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Something Wrong With The Podcast
SWWP #47 - Netlix/Paramount Bidding War, Diddy Doc, Akaash & Jasleen
00:28:09
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In communities across the country. Hourly Amazon employees earn an average of over $23 an hour with opportunities to grow their career and their paycheck. Learn more@aboutamazon.com.
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Hey everybody. Good morning. Welcome Back to episode 47 of Something Wrong with the Podcast. Your boy Julian and I have to jump right into the hottest story. The the big boys are throwing money around like it's nobody's business. In an era where it seems like everybody can't save any money or even buy a house, there is no problem with us expanding monopolies at all cost. So let's talk. Of course I'm talking about the current bidding war between for Warner Studios, between Netflix and Paramount. Now if you remember a few days ago on December 5th, Netflix and Warner Discovery initially announced an agreement that Netflix will acquire Warner Bros. Studios and streaming business, which at the time Warner Brothers was valued at 43 billion I believe. And after Netflix gave them the offer, their new evaluation shot up to 82 billion. So obviously a financially successful deal for them, something that they were. We're looking to move on and move fast.
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Before we get into Paramount disrupting this whole deal. The public outcry being from the audience, consumers seeing that the type of properties that Netflix was going to acquire, which would include HBO, the Sopranos and all these major IPs, which is really what the value of the deal that Warner would be bringing to Netflix.
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It was looking like there was a big push from the public that was anti this deal, including myself, to be honest. Quite frankly. We know the Netflix CEO is very loose lipped when it comes to downplaying the role of movie theaters and actually is looking to push content away from the community and shared experience and more into the at home experience. As if we need more reasons to do things on our own and away from our communities, our local community spaces. I truly do believe movie theaters are one of the last few like shared spaces that are still heavily valued in not just major cities but also, you know, smaller cities as well and towns at that as well. So theaters and movie theaters extremely important for, for culture and shared experiences and Netflix is doing a very active role in pushing us away from that. Yeah. So let's, let's continue. The Netflix IP would include obviously the Warner Brothers franchises, their studios, their massive library and it would obviously solidify Netflix more as a super studio and streamer hybrid. Whereas now obviously they're most more respected as a streaming service. They do do original content, but they have stepped seemingly away from that a little bit or at least not promoting that as much. Obviously there's a lot on Stranger Things at the moment, but they're looking to acquire a lot of real estate in this deal as well, which would be a really big, big deal for them. So, in short, this deal would combine one enlarging streaming service was one of the oldest and most powerful entertainment studios, which would obviously lead in a seismic shift to how content is distributed for us moving forward. So here goes the pushback in the rival bid. We have the older, the older, the other big brother. Paramount said, not so fucking fast. Netflix, calm your ass. We have a much better deal for Warner Brothers and we're actually going to offer them more money and raise their valuations. This Warner Brother deal, this, pardon me, this Paramount offer, would value Netflix, would value Warner brothers at about $30 a share, which is a few dollars higher than what Netflix is offering, which would raise the evaluation to not 83 billion, but actually 108.5 billion. So with that.
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Not only did they announce this offer, they gave a deadline, which we'll get into in a minute. And then Larry Ellison went on CNBC immediately after this announcement and basically just said straight up like, hey, Warner Brothers Studios wanted cash. We gave him more cash. We're actually offering 17 and a half, 17.6 billion more than the Netflix deal. So he's just putting it all out there like we're giving them what they want. And not only that, we're giving the people what they want. Actually, you can see on this website called stronger Hollywood.com what a incredible domain name to secure if you're Paramount. All of this is marketing. All this is positioning themselves as the good guy. And in smartly pushing the narrative that Netflix is the bad guy in the space to the shareholders at Warner Brothers. But even furthermore, where it really matters in terms of like.
