- What's up you beautiful bastards!
Hope you're having a fantastic Monday,
welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show,
and let's just jump into it.
The first thing we're going to talk about today,
we have some kind of shorter pieces of news,
some entertainment news also, that we didn't get to
talk about on Friday.
It was announced after the very public falling out
between Sony and Marvel over Spider-Man, that one,
Spider-Man will actually be staying inside of the
Marvel cinematic universe, two, Marvel will be producing
the next Spider-Man movie, set to be released in 2021,
and three, with Spider-Man still being in the MCU,
he will be in an upcoming Marvel movie that's not
just a regular Spider-Man movie.
And I say, awesome!
I don't have doubts that Sony could make a good
Spider-Man movie, especially after
"Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse",
but it really felt like if this did not come back
together it would've been just at the detriment of so
many other fantastic movies, especially for the fans.
I spit all over the place just a second ago.
Who have just been heavily involved in the MCU
over the past decade.
Yeah, there was that.
Then, in a quick update, let's talk California legislation.
If you're a new viewer, you might not have seen in the past
we've covered this bill in California that would allow
college athletes to actually make money from endorsements.
All right, and that's key here, some people have
misrepresented this as like, "Ugh, the schools, they're
"going to have to pay for these students."
No, this is going to allow college athletes to earn
money from people using their name,
their image, their likeness.
Which is something many athletes, former, professional,
just at the college level have been wanting,
although notably, not Tim Tebow.
- It's about your team, it's about your university,
it's about where my family wanted to go.
It's about where my grandfather had a dream of seeing
Florida win an NFC championship.
And you're taking that away so that young kids
can earn a dollar.
And that's just not where I feel like college
football needs to go.
- Which hey, everyone can have a different opinion,
I disagree with him there, whatever.
But where we essentially left off with this story
is that we were waiting for the governor of California
to sign the bill or not.
And the update is that he did sign it.
And notably, he ended up signing it on an online-only
episode of "The Shop".
He's there with LeBron James and others, and he says,
"It's going to initiate dozens of other states to
"introduce similar legislation.
"It's going to change college sports for the better
"by having now the interest finally of the athletes
"on par with the interest of the institution.
"Now we are rebalancing that power."
And I will say it's gonna be very interesting to see
what happens from here.
The NCAA issued a statement this morning, with them saying,
"the NCAA agrees changes are needed to continue to support
"student-athletes, but improvement needs to happen on a
"national level through the NCAA's rules-making process.
"Unfortunately, this new law already is creating confusion
"for current and future student-athletes, coaches,
"administrators and campuses, and not just in California.
"We will consider next steps in California while our
"members move forward with ongoing efforts to make
"adjustments to NCAA name, image and likeness rules that are
"both realistic in modern society and tied to
"higher education.
"As more states consider their own specific legislation
"related to this topic, it is clear that a patchwork
"of different laws from different states will make
"unattainable the goal of providing a fair and level
"playing field for 1,100 campuses and nearly half
"a million student-athletes nationwide."
I will say for transparency sake, I kinda personally
scoff at their response.
To me it kinda feels like this heir of victimhood
so much money by exploiting and milking every ounce
of talent from young men and women.
Keeping them in this little box and just really not
doing enough to support and protect them.
Understand those are my personal feelings on the matter.
And personally, I'm very happy to see this in California
and I really do hope that we see other states get
involved, or the NCAA now that they're put in this
uncomfortable position change for the better.
Then in (screaming) news, there's recently a 12 year old
African American girl in the news.
And this because she that three of her white, male
classmates, held her down and they cut her dreadlocks,
calling it ugly, nappy, holding their hand over her mouth.
And we're talking about this today because,
it turns out the girl was lying.
All right, this young girl reportedly was saying she
made the whole story up, her family has now issued an
apology today saying, "To those young boys and their
"parents, we sincerely apologize for the pain and anxiety
"these allegations have caused.
"To the administrators and families of the school,
"we are sorry for the damage this incident has
"done to trust within the school family and the undue
"scorn it has brought to the school."
As well as saying, "To the broader community, who rallied
"in such passionate support for our daughter, we apologize
"for betraying your trust.
"We understand there will be consequences and we're
"prepared to take responsibility for them."
But still, according to the report, according to the
family's lawyer, "The girl maintains she has been the
"victim of bullying." Also adding, "The family is seeking
"counseling for the girl."
So maybe they're kinda saying that the admission is that
she was being bullied, she wanted to get those people
in trouble, so then she faked this?
And this is just an incredibly damaging and horrible story.
Because what we're talking about is a fake hate crime.
All right, so really all this does is it creates a greater
sense of distrust when someone legitimately is the victim
of a hate crime.
