Lauren Chen reaffirms my take on Crowder vs Daily Wire (and some math on why $50mm was an insult)
Lauren Chen reaffirms my take on Crowder vs Daily Wire (and some math on why $50mm was an insult)
Also some rebuttals to support for the DW's "this is how it's done" lie, and some personal insight into Crowder's mindset by Chen.
I posted about Crowder’s first video on crappy deals for new conservative talent, and then on Boering’s follow up. I have more perspective after Candace Owens’ segment on beanie man’s show, but the best insight on this is from Lauren Chen’s video (bottom of this article).
Chen was an up-and-comer about six or seven years ago, when I first started seeing her pop up in my video feeds. Since then she’s built her brand and has been involved with all the dealings someone of her growth would experience, including sponsorships and dealings with the big conservative media outlets.
Chen knows Crowder personally, as well as the little people at the Daily Wire. She had negotiations with both, and other networks, and turned them down for different reasons (she was under The Blaze for a while). With her, the little people tried to lead with an insulting amount that would have them control her social media and pay her much less than she was already making, so she walked without negotiating.
She turned down Crowder because he’s more of a hard driver with compensation terms better than the little people’s, but they still weren’t there. She made the point that Crowder DOES take business personally, so much so that she started crying on her live stream about how she wasn’t very nice when negotiating with them and feels terrible about in retrospect knowing how hurtful it must have been to him.
She said with knowing how Crowder takes business personally and the little people being so clueless (my words, not hers), she knew no deal would have happened between them.
On beanie man’s show, Candace Owens, who’s under Daily Wire, went off on Crowder as only she could do with razor-sharp precision, with her main beef being that Crowder firing shots hit the innocent bystanders with shrapnel and dragged them into this war.
Crowder forced the DW talent to respond to their audiences as they were being accused as being controlled by big tech, and that the public assumption is now for the young talent that they did indeed get screwed when it’s certainly possible they were able to negotiate favorable terms and are perfectly happy.
Chen completely destroyed the little persons’ network narrative that “this is how business is done in this industry.” She went into depth on how, in fact, DW is the ONLY outfit that does business like that. For example, the point about controlling social media, she said, is something The Blaze couldn’t even conceive of, and nothing she’s seen in other dealings with other networks.
The part about penalizing banned social media accounts is another, and TPUSA, Crowder, The Blaze, and others wouldn’t even consider in a million years, according to Chen. That is STRICTLY a Daily Wire approach.
As to “how could Crowder do that to his friends?”, they obviously weren’t friends. That leading term sheet showed they have literally no respect for Crowder. The $50mm number was one I thought was nice and beefy, but Chen literally broke out her calculator and did the math in real time on her live stream and proved it was actually an insult.
Chen’s insight gives me a much better handle on Crowder’s position, which is even stronger than I previously thought. Over my years, I’ve been in many-a-deal, from buying a business to starting and selling a few, real estate investment deals, small ventures, and other such dealings that come your way when you have money and are active.
Here’s the truth: I’ve taken some business deals personally, and some I couldn’t have cared less when they didn’t happen. I think anyone who pretends “it’s just business” hasn’t really been around the block and are just talking big. Real estate investment deals, I could walk away or lose a big one and forget about it by lunch time. If you’re in business for any amount of time, you’ve experienced some real heart breakers.
Some real estate deals I put together, where I spent a lot of time getting multiple parties engaged, making sure all the due diligence is done, LOIs, financials, finances are in place, inspections, and all the fun stuff involved in getting all parties to take a deal seriously and move forward.
Those that didn’t happen, after about 20 minutes of disappointment from the work I put in, it didn’t bother me in the least. Same when I was on the other side and it fell apart.
Others, especially those for which I had a real vision and committed to rolling up my sleeves to put in long-term blood, sweat, and tears, if they didn’t happen I’d have trouble eating for a period (if you knew me personally, you’d know how troubled I’d have to be for that to occur), and a few of them I never talked to the other party again.
