The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 1.10 This Pokimane Hasan Piker Situation Will Get Worse, NFT Gaming Backlash, & Today's News
Episode Date: January 10, 2022Start your free trial today: http://www.Squarespace.com/Phil & enter offer code “Phil” to get 10% off your first purchase! More PDS: https://youtu.be/zbZaq9WhBSw TEXT ME! +1 (813) 213-4423 Get M...ore Phil: https://linktr.ee/PhilipDeFranco -- 00:00 - Reality Star Sells Farts as NFTs 00:48 - Pilot Saved After Crashing Onto Train Tracks 01:38 - Canadian Influencers Face Backlash Maskless, In-Flight Party 03:53 - Twitch Creators Wonder if DMCA is the Downfall of TV Meta Trend 06:23 - Sponsor 07:08 - School Closures Top Record Highs, But Many Remain Open 09:17 - Noncitizens Get Right to Vote in NYC 10:40 - Gaming Companies Ponder if NFTs Are Essential to Their Future -- ✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩ Reality Star Sells Farts as NFTs: https://www.insider.com/reality-star-made-200k-fart-jars-selling-them-as-nfts-2022-1 Pilot Saved After Crashing Onto Train Tracks: https://abc7.com/pacoima-plane-down-crash-metrolink-train-video-of-pilot-being-saved/11447057/ Canadian Influencers Face Backlash Maskless, In-Flight Party: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59917300 Twitch Creators Wonder if DMCA is the Downfall of TV Meta Trend: https://www.sportskeeda.com/esports/the-entire-gordon-ramsay-twitch-drama-involving-hasanabi-xqc-explained School Closures Top Record Highs, But Many Remain Open: https://roguerocket.com/2022/01/10/school-closures-record-highs/ Noncitizens Get Right to Vote in NYC: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/09/nyregion/noncitizens-nyc-voting-rights.html Gaming Companies Ponder if NFTs Are Essential to Their Future: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/square-enix-ceos-new-years-letter-discusses-nfts-metaverse-blockchain-and-more/1100-6499258/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/01/sega-considering-what-will-be-accepted-by-the-users-in-gaming-nfts/ ✩ STORIES NOT IN TODAY’S SHOW ✩ Charli D’Amelio Tops Highest-Paid TikTokers List: https://roguerocket.com/2022/01/10/charli-damelio-tops-highest-paid-tiktokers-list/ —————————— Executive Producer: Amanda Morones Produced by: Cory Ray Edited by: James Girardier, Julie Goldberg, Maxwell Enright Art Department: Brian Borst, William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Brian Espinoza, Maddie Crichton, Lili Stenn, Neena Pesqueda Production Team: Zack Taylor, Emma Leid ———————————— #DeFranco #HasanAbi #Pokimane ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
You, right now, look me in the eyes and answer the question,
what happened while I was gone?
I leave for a month, I take a break from looking at the news,
and then I get ready for today's show.
I look on the internet, and what's the first story I see?
A reality star from 90 Day Fiancé started selling her farts in mason jars
for $500 a pop, then $1,000 a pop.
Ended up making $200,000 before she says she was hospitalized
because she was eating so poorly to make those farts,
and so now she's selling those farts
in a Mason jar as NFTs.
That is possibly the most 2022 story I've ever heard.
I think it sets the tone for the year.
And so on that happy note, it brings me joy to say,
sup you beautiful bastards.
Welcome back to the first Philip DeFranco show of 2022.
Do me a favor if you would, let's start off on a good note, hit that like button,
make sure you're subscribed and let's just jump into it.
You know, the first thing that we're gonna talk about today,
it's one of the craziest things I've seen in a while,
which given the state of the world is kind of wild,
but here we go.
Story is out of Los Angeles, California,
where you have these hero police officers
saving a pilot from this horrifying accident.
So let's walk through it together.
You have this pilot flying a plane,
luckily no other passengers on board.
He has to make an emergency landing.
But the authorities saying that the plane lost power
and ultimately he crashed, but he didn't just crash.
