The I'm Not Dumb But Podcast
Welcome to The I'm Not Dumb But Podcast, where we won't claim to have all the answers to life's deepest questions, but we promise you an exciting journey into the realms of knowledge you never knew you needed!
Join friends Cesar, Rob, Chris and Victor as we dive head first into topics that might be mainstream but not common knowledge. No topic is too taboo for us to explore. Let's get curious together!
The I'm Not Dumb But Podcast
Money and Media: The Tenet Media Investigation
On this episode of The I'm Not Dumb But Podcast, we pull back the curtain on a jaw-dropping tale of deception, influence, and financial maneuvers. We take a deep dive into the federal indictment against two RT employees unsealed early September. The Department of Justice charged Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and conspiracy to commit money laundering. You'll hear about how they allegedly funded a right-wing media company Tenet Media (identified but not named) and tried to spread Russian propaganda through various channels.
We also touch on the historical context of the Foreign Agents Registration Act and the moral dilemmas faced by content creators when big money is on the line. This episode promises a compelling and humorous journey through the dark side of media influence. Who do we trust when it comes to our information?
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I have a question for y'all when do you guys get your news?
Rob:Usually Fox or CNN, and then I just split the difference.
Cesar:The notifications on my phone I randomly get, like Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, I don't read the articles.
Chris:I just get them.
Cesar:I don't even click on them. I already feel like I know what's going on.
Rob:You just scroll through and you're like I got enough for the day.
Cesar:I'm like yeah, clear.
Chris:I usually get it from MSN. They usually have all the headlines, whatever, and there's an MSN page, I think.
Victor:You mean on the homepage of your browser.
Cesar:Pretty much, yeah, chris gets the information from Napster yeah right AOLcom.
Rob:He got the CD. Chris has a Hotmail email.
Victor:Well, I got a story for you. It's got allegations of money laundering, media companies, influencers and foreign assets In this episode. I'm Not Dumb, but who's trying to influence our influencers?
Cesar:Welcome to the I'm Not Dumb but Podcast.
Victor:I'm your host for today, victor, joined always by Cesar Yo, rob, how you doing? And Chris hey, how is everyone today?
Rob:I'm good man who is influencing our influencers. I would like to know this Me too. This is big.
Victor:Never thought about it. Yeah, well then let's dive into this. On Wednesday, september 4th 2024, two RT employees I'm going to butcher these names Konstantin Kalashnikov, 31, also known as Kostya, elena Afanasyeva, 27, also known as Lena, were charged by the Department of Justice with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Now, do you guys know what RT is?
Cesar:It's like a web-based news channel, right? Is that what it is? Go on, I used to watch it, I think.
Victor:You used to watch RT On your study abroad in Russia.
Cesar:Yeah, on YouTube they used to have this guy who did finance stocks.
Rob:All right. Yeah, you're on a list now, cesar, no Let me tell you what it is.
Victor:Let me tell you what it is and you let me know if you actually watched it. Rt, formerly known as Russia Today, is a state-controlled news television network funded by the Russian government. It was founded in 2005 as part of a public relations effort by the Russian government. It is available in five languages. Its original form English, Arabic, Spanish, German and French, which is weird for a Russian news network that doesn't actually give news in Russian. Remember, no Russian. The only RT channel available in Russian is RT Documentary, a 24-hour documentary channel, the bulk of its programming consisting of RT-produced documentaries related to Russia, so you probably won't find any Netflix docs on that one.
Rob:So this is like 24 hours of brainwashing.
Chris:Yeah, sounds like it. Sounds like it right, we won the war.
Cesar:Comrade, the war, all of them.
Victor:All of them as we're speaking, Caesar's deleting his internet history right now.
Cesar:FBI open up. The guy was on. He was based in London, though.
Victor:Has been regularly described as a major propaganda outlet for the Russian government and has been sanctioned and banned in many countries as a consequence of Russia's invasion of Crimea in 2014 and its invasion in Ukraine in 2022.
Rob:Yeah, I definitely watched it, of course, here we go. So let's do the Winter Soldier activation. Words Long hate, Rusted 17. Caesar, you okay. It's not gonna work you know why Benign and freight car here we go Caesar.
