- Sup, you beautiful bastards.
Welcome back to "The Philip DeFranco Show."
Buckle up, hit that Like button,
otherwise I will punch you in the throat,
and let's just jump into it.
Starting with "Suck my tongue."
Those are words that I think would trigger
my fight-or-flight response.
But hey, the good news is that's not a phrase
you'd say to a stranger, right?
Also, definitely not a thing you'd ever say
to a child, correct?
Well apparently with this news today,
no, that is a thing you would say.
And the who at the center of it
is the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader
His Holiness The Dalai Lama.
Yeah, with the 87-year-old meeting with some 120 students
at his temple and a video of the interaction
with this one boy in particular went viral on social media.
It starts with the boy asking for a hug,
but then the Dalai Lama points to his own cheek
and says "First here," so the boy kisses his cheek.
Then the Dalai Lama points to his lips and says,
"I think here also," and sure enough,
smooches him on the lips.
Leading to this moment, after the laughter has settled,
when the Dalai Lama sticks out his tongue and says,
- And suck my tongue.
(laughter)
- Now fortunately for my eyeballs, your eyeballs,
also the child in this video,
I can report that no tongue sucking took place.
But the request alone,
not to mention the case got the whole internet riled up
with allegations of pedophilia flying left and right.
Though you had some actually defending him,
saying that sticking your tongue out can be a form
of greeting in Tibet.
But following all this,
the Dalai Lama's Twitter account
essentially tweeting out what looked like
a Notes app apology.
With the Dalai Lama's office said he wanted
to apologize to the child and his family
for the hurt his words may have caused.
But also adding "His Holiness often teases people he meets
in an innocent and playful way,
even in public and before cameras.
He regrets the incident."
And my reaction to this is no, no.
You have some trying to dismiss this pointing
to cultural differences.
Linking to things like the Tibetan greeting,
"Sticking out one's tongue is a sign of respect
or agreement and was often used as a greeting
in traditional Tibetan culture.
And according to Tibetan folklore,
a cruel ninth-century Tibetan king had a black tongue,
so people stick out their tongues
to show that they are not like him
and aren't his reincarnation."
But that doesn't explain the "suck it" thing.
Now he got close. That's fucking weird.
Looking at this video, I don't care who the person in it is,
I wouldn't let that person near a school or my child.
And if anything, I'm kind of just surprised
that it's taken this long to blow up
'cause this didn't just happen.
This happened at an event earlier this year
and it's only now getting all this traction.
In entertainment news,
there's some big business drama
in the creator space right now.
With podcaster Ethan Klein of the H3 Podcast
now reportedly suing BroadbandTV, better known as BBTV.
So BBTV describes itself as a creator
and content management company
or, as Ethan describes, a multi-channel network.
With Ethan explaining,
even though he is always been skeptical
about trusting multi-channel networks,
he said he actually had to use one to get paid from YouTube.
And Ethan explaining this is because you're only allowed
to have one AdSense account at a time
and Ethan made his while living in Israel,
but he wasn't allowed to change his country.
Saying that made it impossible for him to get money directly
from YouTube.
So he decides to work with BBTV.
So YouTube pays them first
and then they give the money to him.
And this seeming to him is a win-win because under his deal,
100% of Google and YouTube revenue was supposed
to go directly to Ethan.
And the only time that BBTV was supposed
to get paid was when they set up a sponsorship read
with an outside brand.
But on a recent video,
Ethan explained that he compared his pay stub
to his YouTube analytics
and realized, "Hey, my pay doesn't reflect that deal."
- I noticed it was like significantly off.
And as far as we could tell,
they had skimmed $620,000, at least, right?
That's just from what we can tell
from specifically the membership money.
- And Kline adding that what in particular him pissed off
was the membership revenue.
- This is people coming to us
to show us their direct support.
Like that was the whole point of this program.
- The timing and specific language are also key things
to take away from this.
For some background, Ethan explained
that he had been working with BBTV since 2017,
which notably was before memberships even existed.
But even with that, because it's still revenue from YouTube,
Ethan argued that it should fall into the same bucket as ads
and he should still be getting 100% of that.
But apparently when speaking to BBTV,
they pointed out an other clause in his contract.
- Now these guys had the (censored) audacity to come to me
and say, "Well, if you look at this section, your revenue
and you look here, it says '70% of other net revenues.'"
And they're like, "Well memberships is other net revenue."
- With him apparently claiming that they were in the right
to keep the $620,000.
But now you have Ethan saying, "Let's let the courts decide"
because he's suing BBTV.
And pointing out that in the contract,
they define Google net revenue
as including Google subscriptions
and even arguing that the definition of Google subscriptions
should clearly include memberships.
Even saying he noticed this three days ago
and sent an email to BBTV and claiming in that email
that some of the discrepancies go all the way back
to December of 2020,
then saying it took three days for them to respond
and set up a call.
Ethan actually recorded that call and tweeted today
that he plans on publishing it so he can quote
"fully expose them as the thieves, bullies,
and liars that they are."
But he also explained that during that call,
BBTV just maintains that they were in the right
to take 30% of the membership revenue
and they would not be giving it back.
