- What's up your beautiful bastards.
Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show.
Buckle up, hit that like button
and let's just jump into it.
You know, the first thing that we're gonna talk about today
are big updates regarding the Will Smith, Chris Rock,
Oscar slap situation,
but it starts with us trying to get out of our bubble.
But if you go to the comment section
of the last two videos I did,
you'd probably think like 85% of people
think that Will Smith is in the wrong
but this is just one place.
And that's why polls are very interesting to me.
What we found is that in America,
according to a YouGov poll,
three in five Americans say Will Smith
was in the wrong to hit Chris Rock,
though the breakdown of the responses is very interesting,
with one of the notable factors being age.
Turns out the older someone was,
the more likely they were to say that Will Smith
was in the wrong for hitting Chris Rock, right?
65 and older 72% say it's wrong.
But when you get to 18 to 34 years old,
only 46% thought he was wrong.
28% saying not sure
and 27% saying that Will Smith was in the right.
Though at the same time,
there's this other survey by Blue Rose that was done online
with them asking the more open question
of who is in the wrong more?
And in that survey,
they found that 52.3% considered Chris Rock more wrong
than Will Smith.
Though, with that, if people still care about this story
let's say like five days from now,
it'll be interesting to see
what the polling would be then, right?
Because that, YouGov poll for example,
was taken on the 28th
when the public narrative was very much,
Chris Rock definitely knew about her alopecia.
It was also before many of these large comedians
that have massive audiences started speaking out
and backing Chris Rock.
Plus tonight, we may actually hear from Chris Rock
because his tour officially starts.
And what reports we're talking about
Chris Rock's ticket prices being like around $40
and then after the slap, jumping to like 380 or so dollars.
To get tickets to tonight's show, I saw two examples.
One was for around $760
and the other was for over a thousand
and those were balcony and mezzanine tickets.
But if he does speak on it tonight,
it'll be very interesting to hear
because so far we only have kind of assumptions
and conjecture into his mind.
Or what was going through his mind when it happened?
What did he stop himself from saying?
what has happened since, right?
Especially because his more time goes on,
more people have been digging into Chris Rock's past
where he talks about things
and it's really rough and heartbreaking to watch
because it turns out he's been very open about his struggles
of being bullied in the past, his mental health issues.
Having previously said in 2020
that he spends seven hours a week in therapy, right?
When talking about his childhood trauma
with Howard Stern, he said.
- And I think I've dealt with it
because I can write jokes about it,
but I never dealt with it.
That was just a horrible existence.
The closest character I can relate to is Tim Robbins
in "The Shawshank."
Every day was hell.
I was a (bleep) and I got fucking my ass beat
and I got physically fucked up.
And sometimes some sexual shit happened.
- And separately on Dana Carvey and David Spade's podcast
he said that he found that the only way that he could grow
was from working through his childhood trauma
with a bullying being constant saying one day
he essentially snapped responding by throwing a brick
in a book bag and beating the bully down with it,
kicking him down saying it was very severe,
but then adding a very key thing.
- [Chris] From that day on as my shrink puts it to me,
you have been scared to be angry ever since.
- With him saying his shrink said that he was so scared
of that anger, that he's let people walk all over him since.
Though he claimed at that time that threw a lot of work,
he overcame his fear of his own anger.
And if you go into the comment sections
of these recently unsurfaced clips,
you have a lot of people going, oh my God, this is horrible.
People saying things like, oh wow, Will Smith is that bully?
He's the much bigger guy
that saw someone that he could manhandle.
Assaulting Chris and bringing back all that trauma
with him conflicted as to what to do.
And so that's why, especially for me,
I'm very interested to see what Chris says
if he does speak on this, because really days later,
the only statement that we've heard is very third party.
And it was actually Chris Rock apologizing
but not to Will Smith, but instead Wanda Sykes
who was a co-host of the Oscars,
with Wanda saying the first thing
that Chris Rock said to her at an after party
was I am so sorry,
it was supposed to be your night.
You Amy and Regina were doing such a great job.
I'm so sorry, this is now gonna be about this
and adding, that's who Chris is.
But with this story,
I guess the question I wanna pass off to you is
since Sunday slash Monday
and even though it's just a few days now, Wednesday,
have your opinions on the situation stayed the same,
have they changed whether you were on one side,
than the other, were you uncertain
and now you're leaning one way or the other.
Let me know what you're thinking and why.
And then let's talk about a rarity
on the Philip DeFranco Show, a positive story.
And that is the news that books, and in fact, bookstores
are having a resurgence right now, right?
Barnes & Noble, for example, previously had plans
to work its way down to 450 stores by 2022.
But they actually started this year with 625
and plan on adding around two dozen more
by the end of the year.