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Fodder online to the people on Twitter, to the people that will be writing about this in newsrooms or reporting on this, Paramount is jumping out the gate with not only more money, but also trying to position themselves as the moral guy and the good guy. So. So on this website, strongstrongerhollywood.com, i was scrolling through for a bit and here's a quote from the site itself. The Netflix transaction creates a clear risk of the higher prices for consumers, lower pay for the content creators and talent, and the destruction of American and international theatrical experiences. Netflix has never undertaken large scale acquisitions resulting in increased executions. Pardon me, resulting in increased executions with risk with which WBD shareholders would have to endure. Meaning Paramount just said, like, look, they'll they'll destroy the American theater, distribute theatrical release distribution, which Paramount did say that they plan on keeping that. And that would be a mainstay in an effort to, you know, gain the crowd support, which I am fully on board with. They got my vote as well as saying, look, Netflix isn't built like this. They're young and in the game. They actually have never been in a position like this in whatever mistakes and mishaps they have along the way, guess who's going to have to endure that? It's the good people at Warner Brothers. We're seasoned vets in this. We're also giants in this space. Give us your property. And not only that, give us your property. Take more money from us. Now, look, this could be somewhat of a Trojan horse. It sounds like Paramount is leading with a lot of good to get ahead of what may be buried in that contract. That could ultimately be bad. But there is certainly a lot at stake. And from what I'm seeing on this deal, it seems like Paramount is doing all the right things early on to get support from the. Not again, not that the public matters. A lot of decisions are made policy wise and deal wise that go against the public's. The popularity of the public. But this does seem like, at least from the information that is available, which is a lot.
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On this website, but also just in the news cycle as well, it seems like Paramount is doing the right moves. So what's next? Let's look at Warner Brothers. Shareholders have to vote on these offers. I believe the offer from Paramount they put a deadline on it is very early in the new year. It's sometime in early January.
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If the deal is approved.
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It'S going to have to be examined extremely carefully by the government.
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Honestly, I think the best case of this is they don't sell. But that's obviously not going to happen. I think we're pushing more and more into monopolies. I think this could also create a few spin off networks as well.
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Which we'll have to keep an eye out. This could either, you know, just create higher subscription fees or just more siloed subscription bases where you just end up paying more. We're basically getting to the point now where at one point when Cable was like 200, $300 a month, we're just pushing towards that. With streaming, it's all cyclical. We're just going to end up back where we were if not paying more. Find your free streaming sites. That's always my, my caveat really, just for the Knicks games because there's no way I'm downloading a Gotham app just to watch the one team in this city that I really care about.
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So, yeah, it's, it's an exciting venture. I again, selfishly, the biggest piece for me is keeping movies in the movie theater, which according to Paramount, they're looking to do. So as of now, they have my vote. I can, for the first time in my life, say I'm siding with an Ellison. So, yeah, just keep an eye out for this. I think whether or not you care too much about the content industry, I think this also affects a lot of how information is presented, what shows get greenlit, what writers get jobs, and what actors are actually getting employed. I think there's a lot more that goes into this beyond the headlines that we're seeing now. So it's something that we should all certainly pay attention to and monitor throughout these next few weeks and into the New Year.
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In communities across the country, hourly Amazon employees earn an average of over $23 an hour with opportunities to grow their career and their paycheck. Learn more@aboutamazon.com here.
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Let's stay in Hollywood, move away from these major studios. Actually, not too far away, because this next piece of content also lives on Netflix because of 50 Cent's petty ass. I'm of course talking about the Diddy documentary, which came out on Netflix. And if you're watching this and you grew up in my era, or if you're a little older, you may be seeing this and being like, huh, interesting. None of this information is new, which I think is important and I'll get into in a later because I think that ties into my whole point about this doc. But if you are a younger person interested in music and hip hop and how someone like this can be created, I think this is a really great, informative doc for you, and I think it was pretty well done as well. It does a great job of tracking Diddy's rise in fame with his Uptown record days, and then getting fired from Uptown and starting Bad Boy and the rise of Biggie and Mace and Mary J. Blige and others, and then his evolution into, like, a global brand at large. What's interesting here that I think.
