Latest / Mini Scroll / MINI SCROLL: Brittany Broski album, BookTok vs. Matthew & Paul vs. Ingram + Dr. Pumpin's viral marketing

Transcript

MINI SCROLL: Brittany Broski album, BookTok vs. Matthew & Paul vs. Ingram + Dr. Pumpin's viral marketing · Mini Scroll

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  Hi everyone. Welcome to Mini Scroll, the
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  daily Internet culture podcast bringing you the biggest stories
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  from social media, the creator economy and the digital space.
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  Every Monday through Thursday and sometimes Fridays.
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  I'm your host, Lauren Meisner, the founder of the youth digital
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  media brand Centennial World. Welcome back to Mini Scroll
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  everyone. The final episode in this
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  We are not ready for the move at all tomorrow.
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  in and we are going to spend the whole rest of this afternoon
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  It has a lot of baggage for me. OK, so I'm really excited for
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  of the, I was going to say week by the end of the year, by the
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  end of the week would be amazing.
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  But by the end of the year, actually, OK, we have another
• 1:52
  incredibly niche episode for you guys today.
• 1:55
  Annabelle was like, Minnie's performing pretty well this
• 1:57
  week. And then she's like, I think
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  it's because every story has been so niche.
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  And honestly, that is the truth. There's been so much interesting
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  stuff happening online this week.
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  And sometimes you just get one of those like, amazing weeks,
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  you know? And this week is one of those.
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  So the first story that I have for you guys, it's a bit of a
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  quick one, but Brittany Broski has announced that she has a
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  debut album on the way. So creator Brittany Broski is
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  going to be releasing an album soon.
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  She appeared on the House of Mayor podcast and dropped the
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  bomb that her debut album is on its way.
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  She didn't actually say when it's coming, but I'm going to
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  say if she's already telling us about it, it's probably going to
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  happen soon. So for anyone who follows
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  Brittany, this should come as no surprise.
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  She's already released 3 songs this year and obviously is
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  trying to like get into music and Brittany has real vocals.
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  I feel like this is different than influencers that try their
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  hand at, and I'm not against that at all.
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  I actually think if you had the money and the connections and
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  the resources to try your hand at whatever you wanted, like,
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  why would you not try? So I don't begrudge any
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  influencers who have the opportunity to like create a
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  song or try acting or whatever, cuz like, sure, go for it.
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  But I think what feels different about Britney is not only does
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  she have a lot of talent, but also she seems to be doing this
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  in a very considered way. It seems to be a passion of hers
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  and I'm excited to, you know, I guess just hear more about her
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  debut album coming out. OK.
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  The next story that I have for you guys is a big one.
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  It is a bit convoluted. I did my best to put all the
• 3:27
  information together. But if I got anything incorrect,
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  feel free to correct me in the comments and let me know what I
• 3:34
  missed or what I, you know, didn't get right.
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  But I'm almost certain that this timeline of events and
• 3:39
  everything that's going on is correct.
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  But please, no, it's not like my full on niche.
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  OK. So I'm going to be talking about
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  how creators Matthew and Paul are being accused by the book
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  community of engaging in pity marketing to promote their new
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  children's book and how now an employee in the publishing
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  industry has been dragged into this and it's just really
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  exploded. So Matthew and Paul are a
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  popular online couple. They have over 3.5 million
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  followers on TikTok and 1.2 million on YouTube.
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  Their social media brand tagline is 2 guys and a guide dog
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  because they feature Paul's guide dog and a lot of their
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  content Paul is seeing and paired.
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  So they post a lot about Paul's journey becoming a children's
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  book author despite being legally blind.
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  And over the past year and a half, the way that they've gone
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  about portraying this journey and promoting this journey has
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  been criticized by followers. A lot of people say they engage
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  in pity marketing to sell products like their books, for
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  example. They'll post a video of a quote,
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  UN quote sob story and a product that they are referring to in
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  this video related to the video will be tagged in the
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  description where you're able to like click on it or swipe off
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  and buy. So the latest example of them
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  doing this is with Paul's new book.
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  In June 2025, they posted 2 emotional videos claiming they
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  were having a hard time getting Paul's book into bookstores
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  because of the LGBTQIA plus characters and themes throughout
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  it. They said they were having a
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  particularly hard time with book distributor Ingram.
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  So Ingram is the largest book distributor in the world.
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  Before I keep going, obviously book bans are an issue in the
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  United States right now and LGBTQIA rights are being
• 5:23
  attacked across the board. So I want to make it clear,
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  while people largely don't believe Paul for various
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  reasons, and I will get into some of that, these are real
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  concerns and I don't want to minimize that.
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  And it is very possible that two things can be true at once.
