 The news just broke that Tifu is not only leaving FaZe Clan, but he's also suing FaZe Banks organization, the FaZe Clan. But before we get into this video, I have a couple friends here to give some advice to FaZe Banks. What is up everybody, this is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution and if you're new to my channel, what I like to do is take a look at the YouTube community, the Twitch community, pop culture in general and try to see what lessons we can learn from them. So if you're into that stuff, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. So the purpose of this video, I hope I can provide some advice to anybody who wants to become a YouTuber or wants to become a pro gamer or Twitch streamer. But I also want to let all of you, other people out there, a little bit behind the curtain of what's going on and kind of explain this, alright? So first, let me qualify myself and why I'm even talking on this subject. Those of you who have been subscribed to my channel for a while, you're like, Chris, why are you covering gaming news? Well, just real quick, real quick brief summary of my past, right after I got out of high school and during high school, I was really into a game called Counterstrike. I ended up writing for a professional eSports organization. This was when I was 18. So we're talking about 15 years ago. This was when eSports was first getting big. I was very fortunate at a young age. I got to travel all over the world. I've been to Sweden, I've been to France, I've been to Spain, all to go to professional gaming tournaments. And I've worked for not only a news organization called Gotfrag, but I was also the coach of Team 3D, alright? So I've been in this realm for over a decade now, alright? Cool. So the first thing I want to talk about is this isn't new, okay? Organizations screwing over players, it's not new. And something that's becoming a conversation again now with the huge announcement that Tifu is leaving FaZe and potentially suing them. Like more people are talking about like, you know, players need representatives and you know, maybe they need to unionize and everything like that. I have various opinions on that, but I just want you to let you know that this is something that's been going on for years now, okay? And the landscape has changed so much, so much from when I first got into the whole professional gaming industry, okay? And here's what I mean by that. Like now it is possible for players like Tifu, you see it with Ninja where they can just be their own brand and their own person. What I've noticed is that these gaming organizations are kind of like MCNs for YouTubers. And here's what I mean by that. If you're a YouTuber or if you've heard about, you know, MCNs and YouTubers, like one of the most recent ones was with Defy Media. What MCNs do, they're management companies, right? And they approach up-and-coming creators and they're like, yo, sign a deal with us, we'll help promote you, we'll help manage all your stuff, we'll help get you brand deals, we'll do all these things. They make a ton of promises and they often don't fulfill those promises. They don't hold up there into the bargain. And typically what happens with MCNs and what we see with gaming organizations is they try to get as many people under their umbrella as possible because it brings them in more money. Because what they're doing is they're having people sign contracts saying that we get this percentage, you get this, right? But the thing is that in most of these contracts, people are getting screwed and MCNs, they're taking money from people, but they don't have to hold up their end of the bargain. If you hear YouTubers talking about this all the time, like bigger MCNs, they usually focus on the largest creators and provide them with a lot of support. But all of the people that they're getting in under their umbrella don't get as much love and attention, all right? So it's important to understand that. Now, in my opinion, MCNs, gaming organizations, they take advantage of YouTube creators, they take advantage of gamers. In many cases, not all cases. I've heard of some MCNs being pretty good. I've heard of some gaming organizations being fair to the players. But this is an industry where they take advantage of people who are coming up, coming up in this industry that isn't fully defined yet. And there's not regulations or anything like that or enough regulations. So they're taking advantage of people who don't know the realm, don't know the industry. They're starting to see, oh my god, I can do something I love and create a career out of it and be in front of millions and millions and millions of people. So a lot of people are going into these situations very naive and very ignorant. So again, this video, I hope some of you out there who want to become a YouTuber someday or a pro gamer someday, I hope you take these things into consideration because I've been watching this for over a decade now, OK? And I believe that's what we're seeing with the whole T-Food situation, all right? And here's the thing. The way this landscape has changed, like, you don't need, you don't need an MCN. You don't need a gaming organization. Like, I believe that we are currently in a time where you don't need these massive organizations to help you and build you up and everything like, we're living in a time where you can create your own brand by yourself. And that's the beauty of the time that we're living in. But here's the tricky part, all right? There's a lot that goes into it, especially when it comes to Twitch streamers, pro gamers, they have a lot, a lot that they have to manage, OK? So they stream on Twitch and they're doing this for hours upon hours upon hours a day. That is their full-time job. But what we're seeing with people like T-Food, with people like Ninja, I love CypherPK, they have Tim the Tapman and things like that, like, you have to get yourself out there in front of everybody. So they also have YouTube channels. They also have Instagram accounts. They also have their Twitter and they're putting highlight clips and everything like that. Like, this is very, very time-consuming. So the tricky part is, is to do it all by yourself would be very difficult and you would get overwhelmed very, very quickly. Now, Ninja, I think he's very fortunate to have his wife who manages a lot of what's going on behind the scenes. She helps set up brand deals and everything like that. I know Ninja has editors and then he has, you know, his mods