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Is pretty like succinctly put together in this doc is all of the major moments in Diddy's life were very much publicly known and at times, most of the time, seemingly catastrophic. Of course, referencing the first major incident, the City College incident, where he hosted a show. His name was all over the show, and there were about nine People, I believe nine people were stampeded because of an overcrowding issue, and it became a major, like, global news story. And Diddy being one of the key players in putting this event together. His name was all over the place, like, as party promoter. Puff Daddy. Puff Daddy. Puff Daddy. So this was his first taste of as negative as it was real outward fame, having his name be associated with a terrible tragedy. And it's even said in this documentary that that specific moment really catapulted him into stardom, because at that time, you know, it's not. You can't go online and get clicks. It's hard print, it's hard papers. And in moments of tragedy, you know, stars can be born, as awful as this is. So Diddy was fully leveraging the. His namesake in that incident to become a household name certainly within the music industry and in the party scene. So then, of course, that leads to one thing. He has a huge falling out with Andre Harrell. Don't care to get too much into the details of, like, his life. But then the next major incident we can track is the death of Tupac and then obviously the death of Biggie as well. Um, seemingly in the documentary, they allude that he had a play, played a part in both of those instances, which, you know, in the context of this doc, isn't that far of a stretch. And it's always something I've personally felt as well. There's no way he was, you know, just. Just happened to be not involved with either of those cases.
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So you're seeing his rise time and time again coming from, like, the ashes of just terrible situations. And this seems to be the pattern that he took not only in his professional career, but also when it comes to his. His dating and personal life as well. More particular in particular, when he wanted to date.
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Kim, who she was dating, like, the star of the label at the time, he said, I don't care. He wanted her, went after her, and then he wanted to date Nikki, went after her. So he has a pattern of also seeking conflict in every aspect of his life and not letting any hurdle get in his way. Meaning, like, these women were taking women in healthy. Who's to say if they're healthy or not, but they were in relationships at the time. And Diddy went very much on, like, pursuit, that's my girl mode, and did everything he could to leverage whatever, you know, notoriety, fame he had and would just undercut everybody's relationships. Because, again, the screaming pattern with Diddy is it's always about control. It's Always about being the hero and the person creating the story at all times. Because when he creates a story, he can push himself to look like the man in a room where he, in fact, if you were to peel back a few layers, may be like the least competent person in the room. Time and time again, this was a tactic he used. And I think that this is very important throughout the course of this doc and craftily done by, by 50 Cent and the people that helped produce this doc. Because you don't. It's. There's no like, oh man, that was the moment. There was no like.
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Like Epstein esque, like, big kaboom moment. His life was always this. We saw somebody that was a monster from the beginning until, you know, this whole thing came crashing down not that long ago. He was always this bad person. He was always a control freak. He always misabused people and mismanaged relationships, intentionally and leveraged people's health and well being and threatening people for the betterment of him and himself. Only this is who he is and this is who he was. And what's scary is that didn't stop him from becoming the success that he was. And not only that, that didn't stop him from being looked at as like a hero or a role model in the space in which he operated so freely. In which is. Yeah, there's a lot of scary things to pick up here. Because he was someone that was celebrated. This man got the key to New York City. Like he was someone that was put on a pedestal with other black excellent figures in this, in the music space, entertainment space, clothing realm. Like he just was looked at as somebody in which he was not. But the thing with Diddy, he wasn't really trying to hide who he ever really was. I think we were blinded by the success and the adoration of who he became. And we would put the spotlight on those positives while really stuffing the demons far, far away when they were right next to us, right in front of us the entire time. And I think that's really the big. The big takeaway from this documentary is monsters aren't. You know, he's not inherently born evil. He wasn't born to be a super villain. The way in which the system worked and the way in which he was rewarded for his behavior is what continued to enable him to become the person he always was.
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It wasn't like true colors revealing themselves sort of thing. It wasn't like a wool in sheep's clothes, a wolf in sheep's clothing. He was always just a bad fucking guy and he was rewarded for being a bad fucking guy too many times.
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So I think this documentary could function as a cautionary tale for the type of people that are.
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Not only allowed in that industry in that space, but also rewarded in that space.
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And I think people need to really pay attention to their circle, especially in a environment that can be as toxic welcoming as the entertainment industry.
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In communities across the country. Hourly Amazon employees earn an average of over $23 an hour with opportunities to grow their career and their paycheck. Learn more at About Amazon.
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So the last thing I want to cover today, and I was hesitant to talk about this, but I did feel like it was appropriate to mention, is the whole saga that it looks like it seemingly came to an end. It spanned over most of October this year, all over the Twitter, on X's timeline, of course, talking about Akash and Jaslene. Akash is somebody that I do not know personally. I do know some of the guys over at Flagrant who I, you know, are good friends and I really love the content that they do and I'm a big fan of their, of their show, but they're for those that are not familiar. Flagrant 2, the podcast Andrew Schultz hosts with Akash Singh, Alex Media and Mark Agnog. They're, they're, they're great. Those guys are, you know, cool. So in October this year, not the last month, there were clips of Jaslene, who started her own show. Jaslene is Akash's wife.
