The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 3.13 The Ridiculously Bitter Kurzgesagt Hit Piece, & Olivia Jade College Cheating Scandal

Starting point is 00:00:00 Sup you beautiful bastards, hope you're having a fantastic Wednesday. 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 a story that has just blown up over the past 24-36 hours that hits on a few things, right? Trustworthiness, mob mentality, actually trying to call something out versus something that's just a hit piece. And the situation we're talking about is this controversy and scandal that has popped up around Kors Gazant and its founder Philip Detmer. And if you're not already familiar with Philip's channel, it's a very popular science channel, has over eight million subscribers.

Starting point is 00:00:28 They're best known for their In a Nutshell videos, which take complex topics and try to break it down into more digestible pieces. We've even included them on Today in Awesome. And the reason the spotlight is on Philip is that yesterday a channel called Coffee Break, which is run by a guy named Steven, released a video where in the thumbnail

Starting point is 00:00:40 he claims that Philip is lying. And in this video, in part, he talks about his experience where he communicated with Philip Detmer. The way that I'm gonna try and cover this story is to include parts of the original accusations in the original video, as well as counterpoints from Philip and things that have come out afterwards, as well as things that didn't seem to be touched on. So, Stephen starts off his video like this. Can you trust Kurzgesagt videos? No. And ironically, the reason you can't trust them is that this video exists at all.

Starting point is 00:01:06 He goes on to say that he's working on a series about the pop science genre, how the simplification of complicated topics can lead to misinformation. He then specifically cites a TED talk by Johann Hari called Everything You Know About Addiction Is Wrong, as well as Philip's 2015 adaptation of the TED talk called Addiction. Stephen says he reached out to Johann and Philip to talk about the video and ask questions about the errors in it Steven said Philip responded almost immediately and requested not to be quoted and so in that video Steven only shares his half of the emails and gives kind of vague summaries of Phillips responses But after the coffee break video was uploaded Philip started an AMA on reddit So people could ask him questions regarding the video and in that thread one of the first things Philip did was he authorized the release Of his half of the emails which Steven uploaded tour. And so now that we have all the emails

Starting point is 00:01:45 and more of Phillip's side from the AMA, let's break it all down. Also a quick note, the horror music or the evil things are happening music, that is not from us, that is from Steven's video. Steven shows his first email to Phillip. On February 2nd, I emailed him, "'I have some tough questions about the video

Starting point is 00:01:59 "'on addiction that KurtzGazette did. "'It's one of your most popular videos. "'I'm worried that some of the major claims in that video "'are vastly oversimplified, if not outright incorrect. Did Kurzgesagt conduct an independent fact-checking of Johan Hari's book before agreeing to this? He then goes on to paraphrase Philip's first email in response. Philip responds on February 2nd. Essentially, he's not thrilled about the interview or video idea. He was worried that the video might be a call-out. He basically says, hey, the addiction video wasn't perfect,

Starting point is 00:02:25 but I feel it was good enough. And then he asks, what is your video all about? But in the actual email, Philip doesn't really seem to say that. In fact, he directly says he would not make a video like that today for obvious reason. He acknowledges that it's not difficult to find critique of Hari's work nowadays,

Starting point is 00:02:38 but that it wasn't as common when the video was made. He then goes on to say that he received countless messages from people who told him the video helped them, and so he couldn't bring himself to take it down. And he concludes that email at the time by saying that while addiction is a complicated topic He believes the video can exist as a helpful opinion It's also important to note the criticisms of Hari here as well Hari's argument was that addiction is largely psychological and not chemical a theory that has received pushback from many experts there He asked if Philip was aware of the public scandal Hari had that threw his credibility into question and for some background there the scandal

Starting point is 00:03:04 Philip was referring to was back in 2011 when Hari was accused of plagiarizing other journalists' work and then anonymously editing Wikipedia pages to discredit people who criticized him. Stephen then goes on to describe the next two email interactions with Philip. Now, let's talk about what's in these two emails that aren't said in the video. Steven does explain his project, but he also challenges Phillip's claim

Starting point is 00:03:32 that criticisms of Hari's work weren't available at that time, saying, there are problems with Hari's work, not just looking back from 2019, but holes in his research that were easily available at the time. To which Phillip responded that he did confront Hari about the critique,

