Taylor Lorenz’s Power User - Ben Shapiro’s Empire Is Crumbling w/ Will Sommer

Episode Date: May 13, 2026

Ben Shapiro’s Media Empire Is CollapsingSupport my independent journalism: 🙏 Patreon: ⁠https://www.patreon.com/cw/taylorlorenz          ⁠ 🗞️ Buy a paid subscription to my Substack: ⁠https://www.usermag.co   For the last decade, Ben Shapiro and The Daily Wire dominated the digital landscape. From Facebook to chart-topping podcasts, they seemed untouchable. But in 2025, the data tells a different story. With a 90% drop in YouTube views, massive layoffs, and the high-profile exit of CEO Jeremy Boreing, the "Conservative Disney" empire is crashing and burning.The Bulwark's Will Sommer joins me on this week's episode of Power User to dive deep into the rise and fall of Ben Shapiro. We break down the explosive internal feud with Candace Owens, the catastrophic failure of his Hollywood ambitions, how a changing Facebook algorithm killed their traffic overnight, and what his fall reveals about the future of conservative media. We cover:The Daily Wire layoffs and financial struggles.Why Ben Shapiro is losing his audience to creators like Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson.The failure of "Anti-Woke" entertainment and the "Conservative Hollywood" dream.How the death of Charlie Kirk created a massive fracture in the MAGA movement.Why Ben Shapiro is irrelevant to Gen Z and Gen Alpha.

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Shapiro has lost over 90% of his YouTube audience since 2023. His company's Facebook traffic is non-existent. His podcast ranking is plummeting. And some of Shapiro's recent videos have less than 25,000 views. That's bad. for my channel. So what's happening? And are we finally about to witness the end of Ben Shapiro and the Daily Wire? To discuss all of this, I have the bulwarks Will Sommar here. Will has been covering conservative media for over a decade. And today we're going to break down the rise and fall

of Ben Shapiro. What his struggle on YouTube reveals about the landscape of conservative media and where the internet's going and what the next generation of Gen Z and Gen Alpha conservative stars looks like online. Hi, Will. Welcome to Power User. Hey, thanks for having me back. When I was thinking of who to talk to about this, I was like, I have to call up Will Sauer because nobody has a more in-depth knowledge of like niche right-wing internet lore than you do. Ben Shapiro was born in 1984 in Los Angeles. He very much grew up around the entertainment industry. He graduated from UCLA at just age 20 and then immediately went to Harvard Law School. At age 17, he was already a nationally syndicated conservative columnist.

And he was writing these kind of corny books in like the 2000s. He wrote one book called Brainwashed that kind of was like, I feel like this put him on the map. And it was about how like, you know, Hollywood liberalism was like brainwashing him. But like he had broken out. And then he later wrote another book a few years later in 2011 called Primetime Propaganda. And I feel like this kind of springboarded him into like conservative spheres. So Will, when did you first hear about Ben Shapiro? Yeah, I mean, I'm exactly the right person to have here because actually Ben Shapiro's kind of early career played a big role in getting me into following these characters.

When I was like in college, I read a letter in the Houston Chronicle saying, you should hire this young man, Ben Shapiro who's in college and he's a virgin as an op-ed writer. And I thought, what a strange thing that this random person knows this about this guy named Ben Shapiro. And I looked into him. And yes, at the time, Ben Shapiro, I think he was in college as well. And his kind of claim to fame was that he was a virgin. What year is this? Oh, gosh, like 2007, 2008, maybe. So he was kind of like, I'm the conservative, kind of like a proto-Charlie Kirk in some ways.

Like I'm a conservative who goes to college, or maybe he was in law school at that point, but he's like, you know, everyone around me is a liberal. And so from there, he kind of transitioned into this, you know, kind of more traditional sort of conservative talking head role. But obviously he was still, you know, younger than, you know, Sean Hannity or like the typical talk radio type of person. And that was kind of how he kind of broke out of that college student mold into kind of a broader kind of pundit class. Yeah, he's 42 years old now.

So he's very like millennial. He's very like early millennial coded. And I feel like his rise actually reveals a lot about sort of like millennial media also. But how did he get into like the internet stuff? So, you know, when he graduated, as I understand, he also kind of maybe potentially wanted to pursue a career in entertainment. As you mentioned, he also went to law school. When did he become this sort of like internet figure? And how did that emerge?

Yeah, I mean, he had a, I believe, a podcast. And so from there, he kind of built it out as I think, again, the fact that he was a younger guy, you know, it's kind of interesting because, you know, if I'll give you an example, someone who's not very involved in the world of politics recently, I was playing a Ben Shapiro podcast in the background. And this person said, that can't be Ben Shapiro's real voice. Do you have it sped up in some way, you know? Is it like, what are you up to here? There's no way that someone who talks like this, who has this kind of like, I think for some abrasive voice, could become a media figure. And yet he did it. I mean, he was kind of like the, he slotted into like kind of like a pipsqueak role.

But I think conservatives loved that. I mean, they loved a young guy. There aren't a lot of young conservative figures. And they loved someone like that who was going to, you know, basically have these talking points of baby boomers, I think. And so from there, he, I think he was early to podcasting. He was early to YouTube. And he was really one of these like a real kind of like debate me type of guy when that was just getting off the ground. Yeah, I feel like Ben Shapiro was just, I mean, he kind of was at the right place at the right time for a lot of like digital media changes.