Cesar:where are you going? Say them in Spanish.
Rob:I don't know them in Spanish.
Cesar:Platano, platano.
Rob:He's trying to get out of his chains.
Chris:Must crush capitalism.
Victor:During the past year, the two defendants allegedly deployed $10 million laundered through foreign shell companies to covertly fund a US company called Tenet Media. A US company called Tenet Media. So Tenet Media was an American right-wing media company founded by a Canadian-born political commenter and former YouTube personality, lauren Chen, and her husband, liam Donovan, in January of 2022. Now just a note. Tenet Media, lauren Chen, liam Donovan and the influencers that I will be naming later were not mentioned specifically in the indictment. They were given aliases like US Company 1, founder 1 or 2, and the revelation of who they were came from articles after the indictment was released. This is just an indictment. No one has been convicted of any crime just yet. Just an indictment. No one has been convicted of any crime just yet. The defendants, kostya and Lena, both identified themselves as RT employees.
Victor:Kostya was the deputy chief of the digital media projects department and Lena claimed she was a producer at RT dealing with overseas affairs and news. Let's just take a second to applaud their career successes. At such a young age, I was gonna say they're like killing it. He's 31, she's 27, you know. I mean, if only more kids of this generation have that kind of work ethic, yeah they're in.
Rob:Yeah, does she have an mba? She should. I mean, they could just give her one, so it doesn't matter.
Victor:But wow, it's not easy to climb up that the propaganda ladder.
Rob:Propaganda marketing yeah, it's the same similar you're selling pepsi, or? You're selling russian influence. Yeah, what do you the?
Victor:best salesman ever. So let's start at the beginning. From about march of 21 to about february of, Lauren Chen allegedly created videos, posted social media content and wrote articles. Following a written contract between one of her companies and RT's parent organization, they billed the AnnoTV Novosti for approximately 217 videos, of which 209 were published on her personal YouTube channel and 19 opinion articles which were posted on RT's website. No articles disclosed that she was actually being paid to write them.
Rob:I'm guessing, since her opinion she has no sources, no, nothing like that.
Victor:No, I actually don't know. I didn't read the articles, but she was getting paid to write opinion articles.
Rob:Nothing there sounds fishy. You know, she just got a regular job.
Cesar:Do you feel left out, that we're not getting paid for our opinions?
Rob:right, I have so many of them I mean, if you really think about it, what's the difference between what they're doing and what we're doing? We're just talking about our opinions, but they're getting paid. And 209, I mean they got to meet every week.
Cesar:Money please.
Victor:But also she didn't reveal, disclose that she was actually getting paid to write them.
Rob:She was just like these are my opinions. Yeah, that's not nice.
Victor:So, after a while, RT invited Chen to appear on RT television programming, created and dedicated pages on RT's website identifying Chen as a contributor and featuring Chen's articles, and provided an official letter on the RT letterhead designating Chen and Donovan as essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rob:Can we bang some pans for them? Yeah, what? You know how? They banged all the pans in COVID at 7 pm for all the first.
Cesar:As an essential worker. I still don't get that.
Chris:I don't remember this at all. It was like everybody came out and they started clapping and banging pans.
Cesar:Yeah, like at 12 or something, it was like 12 and 6.
Rob:Yeah, you just had a 14-hour day in the emergency room. You said why six people die and then someone's banging a pan in your ear and they're like thanks bro.
Victor:The real heroes are still there. They knew who they were working with and they knew that it would be frowned upon if it got out. In private correspondence between Chen and Donovan, chen allegedly wrote RT's budget is going to be larger, but acknowledge, I know, being Russian, some folks in the us aren't too hot on them, lol. As another example, a producer told donovan that when I was asking people if they wanted to interview, many said yes until I said I was with rt, so I switched to saying I was just working for chen. Donovan replied ha, not surprised yeah, you know something's up yeah, you know something's up.
