SARATOGA SPRINGS — Public feuds tend to be a nasty bit of business. Usually, one might be tempted to ignore them for the sake of all involved, but it’s been difficult to turn away from the ongoing and rather shocking battle between digital media company Two Buttons Deep and its ex-employee Aaron Madej (formerly known as Intern Aaron, and more recently known as Agent Aaron).
For those who don’t spend too much time online, here’s an explanation of the unhappy events.
Two Buttons Deep is an influential Capital Region company that runs social media accounts you may be familiar with, especially Around Saratoga Springs, which currently has more than 32,000 Instagram followers. Two Buttons Deep (sometimes referred to as 2BD) hired Madej back in 2023 as one of their interns. At the time, Madej was a student at the University at Albany looking for a fun and flexible opportunity. An internship at Two Buttons Deep seemed like a natural fit.
After joining as an intern, Madej was later promoted to content producer. In this role, he appeared on the Buttonista Show podcast, met with clients, and curated social media content. Madej didn’t initially expect to become an on-camera personality, but his charisma and sense of humor soon saw him appearing in front of the camera on a fairly regular basis, making him a familiar face to followers of Two Buttons Deep. Madej even appeared in a video alongside New York Governor Kathy Hochul.
But then, seemingly out of the blue, he was gone.
“The rumors are true, Intern Aaron has left Two Buttons Deep; he quit,” announced the company’s co-founder Jack Carpenter in a May 8 video. “I speak for the team when I say that we’re bummed. We didn’t see this coming, and I felt he had a lot more potential here in our world, but alas, he’s got new opportunities coming his way and he’s doing what’s best for Intern Aaron, and really that’s all that matters.”
“When my departure happened,” Madej told Saratoga TODAY in an interview in May, “it came to a certain point where I realized that I needed to prioritize myself and my mental health and go forward and take new opportunities that also align with my personal, career-driven mission.”
As the weeks and months after his departure wore on, Madej posted a number of references to his time working for Two Buttons Deep, most of which seemed to cast the company in a negative light. After landing a job with the North Greenbush-based Core Real Estate Team, Madej began hyping a new podcast called the “Agent Aaron Show,” which Core would seemingly produce and/or host.
The first episode of the podcast went up earlier this month. After floating the idea of moving to Saratoga Springs to enjoy a “hot girl Saratoga life,” Madej made a number of accusations against Two Buttons Deep. “Girls, buck up,” he said. “This is going to be insane.”
Madej said he was not trying to destroy anyone and that he cares deeply about the people he used to work with, but nonetheless felt a need to tell his story. He said he wasn’t necessarily asking the audience to side with him and saw his story as a learning opportunity.
According to Madej, things began to change for him at Two Buttons Deep following “transgate,” a nickname for a 2023 incident in which a transphobic remark could be heard in a video posted by 2BD. In the video, a bar patron said that transgender people should “get the f— out” of his county. After the remark was made, the video cut to Two Buttons Deep personality Taylor Rao (a.k.a., the Buttonista), who quipped, “I guess we’re not in Saratoga anymore.” The controversy cost the media company significant advertising revenue.
Madej said that “transgate” should’ve been “a really good lesson [for] them but they really never actually learned from it.” He suggested that the owners of 2BD “only care about themselves” and “don’t really see the bigger picture of other people’s employment struggles.” He also added that the alleged “toxic” work environment at the company made his mental health worse, citing at least one incident in which he seemed to struggle with thoughts of suicide.
Soon after its publication, Madej’s podcast episode was deleted from all platforms, with the Core Real Estate Team publishing a statement calling Madej’s remarks “inappropriate.” The company also fired Madej.
“This content was not approved, authorized, or posted by Core Real Estate Team and was uploaded independently by the individual to our platforms,” the statement read. “Upon learning of the video, we took immediate action, terminating their association with Core Real Estate Team. We have great respect for Two Buttons Deep and the positive impact they make in our community.”
The episode sparked an even harsher response from Carpenter, who posted a video titled “The Unfortunate Truth About Intern Aaron” to 2BD’s social media accounts.
In the video, Carpenter said that Madej sent 2BD demands that “look like, sound like, and feel like extortion.” A screenshot of an email sent from Madej to Two Buttons Deep included a request for a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) regarding his time of employment with the company (Madej had also mentioned the NDA in his podcast).
“We have no interest in an NDA because first and foremost, there’s nothing we don’t want disclosed,” Carpenter said. “If there was, we would’ve had him sign an NDA on his way out, not six months later. So, we’ve decided as a team to break our silence on what we have been dealing with all year with him.”
Carpenter then accused Madej of making “countless, baseless accusations” against Two Buttons Deep and its employees. In response to accusations that Carpenter bullied Madej, Carpenter showed a clip from a podcast recording in April 2025 in which Madej appeared to be bullying the off-screen Carpenter.
“Maybe you should do some meditation because clearly you need it,” Madej can be heard telling Carpenter. “Maybe some psychological evaluation, as well. I don’t know, maybe you can get a therapist to meet up with you here because you clearly need it, you narcissist.”
Carpenter also alleged that Madej would say “awful things” about the children of 2BD employees, showing a screenshot of a text message exchange in which Madej appears to suggest that one employee’s child may be autistic.
But perhaps the most shocking allegation was that after quitting the company, Madej (according to Carpenter) duplicated an office key without permission, entered the Two Buttons Deep office, disabled its security system, and then “ransacked the place.”
Carpenter said that despite all of this, he was willing to “take the high road” and “sweep this under the rug” but six months of “relentless defamation” by Madej resulted in the company breaking its silence.
As of publication time, Madej had not issued a public response to either Carpenter’s video or news of his termination by Core Real Estate Team. A request for comment from Saratoga TODAY also went unanswered.
