Latest / Mini Scroll / MINI SCROLL: Brianna Chickenfry Zach Bryan accusations, Bonnie Blue vs. Australian Schoolies + Def Noodles returns

Transcript

MINI SCROLL: Brianna Chickenfry Zach Bryan accusations, Bonnie Blue vs. Australian Schoolies + Def Noodles returns · Mini Scroll

• 0:00
  Hi everyone, welcome to Mini Scroll, the daily Internet
• 0:04
  culture podcast bringing you the biggest stories from social
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  media, the creator economy and the digital space.
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  Every Monday through Thursday. I'm your host, Lord Meisner, the
• 0:14
  founder of the youth digital media brand Centennial World.
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  trolling. They are not trolling on Reddit
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  It's literally so exciting. With that being said, thank you
• 1:20
  guys. And let's just get into the
• 1:23
  stories for today. So of course, the one day that I
• 1:25
  don't do mini scroll Friday is the day when Brianna chicken
• 1:29
  fries episode on the BFFS came out where she talked about her
• 1:32
  relationship with Zac Bryan and it was a monster episode.
• 1:36
  It was very emotional. So I'm going to get into
• 1:39
  everything that came out. I might miss some bombshells
• 1:42
  because there was a lot. So like, bear with me, but these
• 1:45
  were kind of the main takeaways that I found.
• 1:47
  I think in terms of the timeline, Brianna gave us a bit
• 1:51
  more of an understanding of how everything went down.
• 1:54
  So it seems Zach broke up with Brianna over the phone, then he
• 1:57
  joined Raya the same day, got caught, deleted his Instagram
• 2:01
  account, and then reinstated it the next day to post that they
• 2:05
  were broken up. OK, Brianna, this is the biggest
• 2:08
  bombshell. Brianna was offered 12,
• 2:10
  $1,000,000 by Zac Bryant's team to stay silent.
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  That money would have been paid over the course of a few
• 2:17
  different years, she said. I think three years.
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  And she refused that money, obviously, because it would have
• 2:22
  been like a gag order, would have been like an NDA and like a
• 2:25
  settlement to like stay quiet on everything about their
• 2:28
  relationship, She said. She doesn't want that kind of
• 2:30
  hush money. She doesn't need that money.
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  She was like, I was someone before him and I'll be someone
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  after him. And I think that was Zac
• 2:37
  Bryant's like fatal flaw here. His biggest mistake ever her was
• 2:41
  getting into a relationship with someone who has a public
• 2:44
  platform. And you know, isn't like, it's
• 2:47
  not like Brianna is like an A list celebrity.
• 2:49
  Like she's actually a more dangerous type of public figure
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  for him because she's an influencer whose job is to talk
• 2:56
  about her life and her opinions and over share on a podcast,
• 3:01
  multiple podcasts actually, every single week.
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  So I think that was like the biggest mistake for somebody
• 3:07
  like him was getting involved with an influencer like that,
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  OK? She says that she was really
• 3:12
  emotionally abused throughout their relationship.
• 3:15
  Specifically, she said she lost herself and was always walking
• 3:18
  on egg shells, that he would constantly be mad over things.
• 3:22
  She said he tried to control what she wore, what music she
• 3:25
  listened to, and even what her hair color was.
• 3:29
  She posted today that she was getting foils and she's like,
• 3:32
  finally I can get my hair done. I don't have to be brunette or
• 3:34
  something like that was like along those lines.
• 3:36
  So she told the story of what happened at the Golden Globes.
• 3:39
  This relates to how he controlled her because at the
• 3:42
  time, fans noticed that while she was at the Golden Globes,
• 3:45
  Zach seemed to unfollow her. So I guess she wanted to address
• 3:49
  this. So she said this was like the
• 3:50
  first time that he tried to control what she wore or what
• 3:53
  she posted. She said he didn't like her
• 3:55
  dress and said he didn't want to date someone who presents
• 3:58
  themselves that way. And then she said basically he
• 4:01
  just like ruined her night because he was unfollowing her
• 4:03
  and getting mad at her. She said in general he ruined
• 4:06
  any good things she had going for her.
• 4:08
  Anything she did like her podcast tour, the Golden Globes,
• 4:11
  her birthday, anything that was about Brianna he had to ruin,
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  which to me sounds just like textbook like narcissistic
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  abuse. I'm not a psychologist so like
• 4:20
  that's just my opinion on what it sounds like.
