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Tyra Bank's Manic Rebrand Is A Disaster · The imuRgency Room

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  Has anyone checked on Tyra Banks recently?
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  Aussies, I'm looking specifically at you.
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  Please tap in because she's up to something in your country
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  and. Santa Claus that jealous?
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  You just kept going, he said. Now she got magic with the
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  deuce. What?
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  And there was a optic wall that rolls up from the ground or that
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  snow into the sky. I'm going crazy.
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  Hey guys, it's up to emergency. Welcome back to my channel and
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  welcome to the first video of 2026.
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  Today we're all the talking about Tyra Banks because she's
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  been up to a lot recently from basically recreating Creme
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  Angelise, playing a tiny bit in RuPaul and Mariah Carey's bags
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  and taking a wig, a pimple patch, an arguably AI generated
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  song and a dream out to the clubs recently in Sydney,
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  Australia. All in the name, mind you, of
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  her ice cream brand promotion, or more so her hot ice cream
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  brand promotion. Oh no, no, no, That wasn't Tyra.
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  That was. To Smize.
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  I'm Tyra. She Santa Smize, yellow hair,
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  don't care. Crazy diva from the South Pole
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  with a southern accent. Definitely not.
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  You know what? I think she's actually going to
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  be here at the Smize and Dream shop tonight.
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  We have a party, this big party. She's going from Sydney to New
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  York to bring my hot ice cream. Right, because there is honestly
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  so much to get into and I for one am kind of concerned and I
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  think you should be too, especially considering that the
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  person we're talking about is the Tyra Banks.
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  But I guess in order to fully get get into what's going on
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  now, we do have to have a sort of baseline as to who is Tyra
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  Banks. OK, on the off occasion that you
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  may not know who this woman, Miss Tyra Banks is or might just
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  need a dinner refresher, you may know or remember her from iconic
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  pop culture historical moments such as and arguably most
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  iconically creating these smiles as we know it today.
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  You know the whole. But Tyra got her start as a
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  model at age 15 and makes one of the 1st and few black models to
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  achieve supermodel status, as well as the black woman to be on
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  the cover of GQ and Sports Illustrated.
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  She was also a Victoria's Secret Angel from 1997 to 2005.
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  And regardless what your opinions may be on Tyra, it is
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  an undeniable fact that she broke a lot of barriers in the
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  industry and is a legend in her own right.
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  Now as to if she helped to keep those barriers down, that was a
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  conversation for another time. But in 2023, she created what
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  would revolutionize for better or for worse, reality TV, the
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  public access to the fashion world and women's views on
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  themselves forever with that thing being America's Next Top
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  Model, which trusts and believe we will be getting back to.
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  And then in 2005, she had her own talk show called The Tyra
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  Show, which again in its own right was something for sure.
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  And if they would have let her, she could have gone on to be the
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  next Wendy Williams with a flair for savory social experiments.
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  I just know it. Having built her platform on
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  using your perceived flaws as your strengths, she was the face
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  for empowerment and breaking barriers in the modeling
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  industry. She's even one on talk shows and
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  spoke about her experience being bullied for her looks.
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  You know, the very things that made her very unique and very
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  successful in her career. And she's outwardly celebrated
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  differences and diversity as a strength.
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  But as most do and put in their own version of the Stanford
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  Prison experiment, she failed when she got power in 2003, she
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  created something that would be life changing for its
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  participants and surely for the viewers.
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  And I think the pool of people that this negatively impacted is
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  definitely greater than who had benefited positively.
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  But, you know, hey, life changing doesn't always mean for
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  the better. I know many people remember
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  watching the show when they were younger and probably still have
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  some underlying PTSD from the different episodes that have
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  aired, specifically those makeover episodes out of fear
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  that, I don't know, someone's going to jump through the screen
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  and bleach and buzz your hair off.
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  Yeah. Entertainment in the early 2000s
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  was brutal, to say the least. Many participants of America's
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  Next Top Model have come out and talked about their experience.
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  And aside from the moment where we saw the judges terrorize
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  contestants on screen, allegedly, production conditions
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  were also just as harsh with them denying them the ability to
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  go to the bathroom, not being told where they're going or for
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  how long, spending hours in these terrible conditions.
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  Any list of horrors goes on, and many viewers note that Tyra and
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  fellow judges were especially cruel to the black contestants.
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  And of course, body shaming was free reign on anyone.
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  The judges constantly made contestants do challenges that
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  hold no real reason besides causing actual pain to the
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  aspiring models, such as making them do a shoot in underwear and
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  freezing temperatures and causing some to actually get
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  hypothermia. Making go do a photo shoot in a
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  coffin the day after her friend passed away.
