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(2) Back to the Future Part II (1989): The Banned Ending They Hid for Over 35 Years - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKQdQUZF_f4

Transcript:

(00:02) Shark still looks fake. Hi. In 1990, a lawsuit over one movie sequel pushed the Screen Actors Guild to change its contracts. All because of a question that sounds almost absurd. Who was allowed to wear another person's face? That is not a metaphor. A real actor was replaced by a different man wearing prosthetics based on the first actor's face.

(00:25) And the studio even reused footage of the original actor as if nothing had happened. the original actor noticed and he took them to court. That is only the first thing hiding inside Back to the Future Part Two. Look at the very first scene of the movie. The girl on that porch is not the girl you saw at the end of the first film. Someone else was quietly swapped in, and the reason has nothing to do with acting.

(00:49) Look at the window of a dusty antique shop in the year 2015, and you will find a wink at the biggest shark in movie history. Look at a theater marquee and you will find a joke about Steven Spielberg's own family. Look at two kids laughing at Marty's arcade game and you are watching the film debut of a future Hobbit. There is even a joke told by the director himself with a perfectly straight face that was so convincing that people started calling the studio and a toy company to ask where they could buy the thing. And then there is the version of this film that you never saw. A version

(01:20) with no trip back to 1955 at all. A version where the whole third act takes place in a different decade. Where the hero is arrested for dressing like a hippie.

(01:37) And where the power that sends him home has to be pulled from power lines stretched across a canyon in a plan that gives him only a few seconds to get it right. It was written and it nearly became the film. and the reason it died tells you more about how this movie works than anything on screen. Today we are going through 13 hidden truths about Back to the Future Part Two released in 1989. And we will end with that lost version because it deserves to be last. Let's begin. Number one, the hoax that fooled a generation.

(02:03) Back in the late 1980s, there was no such thing as a real hoverboard. There still isn't, not the way the movie shows it. A board that glides silently above the ground, turns on a dime, [music] and carries a teenager across a town square is pure fantasy. So why did so many people believe it was real? Because of something the director said in a promotional special that aired on American television, hosted by Leslie Nielsen. Robert Zamechus looked into the camera with a completely serious face and explained that hoverboards were not invented for the movie at all. They

(02:37) already existed. He said they had been around for years, but parent groups had complained that they were too dangerous for children, so manufacturers had kept them off the market, and the filmmakers, he said, had simply managed to get their hands on a few and put them in the film. It was a joke. It was a deliberate hoax delivered dead pan, the kind of line you would expect in a mockumentary.

(03:01) But there is a problem with a joke told by a respected filmmaker in a serious tone about a toy that looks exactly like something every child wants. A lot of people believed him, especially children. The boards in the film carried the name of the toy giant Mattel, which only made it worse. The film's effect studio and Mattel's customer line reportedly began receiving calls from people asking where they could buy one.

(03:26) A Mattel spokesman had to explain that the board was a prop built for the movie and joked that anyone who wanted one should wait until 2015. The truth was much less magical. The actors did not glide at all. They were hung from wires and the crew spent a lot of effort making those wires invisible. Even today, the story has not died.

(03:47) Thomas F. Wilson, the actor who played Biff, says that fans still come up to him and ask whether hoverboards are real. It happens so often that he turned the experience into comedy. He wrote a song about the questions he is asked again and again. And he has a card that answers them, admitting that the boards did not really fly and that the actors were hanging from wires.

(04:10) What began as a throwaway gag in a television special became one of the most durable pieces of movie misinformation in pop culture. A single sentence said once and 30ome years later people are still asking about it. Number two, a future legend losing a video game. Somewhere in the middle of the 2015 sequence, Marty walks into a restaurant called Cafe8s.

(04:34) It is a place built entirely around nostalgia where the staff are faces on screens and the decor is wallto-wall with the 1980s. At the back, there is an arcade machine called Wild Gunman, a real game from decades earlier. Marty steps up to play it the way a man from 1985 would. [music] and two small boys wander over to watch him. They are not impressed.

(04:57) One of them stares at the controller and says with total disbelief, "You mean you have to use your hands?" And the other one answers, "That's like a baby's toy." It is a funny moment on its own. It shows a world where children have grown up with games that read your body and your voice, and a gun you hold in your hand feels ridiculous. But the real joke is who is standing in that scene.

(05:20) One of those boys was about 8 years old at the time of filming, and this was his very first appearance in a feature film. His name was Elijah Wood. 12 years later, he would be walking across the screen carrying the one ring across Middle Earth as Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. Before he carried the fate of the world, he was just a kid in a silly hat with a bad attitude, making fun of Marty McFly for using his hands. The boy next to him is easy to overlook, but if you rewatch the scene now, it feels like a small

(05:53) piece of film history. A door opening on a career that would last a lifetime. Number three, the face that was replaced. Now, we come to the story from the beginning, and it is the one with the biggest consequences. In the first Back to the Future, the role of Marty's father, George McFly, [music] was played by Crisen Glover.

(06:14) His strange, nervous, twitching performance is one of the most memorable things in the entire movie, you could not imagine anyone else playing him. So, when Back to the Future Part Two began production, fans expected to see him again. They did see a George McFly, but it was not Glover.

(06:37) The part was played by an actor named Jeffrey Weissman, and the filmmakers did something almost unheard of. They fitted Weissman with prosthetics, including pieces that were reportedly made from molds of Glover's own face from the first film so that he would look like the man he was replacing. Why? The reason, according to the filmmakers, was a contract dispute. Reports say Glover asked for $1 million. Co-writer and producer Bob Gail has said that Glover's demands were close to what Michael J.

(07:05) Fox was being paid and that he also wanted approval over the script and that the producers made what they believed was an excellent offer which Glover turned down because of money. Glover tells a very different story. He has said that the best the producers offered him was $125,000 a fraction of what other returning cast members were getting. And he has disputed Gail's account.

(07:26) He has also said that his objections were not only about money. He did not like the way the first film ended with the McFly family suddenly wealthy and he felt the sequel did not respect what made his character work. Whichever version you believe, the result was the same. No deal was reached. Glover did not simply walk away.

(07:49) In 1990, he sued Universal and Amblin Entertainment over the use of his likeness and reused footage of his work from the first film. Universal's argument was simple. It owned the character of George McFly. Glover's position, as he has put it, was that they owned the character they wrote, but they did not own his face. The case went forward and was eventually settled out of court. One report puts the payment at $760,000, and the effects reached further than one lawsuit.

(08:15) Afterward, Screen Actors Guild contracts were changed to prohibit reproducing another actor's likeness without permission, whether through makeup, masks, or prosthetics. Every time a film studio today wants to recreate an actor's face, whether with makeup, with a body double, or with a computer, it is working in a world where that question has already been fought over.

(08:34) A contract dispute over a single supporting role ended up shaping how Hollywood protects the faces of its actors to this day. Number four, the girl who was swapped out of the first scene. Here is something almost nobody notices on a first viewing. Back to the Future Part Two opens by replaying the last few minutes of the first film, the moment Doc arrives in 1985 and tells Marty that something has to be done about his kids.

(09:01) Jennifer, Marty's girlfriend, is right there when the Delorean lands. In the first movie, Jennifer was played by Claudia Wells. In the sequel, the same moment shows a different actress, Elizabeth Shu. The filmmakers did not hide it. They reshot the ending of the first film almost shot forshot with Shu in the role and used it to open the sequel.

(09:24) The reason was personal, not professional. Claudia Wells stepped away from the role because her mother was seriously ill and she wanted to be with her family. It was a human decision and it left the production with a problem to solve. The solution was practical. Elizabeth Shu stepped in and the sequel could pick up exactly where its predecessor ended. It is a small detail, but it says something about the series.

(09:48) This franchise was held together by decisions made fast under pressure in real life. A sick parent, a pay dispute with another actor, a schedule that wouldn't wait. And somehow the film absorbed every one of those cracks and kept running at 88 mph. Number five, one actor, three roles, one dinner table.

(10:13) The 2015 portion of the movie holds one of its most ambitious scenes, and it is easy to forget how hard it was to film. Michael J. Fox plays Marty McFly. In the future, he also plays Marty's son, Marty Jr., and he plays Marty's daughter, Marlene. So, in the family dinner scene, Fox is sitting at the table three times over, wearing three different costumes, speaking three different sets of lines, playing three different people.

(10:37) Today, we would call that a visual effect and move on. But in 1989, there was no easy way to do it. To make the scene possible, Industrial Light and Magic built a motion controlled camera system known as the Vistaglide, which could repeat the exact same camera move again and again. Fox filmed the scene once as one character.

(11:00) Then the camera performed the same move while he played the next, then again for the third. The recorded camera move was replayed each time, and the separate pieces were combined into a single shot so that three versions of the same actor appear to be sharing a table.

(11:18) To keep the timing alive, Fox reportedly heard his own earlier lines through a hidden earpiece, and answered himself. It meant that Fox had to react to people who were not there, hold perfect eyelines, and remember where each of his characters was supposed to be looking, all while keeping the performances distinct. The father is tired. The son is weak and nervous. The daughter is sharp and impatient. They all share a face, but not a single gesture.

(11:41) This is the kind of movie magic that no one talks about. There are no explosions or flying cars. It's just a family eating dinner, and it was one of the most technically demanding things in the film. Number six, the antique shop full of secrets. When Marty steps out onto the streets of 2015, he ends up in front of a store called Blast from the Past. It is a shop that sells relics of earlier decades.

(12:06) And it is the place where Marty will find the single most dangerous object in the entire story, a book of sports results from 1950 through 2000, which he buys and which will change the world. That is the plot reason the store exists. But look at the window because the filmmakers filled it with jokes. You can spot the sports almanac itself resting among games and videotapes.

(12:31) You can spot boxes for video games based on Jaws, a nod to Steven Spielberg, who directed that film and who served as executive producer on the Back to the Future trilogy. There is a talking plush doll of Roger Rabbit, a reference to Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which Zamechus directed in 1988 between the first two Back to the Future movies. [music] And there is video artwork for Dragnet, the 1987 Universal comedy starring Dan Akroyd and Tom Hanks.

(12:56) The series also had a famous fan. In the first movie, when Marty tells Doc in 1955 that Ronald Reagan is the president, Doc stares at him in disbelief, the actor. Then who is the vice president? Jerry Lewis? Reagan reportedly loved that joke. In his 1986 State of the Union address, he quoted the closing line of the first film, saying that where we are going, we do not need roads.

(13:23) So, here is a window that is supposed to sell forgotten antiques, but is really a museum of the filmmaker's own world, a place where the sequel keeps winking at everything around it. Number seven, the shark that never stopped biting. A few steps from that antique shop, Marty walks past the Hollowax Theater.

(13:47) The marquee advertises Jaws 19 and as Marty looks up, a giant holographic shark lunges out of the sign and nearly takes his head off. Marty stumbles back and mutters that the shark still looks fake. There are several layers of joke in that moment. First, there is the obvious one. In the future, Hollywood has made 19 Jaws movies. It is a jab at endless sequels and it has aged remarkably well. Second, look at the credit on the sign.

(14:10) Jaws 19 is said to be directed by Max Spielberg. Max is a real person. He is the son of Steven Spielberg who executive produced the film. So the joke is that in the future Spielberg's own child will inherit the franchise and keep directing it forever. And then there is the line itself, the shark still looks fake.

(14:32) That is a wink at the original Jaws, where Spielberg famously fought a mechanical shark that kept breaking down in the water so badly [music] that he was forced to show it as little as possible. The failure became the secret of the film's suspense. In just a few seconds of screen time, Back to the Future Part Two manages to poke fun at Hollywood sequels, pay tribute to Steven Spielberg, and laugh at one of the most legendary production disasters in film history. Number eight, the future that they got right and wrong.

(15:00) When the filmmakers imagined the year 2015, they did not set out to predict anything. They took the trends of their own time, the technology, and the culture of the late 1980s and pushed them to ridiculous extremes. The result is a future with some stunning accidents of accuracy.

(15:23) Marty takes a video call from his boss, a face on a screen on the wall, something that looks a lot like the tools we use today for work. The film was made decades before video calls became normal. The McFly home opens with a thumbrint long before fingerprint locks arrived on everyday devices. Drones hover through the sky, one walking a dog, another carrying a news photographer for USA Today. A huge flat screen television fills a wall showing many channels at once. Characters wear headsets that cover their eyes.

(15:50) Not everything fit. We still have no flying cars, no hoverboards, and the movie seems to believe that fax machines would be everywhere forever. But there is one prediction that stands out because it is so specific. In the film, a newspaper headline announces that the Chicago Cubs have won the World Series, defeating a team from Miami.

(16:11) At the time the movie was made, Miami did not even have a major league baseball team. A team in the Miami area arrived in 1993 and the Cubs had not won a championship in more than 80 years. The Cubs did win the World Series. They did it in 2016, ending a drought of 108 years. The movie was off by one year, and the opponent turned out to be Cleveland, not Miami.

(16:35) The filmmakers have said they were not trying to see the future, and that may be the best part. Sometimes the future is closest when nobody is trying to predict it. Number nine, the shoes that tied themselves. When Marty steps into his 2015 outfit, he puts on a pair of futuristic sneakers. The laces tighten around his feet by themselves with a mechanical were.

(16:59) It looks like technology. It was not. The shoes were designed by Tinker Hatfield, the legendary Nike designer who also shaped the Air Jordan line in 1989. They were a prop. They did not lace themselves. The worring, tightening magic was a trick for the camera. Fans did not let the idea go. For years, they kept asking when they could buy a pair.

(17:23) Nike eventually built a version, the Nike Mag. And in 2016, it released a limited edition that could actually adjust itself around the foot. But that addition was extremely rare. Only 89 pairs were made. They were offered through an online raffle with $10 tickets, and the proceeds went to the Michael J. Fox Foundation. It is strange when you stop to look at it.

(17:46) A sequence invented for a movie became so beloved that a major company eventually built it for real. Number 10. Why did the future not change right away? Here is the question that has haunted fans since the film was released. When old Biff steals the Delorean, travels to 1955, and hands his younger self the sports almanac, he creates a new timeline. But when he returns to 2015, everything still looks completely normal. The streets are fine.

(18:12) The sky is fine. Marty and Doc leave the future and go home. And only when they arrive back in 1985 do they find that the world has been twisted into a nightmare. Why did the future not change at the moment the past did? Fans have come up with a popular theory. Maybe changes in time do not happen instantly.

(18:30) Maybe they spread outward slowly like a ripple on a pond and take time to travel from the moment of the change into the future. The first film seems to support the idea. When Marty accidentally disrupts his parents' first meeting, the photograph in his pocket does not erase everyone at once. His brother fades first, then his sister.

(18:53) The change moves through the picture one person at a time, like a wave catching up. If the same rule applies here, then there was a window of time in which 2015 looked normal simply because the ripple had not reached it yet. That would also explain why Doc and Marty could leave a seemingly peaceful future [music] and return to a ruined 1985. The wave of change had already washed over the past, and it was only a matter of time before it arrived.

(19:20) The filmmakers have never turned this into a strict rule, and the movie does not spell it out. But the theory shows how deeply fans are willing to dig. Even a possible plot hole becomes a puzzle with an answer. Is the ripple the right explanation or is there a better one? You can decide for yourself, but the fact that the question is still being argued decades later is a sign of how much this story gets under your skin.

(19:44) Number 11, the villain with a very familiar skyline. In the nightmare version of 1985, Biff Tannon is not a bully with a car and a bad attitude. He is a billionaire. He owns a casino. He has a tower with his name in lights. and he controls Hill Valley with money and fear. People noticed the resemblance to a real person. In the 1980s, Donald Trump was one of the loudest symbols of excess in America. Trump Tower had opened in Manhattan in 1983.

(20:14) Trump Plaza opened in Atlantic City in 1984. Trump's Castle followed in 1985, and the Taj Mahal opened in 1990. For years, fans guessed that the writers had that world in mind. In 2015, Bob Gail confirmed that Trump had been part of the thinking behind the casino era Biff. That interview spread quickly and many people began calling the movie prophetic. But the story did not stay simple.

(20:43) In a later interview, Gail pulled back somewhat. He said that the original Biff of the first film was not based on Trump at all. Biff, he explained, was an archetype, the kind of bully almost everyone has met in their life. What came later in the alternate 1985 was different. The casino, the branding, and the swagger drew on the world of excess that Trump represented.

(21:05) So, the truth sits somewhere in between. Biff was not born from a real person. But the billionaire version of Biff, the man who put his name on everything and turned a town into his private empire, wore the shape of a very familiar era. Number 12. A hidden preview of what came next. Back to the Future Part Two was never meant to be a single movie.

(21:27) It was the middle of a pair. The second and third films were shot backtoback. The same cast and crew moved from one production straight into the next. That was an unusual plan at the time, and it meant that the sequel carries traces of the film that followed. You can see it in the ending of part two.

(21:48) After the story reaches its cliffhanger with Marty stranded in 1955 and Doc swept away to the Old West, a trailer for part three appears on screen before the credits. According to Bob Gail, the idea came from the end of The Three Musketeers, which closed with a trailer for The Four Musketeers. The message to the audience was simple. This is a cliffhanger, but a third film is coming and it is almost finished. Part two opened in November of 1989.

(22:14) Part three followed in May of 1990, only about 6 months later. For the filmmakers, it meant working with the second half of the story already in mind. And the Wild West itself was not an accident. When Zmechus read the early draft of the sequel, one of his notes was to add an act set in the Old West. The story grew too large to hold it, and the western became the heart of a separate movie. That is why the trilogy feels like one story.

(22:42) The ending of one film is the beginning of the next. And the sequel was built with its successor already looking over its shoulder. Number 13. The version of the story you never saw. Now we reach the version of the movie that almost existed. The finished film has a clever structure. Old Biff steals the almanac in 2015, travels to 1955, and hands it to his younger self.

(23:06) Marty and Doc follow trying to undo the damage and in the process the audience gets to watch the first movie again from the other side. It is one of the most celebrated ideas in sequel history. But that is not what Bob Gale and Robert Zmechus first wrote. In the early draft, old Biff did not travel to 1955.

(23:29) He went to 1967 to a year when a younger Biff, 30 years old, had just come into a sum of money he planned to bet heavily. With the almanac in his hands, he would turn that small inheritance into a fortune. When Marty and Doc returned to 1985, they found the same kind of nightmare as in the final film, a hill valley run by Biff. And the only way to fix it was to travel to the late 1960s. That is where the draft became strange.

(23:52) Marty tried to blend in by dressing as a hippie in a conservative town. That was a disaster. He was arrested in the draft for wandering the streets without a draft card and thrown in jail. And the person who got him out was Lorraine, his future mother. She paid his bail with $500, money she had been saving to visit George that weekend. That was the trap.

(24:15) Marty realized that the weekend was the weekend he was supposed to be conceived. If Lorraine spent that money on him and missed the trip, he would never be born. So, the story put the hero back into the same nightmare as the first film. Not saving the world this time, but saving his own existence by making sure his mother got to the right place on time.

(24:35) And then came the ending that makes the draft so unusual. The Delorean's power source was destroyed. Mr. Fusion, the device that fed the time machine, was gone. To get back to 1985, they would need a huge burst of electricity, 1.21 GW. And in 1967, there was no easy way to make it. So Doc came up with a plan that was as dangerous as anything in the series.

(25:00) They would tap into the power grid itself, the lines stretching across a canyon. Marty would have to fly the car into the canyon and hook onto the grid, and the burst of power would only last for a few seconds. If Marty missed that window, the car would short out and he would die. It was a highwire act on the biggest scale imaginable.

