Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio Zaren.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth, what's up? You know I'm doing? How you doing? Good? Good?
Speaker 3: Good?
Speaker 2: Nice? I'm on the right side of the bars.
Speaker 3: Well, I know, above ground and getting paid.
Speaker 2: You know how we do.
Speaker 3: That's us, that's us. You know, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: I do, Elizabeth, Oh do I I was you know,
Speaker 2: you know how we do? Both of us. We read
Speaker 2: do stories and we're like, oh, could that be something
Speaker 2: I tell the other? And a funny story? Well, this
Speaker 2: one was in a full episode, but it's definitely worth
Speaker 2: me telling you.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: So the headline is Prior Lake woman arrested with bag
Speaker 2: of drugs labeled definitely not a bag of drugs. Oh no,
Speaker 2: So this forty eight year old woman from the Prior
Speaker 2: Lake area. She had a bag labeled definitely not a
Speaker 2: bag of drugs and the midnight, just before midnight on
Speaker 2: New Year's Eve, she was a pulled over for suspicion
Speaker 2: of drunk driving. And this was all due to the
Speaker 2: fact that the police when they pulled her over for
Speaker 2: swerving on this one boulevard, police asked the woman if
Speaker 2: she'd been drinking. She responded a lot. She added that
Speaker 2: she took a yegger bomb just before driving, like one
Speaker 2: for the road Elizabeth, and she had been drinking Jamison
Speaker 2: and red bulls all night.
Speaker 3: Oh gosh.
Speaker 2: So they breathalyzed her. Right test comeback blood alcohol is
Speaker 2: point one nine, which is double legal limit. Right. So
Speaker 2: the police they arrest the woman and then they started
Speaker 2: to go through her car and she tells them if
Speaker 2: they do, they're going to quote find a bunch of
Speaker 2: in her car. So the officers indeed found a brown
Speaker 2: bag with the riding on it. In the bag was
Speaker 2: get this fourteen individual psychedelic mushrooms, so magic mushrooms, the
Speaker 2: pot brownie. The police also found some more just loose pot,
Speaker 2: some cocaine, three pills of Motorden fidel. It's like, I
Speaker 2: guess it's profagill. It's an antidepressant and an oxy codon
Speaker 2: pill in her bag. Definitely not a bag full of trucks.
Speaker 3: My gosh, was on an adventure.
Speaker 2: Yeah. This is January seventh of this year that I
Speaker 2: saw this story report.
Speaker 3: I hope she turns her life around.
Speaker 2: I just love her, like real or candor. She's like, look,
Speaker 2: it's like people lie to their doctor. Yeah, why no,
Speaker 2: you know look, you got it. All all the evidence
Speaker 2: is there. You're going to find some stuff in my bag, not.
Speaker 3: The misleading bag you've been drinking. I love it a lot.
Speaker 2: Sorry, there you go, ridiculous.
Speaker 3: This is ridiculous. Do you want to know what else
Speaker 3: is ridiculous?
Speaker 2: I'd love to beige the color.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is ridiculous. Crime a podcast about absurd and
Speaker 3: outrageous capers. He and cons. It's always ninety nine percent
Speaker 3: murder free and one percent ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Damn right.
Speaker 3: I know I've mentioned influencers here before.
Speaker 2: You have.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a phenomenon. I just don't understand. I don't
Speaker 3: understand following a person online because you like their fashion
Speaker 3: or lifestyle choices, Like who cares you really? Don't you
Speaker 3: understand I don't make anything. They just pose with things,
Speaker 3: or like they show their butts on beaches.
Speaker 2: You know, but sometimes they do like there's a lot
Speaker 2: of outfit of the day, or buy this look kind
Speaker 2: of stuff, or like musicians whore Like I found this
Speaker 2: shop that sells these records.
Speaker 3: It's different thans a musician who's trying to get like
Speaker 3: a side hustle. I found a shop that sells records.
Speaker 2: I also will sell a look often so that you
Speaker 2: know they will sell propus.
Speaker 3: The ones that really creep me out are the parents
Speaker 3: who put their kids on social media.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, are they still doing that?
Speaker 3: But yeah? Well sometimes I'll see a video on Instagram
Speaker 3: of some kid doing something that's cute, and for a moment,
Speaker 3: I'm all, and then I immediately snap out of it
Speaker 3: and I'm like, that is so exploitive and how dangerous,
Speaker 3: Like there are a lot of creeps out there.
Speaker 2: I think people need to have these different tiers of exposure,
Speaker 2: Like there should be some things like for friends and family,
Speaker 2: and then some things for the group chat, and then
Speaker 2: some things for like wider public consertion. They need like
Speaker 2: inside jokes, outside jokes, like this is not an outside joke,
Speaker 2: Like I'm not saying that's not funny, but it's really
Speaker 2: offensive to a large so maybe don't make that joke.
Speaker 3: Exactly Exactly. In my family, we've got like the the
Speaker 3: group chats that involve like what we call content pictures
Speaker 3: of and videos of my nephew. But he never appears
Speaker 3: on no one ever puts anything online.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, no matter how cute or funny he is.
Speaker 2: Although I have to say he was on America's Funny
Speaker 2: Somethings Videos, so there is a little bit of it.
Speaker 2: So I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 3: A videos I forgot about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is aside from Burnette.
Speaker 3: I totally anyway, I gotta let kids be kids. So
Speaker 3: I'm guilty of doom scrolling online, oh yeah, and getting
Speaker 3: dragged into like endless streams of Instagram reels because it
Speaker 3: takes me a while to kind of likes. I'll say like,
Speaker 3: I'm going to bed, and then an hour later, I'm
Speaker 3: still laying there, but I can't just fall asleep. And
Speaker 3: so you know, I have to say that I think
Speaker 3: things began to fall apart for us as a society
Speaker 3: with social media. I said this to you the other day.
Speaker 2: You do.
Speaker 3: I mean the intention is great, connecting people, blah blah blah. Sure,
Speaker 3: but it's become a poison. It's terrible. It messes with
Speaker 3: people's heads.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's the what, it's the how.
Speaker 3: No, it is it's the how too, like when you
Speaker 3: monetize and m and the whole thing. It works for
Speaker 3: both sides of the influencer equation. So you have the
Speaker 3: consumers seeing these videos and photos of altered reality and
Speaker 3: wanting it for themselves.
Speaker 2: Ah yeah.
Speaker 3: The images are manipulated, not just like with photoshop or whatever,
Speaker 3: but like the behind the scenes tricks, so it's an unreality.
Speaker 3: They make a place look amazing and then tourists descend
Speaker 3: on it and turn it into a hellscape. They pretend
Speaker 3: to eat some confection, whether it's like an improbable pastry
Speaker 3: or like a milkshake esque coffee drink.
Speaker 2: Yeah mean you know they're not actually drinking.
Speaker 3: No, they'll like buy it like pose and then throw
Speaker 3: it away and everyone swarms on the places like locusts
Speaker 3: and they disappear for the next thing.
Speaker 2: And all the camera tricks that are involved in presentation
Speaker 2: yeah yeah, I'm not talking like actual editing force perspectives.
Speaker 3: On the other end of it, the influencers create an
Speaker 3: unreality in which they live like they demand freebies and deals.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, They block walkways in airports and like tables
Speaker 3: at restaurants to film idiotic clips. They come to believe
Speaker 3: their own hype. Yes, I'm sure it takes work to
Speaker 3: launch oneself as an influencer effort, but I don't believe
Speaker 3: it takes.
Speaker 2: Talent, No persistence, I think is what it takes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they aren't creating anything. They're serving corporate, capitalist, consumerist interests,
Speaker 3: like they are tools of a commercial machine.
Speaker 2: I will say that there has to be some talent
Speaker 2: for some of the real goers because of the ones
Speaker 2: who other people end up imitating. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: imitation in the space of influence.
Speaker 3: I think it's more luck than talent. They're fungible, right,
Speaker 3: and even more so as they all start to look
Speaker 3: like each other. But I think for whatever reason, and
Speaker 3: sometimes when one of them hits, is that because of
Speaker 3: corporate influence, that extends their reach further than there is
Speaker 3: one to try it. You know, Organically they get enough followers,
Speaker 3: they start to feel that like their fame.
Speaker 2: Is far reaching, right, Yeah, and it's real.
Speaker 3: They start to with like the whole don't you know
Speaker 3: who I am? Thing? Like when they are denied what
Speaker 3: they want.
Speaker 2: It's like a super big sized version of do you
Speaker 2: know my dad is?