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  And mind you, there is no photo shoot that you need to be doing
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  all that for. Tyra staying silent while judges
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  were being especially cruel to Yaya for not choosing the
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  stereotypical African hat. It was all just so weird and I
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  think there's almost a like damn Tyra must know how hard the
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  industry is if she thinks all this is OK.
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  General response to all this but from my side of town the thought
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  process is 1. She's a producer at the end of
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  the day and the show lasted 24 seasons so you do the math.
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  Cruelty clearly makes for great TV, and she must have known
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  exactly what she was doing. And two, let's just humor the
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  thought that she wasn't doing this on purpose and she is
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  solely the victim of the industry herself.
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  It's also a taleless oldest time.
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  Victims of systems can sometimes go on to become the
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  perpetrators, my friends. And after all these stories
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  coming from contestants, I think it's fair to say that she at
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  least caused a handful of girls mental and emotional harm
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  unnecessarily. I think of the time tower's
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  lauded for being empowering, for seemingly adding a democratizing
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  element to the modeling industry, where girls from the
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  middle of nowhere could come to Hollywood and potentially win a
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  modeling contract. But plus size models #1 short
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  contestants were eliminated. And there is very an episode
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  that goes by without racial comments, those comments either
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  having racial undertones or just being overtly racist.
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  Stuff like you got girls coming on that show with flat tummies
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  being called too fats. Hello.
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  And it's the same issue that people have with like, girl boss
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  feminism. It's not that the industry
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  needed a black woman at the head of it.
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  The industry itself was rotten. Harmful ideologies and standards
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  are still harmful regardless of who's saying it.
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  But of course, everything exists at a time and place.
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  And during this time and place, this was considered progress.
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  And in some cases it was like, no one can argue that it wasn't
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  representation, but like, at what cost?
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  I'm sure many of the contestants have moved on with their lives
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  considering this was many years ago, and some do attribute the
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  start of their successful careers now to this show jump
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  starting it. And of course, all this comes to
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  light in the great year of 2020. Or people nostalgic and
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  chronically online as ever, went back to watch the old seasons of
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  America's Next Top Model. And while it was enough to spark
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  the hashtag Tyra's over party, and in true 2020 fashion, Tyra
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  apologize for her years of egregious offenses by calling
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  them really off choices. You know what?
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  I really got to add that I went to the books.
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  You know what? Actually Be remiss to not
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  mention how the Tyra show won two Daytime Emmys, and that show
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  included segments that before that time we're pretty
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  progressive, having honest conversations about a myriad of
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  subjects. But of course, it also had
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  segments such as, I don't know, Tyra pretending to be homeless
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  for a day, her wearing a fat suit for a day and crying about
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  how judged she was for being overweight, only to then go and
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  fat shame people on her other show and do general race swaps.
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  Like the social experimentation was there.
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  Like this feels like early YouTube at its finest, like the
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  problematic social experiment and just do it for the likes and
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  views. Like Tyra was the sister, but
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  no, like in another life. I just know that Tyra Banks was
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  a sociologist. But you know what's special
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  about Tyra Banks? She's a woman of many talents.
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  Besides being a supermodel, a judge, a host, a part time
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  appropriator, among other offenses, she's also a very
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  skilled interviewer. Beyoncé When was the last time
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  you bought something in a store? Say on say Bree on Say Gray on
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  Say Clay on Say Kiley Cyrus What celebrity have you met that made
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  you really embarrassed, Nervous. Shy.
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  Do with this information what you will, but that's enough of a
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  brief history lesson for right now.
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  I give all this exposition to sort of build this character in
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  your head of Tyra Banks because recently she's been a hella
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  active in the club in Australia in both the yellow wig and
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  online. So let's talk about what is
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  actually going on with Tyra Banks right now.
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  Why am I bringing Miss Banks to the stand today?
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  OK, because it's been a while since I heard Tyra's name.
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  But on a very fateful day, I opened TikTok and across my For
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  You page is a video of Tyra Banks promoting hot ice cream.
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  I let that sink in for a second. And no, when I say hot ice
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  cream, I do not mean melted ice cream.
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  Hot ice cream. And she says she's been working
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  very hard to create this product.
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  And of course, as one does when they hear that a iconic
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  supermodel is releasing something called hot ice cream,
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  I had to go down a rabbit hole to hear more.
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  Because what does any of that mean?
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  And I honestly had no business keeping up with Tyra.
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  But turns out I was behind. I was living under the rock.
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  OK? Because Smice and Dream, an ice
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  cream company mind you, had been her main focus since 2020-2021
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  all the way back to Tara's over party.
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  And I have to say, there is something so ironic about
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  someone who invores such rigid weight loss and fat.
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  Shame so many young girls to now be running and owning a ice
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  cream brand. Like truly, there is a joke in
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  there somewhere. And hopefully some healing in
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  there as well. Now, before we continue, this
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  next sequence of questioning came about in chronological
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  order, so follow my thinking here.
