What Is Happening With Patreon, Gillette and Brexit? | Sargon Of Akkad

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (wind blowing) Mr. Carl Benjamin,…

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      (wind blowing) Mr. Carl Benjamin, also known as Sargon of Akkad, also known as Patreon's number one enemy at the moment. (laughs) How are you today, sir?

   2. CBCarl Benjamin0:16

      I'm good. I didn't really consider myself Patreon's number one enemy. I don't know why they're doing this, but, um, apparently SubscribeStar has started working for people now. So it's kind of, uh, an issue that's passed us all by, I suppose. Now-

   3. CWChris Williamson0:30

      Yeah. It's-

   4. CBCarl Benjamin0:31

      ... so-

   5. CWChris Williamson0:31

      It's kind of in and out, in and out pretty fast, right?

   6. CBCarl Benjamin0:33

      Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's been strange.

   7. CWChris Williamson0:36

      For the, uh, for the listeners who don't know what's occurred over the last few months, could you give us the- the rundown, the zeitgeist?

   8. CBCarl Benjamin0:43

      Yeah, um, basically Patreon found me insulting a bunch of Nazis on a live stream, on quite an obscure channel. And they took umbrage to the way that I was insulting them, and they decided to delete my Patreon account without warning, um, which is strange 'cause I mean, the terms of service obviously don't say that they track down things that you do elsewhere on the Internet and use that to judge you. But, uh, apparently, they do. So be warned if you have a Patreon account.

   9. CWChris Williamson1:12

      So Patreon was your way of assisting your channel, Sargon of Akkad, on YouTube, crowdfunding. It allows fans to get like exclusive content and- and early access to- to certain things and stuff like that. And by being shut down from that, I'm gonna guess that that was a- a- a primary source of income that you were deriving your, from your channel, right?

   10. CBCarl Benjamin1:34

       Uh, it- it was certainly one of the major ways I was monetizing my channel, yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson1:37

       Yeah.

   12. CBCarl Benjamin1:37

       Um, the... YouTube has a join fe- feature that you can turn on, but I'm really hesitant to do it 'cause it's something like 30% of the money that people donate through it are taken by YouTube themselves. Whereas with- with Patreon, it's only 5%.

   13. CWChris Williamson1:51

       Yeah.

   14. CBCarl Benjamin1:52

       Um, and with SubscribeStar, it's only 5% as well.

   15. CWChris Williamson1:54

       Okay.

   16. CBCarl Benjamin1:55

       Um, just thir- 30%'s a huge amount in my opinion.

   17. CWChris Williamson1:58

       It is a big amount, yeah. But it's obviously YouTube is starting to see a- a gap in the fact that if you've got (throat clears) companies that have agendas and who are potentially gonna disenfranchise the, uh, the-

   18. CBCarl Benjamin2:09

       Yeah.

   19. CWChris Williamson2:09

       ... content creators. So w-

   20. CBCarl Benjamin2:11

       Well, that- that was, that was the point of Patreon in the first place, that YouTube- YouTube were the ones saying, "We have advertisers, therefore, you can't say certain things or be, you know, quite edgy and push boundaries." You know, there- there are a lot of advertisers who, you know, corporate, you know, sponsors for, you know, and advertisers who don't want you to be too edgy, not that they really care, I think, in my opinion, but they would... And demonetizing certain videos and things like that. And Patreon offered itself as, "Hey, look, you can keep your content going without advertisers, without having to get these corporations involved. We'll facilitate you doing that." And now, they're like, "Oh, actually, but if you say something we don't like and you don't apologize, then, you know, we're..." (laughs) I mean, not that they gave them the opportunity to apologize, but, you know. But the, "If you say something we don't like, we're gonna kick you off." It's just like... Okay.

   21. CWChris Williamson2:57

       So what happens? What happens when you wake up on the morning of whatever day it is and, uh, you find out your Patreon account's gone?

   22. CBCarl Benjamin3:06

       (puffs) It's- it's not a very nice feeling. I'm gonna be honest. You know, 'cause, I mean, I was, I was relying on that money quite significantly. Um, I s- I mean, it is, it is kind of terrifying knowing that you're living under a Sword of Damocles. You know, like I, every day, I wake up and I check that my YouTube channel is still there.