Which is why now Ethan's membership program is paused
while he works with YouTube
to get rid of his old AdSense account and make a new one,
which apparently can be a lengthy process.
But that's also not where this ends
because Ethan then went on Twitter to say he heard
that BBTV has skimmed other creators
of their membership money.
With him then posting an update video
discussing some of those new allegations
and also pointing to a creator by the name of Kavos
who tweeted back in March that BBTV
was delaying its payment schedule by several weeks.
- My fear is that they don't have the money
and that these guys are on the verge
of declaring bankruptcy.
- And saying he has the options
for terminating his deal with BBTV
and is even willing to pay a $10,000 penalty fee
just to get out of it.
But also in order to unlink his channel from BBTV,
they actually have to approve it first.
With Ethan saying that his fears are much bigger than him
and his company.
Rather, he's concerned that if BBTV goes bankrupt,
it could cost tons of creators lots of money.
And with all this, of course,
we've seen tons of people chiming in, a lot of creators.
But specifically, it was interesting to see creators
that actually work with BBTV also speaking out,
people like MoistCr1TiKaL.
With him saying he's never had any issues himself, but...
- It doesn't seem like there's any basis for them
to be taking that 30%.
Should that make it to court?
I don't see any world
where BBTV can somehow make an argument that it falls
under other revenue when it very plainly and clearly states
that it is part of normal YouTube net revenue.
- That's ultimately where we are with this.
We're gonna have to wait to see what happens.
But hopefully Ethan and any other creator affected
by this are remade whole 'cause this is fucking insane.
Because based off of what we've seen so far,
it seems like the situation is plain as day.
And then the "Super Mario Bros." movie
absolutely destroyed box office expectations this weekend
raking in $204 million domestically
and $377 million globally,
making it the biggest opening weekend
for any animated film ever.
Taking that crown away from "Frozen."
It even beat out Marvel's "Ant-Man."
And honestly, in no way am I surprised.
And I understood, there were concerns like,
oh, are the bad reviews that are initially coming out,
is that gonna hurt the box office?
But almost immediately we saw the difference
between the the critics' review and the audience reviews.
With right now, critics having it at a 56%,
the audience has it at 96%.
And here's the thing, I can see a world where you go
into this movie and you don't like it.
You know, what people find entertaining,
funny stuff like that, that's a personal thing.
Like if you go into this movie wanting a Pixar movie
with a lot of deep stuff that makes you feel,
you might come out disappointed.
That said, it still made my overly sensitive ass cry
in a movie theater.
Which by the way, my wife filmed me.
She thought it was endearing.
I watched it back and I was like,
I might wanna end it all right now.
I never wanna show a vulnerable emotion ever again
in my life.
But if you go into the movie just wanting to enjoy it,
understanding it's a kid's movie, it's great.
My kids say it's their favorite movie of all time,
which, granted, they say about every movie
they just watched.
But it's fun and it definitely left me wanting more.
Whether it be a Luigi's Mansion movie,
Whether it be a Donkey Kong Country movie.
And when I see the top line for negative reviews reading,
"The whole package is a deranged mishmash
of overstimulating elements.
1.5 out of five,"
and "Its fan service above all else."
Yeah, and it's pretty fucking fantastic.
Jack Black puts the movie on his shoulders.
It was simple, it was fun,
and that's all it kind of needed to be.
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And then in political news, we gotta talk about this
Rebekah Jones-Ron DeSantis situation 'cause it is a mess
and looking way more complicated than it initially appeared.
So Rebekah Jones was fired
from the Florida Department of Health back in May of 2020.
With the official reason being labeled as quote
"a repeated course of insubordination."
But according to her,
she was fired for refusing to falsify Florida Covid-19 data.
And since then she's been feuding with DeSantis
including lawsuits, raids, public comments from DeSantis,
questioning her qualifications, name calling,
and, ultimately, more lawsuits.
With all that, bring us to the more recent events.
Jones's 13-year-old son was arrested last week
on charges of making electronic threats
of a school shooting or terrorist acts.
With it being reported at that time,
if the messages were from Snapchat
included several memes making jokes
about grabbing a school security officer's gun
or shooting up a building full of people.
Now, Jones claims that the memes were non-threatening
and the arrest was a retaliatory action
against her for filing another lawsuit.
With her seeking to get her job back
as well as missed wages and damages.
And her sharing on Twitter that her son was taken
on the governor's orders,
and that's garnered over 20 million views so far.
Along with a reported $7,000 being donated
to her whistleblower GoFundMe.
So she's also saying specifically the timeline
of the situation is suspect.
Saying the police didn't arrest her son
until after she filed her lawsuit.
However, according to Motherboard,
the police only became aware of the messages on March 20th
and immediately began questioning Jones's son.
Jones also claimed on Twitter
that an anonymous user infiltrated the chat
and reported her son to the police.
But Motherboard says that the police report
doesn't mention any anonymous informant,
but rather at least four students around her son's age,
all of whom were reportedly concerned about these messages,
took them to a teacher
and then were reportedly interviewed
by police on March 21st,
several days before Jones's son was arrested.