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  But yes she said he ruined everything for her.
• 4:26
  And then to rub salt in the wound with this Golden Globes
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  thing, he reposted her photos like her photo dump that she
• 4:33
  posted on his Instagram story and wrote You are so beautiful
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  after like ruining her entire night unfollowing her, getting
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  so mad at her for what she wore and how she looked.
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  She said she revolved her entire life around him.
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  She said her podcast schedule, her podcast tour for example,
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  like everything revolved around his schedule.
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  If she could go on tour with him specifically, but whenever it
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  was time for him to support her, like he could never do that,
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  then Brianna explained the big moment that kind of demolished
• 5:00
  her relationship with Grace. So she did clarify before
• 5:03
  telling this story that her and Grace are fine and they'll
• 5:06
  always be fine. She's like, we were texting last
• 5:08
  night, like she loves the diss track.
• 5:10
  We talked about this last week. But Josh and Dave, they
• 5:13
  referenced this in their diss track where they said like,
• 5:15
  yeah, he tried to put a wedge between Brianna and Grace.
• 5:19
  So anyways, with Grace, who's like obviously her best friend,
• 5:21
  she Co hosts plan Bri with her. So she said they had rented this
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  house for her birthday. They're all drinking and they're
• 5:28
  all around the fire. And then he started throwing
• 5:30
  jabs at her friends and family. She said this was just like what
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  he did. So Brianna got upset.
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  She went to bed early. He didn't follow her.
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  Then she said she woke up in like a couple hours later and
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  she heard screaming and all of her friends were all downstairs
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  like crying together. She looked outside and her aunt
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  was trying to like de escalate a situation with Zach.
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  He was like going off outside. She said there's a recording of
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  this that can like never see the light of day where basically
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  Zach was screaming at her friends, you're not going to be
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  anything. You're a fucking loser.
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  You're never going to make it. You live off other people.
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  So basically reading between the lines, this was probably aimed
• 6:05
  at Grace because there are a lot of people that feel like Brianna
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  kind of like gave Grace a career, quote UN quote, because
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  they do the podcast together. And like, she brought her into
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  the fold, you know, and kind of gave her this a bit of a
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  platform. So people think that that
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  particular thing that Brianna said was aimed at Grace.
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  And she literally opened that story by saying, like, this one
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  thing ruined my relationship with Grace and then told that
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  story. So like, yeah, then she said of
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  that story that he absolutely lost his mind at being recorded.
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  And basically Brianna said that like, every night after that, he
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  would come in and, like, film Brianna and be like, can I film
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  you since your friends were filming me?
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  In general, sounded like a really difficult relationship.
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  He sounded very controlling, very abusive.
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  And yeah, people are very, very proud of Brianna for speaking
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  out. And I think it does put a lot of
• 6:56
  her past words and actions from this year into perspective.
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  She has said she was doing a lot of projection.
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  And even me, like, I've only peripherally followed Brianna.
• 7:06
  And, you know, I agree that this year, like, her sparkle was just
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  gone. Like, she seemed like a
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  different person. She seemed so withdrawn, so
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  distant. She seemed very checked out of,
• 7:18
  like, all of her work commitments.
• 7:19
  It just didn't seem like the Brianna that we always knew
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  whether you loved her, hated her, you know, Regardless,
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  something felt very different. The one thing that I can't get
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  behind with all of this is that she's almost like the way she's
• 7:33
  been talking about this hush money, she's almost like
• 7:35
  exposing that the other women from Zach's past, like Rose,
• 7:39
  who's his ex-wife, and Deb, who was his ex-girlfriend that he
• 7:43
  dated right before Rihanna signed Ndas and got this like
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  hush money. Like this.
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  The settlement, the way that she's framing it feels a little
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  bit icky. She's like, I can't be paid off
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  like the other one type of thing.
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  And then Dave, he released another diss track today on Zac
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  Bryan. Oh, also I found out that it was
• 8:01
  not actually. So the reason why the video or
• 8:03
  their their diss track kept getting taken down on YouTube
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  and Spotify was not because it's sampled music from Zac's song.
• 8:10
  It's because Josh Richards has a music like not career.
• 8:15
  What's it called? Like a like he's signed to a
• 8:18
  record label, I guess music career, you know what I mean?
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  He's signed to a record label and he like forgot that he was.
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  And so he's not allowed to release music under anyone else.
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  And he forgot that he was just signed to a record label.