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  Like they can be capitalizing on like, quote UN quote, sympathy
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  marketing as a lot of people believe, while also having a
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  hard time getting their books into stores because of the
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  themes and the discrimination that is happening against their
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  community. So Paul's claims immediately
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  sparked skepticism amongst 2 groups.
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  First, the publishing industry, and 2nd, their followers, the
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  publishing industry, because I guess their claims just didn't
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  align with what happens in the industry at all.
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  And then their followers, because those who have followed
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  them for a while noted that the year prior, they made similar
• 6:12
  claims about another one of their children's books, saying
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  that a small bookstore had banned it for its themes after
• 6:18
  ordering 100 copies. So this also made people be
• 6:23
  like, what the fuck? Because I guess, I mean, I don't
• 6:25
  know the publishing industry, but tons of authors, tons of
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  industry professionals have been speaking out against, you know,
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  this couple and everything that's been going on.
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  And at the time, they were saying, like, indie bookstores
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  don't order anywhere close to 100 copies of a book.
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  So, like, this story cannot be true.
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  Paul later clarified the reason that 100 copies were ordered is
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  because he was going to be doing a book signing, like a meet and
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  greet. And, you know, they have
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  millions and millions of followers.
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  So I was like, OK, that makes sense.
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  However, in explaining this, he said that the person who had
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  scheduled him had ended up leaving the bookstore.
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  Like left their job at the bookstore.
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  And the owner of the bookstore, who he named Tanya, like he
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  called Tanya, pulled the event because she was not supportive
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  of the themes in his book. So then that sent their
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  followers on a witch hunt for an indie bookstore with an owner
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  named Tanya. And they came across this
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  black-owned bookstore by a woman named Tanya in Canada, who was
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  not related to this story at all, but they decided she was
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  the one. And it was this store.
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  And they just, like, went after her apparently.
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  And days later, Paul came online and said, OK, like, please stop
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  attacking her. This is not the right bookstore.
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  Either way, all of this just led to more questions for their
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  followers than answers, and they felt like they were just
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  engaging in pity marketing to encourage their followers to
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  support them. OK, so back to June of this
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  year. Paul said he was going to get
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  his book into a massive bookstore chain with the help of
• 7:52
  a sales Rep from Ingram. However, he was told by this
• 7:56
  bookstore chain that he needed to change the title of his book
• 8:00
  in order for it to get picked up.
• 8:02
  So he did. He says that he did a reprint of
• 8:04
  tons of copies in anticipation of this major bookstore buying
• 8:08
  his books. The deal, like I said, was meant
• 8:10
  to go through Ingram, the book distributor, and he said it fell
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  through because Ingram said they wouldn't go ahead with
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  distributing his book unless he had at least 10 titles, like 10
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  separate books that he as an author has published.
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  The book deal is not going through.
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  Oh God. If you've been following along,
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  then you know a major bookstore chain offered to carry my
• 8:30
  inclusive children's books, The Pengrooms and The Secret
• 8:33
  Ingredient, but that they could only put the Pengrooms in their
• 8:36
  children's book section if we changed the title of the book.
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  So we agreed to do it. We changed the Pengrooms to
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  become Pringle and Finn. Same book, same message of
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  inclusivity, just a brand new title.
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  When we sold out of our copies of The Pengrooms, we placed
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  another order, this time with the new title Pringle and Finn.
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  This was a much, much bigger order.
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  As you can see behind me. These boxes go to the ceiling
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  and they go back six rows. If we delayed ordering the
• 9:00
  quantity that this bookstore wanted, we might have missed the
• 9:03
  opportunity entirely. So it was definitely a big risk,
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  one that I was really afraid to make, but it was one we had to
• 9:09
  make. So this is where things took a
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  bit of an unexpected turn. The bookstore chain got us in
• 9:14
  touch with Ingram. Now, this is the default system
• 9:17
  that all US bookstores use to place their book orders, and you
• 9:20
  have to be in this distribution system in order to get into most
• 9:24
  bookstores. So we got on a call with Ingram,
• 9:26
  and that's when they told us that we did not qualify unless
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  we have at least 10 book titles available.
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  We only currently have three book titles.
• 9:34
  I have two more books coming out later this year, but that puts
• 9:37
  us five book titles away. And in the meantime, we're
• 9:39
  renting out two entire storage rooms to hold the Pringle and
• 9:44
  Finn books and the Secret Ingredient books.
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  And right now they have nowhere to go.
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  The major bookstore chain has gone radio silent.
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  I do want to say this video where he's talking about this is
• 9:53
  a sponsored ad for his book with it linked for swipe up.
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  OK, so now this is escalated into Paul and Matthew getting
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  into a public social media feud with an employee from Ingram.
