Latest / Mini Scroll / MINI SCROLL: Bauer Hockey apology, Drag Bingo x Chipotle, MrBeast buys Gen Alpha bank + creator "plagiarism" feud

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MINI SCROLL: Bauer Hockey apology, Drag Bingo x Chipotle, MrBeast buys Gen Alpha bank + creator "plagiarism" feud · Mini Scroll

• 0:00
  This episode of Mini Scroll was brought to you by The Commons,
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  Australia's premium Co working space.
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  The Commons is truly a main character in the Centennial
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  World cinematic universe, as the Chippendale location has been
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  our home for over 5 years and it's where we record this
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  podcast every single day except for today.
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  Whether you're a creative escaping the Home Office or
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  designed spaces and a genuine sense of community across Sydney
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  and Melbourne. And while the spaces are
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  Their support for growing businesses has enabled
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  Centennial world success and sometimes survival over the
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  years. If you're looking for a Co
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  working space that feels considered, is community led and
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  actually backs the people working there, head to
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  thecommons.com dot AU. Hi everyone, welcome to Mini
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  Scroll, the daily Internet culture podcast bringing you the
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  biggest stories from social media, the creator economy and
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  the digital space. Every Monday through Thursday
• 1:01
  and sometimes Fridays. I'm your host Lauren Meisner,
• 1:05
  the founder of the Australian youth digital media brand
• 1:08
  Centennial World. Welcome back to Mini Scroll
• 1:12
  remote edition everyone. If it sounds slightly different,
• 1:15
  it's because we're using different microphones.
• 1:18
  If it looks different, you'll be able to tell I'm actually in a
• 1:21
  hotel room instead of a studio. We are in Melbourne right now
• 1:26
  recording some touch grass episodes and Oh my God yesterday
• 1:30
  was a freaking nightmare getting here.
• 1:32
  I'm so glad that I told you guys there may or may not be an
• 1:35
  episode yesterday instead of promising that there still would
• 1:37
  be 1 because we did not get to Melbourne until one hour before
• 1:43
  our first recording was supposed to happen.
• 1:45
  So we were supposed to land at like 10:00 AM and we didn't get
• 1:48
  here until 1:00 PM. Our flights were canceled, they
• 1:52
  were delayed. It was such a nightmare and we
• 1:55
  weren't even flying a budget airline.
• 1:57
  I specifically booked us on a more expensive airline to avoid
• 2:00
  that risk. But anyways, we made it, we got
• 2:04
  here, we got our first recording done, we have another one today
• 2:07
  and then one tomorrow morning. It's been good, it's been busy.
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  And I thought, you know what, I'm just going to do mini from
• 2:14
  the hotel room instead of trying to find a studio at our Co
• 2:17
  working space because we do have reciprocal rights at all the
• 2:20
  different locations. But this was just a lot easier.
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  OK, before I get started, there will be no mini tech tomorrow
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  because we fly out tomorrow and we have learned our lesson that
• 2:31
  trying to do flights and a daily podcast that we prep, record and
• 2:35
  edit and publish all in one day is not going to happen.
• 2:37
  So I've just told Annabelle let's skip for mini tech this
• 2:40
  week so that it's easier for her and she's not as stressed.
• 2:43
  Also, Benito Bowl. Oh my God, we were actually in
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  the air when it was happening and we landed and getting such
• 2:50
  an influx of like comments and footage and content about it was
• 2:55
  so amazing. I saw so many people crying,
• 2:58
  like it was honestly such a beautiful, amazing performance.
• 3:02
  And I was actually talking in our Discord today about how I
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  was consuming a lot of content, about all the different
• 3:08
  symbolism that was throughout the performance and Oh my God,
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  it was just amazing. I'm sure you guys have all seen
• 3:13
  this. It was really amazing.
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  And I actually have no idea who won the Super Bowl.
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  Like I didn't even know who's playing.
