YouTuber William Osman slams tech company for sneaking into his Open Sauce event
YouTube: William OsmanProminent YouTuber and inventor William Osman is lashing out at a tech company for sneaking into his event, Open Sauce, and allegedly selling $700 robots.
William Osman’s tech-focused event, Open Sauce, is officially in the books, having featured a slew of off-the-wall gadgets and even major celebrity guests like Adam Savage.
Although the event is meant to be a celebration of ingenuity and creativity, one company soured the atmosphere after allegedly sneaking into the showcase trying to make a quick buck.
On June 15, robotics company ‘Bantam Tools’ posted a photo to X, showing themselves setting up a booth at Open Sauce. “Open Sauce graciously let us set up in the YouTube museum. We are plotting YouTubers so we fit right in. Come say hi!”
However, Osman says this is not the case. The YouTuber shot back with a scathing tweet five days later, confirming that he did not give the company permission to showcase at Open Sauce.
That’s not all; he accused Bantam Tools of declining a sponsorship from the event and even hawking a pricey robot to attendees.
“No we didn’t,” he wrote. “F*ck you for declining [a] sponsorship, then sneaking a booth into my creator museum selling $700 drawing robots.”
At the event, Bantam Tools showed off a robot that could draw pictures of attendees, many of whom have had their photos taken with their portrait and posted on the company’s official X account.
Osman went on to call the company “cowards” and attached a screenshot of their post in case they decide to delete it, which, at the time, they have not done.
It wasn’t long before netizens came to Osman’s defense in the comments underneath Bantam Tools’ posts on X, slamming the business for allegedly sneaking into Open Sauce.
“Wow, I didn’t know you guys snuck your equipment in to sell them without permission!” one user wrote.
“Oof, y’all better delete all of these too, ’cause it’s pretty clear the resulting PR ain’t gonna look nice with the comment sections enabled,” another pointed out.
Bantam Tools has since apologized to Osman in a tweet reply, where they called the situation a “misunderstanding.”
According to the company, they felt the initial sponsorship offer “didn’t seem like the right fit,” saying they “thought sponsorship was for giant companies, and exhibitor booths were for DIY creators.”
“We planned to attend to understand the event and deliver art to the featured creators in a non-disruptive way,” they wrote. “Your team, when asked where it would not be disruptive, placed us in the YouTube museum because we had machine-drawn art of YouTubers.
“Your team was very gracious to accommodate us. In retrospect, OpenSauce is a great event, and we absolutely should have figured out where we fit in and gotten a booth.”
We apologize for the misunderstanding. We’re sorry. When we were approached, it was for sponsorship, and that didn’t seem like the right fit. Without experience with the event, we thought sponsorship was for giant companies, and exhibitor booths were for DIY creators. We planned…
— Bantam Tools (@bantamtools) June 20, 2024
At the time of writing, Osman has not responded to Bantam’s apology, and the company continues to face backlash in spite of its explanation as confused commenters explain that exhibitors at most events must pay for a spot for a booth.
I got the chance to speak with Osman about Open Sauce earlier this year, where he let me in on his surprising friendship with Adam Savage and admitted he “couldn’t have predicted” his YouTube success “in a thousand years.”