The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 12.11 An Apology, MSM Targets PewDiePie Again & Is Jacob Anderson The New Brock Turner?

Episode Date: December 11, 2018

Latest episode of The Philip DeFranco Show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sup you beautiful bastards hope you have a fantastic Tuesday. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco show and before we jump into it I want to hit on a little note and it's a little bit of an apology slash announcement yesterday We covered a story that involved domestic violence and as part of covering that story We found it to be very important to showcase some of the video and audio of that incident now Some people thought it was horrible that we did this I was a terrible person for doing so I greatly disagree with that That's not what my apologies about just like when we covered the do5 abuse story in the past, I think that it is incredibly important. As much as I hate seeing that footage, I think it is important to shine a light on the horrible that happens. Otherwise, it's this more distant, abstract thing rather than right in your face and you can see

why something is wrong. And so to the people that are trying to shame me over that, no, I refuse to be shamed over covering a story. But where I do want to apologize is looking back, watching through the episode again, I really should have provided a little more time and a content warning before we played the footage. That way people especially victims of domestic violence who this might kind of just bring something back up They have a little extra time to decide if they want to watch it that they can skip it or maybe they need to prepare themselves and as someone that grew up in several abusive households I very much get it. And I announced this yesterday on Twitter,

there were a few people saying, oh, don't pander. It's not pandering. It'll add maybe five seconds to the show, and it'll hopefully help people in a vulnerable place. And that's something that I think is super important, because the last thing I want to do is have a negative impact on a victim of domestic violence in a piece that's meant to talk

about domestic violence and the seriousness of it. But main point, I just wanted to start with that, and now, let's just jump into it. And the first thing we're gonna talk about today is why YouTube and PewDiePie broke into the mainstream of it. But main point, I just wanted to start with that, and now, let's just jump into it. And the first thing we're gonna talk about today is why YouTube and PewDiePie broke into the mainstream news today. PewDiePie, Felix, has of course been in the news for several reasons over the past few weeks.

He, with tons of people from the YouTube community supporting him, has been holding off T-Series from the number one subscribed spot. Also as part of that, he raised money for a charity called Cry that aims to help children in India, raising just under 180,000 pounds on GoFundMe, just under 20,000 pounds on Fundly. And those are just two of the several stories

that have been out there, but the big one we're talking about today stems from Sunday. And Felix put out a video called "'Don't Subscribe to PewDiePie," and he said that he was humbled by everyone's efforts, but that he wanted to shout out smaller YouTubers. As much as I'm absolutely humbled

and so happy about all the support, I do feel really weird about it and I wanted to do a shout out to a bunch of smaller creators as well or that maybe don't have as much subscribers just because there's a lot of great channels on YouTube that actually deserve subscribers. In the video he includes a list of channels in the description along with links and also at the end of the video he talks about each channel and one of the initial channels that was listed was one by the name of ER. We also have ER who does great video essays about, he did one on Death Note, which I really, really enjoyed. Although I do want to note, as of looking into this story,

he has removed the link to this channel. But that said, after Felix posted the original video, some people started to call out that channel as being questionable. This also including one of the hosts of The Young Turks, Hasan Piker, who tweeted, "'Yesterday PewDiePie ended subscribe to PewDiePie "'in a video where he promoted

"'some of his favorite channels. "'One of them was straight up a neo-Nazis YouTube page "'where he makes video essays on children's cartoons "'with added Nazi propaganda.'" And adding, while I certainly agree with ER's assessment that live action animes are hot garbage, he's still a crypto-fascist adding Hitler speeches and references to exterminating Jewish people

in his comprehensive video essays. Here's why he does it. And what he included with that tweet was screenshots of what appears to be ER responding to a post on Gab that asks, what's the best way to red-pill people on the Jewish question? To which he appears to respond, pretend to joke about it until the punchline really lands. I would assume. Then in another comment, it looks like ER says, not really. They have an idea of my power level since I'm so gosh darned edgy, but I try to leave enough room for them to laugh at all. Spoonful of sugar and all that. No prob, theoretically."

And in response to Hasan's tweet, ER responded saying, "'Damn, they really trying to use me as a nail to put pewds to the cross. You can come after me, that's fine, but this is otherwise pretty sneaky.'" The man only said he enjoyed a video on an anime movie. And what I'll say about this initial story here

is regarding Felix's involvement, Felix specifically points to a video regarding Death Note from this channel. And in that actual video, there are two moments that I personally find incredibly disgusting, but they would also be very easy to miss. There's one point where he's making a point about Death Note but then uses real actual overhead footage from the Charlottesville attack. Footage of the guy who was actually sentenced to life in prison today, which actually really quick side note, good. Fuck that guy. He uses footage of this actual moment where someone's life is being taken. And then when making a joke about collateral damage,

he showed a video of the second plane about to go into the World Trade Center. Although the description of that video also says that he intended to use a racial slur throughout this video, but didn't because of YouTube policy. Also regarding the claims that this channel puts out anti-Semitic content, looking through the channel and some of the videos

