The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 12.3 PewDiePie's Last Stand Surprise Twist, Egypt Battles Evil, & More

Episode Date: December 3, 2018

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Sup you beautiful bastards, hope you're having a fantastic Monday. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco show and let's just jump into it. And the first thing we're gonna talk about today is the story coming out of Egypt that kind of plays as a reminder that not everyone is living in 2018. This case involves Rania Youssef, who was a 44 year old Egyptian actress who has been in many movies and TV series in Egypt. The reason we're talking about this today is last week she attended the Cairo International Film Festival in the country's capital. She wore this dress as seen in photos and video from the red carpet.

And in it, you can see her legs underneath the transparent fabric of the dress. And while this dress looks pretty typical of what you might expect if you go to an award show in Egypt, which is a relatively conservative Muslim country, the reaction to the dress was very different. And this story isn't just like, oh, there was kind of some public outrage.

Following the award show, multiple lawyers filed a lawsuit against Youssef, accusing her of wearing an outfit that causes an incitement to debauchery. And of note here, in Egypt, the law actually allows for a citizen to bring charges against another citizen for subjective crimes such as immorality

and insulting the nation. Although there is a check to this power because it is ultimately up to a government prosecutor to decide whether or not to move forward with each case. But in Youssef's case, prosecutors have moved forward and she is now facing a trial starting on January 12th. A trial that aims to, and once again, this is a real thing, determine whether she is guilty of inciting debauchery.

One of the lawyers who brought the case against Yousef, Samir Sabri, saying that Yousef's outfit, quote, "'Did not meet societal values, traditions, and morals, "'and therefore undermined the reputation of the festival "'and the reputation of Egyptian women in particular.'" And if Yousef is found guilty, she faces up to five years in prison. Now since wearing the dress to the reputation of Egyptian women in particular. And if Yousef is found guilty, she faces up to five years in prison. Now since wearing the dress to the award show,

Yousef has responded on our social media, posting a statement saying her fashion designers were probably influenced by trends at other award ceremonies, and adding, "'I probably miscalculated when I chose to wear this dress. "'It was the first time that I wore it, "'and I did not realize it would spark so much anger. "'I reaffirm my commitment to the values

"'upon which we were raised in Egyptian society." However, interestingly enough, in a potential act of defiance, the post where she had the pictures where she was wearing the dress still remains up. And as far as the reactions to this whole controversy, they have been all over the place. Egypt's Actors Guild definitely didn't have her back,

saying in a statement that it was planning on investigating and disciplining actors who wore what they called inappropriate clothing during the festival, also adding, quote, "'Although we absolutely believe in the personal freedom of artists, we appeal to everyone to shoulder their responsibilities toward the fans who appreciate their art and view them as role models. That should compel them to exercise a minimum level of commitment to society's public values.

We saw others on social media agreeing with that sentiment and going even further saying she and whoever let her appear like this must be put on trial. However, on the other side of this, others such as Egyptian director Amir Salama saying that the case only exposed the ridiculous intentions of the lawyers who brought the case forward. Tweeting the dress has only exposed your obsession. Others arguing this is just one of many examples why feminists in the West need to stop being silent about women's issues in the global south. You have actual sexual abusers and predators that don't even see the inside of a courtroom. What kind of upside-down inside-out BS is this? And a big thing I want to hit on is this would be nice if this was an isolated incident.

