I don't think the Matt & Blonde breakup has anything to do with Tenet media or the Russians.
Beyond the fact that Matt's 144k/yr magic windfall for doing the exact same content he was already doing for YT shekels went boom.
So his sudden paycut from the glowies made him turn his guns towards his lazy female cohost to try to claw 10% of the revenue that she probably didn't deserve in the first place.
Then she said "I'm out", and he acted like a beta boyfriend bitching about it for 4 hours on stream for superchat bucks.
"I hear that the new British PM is also Indian"
This post is two years old.
Which means the situation in Canada is about 3 million jeets worse.
Interesting premise of digitized knowledge disappearing because of early obsolescence, high turnover and high upkeep costs.
The thread sort of spins off on unrelated tangential topics such as the devaluation of experience in the labor force, consumerism and the death of Adult Contemporary music.
He also doesn't really provide any potential solutions considering he's humblebragging of achieving FIRE through data storage solutions.
Your xcancel Nitter link is broken for me.
Direct link worked though.
Robert Barnes is still running interference for his e-lawyer scumbag friend Nick Rekieta who neglected his 5 children and had his 9 y/o daughter test positive for cocaine.
The top New story on the feed is a 61 y/o UK grandfather dying in prison after being sentenced to 2+ years in jail for holding a "Deep State" placard at a migrant hotel clash.
I like your sentiment, but our side quickly abandons and forgets its martyrs.
The handwritten thank you notes is a nice touch.
I do still respect Matt's consistency & hustle.
Though like all YTubers who complain about having "No Time" despite only a few public facing hours a week, I do wonder what they specifically do all week behind the scenes compared to your average wage slave job.
OTOH, it was interesting to watch a robot review classic movies that you enjoyed where they themselves are completely devoid of nostalgia.
It reminded me of excitedly showing a buddy in grad school Zoolander for the first time. A beloved meme classic from high school somehow turned into 90 minutes of awkward silence a decade later.
I think that's pretty unfair, though. I think that's legitimately who Matt is, and he's shown that for years. And it's why people like him. Hell, that he was giving her an even split shows that he really values those around him, and that does include the chat.
You are conflating Matt's reverence for his audience with his passiveness/cowardice with his business dealings with his podcast partner.
He admitted tonight that the OG 50/50 split on debut in 2016 was because they started the project on equal footing.
Matt has always done more of the work. That hasn't changed recently.
The problem, much like one caller pointed out, was that his demands were reasonable in a vacuum, but the actual execution sucked.
You can't suddenly demand a change of terms after 8 years with your founding partner while giving no concessions/sweeteners, even if circumstances have changed.
It's doubly idiotic to introduce fundamental changes in the midst of a chick fight over absenteeism.
And some people seem to be taking advantage of the drama to try to act like it was Blonde's edgy takes that were the problem, when it was an integral part of the show. I hope he doesn't let these people lead him away from edgy content.
I've commented a few times in the thread, but I'm definitely redpilled at how much pearlclutching there was over Blonde's racism/white nationalism/Nazism etc in the Twitter threads and the chat tonight.
There was way too much "Yay, the evil bigot lady is finally gone" for what's supposedly a based podcast. I thought the racism was supposed to be not a bug but a feature.
Maybe his audience has morphed into more centrist christcucks while I've been away. There were way too many "Me and my wife love you Matt!" chats, no balance and hardly anyone telling Matt that he fucked up, even a little.
Same.
I only checked Rumble but I didn't really come across any Matt alogs at all.
The only one was a drunk guy claiming Matt's YT mods banned him 4 years ago.
I didn't think Matt came off well tonight in his elaboration on his side of the story, though I'm biased and pro-Blonde.
His explanation regarding his skepticism re: missing their last show together and her seeking medical care for her sprained foot came off as a chud with his "We always go live together unless we're dead" meme.
He also was weasely with his "ultimatum that wasn't an ultimatum but I won't negotiate" circuitous arguments.
Essentially, he says that their business and friendship is ultimately irreparable because of the "betrayal" of her making a Twitter post when he said No. Which is middle school level drama.
