The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 7.12 PULL IT OUT & JAM IT IN! Mia Khalifa Draws a Line in the Sand, LoFi Girl Shut Down, & Today’s News

Starting point is 00:00:00 Florida, what are they putting in your water? You know how like a few weeks ago we talked about that Florida man who was running away from police and he hopped on a jet ski and then realized, oh, I don't know how to start a jet ski, and so he just floated into the ocean as his getaway plan even though he could not swim? Well, apparently another Florida man saw that coverage and was like, I can do something more stupider. And that man was 40-year-old Dustin Mobley,

Starting point is 00:00:20 who was no stranger to stupidity and run-ins with the authorities. But as it turns out, back in January, sheriff's deputies found him aboard a $40,000 boat that he allegedly stole. But before they could take him into custody, he dove off the edge of the boat James Bond-style into the swamp and vanished. Which, by the way, if you are in Florida and you dive into a body of water that is not like the ocean or a pool, you are either the bravest or dumbest motherfucker on the planet. There is a near 100% chance that there is an old ass dinosaur that wants to eat you in there. But as it turns out here,

Starting point is 00:00:48 Dustin evades the police and being gator food. But then last week they find this elusive bastard. They track him down. They arrive at his home at 9.30 in the morning to serve a warrant. But this time, Mobley's not on a boat. He is on a far more efficient machine and that is a John Deere lawnmower.

Starting point is 00:01:02 And so as the cops yell at him to get on the ground, he sees them and he's like, catch me if you can, motherfucker. Throws that baby into high gear. It roars to life. He floors it and he leads the cop in a high speed pursuit. And by that, I mean four to five miles per hour. The deputy is quickly running or briskly walking up to him and tasing him. With police reporting that after they got him in custody, they found essentially a Florida man starter kit on him, a pipe with methamphetamine residue, a handcuff key, and a revolver. And good old Dustin right now, he's being held without bond on a whole host of charges. And unfortunately for our boy Mobley, I think he's going to go to jail for a long, long time.

Starting point is 00:01:35 Oh, God. Hit him with the monkey. This is a news show. Also, fun fact for you. According to a 2020 report, lawnmowers actually kill more people each year than bears, sharks, or alligators. I don't know what you're supposed to do with that information, but I felt like you just had to know.

Starting point is 00:01:53 Anyway, welcome back to the show. My name's Philip DeFranco. We're going to dive into the news like we do every day, so hit that like button and let's just jump into it. And then, while the internet the past three days has been making, oh, so Elon Musk knows how to pull out jokes, which, hey, I respect, if you take a real look at the news, he is not alone. You've got people who were previously all in pulling out of the housing market, then less data showing that in June, nearly 15% of pending home sales failed to close. That's a post-pandemic high, and it's really bad in places like Vegas. 27%

Starting point is 00:02:16 of deals fell out, with several previously red-hot Florida cities also seeing cancellations near 25%. And understand, that is in addition to overall pending home sales falling as well, which, I mean, really shouldn't be a surprise since we're seeing mortgage rates go up. It's gonna give you a mixture of people going, oh, okay, those rates scare me, as well as people just not getting approved for mortgages. We're also seeing the pullout game strong in the news space,

Starting point is 00:02:36 with new data and reports showing that people are just exhausted by the news. With reports noting that if you compare the first half of last year with the first half of this year, social media interactions with news articles is down 50%, cable news primetime viewers down 19%, news media app sessions down 16%, unique visits to top five news sites down 18%. Literally one of the only places not being hit right now is Fox News, which in the last six months is up 12%. With reports noting,

Starting point is 00:02:57 survey data shows Americans have grown weary amid what feels like a never-ending cycle of bad news. With another recent report saying that 42% of people responded that they sometimes or often actively avoid the news in 2022, which I will say as someone who covers and talks about the news, I 100% get. Outside of making my show, I actively try to avoid the news and I try to never get on Twitter unless I just want to throw out some bullshit shitposts because it's exhausting. Years ago, I used to be like, yeah, you know, watch my show, watch 20 other shows. Honestly, I no longer feel that and understand when people come up to me and they're like,