But Egypt has a long history of going after actors, artists, politicians, and dancers for seemingly innocuous behavior. And in fact, Sabry, who's one of the lawyers who brought this case against Youssef, he's made an entire career out of it. According to a report from earlier this year, Sabry claims to have filed more than 2,700 types of these lawsuits over the last 40 years. And Sabry's quote Egyptian art is in its worst state ever at the moment They are relying on nudity swear words drugs and thuggery and are showing our Egyptian women as whores We have to stop them and while many of these suits are thrown out as frivolous just in the last couple of years We've seen some absurd cases make their way to Egyptian courts earlier this year a hugely popular Egyptian singer by the name of Shireen Abdel Wahab who is also a judge on the Egyptian version of The Voice

She was sentenced to six months in prison for making a joke about the quality of water in the Nile River. Although luckily the update to that story was on appeal, she was acquitted of those charges. But there are also cases like January of this year, there was another singer that was detained for dancing suggestively in a video. Last year we also saw an Egyptian singer sentenced to two years, which was later reduced to one year for appearing in a music video in her underwear while eating a banana. There was a case in 2015 where a belly dancer received a six-month sentence for wearing an outfit that looked like an Egyptian flag. And of course, keep in mind, this is just

some of the plenty of ridiculous and horrible. And as far as my personal reaction to this, I'm disgusted. I'm not surprised, but I'm incredibly disappointed that this is still happening today. And the more that I read up on Sabry, the more I realize, oh, he is a sad, sad excuse for a man, in my opinion. In a report, he talked about his wife, and the report says, "'Such an intense pace of work leaves limited time with his wife,' Mr. Sabry admitted. But he was never much of a romantic. "'All this love and hand-holding, enough,' he said. She knows this is my passion. In any case, I buy her gifts, diamond rings, a necklace, and a BMW.

It makes for a happy marriage.'" No, that's not, that's not what that sounds like. But it definitely does sound like the mindset of a loveless, limp- limp dick bastard who gets excited at the prospect of penalizing a woman with jail because she wore a certain dress where you, oh my god, you can see her legs would have. And with situations like this, people can always argue, oh the culture here, the culture there. If any part of your culture is about the villainization of women and their bodies and their choices, fuck whoever embraces that part of the culture. But that is a story, then that's my personal opinion. And of course I pass the question off to you. What are your thoughts around this story?

And then let's talk about industry news and it starts off with money. Forbes released their list of what they called the highest paid YouTube stars of 2018. And their list starting from 10 going to one starts with Logan Paul, 14.5 million. Followed by PewDiePie, Jacksepticeye, Thenos Gaming, Markiplier, Jeffree Star, DanTDM,

Dude Perfect, Jake Paul, and at the top of the list as a complete surprise, if you haven't seen our coverage from the past, Ryan Toys Review. And if you're like, I've never heard of them, your kid or your niece or your nephew, if they're under seven, they probably have. Family selling stuff in Walmart, I mean, their views over the past 30 days,

they got more than 564 million views, around 26 billion lifetime for that channel. Also, they're not just limited to that channel. And while this list is very interesting, I do also want to point out that I think that a lot of these numbers are probably off. As I know at the bottom, these estimates come from data from multiple places, as well as interviews,

what they call industry insiders. You can never really tell what a creator is making. I mean, just starting from 0.1, as far as their AdSense is concerned. There is a reason, for example, sites like Social Blade. When looking at the Ryan Toys Review channel, they're like, they are making either $141,000 a month or 2.3 million.

There are not a lot of standards in the industry. It also doesn't take into account everything that a creator is doing. I also think it needs to be pointed out that the numbers that they're running are pre-tax. It also doesn't take into account production, agents, lawyers, blah, blah, blah. But it is very interesting.

But also while we're on this topic of the industry and community news, I want to talk about number nine, Mr. PewDiePie. Felix has been in the news a lot recently due to the fact that he's very soon going to drop from the number one most subscribed channel on YouTube. As we've talked about in the past and as has been a major topic on the site

for the past two months, there's another channel by the name of T-Series that is coming up. And T-Series if you don't know is this Indian music label film production company And T-Series would have already surpassed PewDiePie if it had not been for the massive reaction from the community. Another youtuber by the name of Mr. Beast especially championing this campaign. Campaigning online and in the real world with things like billboards. We also had Mr. Six Figures I Was Only Four doing it even bigger in New York. There were stories popping up on the internet about how tens of thousands of hacked printers were printing PewDiePie propaganda. And the things I'm referencing here are just some of many, many big reactions. One of the most recent ones was probably Mark

Applier and Jacksepticeye. So Felix still has not been passed yet, but we saw something really awesome happen today. Felix made a video today, and the two main points that stood out to me is he talked about hate and good. The first being that he addressed some of the hate that has been directed towards India and Indian people because of these campaigns. You see comments such as like Indians or Indian C word, just really distasteful, unnecessary comments. And I obviously made Indian jokes and stuff like that, but I do that of all countries, and this is not what I'm about, and I know my fanbase isn't about this either.

