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Silly Stelle, always prefers digging through trash over seeking her fate... 🗑️Trash Can Song, Honkai: Star Rail original – OUT NOW! ⭐️With ✨Elsie Lovelock✨ / Michael Kovach / Kathy-chan★ ▶️Watch Full Music Video: #HonkaiStarRail #HoYoFair #TideAndSeek
188,006 просмотров • 1 год назад •via X (Twitter)
Комментарии: 10
🎵 Listen on Spotify, Apple Music, or anywhere:
"Better Not" by @HerbShowTaina | Produced by @AyoMecca Listen to the full song on Spotify👉🏿
@ElsieLovelock @kovox Thanks again for having me as Firefly!! 🥺💚 This video came out amazing!
@ElsieLovelock @kovox You are so perfect as Firefly!! Honored to have you in the song ✨💛✨
@ElsieLovelock @kovox @KathychanYT 😏
@ElsieLovelock @kovox @KathychanYT 2025 is already off to an INCREDIBLE start!!
@ElsieLovelock @kovox @KathychanYT I love how they make a song out of everything, even a garbage can and it sounds great XD
@ElsieLovelock @kovox @KathychanYT She's so cute i love her
@ElsieLovelock @kovox @KathychanYT This is hilarious and so good and catchy
@ElsieLovelock @kovox @KathychanYT Can we get a Karaoke version? I keep trying to sing it for stream but I get tongue tied with the timing :(
![🎁Event With Rewards Version 3.4 Trailer — "For the Sun is Set to Die" | Honkai: Star Rail Watch Now: Let me tell a tale of a swarm of nymphs that chase the scorching dawn. The Paean of Era Nova... For they rose from the gate and reached the throne, for they walked through the petals in the land of repose, yet fell finally at dawn's rise... Special Note: Voice-over languages for the current collaboration characters are only available in Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. For more details, please refer to the official announcement. ※ Preview of Collab Character Voice-Over Switch Feature: In Version 3.5, without changing your audio language in Settings, Trailblazers can individually switch collaboration characters' interaction, idle and battle voice lines to the Fate[UBW] Original Audio (Japanese) via Character Details > Profile > Voice. Japanese Voice: Phainon — Hino Satoshi Lygus — Karato Syuntaro Aglaea — Endo Aya Cyrene — Inoue Marina Saber (Fate[UBW]) — Ayako Kawasumi Archer (Fate[UBW]) — Junichi Suwabe Old Oti — Kikuchi Michitake Boothill — Konishi Katsuyuki Robin — Nazuka Kaori Stelle — Ishikawa Yui Follow this account and repost/quote this post to participate in the event 20 lucky winners will be randomly selected to receive gift cards worth approximately 25 USD. Deadline: 2025/06/26 23:59 (UTC+8) Download the Game ▼ View Detailed Event Rules: #HonkaiStarRail](https://image.24vids.com/tw-1936031281218732459/amplify_video_thumb/1936016896693870592/img/OJQcTFrntUZPWuFr.jpg)
!["🎁Event With Rewards" Version 4.4 Trailer: "In Ravages Does the Whistle Sound" | Honkai: Star Rail Watch Now: The Navigator charts a course to the apocalypse. A mournful whistle howls, and only those of the Trailblaze can find a path to survival across the realm of death... ※ This video contains content in development. Please refer to the official launch version for final content. ※ Special Note: The in-game voice-over language for the collaboration character is only available in Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. You can switch to other voice-over languages in-game, or navigate to Character Details > Information > Voice to individually switch the collaboration character's interaction, combat, and idle voices to the Fate[UBW] original licensed voice-over (Japanese). English Voice: Asat Pramad — Joe Hernandez Sunday — Griffin Puatu Dan Heng — Nicholas Leung March 7th — Skyler Davenport Himeko/Motoko — Cia Court Starblazer — Nic Olsen Female Trailblazer — Chloe Eves Follow this account and share this post to participate in the event 20 lucky winners will be randomly selected to receive gift cards worth approximately 25 USD. Deadline: 2026/7/10 23:59 (UTC+8) Download the Game ▼ View Detailed Event Rules: #HonkaiStarRail #StarRail](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2073021439662342327/media/HMSvi50XQAA11qF.png)
!["We loved our daughter and we wanted to help her." ~Tim Gallaudet This is way too long but I hope you enjoy it. As far as Steven Greenstreet 🐷's posts about the Gallaudets, hauntings and psychics? First off, Tim Gallaudet's wife, "was also a Naval Academy graduate and a master’s recipient from Scripps, having earned her degree in 2001." Source: We know the resume of retired Rear Admiral and oceanographer, Tim Gallaudet, but what about his wife, Caren? She's a big part of this story, so any journalist covering it would want you to know a little something about her. But not Greenstreet, who is, as I said, not a journalist. He leaves out any detail that doesn't fit his debunker, mocking narrative. And he just blocked me. Good. Trash. More... “(My wife Caren) is an inspiration to me, first because she was a Navy diver, and you don’t need to say more. And second, she was a Navy diver as a female during a time when it was not easy. In the late 1980s/early 1990s there was a lot of sexual harassment in the Navy.” ~RDML Tim Gallaudet ~~~ This episode of "The Dead Files," S6E8 ("You Will Be Mine") aired May 20th, 2016. Caren: "People think I'm crazy but it's hard to do battle with an enemy you don't understand. There are things moving around the house. We're hearing voices. We've all had nightmares. We've seen full apparitions. Now things are getting physical." (I would liked to have heard more about full apparitions and exactly who saw them. Having multiple witnesses to alleged phenomena is important. And yes, people will think you're crazy but screw 'em. People have been experiencing this type of phenomena all over the world. At the time this was shot (2015 or 2016), their oldest of three daughters, Laurel, was 14, Aspen was 8, and the youngest, Cedar, was 6.) Caren: "My husband works for the Department of Defense and he travels a lot, so he's rarely here." (They bought the property in 2007 but the odd activity in the house didn't start until Cedar turned 3.) Caren: "Cedar has drawn pictures. This is the man with the brown arms. He lives in her room in her closet. This one she saw in my bathroom, it was a man covered with blood. And I have a book with over 40 drawings. She has become anxious and depressed." (Why didn't the family bring her to a psychiatrist or psychologist first before immediately seeking out a medium? What? They did? Why didn't hack Greenstreet tell us that? Because his goal is to make anybody connected to UFO disclosure look bad.) Caren: "We've seen psychiatrists, psychologists. They all say she's a normal little girl. But she says things that 5 and 6 year old children should not be saying. I love her with all my heart but, at times, I don't know who she is." How is Caren handling it? Caren: "Not very well. When I'm alone, I do a lot of crying. I feel isolated, I feel exhausted." (The kids fight and the older sisters blame Cedar for what's going on. That fighting may be related to the phenomena. Watch the video clip I included below for context. ~~~ Caren: "We're wiling to do whatever it takes. We're ready." (My take: It's obvious they were desperate for help in a situation where nobody else was offering up anything to fix the problem. So they turned to an alleged medium, Amy Allan, and former NYPD homicide investigator, Steve DiSchiavi, who were part of a TV show, "The Dead Files." I am NOT a fan of those types of shows and I would tell people to avoid them if they had a problem like what the Gallaudet's described. But I wasn't in their shoes so who knows what I might have done to get help for the people I love? Luckily, I've never had to deal with a situation like that.) Caren: "I was in the kitchen, and I opened the cupboard. And before doing anything, all the dishes and the bowls fell on top of me." (Sounds like poltergeist activity. And when I say poltergeist, I don't necessarily mean a ghost, spirit, etc. If you read Dr. Barry Taff's book, "Aliens Above, Ghosts Below," he talks about something called Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis, or RSPK. The term was coined by parapsychologist, the late Dr. William Roll. The theory is that the paranormal activity taking place is originating from one of the people in the house. Usually, a young, adolescent boy or girl. "After receiving a report of poltergeist-like activities, two investigators from the Rhine visited a site and observed disturbances that were classified as Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis or RSPK. RSPK is the modern interpretation of what was previously called poltergeist activity. It occurs when an individual – in this case an adolescent boy – is present in every case where a poltergeist-like effect is observed. The activity is interpreted as the result of unconscious psychokinesis activities coming from the individual who is called the PK-Agent." Source: ~ Here's a transcription of the video clip I included below: Parapsychologist Dr. Barry Taff: "The original belief, regarding poltergeist, was that they were, basically, mischievous, prank-playing ghosts. That's what the German word means. The modern theorist in parapsychology consider a quite different type of belief system is operating here, or phenomena is operating. They believe that there are young children present, pubescent, adolescent children, and the research tends to support this belief. These young children are present with a lot of emotional animosities, belligerence, a lot of very intense interactions. And this emotional interaction will produce an emission of unconscious energy from these children, which will affect matter, objects around them. Make them move, affect electrical appliances, make them turn on and off. Make things speed up and slow down, affect televisions, affect radios. Dishes may explode, furniture may move across the room, cameras may go off by themselves, light bulbs may explode suddenly." ~ "A person-focused poltergeist tends to (but not always) involve a female adolescent who is suffering from emotional turmoil when the activity begins. That said however, not all so called 'focal