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  So an alleged sales Rep for Ingram posted on threads saying
• 10:10
  that Paul was not rejected from Ingram.
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  He was simply referred to Ingram Sparks, which is their
• 10:16
  distribution arm for indie authors.
• 10:19
  Paul was trying to work with Ingram Wholesale to get his
• 10:22
  books into these major bookstores, and Ingram Wholesale
• 10:26
  is for publishers with 10 or more titles underneath their
• 10:29
  belt. Paul only has five, So he was
• 10:32
  referred to Ingram Sparks, and that was not made super clear,
• 10:36
  according to their followers in his initial videos.
• 10:40
  However, when it really exploded is when the employee, via
• 10:43
  Threads, said that Paul was charging authors to publish
• 10:47
  their children's book under his own imprint, which I guess is a
• 10:51
  big accusation in publishing. I think it's called vanity
• 10:53
  publishing. When?
• 10:55
  Yeah, and imprint basically says, yeah, we'll publish your
• 10:57
  book, but you have to pay us. So Paul and Matthew have opened
• 11:00
  their own imprint and it seems like people online think that
• 11:03
  they did this because like I said they only have 5 books
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  underneath his name and if they can get to 10 then they can
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  qualify for Ingram wholesale. So why this all got picked up
• 11:13
  again this week? Why this has exploded this week
• 11:16
  in particular? Because all the Thread stuff
• 11:17
  went down in June. OK, Paul posted this week saying
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  that he found out that the same employee that he claimed was
• 11:24
  trying to help him get into a major retailer through Ingram,
• 11:29
  he found out this week was also the same employee who posted
• 11:32
  about him on Threads in June. So this person was being 2
• 11:35
  faced, I think is what he was implying.
• 11:37
  So this sparked so much discussion on TikTok of people
• 11:40
  being like, why do these guys keep doing this?
• 11:42
  Like every time it's close to Black Friday, every time it's
• 11:45
  close to Christmas, every time it's close to Pride month, they
• 11:48
  start this kind of like quote UN quote pity marketing campaign to
• 11:52
  promote their products that that's what people are saying
• 11:54
  online. OK, I am not across Matthew and
• 11:58
  Paul. I was going to say Matthew and
• 11:59
  John. It's giving apostles.
• 12:01
  I am not across Matthew and Paul as a couple.
• 12:05
  I'm not really across their content but that is what a lot
• 12:08
  of people are saying. Like Reddit is filled with
• 12:10
  people who are like I love them for so long and like you know I
• 12:13
  bought into it the first or second time but now that this
• 12:15
  has happened like 6 plus times I had to block them and stuff like
• 12:18
  that. So now where we are today.
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  An hour ago, Paul posted a video reading an alleged e-mail that
• 12:25
  he received from the VP of Ingram.
• 12:27
  Because the vice president of Ingram just sent us an e-mail
• 12:30
  and it is, for lack of a better word, it's funny.
• 12:33
  So they said that they saw the video in which I talked about
• 12:36
  the lies being spread by one of their employees.
• 12:38
  And they said out of respect to you and our commitment to
• 12:41
  providing the best possible customer service, we have some
• 12:44
  clarifications. First of all, I just want to
• 12:46
  stop there because it is so amusing to me that they're
• 12:48
  talking about a commitment to the best customer service.
• 12:51
  When the employee representing their company was going online
• 12:55
  while they were working on a project with us and providing
• 12:57
  details about that project just to the public, also providing a
• 13:01
  lot of inaccurate details, they called what we were doing a
• 13:04
  stunt. They suggested to people that we
• 13:05
  were starting a vanity press, that we were going to charge
• 13:08
  authors to publish their book. Never said that, would never do
• 13:11
  that. Of course.
• 13:12
  Most glaringly, they claimed that we had not even had contact
• 13:15
  with Ingram since 2024 yet in this e-mail from the Vice
• 13:18
  President. After reviewing internal e-mail
• 13:22
  indications, we can confirm that you did have contact with Ingram
• 13:25
  in March of 2025. This did not come with an
• 13:28
  apology. At this point I'm wondering if
• 13:29
  this was supposed to be sent to their employee and nominee.
• 13:32
  We know that we had contact in March of 2025.
• 13:34
  We have detailed records. When we decided that we were
• 13:37
  going to give a soft cover version of the book a try
• 13:40
  because we could make a, you know, a dollar per copy.
• 13:42
  They would be printing it, warehousing and shipping it,
• 13:45
  etc. This is a massive multi billion
• 13:47
  dollar company. I thought for sure, I mean, this
• 13:50
  is a huge department. They weren't going to laced me
• 13:52
  with the same person who had been discrediting us and
• 13:55
  spreading lies. Like it just never occurred to
• 13:56
  me that we would end up with the same person.