(25:24) a teenager, a time machine, and a burst of power that would not last long enough to forgive a mistake. So why was the draft abandoned? The draft had a problem the filmmakers could feel. The '60s version asked Marty to do something very close to what he had already done in the first film, protect his own birth. So the sequel risked repeating its predecessor's central conflict.

(25:44) It would also have meant building another world from scratch. New streets, new costumes, new cars, a new age. When Robert Zmechus returned from filming Who Framed Roger Rabbit and read the draft, he had two notes. First, add an act set in the Wild West. And second, he asked a simple question. Why not go back to 1955? It was the question that saved the movie. They already had a time machine, and they already had a beloved setting.

(26:11) Returning to the first film's own story meant that audiences could see the past they already loved from a new angle with the hero hiding in the margins of his own history. That one note changed everything. 1955 became the heart of the sequel. The western act turned into a movie of its own and a nearly completed script with a hippie hero and a canyon crossed by power lines was left on a shelf. Back to the Future Part Two is a movie about how a small change can ripple outward and rewrite the world.

(26:41) Its own history is no different. A single question from a director, why not go back? Shaped everything we know. Which makes you wonder what else the film once was and what else it might have become.

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(2) What Really Happened on Goliath? The Six Flags Coaster That Shut Down a Continent’s Rides - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYcDdAb4UzA

Transcript:

(00:00) 200 f feet above the trees just west of Atlanta, there's a roller coaster called Goliath. On Monday the 12th of October, a little before 4 in the afternoon, Nick Mendenhal was standing underneath it. He'd just come off the ride with his son and he was watching the next train come through.

(00:19) What he saw, he told the Associated Press, was a man come up out of his seat. "It looked like he was hovering," he said, because the car was moving underneath him. Cobb County police later put it in one plain sentence. The rider was ejected from the ride and struck other patrons before falling beneath the attraction. He was 42. He didn't survive. Every seat on Goliath has a padded bar that comes down over your lap and locks.

(00:43) It's built so that once the train leaves the station, nobody can open it. Not the rider and not the staff. So, the question everyone has been asking since that afternoon is a simple one. How does a writer come out of a seat like this? This is the story of a school IT manager who coached the robotics [music] team. Of a seat that, according to one mother, kept unlocking an hour earlier.

(01:08) Of a lap bar [music] with no seat belt behind it, of 11 roller coasters switched off across a continent, and of a family who say something else [music] happened first. We've built this from the police statements, the state regulators own words, reporting by the AP and local Atlanta newsrooms, and the people who were there, where their accounts disagree, will tell you.

(01:30) The 3D is a reconstruction, and the exact seat and spot on the track haven't been published, so ours are approximate. And there are no images of the fall itself [music] in this film. Goliath opened in 2006. It was built by Baliger and Mabi Yard, a Swiss company that makes some of the biggest roller coasters in the world. The chain lift takes you up 200 ft.

(01:52) The biggest drop is 175 ft at an angle of 59° and at the bottom, the train is doing 70 mph. There are no loops. Instead, it's a long run of big hills, [music] a tight spiral that turns a full circle and a half, and then a string of smaller hills on the way home. About 3 and 1/2 minutes start to finish. Each train has nine cars. Each car is one row of four seats, 36 riders. Those hills are the point of the ride.

(02:16) A coaster like this is designed so that at the top of each one, the train drops away a little faster than you do. For a moment, you come up off the seat. Fans call it airtime. [music] And the only thing between you and the sky at that moment is the bar across your lap. So, here's how that bar works.

(02:32) At least on coasters like this one, it's a padded shell that sits over your lap and the tops of your legs on a single post that comes up from the floor between your knees. When it's pushed down, it ratchets. Each notch is a click, and each click can only go one way, [music] tighter. Before the train is allowed to leave, the bar has to be down past a minimum point, and the ride's computer checks it.

(02:58) Once the train is out of the station, the lock only lets go when power is applied to release it. On Goliath, the AP reports there's no seat belt and no shoulder bar. The lap bar is the whole system. Hold on to those clicks. We'll come back to them. On Monday, about an hour before it happened, Erica Bilips's son and daughter rode Goliath.

(03:23) She says her son had trouble with the restraint on his seat. It kept locking then unlocking, she wrote. So, he moved to a different seat. She says the train went out with that seat empty and that nobody told her children there was a problem. She confirmed her account to the AP. Investigators haven't said anything about it. Summer Bates was at the park with her husband and their three children.

(03:43) When they rode, she noticed her two older kids kept pushing their bars down tighter. Once she rode it herself, she said she understood why the restraints didn't feel secure. Then at about 2 minutes to 4, the first emergency call came in. Witnesses don't describe it in exactly the same way. Nick Mendenhal says the man came out of his seat, fell head first back into the train, and then left it on the final [music] turn. It felt like slow motion, he said, but it happened in an instant.

(04:14) Logan Connor, who was on the ride with his fianceé, told reporters the man started levitating in [music] the air sideways. The police account comes from interviews with witnesses and employees. [music] He was ejected from the ride and struck other patrons before falling beneath the attraction. Four other riders were hurt.

(04:34) All four, police said, are children. None of their injuries are life-threatening. The train stopped partway around the course. Riders had to climb out and walk down a steep incline to get off. which car he was in, which seat, and exactly where on the track he left it haven't been made public. The next day, police [music] named him Hassan Jihad Iben Karim from Atlanta.

(04:59) He worked at Wesley International Academy, [music] a public charter school in the city. He started there as a technology teacher, became the [music] school's IT manager, and coached the robotics team. A celebration of his life was held on Monday the 19th. His family has a different account of the moments before. A relative was [music] sitting right next to him on the ride.

(05:23) According to his brother-in-law, Joshua Nelson, she says he passed out first [music] and then Nelson told WSBTV, "It went up again and his his latch, I guess, snapped or came came loose." So, there are two stories [music] here and they aren't the same. Some writers say the restraints felt wrong that day. His family says he lost consciousness first. Investigators haven't confirmed either. That night, Six Flags shut nine similar coasters at its other parks out of an abundance of caution.

(05:53) Raging Bull near Chicago, Nitro in New Jersey, Leviathan and Behemoth near Toronto, Fury 325, and Thunder Striker in North Carolina, Orion and Diamondback in Ohio. By Thursday, other parks had joined in, including SeaWorld Orlando with its coaster Mako and Laurand in Montreal. 11 coasters in all, the AP counted, and nine of them came from the same Swiss company with a similar restraint.

(06:24) One of them reopened fast. Six Flags. Magic Mountain in California has a coaster also called Goliath, but it was built by a different company with a different kind of restraint. It was back running within days. Boliger and Mabiard has said it's investigating. Asked questions by the AP, it said it wouldn't comment further until it had a better understanding of what transpired.

(06:46) Outside experts went further. Dennis Spiegel, a theme park consultant, told the AP it was obviously something with the restraint. That's his opinion, not a finding. Brian Avery, a ride [music] safety expert at the University of Florida, said he supports backup restraints like a seat belt. The industry, he noted, argues over whether they slow the lines down.

(07:13) In Georgia, big rides like this are inspected by the [music] Office of the Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire. Goliath's last inspection was on the 16th of March this year. Commissioner John King says no violations, deficiencies, citations, or red tags were reported. ABC News got the records for the last 3 years, and Goliath passed [music] everyone. There's one detail in there, though.

(07:35) WSBTV in Atlanta reports that the March records mention bushings needing replacement. A bushing is a small sleeve that lets a moving part turn [music] smoothly. The records don't say where on the ride those bushings were or whether they had anything to do with the seats. Nobody official has explained it.

(07:53) King has said the state won't cut corners, rush to conclusions. His engineers have been at the park around the clock looking at the equipment, the restraints, the electrics, and the staff training records. Under Georgia rules, Goliath stays closed until the state decides when and under what conditions the ride may be permitted to resume operation.

(08:15) The park reopened that Friday for Halloween. Goliath didn't. [music] And there's one more piece of history. In July 2006, Goliath's [music] first summer, a 45-year-old man lost consciousness on the ride and later died. An inspection found the coaster had been working properly and it [music] reopened.

(08:36) So, how does a rider come out of a seat built to hold him? Without a finding from the state, nobody can say. But broadly, there are three ways a lap bar can fail a rider. [music] And each one has happened before somewhere else. These are possibilities, not findings. One, the bar is locked, but not low enough. July 2013 at Six Flags Over Texas.

(08:59) A woman fell from a coaster called the Texas Giant. In the police report, an employee described her restraint as a little high, not as tight as it should be, but the control panel still showed it as secure. The park said its experts found the bar never [music] released. The ride reopened with extra seat belts and a test seat at the entrance. Texas isn't Georgia. That was a different ride from a different maker.

(09:23) Two, the bar is fine, but the system that checks it isn't. In 2022, a 14-year-old fell from a drop tower in Orlando. Engineers hired by the state found he was not properly secured in the seat, primarily due to misadjustment of the harness proximity [music] sensor. [snorts] The sensors that tell the operator a harness is closed had been moved. So, the ride accepted a much bigger gap. It said safe. It wasn't. [music] That was a drop tower with a shoulder harness.

(09:54) Nothing like Goliath except for the question it raises. Three. The bar locks and then something in the lock lets go. That's what Erica Bilips's account sounds like. A bar that kept locking and unlocking. [music] It's also broadly what the family describe the latch coming loose. If that's what happened, it would explain why nine coasters with a similar restraint were shut down so fast.

(10:19) But the state hasn't said that, and neither has the manufacturer. And then there's the question the family raised, which isn't about the bar at all, whether he lost consciousness first and whether that changed how he sat in the seat. The investigators haven't addressed it in public. [music] Here's where it stands.

(10:34) On Wednesday, the 21st of October. What we know, a writer was ejected from Goliath on the 12th of October, and died. Four children were hurt. The ride passed [music] its state inspection in March. It has no backup to the lap bar and 11 coasters were shut down after it.

(10:57) What we don't know, whether his bar was fully locked when the train left, which seat he was in, where on the track it happened, what the bushings note means, and whether he lost consciousness first, where the answers are, with the state's engineers who have the train, with Cobb County police, whose major crimes unit is still investigating, and with Baliger and Mabiard, who designed the bar. Until one of them says otherwise, Goliath stays [music] closed.

(11:21) Nick Mendenhal had been on that same ride about 10 minutes earlier with his son. He was looking up at the final turn when the train came through. It felt like slow motion, he said, but it happened in an instant.

celebssuk

Why Everyone Hates Celebrities Now - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq8CvpvhmYw

Transcript:

(00:00) For a long time, celebrities seemed like the hottest thing in pop culture. Featured on the front of every magazine, followed around by paparazzi, and fans even waiting outside their hotel rooms in droves. But nowadays, it seems like everyone hates celebrities for one reason or another. Whether it be because many of them are sellouts or for the simple fact that many of them are very weird.

(00:20) It seems like celebrities are dying out. And it all begins with the death of celebrity culture. Back in the day, it felt like celebrities were a separate class, one above and beyond us, regular folks. Or at least that's how the magazines in the checkout aisle at the grocery store made it feel.

(00:37) But celebrities are actors, artists, athletes, and icons that people look up to for various reasons. And for the longest time, a lot of others were very invested in celebrities and their lives. I mean, they were very mysterious and had these carefully crafted PR personas that you only got to see once in a blue moon. But nowadays, it's completely different. And people don't look at celebrities quite how they used to. In fact, I'd even assume that a lot of people these days have disdain for a lot of your traditional celebrities. And there are two primary reasons for that.

(01:01) But to understand why people don't care nearly as much as they used to, we got to understand why people cared about random strangers in the first place. Fame is a term that's been around since [music] the Romans, deriving from the Latin word fama, which meant rumor, but also great deeds that would be known for millennia.

(01:17) Back then, the closest things to celebrities were politicians, performers, and athletes, all of which who had the goal to be remembered after their deaths. But Latin didn't really have a word for what we call a celebrity nowadays, which is mostly about being famous while you're alive. That way, you can reap all the rewards.

(01:31) Miriam Webster defines a celebrity as a famous or celebrated person. And celebrities have been around for a while. Some people point to historical figures like Cleopatra, Alexander the Great, Julia Caesar, and more. But generally, those don't quite fit our definition, or at least our modern definition of celebrity. For that specific modern definition, Columbia University names French actress Sarah Burnernhard.

(01:54) Sarah was alive from 1844 to 1923, and a big part of her success honestly came from the lucky timing of new inventions. The rise of photography made pictures of her widely available. The penny press, cheap mass circulation newspapers, trumpeted her every role on stage and her doings offstage.

(02:10) Steamship and railway travel allowed her to tour the world as few actors had before. Telegraphy was brand new, and news about her could travel [music] faster. Almost everyone had heard of her, read about her, or seen her picture. But while she was known across the world and was technically the first modern celebrity, I'm sure a lot of you don't know her.

(02:25) For comparison, she was about as big as Charlie Chaplan, Marilyn Monroe, or Lady Gaga for the people back then. But then technology started to [music] spread and things like the TV and the internet came around. IMDb lists the biggest celebrities of each decade as follows. The ' 50s, John Wayne. [music] The 60s, Paul Newman. The '7s, Robert Redford. The 80s Harrison Ford, '90s, Tom Cruz.

(02:43) 2000s [music] Johnny Depp. And 2010s, Jennifer Lawrence. Obviously, IMDb is missing out on a few here, especially in other categories. For example, in music, you had names like the Beatles, Michael Jackson, Elvis, and many more.

(02:59) In film, you had Jack Nicholson, Merrill Stre, Jane Fonda, Marlon Brando, and again, many more. And in sports, there's names like Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali, Usain Bolt, Messi, Ronaldo, and many more. This is only covering three major industries where celebrities are made, and there are still tons of others in politics, journalism, fashion, and pretty much any other area you can think of. As a whole, celebrity culture began to take over the mainstream, especially, like I said, as technology began to progress.

(03:21) Celebrities were used as marketing tools, brand ambassadors, mouthpieces [music] for social movements, and many more things. All of which had a celebrity at the center. I think one of the best examples of like older celebrity culture is Michael Jackson. His face was on the cover of every magazine.

(03:37) His name appeared across tons of headlines, and he broke countless records. It's often even argued that Mike was one of, if not the most famous person of all time. His worldwide tours universally sold out no matter where he went. And when he made appearances, it wasn't uncommon for near riots to break out. [cheering] Like this literally happened all the time.

(03:59) He is probably the most famous person on the planet. God help him. [music] And a lot of this came pretty much pre- internet. Since then, arguably one of the closest we've seen from a musician has been like Drake or maybe like The Weekend. But even then, no one has really seemed to reach Mike's level of celebrity.

(04:23) Regardless, this culture of being fascinated by celebrities and their activities and their whereabouts and all that has permeated almost every area of society. Today, everyday citizens play an important role in the perpetuation of celebrity culture by constantly checking the whereabouts of celebrities, their friends, the trends within celebrity culture, and the general lives of celebrities via media.

(04:39) Celebrity culture is viewed as a form of escapism from reality and a means of preoccupation for everyday people. Which is a great point that I think really emphasizes why celebrity culture in a way was so popular. For example, I think MTV's Cribs really sums up why people like celebrity culture.

(04:55) And it was cuz you could escape into this world and see like an alternate reality where you owned a mansion or you had these cool cars and then you turn off the TV and you're stuck in your crappy little one-bedroom apartment and you're poor. However, some people suggest that celebrity culture peaked in the 2000s with US News saying Britney Spears, Breelina, Eminem, and Paris Hilton, just a few names that capture the zeitgeist of 2000's pop culture. Everything in this era was iconic and the public was obsessed. People could not get enough of

(05:20) celebrity news and scandals. That was until, of course, the recession of 2008, and then people's priorities switched a little, which is a little bit of foreshadowing for how this video is going to end. Regardless, for a very long time, it felt like there was this aura or this culture around celebrities.

(05:35) They were these mysterious people known across the world, beloved by many, followed, watched, and studied in things like magazines and articles. They were the best of the best in their respective fields.

(05:50) They lived these illustrious and mysterious lives that you really only got to see a glimpse of in interviews or in a magazine. And yet, while celebrities do still exist, it seems like their significance is not nearly what it once was. While tech developments seem to have given birth to the modern celebrity, I think that's also a major role in what killed it, or at least changed the definition forever. As the years went by and platforms changed, social media micro celebrities slowly started stealing the spotlight from the giants before them.

(06:12) It all kind of started with things like Vine and YouTube blowing up. Almost immediately after its release in 2013, Vine blew up with over 40 million users by the end of its first year and hundreds of millions in years following.

(06:29) This created a ton of new stars or micro celebrities like King Bach, Lelay Ponds, Cameron Dallas, and even Logan Paul. The main issue with Vine was monetization, especially since it was short form content and it was still in its early development. So, aside from obvious brand deals, the Viners didn't have a ton of choices when it came to making money, and if it didn't make money, it was pretty tough to compete.

(06:45) However, even though Vine didn't last forever, it did prove that the concept would work and even laid the groundwork for what would later come. On top of this, YouTube was blowing up with tons of micro celebrities in their own various niches. For example, you had people like Casey Neistat who held a major responsibility in developing new forms of content like daily vlogs.

(07:00) Vlogs provided a glimpse into the real lives of creators, which at that time was pretty rare, especially for the PR curated mega celebrities. One of the first vloggers, Charles Trippy, holds the record for most consecutive days vlogged in a row at 3,653. The name of his vlog series is Internet Killed Television, which is a little ironic considering this video. But aside from vloggers, YouTube had people like PewDiePie and Vanos in the gaming niche.

(07:24) They had skit creators like Ryan Higa and Smos. And as time went on, you could find a micro celebrity that perfectly matched whatever niche you were interested in. Maybe you're really interested in music and pop culture commentary, and you found you found me, and I appreciate you. Regardless though, the power was placed in the hands of the people rather than massive detached studios. Unlike regular celebrities, these people were a little bit more down to earth and we could relate to them.

(07:48) This led to some people even developing more parasocial relationships. But aside from that, this pretty much meant that fans could start choosing who was popular or who did well rather than production companies or PR agencies or record labels or whatever else.

(08:05) By this point, the internet's micro celebrities had already grabbed a gigantic chunk of viewership, competing for attention with movies, TV shows, and more. But little did Hollywood know that this was just the start. Eventually, you have people like Mr. Beast, who are now arguably even more influential than some of the world's biggest [music] celebrities. Clearly, the rise of social media took over and took away attention from traditional celebrities.

(08:25) I didn't even touch too much on how Vine turned into Tik Tok and short form content took over. And don't even get me started on streamers. Streaming quickly rose in the ranks of content and amassed audiences in the millions. You had people like Kaisenat, Aiden Ross, I show Speed, XQC, and more massive creators that took over the internet with giant crowds of fans reminiscent of the Michael Jackson ones I showed earlier. Kai Sonat will be charged with multiple counts of inciting a riot and unlawful assembly.

(08:49) That is the latest once again from police after thousands of people [music] came together yesterday for that giveaway held by the 21-year-old who does have more than 6 million followers on Twitch and more than 4 million subscribers on YouTube. Celebrities are no longer able to maintain that mysterious persona I was talking about earlier. If you want to be famous, you need to be relatable.

(09:11) You need to be making content and you need to keep people entertained. In a weird way, celebrities were kind of replaced by influencers. These days, the internet's micro celebrities have fully taken over. Not only have micro celebrities fragmented our monoculture and our attention, but traditional celebrities having access to social media has changed a lot, too.

