The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 3.7 "HE’S GOING TO KILL HIM!" Matt Rife Accusations, Jake Paul, Mike Tyson, Billie Eilish & Today’s News

Episode Date: March 7, 2024

I'm part of the problem honestly... Visit https://www.justmeats.com/discount/Defranco and use code DEFRANCO to get  $15 off your first purchase today. Get an exclusive NordVPN deal here https://nordvpn.com/phillyd It's risk-free with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee!   Get your https://BeautifulBastard.com gear. The comfiest hoodie you’ll ever own and awesome tees, long sleeves, and crews   –✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩ – 00:00 - Jake Paul and Mike Tyson to Fight Live on Netflix 02:12 - Barbenheimer Craze Set to Boost Oscars Betting 05:05 - Matt Rife “Hollywood Exec” Claim Goes Viral  07:25 - House Panel Approves Bill Banning TikTok from U.S. App Stores 10:53 - Sponsored by Just Meats 12:03 - Apple Shuts Down Epic Games’ Developer Account 14:51 - Maine Attacker Confirmed to Have Brain Injury 16:39 - Alabama Governor Gives Legal Protection to IVF Providers & Patients 19:27 - Sponsored by NordVPN 20:31 - Bans on Shark Finning Have Backfired With More Sharks Killed Now Than Before 24:53 - Your Thoughts on Yesterday’s Stories ——————————   Produced by: Cory Ray Edited by: James Girardier, Maxwell Enright, Julie Goldberg, Christian Meeks Art Department: William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Brian Espinoza, Lili Stenn, Maddie Crichton, Star Pralle, Chris Tolve Associate Producer on Shark Finning: Chris Tolve   ———————————— #DeFranco #MattRife #TikTok ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sup, you beautiful bastards. You're watching the Philip DeFranco Show, and we got a lot of news to talk about today. So hit that like button to let YouTube know you want more of these daily dives into the news, and let's just jump into it. Starting with... This is the dumbest, smartest, most disgusting thing I've seen in entertainment, and I'm part of the problem. It was just announced today, Jake Paul is gonna be fighting Mike Tyson. Yes, really. 57-year-old Mike Tyson. Yes, really. 57-year-old Mike Tyson. Jake Paul lost one fight and he went right back to fighting people you'd never heard of and people about to be able to get social security. But it's reportedly going down on July 20th at the 80,000-seat AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

And the whole thing will be streamed live exclusively on Netflix. What an absolute freak show this is that I am also going to watch because I am part of the problem. I already have a Netflix subscription. Of course, I'm going to watch the dumpster fire train wreck. This event is notable not only because it's just the weirdest thing, the former best pound for pound fighter in the world going against a YouTube return boxer that actually has some genuine skill, but not to the point that he like yaps about. But also this is big for the entertainment space because it shows even more progress for Netflix, for them jumping into the live streaming space. Recently announcing that they were signing a decade-long $5 billion deal with the WWE back in January.

Also live streaming comedy award shows, right? They just recently did SAG Awards. And I think even Jake Paul knows what a just stupid freak show this is. But then posting this video of Mike Tyson in the caption, He's the greatest heavyweight of all time. The most vicious KO artist ever. But I'm younger. I'm faster. I'm going to be working my ass off to get stronger. A member of my team sent me this video that Mike's coach put up two weeks ago and asked me if I'm

sure that I want to do this. Yes. Yes, I do. Heavyweight. That video is four years old, Jake. The most recent video I saw of Mike Tyson, he was holding a cane. And it doesn't matter when that video is from because he was holding a cane. That's the man you're going to be fighting. Again, none of that is going to change the fact that this may end up actually being one of the biggest boxing events in history. Well, you have things like Pacquiao and Mayweather, right? 4.6 million pay-per-view buys. Netflix has over 260 million subscribers and it's going to be free for people already paying for it. Meanwhile, we're all going to be watching this thing like when we watch someone like cross the Grand Canyon or jump like the Red Bull thing, jumping from space, just watching with dark interest, wondering if we're about to watch someone die. And then when

you think of people gambling, you might be thinking of like a bunch of dude bros at a Buffalo Wild Wing staring at like one of a billion TVs just fucking sweating, saying, please, for the love of God, we could still win this thing. I just need Patrick Mahomes to fumble, Greg McDinglefuck to get two more interceptions, and for some reason, Travis Kelsey to kick a field goal. I know there's only 42 seconds left in the game, but we still got this. But here's the thing. As more and more plays is legalized and gambling itself gets more mainstream, the official sportsbooks are trying to bring in even more people and people that don't normally bet.