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  So that's why they've been having problems like getting it
• 8:36
  to stay up. Anyways, Dave released a new
• 8:38
  diss track today. I mean, he's just like milking
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  this. I think you guys know Dave
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  Portnoy is like my number one enemy.
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  He's like my arts nemesis. You know, when people are like,
• 8:49
  who? What celebrity do you have?
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  Like A1 sided, like, beef with Dave Portnoy for me because,
• 8:57
  yeah, like, it's fun to see him, like, rallying around Bri.
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  And I know a lot of people are like, Oh my God.
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  Like, everybody needs friends like Dave and Josh.
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  But let's not forget, like, the way that Dave is so mad about
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  how Zach treated Brianna. He literally voted for Donald
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  Trump, who is a convicted abuser.
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  OK? So let's not forget that
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  hypocrisy. See, when we're like praising
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  Dave Portnoy for being this good guy and standing up for Brianna,
• 9:24
  All right, guys, that is for the most part, the recap of all of
• 9:30
  it. I I mean, I highly recommend
• 9:32
  watching the episode. It is like an hour and a half
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  long. It's very, very long, but it's
• 9:37
  worth it. I think it's emotional.
• 9:38
  It's hard to watch, but I think it's important.
• 9:41
  And again, very proud of Brie for standing up for herself and,
• 9:45
  you know, for sharing her story, especially so soon.
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  And she has said this is like scratching the surface of
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  everything that has happened. She actually said she considers
• 9:54
  this like protecting him. So I can't even imagine what she
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  went through if this is what she considers to be kind of like
• 10:00
  scratching the surface. OK, the next story that I have
• 10:03
  for you guys is I wanted to break down the Bonnie Blue
• 10:06
  controversy for you guys that's been happening on like
• 10:09
  Australian TikTok, kind of. I actually had a request from a
• 10:13
  couple US listeners to share more about Australian Internet
• 10:16
  culture news because it's like less commonly covered for you
• 10:20
  guys. So I guess here it is.
• 10:23
  Here is one of the biggest stories happening in Australian
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  like Internet culture right now. OK, so Bonnie Blue is a British
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  Only Fans creator according to Pedestrian, which is like an
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  Australian entertainment publication here quote.
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  Her niche on the platform is making videos of herself with
• 10:37
  young men who are, as she likes to call it, barely legal.
• 10:41
  She's been all over the world to help recent graduates celebrate
• 10:44
  and has gone viral for sleeping with over 122 young college men
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  during Cancun's spring break parties.
• 10:51
  Money recently took to TikTok to share that she and another
• 10:54
  creator were taking to schoolies on the Gold Coast in Queensland,
• 10:58
  Australia. Schoolies starts next week.
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  OK, so schoolies for anyone that doesn't know, it's basically
• 11:03
  like grad trip. It's like when you finish high
• 11:05
  school, you go to the Gold Coast for a big grad trip for everyone
• 11:09
  finishing school basically. I don't think it's like all the
• 11:12
  high schools at once. I think there's like different
• 11:13
  trips that you can take. It's called schoolies.
• 11:16
  It's literally like going to spring break, Cancun spring
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  break. Like I don't think we did that
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  after high school, but we would do a trip usually like on spring
• 11:25
  break when I was at university and then we did a big grad trip
• 11:28
  at the end and we went to put to Canada.
• 11:30
  So like similar vibes. You go for a week, you party,
• 11:33
  you have fun with your class, like whatever.
• 11:35
  But this is graduating high school.
• 11:37
  So these kids are like 1718. So Bonnie said in a TikTok
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  quote, me and Annie Knight are going to be outside the Meritan
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  Surfers Paradise. Surfers Paradise is a suburb
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  like a beach on the Gold Coast, like a suburb of the Gold Coast,
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  and we want to pleasure you and help you celebrate finishing
• 11:55
  school. OK, so SBS reports that the two
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  quote plans to film explicit videos with barely legal 18 year
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  old men. The videos would then be
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  uploaded to the subscriber based adult platform only fans by the
• 12:09
  two women who are both in their 20s and are among the sites
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  highest earning creators. So this just sent people off and
• 12:17
  there was this big petition going around to like, ban them
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  from entering the country. And, and, you know, Bonnie Blue
• 12:23
  was pushing back. Being like, this is ridiculous.
• 12:25
  These people are adults. They can make their own
• 12:28
  decisions, like raise the age of consent.