(09:28) With superstars being able to post any picture they wanted, fans were allowed a new look into their lives, effectively demystifying the allure of the 2000's icon. Celebrities became just like us, posting exactly how any average 20some would with their friends. Rather than waiting for a written or recorded interview to learn more about your favorite icon, now they were online just as much as the rest of us, which I think really humanized them and led to a little bit of a decline in infatuation, aside from, you know, super fans or parasocial people. And on top of this, I think the main thing the internet did, apart from giving more attention to

(09:59) streamers, YouTubers, or whatever, what it really did was open a lot of people's eyes to how weird and cringey celebrities can be. The cringe part is pretty obvious, and I think there are tons of examples of this, like this Bella Hadid one. If Homeboy is coming through with these, it's quiet. Yeah. No, it's quiet for him. But like if he comes through in like these, you got some Air Maxes out here.

(10:21) You got some Jordans. homeboy is getting that like get it. I mean, this would have never happened in the 80s. And there are plenty more examples of this, like when influencer Naveen Jay says she unmatched Ben Affleck on a dating app thinking it was fake, and then he sent her this video, which she posted.

(10:40) Naveen, why did you unmatch me? There was that time Adam Lavine, despite being married, was sending girls some really cringy flirt messages. Or this Zack Efron post where he says, "I'm grateful for a couple things today. Martin Luther King Jr. and 10 million followers on IG. black hand emoji and # MLK day.

(10:57) Like how how out of touch do you have to be to think that that's a good idea to post? And this is probably one of the best examples, but do you guys remember when a bunch of celebrities were singing Imagine by John Lennon and trying to I [music] guess raise morale during co imagine all the people when in reality it just came off as very out of touch. I don't think most people really wanted a morale boost from other people who were stuck at home in mansions.

(11:21) Whereas most of us were struggling to pay for things or people were getting laid off from their jobs and stuck in much smaller, not as nice homes. [music] Another cringe thing that celebrities do is spam products. Every celebrity these days sells their own alcohol or beauty brand or hot sauce. It's like no matter where you look, it always feels as if a celebrity is slapping their name on some mediocre already existing brand and trying to show something to you. I'd say sometimes it even feels a little bit more scammy than it does cringe. For example, there are a ton of celebrities that have been

(11:50) paid to endorse scams that they haven't vetted enough and they just promote it anyways, which has resulted in a lot of successful scams. There's even a bunch of guides online warning you not to fall for this. And I discussed this in my NFT video, but it feels like we let a boatload of celebrities get away with NFT scams or rugps or pump and dumps.

(12:08) Like for example, you may not know this, but Shaq, Floyd Mayweather, Larry David, and even Lana Rhodess, if you count her as a celebrity, were all involved in NFT scams, but for some reason, they faced little to no public repercussion.

(12:23) Sure, some of them may have had to pay giant fines to the FTC, but I feel like because so many celebrities did this, we as a society just let it fly and stop talking about it. It's kind of like how everyone's speeds, you know, like you're expected to go at least 5 miles over, right? And because so many of us are doing it, it's like the police aren't really going to pull you over if you're going 5 miles over unless they're really bored. That's kind of how it was with the amount of celebrities that were doing NFT scams. And it's just like us as as consumers were like, well, you know, they're all doing it. There's nothing we can really do about it.

(12:47) That's kind of how it feels. Regardless, social media not only allowed for micro celebs and influencers to take over, but it also revealed how normal and even lame a lot of celebrities are.

(13:03) I mean, Chapel Rowan, for example, has been fighting with Twitter and paparazzi for like years now, which has just constantly been this big PR fight that I see all the time. But being a little cringe or having the spotlight stolen by influencers is the least of celebrities concerns, especially considering the fact that the internet and social media has made it really easy for people to see just how weird they all are.

(13:18) Being cringe is one thing, but it feels like celebrities, especially lately, have been going through the ringer because a lot of the commoners like us are kind of waking up to how strange a lot of their behaviors are. I feel like this has always been a thing that people have noticed, but especially lately thanks to the internet and how public everything is, I think people are really realizing it.

(13:33) Like Tom Cruz getting geisha facials, which is really just bird poop facials and not the kind of facial that some of you sickos are thinking about, the other kind. Or Justin Bieber saying that Anne Frank would have been a believer, or Katy Perry going to space for no reason other than to promote her album that featured Dr.

(13:49) Luke, who's kind of a horrible person, or the whole fake Jim Carrey thing recently, or Barbara Stysand cloning her dead dog. Of course, there's levels to this weird celebrity stuff. Obviously, these aren't all as bad as the others, and these are just a couple of the more tame ones.

(14:03) But after Jeffrey Epste was exposed, a lot of celebrities got caught up in a lot weirder and flatout wrong behavior. To be fair, a lot of the celebrities named in the Epstein files don't have any implicit guilt just cuz they're named. It's a lot more nuanced than that, especially because Jeffrey Epstein was super rich and was just able to meet famous people [music] and take pictures with them.

(14:18) You know, it's not like he was best friends with them all. But people like Kevin Spacy, Mc Jagger, Bill Clinton, and more were all pictured with Epstein. Trump too, of course, who was once a celebrity before running for president, which I also think speaks to the power of celebrity culture.

(14:34) Like a lot of people will say he was a businessman and that's why he was running, but I think he was best known for his TV shows. Anyway, other celebrities named in the files include David Blaine, Bill Gates if he counts, or Stephen Hawking. I think Stephen Hawking counts, and a bunch of others if they all count as celebrities. Regardless, the point is with a lot of these higher class people, you know, the rich and the elite, all being caught up with Jeffrey Epstein, it's resulted in a lot of the public losing faith in celebrities. I mean, it's not too out there to assume that some celebrities were involved with him when people like Woody Allen are marrying their

(15:00) stepdaughters. Jerry Seinfeld dated a 17-year-old at 38 years old. And don't get me started on Leonardo DiCaprio. They even made this whole chart showing off his age relative to the age of the girls he's dated, with not a single one of them being older than 25. Meanwhile, he's 51 right now.

(15:22) And if celebrities being cringe, weird, scammers, or outright criminals wasn't enough, the political and economical state of the world right now does not help their case. In the last few years, the entertainment industry has changed significantly. With internetbased creators grabbing up a lot more of the attention share, many point to co as the catalyst.

(15:38) And while this all started years before the pandemic, it's hard to deny its impact. People spent a lot more time at home and big studios or other entertainment outlets struggled to make new content. However, a ton of internet creators continued turnurning out more content all while gaining more popularity daybyday.

(15:54) And at a certain point, the people started finding those online creators more relatable than the big budget productions, which led to a big swing in market share. Plus, a lot of us had bigger fish to fry than the Kardashians ending, like hopefully keeping a job, paying rent, and things along those lines.

(16:10) Like US News said, during COVID, when celebrities tried to comfort fans by offering advice, it felt like a slap in the face. As they posted these videos from the comfort of their mansions with millions of dollars to fall back on, the American public was in chaos. Co was really an eye openener for a lot of people and what their priorities should be.

(16:25) I think it showed how out of touch a lot of these celebrities were and also would contribute to an ever growing wealth inequality that is still really bad to this day. On top of that, in part thanks to co for years now, the box office has been struggling. While obviously there are still big movies that come out every once in a while, it's not like what it used to be.

(16:42) Alicia Ree, senior vice president of equity research for Wedbush, a large financial services company, said, "The reliance on franchises has been a little trickier the last few years. Yes, there's a level of certainty, but it's not a home run. It's never going to be a home run from here on out because people are pickier than they ever used to be. They know what's coming. Word of mouth means more than ever.

(16:59) It's also likely that people would rather stay home and use streaming services instead. Things aren't how they used to be and it takes a lot more for a consumer to want to spend their hard-earned money these days. Which leads me to the next major point. These days, it feels like there's a bit of a despair among the younger generations and maybe even in the older ones as well.

(17:17) Since the American dream of owning a house seems harder and harder to reach due to exponentially growing housing prices, many people, especially in the United States, are finding it hard to drop money on expensive concert tickets or movie tickets or whatever.

(17:32) With how expensive everything is becoming, it's harder for fans or consumers or regular people like me and you to want to spend money or time or attention on this celebrity culture. And that's only looking at things from a financial standpoint. If you look deeper into the greater social and cultural focus of people in the world right now, there's just a lot bigger things going on.

(17:48) On top of all the crazy Epstein stuff I mentioned, people are focused on arguably more important things like the various wars happening around the world. I mean, in a matter of months, the United States just captured the leader of a government. Venezuela if you're not keeping up with current events. And now we're going to war with Iran. Like what? There's so much crazy stuff happening.

(18:03) Who cares what if the Kardashians ended or not? No one has the time or the money to care about all these celebrities, especially given how weird a lot of them have turned out to be. On top of them being weird, they also like to tell us what to do, and this would be political cringe.

(18:19) Now, don't get me wrong, this isn't me telling celebrities to not talk about politics. I don't think that's a problem. I'm not one of those people. But sometimes it comes off as pretty tonedeaf. like this video that went viral when the Russia versus Ukraine war started. Dear President Vladimir Putin, I'm so sorry that I was not your mother. If I was your mother, you would have been so loved. Held in the arms of joyous light.

(18:42) Never with this story's plight. The world unfurled before our eyes a pure demise of nations [music] sitting peaceful under a night sky. There are plenty examples of this, of celebrities trying their hardest to come off as virtuous.

(18:57) But usually it comes off more like they're just saying things to make people happy and they don't really know or believe what they're talking about. Like when Kelly Osborne said, "If you kick every Latino out of this country, then who's going to be cleaning your toilet, Donald Trump?" Or like this David Geta George Floyd tribute. So this record is in honor of George Floyd. And I really hope we can see more unity and more peace when already things are so difficult.

(19:24) So [music] shout out to his family. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream. I have a dream. This isn't even tonedeaf. This is like whatever tonedeaf is on steroids.

(19:46) I'm sure you guys can think of plenty other examples of this that are similar, but it's a big issue that many people have with celebrities. But also, to be a little fair to the celebrities, it can't be easy having your best and worst moments broadcasted around the world. We all get angry at people and lose our cool sometimes, or we all have our weird little quirks. So, not all of the celebrities are evil, but some are definitely a bit strange.

(20:02) This is a message for Emma Stone. And if I were a lot younger, I would marry you. And we would have chubby little freckle-faced kids. And we'd laugh all day long and go camping and play yachts and tell ghost stories by the fire. And the sex. Celebrity culture is dying and people are caring less and less day by day.

(20:38) And while many would argue that it was stupid to care to begin with, I do think it's fair and fun to have people that you look up to or people that you're a fan of for various reasons. As long as it's within reason and you're not becoming a parasocial weirdo. Another reason people are starting to hate celebrities is because a lot of them have done horrible things.

(20:54) Recently, I did a video called Beloved Musicians Who Were Horrible People, where I took a look into artists that a lot of people love but weren't so great behind the scenes. It always comes as a shock that someone who can be such a great artist, musician, actor, whatever it may be, can also be a bad person behind closed [music] doors.

(21:09) So, today I wanted to look into some celebrities that many of us love that might not have been the greatest people. Starting off with Jackie Chan. Jackie Chan is arguably one of the most beloved people in Hollywood. In all of his movies, he plays a goofy, happy, good guy. And that's just how he presents himself in interviews as well. And as a huge fan of Rush Hour, I was shocked and saddened to hear that he was not the greatest guy. And don't get me wrong, I don't think Jackie Chan is the worst person ever.

(21:31) He's not like Hitler, but he's definitely had a lot of major flaws throughout his life, many of which he has shamefully admitted in his memoir. One thing that many people have critiqued about Jackie Chan is his relationship with his kids. For starters, his son Ji has been the victim of what sounds like brutal parenting. Jackie himself has said in his memoir, "In the past, whenever I saw my son, I scolded him. Whenever I went on television, I criticized him. There was never a kind word said.

(21:53) " But he wasn't just strict. He also said that he had hit his son, saying, "When my son Jay-Z was still young, I hit him once and was very heavy-handed, directly lifting him and throwing him onto the sofa. That time, I really scared him and his mother to death. I myself was very regretful. And apparently, his son was only 2 years old at the time. His fame and fortune had him living a wild life. As he said in his memoir, he was balling out.

(22:12) I mean, he was a rags to riches story, so of course it makes sense. But at the same time, he got married and had a kid, which he said it was an accident which conceived Jaci. I never thought of getting married, but I felt it was akin to being forced to get married.

(22:29) So, he was sort of living this double life, as he detailed in his memoir, saying, "All day, I'd drink and drive. In the morning, bashing a Porsche, and in the evening, bashing a Mercedes. Every day I was in a dizzyed state." He was living the lifestyle you'd expect from a young rich actor. I mean, a lot of us would probably do the same. But the difference was he had a wife and a kid at home. But that didn't stop him.

(22:45) And he would frequently go to clubs and cheat on his wife. He even had a girl that he called number nine, which is absolutely insane. Apparently, he would hang around with her quite often. While Jackie was off living his crazy life, he rarely ever saw his son, which resulted in a pretty a strange relationship where eventually they seem to have lost contact. And also, while he was off living his crazy life, he had an affair while he was married, which resulted in a daughter.

(23:04) His daughter, Eta or Lane, I've I've seen both in articles, went viral in 2018 at the age of 18 for saying that she and her girlfriend were homeless. She said, "We've been homeless for a month due to homophobic parents. We pretty much slept under a bridge and other things. We've gone to the police. We've gone to hospitals.

(23:26) the food banks, the LGBTQ community shelters, and all of them don't give a [ __ ] She's also previously expressed that she has no relationship with him, saying that Jackie has never existed in my life. I will never regard him as a father. I would not say that he is my dad. I would say, oh, Jackie Chan, an actor. Her mom has said in response to this, I feel that if they have no money, they should go find work. They shouldn't film a clip telling others they are broke and who Ed's father is.

(23:41) People all over the world work hard and don't rely on someone else's fame to get money. I guess I could see what the mom is saying, but at the same time, that's Jackie Chan, right? He if anyone seems like they'd be the right person to to to go to for help, it would be Jackie Chan. So, yeah, I think it's safe to say that he isn't the best dad or husband. Um, also, people have criticized him for being pro- Chinese Communist Party.

(24:00) I think that's a little more in the gray area, but cheating on your wife constantly, drinking and driving, beating your son, and abandoning your daughter, I think are all objectively pretty bad. However, one person who isn't quite as lovable yet similarly successful to Jackie Chan is Jimmy Kimmel.

(24:15) and he actually has quite the dark past. Jimmy Kimmel is debatably one of the most iconic late night talk show hosts of the modern era. Whether it's on Jimmy Kimmel Live or when he's hosting a plethora of award shows, Jimmy always has maintained a positive public persona, especially as it goes for comedians.

(24:32) But as nice as he appears, Jimmy has made some pretty wild mistakes which a lot of modern fans probably wouldn't believe. I actually remember watching Jimmy Kimmel as a kid and my mom telling me, "Oh, you know, this guy's like a piece of shit." And I was like, "What are you talking about, mom? He's cool." And what my mom referenced was one of his earliest shows, The Man Show, which started back in 1999.

(24:55) From the intro alone, I'm sure you can imagine the early 2000's vibe, which probably wouldn't pass today. The Man Show had a big part in launching Jimmy Kimmel into stardom, and it's been called Proudly Crass, racist, and transphobic. On top of this, it has even been accused of celebrating shamanism by treating women as disposable f puppets.

(25:12) However, despite controversy, Jimmy recently has maintained that the man show sketches were created in justest, but acknowledged that viewers were divided in their ability to recognize the show's satire, which seems like a PR crafted copout answer. I mean, it's pretty obvious what the show is about. And it's kind of hard to see the satire in groping women on camera, making fun of their weight, mortifying them on the street, and just outright objectifying them.

(25:34) All themes of which were present in the show's premiere. And just as these heroic men did more than 60 [music] years ago, we are building a dam. A dam to hold back the tidal wave of feminization [music] that is flooding this country. A dam to stop the river of estrogen that is drowning us in political correctness. A dam to [music] urinate off of when we're really drunk. We call this dam the man the man show.

(26:03) This sort of reminds me of that Howard Stern show called Butterface, which I I think everyone knows Howard Stern's a piece of crap. But I watched that show with my friends and I was like, "Wow, this this is the worst thing I've ever seen. I feel so bad for them." These statements are pretty wild compared to how Jimmy publicly holds himself today. I mean, just look at this contrast.

(26:18) If we are successful here, if we can work together to stop sexual harassment in the workplace, get started. I want to take a moment to recognize and acknowledge International Women's Day, which was marked today. [cheering] Women are voting. Seems like almost every year now. All thanks to the women's suffrage movement led by Elizabeth Katie Stanton and Susan B.

(26:43) Anthony. Pioneers in the field of bitching, moaning, and complaining. But after all their struggle and sacrifice, how many women today even know what the word suffrage means? No. This is offensive. Women's suffrage is the right for women to vote. No. No. Suffrage gives people the right to vote. They're making they're making fun of you.

(27:03) Really? I know. They're white men who are wasting energy. We're not white. We're not white. What are you from Cameroon? The show was packed full of harmful and recurring segments like The Man Show Boy where an 11-year-old walked up to women and said crude things.

(27:18) There was also others called The Juggy Talent Show, Special Report, Toplessness in America, Can I Guess Your Weight, Wife School, Guess What's in My Pants, Household Hints from Adult Film Stars, and so on. The point is, the show was practically early manosisphere type of stuff, which is very surprising considering Jimmy today is known to be pretty politically correct.

(27:34) But Jimmy's attempts at humor weren't limited to sexism, as he also did some racism in the form of blackface. He wore this multiple times on the man show. As Carl Malone get older, he started thinking about things like dropping down dead. People always asking Carl Malone, Carl Malone, is there life after death? Well, Caralone don't know. Some folk believe you're going to heaven or to hell.

(27:55) My body is my temple. [laughter] That's why I start every morning with a brisk aerobic workout. But I can't do it alone. Workouts are easier when you have a partner. My workout partner is my maid, Margarite. These skits were forgotten for a pretty long time until 2020 where they started recirculating again in the mainstream.

(28:13) Obviously, Jimmy faced a lot of backlash since for even early 2000 standards, those were some objectively bold swings and misses. Jimmy eventually apologized and said, "There's nothing more important to me than your respect, and I apologized to those who were genuinely hurt or offended by the makeup I wore or the words I spoke.

(28:28) " He still did these things, though, and I'm sure he was old enough to know better, so they don't really hold up that well. He continued in his apology, saying, "I believe that I have evolved and matured over the last 20 plus years, and I hope that is evident to anyone who watches my show. I know that this will not be the last I hear of this, and that it will be used again to try to quiet me.

(28:44) But his actions are worse than just bad [music] decisions." All of these harmful public behaviors were an attempt to boost his own career off the back of popularizing and taking advantage of different forms of hate, which is pretty lame if you ask me.

(28:59) However, when it comes to talk show host, Jimmy is far from the only undercover [ __ ] For years, if not almost decades, Ellen DeGeneres was loved by millions for her positivity and quick-witted humor. But as some of you may know, the facade of her public personality was exposed a couple years ago. In 2022, Ellen hosted the last episode of the Ellen DeGeneres Show. This included segments featuring massive names like Billy Isish, Pink, Jennifer Aniston, and Ellen even ended with a tearful monologue.