Victor:When you're like, hey, do you want to interview for my company? Oh, by the way, I work for RT and they're like, no, okay, I'm just going to not say RT, yeah, yeah, they're hiding something. So Chen and Donovan created Tenant Media in January of 22. As incorporated in Tennessee, they employed three producers and outside editing staff, which included the two RT employees that are in the indictment, kostja and Lena. In December of 2022, chen started working with someone named Edward Gregorian, who she communicated with through three of his representatives. His goal was to launch a YouTube channel and to find a content creator to be the face of that channel. He was willing to pay $1 to $2 million per year. The contract they made with Chen was that her influencer talent scouting services would get her eight thousand dollars per month bro, we gotta jump into rt.
Cesar:Are they hiring still, or yeah?
Rob:oh, what's the application? Do I need a lot of?
Cesar:references and we we have listeners from over 12 countries, so I think we can fill in those shoes. What do you guys?
Victor:want to talk about.
Victor:We have 16 YouTube subscribers. I mean that's got to cost something, right? Yeah, we're willing to talk. So you see this guy. They're like, hey, this is Edward Gregorian. He's a fucking business mogul, right? Her $8,000 checks a month came from a Hungarian shell company oh God, month came from a hungarian shell company oh god, uh. Later, as she negotiated with influencers, her payments came from changed and came from a czech shell company whose website sold automobile parts but also listed unrelated services, such as cyber armor suite, fortifying your digital defenses. It had no mention of gregorian, his representatives or the Hungarian company that she used to get checks from.
Cesar:That's a problem. They should have went to the Cayman Islands. That's where all the money stashed.
Rob:So this is state-run. They're being funded by deep, deep, deep pockets.
Victor:Right. The commenters that she first approached and that she negotiated with were Dave Rubin, benny Johnson and Tim Pool.
Cesar:The Dave Rubin I've heard of but I haven't. I've never seen his stuff. Yeah, Tim Pool, I feel like I've heard that name.
Victor:He's like that young looking kid who always wears a fucking beanie.
Rob:Yes, talks into my camera, he's always wearing black. Yeah.
Victor:They are the more conservative alt-right voices on the internet that float around the far-right conservative podcast Circle Jerk. So some of the contracts that these commenters negotiated with Tenet were asking for $5 million a year. Another was $100,000 a week and when they brought these up to Gregorian his reps were like yeah, okay, no problem.
Rob:Bro, there's money out there to be made. You're just thinking like I should have asked for more.
Cesar:Yeah, $2 million yeah.
Victor:So who is this Gregorian guy right, and does he exist? And so I'll let you guys decide.
Rob:Yeah, is that an alias?
Victor:Let me give you some insight on big ed here. One of the commenters asked for his cell number to speak with him. Instead, the rep asked if the call can be placed on whatsapp or zoom, both of which are two um softwares that encrypt and hide your location. They asked for press releases, interviews, and all they got was a LinkedIn page which had a hyperlink to a random company. Chen searched for Gregorian with zero results on Google no references to places that he's claimed to have worked, nothing. So they asked for some material. The reps sent this profile. It's great, it's like this CV. This profile it's great, it's like this CV. It's a picture of a guy on like a private jet with his name and it just reads Edward Gregorian. Experienced finance professional and investor, deeply engaged in business and philanthropy, leveraging skills and resources to drive positive impact, supporting a range of organizations worldwide, with a dynamic presence mainly in Brussels and London, engaging in personal and professional pursuits in each location with a focus on poverty alleviation, championing free speech and advocating for social justice causes. This guy's real.
Cesar:He's a real dad. Is that the whole URL? That's a long website, man.
Victor:It's not a website. This is like a pamphlet. This is like a resume.
Rob:I would hire him. I mean, he sounds great yeah.
Victor:We should be paying him. It has like life and education. He was born in Brussels in 1975 to French-Armenian father and a Belgian mother. Like him, already Love the chocolates too. In 2000, he got a bachelor's degree in economics and management, cum laude, from a Nice. The school has been blacked out. Masters of accounting, finance and political science. While he was a junior investment banker at Banking Analyst at. Everything's been crossed out Any company or any school listed on this resume. When they looked it up, his name would not pop up at all.
Rob:His CV looks dope, though. Do I need to add pictures to my resume?
Victor:I was looking at this I was like I need a photo shoot on a private jet yeah.
Chris:Yeah, that doesn't look pretty dope.
Rob:That looks legit.
Victor:And he's like looking out of the window.