I even had my one and only blackout while standing, and came to, while still standing, during a deal I thought went south, only to “wake up” and see everyone laughing because I misinterpreted a joke by the closing attorneys.
To reiterate my point, I know from experience that some deals get personal, while others don’t and are “just business.”
I’ve never had any dealings in this (digital media) industry, therefore I assumed perhaps this is how it is indeed done, going by Owens’ and Boreing’s word, without any other insight until Chen’s.
DW’s leading terms to a superstar in conservative digital media showed not only are they not good business people, but if that’s how Crowder’s deal was, imagine how it must be for up-and-comers. Crowder didn’t deserve copy-and-paste terms, and it was indeed stupid business to assume he’d even entertain such a stupid deal (again, reaffirmed to me by Chen’s video).
Insulting people, especially “your friends”, is not good business. Some of you who haven’t been involved in deals and are taking DW’s side won’t understand this, I’m afraid.
What I think happened is when Crowder’s deal was coming to an end with The Blaze, he had some side talks with DW and they said “we got you buddy.” When they presented the deal to Crowder (with Chen’s insight into how Crowder takes deals personally and how ridiculous it would be for someone with his clout), it set him off. I am completely on Crowder’s side on this.
Here’s the clip from Chen’s segment on the money (full video is still further below):
A few of her points:
$50mm over 4 years is $12.5mm per year
Crowder has about 25 employees, and covers his own production costs
DW offered 192 episodes per year, breaking down to ~$65k per episode
On the LOW SIDE, Crowder could bill $20k per ad read. DW wants 4 ad reads, which if Crowder did would bring $80k per episode on his own
DW wanted his merchandising rights. Chen says merch sales for creators not even at Crowder’s level are in the millions.
DW wanted Mug Club rev. Crowder estimates he has ~350k members at $10 per month, bringing in ~$42mm PER YEAR.
Chen has never seen a deal where they’d penalize you for being banned on social media
Can you now see why Crowder was insulted, and anything short of $100mm would be an insult? You’re going to penalize Crowder for getting banned on social media WHILE you take in his Mug Club rev? You’re going to control his social media? Even just suggesting it, are you f*cking out of your mind?
“But DC, those were just terms to start negotiations!” No, you don’t get it at all. It showed plain as day that the Daily Wire has NO respect for Crowder, who he is, what he’s doing currently, and what he’s done in the space. That’s a point being missed or not appreciated by commentators.
Was Candace Owens correct that Crowder could have negotiated terms? Of course, but she’s not appreciating how insulting that must have been. To me, it shows how BAD at business the DW is.
Case in point: they don’t have Lauren Chen; they don’t have Steven Crowder; they don’t have Tim Pool, and they don’t have countless others who are now big names that likely had dealings with them in the past and walked.
Owens is their one and only megastar, and after the $50mm has been revealed, don’t think for one second she isn’t taking DW to the cleaners when her current contract is up.
Want to see how “real business” in this industry is done? Check out The Blaze’s roster. Rubin, Whitlock, and Phil Robertson alone could carry an outlet.
Established talent walking from DW didn’t have to take a knee and accept crappy terms, where an up-and-comer may, which is exactly Crowder’s main point. Candace Owens today is a megastar. She was a star with TPUSA, and now even bigger as time as passed.
What if Owens were “friends” with owners of an outlet who lead with terms for a $1mm and keep all her social media and penalize her? She wouldn’t spend five seconds negotiating.
Chen also slaps down the “it’s just a term sheet” narrative being lead by little person Ben. She said if Crowder wasn’t as savvy as he was, it would have ultimately become a contract. She used the extreme example of what if there was a clause giving DW the rights to deflower his wife. Sure, it’s just on a term sheet, but why was that even in there? It shows what kind of company DW is.
Finally, as for the recording, sure, that wasn’t the greatest move, but when you figure out you’re dealing with snakes and other vermin, it’s not unwise. I think Crowder held a lot back with DW to not completely annihilate them, but the “you don’t do that to friends” narrative is moot with the term sheet alone, as they clearly weren’t friends.