agents' are teenagers. Indeed, William G. Roll, a pioneer in poltergeist research, found the age of people reporting experiences of poltergeist activity ranged from eight to 78 years." Source: ~~~ (That may explain what went on in the Gallaudet home but it's still not accepted by mainstream science as a valid theory. Unfortunately, Allan (the alleged medium) didn't offer up any alternative explanations for the paranormal activity in the home and focused solely on the alleged spirts of dead people as the answer. She thought Cedar was a physical medium who could cause that type of activity to occur, but again, 100% related it to the spirits of dead people, without offering any other explanation. IMO, it's possible one of the girls (or Caren) is a PK-Agent and this had nothing to do with spirits. Then again, maybe it IS connected to non-physical entities? Spirits of the dead? Keel's ultraterrestrials, who he believed impersonated the dead? A mix? Something different? Impossible to prove, either way. So, I don't know. But I DO believe SOMETHING anomalous was going on. If you want an example of how an alleged haunting, ghost or poltergeist case should be investigated, watch this. The clip I attached at the end is from this video. If these folks were still doing investigations, I'd refer anybody who was dealing with this type of situation to them.) "We don't consider our pictures proof of anything, we consider them part of the struggle to gather evidence to try to understand this phenomena." ~Kerry Gaynor Watch it... 👆🏼👆🏼👆🏼 ~~~ Caren: Also, "my daughter, Laurel, and I were right here having a conversation. And all of a sudden she screamed. She said, 'Someone just touched me on my back.' And there was no one else in the room." The bedroom... Caren: "I was woken by a noise. Immediately, I looked to the door and saw a giant, black shadow coming at me from the door. It came over the bed and came straight over top of me. I was scared to death. I've never been that scared in my life." (This is very similar to what happened to people who visited Skinwalker Ranch (and other locations) and reported taking "something" home with them. Also known as the hitchhiker effect. ) Caren: "I was asleep and I felt a hand grab my hair and yank me up. It was a very aggressive pull. I screamed, and I did not go back to sleep after that. There was no one around. Tim wasn't here. It was not a nightmare. I don't sleep most nights, but I'm glad that I had the experience because I understand what Cedar's going through. If I saw that every night, I think I'd act like her, too." Caren's mother, Jan: "Something's going on with Cedar. She's changed dramatically in the last year, year and a half. To do this to my grandchildren makes me angry. My husband and I were babysitting here and we heard Cedar cry out, yelling and screaming, 'Stop it, stop it. Leave me alone!' So I rubbed her back and she went back into her sleep. And then I heard a low voice (that sounded male) say, 'It's gonna be alright. It's alright.'" (From the investigation, Jan wants, "peace among the girls. They don't tend to get along. It's more than just sibling rivalry. It's something else." She thinks the girls are in physical danger. As Taff noted, intense interactions among people in the house could be the cause of all of this. Why did it take a few years for the activity in the house to start? Did anything change in the family dynamic? Cedar is interviewed and she tells the investigator what she's experienced, which includes a scary dream with blood on the floor and dead people. She says she sees the man with brown arms and brown skin who yells at her, "Get out of here, this is not your room. This is my room." Later on, the medium says that this man was there to protect Cedar. Based on what he allegedly said, that makes zero sense. I'm not a fan of this medium (Allan), to put it mildly. Aspen, eight years old, says she sees a shadow man in her room who sits near her dresser. She also saw a little girl who was wet. "I felt a thumb press on my neck really hard." During the nighttime walkthrough of the house, the medium says that one of the spirits looks wet. Is this confirmation or was the medium fed information about what the children experienced? Impossible to know as it's an edited TV show.) Caren says Cedar has seen over a hundred spirits. "It's every night." Medium Allan says this one spirit is tormenting the kids because she's jealous of them and wants Caren to be her mother.) Amy Allan: "The only way (this spirit) could be with you is if you were to kill yourself, then you guys would spend entirety together, and you would forever be her mother, alone." (I'm sorry but without any evidence to back that up, it's an irresponsible thing to say and, IMO, a bunch of sensational bs.) You can watch the entire episode if you log in with your cable subscription. Or watch it at Greensteet's post... ~~~ Tim Gallaudet was on with “Jay Anderson” a few years ago and spoke about the phenomenon and what his family has experienced. Tim Gallaudet (TG): "You see a sort of grouping of UAP and paranormal and how does it intersect. And the answer is: I don't know." TG: "We were all grown up in traditional, kind of, religion. But at some point in our lives, my youngest daughter had real serious behavior issues. And to sum it all up, she is like many of these mediums that you see. She could see spirits, she saw them all the time. A lot of listeners might just think this is just a joke or made up." (I definitely don't think it's a joke, but if she still has these abilities when she gets older, try to take her to get tested at Windbridge Research. Some people (who call themselves mediums) claim they can acquire information via something other than their five senses and have shown the ability to do so under controlled conditions. Are they speaking to the dead or is it something else? I don't know. And FYI, a medium claims they can speak to the dead and also provides alleged psychic readings to people about their lives and sometimes the future. Nine times out of ten, a psychic does not claim to speak with the dead.) TG: "There are people that have this ability to tap into whatever we wanna call it. The Other Side, where people go when they die, whatever that is. The energy that people leave behind. There's a lot of ways to explain it. It was real and...real to us." (They're allegedly able to see the spirits of the dead and can acquire information they have no way of knowing via their five senses. To me, the part about them acquiring information they have no way of knowing through means other than their five senses has been proven. Maybe there's some storehouse of information that they're accessing, like an Akashic Records type of thing? Or, maybe they're really communicating with the dead or some other entities? Again, I don't know where the information is coming from. As TG said, there are lots of ways to explain it.) TG: "She had real experiences, it was affecting her. And through a lot of therapy, we were able to basically have her - now she's thirteen - she became adjusted and has kind of dealt with that. She's sort of suppressed it, actually, which is okay. I mean, she's only thirteen. We can take a pause and help her develop as a person and human before coming to groups with that incredible ability." (TG and his wife did everything they could to help their daughter. When traditional methods failed, they sought help in other ways. Why anybody would have a problem with that is beyond me.) TG: "My wife and I, through this experience, to just be able to help her, we came to meet several mediums who are incredibly gifted." One of them was the Long Island medium, Theresa Caputo. (I like to see Caputo tested in a lab. If you'd like to see what that looks like, watch this HBO documentary on Life After Death and mediums. You'll have to search for the other parts. Part 1 of Life Afterlife ) ~~~ TG said he and his wife had a camera in Cedar's room when this activity was taking place and, "there was orbs flying all around this video. It was so active." (I'd like to see this video and see if those were orbs or particles of dust.) TG: "We loved our daughter and we wanted to help her. And so, through just meeting people, doing a lot of reading about people, these experiences, it became real to us and it opened our minds. I don't have all the answers but I know what we experienced, I know what she saw. We contacted [the show] because we thought she could help her and she ultimately did help my daughter." (That's really all that matters! TG says he has some family history with this type of thing but doesn't have any details as people were less willing to talk about it back then.) TG "She was not the Devil, she was seeing real things (laughs), and that's it. We were not gonna brand her or blame her. And I ultimately know, it was that love that we shared - my wife and I - for her, that opened our minds and create the right outcome. For being well-adjusted, having that in our history, and not being afraid of it or ashamed of it. And being aware and open now to a lot of other things that happen in life and maybe seeing their meaning." (Well said. After learning about this, my respect for Tim and his family has only increased.) ~~~ Last and definitely least...Greenstreet's comments. SG: "In an interview with TheProjectUnity, former Navy Admiral Tim Gallaudet claims his young daughter is a 'medium' who sees spirits and can communicate with them." (He said that but also added this...) TG: "There are people that have this ability to tap into whatever we wanna call it. The Other Side, where people go when they die, whatever that is. The energy that people leave behind. There's a lot of ways to explain it." SG: "Gallaudet's wife claims their house is haunted by violent poltergeists." (His wife explained what the family was experiencing. I don't recall anyone involved mentioning poltergeists or that the house was haunted. This are buzzwords SG uses to disparage people. Just like his "monsters" garbage. ) SG: "Their youngest daughter, 6, thinks ghost monsters are hiding in her room and both the TV show stars and her parents validate her fantasies as real." (His wife and daughters were having experiences they couldn't explain. They took the youngest to a psychiatrist and psychologist and they couldn't help. So they sought out the show. You left out the part about them seeking professional help first. Why? Because you're a piece of trash who will do anything to disparage anybody involved in this. I think YOU should seek help.) SG: "Gallaudet says he's taken his young daughter to multiple psychics to try to 'help her.'" (Nope. Mediums. For a so-called journalist, you should know the difference. And again, this was AFTER they sought out traditional help.) SG: "It should be noted that Gallaudet is "close friends" with Jay Stratton, another retired Navy official who claims his house was/is also haunted by violent poltergeists who attacked his children." (Talk to Stratton and you'll see he doesn't define what happened to his family. Oh, that's right, he won't talk to you because you're an azzhole. And it makes sense that those two would bond since their families experienced similar things. I hope Tim shares more details about what's currently going on with his family and what he experienced himself.)](https://image.24vids.com/tw-1797112304313717240/ext_tw_video_thumb/1796974769256165377/pu/img/oZCZv2Y6XPpcVPwJ.jpg)