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  One, why are we making an ice cream company?
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  2, What do you mean by hot ice cream?
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  Three, what the hell does ice cream but make it Mama mean?
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  And finally, actually this is #1 why the hell are we in Sydney,
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  Australia? And sure, there are answers on
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  her website, but they aren't really substantive or
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  satisfactory. Like they all feel like non
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  answers. And I'm so sorry to disappoint,
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  but this all really still seems like a mystery to me.
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  However, like in the interviews that I see with her, like
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  tasting and trying the hot ice cream with other people, like
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  the people interviewing her are people that she's demonstrating
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  it to all seem so baffled. They say that it tastes kind of
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  good, but it kind of looks like they're just drinking like hot
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  cocoa in my mind. It kind of reminds me of like
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  when you're drinking like chocolate milk and you're like,
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  oh, this is so good ice. I wonder what this would be like
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  hot. I just know that hot chocolate
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  milk would just really hit the spot.
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  But then you realize that like hot chocolate milk is literally
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  just hot chocolate. You know, I feel like hot ice
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  cream is literally like just that, which I don't know if that
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  really needs to be a full product.
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  So like the jury is still up for that one.
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  But something I do have context on is that last question or the
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  first question of why Sydney, Australia?
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  Well, I mean, like, not so much why Sydney, but more so why not
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  DC or perhaps any of the other United States even.
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  And this brings us to a conversation around real estate
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  and specifically some drama around real estate, especially
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  for you selling sunset vans out there.
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  So her original flagship store was allegedly supposed to be in
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  Washington, DC Shout out to all the DC baddies out there.
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  As a former DC resident, I shout out to y'all.
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  And allegedly she and her partner Louis Martin signed a 10
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  year lease in a commercial building, but then ended up
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  bailing within two years. And like signing for a
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  commercial building for a business that you don't know
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  what's going to take off is definitely bold to say the
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  least. But as a result of this, she's
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  allegedly being sued for breach of contract for $2.8 million,
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  not including attorney fees or interest.
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  So, yeah, as a filming this that is still ongoing.
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  She also cites saying that she loved her time in Australia
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  while she built her some ice cream empire.
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  Why the factories out there? And no one knows.
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  But she also says that Australia, along with the US and
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  New Zealand, are the top three countries that eat ice cream.
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  So it's a good place for that business.
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  But also, like, the big question here is why venture into the
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  dessert industry at all? The world will truly never know.
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  And I'm sorry, but we must circle back to the high, not ice
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  cream of it all because she is reaching so hard to make this a
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  culinary first as mentioned on her website, even making the
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  point to say that it is not a latte, not claim Angeles.
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  It's a secret third thing like girl, why is Loki giving
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  Champurado or like Atole vibes? Like shout out to me and the
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  Latino. She also keeps emphasizing that
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  there is a crazy global demand and that hot ice cream is just
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  viral and that the world is so moved by this.
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  And I'm just like, yeah, I guess I am here making a full YouTube
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  video on this. But based on how social
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  attraction has been for hot ice cream up until now, it seems
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  like we're more so speaking this into existence.
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  But believe it or not, the story here still continues her PR
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  under her hot ice cream page on her website because yes, it
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  requires a whole page. It's just so telling because
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  it's either an article with a factual statement like Tyra
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  Banks has invented hot ice cream, or like Tyra Banks
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  confuses the Internet, which I think both are about accurate in
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  her own words from the website. People are so confused by the
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  idea of hot ice cream. It's mind boggling.
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  I get it. But then you taste it and you're
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  like, Oh, yes, I get it now. Like what are we actually
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  talking about? Like I'm just secondhand
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  stressed out over this. I'm sorry.
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  And one of the big questions out of all this is like, what are
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  people thinking about this? Is this actually good?
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  And according to the court of TikTok opinion, the verdict is
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  in. And honestly, all the reviews
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  that I've seen say that it's pretty good.
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  This whole video is really just like a campaign for me to be a
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  part of the next campaign to be able to try it and maybe have a
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  new rollout for the summer being like ice cream, but make a data
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  like all of them low key compare it to something that staunchly
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  says it's not like a hot milkshake or hot chocolate.
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  But still, I guess a good review is a good review.
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  OK now everyone cross your fingers there's going to be a
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  pop up so I can try it and relax.
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  So when I took a sip, I tasted it immediately.
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  The best way I could describe it is like a hot milkshake.
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  Like a milkshake with chocolate chip cookies, but not too much
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  chocolate. It was actually really good and
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  flavorful. I would definitely get it again.
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  I've just started doing hot ice cream.
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  Like what even is that? Comes in two flavors. 1 is
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  Tara's favorite which is a salted caramel.
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  I got the fairy dough flavor because it comes with this
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  little white chocolate fairy dough slice.