As you said, he was this kind of like convenient young guy that would say a lot of things that older guys are thinking, which is now a very sort of clear role for a lot of like young conservatives these days. They just sort of say what old boomer billionaires think and they get platform that way. But I first heard about Ben Shapiro back in 2013. when he had this website called Truth Revolt. And it didn't get much traction, but it was supposed to be this sort of like counter to media matters. And this was really in the early days

of like digital media boom when everyone thought like websites would be the future. And like you could sort of like clap back on a website or you could make, you know, content go viral on a website. And then that content would really get shared on Facebook. It was sort of like the early of the days of the social web or Twitter, etc. It seems like he initially tried to do that

before just a couple years later pivoting to the Daily Wire? Yeah, I mean, this is a guy who went through sort of the various iterations of right-wing media. And I think he was a couple years ahead each time. And it's really been to his advantage. So as I mentioned, I mean, he started out as kind of like a guy writing a syndicated column. There are hundreds of people out there. I think he had a column for like townhall.com. But, you know, going, we have to remember in the Obama era, there was like a huge demand for conservative content.

I mean, this was the Tea Party. And as you mentioned, I mean, this was co-eastern. inciting with the blog era. So there was like a huge amount of demand for online conservative content. And, you know, he really wrote that. You know, he launched Truth Revolt. I think he had his hands in sort of some other ventures that would be like, you know, this is Ben Shapiro's thing. He's thing. He's breaking off from just filing a column. But, you know, he also did get into podcasting early. And I think he was pretty savvy about, you know, kind of emerging from the pack of like regular pundits into becoming kind of this like conservative media impresario.

Can you kind of like paint the picture of what digital media? was like back in this early era. You mentioned the Tea Party, but from like 2010-ish to 2013, 2014, when Shapiro's running truth revolt, what does the digital media ecosystem look like then? And how is Ben Shapiro just beginning to sort of start to make a name for himself? This episode is brought to you by L'Oreal Group. Beauty is a powerful force that moves us. That's why L'Oreal Group has built a business that is inclusive at its heart with 100% of

its brands, championing diversity. With 25,000 professional opportunities for people under 30 worldwide and 54% of leading positions held by women, diversity is a strength that helps L'Oreal Group create the best beauty products for all people. Visit L'Oreal.com to learn more. Sure. So, you know, if we look at, let's say, kind of later first term Obama, early second term Obama, number one, we have the Tea Party, which is driving this kind of conservative, this resurgence, this sense that like the conservatives who are in Congress now, the Republicans have to be thrown

out. And you start to see the trends of like what would later become Trumpism, this sense of like, you know, grassroots conservatives need to overrun the establishment. So there's a lot of demand for conservative media content. There are a lot of blogs. I mean, as you mentioned, this was a time where it was like, you know, it's like prehistoric now to think about. But the idea that like, I'm going to launch a blog and turn it into a whole media company and maybe I'll sell it for all this money. But that was the world. that I mean there were blogs like Red State or you know town hall you know a couple of them are still with us and those are the ones I'm remembering naturally like the

Gateway Pundit and these looked like really these were like really bare bones operations it was all written I mean there was no multimedia element to it and so in that world you have all of these characters so people like Anne Coulter who's you know writing columns I think blogging you have Michelle Malkin you know you have these people a lot of whom have kind of dropped off and within that world Ben Shapiro enters. Yeah, and I feel like also this is the era of like Breitbart, right when Breitbart is getting started. Ben Shapiro joined Brightbart as editor at large in February 2012, which is actually just right before Andrew Breitbart, the founder, died. I feel like that

kind of gave him this like springboard into like conservative digital media of the time. Yeah, I mean, and Breitbart's a great one to bring up. I mean, you have this time where these, these things they're still around in some ways are launching like Breitbart, the Daily Caller. In the case of Breitbart, this was kind of like the behemoth of in right-wing media blogging. Like, we're going to kind of professionalize this. We're going to bring people, a bunch of people in. Andrew Breitbart was a guy who was really well connected within the conservative movement. And so I think he kind of gave Ben Shapiro that imprimatur of saying, like, this guy is a player. And he was also very focused in something that I think we'll see an

echo of later in Ben Shapiro's career. Conservatives have always been very frustrated by the fact that Hollywood is un-conservative, that the music industry, all these entertainment industries are very reflexively liberal. And so Andrew Breitbart would say, politics is downstream of culture. So if only we could take over Hollywood or produce cool conservative movies, then ultimately the country would become much more conservative and politically would follow us. And so in that way, that's something that I think stuck with people. And I think Ben Shapiro has brought up many times in the past as sort of like his guidestone

in terms of his business and sort of trying to be more than just like a guy who goes on Fox News and writes an article every week. Yeah. It's interesting that like Breitbart was so obsessed with Hollywood because I feel like so many people in conservative world were obsessed with Hollywood and the media. I mean, they're ridiculous and most of their claims are nonsense. But back in like the early 2010s, I do feel like they were kind of correct. Like this is kind of like, you know, peak Obama when like all the Hollywood celebrities had a lot of power. mainstream media was still powerful. Like, I don't know, you know, maybe some of their criticisms were based in sort of some version of reality.

