Latest / Mini Scroll / MINI SCROLL: San Francisco restaurant collab gone wrong, Jana & Kenny breakup saga + FaZe Banks steps down as CEO

Transcript

MINI SCROLL: San Francisco restaurant collab gone wrong, Jana & Kenny breakup saga + FaZe Banks steps down as CEO · Mini Scroll

• 0:00
  Hi everyone. Welcome to Mini Scroll, the
• 0:03
  daily Internet culture podcast bringing you the biggest stories
• 0:06
  from social media, the creator economy and the digital space.
• 0:10
  Every Monday through Thursday and sometimes Fridays.
• 0:14
  I'm your host, Lauren Meisner, the founder of the youth digital
• 0:17
  media brand Centennial World. Welcome back to Mini Scroll,
• 0:22
  everyone. OK, so today's a bit of a sad
• 0:25
  day for the brand, for those of you who care about Centennial
• 0:29
  and what we're building here because Alex, who's been our
• 0:32
  partnerships manager for the last 18 months, is leaving.
• 0:36
  It's her last day today. It's really hard when it's your
• 0:39
  company and it's such a small team.
• 0:41
  And the girls are like, helping me essentially build my dream,
• 0:46
  you know, So I find it so challenging whenever anybody
• 0:50
  leaves. And, you know, Alex came in at a
• 0:53
  very tumult. She was time in the brand.
• 0:54
  I had just become a solo founder.
• 0:56
  Things were so chaotic and unwell.
• 0:59
  Like I was unwell personally. It was just like a really
• 1:03
  challenging time for me. And she came in and she just
• 1:06
  made it so much better. And she just helped kind of
• 1:09
  revive the brand in a totally new way.
• 1:12
  And yeah, I'm just like, I'm sad.
• 1:15
  I'm so grateful for our time with her, but I'm sad.
• 1:17
  So after I record this, we're going to go for a big team lunch
• 1:20
  together and we're going to just spend some time and then I'm
• 1:24
  actually going to take tomorrow off the podcast.
• 1:26
  My goal is that I finish all of my work, even if I have to work
• 1:30
  like into the night tonight, just like finish everything I
• 1:33
  need to do today. So I can just like take tomorrow
• 1:36
  off the last few days of her handover and like the amount of
• 1:40
  work that is now piled on my desk is like so overwhelming.
• 1:44
  So I feel like I just need like a day, you know, like just have
• 1:47
  a day off tomorrow and then I can kind of hit the ground
• 1:49
  running on Monday because I'm actually taking over our
• 1:52
  partnerships for the time being. So we'll see how that goes.
• 1:56
  Please manifest for me. You guys let things go.
• 1:59
  Well, that is like the one side of the business that I really I
• 2:04
  don't feel equipped to do necessarily, but I'm going to do
• 2:08
  it now for the time being. And then hopefully maybe next
• 2:12
  year, maybe 2026, I can rehire for that role.
• 2:15
  We'll see. I just kind of feel like I need
• 2:17
  to take a bit of time and that means I need to do it myself.
• 2:20
  All right, let's get into the stories for today.
• 2:23
  So the first story that I have for you guys, this is from maybe
• 2:27
  like 5 days ago. It's slightly older than we
• 2:29
  like. However, it was actually sent to
• 2:32
  me by one of you guys, by one of our loyal podcast listeners and
• 2:36
  I hadn't seen it, so I'm so glad that you sent it to me.
• 2:38
  So last week a San Francisco based creator named Carla was
• 2:41
  invited by a restaurant for a media tasting, which is
• 2:45
  basically when influencers or journalists media go to eat for
• 2:50
  free at that restaurant. Or sometimes there's like a
• 2:52
  limit that you get for free and then you pay for the rest.
• 2:55
  But either way, the point is usually the restaurant will get
• 2:57
  a review out of it or they'll get, you know, some type of
• 3:00
  social content, whatever. So Carla had 15,000 followers
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  when she was invited in. Reminder she was invited in.