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  So yummy. So what exactly is it?
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  It's a hot thick drink which is a weird sensation to sit through
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  a straw. But as much as I wanted to hate
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  it, I actually kind of loved it. It's like liquefy.
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  OK, now the last thing I want to say about the website
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  specifically is that she uses very suspiciously looking AI
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  like models. And if they're not actually AI,
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  then I'm sorry for being overly weary, but like also, come on,
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  There's like no way. Like what happened to the
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  literal models that she gave contracts to?
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  Like, if this is AI, why are we using AI generated models for
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  whatever this campaign is? Now we're getting to the section
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  that I'm personally most excited to talk about and most confused
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  and concerned about when it comes to this whole conversation
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  around higher banks. And that is what has brought her
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  a lot of attention as of late, which are her interesting
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  marketing tactics and I guess you could call them bread
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  activations. Tell you what he did.
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  We got to get to the end of this.
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  You know when Santa Claus tells you that he going to come down
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  your chimney and he wants you to leave some cookies and grains on
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  that thing for him to eat. Do you know what he doing?
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  So he ain't biting that cookie, he ain't stepping that cream.
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  He's taking a bowl from your cabinet, from your joint and
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  you'll call it, he putting it on the thing.
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  He putting a little bit of cookie, he putting a little bit
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  of that milk, he mixing it up and he put it in your freezer
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  and he's trying to make it taste like Santa and it taste like.
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  Hot ice cream in here. You're hot because you're 52.
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  I've been chilled since both. Santa Smyers has chill cool ice
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  cream. At the moment I'm at a
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  crossroads of like, what came first, the chicken or the egg?
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  Like, was it Santa Smyers or that fable night at the club?
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  Like, was the Santa Smyers character arc an attempt to spin
• 14:47
  the narrative of an alleged feud performance?
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  Like, truly, who's to say? But like also, Tara has always
• 14:53
  been a bit theatrical. Oh my God, that's her pole.
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  Kick her pole. Don't
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  Today you are going to worry about action.
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  So some are speculating that this is just normal terror
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  behavior, while others are convinced that she's on the
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  slopes. I for one am almost convinced
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  that this unique to say the least, world building is damage
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  control. I can't believe it because she
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  hates me. She hates that I haven't been in
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  hot ice cream. But she's going to do me a solid
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  and she's going to take it from Sydney to New York and she's
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  doing a big party tonight and it's like free ice cream.
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  And I think she said something like, oh, nobody's just crazy,
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  but party tonight. 8:00 Here. She'll be here.
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  I won't. By the way, anything she says
• 15:52
  about me is a lie. She's crazy.
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  If you don't hear it from her my mouth, it's not true.
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  Like I always err on the side of caution when it comes to alleged
• 16:05
  celebrity crash outs because this definitely looks like that.
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  Because oftentimes these celebrity crash outs are just
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  like these celebrities versions of humor of them trying to troll
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  or like be part of a meme or be part of a roll out.
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  And sometimes it is a true crash out and we should address that
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  with the concern that it deserves.
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  I just have no idea what I'm watching.
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  I have no idea what this is. And aside from speculation
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  because it's honestly none of my business, I feel that she does
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  have the mind of a mastermind. See, I'm telling you, I have the
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  mind of a master. Master.
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  I have the mind of a mastermind. What's that?
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  Because honestly, who would think to have a Christmas time
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  arch nemesis? Like it is so specific.
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  Like Tyra attended the RuPaul Business School of alter ego,
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  but I am suspecting that she dropped out a few semesters too
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  early because the wig on Santa's mice.
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  Like you already know that RuPaul will pull up with a full
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  beat mug and a one of one gown and the nastiest wig you've ever
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  seen. Like it's time to enroll Tyra
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  for another semester. And this is all jokes don't get
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  me wrong but the same this mice official video does use an
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  egregious amount of AI which I already know I'm not the hugest
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  AI stand but my thing is like if you're going to use it at least
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  make it look good. And of course the whole Santas
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  mice business itself can bring up many different questions but
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  the main one that I have is like why are you trying to come after
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  Mariah Carey's back? I'm like girl you saw the
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  backlash when she was getting over her AB and said this is my
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  chance y'all going to buy this hot ice cream today?
• 17:26
  Anyways, I found the Sarah Banks new lore formulation to be quite
• 17:30
  the rabbit hole and quite fascinating and honestly on
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  level was quite concerning because there is a lot going on
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  here and it's clear that we're just bearing witness to a very
• 17:38
  stark rebrand when it comes to the persona of Tyra Banks.
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  Is this necessarily the best rebrand for her?
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  Time will tell. I for one just can't wait to see
• 17:45
  what she does next and truly I'm not sure whether to be excited
• 17:49
  or scared.