• 12:30
  Then if you care about this. She said that participants would
• 12:34
  have to be over 18. They would have to sign a
• 12:37
  consent waiver and they would have to be sober.
• 12:39
  They do like a breathalyzer before, I guess signing these
• 12:43
  forms and participating. So now to come full circle, like
• 12:47
  I said, there was this petition to stop her from coming here.
• 12:50
  And now apparently on Thursday, reports are circulating that
• 12:54
  Bonnie Blues Australian visa was revoked.
• 12:57
  My opinion here is, OK, sure, they might be legal, you know,
• 13:03
  they might be 18 years old. But I think when you are
• 13:05
  marketing yourself as like the one that helps assure these
• 13:10
  young men into adulthood into their like, actual like legal
• 13:14
  age of consent going to a high school trip, I think there is
• 13:19
  too much room for error. I do think even though you're
• 13:22
  like legally an adult at 18, you don't know anything at 18.
• 13:26
  Like, I'm turning 33 too soon in like a month.
• 13:30
  Oh my God. And and I think back to even
• 13:33
  like 10 years ago when I was 23 and I'm like, I knew fucking
• 13:37
  nothing back then. Like the mistakes that you make
• 13:39
  when you're young. And this is this is not them.
• 13:41
  Just like, you know, sleeping with her like this is to be in
• 13:45
  content and I don't know if they're going to get paid to be
• 13:49
  in that content. I'm not actually actually didn't
• 13:51
  find anything on that. And there feels like a lot of
• 13:54
  ethical implications. The flip side is that tons of
• 13:57
  people are using this whole situation as a reason to be
• 14:01
  super misogynistic, to be super anti sex work.
• 14:05
  There's just a lot of like, I mean, there's already a lot of
• 14:07
  stigmatization. People are using this as an
• 14:10
  excuse to project that. So I think those elements like
• 14:14
  that's important to reflect on when can assuming content about
• 14:17
  this, forming your own opinion on this, what type of like
• 14:21
  misogyny, bias stereotypes, you know, do you have kind of laced
• 14:26
  through that or is laced through the content that you're
• 14:29
  consuming on this? Because I think that is an
• 14:32
  important element to this conversation.
• 14:33
  Absolutely. OK, the last story that I have
• 14:36
  for you guys, this is someone that we have not mentioned in
• 14:40
  like, yeah, probably 2 full years.
• 14:42
  Deaf Noodles has returned to YouTube as an undisclosed AI
• 14:48
  bought. So Deaf Noodles, if you guys
• 14:50
  don't know, I know we have a lot of new listeners since we
• 14:53
  probably last talked about Deaf Noodles.
• 14:55
  Deaf Noodles was one of the most well known Internet culture
• 14:58
  reporters in the YouTube space. His real name is Dennis and the
• 15:02
  character that he portrays online called Deaf Noodles was
• 15:05
  this like satirical cat? So he wore like little cat ears
• 15:10
  in a Minecraft house like that was his brand.
• 15:12
  OK. And that's how he would like
• 15:14
  report the news. At one point he was highly
• 15:17
  influential and his reporting played a massive role in some
• 15:20
  major Internet culture moments. So Kat Tenbarge in February 2022
• 15:25
  tweeted Deaf Noodles is one of the most interesting and
• 15:28
  confounding characters in the YouTube drama community.
• 15:31
  Huge news platform, huge influence over creators
• 15:34
  reputations. But says it's all jokes and
• 15:37
  satire whenever he gets into an argument.
• 15:40
  Cat. By the way, I didn't note this.
• 15:42
  She is a journalist. She's the journalist that wrote
• 15:45
  the David Dobrik vlog squad Dom sexual assault article that like
• 15:50
  brought down that whole House of Cards.
• 15:52
  She worked for Business Insider for years and then now she's at
• 15:55
  NBC. She continues.
• 15:56
  Deaf Noodles single handedly drove the James Charles sexting
• 15:59
  scandal by being the only news source to publish all the
• 16:02
  different TikTok accusations before they were taken down.
• 16:06
  So whether he likes it or not, he was a primary news publisher
• 16:09
  in that case as well as many others.
• 16:12
  OK so around this time when she tweeted this in mid 20/22, he
• 16:17
  was facing intense scrutiny for his inaccurate reporting, mostly
• 16:21
  due to wanting to get things up faster than other people.