He also heavily leaned on the whole "I appreciate everyone of you audience members and I'll never let you down/keep working hard for you, I consider all you callers friends" narratives.
Which to me, came off as wooden and disingenuous, but likely a ploy to circle the wagons of his paypigs. Which seemed to have been successful.
I admittedly haven't watched live in a long time.
I was aware of his Bible Study classes but have never heard him self-describe as a Christian.
I watched Matt's stream on Rumble.
I haven't watched Matt & Blonde in a long time.
The Rumble chat was pretty much 100% pro- Matt and way more normie-pilled than I remember. Same with all the callers except one guy who mildly pushed back on Matt denying an ultimatum was given or that he refused to compromise or counteroffer at all.
Disappointed tbh. I don't think his remaining audience is dissident or edgyboi enough to keep me around.
Matt is streaming his side right now.
- Rumble chat & callers are pretty much unanimously pro-Matt.
- Matt is on non-speaking terms with Blonde and expects it to be indefinite
- Matt plans on continuing Wed & Sat streams on his own, but no idea the format
- Matt was upset that Blonde informed him two hours before showtime Wed that she couldn't make it due to a presumed broken foot requiring an urgent care visit. He was resentful because he thought they had a pact to always show up for the stream "unless you're dead". He was pissed he had to do last minute show prep and stream alone. Her foot ended up being sprained, not broken. He thought it wasn't really an emergency and was annoyed when she ended up showing up at 9:10 pm EST asking to join the stream.
- Matt was annoyed , but they didn't talk for the next 48 hours because of his birthday and anniversary. She sent him a wall of texts on Saturday. He eventually got her on the phone. They talked about the future of their collaboration. Matt claims it wasn't an ultimatum, but he gave her "future terms" that at some point he wanted her to accept a new 60/40 split, to smile more and to be present for every minute of the show.
- Blonde took time & eventually counteroffered with the 55/45 split and more editorial control with choosing half the topics. Matt summarily rejected it, saying he wanted her to do more of her current work and couldn't trust her to do half his show.
- Blonde responded back at 10 pm MST, saying she was quitting but wouldn't '"smear him in a public statement". Matt asked her not to go public until the show tomorrow Sunday. Blonde proceeded to post her statement to Twitter.
- Matt says Blonde hasn't proposed any new topics/ideas to the show in ages.
- Matt says he should've nipped Blonde dipping out from the show early immediately at the time.
- Blonde approached Matt to resume the Wed show after the Tenet meltdown. Despite this, Blonde did no work for Wed and Matt prepped 100% of both.
- Matt claims never to have rejected a Blonde idea because there were never any proposed.
- Apparently a caller sent a wedding invitation to Matt. He didn't attend, but sent money.
- Matt feels the Twitter post was a fatal betrayal to their relationship/partnership. He didn't sleep last night.
- Matt claims if she'd showed tonight, they'd still be splitting 50/50.
- Matt is planning in the next week to reach out to all recurring subscribers to somehow outline a plan to make them whole.
- Matt got Dangerous Spaces / Tim in the divorce. He's working the call screener Discord tonight.
- Blonde's post-Tenet collapse idea to renew the show was an Internet Bloodsports revival with debates. She proposed it a few weeks ago but did no groundwork. She wanted to announce the new IBS and promote it on the show. Matt wouldn't let her until something was confirmed.
- Matt is doing a lot of simping to the audience: "I really appreciate all the years of support, I consider a lot of you callers friends, what Blonde did was disrespectful to you audience, she wouldn't come back to face you, etc"
- Matt seems to be claiming to be a new Christian. He claims this new occurrence is a "challenge from God" that he's looking forward to tackling.
- I may have missed a joke, but Matt insinuated that his current livestream studio was in his parents' house above their garage. He said his wife was with him there for the first 2 hours offstream as moral support.
- Matt says the Blonde experience has made him honestly leery to enter another business relationship with a woman.
- Matt showed some receipt texts as to their conversation Saturday that led to their cleavage. There was nothing particularly spicy.
