The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 6.12 This Pride Controversy Has Gotten Out of Control...

Episode Date: June 12, 2023

Check out the Vessi Boardwalk and their other styles at http://www.vessi.com/defranco.  Get the style and size you want now for 15% off your entire order! Free shipping to CA, US, AUS, NZ, JP, TW, KR, SGP.https://beautifulbastard.com/ June Beautiful Bastard Drop Live Now! Catch up on our Sunday show: https://youtu.be/j4NqtjhX9Q8 Catch up on the last PDS: ​​https://youtu.be/qs1PCSmXrb0 Check out Zaid’s latest FSTN: https://youtu.be/hNXNUwJ7dW0 –✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩ – 00:00 - Cracker Barrel Faces Boycott Over Pride as Alt-Right Extremists Protest at Disney 03:19 - Call of Duty Removes Bundles for TimTheTatman Amid Nickmercs Controversy 08:25 - Sponsored by Vessi 09:07 - Thousands of Reddit Users Go Dark in Protest of New Pricing Plan  10:50 - US Plans to Rejoin and Fund UNESCO  11:48 - I-95 Collapses in Philadelphia, PA Gov. Says It Could Take Months to Rebuild 13:05 - Cuba Hosting Secret Chinese Spy Base Focusing on U.S. ——————————   Produced by: Cory Ray Edited by: James Girardier, Julie Goldberg, Maxx Enright, Christian Meeks Art Department: William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Brian Espinoza, Lili Stenn, Maddie Crichton, Star Pralle, Chris Tolve  ———————————— #DeFranco #Nickmercs #Hasanabi ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today we're talking about Cracker Barrel, Call of Duty, Nick Merck's Pride controversies, Nazis at Disney World, the massive Reddit blackout that people see as the fight for the future, America's infrastructure and I-95 collapsing, and so much more on today's brand new Philip DeFranco show you daily dive into the news. But first, this is your friendly reminder that the June Beautiful Bastard Drop just dropped, so while you can, snag our brand new restock and new candles, new emotionally exhausted embroidered gear, keychain sticker bundles, and my personal new favorites, the embroidered bundles, my personal new favorites, the embroidered cargo pants, and a new dope-ass vegan leather backpack. So get any and

all while you can over at beautifulbastard.com, but we got a lot of news to talk about today, so buckle up, hit that like button, and let's just jump into it. Starting with, we need to talk about pride and the LGBTQ plus community. And not just because, as one viewer wrote on the last episode, I look like I'm about to take a new profile picture for my Grindr profile, but rather because this specific pride has been a lot different than in the past. And I mean, there are a number of top stories to date that involve this. Starting with the headline, Cracker Barrel has fallen. Because that's what a number of anti-LGBTQ groups and talking heads are saying with their full chest right now. And that, because Cracker Barrel shared this photo

on social media last week with a pretty generic statement about supporting pride. And immediately, conservatives jumped on their newest culture war target with the Texas Family Project saying, we take no pleasure in reporting that Cracker Barrel has fallen. A once family-friendly establishment has caved to the mob. And talking head Lauren Chen calling for a boycott, saying thankfully this makes it even easier than ever to skip this mid restaurant whenever someone recommends it. Everyone else should do their part and skip dining at the Cracker Barrel too. And as far as the other side of this, it was kind of just met with memery online, including the likes of Hank Green, who, by the way, you beautiful bastard, I hope you're doing okay.

I'm not alone in saying this. I love your face, and I know the words are empty, but you're going to get through this. But him tweeting, Do you think they'd let me get a Cracker Barrel as fallen tattoo between chemo treatments? And in general, I think it was kind of met with memes, because I don't know who wants to fight for Cracker Barrel. Like, I can't recommend the food. My last experience almost put me in a coma. My ignorant ass didn't even know you could double fried chicken before that.

But also, because no one really thinks of Cracker Barrel as a bastion of equality. In fact, they have a pretty shady history when it comes to the LGBTQ plus community. Right back in 1991, they reportedly had a policy prohibiting the hiring of gay people and fired those already on staff. And even though the policy was quickly rescinded following the backlash, the company didn't ban discrimination against gay employees until 2002. And then in 2013, they had that whole controversy around Duck Dynasty merch being on their shelves following Phil Robertson's anti-LGBTQ plus comments. And even though since then they've taken a firmer stance in the support of the queer community,

I think a lot of people see this as kind of just friendly fire. So why would they want to get in the trenches for the company? But personally, I'm of the mindset of like, I understand why people are talking about that news. This is like yet another campaign. But like, if we're going to talk about protest news, we have to talk about things like the people that were gathered outside of Disney World this week and waving Nazi flags alongside DeSantis 2024 signs.

