seriously what is the point of his pre-streams. is it just so he has time to get all his autism swaying out of the way?
@Sparkletor 2.0 is right, Lord Philip likes to hold court. The current prestream iteration makes more sense in this regard because he gets to give hot takes about the news - I'm not sure why he was so reluctant to start to do this, but he is likely feeling confident now that there is less going around about him (bankruptcy docs), so he can finger-wag freely and shut that down as 'dragging up the past' rather than it being current news.
Money is the other component though. He used to say the plugs were important to make sure everyone knows how to contribute, but we've known this to be a lie for the entire time that he did it - it's the same gang of wheelchair autists there consistently, and !tip gets spammed in the chat. However, the longer he stalls the prestream, the more money he makes. Before the vest goal, this was vital because it frequently netted the entirety of his tips for the stream, with only a few dollars trickling in during gameplay. This is also why the bathroom break was deliberately installed before gameplay - it was initially a stall used when tips were too low to merit starting gameplay (under $20, specifically), and then it just became the norm as Phil realized he just always gets more money if he uses it to stall.
Also of note from today:
Phil has already begun to memoryhole this crisis and shut down any discussion that is not directly from him (currently the victim narrative that he is behind in gameplay). This is going to be crucial for the upcoming tax begging because he made too much money in tips over this weekend, and there has been no permanent ramifications because he has clearly cucked out and has opted not to follow up with Twitch (or leave).
Therefore, it needs to be left at 'Phil lost money' and not discussed. In one month, the whole thing can be framed as a loss of income, the wheelchairs will have forgotten, and the wallets will be ready to open for tax begging. To clarify, I don't think Phil is a mastermind, I think he's a retard based on how he handled this, but I do think he is aware that people know that he just got a boatload of tips on top of a wave of gifted subs, and he needs that to be forgotten so he can get a big payday.
Unless Superhound fires up the BBQ again, his name is probably going on the banned words list and this topic will be a 'ban on sight' order issued to the mods in the... not... Discord... chat...