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  All right, let's get into the stories for today.
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  So the first story that I have for you guys is that Bauer
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  Hockey has apologized to Pavi. And I actually did also want to
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  issue a correction regarding this story.
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  So this is related to the mini deep dive that I posted on
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  Friday. If you didn't watch that, a
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  TikTok creator named Pavi, who makes like hockey related
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  content and a lot of content related to gear as well, shared
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  images of unreleased items that are coming to Bauer in a TikTok
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  video, basically just being excited about these new items
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  coming out. Bauer DM her pretending that
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  they wanted to partner with her to get her e-mail address.
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  And then once they had her e-mail address, they emailed her
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  threatening to send her a cease and desist, essentially saying
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  that the images were copyright protected.
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  Now, the two major issues that everyone had with this was #1
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  how deceptive they were in, you know, saying they wanted to
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  partner with her to get her e-mail address and then sending
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  her an e-mail had nothing to do with partnering with her.
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  And actually threatening some type of legal action against
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  her. Like that was just so unethical
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  in a lot of people's opinions, including mine.
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  And the second thing was that people were very much under the
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  impression that the catalog was free and had been released like
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  it was publicly available. However, Bauer has confirmed
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  that's not the case. The catalog was not publicly
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  available yet. So she actually was sharing
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  embargoed content. And I believe I even said I
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  don't think that this catalog is embargoed as far as I know.
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  I actually thought she got it in the mail.
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  But no. Pavi did confirm in a TikTok
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  comment last week that the catalog allegedly is available
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  for download across a bunch of different websites for free.
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  So I think that's how she got it.
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  But yes, apparently it did actually contain essentially
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  like embargoed information that she shared.
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  OK, so Bauer has posted this on TikTok.
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  Last week, we made a big mistake.
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  We contacted TikTok creator at Pavi the goalie, saying we were
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  interested in a partnership when our real intent was to ask for a
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  post featuring unreleased product information to be taken
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  down. In our rush to address the post,
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  we made a bad call and misled A genuine supporter.
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  That was wrong, and we apologized.
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  But we recognize that wasn't enough.
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  To Pavi, how we handled this wasn't fair to you.
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  You're a passionate hockey player and you're a loyal
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  supporter of our brand. We damaged your trust, and we're
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  sorry for that. To the hockey community, we care
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  deeply about this community and the creators who helped grow the
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  game. We got this wrong and we're
• 5:39
  committed to doing better. We are real people who love
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  hockey, and we made a real mistake.
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  Bauer social team and then their comments are literally filled
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  with people being like unreleased product information
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  unreleased, but it's a catalog that got mailed to her
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  unreleased, but it's free for download and all these websites
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  and they're essentially copying and pasting a very similar
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  statement that reads just add some contacts.
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  The images weren't from a publicly available catalog and
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  hadn't been shared by us. They were unreleased materials.
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  That doesn't excuse what we did. So, yeah, I feel like that's
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  putting an end now to this whole saga, but I'm glad that they
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  publicly addressed it as well. Like, I'm glad that they put it
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  front and center on TikTok. It's not a story.
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  It's not something that's going to disappear.
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  Hopefully they don't take it down and they left the comments
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  up, which is a good start. OK, the next story that I have
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  for you guys today, it is also a quick one, but I'm sure you guys
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  have seen it. I need to talk about how there
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  was this video that went so viral literally over the last
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  day. It has 20 million views in
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  basically a day of somebody who's at drag bingo, a creator
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  named Evan at drag bingo. And they made a video and it
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  read at drag bingo and had no more cash.
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  So I gave her a Chipotle gift card.
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  So it's, you know, one of the drag Queens dancing and singing
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  over to a table. And then Evan hands the drag
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  queen a Chipotle gift card instead of cash.
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  Now, this video went so viral partly because of the Queen's
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  reaction. Like, it's really funny.