on Twitch and everything. So like, it's almost like in the time we're living in, especially when it comes to pro gamers, you need to set up a very small team. I don't think it needs to be a massive team, unless, you know, you're trying to build a larger brand and everything. And that's kind of like what we're seeing with Ninja. But for other up-and-coming gamers, when you start to become bigger and noticing that you need to be on more platforms than just Twitch, my suggestion is start out on your own, see what you can manage, see how much you can edit. But here's the thing too, these streamers need to realize like they can hire people who will help them just to be associated with them, almost like an intern and get experience, right? Like, if you ever watch the commentary channel, The Right Opinion, he has a good thing going on, right? He has editors who help him a lot with his content and he gives them credit down in the pinned comments. He tags them on social media. This is a good value exchange. And I really think gamers need to do this because they don't need some big organization managing everything that's going in. Because, again, like, you are splitting profits with them. And a lot of times, like what we're seeing with Tifu is that you're getting the short end of the stick. Now, let's talk about what's going on, the legal aspects of these things. I'm not a lawyer, okay? So I'm just going to talk from my personal experience. But apparently, Tifu is suing FaZe Clan, all right? So in my opinion, and just from my personal experience, Tifu would not have made this announcement and wouldn't have become so public unless he found a lawyer who thinks he can win this case, all right? Now, what has happened since then is that FaZe Banks is out here just talking trash and posting on Twitter and everything. And that's why I put that clip at the beginning of this video. Like, Banks needs to shut his mouth, okay? Like, one of the issues that we see with social media influencers and everything is that people grow up in this and they don't have that much life experience. And they don't have people in their lives who teach them, like, for lack of better words, how the world actually works, okay? There's a lot of very adult things that are happening. We just saw it with the James Charles situation with Jeffree Star, like, it was about to get to a point where, like, people were about to start getting sued, okay? And that's why I believe this thing just, it just died off, okay? And everybody's like, okay, we forgive each other and everything like that. But a lot of people do not understand how these things work. So let me share my experience on this. So my first career was in the car dealership industry. I worked in the service department. I was taught. I was trained, okay? Because you deal with a lot of people who get very upset. Like, nobody likes their car breaking down and paying for repairs and all that. But I was trained very early on that the second, the second that I rate customer starts to talk about suing you and bringing up legal matters, boom, I'm done. I am no longer allowed to talk to that person. You want to know why? Because from that point on, once they threaten that, it can be used against you or it can be used against your company. So most recently, I was working for a very large addiction treatment center, very, very big addiction treatment center, right? Same thing. If a former client started to threaten to sue or their family started to threaten to sue the company, boom, I was done with them. We had to run it up to our legal team and say, hey, here's the customer. Here's what they're saying. Here's what they're threatening. And I gave them all the information, but I had to back out of it because if I continued that conversation, I can get myself and my company into a lot of trouble. So now we have phase banks popping off on Twitter. Keemstar is involved. He's saying that he is interviewing phase banks and like phase banks needs to shut his mouth right now. He needs to shut his mouth. He needs to consult a lawyer and handle this situation very, very delicately because if this is true and this is, and like, unless they do some settlement, if this actually goes to court, like anything phase banks is saying on Twitter or if he says it in an interview with Keemstar can be brought up to help Tifu win this case. All right. Now, in my opinion, I think, you know, Tifu is probably owed some money. A lot of these contracts are garbage. Phase banks is over on Twitter saying they have never taken 80% away from Tifu and all of that. But like I said, just in my opinion and just my experience, I figure Tifu has a pretty strong case if a lawyer was willing to take on this case. All right. But anyways, I hope this video opened up your eyes to kind of the climate that we're in with, you know, YouTubers, gamers, you know, it becoming more of a thing. It's something, you know, I have a 10 year old son. Some of you out there, if you have children, if you have nieces and nephews, if there are just kids in your life, you hear them talking about wanting to be YouTubers or streamers. And I think this is just something important to discuss because I don't think many people fully understand where we're at. Like, although we see people making careers and becoming celebrities out of this, like this is not a fully developed industry yet. And that's why I hope all of you follow people like Philip DeFranco. Like Philip DeFranco is always really fascinated about the shifts and changes and stories. Like, I wouldn't be surprised if he covered this story because this industry isn't completely developed yet. And a lot of these things like what happened with Ethan and Eli Klein and the the fair use lawsuit that they got into. Like a lot of these things are setting the tone and setting the precedent for what is to come. All right. But anyways, let me know your thoughts on this topic down in the comments below. Let me know if you'd like me covering these type of topics as well. If you learned something, I'm here to share my knowledge with you, baby. But anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell because I make a ton of videos. And a huge, huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on Patreon. You're all amazing. And if you would like to help support what I'm doing here, get access to our monthly Q&A and some other perks and benefits. Click or tap on that Patreon icon right there. All right. Thanks again so, so much for watching. I'll see you next time.