Yeah. And I mean, even going back before that, I mean, you're looking at like the George W. Bush administration when there was so much criticism from Hollywood of things like the Iraq War. And for someone like Ben Shapiro, I think he's saying, you know, oh, no, you know, if only we had someone talking about how brave the troops are, how important it is to, you know, to defend Israel, perhaps, you know, that we're being, you know, certainly broadly in the conservative. movement, there was this idea that Hollywood, you know, or the entertainment industry more broadly, I mean, like the Dixie Chicks, things like that, that they were undermining the war effort. And so I think that kind of plays into this idea of like we need conservatives to be, we, we need to go beyond being like these like Paul Ryan, budget wonks, these people talking about policy and think tanks and engage with people on a more entertaining level, even politically, which I think is what we see. I mean, Ben Shapiro is, you know, he's not for everyone in terms of terms of his podcast, but I think he is kind of part of this class that he would grow into of

people who were more interesting than, let's say, like, George Will. Yeah. I don't even know who that is. But this was, I agree to like, like Mitt Romney ran against Obama. Like, it's easy for people. I feel like younger people, especially now to forget that like conservatives were so stodgy and sort of seemed very like fuddy dutty, you know, so someone like Ben Shapiro was actually considered, like now he seems funny daddy daddy, but like at the time he was considered this like young, you know, innovative voice.

And so he takes his success, you know, he's doing truth revolt, Breitbart, et cetera. He's written a couple books. He's gaining attention, especially through like links on Facebook where it would be like, it was sort of early versions of like SJW owned. You know, it would be like fact check, like blah, blah, blah. I feel like the major turning point in his career was when he founded the Daily Wire in 2015. Shapiro leaves Truth Revolt and he joins up with this guy, Jeremy Boring, to found the Daily Wire with money from a text.

fascist fracking billionaire. And it seems like they were really kind of leaned super hard into digital media. What were those early days of the Daily Wire like? And when did you start paying attention? Like, did the Daily Wire kind of like hit the scene right away? Yeah. I mean, the Daily Wire, even when it launched, I think was seen as a pretty big deal. I mean, Ben Shapiro at this point, he had had this kind of like, you know, kind of like this wonderkind, this genius persona in conservative media. So the idea that he was striking out on who's own was sort of a bigger effort that was going to employ a lot of people, I think, was seen as a big deal. And so, you know, the Daily Wire sort of pioneered in what we see now, which is a lot of,

a lot of podcasts, sort of a media company built around a couple personalities and podcasts. They have a website, you know, with some articles on it, but sort of the key is like, you know, it's going to be kind of Ben Shapiro and friends. And, you know, they had a lot of money, as you mentioned from this billionaire. And so they were able to expand in a way that, like most other conservative media outlets, that's, you know, outside of Fox News. I mean, it was like, you know, they might have a couple of reporters, a couple of writers, but they didn't have this sort of like sort of whole entertainment apparatus built around them,

like the Daily Wire did. Yeah, I feel like the Daily Wire was publishing so much, like on the web in the 2010s, like actual articles. Like, even when I was doing research for my book, I would go back and find these, like, articles written by the Daily Wire. It's hard to remember that they had this, like, thriving news site. Because along with the news site, they also built this modern media company that kind of was pretty ahead of its time. I mean, it was effectively like a distributed media company or brand where it was

built really around personality driven content on YouTube and at that time, Facebook video, because this was also the era of like Facebook traffic and Facebook video. And I feel like the daily wire launched and tapped into that, like just at the right time. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think that's exactly right. I remember from that time, you know, people would analyze what are the biggest news outlets on Facebook and the daily wire, it would always be shocking because the daily wire would be this huge. You think it'd be like, let's be the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, maybe Fox News, maybe, and then, you know, it's just all daily wire links. And so I think they were really effective at, you know, using that sort of that Facebook algorithm of now a decade ago. Because like, look, I mean,

I think they recognize the content that was really inflammatory, that really engaged people would do well on the platform. And it did. Yeah, it's crazy. I was working at the Hill back then. And we would sort of try to compete with these other publishers on Facebook. And like the Daily Wire was so successful. It seemed like this like behemoth that like no one could come for. And a lot of that was from from like videos. This was like, I mean, really into 2016 and then 2017, it was this like facts don't care about your feelings like SJW own type content. Also a lot of like Trump content. It was very like bombastic, inflammatory. I mean, this is also when you saw the rise of other conservative personalities like Tommy Laren. And I feel like we started to see the beginning of this like

personality-driven political influencer world really emerge. And like Ben Shapiro was on the forefront of that. Yeah. I mean, I think he was, again, very early to this. He sort of had a coterie of other sort of lesser personalities orbiting him working at the Daily Wire. I mean, gosh, Tommy Laron. I know she's still on Fox News. I mean, that's such a blast from the past in terms of very much that kind of content where it would be, you know, Ben Shapiro obliterates blue hair college student, stuff like that. And that was really kind of of like, again, Charlie Kirk, people like that, Stephen Crowder would do this sort of work as well. But Ben Shapiro was sort of the original, like, well, let's do a debate about it. You know, like, I'm going to debate a college student.