He crashed onto a set of train tracks near Whiteman airport.
Officers at a nearby LAPD station
then rushed to the scene within minutes.
And then we see this footage from the ground
showing the officers trying to pull the pilot out.
Right to seconds after they drag him to safety,
we hear the train's horn blast right before it rips
through the empty plane.
Thankfully, there were no other injuries reported
on the ground.
The pilot was taken to a local trauma center,
was in stable condition.
And understandably so, people have been calling
these four officers who responded heroes.
And yeah, that seems like the word to describe it.
That's insane.
And then let's talk about this fucking video.
This is one of several videos that have gone viral
over the past week showing maskless people
partying on a flight from Canada to Cancun, Mexico
for a six night stay.
It might be a little bit different
than a flight you've taken recently.
We're seeing dancing, yelling,
passing around bottles of alcohol,
even vaping in the cabin.
This blows up people going, okay, what?
I need to know more.
As it turns out, this was a privately chartered plane
from Montreal filled with Canadian social media stars,
reality TV personalities, among other people.
The trip was reportedly organized
by the invite only group 111 Private Club.
With these videos going viral,
you had a lot of people pissed off in the public.
In fact, the public backlash became so bad
that we even saw Prime Minister Justin Trudeau say this.
I think like all Canadians who've seen those videos,
I'm extremely frustrated.
We know how hard people have worked to keep themselves safe, to limit their family gatherings
at Christmas time, to wear masks, to get vaccinated, to do all the right things.
And it's a slap in the face to see people putting themselves, putting their fellow citizens, putting airline workers at risk
by being completely irresponsible.
And so as a result of their behavior, Sunwing Airlines,
which flew the group on December 30th,
canceled their return flight,
saying, our decision to cancel the return flight
was based on the group's refusal to accept all terms
and our security team's assessment that noncompliance
would be likely based on their previous
disruptive onboard behavior. But it ended up not just being then. We saw other Canadian
airlines like Air Transat and Air Canada announcing that they too denied return flights for several
passengers in the group. And as of last Friday, you had Canada's health minister saying that only
about 27 of the 130 passengers were back home. And of those back in Canada, reportedly they took
four different flights to get there. They were tested upon arrival at the border. They were
asked for proof of vaccination
and quarantine plans.
Also turns out it's not over.
The country's transportation authority
saying they're investigating the incident,
saying that the passengers could face $5,000 fines
for violating masking requirements.
This will also be interesting to watch
because we've also seen at least one passenger test positive
for COVID who's a teen who won a trip
in an Instagram contest.
But they're claiming that not everyone was engaging
in reckless behavior on the flight,
which is also something the club's founder James William Awad also said on Twitter
But I'm also saying I've significantly learned that I'm still learning from this experience
But also trying to downplay the chaos that was captured on video. Then is the Twitchpocalypse here?
That is a question that a lot of people are asking following this latest controversy and debate that's happening over Twitch and of all things
Masterchef and Avatar the Last Airbender. And that because a number of major creators
on that platform have just been watching
and reacting to TV shows with one of the most popular
being MasterChef.
With Gordon Ramsay himself even having a quick back
and forth on Twitter with XQC, one of the streamers
who's a major part of this meta.
Well, many saw this reaction and were hopeful
that it could open a door for maybe Gordon Ramsay
and streamers to collaborate together.
With other creators and viewers going,
okay, one, how is this even legal?
And two, this new attention is just going to get everything
shut down.
With some creators asking,
are these like public domain shows or something?
Do larger companies just not care about folks
restreaming their stuff?
Twitch DJ Weed, who's actually head of the Twitch community
production saying it's absolutely not okay.
Just like it has never been okay to stream music.
This is just as DMCA-able as anything else.
Hard to say why streamers have not been targeted,
but just like music, it's probably just a matter of time.
With that in, this is not an official Twitch take,
just my own.
But also with that, you had major streamers chiming in
about how people are getting away with this,
including people who have been streaming MasterChef,
like Ahsan Piker, tweeting,
"'Everything is fair use if the copyright holder
"'doesn't care about pursuing a DMCA claim.
