Philip DeFranco...hmm

Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
A college dropout.
In a moment of desperation, he askedhis viewers to support him while he was
living from his car to pursue his hunchthat being a YouTuber was the right move.
He continued uploading, becomingone of the top five YouTube channels
in 2010 and becoming a YouTubeOG and mainstay on the platform.
Welcome to Rewind Time.
This episode we're talkingabout Philip DeFranco.

(00:25):
Yo, it's rewind time bound.
Welcome to episode seven ofRewind time, Philip DeFranco.
Lucy, how are you this week?
I am, you know, partyrocking episode seven.

(00:47):
I know.
Who
would've thought
in the top?
Probably 10% of podcast byepisode count of all time.
Uh, I mean, yeah, I mean, youdid look at some, some stats.
We were just, you know, checking, checkingthe stats to see how we were going.
And technically, I think you needlike a hundred viewers an episode Yes.
To be in the top 25%.
So we did it everywhere.

(01:07):
There's something like
130,000 podcasts Whoa.
On Buzzsprout where we looked.
Yeah.
And overwhelmingly most ofthem get like 20 listens.
Wow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, guys, I feel flatteredyou need to keep us in check.
I feel like our egos,it's gonna go to our head.
Um, we'll start using that.
We'll put it in the, the bio.

(01:27):
We'll be like top 25 podcasts of all time.
I actually feel energy levels are high.
We had a week off, we went to Brisbane.
Yes.
So we didn't record last weekend.
Mm. So I have so much creativeenergy that's been built up.
You're so excited to talk about.
I know.
It's this day.
I know we, we did a
spoilers, we did a, I would describeas an easier YouTuber in that there

(01:49):
isn't as much content to review.
So I feel like, as opposed toMichelle Funn, where we ran
quite long, this is gonna be Yes.
An easy breezy, tight episode.
Mm. Fingers crossed.
I,
well, we'll see how we go.
We thought Michelle Funn wasn'tgonna be a super long episode.
So I mean, you know, ifanyone listened to last week's
episode, I hope you enjoyed it.

(02:10):
If you did like that full deep dive ofMichelle Farn, if you weren't interested,
you know, you can, you could have skippedthrough, I suppose, but I do agree.
I think today will be a bit ofa shorter runtime just by virtue
of subject matter at hand, whichI guess we'll we'll get into.
Well, yeah, from your intro.
Sexy Phil Philip DeFranco.

(02:31):
That's crazy.
His name, as some of you may know him.
Did you know about Philbefore the episode Phily d?
Is that an Yeah, sure.
In case you guys, I'm sureyou probably guessed, I had no
idea who Philip DeFranco was.
Mm-hmm.
I don't think I've ever seen orheard, I've never heard heard his
name.
I saw him obviously when we did I,Justine, and you were like, that's

(02:52):
sexy Phil in one of her vlogs.
And I was like, okay.
But before that, yeah, I, I hadno idea who Phillip Frank was.
So only in
the context of this show.
Yes.
So
four weeks ago probably.
Okay.
Wow.
Wow.
Uh, I have been aware of PhilipDeFranco for quite a long time.
I think he does go into thecategory of YouTubers that I

(03:13):
personally didn't really watch.
Um, and spoiler, not spoiler, butobviously Phil's channel content is
quite current events focused, so I.M not subscribed, was not subscribed,
but was aware that he was like anews guy, question mark on YouTube.
Um, and have been aware of that probablyfor like, I wanna say about a decade.

(03:38):
Did you watch, I've been aware of
his big breakout videos at the time.
I have watched a few of his videos atdifferent times when he might have been
like the first person to cover somethingon YouTube, and I was aware of, um, like
vaguely aware of some of his coveragethat we'll discuss in today's episode.
Like his, I guess, yeah,big, bigger stories.

(03:59):
Um, so yeah.
Although I will say any videosthat I would've watched of Phil
when I was younger, uh, it'snot like we can watch them now.
Yes.
Maybe let's address that.
So Philip DeFranco, his mainoutput is the Philip DeFranco show.
Mm-hmm.
Which is a, you know, 10 to 25minute long, generally Yeah.

(04:24):
Current affair.
Current affairs, news and popculture, like sort of content
aggregation, you know, it's like
a wrap up.
Exactly.
It's like, these are the bigstories of the last few days.
Um, I think the, uh, uploadfrequency has changed quite a bit
throughout the years, but it'stypically like a few times a week.
I think it's like a Monday,Wednesday, Friday cadence.

(04:45):
It has changed.
So a
lot of things have changed aboutthe show except for it being Phil
presenting straight to the camera.
Generally, as far as we can tell, he'sthe only person that is ever featured.
Yes.
Yeah.
Uh, there's no rotating crew.
It's all about, well, I mean, itis called the Philip DeFranco Show,
but, uh, and yeah, like the length,I think as YouTube allowed longer
videos, the length has increased.

(05:06):
They're longer, now they're about30 to 40 minutes, but the pace has
always, uh, kept like YouTube tight.
Like he's cutting at the end of sentences.
Mm-hmm.
He's doing traditionalYouTube style editing.
Uh, as we and
presentation as well.
Yeah.
He's speaking very quickly.
He's very like, and this is thestory, da dah, dah, dah, dah.
The cadence of his speech is really quick.
Yep.
It's very, um, kept very Yeah.

(05:27):
Tight.
Yeah.
I would say.
But as you alluded to before mm-hmm.
The reason we couldn't watch potentialvideos that you had seen is that around
2017, we believe Philip DeFranco pried allof his past videos up until that point.
Yes.
So he obviously with thatupload cadence had released.

(05:48):
Many hundreds, if not over a thousand.
Mm-hmm.
Videos on his channel andyeah, he privated everything.
It's over 10 years worth of content.
So I think I said in the intro,he started his channel in 2006.
I don't know when hestarted taking it seriously.
Exactly.
And I do apologize 'cause I feellike we try to be a little bit
more in depth with the details,but it is just so hard to find.

(06:09):
Um, but yeah, about 10 years worth ofcontent has just been completely privated.
Some archives have been uploaded.
There's shout out to a couple ofchannels that have like randomly posted
like 10 of Philip Franco's old videos.
So we watch those.
So we have a sense of whathis early content is like.
But yeah, we kind of can only usethose as a frame of reference.

(06:30):
It does seem like it has been.
Lost to time.
Yeah.
Um, which is, I will say, because
it is current events, it is notlike fatal to us discussing Yeah.
Philip DeFranco because he givesa lot less sort of original
creative input into his content.
Yeah.
Than all the YouTuberswe've looked at so far.
It's not the same level oftragedy as if we lost, you know,

(06:51):
um, like the i Justine songs
like that would be sad.
Do you know what I mean?
Like if we,
I, Justine does like news content, butoverwhelmingly like her stuff, she is
either giving like original output bylike creating comedy videos or she's
at least giving her opinion in doing areview or saying she likes something.

(07:12):
Philip DeFranco often.
Does not do anything I woulddescribe as transformative.
He just presents the storyand a summation of it.
It's, it's more of like a service.
Yeah.
Okay.
We should, but we, yeah,we should really tell.
All right.
So guys, Philip DeFranco show, likeLucy mentioned, you have Philip talking.

(07:32):
He talks in a very quick, uh, andsort of exaggerated delivery style.
He often includes humor.
It's sort of like if you've seen, uh,like the Daily Show or other like.
News slash comedy style TV shows.
He's trying to like makethe news more interesting.
It's
like Joel Mcha vibe.
If
you've seen the project, if you'reAustralian, no, you might be familiar

(07:53):
with Channel Ten's the project.
Oh God.
Where we do, he's a, he's like,we do news a bit differently here.
Like we have laughs.
Yep.
So we have share plates on the table.
Um, so as opposed to everyonein ordering things individually,
we have Yeah, a hundred
percent.
He's that the news.
Right.
Um, so we started with some ofthese archived sexy Phil videos from

(08:13):
around the like 2006 to 2010 range.
We can tell that's when they'refrom because of the news that
he speaks about at the time.
Yes.
That does help.
Like the person's like, oh sorry.
Like I don't have the exactdate of when it was uploaded.
But then he'll just be like,Michael Jackson died today.
And you're like, well I guesswe know when this was, um, until
became kind of popular in this period.

(08:34):
And there's this profile that waswritten in the LA Times, which is like.
Everywhere you see Philip DeFrancomentioned they use this specific
like summary of his channel andethos and it's, it's very funny.
So they wrote Philip DeFranco, theWalter Cronkite for the YouTube
generation who generates hundreds ofheadlines in under 10 minutes, will add

(08:55):
election coverage, blah, blah, blah.
So he, you know, introducespolitics, but comparing him to Walter
Cronkite, who is like an establishedUS news anchor to me is who?
Yeah.
I have a frame of referenceof who Walter Cronkite is.
Yeah.
He's like the, like the, when you thinkof like news anchor, like journalism, it's
like he's the name you would go to, right?

(09:16):
He's the Kleenex of news anchors.
Okay, sure.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
I mean.
Like, what network are we talking?
Oh, okay.
That's, I mean, I don't actuallywatch tv, so that's lost on me.
Wanna say don't want you YouTube.
I, I wanna say CBS.
Okay.
But, uh, I'm not gonnacheck that, but yeah, he's
like a very respected, like Yes.
He was there covering the news.

(09:37):
Exactly.
We reported the news.
Right?
Yeah.
And
so, like the Walter Cronkite, theYouTube generation gets thrown up.
So I was like, oh, this guy's gonna bedoing like, you know, news and stuff.
Hard hitting journalism.
Exactly.
Mm-hmm.
Overwhelmingly these early episodes.
I think the thing that stood outfor us is there is like such a
pronounced emphasis on Hot Babes.

(09:57):
Yeah.
On Sexy Women.
Yeah.
On, and I'll get into it.
Uh,
but, okay.
I think he, I think something weneed to say is that we don't actually
know, I don't think there has beenlike an, a written explanation from
Philip DeFranco or he has not said,and he may have, and we've missed it.
He's not said, this is whyall those videos are privated.

(10:19):
They just were,
yeah.
I can assume, and please feelfree to disagree with me.
I can assume from watching some ofthese early videos, I'd be like,
yeah, I would private those too.
Yeah.
Because there are some, just generally,I don't wanna be too harsh, but like
there's some pretty rotted takes.
Yeah.
Or just general, like misogynistic.

(10:39):
Like it's just, it's not
just about the women.
He says some stuff that crazy stuff.
Yeah.
I, I would assume that he is Yeah.
Embarrassed by stuffthat's in these videos.
And also he probably wants to avoidpeople clipping it and recirculating it.
Yeah.
And causing him a headachein the present day.
It's like shock jock stuff.
Yeah.
Like it's very kind of, you know, Ithink we were talking about it before,

(11:01):
but like Kyle Sandy land's vibesin terms of it's, he's not, yeah.
He's just saying stuff to.
To say it.
I don't know how to, they did a,
uh, another piece in the LA Timesat that time where they were
like, why are YouTube videos?
Why are the thumbnails where it's likea sexy woman or like, references sex.