(29:20) Because of this platform, we have been able to change people's lives, and this show has forever changed my life. It is the greatest experience I have ever had beyond my wildest imagination. But after 19 seasons, many wondered why was the show ending? Well, for those of you that don't know, it all started in July of 2020 after BuzzFeed published a series of stories in which employees on the Ellen Degenerous show alleged racism, sexual misconduct, and intimidation at the hands of executive producers. Since Ellen's whole brand was

(29:48) positivity, this came as quite the bombshell to her millions of fans and also a new weapon for her haters. The controversy gained a lot of momentum fairly quickly which prompted an investigation by Warner Media and it caused her to apologize multiple times with one being on Instagram live and another on her actual show.

(30:04) I'm just so sorry that it's come to this. But the issue that made all of this worse was it wasn't just a few one-off accounts from employees. One Australian radio host said he was instructed not to look at or talk to Ellen Degenerous when working with her in 2013.

(30:26) And even other celebrities express the same sentiment like 4 months before the BuzzFeed articles when comedian Kevin T. Porter called Degenerous notoriously one of the meanest people alive in a Twitter thread that quickly went viral for the number of responses it garnered from those who had dealt with her.

(30:42) And after accusations like these along with the articles, the whole thing went viral with people online pointing out a bunch of examples of Ellen being foul like when she outed Mariah Care's pregnancy on the show by goating her into drinking champagne. People are saying that uh that you're pregnant. There there's rumors. Don't discuss that. [laughter] Um All right. Well, you don't have to answer. No, that's okay. No, honestly, you don't have to answer me. Let's just toast with champagne. Let's toast to you not being pregnant.

(31:01) If you're not pregnant, then we should My goodness, I can't. Which in that case turned out especially poor as Mariah later had a miscarriage. Another example comes from the 2013 Taylor Swift interview where Ellen pushed an uncomfortable Taylor to talk about her love life and pretty much bullied her. We're here with your boyfriend Zack Efron last time. How's he doing? Um, we actually never dated. Yes, you did.

(31:23) I don't know. I haven't talked to him in a while because we didn't date. Yes, you did. Why do you deny it? Cuz we didn't. Oh, okay. Which song is about Zach on the new CD? Um, there's nothing really about Zach on the CD cuz we didn't we didn't date. All right. So, yeah. Okay. All right. Let's talk about your number one hit. We're We are never ever ever ever going to get back together. Is that Who's that about? Here's what I'll do.

(31:51) You don't have to say. I'm gonna show pictures. Here's a bell and you ring it when when Oh my god. All right, we'll show pictures. I don't know if I'm going to do this. Yeah, you will. This is the one thing that I have.

(32:08) It's like the one shred of dignity that I have is I know that What do you mean one shred of You're filled with dignity? But I But people go and make guesses about it and the only thing that I have is like that one card. Ring it on three different guys. We'll narrow it down. So ring it three different times. What do I I don't know what I'm You're supposed to ring, but I don't want to. I don't want to. All right, I'll ring. But don't send me angry emails, but I don't want to get there. I'll hold it for you. Okay. All right. All right. This makes me feel so bad about myself.

(32:32) Every time I come up here, you put like a different dude up there on the screen and it just makes me really question like what I stand for as a human being. Although the celebrity response wasn't entirely negative, many defended her online like Katy Perry, Kevin Hart, Ashton Kutcher, and Jay Leno.

(32:47) Regardless though, the damage was done. And 2 years after her show was cancelled, she finally opened up about everything in a Q&A. She said, "I'm making jokes about what happened to me, but it was devastating. It took a long time for me to want to do anything again. The hate went on for a long time, and I would try to avoid looking at the news.

(33:02) The be kind girl wasn't kind." That was the headline. And when Ellen was finishing her stand-up run, she announced it would be her last time in the public eye. When asked by a fan in July whether they'd be able to see her doing film or Broadway in the future, she simply replied, "Um, no. this is the last time you're going to see me.

(33:19) And that's been pretty much the case as she moved to England in 2024, opting for the quiet life, which honestly I think I have to respect here. Most people that get cancelceled always try to keep making comebacks and stuff. Um, seemed like Ellen just accepted the way it was and dipped, which I got to respect. A Reddit user justified her cancelling, explaining her brand was about being nice and approachable.

(33:35) It was revealed that she was actually mean and unapproachable. After that came out, the show wasn't going to be able to keep enough viewers to justify its existence. It's not just she was mean, it was how her being mean impacted her market value. And that's just it.

(33:49) Unlike others on this list who you may not know about, Ellen's was a bit more public. And when it came out that the nice person was actually not a nice person, it kind of ruined everything. So, I guess the moral of the story in this case is to practice what you preach. And while Ellen was eventually caught and faced the consequences of her actions, the same can't entirely be said for Brad Pitt.

(34:04) Brad Pitt is one of the biggest actors of all time and you could even say he's one of the most loved. However well to the world he's Tyler Duran from Fight Club or Davis Mills from Seven or honestly just a seemingly nice guy in most of his public appearances.

(34:20) After a bunch of allegations from his ex-wife Angelina Jolie, that might not be the case anymore. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie split up back in 2016, but since the two were so wealthy and owned a bunch of stuff together, it was pretty complicated and dragged out.

(34:35) Years later, in court papers related to a legal battle over a French winery they once owned together, she claims that he was abusive to her and their children during a 2016 plane ride, and that this was even a major part of the reason for their divorce. Her filing goes on to describe an extended physical and verbal outburst in September 2016 as Mr. Pit, Miss Jolie, and their six children flew from France to California.

(34:52) Pit choked one of the children and struck another in the face and grabbed Jolie by the head and shook her. The filing states, adding that at one point he poured beer on Jolie, at another he poured beer and red wine on the children. And this is insane that he was beating his wife and his kids.

(35:08) [music] And then to top it all off, he poured a bunch of alcohol on them, which is just that's just disrespectful and unnecessary. Federal authorities investigated the incident, but eventually declined to bring criminal charges. And days after the plane trip, Angelina filed for divorce. Brad and his team at first ignored and even denied the claims. But nonetheless, a lengthy public divorce followed with custody battles and lawsuits alike.

(35:24) And apparently the reason Angelina finally came forward about the abuse years later is because she has gone to great lengths to try to shield their children from reliving the pain Pit inflicted on the family that day.

(35:39) But when Pit filed his lawsuit seeking to reassert control over Jolie's financial life and compel her to rejoin her ex-husband as a frozen out business partner, Pit forced Jolie to publicly defend herself on these issues for the first time. The fight apparently started after Angelina said that Brad was being too differential about their children and then he began to yell at her in the bathroom.

(35:56) The suit says Pit grabbed Jolie by the head and shook her and then grabbed her shoulders and shook her again before pushing her into the bathroom wall. Pit then punched the ceiling of the plane numerous times, prompting Jolie to leave the bathroom. When one of the kids went to defend their mother, court papers say Brad lunged at them, causing Angelina to grab him from behind.

(36:11) During this, Brad choked one of the children and struck another in the face. The whole ordeal had a ton of other small details, but the point is, it was bad. It was really bad. In a 2017 interview with GQ, Brad said that he had a drinking problem at the time of the plane incident and the split, but had since become sober and was going to therapy.

(36:27) And pretty much, aside from like more vague statements like this, he hasn't really acknowledged the incidents. And as for the winery suit, he recently has been winning some procedural battles, but aside from that, we'll have to wait for the results. And while Brad Pitt's allegations are bad and would probably really hurt his image if more people knew about them, Mark Wahlbergs are horrible.

(36:44) And somehow he still managed to have a career afterward. Mark Wahlberg is as big, if not bigger, than any other actor celebrity I've mentioned so far. Unlike some of the others on this list, though, he might have one of the wildest and most scumbaglike stories of all time. And while a lot of fans may be somewhat familiar with it, what they don't know is key details and the history, which makes it all the much more worse.

(37:04) Mark's legal issues first began with racially motivated attacks as a teenager in 1986 and 1988. In 1986, 15-year-old Mark and three friends chased three black children while yelling, "Kill the n-word, kill the n-word," and throwing rocks at them.

(37:20) The next day, Mark and the others followed a group of mostly black fourth graders, including a victim from the previous day, taking a field trip on a beach. During this occasion, they yelled racial slurs, threw rocks at them, and got other white males in on their harassment. Later that year, civil action was filed against Mark for violating the civil rights of his victims, and Mark and his friends were issued a civil rights injunction, which basically served as a warning that they'd be jailed if they did another hate crime. However, these stories probably come as an even worse surprise, as the more public offense only came 2 years later. In 1988, Mark, who was then

(37:44) 16, assaulted a middle-aged Vietnamese American man on the street, calling him a Vietnam [ __ ] and knocking him unconscious with a large wooden stick. Later the same day, he attacked Johnny Trin, another Vietnamese American, punching him in the eye.

(38:00) When Mark was arrested and returned to the scene of the first assault, he told police officers, "I'll tell you now, that's the mother whose head I split open." I don't know about you guys, but before researching this, I had no idea how bad this actually was. Maybe like many of you, I thought the extent of his crimes or hate crimes were limited to just one person. Yet somehow it's much worse.

(38:16) Mark later admitted that his sting of violence was fueled by the PCP, but that obviously doesn't excuse his crimes. And naturally, investigators noted that the slurs continued with Mark making numerous unsolicited racial comments about g-words and slant eyes and you know, I can't really say a lot of this stuff, but you you get the gist. As a result of his actions, Mark was arrested for attempted murder.

(38:40) Then he was charged with two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, one count of marijuana possession, and criminal contempt for violating the civil rights injunction he received in 1986. He pleaded guilty to felony assault and was sentenced to 3 months in jail, but only served 45 days of his sentence. At first, Mark even believed he had left the second victim permanently blind in one eye.

(38:56) But Tren later said that he had actually lost the eye during the Vietnam War while serving in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. After this though, I guess on the bright side, Mark's racially motivated crime spree was finally over. In a somewhat ironic turn of events, the next physical altercation Mark publicly got in was when he broke his neighbor's jaw after the neighbor allegedly called Mark's black friend a slur.

(39:16) So maybe he turned his life around and now he's fighting for the good guys. I don't know. Since then, Mark met up with one of his victims in an attempt to redeem himself, and the victim even accepted his apology. But then Mark decided to try to get his charges pardoned, which ended up looking pretty bad, so he gave up on that.

(39:31) So, if you're wondering, yes, Mark Wahlberg is still a felon, but who knows? Maybe he's trying to turn his life around for the better. The next person on our list isn't quite a felon, but they have been accused of a handful of bad things similar to Ellen. And that would be Dr. Phil. Dr. Phil, like Ellen, is arguably one of the biggest or at least the most notorious TV host of all time. And also similarly to Ellen, Dr.

(39:48) Phil, has had some tough allegations against him relating to his conduct on the set of his show. Now, it's not too uncommon for viewers to have issues with how Dr. Phil handles his guests. A lot of people view the entire premise of the show as exploiting people who are already in a bad spot.

(40:04) But the issues run a little deeper than just that, as current and former Doctor Phil employees say that the set is a toxic workplace that fosters fear, intimidation, and racism. Seven of the employees also say guests, who are often brought onto the show when they're already in a vulnerable state, are manipulated and treated unethically, which again, similar to Ellen, is a pretty tough reality considering the show is supposed to be about helping people.

(40:27) 11 of the employees, all of whom asked to remain anonymous because they fear retaliation and retribution, say their own mental health was damaged and disrupted at the expense of working for Phil McGrath, and their stories are pretty wild. One employee spoke on how the whole experience is miserable with dread and anxiety hanging in the air.

(40:44) The same employee expanded on the irony of how all the workers for a show about mental health suffer from terrible mental health because of the conditions. And while summers off were a brief break, as soon as filming began again, all the hell came back. One employee said, "I would have nightmares. I would literally be working in my sleep and have nightmares about something being wrong or not turning in something the right way.

(40:59) Even when I quit, I had to go to therapy for it, which is crazy because you're working for a therapist." None of the employees said that Dr. Phil was directly involved or even really knew about the treatment, but they wondered how it was possible for him not to, as many employees remembered being screamed at in front of many other crew members, or in other cases, encouraged to push racist stereotypes on screen or even being treated in a racist manner themselves. And when it came to guest conduct, the staff was often encouraged to make situations worse. Like for

(41:23) example, when one employee mentioned being told to instruct a guest to not take her medication before going on stage. And allegations like these are actually very common when it comes to Dr. Phil episodes. On one occasion, crew members were screamed at and called idiots. And another guests were mocked for their appearances and behaviors, especially relating to race.

(41:40) And there are plenty of stories like these picturing the show as about as toxic as it gets behind the scenes. Many employees recount feeling destroyed after working on the show or that they felt forced to quit since they couldn't take it anymore. It got to the point for many that they were afraid to speak out to HR out of fear of retaliation.

(41:57) And while it's not quite as bad as killing someone or doing something horrible, a lot of celebrities are simply just sellouts. A sellout is somebody who abandons their core beliefs, values, or original artistic style in exchange for money, fame, or mainstream appeal. And believe it or not, a lot of our favorite celebrities consistently sell out.

(42:13) But there are levels to it. Some celebrities will carefully, slowly, and deliberately sell out in a way that their audience can accept or not mind all that much. However, others will straight up destroy their entire image for some extra cash. That's why selling out is an art. And I think there is no better example than some of the most recent partnerships with shady prediction markets.

(42:32) I think Rick Rubin is the perfect example of this. Whether you first saw it during the UFC White House fights, during a hydration break of a World Cup game, or just somewhere random on the internet, pretty much anyone I know was shocked and probably even a little sad to see Rick Rubin in a Polymarket commercial.

(42:47) But who cares about Rick Rubin? I mean, who even is this guy? Well, professionally, Rick Rubin is a record producer, but far from it in the traditional sense. He helped to co-ound Def Jam Recordings and is a former co-president of Columbia Records. His standalone net worth is estimated to be around 300 million.

(43:03) But his money and success [music] isn't what draws people toward him. Instead, for lack of a better words, it's his aura. If we're judging a book by its cover, to pretty much anyone, Rick just looks like a pretty chill guy with the comfortable attire and a wise beard to match.

(43:19) He looks like the kind of guy you'd find in a video game that sole purpose is to give you knowledge that you need to carry on with a quest. However, his whole image and his aura is no coincidence. It's actually his entire brand. When Rick produces records, it's not in the physical sense of actually making the music. Rick operates more as a creative producer, similar to how DJ Khaled thinks he's moving, but in a way where he actually garners respect.

(43:36) Do you play instruments? Barely. Do you know how to work a soundboard? No. I have no technical ability and I know nothing about music. [laughter] You must know something. Well, I know what I like and what I don't like. And I'm I'm decisive about what I like and what I don't like.

(43:55) So, what are you being paid for? The confidence that I have in my taste and my ability to express what [snorts] I feel has proven helpful for artists. For example, of how influential Rick has been. Here's a quick [music] speedrun of some of the biggest artists he's worked with.

(44:12) In early hip hop, he worked with LL CoolJ, The Beasty Boys, Run DMC, Public Enemy, and The Ghetto Boys. In pop, he worked with Kesha, Adele, Ed Sharon, and Lady Gaga. In metal, Metallica, System of a Down, and Slayer. In alt rock, the cult, red hot chili peppers, rage against the machine, the strokes [music] and Weezer. In hard rock, audio slave, AC/DC, and Aerosmith. In new metal, Lincoln Park and Slipnot.

(44:29) And even in country with Johnny Cash, whose career he basically revived. And he didn't just make like a couple of songs with these guys. He produced some of their biggest and [music] best albums. The point is, if you know about the music industry a decent amount, Rick Rubin is probably a legend to you.

(44:44) In 2007, he was called the most important producer of the last 20 years by MTV and was on Times list of the 100 most influential people in the world. And just in 2026, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. So, with all these factors combined, I think at the very least, it's safe to say that Rick is one of the most broadly liked celebrities, especially in [music] music. People buy his book in droves.

(45:00) Big guests and viewers flock to his podcast that has tons of huge artists and millions of views. And as a whole, he's probably as close as you can get to becoming a modern-day philosopher.

(45:15) It's hard to explain unless you know a bit about him, but people have an immense amount of respect for him [music] and nowadays he's kind of almost like a modern-day guru, which is why it's so shocking that Rick Rubin, despite his financial success, did an ad for Poly Market. But what's the problem with Poly Market? Why do people care? Well, Poly Market is technically a prediction market.

(45:32) Regulated United States prediction markets have been around surprisingly for over two decades, but it wasn't on things like if Jesus will return or if the Earth is flat. In the formal trading space, they're referred to as event contracts. Early prediction markets were used to hedge economic risks and speculate on tangible real world outcomes like crop yields, temperature extremes, and political election results. But nowadays, it's for things like if Trump's going to deport Elon Musk or war statistics, which feels a bit dystopian in contrast.

(45:55) At first, prediction markets were for guys in ties and cubicles, and now anyone can use them almost like it's social media. And realistically, it's a legal loophole for gambling on everything and anything. Poly Market was launched in 2020 and offers a platform where you can bet on outcomes of sports, economics, weather, awards, politics, and even military conflicts. And it's not just sports in the traditional sense. It's like, is someone going to throw a dildo at this WNBA game, which by the way happened more and more because of these

(46:21) prediction markets. And this is pretty much how most prediction markets operate. Well, Poly Market is launched and headquartered in New York City. It actually has legal doicile in Panama, which as you can imagine is to get around strict US financial gambling regulations and to shield itself from international court rulings.

(46:36) By using an offshore structure, Poly Market can operate in a tax haven that requires confidential outofc court disputes and settlements. And if we're being honest, choosing to base yourself out of Panama for loopholes sounds pretty sketchy regardless of how often this kind of strategy is used.

(46:52) However, Rick Rubin is far from the only beloved star to get in on this prediction market frenzy. Other mega celebrities like Timothy Shalamé also recently got a bag as well since he partnered with Koshi. And in a very similar way to Rick Rubin, people have a lot of love and respect for the guy. Tim's movies alone have already grossed over $3 billion worldwide and his estimated net worth is around 50 million.

(47:12) Whether you remember him early on from Interstellar or saw him recently in Dune or Marty Supreme or even on social media talking about college football or modding Xbox controllers, fans have found a lot to like about this guy. I'm going Jackson State. Eight wins in a row, 11 allconerence players. This should be a comfortable, easy win for them. Breaking it down. [laughter] Break it down.

(47:34) [screaming] What's good, YouTube? This is Modic Controller 360 with the controller of the week. Uh, here's Red Tiger. It looks nice. It looks sexy. He's definitely one of the most liked or maybe even more push stars in Hollywood. I mean, even I think he seems pretty cool from what I've seen. He just seems kind of like a more regular, down to-ear guy who's also a mega celebrity, which is what connects him and Rick Rubin.

(47:49) Both are to some degree unanimously liked in their respective fields, making the recent crossovers with pretty controversial prediction markets unexpected. So why would these two beloved stars take such a brand risk? Could it really be worth the money when their image is on the line? Cuz trust me, these gambling type of websites pay very handsomely.

(48:09) Well, to figure that out, I had to look deeper into Koshi, Poly Market, and prediction markets as a whole. While prediction markets have grown popular in the mainstream, they do carry an undeniable controversial nature. Like I've mentioned, the Wall Street Journal described their operations as a legal and ethical gray area, considering that you're allowed to gamble on things like military strikes and ongoing wars, which makes it even more crazy that some more relatively established financial institutions like Robin Hood are getting in on prediction markets as well. On their own, prediction markets don't seem all that

(48:34) bad, especially since gambling's been around forever. But it's their marketing strategies that differentiate it. Like many companies, Poly Market and Kali have set up a large net of influence, partnering with lower level internet celebrities to some of the biggest stars in the world.