And for some, there might be kind of an inkling of
redemption, right, you admitted that something was fake.
But really, looking at the story, I wonder if that would
have happened if it had not been that during the
investigation, reportedly there was security camera footage
that showed some of the people that were allegedly part of
this attack, they were somewhere else.
Yeah, ultimately, that's where we are with this story.
Of course, I always love to know your thoughts.
But yeah, this is just a disgusting situation
where everyone loses.
Because once again, you're going to have people that use
this instance as a way to discount allegations of
racially motivated crimes, as well as probably some people
getting so defensive to point out that this is kind of like
an outlier, right, fake allegations are the minority.
That potentially the severity and seriousness of this
situation, to falsely accuse three people of hate crimes,
children, of hate crimes, that gets overlooked.
I don't know, it's exhausting and disgusting.
So there was that.
But from that, I wanna share some stuff I love today
and Today in Awesome brought to you by dbrand.
And dbrand, if you don't know, is the awesome company that
makes custom cases, skins and screen protectors for all
your gadgets, including your smart phone.
And dbrand actually just launched their first limited
edition drop Robot, available for both dbrand's custom
phone cases as well as their line of skins.
And I love their skins, right. It's just a super-thin
vinyl wrap that you can put on any device,
a phone, a laptop.
The copy they gave me said a cat?
But I'm pretty sure that would be illegal to do
pretty much anywhere, except maybe twitch.
And you can trust that dbrand is super up-to-date.
I even have their new skin on the iPhone 11 Pro.
It looks awesome, the ultra-matte finish prevents
fingerprints, smudges, scratches.
It really for me, it's the smudges.
I don't know about you, but my previous phones have made
me realize I am one of the most oily people on the planet.
And, or, maybe get the phone case, right?
Everyone needs a phone case despite all the things
I just said.
You know, different strokes for different folks,
but remember, limited edition drop, so once it's gone,
it is gone forever.
And best of all, well I guess in addition to dbrand
giving us money to support this show, that we pull it out
even though content can be advertiser unfriendly,
when you realize you need that new skin, that new case,
just go to dbrand.com/DeFranco, or just enter in code
DEFRANCO to save 20% if your order is in the next 48 hours.
Main point, click it, check it out, buy it, enjoy.
And the first bit of awesome is actually related to my
podcast, "A Conversation With".
For those that are new here, this has kinda been
a new, fun side project for me.
Of course, it's available on all the audio platforms like,
Spotify, Apple Podcasts, et cetera.
Also very awesomely, the YouTube channel,
YouTube.com/AConvoWith, is about to pass 100,000
subscribers this week.
We've recently had on, Casey Neistat, Liza Koshy, Dr. Mike.
And so two things around this.
One, on Wednesday we will be premiering the episode
with a brand new intro jingle that I wrote and sang
very off-key and then convinced a friend
of mine to do it better.
And two, this week, I wanted to have on a guest that I think
that people would have not guessed.
And that's why on Wednesday, you'll see I had a conversation
with Nikita Dragun.
Last question regarding - [Nikita] No, you're fired.
- Regarding
- [Nikita] No, go please, please, please
- Any controversy, but it's the lightest
- [Nikita] No, tell me, no tell me, tell me!
- It's the lightest.
- I love this thing.
- I appreciate the way that you're talking about this.
- I have not, can I say, I have not addressed
90% of what you just asked me.
- So there's that to look forward to.
We have Gwen Stefani answering the web's most
searched questions.
We have Maggie Gyllenhaal breaking down her career
from "Donny Darko" to "The Dark Knight".
We have Mark Cuban going undercover on Reddit,
YouTube, and Twitter.
We've got the second official trailer for "The King's Man".
We've got the season six trailer for "Bojack Horseman".
As well as the trailer for "I Lost My Body".
As well as the meltdown game play trailer for
"Apex Legends Season 3".
And if you wanna see the full versions of everything
I just shared, the secret link of the day, really anything
at all, links are always in the description down below.
Then, we had YouTuber turned late-night host
Lilly Singh in the news.
And you know the last time we talked about Lilly
she had just premiered her late night show,
and it kind of, if there was any general criticism,
you had some people saying that Lilly Singh's jokes
and segments was kind of one note, it was kinda like,
let's just make fun of white men.
But, the backlash and controversy we're seeing
today, is actually the polar opposite.
With Lilly Singh apologizing over the weekend for what
people have described as a joke aimed at a minority group.
And the joke in question comes from the Thursday night
episode of her show, she's interviewing Jessica Alba who's
talking about her children, and then this clip happens.
- They wear the towels, you know, the Turbie Twists,
so they look like, super, not cool in the Turbie Twist.