Speaker 3: Totally? And like what they want is like free stuff
Speaker 3: or preferential treatment. And as a rule, I find I
Speaker 3: don't really patronize the same establishments as these folks.
Speaker 2: Businesses, locales, travel destinations.
Speaker 3: One time you and I were at Heifeiberger in Oakland
Speaker 3: to check it out, and there was a food influencer
Speaker 3: there who like set up a camera array at one
Speaker 3: of the tables to record himself, just like putting the
Speaker 3: hurt on a.
Speaker 2: Birthday tabletop tripod. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I was mesmerized and it was like cringe inducing and
Speaker 3: for me it was.
Speaker 2: Like a sociological experiment or like being a naturalist like
Speaker 2: in his actual environment. The influencer.
Speaker 3: So I've talked about scammer influencers. Yes, what about influencer
Speaker 3: on influencer beef.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, let's on that one.
Speaker 3: So, like there are food influencers like you know little
Speaker 3: kid at Heifeiberger, but also style influencers. Obviously one of
Speaker 3: those cats is Ben Yang aka Ben Baller. I have
Speaker 3: to establish first, like before I go into this, all
Speaker 3: the people I name don't come at me like I'm
Speaker 3: doing you a favor. I'm talking about you, So don't
Speaker 3: get mad at me. Influencers, You're welcome spreading their reach.
Speaker 3: You're welcome anyway. Yeah, I know, right. So, Ben Yang
Speaker 3: aka Ben Baller he is an LA based entrepreneur whose
Speaker 3: public identity is built around three overlapping careers, entertainment work,
Speaker 3: celebrity facing custom jewelry and influencer media, so like podcasts
Speaker 3: and social platforms. He's a triple threat Zerin. Apparently he
Speaker 3: was your typical LA entertainment industry operator. He got to
Speaker 3: start in the music industry. He was a VP of
Speaker 3: A and R AT Priority Records. Okay, his family owned
Speaker 3: a jewelry shop, and then he pivoted to that at
Speaker 3: some point and he became closely associated with custom quote
Speaker 3: iced out jewelry for musicians and entertainers, like pave stuff
Speaker 3: is basically you know when I think of like what
Speaker 3: you know looks iced out jewelers. Yes, yes, I found
Speaker 3: a bunch of interviews with the guy, and all I
Speaker 3: can say is that I I had to control my
Speaker 3: rage for some reason. This guy irritates the potatoes out
Speaker 3: of me. There's this interview in Flaunt magazine right there,
Speaker 3: and it's basically gibberish. Here's a sample. Here's the question.
Speaker 3: When you were a VP A of an R AT
Speaker 3: Priority Records, what was jewelry in your life at that point?
Speaker 3: That's the question, what je what was jewelry in your
Speaker 3: life at that point? You're a phenomenal interviewer, it was
Speaker 3: still here's his response. I loved it, but working in
Speaker 3: the corporate world is interesting. I was making good money.
Speaker 3: If you deserve to make money, then you should make money,
Speaker 3: meaning if you have points on a record points would
Speaker 3: translate to somewhat ownership, but not really. If you're making
Speaker 3: good money at a record label and doing well, you
Speaker 3: should be rewarded with the right salary. A lot of
Speaker 3: people are doing well and they haven't hit it yet.
Speaker 3: I hadn't necessarily hit it yet at Priority, even though
Speaker 3: we had successes. The structure of the label back then,
Speaker 3: it's not necessarily set up for anybody to eat but
Speaker 3: the CEO. Some people can, some people can't. You have
Speaker 3: to be in the right position. I went in there
Speaker 3: literally out of my means. I wanted to wear Versace,
Speaker 3: whatever the fly is. Clothes were have all the cool
Speaker 3: drive a fly car. It's funnier every time I think
Speaker 3: about it, what made me happy or what I really
Speaker 3: looked forward to and that lifestyle. I wake up daily
Speaker 3: now and I laugh. Everything I wanted then, whether it
Speaker 3: was jewelry or anything. Even if a watch is completely
Speaker 3: inflated in price, watch prices are now the worst they've
Speaker 3: ever been. Some watches that cost fifty or sixty grand.
Speaker 3: They're one hundred and fifty two hundred grand. Now, even
Speaker 3: at that price, if I really really wanted it, I'll
Speaker 3: go buy ten or twenty of them. It's nothing I
Speaker 3: really care about, sir.
Speaker 2: The question was is this your sake?
Speaker 3: Let's go back to the original question when you were
Speaker 3: VP of A and R at Priority Records. Was jewelry
Speaker 3: in your life at that point? Much of the rest
Speaker 3: of the interview is about a custom gold mini fridge. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the whole thing. I was like, am I having a stroke?
Speaker 2: I'd have to clarify because they'resually saying words and I
Speaker 2: think I know what they mean, but maybe not. When
Speaker 2: you say a gold mini fridge, is this a mini
Speaker 2: fridge to keep your gold cold? Or is this actually.
Speaker 3: Made of gold gold plated miniature?
Speaker 2: I decided to be clarified.
Speaker 3: I know, I know. The La Times they did a
Speaker 3: profile of him in twenty sixteen about his menswear venture.
Speaker 2: Oh lord.
Speaker 3: They talked about his quote improbable, career.
Speaker 2: Arc improbable, that's something an insult, Yeah.
Speaker 3: And they said that part of the jewelry business was
Speaker 3: funded by selling a his sneaker collection for He sold
Speaker 3: it for more than a million dollars.
Speaker 2: He was like a mad shoe beest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 3: The jewelry business is icy Fresh icee like the seven
Speaker 3: eleven ries, but now it goes by IF and Co.
Speaker 2: It's seven eleven threatened to suit.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: There are categories on the store website like Jesus Pieces,
Speaker 3: which is different from Reese's Pieces.
Speaker 2: And these are just like in golden crusted and diamond
Speaker 2: and crusty cross. Yeah, because you know Jesus. The first
Speaker 2: thing you'd want to see is that.
Speaker 3: He was like, I love it so much, I'm going
Speaker 3: to kick these tables over.
Speaker 2: I bet the poor really are benefiting from this.
Speaker 3: This is perfect for me. There's also cryptocurrency jewelry.
Speaker 2: Of course, there is wolf jewelry, wolf heads.
Speaker 3: And royal jewelry and this is what it says under there,
Speaker 3: Please enter the realm of majesty with IF In Companies
Speaker 3: Royal Jewelry Collection. This exquisite range is a celebration of
Speaker 3: royal elegance, featuring designs inspired by kings, queens, crowns, and
Speaker 3: the grandeur of nightly valor. Each piece in this collection
Speaker 3: is a testament to the opulence and pressed of royalty
Speaker 3: and it's basically like the king and queen faces from
Speaker 3: decks of cards what I'm not kidding and then a
Speaker 3: crown or two.
Speaker 2: It's that like mid century cool, like oh Prince ran
Speaker 2: Year were I watch Heavens?
Speaker 3: No his personal logo I remember, it's Ben Baller is
Speaker 3: an overlapping BB that's a rip off of the Rolls
Speaker 3: Royce logo. Oh yeah yeah. Oh, and he has a podcast,
Speaker 3: Cold de Ice with Ben Baller and Jimmy Boy.
Speaker 2: Jimmy Boy is Jimmy Boy is all.
Speaker 3: One word and boy is bo I. Okay, it's not
Speaker 3: an iHeart joint, thank goud, that would be awkward. Apparently
Speaker 3: he's bailed on that project though.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: No, he pivoted to short form podcast TikTok videos yeah,
Speaker 3: something he calls free game, which is just him Like
Speaker 3: it looks like just talking to the camera for a
Speaker 3: little bit.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I couldn't bring myself to watch any of that.
Speaker 2: I love us becoming again an oral culture.
Speaker 3: Yes, here's what those have to offer the viewer. Jewelry
Speaker 3: and business insights.
Speaker 2: Rising grind and also gets you shot.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 3: He shares his expertise as a celebrity jeweler and entrepreneur
Speaker 3: Lifestyle and culture, where he discusses trends, culture and his interests,
Speaker 3: including golf, and then quick valuable content short punchy episodes
Speaker 3: or clips offering valuable insights as he aims to provide
Speaker 3: quote free game.
Speaker 2: Ah, so what do you drops three grand? This is
Speaker 2: like say, like dating advice, maybe some dietary advice. Yeah,
Speaker 2: his take on international relations.
Speaker 3: Yes, plant your seeds early. Yeah, there's that whole golf thing.
Speaker 3: Like he's a golf guy.
Speaker 2: Now, guess is that codes wealthy?
Speaker 3: But we're getting away from one.