Starting point is 00:03:42 but he wasn't comfortable discussing it with Steven. This seemingly because he thought Steven's project was a gotcha video. Then after showing the email, Stephen launches into the main accusations he's making. And March 3rd was the day I found out what Philip had been really busy doing. Too busy to answer my questions. He had been busy making my video for me for his channel. He even did me the favor and interviewed himself by answering all my questions Stephen goes on to show clips from the video and how they correspond with the questions in his email

Starting point is 00:04:09 He asked if they independently fact-checked Hari's book and he shows this clip Unfortunately, we did not reach out to scientists or do extra research on the papers that were the basis for the videos thesis He then goes on to show clips from the video where it talks about Oversimplification and how it can be distorting and he gives us a brief clip where they say they deleted the addiction video. So today, we deleted them. But then if you watch the full video that was posted, they actually go in-depth explaining how they do their research, how the process has evolved over time. It's also not just about one video.

Starting point is 00:04:35 But it would be dishonest to say that we've always worked this way. Some older videos don't live up to the standards we set ourselves today. The two that annoy us the most are the refugee and addiction videos. But we never made anything like them again, and have been discussing how to deal with them for a long time. It doesn't help that both videos are loved by many people. We want to be proud of our work, and these two videos don't make us proud.

Starting point is 00:05:02 So today, we deleted them. Steven then accuses Philip of pre-empting his own research and stalling the interview so he could get ahead of the criticism. He says it's unfair for larger creators to steal content from smaller creators, which is how he's characterizing Philip addressing the issues from their past. He also goes on to say that there is no way this could be a coincidence. Firstly, he never once mentions to me that he had a video response in the works about the exact topic I was emailing him about. He then also reiterates that Philip seemed happy with the video being good enough

Starting point is 00:05:26 and didn't want to take it down. In his emails with me, he seemed happy with the addiction video and didn't want to take it down. Essentially, he knew the video was incorrect, but he said he felt it was good enough to keep up anyways. However, Philip refutes this in the AMA. When asked if he removed the addiction video

Starting point is 00:05:40 because of the coffee break video, Philip says that he had been working on a script regarding the addiction video and removing it for two years. Responding, it was absolutely one motivation for it, but I have been writing this script for the better part of two years, so it was not like we did it just because of him. And this is a claim that was also backed

Starting point is 00:05:52 by another massive creator by the name of CGP Grey, who says that Philip had been talking about this for essentially two years. And when asked why he didn't tell Stephen he was working on a video like this, he said he didn't want to give him more information because he felt Stephen's video was going to be a hostile take down.

Starting point is 00:06:04 Then Stephen talks about Johann Hari and gives us a clip. The addiction video was based on only one source that has amassed a lot of criticism over the years, that addiction is purely psychological and based on the life circumstances of the individual. Stephen explains that Hari doesn't believe that addiction is purely psychological and that the idea was only a simplification that came from condensing his book into a 15-minute TED talk.

Starting point is 00:06:24 He says if you look at Hari's book and any interview he's done He doesn't actually hold such a simplified view So because of this Steven says that it is clear that Philip never read Hari's book He then goes on to play a clip of a phone conversation He had with Hari where he essentially says no one believes that addiction is purely environmental or purely chemical and he accuses Philip of Scapegoating Hari and portraying him as crazy But Philip refutes this as well when asked if he did read Hari's book, Philip said, Of course I did. After reading it, I very enthusiastically emailed him and asked him to collaborate on the video. Continuing,

Starting point is 00:06:50 Yeah, he wrote most of the script, which is the reason why it has such a big overlap with his TED talk. And Philip's claim that Hari largely wrote the script is an important segue to the last thing that we're gonna talk about, which is that there were two emails that Stephen really didn't talk about in his video. In the last of Stephen's emails that he released, he says that he spoke to Hari and that his story changed considerably after their conversation, which makes sense as to why he starts defending Hari's work later in the video and doesn't discuss the controversies he claimed discredit Hari and prove that his work

Starting point is 00:07:12 could be considered false information. This despite the fact that the discussion of the factual basis of Hari's work was a huge talking point in the emails between Stephen and Philip. But it's the final email that we see that makes me personally not trust Stephen. The final email in this exchange

Starting point is 00:07:24 actually comes from Philip on February 21st And in that email he asked Steven to send him questions and he tells Steven he can talk with him next week and it was Steven who never responded to Phillips email asking him for questions or to try to schedule the interview a fact that Steven Admitted to in a reddit thread where he tried to explain why he didn't saying the reason I didn't reply immediately is one I was Polishing a video about comedy and two I was going to follow up after a trip in Lake, "'The reason I didn't reply immediately is, "'one, I was polishing a video about comedy, "'and two, I was going to follow up "'after a trip in Lake Tahoe,' adding, "'If I had known I should be in a hurry,