(11:22):
Mm. Why are these the mostviewed videos on the platform?
And I'm like, obviously, like we knowwhy Mm. But they talked to Phil and he
was like, so I posted this video andit was called Big Boobs and You, and
it was him talking about like what hethinks is like the hottest type of woman.
So this is like his type of content.
Oh, right.

(11:43):
And the thumbnail has a womanwith large breasts and it became
instantly his most popular video.
Mm. And then he said to the LATimes, he was like, sex sells.
And then he said, sex, gossip, and news.
That is my bread and butter.
Mm. So on our old Philip DeFranco videos.
Mm. So we have the piece where he's,uh, talking about Meghan Fox watch.

(12:08):
Yes.
Megan Fox is one of his preferred babe.
Like a recurring
segment?
Yes.
It seemingly, it seemed to be like,and it's time for another Megan
Fox watch, and we're like, okay.
So he also does a extended biton another episode where he
compares Scarlet Johansson toJenna Jamison the, the porn star.
Yeah.

(12:29):
Was it in the context of likea rumored biopic or something?
Like something like that?
Yeah.
There's some, it's like some fake thing.
'cause obviously weknow that didn't happen.
Yeah.
So he's just covering that and then,but then he's comparing which of
the, of the two are hotter, whichis not the story, but he makes
that the topic of conversation.
Exactly.
He has another

(12:49):
piece where it's like a, a comedybit about how to go viral in YouTube.
And he does explicitly say, he's like,you have to have something referencing
dancing girls or sex in the title.
Yeah.
So, and then
compete.
He's complete with like a, acutaway gag to a sexy woman.
Doing like a piece to camera.

(13:09):
She's like, Phil, you needto have these in the title.
And she's in her underwear.
Yeah.
It so it's clear that he's self-awarethat he understands why this
content performs for him, but it'ssort of not clear as to whether he
like believes in what he's saying.
But it, yeah.

(13:30):
I also, I don't know if this is in thissection, but the Vanessa Hudgens stuff.
Oh, I wanna bring that up now.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
So this, this probably, and we only gotobviously a select videos from this.
Yeah.
A tiny sample size.
So, you know, maybe thisisn't, uh, typical of No, but I
was grimacing through every video.
Every video had a bad take.

(13:51):
Unfortunately.
I think this is the
worst thing.
Yeah.
This
was really bad.
So
what, so Vanessa Hudgins High Schoolmusical star at the time, dating Zach
Efron, uh, as part of their relationship.
Presumably, uh, she experienced or wasvictim of like a phone hacking scandal.
Yeah.
And a bunch of her privatenude images were leaked online.

(14:15):
Yeah.
The reaction to this from, uh,Philip DeFranco, this is like the
second time it happened.
It happened once.
Yeah.
And this was like the secondoccurrence of this, and he was
reporting on it's happened again.
Uh, he is very much like Vanessa Hudgens.
Why are you taking photos of yourself?
Why don't you have apasscode on your phone?

(14:37):
Which, you know, that is unthat's unsavory by itself.
But then he goes on to say, Ihave seen these images and her
boobs look like torpedoes Jesus.
And then he goes, I have includedthe link to the photos, uh, in his

(14:57):
like YouTube links section basically.
Yeah.
He's like, link in the
sidebar.
Yeah.
Yep.
So.
He's shaming her.
He's basically slut shaming herfor having this happen to her.
He also kind of is like, oh, thishas already happened to you before
and it's happened to you again.
Didn't you learn anythingfrom the last time?
You shouldn't be takingphotos of yourself.
Then he's like, the photos you takeof yourself, like I, I don't think

(15:18):
you're attractive, essentially.
And then is like, but I've linkedthem so you can all see them.
It's pretty like, likedeplorable behavior.
So I don't, and like again, we don'tknow quite the scope of how often
this was happening from the samplesize of videos that we did watch.
I don't know again, 'cause he hasn'tmade any statement about it that I'm

(15:41):
aware of or that you are aware of.
I assume because he took these videosdown and privated them, I would hope
that he has reflected upon this and hasbeen like, I shouldn't have done that.
Or like, that was a bad take.
I think it is worth mentioning.
That he was like 21 at the time.
Yeah, it's still bad, but, but youknow, gi, given that Phil has like a

(16:02):
20, almost 20 year career on YouTube,there is obviously, I, I believe there's
like room for maturing and redemption.
Yeah.
Like, uh, there are some YouTuberswho might stand by those takes or
whatever, but clearly by hiding them,he either thinks they're embarrassing,
but maybe still holds those opinions orhe doesn't hold those opinions anymore
and that's why he's removed them.
Yeah.
But he's not addressed it toany, and like, agree at the

(16:25):
time you like your TMZs, yourtabloid media would report on
these leaks and stuff, but I think.
Leaking to the actual leaked photos.
Mm.
Is like so far beyond what is, waseven accepted in like 2007 as Yeah.
And tabloid culturewas pretty like rotted.
Yeah.
And pretty evil.

(16:46):
Definitely.
The blame, like the victim blamingthat is, that's like something
that would've been common.
Yeah.
Even in like bigger publications.
But certainly if they included the images,they at least would've been blurred
and they wouldn't leak to, sorry, theywouldn't link to the source of the leaks.
Yeah.
It's, it was pretty crazy.
I think my, like jaw was a gapfor the period of this video.

(17:07):
I was like, that is so crazy.
Especially Yeah, because
I thought he was just gonna, andthe other stuff in the video is
very much like, he's just talkingabout like the news of the day.
Yeah.
So I was like, oh, okay.
Like, yeah, like he, he doesnews and he does pop culture,
but then this was like, whoa.
And it is kind of, you're like, wow.
Yeah.
The internet was actually,uh, even so hostile.

(17:27):
Exactly.
Yeah.
Maybe, maybe it's improved.
Maybe we should look at this as a,a sign of how far things have come.
I
think the fact that the, like he wasconsidered a mainstream popular YouTuber.
Yeah.
And a YouTube darling.
Like YouTube, the platformcollaborated with him.
Yeah.
I, I think considering that then I wouldsay there have been some strides in like,

(17:48):
we don't all get together as like the topYouTubers of the platform and be like,
actually slut shaming is fine and funny.
Um, so that is definitely improve.
But I don't, I think there arestill corners of the internet
that hold the same rhetoric.
Obviously it's just lessspotlighted, which is a good thing.
Uh, but yeah, some of theseearly videos were a rough watch.

(18:09):
They weren't all that rough, but thatone in particular was a bit challenging.
And obviously we didn't see it.
But I'm sure if a fuller archivewas present mm, we would find other
similarly, uh, distasteful things.
It's hard to.
Think that that would be anoutlier, if that was one of Yeah.
You know, 10 videos we watched.

(18:29):
Yeah.
Anyway, so rough start, just to close outthe early Phil stuff, um, he is involved
in like petty YouTube drama in this era.
This video was funny.
You, I was gonna say like, Phil ismeant to be a somewhat of a, a comedian.
Do you, do you think he's funny?

(18:50):
I think this video is funny.
Okay.
But do you ever actually findPhil's gags or bits funny?
Uh,
like, I don't know.
Is Joel Mikhale funny when he report?
Okay, well,
yeah.
I didn't laugh at all at anything.
Phil did.
I don't think he is funny.
Uh,
can we, okay, let's talk aboutthis video in particular.

(19:11):
Sure.
So this video, I dunno, and again,with the archive, they haven't always
got the titles, but it's just like,you know, old Philip DeFranco video.
And it is him sitting on the bathroomfloor in what appears to be a hotel
basically making like, and it's reallyhard because this is from like 2007.
It's like a response video to someone whohas like publicly called him out being

(19:34):
like, I don't like he Philip DeFranco.
And this is so like this is bulked.
How do I explain this?
Philip DeFranco had made acomment about this person in
presumably one of his videos.
This person then is like Philip DeFranco,you are a main YouTuber YouTuber.
You have responsibility to not bully me.
And then he makes this like apology video.

(19:55):
It's like a pre YouTube apology,apology video, but it's like a fake
out because he starts out beinglike, I'm sorry, you are right.
I shouldn't bully you and I'msorry that you suck and I'm sorry
that I'm 21 and you're in yourthirties and you are like a loser.
And it's basically like.
That type of vibe.
Um, but then there's also likekind of random, it's like he's like
gonna go beat him up or he's madethreats to beat Philip DeFranco up.

(20:19):
He talks
about physically fighting thesepeople when he goes to New York.
I just think it's really funnybecause he, and he references
himself as being a popular YouTuber.
Mm. In 2007.
And I'm like, this islike meta YouTube beef.
Potentially one of theearliest occurrences.
Like we see YouTube beef on YouTubeall the time now of people making

(20:42):
call out videos and drama stuff,which will cover in future episodes.
I, I know everyone's excited for dramaagain, but, uh, yeah, seeing that in this
instance, I just thought it was funny.
It was like,
I dunno, Hey, maybe it sayssomething to drama being intrinsic
to YouTube as a platform.
Yeah.
Well I think it's, you'll alwaysfind drama in any community.

(21:03):
Like in Facebook groups, people willget in fights and arguments and people
will be ousted and start a new thing.
But because YouTube is a video hostingplatform, they're all still there.
And so, I don't know, may I guess this,I'm sorry to listeners if this was
difficult for us to describe, but I justneeded to talk about Philip DeFranco, a

(21:23):
21-year-old Philip DeFranco getting inbeef with like, seemingly someone who
did not reach the same level of success.
We watched a compilation thatsomeone compiled of like,
best of Philip DeFranco bits.
And I just made some notes 'cause Iwas like, what did they, the person
that created this video think the best?

(21:44):
They're like, this rocks.
Yeah.
Well they're like, he hit,he was, he slayed with this.
Uh, and it's a compilation and it'sbasically his, uh, jokes and they
are in order, uh, about, primarily hedoes one, uh, which is about racism.
Uh.
Which, you know, Philip DeFranco handlingrace, you can imagine how that went.

(22:06):
He does a very long bit about receivingbad head from a girl, like a hot
girl where she uses lots of teeth.
This was a real struggle as well.
Yeah.
Uh, there's a series where it'slike the targets, like, it's like
Mexicans, swine, flu, poor people.
Uh, and we kind of, I think we got thevibe from the video at this point and

(22:27):
stopped watching, but it was, um, yeah.
Yeah.
He refers to women aslike their hair color.
Like, he's not like this hot girl.
He's like this blonde, which is solike a relic of like, I guess frat
boy speak from the two thousands.
I was like, I don't think, can youimagine if I like anyone said that

(22:48):
today was like, so I went out with thisbrunette, it's like, what, who is she?
Like, say her name likecrazy work is, yeah.
Me in my phone and it's just like.
All these different, uh, womenand it's just their appearance.
Uh, yeah.
And we watched one more early archivedPhilip DeFranco show where he went into

(23:12):
great detail about a, um, like this viralnews story at the time, about a teenager
who Oh, made a false rape accusation.
Yeah.
Well, not, not an accusation, butshe basically emerged and said
she had been, you know, sexuallyassaulted by a group of men.

(23:32):
And naturally that caused likea big media storm about that.
And it turns out that she fabricatedthe events that she reported.
And, uh, Phil is really, I would say, hmm.
He's very much like, isn't itcrazy how there's all of these
false rape accusations and.

