 So you know how every year there's like a new billionaire trend? Like every year they just start doing something new. One year it's like going to space. The next year it's buying up all the farmland. Well this year it just might be building cities. I guess it seems like the next logical step in almost every aspect of their life they have total control over everything. Just not the government yet. So I guess if they sort of make their own city with their own government they'll be in complete control of everything that goes on in their lives. So this article on BET says Kanye West is reportedly building a 100,000 acre city in the Middle East. In 2020 Yeezy attempted to build his own city in Wyoming but the state made him close up shop. So a couple of crazy things going on there. I didn't know that he was building a city in Wyoming. Maybe I'm out of the loop but I feel like I should have known that. So that already didn't work. He already failed once and he was like, you know what, Wyoming is a really difficult place to build a city. That's probably what was screwing me up. I think I would have much better luck if I try in a totally different country. A country I don't live in. Don't know the culture or laws as well. Also just says in the Middle East. That's also not a country. So I think you're gonna have to get a little more specific, my guy. We previously reported that Kanye West put his Malibu mansion on the market. Now it appears that he is moving East to chart his own universe. According to a post he made on Tuesday, December 20th from a verified account named unreleased Yee on X. Formally known as Twitter, the can't tell me nothing rapper is reportedly in the planning stages of building a new city in the Middle East. I like that they refer to him as the can't tell me nothing rapper. Like that's what he's known for. Hasn't done anything else notable lately as far as I can tell. He was sort of a one hit wonder. He released that song back in 2007 and he stayed relatively quiet ever since. I guess that one song made him enough money to build a city but that's about all he's been up to. Okay, so this is the tweet that they're talking about on this profile called unreleased Yee. I am a little skeptical of BET's reporting here. How do we know that this is Kanye? Anything and everything with Kanye's music. I do not leak any songs. I only post already leaked songs. Okay, it kind of makes it sound like they're admitting that they're not Kanye. Yeezy, D-Rome, Phase One, 100,000 acre city piloting in Middle East, recruiting project managers, engineers, architects, contractors, builders. Okay, so if this is real, then he hasn't started yet. This is the vibe I'm getting. He's hiring everybody necessary to make this happen. Also, I don't think that there could be a more clear signal that he doesn't know how to do anything related to building a city because those are all the things that you need. Like what is he gonna do? So I need project managers, engineers, architects, contractors, builders, and I'll take care of the rest guys, don't worry. You know, I'll take on most of the work. I mean, I'll do whatever's left, you know? That would be landscaping. And the king, I'll be the king as well. This might appear to be an overly ambitious endeavor for some, but for the 24-time Grammy winner, this is familiar territory. How so? How is this familiar territory? It sounds like he tried this once and it didn't work. Then if the next sentence isn't that he's already built multiple cities in the Middle East before, then it's not familiar territory. I don't even think the Middle East is familiar territory to this guy. In October, 2020, he was deep into his bag of brilliance when he attempted to construct his own city in Wyoming. I don't think he was in his bag of brilliance. It sounded like it didn't work. Those plans were scrapped after the state put a stop to his proposal, which was projected to be a hyper-utilitarian underground zone that could fit 200 people. What? Also, I wouldn't really call that a city. He was gonna dig a hole that could fit 200 people. That's not that many. He was really like, yeah, digging my 200-person hole didn't quite work out. We ran into too many logistical issues. I think that building a metropolis in the Middle East is actually gonna be slightly easier, more manageable. Yee also filed trademarks for this venture's name, including Yeeco System, Yeeco System, and Yeezy First. Yeah, good thing he locked those down. I could only imagine how many people were clamoring to create companies called the Yeeco System. Imagine living in a hole that could fit 200 people and it's called the Yeeco System. Even in this pitch, it doesn't sound nice. It's not describing some kind of utopian paradise, a hyper-utilitarian underground zone. It's not even saying city. It doesn't even sound livable. Just