And while even the non-degenerates out there are aware of sports betting, are you familiar with award show betting? Because thanks to this year specifically, more and more people are. Especially as that whole Barbenheimer craze has the potential to fuel gambling on the results of the Oscars. Right, especially because it's not every year that two of the primary best picture contenders were box office hits seen by tons of people. And so this has spiked interest, especially as Oscars gambling has increasingly been allowed in a handful of states. With gambling laws in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Michigan, Indiana, Arizona, Kansas, and Louisiana, all allowing people to place bets on the show. Notably not on that list is California, where the show is held. Side note, good

luck to Maddie on my team. She, in my experience, is not a bragger, but she will not shut the hell up about how she has never lost an Oscar ballot contest in her life. But to Maddie, who I imagine is going to be on a flight to Kansas this weekend, and to others, I just warn you, don't fall into the gambler fallacy. There's always a first time to lose, and just because you've lost several times before doesn't mean you're due. But as far as why some states don't allow Oscars betting, it's because the Oscars have a predetermined outcome.

And some states also bar these kinds of events because information can leak. But in the states that do allow it, you can bet on things like if you think Oppenheimer's gonna win Best Picture, or Billie Eilish is gonna win Best Original Song, you can take guesses about the acting races. And that even includes niche categories like best animated short or best sound.

And then for you Canadian beautiful bastards, you can even bet on what Barbie outfit Margot Robbie is going to wear to the show. Or if someone fucking trips on stage while accepting an award. You know, part of the reason all of this is happening is because, yeah, it can be advantageous to both casinos and gambling platforms, but also the Oscars themselves. With Johnny Avello, the director of race and sports operations at DraftKings, explaining to Reuters that the Oscars tend to see more women throwing their money on the line. Explaining, they say, I don't want to bet on football,

but now you're talking about Academy Awards and now you're in my wheelhouse. So that's also why they believe that there's going to be higher viewership, higher engagement to watch the show, which is why you have Bill Sparrows, a senior betting analyst for bookies.com, telling Variety that ABC and the Academy should actually lean into the gambling

as an engagement strategy, explaining that they've seen it boost sports viewership and it could actually boost Oscars interest, saying the NFL in particular is benefiting from the gambling that keeps people interested in games that aren't necessarily close. In those situations, the league is benefiting directly from sports betting revenues, and it's benefiting indirectly from sports betting because bettors are watching games until they end. The reason sports leagues and TV platforms are embracing gambling is that it increases eyeballs on screens. I will say I would genuinely be surprised if the Oscars embraced this. I think it's just more likely that they wouldn't denounce it or they would just not talk about it. But who knows what will actually happen? Because, you know,

if I could actually tell the future, I'd probably gamble more. Since I can't, I'll stick to my day job and pass the question off to you. What are your thoughts here? And then, this Matt Rife situation's a very strange one, because it's either a ridiculous engagement bait, or just defamation, or outing a sexual assault victim. Because if you logged onto Twitter recently, you might have seen Matt Rife trending, with a lot of it being jokes and memes. And that's because of this clip from someone named Nima Yamini has gone viral. And in it, he claims he was once an up-and-coming stand-up comic, and he was invited to a meeting with Hollywood executives with another comedian, saying that they were both offered a deal at online fame. But the only way to receive the contract was by

sucking both of the execs off. I immediately got up and walked to the door. But before I could even exit, the other comedian was sucking both of their simultaneously. That guy's name was Matt Rife. And that's Alpha King rule number 799. Just because someone is more famous than you, it doesn't mean they're better. They might just be gayer. Now it's hard to tell when exactly that video's from,