Speaker 2: But he's think it's getting into skiing soon because that's
Speaker 2: the thing.
Speaker 3: Because there's Saudi money in golf, all right, and that's
Speaker 3: what he's all about. Okay, so we're getting away from
Speaker 3: why we're here though.
Speaker 2: Okay, please crime, drag us back crime.
Speaker 3: Ben Baller and his wife Nicolette Yang. They were hosting
Speaker 3: a birthday party for their seven year old son. Nicolette
Speaker 3: called up this bakery in La Studio City called Big
Speaker 3: Sugar Bake Shop. It's like a cute popular place.
Speaker 2: How about they probably.
Speaker 3: Nicolette asked for a cake with a quote modern mad science.
Speaker 3: Birthday party theme and then she gave him a reference image.
Speaker 2: Thank god.
Speaker 3: The cake and the photograph had a beaker spilling on
Speaker 3: the top and like a play on the periodic table,
Speaker 3: and then these like pill like jelly beans had fallen
Speaker 3: out of the beaker and like all around on the bottom.
Speaker 2: It's like a big, breaking bad fan bea stuff.
Speaker 3: So Big Sugar sent an invoice that itemized all the
Speaker 3: design components and the pricing, including a line item described
Speaker 3: as pills fifteen dollars. Nicolette responded positively to this invoice
Speaker 3: and said, okay, sounds great. That's a direct quote. Really
Speaker 3: it is, okay, sounds great, and asked for a frosting
Speaker 3: color change, like it sounds great, but can we make this?
Speaker 3: Big Sugar amended and resent the invoice, and it still
Speaker 3: said pills fifteen dollars. So there is one matter at
Speaker 3: dispute here. Did Nicolette tell the bakery that the cake
Speaker 3: was for a kid? She says yes, The bakery says no,
Speaker 3: oh no. So when the cake arrived, the Yangs freaked out.
Speaker 3: What looked like jellybeans in the reference picture came to
Speaker 3: life on the actual cake. As fond of decorations that
Speaker 3: look like realistic.
Speaker 2: Pills, ecstasy pills, all sorts.
Speaker 3: Of like you know, exact exactly. So we had the dispute,
Speaker 3: is this for a kid? And then there was the
Speaker 3: dispute how did it go down? Once the cake was
Speaker 3: turned over? So, as ben Baller tells it, he phoned
Speaker 3: and he sought an apology and a refund, and he
Speaker 3: calmly said it was inappropriate to put drugs on a
Speaker 3: seven year old's cake, and he claimed that the bakery
Speaker 3: employee was rude, blamed his wife and suggested they thought
Speaker 3: the cake was for a pharmacy school graduate, and then
Speaker 3: they hung up on him. In Big Sugar's account of
Speaker 3: what happened, employees said ben Baller immediately threatened the bakery
Speaker 3: with his platform, saying he had a TV show, a podcast,
Speaker 3: and over a million followers who would quote destroy Big Sugar,
Speaker 3: I will injure you. They said, he used all sorts
Speaker 3: of foul language and a variety of threats over multiple
Speaker 3: phone calls. Yes, so the bakery they're like, okay, we triage,
Speaker 3: we got to fix this. So they started making a
Speaker 3: replacement immediately because the party was still hours away, and
Speaker 3: so you have to imagine they have blanks like unfrosted
Speaker 3: rounds of cake on hand, and they just got to
Speaker 3: decorating as quickly.
Speaker 2: I'm with it.
Speaker 3: And then they delivered the second cake to the Yangs,
Speaker 3: but it wasn't enough. So within minutes of the calls
Speaker 3: after he's calling him threatening, Ben Yang, Hey, Ben Baller,
Speaker 3: he starts posting about Big Sugar on social media.
Speaker 2: Before the issues resolved.
Speaker 3: Yeah, nasty, threatening messages. He gave the name in the
Speaker 3: location of the bakery. He posted about how the baker
Speaker 3: quote up royally and is now quote legit canceled. On Twitter,
Speaker 3: he wrote quote instead of jellybeans, they put RX prescription
Speaker 3: pills on my seven year old's beatay cake emoji. And
Speaker 3: then two days later he discussed the incident on his podcast.
Speaker 3: Oh man, so what happened next is like totally by
Speaker 3: the outrage playbook, So Big Sugar. They start getting calls
Speaker 3: and messages from his followers.
Speaker 2: Oh, he actually does have followers that are not international.
Speaker 2: They actually could get to the phone system contact him.
Speaker 3: Angry stuff. People threatened the staff, they left bad reviews.
Speaker 3: They said they contacted authorities about how the bakery put pills.
Speaker 2: On a kid's can actual drugs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like honey, that's gonna costs the costume more than
Speaker 3: fifteenth dollars to get actual. So then Big Sugar notified
Speaker 3: Ben Baller via Twitter that they were receiving these threats.
Speaker 3: He shot back that they were trying to quote play
Speaker 3: the victim. So they go to their lawyers through council.
Speaker 3: They demand that Baller retract or correct what they said
Speaker 3: were false statements. My friend Ben Baller did not retract
Speaker 3: or correct. No lawsuit times. So then they go after
Speaker 3: him for libel, slander, unfair competition law which prohibits false
Speaker 3: or misleading advertising, and illegal business practices. Nine offensive social
Speaker 3: media posts were cited in the lawsuit. Nine yeah he.
Speaker 3: Baller responded with a special motion to strike under California's
Speaker 3: anti slap statute because he said his statements were protected
Speaker 3: speech made in connection with an issue of public interest.
Speaker 2: Oh man, this tends on what kind of lawyers you
Speaker 2: have to argue this.
Speaker 3: Because he said there was quote candy confusion, and then
Speaker 3: this was a consumer safety issue. And then he said
Speaker 3: also because he was famous, it made it newsworthy.
Speaker 2: Famous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there it is. The trial court was like, no
Speaker 3: motion denied. He appealed too far.
Speaker 2: He appeared gotten further, of course he did, and then.
Speaker 3: The California's Second District Court of Appeal September third, twenty
Speaker 3: twenty one denied, and their headline conclusion was simple like
Speaker 3: this was a private customer dispute over a cake order,
Speaker 3: not made in any connection with an issue of public interest,
Speaker 3: which is what's required for anti slap. The court also
Speaker 3: rejected the idea that audience size or self described celebrity
Speaker 3: status automatically turns ordinary grievances into public issue speech, and
Speaker 3: they the court viewed his post it aimed at trying
Speaker 3: to rally a crowd against a specific business rather than
Speaker 3: participating in a broader public conversation. So important thing this, though,
Speaker 3: the ruling didn't decide who was right about the cake,
Speaker 3: and I couldn't find out what happened to the original lawsuits,
Speaker 3: so I'm going to imagine they settled. Big Sugar Bake
Speaker 3: Shop is now permanently closed, although I don't think it's
Speaker 3: because of this.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, so this is just on their unfortunate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's stop for some ads and when we come back,
Speaker 3: more influencers.
Speaker 2: Zarin Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: This is the story of two influencers inside all of
Speaker 3: us are two influencers. So we begin with Sydney Nicole Gifford.
Speaker 3: She's a lifestyle and shopping focused social media influencer who
Speaker 3: built a business around promoting consumer products, especially through Amazon's
Speaker 3: influencer ecosystem.
Speaker 2: Okay, any relation to Kathy Lee Gifford, let's say, sure what? No, Oh,
Speaker 2: I got too excited.
Speaker 3: I'm really excited about that.
Speaker 2: There's a connection to Regis Philbin in this reag she's
Speaker 2: one degree away from Regis Elizabeth be.
Speaker 3: Careful, tread lightly. So she's an Amazon influencer. Yes, this
Speaker 3: bums me out. Why I don't know that.
Speaker 2: Like, what's the difference between Amazon influencer and a TikTok
Speaker 2: Because Emma's.
Speaker 3: Not even like, well, no Amazon, she's on all these
Speaker 3: various platforms, but she's just chilling for Amazon.
Speaker 2: Okay, so I assume she's moving product and she just
Speaker 2: goes through lots of products and all of her post
Speaker 2: her like that I found this on Amazon.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly. And so her whole operation is this family endeavor.
Speaker 3: Like her mom is pretty much her manager. She handles
Speaker 3: like the business emails and logistics. The mom, Laura, says
Speaker 3: that her daughter was making stop motion videos and uploading
Speaker 3: them to YouTube at age twelve, okay, and that her
Speaker 3: influencer platform took off several years later.
Speaker 2: So all I hear. She's a talented little filmmaker and
Speaker 2: she's just trying to make her in the world think
Speaker 2: of it, spread her joy.