But they dried their hair really quickly, so you know,
it's very practical thing.
I think they definitely had the Turbie Twist
- [Lilly] Okay. - on when they
- They looked like my Punjabi friends, that's fine.
- But they were like--
- And so following that clip, following that episode,
there was a lot of backlash online.
All right with some responses like, "I've never found
Lilly Singh's humor funny.
"However, I've given her benefit of the doubt
"because she's a brown woman in Hollywood,
"so representation or whatever.
"But this towel/turban debacle is not okay.
"That comparison has historically been used
"in a racist way against Sikhs.
"Not cool."
Another asking, "Did Lilly really compare our Dastars
"to a towel on national TV?"
Another writing, "As a Sikh who has faced racism, names
"such as towel head and rag head, this was
"shocking and hurtful.
"Doesn't really help our situation at all."
Another writing, "I'm so damn disappointed in Lilly for her
"comments around the turban on her show.
"When you see someone from your community rise to
prominence, you'd expect them to represent your people,
not fuel their ridicule."
All right, so that's kinda just a small example,
but like I said, Lilly ended up apologizing, writing
on Twitter that in that moment her "thought process
was, 'don't be embarrassed! I think that's dope.'"
But adding, "In hindsight I recognize that was a
"disrespectful and problematic joke to make that has a lot
"of painful history behind it.
"And I'm very sorry.
"I don't wear a turban and I haven't lived that
"experience and so I really value people
"giving perspective.
"I'm grateful that this was a teachable moment
"instead of another opportunity to divide and attack."
Then adding, "Aside from these words, I've also taken
"the action to ensure my stupid joke is removed from
"the episode and online clips."
Although, of course, as a recording it is still on Hulu,
and it's unclear if NBC intends to take that down.
I mean, that and the internet is forever, so it is
still going to be out there.
So that, is essentially the story, something that
Vulture even kind of joked was a late-night rite of passage.
You know, like I've said from even when this show was
first announced, I am really fascinated to see how all
of this goes, because you know, like I said, when the show
first came out, a large amount of the criticism
was like, anti-white stuff.
You know now, with this joke, the joke apology, I mean hell,
Teen Vogue, they included an op-ed that took a shot at her.
Hard to believe though it's not from a white-perspective.
That reading, "Lilly Singh's late-night show is no victory
"for all women of color.
"From Lilly Singh to Awkwafina, entertainers of color
"continue to build platforms for themselves
"at the expense of Blackness."
And so it'll be interesting to see if we see more shots
coming from different places that we might not expect.
Yeah, with this story, of course I would love to know
your thoughts on it.
And then, really a story that I could not have predicted
from the beginning.
We have to talk about the Carson King situation for
a now third time.
And if you're unfamiliar with the situation, to kind of
give you a quicky over-simplified run down to get you to
this update, Carson King is a guy who at a taping of ESPN's
College Gameday on September 14th, held up a sign reading,
"Busch Light supply needs replenished."
It included his Venmo name, and he found himself
receiving hundreds of dollars from strangers.
A kind of jokey and fun, but then King wants to turn
it into something bigger.
And he decides the money that people send him, he's
going to give to the University of Iowa Stead Family
Children's Hospital.
And the story blows up, he ends up raising more money,
he's raising over a million dollars, the story blows up
even more, and we then see Des Moines Register interviewed
King for a profile piece after he raised a million dollars.
And with that profile, the reporter for that piece ended
up digging up two racist tweets that King made back in 2012.
Back when King was a 16 year old sophomore in high school.
That reporter, Aaron Calvin asks King about those tweets,
King expressed remorse, said that those tweets
made him sick, he then deleted those tweets.
Also, knowing that the story would be soon breaking,
King reached out to another news outlet to issue an apology.
Which is actually notable here because local TV stations
actually aired King's apology before the Des Moines
Register even published their piece.
And regarding though the fallout from the whole situation,
we saw a large amount of backlash directed at the
newspaper, largely because those tweets were almost
a decade old, and people wondering, why are you going
after Carson King, when he's raising money for others.
You also had Busch beer dropping a partnership with King,
and then, kind of one of the big things, since the reporter
here, Aaron Calvin, decided to go through King's old tweets,
the internet decided to go through his.
And there they found that he'd used the N word,
also making homophobic comments, notably there, those
tweets were from 2010 to 2013, so around kinda the same
timeframe as King's.
All right, so seemingly people were trying to show that
he was a hypocrite, but then soon after the Des Moines
Register said that they had launched an
investigation into Calvin's tweets.
And then for the next few days, that's kind of all we knew.
Until Thursday night, when the Register's executive
editor Carol Hunter published a column titled,
"We hear you. You're angry. Here's what we are
doing about it."
