An Apology from Editor-in-Chief Russ Pitts

Yesterday was a bad day. It was a reminder that the smallest of actions can have a big impact on everyone.

Yesterday Escapist Magazine published an article by me that many people found offensive, upsetting, or unnecessary. To make matters worse, I said some things on social media that were truly terrible.

To Zoe Quinn and everyone who rightfully admires her resilience in the face of a terrible ordeal: I am genuinely sorry I diminished your experience of abuse. I should not have spoken to you that way. Not in public. Not in private. Not anywhere. I don’t expect your forgiveness. You and your followers deserve to know that I am aware of how horrible I was to you, and that I genuinely regret having those thoughts, much less expressing them.

To all of you who have followed me, supported me, or merely watched me make a fool of myself for decades: I let you down. I’m sorry.

Twitter has traditionally been a release for me, and a place to connect very openly and honestly with followers. It has also been, for better or worse, a place where I vent. But I’m not the person I was 10 years ago. The way I use that platform has to change.

Entering middle age, having built a platform, an audience, multiple organizations, a career, and a name for myself, I’ve realized that the resentment I’ve often allowed to fuel my creative drive really isn’t a great thing to have in my life. It’s definitely not something I should allow to control me. I have a lot of work to do figuring out how to make that adjustment. Acknowledging to you all that I know I can do better is a necessary first step.

I won’t go into too much detail about our reasoning for publishing “the article” or the weeks of work the editorial team spent trying to ensure it would add value to the conversation rather than be yet another flashpoint for Escapist. We had good intentions. I personally felt that we had to at least reference the painful events of 2014, not in spite of but because of this website’s role in them. Ultimately I was wrong, and the article was simply not the right thing for us to publish at this time.

Some of you knew that. Some of you told me that. Not hearing you is also on me. And again, I’m sorry.

I’m going to be off Twitter for some time. I’ll have more to say soon about the future, and how I and Escapist Magazine will learn and grow from all of this in the days ahead. I love you all.