Speaker 3: When Ben Wyatt was depressed on parks and recreation, he
Speaker 3: tried to make the stop motion in months to make
Speaker 3: just like three seconds. That's her. So in all sorts
Speaker 3: of media coverage, Gifford is repeatedly described as cultivating a
Speaker 3: highly consistent neutral palette in her home and content. Okay,
Speaker 3: The Verge magazine describes her home environment as a content
Speaker 3: quote set, filled with Amazon products and maintained in an
Speaker 3: intentionally monochrome look.
Speaker 2: Okay, so it's like kind of like a Martha Stewart,
Speaker 2: but without any of the soul brings her.
Speaker 3: We'll get to her her income, really, Yeah, her income
Speaker 3: is tied to promoting products and earning commissions, and all
Speaker 3: these products have a certain like vibe.
Speaker 2: So she's like a Truman show meets a Showcase showdown
Speaker 2: on prices.
Speaker 3: Right, there's an aesthetic. Can I vent for a second.
Speaker 2: Aren't you already?
Speaker 3: That's all I do. I do nothing but vent.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 3: I know. I talk a lot about what and it
Speaker 3: usually involves the younger set. I'm an old crone. I
Speaker 3: can't stand when people use the word esthetic to mean
Speaker 3: just basically pleasing or nice looking, like oh, that sunset
Speaker 3: is so aesthetic. Oh yes, no, that does hit the
Speaker 3: just like something can have an esthetic like Rococo, nerd Core,
Speaker 3: little House in the Prairie. I don't know. Something can
Speaker 3: be aesthetically pleasing.
Speaker 2: Sure, as a philosophy, they can be your aesthetic.
Speaker 3: Precisely as a philosophy, you know, it's exploring the very
Speaker 3: nature of beauty and art. It comes from the Greek
Speaker 3: right esthetia estheticos perception to perceive, you have to perceive
Speaker 3: something though, there needs to be an object. Yes, okay,
Speaker 3: I'm done. I just need to get that out. This
Speaker 3: is so aesthetic, you're like, so, now let's meet. Let's
Speaker 3: meet Alyssa Shield.
Speaker 2: We have to no.
Speaker 3: Alyssy Shield. Alyssa's Shield Alissa Shiel. She's also a lifestyle
Speaker 3: influencer working heavily in Amazon linked product promotion. Both of
Speaker 3: these gals have like half a million people following them
Speaker 3: across various platforms, and both of these gals share a
Speaker 3: color palette and look something that became known as sad
Speaker 3: beige in all the media coverage. Sad baby, Yeah, like
Speaker 3: hashtag sad basis.
Speaker 2: She's a sad creator.
Speaker 3: They actually look alike. They both have long brown hair,
Speaker 3: straight parted down the middle, like lightly bronzed skin. Everything
Speaker 3: else beige clothes, house, everything have you. The meal beige.
Speaker 2: Color hearts of like like the colors I saw on today,
Speaker 2: it was like interior and exterior colors people used for
Speaker 2: their home environments, for both for the paint and for
Speaker 2: the design inside their home. And you go from like
Speaker 2: six different colors, six different colors for the twenties, the
Speaker 2: thirty six different colors in the forties, six different colors
Speaker 2: in the fifties. Get to the seventies and they kind
Speaker 2: of like lose their mind on drugs from the sixties
Speaker 2: and everything goes like orange brown and avocado green. Then
Speaker 2: the eighties you get this like the last little bit.
Speaker 2: Then the nineties it just wash it out into the
Speaker 2: beginning of like earth tones, and then the two thousands
Speaker 2: just like beige is and now we're just down to
Speaker 2: like slate gray and beige.
Speaker 3: It's really sad. By twenty twenty four that esthetic neutral, minimalist,
Speaker 3: dominated by beige, cream, all these muted tones. That was
Speaker 3: like everything with these lifestyle influencers.
Speaker 2: I still get well. I know for home resale, it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's easy for people to do that, but for your
Speaker 2: life environment, do you plan to live there?
Speaker 3: More color in my life?
Speaker 2: Oh, you know, I love color.
Speaker 3: I was reading something the other day where a person
Speaker 3: was trying to just on a color for their cabinets
Speaker 3: and they wanted something gray or beige grays, and there
Speaker 3: were all these comments that were like, that's a really
Speaker 3: good choice because when you go to sell the house,
Speaker 3: people want to see neutrals. But as you're saying, like
Speaker 3: you have to, this person just moved in.
Speaker 2: That's like my friends who would buy it, we'd get
Speaker 2: toys and they wouldn't want to take it out of
Speaker 2: the box because they plan on reselling. This will be
Speaker 2: worth of it. I'm like my toys to play with
Speaker 2: the toys with the market value. We are nine years old.
Speaker 3: This is the attitude we have because these like these
Speaker 3: things that need to be staged, ready to move, because like,
Speaker 3: homes have become investments far more than domiciles, and so
Speaker 3: like you have to live in the place, enjoy this
Speaker 3: and habit. Yes, color brings.
Speaker 2: Enjoyment, Oh it does. It vibes you into places you
Speaker 2: don't know you want to go.
Speaker 3: And not every place has to look like a hotel.
Speaker 2: Oh no it should not.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Anyway, so the influencers called this look clean, which
Speaker 3: my response is cluttered and messy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I like, I reserve clean for really good.
Speaker 2: I'm like, man, you look clean, right, But that's like
Speaker 2: they wanted to be like sterile.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't using a better word for marketing purposes,
Speaker 3: but that's what they're selling. And so they kept these
Speaker 3: things neutral when it came to fashion home decor, like
Speaker 3: other consumer products appliances, cars, luggage, prosthetic limbs.
Speaker 2: I said to show that in there for you, Elizabeth Dutton, body.
Speaker 3: There it is. So their followers were all about this
Speaker 3: subdued palette, minimalistic composition. But there wasn't room enough in
Speaker 3: this town for two sad beij ladies. It seems Gifford
Speaker 3: thought that Shiel was biting her style or lack thereof,
Speaker 3: So in April.
Speaker 2: They're both biting styles, like how can they We either
Speaker 2: wanted to be like this is totally my esthetics.
Speaker 3: In April of twenty twenty four, Gifford filed a lawsuit
Speaker 3: in federal court in the Western District of Texas against
Speaker 3: Shiel and The lawsuit alleged that Shiel had systematically copied
Speaker 3: Gifford's signature neutral beige slash cream esthetic and leveraged it
Speaker 3: to promote similar products, thereby infringing on Gifford's intellectual property
Speaker 3: and commercial identity. Gifford's complaint included a range of legal claims,
Speaker 3: so she was talking about copyright infringement, okay. She said
Speaker 3: that Shield's social media posts bore unauthorized similarity to Gifford's
Speaker 3: original content. Oh, trade dress infringement, asserting that the overall
Speaker 3: look and feel of her aesthetic was distinctive and should
Speaker 3: be protected.
Speaker 2: So you can't also dress like Ronald McDonald is like
Speaker 2: and how to tell burgers let you.
Speaker 3: Go, misappropriation of likeness. She said that sheield replicated aspects
Speaker 3: of her personal image and presentation like a single white
Speaker 3: female and then violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act DMCA.
Speaker 2: Oh, just basic copyright, Like, oh, you did what I
Speaker 2: did online?
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly I did online. So lawyers for Gifford said
Speaker 3: that her visual style was her distinctive commercial idea, and
Speaker 3: they argue that the consistent monochrome, cream gray, and neutral
Speaker 3: beige color scheme, together with minimalist settings and personal presentation,
Speaker 3: constituted protectable elements of her brand. And when I say like,
Speaker 3: their faces are neutral, like they look like they've had
Speaker 3: like all these injectables, so they're just like there's no expression.
Speaker 3: Oh really, yeah weird, but like the same long row.
Speaker 3: It's like the kind of like slightly curled bottom hair,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, like like kind of pumpkin
Speaker 3: spice lady.
Speaker 2: Hair, but they're a little bit of wave at the bottom.
Speaker 3: Of Yeah, you know, I'm a I'm a hair aesthetic.
Speaker 2: I'm a heretic.
Speaker 3: So, like, can social media aesthetic or vibe be owned
Speaker 3: or protected under traditional intellectual property law?
Speaker 2: I don't think so unless you're doing like a like
Speaker 2: you do you just say like, hey, I'm marsha On
Speaker 2: Lynch and you spell Lynch differently, like then you can
Speaker 2: any trouble.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: The media loved this, this question this, They were all
Speaker 3: over it. I mean, whether a personal asthetic could be
Speaker 3: treated like a trade dress or other protected expression that
Speaker 3: had no clear precedent.