I think Crowder was using this to not only kick DW in the nuts and out their lies, but also use it to negotiate with other platforms like Rumble, as I said in my previous post:
I think Crowder is using Daily Wire to up the negotiations with other platforms like Rumble. Remember when they were trying to lure Rogan away by matching his Spotify deal? Elon Musk is trying to attract creators.
Lo and behold:
I can’t toot my own horn too much; I also said this:
Look for Owens to stay silent as the other DW clowns stand up for the little people running their outfit.
Anyway, Rumble would be THE PERFECT medium to not only have his cake, but eat it too in terms of a media platform to incubate up-and-comers. I think a Rumble deal is already done, but I’m speculating.
I have more that I’m sure I’ll remember I forgot after reading this tomorrow, but I’ll leave you with the full video from Lauren Chen:
Watch out for these antifeminist chameleons, they are just larping to leech power from men and get simp armies. That is all "Red Pill Women" are, not after loving men, but more like after power.
Because most, if not all of them, do not practice what they preach. See, their fee-male thinking is, by saying what they think masculine hardcore men like to hear but not doing it, will give them a free pass to continue to do their cryptofeminist bullshit for themselves, ie. Building their trad social media brand and doing their jobs while saying women should not work, while managing to leverage some power and support from men by this sweettalk manipulation in the form of superchats, donations, and whiteknights who say "she's an exception, let her do whatever!", and also trying to exalt herself above other women by putting them down that way.
It's these foids' fool strategy, they are not in the least submissive and caring for their man. Usually more than half of these "red pill women" will marry soft-looking or feminine-looking men, or even actual gay men, so they can get some control and power they want while still larping as a trad couple. Case in point: Candace Owens, Kaitlin Bennett. They don't seek out the masculine aggressors they so highly praise on their hoe podcasts and live streams. The other 40% go on to marry old men, rich older men, so at least they can get servants and some compensation and don't have to do the housewife duties while leeching off his status and just keeping up appearances but not being in love at all. Only 9 - 10% of these antifeminist chicks are actually real somewhat submissive and masochistic, actually marrying fierce brutish guys whom they will let them cheat on with whores outside marriage, and just want to be a kept woman. But even then, they are even pickier than modern 304s about who they choose: expect the husband to pay their bills, pump their gas, carry their heavy bags, do all the labour and repairing as handymen and will use his resources and money. So they still expect to leech off the man's skills and strength then, while holding him to the highest moral standards and responsibility for family values. And yes, they expect their husband to say they're pretty even after they turn 30, love their post-pregnancy bodies even after 8 kids, and care for their children himself too. They think of and therefore demand, the romance and soulmate life from their plantation longhouse male they catch too.
Honestly, out of the 10% of somewhat submissive foids who are truly husband hunting trad style, only 1% will actually submit to a man and let him do whatever he wants and expect nothing in return. Even most trad women expect the man to sacrifice and romance them in return.
Another catch: Red Pill antifeminist women cannot stand each other, they cannot even form the stupid cliques with each other. They understand why each one of them is doing what they are doing, to gain power and leeway from men, while forming simp armies to use, so of course they know they are competitive bitches and will take each other's rights just to look good in front of any man that holds an ounce of power at all. So yes, they do not trust each other. Larping chameleons can't even tolerate other larping chameleons, only one can be the great grifter. Why would they trust another woman who wants to be "above, not among women"? That is the most dangerous type to them, trp fem larpers know they are dangerous to each other.
And the red pill male chameleons too, they are cucks for their daughters, prove why Rollo let his daughter go to college if he say women with college education are not marriage material? Contradictory words. And Alexander Grace for all his tough talk, 120% will tell his young daughter as she grows up to find a man that is way too helpful and kind and too focused on her like a "loyal dog", in other words he would recommend a beta simp for his daughter? But what about all his preaching on men to not be spineless and to focus on their goals and not woemn? Contradictory lies. Report and expose red pill chameleon grifters! More people need to start calling out the malepower-leeching foids and the Donovan Sharpes of the manosphere.