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The stuff I have learned about Sam Sykes today:
- Groped at least one teenager.
- Sexually aggressive questioning of strangers.
- Told a female writer her success was driving him to therapy.
- Threw another author's book across a room.
And I know I have already forgotten stuff.
- Groped at least one teenager.
- Sexually aggressive questioning of strangers.
- Told a female writer her success was driving him to therapy.
- Threw another author's book across a room.
And I know I have already forgotten stuff.
How quickly this went from "he seems to have awful friends" to "he has apparently supported his awful friends' harassment" to "he is possibly worse than his friends".
Though part of the speed there is that, again, people started sharing stories without naming him, until his name came up later.
I don't know if it's because I am always a peripheral figure in any circle I enter, or if it's my weird aura, or if I have creeps spreading wedge rumors about me, but I am always missed by the whisper networks and feel like I'm among the last to find these things out.
Here he promises to do whatever it takes to make things right, to a person he repeatedly harassed physically and verbally, after apologizing for making cons unsafe.
Reiterating my two cents: accountability at this point would require swearing off cons. https://twitter.com/SamSykesSwears/status/1275941411909591041
Reiterating my two cents: accountability at this point would require swearing off cons. https://twitter.com/SamSykesSwears/status/1275941411909591041
This is not "cancellation". We have a person who seems to have transgressed against multiple people at every convention he has been to, badly, including against minors, newcomers, fans, fellow writers... and he says he wants to do better, but can't even fathom what all he's done
And he's telling everyone he is ready to listen and learn.
What's the difference between someone willing to do that, and someone who just figured out how to say it? From the outside, nothing. How can the people he's hurt and disappointed trust him on that?
What's the difference between someone willing to do that, and someone who just figured out how to say it? From the outside, nothing. How can the people he's hurt and disappointed trust him on that?
If he keeps attending cons, his presence will push the people he's hurt out of the room.
I don't know how we can believe he's willing to change if he won't recognize that.
I don't know how we can believe he's willing to change if he won't recognize that.
I am calling on him as well as Myke Cole to voluntarily abstain from convention spaces. Maybe not forever. I don't know. As I keep saying, I'm not in charge.
But both these guys emphasize that they're willing to do the work while seeming unaware of where the lines actually are.
But both these guys emphasize that they're willing to do the work while seeming unaware of where the lines actually are.
And with those facts together, maybe the place to do the work is at home. Maybe they should focus on their writing and work on themselves.