"'Be smart, don't watch entire movies, Viacom, Disney shit,
"'or new episodes, and stop snitching.'"
With him adding, and he is right here,
that technically video games should fall under that,
but the companies don't care or actually see benefits
if creators stream their games.
But then, funny enough, not long after tweeting that,
he got a DMCA hit of his own for watching MasterChef.
This also after one of the largest streamers on the platform,
Pokimane, was banned for watching Avatar,
the last airbender on stream.
Though they're taking it in stride saying,
I'm not surprised and I don't think this is unfair.
In my opinion, it was inevitable that publishers
would take action on me
or someone else during this React meta.
But also with that, she ended up receiving
a fair amount of backlash.
With that criticism boiling down to the fact
that many saw this as an example of a creator
doing something that benefits them,
even though overall it's bad for the community
and smaller creators.
They get a temporary ban for two days.
They come back to usually bigger views than normal.
Y'all, as far as my reaction to this news,
it's the first one of the year, prepare yourselves.
I just wanna say, don't be stupid, stupid.
I'm not hyped and excited about a DMCA claim
or Pokimane or any specific creator getting suspended.
But as large creators like Moist Critical
have already publicly said,
it's just common sense that you can't stream
a full TV series, anime, movie franchise on Twitch.
No studio will ever say, yeah, if you buy our Blu-ray,
you can stream it to 40,000 people who have it.
And it's not just this random, it only affects you,
harmless thing for these big creators to be doing this.
When there's something like an adpocalypse
that we've seen different versions of here on YouTube,
it doesn't really affect the big channels
because we have the ability to move
and figure out solutions, it hurts the little guy.
But with that said, that's a story, my personal opinion,
and I wanna pass the question off to you.
What are your thoughts here?
But from that, I wanna take a second to thank the sponsor of today's show, Squarespace.
I've been partnering with Squarespace for years now.
And I have to say,
if you're getting your business off the ground
or creating a place to share your homemade goods,
new favorite hobby, your current obsession,
or even a personal blog to get all those thoughts
out of your head, no matter what you are doing,
Squarespace is there to help.
It's so easy.
There's nothing to install, patch, or upgrade ever.
And creating a beautiful website
with Squarespace's all-in-one platform has never been so simple.
It's extremely intuitive and easy to use.
With their mobile optimized websites,
your content automatically adjusts
so your content looks great on any device.
Plus, with Squarespace, you get access
to all their marketing tools and analytics
and their award-winning customer care team
via email or live chat 24 seven.
So if you wanna check it out, see why so many others love it,
see if it is perfect for you,
start your free trial today over squarespace.com slash phil.
And when you realize you love it,
make sure you enter an offer code phil
to get 10% off your first purchase.
And then there is a massive fight happening right now
with teachers and students fighting back
against schools staying open as Omicron surges.
COVID cases in the US are topping new record highs
as are school closures.
According to Burbue, a data firm that tracks school closures,
at least 5,409 public schools had canceled class
or moved to remote learning by the end of last week,
which has tripled the number we saw in December.
But notably, that is still just a fraction
of the nation's 130,000 schools,
and many of the biggest school districts in the country
are still insisting that students come into the classroom.
Los Angeles, which is home to the second biggest district,
is requiring that students at least test negative
before they return to school this week.
But in the biggest district, New York City,
classes have already resumed following winter break.
And although the city has said
that it will double random tests and send home more kids,
students were not required to provide negative results.
Meanwhile, teachers in other major districts
have protested the local government's decision to stay open
with one of the most closely watched battles
being out of Chicago.
There, students have now missed
four consecutive days of school
due to a feud happening between Chicago teachers
and Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
Last week, the teachers union there
voted to return to remote learning in defiance of a citywide order
mandating that they teach in person
with them citing inadequate COVID-19 protections.
But you had Mayor Lightfoot claiming,
"'No, the conditions are fine.
"'The students are safe despite record surges.'"