So he called that out, and then he promoted good, specifically using the extra attention that this campaign has given him as a way to promote to a charity. That's why I decided to create a fundraiser for the charity called Cry. Cry is a charity that focuses on making a better future for kids in India. Now the bad thing for Felix is that he has such a large audience, the link that he put out, which went to Fundly ended up crashing, but he has since updated it and also

linked to a GoFundMe and so money is now starting to come in. I will say, I personally love this move from Felix. Because it takes a situation which really started as, I feel like, kind of like a funny gag, and it's turned into a bit of, you know, somewhat community uniting slash people realizing that they can get, you know, views and subs from it, into a situation where it's not just about

getting new subscribers, but actually helping people in the world. I just love seeing that. And what I'll say on a personal note, even when T-Series does finally do it, they finally pass Felix, they become the number one most subscribed channel on YouTube, Felix will still be the most subscribed

YouTuber on the platform. Those are two different things. I really think, if anything anything this is in some conversation around a changing of the guard, a changing of the environment. I feel like it speaks volumes that it has taken this juggernaut, this behemoth of a company this long and just as kind of a joke the community has been able to keep them at bay. But yeah, that's where I'm gonna leave that one. And the last thing I wanna talk about today is France because wow, wow, wow, things have gotten crazy. So if you haven't seen, France was rocked by major protests Saturday for the third weekend in a row.

Reportedly over 8,000 protesters took to the streets of Paris and across France over 100,000 took part that day. And according to reports, at least 133 were injured, 400 arrested, and unfortunately there was also one reported death from a motor accident caused by the protest. And as far as the death count, three reportedly have died in total since the unrest started weeks ago. And as far as the response from the government, according to France's Interior Ministry,

they said they deployed 37,000 police officers, 3,000 gendarmes, which is a branch of the armed forces under the Interior Ministry's jurisdiction, and 30,000 firefighters to deal with the riots across France on Saturday. And these protests across France are being considered the worst in over a decade, which is really saying something because the French really know how to protest and they have a long, long history of it since the French Revolution.

But with that said, of course, the big question here is what exactly are they protesting? Well, these protests started on November 17th after a Facebook group of truckers said they would be shutting down parts of Paris to protest increasing fuel taxes. Over 200,000 people responded that they were interested and since the 17th, hundreds of thousands across the country have gone out to protest the

fuel tax. And regarding the number of people involved, we have the Interior Ministry saying that these protests are dying down, pointing out that you had 300,000 that took part in the first day and now you have only 136,000 this past weekend. As far as the protesters themselves, they're calling themselves Gilets Jaunes, which means yellow vests. And that obviously stands for the high visibility vest that they're wearing, which also makes sense because it ties into the vehicle related nature of the protest and it is widely available. Since 2008, all motorists are actually required to have one in their vehicle.

But also these protesters are somewhat unique in French protest history because they've been largely organized online in a more grassroots fashion. Rather than what we've seen in the past, usually it's large unions and political parties. So those are the protesters, but okay, let's talk about the thing that they are protesting.