(48:49) For a few quick examples, KI's worked with Timothy Shalamé, Jay Baldvin, Bryson Desambo, Lionel Messi, Giannis Antumbo, Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and many more. Poly Market also uses a similar method, working with Rick Rubin, Peso Pluma, Future, and many more. However, it's not just individual people that these prediction markets partner with.

(49:05) Poly Market has also become an official partner of the MLB, the New York Rangers NHL team, the Golden Globes, and Daisen. And these prediction markets also have partnerships with things like CNN and Fox News. It's like every celebrity, athlete, or brand has an exclusive prediction market with them. Now, which brings us back to Rick and Tim.

(49:21) Rick Rubin's ad is a part of the questions are everything ad campaign and heavily leverages his whole philosophical aura. The answers. This ad instantly went viral and elicited a lot of hate for many reasons. Aside from Rick just shilling out, many viewers were also upset about the use of Kanye's music because of his recent controversies.

(50:07) But it mostly was the shilling as this article focused heavily on how Rick almost undoubtedly received a hefty financial incentive to be part of an ad that tries to philosophize gambling while giving it an illusion of an artful act, which pretty much defines everyone's issue with this.

(50:22) Like, how could a guy like Rick Rubin support and stand by a controversial company known for enabling mobile gambling for 18-year-olds? A speaker for the brand described the ad campaign, stating, "The thinking underneath it is simple. Questions are the original technology, the only tool that expands the world just by being used. Poly Market is the rare brand that both questions everything and surfaces the answers.

(50:37) Whether the market is sports, politics, or culture, the human drive to know the truth is universal. That was the whole idea. We just had to make it feel like something, which to me sounds like corporate lingo for gambling cope. I mean, question and answers, that's you're you're betting on the question and answers. You don't you're not looking for the answers for no reason.

(50:53) You're putting money on it. The insider at Poly Market explained how they wanted to pose questions universal enough that someone who never heard of Poly Market had a weigh-in, but specific enough that people who use the product felt seen, representing the markets they actually care about, which translated out of marketing speak means, "We want new gamblers and we want them to think we're cool, and we want people who already gamble with us to feel even stronger towards our brand." Regardless, many fans of Rick Rubin spoke out against him, saying, "Wow, Rick Rubin really

(51:17) sold out." What makes me cringe about Rick is his faux guru [ __ ] and saying, "What do you truly believe?" over a Poly Market ad is hilarious. The only thing this is a sign of is that he's sold out. So, it's pretty clear that Rick has done some damage to his brand. Timothy Shalamé experienced similar backlash for his ad.

(51:33) Well, there's a You [ __ ] music. [music] The backlash was as expected with tons of people throwing out the sellout allegations. One Redditor said, "Anybody remember when American celebrities had to go to Japan to do commercials because it was considered embarrassing to sell out here?" So, in Rick's case, the poly market ads seemingly soured his guru image. And with Tim, well, as this writer puts it, Timothy didn't change.

(52:26) People are finally seeing who he's always been. That writer must have had a bone to pick with Timothy Shalamé. Regardless, what's interesting to me is that these two people obviously know the risks and brand damage that this would do to them, but they still went through with it, and I think I know the reason why.

(52:42) And yeah, sure, they got some backlash, but did they really sell out? What about the myriad of other celebrities, athletes, musicians, actors, and everyone else I mentioned that's working with these prediction markets? Well, at the very least, I think it's safe to say that prediction markets are very sketchy. On Poly Market,.1% accounts net 67% of the profits.

(53:00) And before you say, "Oh, well, yeah, the people who gamble a bunch are likely to win a bunch." But then when you factor in the losses, they end up being down. But no, I'm talking about straight profit, meaning that they're not just winning some of the time, they're winning all the time. Especially when considering that more than 70% of users are losing money. They even have a track record of changing the terms of wagers even after bets have been made.

(53:16) Analysis by the Anti-Corruption Data Collective, a nonprofit research and advocacy group, found that longshot bets, defined as wages of $2,500 or more at odds of 35% or less on the platform had an average win rate of around 52% in markets on military and defense actions. But what about specific examples of corruption? Well, lately there's been a ton, especially to do with the war futures.

(53:40) In one case, an Israeli soldier used classified info to profit over $150,000 on the precise timing of Israel's attacks on Iran. This one led to a couple of arrests, but that's not always so common. It more so serves as a dramatic example of a broader trend. When Maduro was captured by the United States, a couple of users placed some extremely profitable bets very shortly before the order was made.

(53:58) One was a soldier involved in the mission planning who netted over 400 grand and then was later arrested. But situations like this have happened again and again with bets outside of wars as well on things like the Nobel Peace Prize winner or Spotify's most streamed song in December both having unnatural wager patterns.

(54:13) Now, informed betting is one thing, but straight up insider trading is another, and it's a hard thing to crack down on. And when it's not literal insider trading, gamblers have also taken heavy action in attempting to manipulate outcomes and pressure journalists into changing reporting.

(54:26) For example, if you bet that a new song will hit X amount of streams, if it's struggling to reach it, you can just bought the song yourself and get it there. For these reasons, prediction markets have been banned in tons of places. In Poly Market's case, they're banned in France, Brazil, Italy, and many more. initially including the United States until they figured out a workaround.

(54:44) Shockingly, the age limit is also only 18, which is due to loopholes with the national age requirement of gambling at 21. It's also an intentional design because people between the ages of 18 and 24 are at a high risk of developing gambling problems. At this age, the brain is still developing and emotion and logic aren't fully formed.

(54:59) This means that decision-making ability hasn't yet matured, making young adults more likely to take risks or act impulsively. So, how do they get around this? This is because prediction markets have technically declared themselves as investments.

(55:14) While it's not labeled a sports betting platform, 63% of trades on Poly Market are for sports bets. And this is even partially backed by the second Donald Trump administration, which eased the regulatory environment for Poly Market. At the same time, Poly Market added Donald Trump Jr. as an adviser after his firm 1789 Capital invested in Poly Market. Why did you guys make Donald Trump Jr. a strategic adviser? We have a lot of adviserss.

(55:34) Mhm. Um and they span across the board across different functions. Um but really this is all about growing this industry, the prediction market industry that a lot of people really believe in. What kind of advice does he give you? So it really is again about growing prediction markets. Does he come to meetings? How much do you pay him? What's his role? I mean this is the son of the president.

(55:57) We again I mean we have a lot of adviserss. He's not just any adviser. He has a direct line to the White House. We have a lot of adviserss which is pretty sketchy and as a result the United States Senate has banned its senators and their staff from betting on prediction markets like Khi or Poly Market in May of 2026. On top of these specific examples, Poly Market has published hundreds of false and misleading posts.

(56:20) Politico uncovered a campaign by Poly Market to pay influencers to praise Poly Market for its supposed accuracy. Like I again accuracy, it's just gambling, you know. The Wall Street Journal has also uncovered that Poly Market paid content creators to show simulated trades with fake wins on clones of Poly Market's website, as well as paying to promote userenerated content, explaining how to use insider information on Poly Market.

(56:40) Basically, they're doing all this marketing to make you think you have a good chance of winning. The Wall Street Journal, Politico, both talking about how Poly Market has been running deceptive ads. They're hyping up the odds of your success, many times, not disclosing that they are paid to do so. And even worse, a lot of the trades are completely fake.

(57:05) Not only that, these investigations heavily imply that Poly Market knew and facilitated a lot of this deception, even going so far as to create a fake website for these people to put their fake bets on. It's a bombshell allegations. And I really was like, well, why aren't more people talking about it? And then I realized, oh yeah, because so many people are on the take from the prediction market industry. They aren't exactly unbiased sources. They're making money from this industry. They have a vested interest in making it look as good as possible.

(57:28) The success of these applications relies on the trust of its users that a fair market is being operated. So when they're doing this fake BS marketing in efforts to counter any negative publicity that bubbles up from controversies, it seems extremely shady. And they're using celebrities, faces, and names that people love, recognize, and trust to help their PR.

(57:49) But in a few weeks, I honestly don't think too many people will care that Rick Rubin, Timothy Shalamé, Messi, Giannis, Future, or any of these other celebrities promoted these prediction markets. And if you're wondering why, it's because I think this has already happened before. Less than a decade ago, the next big thing was cryptocurrencies and NFTts.

(58:07) It may sound a bit ridiculous now, but back then, every single celebrity jumped on the bandwagon. I made an entire video on this if you're interested, but pretty much any celebrity you can think of promoted [music] NFTTS. Gwennneth Paltro, Shaq, Steveoki, Steph Curry, Mark Cuban, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Madonna, Serena Williams, and even Martha Stewart, which again looking back sounds crazy, but literally everyone did it.

(58:26) Many of these celebrities were paid by NFT companies to promote their NFTs to help assign value. Similar to the hypebeast era, according to Polygon, much like any hyped commodity, NFTts that are perceived as being valuable have become a kind of status symbol. Because NFTs don't have any inherent value. They had to assign some sort of fake value to them and they use celebrities to do that.

(58:46) Plus, a lot of celebrities launched their own NFTs as well. For example, Eminem released an NFT collection called ShadyCon with digital action figures based on characters in some of Eminem's best known music videos, original instrumental beats created by him, and more. Regardless of how stupid the product was, he made $1.7 million off of this, which pales in comparison to other celebrities like Grimes, who made $6 million, or The Weekend, who made 2.3.

(59:09) Tons of celebrities were releasing art and stuff as NFTts and making crazy money. Shaq, for example, also promoted this NFT called Creature World, and he even made this goofy video promoting it. Hey, Creature World. Shaq is in your community. That's right. I love you. We got some stuff coming for you. Shh, don't tell anybody.

(59:29) creature. But again, at the time it was legal. They weren't scams. So what was the problem with celebrities doing this? Well, the problem was that a lot of them ended up being scams. We just didn't know it at the time or people who didn't have, you know, the ability to decipher that didn't know it at the time. And the celebrities never got punished for it.

(59:46) For example, in 2021, an NFT project called Board Bunny launched. It was co-signed by celebrities like DJ Khaled, Floyd Mayweather, Jake Paul, David Dori, Rich the Kid, French Montana, and many more.

(1:00:01) But it turned out to be a rugpull in which the organizers of the NFT took all the money fans put into it and ran off. None of the people in this project were really punished for it and they haven't been cancelled by the fans like you would expect. Another great example is Logan Paul's Cryptozoo which was very clearly a scam and again I talked about this in my NFT video.

(1:00:16) But despite it being a very obvious scam which has been covered extensively on YouTube, Logan still has a very successful career. You know, he's in the WWE. He's at like every major event. He's streaming whatever. And it seems like no one really cares that he scammed these people. Lana Rhodess had a whole crypto scam project too.

(1:00:33) And when she faced backlash for it, she posted a flurry of angry tweets and at one point saying it's stupid that people are mad about the NFT when there's a war in Ukraine. Even the best rapper of all time, Little Uzi Vert, got caught up in an NFT scam when his eternal beings NFT project resulted in fans losing millions of dollars. And again, no one was held accountable.

(1:00:51) And I bet you didn't know that everyone's favorite athlete/ceelebrity, Shaquille O'Neal, was involved in two crypto scams. one of which he had to pay 1.8 million in a settlement because he promoted FTX and then 11 million in a settlement on another occasion. Shaq especially is one of the most beloved celebrities in the world.

(1:01:07) So seeing him get wrapped up in this, get a slap in the wrist financially and have no fans care is crazy. And other athletes like Tom Brady, Steph Curry, and David Ortiz were all involved in similar cases relating to FTX as well. Again, all of these people were legally found liable for promoting scams. They had to pay settlements, and yet no one really cares. There was little to no backlash from fans at all, and I think that's because the amount of celebrities doing this was overwhelming. I also wanted to mention that Bowwow, Neo, Fred Durst, and Jason Derulo did an NFT scam, too.

(1:01:31) But they're C-tier celebrities, so no wonder why no one really cared. Regardless, this mass promotion of prediction markets from celebrities is very reminiscent to me of the NFT and crypto era, which is definitely concerning. And there are a lot of similarities. NFTTS and crypto were shady. Prediction markets are shady.

(1:01:47) people hate on them when they started and then there's a bunch of people that promote them. A lot of fans were against it and kind of didn't like that celebrities were doing it, but so many did it and it ended up being impossible to really care when everyone's doing it. At the end of the day, if you are a celebrity, it's obviously a bad idea to scam your fans.

(1:02:07) People like 6ix9ine or Soulja Boy who have repeatedly scammed their fans aren't names that hold much respect, and that's because they did these blatant scams. However, if you're a celebrity operating in a moral gray area ever so often, tastefully, you know, then it's a lot easier for fans to let that slide.

(1:02:22) As we've seen in regards to crypto, as we've seen in regards to NFTTS, and as we're seeing right now when it comes to prediction markets, the more celebrities that jump into it, the more normalized it becomes, and the less outrage fans and audiences have for the individual celebrities. Because if in 5 years it comes out that Poly Market and Koshi are complete scams, it won't matter.

(1:02:37) the celebrities will have made their money and the fans will have forgotten who specifically was involved since everybody was doing it. So, the reason I'm making this video is to remind you guys that the celebrities do not care about you. We are honestly, at least in most cases, nothing more than a number, metric, or statistic to these people as an avenue in which they can make money.

(1:02:54) This is why I think selling out an art. If you do it poorly, you'll end up a disgraced celebrity who no one likes anymore. But if you do it properly, like many of the celebrities in this video, fans will forget or brush it off as you continue to live your lovely lifestyle. Since you already made your bag on all these shady, morally gray area things.

(1:03:09) And if they're not a horrible person or a sellout, chances are your favorite celebrity is at the very least a little bit weird. Over the years, I've covered countless celebrities for all sorts of reasons. And one thing I've learned is that celebrities are reallying weird. Something about all that fame, money, and sometimes power, for whatever reason, seems to make people act in very strange ways.

(1:03:29) And I'm sure drugs play a hand in it, too, on occasion. Whether it be Shaq's obsession with poop pranks or Elvis being dangerously into karate, there are a lot of weird celebrities. So, today I wanted to look into some of the strangest celebrities and strangest stories. Starting off with Shaquille O'Neal.

(1:03:46) If you had previously asked me what Shaq was like as a person, I would have imagined he was a cool, regular, chill guy. But then I came across this tweet. Does anyone else remember when Shaquille O'Neal, formerly of the NBA, who happens to own a company that owns the rights to Marilyn Monroe's face, posted a long AI video on Valentine's Day of himself marrying Marilyn Monroe as part of his long Marilyn Monroe psychosis. And yeah, this video is super weird. Believe they already look just like us.

(1:04:07) I know. It's like walking with two tiny mirrors. Little dude's got my game face and she already has my curls. She'll never need a stylist. Give them a couple months, they're going to be running circles around us. He's deleted pretty much all of them now, but apparently he made over a hundred posts about him marrying Marilyn Monroe.

(1:04:21) It's a bit of a tongue twister. And even his kids were super weirded out. He also brought this up in interviews. Back to what Jamie was talking about. We we have this weird relationship where we come up with crazy ideas 3:00 or 4 in the morning. He only told me no one time. I call him at 4:00 a.m. I said, "Jamie, I got a great idea." He said, "What?" I said, "I want to marry Marilyn Monroe." Shut the hell up, Shaq.

(1:04:43) He just off the [ __ ] [laughter] and I want to call it Shack Maryland. He did send me an AI version of him getting married to Marilyn. And the way he talks about it is so strange. She died a year before he was born. So I don't know what he was trying to do here. And this is far from the only example of him being super weird with women.

(1:04:59) Angel Reese got upset with Shaq after he kept fantasizing about dunking in the tiny shorts that she wore at the Wild and Out event. Bro, imagine you I'm not imagining. Let me finish. Imagine you in the same little shirt you had on at the Wild Night Out show. Duncan, you know how many t-shirts you going to say [laughter] on clothes? You tripping. Oh my.

(1:05:17) What? And he said this to someone that he said he loved like a daughter with Angel Ree who is 30 years younger than him, referring to him as a mentor, uncle, and father figure. But then I was curious, is this all that makes Shaq weird? Cuz plenty of male celebrities are a little bit strange with women, and most of them are much worse.

(1:05:35) I mean, have you guys seen this Vin Diesel interview? Tom Hanks was the first one, and he My god, you're so beautiful. My god, she's so beautiful, man. Am I right or wrong? Look at her. Thank you. How am I supposed to do this interview? Let's go. Let's Let's go have lunch. My god, I love her. Look how beautiful she is. Thank you, God. Wow, man. So, Tom Hanks, wow.

(1:05:57) But it turns out Shaq's obsession with Marilyn Monroe is far from the weirdest thing about him. And that's because I found a Reddit thread titled, "Every documented incident involving Shaquille O'Neal, his own feces, and his teammates. We used to always play um jokes. Shaq is a jokester. So if one of the rookies would be in a stall, he would take a bucket and use the bathroom in it for about a week.

(1:06:23) Okay. And then all of a sudden he'll pour it on them. So we start being jokesters. And apparently he had a ton of different poop pranks in his prank arsenal. According to his teammate Tyoo, when one of the rookies forgot to bring donuts to a team meeting, Shaq responded by pooping in his shoes just before a game.

(1:06:39) Plus, at random moments, Shaq would literally poop in his own hands just to show it to his teammates. Also, you got to remember how big Shaq is. I mean, it might look like that one Jurassic Park scene. I'm not going to lie. And obviously, these are all super disgusting, and it's also dangerous. This probably doesn't come as a shock to you, but human poop contains a whole lot of diseases. It can transmit E.coli, coli, salmonella, and a bunch of other diseases.

(1:07:02) I don't even know how to say or pronounce or I don't even know what they are. But Shaq's weird pranks weren't limited to just poop. I'm going to tell one story. So, we were playing in Phoenix, but remember Lou Almanson? He played here for a year or two. Lou was cool as [ __ ] but Shaq used to [ __ ] with him for some reason. So, you used Lou used to wear a mouthpiece all the time.

(1:07:20) So, Shaq went in Lou's locker, grabbed his mouthpiece, put it in his tights underneath his nuts, did a whole shooter. Jack is 300 lb. Sweats when he wakes up like nasty. Does a whole sheet around. Puts the [ __ ] puts the mouthpiece back in his locker and then just tells me. And I'm surprised I held the secret cuz I came some stuff like that. It's hard to tell.

(1:07:42) Apparently when they were in the locker room or training for a game. Sometimes he would randomly come around the corner completely naked and just tackle somebody to the ground and start wrestling them. Shot this all in a practice situation, especially when he showed up nude with just his shoes on.

(1:07:58) Those those things are sometimes rather shocking. That's got to be terrifying. But somehow I've never heard of any of this. And Shaq must have the best PR team in the world. But maybe there's something wrong with the Los Angeles Lakers water because somehow he probably wasn't the weirdest person on that team. That honor might go to Dennis Rodman.

(1:08:16) Dennis Rodman put a lot less effort than Shaq did in trying to seem like a normal person. He had an extremely rough childhood and claimed to be one of 40 siblings, although that comes from an unreliable source. But he was super shy and reserved as a teenager. One night, he found out his girlfriend was cheating with one of his teammates.