Speaker 2: That's like the Chubby Checker to Fats Domino.
Speaker 3: Questions, it's Fats demeano.
Speaker 2: This has been done. This is not a new question.
Speaker 3: So Shield's attorney was all motion to dismiss your owner
Speaker 3: on a lot of stuff. In late twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: The dismiss Your Honor.
Speaker 3: The court ruled on the motions, dismissing some claims such
Speaker 3: as torturous interference, while allowing core copyright, trade dress and
Speaker 3: misappropriation of likeness claims to proceed into broader review. So
Speaker 3: here's the debate on the underlying legal issues. Copyright law
Speaker 3: protects the specific expression of ideas like individual photos or videos,
Speaker 3: but not broad ideas like a color palette or a
Speaker 3: general style.
Speaker 2: You can't copyright an idea.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this means that much of what Gifford was looking
Speaker 3: to protect is like outside of copyright reach. Trade dress doctrine,
Speaker 3: which is a form of trademark protection, protects distinctive visual
Speaker 3: identifiers associated with a source of goods or services, but
Speaker 3: only if such identifiers are recognized as unique and capable
Speaker 3: of causing consumer confusion.
Speaker 2: This is mickey mouse Well.
Speaker 3: The most famous example is probably the Coca cola bottle, Yes,
Speaker 3: there you go. Or the wax dripping from the cap
Speaker 3: on a bottle of Tiffany Blue for their packaging, the
Speaker 3: red bottom of a Christian Lubaton shoe, ok, the shape
Speaker 3: of goldfish crackers that's protected, the red tab on a
Speaker 3: pair of levies, and even the shape and colors used
Speaker 3: in an ie hoop.
Speaker 2: I can see that because they're very distinctive.
Speaker 3: Right, So there's a high legal burden to prove in
Speaker 3: a crowded esthetic space that there's some sort of trade
Speaker 3: ress doctrine there and.
Speaker 2: The primacy you have to be the first, you can't
Speaker 2: be the second.
Speaker 3: Exactly exactly. So by late twenty twenty four, experts they're
Speaker 3: already treating the case as this bell weather for how
Speaker 3: intellectual property laws are going to apply to digital creators
Speaker 3: and influencer content. Is this brand new world?
Speaker 2: If they say so, oh some com no one's ever
Speaker 2: done it like this before because this is online.
Speaker 5: Like oh okay, oh sure.
Speaker 3: There were warnings that if the courts tried to enforce
Speaker 3: something as broad as a quote vibe, a judge's risked
Speaker 3: becoming arbiters of subjective aesthetic judgments.
Speaker 2: Yes, you can't copyright a vibe.
Speaker 3: No, so I've tried May twenty.
Speaker 2: Prince ever copyright a vibe. It was such a specific vibe.
Speaker 2: We're like no one else can do exactly.
Speaker 3: May twenty eight, twenty twenty five, Gifford voluntarily dismissed all
Speaker 3: of her claims against Shield with prejudice, officially ending the litigation.
Speaker 3: So when it's dismissed with prejudice, it means that she
Speaker 3: can't refile. No monetary jamages are awarded to either side.
Speaker 2: Don't be bringing us back in my courtroom.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it came after mediation negotiation. Her lawyer said
Speaker 3: that the cost and time of litigation influenced her decision
Speaker 3: to withdraw from the case and then refocus on her business,
Speaker 3: in personal life and her aesthetics.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Shield's attorney said that this was vindication. I'm sure that
Speaker 3: both of these ladies were loving the fact that so
Speaker 3: many Manila envelopes were used in filing.
Speaker 2: That some of the people are mentioning their whole beije
Speaker 2: core thing anyway, that's helping their reach.
Speaker 3: Right exactly, So they were like, you know what, Shield's
Speaker 3: not paying anything. Claims are meritless. And then they went
Speaker 3: on like her content was independently created and not based
Speaker 3: on Giffords. Both of them made public statements to their
Speaker 3: followers about their own perceptions of what happened, but it
Speaker 3: became known as the Sad Beige lawsuit. And so the
Speaker 3: Sad Beaije lawsuit did not result in a judicial opinion
Speaker 3: establishing a new legal precedent, but it did really kind
Speaker 3: of highlight the challenges that are facing influencers and intellectual
Speaker 3: property law in this digital age. You know, there's this
Speaker 3: difficulty of how do you apply traditional copyright and trademark
Speaker 3: framework to non traditional quote content that's built around, built
Speaker 3: around a brand. You know, they're not like individual protected
Speaker 3: protectable works.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. You can protect the Nike swoosh, but you
Speaker 2: can't protect the Nike Vibe. Right.
Speaker 3: You'll see a lot of coverage refer to this as
Speaker 3: personal brand. But this is not something that these ladies
Speaker 3: created whole cloth.
Speaker 2: No, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: They're chilling products from Amazon. They are ads like, it's
Speaker 3: not personal, and I think that's something that gets lost.
Speaker 3: You talked about Martha earlier. So Martha Stewart created a vibe. Yes,
Speaker 3: it was riffing off old money, and like fantasies of
Speaker 3: gardens and cottages. But she wasn't shilling specific products until
Speaker 3: she created her own products and then became a brand herself.
Speaker 2: She shilled for her own stuff.
Speaker 3: That's right. So she's a creator and influencer in my opinion,
Speaker 3: I'm probably wrong, in which case everyone can just keep
Speaker 3: it to them.
Speaker 2: So I think she's an er influencer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because she wasn't, like I said, she self directed
Speaker 3: at first, and then so it wasn't like at the
Speaker 3: behest of these brands that she was going out and
Speaker 3: creating all this quote unquote content. Let's take a break.
Speaker 3: Let's take an ad break. God bless them these ads.
Speaker 3: When we come back, I have a doozy of an influencer.
Speaker 5: Battle Zaren Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel here.
Speaker 2: That's the best place to do the scraping.
Speaker 3: Let's go, bro, let's do it. Let's get down to
Speaker 3: the bottom in this corner. Yes, we have Brian Johnson,
Speaker 3: not the lead singer of a CDC, although I would
Speaker 3: love for him to mix it up with an influencer.
Speaker 3: And then, oddly enough, I'm not talking about the Brian
Speaker 3: Johnson who's the tech guy trying to stop himself from aging.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the guy.
Speaker 3: Oh, he's fascinating to me. Here's this protocol he developed
Speaker 3: called Blueprint, and he's like, so there's a very controlled
Speaker 3: diet structure and meal timing. All of this is to
Speaker 3: make it so that he doesn't age.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or he lives forever.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So he's got like macros and all that he
Speaker 3: doesn't eat afternoon. His menu is fixed, like his morning
Speaker 3: drink is what he calls a longevity mix collagen, protein, creatine,
Speaker 3: prebiotic fibers every day.
Speaker 2: Sure, why not great?
Speaker 3: And there's lots of exercise and movement. He does a
Speaker 3: daily sixty to ninety minute training block. That makes sense,
Speaker 3: that's good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, move the body.
Speaker 3: He has a set of sleep rules or routines.
Speaker 2: Sleep rules rules, how he sleeps.
Speaker 3: Consistent bedtime, oh okay, a wind down routine, which I
Speaker 3: don't think is like mine of I'm going to watch Instagram.
Speaker 2: Reels until the doom and my.
Speaker 3: Bulk send them to my friends. He has a cool
Speaker 3: bedroom temperature range. She avoids stimulants afternoon.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, he's funny. I do a lot of these
Speaker 2: things just naturally because I'm just a jerk because like,
Speaker 2: I don't like to be over stimulated past noon or whatever.
Speaker 2: Nobody needs that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't eat late, and I you know, I
Speaker 3: like to kind of wind down. I only have one
Speaker 3: cup of coffee in the morning. I don't really have
Speaker 3: anything after stimulant wise after that I do.
Speaker 2: Okay, never mind, I take it back. I like coffee
Speaker 2: all through out the day, but I don't considered a
Speaker 2: stimulant because it doesn't really feel like it.
Speaker 3: He takes a crazy number of supplements, some that are
Speaker 3: sold as blueprint products.
Speaker 2: And some not. And then the ones are fatish I think.
Speaker 3: So I couldn't even get a full list. He takes
Speaker 3: a ton of prescription medications. Oh really, Yeah, acrobos met Foreman,
Speaker 3: Candice sartan Jardis, thyroid meds.
Speaker 2: Any glucosamine android.
Speaker 3: That's it. That would be ab oral monoxidyl repatha to dalophill.