• 3:07
  OK, she was invited in and after her invite, she made a video
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  talking about her experience at the restaurant.
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  She said that she showed up a bit early to take some content
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  of the restaurant before it got busy, and before she even sat
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  down the chef came over to her and pulled up her account and
• 3:24
  was basically shaming her follower size.
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  So I start listening in, the new guy is asking the host who I am,
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  why I'm here and how many followers I have on TikTok and
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  what my TikTok is. And this guy pulls up my TikTok
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  and says that I have 15,000 followers and I have some
• 3:42
  videos, have millions of views, whatever.
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  And this guy is not happy about it, saying to the host that he
• 3:48
  shouldn't have invited me and that this was a mistake and that
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  this was bad. At this point I am turning red
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  because I'm so embarrassed and I feel really disrespected.
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  Immediately he says did you do any research on this restaurant?
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  Do you know what we do? Do you know who we are?
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  He asks for my TikTok which clearly you've done no research
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  about me as well. And he starts scrolling through
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  and playing my tik toks on full volume at the restaurant and not
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  even my page, just the page that comes up when you search my
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  name. After scrolling like 2 times, he
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  says to me that he doesn't think my videos are at the level at
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  which he wants his restaurant to be represented.
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  It seemed like he was insinuating that my followers
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  would not be able to afford to eat at this restaurant.
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  And he said that his daughter has 600,000 followers on TikTok
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  and that I'm not at that level. She ended up getting so insulted
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  that she left again after being invited by them.
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  Here's the plot twist. Okay, the influencer with not
• 4:45
  enough followers post this TikTok.
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  It gets over 20 million views in a matter of days and her
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  follower count goes from 15,000 to now over 400,000 in like 5
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  days. Now I wanted to talk about a few
• 5:05
  things related to this story. The 1st is like the follower
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  count thing is interesting to me because 15,000, that is the size
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  of an influencer who is probably still going to do the occasional
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  free collaboration because at the end of the day, like having
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  a meal for free at a restaurant in exchange for content, it's
• 5:24
  going to be unpaid work for the creator, right?
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  So like a free meal is great, but it's not payment.
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  It's Contra. Unsurprisingly, I'm sure you
• 5:32
  guys all know this, but like as a creator grows, it's more
• 5:34
  common that they stop doing these Contra deals for smaller
• 5:38
  things like a free meal, a single free meal in exchange for
• 5:41
  you also having to do work for that.
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  That's only going to be a very specific type of influencer.
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  It's not going to be a lot of influencers who have, let's say
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  over like 50,000 followers. So obviously I'm not thinking
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  that the chef understands influencer relations, but I'm
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  thinking like the PR person that invited her does.
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  They obviously do their job well and they understand what size of
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  influencer is going to accept a deal like this while also still
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  bringing some value to the restaurant.
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  I'm assuming the chef feels like influencer comped meals kind of
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  cheapens his work, but it's literally just part of like the
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  media journalism ecosystem. Now, if this was an experienced
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  chef, he has surely done comped meals for media for journalists
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  to write reviews, news of OK, and like for publications.
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  And this is just another iteration of that.
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  I personally believe we need all of it.
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  Like I know there's a lot of people that are like, Oh my God,
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  we don't even need media anymore.
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  Like we don't need journalists. Like everybody lies like
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  whatever. OK, I of course believe in the
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  entire ecosystem, but like influencers, creators, they are
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  part of that now. And people still very much look
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  down, I think, on like influencer reviews as not as
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  valuable as like a traditional publisher writing review on your
• 6:55
  restaurant. And I understand they serve
• 6:57
  different purposes, like a traditional review in a very
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  reputable.com or reputable publication.