Starting point is 00:03:27 you're my new show. And I used to take that as this compliment of like, oh, I'm so special. But really, it's just if I consume everything, I'm going to explode. That's the truth. Especially when it feels like we're helpless in every fucking story. But also, I do want to note, people aren't just pulling out in the news. Some are jamming it back in. Specifically, they are trying to jam you back into the office. Back in January, according to the

Starting point is 00:03:47 Bureau of Labor Statistics, 15.4% of American workers were working from home or at the very least teleworking somewhere and saying they were home. But as of June, that number has dropped to only 7.1% of American workers. So of course, the numbers wildly range depending on the industry. Understandably, you have numbers in the 2% to percents in the construction, transportation, and warehousing, retail, whereas at the same time, you're seeing numbers like 19.7% for those in the finance and insurance industries, 17.6% for those in professional and technical services. You know, and it's going to be very interesting to see how those numbers change. I'll say I'm very biased here. I love work from home. As you can probably tell from me making a home office and going like, you know,

Starting point is 00:04:22 I might use it sometimes. I mean, all the time. You know, I save 60 to 90 minutes a day in driving. I get to be around the kids. We're home for summer. And if anything, what we're trying to navigate now, and this is like a very new thing, is trying to make sure that people in the company still get some face time outside of, because, God, Zoom and Google Meets, not the best for actual conversations. You know, like most everything in life, I think it's based off of specific situations and trying to balance. But ultimately, the question that I'll tack on to this story is, what's your experience been with work from home?

Starting point is 00:04:47 Like, have you been in a situation where you switched to work from home and now they're trying to get you back in the office? What has that been like? Have people been leaving the job? Yes, no, why, why not? But from that, I want to take a second to thank the fantastic sponsor of today's show, Vessi. You've likely heard me rave about my Vessis before, and if you still don't own a pair, you have to get yourself a pair right now. And for those of you new to Vessi, they're my favorite lightweight shoes that are perfect for all seasons. They actually keep your feet warm and dry through rain and sandproof for those summer beach days. They're built for everyday life. And Vessi makes 100% waterproof and snowproof sneakers that are incredibly comfortable, breathable, and actually pretty stylish. They've also recently

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Starting point is 00:05:35 so head on over to Vessi.com slash DeFranco right now and get $25 off with code DEFRANCO. You'll thank me later. And then, let's talk about the continuation of a debate and conversation that we had yesterday. With that, sending around news involving a woman and her body and the perception of it online when she decides to showcase it in a certain way. Which, by the way, I love seeing all that conversation about it in those comments yesterday. But today, the story isn't just about a celebrity deciding to show their nipples on Instagram, but rather the sex work industry and the stigmas around it.

Starting point is 00:05:58 And the reason people are talking about this today is you had a woman making headlines for including sex work under her professional experience on LinkedIn. In her About section, she says she's a brand advisor and creative director. She's got several jobs related to that in her experience section, with all of that showing alongside sex work. With a writing in a post explaining this decision saying, I left an in-house job with fancy benefits two weeks ago, and the reason I could do that was sex work. I had just enough saved from selling and engaging my image that I could ask myself if I was happy. I wasn't. Yeah, the few grand I stashed up over time helped, but the biggest reason I could walk away is because sex work shows me what power can do when I own it intentionally. Going on to talk about how much she charges and what goes into that fee,

Starting point is 00:06:31 saying that with sex work, she understands how to set boundaries, that she knows the value of her work, and then asking, why is this different than any other client work? The answer I come to again and again is that it isn't. So it's now up on my LinkedIn. And as you'd expect, this generated a massive conversation online, with some supporting the message and others saying, no, this crosses a line and it's inappropriate. And notably, all this happened the same couple of days that there was a similar conversation on Twitter discussing the empowerment associated with sex work.

Starting point is 00:06:52 With Mia Khalifa, who formerly was a part of this industry and was big for the time that she was in it, being a big voice in this. With her here taking a more nuanced approach to those who think that this is all about empowerment, saying, it's so dangerous to simply say sex work is empowering because I would never say that to an 18-year year old whose digital footprint hasn't been tainted by mistakes yet sex work can be empowering to people who have found their way into the industry under

Starting point is 00:07:12 less ideal circumstances it can be an extremely empowering way to take your power and bodily autonomy back but it's never something i would recommend as a plan a and then reframing the way that people think of sex work in the terms of selling your body by adding selling hand boob photos online is better than selling my body to the U.S. government to die in their little wars. One pays significantly more than the other. And so that's why with this, I'd love to know your thoughts on these kind of sort of separate but kind of connected online conversations. Which kind of simplified is, one, how the public perceives sex work as well as, two, how sex workers perceive it as well. And to share my opinion here, personally, I am of the mindset that, yeah, it can be empowering.