Speaker 3: None of these are to treat conditions other than getting older.
Speaker 2: Also, isn't isn't monoxophyll for hair? Is that active? Ra?
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's doing that.
Speaker 2: I know. He used to be a redhead. Now he
Speaker 2: has black hair.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know how that happened. But yeah, thyroid
Speaker 3: meds Jardians met Foreman. I don't know. He has a
Speaker 3: whole skincare routine, of course, and then that prescription you
Speaker 3: share the prescription hair growth meds. He uses red light
Speaker 3: therapy for both his scalp and hair and then his
Speaker 3: whole body. Oh, he does a hyperbaric oxygen therapy thing.
Speaker 3: I'm sure he just soaks in it. He does. He
Speaker 3: does young plasma exchanges Keith Richard style, including one involving
Speaker 3: his son.
Speaker 2: What. Yeah, he's right, he takes his son, His son's
Speaker 2: his blood boy.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's very lance armstrong as it sounds exhausting. His
Speaker 3: life sounds exhausting and sad and sad like I'm here
Speaker 3: for a good time, not a long time.
Speaker 2: You know how many people have tried this and no
Speaker 2: one can pull it off. You'll be the guy to
Speaker 2: list forever. I'm like, it's not going to be the
Speaker 2: trust me. We're not there yet. No, we don't understand
Speaker 2: enough about the human body for you to know what
Speaker 2: buttons to even push combinations.
Speaker 3: And he's just taken all sorts of garbage.
Speaker 2: And experimenting on himself too.
Speaker 3: Might Yeah, he is no the Brian Johnson I'm talking
Speaker 3: about is also known as liver King.
Speaker 2: Oh lordy oh, I see it on social media.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't follow him, but occasionally someone who posed him and.
Speaker 3: Lou That's what I'm talking about. He was born in
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy eight, an apparently landbag. He was really bullied
Speaker 3: and picked on as a kid, and as a result,
Speaker 3: he turned to fitness.
Speaker 2: Of course, that's what friend durs Over did it.
Speaker 3: He went to Texas Tech University and got a bachelor's
Speaker 3: in biochemistry. Okay, After graduation, he worked as a pharmaceutical
Speaker 3: sales rep in Houston, and then he later you know,
Speaker 3: put money in on his wife's dental practice, so.
Speaker 2: He was like selling oxycontins to the doctors.
Speaker 3: Sure, and then social media came calling, of course, and
Speaker 3: so he adopted the online persona liver King. Around twenty twenty,
Speaker 3: he started promoting what he branded as quote ancestral lifestyle,
Speaker 3: and this lifestyle philosophy had an emphasis on primal nutrition
Speaker 3: and behaviors. So that meant eating like huge amounts of awe,
Speaker 3: unprocessed organ meats.
Speaker 2: So like the height of humanity. Yeah, do you hear yourself?
Speaker 3: Animal fats? You know, he's all about that. Beef tallow
Speaker 3: and other foods rooted in like this romanticized prehistoric diet.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: His videos featured extreme workouts like ice plunges and these
Speaker 3: elaborate strength challenges.
Speaker 2: Yes, so he was sure picking up boulders and stuff.
Speaker 3: He went virals Aron. Of course he did TikTok Instagram YouTube.
Speaker 2: Yes, he's a living cartoon character, yes.
Speaker 3: And he had like millions of followers.
Speaker 2: He's a short king too, right, so he's like kind
Speaker 2: an extra spark plug energy.
Speaker 3: Like, what's his name? Who's the little guy who always
Speaker 3: poses on his tippy toes? Oh yeah, barstool Sports.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Dave port Noid.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's look up, Dave Portnoy's standing on his tippy
Speaker 3: do tippy does are like posing anytime he's in a
Speaker 3: picture with people. He's what like five foot four.
Speaker 2: I don't know what he is, yeah, but I know
Speaker 2: that he has showed me the photo he's on his
Speaker 2: tippy toes, and it's like the question is is like
Speaker 2: does the person's taking the photo? Obviously he thinks on purpose.
Speaker 2: It seems like it's a dick move to really point
Speaker 2: out what.
Speaker 3: They have to and I applaud them for it. So uh,
Speaker 3: so okay. So he's this guy Liver King. He's got
Speaker 3: millions of followers, and he's got a lucrative personal brand,
Speaker 3: like he has this supplement company, Heart and Soil that
Speaker 3: he and this doctor named Paul Salagino started a little
Speaker 3: clos there and though but like his his company spin off,
Speaker 3: like his brand is Ancestral Supplements, which like, right there
Speaker 3: is amazing I like, and he like reportedly he had
Speaker 3: an annual revenue in the nine figure range at its peak.
Speaker 3: What yes, yes, so the Liver King.
Speaker 2: I feel both bad for all the suckers who get
Speaker 2: conned by these people, but at the same time, I
Speaker 2: can't believe how many give ups so much money to these.
Speaker 3: So he had these claims about achieving this physique purely
Speaker 3: through the ancestral diet. But like all these medical professionals
Speaker 3: are like, absolutely not, do not do that. Don't just
Speaker 3: eat raw liver, chug eggs, and they like climb a
Speaker 3: tree and scream like don't do it, do it for you? No,
Speaker 3: They're like, this is really harmful. And then the whopper
Speaker 3: not from Burger King. In late twenty twenty two, there
Speaker 3: were these leaked internal emails that revealed that Johnson had
Speaker 3: been secretly using anabolic steroids and human growth hormone.
Speaker 2: If you look at pictures of him with it, he
Speaker 2: always has his shirt off, so you see his chest
Speaker 2: and all the way the veins go. You know that
Speaker 2: that's an antibox steroid body.
Speaker 3: And he was spending eleven thousand dollars a month on
Speaker 3: all these drugs.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, wow.
Speaker 3: And so he initially was like, no way, man, No,
Speaker 3: that's bogus man. But later he's like, okay, yeah, man,
Speaker 3: like I did it. So he did a YouTube apology video.
Speaker 2: It's one hundred and thirty two thousand dollars a year
Speaker 2: just ster ruds.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he acknowledged that, you know, he misled.
Speaker 2: His audience misled.
Speaker 3: I love an apology video. They're always so terrible.
Speaker 2: Oh totally, let's get past my foundational lie and just
Speaker 2: talk about it like it's a bummer. I did this.
Speaker 3: So there's this whole scandal. Some of his followers filed
Speaker 3: a class action lawsuit against him and his supplement company,
Speaker 3: claiming deception that was later discontinued. He also was the
Speaker 3: subject of a twenty twenty five Netflix documentary called Untold
Speaker 3: The Liver King, and it kind of traces his whole
Speaker 3: you know. Okay, so that's him, and then in this
Speaker 3: corner we have Joseph James Rogan Junior. You know him
Speaker 3: as Joe Rogan Joe Rogan.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 3: He started his professional career as a stand up comedian
Speaker 3: and the teen eighty eight Yes, and then he built
Speaker 3: a name for himself in what I saw described as
Speaker 3: observational and often provocative comedy.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 3: You say so, I.
Speaker 2: Think it's like really breaking out in news radio, Like yeah,
Speaker 2: then he goes.
Speaker 3: He broadens out in television, so he's on sitcoms, he's
Speaker 3: on news radio, and then he gets a gig hosting
Speaker 3: that weird show fear Fair Factor.
Speaker 2: That really when he became a star.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And then he got really deeply involved in mixed
Speaker 3: martial arts ye early guy. Yeah, so in the like
Speaker 3: late nineties, early two thousands, he was working as a
Speaker 3: commentator and an interviewer for Ultimate Fighting Championship UFC. In
Speaker 3: two thousand and.
Speaker 2: Nine, like the John Madden of MM.
Speaker 3: Yes. In two thousand and nine, he launched The Joe
Speaker 3: Rogan Experience, a long form conversational podcast. Yeah, and you
Speaker 3: know they have he has guests on from like really
Speaker 3: diverse fields science, politics, entertainment, sports, culture. He's got tens
Speaker 3: of millions of listeners. In twenty twenty, he signed an
Speaker 3: exclusive licensing deal to take his podcast to Spotify. So
Speaker 3: he also he has trained in Brazilian jiu jitsu since
Speaker 3: the mid nineties and he has black belts in both
Speaker 3: no Gi and ge forms. And he talks all the
Speaker 3: time about martial arts training methods, physical conditioning on his podcast.
Speaker 3: And he has like really strong views I guess on
Speaker 3: health training discipline. I'm sure it's not all roses for
Speaker 3: old Joe. He's a polarizing figures.