but it went ultra viral last night. You know, with this, you know, the chances that this is a joke, or at least an attempt at one, or some attempt at engagement bait, it's incredibly high. Which is exactly why I think this video took off so big. With the internet now overflowing with Matt Rife blowjob jokes. As far as who this Nima guy is, he seems to be an online personality in like the alpha male space. Labeling his content as both inspiration and satire. As far as where the bit starts and ends, who knows? But very little of that matters because a lot of people are just running with the Matt Rife claim. Though this also has you had tons of people condemning that clip. Saying, I don't know much about Matt Rife, but this story is a clear example of you can say anything about somebody on social media and it

will automatically be believed. Right? Right? Saying the whole story is a load of bullshit. But then people also saying, hey, let's say this story is true. You had two Hollywood execs asking for sexual favors in return for opportunities. You're literally describing a crime. You're talking about what Harvey Weinstein did and what so many others have done. And if that was true, you'd be outing a victim. And with that, people also saying the fact that he's talked about Matt Reif, but then didn't name the execs. One, it makes it less believable.

And two, if this was something that happened, he only named the victim and not the people that did a crime. But no matter how you spun it, you had a lot of people saying the video was gross. And so, of course, with any aspect of the story, I'd love to know your thoughts. But I think like the most concerning aspect of all this to me is just the sheer number of people that will blindly believe something because they just want to. No evidence, just some fucking random guys saying a bunch of random words. And even if not the majority, a huge chunk of people were like, yeah, that makes sense. That must be true.

Just crazy. And then the government is now looking to ban TikTok for like the fifth time, but here's the deal. This time it is probably for real. All thanks to this new bipartisan bill called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. And it would create a process for the president to identify certain social media applications that are under the control of foreign adversaries. And then once an app is determined to be a risk, it would be banned from app stores and web hosting services unless it severed ties with its parent company in the next 180 days. So essentially, TikTok would need to sell itself to another company or break away entirely from ByteDance. Otherwise, they would be banned. One of the sponsors of this bill,

Mike Gallagher, saying, this is my message to TikTok. Break up with the Chinese Communist Party or lose access to your American users. America's foremost adversary has no business controlling a dominant media platform in the United States. It's expected to make its way out of the Energy and Commerce Committee today and be sent to the House floor for a future vote. And very notably, it got a very powerful endorsement, the White House, with them telling reporters we would want to see this bill get done so it can get to the president's desk. Though adding, they don't see this as a ban on TikTok. Instead saying that this is about making sure that companies aren't owned by countries that want to do us harm. Right? And this is Congress's worry that the Chinese government could use TikTok to access Americans' personal data as well as show them videos that could influence their views on various issues.

And with all this, you have TikTok not taking this lightly. Just a quick sidebar before we get to TikTok's response. TikTok is technically lying when they call this bill an outright ban. As was mentioned, they can avoid a ban by selling. But this, as we've seen TikTok go on the offensive by quote tweeting several US officials and saying, this bill is an outright ban of TikTok no matter how much the authors try to disguise it. This legislation will trample the first amendment rights

of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs. And today they actually sent a notification to their users telling them, Congress is planning a total ban of TikTok. Speak up now before your government strips 170 million Americans of their constitutional right

to free expression. With then directing users to put in their zip code and then it has them call their representatives. Or so you have TikTok rallying their users, it's creating havoc on Capitol Hill. Congressional offices being bombarded with calls from users and one house GOP staff are telling Politico, it's so, so bad.

Our phones have not stopped ringing. There are teenagers and old people saying they spend their whole day on the app and we can't take it away. With some staffers saying they're easily going to get over a thousand calls today and that some users are being rude, using vulgar names, which I also just, I want to note here, the people who are answering phones at your congressional offices, they are not your Congress people. They are the courier. They are the scribe. You're yelling at the cashier about the prices. I understand these people are writing down your concerns so your representative can read them.