![[KimSungSooTV] Misunderstandings and Truths About K-pop Demon Hunters!! What Should We Invest In Under the Changing Environment? Kim Sung-soo (current affairs and culture critic) and Kim Heon-sik (popular culture critic.) Praising K-DNA is just nationalistic hype (국뽕)? – An important case study analyzing the current state of industries related to K-DNA. Kim Heon-sik: No, that’s not it. Yes, so let me explain why the concept of “nationalistic pop” (국봉) came about. It was during the military regime that this idea was artificially pushed—basically to promote their own authority and propaganda. For example, under Park Chung-hee’s rule, there were forced attempts to instill pride in Korea through cultural support. But the truth is, there were also misunderstandings about Hallyu (the Korean Wave). For instance, I know someone who mistakenly presented this idea together with American scholars, and those papers are still circulating today. They argue that Hallyu was created by government support. And this keeps spreading overseas. So, people who study these things in an elite, academic context think they’re playing a decisive role—but the reality is, K-pop and K-content came about naturally as part of the market, in the private sector. To put it simply: it was made by fans. Fans created it. Fans are the most important part. As long as fans remain at the center, artists can keep creating content that fits the global environment. I’ve been asked the same question for 25 years: “How long will Hallyu last?” My answer is always that it’s not something forced or controlled from the top. It’s a cultural product born out of cultural democracy, with fans at the center. That’s why it has naturally earned respect. So to call it 국봉 (nationalistic pop)? That’s just not right. Then by that logic, is Britpop “nationalistic pop”? Honestly, what frustrates me is that people keep asking me questions like that… Kim Sung-soo: There were people who kept throwing questions at me and leaving nasty comments like that. Since I’ve been consistently defending NewJeans on broadcasts, they’d say things like, “Well, once NewJeans fades from memory, that’s it. That’s how pop culture works. Once they’re out of sight, they’re gone.” And they were saying that right in front of a cultural critic. Unbelievable. But look at reality now. Has NewJeans disappeared? No. The thirst for them has only grown stronger. Can a single capitalist suppress the massive yearning of so many fans? They can’t. It’s impossible. People still love The Beatles even now. Kim Heon-sik: Of course—that’s cultural DNA carrying on. Kim Sung-soo: If those people were right, The Beatles should have been forgotten long ago. Kim Heon-sik: But that’s just talking about the physical body. Cultural and artistic DNA endures, and NewJeans’ DNA is no different. Kim Sung-soo: NewJeans is a group that has completely changed the paradigm of Korean girl groups. If there are cultural critics who refuse to acknowledge that, you can just ignore them. Because before NewJeans, K-pop’s peak was defined by groups like KDH (K-pop Demon Hunters) and BLACKPINK, and even aespa can be counted at that summit. Idols used to be constructed as characters, tied to a fixed worldview and narrative, constantly producing music to match those characters. But NewJeans isn’t like that. They don’t come with a pre-packaged storyline. Instead, they build their stories out of everyday life. They’re lively, witty, talented teenagers you could easily find around you. So how can they be idols? Because in a prosumer society, if people around them think, “They’re cool,” society elevates them into idols. And that’s why those kinds of idols actually last longer—they were created by us, they resemble us, and they share our era. That’s why we can stay connected to them for longer. If idols are constructed as aliens or supernatural beings, eventually that feels unnatural. Kim Heon-sik: Ah, that connects back to what we could call the original SM model of K-pop. Idols who looked almost inhuman, like beings from the East, like gods, or like aespa—giving the feeling of aliens, even physically. That model still has its place, but it no longer dominates. New generations—especially Gen Alpha and Gen Z—align much more closely with the NewJeans paradigm. Now, if we connect this to the whole nationalistic hype (국뽕) debate: the funny thing is that there are actually more people overseas than in Korea who show respect (respec) for this culture. If it were just “nationalistic hype,” why would foreigners, who have no stake in Korean nationalism, be showing it? That would be contradictory, right? Kim Sung-soo: So, to put it simply, KDH (K-pop Demon Hunters) is an incredibly important case. It re-illuminates the cultural value we’re enjoying right now and proves just how many industries are possible under “K-DNA.” At the core of this, again, are the consumers — the fans. For example, from what I know, KDH was practically the only Netflix title that hit it big with almost no marketing. Kim Heon-sik: I’ll be honest: when they first announced it back in 2021 as a theatrical anime called K-pop Demon Hunters, and then no news followed, I thought it would be a flop. They barely promoted it, so I figured it wasn’t worth watching. But then, when it suddenly dropped in June, my phone was blowing up with messages, and I thought, “Fine, I’ll check it out.” And after watching — wow. It was a revolution. It was so well-made, completely unexpected. After that, a lot of things happened. Kim Sung-soo: In my case, I really felt how cut off from reality I’d become because of being blacklisted. Journalists only ever called me to talk about Korean dramas, never about K-pop or popular culture. It’s like the mainstream had erased my name. Nobody reached out to me about KDH (K-pop Demon Hunters). Then one day, my son just came out for dinner, turned on the TV, and started watching it. I knew the series had been released, but honestly, I thought, “That’s going to be a flop.” Still, since my son was watching, I sat with him. Eventually, he went back to his room to play games, but I stayed behind and watched until the end — then I even rewatched it by myself. I got choked up. That’s the kind of emotional impact it had. Kim Heon-sik: Even among my friends, I hear the same thing. Their kids enjoyed it so much, but when they themselves watched, they found it deeply moving too. That doesn’t mean the show itself is childish — it’s just that if you’re not usually paying attention, you won’t catch its layers. There’s a certain depth to it. Once you understand the broader context, it really clicks. Kim Sung-soo: K-pop, in fact, is a unique global genre. Yes, it was initially planned by producers, but it quickly grew beyond their control — maybe the first genre ever to do so. Kim Heon-sik: Today, it’s almost a living organism, self-sustaining. That’s why it’s dangerous to analyze it only from a producer’s perspective. When people say, “K-pop has problems,” yes, but the real issue lies with the capitalists — the management — not the artists or the content. That’s why now, more than ever, it’s important to support groups like NewJeans and works like KDH — they represent the healthier, fan-centered side of the culture. And KDH has something that speaks to all ages. Take Golden, sung by Huntrix — it reflects modern psychology precisely. Look at BTS’s message of “Love Yourself.” That’s not just a slogan; it’s rooted in psychology. Since the Renaissance, humans have emphasized the importance of selfhood. If you can’t love yourself, you can’t love others. If you love yourself, then you can love others, and from there you can love community, society, even humanity. Golden carries that exact same message. That’s why people who feel powerless or invisible in real life find healing through this work. Content like this isn’t just entertainment; it’s therapeutic. That’s why I don’t want people to see K-pop simply as “ours” or as nationalistic pride. At its core, cultural content is about healing, and that’s the perspective we need to adopt. Kim Sung-soo: For example — yes, spoiler here — Jinu could sacrifice himself in place of Rumi because he had already answered her question. Someone who doesn’t love themselves cannot sacrifice for another. Only someone who has achieved self-love can give themselves up. That’s why that scene hits so hard, especially for Western audiences. Sacrifice alone doesn’t move people; sacrifice rooted in self-understanding and love does. I even cried when Bada covered Golden ( At the end of her cover video, she says, “The person who wrote this really knows what despair is.” That’s why she cried too. And it’s the same for so many artists — S.E.S, Fin.K.L, and others — who endured hardships and pain yet remained. We shouldn’t objectify them just because they’re celebrities. Instead, we