• 13:58
  It it really feels like one of those jump scares in a movie
• 14:02
  when I found out I was the same person.
• 14:03
  I mean, I will say in the e-mail they said your account's still
• 14:06
  open. We can still do the project for
• 14:08
  you. Absolutely not.
• 14:09
  They could make a lot of money off this book.
• 14:12
  Like I said, I would get about a dollar per copy.
• 14:15
  They take a nice big chunk of the profits.
• 14:18
  They profit off the print on demand services.
• 14:21
  They provide a lot of services. I'm not saying what they do is
• 14:23
  bad. I think what they do is good.
• 14:24
  I think the way they're handling this is.
• 14:26
  Poor. Now I will say that Matthew and
• 14:28
  Paul, their official account is like reposting drama videos
• 14:32
  about this. They're commenting on like every
• 14:34
  video being like, Oh my God, I love you.
• 14:37
  Thanks so much for covering this.
• 14:39
  Like you got some stuff wrong, but your voice is so soothing.
• 14:42
  I could listen to you talk all day Like they're commenting all
• 14:44
  this like sugary sweet stuff across videos of people who are
• 14:48
  like covering the drama. It's so bizarre.
• 14:52
  It's very interesting. But yes, that is the whole saga
• 14:55
  in a very short, succinct, kind of succinct nutshell.
• 15:01
  I hope I got, you know, the order of events correct and I
• 15:04
  hope I got as much correct as possible.
• 15:06
  But if you guys know more about them and about their whole
• 15:09
  situation, I would love to hear it in the comments.
• 15:11
  OK, the last story that I have for you guys, this is truly
• 15:14
  hilarious. I don't know if you guys have
• 15:16
  come across her, but there is this new Doctor going super
• 15:20
  viral on TikTok. She's from Chile and her name is
• 15:23
  Doctor Valentina Pumpin and she is going viral for her marketing
• 15:28
  stunt that has blown up her account.
• 15:31
  She has almost 700,000 followers in like 7 days.
• 15:34
  So Doctor Valentina is a dentist, like I said, she's
• 15:37
  based in Chile and she started posting on TikTok in April.
• 15:40
  However, over the past week, she has gone so viral gaining over
• 15:45
  600,000 followers and hundreds of millions of views.
• 15:49
  Hundreds of millions of views. I swear like they are so viral
• 15:54
  because of her quote UN quote bad veneers.
• 15:56
  So since October 15th, she's been making these videos
• 15:59
  promoting her practice. But in them she has like the
• 16:03
  worst veneers of all time. And she's telling people to come
• 16:07
  and get their veneers done with her.
• 16:09
  And at first people were like, is this a joke?
• 16:12
  Is this real? She seems very serious in them.
• 16:14
  So people thought like there were a lot of people that did
• 16:16
  believe that this was true. We see a lot of bad veneers on
• 16:19
  TikTok. OK, So I think people just kind
• 16:21
  of have veneer blindness and we're like, oh, that's just like
• 16:23
  another other love Island mouth. Like I think that's what a lot
• 16:26
  of people thought after gaining over 500,000 followers in, like
• 16:29
  I said, about a week. She made a video revealing that
• 16:33
  she was basically wearing fake teeth the whole time.
• 16:36
  And now because of that, she's even more viral.
• 16:39
  And this has become a full on in joke on TikTok.
• 16:43
  People are perioding her and because it's like so specific,
• 16:46
  like she is super viral, but like her content is very
• 16:48
  specific. So it's like deep referential
• 16:50
  humor, OK. And everyone is calling her
• 16:53
  like, the ultimate marketing queen because she really just
• 16:55
  lent in and said, I'm going to make people think that my work
• 16:58
  is really bad. I'm going to get hundreds of
• 17:01
  thousands of followers and then be like plot twist, joking
• 17:05
  actually, these are not my real teeth.
• 17:07
  And now she has an account with over 600,000 followers, almost
• 17:10
  700,000 followers that she can market her actual services to
• 17:15
  and everybody's loving her. It's so good.
• 17:16
  Anyways, guys, that's it for mini scrolls today.
• 17:18
  Thank you so much for listening. I love you guys.
• 17:21
  Please remember to rate, review and subscribe.
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  Please Spotify star rate US and I will talk to you guys
• 17:27
  tomorrow, Friday for a Friday mini scroll in our new office
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  allegedly and Halloween lean episode.
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  Oh, spooky. Maybe I'll be in my Halloween
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  costume. It is actually mini scroll
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  appropriate, but I don't know if you guys will get it, but we'll
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  see. OK, anyways, bye.