I'm going to find someone else who, you know, maybe it's not like that skilled at rhetoric. And I'll just eviscerate them in a video. And then people, I mean, they love that content. If you're watching this video and you like my work, please support me on Patreon via the link below or buy a paid subscription to my tech and online culture newsletter at usermag.com. that's usermag.com. I don't have any long-term brand partnerships and a lot of my content is effectively demonetized. I've lost major brand deals for speaking out on certain issues and for challenging power. As you can imagine, advertisers are not exactly eager to work with somebody who covers a lot of the topics that I cover

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Every dollar of your support makes such a difference. I think Ben Shapiro really rode the wave after Trump was elected throughout 2017 because it was like the owned content. And this was also like, it's hard for people to remember 2017. If you think like 2020 was peak woke, like 2017 was a totally different era. Like we had the women's march. Like, I mean, I was in D.C. There was just like people dressed up in handmade's tails outfit every day. Like it was just this time where like I think it was really easy to go to a protest and film someone. And this is also before the age of influencers when everyone's filming everything. But you would, they would sort of like go and mine this content or go on a speaking to where Ben Shapiro did like,

a college speaking tour and would sort of like confront the most like woke liberal, you know, millennial or whatever and like clip it up and then that would go so viral on Facebook and then later YouTube. He also, you know, builds out his media network throughout this time. So the Daily Wire brings on all of these other personalities and contributors. Some of those people include Michael Knowles, Matt Walsh, Candace, Candace Owens, obviously. And I feel like it starts to be like not a content house because they're too old. They don't live together. But it seemed like, I don't know, like they were kind of like the original like conservative hype house almost. You know, I think you're onto something there.

I mean, they would have, like, they would have their own shows, and then there would be some that were like, you know, the boys are going to smoke cigars, and we're going to get Jeremy Boring and Michael Knowles and Matt Walsh and Ben Shapiro, and we'll kind of like, we'll put on our smoking jackets. And so it was almost like they were doing collabs with each other. I mean, gosh, I wish they would have a hype house. That'd be great. But you had these characters.

I mean, Jordan Peterson was there, you know, before his kind of mysterious illness. Brett Cooper, a young woman who bears a truly striking resemblance to Ben Shapiro. You know, you had all of these characters that were sort of built out around the Daily Wire and it, you know, got really big on YouTube. It was sort of he had this sort of stable of other influencers around him. And it like led to their viral, like it maximized attention. I feel like they all boosted each other and it felt like this kind of like cinematic universe of of characters and archetypes. Like, and I mean, I think throughout the first Trump presidency, they just like exploded. They were really powerful.

they were kind of like aligned with the broader MAGA movement back then. Back then the MAGA movement was also like a lot more cohesive, I would say. There was this sort of like resistance liberals pushing back. And then you had like classic MAGA people. I mean, this is before like the Gen Z Zumer MAGA sort of, you know, Doge kids emerged. Those kids were still in diapers. But then COVID happens in 2020.

And Ben Shapiro's YouTube like takes off. I feel like everyone's YouTube took off. I mean, this is like when everybody gets pushed. hyper online. Everyone's watching lots of content. And suddenly Ben Shapiro is just, I mean, his podcast skyrockets to the top of the charts. And then he starts going viral for a lot of his cultural commentary. I mean, 2020 is when Ben Shapiro posts his review of WAP. Do you remember that? Unfortunately, I do. Yeah. I was just reminded of that when I was researching this. Yeah, I mean, the, the Cardi B song and he says, you know, I think my wife doesn't have a WOP or something like

that. I don't know anything about that. And then, people said, oh, you know, yeah, Ben Shapiro can't please his wife or what have you. It was absurd. It went so viral on TikTok, especially because like it just his reviews. And of course, later, his review of wicked kind of went similarly viral. Although I think everybody actually really appreciated his review of wicked and kind of thought he was like he's such an obvious kind of musical theater nerd and he had such in-depth knowledge. And I think everyone was like, why should, you know, why can't he just be reviewing Broadway shows? Why does he have to do evil things? But I feel like TikTok and short form video just with that explosion, like just boosted him even more.

Like it was really boom times there. And he's railing against like lockdowns, COVID restrictions, like progressive public health messaging. And and starts to also just like really build out the daily wire. I mean, they expanded to Daily Wire Plus. And they also really tried to like rival like Disney. Yeah. So Daily Wire they launched at Daily Wire Plus, which is sort of the, you know, the paywall. This is the premium content.

But they had bigger aspirations beyond. on just, you know, here's your bonus Ben Shapiro, Michael Knowle podcast. They would have, and this is, we have to introduce here the figure, Jeremy Boring, who is the CEO, this guy who had had sort of, he had always nursed these sort of Hollywood ambitions. He becomes, you know, he, he would call himself like the God emperor, the God king of the Daily Wire. So Ben Shapiro's living in Florida. He's a little divorced from the day-to-day operations during COVID in the years after

that. So this is around, you know, he's been. building out this big production operation around 2021 through, let's say, 2025. He's looking at what Andrew Breitbart said about, you know, politics being downstream of culture. And they're saying, well, why can't we make conservative movies or in one case, a conservative knockoff of bluey that's going to be about a chinchilla? And so they start a kids, like a kid's streaming channel. And they start making movies about kind of like a school shooting thriller where you're going to, you know, there's going to be fight back, you know, run, fight hide. It was called.

