Gamers Nexus calls out Linus Tech Tips’ “disrespectful” response to Honey drama

Gamers Nexus is filing a class-action lawsuit against Honey, vowing to fight against the app and sue the company amid allegations they “scammed” creators, viewers, and vendors.

However, during a small segment of his lengthy video on the subject, Gamers Nexus frontman Steve Burke called out Linus personally for his response to MegaLag’s accusations.

MegaLag, the original person who opened this can of worms on Honey, called out Linus and claimed that he knew about the problem and should have been more public about it. Linus countered by claiming that there were others who reported on the issue, and that he wasn’t aware that it allegedly affected consumers in the manner that MegaLag and other detractors claim it does.

Burke was very critical of Linus’ response, claiming that it was “unbelievably disrespectful” and lambasting the creator over his treatment of the problem.

Gamers Nexus calls out Linus Tech Tips

In a video explaining why he’s suing Honey, Gamers Nexus included a section about Linus and addressed his response due to his comments having a “direct conflict with this entire video and our beliefs at GN.”

He followed this by playing a brief clip about Linus’ stance on the topic where the tech creator claimed that, if he were to make a video about Honey, he’d be “hanging from the nearest tree”.

“Well, that’s the video we’re making right now,” Burke claimed. “If that were to result in backlash like he thinks it would, then so be it. Because we think it’s the right thing to do. We’re not gonna have this mentality where, just because something would disproportionately be less impactful to us these days at our size, we don’t talk about it. It would benefit us, but that’s not how we’re gonna do things here.

“It’s just unbelievably disrespectful to all the solo people and all the small companies who are affected by this, especially in a disproportionately bad way. This is an area where I fundamentally disagree with LMG Linus’ take on the situation. He’s free to have his opinion, but we feel his opinion is harmful to the consumer and is harmful to newer reviewers and consumer advocates. We haven’t forgotten where we came from.”

This wouldn’t be the first time Gamers Nexus called out Linus Tech Tips. His investigative video calling out Linus’ media empire played a role in Linus Media Group doing sweeping internal investigations and making company-wide changes.

Although, according to Linus, a large portion of the company-wide changes made were a result of him stepping down as CEO. He gave the keys to Terren Tong in May 2023 in an effort to improve operations at the company and create a better workspace for his employees.

And, though LTT halted production for a time after GN’s video, many of the changes made were already underway months before Burke and co’s video calling them out.

Additionally, the clip shown in Gamers Nexus’ Honey video isn’t all Linus had to say on the topic. There is more context to be had from the episode of the WAN show in which he pulled the clip from.

Linus Tech Tips’ side of the story

The opening of January 3, 2025’s WAN show started with Linus himself saying, “I did a terrible job of handling this segment last week, which is, you know, par for the course for me,” he joked before going into a bit more depth on the topic.

He reiterated that, though he had a hunch Honey was hijacking his affiliate links, he had no idea the extent to which it also affected the consumer. He also conceded that making a video could have helped other creators, but explained why he opted not to.

“In hindsight, it is possible that, if we had made a video three years ago, it could have saved creators some money. Given that the vast majority of creators, however, stopped working with them around that same time, I don’t know that for sure. What I do know is that, if we made that video, it might not have gone very well for us.”

His co-host Luke cut in to give some additional context, explaining that they were talking with other creators and that they were all distancing themselves from Honey.

“At that time, yeah, ok, we could have made a video. We were being inundated by links and shares about this from other creators at the time. It didn’t get a crazy amount of views, it didn’t blow up like this,” Luke explained, citing that it was “anti-creator not anti-user” in their eyes.

Linus also provided another hypothetical for why he didn’t make the video and what could have happened if they did.

“Think about it. If I made a video imploring our audience to uninstall an extension that, purportedly – remember, we have to look at it in terms of the information we had at the time – if I told everybody, ‘Uninstall Honey!’, an extension that supposedly gets them a better deal because I wasn’t making enough money from it? Do you really, honestly – ask yourself truly – think that would have gone well for me?” he asked.

This dialogue led to the short clip that was used in the Gamers Nexus video.

And, while LTT’s audience is split on the topic, it’s impossible to deny that making a video about Honey after MegaLag’s documentary came out and making one four years before all this information came to light puts these two creators in two very different situations.