Also, beyond just the memes,
a reportedly concerning message
specifically mentioning a school
that the 13-year-old had previously attended.
Including quote, "If I get a gun,
I'm going to shoot up HNMS,"
which apparently refers to his former middle school.
As well as other threatening messages
like "I want to shoot up the school"
and "I have no hope in getting better,
so why not kill the losers at school?"
Now Jones's big claim here is that those messages
were not actually sent by her son.
Citing the Miami Herald,
which says that the messages were sent
by a different username than the one her son used
to send the memes.
The Motherboard also reviewed the unredacted report
that the Miami Herald cites
and said that there seems to be a misunderstanding.
Saying that what we're seeing is the difference
between a display name and the actual username.
Someone can change their display name whenever they'd like,
but the username for the account stays constant.
And the police report reportedly only mentions one account
and the sheriff's office backed that up in a statement.
However, Jones remains adamant
that her son did not send the message.
Saying to Motherboard that the police report covered up
that there were actually two accounts.
Saying that she read through her son's account
and didn't find the messages in question.
However, one of Snapchat's biggest features
is disappearing messages.
So that's not necessarily the the slam dunk exoneration
that she was looking for.
And also, throughout this whole debacle,
Jones has been accusing Elon Musk of aiding
in the spread of conspiracy theories,
as well as sharing threatening DM she has received
and calling out Twitter's terms of service
were doing nothing.
But, ultimately, as far as what happens now,
you have Jones's son back at home with an ankle monitor,
set to be arraigned on May 3rd.
And I'll obviously be keeping my eyes and ears open
to keep you in the loop.
And then, the US has a problem
'cause there was just a massive leak.
With this time a trove of intelligence documents,
some of them marked "top secret,"
being leaked online and making the rounds.
And like any good spy story,
there's a little bit of a mystery to it.
But here's what we can say, right,
the documents seem to reveal a lot.
Such as the fact that we seem
to know a ton about the Russian military
in its current state,
as well as details about Ukraine
and maps where possible air defense systems could go.
Also not only do we spy on them, but other allies as well.
Though I will say on that part in particular,
it's an open secret that everyone spies on everyone.
Or what I've learned covering this topic
is that international diplomacy is like a bad marriage.
Like everyone knows bad stuff's happening in secret,
but people are like, "I just don't want to know about it.
But also I'm gonna do everything I can to know about it."
When it's revealed what's actually happening,
people still get pissed off, understandably.
Also, some of the other possible examples of this spying
include checking on how interested South Korea was
to help Ukraine monetarily or with supplies.
Or looking at a potential Turkish plot
to get arms to Wagner,
the infamous Russian private military company,
as well as just the fact that our government
has the capabilities to access
and spy on most forms of communication around the world.
But also with this, you may have noticed,
I've added some distancing language to all this.
And that is because it's actually hard
to tell which of these leaks are legit or not,
which is possibly part of the reason
that the story is just being picked up by outlets
despite the fact that the leaks have actually been around
for weeks on Discord, Telegram,
and other social media outlets.
With the US government confirming that some of the images
of the documents floating around are real,
but they also haven't specified which ones.
Because it's also believed that many of the images
are doctored and skewed to help Russia
by either overplaying their capabilities
or driving a wedge between the US and its allies.
We're also right now not sure how the leaks even happened.
The documents look like they came from someone
who has access to Joint Chiefs of Staff information,
which is very, very high up in the military.
But it's also possible that someone on the staff
was just negligent with the documents,
especially since the leaks are based on photos
of the documents that seem to have been left out.
And for now, it seems like we're gonna have
to wait weeks or months for more official information
with the Department of Justice now opening an investigation
into this matter.
And then, people in the US were moving around a lot
during the pandemic.
What we now know is, in general,
Idaho, Montana and Florida
had the largest population increases
with New York and Illinois seeing the biggest declines.
What's especially interesting is that the state
with the third biggest decline,
it was Louisiana.
Also, I will say that stat should be taken
with a grain of salt
because it's based on a percentage of the population
rather than raw numbers.
We also know that the migrations weren't uniformed.
For example, places like San Francisco County
saw upwards of 7% of the population moved during this time
while Kern County, where Bakersfield is,
had relatively large growth.
In states like Texas, there was a clear geographic shift.
With central and northern Texas getting way more people
at the cost of Western Texas generally seeing major declines
with the exception to the county next to El Paso,
which had a huge population explosion.
While there are obviously a number of factors leading
to these huge shifts,
with two of the major reasons that are also connected
to a number of the smaller reasons
being things like the cost of living where you are
and the freedom that work from home brought
to a lot of people.
Like for me, I can do my job anywhere
and if I wasn't inclined to live in California,
I could move somewhere
where I could just do literally the same thing
and make so much more money
because the taxes would be lower.
But then I'd have to experience all four seasons,
and God knows I have one cloudy, rainy day
and I'm sad for two weeks.
Which is also why all the unexpected rain in California,
great for the drought measures,
which infinitely is more important,
negative for my mental health.
And that's where we're gonna end things for now.
But remember, my name's Philip DeFranco.
You've just been filled in.
I love yo faces and I'll see you tomorrow.