There is no reason to be absolutely brutal to these working class people. Like, yes, you are free to express your frustrations. Just understand who you're actually talking to here. That said, with this whole situation, we saw Mike Gallagher hitting back at TikTok's message, saying if you actually read the bill, it's not a ban, it's a divestiture. And adding that the bill puts the decision squarely in the hands of TikTok to sever their relationship with the Chinese Communist Party. With that, adding that if they do, they'll survive.

And what's also interesting is TikTok's move today may have actually backfired because one well-connected Republican actually told Politico that this is, quote, incensing members who are on the fence and are now leaning towards voting for Gallagher's bill. And also a Democratic senior staffer saying it seems to be backfiring with Democratic members as well. With what seems to be an increasing number of people saying what TikTok did here, it feels like a CCP bullying tactic. And if these sources are telling it like it is, they may actually be accelerating their departure either from ByteDance or the United States. But as far as how this is actually going to play out, we're going to have to wait and see. Though again, the bill right now does have widespread support across Congress and it has the support of the White House. And actually, just last second update

as we were uploading today's show, the Bill just passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee with a 50 to 0 unanimous vote. So it appears that TikTok's tactics, they either didn't work or they completely backfired. We now have Steve Scalise saying he's putting the bill on the floor soon. And then raise your hand if having premium grass fed beef with no artificial colors or flavors, pre-seasoned and pre-cooked delivered to your door sounds good. At least 1,700 of you just raised your hands and y'all, this is a video. I can't see you, but I love your passion. Because I'm talking about quality meat that you can have ready to feed you

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other deals on the site. Go check it out. And then Apple just made an Epic move, pun intended, right? Because as you probably know, Apple and Epic Games have been at each other's throats. And that fight has only escalated even more with the news that Apple effectively blocked Epic from making its own marketplace on iOS, right? Because for years now, Epic hasn't had access to Apple's ecosystem. And that, of course, due to their efforts to try to circumvent the App Store and its fees, which infamously sparked a massive set of lawsuits all over the world. However, a key thing is that in the EU, things fundamentally changed after the Digital Markets Act was passed, with the DMA going into effect today and forcing Apple to let third party App Stores be available for download. Although notably, Apple's compliance was already

off to a rocky start earlier this year when Apple published how it was going to comply with the Act. One key provision was that it still has to approve all apps for iOS, albeit with less scrutiny than App Store only apps. And the third party App Stores themselves also need to get approved, which led to Epic CEO Tim Sweeney pointing out, make a block Epic from launching the Epic Games Store and distributing Fortnite through it, for example, or block Microsoft, Valve, good old games, or new entrants. He also went on with pretty much every other decent-sized developer to slam Apple's new fee structure. The baseline tax Apple imposed generally went down from 30% to 17% on in-app purchases. But if you're downloaded more than a million times, then you need to pay 54 cents per download per year.

Which, if that sounds kind of familiar to you, I mean, it's pretty similar to that whole Unity fiasco we covered. However, it notably doesn't take a fee from those using third-party app stores unless they want to use Apple's payment processing system. Which case, it's an extra 3%. And honestly, it just gets way more complicated from there. The main point is that developers as a whole were not happy with the change. And in the case of Epic specifically, they were especially unhappy and called it malicious compliance. However, despite all the complaining, Epic said that it was still going to comply with them. And just go ahead and get a developer account up in Sweden to publish its own iOS app store today.

That is until Apple killed that account. With them saying that Epic was, quote, verifiably untrustworthy. With Epic seemingly getting that label because after complaining so much, they got a letter from Apple's Phil Schiller asking for written assurance that Epic Games would honor its commitment, citing all of Epic's CEO's public comments criticizing Apple and the fact that Epic has breached the 2020 contract

that set off the whole saga. Though to that, Sweeney answered, Epic and its subsidiaries are acting in good faith and will comply with all terms of current and future agreements with Apple and will be glad to provide Apple with any specific further assurances on the topic that you'd like. But that was apparently not enough, and it means