Instead, opting to cancel classes altogether
while this fight plays out.
And honestly, who knows when this is gonna end?
Yesterday, you had the union saying
they were still far apart from making any kind of agreement
with public school officials
after Lightfoot rejected their demands.
Lightfoot for her part has said
that she remains hopeful that a deal could be reached,
but she also stirred up the union
by accusing teachers of staging an illegal walkout
and claiming that they abandoned their posts
and they abandoned kids and their families.
But also important to note that it's not just Chicago
teachers, you have teachers in other school districts
also beginning to draw their tactics from Chicago.
Friday you had teachers in Oakland, California
staging a sick out, closing 12 schools,
serving thousands of students.
You know, with this story,
I wanna pass the question off to you
because many of you are on the ground going through this,
either yourself or your family is.
As a parent myself, I'm just kind of lost
and exhausted with this.
I've had, you know, I'm coming up almost
on the two year anniversary of this hide and seek game
that I've been playing with COVID.
Because you know, this morning,
when I sent my kids off to school, I'm like,
is this the dumbest fucking thing that I'm doing right now?
Like it feels like everything that we've done
over the last two years is trying to pick like
the less shitty of the two incredibly shitty options.
Yeah, that's why, especially with this story,
I would really love to know your thoughts on this.
And then should non-citizens be allowed to vote?
That question is in the air right now
because New York city just expanded that right
to more than 800,000 people.
With that coming after legislation passed
by the city council took effect yesterday,
giving legal immigrants who are not US citizens
the ability to vote in key city races.
And while New York City is not the first city
to take such a step, it is the largest
to give these rights to non-citizen immigrants.
And so what this looks like in practice,
non-citizens will be able to register to vote
a year from now if they've lived in the city
for at least 30 days and are green card holders,
DACA recipients, or given work authorization.
And if the law remains in place,
those individuals will be able to vote starting in 2023
for primary and general elections for citywide
and local races like that of the mayor, council members
and borough presidents.
But that is also a big if, because legal experts believe
that this new policy will be contested in court.
And in fact, the Republican National Committee
has already said that it will challenge this matter,
arguing that it violates the state's constitution
and election laws.
What I'll say with this is while yes,
this is not going to impact a federal election,
this is still very big locally.
New York City has nearly 7 million voting age adults,
and what we're talking about here is giving the right
to vote to 800,000 of them that previously could not vote.
That's like one in nine.
And while yes, this is a New York story,
I mean, depending on what happens here
with the law being contested, does it stand? Does it fall?
It is very possible that if this stands,
we will see this spread to other states.
But we've also seen some states, including Alabama,
Arizona, Colorado, and Florida adopting new rules
that will stop any attempts to pass laws like this one.
But all that said, it brings us back
to the main question of the story.
Should non-citizens be allowed to vote?
I'd love to know your thoughts.
And then is it a cash grab?
Is it good or disastrous?
And what I'm talking about is gaming and NFTs.
Right since December, gaming communities and companies
have been grappling with this issue
after Ubisoft introduced NFTs to their games.
Their platform called Quartz allows players
to buy in-game cosmetic items
for the game Ghost Recon Breakpoint as NFTs.
It follows NFTs digits and the whole like appeal of these
is supposed to be that the NFTs number
will be on the item itself
and the item will remember all of its previous owners.
Those items can be sold on third-party platforms
with Ubisoft being able to take a small cut.
However, the entire concept drew backlash
from the gaming community with many viewing it
as just a stupid cash grab.
And of note here, so far, it does appear to be a failure
with early reports indicating that only around 15 items
were actually sold on third-party platforms.
But despite this initial backlash that we've seen,
other companies have announced that they plan
to move forward with NFTs as well.
EA has been on the NFT bandwagon for a while
with its CEO saying back in November
that NFTs and blockchain tech are the future of our industry.
That sentiment also repeated by Square Enix's president
over the new year with him writing in a letter,
I see 2021 not only as Metaverse year one,
but also as NFTs year one,
given that it was a year in which NFTs were met
with a great deal of enthusiasm
by a rapidly expanding user base?
