Verum: Doing The Right Thing

There's discrimination in all shape and colors, we all are very aware of that.

What gobsmacks me the most is why would a, mostly e-commerce based vendor, sabotage himself this way. This is so deep down the absurdity hole that there's no getting out. Why? Like is not bad enough to have negativity towards jews/blacks/asians (which is the biggest problem from the get-go) but you still go out of your way to expose this and potentially destroy your livelihood?! Even more so after you already (quite successfully i might add) lied yourself out of a previous precarious situation??? This is beyond me.

So many wrongs with this type of character that i can't even process it. I have been thinking about this since this all situation became exposed and i can't even...

You are making absolutely no sense with that post. These were public statements, repeatedly. This is a closed community and the moderation/administration is using their own principles, and rules, to keep certain mentalities out of here. It's their choice and it's our choice to be here or leave.

It's also a choice what to, or not to, buy and when you have information about the seller, being big or small. You vote with your wallet and your support (or lack off) is based on your actions. These are not just "some words online", this is a (very sad) statement, a position, a state of mind and you are sharing it to the world and, as consumers, we can as well impact the company, or the individual behind the company, as you could do with any of those "palm oil" companies. Sometimes you, as an individual, can't make a big enough impact but you are doing your part, according to your principles. There's not much of a double standard here.

 

How about not involving politics and social matters into your business in the first place? it's bad for the business no matter what side of the fence you're at.
I see a lot of the western companies do that too and I think it's bad for the business and also unethical to use your power to spread and enforce political/social ideologies, aka fancy and modern propaganda.

 

Is incredibly hard to understand for me, how someone smart enough to build not one, but many batches of headphones from scratch, himself alone, and by all accounts not just good, but of great quality (which is something incredibly difficult) can be such a racist, mentally one dimensional and dumb air headed asshole.

I mean, this kind of stupid behavior is expected from people that doesn't do shit and just criticizes from the couch with a bag of Cheetos spilled all over the chest...but from someone smart enough to successfully (albeit for a short period of time) start an audio brand from nothing? Come on, this is very sad, I respected him for his achievements, and that changed in seconds seeing those screenshots. What a perdedor.

 

I feel really sad about this. I was never in the market for the 'phones, but liked the look of what he was doing and how he was doing it, and was personally supportive right from the beginning. It sucks to be so wrong about a guy being decent.

Bipolar disorder, or worse, springs to mind. Not excuses, and there isn't an excuse: a person has to be very sick before they are no longer responsible for what they say and do.

 

Cross cultural sensitivity/respecting people/not being a racist dick is not politics

 

Expertise in one area does not preclude someone from being an idiot in another area.

 

Sure, you're 100% right, but being a normal human being and not a racist jackass is not an "area of expertise", but common sense and education. I expect someone smart to excel in one area full of nuances and technicism to have common sense. Of course, I'm wrong, because he's both an expert and an idiot at the same time, is just...surprising, I didn't expect it.

 

In our neck of the woods - here at SBAF, most of western Europe, NA and the rest of the English speaking axis {Australia/New Zealand, etc.}. Not in the Ukraine, Eastern Europe, or for that matter much (most?) of the rest of the world. Strong egalitarianism is just not part of most cultures throughout history. The internet and "globalism" are are perhaps mostly the export of our western world view, but is it necessarily so....

In any case this battle is won right? This particular case of racism has been thoroughly condemned and the offender(s) purged to the outer darkness. I say put down the pitchforks and think about what has been lost for our niche hobby if nothing else.

 

Simple gut response: Good riddance. The hobby is better off with this virus who lacks any integrity.

Rational response: This hobby hasn't lost anything. You can still buy his headphone and unless some notable youtuber mentions this, this probably won't affect him that much. A member who verbally attacks another members family should be swiftly banned not to mention after these recent events (which I question is cultural difference rather than racism but it shouldn't spill into one's INTERNATIONAL business).

 

Banning first and asking questions later is premature and communistic first secretary @zerodeefex . Hear my whole argument then hit the kill switch. Joking aside...

Fair enough, yet there's a distinction many fail to realise. In the US this is racism, no questions asked, in eastern Europe it's normal every day swearing no one bats an eye to.
One of the reasons I was forced to leave my still beloved home country, too many assholes and the normality of acting like a jackass or using violence to enforce a point of view. I grew up 50 miles from the Ukrainian border and while I don't pretend to know what our Verum creator was thinking his behaviour is so relatable I may know why so many don't understand it.

-Racism doesn't exist in former soviet countries, tribal culture yes. Everyone was fucked by the system, a heavy swearing culture is everywhere, nothing is off-limits, f**k you is puny and laughable, we often without hesitation send death threats especially to the individual's mother or near relative, grave profanity is common and general specific and descriptive penetration. Hard behaviour to relate with in first world countries.
You guys hear racism, I hear swearing due to discontent. The expected response is to retaliate with the same level of swearing and move on. No one holds the I'm offended banner because no one cares, you're expected to move on. Just because the US is racial tension central doesn't mean every other culture is the same. This is the fault of garuspic for not catering to his customer's culture.
-For business purposes one is restrained and polite. Has he ever said anything offensive on SBAF? Not that I'm aware of because that's what needs to be done. For business one is restrained as expected, privately it's up to each individual yet there's no surprise if one is a full blown asshole.
-Verum one is a successful product backed by the founder, this doesn't have any impact even if many, many audio companies deliver shitty products with very poor support.

