Is the game reviewer scene dented enough to the point he COULD have succeeded with KOGaming had he made more effort to disassociate it with the DSP brand even if the reviews were ass? Remember who modern gayming panders to.
Angry Joe is essentially a more likeable Phil. He's a caricature of an "angry" gamer, he has blind spots (shits on Madden, never takes any other sports games to task), and has at least evolved into doing other videos other than "angry" game reviews. But if you break his stuff down, his schtick is not too different than Phil's reviewer garbage. Difference is DSP
is Phil, while I don't think Angry Joe is actually an angry person.
Also please remember, my opinion is assuming that Phil isn't the same stubborn fence sitting while also being an edgy asshole that he was then and still is now. All I was saying was a channel averaging 5-8M views a month could have pivoted in a fuck ton of directions and done better than Phil is now. I don't know how anybody can deny that. Being first matters when it comes to building a brand and using that foundation for more. Phil's issue is he built up that many views, and is still doing the same crap, albeit with more expensive equipment, almost 15 years later.
I think actual seething hatred of Phil is part of the reason for hostility toward this subforum. I can understand that, it seems at odds with what I think is a "point and laugh" culture of the board overall. He's a scummy piece of shit, but he's about as retarded as the people he's scamming and arguably beneath contempt - obviously that's no excuse for his behavior, but getting MATI at Phil isn't minimally tolerated the same way it is in the case of say, zoosadists, as the moral outrage doesn't justify the lack of funny.
I mean, every time Null watched a Phil/Craig video, he wanted to give Phil the W because "Craig looks like he wears eyeliner" or some shit. Phil's greatest strength is he is detestable without doing really scummy shit. So to a lot of people, he's as you said, just a scumbag piece of shit. Any 1-2 things about him gets him there. The totality of being a scummy piece of shit in every action is what pushes people into the MATI part. And I've gotten there, not proud. He's not somebody you can watch regularly, because you fall into that trap.
Through clips he's just a dumbass retard though, too dumb to really hate.
Never forget Null also appreciated that Phil took a W from the IRS (the granted bankruptcy which cleared 130k in debt
Yeah. That was where I wanted the credit card companies to really speak up.
As somebody who has assisted somebody in a bankruptcy, spending on a CC before filing, especially if you put a non-dischargeable debt on there like loans/taxes, is one of the few things that ever gets called out when you get as far as a 341 hearing. As has been said many many times, you have to try very hard to not get at least a Ch 13 granted. Ch 7s that are scrutinized often turn into Ch 13s but it still counts in that 99% of bankruptcies are granted. The 1% are usually misfiling-related or if you spend right before filing. Phil was saved by COVID, by having a business (especially one where expenses aren't known), and by being able to push his net income down below the means test threshold.
My personal favorite is when he's cycled through his usual excuses (lag, developers don't know what they're doing, input didn't register, players are cheating, team aren't helping etc) and he has to get creative. Last night he genuinely said for one of the reasons he died was due to it "feeling like another player pushed him". While I have no idea what it means, I do know that to some degree Phil believes it. I really do believe his mind is so fucked that his delusions aren't just lip services, he is convincing himself that he's done nothing wrong and there's nothing he could do.
Phil has played every COD Black Ops game and will still whine when playing Nuketown about people hiding in the corner of the map behind cars, will still go down the same heavy paths where you get destroyed if somebody is camping, and will whine about spawns. It truly is wild.