Every once in a while, a right-wing media figure pulls back the curtain and tells the truth: He’s a rich baby.
That’s what Steven Crowder, the far-right YouTuber known for his “mind-altering” memes, did and got beaten up by pro-labor protesters in Lansing this week, when he loudly complained that the $50 million offer was actually a form. about slavery, and he dared to speak in the name of human rights.
According to The Daily Beast’s Will Sommer noted, the dust-up began when Crowder posted a video Tuesday calling out an unnamed right-wing media company for what he said was a “disgraceful” offer to host Crowder’s show and produce other content for him. Among other things, Crowder griped that an unnamed company wanted to control his official social media account, and he wanted to be able to punish him for losing the show, and for demonetizing the social media platform, if it happened, as it has. on YouTube.
“Don’t be enslaved like that!” Crowder said of the offer, while repeatedly telling viewers to join his mailing list, which he said was akin to “telling people at Big Con that if you want something different, you need better.” (Big Con, for Crowder, is the conservative industrial complex.)
The offending company did not remain unnamed for long. The next day, Jeremy Boreing, CEO of The Daily Wire – the right-wing web media company co-founded by Ben Shapiro – confirmed on video itself that Crowder talked about the offer from The Daily Wire.
Boreing put it on Crowder, who he said is “not exactly a self-made man,” pointing out that Crowder has worked for years for companies founded or backed by billionaires, including The Blaze and CRTV.
“Steven, as long as I’ve known him, has worked for other people,” Boreing said, adding: “Steven’s philosophy seems to be ‘I deserve to be paid millions and millions and millions of dollars whether my show makes a profit. or not.’ He’s not looking for a business relationship, he’s looking for a benefactor.
Shapiro himself he answered for a moment to Crowder’s video as well, noting that the offer was “negotiable,” and that “there’s something a little off about attacking someone who’s been your friend — colleague, defender — for more than a decade based on your own misinterpretation of documents. offer $50 million over four year.
In the video, Boreing laid out the numbers: In his initial offer, which he said he expected Crowder to negotiate, the right-wing YouTube star would make $50 million over the initial four years, with an additional $25 million for options. two-year extension. The offer, Boreing said, was based on what Crowder’s agent said would be the bare minimum needed to keep him interested. Other parts of the deal include additional pay for longer content, as well as $15,000 per day for additional video shoots, Boreing said.
That’s a staggering figure for a human being, but this is conservative media, where the best kept secret is that many self-proclaimed populist personalities are actually swimming in cash – just ask multimillionaire Sean Hannity.
Crowder notably didn’t mention the topline number in his own video, though he criticized the “million-dollar penalty” he said was part of the requirement. Crowder did not immediately respond to a request for comment from HuffPost about Boreing’s video.
Crowder is being fed from the same trough as generations of right-wing media figures. It’s not a hard recipe to figure out: Be “edgy,” transphobic, homophobic, sexist, and super racist, and profit sometimes follows. Crowder has millions of YouTube subscribers, but his slap in the face over the Daily Wire’s offer shows just how profitable the insult-slinging game can be.
Ultimately, the squabble is a fascinating window into the economics of the right-wing outrage machine, particularly focusing on social media content moderation policies and their importance to the bottom line. More fundamentally, it’s a pleasant little diversion from the burdens of this cruel world. There really wasn’t a loser, except for Crowder and Boreing, both of whom, performative or not, looked saddened by the ordeal.
This isn’t over yet either. Crowder said at the beginning of Tuesday’s video that he was trying to “avoid” discussing the topic, but Boreing told a different story, saying that Crowder’s rejection of the Daily Wire deal had happened. month ago, and that Crowder was called out of the blue last week, before sending the video, to pick on the scab.
“We turned off the phone, and then I woke up last night and they posted this video like they did,” Boreing said.