There you had the police arriving, the protest fizzling out after about two hours with no arrests, with the Orange County Sheriff's Office saying in a statement, we are aware of these groups that aim to agitate and incite people with anti-Semitic symbols and slurs. They are also aware of the law. The Orange County Sheriff's Office deplores hate speech in any form, but people have the First Amendment right to demonstrate. And photos and videos quickly circulating online from this, a Florida representative sharing several on Twitter and saying to USA Today, it's absolutely disgusting to see what has become a common presence of Nazis in Florida. And even more disturbing when they're holding signs and flags that signal support for

people like Governor DeSantis. Every person, regardless of political ideology, should condemn this. In closing, Florida is a state built on diversity and we will always stand against bigotry and hate. And unfortunately, a notable thing to mention here is this isn't like the first time it's happened. A similar protest happened at the exact same spot last May, Nazi flags and all. But as of recording, there's been no comment from DeSantis regarding the situation.

And it's an unfortunate world that we live in where every day, like the things that are still shocking are not surprising. We're seeing Nazis outside of Disney World. It makes you go, what the fuck? But also, yeah, this adds up. Apparently that's the state of things now.

But all that said, arguably the biggest LGBTQ plus story, and it was one of the most requested things over on the text line. We got to unpack this massive mess with Nick Merckx, Call of Duty, Tim the Tapman, and at this point, there's really no shortage of names that have gotten involved. So for those of you who don't know, Nick Merckx is a massively popular streamer, with Nick being by far the most watched Call of Duty Warzone streamer in the world. I mean, so big, in fact, he's got his own skin. Tim the Tapman, also very big in the space, also has his own skin.

And this whole controversy started last week with a situation we actually covered, which also got one of our shows last week suppressed. Because with that, you had an esports commentator, Chris Puckett, sharing footage of a fight that broke out at a school board meeting in Glendale, California. And with that, reportedly all happening just because the schools wanted to honor Pride Month. With Chris writing, Americans are in a sad place right now. Let people love who they love and live your own life.

With Nick then responding by saying they should leave little children alone. That's the real issue. While you saw a fair share of people supporting Nick there, he also faced tons of backlash for that comment. With people saying that tweet, that was homophobic. It was bigoted. It plays right into the dangerous narrative that gay people are somehow preying on or pose a threat to children. You then had Nick responding to the controversy on stream. They're standing by his tweet.

I didn't mean to upset anybody. I know that I did. I'm not apologizing about the tweets. I don't feel like I'm, I don't feel like it's wrong. It wasn't an anti, I guess, gay, gay tweet. But if you think that I hate you because you're, you're a certain way, you just couldn't be any more wrong. With the matting there that he thinks is a discussion that parents should have with children, that it should not happen in a classroom setting. With that, I mean, we're talking about this still on Monday, not smoothing the situation over.

Because again, you had people having drastically different reactions. Some supporting Nick saying, yes, schools are trying to push the gay agenda. Whereas others went, no, this is just a way to support a minority group. A group that's been historically villainized oftentimes because of ignorance and the lack of conversation. And it's meant to make kids who may be LGBTQ plus not feel other. But key thing with this story, by Thursday evening, you had people noticing that Activision had seemingly removed Nick's bundle from a couple of Call of Duty games. And their official Twitter account later confirming,

due to recent events, we have removed the Nick Merckx operator bundle from the Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone store. We are focused on celebrating pride with our employees and our community. With that then prompting its own massive wave of backlash against Call of Duty from people who think that Nick said nothing wrong

and didn't deserve this. And while the story involved a lot of people in the gaming space, it also broke out past it, including the likes of right-wing figureheads getting involved, like former NRA spokesperson Dana Lash slamming Call of Duty for the decision, the regarding Nick himself. On Friday, he issued a statement thanking people for backing him, writing, friends are created in good times, but families are built through adversity. I appreciate all of you that have my back, understand my position as a new father, and recognize the love I have for all. Ain't no

hate in my heart, peace and love. But with with that the story kept growing and growing other popular streamers like dr Disrespect uninstalling call of duty over this either need to apologize publicly to him or reinstate his bundle in order for me to Consider playing call of duty again Though dr Disrespects comments caused their own conversation because some thought that he stands to benefit from making this controversy even bigger That's because he's developing his own game

That'll likely be competition with call of duty, which I can't deny that there stands to benefit for making this controversy even bigger. And that's because he's developing his own game that'll likely be competition with Call of Duty. Which I can't deny that there is an incentive for him. Though I do say this is, once again, just my personal opinion. He probably would have had this stance anyway. Or because there were a number of people in the space that kind of had this mindset. Like on Saturday, we talked about Tim the Tatman. He put out a statement saying, Nick has been my friend for years.

