Liberty Hangout - Kaitlin Bennett - I Stand With Steven Crowder

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Jan. 26, 2023 - Liberty Hangout - Kaitlin Bennett

13:37

I Stand With Steven Crowder

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	If we want to talk about bad business here, nothing is going to put a bad taste in the mouths of your viewers, quite like acting so high and mighty and launching personal attacks against the biggest online voice in conservatism.
	Hey guys, did you miss me?
	It's been more than a year since I recorded my last video and there's a lot I look forward to updating you guys on in the near future.
	And thanks to your support, I've had the blessing of taking this time off to enjoy my first year of motherhood as fully as I can.
	And I've been so incredibly grateful for every second of it.
	But I'm back now and I wanted to dedicate my first video of the new year to someone who played a big role in my formation as a conservative and inspired me more than anyone to become as fearless as I am with a microphone.
	And that person is Steven Crowder.
	Crowder's come under a lot of fire lately from very big names in conservatism, but I haven't seen many people stand up for him.
	Since I wouldn't be who I am today without him and I know how isolating it feels to be attacked by people on both sides without anyone to stand up for you, I felt it was important for me to come to his side when no one else will.
	This is the video worth coming back for my extended leave because without Steven Crowder's inspiration, I wouldn't have the blessings I do today.
	I wouldn't have met my husband, wouldn't have become a mother to my incredible baby, and wouldn't have pursued a career in political media if I hadn't seen Steven Crowder do it first.
	I owe a lot to Steven Crowder and I know a lot of you do as well.
	So to Steven, I say thank you.
	And I thank you especially for standing up for lesser known content creators like me.
	So for those of you who haven't kept up with the story, I'll try to do a quick recap.
	Steven Crowder recently departed from the Blaze and when he left, he wasn't able to take his email list with him to merge his Mud Club subscribers over to a new site.
	And needless to say, he wasn't very happy about that and I don't blame him.
	So next, Crowder shopped around with different networks to see if he could find another place to call home.
	He ended up declining these offers, citing the terms of the proposed contract as his reason for choosing to stay independent.
	Crowder then uploaded a 27 minute video to YouTube last week discussing his frustration with big conservative networks, warning up-and-coming creators against signing contracts such as the one he was offered.
	His reason?
	They dock pay from employees who get censored on the major social media platforms, which Crowder argues effectively makes big tech roles the corporate policy of conservative networks and penalizes their creators who break whatever arbitrary rules big tech comes up with.
	I'll go over some of the terms Crowder mentioned.
	Terms he says are worse than those at major networks such as ABC and NBC.
	I'm gonna throw up a screenshot from his video and tell you guys to pause if you want to go through it.
	But if you add up the numbers from this contract, Crowder, if he signed with this company, could have faced up to a 110% reduction in pay if he were to face boycotts and be penalized by big tech.
	Yeah, more than 100% reduction in bang.
	If Crowder were deplatformed by every major social media outlet, he would see an 85% reduction in pay, which, keep in mind, is not solely for himself, but is to pay his entire production team, which consists of dozens of people.
	Furthermore, this company wanted exclusive rights to own his merch store, his email list, and get this, his social media accounts, and ad revenue he would make from them.
	Now, this particular clause is something I'm familiar with because I've had friends with already established YouTube channels have to suddenly forfeit all their AdSense money over to conservative media companies in order to work for them.
	Fast forward a day and the daily wire outed themselves as the ones who offered Crowder the contract in a 52 minute video uploaded by their CEO, Jeremy Boring.
	Why they did this, I don't know.
	I feel like Crowder's video could have been a non-story had they remained silent, but now it's still the most trending story more than a week later because there's an ongoing feud between the different camps.
	He says in the beginning that his purpose for making the video was to be fully transparent with the Daily Wire audience about what exactly was going on, which I don't think is a bad thing.
	But it did come off as odd when Crowder never mentioned the contract came from the Daily Wire.
	In Jeremy's video, he went line by line through the term sheet given to Crowder in negotiations, explaining the reason for everything from a business perspective.
	And everything he said made sense and it did make the situation a little clearer.
	He explained in simple terms that less money in means less money out.
	And I totally get that and I think that's a fair point.
	Jeremy does leave out, however, that the $50 million offered to Crowder was for his entire production team and not for him specifically.
	And I honestly think a lot of people don't know that point.
	They think Crowder is just getting $50 million for himself.
	And that's not the case.
	So before I made this video and before coming to any conclusions, I wanted to take considerations of both sides and see both perspectives.
	And I'm sure there's more to the story behind the scenes that I don't know about.
	So all I can go off of is what I've seen publicly.
	And what I realize is that there aren't necessarily any bad guys here.
	But the problem here is that Crowder and the Daily Wire are coming from two totally different places.
	To Crowder, his chief concern, as he said in his video, is that conservative media companies are like the arm of big tech if they're going to dock pay for breaking big tech's rules.
	But to Daily Wire, it makes financial sense that they simply can't pay Crowders handsomely if they aren't making the money to do so.
	They stressed in their video that they need to stay on social media as long as possible until they can fully migrate onto their own independent platform and that making smart financial decisions is necessary to make that happen.
	I get it and I do see Daily Wire's point and even Steven Crowder admits their position is sound from a business point of view.
	But I don't think enough people are giving credit to Crowder's position or even listening to what he has to say.
