A popular Ashton Lane bar has fired the two quizmasters behind ‘The Big Fact Hunt’ weekly quiz night after a row over the nature of several of the questions and comments.
The two quizmasters, one of whom is a third year Glasgow University medical student, worked at popular student bar Radio, before being dismissed after hosting the controversial and “inappropriate” quiz.
Questions included “Is it still rape if you kill her first?”, “What happened to the raging homo who walked from Land’s End to John O’Groats this week?” and “Stephen Hawking is the biggest/most expensive vegetable, true or false?” The duo were removed from the posts as quizmasters the next day, after sparking online interest.
Political blogger Matthew Vickery, who attended with his friends on July 29, was shocked over the nature of the quiz. Vickery wrote on his ‘What’s Left of the Left?’ blog about the incident, which instantly became viral after outraged students shared the post across social networking sites. It has now had over 10,000 Facebook shares and over 770 tweets.
He accused: “The quiz comprised sexist, misogynistic, and homophobic comments and questions, and most frightening of all, encouragement of rape and violence against women.”
Vickery also claimed that he and his friends were laughed off when voicing their distaste at the questions and that the quizmaster insisted he would continue to make his quiz “rapey.”
Readers quickly took to the Facebook page of Radio to voice their feelings, calling for an immediate apology and further action to be taken against the quizmasters. ‘The Big Fact Hunt’ Facebook page has since been deleted.
On July 31st, both Radio and the quizmasters themselves issued apologies.
PR manager Rhona Fyfe was quick to respond to the blog post, with a statement released the same morning. It read: “We take this article and feedback very seriously and would like to apologise for any upset caused by the offensive nature and content of this quiz…due to the seriousness of the deviation from the original brief and offensive content of this quiz, with immediate effect, we are no longer working with the quiz master/masters involved.
“This is not tolerated in our business and we do not find this behaviour acceptable.”
The same statement was published on the facebook page of Radio the following day, while the quizmasters themselves commented on Vickery’s blog post to issue their own apology. The pair argued that the quiz “was meant in the upmost [sic] humour,” and that they intended to “shock for comic effect.”
Their brief statement concluded, saying: “These views are not my own and were written to shine light on the misojinistic [sic] views of society in a comical context.”
G1 group face further consequences of the incident, with the Glasgow Licensing Board investigating as “a matter of priority”. Commenters on Vickery’s blog also discussed plans to boycott G1 venues.
This latest sexism row is not the first to rock the West End this year. The row from the Ashton Lane quiz comes after the GUU made national headlines after sexist heckling at a debate in March.