should recognize how the culture we share operates and heals us through those mechanisms. Kim Heon-sik: If I were to sum up K-pop’s worldview and identity: it’s centered on youth. It reflects their struggles and anxieties. Everyone was young once, and those feelings never completely disappear. Growth is key — growth through pain, through shortcomings, through personal and social struggles. Overcoming them and offering hope — that’s what K-pop tries to do. It doesn’t pretend the world is perfect; it says, “We can endure, and we can move forward together.” That’s why values like “we” and “togetherness” are always emphasized. So when music and content are created with that worldview — youth, growth, struggle, shared hope — that’s what makes it K-content, K-pop. It transcends nationality or ownership. It’s about establishing the identity of our content for what it is. Kim Sung-soo: Honestly, I hope these perspectives even reach our president. Kim Heon-sik: I was surprised when President Lee Jae-myung, unlike President Yoon’s administration which rushed to meet Netflix executives, instead chose to meet artists. The result of the meeting isn’t what matters — the signal it sends is. That’s the kind of precedent I hope continues. Kim Sung-soo: Our president must invest in people. Investments elsewhere are meaningless if not centered on people. Yet right now, there’s so little support for artists. So I’ll end with this: KDH is not “국뽕” (cheap nationalism). KDH is the culture itself — the culture we’re living and enjoying today. 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!["What NewJeans Wanted to Say" [Full transcript translated to English] 🐹: Some of you might be surprised by this sudden meeting, but we wanted to share our thoughts and opinions about the recent events, so we prepared this session. First, I want to explain one of the reasons we decided to do this live. It's been hard to see many people who have worked with us continue to suffer from unfair demands and pressure even after our CEO was dismissed. It was frustrating to just stand by and watch these situations unfold, and we were very worried about our future as a group of five. Honestly, while preparing for this live, we were naturally concerned about the reactions we might receive afterward. We were also worried that people might mistakenly think that our CEO instructed us to do this, but I want to clarify that this live was prepared because we five members genuinely wanted to express our thoughts. We received help from directors we trust for things we couldn't prepare ourselves, like setting up the shoot and finding a location. It didn’t feel right for us to stay silent when everyone, including our Bunnies, has been stepping up to support us. Moreover, this is not just a matter of leaving it to the adults because it directly affects the lives of us five members. Since we're the ones going through this, we felt that it would be healthier to speak up ourselves than to do nothing, so we mustered the courage to do so. The main point of what we want to say today is directed towards HYBE. We've already had meetings with the current management to express our opinions, but after seeing what happened afterward, it feels like our concerns weren't clearly conveyed. It seemed like communication was blocked, so we felt that preparing this live was the only way to properly share our thoughts and feelings. 🐻: I’m sure that today’s announcement has shocked many of the staff as well, as they were not aware of it, and I imagine everyone watching is quite surprised too. We’ve thought a lot about where to begin, but since the purpose is to express our intentions, we’ll try to explain as clearly as possible. Of course, due to contractual issues, we can’t share everything, but we’ll be as honest as we can. After it was decided that we would debut as NewJeans, our members spent a lot of time getting to know Min Heejin Daepyonim, both as a group and individually. At first, I had reservations and a certain fear towards the adults we were working with, but Daepyonim was the first person to approach us in a way that allowed us to open up, which was initially awkward but eventually built trust. From before our debut until now, we’ve been aware of various issues related to our debut schedule and other matters. However, working with Daepyonim made us feel good, and I believe that’s why we were able to debut successfully and continue our activities until now. This has been today’s news story. 🐶: Naturally, we all want to continue working with Daepyonim. Even before debuting as NewJeans and through all of the time that we spent together with Min Heejin Daepyonim, all of us felt that the music we wanted to make and the kind of world we wanted to build together, our vision, was similar in so many ways. With Min Heejin Daepyonim, we were able to prepare each and every task with sincere hearts, and I believe it shows in our work. Putting our sincere effort into something is only possible because of the people that we're working with have trust in each other and have that same vision. Min Heejin Daepyonim is not only the person that produces our music, but someone who makes NewJeans who we are. She discusses even the smallest details with us and explains them in ways that we can understand clearly. NewJeans has a distinct colour and tone, and this was created with Min Heejin Daepyonim. She is integral to NewJeans’ identity, and we all feel that she is irreplaceable. 🐱: However, even after our debut, there have been many unfair and incomprehensible incidents that you might not know about, and these incidents have only increased over time. As some of you may know, recently, videos from our trainee days and private records, such as medical information, were leaked. When I first saw that, I was really shocked. It was hard to understand how our company, which is supposed to protect us, failed to manage and allowed such information to be leaked. Naturally, this situation has made us worry that other strange or false information about us might spread in the future. Although we, along with our parents and Min Heejin Daepyonim, have raised concerns about this to HYBE, they haven’t resolved the issue, nor have they taken any proactive measures. Then, in the midst of all this, our CEO was dismissed, and we’re left wondering whom we can trust and rely on. We’ve come to the conclusion that if we don’t speak out about this now, no one will know what we’re going through. After much discussion among ourselves, we finally decided to take this step. 🐰: Something happened to me recently. The 4th floor of the HYBE building is where we get our hair and makeup done, so a lot of other artists and staff come and go there. One day, I was waiting alone in the hallway, and some staff from another team passed by. We greeted each other, but when they came back out a bit later, I heard one of their managers say, “Ignore her,” right in front of me. I could hear and see everything clearly. Even now, I still don’t understand why I had to go through that. 🐻: When I heard about what Hanni experienced, I was really shocked. How could a manager from another team tell their members to ignore one of us, and say it so loudly that Hanni could hear it? Such unimaginable words and behavior were directed at us, yet there was no apology, nor did they even acknowledge their wrongdoing. Of course, I’m worried about our future, but what’s most frightening is that the work we’ve already created is being compromised. Seeing the people who have poured their lives into creating our work being treated this way makes it hard to understand how this could be happening. The new management said they would separate producing and management, but we’ve always worked differently from other labels, and we thought that our way was a good one. Now, Daepyonim can no longer approve all matters, and we’re left wondering how we’re supposed to continue working as we did before. The recent statement from the new management also didn’t make sense to me. If they really didn’t intend to interfere with our producing, then the recent incident with Director Shin Woo-seok should never have happened, and it should have been handled differently. We are the ones directly involved with the copyrights and likeness rights of our content, yet they’re making decisions without our consent. In their statement, they kept saying they were acting to protect us and prevent our anxiety, but why do they keep insisting on this when they haven’t considered our wishes? We don’t want any more unnecessary issues to arise, and we want them to show respect and consideration for Daepyonim and all the directors who have worked with us. The things they’re doing right now are not in our best interest at all. 🐰: Something we all find very important, something that plays a very important role in our team's colour and image is our media content and creative production. Despite saying that they would leave all the creative production to our now former CEO, Min Heejin, through official statements that I think a lot of you might have already read or seen, and also during our personal meetings, they infringed our content. Content that not only we worked really hard on, but also our staff who spent endless hours to produce and release them solely for our fans. And if they had any understanding about what type of team we are, and the type of content that we create, they would have thought more deeply for crossing the line that they set for themselves. Because of this incident, we realized that there's not much we can do to prevent these type of issues. Personally, the way that ADOR used to run was the business management and creative production was not separated and was factors that played and worked in harmony with each other. That's how it worked and it was perfectly fine. It was our way of working and it was our CEO's way of producing NewJeans' content, which a lot of you were able to enjoy and appreciate. But now that she's no longer CEO, these factors that should have continued to work together in harmony are now being seen as two different areas of work. 