that Epic is back to square one, and it doesn't have access to iOS users. So in a tweet, we saw Epic say, this is a serious violation of the EU's digital market set. We will continue to fight to get back on iOS. And the big thing is, it's looking like the EU might agree, with regulators demanding answers from Apple and a spokesperson for the European Commission saying, we are also evaluating whether Apple's actions raise doubts on their compliance with the Digital Services Act and the With regulators demanding answers from Apple and a spokesperson for the European Commission saying, They want to know if Apple violated other EU regulations that prevent companies from unilaterally closing accounts without cause and ignored requirements that warnings must be sent before closing accounts. But all in all, it's going to be very interesting to see how this plays out. Does this blow up an apple's face? Does Epic actually stay kicked out? Or is all of this kind of a speed bump in Fortnite returning to iOS? Only time will tell. And then, so many of you will remember, we did that deep dive on how

our own soldiers are getting brain damage from using their own weapons. And while that has affected so many of our troops, we talked about the potential connection this may have to the Lewiston, Maine shooting. Which if you don't remember the specifics, back in October, a gunman opened fire at a bowling alley in a bar in Lewiston, Maine, killing 18 people, including kids. With the shooter then taking his own life. And eventually, we saw the state chief medical examiner order a post-mortem study on his brain. Because reportedly, he had been hearing voices and was involuntarily committed during the summer before the shooting. And that wasn't long after he began wearing hearing aids at just 39 years old. With this then later finding out that he had actually worked for years as an instructor at an army hand grenade training range,

where notably he was exposed to thousands and thousands of blasts. And that is there's growing evidence that weapons like grenades, rocket launchers, tanks, and artillery produce a concussive shockwave that can damage soldiers' brains. That's why the shooter's brain was shipped over to the Boston University CTE Center for examination.

And today we saw the shooter's family putting out a press release with a statement from the center's director. And her findings are about as conclusive as we're likely going to get in this case. But they're saying flat out that the shooter had evidence of traumatic brain injury. And going on to detail, in the white matter, the nerve fibers that allow for communication between different areas of the brain, there was significant degeneration, axonal and myelin loss, inflammation, and small blood vessel injury. These findings align with

our previous studies on the effects of blast injury in humans and experimental models. Well, I cannot say with certainty that these pathological findings underlie the shooter's behavioral changes in the last 10 months of life, based on our previous work, brain injury likely played a role in his symptoms. And with all this, you have the family adding that they released the results of this study to ensure that similar tragedies never happen again. So now, like it has been, the ball's in the Pentagon's court. And we'll have to wait to see if this new information, along with, I mean, all the other stuff we talked about, I'll link to our deep dive in the description, we'll have to wait to see if they new information, along with, I mean, all the other stuff we talked about, I'll link to our deep dive in the description. We'll have to wait to see if they will do anything meaningful to protect our service members.

Because while horrible tragedies like this get a lot of the spotlight, this is a far-reaching problem affecting far too many people. And unless something changes, there appears to be no end in sight to the damage that's going to be done. And then Alabama just took a huge step toward protecting IVF treatments. And no, you didn't enter the twilight zone, though it is kind of like a firefighter putting out a fire that they started. Because notably, we're in this situation because Alabama's conservative Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are children, which pretty much immediately resulted in several clinics halting all IVF treatments

and an embryo shipping firm pausing business in the state. But then that brings us to yesterday, where the Republican governor, Kay Ivey, signed a bill passed with the Republican support in the legislature, which broadly shielded providers and patients from legal liability for embryos that are damaged or destroyed. And they're also giving criminal immunity to manufacturers of goods used to facilitate IVF or the transport of embryos. So notably, they do not get civil immunity, which was only limited so that damages can't exceed the price paid for the impacted in vitro cycle. While with this, you had many families and couples celebrating the state government's decision, you had others saying it does not go nearly as far as it needs to.