Rob:Yeah, Like there's opportunity there and only he can see it. It's a work of art.
Cesar:It's beautiful.
Victor:So other irregularities would occur, such as the three representatives would misspell Gregorian's last name in emails and while responding to an email, one rep signed Gregorian's name instead of their own, then quickly emailed an explanation of the mess up.
Rob:So from that do you think this guy is actually real. So they made him up. Sounds like some kid. So who is he?
Victor:It's all three of them, all of us, everyone is Edward. Gregorian, and no one is Edward Gregorian.
Chris:His name is Robert Paulson.
Victor:But not everyone can be fooled. Dave Rubin had a problem with his profile that was sent over to him Now. Why do you ask? Because it was suspicious, right Right? Actually, he had a problem because it had a reference to social justice in his resume.
Rob:Oh, that's what got him.
Cesar:That'll do it yeah.
Victor:Yeah that's a red flag. It was liberal speech and he didn't want to be affiliated with. That, frank's a bunch of liberal bullshit.
Rob:But in the end he signed a contract for 400k a month and a signing fee of a hundred thousand dollars I noticed that he doesn't say his pronouns on the resume, so that probably would have thrown a lot of people off.
Victor:Following Ruben Tim Pool, in exchange for a weekly videos, was given $100,000 per video. This is crazy money, dude bro, and from what I saw from other content creators that have commented on this, these terms are ridiculous. Of course they're not asking for a specific number of views. They're not asking for, like, any interaction. They're just saying, hey, give us a video once a week, or sorry, I'll give you a video once a week, you give me $100,000 and we're good.
Rob:No, apparently no contracts like that are made yeah, I feel like there's a lot of red tape. Like you, better put this many ads. You better bet this you better right, yeah, they're all over you for me for that, although I, I do. I mean, I know that influencers do make a lot of money, you know. But that's, that's great, but it's crazy.
Victor:They're under contracts for certain. They want results like yeah.
Cesar:Have you guys heard of that DraftKings network?
Rob:Yes.
Cesar:They have this one show. I forgot the name of it, but they signed a contract and they won like a crazy amount of hours worth of content, so much so that that show spawned like seven different shows just to keep up with it.
Rob:Oh, really, I mean, that's a lot of work.
Cesar:But it's $100 million that I think they signed. Okay, well, there you go. There you have it, damn. So how do we reach out to this guy, gregorian, with a G or with an H, I don't care.
Rob:I noticed it's Edward without a W. So I'm right there, you got me.
Victor:I mean, that's pretty cool, it's from the French-Armenian side. Yeah, I like that.
Rob:That's cool. Let's make a deal.
Victor:In March of 23,. Gregorian's rep reached out for a new contract. This time they wanted the management and marketing to be done by a Russian firm. The firm consisted of two people that we had mentioned at the beginning, kostya and Lena. Tenet was happy to comply. They were like yeah, this is great, sounds good. By the fall of 23, tenet Media had recruited six content creators to include on their platform. They were Matt Christensen, tyler Hansen, benny Johnson, tim Pool, dave Rubin and Lauren Southern.
Victor:Now, with just their YouTube channels alone, this accounts for, on their personal channels, 7.7 million subscribers. Tenet Media did not have that many subscribers. So around this time it is said that Kostya and Lena began taking more of a hands-on approach. Kostya added Helena Shruda and Victoria Pesti to the team, who were allegedly after some IP tracing that the government did. All three IP addresses were were the same and they were basically russia, so it was basically just lena using fake names. I'm imagining like a team's meeting and then like she has a wig and then she's like hold on, let me get helena and then comes back with a different wig but on glass hat.
Rob:I don't even know you.
Victor:Undercover.
Chris:In disguise.
Victor:So they frequently would ask for raw footage from these creators to edit videos. They asked Chen to force the creators to push Tenet's own videos on their channel, something that they were not even contracted to do. Lena and her aliases would ask to post graphic content from the shooting in Moscow that happened in March of 2024. They also asked that Tenet Media blame the shooting on the US and the Ukraine, despite ISIS claiming responsibility. Chen forwarded this message to one of the commentators, in which they replied he's happy to cover it. Wow, $100,000 will do that. Eventually, the team was allowed to post their own videos directly to Tenet Media's social media account. This is my thing.