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  It's really memeable. The whole situation is
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  hilarious. OK, And both Evan and the drag
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  queen Michelle, Michelle Levine, jumped on this so fast.
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  Literally the next day they went to Chipotle together.
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  So first they filmed this video of Michelle just eating Chipotle
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  by herself at a table in full drag.
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  And Evan was like, oh, she made it to Chipotle.
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  And then they filmed all this content together at Chipotle and
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  Oh my God, it's so cute. I just needed to mention it.
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  Like it's a truly viral moment. Like 20 million views like that
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  is truly viral. A lot of people try and figure
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  out ways to extend their virality moment or to play into
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  it. And I feel like this is a really
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  funny way. It's a really authentic and
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  unique way. It's really cute.
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  I love that they met up. That's really fun.
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  And yeah, it's just like you. It's wholesome.
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  I love it. OK, the next story that I have
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  for you guys today is that Mister Beast has purchased the
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  Gen. Z creator back to banking app
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  Step. So Beast Industries, which is
• 8:03
  Mr. Beast Company, has acquired Step, a fintech platform that
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  focuses on helping young people manage money and build financial
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  literacy. Step provides tools like
• 8:13
  spending accounts, debit cards, credit building features, and
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  it's all allegedly designed for Gen.
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  Z and Genelpha. I would actually say probably
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  more so Genelpha now at this point.
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  According to the announcement, Step will continue operating its
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  platform while gaining access to Beast Industries scale,
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  resources and audience reach. So this is from Business Wire
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  quote. Steps mission and offerings have
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  attracted over 7 million users and notable investors such as
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  four time NBA champion Stephen Curry, social media sensation
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  Charlie Demilio, Justin Timberlake, Will Smith and the
• 8:45
  chain smokers. Do you guys remember this?
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  OK, so I saw this story, Annabelle sent it to me and she
• 8:50
  was like, you should include this in mini today.
• 8:52
  And I was like, I swear step was like that bank that Charlie
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  Demilio was promoting back in like 2020.
• 9:00
  And anyways, I was right, that is brand awareness.
• 9:03
  The fact that I remembered that I don't live in the US, I've
• 9:06
  obviously never used this bank. I don't know anything about it.
• 9:09
  I am not in that world at all. But I was like, wait, I do think
• 9:13
  that's the one that Charlie D'amelio was using or at least
• 9:15
  promoting. So it continues step along with
• 9:18
  their experienced team will accelerate Beast Industries
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  ability to deliver comprehensive financial Wellness solutions
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  across its evolving platform. The fact that I just read a
• 9:28
  sentence that said will accelerate Beast industry's
• 9:31
  ability to deliver comprehensive financial Wellness solutions is
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  insane. So, you know, Mr. Beast strategy
• 9:39
  now is very clearly to use his influence as one of the biggest
• 9:43
  creators in the world to expand his power into various sectors.
• 9:49
  And I'm not normally nice about Mr. Beast, you guys know that.
• 9:52
  But I will say that so far, a lot of the ventures that he's
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  gone into outside of like content creation and the media
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  space have actually aligned well with who his target audience is,
• 10:03
  which as we know it is boys like kid boys.
• 10:07
  And I was thinking about this in comparison to Logan Paul and KSI
• 10:12
  and their Prime drink, because I even think I said this when
• 10:16
  Prime launched, that it feels like Logan Paul and KSI are like
• 10:19
  in denial about who their actual target audience is.
• 10:23
  Their target audience is similar to Mr. Beast Kid Boys, but Logan
• 10:27
  and KSI. They came together.
• 10:29
  They launched Prime. At first it was wildly
• 10:31
  successful. Shortly after they launched,
• 10:33
  they had a $1.2 billion valuation and then just a couple
• 10:39
  of years later, in 2025, it was reported that the company's
• 10:42
  profit had plummeted 90%, with sales dropping as much as 70% in
• 10:48
  certain regions like the UK. There are many factors that have
• 10:51
  led to that decline and there's a million video essays and like
• 10:54
  investigative reports out there looking into how this happened.