Noting that the new law doesn't challenge the court's reasoning that frozen embryos are children. As well as pointing out that some of the language is vague, especially around defining what counts as an IVF treatment, creating a legal gray area. Also notably of the bill's sponsors insisting this is only a temporary fix meant to help the women left in limbo by the court's decision. So we may see more legislation later down the line that people don't like as much. But either way, some of the immediate news is that two clinics, including the University of Alabama at Birmingham, have reportedly planned to resume IVF treatments. One provider telling NBC yesterday, we have women who have been waiting for this bill to pass and in fact,

anticipating embryo transfers as soon as tomorrow or Friday. Now with this, if you're surprised that the Republicans did this, you may be more surprised that Ivy actually justified this in conservative terms, saying from protecting the unborn to supporting IVF, Alabama is proud we are a pro-life, pro-family state. And that's actually not too shocking when you consider kind of the divide the Alabama Supreme Court ruling caused in the GOP. I mean, according to an Axios-Ipsos poll,

Republicans were asked, do you support this or are you against this? Specifically, the idea that embryos are children, that those who destroy them can be held legally responsible, they were split 49% to 49%. In an Economist YouGov poll, which the Washington Post explained, noted that IVF creates embryos that are not used before asking whether unimplanted embryos should be considered children. With Republicans, 31% said they were children, 32% said they were not, and more than one-third were undecided. And when it came to just IVF in general, only 14% of Republicans said that it was morally wrong. So it wasn't the most surprising when numerous lawmakers eventually came out in support of IVF, not the least of whom was

Donald Trump. And the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the group tasked with electing Republicans to the Senate, actually urged candidates to support the procedure. But still, not everyone's on board. In other states like Tennessee, you actually had a Democrat proposing a bill that would have explicitly protected contraception and IVF, exempting both from the state's abortion ban. But there you had Republicans on the Population Health Subcommittee shooting down the measure on Tuesday, arguing that it's unnecessary because there's no law or proposed law threatening contraception or IVF in the state, to which the Democrat countered, yeah, there wasn't a law in Alabama before either, and saying that the situation there has set the precedent that states need to take this step. But all in all,

after we talk about all the polling, after we talk about firefighters putting out the fires that they started, the big headline today is that the women in Alabama who are seeking IVF can breathe a sigh of relief. And then just in case you missed this message earlier in like the last month, the travel season ramping up. I want you all to be aware of some things when you're booking travel, like when you're looking for the best rates on flights, hotel rooms, rental cars, all that companies can actually increase prices for returning website visitors, hoping that you'll purchase out of fear that you're going to continue seeing the prices go up. Hotels or airlines can also offer cheaper tickets to people in their home country. Alternatively, prices spike when interest suddenly increases.

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free that's nordvpn.com slash philly d the best deal on the internet and it is risk-free with nord's 30-day money-back guarantee and then if you ask people what animal would you not mind going extinct they might have a few top picks this thing this thing for me personally this thing fuck mosquitoes and i know i'm not alone we literally call people we don't like blood suckers but something that wouldn't be on my list are the severely misunderstood majestic ocean dwellers known as sharks. But sadly, for them, I don't have a say in it and they're dying. Because as I'm filming this today, over a third of shark species are endangered and the numbers are quickly declining, which is incredibly bad because they've been here for over 400 million years. So they're

vital to the oceans. With, for example, Dr. Boris Worm, a certified shark expert explaining to the New York Times, all ecosystems in the ocean have evolved with sharks in them because they are so ancient. When we take sharks out of the ecosystem, we find that the stability of the system is compromised. And so with this, you know, if we're going to talk about why these things are disappearing, we need to do a deep dive into the shark tree. Because if you haven't looked into it, you might not expect sharks to be a big target of the commercial fishing industry. I mean, their meat is generally considered low value, but there is one part of them that fetches some of the highest prices for seafood in the world. They're fins. Because depending on the market, they could go

for hundreds or even thousands of dollars a pound. And that's because they're used in a very popular Chinese soup, shark fin soup, a soup that can go for over $200 a bowl in Asian markets. And what makes all of this actually even more stunning is that the fin itself is actually pretty much flavorless. Really bizarre. I mean really bizarre. Because it actually tastes of nothing. The broth's delicious. Pretty good. But it could have anything in there.