Starting point is 00:07:49 "'I would have been. "'Nothing suggested that. "'It seemed like something we were going to work out "'over a few weeks.'" And then two weeks after that email that Philip sent out that Stephen didn't respond to, Philip put out a video where he talked about the past video. So if Stephen during that time couldn't be troubled

Starting point is 00:08:01 to respond back to Philip, this person that he was trying to get information out of, couldn't be troubled to respond, how is that landing on he was trying to get information out couldn't be trouble to respond How is that landing on Phillips head? Also? I think it's interesting that Stephen says that Philip You know he was he was stalling seemingly in reference to Philip being busy with VidCon Educon and what appears to be rest after chemo and so ultimately to me this situation looks very much like you you have someone Stephen who is very angry and bitter that the target of his hit piece talked about the things in his past before he could. Because he decided to address this thing that if you looked into the comment section on those videos before they were removed, people had a lot of the same complaints and call-outs that you had

Starting point is 00:08:34 way before you. But because you hit on those same points and same questions, obviously it's something nefarious with Philip. No, to me this seems like another example of a mid-tier YouTuber trying to generate mob mentality and a lot of anger to take down someone bigger to pull in their own new subscribers. As far as if there was malicious intent from the get-go, I don't know. I feel like Steven may be feeling like he was screwed over, messed with his bias and his ability to work on something objectively. But it's really troubling to me because if Phillip wasn't so quick to respond to this video with an AMA, just being very transparent, yes, release all the emails, I'm gonna respond to as video with an AMA, just being very transparent. Yes, release all the emails.

Starting point is 00:09:05 I'm gonna respond to as many people as possible. This paraphrased version of the situation that Steven put out there, that could have spread even further. And one thing I know from personal experience on both ends of it is, ooh, once there is blood in the water, people will strike. And in a lot of different situations,

Starting point is 00:09:19 very unfortunately for the person being accused, truth doesn't matter. And I personally find it very funny that Steven, and one of his criticisms is that when you're trying to simplify something, right, make it more consumable, that that can lead to misinformation, and here we are. And actually, a note here,

Starting point is 00:09:32 Philip sent me a statement saying, "'I didn't stall him with malice in mind, "'but I also didn't motivate him to work faster. "'Of course I wanted to have the first word "'on my own failings. "'I've been working on and off on the video "'since early 2017, which made it extra frustrating. "'So I decided to finish the video and release it felt like the right thing to do

Starting point is 00:09:47 I never would have thought that he'd go this far and purposefully misrepresented our email conversation. It is sad this whole thing happened I really would have done the interview with him and adding I said anything else that is relevant in the AMA in our sub Oh and since one of the last things Steven aka coffee break did in his video was to kind of like cast doubt or discredit Anyone that's even remotely attached to Philip saying he co-owns the smart YouTube Mafia also in other places online saying those people have a COI a conflict of interest one of the reasons I wanted to Cover this story is I have no personal connection to Philip we include him in TIA But honestly if his company went to hell the whole thing burnt down Wouldn't change anything for me

Starting point is 00:10:18 So that's why I felt the need to do what Stephen said to do at the end of his video Please say something speak out so I did and also to co-opt that last line, be sure to share this video. Because you know, one of the unfortunate realities of the internet is the big claim usually gets a lot more traction than the reality of the situation. And as someone that hasn't gotten it right every single time, one, I think it's important

Starting point is 00:10:34 that we don't villainize people who go back, they look at what they've done, whether it be a long time ago or something recently, and they go, you know what? I evolved or I didn't look at the whole situation. I got things wrong. That's not up to my standards. And they fix it. If we do that, we incentivize people to double look at the whole situation, I got things wrong, that's not up to my standards, and they fix it.