(23:55):
If I knew someone in college, aman, sorry, I would be buying him a
breathalyzer because any woman that hehas sex with has the potential to be like,
this was a really weird take
from him.
Well, I think it's kind ofcommon in conservative circles
at the time, but yeah, it's like,
it's interesting 'cause like, yeah, likeI don't know if Philip DeFranco considered

(24:17):
himself at that time to be conservative,and I don't even know if he thought this
was like a conservative take, but thetake was basically like, if you know a
young man in college, you should buy them.
Like, and I, he was like, oh, you know, myfriends have kids in college and I'm, I'll
buy them this like breathalyzer thing.
Yep.
So that before they take a girl home,they can, she can like blow into it

(24:39):
so that they're both aware of theiralcohol level and they'll like take
a photo of it and make her sign a co.
And I, I see that shit online.
Sorry, pardon my language.
I see that shit online where guys arelike, oh, get a girl to like sign a. Like
a, a contract to say that she consentsand it's like, but if she's like tipsy and
she's signing it, then she's also like,there's, it's so like, weird in every way.

(25:03):
Like, because the, the outcome ofthis case was that they were both
consenting or like, they were both drunk.
So it was not a case of like one personwas intoxicated, one was not, um, that is
like, that was the outcome of the case.
But Philip DeFranco's kind of like,if you are gonna be, you know, having
sex with a person who's intoxicated,like just make them sign something.

(25:25):
And I'm like, but they're stillintox, like it's still signing a
contract while you're intoxicateddoesn't mean that contracts re it.
It was just so odd, and maybe I'mmisinterpreting what he's saying, but it
just, it was a very weird, and there'sa bit of a focus that I think we'll talk
about potentially later in the episode,but he does like, have a bit of this fi

(25:46):
this fixation on like false accusations.
Mm-hmm.
And like
I would say this is just one of manyexamples where Phil, despite the fact
that he repeatedly will be like themainstream media is untrustworthy Mm.
Phil simply recirculates existingreporting from news outlets uncritically.

(26:09):
And by doing that spreads harmfullike messaging, basically.
Like he is a, an unaware propagandist,uh, which is like very rich coming
from someone who is always goingat great lengths to distance
himself from the mainstream media,which is itself a dog whistle.

(26:29):
By being like, what we're doingover here is like so much more
trustworthy than what they do inthe, you know, the media elites.
And that itself is like, uh, a very, um,it's a, a political message that has found
great sympathy in conservative circles.
Yeah.
In recent years.
Yeah.
It's, but
he was so early to that.

(26:50):
A trendsetter.
Yeah.
I mean, I think, and like we'll talk aboutsome of his more like modern stuff because
this was still in that earlier period.
'cause I think we will highlight someexamples of, I would say prominent work
he's done that we can speak more topotentially having done good things.

(27:11):
But yeah, some of this earlystuff, I would just say it's
like I just, I don't know.
I'm just like, why, um,why would you do that?
Why wouldn't you say this?
He backed this segment
up about, uh, false rape accusationswith the Lady of the day, where then
just talks about the hot girl of the day.
It's so like tone deaf.
It's so, and I know that it's likevery, I don't want, it's very like,

(27:33):
of the time, like a redditer type.
Like
he was a libertarian at this time.
Mm, yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
But yeah, this, I'm not saying there can'tbe like nuance in these discussions, but
it's, it's just more that he tends to.
Take a certain stance that is, yeah,it's not like the most concerning

(27:55):
version of that stance, but he repeatedlytakes one where I'm like, continually
being like I really care about falseaccusations is a bit concerning to me
considering we know that the percentageof false accusations is so small.
Uhhuh like to continually belike, this is a real issue.
I'm not saying, you know, obviouslyfalse accusations are bad.

(28:16):
Like we all agree on that, butthe amount of people and yeah.
And he also used that rhetoric whereit's like, well, false accusations make
it difficult for like the real victimsto come forward, but ah, this, yeah.
The tho those sort of talkingpoints are not unlike ones I've seen
again, coming from more conservativeor like men's rights spaces.

(28:37):
Yep.
Yeah.
So yes, early Philip DeFrancostuff was a bit of a tough watch.
Um, and considering at this time he was.
A YouTube darling, which I guess we'lltalk about kind of what happened in, I
guess we, we would call this like the darkperiod for us, because we don't have any
content from between like 2010 to 2015.

(28:58):
But we do because of Phil'sbusiness savvy and the amount of.
Fingers he had in many likeYouTube digital business pies.
We do have a fairly good idea ofwhat he was up to at that stage.
Mm-hmm.
Because he was so, heended the 2010s sexy.
Phil had the fifth most subscriberson YouTube, so he was a big star.

(29:21):
And then he used that tocreate Maker Studios along
with a bunch of other founders.
Mm-hmm.
Who I don't recognize, but you werelike, oh, I know who these people are.
Well, one of them is SheaCarl, which you do know.
Oh, the channel.
Do I?
Yeah.
Shea Carl, I don't like saying this.

(29:43):
Oh, the ards.
Yes.
I have heard, I have heard ofthe ARDS in a negative sense.
Yeah.
So I don't know anything about them.
I just know they're a family blog channel.
I just think it's interesting becausethere's a few people, um, that.
Philly DI guess, through businessstuff, associates with, I believe Toby
Turner was another one, which is alsonot good, um, from my recollection.

(30:09):
Uh, and also like Shane Dawson,like he, he's, uh, yeah.
Making business moves.
The main one being yeah.
Make Maker Studios, whichhe is a co-founder of, along
with like nine other people.
Yeah.
Or something.
It's a bit of a kind of organizedeffort, um, which he leaves soon after.
But Maker Studios was one of the biggestmultichannel networks, um, on YouTube

(30:31):
and was later purchased by Disney andbecame like the Disney Digital networks.
So it was a very like mainstreamfamily friendly network, which maybe
that's why Phil left pretty soonin, because do you know if they
made money make studios or, um,
when they sold to Disney?
Uh,
good cue.
Unsure.
Okay.
I would assume you think you get a

(30:52):
bag, but
you think you get the bag.
But I think it could be that they.
Yeah, I'm not entirely certain.
They could have had some type of agreementwhere they weren't like execs in running
the company, but they got, uh, becausein a multi-channel network, you know,
you are part of this network, and we'vediscussed it previously briefly with Mosh.
With Mosh, you are part of a networkwhere rather than you getting paid by

(31:16):
YouTube, like through AdSense to youfirst, the AdSense is paid to your MCN
and the m CN pays you and they take a cut.
But as part of that, and being anMCN, they are kind of like an agency,
like they're putting you forwardfor sponsorships and partnerships.
So people as part of Maker Studioswould get really big partnerships
with like big mainstream brains.

(31:37):
It was like, yeah, it's sortof like being an agency.
Um, but obviously, like we talkedabout with Mosh, the dangers of
an m CN is if your M MCN goesunder your, like your channel.
And your revenue is like basically held
hostage.
Yeah.
Should clarify that with the Mosh,it wasn't so much they're in an
MCN is that they sold the channel.
Yes.

(31:57):
Michelle
Fahan had an m cn an m, mcn,what was called Fawn, right?
Fawn.
And then it
became Icon.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So MCNs are a bit of like, I wouldsay, a bit of a relic of YouTube.
They still exist, butit's just not a thing.
And they have such a negative reputationamong creators because of these instances
where like their money gets tied upor they lose access to their channel.
They like lose ownership tothings that people just generally

(32:20):
advise to not join them.
But for young, uh, for like youngeror smaller creators who are looking
for opportunity, it is, yeah.
Like,
I mean it seems to me that they're justdone informally Now where like if you
are member eight of the side men, likeKSI doesn't own your channel, but if you
left the side, men chances are you'regonna get like a 10th of the viewers.

(32:42):
Right.
Uh.
S Yeah.
Or same with all the hype
houses and like Yeah.
The David Dobra crew.
I hear about all these like YouTube crewsand it's like one famous person and then
all these like hanger ons and affiliates.
Yeah.
I think you could put it like that.
Although I would say MCNs have a bit moreof like a, an an evil corporate energy.

(33:03):
'cause it's like corporates who don'tpotentially even like YouTube, who
just want a slice of the, the pie.
You know?
Like, they're like, oh, we'll do allthis work for you that you can't do
because like we have all these contactsand that may be true in a sense,
but, and they can like, connect youwith like production companies Yeah.
And all those things.
So like it, you know, it'slike any agency, like it
could be worth it, but it's,

(33:24):
there is a definite, and it'ssomething that is very similar in
like indie music spaces mm-hmm.
On YouTube because of like the, the DIYroots of the platform where it seems
that lots of OG and early YouTubersand fans of those YouTubers like hate.
Advertising, signing to an agency, sellingout any sort of thing that is like a

(33:47):
barrier between them and the creator.
Even if it's like something wherethat creator will be like, well,
this is a great opportunity.
Yeah, and I don't make alot of money doing this.
Like there's all thesebusiness considerations, but
the fans are always like, no.
Or they're like when people, andlike someone like Phil who eventually
repurchases all his assets whenthey're acquired by a corporation,

(34:09):
everyone is like, congratulations Phil.
Like it's so good to be free.
Yeah.
Similar with Mosh.
Yeah.
Everyone was so excitedfor Mosh to repurchase.
Their channel, I would say is more oflike a meta conversation about YouTube.
Anything where viewers perceivethat YouTube is being used by the
creator as like a stepping stoneon the path to somewhere else.

(34:33):
I would say there's a bit of resentment.
So like there are a lot of YouTuberswho use it as a path to become
an actor or to become a singer.
And I think you really have tolike, basically like nail that
marketing strategy or reallyhave trust with your viewers.
Um, we will talk about some earlyYouTubers who went on to pursue like late
night TV and like acting, acting like as

(34:53):
comics or as
like as hosts.
Oh, like they want, okay.
Yeah.
Uh, and it did not go down well, in fact,it went down like the Titanic, it went
really like the reception was horrific.
Ts was Tasha YouTuber or is he on tv?
So think so.
I
know who I'm talking about and Idon't think you know who they are.
Okay.
All right.
We'll get that.
It, it clearly went so poorly thatit did not make, it's like they

(35:15):
were like, I'm gonna leave YouTube.
I'm bigger than this and I'mgonna break into mainstream.
And then it didn't go welland it was like, yeah.
So it's a bit of a, a bit of a thing.
But Philly d has always been like,YouTube is the place he has always
kind of hedged his bets on YouTube.
And I think YouTube as a communityas a whole, rewards and respects

(35:36):
creators who stay loyal to the platformbecause, and it does play into that
sense of like anti mainstream media.
Like, he's like, I don't want togo and be on a TV network because
this is the new TV network.
Mm. Actually, you know, whois a big proponent of that?
Who?
Monsour Beast.
Mr. Beast.
Jimmy Beast.
Yeah.
He's like, YouTube isStar Future, but he's on
Amazon.