🐻: Besides this, there are many other incidents we’ve experienced that are beyond my understanding—things that are frightening and uncomfortable. These incidents naturally make us question whether HYBE really cares about NewJeans, and there are clear signs of this. However, it’s hard to discuss everything today because we’re not sure how far things could escalate. We just hope you can understand a little of what’s been on our minds and why we chose to speak out in this way. 🐶: As I mentioned earlier, our dream was to perform the music we want to make with Daepyonim, and we were working very hard toward that goal. But now, we can’t do that, and the plans we’ve made might not come to fruition. As Hanni unnie said earlier, just like that, the content that we released solely for our fans, for our bunnies, was instantly erased. And I truly can't understand why anyone would do this to a group, or just anyone in general. We were just working hard for the present, so what did we do wrong? A week after Daepyonim was dismissed, we found out that we could no longer work with the director we’ve been working with all this time, and we’re extremely anxious because we don’t know what will happen to the staff who have always worked hard for us. If they really care about us, they should stop saying that they prioritize the artists and instead let us do the music we love in an environment where we can be genuinely happy. Is that really so hard to do? It’s hard to fully express what’s in my heart, but in the end, the five of us just want to continue our activities with Min Heejin Daepyonim, as we have done so far. 🐱: Personally, I want to continue working with the people around us who have helped me grow mentally and made me feel alive. However, I can't understand, nor do I think I should have to understand, why external forces are constantly obstructing and hindering us. I absolutely cannot comprehend what is truly in our best interest or what is supposed to help us grow. And I feel so sorry and heartbroken that our Bunnies, who found comfort in us and shared joyful memories with us, have to go through this ordeal and worry about things they shouldn't have to. We almost lost the work that symbolizes the relationship between NewJeans and Bunnies, and we don't want to lose anything else. I refuse to conform to or follow the values of the society those people belong to, and because I believe that direction is not the right one, I will not choose to go that way. 🐹: We found out about the CEO's dismissal through the news on the very day it happened. It was so sudden and unimaginable for all of us, and honestly, it was really difficult for us to process. As artists under HYBE, the company's unilateral notification made it clear to us that they don't respect us at all. In the midst of this confusion, we heard through our manager that the new CEO wanted to meet with us. From the very first action taken by the newly appointed Juyoung, it was clear that there was no consideration for us. He claimed to care for us, to prioritize NewJeans, but looking at everything that has happened, it's evident that his words were just that—empty words. HYBE’s actions, like publishing articles that painted us in a bad light just a week before our comeback, make us question how any of this is supposed to be in our best interest. 🐻: It's already been half a year of unnecessary and exhausting discussions about us and NewJeans, and even as a third party, it must be tiring. As the ones directly involved, it’s incredibly uncomfortable for us. We still have music we want to make and goals we want to achieve together, but as things stand now, it’s heartbreaking to think that we might lose not only the work we’ve created so far but also the identity of our team. That’s what makes us feel so helpless. We held this live stream to express our feelings because we sincerely want this tiresome conflict to end. 🐰: Like how we have our own and individual thoughts and feelings, we have the choice to choose how we will react to each situation, and we are not going to follow Hybe's every order blindly. We are more than well aware that this is getting in the way of our work, and that we should be treated much, much better than how we are right now. And it's very hard to believe that they are truly sincere about wanting to help us continue, to be able to continue to work with our Daepyonim, Min Heejin Daepyonim. Despite her being in the midst of all this current legal conflict, she's expected to plan and creatively produce our future endeavours in just only two months, which I personally think makes no sense at all. We don't want to hear all the empty words of how they're going to help us continue to work with Min Heejin, Daepyonim. And all we want is this legal conflict to be resolved and have our working environment returned back to normal the way it was before. 🐹: The way HYBE is operating right now feels dishonest and wrong to us. Please, stop interfering. Reinstating our CEO and returning us to the original ADOR environment we had before, with familiar people, not strangers, would make things right. We’re not asking for special treatment; we just want everyone to do their jobs well in their respective places. We’ll do our best in our roles too. We sincerely hope our request is heard. 🐶: From a human perspective, I hope you stop harassing our CEO, Min Hee Jin. Honestly, she seems so pitiful, and HYBE just comes across as an inhumane company. What can we possibly learn from a company like this? So, I really hope you stop bothering our CEO. 🐻: What we want is the original ADOR, where CEO Min Hee Jin leads both management and production. The reason we're making this request is because it's a way to coexist peacefully without conflict with HYBE. If our message has been conveyed properly, we hope Chairman Bang and HYBE make a wise decision to restore ADOR to its original state by the 25th. Thank you for listening to us. #하이브어도어_뉴진스지우기_작작해 #HYBE_STOP_SABOTAGING_NEWJEANS #HYBEによるNewJeansへの妨害に抗議します #NEWJEANS_NEVER_DIE](https://image.24vids.com/tw-1833845252211474737/amplify_video_thumb/1833843519804592128/img/CtgDOp_doKrnNvSv.jpg)
!["I have graphs, I've looked at the Google Analytics, the data does not lie. Every single time, starting in April 2024, that Jen McCabe would become the subject of public attention --It happens at specific discrete moments on the timeline-- you see a bump in the attention paid to Lindsey Gaetani." "And there's no doubt in my mind that Brian Tully's MSP unit --when they had Michael Morrissey make that video, when McCabe's friends or family or whatever, when they all got him to make that video, and that didn't work, and when Morrissey had to recuse, when things got so bad that they had no other out, and the TurtleRiders would not pay attention to anyone but those Karen Read and John O'Keefe witnesses-- Tully, Kate Peter and their people said, "all right, we're left with no other option. Lindsey Gaetani looks like a good distraction. Let's release her phone." And then that cycle repeated over and over and over and over again. And Lindsey's not the only one who's been subject to this. You wanna talk about what's going on to Estey? Even what's going on with Deanna? With Meredith?" TRANSCRIPT: And people wonder why I get so passionate about this. This is nothing I haven't talked about before, but you are not gonna tell me, me, of all people --I'm not gonna speak for Lindsey-- but you are not gonna tell me that the release of Lindsey Gaetani's cell phone extraction did not have serious, serious ramifications. Like, I can't even conceptualize what the impact was on Lindsey and her family's life. I don't think my life was ever the same again after April of 2024. As traumatized as I was from that December 2023 court hearing, what happened in April of 2024 was the worst thing that I have ever seen happen to any human being in my entire life. [Speaking to chat] Oh, hi Lindsey, how are you? I've just never seen anything that horrific, the leak of that cell phone extraction, the impact that it had, the fact that no one even understood how severe it was because people were so distracted by the polemics of it. People were so "excited" to be able to smear Lindsey and the distraction was so powerful that no one asked, one, why did this happen? Or two, what was the impact? And that's what really got me so passionate and furious about this. It wasn't an issue of substantive guilt or innocence about anyone. It was that I was seeing the same exact stuff happen in this situation to people without political connections that I saw happen to the staff of the CCC when really powerful men started getting very, very, very close to each other in positions of power and then when they would do bad things to women, they would just talk to each other. One guy would run the HR department, the other guy would run the executive director position, and somebody else would have a connection to the appointing authority. And so any complaint would just be what's called "caught and killed." And I said, there is no way that this is gonna happen again. When it was happening in the CCC, it was an administrative regulatory agency. At least there was some sort of semblance of check and balance. It wasn't egregious because everyone had a lot of influence, even the people who were staffers. This situation, we had state police officers, people who, if you were listening to the just the narrative of the people who were supporting the Justice for John O'Keefe movement, you would think that Michael Proctor's infallible. You would think Brian Tully's infallible. You would think Kate Peter's infallible, which means incapable of fault. That's nonsense. I'm telling you right now, that's nonsense, and that's why it was so easy for this stuff to manifest. And that's why I became so personally concerned. Forget about what developed from April to April of 2024 until now. That's why I was so upset because I watched what happened from December of 2023 through to April of 2024. And that enough was so egregious, so wrong, such an abuse of trust, such an abuse of the justice system that I said, there is no way that I can just stand by and be apathetic