that now they're just mirrors up of, there's definitely some really weird stuff on it. There's one video that just straight up has about two and a half minutes of Hitler speaking over images of the star of David, Obama, Clinton, George W. Bush. There's also another one that just opens up with an image of dead concentration camp victims,

which seems to have no connection to the rest of the video. For the sake of time, I'm just mentioning a few references here, but one of the main points to at least the first part of this story. There's really no way for us to know if Felix saw those parts in the original video, if he watched the other videos from this channel, right? And the general thinking behind that is, you know, when I see a video and I think that it's good and I throw it in today and awesome, I'm not doing deep research on those accounts, right? And so how much could Felix

have really seen if he was promoting as many channels as he did in that video? But on the other side of this, you have people saying with an audience of his size, you have a responsibility to do that work. But in general, as far as the public reaction to this, it seems that many people are just seeing this as the media just bloodthirsty at the chance to try and take down Felix again. But as far as my personal opinion on this, I don't think that Felix did this on purpose.

As bulletproof as he is with the YouTube community, I don't think that he would want to invite this into his life. And also, when I looked at that video, the guy promoted almost 30 YouTube channels. And I think the idea that he would be aware of all the content a channel has put out and these kind of little things that are slipped in,

I think that is a little bit unreasonable. Like every now and then when I promote a small YouTuber in TIA, we have one of the same people, Ian Cohn. Saw a few of his videos, thought he was really hilarious. I didn't go through his entire archive and history. That's my thinking there. And actually, last second update,

before we uploaded this video, Felix just posted a video where among other things, he addressed this controversy. And in part, he said this. Now, apparently, one of those 28 likes to have hidden and not-so-hidden Nazi references in his videos. And, you know, obviously, if I noticed that, I wouldn't have referenced him in the shout-out. Not because I have a problem with Nazi references being offensive in themselves, but because I said publicly a year and a half ago that I was gonna distance myself from Nazi jokes and that kind of stuff because I want nothing to do with it

And I don't really care about it. Also adding that not only did he remove ER from the link But he also edited the video. So that is out of the video now, too I removed ER from that video and apparently you can edit video now So he just won't appear at all. And finally adding like I said because if I if I knew then what I knew now, I wouldn't have, I just wouldn't have put him in there. I still really want to shout out smaller channels, so I'm gonna keep doing that, but I'll be more careful in the future. And so with this story, I actually want to ask two questions. One, what do you think about this story in general? Do you feel like Felix is just being unjustly attacked for something that's probably a mistake?

Or no, do you personally think that something else is going on, or you're one of the People that are arguing that he needs to be way more responsible any and all thoughts there and secondly separate from Felix What do you think about this idea and tactic of just posing as edgy humor as a way to slowly radicalize or red-pill someone? Because that ER screenshot where he says pretend to joke about it until the punchline really lands I would assume it's not like we've never Seen that answer before. I think back to when the Daily Stormer had their style guide posted publicly and it read, Most people are not comfortable with material that comes across as vitriolic, raging, non-ironic hatred.

The unindoctrinated should not be able to tell if we are joking or not. There should also be a conscious awareness of mocking stereotypes of hateful racists. I usually think of this as self-deprecating humor. I am a racist making fun of stereotypes of racists because I don't take myself super seriously. This is obviously a ploy and I actually do want to gas Jewish slur, but that's neither here nor there. It then goes on to talk about hijacking culture and memes. Writing, packing our message inside of existing cultural memes and humor can be viewed as a delivery method. Something like adding cherry flavor to children's medicine. Personally, I think it's important that people recognize this tactic because then we potentially see moments where people who thought it was just dark edgy humor

are all of a sudden being labeled white supremacists. And often what we see there is that person then gets pushed further away and a conversation is harder to have. But with all that said, once again, I'm very interested in your thoughts on this. This is something I've just been thinking about more and more this year as we've just seen different kinds of stories come out of the woodwork. And the last thing we're going to talk about today is Baylor University and Jacob Walter Anderson. Now we've talked about Baylor University in the past because for many years the school has been in the spotlight over a number of sexual assault accusations.

And the biggest of these sexual assault scandals involved members of their football team. But today we're talking about something different. Today we have a former Baylor fraternity president in the news, specifically 23-year-old Jacob Anderson. Jacob was charged with four counts of sexual assault after he was accused of raping a 19 year old girl. The rape allegedly took place in 2016 at a party thrown by his fraternity Phi Delta Theta. According to the victim

she drank some punch at the party and immediately felt woozy, saying that Anderson then led her behind a tent and then assaulted her. Also telling police that she was gagged and choked during the assault until she lost consciousness. The victim says she eventually woke up face down in the dirt choking on her own vomit in the same area where the assault happened She then went inside the party to find a friend who took her to the hospital where she underwent a sexual assault medical exam and hospital Officials notified Waco, Texas police Anderson was then indicted on sexual assault charges in June after the criminal charges surface five Delta Theta removed him from the Organization Baylor expelled him and they also suspended the fraternity's operations to investigate underage drinking and assault. And then we fast forward to earlier this year where the district attorney's office offered Anderson

