Sweet Baby Inc. employee Chris Kindred allegedly contacted YouTuber Smash JT’s former employer in an attempt to get him fired.
Angrboda in God of War: Ragnarok (2022), Sony Santa Monica
Kindred is one of the two Sweet Baby Inc. employees that attempted to cancel Brazilian gamer KabrutusRambo for creating a Steam curator list that documented all the games that Sweet Baby Inc. worked on that are available for Steam.
Kindred wrote on X at the end of February, “The Steam curator harassment group Sweet Baby Inc detected is lead by this person, kabrutusrambo. Here’s them trying to be slick so they don’t get reported. Even with the discriminatory language filed off, the group itself still fails the code of conduct.”
Chris Kindred on X
Kindred added, “anyway report the f*** out of this group.”
Chris Kindred on X
Finally, Kindred called for the cancelling of KabrutusRambo’s Steam account, which is tantamount to theft, “And report the creator since he loves his account so much.”
Chris Kindred on X
Now, YouTuber Smash JT details that Kindred contacted his former employer in an attempt to get him fired, “He reached out to a company where I had worked for and said that ‘I am harassing and have started a website collecting a non-white audience.’ I don’t know, Chris, I think this is easily disprovable if you go to my website and see that there’s nothing illegal here even though you tried to get my website taken down and did for like 36 hours. There’s nothing that’s not public information. This is all readily apparent.”
He later detailed that he contacted “a place of work of mine that I was at like three years ago, okay. And these people they’re very busy people. They have professional jobs. They’re working hard. Do some research before you start doing stuff like this. But you leave these messages and you think it’s not going to get back to me. I don’t know. Maybe you thought it would be anonymous even though you left your name and your phone number, which is the same number you list on the website, which is how I know it’s you.”
“I don’t know what you were thinking and why you thought this was a good idea, but this is going to come back full force on you. You are the bad guy in this situation. You don’t do stuff like this. I don’t know how else to tell you this,” he added.
Jeff aka Smash JT via Smash JT YouTube
Still later, Smash JT stated, “You are trying to get people fired. You are proactively calling people, asking for them to call back, verifying employment status, verifying why they did things, asking about the website, talking about harassment and potential racism and how it’s made for a non-white audience.”
He also added, “You’re trying to get people fired because you’re trying to justify your position that does not need to exist in the video game industry.”
Screenshot from Tales of Kenzera: ZAU (2024), Surgent Studios
As noted by Smash JT, his website was targeted by Second Wind Editor-in-Chief Nick Calandra at the end of May. Calandra announced he was targeting the website writing, “As it was rightfully pointed out to me, and he is refusing to take down the page, has continued to add more names to it. It needs to be taken down. So please continue reporting to Wix as I am. I’m still waiting for their response.”
Nick Calandra on X
In a number of follow-ups he added, “I’m back on Smash JT’s list because I was continuing to actively work to get it taken down via Wix for continuing to promote a list of targeted harassment. I told him he needed to take it down over email due to real threats made against people on it, and he refused.”
“I am not spending another week tweeting about this baloney, I have ACTUAL work to do. I will be actively working to take this list down this week, and once again, I suggest you do the same. I’m done messing around with these guys,” he said.
Nick Calandra on X
Calandra continued, “Here’s the link – smashjt.com/kotaku-detected – and I suggest ou keep tagging Wix and Wix Help until they take action for breaking their terms of service against targeted harassment. I’m working to talk with a real person there as soon as tomorrow.”
He concluded, “These guys will never stop doing this unless you go after their funding sources. If you follow me and see what’s happening here, I’m asking you to help me stop this before someone gets hurt. Not make jokes about, not dunk on them, it needs to be reported.”
Nick Calandra on X
The website would eventually be shut down sometime between the evening on May 26th and the morning of May 27th with Wix informing Smash JT, “Your site was disabled due to privacy violation. According to our Terms of Use you are not allowed to display information (names, family information, pictures) of any private individual without their prior consent. Wix is obligated to remove such infringing content immediately with or without a notice to the user. Please let us know if you have questions.”
Screenshot of Wix’s explanation for why Smashjt.com was shut down.
However, after Smash JT contacted Wix, the company restored the website. He reported, “The later correspondence I got with Wix, they said the information that I provided to them was investigated and that they cleared me of any wrongdoing and they have approved the website of going back up.”
He also indicated that he plans to move the site away from Wix despite it being restored, “I am going to be migrating it and backing it up and duplicating it now. Don’t worry about that.”
What do you make of Chris Kindred allegedly trying to contact a former employee of Smash JT to get him fired?