	Daily Wire is arguing what's best for business, but Crowder is arguing what's best for the principles we wish to promote.
	I don't think either things have to be exclusive.
	I feel like a lot of people have been looking at this from a black and white perspective that either Daily Wire has to have these items in their contracts or they'll lose a bunch of money and need to suspend operations.
	I don't think that has to be the case.
	And actually, I know it doesn't have to be the case from my own experience in conservative media.
	Crowder actually told Jeremy that if this is his business model, then he should consider making a new one.
	I was once part of a different conservative business model and one that both worked and protected the integrity of what we're fighting for.
	A few years back, you'll remember I had a work relationship with Alex Jones.
	I had my own channel and band.video, made regular appearances on his show, and I even had Infowars branding on my microphone and videos until censorship really ramped up.
	But at no point did Alex ever take ownership of my social media, ask for my ad revenue, or dock my pay if I was censored by big tech.
	If anything, he encouraged me to get off social media and to utilize alternative platforms more.
	My relationship with Alex allowed me to maintain my independence as a creator, and it also allowed Alex to expand his influence every time I went viral between 2018 and 2020, which if you guys remember, was quite often.
	It worked out and we both benefited.
	Beyond this, Alex sponsored my work primarily because he supported me as a person and thought my work was important for our country.
	There are countless creators he supported over the years without expecting anything in return because to him, winning back the country was more important.
	But from Jeremy and the Daily Wire's own admission, it doesn't seem like they're interested in funding these things unless it absolutely yields them a return on investment financially.
	According to Jeremy, Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, and others at Daily Wire, this is capitalism at work.
	But isn't innovation also another component of capitalism?
	Isn't taking a risk the only way of finding out if maybe there is a better way of doing business.
	Maybe someone as costly as Crowder isn't the personality to experiment with, but why not remove those clauses from a contract with someone lesser known and see just how things might work out.
	You don't need to own your creators merch stores, email lists, social media profiles, and ad revenue or prevent them from making other income to grow your business.
	It's worth trying something else, especially if your viewers feel like what you're currently doing compromises the values you claim to hold.
	And if someone like Crowder can pull similar views on alternative sites like Rumble, then why deduct pay at all for breaking big tech rules?
	There was something else in the term sheet which Jeremy showed but Crowder didn't that really actually bothered me.
	There was an exclusivity clause which read, Crowder will not have the right to run any personal subscription or donation effort of any kind.
	For example, no Patreon, locals, fan club, etc.
	I'll give you a real life example of why this is a bad policy at the Daily Wire.
	When I started filming videos in 2018, my cameraman and I were able to go out as a team of two and never had any issues.
	But as the election season heated up, so did the vitriol against us and liberals started getting very violent towards me very quick.
	At the advice of Alex, I started promoting my Patreon so I could hire security because suddenly the cost for production skyrocketed.
	I began requiring a team of as many as five elite security guards when I'd go out and film.
	Now, what if I was locked into a four or five year contract which didn't already include security fees?
	And what was I supposed to do if, after I left, I had no other source of income on my own to fund security when my life was at risk.
	There were instances after Alex and I parted ways that protesters attempted to assault me and my security had to intervene.
	If not for my Patreon and the ad revenue I still made on old videos, I would have been all alone in a sea of hundreds of violent students at the University of South Florida.
	Which is why I think we need to take Crowder seriously and also defend him.
	And I think it's an absolute shame that his critique of the way these companies are doing business turned into an assault against his character.
	If we want to talk about bad business here, nothing is going to put a bad taste in the mouths of your viewers, quite like acting so high and mighty and launching personal attacks against the biggest online voice in conservatism.
	If I was offered a contract like this, I wouldn't sign it.
	And I definitely would not advise someone up and coming to sign it either.
	Speaking from experience as a content creator, if I had signed something like this when I started making videos back in 2018, it would have done me more harm than good and literally put me in harm's way.
	I think the Daily Wire and companies like them would benefit more from putting the person before the profit in the same way Alex did.
	If they did so, they'd find new ways to put their money where their mouth is and at the same time listen to people who have simultaneously made alternative business models work and kept their integrity.
	This discussion is bigger than Steven Crowder because these contracts affect way more than him.
	And worse, they impact young conservatives who have no choice but to go along with it if they want to have a voice since it's harder than ever to build your own platform online, which is exactly what Crowder has maintained.
	To wrap up, I don't like that everyone who's been on the offense against Steven Crowder is attacking his person rather than his position.
	I don't like that the Daily Wire's positions aren't allowed to be questioned because it's just business.
	But Crowder's positions make him a terrible person.
	That's why I felt compelled to make this video and defend him.
	They took a criticism he had, not of them as people, but of the way they do business and made it personal.
	And in my opinion, when you both make big tech rules your corporate policy and dehumanize conservatives who step out of line, you become the very thing you claim to be fighting against.
	Without Steven Crowder, there would be no modern conservative movement.
	There would probably be no Daily Wire.
	And speaking for myself, I wouldn't be who I am.
	That's why I stand by him and I hope you will too.

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