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  That is clout, right? That's reputation, that's
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  legitimacy. A viral TikTok from a food
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  influencer that's going to actually get feet in the door,
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  right? That's going to get people in
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  the door. That's going to get money in
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  your pocket. So the way I see it is now we
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  have even more resources to kind of prop up these restaurants,
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  these institutions, these brands, you know, But yeah, this
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  story truly is the epitome of what we always say, which is
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  TikTok absolutely democratizes virality and fame in a way that
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  we have never seen before. Because, you know, this guy was
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  just complaining. This chef was just complaining.
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  She's not big enough for me. And now she has almost half a
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  million followers because you were a Dick to her about her
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  follower account. And the video that she posted
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  actually about your restaurant got over 23 million views.
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  It wasn't a +1. But that just goes to show that
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  follower count so often doesn't matter and literally can change
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  like that on TikTok. There was also an interesting
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  trend in her comments. There were lots of people who
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  were responding to her saying like I would trust a review from
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  you with 15,000 followers more than I would trust a review from
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  somebody with 1,000,000 followers.
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  Which is funny because if you think about what I just said,
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  which is like the bigger you get, the less likely you are to
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  take like a random free meal here and there in exchange for
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  content because your content is worth so much more.
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  Now that logic doesn't actually make a lot of sense because the
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  influencer with 15,000 followers is getting it for free, so
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  they're probably going to say nicer things about it.
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  But I guess unless you understand the insurance and
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  outs of like how it all works in the influencer industry, maybe
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  you don't realize that. But in general, I agree that
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  like, I guess I think innately like our public perception of
• 8:48
  influencers, people with hundreds of thousands, if not
• 8:50
  millions of followers, is that you can trust them less.
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  OK, The next story that I have for you guys, this is the
• 8:56
  biggest story on the Internet. Feels like the only story on the
• 8:59
  Internet right now is that I'm going to be breaking down the
• 9:03
  Love Island scandal between Kenny and Janae.
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  I cannot believe that Love Island has seeped into mini
• 9:11
  scroll, but it really has over the last few weeks.
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  And I mean, I guess that just shows the power of a
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  monocultural moment because Love Island has never been bigger or
• 9:22
  more relevant. OK, So Kenny and Janae got
• 9:25
  together last season. They've been together for about
• 9:27
  a year. A little bit of background on
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  them. When Kenny went away to Casa
• 9:31
  Amore, when they were filming Love Island, he came back with
• 9:34
  another girl. And basically, Janae was like, I
• 9:37
  should have known you would do this.
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  And it was like, this whole thing.
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  And she was very upset. And then he cried.
• 9:42
  And he was like, I fucked up. OK, So they already had, like, a
• 9:45
  tumultuous start. And then they got back together.
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  They finished Love Island together.
• 9:49
  They finished third. So now this week it seems like
• 9:52
  Kenny and Janae had broken up while at David Dobrik's birthday
• 9:56
  party. So this all started coming out
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  like maybe 2 days ago. They were posting together on
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  the way to the party but then it was leaked that they were
• 10:03
  allegedly fighting and yelling at each other at the party.
• 10:06
  One of the reasons people thought this is because there
• 10:09
  was a TikTok going around where a girl had shared a screenshot
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  of text messages from her friend who said she was at David
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  Dobrik's party for work and she saw all of this go down.
• 10:19
  It's unclear if these text messages are fake or if just
• 10:23
  what this this girl assumed was happening was obviously not
• 10:26
  accurate. Because it was not accurate.
• 10:27
  OK, as far as we know. So amid all the rumors going
• 10:31
  around, Janae posted on Instagram Stories confirming
• 10:34
  that she saw the internet's breakup theories, and none of
• 10:37
  them were correct. She wrote.
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  As you know, Kenny and I are no longer together.