I don't think Garuspik was intentionally racist in the way most think of it, that doesn't mean it's any less wrong yet being made some sort of villain is overblown and not warranted.

Where SBAF is being unreasonable
-Recommending LH labs products->GOV2 even when there was irrefutable evidence they intentionally stole millions from customers on a scam yet that didn't make it any worse as a product, still have one myself(one of the large companies I was referring to for large scamms).
-Friend tags/MOT only having meaning in certain cases and for certain people.
-Cancel culture is so prevalent I'd expect better from us and having at least some arguments posted here before banning instead of relying on posts from other websites.
-Other audio company founders acting like assholes on other websites yet just Verum is called out in this fashion...

Absolutely, yet one is causing issue to one person at a time and the other to millions at once, so the deed has million of time less impact.

Since when is Discord public? Many consumers don't know it exists, you need a specific link, half public at most but it's not Facebook is it?

BLM consideration has no place on SBAF or any other community that's not politically orientated. Politics can suck my dick.

 

I am not defending the asshole, but clearly some of his garbage is related/rooted to political, cultural and social differences and involving that into your business is just a bad idea. Let alone a mostly e-commerce business!.

 

you cannot associate this to cultural differences, come on. I have dealt with several audio vendors from Ukraine in the past year - none of them engaged in anything close to this kind of behavior. I even read their comments in smaller Russian forums about religion, ideology - again nothing even close to this. I did not grow up in eastern europe but our company has offices in Kiev and Kharkiv, I interact with Ukranian engineers and support personnel daily - this idea that this kind of crassness is part of the culture is honestly ridiculous.

the only comparison you could possibly draw due to culture is that Ukraine is ethnically homogeneous and so someone blurting out these statements may not understand their implications to others. but even then this has nothing to do with culture, it has to do with a lack of emotional and social maturity. he can have a brilliant technical mind and intellect but be possessed by nonsensical and harmful ideologies - ones that he was already called out for before and denied responsibility of. this shows he does not have shame in his actions until they impact his profit, and others are free to judge him for that.

trying to draw parallels between this situation and the current political unrest in the world is really silly.

 

I see just clash of different culture norms. Most of you can't understand post-Soviet culture same way as Garupsik can't understand BLM movement.
As for Garupsik being not so friendly person to customers - I got my 6 dislikes on this forum when I brought it up when Verum were first introduced. So everyone was OK with that then, but suddenly not now.

 

I mentioned my friendship with Max to be completely transparent and because I do not like to withhold information. I acknowledge because of my friendship and Max being the source of the pics in the Imgur that I am likely not impartial and likely do hold a slight bias in this case.

I will personally say, I had not watched the video review of the Verum that Max made and have not spoken to him about this subject. To my knowledge, he did I spoke to him yesterday about something unrelated and he did not ask me to post this, I posted this on my own accord. And from what I understand, Max did delist the video last night.

I posted the pictures and my explanation here because I found the content of what Garu wrote to be wrong. I wanted to provide some context to those who like me last year saw the gaspasser thread and only saw that.

If you see my actions as trying to cancel Garu then I can't help that. I had asked multiple times in the past if Max or others wanted to share the pictures and screenshots which they had plenty more. At this point the damage is done. He is banned here and on head fi, his reputation is in the shitter on reddit.

If he does want to learn from his actions and become a better person, he should try to own up to his words and make a true apology and show that he will change. If not, then I think he will have bear the responsibility of his words which he made no effort to hide.

 

It’s really sad, and I think Garuspik’s online comments are unacceptable. Especially when he is try to build an online business, targeting a global crowd.

In the other hand unfortunately I think I know where he is coming from. Growing up in the eastern side of europe, 90% of the people I’ve met talked like him (escpecially guys) Even my grandparents, my dad, my friend’s dad, my teachers, our celebrities, our politicians, most people over 50. I think I heard a racist joke or comment almost every day in my life, half of that in the national TV. Fortunately most people can’t speak english, so they are not polluting international forums. But the local forums are full of racism, much worse than Garuspik’s. Even more so recently, that the USA is more represented in the news than usually. Racist comments are just much more socially accepted, than in the western world.
(When I took my asian girlfriend home a few years ago to introduce her to my parents, cars would stop next to us on the street, just to throw racist comments to us...)

Of course it’s not an excuse, and not everyone is like that.
What I wanted to say is, that he might not even know what everyone’s problem is with his attitude. (or whats wrong with it)
I do think he tried hard to filter himself on this site to comply with the norms here.
Edit: I do think nothing would change after giving him an other chance. He might avoid using some words here, but would use them on other sites.