(35:56):
Well, yeah.
So yeah.
That didn't last long.
Yeah.
But he, but he is like, YouTube islike pioneering and entertainment.
Yeah.
Anyway, I feel likewe're getting a little,
I will pull us back.
Phil's loyalty to YouTube is rewardedbecause they approach him to create
an original channel as part of,uh, they threw like a hundred
million at popular creators to makeoffshoots of their main channels.

(36:19):
Yeah.
So he created Source Fed.
Which is basically a similar newsand current events channel to
his main Philip DeFranco show.
But Source Fed had like rotating hostsand could cover topics, cover topics,
sorry, in much longer detail thanhe did on the Philip DeFranco show.
Yep.
Originally he did try and dosource fed on his channel.

(36:42):
He tried to do multiple
videos a day, like cutting eachstory into its own video as opposed
to doing the like 20 minute wrap
up.
The viewers didn't like it.
They did not like it.
And
we, we know anything about YouTubers whenthe views go down, they're not happy.
No.
So he cut it off to its own thingand it lived for a few years.
I think it shut around 2017.
It ran for five years.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And there was an offshoot as well,which was like Source Fed nerd.

(37:04):
Yeah.
Which was like their, I guess the gaming.
Vertical gaming.
Vertical gaming and like comicsand TV n nerd, nerd, vertical.
I.
Talking gaming.
We should do the PhilipDeFranco, the catchphrase.
Oh yeah.
Would you like to do your best impression?
Oh,
The, the phrase.
Uh, so he's like.

(37:26):
Su your beautiful bastards.
Shall I try?
Yeah, you can try.
Su
your beautiful bastards.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was, or he'll do,
he'll, he'll do the, the, thebeautiful bastards has become
literally his t-shirt brand.
It's like,
oh my gosh.
He does wear these and millennial,yeah, look, graphic T-shirts.
I love a graphic t-shirt.

(37:47):
I can't hate, but I mean, you're wearinga graphic t-shirt, millennial ass.
No, no, no.
But my, this is intellectualproperty, whereas he wears like
the, he wears what I described.
It's Franco intellectualproperty, his humor shirts.
And the prominent one we watchedwhen we were seeing the show is
it just says sports capital, Ithink, sorry, exclamation mark.

(38:07):
And he's like, this is whatyou wear when people are being
excited about the sports ball.
You are like, why are youmaking me like the joker?
Your impression of PhilBranco is like borderline.
Like, and then I, and what if I got a ball
when I chase the ball?
That's kind of, that's how I perceive him.
But yeah, his whole thing is like, yeah.
'cause you don't know what sportis 'cause like you are cool.
So you're a sports, she, and thatwill show those fucking jocks.

(38:31):
Uh, but yeah,
14-year-old Lucy would lap that up.
Yeah.
And so I'd like, it's
all
like, chess is a thought sport.
The shirts are all the, thecringe, uh, millennial type humor.
They're
very of the time.
I don't think that they exist.
No, they're still selling them.
This people still wear
Oh yeah.
But like, but I mean,lots of YouTubers sold.
Fucky shirts.
Yeah.
It's kinda like, butthese are not specific.

(38:53):
Like some are fill coded, but a lotof them are just general, like cringe.
We could actually do
a ranking YouTuber shirts episode.
That can be like a holiday special.
Yeah.
I feel like a lot of that lost to time.
No, I feel
because they, they don't sell 'em anymore?
No, because they're just on Teespring.
Yeah.
They're really, um, they're pretty ugly.
Um, but yeah, he has the catchphrase.

(39:15):
He has a bit of a format.
Now we are entering.
The bright as in the light period of Philhistory where the videos have not been
deleted, which is good for us because Iwould say that around 2017, after Phil
repurchases, his assets from discoveryactually own them under a subsidiary.

(39:37):
That's crazy.
Yeah.
Um, like all the YouTubers, they, theyreturned all the big, the big media were
like, we are gonna get into YouTube.
And they're like, oh, actuallythere's no money here.
And then they all left and went backto, well, they just want a slice
of the pie.
And they're like, actually we shouldmake it something completely different.
Or like, you should do it like this.
And it's like, maybe notalways someone say maybe
they were sold a pie by YouTubeand then when they all changed how

(40:00):
much money you earn and the pie gotsubstantially smaller, all these
companies were actually kind of duped by.
I also think
there is a case of like, they havea fundamental, I think still around
this time in 2017, there was afundamental misunderstanding of like.
What makes YouTubers popular andlike what makes that content succeed?
And their idea of like, well, let'stry and like gloss it up and make

(40:23):
it more like mainstream media.
It's like, that's not whyit's popular like I do.
I do.
Well, I don't necessarily agreewith like that we have to be
skeptical of the mainstream media.
Like yeah, media literacy is good.
Um, but in terms of like YouTube holdingits own as its own medium and having that
popularity with a younger audience, ityeah, it's classic like, you know, boomer,

(40:45):
the Boomer mainstream media, the virginmainstream media to the Chad YouTube.
Yep.
Um, they just don't getwhat makes it successful.
And it's usually best, thecreative control is best
kept in the creator's hands.
I wanna touch on the big post2017 Philip DeFranco storylines.

(41:06):
In that Phil started coveringYouTube drama a lot more.
. And a common meme is that he wouldalways use prominent YouTubers
in his thumbnails as clickbait.
Mm. And people would count how manytimes he used particular YouTubers.
PewDiePie being number one, YouTuberbeing used the most amount of times.
Mm-hmm.
But
he, in 2017, he did a sort of expose,which is kind of unlike a lot of Phil

(41:31):
stuff 'cause he does primarily justcover, you know, existing stories.
Existing stories.
He, yeah.
But he goes and does sort of adeep dive on the YouTube channel.
Daddy of Five.
I do wanna put a little bitof a content warning in here.
Mm-hmm.
Because we did, like, we have obviouslydiscussed things in this episode so
far, but this story that we'll betouching on is about like child abuse.

(41:56):
Yes.
And it's pretty unpleasant.
Um, like just watching thevideos was quite confronting
and uncomfortable, so I wouldn'tnecessarily recommend if you wanna
skip, skip forward in the time codes.
Um.
Yeah, we'll chapter out.
Yeah, if you, where we'll stop.
Yeah.
We won't be going into depthinto it, but like, yeah.
Yes.
So Daddy of Five is a family vlogchannel where the content includes,

(42:23):
you know, typical family vlog stuff,but also there is a emphasis on prank
videos, which are popular at the time.
But what Phil identifies is thatthe pranks that this channel
are doing, basically amount tothem abusing the parents, sorry,
abusing the children in the family.
Yes.
And in particular targetinglike one of their children

(42:47):
like most.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so
it's a combination of like, they scream atthis child, they physically hit the child,
they encourage the other kids to hit
and like gang up on the child.
Yeah.
Uh, and it's like, it's.
Actually watching this, and theyhad like over a hundred thousand
subscribers, like the popular channel.
Mm-hmm.

(43:07):
Watching this was likeso upsetting, like Yeah.
It's, and these people continuedto, uh, exist on YouTube in one
form of another until very recently.
Uh, YouTube does shut the channelsdown after a period of time.
But Phil basically made this videoand following that there was a lot of
mainstream awareness of the channeland eventually it led to the two of the

(43:34):
children in question being taken awayfrom the parents that run the channel.
And they also were convictedof child abuse charges.
Yeah.
In court.
So about six months later.
Yeah.
So this story, and I remember this being.

(43:54):
News at the time.
I remember seeing this covered onYouTube and I probably have actually
watched the Philip DeFranco stories.
He does make several videos aboutit because he's the primary person.
He's kind of like thefirst to cover the story.
Um, not that he's the only person to coverit or the first to cover it, but like the
first with a larger platform to cover it.

(44:15):
And yeah, like you said, it had not beenpicked up in mainstream media at all.
And it's like, you know, a public, it'slike on YouTube, like multiple examples
of child abuse and after the initialvideo, um, people dig through the
channel and find more and more evidence.
Um, and we've seen that happen inother cases, like more recently, like,

(44:36):
I dunno if you know anything abouteight passengers or Ruby Frankie.
So this is.
Yeah.
This is not the only time.
Are they
like family vloggers?
Yeah.
So yeah guys, I have a tremendouslynegative impression of family vloggers.
Uh, and I'm sure we'll watch them atsome point and we can elaborate on that.
But I have a very dim view of peoplethat basically monetize their children.

(45:03):
Yeah.
I think, I think there are own, like Ijust, there are not many instances where
people are incorporating or includingtheir children in their content, where
I would not consider it exploitation.
Yeah.
Um, there's one
exception, the Aussie bro squad.
Um, you are joking, right?
I'm joking.
Yeah.

(45:23):
But, uh,
I feel technically they're TikTokis so I feel like we won't,
we won't get to cover them.
Alas, alas.
Um, but uh, yeah, I thinkfamily vloggers generally I am
extremely skeptical of as well.
I am not.
A viewer of family vloggers.
I think the only time I watched,like what I would call family

(45:45):
content is when vloggers I follow,had kids, like have had kids.
Yeah.
But even then, the ones I tend tocontinue watching either really minimally
include their children or actuallydon't show their children at all.
And actually more speak to theirexperiences of being a parent.
Um, so, but like, it's like family vlogsjust in general are like just a breeding

(46:07):
ground for like, just abuse of powerand like child abuse, like literally.
Um, but in case there's like Daddyof five, it becomes a vehicle to I
guess, encourage the parents to Yeah.
Just do like, uh, yeah, I don't know.
Like they're, do you know what I mean?
Like they, they're reactiveand like having these like.

(46:28):
Kids having meltdowns and stuff getsthem views and money and so they're
incentivized and it gets YouTube money,
which is kind of one of my corecriticisms, I would say, of YouTube
in that it is so, and all socialmedia is like this basically, but
they are so intentionally lax intheir content moderation because
they're complicit.

(46:48):
Yes.
They, and they are free to makemoney from this, and then as soon
as it becomes like a media issue,like a reputational one, they act.
But before then, if no one had saidanything, they would just be like,
yeah, you know, oh, how are we toknow that there was child abuse in
the videos that we host and sellads on our service and that people

(47:09):
report to the platform being like,Hey, there's child abuse in this video.
And it takes them likemonths to take action.
Yeah.
There's certainlysomething to be said there.
I do think they would be more quicklydemonetized, and I know now on YouTube,
they have since put in policies about.
Like the kind of advertising that can run.

(47:29):
Yeah.
I believe also, and I'm not surehow it's enforced, but they say that
children in content should, basically,the content should be produced in
keeping with local child labor laws.
Mm-hmm.
YouTube kids also isa whole new ecosystem.
So YouTube has responded to concernsabout kids watching YouTube and

(47:52):
kids being used in YouTube content.
Mm-hmm.
Um, but yeah, anyway, as this examplesays, there's still a long way to go.
But yeah, we were pretty negativeon Phil up until this point, but
we didn't have an amazingimpression of his journalistic.
No, Phil is not a journalist.
Uh,
but in this, we were kind of like,he's kind of giving journalism.
I actually
was like, yes.