• 10:58
  So I definitely recommend you guys go search some of that up.
• 11:00
  But regardless, a huge part of that decline was that they
• 11:03
  didn't understand who their target audience was and also who
• 11:08
  would would be buying the product then for their target
• 11:11
  audience, which would be their parents.
• 11:12
  Prime's energy drink sector, which became really, I would
• 11:17
  argue like front and center of the brand, does not serve a six
• 11:23
  year old boy. And there was so much pushback
• 11:26
  against Prime Energy from parents all around the world
• 11:30
  that they faced these massive lawsuits.
• 11:33
  They faced bands like it became this huge nightmare for them.
• 11:37
  And I don't understand why they launched Prime Energy.
• 11:40
  And I don't understand why they launched it as so central to
• 11:43
  their brand because I actually think that was a huge detriment
• 11:46
  to them. It feels like almost with Prime,
• 11:48
  they created a product that was for their dream audience as
• 11:52
  opposed to for their actual audience.
• 11:55
  And Mr. Beast, with a lot of what he's put out, you can tell
• 11:59
  that he knows who his audience is and he's catering to them.
• 12:02
  And with STEP, I would say that's true too, right?
• 12:05
  Like Gen. Alpha, they will be getting bank
• 12:07
  accounts very soon. And it makes sense that Mister
• 12:11
  Beast's audience, these young boys, they will be begging their
• 12:14
  parents to sign up to Mr. Beast's bank.
• 12:17
  Will the parents do it? I don't know.
• 12:19
  I guess that's probably why they kept like the whole step team
• 12:22
  involved. I imagine that's partly APR play
• 12:24
  from like a trust perspective. I'm sure also like an
• 12:26
  operational play as well. But regardless, you know, of
• 12:30
  course they are going to want their parents to sign them up to
• 12:33
  step as kind of that like, quote UN quote, first step for them in
• 12:37
  banking. All right, in the last story
• 12:38
  that I have for you guys today, is there some niche TikTok drama
• 12:41
  going on between vloggers Ellie Frazier and Savannah Ray Bryant?
• 12:47
  And it all has to do with accusations of plagiarism, which
• 12:51
  I know we have spoken about many times before but there is a
• 12:54
  reason why I want to cover this one.
• 12:56
  So creator Ellie Frazier has been calling out plagiarism of
• 13:00
  her content and it has resulted in this back and forth between
• 13:04
  herself and a creator who seemingly copied her style.
• 13:07
  Ellie is a lifestyle creator with 95,000 followers.
• 13:10
  Yesterday she posted a video exposing what she calls quote
• 13:13
  digital plagiarism of her content I another creator named
• 13:16
  Sid. My video If you've been posting
• 13:19
  on social media and it feels like everyone else is taking off
• 13:21
  except for you, you need to hear this.
• 13:23
  I've been showing up online for almost three years now.
• 13:26
  Her video. Posting on social media every
• 13:28
  single day and it feels like you're watching everyone else
• 13:30
  blow up while you're stuck in the same place.
• 13:32
  This is for you. I've been posting online for
• 13:34
  over a year now. In her caption, she wrote she
• 13:37
  doesn't even follow me. After posting this video, user
• 13:39
  started sending Ellie content from another creator named
• 13:42
  Savannah, who her followers said they've noticed seemingly also
• 13:47
  copies Ellie's content. This time, Savannah and Ellie
• 13:50
  are actually mutuals. Hi, I'm Ellie.
• 13:53
  Three years ago I decided that I wanted to be a content creator.
• 13:55
  Hi, I'm Savannah. Two years ago I decided that I
• 13:58
  wanted to be a content creator. I was watching so many girls
• 14:00
  just like me build communities online and have the opportunity
• 14:02
  to make tons of money working with brands they actually love.
