, a lot of companies do not want to advertise with him. There is a lot of freedom at play and people are free to make those associations freely.

However, the proximate cause of all this is his ex-girlfriend Chloe Dykstra wrote some things about him online, which made him seem like an a-hole. She also seemed to accuse him of sexual abuse though she is very quick to cover it in her writing. She wrote that she often didn't want to have sex but Hardwick told her to anyway. The writing seems, to me, to be a little irrational or maybe emotionally immature as she felt coerced/forced by Hardwick in many ways about his terms of the relationship. For example, she says her best friend was a male. And she says Chris Hardwick made a policy (forcing her) that she couldn't be alone with her male best friend. The reason I say that seems weird is I think in an equal relationship that a person has to perceive themselves as an equal partner and negotiate such things. So she could have simply said back, "no," or "I will meet him in public places to compromise." Hardwick also accuses his ex-girlfriend of cheating on him multiple times, which I guess would have been the reason for the Relationship Agreement. And Hardwick denies sexual assault. Of course the root cause of the issue could be Hardwick and abusive things he did, but overall, this sounds like a he said/she said situation.

Now going back to the career issue. His career seems over. Somehow, this doesn't seem fair based on a he said/she said situation. But on the other hand, everyone is free to associate as they please. My question is should those persons base their decisions of association in a different way, using some other burden of evidence as their guide? If you think they ought to behave differently, then what burden of evidence should they operate under? What about if being around him now makes them uncomfortable? Or more likely, what if it is a simple financial decision where they would be losing money by associating with him? Or do you think everything is as it should be? Or do you think charges should be filed against Hardwick immediately because of the allegations?

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Or more likely, what if it is a simple financial decision where they would be losing money by associating with him?

Yes, this is most likely the case. And unless she has some actual evidence and actual charges are pressed against him and this isn't just her slandering him, he should sue her for damages.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

This is a tough one, in that it's nearly impossible to independently corroborate from what I've so far read (which is her account and his denial). I went through a very bad break up way back in the day, where my then fiance cheated on me three months after saying, "Yes." I could very easily paint her in a terrible light based on actual experiences we had together (not just in that end phase, but going back over the prior three years of our relationship). Would it be a complete and accurate picture of her as a person at that time in her life? Of course not. It would be my biased (and bitter) narrative of how I perceived everything, naturally making me out to be the victim (because I actually was; she did cheat on me and gaslighted me for several months while still cheating on me).

That, of course, is the problem with purely anecdotal evidence. It can't help but be biased, because it's one person's selective perspective on past events. Always. It isn't possible to give an unbiased account. We always see ourselves in the best light, even in cases where people have low self esteem. It's just an automatic process.

So, if you were to ask my ex, would she have justified her cheating on me in a favorable to her light? Of course. Would it be accurate? How could any of you--who weren't there and don't know me or her--possibly verify such a thing?

 

[dismal]

Or do you think charges should be filed against Hardwick immediately because of the allegations?

Criminal charges and "the court of public opinion" are two different things. Nobody says public opinion has to be fair or reasonable. Often it isn't.

 

[Mumbles]

Some additional info:

A remarkable number of people, upon hearing Kykstra's story in which she did not name anyone, stepped up and said "Oh she means Hardwick, I saw some of that happening." I also note that The Nerdist has been quietly distancing themselves from him for a while, and were remarkably quick with their statement. One one hand, good for them in denouncing his behavior, but on the other...well, they were remarkably fast to do so. So it's not really just "He said, she said".

Does this shock me? Not really. Quite a few people have taken "nerd" to mean "proud misogynist", as we've seen in video games, comic books, movie franchises (GhostBusters, the MCU, and Star Wars - they tried with Star Trek recently but the Trekkies immediately laughed them out like Pee Wee at the Alamo, likely because a bunch of pictures of Ferengi thrown in their faces) And even Magic: the Gathering.