• 16:24
  Like he wouldn't vet his news, he would just publish it and it
• 16:28
  was sometimes inaccurate and the inaccuracies were just becoming
• 16:32
  more frequent. But also just like bigger and
• 16:35
  like Kat said, his defense was always that the character he
• 16:38
  portrays is like satirical and like he's a comedian, so he
• 16:42
  can't be held accountable for anything he posts online from
• 16:45
  the deaf noodles character. That was like his whole defense.
• 16:48
  So this scrutiny basically led him to essentially be run off
• 16:52
  the Internet. And he started posting like
• 16:54
  really unhinged content once he stopped posting like drama or
• 16:58
  commentary or news content. None of it has to do with
• 17:01
  Internet culture. It was just like weird personal
• 17:03
  content. And then he eventually wiped all
• 17:06
  of his content and rebranded his channel to irrelevant news where
• 17:10
  he would post AI generated drama content that got like very few
• 17:14
  views. For context, he had over a or
• 17:16
  has over 100 sorry 500,000 subscribers and his videos were
• 17:21
  getting like less than 1000 views each.
• 17:23
  He basically became like an AI content farm.
• 17:25
  So people kind of, I thought this is like the end of Deaf
• 17:28
  Noodles. Like, you know, he had a good
• 17:29
  run, he made some money, he had some cultural relevance.
• 17:34
  But now Deaf Noodles has reprised his OG character on his
• 17:38
  YouTube channel. However, some viewers have
• 17:41
  noticed that something is off. So even though it looks and
• 17:45
  sounds like Dennis in these videos and it feels very
• 17:47
  reminiscent of his early content before he got cancelled, some
• 17:51
  viewers have noticed that it doesn't actually seem to be him
• 17:54
  in these videos, rather in a AI bought version of his character.
• 17:58
  OK, so why does this matter? Well, some people are praising
• 18:02
  him for finding like the right balance to preserve his mental
• 18:05
  health where he doesn't have to show up on camera and can still,
• 18:08
  you know, do his work. But the problem is he isn't
• 18:12
  disclosing that his likeness is AI generated.
• 18:17
  In fact, he called it a face reveal when he first like came
• 18:21
  back to the camera, quote UN quote came back.
• 18:24
  And when he's been called out, he's like doubling down and
• 18:27
  claiming that's not true despite the mounting evidence where it
• 18:31
  appears that it is true. I don't have any concrete
• 18:33
  evidence here. I'm just letting you guys know
• 18:34
  what's happening. If all of this is true, it's
• 18:37
  incredibly concerning. Like he, like I said, he has a
• 18:40
  huge platform. He has over 500,000 people that
• 18:43
  subscribe to him. There's a big gap in, I mean,
• 18:47
  media literacy, social media literacy, media literacy,
• 18:51
  digital media literacy, but especially because it's also
• 18:54
  new, like AI literacy, understanding how to spot fake
• 18:59
  videos, fake information, deep fakes, things like that.
• 19:03
  Like, these are things that we need to be actively on alert for
• 19:07
  and watching for and learning about how to spot.
• 19:10
  So yeah, like, that would be very damaging.
• 19:13
  If all of this is true. He is just lying to his fans and
• 19:16
  saying no, no, no, no. This is just like what I look
• 19:18
  like now. This is just like how it's
• 19:19
  edited. It just highlights our lack of
• 19:21
  media literacy when we need to be moving the needle, like
• 19:24
  towards an increase in that and understanding what AI generated
• 19:28
  content looks like, how to spot it.
• 19:30
  And this, because his platform is so big, could be moving the
• 19:33
  needle backwards. But yeah, I just thought that
• 19:36
  was interesting. I thought it was an interesting
• 19:38
  little tidbit. He was so powerful, like at
• 19:40
  1:00. I'm not even joking.
• 19:42
  I couldn't even imagine doing my job without deaf noodles
• 19:49
  reporting. Like it was so helpful for not
• 19:53
  just me but so many Internet culture journalists and
• 19:55
  reporters at one point and it's so wild how quickly that all
• 19:59
  just went away. But anyways guys, that's it for
• 20:03
  Mini Scroll. I feel like this was the longest
• 20:04
  episode of all time of mini scroll.
• 20:06
  I have no idea how long this was.
• 20:08
  But thank you so much for listening.
• 20:10
  Please remember to rate, review and subscribe.
• 20:12
  I love you guys so much. Please rate US on Spotify.
• 20:15
  We're trying to get our Spotify review stars up.
• 20:18
  And I will talk to you tomorrow. Bye.