(1:08:33) And at 17 years old, he went to the parking lot with a shotgun, intending to end his own life. But instead, he in his own words decided he was going to kill the imposter that was leading Dennis Rodman to a place he didn't want to go. From that moment on, and you got to kind of respect this, he decided to live his life however he wanted to and not care what others thought.

(1:08:48) He was, of course, well known for having some crazy hairstyles or dressing kind of crazy or kicking a cameraman for absolutely no reason. And in another game, he headbutted the referee and ended up getting ejected, unsurprisingly. But he also refused to follow the usual rules of athletes.

(1:09:05) He would rest when his teammates were training and he'd party when they were recovering. But he still became one of the best players on the team. But then in 1996, things got even crazier. This is when he decided to come out as bisexual and marked the occasion by dressing as a woman in a wedding dress and marrying himself.

(1:09:20) On top of this, since Michael Jordan showed up in the film Space Jam, Dennis Rodman also decided that he wanted to get into movies. The result was a 1996 movie called Double Team starring Dennis Rodman and JeanClaude Vanam. I think I got that right. I think I pronounced that right according to Google, so maybe. Anyways, this movie sucked and it has an 11% on Rotten Tomatoes.

(1:09:44) And for his performance, Dennis Rodman won worst new star, worst supporting actor, and a shared worst screen couple at the Razies, which is basically like the Oscars but for the worst films. And let me tell you, after watching a few clips, it was pretty rough. It looks like one of those Tik Tok movies you hear with like three subtitles going on in the background. I'm looking for. Much more recently, Dennis Robin hit the headlines after he endorsed and campaigned for a controversial celebrity turned politician in the 2020 presidential election. Of course, that was Kanye West. But none of these things are the weirdest thing about Dennis Rodman. And the weirdest thing about Dennis may be one of the weirdest things

(1:10:25) ever. And that's because one of Dennis Rodman's best friends is Kim Jong-un. We always talk about that. We always talk about that man him Kim. We always talk about each other. I ain't going to do no [ __ ] like that. He just want peace. Surprisingly enough, Dennis Rodman and Kim Jong-un, the dictator of North Korea, have quite a few things in common.

(1:10:44) Of course, Kim grew up as the child of an all powerful dictator with more wealth than most of the North Korean population combined. While Dennis was born into immense poverty. But when Kim was young, there was one thing that he really loved, and that was watching basketball. And to this day, he's still a big fan of the Chicago Bulls, a team that Dennis Rodman starred for.

(1:10:59) Plus, in one of the most insane coincidences I've ever heard, Kim Jong-un really liked American action movies, and his favorite star was JeanClaude Vanam or JeanClaude Vanam, if you're if you pronounce it the American way that Google told me to. But again, that's the same actor who starred alongside Dennis Rodman. So, in 2014, Kim and Dennis met.

(1:11:16) And surprisingly, the American government had actually considered using athletes as diplomats prior. Maline Albbright famously gifted Kim Jong-il a basketball signed by Michael Jordan in 2000. And under the Obama administration, they had the idea of having another Chicago Bulls star, Steve Kerr, go to North Korea to try to make nice with them, basically.

(1:11:32) But when Rodman went to North Korea, he went there as a private citizen, which is very rare. Vice Media had actually wanted to go to North Korea for a while, so they thought bringing a basketball star might be their golden ticket. At first, they approached Michael Jordan, but they received a no. So, they decided to go with Dennis Rodman, who immediately agreed.

(1:11:49) And apparently it was because it had been such a long time since anyone cared that he existed and he was amazed and excited to find that he mattered. The Obama administration was pretty upset when they heard about their plans, especially since Kim had just been testing out some nukes. But since Dennis was a private citizen, there was nothing they could do. Dennis and Kim hung out and started watching some basketball together.

(1:12:06) The diplomatic stunner of the year so far. A meeting by the basketball court with Kim Jong-un. No American gets in to see the North Korean ruler. Not even say Google founder Eric Schmidt, whose visit last month was not well regarded by the US government. They chatted for a while and then they went to a nice banquet and during the feast, they both drank a bunch with the North Korean leader in particular loosening up a bit as the dinner went on.

(1:12:31) It literally feels like the interview. It's so funny that this is a real thing. Toward the end of the dinner, Dennis told Kim, "Thank you. You have a friend for life." And later on, he said that Kim told him, "If you can, Dennis, I don't want to do war. I don't want to do war." Dennis Rodman returned to North Korea 7 months later, but this time he went by himself.

(1:12:47) He partied with Kim on his yacht and visited Kim's mansion to meet his family. What's crazy is Dennis Rodman is the reason that we know the name of Kim Jong-un's daughter. And he also attended Kim's birthday party, so we know his birthday now, too. However, Dennis was unable to get Kim Jong-un to free Kenneth Bay, who was an American citizen sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in North Korea.

(1:13:05) And he almost seemed like he was suggesting that Ba deserved it. If you understand what Kidd and Ba did. Yeah. Do you understand what he did? What did he do? You tell me this country. You tell me what he do. And No. No. No. No. No. You tell me. You tell me. Why is he held captive? They haven't released any charges. They haven't released They haven't released any reason.

(1:13:25) I I got Let me do this. He later apologized, but as you can imagine, BA's family was not that happy. After Rodman's third visit, BA was eventually freed with Rodman later claiming, "If I don't finish in the top three for the next Nobel Peace Prize, something's seriously wrong." In 2017, he went back to North Korea sponsored by cryptocurrency Potcoin.

(1:13:47) And he also said he was going for the sake of world peace with his agent saying, "That's the main reason why we're going. We're trying to bring everything together. If not, at least we tried." Unfortunately though, Kim didn't end up meeting with him. So, Robin just gave his gifts to the country's sports minister. Two soap sets and a copy of Donald Trump's 1987 book, The Art of the Deal.

(1:14:03) Now, some people have suggested that Dennis was operating as some sort of like CIA intelligence asset trying to learn stuff about North Korea, but I don't think so. I think for whatever reason, Dennis genuinely seems to appreciate and care for Kim Jong-un as an actual friend. It was the fact that um he loves basketball and uh I think that's the key for anything in the world, basketball and music. I think that that's a great connection for anyone in the world.

(1:14:31) But honestly, Dennis and Shaq are two of the exceptions when it comes to athletes because by celebrity standards, athletes tend to be pretty normal. However, the same cannot be said for the music industry. I've talked a lot about Michael Jackson before, so I won't go too much into detail, but the best description I've ever seen of what made him so weird came from a YouTube comment that said, "His childhood was stolen, and all he was doing was trying to make a childhood for himself." We think of Michael Jackson as an 80s artist, but he was already a big star in the 60s,

(1:14:54) beginning his career by competing with Jimmyi Hendris in the Beatles on the charts. Not only was his dad super abusive, but his kids really never got to know what being a kid was like. Michael never went to school, and by the time he was 10 years old, he had performed on a record four back-toback chart topping singles. Because of all this, Michael suffered from what psychologists call Peter Pan syndrome.

(1:15:14) You don't want to grow up. No, I am Peter Pan. Not only did he call his mansion Neverland, but it was exactly what some kid's dream house would look like. It had a roller coaster, a ferris wheel, and a zoo on the grounds. Inside, the house was pretty weird, too.

(1:15:29) Michael took writer Jerry Hershey on a tour of the house where one room was full of life-sized mannequins. I guess I want to bring them to life, he said, adding, "I like to imagine talking to them, surrounding myself with the friends I never had." He said to Hershey that he only had two friends, and when asked about his fame, seemed very troubled, even fatalistic.

(1:15:43) "They think they own you. They think they made you," he said of his fans, adding, "Being mobbed hurts. You feel like spaghetti. At any moment, you're going to break." Michael also had a lot of pets. Bubbles the chimp, Muscles the boa constrictor, Louis the llama, and Mr. Tibs the fawn. He always preferred the company of kids to adults.

(1:16:00) And honestly, it's kind of sad how childlike he comes across in some videos. I'm not going to marry someone for a recording career, just to clear that up as well. Um, what? [laughter] You don't climb trees? No, I do not. You're missing out. Michael was obviously struggling with some mental health issues and because of this, he had a lot of weird behaviors.

(1:16:25) He was very scared of germs, requiring everything to be cleaned often, and he was also seen wearing surgical masks quite a bit. In his later years, he was also obsessed with the idea that powerful music executives were going to assassinate him to get their hands on his catalog. One time he showed up to court for sexual abuse allegations wearing pajamas.

(1:16:43) And apparently he danced and sang a concert for the fans gathered outside on top of his car. Plus, I think everyone remembers the baby incident, too. [cheering] [screaming] One thing that I wasn't aware of, though, is that Michael was apparently a practicing Jehovah's Witness, at least prior to 1987.

(1:17:00) And he would dress up in these elaborate disguises so he could evangelize to other people on their doorstep without being recognized. Man, this is completely underrated, but he named one of his kids Blanket. So, yeah. But while I've talked plenty about Michael Jackson, the bestselling solo artist in music history, I haven't talked much about the second bestselling artist, despite the fact that he was a very strange character. It's not too hard to figure out why Elvis Presley was so strange. For the first 20 years of Elvis's life, he was a complete nobody.

(1:17:25) Born to poor parents in northern Mississippi, his family lost their house when his father was jailed for 8 months for writing bad checks. And things didn't start out so great for him. By 1995, he was a decently wellrespected musician on the regional concert circuit.

(1:17:42) But by 1956, he was quite possibly one of the most famous people on Earth. Elvis was as famous in the late50s as Michael Jackson was in the8s. The difference was though is that Elvis was the first to do it. As component Leonard Bernstein put it, Elvis Presley is the greatest cultural force in the 20th century. He changed everything, music, language, clothes. And as you can imagine, this warped Elvis's mind pretty intensely.

(1:18:03) He had a lot of bizarre hobbies and interests. He was super obsessed with the police and the military. So much so that one of his favorite things to do was dress up like a police officer, cruise around in his replica car, and then pull other cars over.

(1:18:18) He'd then tell them that they were going too fast and hand them a speeding ticket only for the ticket to just be an Elvis signature. He also probably had some type of OCD because before every show, he'd touch all of the stage lights individually cuz he thought otherwise the show would be a disaster. Like Michael Jackson, he also had some strange pets. In particular, he had a pet chimp called Scatter, who he dressed in human clothes.

(1:18:34) And apparently, the monkey became a massive alcoholic and was reportedly the only person able to outdrank Elvis. Unsurprisingly, because of this, probably the monkey had a habit of attacking visitors and lifting up the skirts of women to peek under. It's literally like that weird monkey from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. Another thing Elvis really liked to do was shoot TVs.

(1:18:52) Whenever something on set annoyed him, or if he just felt like it, he would shoot a bullet at his TV screen. One time he almost hit his girlfriend, Linda Thompson, who had just stepped out of the shower. And in the back of his mansion, there was a big graveyard with all the TVs piled up. He actually loved guns so much that he brought them with him everywhere.

(1:19:07) One time when he was performing, a 22 caliber pistol fell out of his sleeve and stayed on the concert stage loaded for about 2 minutes. But one of the weirdest things I've found is that he really liked karate. [music] The other thing that Elvis was crazy about was food, which we can't really blame him for that.

(1:19:23) His favorite food was called the Elvis, which was named after him. It involved hollowing out the entire loaf of white bread and then filling it with a pound of bacon, a pound of grape jam, and a pound of peanut butter along with several mashed up bananas. He had a vast group of people who he'd employ to hang out with him and cater for him, including Hamburger James, who he paid around the clock to supply him with hamburgers whenever he wanted. Of course, though, the caloric excess eventually caught up with him, and he got pretty baked.

(1:19:46) His label actually tried their best to suppress this footage of his last concert because of how bad it made him look. His lifestyle was so crazy that he died with only $5 million of savings. Which so far though, all of the entries in this video are people that got famous decades ago, which might make you think maybe people are a little more normal now.

(1:20:03) But believe me, modern celebrities can be just as weird, if not a lot weirder, than celebrities from the past. And one good example of that is Ezra Miller. When Ezra Miller broke onto the scene in the 2010s, it was pretty clear they were different from most movie stars, but in some innocent and somewhat endearing ways.

(1:20:22) Rather than living in a huge Beverly Hills mansion, Ezra spent most of their time on a farm in rural Vermont, raising goats and singing to caterpillars. They also came out as queer and non-binary, becoming the first LGBT actor to portray a superhero on screen as the Flash. But then things suddenly changed. People began to notice something was wrong in late 2019 on the set of Asking for It.

(1:20:39) Despite the crazy hot temperatures, they wore long flowing clothes, a cape, and a massive unicorn headdress around. And apparently they weren't showering with numerous cast members complaining about Ezra's pungent body odor. Then while filming a TV miniseries called The Stand, Ezra screeched, spit, and interrupted the director by screaming during filming.

(1:20:55) Ezra also apparently screamed out a racist joke at one point. And when people were getting upset to Ezra about this behavior, Ezra said they were just method acting. But when the filming of one of the Fantastic Beast sequels was paused due to CO restrictions, that's when things got really bad. Ezra moved to Iceland.

(1:21:12) And as Business Insider reported, the actor, who rarely changed out of the same loosely fitting Bohemian clothing, strolled the frigid streets of Reikavic barefoot, revealing long, pointy toenails and what looked like an infected gash on one foot. One person recalled seeing Miller walking around mumbling.

(1:21:27) In an Airbnb Ezra was staying at, they began to put together what really feels like a cult, something like Charles Manson did. Everywhere Ezra went, so did someone called Jasper Young Bear, their spiritual adviser, who was reportedly known to brag about how he had cut off one of his fingers as part of one of his rituals.

(1:21:43) Ezra assembled a bunch of Icelandic creatives to live with them, paying for all their food, accommodations, and of course, drugs. Ezra often discussed mystical powers with them and forced them to join Young Bear in their rituals and meditations. Ezra also had very violent mood swings. Once a young woman mixed up the Spanish words for six and seven, ironically. So, she leaned on Ezra affectionately, you know, like, "Haha, I'm whatever.

(1:22:03) " And Ezra said, "Get the off me." And called her disgusting. An 18-year-old who Ezra was in a relationship with described them as obsessed with her breeding capabilities and would worship her perfect womb by talking to it, looking at it, hugging it, and laying their head on her stomach.

(1:22:19) Increasingly, signs of Ezra's craziness and occasional violence began to reach the public. One of the most damning videos showed them attacking a fan for pretty much no reason. You learn it. Did you want to fight? Is that the video? Whoa. Bro, bro, bro. And they were arrested numerous times for actions like throwing a chair at a karaoke performer. Let's talk about it. Being held for a crime or interrogation.

(1:22:40) Yes or no? Hey, you just touched my penis. Please don't do that. I'm non-transgender, non-binary. I don't want to be searched by a man. I'm transgender, non-binary, and I don't want to be searched by a man. Ezra also seemed to be getting pretty paranoid, too, carrying a firearm with them everywhere. But it still manages to get worse.

(1:23:01) When Ezra along with a bunch of other progressive celebrities were protesting against an oil pipeline project in North Dakota, they met an activist called Sarah Jumping Eagle and her 12-year-old daughter, Tokata Iron Eyes. Apparently, the first time they met, 25-year-old Ezra tried to sleep in the same bed as Tokata, but was stopped by another member of the tribe. Although, apparently, her parents didn't hear about this until years later. Over the next few years, Ezra got closer and closer with her, even flying her out to the premiere of Fantastic Beast.

(1:23:24) At first, Sarah appreciated Ezra's kindness towards her daughter and activism help. But then things began to get weird. At one point, Ezra went on a road trip to LA with Tokata and a few others with Tokata requesting her father, Chase Iron Eyes, to come with them as far as Oakland. This is when I was able to see some of Ezra's deranged behavior.

(1:23:44) Iron Eyes eventually said during the trip, Ezra claimed they were an incarnation of Jesus Christ, said Tokata was their mother in a past life, and at one point brandished a gun in a state park. As you can imagine, pretty soon Tokata's parents wanted to keep her away from Ezra. But as Tokata was 16 years old and increasingly more independent, it was pretty tough to do.

(1:23:59) At one point, the girl's mom went to LA to try to find her, and they found them in an Uber. So, she tried to talk to her daughter, and Ezra slammed the door so hard on her arm that she had to go to the ER. Things eventually went much too far when Ezra called Sarah to tell her to pick up her daughter, saying she overdosed on LSD, which isn't even possible.

(1:24:15) So, either it was an LSD or she had a bad trip. And Takata's mom found her covered in bruises and screaming as they dragged her out. But still, for whatever reason, she still liked Ezra and months later went out to Hawaii with them. In Hawaii, Ezra's behavior got a bit more extreme. And at one point, they burst into a hotel that a couple was sleeping in, screaming, "I will bury you and your wife at the man.

(1:24:36) " A friend also saw Ezra kiss Takata and tell her no abuse without love. Eventually, Takata's parents were thankfully able to get a restraining order against Ezra, and it seems she's doing much better now. But Ezra has just moved on to new victims with another restraining order between Miller and an 11-year-old in Massachusetts being filed not too long after.

(1:24:52) At one point, Rolling Stone published an article documenting how Ezra was hosting a mother and three children at their Vermont home with a source claiming that the home was covered with guns, ammunition, and wheat, with a one-year-old child having apparently put loose bullets in her mouth before.

(1:25:09) And as Los Angeles magazine described, with every new detail, their home sounds more like a cult leader compound, complete with an altar that's home to bullets, wheat, sage, and flash figurines, which is all very Charles Mansonesesque to me. But the good news is is that all of Ezra's terrible behavior has pretty much destroyed their entire career. The same cannot be said though about David Bowie.

(1:25:25) David Bowie has always been a pretty unique character. You only have to see what his concerts were like to understand that. But in 1975, a combination of a bunch of drug use and sleep deprivation meant that Bowie pretty much lost touch with reality entirely.

(1:25:40) He started storing his nail clippings and frozen urine in a freezer to protect them from witches and began a diet of only milk and red peppers, which resulted in a lot of weight loss. He began to believe that evil spirits were possessing his swimming pool and claimed to see dead bodies as well as suffering from, of course, crazy memory loss.

(1:25:55) He forgot everything about recording his critically acclaimed album Station to Station. But what's remembered most from this period of Bow's life is his controversial statements, if you can say that.

(1:26:10) In an interview with Playboy, he stated that Adolf Hitler was the first rock star, told Rolling Stone Britain could benefit from a fascist leader, and did plenty of other crazy things. And nowadays, a new group has been moving in trying to take over the celebrity spot, and that would be influencers. After the takeover of social media this last decade or so, influencers began to replace your traditional celebrity.

(1:26:25) In 2019, the word influencer was added to the Miriam Webster dictionary with the definition, a person who is able to generate interest in something by posting about it on social media. And people were generating interest about all sorts of random things. You had people like James Charles, Charlie D'Amelio, and many more that were dominating the internet.

(1:26:42) Even people like the Hawkua girl were able to start entire careers thanks to the power of social media. Any and everyone in the modern age could have influence online. And as influencers began to take over the internet, a whole lot of problems came with it. And I have three main reasons as to why I think influencer culture is dying off. But it isn't game over for every influencer because I think a certain type of influencer will continue to thrive in the current environment while the rest fall off.