Starting point is 00:07:43 I think it is a more nuanced situation like mia khalifa is saying you know we're talking about an industry and especially a specific time in this industry where people can kind of take the power back but also it is an industry where people are exploited every single day as well as i'll say you know if i'm going to say that sex work is work it would make sense for this woman to put it in her linkedin profile and personally as an employer i would care less that someone like did an only fans and i'd be more like you, were you good at it? Which can sound like a creepy question, but then you think about everything that's involved in doing this.

Starting point is 00:08:10 You know, if you're doing it yourself, you got to understand lighting, angles, how to operate cameras, possibly edit software. You have to think about wardrobe. You got to understand how to market yourself and or if you're getting other people to do it, that's essentially a managerial or a CEO position. And hey, when it comes to sales, I don't care if you're getting someone to buy, you know, a coffee mug or a photo of your feet, a sale's a sale.

Starting point is 00:08:29 But that's just my opinion, and of course, I'd love to know yours. Then in news, it really just kind of exposes how broken parts of YouTube are. We should talk about Lo-Fi Girl. If you're not familiar, very large channel here on YouTube, nearly 11 million subscribers. And it's known by many for this famous live stream

Starting point is 00:08:42 where it has just like very chill music. It's been going for 28 months straight, getting around 688 million views during that time and over the weekend It was officially taken down due to a series of false copyright strikes and at this point appears that just some company or group Exploited what could be described as a loophole in YouTube's DMCA takedown procedure that being that there's really no way to vet whether a claim Is being issued in good faith or abusively to get a channel removed So to try to handle this situation the lo-fi girl channel did what all YouTubers have to do, at YouTube on Twitter. You'd think at this point there'd be a better process, but no, this is what you have to do. And in this specific instance, I do have to give credit. YouTube was quick to respond and recognize that the strikes were false

Starting point is 00:09:15 and malicious, because Lo-Fi Girl only plays music from its record label and music that it has rights to share. With YouTube saying, they confirmed the takedown requests were abusive and terminated the claimant's account. We've resolved the strikes and reinstated your videos. It can sometimes take 24 to 48 hours for everything to be back to normal. And as of recording this video, it now looks like the streams are back up and running, although it has to start back at zero. But still, this is a situation that's rubbed many people the wrong way. Right, Lo-Fi Girl itself was frustrated that such a blatantly false claim was allowed to go through and that there's no reviewing process before strikes are issued. Writing, we're shocked and disappointed to see that there's still not any kind of protection or manual review of these false claims. It was

Starting point is 00:09:46 entirely out of our control. And the sad part is that there was no way to appeal beforehand slash prevent it from happening. And the thing is, YouTube is really just kind of a lose-lose situation here. And according to the DMCA, they cannot intervene in copyright disputes based on the merits. They can only intervene when it's clearly a claim done for malicious reasons, such as what's happened here. But also of note, like if we're being honest here, the only reason the Lo-Fi Girl channel got handled was because it was so big. For every Lo-Fi Girl situation,

Starting point is 00:10:10 how many countless other creators and just everyday people are getting hit? Which is why we saw a number of people responding to YouTube's tweets, writing things like, I got copyright struck for Rain and Minecraft and you did nothing. It has been over a month since your automated email

Starting point is 00:10:21 told me that you would look into it. So I think for most people, there is no doubt that something needs to happen. I think it just comes down to the question of, is there any part of this that YouTube can make slightly less horrible? Right, something they can do in their system, or does there just need to be a law change? And I mean, what does that even look like? Y'all, ultimately, that is where that story in today's show ends. As always, thank you for watching, being a part of that conversation.

Starting point is 00:10:40 If you want more news, I got you covered right here. But as always, my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love yo faces and I'll see you tomorrow. That was a long sentence.

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The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 7.12 PULL IT OUT & JAM IT IN! Mia Khalifa Draws a Line in the Sand, LoFi Girl Shut Down, & Today’s News

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