“Once I joined the BuzzFeed crew, I felt reduction. Right here was a tradition that gave me the house to simply be. I lastly felt secure at work, and I relaxed. Think about my shock when BuzzFeed, my secure haven, printed a joke about punching a girl. I perceive there is a knuckle sandwich development on TikTok, however like… that is not even how we utilized the joke, and was it even a joke as a development? It appears so small, would not it, a knuckle sandwich joke. However there’s a HISTORY of being threatened with violence. ALL WOMEN know violence. The joke is greater than simply the joke. It performs proper right into a tradition that we have now actively fought in opposition to. My belief in my firm has faltered, and my secure haven now has a crack. I do not need us to neglect this occurred. I do not need it to be swept beneath the rug. That is not who we’re at BuzzFeed. I need extra apologies. I need groveling. If that is really a mistake, and we’re really sorry (us staff are!), then we have to do extra as an organization to convey that to our followers and everybody who trusted and seemed as much as us as a supply of fact and pleasure. It is not sufficient to attempt to do higher sooner or later. We must be higher proper now.”
—BuzzFeed worker