Speaker 2: Eron the guy from the host of Fear Factor.
Speaker 3: He's got this huge platform and let's just say he
Speaker 3: isn't very careful about what he says. It takes the
Speaker 3: stand up comedian when it comes to politics, public health,
Speaker 3: drug policy, free speech, culture.
Speaker 2: Jimmy put up on the board talk radio guy gone.
Speaker 3: So uh, it's there that he crossed paths with Liver King.
Speaker 2: Oh my, can you imagine the conversations that they are em.
Speaker 3: You don't have to you have it. So by spring
Speaker 3: of twenty twenty two, you know, Brian Johnson has turned
Speaker 3: Liver King into this like viral masculinity and organ meat brand,
Speaker 3: and the core promise is that his cartoonishly muscular physique
Speaker 3: comes from an ancestral lifestyle.
Speaker 2: From eating the organs of animals.
Speaker 3: Then, Joe Rogan.
Speaker 2: Are you want to go to kill your own or
Speaker 2: you can go to the supermarket and just get some
Speaker 2: organ made war enough as your ancestors would have done.
Speaker 3: I have done so. Rogan. He you know his podcast
Speaker 3: regularly functions as a think tank. Oh yeah, a cultural
Speaker 3: loudspeaker to say on fitness. He clocked the act early
Speaker 3: on and treated it as performance not revelation. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: he was on to him early on.
Speaker 2: Too much of that false WATCHO.
Speaker 3: One human growth hormone user to the other.
Speaker 2: I saw it recog surreal.
Speaker 3: So in a twenty twenty two profile of Johnson, GQ
Speaker 3: talks about how Rogan dismissed Liver King's messages as a
Speaker 3: quote gimmick, and then they landed the line that became
Speaker 3: the feuds, like seed crystal quote. He has got an
Speaker 3: ass filled with steroids is what that guy's got.
Speaker 2: That's what Joe Rogan said, And they put include that
Speaker 2: in the profile, And did Johnson get a respond to
Speaker 2: that is the profile.
Speaker 3: No, it mattered less because I mean it was cruel,
Speaker 3: but Joe Rogan says things like that all the time.
Speaker 3: Still it was more because it was aimed at the
Speaker 3: exact fault line of the business model men's but steroids
Speaker 3: and butts like you know, this isn't an ancestral lifestyle.
Speaker 3: This came out of it steroids. So in late June
Speaker 3: of twenty twenty five, so at this point liver King's
Speaker 3: life is spiraling out, okay Johnson, liver King started posting direct,
Speaker 3: escalating videos addressing Joe Rogan, repeatedly framing it as like
Speaker 3: a man to man on her challenge.
Speaker 2: Oh I call you out to the oak tree. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: you show up shirtless.
Speaker 3: We get down, zaren watch you to picture it. You
Speaker 3: are a wolf, or rather you were a wolf. You
Speaker 3: met your maker and now you've been taxidermied, made into
Speaker 3: a pelt with your head intact, and right now you're
Speaker 3: resting on the head of Brian Johnson aka liver King.
Speaker 3: You are in his living room. It's walls painted black,
Speaker 3: various gold spray painted stencils adorning the space over the
Speaker 3: fireplace and surrounding a full length mirror candelabras, rest on tables,
Speaker 3: a battered leather club chairs behind you and beneath you.
Speaker 3: Liver King. He is topless and wears black sweatpants, his
Speaker 3: beard long and his features rough. He stands with his
Speaker 3: legs spread. He's just finished working out and is terribly dehydrated,
Speaker 3: giving definition to his muscles and oddly shaped torso. His
Speaker 3: belly button protrudes like a large cyst an OUTI, if
Speaker 3: ever there was one. You once prowled the woods and
Speaker 3: bayed at the moon. You are now perched on the
Speaker 3: sweaty scalp of a madman. He holds two guns, both
Speaker 3: with impossibly large barrels, one plated in gold. Before you
Speaker 3: is a tripod and a ring light, and inside of
Speaker 3: it an iPhone. Liver King scurries over to press record,
Speaker 3: then takes a few paces back and hunches forward in
Speaker 3: attack stance. He clears his throat.
Speaker 5: Joe.
Speaker 3: His voice is rough. He clears his throat again. He
Speaker 3: takes in his looking back at him from the selfie
Speaker 3: mode iPhone. He turns his head this way and that
Speaker 3: raises his chin, lowers it. He widens his dance a
Speaker 3: little more and then begins again. Joe Rogan, I'm calling
Speaker 3: you out. My name's Liver King Man to man, I'm
Speaker 3: picking a fight with you. Yeah. His left leg vibrates
Speaker 3: in an odd tremor. He rants a little more about
Speaker 3: rules and such. You can't really make out what he's saying.
Speaker 3: You're a liar. You can't pick a fight with a
Speaker 3: real king and expect there not to be an actual fight.
Speaker 4: Bro.
Speaker 3: He leans back and laughs a maniacal chuckle. He then
Speaker 3: straightens up and walks over to the phone, ceasing the recording.
Speaker 3: He sets the guns down on the table and lifts
Speaker 3: you from his head. He restsued gently atop of the guns.
Speaker 3: He leaves the room, mumbling to himself. You have never
Speaker 3: wished more for a house fire than you are now.
Speaker 3: All you want is to be consumed and cleansed in flame,
Speaker 3: allowed to return to the earth that cradled you.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I hear these things, and I just like
Speaker 2: I want to say, like I knew Randy Macho man Savage,
Speaker 2: and you, sir, are no Randy Mochu Man Savage.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 2: The radios.
Speaker 3: The videos are so uncomfortable, I bet, and I have
Speaker 3: to say that when I went when I went to
Speaker 3: watch the various videos which were totally untinged. The lead
Speaker 3: in ads were bonkers too, Okay, Like there was this
Speaker 3: one with a guy just like standing in his kitchen
Speaker 3: and he's saying how people need to drink warm water
Speaker 3: with cinnamon dissolved in it before bedtime to eliminate blood parasites.
Speaker 2: Blood parasites. Oh yeah, and sure, why not?
Speaker 3: So this is the point where the beef shifted from
Speaker 3: internet heckling into something that law enforcement could interpret as
Speaker 3: a threat. So the posts were just like general trash
Speaker 3: talk about training or ideology. He starts doing all this
Speaker 3: stuff where he's like directly summoning Joe Rogan like in Austin, Texas,
Speaker 3: and the visuals that read as menacing to outsiders. Crime.
Speaker 3: This is a crime.
Speaker 2: So it starts like wrestling promo energy like I'm going.
Speaker 3: To and he's like, I am coming to get.
Speaker 2: You her address.
Speaker 3: So, according to Austin Police, is quoted by ABC News,
Speaker 3: detectives quote reviewed the posts and observed that Johnson quote
Speaker 3: was traveling to Austin while continuing to make threatening statements.
Speaker 3: So like he keeps getting out and taking more videos
Speaker 3: and the travel is crucial, Like it turns a loud
Speaker 3: instagram dare into this scenario, right, we got a person
Speaker 3: with a large platform posting about a fight with weapons.
Speaker 5: On toward the target city.
Speaker 3: So the detectives contact Joe Rogan, who quote had never
Speaker 3: had any interaction with Johnson and considered the post to
Speaker 3: be threatening. And so then the police they get an
Speaker 3: arrest warrant for a terroristic threat charge. Oh Mma. Fighting
Speaker 3: Magazine later added an important connective detail. Sure police were
Speaker 3: initially contacted by a member of Rogan's security team as
Speaker 3: the videos escalated, So it's not like they saw them
Speaker 3: themselves or stumbled upon him. Like Joe Rogan's security was like, hey, guys,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna send you a link.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 2: Do you think that that was to give like one
Speaker 2: degree of removed from Joe Rogan, Yeah, rather than him
Speaker 2: the cause.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so.
Speaker 2: Since his kung fu wouldn'tet him out of there, what.
Speaker 3: So, like, this is a security problem and Rogan's side
Speaker 3: sees the posts, they see the travel, they like, something
Speaker 3: has to be done before these guys a ninch.
Speaker 2: That's the thing is that you don't with something like this,
Speaker 2: You won't know that he's going to do a crime
Speaker 2: till he does. The crime exactly.
Speaker 3: So they find him. The cops find Liver King at
Speaker 3: the Four Season was in downtown Austin, and they arrest
Speaker 3: him on misdemeanor terroristic threat charges. He was there with
Speaker 3: his dogs and he was they had made a video
Speaker 3: like these were like dorments or something, and he was like,
Speaker 3: I'm here with my dogs and we're going to get you.