(48:13):
Like someone who's like, he'svery critical of journalists.
I was like, well Phil, it's good thatyou actually went out and uh, with
your team, did some journalism here.
It's a shame that it's like one of like a10 million videos you made and the rest of
you just profit off other people's work.
Okay, well, we don't know.
You slate on this one, Phil.
He, but I do think we should mention thathe does have, and something, I don't know

(48:38):
if we've really discussed, but Phil saysthat he likes to present the facts and
like the objective truth, which is sucha, such a kind of interesting statement.
'cause it's like no one is free from bias.
Mm. Yes.
Like, but so many journalists.
I would say so manyjournals claim, it's like
any publication, you know, everypublication is owned by someone.

(48:59):
Yeah.
Every journalist has their own background.
Yeah.
And opinions.
Like there is nothing.
I, I personally am like, there's nosuch thing as being free from bias.
If a person is writing content, likeif a, if a person, if a journalist
is a person, and even if it'slike AI and they're taking it from
like, do you know what I mean?
Like, you, you can't be free from bias.
You don't exist in a vacuum.

(49:21):
You are a product of
your, like life.
One of my main contentions with journalismand like disclosure, I used to work for
one of Australia's main news publicationsand you have a journalism degree.
Yeah.
And yeah, even in the, even working asjournalists, I would say overwhelmingly,

(49:41):
the majority of journalists thinkthat their opinion is free from bias.
Like in most recent Australianpolling, it's something like only
20% of journalists can see that theirreporting has some level of bias.
And that's reported as like peoplebeing like, I can't believe that there's
20% of journalists that are biased.
And it's like, no, literally every singlething has a bias of one degree or another.

(50:07):
And it is like such a, like basicallya facade that even our public broadcast
of a BC has a, a doctrine of impartimpartiality, which is just like so
laughable when you think about it.
Like of course, like a governmentagency has a position in Yeah, like
in relation to all sorts of Yeah.

(50:27):
Things that it reports on.
Like it's impossible for itto be impartial and actually
not addressing the biases.
Explicitly makes it like more deceiving.
So anyway, we got on tangent there.
But yeah, Phil DeFranco isa big, like, I'm impartial.
I'm impartial.
I just present the facts to the people.
No bias, no spin, no bias.
And I let people, and I encouragepeople to use me as a jumping off

(50:50):
point to seek out, you know, furtherinformation and sources and like, sure.
Maybe second part you can say, I'm meantto be like an easy entry point into the
news for people to then find out more.
I don't know if I disagree with that.
I think that's a fine thing to say islike I'm a, you know, a light, like I'm
a easily digestible source of news andthen people can go and find out more
if that's something they're curious on.

(51:10):
But yeah, you can watch like 20 minutes ofPhilip DeFranco every other day and maybe
getting a sense of like what's happening.
Yeah, question mark.
Sure.
I mean,
honestly like the TV newsoperates in a single way.
Yeah, sure.
Like there's like, they're a journalistsobviously, but for the most part.
TV news is just recycling, existingreporting, whether that be from like,

(51:31):
uh, a news agency or other mediaoutlets where they just take a summary.
Yeah.
Phil's doing the same thing, you know?
Yeah.
But so he says, I don't haveany bias and that's how I do it.
But it really, there's somethingodd that I've noticed, and again,
we haven't, we weren't able towatch like every single video.
So I can't be like, this is theamount it happens or this is the

(51:51):
percentage of times that it happens.
But he invariably giveshis opinion on topics.
I think he's done it less in recentyears, but in, certainly in early
videos, he would give his like editorialopinion on that particular topic.
And he doesn't do it as much now.
Um, but there's something to mention'cause he makes this big deal of it.

(52:12):
But then equally, and we'll talkabout one topic in particular, which
I thought was particularly cursedand he had a particularly bad take.
Um.
But yeah, he, he kind of like picksand chooses when he wants to give his
editorial opinion, which I guess is fine.
But again, it's like that case of like,well, do you only present facts or do you,
like, you can't, you know what I mean?

(52:33):
Like, imagine if a news reader was like,and that's the top stories for today.
Also, I think that person is dumb.
It's like, okay, I don't know.
It's a bit, it's fine if you wannagive your opinion, but I think it, it's
sort of, he sort of presents it like
he wants to have his cake and eater too,
you know?
Yeah, yeah.
But to return and kind of cap offthis really, um, big story that I do

(52:55):
think he did a really good job of,and he did raise awareness for what
was like a really concerning issue.
Again, like yeah, the, these videos werelike really disturbing and harrowing.
Um, but Phil does have a personalconnection to the subject matter
at hand, um, which he does.
Delve into a bit in his alsoprivate, but someone had re-uploaded

(53:17):
his draw my life, um, where hedoes explain that he came from a
background where he had been abused.
And the draw my life is he kind ofskates over it in like a similarly
comedic style that he presents allhis videos in, but he skates over like
what seemed to be some pretty traumatic
Yes.
Events.
He
does allege that one of hismother's ex-boyfriends attempted

(53:44):
to kill Phil and his mom.
Yeah.
By carbon monoxide poisoning.
Yes.
Which I don't think is a joke while I waspresenting in Don't somewhat comedic way.
Yeah.
He presents this whole, it wouldbe a crazy thing to misrepresent.
No, I think he's being so serious.
Yeah.
And he, yeah, it's, it's pretty.

(54:05):
Like, I was watching this and Iwas like, Jesus, like holy cow.
And he kind of talked through hislike early childhood as being quite
disrupted, um, and kind of scary.
Um, and then he is like, you know,and then I became a YouTuber and I
met my wife and everything's all good.
And, you know, that's fantastic.
And I'm, you know, really gladthat he obviously was able to

(54:26):
escape from that situation.
But I think it, it's something to mentionthat clearly he, um, yeah, he, he, and he
does say this in the video, which is stillup, where he's like, I feel a personal
connection to this story because, um, youknow, I feel like no one's intervening
and I wish that someone had intervened.
Mm. Um, in, you know, my situation.
I thought that was quite,yeah, I don't know.

(54:49):
It was, I think it's something to mention.
He, he was like personally incensedand like moved by this and, you
know, I think it's some of his bestwork that he does on his channel.
Agree.
And I think there's something to that.
Yeah.
Mm.
Following from his best work.
Uh, uh, so yeah, Phil covered.
Fallout from VidCon 2017.
VidCon is, from my understanding,like the big convention for YouTubers.

(55:14):
Right?
It's
like the, yeah, it's the firstconvention for YouTubers.
I will say 2017 is like the biggestyear for Philip DeFranco's channel.
Yes.
Ever.
Like to this day, the coveringof the daddy of five situation
were his most viewed videos.
They're all in the top.
Like 10 on his channel.
Yeah.
Like yeah.
Something like that.
And then this also, I thinkwas quite highly viewed.

(55:34):
Yep.
Um, also in 2017.
And then there's another situationwe'll talk about briefly.
Yeah.
Which was also in 2017.
So basically
the only thing to break 20 seventeen'sstrangle on like his top videos,
and it was still four years ago, ishe covered some David Dorich stuff.
Yes.
Uh, that, that reached those levels.
But otherwise, if you look at hispopular stuff on his channels, it's all

(55:57):
the 2017 stuff, uses the same YouTubebackground and has the YouTube creators
and it's covering YouTube drama.
Yeah.
So
his most popular contentever is YouTube centric.
And he, you know, spoiler alert hasnow moved to more, I would say, like
mainstream news, like political coverage.
Yeah.
Um, but yeah, I just wanted to say,'cause I, I feel like we're really 2017

(56:18):
centric, but it is because it's themost popular content on his channel.
Yeah.
And it's the earliest stuff.
That basically is uploaded.
Yeah.
So VidCon, um, created by Hankand John Green, which we will
do an episode about soonish.
Yeah.
Because they're quite, I I know
about John Green 'causeof The Fault in Our Stars.
Yes, I know.
He is like a YA author.

(56:39):
Mm-hmm.
And that's kind of it.
I I have not read A Fault in Our Stars.
I'm familiar with it throughits place in culture.
Yeah.
I imagine I would not enjoy it, but
I think I've read a solid, I thinkI read quite a few of his books.
But
nonetheless, you were inthe core demo at the time.
I was.
He was writing, so Ifollowed him on Tumblr.

(57:00):
Yeah.
So, yeah.
Oh, there you go.
Mm-hmm.
Oh yeah.
It'll be a good app.
Um, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Yeah.
Look.
Anyway.
VidCon VidCon.
So at the time there is a socialmove, a social and political sort of
movement online called Game the Gate.
A very brief summation of Gamer Gate.

(57:20):
I knew about Gamer Gate'cause I am a, a gamer.
Uh, everyone clap.
But, but, um, it basically wastargeted harassment at mainly women
academics and games journalists.
And it's basically, it's a conspiracytheory that, and, you know, it's,

(57:41):
it's not a, a defined movement.
So I'll give a summationof what I think it is.
It's about people thinking thatdiversity and, uh, major corporation,
sorry, diversity is being pushedinto video games by shadowy forces
and it's making the games worse.
Yeah.

(58:02):
I would just say, isthat your understanding?
I would say that Game of Gate, uh, isbasically the movement equivalent of
the statement, uh, gf, go make me asandwich while I play Call of Duty.
Like it's.
Yeah, basically they would be like, it'sabout ethics and games journalism, but

(58:22):
it's actually about, they don't wantwomen in games because they perceive
gaming to be a male space that women arelike trying to take over and make shit.
Which is
Yes,
I mean, sorry.
Yeah.
Maybe I'm editorializing here.
Game of Gate was like a scourgeon the internet and it's
still something like anethos that you see today.
They're insane.

(58:43):
Meninist cookers, sorry.
It's now
just become though like Game X is woke.
Yeah, it's like anti-social justicewarriors, like using pictures of women
who have dyed hair being like these,and it's like, again, slut shaming.
This is such a fun episode.
Everything's so fun.
I love covering the news.
Maybe this is happen.
Imagine being Phil though.

(59:03):
Yeah.
Imagine being Phil after covering this,but actually like, I'm like, oh, I
find talking about Game of Gate, likedistressing and discouraging being a woman
who enjoys video games and I rememberat the time being like, Gamergate is
such a bad vibe because like, yeah.
I'm a girl who enjoys video gamesand I'm seeing all these men being
like, women suck and I hate them andI hate that there's like a female
protagonist of this video game.

(59:24):
'cause it's like woken shitand like blah, blah blah.
Yeah.
Like all that stuff.
All this context
right.
Will be paid off here.
But Gamergate, this central figure wasan academic, her name was Anita Ian.
She's still, you know, a publicfigure and writes about sort
of, uh, women in popular media.

(59:45):
And she had a blog and she wouldwrite about, at the time I believe
it was like the tropes of femalecharacters in popular video games.
Yeah.
Like this is all like stuff that islike so normal within like coverage,
academia of the arts In academia.
Academia, yeah.
But basically it.
Elicited a huge online response from likeall of these commentators, uh, especially

(01:00:08):
like popular video game creators, wherethey were like, we hate this work.
You are wrong.
And it led to like years oftargeted harassment for her
and people that defended her.
Yeah.
And other, yeah.
Female creators were kind of putinto the same, basically any woman
who had an opinion about videogames was kind of thrown into

(01:00:30):
the fiery pit, um, of harassment.
So Anita, Ian had a panel atVidCon, which was herself, um,
and some other like associates,other commentators in the space.
The panel specifically was aboutonline harassment towards women.