• 14:04
  I was following so many girls just like me that seem to be
• 14:06
  building huge communities online and making tons of money
• 14:08
  overnight working with brands I've dreamed about.
• 14:10
  I had. Always loved sharing my life
• 14:11
  online. I've always loved sharing my
• 14:12
  life online. So then Savannah responded.
• 14:15
  Let's check in, because apparently we need one.
• 14:18
  Yes, I posted a video. No, I did not invent the concept
• 14:21
  of filming myself doing things on the Internet.
• 14:23
  If my video reminded you of someone else's, that's fair.
• 14:27
  I did use her as a little bit of too much of inspo.
• 14:29
  But the video was cool. The concept was cool.
• 14:32
  I thought it could be a cute trend for other creators to pick
• 14:34
  up. And if they copied, my videos
• 14:37
  get copied. OK, cool, I don't really care.
• 14:40
  That's kind of how the Internet works.
• 14:41
  Things recycle. But what isn't cool is turning
• 14:44
  it into a pylon, sending people to bully other people.
• 14:47
  That part is not so cute. After I posted this video last
• 14:50
  night, one of my followers sent me Savannahs video which was
• 14:53
  word for word copying my script and my editing.
• 14:56
  Throughout the entire video I DM Savannah.
• 14:58
  I complimented her editing because her editing is great and
• 15:01
  her mutuals on TikTok and as soon as I messaged her within 5
• 15:04
  minutes she unfollowed me and so I took that as a response in and
• 15:08
  of itself which is why I made the video.
• 15:10
  Digital plagiarism is a thing when you are monetizing your
• 15:13
  platform using somebody else's work that's just not.
• 15:17
  OK, OK. So this is not the first time
• 15:20
  that we've spoken about a similar type of situation or
• 15:22
  drama on Mini, but I wanted to bring it up this time because
• 15:26
  the response to this particular situation, I feel like it's
• 15:31
  showing a shift in the creator economy and showing a shift in
• 15:35
  terms of like what we expect from content.
• 15:38
  In the past, it seems like creators who were part of
• 15:41
  similar feuds or getting called out for similar things, they
• 15:44
  were aware that they had copied. OK, this is definitely like a
• 15:47
  generalization, but stick with me.
• 15:50
  And the same was true for followers and commenters.
• 15:53
  It was obvious that it was wrong and they knew they had
• 15:56
  plagiarized. Now the reaction from both
• 16:00
  Savannah but also users in the comments section is what makes
• 16:03
  this really interesting to me. Because these reactions have
• 16:07
  indicated to me that we've undergone arguably like a
• 16:10
  cultural shift online where it appears so many people don't
• 16:15
  realize that this is wrong or how and why it's wrong.
• 16:19
  And I believe this has to do with two things.
• 16:21
  I think how TikTok has possibly permanently changed our
• 16:24
  expectations of content creation and of course, the rise of AI.
• 16:29
  So part of why I think we keep seeing these examples of
• 16:31
  plagiarism in the creator economy is that TikTok is so
• 16:35
  dominant. And the platform's mass
• 16:37
  popularity has really impacted what we expect from content
• 16:41
  creators because the foundation of TikTok is built off of quote,
• 16:43
  UN quote, copying each other like it just is using similar
• 16:47
  content styles to hack the algorithm, using trending
• 16:50
  sounds, doing someone's dance, participating in trends.
• 16:53
  In a way, it's almost like TikTok has trained an entire
• 16:56
  generation of aspiring creators that the way to go viral or
• 17:00
  build a following or make content creation your full time
• 17:02
  job is to jump on other people's trends and copy what is doing
• 17:07
  well in your corner of the Internet.
• 17:09
  So now what we're getting is creators and also users
• 17:13
  defending that this is just quote UN quote what Tik Tok's
• 17:17
  all about. In this case, there's a lot of
• 17:19
  people in Ellie's comment section saying that it's
• 17:22
  possible. What's happened is Savannah was
• 17:24
  using ChatGPT or like an AI chatbot to write her scripts and
• 17:28
  it's pulled Ellie's script as inspo.