about this, no matter what the price, no matter what the obstacles, no matter what the pressures. And I can't tell you how bad it was --it tore families apart, these cases-- if you didn't live through it. It tore communities apart. I don't believe anyone in Massachusetts around this area, 128 or Dedham or whatever, was able to live a life that was not impacted in some way by this case. Okay, these cases, the TurtleBoy case, Karen Read case, et cetera, et cetera. It frustrates me to no end that somehow within that high-profile situation, there were people who started to control the narrative because they had things to hide. And that's why I started this space, because I truly believe that the real secrets lying beneath what was really going on with Michael Proctor and Brian Tully and Kate Peter and the PI, Marty Kraft and Jen McCabe and Yuri Bukhenik and John Fanning and Nick Guarino. What I really believe was going on was that they were worried that the attention brought onto that unit by the John O'Keefe and Karen Read case was gonna spill their secrets about Birchmore. And it led them to double down and commit even more egregious acts in the context of some of this other behavior, like leaking Lindsey Gaetani's cell phone extraction. And that's, again, you wanna talk about the timeline from April 2024 until now, we can do that too. But what I'll tell you is the story ends up being the same. I have graphs, I've looked at the Google Analytics, the data does not lie. Every single time starting in April 2024, that Jen McCabe would become the subject of public attention. It happens at specific, specific discrete moments on the timeline. You see a bump in the attention paid to Lindsey. And there's no doubt in my mind that this unit, when they had Michael Morrissey make that video, when McCabe's friends or family or whatever, when they all got him to make that video, and that didn't work. When Morrissey had to recuse, when things got so bad that they had no other out and the TurtleRiders would not pay attention to anyone but those Karen Read and John O'Keefe witnesses, Tully and his people said, "all right, we're left with no other option. Lindsey Gaetani looks like a good distraction. Let's release her phone." And then that cycle repeated over and over and over and over again. And Lindsey's not the only one who's been subject to this. You wanna talk about what's going on to Estey? Even what's going on with Deanna? With Meredith? What's going on with a lot of these people, right? There were PIs and moles in the internet saying that Lindsey was that and separating that. There were PIs, moles and various people in the end, just sort of people who were trying to either support Karen or support a movement that they could believe in or whatever it was, who got exploited, who got ran by various people for intel purposes to feed information back to their various handlers. And when they became expendable, they got burned. You watch, look at these emails sent to all these people's schools, the mass emails. That can't be a coincidence. Whoever it benefits can't be a coincidence, all right? It's a coordinated tactic. It's designed to put public attention on very specific people when otherwise damaging information gets released. And what have we seen over the past, let's say from April 2024 until now, what have we seen? That over and over and over again, all right? Every time something would happen, there'd be a new distraction. And then as we got through the end of the Karen Read and John O'Keefe case, what did we see? Yes, there were some real, real secrets lying beneath in terms of this case. And I mean it, I mean it with every bone and fiber in my towel body. There were secrets about the Birchmore case. There were secrets about that phone extraction. There were secrets about the inside baseball and the communications between Tully and Kate and Tully and Jen McCabe and Michael Morrissey and Kate and Michael Morrissey and Jen McCabe. And as it all started to come out and as it crescendoed folks over the past few months to the point where Michael Proctor's own attorney was basically making misrepresentations to the court about the existence of 12 years of cell phone records. When he had Kate Peter deleting evidence from Google Drives that were submitted as formal records to grand juries in the Kearney proceedings. When you have a special prosecutor statute that is so broken, it allows a DA rather than complying with the court order to appoint a new special prosecutor to just no-cross cases. So that stuff like what we've been talking about doesn't come out. It's indefensible. But what is the karmic justice here? It is that for whatever reason, Michael Proctor's cell phone records which I truly believe were captured and swept up by the feds during their federal probe of either Farwell or Tully's unit or John O'Keefe's death, whatever it was, exposing a lot of this. It's not just the Rule 14 discovery related to Kate Peter and otherwise and Tully that was turned over in the Aidan Kearney case, the 5,000 pages of material. Initially 4,000 pages of it was mysteriously just blank. It's not just that folks. It's also the, hey, Michael Proctor's cell phone until months ago, August of 2025 was hidden from the public. It was hidden from criminal defendants until someone somewhere must have informed Michael Proctor that a full copy of that cell phone already existed so there was no point in him continuing to hide it. What does this speak to? Well, it speaks to why I started this space today because in light of everything I just laid out from memory. I wanted to see if there was a single person who would be willing to stand up here and defend Michael Proctor's state police unit, Ryan Tully, John Fanning, Yuri Bukhenik, any of them or Kate Peter or Jen McCabe. Not because of their actions necessarily in the John O'Keefe and Karen Read case but because of everything I just laid out and the silence would let it speak volumes because how are you possibly going to counter any of that? This is what I'm doing from memory sitting here while trying to challenge people to a debate. That is just a part of the historical record. I cannot put into words how much more expansive in scope some of this story is and it's not any one person's story to tell. Let me also go on a rant about this. I'm getting so frustrated with the possessive approach that some people take to some of this coverage. Do you care about what was done to the most vulnerable? I don't care if you think of Karen as vulnerable, Lindsey is vulnerable, Sandra Birchmore is vulnerable, whoever you think of as vulnerable. Do you care about what happened to them? Do you care about righting the wrongs? Do you care about actually talking about the misconduct or are you trying to make a polemical point in furtherance of some specific platform that either you run or you support? What are you trying to accomplish? And I think a lot of us recently have been forced to have some very difficult moral reckoning. Okay, because a lot of us were tricked. I felt absolutely tricked into supporting Michael Proctor. If I knew, I'm not saying about the merits of the John O'Keefe investigation. If I knew then, back in 2023, 2024, what I know now about what's on that phone and about what that unit was willing to do, I never would have supported them. We supported Lindsey, but I never would have supported that unit. I'm sorry. Nope, never would have done it. And that's why I want to talk about people became very possessive about coverage of this case. Reporters are supposed to fade into the background. It's not supposed to be about us. Yes, maybe you have some skills. The reporter, people are interested. You use those skills to get a following so you can tell a story and get the facts out there, but it's not supposed to be about us. If a reporter is the centerpiece of a story, they have failed. Okay, you just blend in the background. We make sure that the people who are the most harmed, their voices are centered. And then we make sure these predatory vultures, like Kate Peter, are unable to manipulate public narratives to protect entrenched systemic power structures. That's what it's all about. So for me, that's why I get so frustrated. That's why I wanted to do this space because I wanted to make a point that when forced to actually debate on merit, all the propaganda mouthpieces will run from the chance. They're happy to get up and shit talk other people when it's a space they control, and they don't have to address the merits. But you put them in a position where they don't control the space and they're forced to debate on merit and they'll run from it. So in some sense, I made my point. But I also think it's an important exercise in telling this story, in explaining where I'm coming from. I think there are a lot of us that are all coming to the same position, which is it doesn't matter what various camp we may have been in or what not. We're not defined by that. We are just individual humans who have a bunch of views on different cases. And at the end of the day, a lot of us, more so, I think than people realize, actually care about systemic reform. We're not in it to protect Kate Peter or Jen McCabe or Brian Tully or anybody. We're here to hold people to equal standards and ask that the justice system do the same. And I think that's a noble goal. That's something that I can believe in. I wish people would be willing to debate it, though. It frustrates me. It really frustrates me. And, you know, maybe that's the nature of it. Maybe it's that making this point requires showing the litany of evidence, showing the sort of timeline, showing the overlapping concentric social circles, talking about these people, talking about what they did, talking about the implications, talking about where this is going. That's what cuts out the propaganda. To me, everyone is capable of fault. I said this the other day. If there are people out there in your orbit who are telling you that they are incapable of fault, they're a threat to the United States. They're the most dangerous, pernicious force we can imagine. Everyone's