Rob:When you know you're getting into something like this, I don't think you get out very easy.
Victor:At any point? Do you think she was like I shouldn't be doing this?
Rob:Yeah, like I think I'm crossing a boundary.
Chris:The thing is all you hear is ka-ching, ka-ching.
Rob:And how young are these content creators? Do we know? Because young people will. Do you know, they take more risks, they'll do anything.
Cesar:No, that Dave Rubin guy isn't that young.
Victor:Dave Rubin's, probably the oldest one. Yeah, so they range between late 20s to late 40s. Again, like I don't know if the content creators actually posted Tenet's media on their own pages. They weren't obliged to do so. Tenet would ask them to do it.
Rob:And what were these content creators? What were they doing before these contracts Like?
Victor:what made them seek them out. So there's no evidence or proof that they were actually following the marketing orders from Tenet Media, but I think what appealed to them was that they were already putting out content of like the Democrats have been marching us towards war.
Rob:We are getting closer to war. It is fairly obvious. And when we find out who actually blew up the Nord Stream pipeline.
Cesar:Hint, it was probably us.
Chris:Ukraine is the enemy of this country.
Cesar:Ukraine is our enemy, being funded by the Democrats.
Victor:Got it these were already talking points, that they were already hitting.
Rob:Okay, let's enhance these.
Victor:So that actually about summarizes the propaganda side of things. So let's get into money laundering. Between October 2020 and August 2024, Between October 2020 and August 2024, Tenant Media received around 30 wire transfers totaling of $9.7 million. Approximately $8.7 million went to the production companies of the three commentators alone. So think about that. 90%, 95% of the money you just got went to contracts of the talent.
Rob:Right.
Victor:In which Ten was worried that the cost of these content creators didn't match the advertising revenue that they were receiving. So the $9.7 million accounted for 90% of the deposits into Tenet Media. You're in a failing business. Yeah, the deposits were received from shell companies in Turkey, the United Kingdom, the UAE, czech Republic and Mauritius. Only a few of these companies had websites, some even had identical addresses. They were listed to provide an array of services, such as yacht consultancy, sale of textile products, electronic goods and jewelry, and you can get a haircut there too, if you want. We buy gold. It's just like so weird that you're like oh, where's this check coming from this random company in hungary or in turkey? Oh, what do they do? I think they, uh, they do consultancy for yachts oh yeah.
Rob:Well, they're expanding their portfolio.
Victor:They want to get into what does yacht consultancy even look like? Do they just look at your boat and go yep, that's a nice looking yacht.
Cesar:You know what you?
Rob:could do? You only got one helicopter pad by the way.
Victor:Do you need textiles?
Chris:Motivation Corp takes care of everything.
Victor:So the invoices that Tenant Media would send out were like hey, this is for staff, this is for commenters, this is you know whatever. And the notes from the wire transfers they got would say buying goods inventory 013, iphone 15 Pro Max, 512 gigabytes, with a payment of $318,800.
Cesar:Apple's getting expensive.
Victor:Can you imagine what the iPhone 16 Pro Max is going to cost?
Rob:Yeah, it's crazy expensive.
Cesar:Thinking about getting it.
Victor:I'm gonna get it I don't know if I can afford it I mean that's.
Rob:I mean if you don't know what you got yourself into.
Victor:At this point it sounds money laundering ish though, right if I was gonna commit some sort of fraud.
Cesar:This is what it would look like what was their end game in all this? Just to Just to spread the Russian propaganda? Yeah, what return on investment were they looking for? Are they selling shirts? Influence?
Victor:Influence, but influence in what.
Rob:They're not really looking for ROI per se. I mean, this is more of this, is the investment. This is their marketing. This is probably part of a larger schemes.
Cesar:One of the people mentioned that we're paying all these influencers. We're not seeing anything on the back end like what exactly were they trying to see?
Rob:because these are not real companies, so they don't really care. They're just, they're just channels for money. The major company that's paying all this, that is going through all these shell companies, I'm sure they'm sure they have an actual it's the Russian government. Right.