(1:27:04) Now, to even understand the type of influencer I'm talking about, I think we have to define it a little bit better. I'm specifically talking about social media influencers obviously you know not like historical influencers or something like that because people have been influential for quite some time and Wikipedia defines a social media influencer as a person who builds a grassroots online presence through engaging content such as photos, videos and updates. This is done by using direct audience interaction to establish authenticity, expertise and appeal and by standing apart from traditional

(1:27:33) celebrities by growing their platform through social media rather than pre-existing fame. Now, this is a good definition and it helps us differentiate from celebrities because it's more grassroots. But still, this could apply to pretty much anyone online, even me, and I don't think I really count as the type of influencer I'm talking about. I think there's different levels to it.

(1:27:50) There's the very broad definition that we just went over, but then there are the creative influencers, people who got famous from creating some sort of content, whether it be film, do-it-yourself videos, music, art, or whatever else, and then they became influencers. That could be someone like Mr.

(1:28:06) Beast, who got famous from his videos but now has a lot of social impact and influence. Or Charlie D'Amelio, who got famous from her dance videos, but now has more of a lifestyle influencer sort of content output. Or even musicians or people who got famous from their work online on social media and then transitioned into just showing off their life for the most part.

(1:28:23) You could also probably put political influencers in this category. People like this guy who somehow got a lot of relevancy in the political space for who knows what reason. And then after people like them are the straightup lifestyle influencers. And this is what you want to be ideally.

(1:28:38) I'm thinking of people like the Kardashian siblings who got famous essentially because of their parents' notoriety. Of course, there are lots of other factors, but if you think about it, Kylie Jenner, for example, really did nothing that led to her fame in the first place.

(1:28:54) What they did was after they got popular and got their show is they leveraged social media, showed off their status, lifestyle, wealth, just like they did in their reality show. And people found that interesting. This laid the groundwork for what I will deem the faux influencer, which are the people who wanted to show off this wealthy or luxurious lifestyle. But maybe they didn't quite have it. I think this Reddit post encapsulates this idea well.

(1:29:09) One of my best friends dated a really Insta famous guy. He invited us to his house for a Christmas party, and this is when I realized how fake social media was. The guy didn't have the car he paraded on social media. He leased it, took several photo shoots with it, then gave it back. His house was in a different city than he claimed.

(1:29:25) I don't think it was for security reasons, though. He said he lived in a very rich city, but his house was in a more modest place. He asked me to send him the videos I took at the party, posted them, and didn't even tag me because I didn't have enough followers. Dude has millions of people fooled. I think these types of fake it till you make it influencers.

(1:29:40) People who really are famous for absolutely no reason are the epitome of what people don't like about influencers. They're typically viewed as arrogant, selfish, self-absorbed, and things like that. It doesn't really matter how much money you make or how much money you have. That's really the thing because I'm not asking you for a large financial contribution.

(1:30:03) But a sub is $5 at maximum in whatever your currency is. It's maybe $10. And it doesn't matter how broke you are. If you have time to watch Twitch, you have you have $10 truly. So being like, "I'm broke. I can't afford to sub." That doesn't really track. What you mean to say is, "I'm so irresponsible with my money. I can't support the entertainment that I enjoy.

(1:30:26) " And of course, these attributes don't apply to every influencer, or they could apply to every influencer in different categories, or they could also apply to the different categories I listed. But I do think what most people dislike and what most people think of when you think of like an influencer are the people who have a really luxurious lifestyle or showing it off all the time, but didn't really do much to get it and are somewhat out of touch. So, how do we get to a point in time where people like this can even exist? How can you be famous for just posting pictures of your

(1:30:49) cool car, you know? How do we get to a place where people can fake being rich online until they actually get rich? Okay, bet. You You've had sex like once or [laughter] twice. Oh, bet. That's fire. Yeah. Yeah. What's his name? Am I right? Yo. [laughter] Yo. Well, I think it all truly started with Instagram. Before the release of Instagram, I think YouTube really primed the internet for influencers.

(1:31:11) After being created in 2006, loads of YouTubers gained a lot of social media influence. people like PewDiePie, Jenna Marbles, Ryan Higa, I Justine, and many more. Jenna Marbles, in particular, I think is a really good example of a more traditional influencer.

(1:31:27) Regardless, Instagram was released in 2010, and its first month got a million users. By 2012, the platform had 30 million users, and Facebook acquired it. While platforms like Facebook and Twitter were already pretty big, they weren't full of influencers like Instagram soon would be. Early on, Instagram didn't have a ton of influencers. I think Kiara Ferrani, Amy Song, and Dan Blazerian are some good early examples.

(1:31:50) In the mid2010s, people began to optimize their feeds for audience appeal rather than just simple personal updates with hashtags like they used to be. Then people like the Kardashians started joining the platform. And by the mid2010s, a clear shift was being made to influencer culture. You also had a bunch of expats from Vine that migrated to Instagram, like Cameron Dallas. And around this time, it felt like a lot of people really tried to become an influencer. I feel like mid to late 2010s there was a lot of people maybe in your schools as well who really cared about having a lot of followers.

(1:32:15) Everyone wanted an aesthetically pleasing Instagram page or to look like they were living some extravagant lifestyle and they just wanted to have a a presence on social media. But while the Instagram influencer laid the groundwork, I think short form content ushered in a whole new wave of influencers. By 2019 and 2020, tons of kids were going viral for doing dance videos or lip-syncing videos or whatever other goofy short videos were trendy.

(1:32:38) And this resulted in influencers like Charlie D'Amilio, Addison Ray, Bryce Hall, Lil Huie, who really was just a wannabe Jacob Storius, let's be real, and plenty more. These were the types of influencers I'm kind of talking about in this video.

(1:32:54) The people who got famous for really no reason and then just got really rich and were showing off their lifestyles and their sponsorships and all this stuff to their audience. By the early 2020s, whether you built your brand on Instagram, Tik Tok, or YouTube, most people had all three. So, you had influence across the internet. And at first, this was exciting.

(1:33:09) As writer Kaylee Donaldson said, "There was a time where you couldn't avoid the influencer." The explosion of this new economy, one where regular people could become as significant as a bigname celebrity, was seen as a positive force. This was a form of democratization, a way for you to take back control and get a fair slice of the pie from your corporate overlords.

(1:33:26) Anyone could do it, and it was your unique charm and perspective that drew audiences to your platform. Of course, different sorts of influencers garnered different sorts of respect. Some were taken more seriously than others, but their popularity and relevance could not be ignored. Whether or not they deserved it, it was there. Like the New York Times said, "Not all influencers are brilliant polymaths, of course.

(1:33:46) Some of them have succeeded by virtue of being conventionally attractive or good at video games or in possession of some other surface level attribute. Others have made their names with dubious stunts and extreme political commentary. But as social media expands its cultural dominance, the people who can steer the online conversation will have an upper hand in whatever niche they occupy.

(1:34:03) Whether that's media, politics, business, or some other field, social media has grown rapidly over the last two decades. Nowadays, more than two in three people on Earth use social media every month. 95% of internet users across the world use social media every month. There are nine new social media users every single second.

(1:34:19) Like it or not, social media is the future, and having influence on social media is pretty important, especially when money is involved. By the time your traditional social media influencers were born in like the 2010s, the idea of influencer marketing had already been played with. Back in the day, they paid bloggers to write good reviews and eventually developed something called pay-per- post, which had a similar structure as nowadays where people got paid based on how much influence they had.

(1:34:43) So, influencer marketing by the time Instagram came around was a no-brainer. And it only got easier as time went on and influencers were influencing on every platform, which allowed for all sorts of influencerbacked advertisements. As the 2010s went on, influencers were content creators with large followings, distinct personal brands, and a regular relationship with commercial sponsors.

(1:35:01) Studies suggest that people trust people, you know, like people with human faces. So, influencers made the perfect marketing tool. They were supposed to be your average everyday person who just had a presence online.

(1:35:17) So whether it's influencers just selling ads like I technically am with this video or straight up sponsor integrated posts, advertisements, or collaborations, no matter what industry influencers are in, they will typically try to sell you something. The Nivea Fruity Lip Care Duos are perfect for adding a natural looking flesh of color to any look. Now I'm going to show you how I use my favorite shade. Although it can be pretty obvious when whoever's marketing it doesn't seem too into what they're marketing.

(1:35:34) This preview ends of mind's eye. Uh just like to remind you guys that um [music] thank God this game was sponsored by [laughter] if you want to check out Minds Eye now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S and PC Epic Game Store and Steam. I'm pretty sure that this game is going to win game of the year this year.

(1:36:07) Regardless, marketing is a big part of the influencer economy. As someone on Reddit put it, they are basically walking advertisements. For one reason or another, they got a lot of attention. So, companies pay them for a piece of that attention. Another person also said, "YouTube, Tik Tok, Instagram, all that stuff.

(1:36:24) Somehow, it empowered people to tell other people what to wear, what to buy, what to be. It's really no different than the advertising of our day. But since we are all streaming our content, we are seeing less ads. So, they have to find us somehow." But influencers had a problem. And it's a problem that anyone with a personal brand will encounter.

(1:36:41) And it's maintaining the relationship with the audience in a way that feels relatable, not out of touch or cringe or weird. Before influencers, you had celebrities with PR training who were famous for their music or acting or whatever else it may be. They weren't constantly online, so they had a lot less opportunities to screw up. And typically, they had a crafted public image, so it was much easier to uphold that.

(1:37:01) You know, if they were doing an interview back in the day, they'd have their PR team. and they'd already briefed the interviewer of what to ask and what you can't ask and stuff like that. But the internet made it so that's not always the case. The internet made it possible for every and anyone to become an influencer, which has led to some issues.

(1:37:16) First and foremost, a lot of influencers just turn out to be flatout weirdos. James Charles was one of the biggest influencers on the internet and then got outed for talking to underage fans. Miranda Sings also had a similar thing happen and then decided to sing some stupid apology song. I mean, there was people like Cody Co and plenty more who were just weirdos.

(1:37:31) Like this Reddit user said, "I think it's honestly the next logical step to reality TV given the availability of social media. A flood of amateur Kardashians, housewives, and gains who no longer have to apply or audition for distribution. People not having to apply is a uh a big factor here. And I think the quintessential example of the type of influencer that people really hated is Haley Welch, better known as the Hawk to a girl.

(1:37:58) What's one move in bed that makes a man go crazy every time? Oh, you got to give him that hawk to spit on that thing. You get me? Next thing you know, after this video went viral, she has 2 million followers on Instagram, posts a ton of brand deals, and has a podcast that she used to rugpull her fans with a crypto scam. But she is popular regardless of the reason and how stupid it may be.

(1:38:19) She now can tell people what to do, what to buy, and a lot of people strongly dislike her for that. However, her brand is still fairly down to earth. You know, since she does act like a regular person, and people like that because I think one of the biggest things that has led to the downfall of influencer culture is influencers ability to stay in touch with their audiences.

(1:38:35) Again, when I say the death of influencer culture, I'm referring to a very specific type of influencer, the type from the Reddit post earlier. You know, the lifestyle or beauty or travel influencer who really didn't do much to get to where they are. And they're really famous for the sake of selling a product. And there are three main reasons that I have for why I think these influencers won't last much longer. A good example of this is the recent discourse around Jaclyn Hill.

(1:38:54) Jaclyn Hill is an OG influencer who's been on YouTube since 2011 and is very popular in the beauty space. She even did a get ready with me with Kim Kardashian, which is huge in the influencer world. It's safe to say that she's a very traditional influencer and a very successful one at that. So, when she took to Tik Tok to complain about a lack of engagement from her audience, people were not happy. I took off like I didn't post a Tik Tok I think for like a week and a half, two weeks maybe.

(1:39:17) [music] Like sorry [ __ ] life happens. I've been doing this for 14 years. Maybe I'm a little burnt out. God forbid. But then I come back to Tik Tok and it's like I'm put in like this Tik Tok jail where my views are complete [ __ ] No one is seeing like it's one thing if my engagement is [ __ ] Meaning like maybe my views are high but my comments are low and the likes are low. It's like okay so my audience wasn't feeling the vibes of this video. That's fine.

(1:39:41) But I'm talking like when you have a million followers, but your videos are only getting 30,000 [music] views. This is just not the way it used to be. People responded saying things like, "You have to adjust to the current climate. We're gravitating toward influencers like Shelby Anne because their content feels real and relatable.

(1:39:56) " When over half the country is struggling to afford rent, people aren't interested in watching someone spend thousands on a hall or decorate a million-doll home for Thanksgiving. It just doesn't connect anymore. Someone else said, "Because your era is over and that's okay.

(1:40:11) " One commenter said, "That sweatshirt is $140. That's my entire weekly grocery budget that we can afford for our entire family." This one was pretty funny, and they said, "Sing, I'm burnt out from posting Sephora hauls and get ready with me to employed people is insane.

(1:40:26) " Many influencers, especially as they made more and more money and got more followers, quickly became out of touch with their audience. Your favorite makeup influencers suddenly had their own lipsticks to shill on top of more profitable collaborations and high-profile events to attend. Soon, they didn't seem all that different from your run-of-the-mill celebrity.

(1:40:42) There's a relatability trap that most celebrities fall into, regardless of how they got their start. The qualities that made you so appealing in the first place either gets soured in your fans imaginations or change because that sudden influx of money and attention cannot help but change you. A good example of this is Hub's life.

(1:40:59) A guy who got very popular online for showing off his regular life as a guy working just a regular job. But after he got big enough online and made enough money, he quit his job and started making content about his life full-time as a content creator, which most people weren't following him to see. Like, POV, you bought a lakehouse. This just clearly is not relatable to people anymore.

(1:41:15) And plus, your average content creator's day in the life is not that interesting. Trust me. This is one of the main reasons I think your traditional influencer is on their way out. And it's because a lot of them come off as out of touch as soon as they get the bag. 10 years ago, one person explained it well when they said, "Consumerism is greater than ever." Influencers no longer have any defining qualities or unique personality traits.

(1:41:33) All they do is showcase expensive picture perfect lives that seem just out of reach for their audience. People are starting to realize that the majority of things that come out of their mouths are either one, paid sponsorship content, two, uneducated nonsense, or three, a story or experience trying to relate to their audience through forced humor or forced quirkiness.

(1:41:57) But my second major reason for the downfall of your traditional influencer is, you guessed it, like, oh my god. Like, can we talk about like the political and economic state of the world right now? I stole this joke from my celebrity culture video. There are a lot of things going on across the world that make any sort of influencer way less enticing. I mean, why would I pay attention to random personalities on the internet when there's a bunch of wars going on? Or why would you want to watch someone do an unboxing or haul video when it's hard to afford the necessities? I've said this before, but there's definitely a growing lack of optimism about the future these days.

(1:42:22) All right, here's the keys to your zero bed, zero bath apartment. Oh, at last, true American freedom. So, I did a thing. So, I think even the idea of very wealthy people, especially when you feel like they don't deserve it at all, flaunting their lifestyles online isn't quite as fun as it used to be. Throughout history, people have always loved the idea of wealth.

(1:42:50) Whether it be touring an old mansion or MTV cribs or the influencer era cuz maybe back then it was achievable. But in tough times like right now, who wants to be flexed on? I saw a Substack article that sort of explained this idea well. They said, "Before economic stress, luxury content was goals, inspiration. This could be mine if I work hard. But during economic stress, luxury content is painful.

(1:43:05) I'm worried about losing my job and they're showing off $2,000 bags." Like everyone in Jacqueline's comments pointed out, no one wants to see your mansion tour when, like most Americans, can't afford a regular house. It's just so tonedeaf. Nowadays, if you're rich or well off, you're fine. Like, most people won't really care.

(1:43:25) Unless you go online posting a bunch of pictures and videos of it, and then that rubs people the wrong way. However, there is one more glaringly obvious reason that your traditional influencer these days would be struggling. As Kaye Donaldson, the writer I mentioned earlier, said, "The truth is that everyone is an influencer now.

(1:43:42) As happens whenever a new capitalistic trend takes root, the rush to overwhelm it and make as much money as possible before the bottom drops out is expected. When everyone is an influencer, they all start to chase the same trends in a flop sweaty effort to keep up with the almighty algorithm. With the amount of influencers there are these days competing in different niches and markets, all with the goal of trying to sell you something or tell you how you should be doing something, it gets overwhelming and viewers, myself included, can get really burnt out from even seeing this stuff. You're also seeing a lot of the same stuff and influencers are having to do more and

(1:44:09) more to set the bar higher and higher as viewers expectations rise. What people once saw as trustworthy, down-to-earth people is now a glaringly obvious attempt at getting rich on the internet. No one trusts them at all anymore.

(1:44:28) On top of that, when you have influencers or content creators that are out there doing crazy things all the time, no one wants to watch a boring get ready with me anymore. You know, like the bar is so much higher now. However, I don't think this spells the end for every influencer, just that specific type. I think the difference between the words influencer and content creator, although the definitions may be similar, is that when you typically think of an influencer, you think of someone who's really popular online, they're probably more of a lifestyle influencer, and they probably didn't do much to get their fame. However, I think the people who approach social media from more of a

(1:44:51) content creator mindset will be the ones who stick around. I found this quote related to the Kardashians that I think fits well for influencers in general. And why no matter how much people get sick of influencer culture or even celebrity culture, it will always exist in some fashion.

(1:45:05) And that's because influencers exist in an interesting space in modern pop culture. People love to hate them. And the more controversy they are surrounded in, the more attention, fame, and money will be thrown at them. Influencers who bring unique or relatable content to the table know what they are doing.

(1:45:20) They know what audiences like to see or what audiences may like to complain about and recreate that. Maybe it's because your traditional influencer is competing with rage baiters and clip farmers that are much more entertaining to be upset with. But regardless, no one really cares for them anymore.

(1:45:38) The pinnacle of the influencer, someone who is popular, wealthy, or attractive and shows that off just for the sake of it and really with no reason, that person is over with. Nobody cares about your rich cousin Sephora Hall. They are now competing with businessbacked influencers in an age where content, ragebait, and entertainment is much more enticing.

(1:45:54) But despite all of this, I do think there are things to look forward to in the social media space. I think in the age of clip farming, AI slop, and all the other nonsense I've covered on this channel, it's resulted in people missing the regular human aspect, especially when it comes to long- form content with a message.

(1:46:10) I think people are yearning for more authenticity in social media. With how competitive social media is becoming, you really need to bring something to the table with your content or whatever you're posting. Whether it's educational, inspirational, philosophical, whatever it may be, people are yearning for more than just, hey, you should buy this. This is what I bought. Look at me. And another simple reason celebrities aren't as big as they used to be is because Hollywood has kind of fallen off in recent years.

(1:46:33) The Backrooms movie just broke a ton of records. It made Kane Parsons the youngest director with a number one box office film globally. It was A24's biggest opening weekend ever. It's the largest original horror movie debut in history and many more. I mean, AMC just had their highest attendance since 2019.

(1:46:50) This is following the major success of movies like Obsession, an indie movie with less than a million-doll budget that was directed by 26-year-old Curry Barker, which also broke records. On the flip side, though, industry titans like Disney and Star Wars just had the lowest debut of any live-action Star Wars movie with Mandalorian and Grou. and overall to a guy who isn't really into movies. I've just felt this overwhelming excitement around the current movie industry.

(1:47:13) So, what happened? Why are indie movies and movies that traditionally wouldn't do as well doing so well? And why are the big studios flopping? Well, to understand that, I think it's important to understand some of the crazy feats we've seen as of late. Now, I got to get this out of the way. I'm not a big movie guy by any means.

