Well, dear readers, in today’s notes we’ll be discussing a little topic I like to call, How to Make a Million Dollars with Not a Shred of Talent or Ability in Anything at All or Portnoy’s Complaint. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, I’ve been building up to this for two or three weeks now and now is the time for all good BKs to come to the aid of you dear readers, to paraphrase a paraphrase of a paraphrase. Of course, I’m talking about the phenomenon of the YouTube grift – oops, sorry – the YouTube stars who have somehow mastered the art of having no talent and no expertise doing a minimum of anything put posting videos. For today’s discussion, I’m going to limit it to food, because we all know and love food, don’t we? We begin this grift with one of the greatest, a person called Dave Portnoy. He began by being pretty much a nobody and, according to what I’ve read, filing for bankruptcy because of gambling debts. So, he starts some sports podcast called Barstool Sports. Well, he got millions to tune in and became a YouTube or social media celebrity, raking in tons of money. He sold the podcast for something like $550 million dollars. It really boggles the mind, doesn’t it. And then, the idiots who bought it decided to rebrand and give up the name, selling it back to Portnoy for one dollar, but with a ton of caveats. The fact that a conglomerate was willing to pay that much money to some guy and then record an $800-million-dollar loss is just astonishing to me. And that was all this year, folks. So, what did Portnoy do – well, he couldn’t stop being a “celebrity”, could he? No, so he decided one fine day in 2017 that he was now an expert on pizza and so went around to pizza jernts all over the world, rating pizza on a scale of one to ten. Well, of course, he’s no expert on pizza, but he is an expert on the social media grift – how to turn this crap into huge money. He talks the talk, of course, so we get idiocy like “too much flop” “great undercarriage” and other crap. And millions watch these things and start using those phrases and then think because Portnoy says it it must be true, because heaven knows in this world, no one can think for themselves. He’s caused places to go viral with his one-bite pizza “reviews” and he’s caused other places great harm.
He’s an abrasive jerk, in my opinion, but he’s recognized wherever he goes and the pizza places pray for a decent score. Never mind that he’s had multiple alleged sexual assault reports, a leaked sex tape, blah, blah, blah. There’s something so wrong in all this, but that’s the world, folks, that’s the world. And what happens when his stuff gets millions of views? What do you think? The wannabes come out of the woodwork, start their YouTube channels and Instagram and TikTok. And every time I watch YouTube shorts or Facebook Reels these yokels come on, these bandwagon jumpers – not reviewing pizza, they’re not that stupid, although there is one idiot in Las Vegas who does do pizza only reviews. The others travel here to there trying all manner of food – fast food, hole-in-the-wall jernts, comparisons. They’re all the same – obnoxious, too loud, and shockingly while they’re never going to have Portnoy’s success, they all get tons and tons of views. So, what do we really have here? A bunch of idiots who know nothing about food or probably anything else, who do these “reviews”, scoring stuff just as Portnoy does. The one who seems to be the most popular of these many idiots is a channel called How Kev Eats. This guy is such an obnoxious pig, doing the Portnoy routine, but always sitting in his car doing the eating. And the way he eats is vomit-inducing. It sounds like he’s had a microphone implanted in his mouth. Usually, the stuff he shoves down his gaping ugly maw is crunchy, and the sound of it is so gross, but everything he eats seems to have crunch – sauce, soup, it all has crunch. He eats with his mouth open, he drips food on his clothes. And he’s got millions of followers, has a “digital talent agent” at the big agency UTA – I mean, it is so disheartening. There are several Asian fellows, too, and it’s the same deal – noisy, disgusting eating, and somehow they’re all food experts that suddenly crawled out of the woodwork to not have to actually work at a craft, just to shove food down their mouths and score stuff and people lap it up, they seriously lap it up. I’ve seen about thirty of these idiots and each is worse than the last. Some can’t even form a coherent sentence. Kev is all about heat – hot chicken, jalapenos, the more spicy, the better. I encourage you to watch him, although it’s better if you see the Reels or Shorts because then you’re not contributing to his channel. I say it again – an agent at UTA. I think at some point all this nonsense will end, but the bandwagon babies are just multiplying.