You can see the ambition. really getting big. I mean, like the New York Times profile of Jeremy Boring. He had his own brand of razors. It was all these like anti-woke razors, anti-woke chocolates, all these things. And so he was seen as like, you know, the new, this is going to be the new Hollywood in Nashville. Yeah. It's so funny, like, looking back at that media coverage, it was like breathless. Like, wow, like literally they were being called like conservative Disney or conservative Hollywood. And it's like, this is like a joke company. Like this is like an astro-turved company by billionaires. Like I mean, I would say one of their more successful projects was a documentary, quote unquote.

It was sort of a mockumentary called What is a Woman hosted by Matt Walsh. And I guess like it just went pretty viral at that point. I think you had to subscribe to Daily Wire Plus to get it. But this was peak like 22 like Libs of TikTok era where it was all about like groomers and LGBT people are evil and like, oh, look at these trans people, you know. And so I feel like they rode those waves of kind of like moral outrage and panic and sort of like, I don't know, like during the Biden years, these sort of like reactionary conservative fake crises, like, you know, that they sort of just make up to like generate content around. Yeah. I mean, I think the key thing to understand about the Daily Wire and Ben Shapiro is that Ben Shapiro was initially kind of a never Trump guy, very Trump skeptical. And so even though he kind of comes to this accommodation with Trump, he was never like a like a like. real like Trump red meat guy. So instead Ben Shapir on the Daily Wire, you know, whether it's

demolishing the SJWs in the debate or or whatever or the Matt Walsh documentaries, they kind of get into what we would call like anti-anty Trump. So they're instead going to focus on like the excesses of PC culture and social justice warriors rather than Trump himself. And so often that, I mean, that was like a real boom time, you know, let's say from 2020 through, you know, 24. It was a good vain to be mining because, you know, there was a lot of audience for that content. You know, the, as you mentioned, the Matt Walsh documentaries were big hits. I think his one that kind of skewering anti-racist culture, MI racist, I think was the highest grossing documentary of 2024.

And so these were really successful. On the other hand, you know, Jeremy Boring had this ambition to make a King Arthur TV show called Pendragon that I think we don't have numbers cost tens of millions of dollars. Pretty, I think that's a conservative thing to say. And basically it was like two years delayed. It was a real debacle. So these efforts to get into entertainment were also costing the Daily Wire a lot of money. And didn't they also try to make like an Andy Woke Snow White with like Brett Cooper?

Yeah. So they tried to make anti-woke Snow White with Brett Cooper. I don't think that ever came out. You know, she's also in Penn Dragon as like a wizard or something. They made a movie called Lady Ballers in which, you know, it's kind of a play on the classic movie, Joanna Man, in which, you know, some kind of mediocre male basketball players claim they're trans so they can compete in the W&N. NBA, you know, Jeremy Boring's the coach. And so, you know, I think these were relatively well received among the Daily Wire audience,

but there wasn't, it wasn't like breaking out in the way you need if you're going to start financing, even cheap movies. Yeah. So, I mean, it seems like they're just spending so much money, like trying to scale a company, growing, expanding. Everything's like going boom, boom, boom. Then October 7th happens. And we have this attack on Israel and then Israel's responding genocide and these

campus protests kick off. And I mean, very quickly, it seems like the Daily Wire started covering that stuff. I mean, Ben Shapiro covered obviously kind of what happened on October 7th, but was doing this like constant coverage of pro-Palestinian, you know, protesters. And that's when it starts to seem like there's these internal fractures within the talent pool of the Daily Wire. Like, where do things start to break apart? Yeah, I mean, Ben Shapiro is, he's Jewish.

He's like one of conservative media's most prominent supporters of Israel. before October 7th. And so naturally after that, he is making the Daily Wire very pro-Israel. There's a lot of coverage favorable to Israel. Now, trouble starts because within the Daily Wire, primarily you have Candace Owens, who at this point is rivaling Ben Shapiro in prominence, possibly surpassing him. I mean, she was seen, it's kind of hard to imagine now, but, you know, even just three years ago, she was seen as like a pretty straightforwardly Republican pundit. She was someone who, you know, had had at the same time kind of like some weird stuff about Hitler before, where she was basically pushed out of Turning Point USA for saying, well, you know, if Hitler had done a couple things different, you know, if he had stayed within Germany, he would have been all right, what have you. And so there was, there were already these things that were like, this is like a bit weird for such a ardently pro-Israel guy, like Dan Shapiro to hire her in the first place. But it was a big success. But then after October 7th, she starts clashing more with prominent Jewish conservatives, like like Rabbi Shmuli, I mean, these characters.

So, you know, she starts like getting into like Jewish blood libel stuff, the idea that Jewish people drink children's blood. And, you know, for Ben Shupiro, there's kind of this, this difficulty here. It's like, how can he keep her within his company when she's doing all these attacks on Jews and Israel? She was also defending Kanye West. She has been so outspoken about what's happening in Palestine. But as you mentioned, she also has promoted a lot of very anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. And when this sort of split happens and she effectively gets fired, it seems like, or pushed out of the daily wire, I think like so many people were like, well, this is just because of her support of Palestine because she was previously anti-Semitic, as you mentioned, like, kind of when she was hired. So it seems like Ben Shapiro is willing to overlook a lot of anti-Semitism, but he was not willing to maybe overlook this like sort of core issue that she had with Israel.