Victor:So their aim is propaganda? It isn't. Oh, I hope we make money. I'm sure they have key performance indicators that they're trying to hit they have PowerPoint presentations Like we need to beef up. No, it's their message. You see this guy on YouTube with an American flag behind him and a microphone talking about how media is attacking you, talking about how the Ukraine is a curse onto your country. You're now getting that from a source that you trust, right? Because this guy has an American flag behind him.
Rob:Well, that's true, but that's why they sought these people out. I've seen Ozark I'mark a couple of seasons in already, so this is straight up money laundering 101.
Victor:Breaking bad also If you see someone buying a car wash money laundering 101. He has businesses. Yeah, he has businesses. So once again, this was an unsealed indictment from the DOJ, from all the people mentioned. The only two people who were alleged with crimes were the RT employees, kasia and Lena. It is not known if anyone else, or Tenant Media itself, was accused of any wrongdoing.
Rob:So the DOJ doesn't go after the influencers.
Cesar:That's what I was just going to ask.
Victor:I think the influencers in this case would be considered victims.
Chris:Oh, they were like lied to.
Victor:Technically they're just dealing with Tenant Media, this company from Tennessee. They weren't dealing with Russians. No money was being directly funneled from these shell companies directly to the Wow. Their contract was with Tenant Media. But that being said, that's not to say that there isn't a sealed indictment somewhere that is actually going after this company.
Rob:They've got that whiteboard, they got the pictures you got to do the string, or you can use chalk. It really depends which one you want to do.
Victor:Putin's at the top, and then it trickles down, and then, at the very bottom, it's Chen and the tenant media.
Cesar:This close to cracking this mother wide open.
Victor:Here's some fun facts for you. According to the pew research center, in 2022, of 71 954 defendants in federal criminal cases, 8.6 percent were not convicted, 2.3% went to trial and 91.4% were convicted and sentenced. So they don't bring federal criminal cases Unless they know.
Rob:Yeah, they are going to.
Cesar:Those numbers not looking good for them.
Victor:But yeah, that's just to give you an idea of how federal cases go.
Rob:Why wasn't any of this on my news?
Victor:So as for Tenant Media, on September 5th Tenant influencer Taylor Hansen announced the company had shut down. The indictment dropped September 4th. September 5th this guy's going. That company's gone. Youtube terminated Tenant Media and other channels run by chen. Prior to its removal, tenant had around 316 000 subscribers because of the whole shutting down and whatnot.
Chris:Do they, the influencers, do they have to give their money back because part of the whole scam.
Victor:I listened to a few people comment on this. Apparently no.
Cesar:No, you don't. It's like a service.
Victor:No, you don't have to do that. They fulfill their contract.
Cesar:Yeah.
Victor:They most likely will get to keep that money.
Cesar:It's out of media. I don't know why they closed it down. Should have just kept it.
Victor:I mean, they probably lost their funding, though, right.
Rob:Yeah, they just cut that head of the snake off and they're just going to open another one hello, we need more money.
Victor:Hello, hello well, I mean, that is tenementia, those two people, edward gregorian, disappeared off the face of the earth and therefore, goodbye, comrade.
Rob:Well, the yacht business is kind of picking up now so they're going to. They're going to stick to the yacht consultancy season.
Chris:We'll come back we're not doing well. Uh, let me call the russians to.
Victor:Kostya and Lana were accused of money laundering and a violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Do you guys know what that is? Is it like global entry? It was passed in 1937. It requires foreign agents, so a person or entity who engages in domestic lobbying or advocacy for foreign governments, to register with the Department of Justice and disclose their relationship activities and related financial compensation.
Rob:So if they had just registered, everything would have been fine.
Victor:I think the money laundering Frowned upon. It's interesting. I didn't know this existed, but it's interesting that it doesn't stop a foreign agent to lobby the US government or anything. It just adds transparency Because you got to know where US government or anything. It just adds transparency.
Rob:Because you got to know where that money comes from. You're just going to need this form and then take this down to that desk over there and then, when you're done there, come back here so I can tell you where to go.
Victor:Oh, you also need it in duplicates and you need five forms of ID. Apparently it was to deal with the rise of Nazis in.
Chris:Germany, these guys in.