Speaker 3: But do I really love that he was at the
Speaker 3: Four Seasons.
Speaker 2: That's the best detail.
Speaker 3: Is just like the ancestors would have done.
Speaker 2: And you can picture him like the really plush robe
Speaker 2: they give you, and he's gone around like eating his liver.
Speaker 3: Belly button, popping his erect belly button.
Speaker 2: He's got like a ice chest of raw meat and
Speaker 2: he's like, I need a bigger fridge exactly.
Speaker 3: And so Johnson posted a video showing moments before the
Speaker 3: arrest and he's just like pacing around and talking about
Speaker 3: impending prison time and a fight with Rogan. Yeah, the
Speaker 3: cops show up, he's cuffed led away.
Speaker 2: The consequence total.
Speaker 3: So after booking, his release conditions were not like the
Speaker 3: slack on the risk kind. So the Houston Chronicle reported
Speaker 3: that Bond was sad at twenty thousand dollars, and conditions
Speaker 3: included no contact with Joe Rogan, which I'd be like fine,
Speaker 3: and staying two hundred yards away from Rogan and his family,
Speaker 3: plus mental health supervision and evaluation. So like, if this
Speaker 3: you're starting to see, like this conflict's shape is pretty clear.
Speaker 3: It's not too loud, Guys arguing it's a public figure
Speaker 3: with a massive platform, a perceived threat. Police report guys,
Speaker 3: not so well, it's.
Speaker 2: Well ahead, like road rage incident. Yeah, just the road
Speaker 2: rage was traveling.
Speaker 3: I'm sure that there was a fear factor. So the
Speaker 3: criminal complaints said that the police believed that Johnson's behavior
Speaker 3: exhibited some you know, signs of like a mental health episode. Sure,
Speaker 3: and then he could be a danger to himself for others,
Speaker 3: And so you can see why then it goes to
Speaker 3: like no contact orders. There was no no sanctioned fight,
Speaker 3: no Rogan appearance, no public resolution between the two guys.
Speaker 3: The court process just ran out. He ran out the clock.
Speaker 3: Travis County Criminal Court confirmed the charges against Johnson were dismissed,
Speaker 3: like it just faded away. What's wild is how many
Speaker 3: videos spun off from these videos. So there are so
Speaker 3: many videos with commentary on the original videos on the
Speaker 3: whole situation, And that gets into two of my other
Speaker 3: pet peeves when it comes to online content and social media.
Speaker 3: I can't stand when someone posts a video of themselves
Speaker 3: sitting in the front seat of their car, trying to
Speaker 3: lecture me on something like you're automatically not an expert
Speaker 3: in that moment.
Speaker 2: I'm a little more forgiving on that. The thing that
Speaker 2: I cannot abide is I'm watching a video of one person.
Speaker 2: There's a split screen.
Speaker 3: I'm getting I'm getting to that, But the ones who
Speaker 3: sit in the car, they like drag out whatever they're saying.
Speaker 3: There's lots of preamble and repetition. If someone I know
Speaker 3: forwards me a video like that, I refuse to watch it.
Speaker 3: I see someone in the seat of their car, I'm like, no,
Speaker 3: I'm not watching it. The other one is what you're
Speaker 3: talking about, Like, I guess they call it like a stitch.
Speaker 3: So there's the original video where someone is then superimposed
Speaker 3: over the top, either pointing or nodding or doing like
Speaker 3: an outsized reaction.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's multiple ways. Yeah, there's a superimposed where they
Speaker 2: they just see them like kind of floating. Are either
Speaker 2: above or below or to the side. And then the
Speaker 2: other one is the literal split screen, which is like
Speaker 2: I would, and they're taking up space just to make faces.
Speaker 3: At me nod like the nodding. The other one that's
Speaker 3: I keep seeing now it really irritates me is when
Speaker 3: people will scroll through the comments, funny comments on something
Speaker 3: and just crack up about it.
Speaker 2: They don't read them or make.
Speaker 3: It, No, they just yeah, it's just them like wheezing, laughing.
Speaker 3: I hate those. Hate is a strong word, and I
Speaker 3: use it on purpose here. So and I also you
Speaker 3: know now that they're letting me vent for one seron, please,
Speaker 3: I can't stand all the like fight videos or videos
Speaker 3: of bigots acting badly in public or like people wilding out.
Speaker 3: Like I know that stuff exists, and the videos exist
Speaker 3: to get us all riled up. And that's not the
Speaker 3: stuff to get riled up over right.
Speaker 2: It does water down the ridge.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like we have more urgent, route worthy issues. Yes,
Speaker 3: I don't care about someone getting slapped in a taco bell, right, yeah.
Speaker 3: And I don't want to be so mad. I don't
Speaker 3: want to be so worked up. I want peace and
Speaker 3: quiet and safety and creativity and community. And we don't
Speaker 3: have that right now.
Speaker 2: Or if you are going to get into fight, it
Speaker 2: better be one of the most epic crazy like guy
Speaker 2: gets knocked off of a cliff by a donkey.
Speaker 3: No, no, I don't want to see that.
Speaker 2: No I do. I want to see that. I want
Speaker 2: to see that.
Speaker 3: I you know what, a man.
Speaker 2: Fights an animal and loses. I will watch that every
Speaker 2: time kangaroo beats up a man.
Speaker 3: For all of this, I put blame on both social
Speaker 3: media and reality TV, among other things, obviously, But and
Speaker 3: then now I'm just gonna go check my instagram, Zaren well,
Speaker 3: I look for reels to forward to you. What's your
Speaker 3: ridiculous takeaway.
Speaker 2: I can't believe I admitted to you that I will
Speaker 2: really am a huge fan and victim of the genre
Speaker 2: of man fights animals videos like I don't like watching
Speaker 2: like two people fight generally, and like listen to some
Speaker 2: like righteous moment or some like they're getting justice through
Speaker 2: the violence, and I can watch it and I have
Speaker 2: no problem, no qualms. No, But if it's an animal,
Speaker 2: like I don't feel the least. But you know, of course,
Speaker 2: I know it's like I'm always written for the animals, you.
Speaker 3: Know, well, they hope the animals always win.
Speaker 2: I'm a get on, mister bear, get them. I don't
Speaker 2: want to see like graphic gore, but I do want
Speaker 2: to see like the man get scared up a tree
Speaker 2: by a coyote whatever. I'm like, yeah, you tried to
Speaker 2: fight a coyote and realized it was a coyote after
Speaker 2: the fact. I don't care what happens. So I'm a
Speaker 2: silly sod that way, and I admit it. What's yours, Elizabeth?
Speaker 3: I wish takeaways. I wish that just for once, you
Speaker 3: let me vent.
Speaker 2: I'm trying. I'm really trying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's have a talk back.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, Hello Jeet, Hey Elizabeth.
Speaker 6: So I heard about the black garlic gerrito dip. Sounds interesting,
Speaker 6: but I'd like to let you know that I've made
Speaker 6: black garlic sugar cookies. One of my coworkers said it
Speaker 6: tasted like Christmas. I did add ginger to it, but
Speaker 6: give it a try. Okay, love the show.
Speaker 3: Bye, black garlic sugar cookies and ginger.
Speaker 2: So it's like a ginger snap.
Speaker 3: I am very intrigued. All right, I'm gonna look up
Speaker 3: a recipe. Thank you for that hot tip. That's it
Speaker 3: for today. You can find us online at ridiculous Crime
Speaker 3: dot com. We're also Ridiculous Crime. I'm Blue Sky Instagram,
Speaker 3: Social Media. Let's see YouTube as Ridiculous Crime pod. You
Speaker 3: can email us at Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com,
Speaker 3: leave a talk back on the iHeart app. Please please,
Speaker 3: please do so reach out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by
Speaker 3: Elizabeth Dutton and Zara Burnett, produced and edited by Kidney King,
Speaker 3: Dave Kusten starring Emilie Rutger as Judith. Research is by
Speaker 3: Spleen Queen, Marissa Brown and Baron Vaughan. Appendix Jabari Davis.
Speaker 3: The theme song is by Duke of Thyroid Thomas Lee
Speaker 3: and Sinus Cavity Prince Travis Dutton. Host wardrobe is provided
Speaker 3: by Botany five hundred. Guest hair and makeup by Sparkleshot
Speaker 3: and mister Andre. Executive producers are inventor of the Happy
Speaker 3: Beije aesthetic, Ben Bolan and rival Happy Beije influencer Noel Brown.
Speaker 3: Why Say It One More Time?
Speaker 2: Ridiqulious Crime.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
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