The book sales, having jumped during the pandemic
with a 13% increase year over year.
And for me, I will say, this is a relatable story.
Definitely during the pandemic I started listening to
and actually reading more books.
And initially when you hear book sales are going up,
you go, of course,
we're just trying to entertain ourselves,
but for places like Barnes & Noble,
you have reports crediting,
millennials feeling nostalgia about it.
Gen Z, loving brick and mortar.
Also after the last two years,
I've looked for any reason to go out,
in fact I think in the last month,
I've gone to bookstores three times
after probably not having gone to one in 10 to 15 years
but all of this is also being fueled
by a thing that you might not be aware of
if you're not on TikTok and that is BookTok, right?
And BookTok in general is like the sea of videos
that display this wholesome love of books from librarians.
People who work at local bookstores
are just everyday people.
And BookTok, absolutely blow shit up, right?
It's why you have people like author Colleen Hoover
telling NPR.
She was thrilled that her book it ends with us
was becoming a New York Times bestseller.
But initially she was equally confused
since the book was four years old.
But even her publishers confused probably
until the unpaid intern explained what BookTok was.
And while this is obviously huge online,
you also have places like Barnes & Noble going, okay
let's take advantage of this.
And so they keep track of what's popular on TikTok
and they advertise those books, is BookTok favorites.
If you go into a store, they'll have 'em all laid out.
And personally, I love it.
I mean, one of my favorite things
of going to like an indie bookstore
is when you have someone that works there,
writing out what they thought about the book
right underneath it.
And so to me, BookTok feels a little bit like that
but also at the same time,
this like club meeting that you get to go to
with a swipe of a finger.
And as a reason why in the last week
I picked up the midnight library
and this is, it's not just me.
If you look at just the BookTok hashtag,
they have roughly 46 billion views.
And it's why you can have these creators that go viral.
They get these massive followings for their love of books
like Abby's Library, who has over 90,000 followers.
And well, that may sound like a small number of followers
when you compare it to all the big people,
for such a niche category, 90,000 followers is a,
you could be a king or queen maker, especially on TikTok
which is a platform where you can expect to reach multiples
of the number of followers you have.
So I guess the way that I wanna end this story
if you'll nerd out with me is
are you familiar with BookTok?
Do you have any favorite creators?
Has it put you on to any books that you love?
Because for me
and this is gonna sound way more depressing
than I want it to,
like, it just, it's exciting to be excited
for something again.
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And then, you know, we were talking about TikTok earlier
but let's talk about, who's really not a fan of TikTok.
Namely Meta, Facebook's parent company
because reports have come out
that they have been sneakily trying to convince you
that TikTok is evil, right?
And reportedly they hired Targeted Victory,
which is one of the biggest Republican consulting firms
to make this happen.
I fact according to internal Targeted Victory emails
that the Washington Post received,
the company aims to get the message out
that while Meta is the current punching bag,
TikTok is the real threat, especially as a foreign owned app
that is number one in sharing data
that young teens are using.
And part of their strategy is to push op-eds news reports
in just about any anti TikTok story in major news markets.
But apparently the best tactic
being to push a narrative that TikTok
is full of dangerous trends
with one Targeted Victory employee writing,
dream would be to get stories
with headlines like from dances to danger.
How TikTok has become the most harmful social media space
for kids.
And so with this
you had a TikTok spokesperson saying they were concerned
about the stoking of local media reports
on alleged trends that have not been found on the platform.
We're talking about stuff like last October's
alleged slap a teacher challenge
which didn't come from TikTok also didn't exist.
It only really existed as a rumor on Facebook.
And then you also had stuff
like the devious licks challenge
which according to the research,
content related to it actually started on Facebook.
And it didn't trend on TikTok
until reports started getting out there that it was a thing.
And clearly that plan worked
because after reports of the challenge went viral,
Senator Richard Blumenthal
called on TikTok to testify in front of the Senate
with some of their other tactics, being things
like posing as concerned parents
and writing to local papers.
This is an absolutely massive report
because it wasn't even known that in reality
Meta was behind all of this and it just shows how serious
and far Zuckerberg is willing to go
because he considers a company like TikTok
an actual threat to Facebook.
Even though I think most people look at Facebook and go, no
your biggest threat to your company is you
but possibly the most concerning thing about this story
and this situation is you have this company, right?
Facebook, Meta, whatever the fuck you wanna call it.
And they act like they care about truth and misinformation.
Meanwhile, they're actively trying to distort the truth.
And now that this report has come out,
anytime there's like this anti TikTok story,
there's gonna be this question in the back of people's minds
of is this fake
which I mean maybe this ends up backfiring,
maybe inadvertently make TikTok bullet proof.