- I saw several $100 superchats on Rumble alone, so the revenge stream was lucrative for Matt.
- Matt wants to keep Hoax Hate. Movie Reviews are gone. Plans new intro sounder. He had already commissioned several artists to make designs for new show merch that he will pay but can't sell.
- One of his sponsors superchatted in with support .
When the Tenet DOJ story broke, Matt claimed that he wasn't using any in-house Tenet resources other than a thumbnail guy.
Dangerous Spaces / Producer Tim used to be their call screener all month with the sole payment of having a dedicated call personally at the end of the calendar. I'm sure Matt paid him a small sum to actually help produce his new Tenet product, but Tim already proved he would work for very cheap.
The point of the newfound 12k/month in Tenet guaranteed money for a year the he didn't split 50/50 with Blonde was a windfall because it only required a single hour livestream a week and two videos that he was already producing anyway.
I think it started with anxiety that she felt her baby couldn't go the 3 hours without breastfeeding.
But it did seem like misplaced separation anxiety for someone who is otherwise home with their children 24/7.
The fact that he tried to decree that she stay right until the end of the show & all the superchats also shows there was more longstanding acrimony over things other than money or editorial control.
It was always unprofessional that Blonde couldn't commit to the full 2.5 hour show on Sundays because of breastfeeding, sick children, old school incompetent childrearing husband, wanting to put her kids to bed, etc.
But in the last few years of the show, Blonde's identity as a mother eclipsed her need to be a conservative thot influencer.
When Matt gave an ultimatum between the show and her very young children & identity as a mother, he knew what he was doing.
I'm sure it hurt having the 12k/month of Russian money for essentially the same content as he did for the first 7 years ripped away from him.
It's also 12k he got to keep himself, meaning the show would have to gross 24k/month to split with Blonde to be as comfortable.
Now he's right back to grinding for YT shekels.
Hopefully no one fucks a tranny, beats their wife or photographs a rabid sheboon in Times Square this time.
TL; DR - Tenet Media was a multichannel network startup from 2023 signing up six American conservative personalities (Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson, Tayler Hansen, Lauren Southern, Matt Christiansen) to produce YT content for their new channel.
It was silently run by Lauren Chen and her husband. It was always somewhat suspect because it had relatively big names producing slick content with very low engagement.
The DOJ blew the lid off it a few months back revealing that the channel was financially backed by thinly veiled Russian glowies. Payments immediately stopped and the channel folded. Lauren Chen isn't charged but has gone into hiding, completely radio silent.
All the front facing US creators claim ignorance. The DOJ seems to agree they didn't know and no one has been formally charged.
Her longform interviews showed she had some more esoteric interests outside of the usual conservative ragebait newscycle: economics, motherhood, feminism, the JQ, white identitarianism, homesteading, tradwife stuff, oddities, etc.
I don't think it would last between YT ToS and her inconsistent work ethic, but it would be a change.
The movie review section on their show was also her brainchild because Matt was such an uncultured spaz who hadn't seen any classic pop culture movies to understand passing references. The OG segment before they turned it over to audience participation was Rebecca making Matt watch and review one of her seminal movie picks.
I think it's more like Matt having the Tenet media paycut finally catch up with him.
He was clearing something like 144k for a single one-hour livestream a week and two weekly vids. Not to mention the remaining revenue from their ongoing Sunday independent shows.
He decided to try to renegotiate terms, which was within his rights and had a strong case.
But Rebecca was already half checked out and didn't need the money.
By trying to claw another 10%, he may have killed the golden goose.
A real shame that this institution of a show fell apart over 5%.
I'm surprised that their split was 50/50 up until this day.
I suspect it was a remnant of when the show began 8 years ago when they were single and childless.
I can see how Matt would grow resentful over time considering he's doing all the background work while Rebecca , as the pretty talent, shows up twice a week for 5 hours and couldn't even commit to the whole show once she became a mother.
That being said, Matt also has YT creator disease where you wonder what he does all week and claims to be doing days upon days of show prep.
In the end, Matt needs the show more than Blonde. Blonde is a retired conservathot-turned-tradwife&SAHM with wealthy offscreen husband.
