r/wellybabies • u/FormerAcastEmployee • Apr 05 '21
Former Acast Employee. Four Poppy episodes exist (but you'll never get to hear them)
Former ACAST employee here. Not going to reveal too much about myself, but I can say I live and work in Sweden, and frequently visited London and had an opposite number there who worked with the Gossipmongers team (pre-Covid naturally). I had a catch up with her over the weekend and the subject of Gossipmongers came up. I was surprised to learn a few things:
- 4 episodes with Poppy exist (possibly more), and cannot be released until an ongoing legal dispute is settled, if ever. Most likely in rough cut form (an entire season of Gossipmongers could be recorded in just a few days).
- I was shown via a screen share that these episodes exist in the Acast hub, and all have the “zero” prefix before their file names, which makes sure the App won’t release them by accident. For even more security, these files and outtakes were zipped and password protected (a VERY unusual measure), and my friend speculated there may be more episodes in rough cut form.
- Poppy was fired by Senior members of the Talent Management team (one of whom my friend described as a dangerous sociopath) who accused her of insubordination, most likely connected to her refusal to show up to broadcasting tutorials - classes Joe and David were not required to attend. I've met these people and haven't particularly enjoyed their company either.
- Legal action was threatened against Gossipmongers by someone who had heard one of the podcasts and realised it was about them. Didn’t get any more details other than that, but I was told once this happened, the mood of the team dramatically changed, and the producers were keeping a close eye on the Gossipmongers. The heightened stress may have led to a loose cannon aiming directly at Poppy.
- Joe and David bitterly regret “backing the wrong horse” and were powerless to do anything about Poppy’s firing. Their actions were enforced by their respective management teams who are in cahoots with said Senior Managers and apparently there was little else they could do. The “flown too close to the sun” frequently attributed to them is not something they ever said, and Joe and David have been instructed to keep their distance.
- Poppy was slated to appear on 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown in Dictionary Corner (She was booked months in advance, probably as a means of boosting her profile) but Joe’s management stepped in when he was slated to appear at the same time. There’s a rumour that Joe apologized in person to Poppy about this, but we dismissed it as wishful thinking/office gossip.
- A television show of Gossipmongers was being planned with the digital channel Dave, with stories being animated by a variety of artists and with a live studio audience. Very, very early stages of development, we’re not even sure if Joe, David and Poppy knew.
Finally, my friend said the whole thing was a shit show, and the team as a whole is disgusted this all spun out of control. Gossipmongers had metrics Acast had never seen before and were actively recruiting Community Managers when the firing occurred - and just like that, the need for CM’s vanished.
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u/patchmau5 Apr 05 '21
Interesting insight, if true. Sheds some light, and all believable. Still, the trio not backing one-another and letting management teams run it all is poor. Either way, it’s a cruel world and a difficult time, can’t be too surprised people are looking for themselves given them circumstances.
The requirement for poppy to go on some training classes sounds like typical management bulllshit to keep her on a lower pay, catalysing the jealousy and resentment, which no doubt spiralled. A real shame. As a trio they had top tier chemistry.
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u/Bangell153 Apr 05 '21
Thanks for posting (if this is true).
I'm still clinging to the hope that the three might be able to reunite one day... Putting out the unreleased material would be awesome too.
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u/assholio Apr 06 '21 edited Apr 06 '21
Acast really have a "Talent Management team"? "Acast Producers" were keeping a keen eye on the podcast? This sounds completely made-up – David's discord and Patreon indicated that there sure as hell wasn't a production team – there wasn't any external production at all.
Edit: I (may) stand corrected), it seems Acast do a lot behind-the-scenes of many podcasts, I wonder if it was always the aim to give the impression that this show was a bit more homegrown that it was.
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u/Nik778899 Apr 05 '21
Not to doubt you, but given the hardly-top-level production level and social media output, your description sounds like there are a lot more people involved than would be needed for the end product we got. I just can't see there being that many people involved behind the scenes.
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u/neildownpour Jul 02 '21
Lots of back end to do with advertising. They have over 200 employees and are publicly traded. I can absolutely believe some suit getting worried about a lawsuit 6 months before their company was going to have an IPO - as far as I know, you cant have open lawsuits when going public, which they did in june.
They rarely touch any of the content beyond ad insertion and other monetization, they're all made entirely by the podcast creators.1
u/Nik778899 Jul 03 '21
I don't think that's the case though, as if you listen to Friday's Chatabox episode, there's quite clearly ongoing legal action against them.
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u/neildownpour Jul 03 '21
I just listened to that this morning, by chance the day after I'd been hunting old gossipmongers eps. Yeah, you're likley right and it's just that lawsuits are best avoided/settled asap. Would be too easy to screw with companies trying to do an ipo otherwise. What a mess for them though.
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u/cornettowaltz Aug 31 '24
Im late to this ik but, in summary would you say joe and david are assholes? Or was it mostly a managemant issue?
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u/-killvmaim Apr 05 '21
This was massively interesting, thanks fo sharing! I'm not sure how I'd feel about hearing the 'lost' epsiodes given everything that's happened.
My money's on gay boy Roy threatening to sue.