Hardwick himself, like many of these guys, will likely bounce back at some point. He started from wealth and built up a brand, so he could easily make a comeback if he desired to, particularly since prosecution of any sort seems unlikely. Could it be different this time? Of course, sure. But, all things considered, I'm not all that bothered by him temporarily being dropped by this or that show.

 

[repoman]

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

... unless she has some actual evidence and actual charges are pressed against him and this isn't just her slandering him, he should sue her for damages.

Do you think that a victim's statement is not evidence? I think it's evidence but not proof and possibly not completely true. Do you think the mere presence of a victim's statement is equivalent to slander without corroboration? I don't. So it isn't clear to me what you mean about him suing her. How would that work?

 

[Derec]

So it's not really just "He said, she said".

Oh, yes it is. #metoo has become a way to destroy a man's life with nothing but accusations, with zero evidence.

It's getting more and more ridiculous and something has to happen to restore some semblance of sanity here.

 

[Derec]

Do you think that a victim's statement is not evidence?

Why do you assume she is a "victim"? That's prejudicial. She is an angry ex-girlfriend smearing her ex-boyfriend. I see no reason why we should assume it is truthful.

I think it's evidence but not proof and possibly not completely true.

So you think she may be lying but that she is still a victim?

If she is lying it is definitely defamation and he should be able to sue her for damages, which are substantial.

 

[Derec]

Women are such bitches!

 

[repoman]

So let's assume that this is a fairly accurate assessment by Dykstra, what should she have done? Doing nothing seems not enough as it were.

If Hardwick actually torched her career (note that her projects really wound down a year after the breakup, which makes sense given production time) that seems legally actionable.

But, let's say that a random person for example had not been abusive related to sex, but had done stuff that seems financially scummy or had some other type of severe ethical lapses. Should that be on blogs? Should that lead to being dropped by shows?

 

[blastula]

She says she has video and audio evidence, if Hardwick were to sue her.

 

[Toni]

Famous person: blogger, podcaster, founder of Nerdist, gameshow host, talk show host, Chris Hardwick has pretty much lost his career. Nerdist has scrubbed his info from their site that he founded as if he is no longer the founder. Does this make sense? I could see them taking out any positive things and profiles and just listing his name for historical purposes as an alternative? Now most recently he has lost his job with AMC for the show Talking. I think a lot of actors he was going to interview no longer wanted to interview with him. Likewise, a lot of companies do not want to advertise with him. There is a lot of freedom at play and people are free to make those associations freely.

However, the proximate cause of all this is his ex-girlfriend Chloe Dykstra wrote some things about him online, which made him seem like an a-hole. She also seemed to accuse him of sexual abuse though she is very quick to cover it in her writing. She wrote that she often didn't want to have sex but Hardwick told her to anyway. The writing seems, to me, to be a little irrational or maybe emotionally immature as she felt coerced/forced by Hardwick in many ways about his terms of the relationship. For example, she says her best friend was a male. And she says Chris Hardwick made a policy (forcing her) that she couldn't be alone with her male best friend. The reason I say that seems weird is I think in an equal relationship that a person has to perceive themselves as an equal partner and negotiate such things. So she could have simply said back, "no," or "I will meet him in public places to compromise." Hardwick also accuses his ex-girlfriend of cheating on him multiple times, which I guess would have been the reason for the Relationship Agreement. And Hardwick denies sexual assault. Of course the root cause of the issue could be Hardwick and abusive things he did, but overall, this sounds like a he said/she said situation.

Now going back to the career issue. His career seems over. Somehow, this doesn't seem fair based on a he said/she said situation. But on the other hand, everyone is free to associate as they please. My question is should those persons base their decisions of association in a different way, using some other burden of evidence as their guide? If you think they ought to behave differently, then what burden of evidence should they operate under? What about if being around him now makes them uncomfortable? Or more likely, what if it is a simple financial decision where they would be losing money by associating with him? Or do you think everything is as it should be? Or do you think charges should be filed against Hardwick immediately because of the allegations?