sounds like a big area. Yeah, we just dug out an underground zone. It's hyper-utilitarian because there's nothing here that you don't need. There's also nothing here that you do need. It's just a hole. Okay, so it looks like we got some more info on Kanye's Wyoming city here. This article is from March of last year. The last article was from December, so this came earlier. Kanye West's anti-Semitic collapse has turned dream of becoming world's biggest real estate investor to rubble. During his heyday, Kanye West's stated goal was to become one of the world's biggest real estate developers of all time but shocking new photos of his construction empire, including bizarre futuristic domes, reveal the true extent of his crumbling legacy. Oh yeah, here they are. His world-conquering status as a fashion and music mogul vanished and his real estate aspirations, including bizarre building developments inspired by Star Wars, has turned to debris. I don't know if they, like, were they already debris to start with? This is just a hole. Oh, we got a little before and after photo. Okay, here's before. So here's the best it ever got. And then here's what it looks like now. Damn, look what we could have had. We could have had bizarre domes, people. The disgraced rapper built the domes. Fixed it in July, 2019, to house the homeless. And he even envisaged, envisaged? Is that a word? Envisaged constructing entire cities with the Star Wars inspired lattices. I don't know if that's a word. So he wanted to house the homeless in the middle of the desert in these bizarre domes. You know, I appreciate the sentiment of wanting to house the homeless. I do feel like there's probably a less roundabout way of doing that than creating a city in the middle of nowhere made up of these domes. You don't have to invent a whole new house type for homeless people. They would live in a regular house if you gave them one. I'm sure. It's not like they're homeless because they don't like the shape of regular houses. I guess is what I'm trying to say. Not long after he first constructed the domes in California in 2019, West fell foul of California's housing regulations after he failed to get a building permit. After failing to ever obtain one, the domes were set to be torn down signaling the start of his real estate woes. West had even claimed that the structures were only temporary, but inspectors suspiciously found he had laid concrete foundations first. Wait, they were temporary? I thought they were supposed to house the homeless. You were only gonna do that for a little bit? He was gonna have him live in the domes until he thought up his next brilliant scheme and even cooler shaped house. Have you ever wanted to live in a giant boot? Okay, that's enough about Kanye's futuristic city because now we're gonna learn about Akon's futuristic city. But before we do that, I wanna thank today's sponsor, Sunday's Food for Dog. Sunday's is a healthy dog food. It's fresh. It's made from human grade ingredients. The ingredients list on the back is actually really impressive. It's got things like beef, beef heart, beef liver, carrots, apples, tomatoes, but then it just goes X games mode and has ingredients like shiitake mushrooms, broccoli, oranges, cranberries, strawberries. I really care about what I put in my dog's bodies and I've wanted to try fresh food for dogs before, but I've always been intimidated because you need to refrigerate it. It's messy, but this is air dried. So it comes in these like nice soft pieces that just break apart super easily. It's not this dry, crunchy kibble, but you can just store it pretty much exactly the same as you would store kibble. My dogs love this stuff. While I was transitioning them from their old food to this food, I was actually just giving this to them as treats and they loved it. They would do tricks for this stuff. You buy it online, it ships right to your door so you don't have to go to the pet store and lug around a gigantic bag of dog food and your puppies will thank you. This stuff has 90% meat, 10% vegetables and 0% synthetic nutrients. I'm really excited that Sunday's sponsoring this video. So thank you to Sunday. If you want to get 50% off your first order, then go to sundaysfordogs.com slash Greg or use my code Greg at checkout. Again, that's sundaysfordogs.com slash Greg or code Greg at checkout for 50% off your first order. Okay, now back to ACON City. So ACON actually posted this video three years ago, an introduction to ACON City. I think I remember hearing about this on the news and I think it had something to do with cryptocurrency. Like I think he was also launching his own cryptocurrency and maybe this has something to do with that. Like the only way to pay an ACON City is with ACON coin. Wait, is this? Oh, these are the buildings? I thought we were just looking at abstract art