and also just like, I think radically different, like, views on foreign policy. Like, there also just seems to, like, be, I mean, both sides of the, like, Shapiro Owens kind of feud represent different, I think, factions of the MAGA movement where you have these sort of like hypernationalist, like, isolationist type people, like America first. And then you have the more like hawkish, you know, like, let's go, yeah, let's go to war with Iran, you know, like, let's take over Venezuela. Why not? And so I think like that all sort of like starts. to come to the forefront as America increasingly gets intertwined in these like international conflicts. Yeah, I mean, I think we can see in the Candace Owens, Ben Shapiro rift, you know, which dates back to sort of like early 2024 when it really got heated, the sort of some of the cracks

that we now see in like the Maga Civil War, like Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, Candice Owens versus Trump and Mark Levin and, you know, so on and Ben Shapiro. And so, you know, this starts to, you know, Candice Owens is pushed out. She launches her own operation and is, very much kind of like competing with Ben Shapiro, very critical of him. And so, you know, you also see, I mean, just from sort of, you know, as someone who follows influencers like you do, Taylor, you can see kind of a business model weakness here for Ben Shapiro, which is any of these people can just walk out the door and within a week stand up their own pretty well-produced podcast. And so if you're relying on, you know, building up these kind of compelling personalities like

Candace Owens, like Matt Walsh or, you know, Michael Knowles, you know, to, you know, to the extent people find these people compelling. There's not a lot he can do. to really like build that value into the company and keep it. Right. This is like when I think honestly it's the it's one of the first sort of major like personality driven media companies to really implode. And I think a lot of companies, I mean, Dear Media like Barstool that were like built on this personality driven model of media. And as you said, it becomes very clear, especially now in the 2020 is like it's easier than ever to monetize on your own as a content creator. Why would you be giving up a significant portion

of your income to like be part of this broader network when you can just be the star. So Candace Owens is like sort of pushed out. And I mean, this also happens at a very inopportune time. Ryan Broderick wrote in Garbage Day about this update that was made on Facebook in 2024 to the news feed in that spring when they changed how news was ranked and effectively kind of like downranked news content entirely. And Facebook traffic just started to like completely blow up like the daily wires Facebook traffic, which had already been like Facebook traffic has not been reliable since the 2010s,

but it just like goes off a cliff. And then suddenly they also have Candace Owens cannibalizing a huge amount of their YouTube audience. And this just seems like you said this like, suddenly this company and like Ben Shapiro is in this like fragile state. And that's already like where he was in 2025. Yeah. I mean, if you think, I mean, they're facing a lot of issues, right? Candice Owens has left Israel's attacks in Gaza are I think alienating a lot of younger concerns. So he's sort of cut off from that, that audience. They have these enormous entertainment expenses like Pendragon. And so the Daily Wire, I think, is struggling.

And that becomes clear then in March 2025 when Jeremy Boring, who had previously been portrayed as like the guy who was going to make Hollywood conservative is mysteriously given the boot. Right. He just suddenly leaves the company. What happened there? It's in some ways it's a mystery and in some ways it's not. It's sort of like Tucker Carlson getting fired from Foxx. news where, you know, we don't know like sort of the TikTok of like exactly what happened.

What did Ben Shapiro call him into his office or whatever? But in other ways, it sort of seems over-determined. And, you know, later it appears like some kind of NDA or non-compete Jeremy Boring had expired earlier this year and now he's talking about it more. It seems as though like basically they were like, why are we building a show about chinchillas like Bluey? You know, if you just look at the economics of it, for the cost of a Game of Thrones knockoff, I mean, you could have probably 10 podcasts, 15, you know, and if that's the stuff that's,

that's bringing the money in, you know, it just seems like, you know, as frankly, nonpolitical streamers found out as well. I mean, we've seen a big drop off in Hollywood production for, you know, sort of post-pandemic streaming. This stuff is just really expensive. And so suddenly when they said, hey, Jeremy, you're boring, you know, you're spending too much money. That appears to be what led to his exit.

Yeah. I mean, I feel like this is also when they start to just realize that like, we've got to stop the bleeding. Like they start running and Candace Owens called this out on Twitter. They start running an insane amount of ads promoting Ben Shapiro's videos on YouTube. She accuses him of buying traffic. You can see if you look at the YouTube stats on his growth like all of 2025. It's sort of like flat and then like dips at the end, which all of the sudden then we have in September on September 10th, the shooting of Charlie Kirk. And this seems to be another kind of fracture point where it's like that meme of like the two roads going in different directions. And I feel like Ben Shapiro

went in one direction. Candice Owens has gone in an insane other direction and like tripled our audience because of it. I mean, very quickly, it seems like Ben Shapiro, first of all, started defending Israel, which was bizarre. And also started to like kind of insert himself into the Charlie Kirk narrative in a way that like Candace Owens was able to like pounce on. And I think sort of like delegitimize him through. In the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk assassination, I mean like the immediate like week or two after. Everyone in conservative media, I mean, number one, it's obviously the biggest story in the country. And all of these media personalities are trying to say sort of what did Charlie Kirk mean to me? How, you know, we were so close, all this stuff, which I think is more

or less understandable. But basically, Candice Owens, she comes out and says, you know, we were so close, all this stuff. Ben Shapiro says the same thing. And then she says, well, actually, Ben Shapiro, you know, Charlie was getting critical Israel. He felt pressured by these Israeli donors. And, you know, What's crazy about this is because so much of what she says is so crazy. But I mean, she also kind of manages to have the receipt sometimes on these people. Like she has, she's embedded in this world. She has text messages, stuff like this. And so she sort of instantly is able to steer it towards this idea, which I don't really

think is founded at all, but this idea is maybe Israel, kill Charlie Kirk, what have you. And then that kind of puts it in Ben Shapiro's court where, you know, he's the Israel guy now defending Israel all the time. And so he's kind of stuck with that. And from there, I think she's able to sort of. pick away at him and just make him, you know, I think she's frankly, it's sort of a more dynamic, charismatic presenter, and more entertaining than he is.