(1:47:29) I know a lot of you cinema fans out there will hate me for this, but for most of my life, I really only watch like superhero movies and comedies. I mean, this is my letter boxed. But don't worry, I'm self-aware. I'm trying to expand my pallet regardless. Even though I'm not a huge movie guy, I've just felt really interested with the industry lately with how many cool, interesting movies have been coming out.

(1:47:46) One of the most shocking successes as of late was Markiplier's 2026 science fiction horror film, Iron Lung. Now, I haven't seen this one, but Mark Edward Fishbach, or Markiplier, has held a dominating position on YouTube for a long time. To many, he's one of the goats of early YouTube.

(1:48:02) And similar to a lot of the other people we'll see in this video, he decided to take it a step further than just making videos for YouTube. Mark decided to make a movie. But Iron Lung actually wasn't his first. He's actually written and directed three separate projects for if you count his book/doccumentary Markiplier from North Korea. If you had to describe this book in one word, what would that be? what Mark was like when he was when he was born, when he was one year, when he was five, when he was seven, when he was teenager, when did he get his first kiss? His other two projects were pretty unique as well. However, what makes these films different is that they were interactive.

(1:48:36) One more thing blows up on my ship, I'm going to lose it. Despite the risky format, though, they perform very well, receiving a 9 out of 10 and an 8.9, respectively. This early success is what motivated Mark to continue making films. And this time, he decided to dive into Hollywood rather than releasing his movies on YouTube.

(1:48:55) Mark began work on his new movie, Iron Long as the director, a writer, executive producer, and editor. When the movie dropped, no one really knew what to expect. Would the project flop like many assumed, or would it flip the script on big budget production studios? Well, with a budget of just $3 million, Markiplier's Iron Lung ended up hitting just over 50 million in the worldwide box office, making the movie a smashing success. However, this is far from the only indie movie making waves right now.

(1:49:19) As Markiplier said in an interview discussing why he went about Iron Lung's production how he did, he said, "There's still a stigma against YouTube." One of the reasons why I really wanted this to work, at least to some degree of success, I didn't expect this degree, is to help move that mountain. It's not like I'm going to topple the mountain by myself.

(1:49:36) It has to be toppled and then toppled again until it becomes normalized. And that seems to be sort of what's happening right now. Comedy sketch YouTuber Curry Barker recently released his film Obsession being a hit with an overwhelming amount of positive reception. And even that's probably an understatement. I don't know about you guys, but this movie is everywhere for me. Everyone's talking about it.

(1:49:53) It's everywhere online. It's huge. I still haven't seen it yet, though. I'll probably have seen it by the time this video comes out. But Curry Barker started making comedy sketches with Cooper Toms under the name That's a Bad Idea. All right, so this is my new apartment. Um about to go meet my new roommate, Brad. So, here we go. Here I come.

(1:50:11) Honey, I'm home. Hey, [laughter] Brad. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, Chad, actually, ah, you moisturize. Yeah. They grew a pretty big following. And Curry even got a role on one of my favorite shows, it's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. What you got there, Bozo? Just need you to sign these waivers. No waivers on. I'm not [snorts] really supposed to let you in unless you sign this.

(1:50:31) Oh, yeah. Well, listen. And while I agree it's total [ __ ] that we would have to sign a waiver and also that we could bum rush you and there's nothing you could do about. But how did any of this lead to him directing a smash hit film? Well, in between his comedy skits, he began throwing in some horror short films over time like Heavy Eyes in the Chair, the latter of which got 10 million views.

(1:50:48) And The Chair was special because it got the attention of film producer James Harris of T-shot Productions, who reached out to Curry to make it into a feature. Instead, Curry declined and pitched him the idea for the movie Obsession.

(1:51:04) In one year, he went from filming comedy skits and films for YouTube on $800 budgets to a budget just under a million for Obsession. It screened in the Midnight Madness block at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. And within days, distribution deals were made and the film was set to officially hit the big screen in 2026. Like I said, the movie got great reviews and less than a month after its release, it's grossed over $150 million worldwide.

(1:51:24) In the US and Canada, Obsession was initially projected to grow as 8 to 10 million. But after making 7 million in its first day, obviously it was going on a different trajectory. And as the movie began to grow and more people talked about it just from word of mouth and internet talk, the sales actually continued to grow.

(1:51:41) Obsession became the only wide release horror film on record to increase its box office revenue in the second weekend. And that's amongst other records it broke as well. The film even got an 8.2 out of 10 on over 50,000 reviews, which is very impressive. And the crazy part is Obsession was released amidst heavy competition like The Mandalorian and Grou, Michael, and more with one of its other competitors being Backrooms, also being a hit indie film.

(1:52:00) What was originally a creepy pasta, The Backrooms has had a long, detailed lore throughout the internet, which made it the perfect film for adaptation by A24. Similar to the other indie movies I covered, Backrooms was directed by a shockingly young 20-year-old director, Cain Parsons, in his featurelength directorial debut.

(1:52:22) After uploading a web series based on the original Backroom's creepy pasta, Kane was approached by a bunch of studios about adapting his series into a feature film. In 2023, it was officially announced that the film would be made, and Kane had just turned 17 months prior. Kind of crazy that they gave a $10 million budget to a 20-year-old kid, but it worked out.

(1:52:38) When Back Rooms released in theaters in the United States on May 29th, it blew up so fast that it became 824's biggest opening and domestic box office performance. On top of that, it made Kane the youngest filmmaker to reach number one at the American box office, and it's on track to gross 150 million easily, so not too shabby.

(1:52:56) Like I said in the intro, it broke a ton of records, like being A24's biggest opening weekend ever, or being the biggest R-rated opening weekend of 2026 and in the top 15 R-rated openings of all time. And lastly, Backrooms is the largest original horror movie debut in history, which is a pretty big one considering its competition includes The Conjuring or Five Nights at Freddy's.

(1:53:11) But it isn't just these indie films or these small budget films or these young YouTube directors that are making waves. I feel like, and this is a bit more opinionated, but it seems to me that a lot of big studios and big actors are trying a little harder now so that way they can compete. One good example, I think, is the movie Sinners. During a time where it seemed like a lot of big movies were flopping came Sinners.

(1:53:26) With the interesting idea of doing a dual role for Michael B. Jordan. Ryan Cougler, who also directed Creed and Black Panther, believed in Sinners so much that he personally covered the spend when they went over budget, which was a good investment as the film has made over 370 million worldwide.

(1:53:41) Sinners had the biggest opening weekend for an original film this decade, which means that it's the first movie in a while to crush that hasn't been sourced from like a comic, a cartoon, a book, or something similar. There's also been a lot of other big movies with bigname actors like Marty Supreme where it feels like a lot of effort was put in, especially in and out of the theater with the marketing, the physical experiences, collabs with celebrities, and all sorts of marketing strategies like Timothy Shalomé making a song with SD Kid.

(1:54:05) [music] And this may just be me cuz this is [laughter] this is all I'm familiar with, but I feel like even like some of the superhero movies have gotten a little extra attention to detail, especially with James Gun taking over the DCU. I mean, I think Superman was really good. They're doing a Clayface horror movie.

(1:54:23) And overall, to me, it just feels like there's been a lot of effort and excitement around movies lately. It seems like people are a little fed up with the Marvel movies or the reboots of every movie that was popular 20, 30 years ago and just the same old stuff. The point is, while there was undeniably a low period in the movie game, it feels like signs are pointing to a potential resurgence.

(1:54:38) But why? Well, it seems like fans, creatives, actors, and everyone in between is fed up and tired of how Hollywood has been producing movies for the last decade or so. And here's why. One of the biggest overarching issues that Hollywood has been facing, among others, is their current adversity to risk. Studios are now more riskaverse than they've ever been in recent memory.

(1:55:01) And yes, while Hollywood has always been a business with a list of problems about 10 mi long, a lot of us witnessed a time in previous decades when studios were a lot more willing to take risks and allow for this creative exploration that we're just not really seeing today. Studios used to be on the hunt for the next cool original thing.

(1:55:18) Not the same recycled safe story from the same tired IP that's guaranteed to bring in burnedout adults who are on the hunt for euphoric nostalgia. Both the audience and the creatives behind movies and TV shows are getting really sick of Hollywood. But why are they so adverse to risk? Well, movies have been around forever and for a long time they had no competition. And when television got popularized, movies and theaters were still a big deal.

(1:55:35) Movies didn't go straight to TV. They were played in theaters first and then released either on VHS or DVD depending on the era you were in and eventually it would hit the TV networks like a year later if it was worth it. Now, there's a lot of reasons why theaters were so much more successful back in the day, which I'll touch on shortly. But it's no secret that theater attendance has been down.

(1:55:52) Another interesting thing to note is throughout the history of the movie industry, there were a variety of studios. In 1912, Universal Studios was founded. 2 years later, we had Paramount. In 1923, Warner Bros. and Disney Studios were founded. And the following year, Sony was founded as Columbia.

(1:56:06) Nowadays, these studios are known as the big five, but it's soon to be the big four as Paramount is acquiring Warner. And before these studios bought up all the other ones, as you can see on this chart here, there was a lot more competition. However, over the next century, they would consolidate into what we have today.

(1:56:23) And if you know anything about the free market, competition is a good thing, and a lack thereof is not. Yet, what I think has had the biggest impact on Hollywood is the introduction of streaming services. In the movie industry, the system used to be pretty cut and dry.

(1:56:38) A movie opened in theaters, and if its total box office was lower than what it cost to make and market it, minus the half the theaters took, we could easily call it a flop. However, even back then, what was considered an infamous failure still grossed 265 million in the box office, and that's not even adjusted for inflation. Many movies today would be lucky to bring that much in.

(1:56:54) With the average theatrical release grossing anywhere between 10 and 100 million globally, while every studio and individual project has different benchmarks and metrics for success, the decline in theater revenue is undeniable. This has led to studios having to change their game plan. As a studio in 2026, you're not planning to make all of your money in the box office anymore.

(1:57:10) A movie used to have a standard life cycle of 90 days in theaters and then a new marketing campaign for its home video/DVD release. This was your classic PEOD or premium video on demand where you had to buy the movie or rent it at home. I don't know if you I barely remember those days, but I remember you had to pay like 20 bucks to get a movie.

(1:57:25) And if the movie was really successful, like I mentioned earlier, it would have a continued life on cable. But nowadays, a movie's theater life could be as short as 17 days. All the while, it gets revenue on PEOD and SVOD, which is like subscription streaming.

(1:57:42) On top of this, the film will also have multiple international licensing windows down the road. Some movies even generate solid revenue through merge licensing, gaming, or in the value they make for old franchise movies on streaming services. So, it's not necessarily the fact that major film studios are going broke or they're dying. But, this brings us to the major issue of them being in a bit of an in between phase.

(1:57:58) Many major studio executives are stuck between the old waves of box office dependence and the new wave of evergreen income via streaming services. With how different the industry is, determining if a movie flopped or not generally can't be done in the first few weeks of its release. The nuance has created an environment where studios don't have to cater to the theatergoer.

(1:58:18) In an era where studios often deploy large-scale data analytics tools which forecast a film's financial performance in its earliest stages, many projects are designed to maximize revenue instead of, you know, making a good movie, which obviously makes sense. You know, if you're putting hundreds of millions of dollars into a movie, you want to make some return.

(1:58:34) But it's still a tough area to navigate, especially when you're dealing with like artistic integrity, especially since the best way to make a lot of money is to just make a good movie. But of course, that's easier said than done. Like I said, streaming services are responsible for Hollywood struggles in more than one way. At first, it was just Netflix, so they didn't have much to worry about.

(1:58:50) But now that there are 50 different streaming services, with each one buying up the licensing deals with different studios, people are watching movies in a different way. Rather than getting excited and going to the theaters, most people would prefer to watch on streaming. This has been amplified a lot since co as well since people are so used to just staying home. It's much more convenient.

(1:59:05) And for a long time, I was like this, too. I still kind of am, but it's like I also used to get headaches in theaters, though. I don't get that as much anymore, but that was a problem for me. It's just a lot more comfortable and affordable to watch on streaming at home, or at least it was. And now streaming services are putting out their own movies or shows to compete with Hollywood, investing a ton of money into them.

(1:59:23) Amazon Prime has had The Boys and Invincible, Netflix has had Stranger Things. Disney Plus has The Mandalorian, and there's many more. They're doing this for plenty of reasons, but regardless, it's a lot of competition for these film studios to deal with. Ironically, the streaming services are also just putting out slop sometimes, expecting you to not be paying attention.

(1:59:39) She'd heard from so many showrunners who are given notes by the streaming channels that they say, "This isn't second screen enough." The viewer is expected to be on their phone kind of half doing something else while your crime drama or whatever is playing. And you just can't make it as complicated as you have cuz they're not going to understand it cuz they're only going to be half concentrating on your show.

(1:59:56) This is funny to me cuz I know a lot of people who go on their phones while we're watching a show and it always irks me cuz I got to be locked in. But this may explain why a lot of shows, especially Netflix originals or whatever you'll see on streaming, might feel a bit lackluster.

(2:00:11) On top of this, streaming is probably one of the biggest reason movies feel so repetitive and are using the same stories or IPs over and over and over again. As someone on Reddit put it, most people won't go to the movies unless they already know they will enjoy the movie. If you use nostalgia, you can potentially save millions on marketing, too.

(2:00:28) I covered this in my video on nostalgia and nostalgia bait, but this is one of the major reasons we're getting so many reboots, remakes, or movies based on books or comics or things that already exist. That's why the success of Sinners is so interesting because it's a fully original story. And this does make perfect sense.

(2:00:44) When you're mindlessly scrolling through Hulu or something, you're probably more likely to click on something familiar instead of something new. It's a little tougher for studios to profit on movies these days. So, they have to make them with streaming services in mind to continue making royalties. And like I said, what's a mindless Hulu scroll for us is actually very important to them. People like the familiar whether or not they admit it.

(2:01:02) It feels safe. So, that's why the big studios have been playing it safe for so long. Ben Affleck himself actually spoke on why the movie industry is struggling, citing rising costs of production and the strange secondary market with streaming services. What do you say to the people that say Hollywood is dead? It's too expensive to make movies out here.

(2:01:19) I mean, sadly, there is some truth to that. We'll tell you now. Like, it's very, very difficult to make a movie for less than $25 million, right? And [music] 25 and it can go up very quickly as soon as you're, you know, you got a big stunt unit or big action stuff or visual effects. And here's the thing with theatrical, which is why it's it's very hard.

(2:01:43) Like, you you spend about the same amount that you spend on the movie to advertise the movie. So you spent 25 million to make the movie, you 25 million to advertise the movie. [music] So now you got $50 million into the movie and from the movie theaters you get back roughly 50%. So if a movie makes $100 million, you know, you get back $50 million. So if you get back $50 million, that's you $25 million movie got to gross hundred million just in simple math.

(2:02:06) And there is a a tale and there are secondary revenue streams. But that's one of the things that has made it really hard to get theatrical with that and the fact that people now go, "Ah, this movie looks good, but I'll I'll see it when it comes on streaming, you And so those two factors are really what's caused, you know, why you see mostly the movies that come out in theaters are, you know, Avengers and or, you know, Avatar or whatever it is, you know, a big a movie, even a movie with that Ryan Cooper who's a huge commercial director and Michael Jordan who's a huge movie star that's considered kind of a risk because

(2:02:39) it's not like a sequel, you know, and even that comes out and blows up and it's a big it now, you know, they'll make sinners 2, three, four, five, and six, but to do something original, that's really, you where those guys had to go out and really kind of use all their credibility and cache to convince people to to do that movie.

(2:02:56) Sinners in specific, even though it had a very successful director, was still a risk because of how expensive every movie is to make. Even doing an original story is a huge risk, which is why so many big studios have been sticking with the triedand-true. And this isn't unique to movies to be honest. This happens in the music industry and even on YouTube.

(2:03:13) Which is why if you see a YouTuber with a really successful video, they'll make a part two or remix it in some sort of way, cuz there's already some form of proof that the concept works. The reason this is so prevalent in the movie industry, though, is because everything's so expensive, like Ben was saying.

(2:03:28) So, you have to have some sort of guarantee that you will be able to make your money back. This is why Hollywood is so risk adverse. With how fast the industry is changing, many old-minded studio executives are fearful of taking risk. So, they've leaned on the safe side of things.

(2:03:42) And as I'm sure you can tell, it's sort of reflected in the quality of projects coming out lately. Just focusing on creativity and leaving the rest to chance is not good enough anymore in an industry that has the capability to forecast 10 years out. Now, obviously, some variance exists in between studios. A giant like Disney or Warner Bros.

(2:03:59) may need to push hard so they can achieve quarterly value targets for their shareholders, but then you have others like A24 Neon who can afford to take bigger swings. There was also the writers and actors strike in 2023. And all of this together has placed an unbelievable amount of stress on the already struggling industry.

(2:04:16) The situation, specifically in California, grew so dire that California's Governor Gavin Newsome pushed to increase the state's production incentive budget from 330 million to 750. It was a controversial move, but Gavin spoke on the film industry, saying, "It's on life support. We need to step things up." LA's share of overall worldwide production in film and television fell from 21.9% to 18.3, which is kind of crazy considering the fact that Hollywood is supposed to be the hub.

(2:04:37) According to the Guardian, Netflix, Amazon, and others are now major producers as well as distributors of content, and their grip on the marketplace is making it hard for the old guard to keep competing.

(2:04:53) The old business model for movies is in tatters since titles are no longer given an extended run on the big screen before they appear on streaming platforms and movie going itself has not recovered after the pandemic because of the convenience of watching from home. All of this has led to where we are today. We have YouTubers and Tik Tockers making movies that are doing better than the big five studios.

(2:05:11) And don't get me wrong, of course the major film studios are still very successful and of course there's a bunch of small random films that are great. But it feels like the hype around indie movies or original films is higher than it's been for a while. This has also led to the success of companies like A24. A24, who just put out the back rooms, is a bit different than big studios.

(2:05:27) After being created in 2012, A24 began distributing movies and then also started producing them. Rather than being very controlling of directors or working exclusively with bigname actors like the major studios do, A24 works with a variety of directors and lets them do their thing.

(2:05:42) The average budget of A24's movies has been $8 million, which is a drop in the pond when compared to like a Marvel movie with a $300 million budget. They're responsible for movies like The Witch, Uncut Gems, The Whale, The Ironclaw, Marty Supreme, and many more. A24 seems to really care about the artistry, the aesthetic, and the quality of movies they're putting out.

(2:05:59) Not every movie is a hit, but they are definitely putting out some quality, which is why some big actors are even willing to take pay cuts to work with them. They've emphasized social media marketing to help save money. They're even putting out cool ass merch for a bunch of their movies. According to Yahoo Life, A24 has used social media to create a brand that transcends well beyond theaters, especially for younger fans.

(2:06:18) Which is why, to me, A24's success is so interesting and clearly a rebellion against the traditional repetitive corporate movies that we've been getting. A24 and back rooms though are just one example, like I said, of the success we've seen recently that go against the status quo.

(2:06:35) With Markiplier's Iron Lung, Ryan Cougler's Sinners, Curry Barker's Obsession, and all the other cool stuff that's been breaking records as of late, it seems like the film industry is changing. Whether that be because everyone's fed up with the big five or because Gen Z has learned to express creativity in a fun new way through the internet or both, things are definitely changing a lot. And I think the younger generations and movie fans in general are just kind of yearning for more than what they've been getting the past decade or so.

(2:06:56) It seems like traditional Hollywood is falling off. And I think as the industry continues to change, creativity will hopefully begin to shine