We went in getting our COD operators together. It feels wrong for me to have mine and him no longer have his. In support of my friend, please remove the Tim the Tatman bundle, Call of Duty. With Activision later giving a statement and saying they honored his request and took the skin down. And so this whole situation has caused a massive divide online. People like Streamer, Trainwrecks siding with Nick, accusing Call of Duty of virtue signaling for clout and claiming what they are doing here with this situation only sends people further down the rabbit hole and divides by putting people into an angry state void of logic and

understanding. But then on the other side of this, you have people, it's less about supporting Call of Duty, but more talking about the public reaction, especially considering the original context of the tweet in the comment. Because again, and it feels like a lot of this has been lost in the online discourse, this whole situation stems from, and the thing that was being commented on was a fight actually breaking out because Glendale schools were voting to go, hey, should we recognize June as Pride Month? A measure that affirmed, quote, a commitment to creating a safe, welcoming, and inclusive learning environment for all LGBTQ plus students, families, and staff members.

Also encouraging schools to incorporate lessons on the LGBTQ plus community, but also the district saying leading up to this, that intentional and harmful disinformation has been circulating about what is being taught. And with that saying, they follow state law and education policies. You also have people taking issue

with how the protest itself is being presented. With, for example, the likes of Hasan Piker speaking on that today. These guys who were duking it out with the parents there, none of them, most of them do not have children there. They don't even have children. Some of them are not even allowed near a school. Let's be real. These are like Proud Boys, January 6th rioters, people that basically protest almost professionally at this point all around the Southern California area. Now, I'm sure Nick didn't know that. Many people don't know that. You have to be someone as brainbroken

as myself to know the details of this sort of thing. And so that's why among other things you had people saying, dude literally cheered on violence against an LGBT plus rally by insinuating heinous shit about us. And now tens of thousands of people are all backing his fucked up rhetoric and promoting more violence. And people only uninstalling COD after Nick Merckx gets taken out of the store

and not after Activision was found to discriminate against their female workers is so telling. But hey, that's a story as it stands now. We're probably going to see further developments, but yeah, I'll leave it on two notes. One, what are your thoughts on this story? But also two, I want to wish all you LGBTQ plus beautiful bastards a happy pride. I know this year has got to be hard. I mean, I say I know, I don't know what that's like in here, but know while there is hate out there and plenty of ignorance, a lot of people love your faces. And then, you know, a lot of you out there are gearing up for vacations or maybe you're sticking close to home and exploring where you live and what that has to offer. But no matter what weather and the element shouldn't be your hurdle when doing this. And the fantastic

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slash DeFranco and get 15% off your entire order. Get your style and size now. And then right now we are witnessing one of the largest user-driven protests ever to shut down Reddit. With thousands of forums ranging from music and history to sports and video games going private. And this including more than two dozen subreddits

with at least 10 million members. And it's because Reddit announced that as early as next month, it'll begin forcing third-party apps to pay a fee to access its data. And that announcement caused an absolute uproar because next month, it'll begin forcing third-party apps to pay a fee to access its data. And that announcement caused an absolute uproar because for years, users have been using third-party apps to browse, post, write comments, and share pictures and videos on Reddit.

But after this, it may not be feasible. So you have many arguing that not only is this move anti-competitive, it also hurts Reddit itself. Or because volunteers, among other things, often rely on third-party tools to moderate forums, a job that would usually be done by paid staff or contractors at other social media companies. And so now you have so many people who feel like they've been betrayed by

Reddit's corporate management, that they don't appreciate the critical work being done by users themselves to keep the platform going. Now, as far as the company, they have defended this move, arguing that they need to start charging developers to keep the platform afloat, with Reddit CEO Steve Huffman saying on Friday, Reddit needs to be a self-sustaining business, and to do that, we can no longer subsidize commercial entities that require large-scale data use. But you know, with that, the move has led many top developers to shut down because they say they can't afford the new fees. Like the popular Apollo app, for example, whose creators said last week that the site asked him to pay $20 million per year to keep the app

running, to which he responded, why don't you just outright buy Apollo from me for 10 million? And apparently while he was waiting for an answer to that, Reddit claimed that he had blackmailed them to get them to buy Apollo. But here's the thing, turns out he also recorded his phone call with Huffman. And in it, you hear the CEO misinterpret the developer's words as blackmail, but quickly realizes his mistake and he apologizes. Sorry, that's a complete misinterpretation. Yeah, yeah, no, no, it's all good.