(01:00:51):
Yeah.
Which she's very well versed to speak on.
And again, the, uh, owners.
Of VidCon or like the organizerVidCon at this point, were
John and Hank Green later on.
They don't own VidCon and they'renot involved in the same way.
But at this time they were.
So they obviously approved thispanel and were like, yep, let's
go put it the programming.

(01:01:13):
And I think it's worth noting thatJohn and Hank Green, while they don't
necessarily continue to run VidCon andown VidCon, I'm a bit fuzzy on those
details, but at this point they were.
So this programming was approved bythem and you actually knew who this man.
Yes.
So
a bunch of people critical of.

(01:01:35):
Anita, Ian and Jayden.
Generally, I would saypro Gamergate figures.
Yeah.
They got tickets to VidCon eitherpersonally or they, uh, like forged
their identity to get in and theysat in the front row of the panel
and filmed, uh, Anita Ian and she,during the paddles singled out, one

(01:01:58):
of them, his name is Carl Benjamin.
His YouTube sort of handleis sargon of a card.
And I knew of him because I amaware of him through like coverage
of gamer gate and general farright online, uh, sentiment.
And she was like, uh, I hate to give youattention because you are a garbage human.

(01:02:22):
So Sian, sorry, said, sorry.
Sian said that, and then as aresult, Saigon, Carl Benjamin
went online and said that.
I have been abused by apanelist at, she's harassed me.
I've been harassed.
That is in breach of the laws, you know?
Sorry, the bylaw of the vicon terms
of, yeah.
Like service and whatever, whichobviously like, you know, yeah.

(01:02:43):
Every convention has their rules of
Yeah.
You know, she was like, uh, hewas like, um, is she gonna be
punished or breaking these rules?
Philip DeFranco covers all of thisin the Philip DeFranco show, and
this is an example where he covers itand then he gives his opinion on it.
His personal opinion.
Yes.
Mm. He is like, basically Anita brokethese rules and he seems confused as

(01:03:09):
to why she isn't punished for this.
He also is confused by theresponse from Hank and John Green,
because they later said that.
The behavior of this group of like,you know, uh, opponents of Anita,
uh, was basically intimidating.

(01:03:29):
Like they intentionally went to the paneland staked it out to film and harass her.
Yeah.
And it is something that they hadbeen doing for years, it's just not
like it was an isolated incident.
Yeah.
They know the context of Exactly.
Yeah.
And
they were like, we didn't really like,and I can't really blame them for this.
'cause obviously like it's tough to beacross all of the various like dramas

(01:03:51):
and attendees at a huge convention.
Yeah.
This is like a Bitcoin wherethey're also debuting, like
Joey Graff Escape the Night.
Yeah.
And like this, this, I rememberthis being quite a historic
VidCon of many levels of drama.
Yeah.
So, yes.
And
it's like when your conferenceis about YouTube, can you really
be like, no filming panels, whichis a common rule at many panels.

(01:04:13):
But they're like, that's like
Philip DeFranco's also, he's like, Iguess defense or his point is like.
Obviously, so we know from thecontext these guys are filling
up the rows, they're filming.
Anita knows who these people are.
They've made many videos abouther basically like being very
disparaging towards her, encouraging,targeted harassment towards her.

(01:04:34):
She, you know, obviously, and forpeople not familiar with panels, they
would all be sitting there and thenthe panelists come in so they wouldn't
have like seen them before they go out.
So she would go out, sit down and seebasically like a bunch of bullies who she
knows who hate her, sitting at the frontrow of her panel, which is about being
harassed online by those exact people.

(01:04:55):
Yeah.
So yeah, like contextually wherelike, but Philip DeFranco is like,
it's not against the rules of.
Like for a YouTuber to go to apanel about YouTube, to film for a
YouTube video about another YouTuber.
Like he's allowed tohave his own opinions.
And it's kind of crazy because it's like
he just completely ignoreslike the context Yeah.
Of this specific situation.

(01:05:16):
She's
been like doxed,
like he so like, he like refusesto consider that there shouldn't
be like a blanket acceptancethat anyone can attend any panel.
It's like at any time's he's
not a, the way that Philip DeFrancois discussing it is in like people are
allowed to have like disagreements.
Yeah.
And it's like, no one's saying thatyou can't disagree with someone we're

(01:05:39):
saying you can't like do a targetedharassment campaign and like dock someone
and like basically stress 'em out.
Like I wouldn't be surprised if theywere like police reports about him.
Like, I'm not a hundred percent sure.
Like obviously, you know,alleged, uh, details.
I'm not gonna say anything 'causewe don't a hundred percent know.
But like you do, you know what I mean?

(01:06:00):
Like, it's so different to just.
Ah, I, sorry, I'm getting annoyed.
I just think it's like ridiculousto be like, 'cause it's, it's
downplaying what she's been through.
It's kind of like why is shemaking a big deal about it?
Like he's allowed to do it andshe was, and she, he's right.
Like she did break the terms ofservice by calling him like a
dummy, like a trash bag or whatever.

(01:06:20):
And I'm like, he
spends way more time.
Mm-hmm.
In the video detailing the languagethat she uses towards them than
in this instance at Bitcoin.
Yes.
Than anything that they have doneto her for years at this point.
Or any of the widerramifications of family.
I would actually
argue that this guy, what isit, Carl of GGG of the card.

(01:06:41):
GBA Google.
Yeah, sure.
Him.
He probably was violatingYouTube's terms of service in
terms of harassing her repeatedly.
Like I would not, and maybe not atthe time, but certainly now I. Like
repeatedly making content, harassingsomeone is against terms of service.
So it's very, very odd.
And then he makes yeah, a follow up,responding to Hank and John who have

(01:07:05):
made a statement basically beinglike, yeah, look, technically she did
make a statement that is against our,you know, vid con's policy, but also
like we didn't know the full context.
They clearly were doing something to,like anyone would find that intimidating
and that is harassing behavior.
And they also kind of imply that, yeah,like we weren't aware of the situation

(01:07:26):
and had we known that we like, would'vehad security measures in place to
like, not let them do that to her.
Yeah.
Because she was put in a positionwhere she was uncomfortable and
they're kind of basically like, wewould do that too if we were her, but
like we don't encourage her to do it,but like you can so see why she did.
Um, and they obviously don'tban her from future events or I,
like, I am shocked and I'll readwhat Anita wrote on her blog.

(01:07:49):
She said that she'sreferring to Sargon here.
She says he makes over $5,000 amonth on Patreon for creating YouTube
videos that mock insult and discreditmyself and other women online.
He's not alone.
He's one of several YouTubers whoprofit from the cottage industry of
online harassment and anti feminism.

(01:08:10):
Yeah.
Like, and Phil is like, well,
I don't know.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Should, should you
be allowed to do that?
And I should mention in the followup video he does double down.
Yeah.
He's like, I still, he's like,I think what Hank and John
have done here is a weak move.
Exactly.
And I'm like, what?
Like, they're literally being like,we They're apologizing to Anita.
Yeah.
They're basically being like, Anita,we are sorry this happened to you.
Like obviously yes, we don't want you,like any of our panelists to yell at

(01:08:32):
people in the audience, but like low key.
Uh, you are fine for that.
Like knowing what happens, we don't care.
And Phil is Philipp beinglike, Hank and Joan, you're
kind of a weak for doing this.
You shouldn't have done this.
You should really takeaction, blah, blah, blah.
And fucking sorry.
Pardon my language.
I'm, I, you can tell I'm incensedCarl of Sargon whatever, GBA,

(01:08:55):
Goul, stro is in the comments.
Yeah.
Being like, Phil, you're a real one.
Like you my bestie, like, thankyou for being a, a shining
light in free speech xx.
And I'm like, this is a bad look.
It's a bad vibe.
I don't like it.
Sorry
everyone.
Oh well on free speech.

(01:09:16):
So yeah.
Final 2017 big video saga.
And this one actuallyreturns because it's ongoing.
Yeah.
Is, uh, Phil and his coverageof the pty pie antisemitism.
Controversy.
Yeah.
And kind of links into like the apocalypseand all of that, which again is, yeah.

(01:09:40):
I remember on the, at the time,there were some news articles, again,
like by mainstream media, and notthat I agree with Philip DeFranco,
because we don't have the same take.
But there is a case of like, likejournalists writing about YouTube
who don't understand YouTube.
Yeah.
And being like, he madein another video blog.
Like, do you know what I mean?
It's like that kind of thing.

(01:10:00):
Yeah.
Like trying to write abouta subject matter that you
fundamentally don't understand.
So there's definitely that element.
Hey,
I would, you know, when you'rea journalist, you have to write
about everything under the sun.
One would argue there'snothing you wanna say.
Yeah,
no, I, I mean, but equally like if you'regonna write a story and it's like not,
yeah.
It's a misrepresentation of, okay.
So, but yeah.
So at the time, correct me ifI'm wrong, from what I remember,

(01:10:21):
he paid some men on Fiverr.
Yep.
To display various offensive things.
'cause he was like, well, what,what can get away with it?
How far can you push it?
Yeah.
And I believe he, uh, said oneof them, it said, we don't can
even say, we should not say that.
Okay.
We can't say it.
No.
It, he, it contain was extremelyan anti antisemitic slogan.

(01:10:43):
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Uh, and this resulted in ahuge amount of fallout for him.
Arra.
Am I correct?
He like lost YouTubebasically cut ties with him.
Yes.
Mainstream media, uh,condemned him significantly.
They were saying he was like a,
a Nazi.
Yes.
Yeah.
Well, they, I don't think theywere saying he was a Nazi.
They were definitelysaid he was antisemitic.

(01:11:04):
I think they were also sayingthat he was like, alt-right.
Potentially.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Let's
not, we don't, yeah.
Let's not litigate Peter Pie here.
Mm. Except for the fact thatPhilip DeFranco was not alone.
He was among many YouTuberswho backed PewDiePie.
And I would say most YouTubers did.
Yes.
Because it felt.

(01:11:24):
Like kind of what we werediscussing before, like mainstream
media is like, look at YouTube.
It's so, it's so bad.
Yeah.
Me.
And so YouTube is obviously gonna bedefensive and especially at this time,
I think U PewDiePie probably was thenumber one YouTuber on the platform.
Or if not number one,very much in the top.
He was everyone's golden boy.
Everyone liked Pew Pie.

(01:11:44):
Yeah, so the video is titledRidiculous MSN, which is like
shorthand for mainstream media.
Mainstream media, which is, you know, adog whistle for independent media types.
Mainstream MSN caughtspewing garbage again.
And he basically cherry pickssome articles and points out that

(01:12:05):
they, uh, basically get like smallthings wrong about either Felix's
videos or, uh, his own videos.
Yeah, essentially.
Uh, and he uses this andthe sources from memory.
It's something like aDaily Mail online article.
Which AI didn't exist then, butthis is like the next thing to
basically an AI bot writing news.