• 10:41
  Please know that I've seen all the breakup theories and none
• 10:44
  have matched up to how terrible, disgusting, and disappointing it
• 10:48
  truly is. Discovering that someone you
• 10:51
  loved isn't who you thought they were and that the relationship
• 10:54
  you thought you were building hasn't been genuine since day
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  one has been truly devastating. Right after this, basically
• 11:01
  everyone involved in Love Island unfollowed him, including Ariana
• 11:05
  Maddox and all of the guys. So people were like, OK,
• 11:08
  something really major must have happened here because a cheating
• 11:12
  scandal. I mean, that kind of, I mean,
• 11:13
  that would be horrible. But like that kind of stuff
• 11:14
  happens all the time in this like ecosystem, right?
• 11:17
  So people are like, OK, what would lead everyone to unfollow
• 11:21
  him? So then Kenny released his own
• 11:23
  statement on Instagram Stories he wrote.
• 11:25
  The past few days have been incredibly difficult.
• 11:27
  I've been sitting quietly with a lot of emotions and doing my
• 11:30
  best to process everything privately.
• 11:32
  Breakups are never easy, especially in the public eye.
• 11:35
  Sometimes, despite how deeply you care for someone, you come
• 11:38
  to the hard truth that the relationship was not something
• 11:40
  that could last long term. Janae then responded on her
• 11:43
  stories writing at Kenny Rodriguez.
• 11:47
  Shut the fuck up you manipulative liar.
• 11:49
  You not taking accountability and telling people the type of
• 11:52
  person you really are is insane to me.
• 11:54
  My first statement was me being nice.
• 11:56
  Do not piss me off. So then after this so many
• 12:00
  people from Love Island started coming forward.
• 12:02
  So Serena Page commented A narcissist and a racist under
• 12:07
  Kenny's Instagram story and that is the first indication that
• 12:12
  possibly a racism scandal was involved in what was going on in
• 12:16
  their breakup. So for some context, Janae and
• 12:19
  Serena are part of this like bestie girl squad that emerged
• 12:22
  from Love Island the same season called PPG.
• 12:26
  It includes Janae Serena and Leah.
• 12:28
  So Leah then quote tweeted Janae's Instagram story and
• 12:32
  wrote Kenny Rodriguez put a sock in a ChatGPT head ass tell the
• 12:36
  truth for once. Racist clout slash, money hungry
• 12:39
  and a scammer since day one trying to make it seem like it's
• 12:43
  something it's not. Leah then commented on a post of
• 12:45
  Kenny's with her boyfriend Miguel saying how about you
• 12:48
  delete my man off off your page instead of deleting my comments.
• 12:52
  Janae's sister then posted that Kenny had everyone in their
• 12:55
  circle fooled. And then Liv Walker from Love
• 12:58
  Island also posted saying essentially in different words
• 13:01
  that Kenny was cloud chasing and called him a fucking loser.
• 13:04
  OK so this takes us to yesterday where fans were like OK there's
• 13:08
  obviously more than just cheating going on.
• 13:11
  It seems like something around racism happened but like there
• 13:15
  was still really no clarification.
• 13:17
  Then Jumois posted a blind claiming that Janae found text
• 13:21
  on Kenny's phone quote about his plan to stay with her for
• 13:24
  business slash cloud text with her friends calling her racist
• 13:28
  names. OK so then these like few little
• 13:31
  things started happening like offshoot things started
• 13:33
  happening. First one of Kenny's exes
• 13:35
  alleged exes actually I should say posted a TikTok off the back
• 13:39
  of this situation in support of Janae saying that Kenny is a
• 13:42
  great actor in relationships and he's always trying to bring
• 13:45
  women down. And then this couple on TikTok,
• 13:48
  like a random one couple on TikTok, they just made a sit
• 13:52
  down video sharing what they thought had happened.
• 13:55
  The handle is Ashley Coy and her account seems to be with her
• 13:58
  boyfriend Owen. And basically they just made
• 14:01
  like this throwaway video, like I said, saying that they think
• 14:05
  Janae found the boys group chat. She found the boys group chat.
• 14:12
  Easily she. Found the boys group chat
• 14:14
  easily. Whatever that entails, we don't
• 14:17
  know. Obviously I.