With them going on to detail how the company is excited
by the prospect of blockchain-based games
and how the tech might be used to allow gamers
to more actively contribute to games.
But not every company is on board.
Sega cited fan backlash to gaming NFTs
in their recent decision to be far more skeptical
about implementing the tech,
although they didn't rule it out completely.
But all of that involves companies,
companies that would very likely make a lot of money.
So what are the players think?
Why would NFTs be attractive to players
and why do players have an issue with them?
Right, some of the criticisms we've seen
are kind of the same criticisms that we've seen
with most blockchain tech.
Critics saying that even the most environmentally friendly
NFTs are still massive power hogs,
they get worse as they scale up.
But for the sake of today's story, setting that aside, right,
we need to talk about the more specific problems
that gamers have.
With many saying that they have trouble
with seeing how these new NFTs in gaming
would actually maintain their value.
Saying that usually NFTs rely on artificial scarcity
and speculative markets for JPEGs
and other easily copyable file types.
Some also pushing back saying we don't need NFTs
to make a marketplace for in-game items.
For example, Valve's Dota 2 and CSGO
both have in-game cosmetic items
that can be sold for real cash between players.
With the main difference being that if it was an NFT you could sell it on a third party marketplace,
but also people saying, you know, why would I? Though you also have some supporters saying there
is a collectible aspect to this. Yes, with the artificial scarcity, but also let's say if you're
a big Dota 2 or League of Legends fan and player, maybe you're watching the international or worlds,
kind of like how you have people in the real world buying an actual sports jersey that was worn by
one of the players, it might be possible to buy the actual skin
used by a pro player during the finals of one of those events.
I do want to interject, not me personally,
I think in general, it's kind of stupid.
Because my personal opinion, and maybe this is short-sighted,
like we'll see in five to 10 years, like many others,
I have huge doubts about how this
could actually be implemented.
A lot of the way that this has been talked about
are NFTs being used by companies
to justify selling even more expensive skins and capitalizing on recurring revenue. Or because some of this way that this has been talked about are NFTs being used by companies just by selling even more expensive skins
and capitalizing on recurring revenue.
Because some of this stuff that's being imagined or proposed
like for example, Mike Shinoda from Lincoln Park,
he seems like a pretty massive supporter of the technology
and he had a thread defending their use in games writing.
Imagine taking your favorite skin from Valorant
and using it in Fortnite
and not paying extra because you own it.
Then using it in COD, Minecraft, even Twitter, Instagram,
so many possibilities, no?
But I mean, I look at that and I think, okay,
that would require all those gaming companies
who directly compete with one another to not only decide,
yes, we're going to work together,
but also implement that same skin
across multiple engines and platforms.
And I don't know, once again, could be short-sighted,
but I just, I can't imagine a world where,
even if it was implemented properly for a consumer,
that it wasn't a shit show.
Like take Fortnite, for example,
they sell a ton of skins that you can use in that game.
Most of the skins limited as far as when you can buy them,
right, there are time limits, certain availability.
But imagine for all of these skins
to have third-party value,
you'd probably only want a limited number
of those skins available to users.
So all of a sudden, like a clothing drop
or a sneakers app drop,
you gotta deal with a ton of scalpers
probably raising the price on you.
But yeah, with all of that, to bring it back around,
whether you're a skeptic, a casual,
or you're super in love with NFTs,
what are your thoughts on gaming and NFTs?
Is it the future?
Is it the future you're excited for?
Or is this a stupid, stupid cash grab?
But yeah, ultimately that is where that story ends.
Today's show ends.
Thank you all for being a part of the first show
back into 2022.
And a quick reminder, if you're subscribed,
go ahead and check your bell.
Make sure that it is set to all notifications
because I'm gonna be posting a lot more
than just the four videos a week,
including there might even be a morning video tomorrow,
but no matter what you decide to do,
I just wanna close by saying, my name's Philip DeFranco,
you've just been filled in, I love yo faces
and I'll see you tomorrow.