I apologize immediately. And the timing of all this is incredibly notable because Reddit is reportedly looking to go public later this year. So right now we have to wait to see what is the fallout? What are the new developments? Do they backpedal or do they double down? Different companies in the space have done different things and we'll be here to watch. And then the U.S. wants to make sure that China isn't getting too much influence in UNESCO. That's the U.N.'s cultural identity and

history department, which the U.S. pulled out of during the Trump administration. Although to be fair and clear there, that was a formality at that point. U.S. actually stopped funding it back in 2011 during the Obama administration over a feud about adding Palestine to the U.N. Now with this, it might sound weird to go, okay, how is the Cold War playing out with an agency that deals with maintaining cultural heritage sites? But the real issue, like what's actually at play here is that UNESCO also set standards for things like education and AI use. And U.S. officials have confirmed that it was because of concerns over those things that it wanted to come back to UNESCO and fund it. Now despite the U.S. being so open about wanting to counter Chinese influence, they're seemingly

playing it cool right now, only saying they hope that the U.S. is serious about staying in UNESCO and fund it. Now, despite the U.S. being so open about wanting to counter Chinese influence, they're seemingly playing it cool right now, only saying they hope that the U.S. is serious about staying in UNESCO because our absence last time was a major problem for the agency, because before leaving, we were like 22% of its budget. So to help patch things up, the Biden administration has already requested about $150 million in the 2024 budget for UNESCO, as well as planning to continue to set aside funding until the $619 million of dues we would have paid since 2011 would be paid off. Now, that said, we won't officially be back until the member states vote is back, but it is expected that'll happen easily. And then one of the busiest highways in America is completely fucked right now. Because yesterday, a truck carrying 8,500 gallons of gasoline caught fire, causing part of the I-95

in Philadelphia to collapse entirely, with traffic being shut down in both directions on the impacted part of the busy highway, which key thing, serves as the main north-south roadways of the east coast and carries around 160,000 vehicles each day. As far as more specifics, you had Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro saying in a press conference that the northbound portion of I-95 had collapsed completely while the southbound side was not structurally sound to carry traffic, and adding it will likely be some number of months before the highway can be repaired. And with that saying, he'll issue a disaster declaration to speed up the process, and saying that Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had assured him that the federal government would provide whatever resources were needed. Currently, you have multiple agencies saying they'll investigate the situation with summaries of concerns of the potential environmental impact both the fire and spilled gasoline could have on the Delaware River.

Because that runs right next to the damaged highway. And while some of the chemicals that spilled from the tanker did make it into the river, the Coast Guard said that they were able to contain the spill with a floating barrier. An official saying that the fuel hasn't made its way to the water that much. As well as the Philadelphia Water Department, which uses the river for some of its supply, also saying yesterday that there was no impact to water quality. But of course, we're still going to keep our eyes on the situation just in case. And meanwhile, I'll leave you with two things. One, if you live in Philly or you're going to be driving through that, expect detours and probably way, way, way more traffic.

And two, just a reminder, this is why I say when we talk about infrastructure stories, it's not a sexy thing, but it's so incredibly important. And then, it's like my grandma's always said, China be spying. She always happened to say stuff that pertained to my story of the day. It's crazy. But according to recently declassified documents, it's happening. And specifically, China has a secret spy base just outside of America that's close to many U.S. military installations throughout the southeastern U.S. And it's there thanks to the help of Cuba, who reportedly got several billion dollars from the deal. Now with this, you had the Biden administration blaming the base on the Trump administration, saying the rollback of the Obama-era rapprochement policies towards Cuba

pushed them into China's arms. But first off, like, I want to be clear here. It is unclear when the base was even built. The documents we have only state that it went through a major renovation in 2019. Not to mention that Biden has only reversed a couple of Trump's policies towards Cuba since taking office. And this, of course, is China won't confirm if it even has a base there. Although you had a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson reframing the conversation as, quote, the U.S. does it more, saying it is well known that the U.S. is an expert on chasing shadows and meddling in other countries' internal affairs. The U.S. is the global champion of hacking and a superpower of surveillance. Which, hey, I know they said it as a dig, but maybe it's all those years of being forced to do the Pledge of Allegiance

in school growing up. But all I heard was America's number one. Though seriously, with this story, it's unlikely to be the last time that we hear about Chinese spy facilities throughout the world. Because reportedly, they've been expanding their capabilities for years and now have sites everywhere, from Latin America, the Middle East, Central Asia,

Africa, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Indo-Pacific region. And the Biden administration trying to counter this by approaching the places they know China wants to build stations and trying to convince them to do otherwise. Although how they're trying to do that or what levers they have, that's a bit of a mystery. And if anything, this is kind of just yet another sign

of the growing Cold War between China and the United States. And that is where today's show is gonna end. As always, thank you for watching me to be your daily dive into the news. And of course, remember, my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love yo faces and I'll see you tomorrow.