capable of fault. And we should look to the people who, in spite of their faults, try to leave the world a better place than what they found when they arrived. I think there are those of us. In spite of absolutely inculcating incredible odds who have somehow managed to get to a point where we've centered the voices, we're not there yet, where we're centering the voices who are actually impacted by all this. And if that happens, mark my words, it will not be because of any large media platforms or networks or anything. It will be in spite of them. It will be in spite of their impact inside dealing in spite of the documentary contracts, in spite of the news networks. It will be because a small group of well-meaning people were willing to band together and say, everything else aside, we can stand behind what's right. It may not be a form of right that we all agree on, but starting from that place, instead of from a place of hatred or otherwise, is a good step. I don't know where this is going. I don't know where it's going. I know that no one will stand up here and defend Kate Peter and Brian Tully, at least in a debate with me where I control the playing field. Can you blame them? But I don't know where this is going. You're on my prediction. As someone who's, I think I've not lived this as much as some other people, but I've lived it a lot. It's been a lot. And I'm never gonna understand the impact that this had on the people who had directly impacted, but it's been a lot on a lot of people. The story has impacted many lives. Even myself, with the perspective I have, kind of sitting back here on my veranda, you can call me Thomas Jefferson Towel. I don't have any hemp though, or do I? Sitting on my veranda, kind of looking forward, right here, all right? I got my public records request back today. I know when a public records request denial is like, oh, we want to stonewall this because there's something there. And I'm getting that vibe related to the contacts between the Norfolk DA's office and the Mass AGO's office between September 25th and October 24th of 2025 related to whether the Norfolk DA reached out to appoint a new special prosecutor in the Lindsey Gaetani and Aidan Kearney cases. But as I'm sitting here on my veranda with my eyes closed, I don't have a veranda. I have a desk. I'm a little towel. As I'm sitting here with my eyes closed, I can see the future materializing, okay? There's only certain roads that this can go down. There are only so many pathways left. There's a reckoning coming, folks. Whether it's a reckoning by way of the Sandra Birchmore cover-up, whether it's a reckoning by way of Michael Proctor's attempt to hide a substantial amount of evidence across a substantial number of criminal cases, whether it's related to Kate Peter's involvement in the handling of evidence in the still remaining Aidan Kearney cases. You can sense the anticipation. You can sense the apprehension and anxiety. And you can sense imminent closure. I'm not saying that is gonna be an easy process. I'm not saying it's gonna be a short process. But I'm saying there's something in the air. It's undeniable. There's little left to defend. There's not a single person, troll or otherwise anonymous account or whatever, who would stand up here today right now and with me and try to defend Kate Peter and Brian Tully. I gave you the chance. There's a time, if I had done this space a year ago, oh, people would have been jumping at the bit. No one will do it. No one. Why? Because we're at the end of the road. What Proctor did was indefensible, not in the Read O'Keefe case, although he should never have used those words about Karen. I'd critique him if he was a private citizen, although obviously I'm protective of women, right? But say what you will about that. I wouldn't use those words in private. That man used them in his capacity as a police officer. Right? Not to mention the other defendants' cases that were impacted by whatever Proctor and Sean Goode and whoever else was on that text chain and whatever else is on that phone is gonna lead to. You can sense it. You can sense the reckoning coming. The question is, back to Watergate in the '70s, there was a member of the House of Representatives during the impeachment hearings in '74. We had a very famous phrase. "What did the President know and when did he know?" Folks, the phrase of our era will be, "What did Michael Morrissey know and when did he know it?" This cannot start and end with justice for any single person involved in this. This is not about any one person at this point. This is about a system of justice in Massachusetts that I suppose was not about justice long before any of us realized it was teetering on the brink of collapse. Annie Dookhan was a warning that we all ignored to our peril. I should have seen it when they somehow got Lindsey that same lawyer that Annie Dookhan had. I should have seen it. It's not—I didn't realize until last week that lawyer George was a handler. Dookhan could create a huge—it could have created huge exposure for some people in the state police. It's incredible. If somebody painted the picture of the power structure that was at play here. Karen Read, when she said she was afraid of these people, I didn't—when she said it in the text or something and somebody leaked it. When I first started covering this case, I would not have got it. I don't know what it had been like. What do you mean? They're a state police unit. Like, yeah, they're paramilitary. Like, if you're a criminal, you should fear them, but they're not scary. Right now, after some of the stuff, and I'm talking about half the stuff I've seen as people pull, they horrifying. I think they're cornered, by the way. I don't think there's much they can do. They're getting a little desperate, burning a lot of their agents and their moles. And that's why I sense some kind of reckoning coming. You don't burn deep cover moles. I think Deanna was a mole for Kate for a while. You don't burn somebody like that unless it's almost over. Same thing with Kristy, the way Kristy's been burning everybody. I don't know who the hell she was working for, but whatever she's doing has got to be close to over because you don't burn everybody down unless it's almost over. So why is it almost over, folks? Why? What's coming? Some combination of all of this stuff. And if you want my fundamental prediction, let me give it to you like this. I don't like that it's coming to this, but it's a political question. It's a question of what the narrative is going to be. You don't just, as everyone now knows, you don't just prosecute people because they do things wrong. There's always a decision tree. So what do the feds want out of this? The people who were involved in the cover-up of Sandra Birchmore's murder, whoever was the father of Sandra's unborn child, you know, it's not that Matt Farwell. Well, and then they obviously want this MSP unit. Okay, Michael Proctor, that cell phone, didn't just get cloned. It was a setup. They let Proctor lie to the judge about all those cases and all the cell phone records. And as soon as his lawyer filed the document, they moved on him. He must be under federal investigation. How did Aidan Kearney get those text messages from Jen McCabe to KF and Allie McCabe? Those were removed from Jen McCabe's extraction. The feds cloned her phone too, just like Aidan told Lindsey in those text messages as part of Exhibit O from November 28, 2023. Why did the feds clone Jen McCabe's phone? To see what Jen would withhold in the Rule 14 process. She didn't get banged up on charges federally, so she must have not done anything that bad. Something, however, is going to happen to Proctor, in turn, legally on the federal level. You can sense it. You can sense it. They're going to indict him. But for what? But then it leaves Tully, which was what this whole stream is about. We have the email from Tully. Forget about whether it's normal procedure for Tully to instruct Proctor to look into all the defense witnesses. We now know that Proctor was not running that case. It was Tully. It was all Brian Tully. What was the meme that I put up today? I really like this one. It says, the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, "I'm Brian Tully and I'm here to help." Attributed to Ronald Reagan. My point is though, it was Brian Tully. Look at it. Kate was his little, I don't know, what do we want to call, how can we say this nicely? You know, I'm trying to rise above and encourage more reasonable, respectful discourse. So Kate was his little, this is so hard. All right, let me, let me say a prayer here. Come on, now you can do this. Okay. So, there are so many words I want to use. Kate was his little assistant. I know, I know. You were expecting something wonderful. Every single thing that I was going to say there was going to be cruel, so I'm sorry. Kate was his little assistant, his little PI there. And then, I'm going to turn it around, nightmare PI Moms, version 2, Kate Peter, Jen McCabe, let's go down the seaport. Kate Peter was his little PI until he was quarterbacking all this. I think it was Morrissey who was even cut out of the loop a little bit, although I'm not sure he wasn't more involved than I'm willing to say right now. And you can see why it happened. Because when Morrissey recused in October of 2023 from the Aidan Kearney cases, and what became the Aidan Kearney and Karen Read investigations that are still ongoing, he didn't really recuse. He just had Tully and Kate running it. I started to wonder if Jen McCabe was like a PI for a case she was a witness on. I'm really starting to wonder that.](https://image.24vids.com/tw-1987503776723320894/amplify_video_thumb/1987502597427662848/img/rCXN6v-5U_9-ODTv.jpg)