Matt is the breadwinner for his wife and family who needs to do the YT grind for another two decades or get a real job.
Former regular watcher starting during COVID and falling off the last few years due to the length of the show and the tired format.
There's really not much info provided in either party's statement.
- Matt said he's going live at 9 pm EST tomorrow to tell his side without Blonde
- he wanted them to do a final show together to explain to their audience, but she declined
- speculation in the X threads that Blonde wants to push the JQ & Matt is uncomfortable
- unsourced claims that Matt's wife is Jewish
- speculation that Matt is a worse position financially given the collapse of Tenet, a SAHM, two young kids and a relatively bigger mortgage
- speculation that Matt is more beholden to YT's ToS because he needs the money more than her
- Blonde is married to an older retired vet who seems wealthy, she was continuing to do the show out of tradition
- a surprising amount of the X commenters and supposed viewers uncomfortable with her white nationalism politics considering she's been like this for years. I guess many fans side with Matt's boring, milquetoast, toeing the line takes.
Blonde already had one foot out the door a year ago when pregnant with her 2nd child and Matt announced his deal with Tenet. They canceled their Wednesday call-in show they'd done for years to be replaced by Matt's solo "Matt Christiansen Hour" for Tenet with his grating Aussie producer Tim. The show did not perform well. Blonde & Matt continued to do their usual Sunday news show.
When Tenet collapsed, Blonde returned and they went back to twice weekly shows (I haven't watched any since Tenet's demise).
Matt has always been the straight man, doing all the show prep, dealing with sponsors, booking guests, hosting the show on his channel, doing the IT stuff, etc. Blonde is the firebrand, based, politicaly incorrect co-host with the pretty face that simply shows up.
Another problem is that their life situations have changed since the start of the show. Blonde lives in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Matt lives in Bozeman, Montana.
They've only met in person on a handful of occasions IRL. The show started around the time of Trump’s initial run in 2016. At the time, Rebecca was a single, recovering alcoholic, Lauren Southern-style shock jock right-leaning twenty something babe living in Seattle, originally from St. Louis, MO with an Economics degree and working a finance job she hated.
Matt was a recovering leftist working in ?Portland, OR for some leftist org, making CoD videos as skagg_3.
Matt was single. Rebecca helped him vet dating profiles, eventually meeting his current wife Ping2 and mother to his ?two children (there was also a miscarriage at some point).
Matt's brother ?Wade was a vet who committed suicide with a firearm in the Main St of his town. Matt lived in his dead brother's house and streamed out of it for years until his family got too big and recently sold it.
Blonde is a practising Catholic (tho her hubby might not be). Matt is an agnostic who recently took an interest in Christianity through weekly online Bible study sessions.
Blonde has got married and had two children since starting the show. She quit her finance job long ago and is a SAHM. She's well into her 30s, is sober and is well past her conservathot days.
Blonde does do sporadic hour long interviews with people she finds interesting on her own channel that somehow isn't banned (Owen Benjamin, Gavin McInnes, Radfem Hitler, Ramzpaul, etc). She seems to be able to pull guests based on her looks. The knock has always been that she's lazy and inconsistent as a creator on her own, particularly as a mom now.
Matt is consistent like a Swiss watch. He does two live shows and two videos a week. He's well researched, trustworthy and boring. He hasn't really changed the style of his content much over the last 8 years. His videos are well produced but get fairly low views. His entire income comes from his YT content.
I don't know how well Matt will do on his own. He's hardworking, but a slave to routine and pretty dry on his own. His livestream audience didn't seem to follow him to Tenet. Part of this was because subscribing to his shows there required being bombarded with the rest of the mishmash of slop from the other 5 creators.
Some of it was that his Aussie producer Tim was nice but awful to listen to and didn't add much to the product. Matt, while philosophical, fair and well read, simply isn't willing to be as edgy and avant-garde as Blonde. Which means a lot of his content isn't that different from the rest of Con Inc.
The old xancel.com one still doesn't work on 2nd try but the new nitter.poast one does.
Thanks!