And in that column Hunter says that Calvin no longer
works for the Register, though, she never explains
whether he quit, or was fired.
Hunter also saying that while employees are regularly
vetted, the Register never uncovered Calvin's tweets
during his hiring.
But then she goes on to say, "We took appropriate action
"because there is nothing more important in journalism
"than having readers' trust."
With Hunter also saying that the newspaper is revising
it's practices and policies quote, "including those that
"did not uncover our own reporter's past inappropriate
"social media postings."
Those updated policies also include how the Register
will handle social media posts from the people it
interviews, and this, according to Hunter, includes
"policies for backgrounding individuals in stories,
"with particular attention to acts committed by juveniles
"and to the newsworthiness of that information years later.
"The shift in social media culture and how activities on
those platforms reflect upon a person's
newsworthiness in general."
And in that column, Hunter also elaborates on why
the Register ran that background check.
Siting quote, "numerous cases" where media uncovered a
scam after someone said that they would donate money
from a fundraiser.
And then, later the next evening, you had BuzzFeed News
publishing an article as well where Calvin told his
side of the story.
And as to why he asked King about the tweets he said,
"I was reminded by an editor to background Carson, and I
"found a few tweets that he published in high school
"that were racist jokes.
"I knew if I found them, other people would
"find them as well."
Adding, "He was deeply regretful, and I recognized
"that these were not representative artifacts of Carson."
And then Calvin says that "he decided to only include a
"brief mention of these tweets and his apology at the
"bottom of this profile, after the glowing
"synopsis of his charity."
After the post, Calvin said that he faced harassment
and even death threats.
Also saying that the HR department at the Register actually
told him not to not go back to his apartment for his safety.
Also regarding Calvin's old tweets, he said that he would
not have published them today, also saying that they had
been taken out of context.
Also reportedly soon after the hate began, we saw Calvin
tweet an apology which he said came after the Register
directed him to do so.
With Calvin saying that he was, "afraid and just trying
"to comply with what I was being told so I could
"possibly hold onto my job."
But, according to Calvin, on Thursday, he received a call
from Gannett, which is a company that owns the Register.
And in that call, Calvin says that he was offered
two options, either resign, or be fired without severance.
A choice Calvin called semantic, with him then choosing
to be fired, saying that he had felt abandoned by
the Register and noting, "I still in a lot of ways
"support the Register, I just wish they had believed in me."
But then, to just try and tie this whole story back
together with King, despite this controversy, we actually
saw the governor of Iowa, Kim Reynolds, supporting
King after his tweets surfaced.
Saying, "You can make a mistake in your life, and still
"go on to do amazing things. Carson King thank you for
"reminding us all of that!"
And she then proclaimed Saturday as, Carson King Day,
with the proclamation reading, "The Carson King Story
"embodies a young man's ability to help a cause greater
"than himself and can serve as a model for
"others to follow.
"Carson King has shown that one person can make a
"difference and one person can make positive change
"even through the unlikeliest of ways."
And to end this on really a happy note, as far as
the fundraiser goes, King will be closing out his
Venmo account tonight, and according to King, as of
yesterday evening, he has raised over $2.2 million.
With him also expecting to bring in even more money
at a benefit concert tonight.
And you know, as far as my reaction to this, the same
as I said last time, I think that Carson King has
handled himself incredibly well in this situation,
I still believe that he is a BAMF that
should be celebrated.
The thing is, I understand doing background work
on someone, but given the specifics of this situation,
it really felt like one of those things of like, no good
deed goes unpunished.
Right, it feels like we're kinda creating this
environment of hey, if you ever did anything offensive,
or stupid, especially when you're most idiotic, don't
even try to do a good thing, because that's not a
spotlight on you, that's a tactical light.
That said, and understand this is not a defense of
Aaron Calvin, if things are even remotely like Calvin said,
the Des Moines Register is throwing this man under the bus.
Like, he is sacrificial lamb status, and if you work for
the Des Moines Register, I don't know how you
trust that company.
But hey, that's the story, a little bit of my personal
takeaway, and of course as always, I pass the question
off to you, what are your thought around this?
And that's where I'm going to end today's show.
And hey, if you like this video, be sure to hit that
like button, also, if you're new here,
be sure to hit that subscribe button,
definitely tap that bell to turn on
all notifications.
Also, if you're not 100% filled in, maybe you missed
the last Philip DeFranco show, you wanna catch up, or
you wanna watch that last podcast we did with Dr. Mike,
you can click or tap right there to watch either of those.
But, with that said of course, as always,
my name's Philip DeFranco, you've just been Philled in,
I love your faces, and I'll see you tomorrow.