Starting point is 00:10:45 If we do that, we incentivize people to double down on the wrong. And if you're expecting perfection from anyone that you consume content from, you will just eventually be disappointed. That is a guarantee. And two, I think it's important that when we realize a situation is not completely as it appeared to be in the beginning, we get the word out on the other side, the reality of the situation, what are the differences. But with that said, that's where I'm gonna end this story. That's the story as I've seen all the facts, my personal takeaway from it, and of course I pass the question off the situation, what are the differences? But with that said, that's where I'm gonna end this story. That's the story as I've seen all the facts, my personal takeaway from it,

Starting point is 00:11:07 and of course I pass the question off to you, what are your thoughts around this? Who's in the right, who's in the wrong? Do you see this as misrepresentation, trying to get mob mentality to boost you? Any and all thoughts, I'd love to hear from you in those comments down below. But then, oh wow, wow, oh wow,

Starting point is 00:11:20 let's talk about this insane story that dropped yesterday. If you didn't see yesterday, the Department of Justice indicted 50 people people including TV stars and other prominent wealthy figures for participating in a bribery scam to get students into elite colleges and of those indicted 33 are parents of high school students who paid anywhere from 15,000 to 500,000 dollars to get their children into colleges with Andrew Lelling a US attorney calling the parents involved a catalog of wealth and privilege But it wasn't just limited to parents. Others indicted included college coaches, exam proctors, and college administrators.

Starting point is 00:11:47 And reportedly the colleges targeted by this scam included Yale, UCLA, the University of Southern California, Stanford, and Georgetown among others. The indictment states that the scam started back in 2011 and the FBI dubbed their investigation into this Operation Varsity Blues. I feel like Billy Bob would rate that name a 10. A 10, a fucking 10.

Starting point is 00:12:04 But reportedly the man behind the operation is William Rick Singer who owned a business called Edge College and Career Network and he created a nonprofit that he called the Key Worldwide Foundation. And reportedly parents would pay him with money that was marked as charitable donations to cheat on the child's SAT or ACT scores or to use connections to Division 1 athletics to fake their child as a sports recruit regardless of whether or not their child actually played sports. According to the indictment, he described what he did as making a side door into college admissions. On a phone call, he reportedly said, Okay, so who we are, what we do is we help the wealthiest families in the U.S. get their kids into school. There is a front door, which means you get in on your own.

Starting point is 00:12:37 The back door is through institutional advancement, which is ten times as much money. And I've created this side door in. Because the back door, when you go through institutional advancement, as you know, everybody's got a friend of a friend who knows somebody who knows somebody, but there's no guarantee. Wow, this just sounds like all my dad's friends who just ran really sketchy scams. Like this sounds like a thing that comes from someone

Starting point is 00:12:53 named Rick Singer. But he goes on to say, they're just gonna give you a second look. My family's want a guarantee. So if you said to me, here's our grades, here's our scores, here's our ability, and we want to go to X school, and you give me one or two schools

Starting point is 00:13:03 and then I'll go after those schools and try to get a guarantee done. And singer allegedly made 25 million dollars from all of this But in not happy fun time news for him He was charged with racketeering money laundering tax evasion and obstruction of justice and just yesterday he pleaded guilty to those counts So how exactly did these scams work? Well, it actually gets pretty complicated So to break it down We're gonna start with cheating on the entrance exam According to the indictment singer would do this by bribing college entrance exam administrators to allow a third party to facilitate cheating on college entrance exams in some cases by posing as the actual students and in others by providing students with answers during the exams or by correcting

Starting point is 00:13:37 their answers after they had completed the exams parents would pay anywhere from $15,000 to $75,000 per test and they would also say that their child had a learning disability, so they could take the test privately, either in West Hollywood or Houston, in centers that Singer claimed to have control of. And as far as that third party hired to take the exam, reportedly that was a man named Mark Rydell.

Starting point is 00:13:54 Rydell is a director of college exam preparation at IMG Academy in Florida, although he has been suspended from this role as a result of the indictment. That's also probably the least of his worries, as he's also been charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Starting point is 00:14:08 Additionally, two exam administrators who were bribed to allow him to take the test are also being charged with conspiracy to commit racketeering. Also among the clients who allegedly paid for all of this, you had actress Felicity Huffman. She is said to have paid $15,000 to have one of her daughters receive a 1420 on the SAT.