And so he's sort of stuck. Yeah, he is floundering. I mean, floundering. I feel like he just can't get control of the narrative again. I mean, Candace and Ben are both, like, millennials, like us, obviously, too. But it's like, I also think that you start to see this, like, different generation of MAGA really gain prominence. And Ben Shapiro is suddenly seen as like the old out of touch guy and Candace has her finger on the pulse.

Like she seems more in with like the sort of like hyper reactionary like Zumer Fuentes types. Like these people that are very hardcore like America first types, I guess like white nationalists. I don't know. These these hyper online young factions seem to resonate with Candace and she seems a lot more authentic than Ben Shapiro who suddenly just seems like a corporate like an old school corporate Republican shell. I mean, I think he's in a position where once he seemed, you know, very young and like, you know, this, we're going to have this sort of fresh voice that you didn't have people like, you know, Dennis Prager, talk radio, people going out and debating other young people or what have you. And then now, you know, he's also sort of stuck with supporting a president who, you know, is not really his kind of guy,

but, you know, because he's very supportive, Trump is very supportive of Israel. And I think Shapir doesn't really have a lot of other places to go. So he's sort of stuck being the Trump guy. And yeah, I mean, you know, look, you can look at his YouTube views, you know, as Candace Owens often likes to do. I mean, they're not what they once were. I think, you know, it's not as though this guy has totally dropped off the map. But they're really bad, Will. Like, they're really bad.

And he is in a free fall. And I feel like the only reason it hasn't fallen even more aggressively is because the insane amount of ads and promotions that they're running to get people to watch these videos. Yeah, I mean, when you look at these views, particularly for someone who has, I believe, multi-million YouTube subscribers. I mean, this is a classic, you know, I learned this from like Keemstar and Drama Alert. You know, when you look at the, when the people have the big subscriber numbers and then the small view counts, that's a really bad sign because it means your audience is dropping off. He has, like, for instance, some of his most recent videos, this man has 7.5 million subscribers, okay? And look, I'm just a 200-something,000, you know, subscriber channel here. But his last couple videos, he got one on the Death of Spirit Airlines, 27,000 views.

His free speech video from a couple weeks ago had 15,000 views. Some of them have like 172, which is Ben Shapiro defends Erica Kirk from Candace Owen's allegations. But compare that to Candace Owens' videos on Erica Kirk. These are pitiful numbers for somebody with the following that he has. Yeah, I mean, she's, she's racking in, you know, for an hour-long episode, you know, four or five million views, you know, more or less each episode. And so, you know, I think we can look here and, and it's also

worth considering what other conservative media figures did. Because the Israel and sort of relatedly, Candace Owens' conspiracy theories of, you know, did Erica Kirk murder him, did Turning Point USA, cover it all up, whatever. That becomes sort of a litmus test, a dividing line for other conservative pundits. And so Ben Shapiro, I think to his credit has been the person saying, wait a minute, you know, this woman's husband was just murdered in front of the whole world. And now we're going to, you know, we're going to dig up the body. We're going to terrorize his family. for clicks, for, you know, some deranged conspiracy theory. Something that conservatives have done to liberals for years, of course.

And that's true as well. And I mean, you don't have, you know, Ben Shapiro saying, you know, I can't support Donald Trump because he was a birther because he was friendly with QAnon. You know, he was not, I don't think out of here criticizing Pizza Gate, other things like this. But, you know, he goes to the Turning Point USA Convention in December and he kind of gets up there and he says, this is crazy. Megan Kelly, who has been, you know, I don't want to get on Kansas Jones's bad side, essentially. they start fighting. Tucker Carlson has been very reluctant to get involved and sort of tacitly promoted Candace. And so I think, again, Ben Shapiro finds himself, I think in this case,

you're doing the right thing, even more isolated on the right, particularly from people with the biggest audiences. Yeah, I mean, he seems like he's out there on an island. I mean, you mentioned Megan Kelly. She's kind of like played it both ways, I feel like, but pretty is clearly in the good graces of Tucker and Candace and stuff. I mean, Tucker and Candace are so powerful. You also have Nick Fuentes and the sort of those more like hyper-pilled online like right-wing streamers, et cetera. But they all seem part of like one universe. And then you have Ben Shapiro over here on an island that seems to be sinking. Is this the end for him?

Like can he come back from this? Like what? It seems like he's in a death spiral. I love to see it. Obviously, this guy sucks. But like, I don't know. Where do you see him going? What do you see happening to the daily wire?

I guess like Matt Walsh and Michael Knowles are still around. But they also seem kind of boom. we're out of touch? Like, where is all of this going? This spring, denim gets a softer, lighter update. Introducing Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg, a new fit that moves with you. It's everything you want denim to feel like for summer. Easy, breathable, and effortlessly cool.