• 14:18
  Have a guess of what it entails. I have a guess that him and his
• 14:23
  friends who are not black are slinging around the N word.
• 14:26
  And now everybody is telling Ashley and Owen to buy a lottery
• 14:30
  ticket because it seems like they were correct.
• 14:32
  Because Janae's best friend posted this to her story and
• 14:36
  then she quickly deleted it. My advice for women in
• 14:39
  relationships? If you have access, go through
• 14:41
  your man's phone today. Search keywords like I don't
• 14:45
  like black women. I thought I would get more money
• 14:47
  from this. I'm faking this relationship
• 14:50
  going on the show would be for Cloud.
• 14:52
  I can't wait to be done with this so I can fuck hella
• 14:54
  bitches. You'll thank me later.
• 14:57
  PS Never spare a man. Dog them out baby girl.
• 15:01
  So it appears like the speculation was true.
• 15:04
  In his boys group chat he was allegedly based on everything
• 15:08
  that we have kind of read right now, like all the receipts.
• 15:11
  He was saying racist things about Janae.
• 15:14
  He was saying he was in the relationship for money and clout
• 15:17
  and it seems like he was planning to break up with her at
• 15:20
  some point when he felt like he had received enough money and
• 15:24
  clout from being in the relationship.
• 15:26
  So I did see this on TikTok. I don't know if it's true or not
• 15:28
  so I didn't include it in my notes.
• 15:29
  But I saw somebody saying that one of the guys in the group
• 15:33
  chat was at David Dobrik's party and he was, you know, possibly
• 15:37
  like drunk or something. Thought it would be funny to
• 15:40
  show Janae these messages, which is possibly how she found out
• 15:44
  and possibly why she found out at David Dobrik's party.
• 15:47
  This is so horrible. I feel so, so bad for her if
• 15:50
  this is all true. I mean, I'm going to assume it's
• 15:53
  true because like, everyone on Love Island unfollowed him, but
• 15:56
  I'm glad that she's getting so much support.
• 15:58
  Like, the entire Internet is behind her.
• 16:00
  The whole cast, the whole show, all her friends, everybody's
• 16:03
  behind her. So she's going to come out of
• 16:04
  this on top, Absolutely. But another man publicly
• 16:09
  humiliating a beautiful woman for all of us to see like we
• 16:15
  live in hell. All right.
• 16:16
  And the last story that I have for you guys is that Phase Banks
• 16:19
  is stepping down as CEO of Phase after a failed crypto venture
• 16:25
  with Aidan Ross. So in early 2025, Banks, some
• 16:29
  other phase clan members and some other kind of like browie
• 16:32
  influencers, I guess, like Aidan Ross invested in and promoted
• 16:36
  the crypto meme coin MLG, making its value skyrocket.
• 16:41
  You know, everything skyrockets, the hype dies down and then and
• 16:45
  investors start selling off their coin, which has now led to
• 16:48
  accusations that banks and Aiden Ross try to scam fans and kind
• 16:52
  of like a classic rug pull. Amid the backlash, messages from
• 16:55
  banks to the MLG Twitter account were leaked.
• 16:58
  Aiden Ross fucked this up. This community dumped on him
• 17:01
  buying used him as exit liquidity.
• 17:03
  His ego got hurt, blamed Frank. Him and Frank got into it
• 17:07
  privately. Aiden despises Frank and spins
• 17:09
  and drives narrative about Frank selling.
• 17:11
  Somehow this falls on me and threads to farm the whole
• 17:14
  situation. Spin it into me selling and
• 17:17
  jumping coins when I ran the thing from fucking $3,000,000 to
• 17:21
  $200 million organically. Top blasted multiple times,
• 17:24
  invested a fuck ton of money and never ever sold.
• 17:28
  So I guess there was speculation that this was like a fake
• 17:30
  screenshot. Aiden Ross ended up confirming
• 17:33
  that it was true. He wrote this on Twitter.