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And for context, they're both Indian. I think that matters later with the controversy of this topic where she started speaking freely about her past being in college and her sexual past. And the story that's publicly known is that Akash and Jaslene met at a comedy conference and they were both virgins and they fell in love, went through very hard times together, had sex for the first time together and have been together ever since. That's the outward facing story up to this point. But now we're seeing Jaslene step more into the content space and get a microphone. And she's saying things like, she had a roster of men in college. She doesn't think that bill should be split. Her money's her money and his money's their money, she's saying. Or his money's her money, whatever. All this stuff that like triggers red pill people. She's also said, you know, when he's sick, I don't want to take care of him. There's videos of her ducking kisses from Akash. She's you know, been labeled now like a gold digger. And just a lot of it's like been a very red pilled smear campaign, kicking her back in and then anytime there's an opportunity to step on a woman and just kill their reputation. You can insert Myron Gaines from the super red pilled podcast Fresh and Fit where he would post these like very specific edits and clips to X criticizing them and really amplifying this narrative and tagging Akash in these posts where they actually sparred back and forth a few times on tweets which were, you know, in this Twitter sphere which is heavily leans more towards the Myron crowd, which is a domain that is more red pilled and conservative. Those first of all, the clips weren't great. I mean I'm not, not trying to shoot bail here. The clip in, without context in, in just catching something on your timeline. They were really bad clips to have circulating out there about you and your girl. And then obviously with Myron, just dumping fire on these things just made the situation significantly worse. Right.
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So how did they respond? Basically that they came on Jaslene, they went quiet for a minute, then Jaslene came onto the show for flagrant. They put out one of the best teases of all time, like a WW WWE promo reel which was pretty sick. But ultimately that led to a, her joining the podcast as a guest joining flagrant pod and them going through, I think Mark did a really great job producing this. They went through a lot of questions, Q&As bringing up direct tweets, bringing up the video of her duck and kisses and bringing up all these things directly to her with her on the couch to then respond to the guys and just like talking type free forming conversation. Obviously no beef, no animosity. And what the, the thing you reveal quite early in this because obviously she's there and they're both fine on the couch together. You learn that so much of what is perceived on the Internet and the, the noise of the Internet is, could not be further from the reality of the lives in which the people that they're talking about, you know, so obviously, you know, Aakash and Jaslene during that whole time had they said they went to India for a trip that was planned long before this incident. So they're traveling together, they're obviously still married, they're in a relationship. But the noise of the Internet did a really great job of trying of pushing this.
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Version of their relationship that may not have existed and trying to cast that as a truth. When in fact, that wasn't the truth. And I think Jaslene did a really great job of coming onto that to the podcast and explaining some of the things that she had said. And being a woman that is not a comedian, but marrying a comedian. She said she's been in this scene now for however many years. And what she said, what she thinks makes something funny is when you say something that's so absurd in context of the character and the person in which that is saying it. So for her, she grew up very sheltered and is a quite religious person. So for her to go up and say very, like, extreme things is what, you know, she internalizes as being the comedy thing. Because it's like, I'm saying this. It's so absurd. It's so ridiculous. Of course that's not who I am. Those that know me know that I'm not this person. But unfortunately, those who are online do not know you as that person. So they perceive you to be. Everything that you say is not a joke, it's serious. It's that whole thing I went through that. Everybody goes through that at some point if you have a microphone in your hand. But the.
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I don't care to get into, like, is Aakash a pussy? Is he a cuckoo? I think it's totally fair. If you as a man, after seeing the situation and seeing some of the things that she said and have done to Akash, I think you're well within your right to deduce and establish whether or not you in your personal life would be okay with your significant other saying those things about you or doing certain things without you, whatever they are. Right.
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Fine. I think that's fair. I think some of those videos are, like, crazy to see, like, her just ducking all of his kisses or just like, you know, going up there and saying, if my husband's sick, I'm not gonna take care of him. Like, do I want somebody to say that about me? No. But is that also, should I go fucking kick Akash's backing? Because that's the person he chose to live his life with and like, chastise him for making that decision? Also. Also, no. I never really understood the pursuit of.
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Casting your. This. The irony of me saying this with a microphone and talking about a relationship, about casting like your rules of your relationship onto every relationship that you see online. I never understood that, like, this is the hyper extreme end of this. But say they were like, say the Internet narrative was right. Just assume that Akash is a cuck. Just assume that because that's what Myron and the right wing pill people were trying to cast him as. So assume that that's the truth. If that is and he's still with his wife, then that's it. Then that's an arrangement. That's an agreement that they both agree with and that's how they choose to live their life. Why does that trigger so many people to then lash out at him and her? Not so much at him, really at her. If we really want to break this down, it all comes down to how do we attack the woman and why do people care so much to target them as a, as a married couple and let them know how wrong that is? If that is something that works for them, then it works for them and nothing more really needs to be said about it. I think what it can do, it could change. Obviously, Aakash is a performer, he's a comedian. I think it can change people's perception on how they see him as a comedian. And maybe certain jokes don't hit the same or like, you can't say certain things because I know who you are and you're like, I think that, you know, like, that comes with the territory. And I think Akash, I would hope, has spoken to his wife and saying, hey, like, you know, this is all fun and games. I know you want to step into the content space, but, you know, I'm the one that's really bringing in a lot of the money for our household and we live a great life because of the income I've been able to provide. And if a lot of the things that you say online and on your own show are hurting me and my public perception, which could ultimately hurt our income, then maybe if that's the angle that Aakash needs to take, leverage your success and leverage your.
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Financial situation together to be like, hey, look, if you keep going up there and saying all these crazy things about me or like your past, then I'm going to be looked at as like a pussy and nobody's going to buy tickets for me because I'm going to lose all my supporters. Then that's a conversation that can be had between the two of them. But who's to say? I don't know, maybe they didn't even go that deep into this stuff. Maybe they just logged off their phones and laughed about it together. It seemed like they both kind of stepped away from this stuff. But I mean, I think it's, I'm sure one could assume that they had a pretty serious conversation about everything as well, which I hope that they did, obviously, beyond going on Flagrant, which was a great conversation. Again, Mark did a great job producing that. So I just, I think it's something worth, you know, looking into. I will say if they ever did not work out or if they split up, I. The. The Internet would go absolutely crazy for that. Do I wish that on them? No. Do I think that'll happen? Probably not. But for what it was, it was a interesting timeline time on Twitter to see.
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That outrage and uproar over a situation that was so fabricated online. And I wonder, I truly do wonder if those edits had never existed, if that show didn't get the attention it was getting, would this ever. Like, she would not have been on the show. This wouldn't have been a thing. It's all, you know, reactionary. I think it's smart of Schultz and the flagrant team to have her on and have that moment on their show. Rather than putting out these siloed fires on X, why not bring it on your platform and address everything at once? I think that was very smart of them. But, yeah, you know, wishing all married couples the best, but certainly the two of them and I think this is just like a nice reminder that what you see online is not, more often than not, not true. Cool. All right, everybody. That's all I got today. I do want to say I went to a Knicks game this past Friday. We played the Jazz. We beat them up. I was at the game. We were up 23 nothing to start the game. 4113 to the end of the first. It was OG's first game back after missing a few after his injury. And the Knicks look great. We have a really big game. If you're listening to this today, Tuesday then their game is NBA cup game against Toronto. Raptors is tonight. So watch our Knicks. Support the Knicks. And yeah, I got a pretty exciting busy week, but I'll be out and about. Not much else going on in my life. Not much to report. I am still highly caffeinated. My Breville over here is putting in work like no other. Yeah, you know, water my plants today. Back to grocery shopping. Life goes on. Routines matter. Go to the gym, go on a walk, catch up with some homies and have a great week. I love you all. Thank you for listening. Peace.
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To remind you that 60% of sales on Amazon come from independent sellers. Here's John from Devil Dog Pet company.
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Family business from Sterling Heights, Michigan. But we can reach customers all over the country thanks to Amazon.
- [29:08]
A
Good boy shop small business on Amazon.