The question in your head right now might be, how bad is the tax increase that we're seeing hundreds of thousands of people take to the street? Well, the first tax increase was in 2017, shortly after French President Emmanuel Macron took office. There's also another to be scheduled on January 1st, 2019. And the two together would increase the price of fuel 6.8 cents per liter for 95 octane

and 14 cents per liter for diesel. From a not so metrically inclined audience, that would be around 25 cents per gallon of fuel 6.8 cents per liter for 95 octane and 14 cents per liter for diesel. From a not so metrically inclined audience that would be around 25 cents per gallon of regular gas, for diesel it would be around 53 cents. And this is on top of the already high gas prices just to kind of give you an idea of how high it is. In the US it would come out to around $6.63 per gallon of 95 and $6.99 for diesel. Right the argument behind the tax is that this is supposed to encourage people to use their vehicles less or invest in high efficiency vehicles. However, it's been argued and pointed out that these fuel prices are heavily affecting middle class and low-income groups in France,

especially those who don't live in France's urban areas. And out in the suburbs and more rural areas, public transportation isn't as prevalent and most of the French rely on their own vehicle to get around. And in addition to this, city residents are also concerned about the fuel tax. Because increased costs of living in the cities are forcing them to the suburbs, where the fuel tax will more heavily affect them. And while these protests were originally just about the fuel prices, as we've seen with other protests, it became a much larger issue. And according to reports, this weekend there was a large increase of people that were protesting other grievances and demands in response to declining living standards, high costs of living in France, general dissatisfaction with Macron. And you also have people that are upset about the state of the economy there. France still lingers at about 10% unemployment.

But meanwhile, the cost of living keeps rising, both with taxes and the price of goods. And all of this anger seemingly resulted in a sharp increase in the level of destruction this weekend. And there was very notable damage. You had stores being looted, cars being burned, the area being vandalized. Even the famous Arc de Triomphe was targeted

with graffiti that read, Macron resigned. And the damage was so bad, the talk of a state of emergency was in the air, but ultimately, Macron ended up declining to do so, instead saying that policing procedures will be reviewed in terms of maintaining order in the days to come. Also, while mentioning Macron, I think there is also something important to point out.

Macron himself is actually largely seen as pro-elite and ignoring the lower classes, especially after he cut taxes for the wealthy and enacted these fuel taxes, which affect the lower classes far more than the wealthy residents. And in fact, a poll by Kantar Public in late October showed that 71% of respondents had no confidence in Macron.

Also, while we're talking about Macron, it is important to talk about the violence versus protesting. Macron has tried to get a handle on the protest by saying that he would never accept violence, while at the same time directing his prime minister to meet with what he called legitimate protest groups. His government fears that the movement is being co-opted by far left and far right groups and professional rioters.

But on the note of left wing and right wing political groups, we are seeing them demand that Macron dissolve parliament and hold new elections. Also, even though Macron isn't up for reelection until 2022, this is being seen as a possible killer to any presidential run he has in the future. As far as whether the French president is willing to budge regarding the fuel tax, not really, but with an asterisk.

He has been adamant that the January 1st tax increase will not be rescinded. However, he is reportedly considering adjusting how the fuel tax increases are done when fuel prices themselves sharply rise. But ultimately, that is where we are right now. Things are somewhat uncertain. And it'll be interesting to see what happens this week,

and then specifically this weekend. Will the number of people taken to the streets stay relatively the same? Will it go back up? Will it continue to go down? Will we see more destruction or a crackdown? We'll have to wait and see. And in the meantime, I pass the question off to you.

What do you hope will happen? What do you think will happen? And while that question is for everyone, if you've lived or live in France or live nearby, I definitely would love to know what you're thinking. Obviously an understanding of the situation is always different from the outside in. And that's where I'm going to end today's show. And remember, if you like this video, you want to show that support, just hit that like

button. That's how you let us know. If you're new here, you want some more of these weekday videos. And in fact, this week, seven videos. An extra morning news video on Tuesday and Thursday this week. Just hit that subscribe button. You can also click that bell so YouTube sends you notifications when we upload, usually. Also, if you miss either of the last two shows you wanna catch up, all you have to do is 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 Phil'd in.

I love yo faces and I'll see you tomorrow, morning and afternoon.