• 17:35
  The bank screenshot is real shit sat as fuck.
• 17:37
  If you guys think that MLG being rugged was me, I'm sorry to tell
• 17:41
  you it wasn't. There's a reason that entire
• 17:43
  house is silent. Truth will come out eventually.
• 17:46
  I'm just more hurt on the fact someone I call my brother is
• 17:49
  behind my back. So then Aiden and Banks did a
• 17:53
  stream together or planned to do a stream together but the whole
• 17:56
  thing Banks said. This whole thing has been wildly
• 17:59
  miscommunicated and destroyed my mental health the last several
• 18:02
  months. I wanted to more publicly talk
• 18:05
  about this situation for a while.
• 18:06
  Sucks any of this fucked with me and Aiden's relationship.
• 18:09
  See you guys tonight. And then he finished on Twitter
• 18:12
  by saying I've never scammed anyone a day in my fucking life.
• 18:16
  The entire narrative is unfair and part of the reason it exists
• 18:19
  is because my phase name is so easily farmed and manipulated.
• 18:23
  The fact this is affecting the guys at all is wack.
• 18:26
  So for the time being I'm going to be stepping away from not
• 18:28
  only phase but all this Internet shit.
• 18:31
  It's destroying my life inside and out.
• 18:34
  OK so I hate to defend a man and I could be completely wrong
• 18:39
  here, but from everything that I know about banks and like his
• 18:43
  relationship to crypto and all the reporting that we've done
• 18:47
  over the years on this whole sector, he seems to always be
• 18:50
  the one who was like quite vocal about influencers doing pump and
• 18:53
  dump and how fuck that is. Like he has taken multiple
• 18:56
  public stances against that practice.
• 19:00
  So it would surprise me if he like intentionally was part of
• 19:04
  this. So I think it's possible that
• 19:06
  what he's saying is true. Like he's a recognizable name.
• 19:09
  Faze clan itself has had some scandals around crypto pump and
• 19:13
  dumps before. And in general crypto like this
• 19:15
  keeps happening. So like influencers, stay away
• 19:18
  from crypto, stop promoting crypto coins because this shit
• 19:22
  happens, you know? And then it looks like you're
• 19:24
  scamming your audience. Whether you intentionally meant
• 19:27
  to or not, I think you just have to understand like what you're
• 19:30
  getting into and how the various possible outcomes could be
• 19:35
  perceived and could impact your public reputation and your fans
• 19:40
  and the money that they are spending in this coin that you
• 19:43
  are promoting. I also think it's kind of wild.
• 19:45
  I know he said he's stepping down for now, but I think it's
• 19:47
  wild that he's stepping down as CEO because he only just took
• 19:51
  over that position last year. And in that transition, he got
• 19:54
  rid of tons of the collective creators to basically have this
• 19:58
  fresh start. It felt like, OK, things are
• 20:00
  going to, like, be a new again. And now he's saying that this
• 20:03
  whole thing has, like, destroyed his mental health, that the
• 20:05
  Internet is like, so fucked. And, yeah, I mean, I don't
• 20:08
  necessarily feel bad for them. I feel bad for their fans that
• 20:13
  have wasted all their money, have lost possibly a ton of
• 20:16
  money in this. But again, it's like, tale as
• 20:19
  old as time. Like, stop promoting
• 20:21
  cryptocurrency. Oh, my God.
• 20:23
  But yeah, it's like a tale as old as time.
• 20:25
  Like stop. Promoting cryptocurrency, there
• 20:28
  are so many brand deals that these guys could probably do
• 20:31
  anyways guys, that's it for mini scroll today.
• 20:34
  Thank you so much for listening. I love you guys.
• 20:36
  Please remember to rate, review and subscribe Reminder, no
• 20:40
  episode tomorrow, but I will be back talking to you on Monday.
• 20:44
  OK, bye.