(01:12:25):
It's not like he's picking sources ofnote and the New York Times are writing
about this and getting things wrong.
He's picking like the lowest,cheapest tier online media.
Ah, yeah.
And saying the facts are wrong here.
And this is indicative of allmainstream media being distrustful.
I,
it's been obviously a hot second.
It's been like eight years, but Ido remember this discourse at the

(01:12:48):
time I think there is a level towhich I do possess some empathy for
YouTubers in being like, they coverus and like, this is mainstream.
Like this is what, you know, and whenyou think about it, being a YouTuber
wasn't like, it was, I would say beinga YouTuber was like recognized as being
like a job and stuff at this time, butstill considered like a lesser form.

(01:13:09):
Um, and probably still is today,but it's considered like a lesser
form than mainstream media.
And this would be like thekind of stuff where like.
This would be what would be sentto their, like, family members who
don't understand what their job is.
So, you know, I think for like,it's like YouTubers are getting shit
on and put into the same basket.
He did make those videos though.
Like yes, he did do that.

(01:13:30):
Philip DeFranco would private a lot ofthese videos specifically relating to
PewDiePie because for those unaware, hewould later go on to, uh, say the N word
with hard R in a heated gaming moment.
Yeah.
While playing Pub G online and, youknow, say what you will about how

(01:13:51):
it's interesting that the antisemitismincident people are, you know, they're,
they're standing up to defend him,but then once you have a context of
like very specific American focusedracism, they all abandon him.
But yeah, Phil has private anumber of these videos where
he would defend PewDiePie.

(01:14:11):
I have, uh, from mediacoverage at the time.
Some quotes from what he had to sayprior to the, the racism incident.
He said, uh, you know, the mediareaction makes them look silly and
has added to the conversation ofwhy media should not be trusted.
And then he goes on to say, thanks to youin the media, the way that you all rush

(01:14:33):
to cover without looking for context,you have made him, that's PewDiePie the
temporary face and put him front andcenter in the conversation of free speech.
In the story of media trying to takedown people for saying things they
don't like or they think are offensive.
The media will literally try and ruinyour career if you make jokes about
things that offend them and you have onlymade him stronger and more important.

(01:14:57):
I mean, I don't agree with the overallsentiment, but the last statement in
terms of making PewDiePie like more ofa figurehead, I think that was true.
I think everyone didback him in that initial.
Case I will say Do, are you aware oflike contextually, what was like the
meta like of funny YouTube at the time?

(01:15:18):
Like do you know much about like eye dubs?
I have no
idea.
It was like edgy humor.
So just before that, I did want topoint out the irony that, um, at the
time pill is all like free speech.
You know, we are gonna say thingsthat affect you, you know, la la la
and then he'd go onto to private,literally all of his videos and yeah,

(01:15:40):
I, I think his free speech, uh, hasmaybe, uh, his, it's rescinded somewhat.
I think it's interesting that it's,it's not clear as to why he privates
the videos because he hasn't spokenabout it again, to my knowledge.
Like maybe he has and we'vemissed it, but he, it's, it's
almost like he likes to Yeah.

(01:16:02):
Private instances of where he waslike had a bad take or was wrong.
Yeah.
And I'm a bit like that's.
Like news articles can't,like, delete newspapers.
They've published, like that'swhat being news is like.
Yeah.
At least
they, they should issue a correction.
Yeah.
Or, or a retraction or, you know, hecould be like, Hey, so I previously,

(01:16:23):
you know, stood up because I believethat, you know, PewDiePie's video,
he intended for it to be comedy.
The jokes were not, like, thejokes were, um, like antisemitic.
Yeah.
They aren't really funny.
Blah, blah, blah.
I bet it's like, I think, you know, he cantalk about like, I think like a La Dave
Chappelle, which he actually does havethis take where he's like, I think people
are allowed to make offensive jokes.

(01:16:43):
Yeah.
And you don't have to makea funny, I think we are
both also of that opinion.
I don't,
well, yeah.
And like we can kind of go into it andagain, it's like there's, there's been so
much like, and Pew Pie has been wrappedup in so many different kind of levels of
controversy over those like, few years.
But it, I do think it's, it's like just.
Just say you were wrong or just belike, I stood on this opinion and I

(01:17:06):
still think, like, I don't think itwas fair of them to target him for
that video in isolation because theytook it out of context of like what was
considered YouTube humor at the time.
Who are the other popular YouTubers?
Id dubs literally saysthe N word in his content.
Everyone thought that was extremelyfunny for a period of time.
Like that was, that wasa, a meta on YouTube.

(01:17:27):
So he is like part of, andlike, does that make it good?
Does it make it bad?
I'm not saying that, butit's like, yeah, sure.
You can argue that they were taking thatout of context or you know, the purpose
of the video was to do outrageous things.
And maybe they weren't likestating that in those articles.
Like they were like, he just does thisin a video 'cause he thinks it's funny
as opposed to, I'm doing this to like seewhat this website will allow me to do.

(01:17:48):
Is there much of a difference in that?
I don't know.
But sure you can have those arguments,but then you can be like, but I don't
stand by the fact that he uses the N word.
Like, but he just doesn't.
Yeah, in this, in the video wherehe, he does the video is still up, I
think, where he covers this incident.
He like doesn't doeditorializing, I don't think.
Or does he?

(01:18:09):
I don't think he did.
Maybe he did very much beinglike, yikes, the hard R Felix.
Ooh.
And like, that's kind of it,but it's like you did, uh, yeah,
I have just a real, I don't havemuch time for the free speech
YouTube thing because it's very rare.
I feel that this leads to like thechannel or videos being deleted.

(01:18:29):
Right.
All it is is monetization is turned off.
They get demonetized and I'm sorry,like you may have like free speech,
but you don't have the God-given Right.
For YouTube to sell ads on your behalfagainst any content that you create
it.
Yeah.
So the apocalypse was.
It did affect like morepeople than just PewDiePie.

(01:18:54):
Just give some contextwhat the apocalypse is.
I don't have the exact details in frontof me, but essentially the apocalypse
was ad revenue across YouTube going downbecause advertisers, for a multitude
of reasons in part related to this PDPincident, decided they were not going to
advertise on YouTube anymore, so they'renot putting any ad spend into the.
AdSense YouTube partner program beinglike, so like Coca-Cola was like, we

(01:19:17):
are no longer running ads on YouTube.
Um, and obviously Coca-Colawould run a lot of ads on YouTube
for a lot of different things.
So basically the pool of moneythat is shared among creators
are depleted significantly.
So basically a lot of creators lost aquite significant chunk of their income.
Uh, I think certain categories ofYouTubers were more affected than

(01:19:38):
others, so news, political events,um, gaming I think were more affected.
I think beauty, lifestylelike family kind of, yeah.
You know, family friendly C channelswere less affected, but still overall,
basically every YouTuber and alsoa lot of YouTubers who were relying
upon it for income lost money.
So I saw a down, uh, a downwardspike in there ad revenue,

(01:20:00):
which, yeah, I. It's pretty bad.
It's basically been restored to myunderstanding to, as before, like
gradually over time advertisersregain trust in YouTube and
have come back to the platform.
But yeah, it was a prettybig deal around the time
and Phil has been quite vocal aboutlike both these issues with, uh,

(01:20:24):
creators making money and largercriticisms of YouTube in general,
which, you know, good for him.
Yeah, I, no, yeah, I mean, I thinktakes, I think it takes some courage
when you are, like his whole mediaempire is completely beholden to YouTube.
YouTube, yeah.
To criticize the platform that he's on.
Yeah.
I think that's, it's good.

(01:20:45):
Won't catch me criticizingYouTube anytime soon.
We literally did in this episode.
No,
we did not.
Um, uh, yes,
we did.
I don't really remember
really in our discussion of thefact that they're complicit in
family channels making money,
I would like to be featurecreator of the month.
Oh,
okay.
Sure.
Anyway, so Phil has continuedmaking the Philip DeFranco show.
Mm-hmm.

(01:21:05):
Into the modern day.
It's quite moderate compared towhere we started at the beginning.
Like you're not getting Lady of the Dayor links to like 18 year olds leak nudes.
Yeah.
So good for Phil in that sense.
The format currently is the sameas the original format, which is
the mix of current, like currentaffairs news, like political news.

(01:21:28):
Yeah.
A little bit of like a humaninterest story, something fun, little
uplifting, um, and then like tech andwhatever, bit of pop culture news.
And he also does like the Todayand Awesome segment, which is like
also like feel good, like it's likelook at this cool thing on Reddit.
I would
describe watching the field of Francoshow, modern day is kind of like.
The Facebook algorithm of likea 50-year-old American, whoa.

(01:21:53):
You scroll, you get a bit of everything,get a bit of the news, get a bit of human
interest, but all at such surface levelthat I don't think you can say that you
engaged like meaningfully with anything.
I, I think maybe that's a bitharsh because I do think a lot of
people are not connected to thenews or current affairs at all.

(01:22:14):
And I do think he, his early point,which I think still stands to a degree,
is that he can serve as a easy entrypoint into news and current affairs for
like a pretty general wide audience.
No, I You're like he, he needs tobring back hot babe of the day.
Yeah, I am.

(01:22:34):
Just generally I am,
you won't be subscribing.
I, I don't really put a lot ofstock in the idea that there
are like gateway media products.
Um.
And I don't think the field of Francoshow is one, it's pretty hard for you
to like watch the video and I know thathe includes sources in the links, but I
think in the main people, basically theyget the story from his retelling of it.

(01:22:59):
Hmm.
And I would say that's probably remainsmy main contention with Phil is that
he is very critical of news outlets andpeople that are actually putting in work
to report these stories when all he doesis basically take that work and recon,
like resell it where he makes the money.

(01:23:22):
And he doesn't actually, to my mind,contribute much in sort of like
transformational effort at all.
Like.
Yeah, it's very
easy to sit and criticize.
Yeah.
Like we do here on this podcast.
But we are not just, we are not justword for word reading Phil DeFranco.
And occasionally like speaking aboutlike, oh, that was kind of crazy.

(01:23:44):
Like we are doing a wholetransformational work on this.
Whereas Phil just reads the articleor the headline and then basically
either says nothing or he uses thevision from the TV stations, but he
doesn't, like, he's not out there onthe field doing journalism, you know?
But you are ignoring the fact thathe incorporates this thing, which

(01:24:05):
is where he passes it off to you.
He does.
He just audience a direction.
He's like, so anyway, this person did thisrubber henzel thing, but I wanna know.
Well, like he literally doesit with the Anita Sian thing.
Yeah.
He's like, but I wannaknow what you think.
Do you think she shouldbe banned from VidCon?
And it's like, rah.
Um, but yeah, it's not,that's transformational.
He's starting a discussion.

(01:24:25):
Yeah, I'm being a little,he, he's like an a Trump guy.
I'm sorry, he's not Whoa.
Voting for Trump.
He's like an anti-Trump guy.
What?
He's like a big, like Trump bad.
Oh.
Because you know, he used like, he usedto be like a libertarian, so he's like
Right.
You
know, Republican adjacent.
But I think like many sort of like,
I saw something on his Wikipedia thathe considers himself like socially left.

(01:24:46):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's like
classic, like
centrist.
Centrist vibes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm socially liberal, butfiscally conservative.
So, you know, if you, you can screwwhoever you want, but if you want
welfare, not from my pocket, and hehas a big thing, he's like, right.
I moved to California andthen as a business owner, it
made me like so conservative.