Victor:Germany. I don't know if you know your history at all. They're not great. They rose to power in Germany and apparently a bunch of them came to the US to spread the Nazi word and Congress was like whoa, you guys need to just tell us that you're doing it.
Rob:Did you register?
Victor:Walt Disney invited you here, but you just can't show up.
Rob:Yeah, and where do you work?
Victor:oh ford, okay, that's a wild ride yeah, do you feel that you you're being lied to? When you like, find out that like there's this, like company out there that's just spitting the shit out but giving marching orders from now you're saying that now yeah, like I don't know if I can trust my, my thing is we're being lied to by everyone.
Rob:So trust no one, trust no one. You really got to get all the information. You know, I really like, uh, certain tv stations and and radio stations and I follow them. But when I listen to them, sometimes I can see their agenda or I can see especially if they talk about a story or a topic that I'm really like, well, read up on and I know a lot of the details. And when they like to talk about it or comment it, there are things that they don't bring up. And then I see like, oh okay, they're trying to spin it this way. I see that because I just think we're getting lied to by everybody.
Chris:It depends which lie you want to take. I guess right. I never even imagined it was something like this. Like could happen there's disinformation everywhere, chris I mean, like, have you seen that uh documentary in um netflix about the, the influencers that they're like in a cult, that influencers that does like a dancing and whatnot? All they're doing is producing, producing like videos like all day long.
Victor:And then you just described k-pop and I don't need you shitting on new jeans, okay you know.
Rob:So I think of it this way if I, if I'm an influencer, and someone was giving me something to say or funding me and it didn't align with my morals, I would look into it more.
Chris:We're not talking about $10,000, $20,000 per video. We're talking about like $100,000, $200,000 a weekly. That's a whole different level.
Cesar:Set the money aside, right. It could all be an act too. You're looking at these influencers, right. What do you think is a percentage of them that actually believe the bullshit they're actually spouting?
Rob:50, maybe less Well, they had to start somewhere and I think there's motivation, I think they do believe in it.
Victor:People like Alex Jones, right After he got sued yeah, defamation for Sandy Hook. In his defense he goes it's just an act. This is a character His audience doesn't believe that. I think there is like this right wing grift that a lot of content creators jump on.
Rob:But final thoughts, Rob. In a way, it doesn't surprise me. We see this. We know that these state owned agencies exist. They do this in other manners. We talked about gastro diplomacy. They're always trying to increase their sphere of influence. They have an agenda.
Victor:They're just like big companies too. Are you saying that Russians should just start sending more restaurants to be opened?
Rob:Listen, do you know a nice Russian restaurant? I don't. Soup and dumplings and vodka, I mean that sounds delicious. That's what I had in college.
Rob:What gets me too is like I haven't heard these people, but I'm not going to. But that's a lot of money and it does sound a little shady. I just I wonder, as someone who I mean we're content creators. I mean I enjoy what I, what I do, but I would be weary if I wasn't 100 percent sure. But you know what, when you're more successful and the checks come in, you just do what you, you got to do, especially if you kind of agree with it already. Um, it's probably a little different there, you know, but uh, yeah, that's, that's a wild ride chris, from the beginning it sounds.
Chris:Even the contracts. It sounded too good to be true. You know, it's like it almost sounds like you just threw out any numbers out there. It sounds like they're gonna get it regardless, but yeah, it's just wild.
Cesar:All right, cesar. What I think is crazy is that there's a large percentage of the population right, it might be small, but that they're being spoon fed this information by these influencers that they really truly do care and hang on every word and they take that as gospel and take that as truth. We don't know what these influencers are Like. A lot of these influencers, I'm pretty sure they're going through it, and when they were dealing with Tenant Media, regardless, they must have done their research or at least figured out a way to be like who am I actually going into business with? In this case? They're, you know, the innocent ones. But in reality, money talks, man, money talks.
Victor:Alright, we want to thank you for tuning in. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram, Twitter and YouTube at I'm Not Dumb, but where we're posting extra fun content that you may not find on the podcast, and before you go, hit that subscribe button because you'll feel better. Trust me, Until next time. Stay curious Later, ZX feel better trust me until next time, stay curious later. Yes, god, those communists are amazing.