And then this news story starts with a question of
are you struggling to pay rent right now?
And if your answer happens to be yes,
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison
has a genius solution for you.
Just buy the house.
Why are you rents stupid?
Buy it.
Right, so let me explain.
Morrison goes on Channel 9's Today Show this morning
to defend his government's 2022 federal budget.
And to give some context here,
the cost of living in Australia
has gone through the roof in recent years
with Netflix's contribution
to gentrifying buyer and babying.
Just one example that we've talked about.
In fact, a recent report found
that rents in regional areas are now 18% higher
than before the pandemic.
And so ahead of the upcoming election
Morrison's promoting his budget is a remedy
for this problem, pointing out a one off $420 tax break
as well as a move to cut the fuel excise tax in half
for the next six months.
But one thing the budget doesn't include much of
is rent relief.
And so when you had the interview with Ali Langdon
pressing him on this, he says.
- It's about Australians getting into homes.
Best way to support people who are renting a house
is to help them buy a house.
And over the last three years,
we've got over 300,000 Australians
directly into their own home.
- [Instructor] With Ali promptly, checking him.
- I'm not talking bout home ownership here.
I'm talking about rental relief
for the thousands of millions of people who are renting
- [Instructor] Which he replies.
- I know, but that's my point.
People who are buying houses are renters.
- And so with that, he got absolutely ridiculed for this
by people on social media,
with the satirical outlet The Chaser tweeting,
Scott Morrison suggests that people who can't afford petrol
should just buy an oil company.
Some other fun comments
including I bet Morrison is the kind of person
who tells depressed people to just try being happy.
Another saying Morrison is the brain of a wombat
without the cuteness.
Now to be fair,
Morrison didn't make that comment kind of outta nowhere.
His budget does expand the first home buyer scheme
which allows people to purchase just 5%
of the value of property rather than 20%
with the government covering the difference.
Which I mean, to me, if I was a first time home buyer,
I'd be like, okay, that sounds good.
I can put less money down,
I can keep more money,
maybe make it for me in the stock market,
something like that.
But you have many experts saying, the program
will probably just raise the home prices instead.
With Dr. Chris Martin telling The Guardian,
this is a real let them eat cake moment.
And adding that 30% of low income people
on the private rental market
do not have $500 in savings for emergencies,
let alone a 5% deposit for a home loan,
which is also why we saw Dr. Cassandra Goldie,
chief executive of the Australia Council of Social Service
accusing the government of treating renters
like second class citizens,
saying why not just boost people's income
and create social housing?
Plus others pointing out that even after buying a home,
you still need to pay off the interest
which could get even worse if the rates go up.
And for me personally
when I look at this story,
I don't doubt that there are a lot of people
that could take advantage of this program,
but like we often see, it doesn't address the people
that probably need the most help.
And then finally, let's talk about the country
that a lot of people forgot about
once Americans left Afghanistan, right?
Since the Taliban retook control of the country
back in August, things have gone to shit.
Us sanctions have helped cripple the economy
of February projection through the winter estimates
that over 22 million people will face high levels
of acute food insecurity.
Also, and this kind of came outta nowhere,
complete shocker, the Taliban not great for women and girls.
Curtailing their access to health and education
as well as freedom of movement, expression, and association.
And all that being compounded by the economic collapse
which has deprived them of income needed for basic survival.
Though, it appeared there was a glimpse
of hope a couple of weeks ago when the Taliban announced
that all high schools would be reopening
for both both boys and girls.
Though once again, shocker
followed by a revision the following week
that actually girls high schools will remain shut,
though saying, they will reopen.
They just need the time to decide
what's appropriate dress for the girls
under Sharia law and Afghan tradition
which also led to protest outside the Ministry of Education.
And now in the latest update,
the World Bank is suspending four projects
in Afghanistan worth around $600 million
in response to the closed schools.
For those projects, having been aimed at improving health,
agriculture and ironically education,
but with this,
the bank saying they also had a strong focus
on ensuring the girls and women participate
and benefit from the support.
And this is incredibly notable because it comes
after the bank authorized over a billion dollars this month
for urgent needs, which would be distributed
through UN agencies and aid groups, not the Taliban.
And so you have all of that
and that's why you have so many people split right now.
Some obviously applauding this move
as a way to punish the Taliban,
but others saying, hey, here's the deal.
It sucks, the Taliban's in control.
So what you might be doing is just hurting the people
that you're trying to help, the women and girls.
And so while of course I'd love to know your thoughts
on any story today, I'll pass one final question off to you.
What are your thoughts here?
What do you think is the right move and why?
And maybe while you're leaving that comment,
I'll say, that is the end of this story and today's show.
I appreciate you, I love your faces
and I'll see you tomorrow.