You nailed the part about 'in an equal relationship.' It sounds as though it was not an equal relationship.

Of course it's a he said/she said situation. Assume that everything that Dykstra wrote in her blog is factually accurate: I'm pretty sure that he never saw/still doesn't see anything terribly wrong with how he treated her. I'm sure that he doesn't see anything he did as sexual assault or abusive or overly controlling but as necessary for him to have the life he wanted to have. And that she was damn lucky to have him. I'm also sure she isn't perfect, either.

What I really hope comes out of the #MeToo and #TimesUp is that women start to stand up for themselves in all aspects of all of their relationships, work, personal, romantic, sexual. And also that we learn to separate the person from whatever talent/accomplishment we wish to venerate them for. Respect and even admire the work but don't lose sight of the fact that the person is just a person, and flawed. And should not be given a pass because they are accomplished.

 

[laughing dog]

Do you think that a victim's statement is not evidence?

Why do you assume she is a "victim"? That's prejudicial. She is an angry ex-girlfriend smearing her ex-boyfriend. I see no reason why we should assume it is truthful.

She claims to be a victim. I see no reason to assume she is smearing anyone or lying about anything.

So you think she may be lying but that she is still a victim?

Anyone can still be a victim even if his/her story is not 100% accurate. And if someone's story is not 100% accurate, it may not be due to a deliberate distortion - it could simply be a faulty memory. So why do you jump to the accusation of lying?

 

[Toni]

So it's not really just "He said, she said".

Oh, yes it is. #metoo has become a way to destroy a man's life with nothing but accusations, with zero evidence.

It's getting more and more ridiculous and something has to happen to restore some semblance of sanity here.

Did you read Underseer's post? Dykstra's piece did not identify Hardwick. He was identified by others who witnessed some of what she wrote about.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Did you read Underseer's post? Dykstra's piece did not identify Hardwick. He was identified by others who witnessed some of what she wrote about.

Yes, and if this was "a way to destroy a woman's life with nothing but accusations," he'd consider it sufficient corroboration.
But this is a man's life being destroyed by a woman. So it's just he said/she said.

 

[Toni]

Do you think that a victim's statement is not evidence?

Why do you assume she is a "victim"? That's prejudicial. She is an angry ex-girlfriend smearing her ex-boyfriend. I see no reason why we should assume it is truthful.

Aside from Hardwick being identified by third parties who recognized incidents that they had witnessed themselves and then identifying Hardwick while Dykstra did not name her ex?

I think it's evidence but not proof and possibly not completely true.

So you think she may be lying but that she is still a victim?

If she is lying it is definitely defamation and he should be able to sue her for damages, which are substantial.

In any incident, ever, there is more than one point of view. When one writes from one's own point of view this does not mean one is lying. I'm sure that Hardwick has a different take on events. But I don't think he lost his job because someone identified him from an online essay that took care not to name him. Just as I'm sure that Keillor wasn't ditched by NPR because some woman said something bad about him: he was known to be a dick to people. Also, he was old and probably near to outliving his usefulness to NPR.

 

[prideandfall]

Aside from Hardwick being identified by third parties who recognized incidents that they had witnessed themselves and then identifying Hardwick while Dykstra did not name her ex?

to be completely fair, just because she didn't write the words "chris hardwick" in her post doesn't mean she didn't CLEARLY identify chris hardwick by every means feasible aside from actually putting those letters in that order - so it's not really reasonable to say he was just this formless unknown until third parties started chiming in, and that's before you even get into the fact that the only reason dykstra is known by anyone outside of an extremely niche group of people who follow cosplaying and its orbital bodies is because she was dating hardwick in the firstplace... that is irrelevant to the point of her story, but is one more reason that "duh, this is obviously chris hardwick" is the only conclusion anyone could possibly draw from her post.

anyways...