It could have chicken, sweet corn, it could have duck in there. So it's only real purpose is to like add a chewy gelatinous texture while also I guess showing off the wealth of the person eating it. And I mean there's a lot of history here. Shark fin soup actually dates all the way back to the Ming dynasty, when you had emperors eating it essentially to flex. It was meant to symbolize their status and power over the most dangerous predators. And for centuries, it remained a luxury served at weddings, banquets, and other ceremonies for the upper crust of Chinese society. But then the 1980s came. After China liberalized its economy, you had this growing middle class. And all of a sudden, they were able to afford the soup

too. So then to meet the global demand, the global fishing industry went hunting for sharks, like a fucking lot of them. With ocean-going sharks actually declining by more than 70% in just the past half century. And when they're caught, the fishers just slice off the fins and toss this still living animal back into the water, which for them, right, it's very efficient. They get to keep the most valuable part of the shark while leaving open more space in the freezer for other high value meat like sword fish and tuna. It's extremely wasteful and even more cruel. But also as the deputy director of wildlife at Humane Society International explains, saying shark finning is like cutting off your limbs

and leaving you to bleed to death. We don't know how most of them die, but you can guess they probably either bleed to death or suffocate because they can't swim, so they're not getting oxygen. So partly for this reason and partly to conserve sharks, governments began to ban or at least limit finning in the 1990s.

And actually as of today, 70% of maritime jurisdictions have regulations to stop finning or protect sharks. But this also, as we're now learning that many of those policies not only didn't work, they may have actually even killed more sharks, which sounds crazy, but let me explain. A study published back in January took the data on shark fishing mortality and cross-referenced it with new laws to see if there's any correlation. And it found that while fishers killed an estimated 76 million sharks in 2012, by 2017, the death toll jumped to over 80 million, with almost a third of them counted as threatened species.

Which also, when you consider that sharks kill maybe a dozen humans a year, it's kind of funny that in pop culture, we're so fucking scared of them. You're gonna need a bigger boat. But the reason why the number's gone up is a little counterintuitive. One of the most common laws requires fishers to bring the entire shark back to land instead of just the fin. And to be sure, those laws appear to have worked, despite, of course, some people continuing to illegally cut off just the fins.

But in another way, it also backfired, because the researchers suspect that the laws inadvertently created new markets for shark meat, oil, and cartilage. Because the fishers are like, well, if we're gonna have to bring back the whole damn shark, we might as well sell it. Right, so even where the fin trade itself was outright banned,

now some fishers just toss the fins and bring the rest of the shark to the market. And so as a result, the shark fishing trade has shifted from east to west. With China, of course, yes, still grabbing a large share, but other countries topping the import-export rankings like Spain, Portugal, and Brazil. So now the new shark mortality hotspots

are off the Atlantic coast of the Americas, near West Africa and the Indian Ocean, and the waters of Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, and the Philippines. And in countries like Brazil, right, one of the top importers, most people don't actually even know that they're eating shark

because shops sell it under a different name. Though this is countries where shark fishing as a whole, not just the fin trade, was regulated, the study did find that mortality there did decline. And in small island nations like the Bahamas and the Maldives, which actually pioneered shark sanctuaries, their population numbers came out on top. Also, you have experts recommending banning the use of certain fishing gear, such as gill nets and trawls. And while overfishing is the main factor driving sharks into extinction, it's not the only one, right? Because you have other things like climate change, pollution, and habitat loss.

And as usual with these environmental stories, we find ourselves in this loop. Likely to save the sharks, we need to save the earth. But to save the earth, it would help to save the sharks. And then finally today, we have yesterday. Today, we dive into those comments to see what y'all had to say. And as I always love to see, there was a lot of conversation around our deep dive into building, right? Energy efficiency and builders and massive companies not wanting to go along with that. So we had some of you beautiful bastards like Emily Helms saying, former building permit tech here, home builders are not on your side. Good thorough inspectors are your friends. Builders absolutely will cut any corners they think they can get away with. And then giving the example, Utah laws were updated