a plea deal that was heavily criticized by the victim and her supporters. And the reason for the criticism is the DA's deal dismissed the four counts of sexual assault in exchange for a lesser charge of unlawful restraint. And with that, they recommended that Anderson only serve three years of deferred adjudication probation, which means that the charge could eventually be dismissed

if he doesn't violate the terms of his probation. And along with that probation they also recommended that he pay a $400 fine and go to counseling. Anderson would go on to agree to that deal and pleaded no contest which means that he didn't admit guilt but he also offered no defense. And the reason we are talking about this today is that on Monday judge Ralph Strother approved the deal. So with that Jacob Walter Anderson will not serve any jail time or be forced to register as a sex offender. And this decision resulted in an uproar not only from general critics, but the victim herself. The victim had asked Struthers to deny the plea offer and set a trial date so she could testify in court instead.

And in her victim impact statement, she called out the prosecutors on the case. Assistant District Attorney Hilary Laborde and District Attorney Abel Reyna, who were not in attendance, saying, If I had the courage to come back to Waco and face my rapist and testify You can at least have had enough respect for me to show up today You both will have to live with this decision to let a rapist run free in society without any warning to future victims by the grace Of God I am alive today to fight this injustice one breath either way and Jacob Walter Anderson would be on trial for murder She also later sent a message to Anderson and a quote to a local newspaper saying, But on the other side of this, we saw a reasonable doubt as a prosecutor My goal is no more victims

I believe that is best accomplished when there is a consequence rather than an acquittal this offender is now on felony probation and will receive Sex offender treatment a result which was not guaranteed nor likely had we gone to trial as she then goes on to say that there are Many facts that the public does not have but also provided no more detail. I will say on a personal note I understand that there probably are some limitations, but that is that is a pretty shitty thing to do as the DA since people will just fill in those blanks with whatever they want. But also it should be noted regarding evidence the victim's lawyer said quote, The evidence is incredible. He nearly choked her to death. He raped her violently. He left her passed out in her own vomit. The rape exam confirmed rape. Also, it should be noted that when he announced his decision, Judge Strother told the court that the comments about the case made on social media lacked crucial information, adding,

I have as good of information as possible from all perspectives of the matter. Being human, I can make wrong decisions. However, I cannot be uncertain about the decisions that I make. But even still, his office has been flooded with calls and letters from people who are outraged by this decision. We've also seen more than 88,000 people sign a digital petition expressing outrage at the DA's offer. What we've seen now are many news outlets reporting that this judge actually has a history of being lenient on sexual assault cases. Last year, he reportedly sentenced a man to deferred probation and ordered him to pay for the victim's counseling after he pleaded guilty in the 2013 rape of a former Baylor student. Also earlier this year, he sentenced another man to felony probation, which included 30 days in jail for the sexual assault of another former Baylor student. Also, reportedly, he was able to serve his jail time on the weekends.

But, that said, regarding the situation at hand, despite this decision, the victim also plans to continue to fight for some justice. The woman has reportedly filed a lawsuit against Anderson, the fraternity, and 20 members, alleging underage drinking as well as sexual assault. And as of now, that case remains pending. But still, as of now, there is a lot of anger and confusion with many people saying the DA and the judge are muddying up the water. Both mentioning evidence that was unknown to the public. But you still have that same DA in the same statement saying, As a prosecutor, my goal is no more victims.

I believe that is best accomplished when there is a consequence rather than an acquittal. And she then goes on to mention Anderson's consequence, if you can even really call it that. And so at least to my ears, it all sounds like we think that he did it. But based on what we have, we might not be able to take it home so let's just let's deal with the slap on the wrist. And the thing is and this should be a bigger part of the conversation this isn't a rare occurrence. You know we can look back to instances like Brock Turner getting a six-month jail sentence that he didn't even have to fully serve out. A punishment that was so ridiculous it even led to the recall of the judge who handed down the punishment. There was also another case recently where a jury convicted a doctor of second-degree assault for raping a hospital patient. That crime was punishable by up to 20 years,

but the doctor ended up being given only 10 years of probation. But with all of that said, I wanna pass the question off to you regarding the situation at hand today. Do you think the DA should have listened to the victim in this case and given her her day in court or no?

Do you think the DA and the judge here made a difficult decision, but also the best decision in a bad situation? Let me know your thoughts in those comments down below. And that's where I'm going to end today's show. Remember if you like this video, you like my daily dives into the news, hit that like button. If you're new here, you want more, be sure to hit that subscribe button, ring that bell to turn on notifications. Also, if you missed this morning's extra news video or yesterday's PDS, you can click or tap right there to watch those.

But with that said, of course, as always, my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love yo faces, and I'll see you tomorrow.