There are other grifts, of course. The first amendment auditors, but that’s already starting to run its course – because most of the auditors are ex-cons, convicted felons, one was just put in jail for thirty years for sexually abusing his own daughter – see what I mean. What kind of world is this. Then there are all the fake Tourettes teens – suddenly every teen girl has Tourettes, they all imitate one girl who, it turns out, was imitating another girl who was proven to be a fake. The one girl they imitate has earned over five MILLION dollars doing her act, and let me tell you, having known people with Tourettes, it is an act. Some videos that I do enjoy are food preparation videos of dishes that look like they’d be delicious. The videos that attempt comedy are all pathetic. And then there are the fake videos that purportedly take place in schoolrooms and airplanes, but are all shot on the exact same set, featuring many of the same “actors.” And these things make their ”content” creators tons of money. I’m thinking about starting a new channel called Old Jew Eats Herring or something, where I’ll sit and review the food I get from DoorDash. We’ll add in loud eating noises (I am a quiet eater) and crunchy crunches, I’ll drip food all over myself, and while I’m eating a fish I’ll also sing songs from Whoop Up and Flahooley. What do you think? End of rant, although I haven’t gone into what is basically exploitation of children videos, all from overseas, sick as can be, all of which I report, and Facebook does nothing. All they’d have to do is read the comments by perverts to understand. But no, they’ll put you in Facebook jail for using a word their algorithms don’t like. Facebook – making it a safe haven for predators. Bravo.
Yesterday was weird. I only got five hours of sleep, had horrible heartburn even though I didn’t eat anything with any spice at all. Once up, I answered e-mails, then I got the notice that Kritzer World books had arrived, so I went and picked up those boxes. I stopped at Gelson’s and got a tiny half-rack (not really – five small baby back ribs) of ribs, two onion rolls, turkey, roast beef, Diet Coke, and then I went to CVS and got more Pepcid, which instantly took care of the heartburn. I had a thirty percent off coupon on my Easy Pass account but the salesperson said it wasn’t on the card – second time this has happened and I’ve had it, paying twelve bucks more than necessary. So, when I got home, I called them and of course got some guy in India who couldn’t find the purchase I’d JUST made ten minutes prior. I gave him the transaction number, all of it. I also went to my online account and showed him the 30% off thing which clearly said “on card” and good till Thursday. But he couldn’t do anything for twenty-four hours, when he said the transaction would show up. He promised to call me today – I’m sure he won’t. I then called the store and got the manager on the phone, and she said to bring back the Pepcid, the receipt, and a screenshot of the discount thing, so that’s all ready to go for today. She said they’ll re-ring it, but I’ve already been charged for it so I just want my twelve bucks back, it’s that simple – they can put it on my card or whatever, but I’m not leaving until it’s done.
Then I ate the ribs, which were good, but not filling at all. I did a bit of writing, I opened two of the book boxes and they look swell, I had several more telephonic conversations, then I sat on my couch like so much fish and watched the new UHD 4K transfer of The Trouble with Harry. It’s obviously no one’s favorite Hitchcock movie, but this transfer is spectacular, as is the photography, music, direction, and the performances are all fine. It’s just a bit too cutesy for its own good, although there are many amusing moments in the script by John Michael Hayes. It’s just a one-joke movie that overstays its welcome, but boy does it look good. Then I had a roast beef sandwich and a turkey sandwich for dinner. No sweets at all. And here we are.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I’ll go to CVS and do battle over the non-discount, I’ll rustle up some Wacky Noodles, then around six I’ll mosey on over to the mail place to pick up this year’s Christmas cards, then I’ll go to the theater to see a staged presentation of a new play.
The rest of the week is more of the same, studying the DMV handbook and getting ready for next week’s test, a brush-up rehearsal, and then we do our weekend shows.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, do whatever needs doing, go to CVS, eat, pick up a package, see a new play presentation/reading, and then come home. Today’s topic of discussion: What do you think about all these monetized YouTube channels where amateurs become celebrities making millions doing absurd things they actually have no expertise in? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have gotten Portnoy’s Complaint off my chest.