in 2023 so that while insulation is required, cities cannot demand an insulation inspection. I'm 10,000% confident this means builders will skip as much insulation as they think they can get away with. I've seen builders do all sorts of shady things. Support your city building inspectors. As well as Amelie Sanchez sharing, building codes 100% need to be updated, not only for energy efficiency, but also for structure. I have moved three times in the last five years, each to a different state. As a renter, these new buildings are being built quickly, but are very poor construction. One place I lived was Panama City Beach, which was destroyed by Hurricane Michael. Five years later, they've rebuilt with cheap structures selling for a small fortune. This year, we had a tornado and it destroyed almost half the homes

in its path. And there was some debate how this tornado shouldn't have caused as much destruction. It just shows how the market is building cheap and trying to cash in where they can. And finally, for the story offlineable saying, I did a bunch of research into building out a van for mobile living. The first thing I discovered was how incredibly inefficient and wasteful household appliances and infrastructure are. Bridges are commonly built with the compressors on the bottom, hot air rises and not enough insulation. Buildings aren't insulated enough in general, leading to noise pollution, no noise privacy, and more expensive heat and cooling costs. Fossils and shower heads use multiple gallons of water per minute for the default fittings rather

than cheap water conserving alternatives. And saying until laws force builders to stop using cheap crap to build and design our homes, things will remain the same or even get worse. And the only thing I can really add to that is to offlineable, I agree with everything you said, except do not fuck with my water pressure. If it conserves water and I still have good water pressure, we're fine. But if I'm not getting blasted with a fire hose, a hot water when I get into the shower, we're going to be on fighting terms. But then finally, in those comments, what was really interesting were people kind of sharing their feelings about Rooster Teeth being shut down, because I know that it was kind of just added on to the big WB story. And it was kind of it ended up kind of being the bigger news for the

day. I mean, I kind of didn't even have time to process it. And that's even as someone that was more like a casual fan, you know, Bernie and the team back in the day, they invited me to RTX that that was fun. Also, a lot of people shared that they actually first saw me there, which was really eye-opening. I never really think about how, like, people first discovered me. I always imagine it's one of my videos first, but of course, that's not going to always be the case. You know, you had people like Miss Loser McLoserface sharing, Rooster Teeth and the Philip DeFranco show basically formed my personality. I remember when Phil was on the RTX RT podcast, and I freaked out because of two of the things I love so much coming together.

This is truly the end of an era. Also, Big Red sharing, there are tweets from people who work on projects at Rooster Teeth saying they only found out they were unemployed from headlines on Twitter. Jesus, I don't know if that's true, but that's horrible. Also, Tiger Blood sharing, seeing Rooster Teeth fade away has been emotional as someone who watched them as a kid and throughout my teenage years. So much innovative content from Red vs. Blue to Immersion and Ruby, as well as trailblazing the Let's Play format with Achievement Hunter. I genuinely felt like friends with the AH guys, and for a while, working at Rooster Teeth was my dream job. And I will say, while obviously there are a lot of different aspects to the whole Rooster Teeth situation, I mean, some of which we've talked about in the past, I loved seeing all the people

that were sending love to all the people impacted. I mean, one of the horrible things with situations like this are all the people that just lose their jobs that are behind the scenes, often talented, passionate people. But then I also get frustrated just seeing people like rejoice in it. I saw a clip of Jeff Ramsey actually talking about this after, and he hit on like how there are so many people that are like armchair CEOing, like, oh, you should have done this, you fucking idiots. People were saying they were dead and done because they made decisions that they weren't happy with even like 10 plus years ago. I mean, to that, it's easy to be like, oh, well, you should have done something different when something fails. And there's also often not a lot of consideration into just like how complex certain decisions are.

Like way back in the day, everyone around me that I had advising me, like the whole situation in general before I sold my company, it seemed like, no, duh, this is the way. This is how you make it. This is the move. But I don't know. I'm just left thinking, you know, I hope everyone that was affected by this, they land on their feet. Well, pretty much everything in this online space, there's like a level of uncertainty. It does feel like it's been an especially brutal year and a half. But that, my friends, is where today's show is going to end. As always, thank you for joining me in my room while I shout to nobody.

And remember, my name is Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love your faces and I'll see you right back here on Monday. Have a great weekend. Also, did you see the weather has gotten so nice, James? Have you seen?