With a fit that creates natural movement and a wide leg that feels modern, not overwhelming. Plus, that signature, wait, for this price, moment. Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg. You know, I don't think Ben Shapiro obviously is going to drop off the map. But I think it's, it's, the question is like, you know, what becomes of the daily wire? I mean, is Ben Shapiro just going to become sort of another podcaster with a diminished audience? I think probably that's where it's headed. I think if someone like Matt Walsh left, I mean, this is what kind of the groopers have been clamoring for because they're saying, you know, you're a Christian. You shouldn't be with Ben Shapiro. You know, you're clearly more radical than he allows you to be. And so I think if something like that happened, it would be like sort of like, you know, close up shop essentially. There's no point for this. You know, you know, you're to exist anymore. I mean, people like, his other personality are people like Andrew Claven, like, who cares, right? I think basically what we're seeing here and with these layoffs last week, whatever size they were, it's a little unclear. But I think we're seeing that, like, the, the idea of the Daily Wire and Ben Shapiro is sort of these, like, mainstream political figures

who are really going to, like, cross over and have influence beyond a podcast is kind of over. Well, it's also like the platform ecosystem has just radically changed, too. And I think it's harder than ever to get attention, to keep attention, to grow attention. I mean, it's interesting that Candace has moved so far into live streaming and really like live streams for episodes and seems to be engaging in a lot more new formats, whereas like Ben Shapiro, I mean, even just looking at his YouTube channel, it feels like his format hasn't really evolved. His thumbnails haven't really evolved. Like, I just don't see him kind of adopting to the times. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I think they're, you know, again, they just don't feel very.

dynamic. They don't feel like, you know, whereas once I think he was really ahead of the curve on things like podcasting on video, that day seems to have passed. Yeah. He's just another kind of like old conservative guy fading into irrelevance as these like young zoomers take up shop. And and it's interesting too because like, I mean, Ben Shapiro was kind of astro-turfed into conservative media because he was this young guy that was willing to tell old people kind of like what they think. And now I just think there's this whole new general. of like young wannabe Charlie Kirk's or young wannabe, you know, Fuentes, whatever. And they don't need Ben Shapiro, you know? Yeah, I mean, I think that's exactly right. And, you know, look, also, you know, if you're a, let's say you're a young budding, you know,

conservative media personality more in that mold, there's not really any reason for you to go to work at the Daily Wire. I mean, you know, the ones, the people they have now, I think, for example, Brett Cooper left, and they sort of tried to replace her with, you know, another young woman, her best friend, I think like the bridesmaid at her wedding. Yeah, and it's like,

like Flops Eddie, right? And so I think that, you know, you look at someone like Brilyn Holleyhand, this kind of like Charlie Kirk made in a VAT clone kind of guy. I mean, he's not signing up for the Daily Wire. I mean, you can do this sort of thing on your own now. Yeah. And also it's just like, I mean, even just the future of Turning Point is so in flux. Like, it just doesn't seem like there's a need for a lot of these programs. I mean, a lot of them exists like Turning Point just like funnel money and audience to like younger people. But it reminds me, honestly, of like the BuzzFeed stuff. Like there seems to be some parallels between like

BuzzFeed's rise and fall and the daily wires and fall. Like I just think of those like I'm leaving BuzzFeed videos and just like how all of their talent left and how it's sort of this like shell of itself that probably doesn't need to exist anymore. It's like we've moved beyond the need for BuzzFeed. And I feel this way about the Daily Wire too where it's like yeah, if you're a young conservative like popular TikTok or a live streamer,

why on earth would you work for this like weird media company? Why wouldn't you just be your own media company and grow your own audience and follow in the footsteps of people like Candace and Tucker, et cetera? Yeah. I mean, you know, it's a situation where both the economics are against Ben Shapiro. And also, like, you know, if you join The Daily Wire and Candace Owens is very gleeful about pointing this out, I mean, there's going to be sort of an ideological conformity that's enforced to some extent. And one that I think as Gen Z in particular really becomes critical of Israel, you know, one that's not really going to be very good for your growth as a creator. Right. No. I mean, do you see the future of the MAGA movement moving towards more towards sort of like

the Groyper era, especially as like, I don't know, we move past like Trump, he's going to die soon. Like where do you see the vibe of that movement moving towards? Yeah, I think unfortunately the reality is it really is headed a lot more in sort of like a Gryper direction. You know, people like Candace Owens who was like, this is crazy conspiracy theories. I mean, like you have Fox News obviously putting out sort of a traditional sort of boomer Republicanism very similar to Ben Shapiro. But I think where the audience is headed.

is into this online content. And the reality is, I think in order to get that attention, you often have to be really outlandish and, you know, hateful and all these other things. Well, Will, thank you so much for joining me to break all of this down. And I can't wait to honestly just watch that YouTube graph of Ben Shapiro's view count go down and down and down. Yeah, the social blade is not looking good. Thanks for having me. All right.

That's it for this week's episode. If you like my work, please, please buy a paid subscription to my substack newsletter, linked below. It's the best thing you could do to help support this show. I send a weekly roundup of everything that I'm reading and following online. You can also listen to bonus episodes through the substack app or you can support me on Patreon. Also linked below where I also publish my bonus episodes to a monthly Q&A live stream. You can get my newsletter there and more. My podcast has absolutely zero long term partners and it's fully supported by people like you. So truly every single dollar makes such a difference. Thanks so much and I'll be back next week with a brand new episode of Power User. See you

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