Starting point is 00:14:22 And so she is being charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud. However, her husband actor William H. Macy, who knew about the bribes via a phone call, according to the indictment, is not being charged. Although before we jump into more names, we should jump into the fake athletics recruiting. While college coaches don't get to single-handedly admit

Starting point is 00:14:36 students into schools, they can eye particular students as potential recruits, which has a great influence on their admissions. Singer would bribe college coaches to quote, "'designate applicants as purported athletic recruits "'regardless of their athletic ability.'" So basically, you'd have these coaches telling admissions the client's children are all-star athletes,

Starting point is 00:14:51 they're very important, even though they didn't play the sport in question. Singer even reportedly would take stock photos of someone playing a sport and edit the student's face onto the photo to make it look like they were an athlete. At this point, you hear that and you go, "'Well, there's no way the kids didn't know.'" Well, in a piece from the indictment,

Starting point is 00:15:05 which is a conversation between Singer and Elizabeth Kimmel, who is a mother who owns a media company, we see the lengths that some parents went to, not only to get their kids into school, but to keep that fact from them. With Elizabeth Kimmel saying, "'So my son and I just got back from USC orientation. "'It went great.

Starting point is 00:15:18 "'The only kind of glitch was, and I, he didn't, "'my son didn't tell me this at the time. "'But yesterday when he went to meet with his advisor, "'he stayed after a little bit and the, apparently the advisor said something to the effect of, oh, so you're a track athlete. And my son said no, cause my son has no idea and that's what,

Starting point is 00:15:31 the way we want to keep it. And you know, this aspect of the scandal involves even more big names. You had Lori Loughlin who played Aunt Becky on Full House, her husband Massimo Giannulli, who was a prominent fashion designer, paying half a million dollars for their two daughters to be recruited to the crew team at USC,

Starting point is 00:15:44 even though neither of their daughters actually rode crew. And also of note here, part of the reason that there has been so much focus on these two daughters isn't just because Aunt Becky, isn't just because of the amount of money, but also because one of their daughters is an influencer and YouTuber by the name of Olivia Jade, who has used her college student status

Starting point is 00:15:58 in paid promotions on her Instagram. And to make matters worse for her, people have found a video where she seems incredibly ungrateful for this college experience at USC, which according to these reports, she shouldn't even have. I know that people have pointed out is that back in August, she posted a video where she claimed she didn't care about academics and that she only goes to college for parties. Um, but I do want the experience of like game days, partying. I don't really care about school, as you guys all know.

Starting point is 00:16:20 But also back in 2018, before this whole news news situation she did post an apology video I just genuinely want to say I'm sorry for anyone I've offended by saying that I know that it's a privilege and it's a blessing and I'm Really grateful But now of course many of the comments on both of those videos Reference the bribes that got her into USC to begin with right top comments like you're just a spoiled brat that cheated into college when Others had to actually work hard to get in can you do a video too about how your parents paid 500k to scam your way into USC? Also how your SAT score and sports profile is fake?

Starting point is 00:16:47 And as you can likely tell, one of the big things is that they felt that she stole a spot from a deserving, qualified student. Right, people saying it is just another example of ungrateful rich people screwing over your everyday Joe. And along with all of this, around Olivia Jade, you even have people asking brands to drop their ties with her.

Starting point is 00:17:01 And as far as Olivia's reaction to all of this, right now we don't know. She hasn't posted anything to YouTube, Twitter, or Instagram since this whole thing has unfolded and honestly given that it is a legal Situation I think that's probably the smartest move Yeah, it's gonna be very interesting to see how this situation unfolds what other information comes out I mean looking through the evidence for these parents It is damning like the only way some of this could be even more Transparently a crime is if they said yes yes, I would like to do the crime please.

Starting point is 00:17:25 Yes, that's correct, I'd like two full crimes with the option for a third crime on the side. But also, I think this situation highlights part of a problem with college. I mean, in the past we talked about the legacy issue at colleges, something that is very briefly mentioned here is the donations to the school, right, that backdoor.

Starting point is 00:17:39 To such bullshit, I mean, that is very transparently paying so that someone can get in despite whether they were good or bad. And so it kind of appears that people that wanted to take advantage of a busted school system But on a budget they're the ones that are getting hit and understand. I'm not saying what they did is okay I think that they should be properly punished, but I think we need to look at this as a full situation But that is where I'm gonna end it of course I'd love to know your thoughts on it regarding the the parents the kids really just the story in general

Starting point is 00:18:03 I'd love to hear from you in those comments down below. And that's where we're going to end today's show. And remember, if you liked this video, hit us with a like, share the video. Also, if you're new here, be sure to hit that subscribe button. Definitely click that bell to turn on notifications. Also, if you missed the last Philip DeFranco show

Starting point is 00:18:16 or the Extra Morning News Deep Dive, you wanna catch up on those, 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.

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The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 3.13 The Ridiculously Bitter Kurzgesagt Hit Piece, & Olivia Jade College Cheating Scandal

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