• 17:31
  Ellie claims she does not use ChatGPT or any AI for her
• 17:35
  scripts. And you guys know, something
• 17:36
  actually similar happened to us where there was a creator who
• 17:40
  made a video essay and a big portion of one of our deep dive
• 17:44
  scripts was essentially it was almost word for word in a
• 17:47
  section of her video. And when we talked to her about
• 17:50
  it, she was like, I use AI for my scripts to help me with my
• 17:53
  scripts. So what possibly could have
• 17:55
  happened was through her prompt, a chat bot pulled our script,
• 18:01
  you know, as part of the inspo for writing her deep dive.
• 18:04
  However, in this situation, I don't actually think that's what
• 18:06
  happened because Savannah did respond to somebody in the
• 18:09
  comments section who called her out for copying Ellie's voice
• 18:12
  over and she wrote, this is literally how trends start.
• 18:15
  So she very obviously knew that she was taking her script nearly
• 18:21
  word for word. However, this is an indication
• 18:24
  she could be playing dumb. I don't know.
• 18:25
  But this is an indication of her thinking that this is just like
• 18:28
  a trend, like taking somebody's content nearly word for word.
• 18:32
  She's saying like, well, this is just me participating in a
• 18:35
  trend, like I'm helping this trend start.
• 18:37
  And so many users are in the comment section saying the same
• 18:40
  thing. Like a lot of people are of
• 18:42
  course on Ellie's side, but there are also a ton of people
• 18:44
  that don't understand why she'd be upset about this and feel
• 18:47
  like, well, you probably use AI for your script writing, so it's
• 18:51
  not your original work. Anyways.
• 18:53
  They feel like, well, this is just how trends start.
• 18:55
  This is just how TikTok is. There's a million videos on this
• 18:58
  app with similar voice overs, similar styles of content.
• 19:02
  So we're at a very interesting place because TikTok becoming
• 19:06
  like the social media platform, the culture defining culture
• 19:10
  creating social media platform and that coinciding with the
• 19:14
  rise of AI. Now there seems to be so much
• 19:17
  misunderstanding right now about what unique content creation is,
• 19:23
  what algorithms want from us, what's ethical, what's
• 19:26
  unethical, what can be, you know, labeled as plagiarism and
• 19:30
  copying. It's really we're at an
• 19:32
  interesting time because if this was even like 8 years ago and,
• 19:36
  and one lifestyle vlogger copied the script nearly word for word
• 19:39
  of another lifestyle vlogger, even if you know, the images
• 19:42
  were different, like the content, the footage was
• 19:44
  different and it was related to her life rather than the others.
• 19:47
  But if the script was that similar, that would be a huge
• 19:50
  scandal. We would never think, well, this
• 19:53
  is just how YouTube trends start, you know, like this is
• 19:56
  just how you make content now. That's just how YouTube is.
• 19:59
  You know, we would never make that excuse.
• 20:02
  And so it's really interesting the time that we're in right
• 20:05
  now. I don't have the solution, I'm
• 20:07
  just reporting on what I'm seeing.
• 20:09
  Anyways guys, that's it for mini scroll today.
• 20:11
  Thank you so much for listening. I love you guys.
• 20:14
  Please remember to rate, review and subscribe.
• 20:16
  Apologies for the rogue episode today, but I will be back in
• 20:20
  studio for a normal mini scroll again on Thursday and also
• 20:24
  Friday. All right, bye.
• 20:26
  Centennial World Podcast Network operates on Gadigal land.
• 20:29
  We would like to acknowledge the Gadigal of the Eora Nation, the
• 20:32
  traditional custodians of this land, and pay our respects to
• 20:35
  elders both past and present.