while he was like before we saw the city. Whoa, okay. So, wow. This is ACON City, huh? Inspired by Dr. Seuss, are we? Okay, here's a very neat little render. Oh, shit. Dude, I'll give him this. It looks more fun than a so-called hyper-utilitarian underground zone. I think I would actually rather live in one of these like phallic high-rises than a bizarre dome at least. Okay, we got resort of Africa up here, resort chalets down here, African restaurant, African open bazaar. Oh, okay. Is this in Africa? Oh yeah, in Senegal. Okay. If it's all in Africa, I don't think you need to point at everything and call them African because I think we would just assume that. Here's all the African houses. There's an African building. We're gonna have lots of African buildings. ACON Tower, Media Tower, Filming Studio, one, two, three, and four. Office building, parking structure, residential building. It's kind of interesting that he already has all of the buildings planned out in a town. Do towns do that when they start? I thought people just build what is necessary at the time when it's necessary. Like the first people who showed up to Los Angeles didn't just like start pointing and directing to build film studios here, there, and there. Those only were built because the film industry was like becoming a thing there. Like what if the film industry doesn't take off in ACON land? Then what are you gonna do? Also, are these filming studios African or what ethnicity are they? Only 100 kilometers from Dakar. That's pretty good. Just a short 100 kilometer swim through the ocean from Dakar. So if you were already planning on visiting then might as well stop at ACON City while you're there. You know, I'll give him this. I do believe that this was designed by ACON. I mean, so I'm gonna assume that this never came to fruition because this was three years ago. I haven't heard about it since. Travis Scott, I've got my own meal at McDonald's, ACON. Hold my pineapple beverage. Yeah. Well, I think the difference between those two things is that the top one did happen. Travis Scott did get his own meal at McDonald's. As far as I'm aware, this did not happen. Every architect's dream, but every engineer's nightmare. Is that true? Is this every architect's dream? This is what architects dream about, baby. Lobby, globby cities. They can't find a way to make it happen. I genuinely hope this doesn't lose momentum. The world could use a win like this. Aw, man. Now I feel bad that this isn't gonna happen. This person is so invested. Okay, so I went to the website that was in the description for ACON City and I'm just on ACON's tour website. So I don't, doesn't seem like it's gonna happen now. The website doesn't even exist anymore. No! I wanted to live in ACON City, man. Friend, where are you? Me, by the weird shaped Chrome building. I'm by the weird shaped filming studio. Okay, now we've got a TikTok about what happened to ACON's futuristic city. What happened to the real life Wakanda promised by ACON? This futuristic looking smart city is the brainchild of ringtone superstar ACON. There's just one huge problem. It currently looks like this. He started it? Oh, there it is. Wow. Keep going, buddy. You're almost there. So this is what it's supposed to look like. And this is it now. Yeah, it's pretty close. So this is obviously film studio number three. I could tell by the way it's shaped. The 2,000 acre metropolis based in Senegal would feature skyscrapers, a luxury resort, and recording studios backed up with the cryptocurrency called ACON. Okay, so it did. It was a crypto scheme. Was this all just an elaborate rug pull? He was like, everybody buy my cryptocurrency and then once you moved to the city, you can use it. And then, you know, now this isn't happening and ACON's not doing it anymore. I wonder what happened there. Stephen's lawyer alleged plans for ACON City were akin to a scam, noting that it shares many of the trademark characteristics fraudulent business ventures, such as Ponzi schemes and pyramid schemes. ACON. The whole thing was a scam? ACON, you knew how much the world could use a win like this. Faith and humanity destroyed. Okay, now moving on from musicians making cities, we have Welcome to Zuck Town, where everything is just zucky. In Menlo Park, California, Facebook is building a real community and testing the proposition, do people love tech companies so much? They will live inside them? Dude, I avoid going on Facebook at all costs. Give me one reason why I would want to live inside of a town controlled by them? So this is where all your racist uncles are gonna live now. They're all gonna move to Facebook Town. John Tanean, Facebook's vice president for real estate is showing off the company's plans for expansion. It will have offices for thousands of programmers to extend Facebook's fearsome reach. Did John Tanean