(01:25:07):
'cause it's so hard for business owners.
And I was like, whoa is me to havemy company acquired by Disney.
Ugh.
It's so hard for us business owners.
Okay.
Sorry, I'm, I'm getting salty,
but I do think in.
Sort of a conclusion then, kind of comingoff that point where you don't think
that his more like modern iterationof the Philip DeFranco show is really

(01:25:31):
transformational in a major way.
His best work that we've covered,even if it can be, you know,
challenging to watch is where he'skind of breaking ground on stories.
Yeah.
And the most popular content he'sdone was when he was covering
YouTube news because his enemy, themainstream media don't cover it.

(01:25:52):
But now they kind of do, which is,I guess maybe why he's, I'm not
sure why he's leaned back into like
probably his personal interests, you know?
Yeah.
And that's fine.
Like he's nearly 40.
Yeah.
I think YouTube drama isvery taxing on the soul.
I think he potentially has a, yeah,a sense of like, I. But I, I'm

(01:26:13):
like, I'm better than YouTube drama.
Yeah.
Which is kind of ironic.
Well, so he probably
doesn't need the money, right?
Like he's probably doing it for the,for the love of the game at this point.
We, I have no idea.
But ultimately, yeah, I thinkhis best work has been, you know,
covering the Daddy of Five stuff.
Um, not the game of Gate stuff.
That was not his best work, but Ido think he has almost like, yeah.

(01:26:38):
'cause he, he's a subjectmatter ex expert in YouTube.
Like he actually has, I would saysomething interesting to say or like
a, a perspective that mainstreamplatforms can't necessarily always offer.
Yeah.
I think now, like, you know, as timehas gone on, I do think journalists
have a better place to providethat opinion, but I don't know.
Do you think I'm,

(01:26:58):
he does have a long form likepodcast that he like run.
He ran it like seasonally, so there'sno episodes coming out now I. But I do
like, you know, he interviewed a lot ofYouTubers on that and I'm sure I didn't
listen to it, but I'm sure he has a, agood perspective there and it might be
something that's more interesting to us.
He went on hot ones.

(01:27:19):
He did, we tried to watch it.
It was very boring.
It was, it was fine.
It was fine.
I think.
Yeah,
it's fine.
Well, I mean, hot Ones is sort of like,Sean Evans is a great interviewer of
celebrities that you are interested in.
Mm.
So, uh, yeah, but even
if you're not interested in someone, itcan like, bring them around like no more.
Yeah.
I had a dim view of, uh,

(01:27:40):
I mean immediatelyafter watching the Yeah.
The game gay video, I'm like, Idon't really care if this man can
how many hot wings he can eat.
Overwhelmingly,
I, it's pretty telling like Phil's been onYouTube for 20 years and he had one piece
of work that we, um, looked positively on.
We, we are, Frank brings usinto, we don't know that.
What do you think thelegacy of Phil DeFranco is?
I think the format.

(01:28:02):
Yep.
Being, being a newsish channel on YouTube.
But the thing is that now mainstreammedia has gotten around YouTube, so
now there's so many news channels onYouTube that are helmed by journalists
or are just like the TV broadcast.
Yeah.
On YouTube.
So

(01:28:23):
he kind of lost his unique selling point.
Hey, I, which was like being like atabloid newspaper for the internet.
Sorry for the internet video.
There are so
many other like channels andstuff that cover YouTube drama.
So he also like, it's tough becauseit's not like, it's not like
situations like the daddy of fivesituation happen all the time.

(01:28:48):
That's like a big story, you know?
And, and an investigativejournalism piece to a degree.
So like what I'm more
talking about like the video whereyou get like, I. What's happening
to Lindsay Lowen, followed by MeghanFox watch, followed by the new
iPhone is out, followed by Don'tbuy this game from woke developers.

(01:29:09):
Yeah.
Now
he's just like a political commentary guyand there's a dime a dozen of them, but
we should check I mean, while he's notgetting the same level of views as he
did, you know, when he was covering thosevery YouTube centric stories, or maybe
when he was potentially at his peak, hedoes still regularly get over 700,000

(01:29:31):
views, like between 700 k to a mill.
So he has like a consistent audience.
For some people it could be likePhilip DeFranco is like my daily,
there, there are like nearly a milliondedicated Philip DeFranco watches.
And if you have an inbuilt audience likethat who find your source of comfort and
familiarity, then that's, that's probablywhat he's going off of rather than trying
to be like, do you know what I mean?

(01:29:52):
Like he's trying to be likesomeone's favorite daily drive.
Like he is like a radio host thatpeople like and would like to listen
to over someone else because of hislittle interjections and his tone and
how he does it rather than necessarilybecause he's like the best journalist.
Mm-hmm.
Like.
I would you say that's fair?
Yeah, a hundred percent.
He's a commentator or an entertainer, like

(01:30:13):
Yeah,
he's not a journalist.
It's, yeah.
This is a different episodeto the ones we've covered.
I think this is the first where they'renot making like, original creative work.
Yeah.
So it's a bit like that does existas a category of creator, and he
was the pioneer of that in YouTube.
So I think that's his legacy.
Yeah.
I think that it's cool to seesomeone like pioneer a format.

(01:30:37):
Mm-hmm.
Um, it's sad that it's been, forthe most part, removed from YouTube.
Um, but, you know, I think we got a sensefrom the archival stuff that it wouldn't
have a lot of, um, timeliness anyway.
And there'd be a lot of skeletons,you know, in that closet.
But I, I think that, you know.
Other than that, I, I don't have a lotof positive stuff to say about Phil.

(01:31:02):
Um, peace and love tothose that enjoy him.
I saw you watching his video on the bus.
I would think mid widthand I'd get a major Whoa.
No, no, no.
It's, it's not good.
I, I, um, you know, maybe I'm a boomerfor this, but, um, if you wanna read
the news, you should, um, read the news.

(01:31:23):
Yeah.
I, I feel like I've already said I havea more medium take than you, I think, I
think it's not necessarily a bad thingfor people to prefer this as a format.
Yeah.
Um, but I don't think you'll ever, if youreally want to again, get into the news,
I don't think he will be your last stop.
And he has said as much himself.
So we're definitely
ranking him bottom of theYouTube as we've watched so far.

(01:31:45):
Uh,
the only thing I will say is other thanthe early stuff, which he's private,
which I. I'm hoping in good faith thatit's because he, he thinks it's bad.
Is that I don't think he has majorcontroversies, which feels silly to say
after talking about him having a bunchof what I would say is concerning Tex.

(01:32:09):
Yeah,
but he's not, you know, as we saw he didcover some of the Shane Dawson drama.
Uh, he did not like Sure.
There's no, there's no allegations.
There's no
controversy on his Wikipedia page.
That's a Yeah, that's the bar.
Yeah.
Good for him.
Well done Phil.
Respect that.
. Lucy, to finish up, what have you been?

(01:32:31):
Or what are you subscribing to this week?
I am subscribing to Haguesmilk chocolate buttons.
Wow.
They are so yummy.
What is Hagues?
Hagues is, I believe it'sfrom Adelaide actually.
Yeah.
It's like a, it's an Australianlike boutique chocolate store.
Yep.
Multiple locations.

(01:32:51):
None in Brisbane where we used tolive, but several in Sydney and
Melbourne and I believe Adelaide.
Um, and it's very yummy chocolate.
Every time you buy chocolate, youget a little, you get a little taster
and they give you some little, littlenits from a jar, which is very nice.
Um, it's very yummy.
You like Hagues chocolate?
Hagues is, yeah.
Delicious.

(01:33:11):
It's so good.
And I went and bought somelittle milk chocolate buttons.
Recently and we've had them in thefridge and I hold them in my mouth
like, I'm like a, a mythical creature,and I let them melt into my mouth
and I savor it like a special treat.
Like I'm a little, a little orphan.

(01:33:32):
Oh, I'm sure everyone loved that.
Um,
that's what I'm, it's so yummy.
If you, if you live in Australia,you should get some headaches
and if you don't, uh, yeah.
Come to Australia to get hates.
What are you subscribing to?
Thank you for asking.
I am subscribing toInvincible on Amazon Prime.

(01:33:54):
Okay.
I have been watch.
It's, it's good to me.
Like we lot, we watch alot of shows together.
Mm. But sometimes, you know, I'm a men's
just gotta be on his own.
I need a
boy show,
got a girl.
And sometimes I
see you like watching and you are,I kind of get this sense that you're
like, I want it to watch this show, but.
You watch plenty of shows withoutme, so you're like, I have to

(01:34:16):
let my boyfriend have a thing.
But Invincible is a comic book by RobertKirkman who wrote The Walking Dead, and
it's an adaption of that for Amazon Prime.
So it's an animated adult superhero show.
And I hesitated for a whilebecause there's obviously
like so much superhero media.

(01:34:37):
We already watched The Boys,which is like, which is also
on Prime.
Yep.
Another, which is like another antisuperhero superhero story, like a
subversive superhero show.
Mm-hmm.
And Invincible
is that as well.
Um, but I gave it a go because Isaw a lot of tiktoks, which were
very negative about the show.
They're like, this animationlike sucks, like the show is bad.

(01:34:59):
But I was watching them and I was like,you know, it actually looks kind of good.
So like the haters actually made me watch.
Wow.
And I watched the first seasonHaters make you famous moment.
Yeah.
And I thought it was really, really good.
I really enjoyed it.
And I'm about halfway throughthe second season and I'm really
excited to see where it ends up.
Yippee.

(01:35:19):
Cool.
Okay.
Yay.
That is the Philip DeFrancoepisode of Rewind Time.
I hope that you all enjoyed it.
I hope that we, you're excited forus to resume our ordinary noncurrent
events and use coverage, uh, topics.
I'm so sorry, but I feel likethat episode felt a bit grin.
We are covering allthe, all the favorites.

(01:35:40):
Child abuse, antisemitism.
Sexism and misogyny.
We to go where Phil takes us and he,his big hits, he covered these topics.
He fill us in.
Oh no, that's, that'shis hit, that's his pun.
Stop you.
Beautiful.
Beautiful.
B they just, yeah, youdon't have to listen.
I'll include,
I'll include the audio of thatgetting, but you don't have
to listen to it anymore.
No, it's all over.

(01:36:01):
It's over.
Yeah.
It's over.
Lucky, safe.
Um, thank you for listening.
Thank you for yourcomments on our episodes.
Thank you for the ratingsand reviews that I've seen.
Yes.
People leaving on
Really appreciate it.
Yeah, it does help us out and it helpsget the, get the word out about the
podcast, um, to find other people whoare interested in niche YouTube history.

(01:36:23):
Um, so thank you and do let us know.
I'm gonna pass it over to you.
What do you think of Philip DeFranco?
Put it in the comments below.
For our audio listeners,maxes shaking his head yes.
Stop, stop,
stop.
Yeah, I don't wanna adopt any PhilipDeFranco iss if we can avoid it, but okay.
That's enough for this week.
We will see you next week withanother episode of rewind time.

(01:36:45):
Thank you for listening, and goodbye.
Bye.

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