   23. CWChris Williamson3:27

       (laughs)

   24. CBCarl Benjamin3:27

       I'm not joking. I'm, uh, I'm... It sounds terrible, doesn't it? You know, it's like f- every morning, you phone up your boss just to check you have a job to go into.

   25. CWChris Williamson3:35

       Yeah.

   26. CBCarl Benjamin3:35

       You know, it's like... That's how I feel about it sometimes, and it's- it's- it's my choice obviously. I'm the one who started doing a YouTube channel, but-

   27. CWChris Williamson3:42

       Yeah.

   28. CBCarl Benjamin3:42

       ... you know, it wasn't like this when I started, you know. It w- it wasn't... I mean, like, Mumki Jones was a- a young comedian who mocks, uh, he mocked Elliot, Elliot Rodger, and he actually ended up doing some real- really good work with it because he went through and read his crazy manifesto and things like this. And he would explain why Elliot Rodger was such a, you know, a lunatic. And he got his entire YouTube presence deleted, um, for being apparently controversial. And it's like, well, you know, come on, the controversial stuff is the stuff that's interesting, isn't it? You know, no one's just watching daytime television on YouTube, are they? They're gonna go somewhere else where the controversial content goes-

   29. CWChris Williamson4:22

       Yeah.

   30. CBCarl Benjamin4:22

       ... because that'll make that new platform, cough, cough, Bitchute, cough, um, uh, a- a better alternative. I think b- I think Bitchute's got a better model because it- it- it's stored like torrents, so it's across thousands of different computers, um, decentralizing it. And I think... Uh, so they don't have like a, you know, they don't have a giant warehouse full of hard drives, um, to keep everything on. So it's, I think that's the future. It's just YouTube's currently the dominant market share. But any- anyway, sorry.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   (laughs) …

   1. CBCarl Benjamin15:00

      kind of like omnipotent panopticon where you, you can...

   2. CWChris Williamson15:04

      (laughs)

   3. CBCarl Benjamin15:04

      No, no, 'cause like anything you've said at any point in time or space can now be found by internet sleuths if it's on the internet, if it's in social media, if it's, you know-

   4. CWChris Williamson15:14

      Totally correct.

   5. CBCarl Benjamin15:15

      I mean, like, look at Cenk Uygur's old, um, like when he was in college or whatever, his old blog from the '90s that he had up. I mean, it was really rude, you know. It was, it was like young men's rude talk, you know.

   6. CWChris Williamson15:27

      Yeah.

   7. CBCarl Benjamin15:28

      And, you know, and, uh, obviously he's not saying this to women's faces. So it's not like he's going out and, and saying, "Hey lady, you've got a nice rack. Uh, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." Uh, he did kinda sound like Elliot Rodger while he was doing it.

   8. CWChris Williamson15:40

      Yeah.

   9. CBCarl Benjamin15:40

      Uh, but that was all dug up, like 20 years later after he'd disavowed it like 10 years previously-

   10. CWChris Williamson15:47

       Yeah.

   11. CBCarl Benjamin15:47

       ... and said, "Look, this is something I did, and I'm not proud of it," and... But now it doesn't matter. I mean, that guy kicked off of the board of the Justice Democrats, a political organization in the US. Uh, and him and Karl Kolinski. And so it's just like... it's merciless.

   12. CWChris Williamson15:58

       Yeah.

   13. CBCarl Benjamin15:59

       Absolutely merciless. And this ex- it's currently happening to Tulsi Gabbard right now. Like, she was raised in a, a right-wing Christian anti-gay household, like actively. Her dad was an activist against gay rights. Um, and she grew up naturally with a bunch of those opinions.

   14. CWChris Williamson16:15

       Yep.

   15. CBCarl Benjamin16:15

       As you would expect.

   16. CWChris Williamson16:16

       Yep.

   17. CBCarl Benjamin16:17

       And sh- you know, like, she, what, she go into Congress six years ago, but before then, she had already changed her mind on the idea of gay rights, which is why she joined the Democrats. And now she's being just grilled for it. Like, I'm seeing that... She's such a mild person, and I'm just seeing the worst kind of backlash from the very far-left activists who are now like, "Well, if you were once ever against gay rights, then y- you know, you are forever, and we're just gonna treat you like you still hold these opinions."

   18. CWChris Williamson16:44

       Yeah, it's, it's such a, um-

   19. CBCarl Benjamin16:46

       Awful.

   20. CWChris Williamson16:47

       Yeah, and it's the... The problem is because everybody wants to have this absolutist approach to people are either bad or good and the gray area is too gray and any seceding of ground is you c- allowing them to, uh, proliferate these really terrible ideas. But Sam Harris has a great concept where he talks about, um, a, the son of a terrorist over in Iraq, and he says this son's two years old, so let's imagine the free will that he's got. He's two years old, and he's maybe, um, stamping on insects or something like that. And you think, "Well, uh, i- is it his fault?" And you go, "Well, no, no, like, look at, look at the people he's around. He's got this aggression. It's a really aggressive culture and blah, blah, blah." Okay, roll it forward. He's seven years old, and he's at school, and he's bullying people. You go, "Well, is it his fault now?" And you go, "Well, no, no, it's, it's still probably not his fault. He's got this crazy honor culture, and he's very, very highly held within society." Okay, now continue to roll the tape forward. Now he's 15. Yeah. Now he's 20. Now he's a warlord at 30. Like, wh- where-

   21. CBCarl Benjamin17:46

       Yeah. (laughs)

   22. CWChris Williamson17:46

       ... where do we stop? Or where do we draw the line about understanding people's backgrounds?

   23. CBCarl Benjamin17:53

       Yeah, no, that, that's a really, really good point and a really good way of laying it out too. Um, at what point do we hold people accountable for the things they believe, and can we allow them to change if they want to? And it seems like the far left at this point-

   24. CWChris Williamson18:06

       I mean, surely, surely not before they can vote.... like-

   25. CBCarl Benjamin18:08

       Oh, yeah. (laughs)

   26. CWChris Williamson18:08

       ... you know what I mean? If you're not allowed to vote, you basically-

   27. CBCarl Benjamin18:11

       Yeah.

   28. CWChris Williamson18:11

       What, what we're saying to you, what the government is saying to you, is your views are not sufficiently well-formed for you to be able to contribute to the national discourse.

   29. CBCarl Benjamin18:21

       Yeah. They are. Um-

   30. CWChris Williamson18:22

       So how, how can anything from circa that period be used as a canary in a coal mine for what you're like as a, a real person? A perfect example, we've got a-
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Yeah. …

   1. CWChris Williamson30:00

      adopters are the people who have taken the most offense.

   2. CBCarl Benjamin30:02

      Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson30:02

      So the, you know, that it could be, that it could be realistic. But there's a lot of accusations of a bit of unfair play going around.

   4. CBCarl Benjamin30:10

      I- I've heard, I've seen many people saying, "My dislike has been removed," and things like this. (laughs)

   5. CWChris Williamson30:15

      Comments are... A lot of comments are being deleted and, and pinned-

   6. CBCarl Benjamin30:18

      Yeah.

   7. CWChris Williamson30:18

      ... pinned ones are, are, are changing. Have you also seen... Now, I don't know, I don't know how much truth's behind this, but it's on a, there's a lot of websites that are reporting it. Have you seen that Kim Gehrig has actually been accused of sexual abuse by two men and five women?

   8. CBCarl Benjamin30:32

      No, I did not know that. (laughs) The irony. (laughs)

   9. CWChris Williamson30:36

      (laughs)

   10. CBCarl Benjamin30:37

       I mean, I've, I guess we've gotta listen and believe, haven't we?

   11. CWChris Williamson30:39

       Yeah. Well, I mean-

   12. CBCarl Benjamin30:40

       You know, believe the victims.

   13. CWChris Williamson30:41

       Yeah. Well, yeah, definitely. So I, uh, uh, I, I'm struggling to find it on anyone who is super reputable yet. I think-

   14. CBCarl Benjamin30:49

       Right.

   15. CWChris Williamson30:49

       ... it's probably dangerous to, um... Where are we?

   16. CBCarl Benjamin30:54

       I, I will wait for confirmation of that.

   17. CWChris Williamson30:55

       Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

   18. CBCarl Benjamin30:57

       Yes.

   19. CWChris Williamson30:57

       Gillette misandrist ... Where is it? Just Gillette misandrist ad was directed by an accused pedophile, (gasps) Ms. Kim Gherig.

   20. CBCarl Benjamin31:03

       (laughs) Jesus.

   21. CWChris Williamson31:04

       One of her victims committed suicide. Oh, my days.

   22. CBCarl Benjamin31:08

       Jesus.

   23. CWChris Williamson31:08

       Well, I mean, we'll wait, we'll wait and find out a little bit more about that, but that, I mean-

   24. CBCarl Benjamin31:12

       Yeah.

   25. CWChris Williamson31:12

       Uh, w- uh, no matter what, whether that's the truth or not, and even if it's not the truth, it s- probably speaks to just how bipartisan it makes everything. Do you know what I mean? Like, it, it's like, okay, well, even if someone's made that up, they're like, "Right, well, w- this is how far the feminist narrative has tried to push masculinity."

   26. CBCarl Benjamin31:28

       Oh, oh, how far it goes, yeah.

   27. CWChris Williamson31:28

       "We need to come up, we need to, we need to come back with something that's even more outlandish and ridiculous and-"

   28. CBCarl Benjamin31:36

       Yeah, it, i-

   29. CWChris Williamson31:36

       ... you end up with this extremist sort of ...

   30. CBCarl Benjamin31:39

       It, it's, it is, it is just an entirely one-sided argument that they're having, and the thing is, the only people on the ... Like th- like, no, no one, no one in reality thinks that boy, boys play fighting is a particularly harmful behavior-
4. 45:00 – 55:26

   Rightly so, rightly so…

   1. CBCarl Benjamin45:00

      they're being utterly intransigent about this in order to try and punish the Conservatives, presumably, and the rest of the country. Um-

   2. CWChris Williamson45:06

      Rightly so, rightly so on their side. Like if you've, if, if-

   3. CBCarl Benjamin45:08

      Well, understandably. Yeah.

   4. CWChris Williamson45:09

      ... you've made your fucking bed, like it's-

   5. CBCarl Benjamin45:11

      Yeah, under- understandable. But the thing is, I think this is gonna come back and bite them in the ass because I think that what they expected is they could beat Theresa down into, into proposing almost anything, and they did, and she has, but she can't get that through Parliament. So, they're not gonna get the deal they want, and there are gonna be consequences to Britain leaving on a WTO Brexit, and these consequences will be bad. There, there will be some negative consequences for us, but there are definitely gonna be negative consequences for them. For example, um, was it the German Finance Minister the other day was raising the aw- alarm about the fact that if we didn't pay our 39 billion, that's French, German, Italian, and Dutch taxes that go up. Uh, how do you think the French are gonna take that? (laughs) Probably, probably not brilliantly considering they're still rioting. I'm sure the Germans aren't gonna be thrilled. I doubt the, I doubt Salvini will even open the, open the email.

   6. CWChris Williamson46:02

      Yeah. Okay.

   7. CBCarl Benjamin46:02

      You know, "Salvini, you've gotta raise the taxes." "Yeah, bollocks do I."

   8. CWChris Williamson46:05

      Whatever.

   9. CBCarl Benjamin46:05

      You know?

   10. CWChris Williamson46:05

       Yeah.

   11. CBCarl Benjamin46:06

       And then the Nexit, the, the Netherlands exit movement will grow incrementally stronger. So-

   12. CWChris Williamson46:12

       Do you think that's coming as well?