say that? That's probably the journalist talking. That'd be so scary if Facebook is saying that in their internal meetings. So we're gonna use this city to expand our fearsome reach. We're worried that it's not fearsome and widespread enough. But that is not what Mr. Tanean's is excited about. He leans over a scale model of the 59 acre site, which is named Willow Village. There will be housing there, he points. There will be a retail street along here with a grocery store and a drug store. That round building in the corner? Maybe a cultural center? Maybe. This round building? You put this round building in the plan and you don't know what it's gonna be yet? You know what it's gonna be. Tell us what it's actually gonna be, please. And this very specifically designed building that we clearly put here for a reason with a road leading directly out of the city? Maybe in McDonald's? I don't know. How crazy would it be if Facebook's city looked exactly like Acon City? Like all the buildings are blobs and stuff? I'd be like, okay, maybe I'm just not getting the trends of today. I guess this is just what they're all doing. Everybody wants to live in blobs and domes now. In just a few years, Facebook built a virtual community that linked more than two billion people in achievement with few precedents. Now the social network is building a real community, the kind you can walk around. It is a project with many precedents in American history. Quite a few of them cautionary tales about what happens when a powerful corporation takes control of civic life. Yeah, that's the vibe I'm getting too. Do I want John Tenanes and his merry band of goons to be in control of my life? I don't even know this guy. Facebook's vice president for real estate? I didn't even know they had a vice president for real estate. Why do they need real estate? Stay online, Facebook, please. Stay not in the real world. Mr. Tenanes contemplates the audacity of building a city. It's a good thing, right? He says, do you not know? This is good, right? People want this. People want to live at Facebook. People want to work at Facebook and live at Facebook. They want their whole lives to be Facebook, right? And finally, of course, Elon Musk is getting into the mix too. Welcome to Snailbroke. First look at Elon Musk's Texas utopian town where SpaceX and boring employees will live and work. So this is for employees of Elon Musk's companies to live at. It's called Snailbroke, which is a great name for a town. And I guess these are pictures of it. There are small houses where staff from the companies will be able to live for $800 a month well below the soaring local market rates. Are the houses in this picture? Houses, houses. These, these are houses, okay. So you live here and you work over here, I assume? Maybe in there? Not the most quaint neighborhood I've ever seen. There's literally like rocket ship making equipment from with an eye shot of where you live. Yeah, I don't like this. This is weird. I think having a healthy dose of work life balance is a good thing. I don't necessarily know if living in a fenced in corporate neighborhood provided by your employer sounds very fun. There are certain jobs where that is like, you have to do that, I know. Like if you work on a cruise ship, you kind of have to live at the cruise ship. You can't swim to work every day from the mainland. Oh, look, a little play area. That's nice. So he lets them run around in there. That's cool. Snailbrook sits in the middle of green pastures on the outskirts of Austin, which has fast become one of the most desirable places to live in the U.S. To be clear, they're talking about Austin, not this place. This place is one of the least desirable places to live in the U.S. Musk, his girlfriend grimes Kanye West and the rappers architect held multiple discussions over the last year about the design of the town. Uh-oh. That's not good. Elon, don't listen to Kanye, whatever you do. Do not take his advice on how to build these houses. He's gonna ask you to build temporary domes and it's gonna sound like a cool idea at the time. It's not. He's watching. Surveillance cameras are dotted along the wired fence, adorned with fake leaves in the rural community. Oh yeah, that's awesome. That's great. I'd love to just have the safe feeling of knowing that my boss is watching me at all times. When he's watching over me, I know that I'm safe. All right, well, in conclusion, let's just leave the city building to city builders. You know, Kanye, I saw in your ad, you were looking for builders and planners and stuff. Let's just let them do all of it. You don't even need to hire them. They're gonna do it anyway. They love doing that stuff. So let's just leave it to them. I hope you guys enjoyed this video. Make sure you subscribe and I'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye.