Steven Crowder and Ben Shapiro Beef Over $50 Million Contract
Horrific billionaire-backed right-wing “independent” pundits get way too much money for rage-filled rants and defending the rich
--
American lefty media is famous for circular firing squads. There’s constant drama between this and that commentator, and everyone is questioning everyone else’s credentials and motives. It’s exhausting, counterproductive, and undoubtedly one of the reasons we rarely — if ever — see concise plans and unified movements coming from the left in America. For me, it’s a source of frustration to see so much sh*t talking and so little action.
So, to see all of the beef, drama, and bridge burning on the right last week was quite entertaining.
Two right-wing media darlings — and two of the most popular yet horrific men on the internet — threw bombs at each other, had other pundits taking sides, divided their audiences, and ultimately had a divorce.
The amount of money on the table was also eye-opening.
Because all of these fake-ass grassroots boot-strapped right-wing media organizations are funded and backed by billionaires, Shapiro and Crowder can squabble over tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.
And yet, both claim ‘independence’ and both somehow portray themselves as rogue rebels speaking truth to power.
That’s the most ridiculous and insane aspect to me.
Commentators who are paid millions of dollars to defend the richest and most powerful people in the world somehow get away with being cast as against the system.
I don’t understand how anyone falls for the grift.
Here are some thoughts on the Crowder-Shapiro beef of January 2023.
Commentators who are paid millions of dollars to defend the richest and most powerful people in the world somehow get away with being cast as against the system.
In a sane America with a remote understanding of history, sites like The Daily Wire and Prager U would be tiny fringe outlets that people looked at in horror, Ben Shapiro wouldn’t be a near-household name but an aggressively angry lawyer who wrote occasional rage pieces for small far-right outlets, and Steven Crowder would be another failed comedian who took a job at his father’s insurance agency, bullies the sh*t out of his subordinates, and would limit his racist rants to the three hundred people who followed him on Truth Social.
But unfortunately, that is not the America we live in.
Instead, the freaking Daily Wire is one of the most-shared ‘news’ outlets on social media, Ben Shapiro is thought of as some sort of intellectual with a top national podcast, children watch Prager U’s ahistorical bullsh*t on YouTube, and Steven Crowder is making tens of millions of dollars a year with almost six million freaking YouTube subscribers.
It’s insanity.
In many ways, that all fits with the precipitous societal decline of my home country.
But these nutters brought some entertainment value last week.
The drama started on January 18th, Crowder dropped a video on his show entitled, “It’s time to stop,” in which he calls out The Daily Wire and the contract negotiations they’d been having.
I’m not going to get into all of the details, but the term sheet he was initially given would have paid him $50 million over four years.
Shapiro claims Crowder countered with $30 million per year, and while the top-line numbers are getting a lot of attention, it was many of the stipulations that led the Louder with Crowder host to put his employer on blast.
Apparently, it was a bad term sheet. Along with merch rights and content quotas, the crux of the issue was what is being dubbed a “cancel-culture clause,” which would have penalized Crowder for getting YouTube strikes and being demonetized on social media — something that happens often because he’s regularly, openly, and extremely bigoted.
Right-wing lawyer and political commentator Robert Barnes, who is one of the few I can listen to without tearing my hair out, says there were numerous other unfair clauses, and that Crowder was right to not sign the term sheet.
The day after Steven Crowder's emotional rant, The Daily Wire’s chief executive Jeremy Boreing released a response video that, over the course of an hour, went into further details of the contract.
At this point, many other commentators had made response videos portraying Crowder as an entitled whiney host who couldn’t handle the free market or as an underdog hero taking on Big Tech censorship.
Ben Shapiro wrote a lengthy Twitter thread highlighting the behavior of the Crowder Team, who had recorded a phone call with an unknowing Jeremy Boreing, and apparently registered BigCon.com over a month beforehand, showing he clearly had planned to leave the company, throw a fit while doing so, and try to monetize the attention.
The entire thing is ongoing with commentators still taking sides and potshots.
The always unintentionally comedic Jordan Peterson tweeted support for Crowder in his battle against the hypocrisy of “conservative media” before realizing the entire rant was about his own freaking employer The Daily Wire, and quickly deleting the tweet — oops.
It would all be a lot funnier if these characters weren’t so influential.
The only reason Shapiro or Crowder have such a reach is because they have the undying support of the richest people in America.
A contract dispute between two far-right loons shouldn’t or wouldn’t be an issue, but it is because of how much money is being thrown around. Again, that was the most eye-opening part for me, even though I knew these pretend grassroots media outlets were owned or funded by billionaires.
The Daily Wire’s principal backers are the billionaire Wilks brothers from Texas, who — shocker of all shockers — were also initial investors in Prager U.
Somehow, this was all news to beanie-glued-to-his-head Tim Pool, who had Crowder on his podcast in the midst of the drama and said, “It was shocking for me to find out these big “alternatives” only exist because some powerful industrialist or billionaire decided I’m going to spend money, but that money comes with their influence.”
Duh, Tim.
Thanks for the obvious statement of the week.
The only reason Shapiro or Crowder have such a reach is because they have the undying support of the richest people in America.
And I often wonder where these right-wing rage jockeys would be without that unlimited financial backing. Listen to 90 seconds of Dave Rubin or Candace Owens and tell me either one made it to where they are because of their intelligence — during this saga, Crowder wanting a better contract somehow led Candace Owens to expose her hatred of working people and go on a rant about Amazon workers and peasants who feel they should have better working conditions and wages?
Defending the rich and powerful at all costs is an easy and lucrative gig.
Again, none of these figures are ‘rebels’ speaking truth to power.
They are paid by billionaires to defend billionaires.
They obfuscate wealth inequality and keep conservative voters in a foaming rage about bathrooms, history classes, and the sexiness of M&M’s.
The only thing counter-culture about any of them is their anger at how society has advanced since the 1950s in gender, racial, and LGBTQ+ equality.
Beyond that, they’re court jesters for the mega-rich, fighting over $50 million contracts and pretending to be independent.