   13. CBCarl Benjamin46:13

       No, not, not in the, not in the short term, but, um, I think it'll fester. Like, the same with Brexit, in fact. I think it'll fester for a number of years until people demand a referendum, you know? Um, assuming the EU even lasts that long. And then, then you've got the problem with Ireland, right? So the, uh, the Irish economy is deeply tied to the British economy, especially the food economy, and we're talking like hundreds of millions of tons of beef and cheese every year. And if we don't carry on trading with the EU in the way that we did before, if the EU says, "We're not gonna, we're not gonna, you know, we're gonna put tariffs on you," et cetera, et cetera, then they're worried that we're gonna start getting beef and cheese from South America which will actually make our beef and cheese cheaper than it was, and it'll destroy Ireland's economy because the money that they would've taken from us is actually now gonna go to Argentina and Brazil and places like that. And it's like, "Well, there we go." You know?

   14. CWChris Williamson47:05

       It is an interconnected house of cards, isn't it?

   15. CBCarl Benjamin47:08

       Yeah. I mean, one, one of the, one of the things about this, the, Ireland is, i- it's already something that it's gonna have to start requesting more money from the European Union in the event of any Brexit, which is gonna turn Ireland from a net contributor into a net beneficiary of the European Union. So the, the EU, again, loses its, its lose, you know, it's immediately losing two of its net contributors, Britain being the, the second-biggest one and Ireland being a net contributor, but obviously not a very big one. Um, but that's, that's all bad news for the French and German taxpayer, really. So, yeah, good luck.

   16. CWChris Williamson47:42

       Can you think, can you th- (laughs) can you think about what it's like to wake up as Theresa May every morning for the last week?

   17. CBCarl Benjamin47:50

       (laughs) I'd rather not. (laughs)

   18. CWChris Williamson47:52

       Oh, okay. Okay, yeah. Well, yeah. No, given.

   19. CBCarl Benjamin47:54

       But she's done this to herself though. It's like this is the most annoying thing about Theresa May I find, is that it's completely within her power to go, "You know what? Everyone's wrong. I'm gonna make a decision, and it's, it's just gonna be this way." Like, "We... I, we're gonna go with no deal." She can y- you know, just say, "No deal, we're gonna start, um, and we can unilaterally do all of the things that we would offer the European Union." So we can say, "Look, we're not gonna do anything bad to, you know, obviously we're gonna give European citizens like, you know, rights of, uh, uh, rights to stay, rights to work, et cetera. We'll give them citizenship. Hell with that, I don't care." You know? Um, "We won't impose a, uh, border along the Irish, um, along Northern Ireland-Irish border. We're not gonna put any tariffs on your trade. We're gonna carry on as normal, and then the ball's in your court, you know? What are you gonna do?" And then she's the one who's calling the shots.

   20. CWChris Williamson48:41

       Yeah. Yeah.

   21. CBCarl Benjamin48:42

       So she doesn't do it because she's weak, you know?

   22. CWChris Williamson48:44

       Yeah. I mean, the fact that, uh, the fact that you have a-... a, a parliament, uh, a party behind her which doesn't support her-

   23. CBCarl Benjamin48:53

       No. They've told Parliament-

   24. CWChris Williamson48:53

       ... but which also doesn't have, also doesn't have the balls to be able to get rid of her-

   25. CBCarl Benjamin48:58

       Yeah.

   26. CWChris Williamson48:58

       ... is such a ... it's the most British situation. Do you not think?

   27. CBCarl Benjamin49:04

       Yeah, I do. (laughs) Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, it's-

   28. CWChris Williamson49:05

       It's so quintessentially British.

   29. CBCarl Benjamin49:08

       It really is. Uh, you know, like, like, okay, one, one of the things that I've, I've always got to remember about the Remain campaigners is they're not cowards, they're just wrong, you know? They'll, they'll go out there and they will march. You know, they'll, they'll go out there in large numbers for their cause. And they'll stand there and they'll ... you know, I w- I interviewed a few the other day outside of Parliament, standing there in the cold and the rain and, and, you know, they're standing there waving their ... They, they truly believe in what they're saying, you know? It's not that they're ... It's, it's not that, (laughs) you know, that they're, they're weak people individually or necessarily. It's that they are just confused, in my opinion. But the Parliament, it, it really is kind of like a, you know, a parliament of lambs leading a country of lions, you know?

   30. CWChris Williamson49:51

       Yeah.

Episode duration: 55:27