Yogscast CEO resigns after sexual harassment allegations
Yogscast CEO Mark “Turps” Turpin has resigned from the gaming Twitch and YouTube company after allegations of sexual harassment. The news comes a little over a week after the company terminated Matthew “CaffCast” Meredith over separate sexual exploitation allegations.
After Meredith was cut loose, Yogscast co-founder Lewis Brindley asked on Twitter for people to message him about any bad experiences with a member of the staff. In response to this, a woman alleged that Turpin had asked them for nude photos when they were a minor. She posted several screenshots of a conversation between her and Turpin on Twitter. In them, you can see Turpin solicit the pictures on Snapchat.
Hi, just wanted to say if you’ve ever had a negative experience with a content creator or member of staff here at the Yogscast I want to hear about it.
— Lewis Brindley (@YogscastLewis) July 6, 2019
ALSO: Yogscast member Caffcast accused of abusing power to ‘pursue sexual
Turpin announced his resignation on the Yogscast subreddit: “When I recently said we expected the highest levels of professionalism from our talent,” Turpin wrote, “I need to be held to those standards too.”
“I have sent some inappropriate messages to several members of our community and I’m deeply embarrassed about this error of judgement,” he said. The 1.2k comment thread is full of cordial community members respecting the decision, but noting their disappointment.
In the Reddit thread, Brindley confirmed the news and thanked those who have sent him messages about Yogscast staff members. Bringley said that “we’re looking into some historical claims about [Paul “Sjin” Sykes] and I’ve asked him to step away from the main channel streams in the meantime.”
Turpin had been the CEO of Yogscast since 2012, and the company hasn’t announced who will replace him in the role. The Yogscast is a network of content creators based in Bristol that produce gaming content on Twitch and YouTube. It was created in 2008 by Brindley and Simon Lane and has exploded in popularity since then. Alongside the Yogscast, Turpin also is the director of Keymailer, a game code distribution platform for content creators and game developers.
[Image credit: Turps YouTube]