i had a long discussion that occasionally drifted into being an argument with a female friend this weekend on this issue, because frankly if we take her at her word over what happened the vast majority of what she talks about didn't seem abusive to me.
dickish, sure, but not abusive... because that shit wouldn't have worked on someone who just said "oh fuck that" and then walked away - the fact that it only happened because she willingly made herself his doormat kind of makes the whole situation sound like a low-level douchebag lucking into dating a high functioning punching bag, and the anecdotes she relate sound to me like the natural and inevitable result of that.

on the flip side, if your chosen career has you in the public sphere, and thus your employment and employability is predicated on the public wanting to keep seeing your face, you don't get to do dickish things and keep your job - that is just the nature of showbusiness and celebrity.
so i have no sympathy for hardwick losing his career over this even on a he said/she said basis, because if you're even a minor celebrity... don't ever do anything that could be construed as awful, and thoroughly vet people before dating them for possible craziness.
failing to do either of those things puts the blame on the celebrity, IMO.

 

[Toni]

Aside from Hardwick being identified by third parties who recognized incidents that they had witnessed themselves and then identifying Hardwick while Dykstra did not name her ex?

to be completely fair, just because she didn't write the words "chris hardwick" in her post doesn't mean she didn't CLEARLY identify chris hardwick by every means feasible aside from actually putting those letters in that order - so it's not really reasonable to say he was just this formless unknown until third parties started chiming in, and that's before you even get into the fact that the only reason dykstra is known by anyone outside of an extremely niche group of people who follow cosplaying and its orbital bodies is because she was dating hardwick in the firstplace... that is irrelevant to the point of her story, but is one more reason that "duh, this is obviously chris hardwick" is the only conclusion anyone could possibly draw from her post.

anyways...

i had a long discussion that occasionally drifted into being an argument with a female friend this weekend on this issue, because frankly if we take her at her word over what happened the vast majority of what she talks about didn't seem abusive to me.
dickish, sure, but not abusive... because that shit wouldn't have worked on someone who just said "oh fuck that" and then walked away - the fact that it only happened because she willingly made herself his doormat kind of makes the whole situation sound like a low-level douchebag lucking into dating a high functioning punching bag, and the anecdotes she relate sound to me like the natural and inevitable result of that.

on the flip side, if your chosen career has you in the public sphere, and thus your employment and employability is predicated on the public wanting to keep seeing your face, you don't get to do dickish things and keep your job - that is just the nature of showbusiness and celebrity.
so i have no sympathy for hardwick losing his career over this even on a he said/she said basis, because if you're even a minor celebrity... don't ever do anything that could be construed as awful, and thoroughly vet people before dating them for possible craziness.
failing to do either of those things puts the blame on the celebrity, IMO.

A lot hinges on whether it is an equal relationship. Based on age alone, there's a pretty significant age difference between the two. To tell the truth, I had never heard of either of them before this thread... Maybe he was easily recognizable to those who knew either. Maybe they just jumped on board because he was going down so they decided to pile on. No idea.

Yes, in an ideal world, anyone who is being treated badly in a relationship would simply leave. But real life is much more complicated. And it's worse if one person undermines the confidence of the other one so significantly that the non-dominant person doubts themselves and anything they think or want.

 

[repoman]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masashi_Tashiro

This is about a comedian/musician in Japan who got in legal and career trouble for being a voyeur creep. The response is a bit interesting. His comedy partner who did some Benny Hill style "lecherous old man with sexy women" comedy skits said this about him:

Shimura severely criticized former co-star Masashi Tashiro after Tashiro's arrest, saying, "I want that fellow to disappear from the entertainment world because he did a pathetic thing."

Of course, being a Benny Hill type comic is NOT the same as being an IRL voyeur. At any rate, those skits were kind of annoying but his verbal double entendres were brilliant.

Not as an excuse, but I really wonder what alleles Tashiro has for neurotransmitter breakdown/mop-up like MAO-A and MAO-B. Talk about having an addictive personality. He is a jerk and damages other people, but damn it must be hell just being himself.