![HYBE and Min Hee-jin NewJeans Controversy from the Perspective of a 20-Year Entertainment Industry Expert | Kim Yoon-ji, Senior Researcher at the Overseas Economic Research Institute of the Export-Import Bank of Korea #1 [Investment Insight] 증시각도기TV HYBE has shown a somewhat immature side throughout this process. The essence of the issue has become less important. Hello, viewers and investors of Stock TV. Recently, there has been a lot of societal concern about the entertainment industry. Last year, it did well, but the question remains about how it will fare this year. We’re joined by Kim Yoon-ji, Senior Researcher at the Korea Eximbank Overseas Economic Research Institute, to discuss this. Welcome. Today, I brought a drink because this topic is not easy to discuss soberly. The situation between HYBE, Min Hee-jin, and NewJeans has escalated, and unfortunately, it’s no longer just management fighting but the artists have joined the fray. I’ve heard from someone in the industry that the close relationship between a producer and an artist is inevitable. In the past, there have been similar cases where producers and artists were tightly knit. Now, something similar has happened with Min Hee-jin and HYBE. Most people outside the industry don’t know the exact terms of the contract between Min Hee-jin and HYBE. As my own son works in the entertainment field, I’m well aware of how important it is to work with a good producer. For a company like HYBE, which has invested tens or even hundreds of billions of won, it’s unthinkable that they would allow NewJeans to separate and go independent after establishing their position. Many in the industry agree that this doesn’t make sense. To the general public, NewJeans might seem like the underdogs, and people might feel they should be allowed to leave. But from the perspective of the entertainment industry, which requires substantial capital to grow, the relationship between investors and artists is key. You can’t discuss this industry without acknowledging the role of investors. This case is different from situations where individual members leave, as seen in the past with groups that had Chinese members. This isn’t about a single member leaving; it’s more about the fact that, in this industry, the producers are as important as the artists themselves. From the beginning, NewJeans has been marketed as Min Hee-jin’s girl group, so the idea of them continuing without her feels different. We need to approach this from a different angle. That said, it doesn’t mean HYBE should completely cut ties. Many people have different initial thoughts about the situation, but the core issue here is the importance of the relationship between producers and the company, especially when substantial investment is involved. From my perspective, the fundamental question is: what exactly was attempted? I still find this unclear. In any company, it's common to hear people say, "I want to quit, I can't work with this boss, I'm leaving tomorrow." We all talk about this with friends or colleagues. Sometimes, we even ask others to let us know if there’s a good opportunity elsewhere. But actually submitting a resignation is a whole different issue. But in the new premise, I still wonder what exactly they were trying to do. What exactly was attempted? We always talk about it at work, right? "I'm going to quit. I can't work with that boss anymore. I'm leaving tomorrow." We always have those conversations. We talk about it with our friends, with team members, and even ask friends outside of work to let us know if they hear of any good positions. But actually submitting a resignation is a whole different issue, isn't it? Looking at how the situation first unfolded, it seems like HYBE was the one to bring things to light. They shared a lot with the press, and Min Hee-jin, the CEO, responded with a strong counterstatement. HYBE was saying, "Min Hee-jin is trying to do this and that," but CEO Min was like, "What else have I done apart from that message on KakaoTalk?" The court also judged that they weren't sure what actions had actually been attempted. To me, this seems like the fact of the matter. Clearly, HYBE's relationship with CEO Min Hee-jin might not be good. There could have been friction about how a subsidiary operates so independently from the parent company. There were likely various issues internally, but they should have been resolved within the company without making the problems visible externally. The fact that they let it spill outside before resolving it was a huge mistake on HYBE's part, revealing weaknesses in their management abilities. In my view, this has greatly devalued HYBE, becoming a powerful force that has dragged down their valuation. Throughout this process, HYBE displayed a level of immaturity, and the core of the issue became less important. The real concern for investors now is whether the company can effectively handle issues like these. Once this problem is resolved, can the remaining HYBE groups continue to grow securely? This business is all about reputation. HYBE is now seen as a company that ousts female CEOs simply because she didn't follow their orders. That perception leaves a lasting impression on people's minds, damaging the company's future operations. From an investor's perspective, two major incidents have happened in quick succession. The first was the boost in value during 2020 when HYBE sold a huge number of albums during COVID-19, creating the sense that the entertainment industry was Korea's next big sector. But then, this recent issue with Min Hee-jin, alongside BLACKPINK's contract situation, has put a serious damper on things. BLACKPINK didn't renew their contract as a group, and though they claim to continue working together in some capacity, it's not the same as before. YG Entertainment's profitability has plummeted, revealing how dependent they were on BLACKPINK. This has left investors wondering whether the entertainment business is just a limited-time, seven-year affair. If BLACKPINK had carried on smoothly into the next generation, it would have seemed like a sustainable business, and investors would have continued to trust in the long-term future of Korean entertainment. But now, we're seeing the cracks in that perception. It’s become a question of how to invest in a business with a lifespan of only seven years, when even the manufacturing industry lasts longer than that. The BLACKPINK incident and the NewJeans situation have both severely harmed investor confidence. HYBE's struggles with its artists are analogous to a manufacturing company facing a revolt from its workers. When investors look at this instability, they start questioning whether the business is even viable. The concept of sustainability has been seriously undermined, and the fact that the seven-year contract issue has been a long-standing concern doesn’t make it any easier to deal with. What used to reassure investors was the belief that when a seven-year contract ended, the company would already have the next seven years planned out, ready to sustain their business. That faith in the big entertainment companies has been shaken. Achieving the kind of success that BTS or BLACKPINK did is incredibly difficult, and passing the baton to the next generation is no simple task. Even though investors had faith that YG would produce another BLACKPINK-level group, now that trust is faltering. However, I do think people are now looking at contracts a bit differently. In the past, when a group disbanded, the members would scatter. But now, groups like BLACKPINK continue to work together even while pursuing solo projects. This shows that they understand the importance of sticking together, and I thought that this might help extend the longevity of these groups. But in reality, very few cases of disbanded groups have seen much success with individual members pursuing separate careers. There aren’t many examples where groups have stayed active for long, especially when individual members run into personal issues. Take Big Bang, for instance—they’ve been around for a while, but their personal scandals have made it hard for the group to recover fully. In the entertainment business, it’s rare for groups to last more than seven years, and age is also a factor. Once a group surpasses the seven-year mark, the members tend to be quite a bit older. With BTS, they need to show a fresh side if they’re to keep running strong. One of the most disheartening things mentioned by the members was that they didn’t feel respected. This ties into a larger issue in our society, as we're seeing with the national discussion around workplace bullying. If we think about how BTS achieved success, it's clear why this is such a serious issue. Back when BTS rose to fame, they shared how they weren’t from one of the top three agencies and positioned themselves as underdogs who worked hard to gain recognition. This resonated with many young people who felt that if you work hard enough, you can succeed, even without the backing of a major company. This message gave hope to many, not only in Korea but also globally. BTS’s fan base, especially in the U.S., includes many people who identify as outsiders, those who don’t feel they belong to the mainstream—whether in terms of race, culture, or social standing. For them, BTS was a source of inspiration, showing that you can still succeed even if you start from the margins. With NewJeans, though there’s talk about Min Hee-jin, the allegations of bullying within the company are hitting a sensitive nerve for fans. It’s unfortunate that the company allowed things to reach a point where such accusations were made. Even if the situation was mostly an internal conflict among the adults in charge, they should have handled it better to avoid involving the artists. In the past, we've seen similar issues, like with Big Bang’s various scandals, which were almost at the level of criminal activity. The current situation with NewJeans might not be as severe, but bullying and exclusion are still serious concerns. Ultimately, experiences like these can serve as valuable lessons for the entertainment industry. This situation has highlighted that the entertainment business is fundamentally about human relationships. From the artists to the products they create, everything revolves around people. The moment someone’s feelings are hurt or relationships are damaged, the entire business can collapse. The entertainment business is all about personal connections, something I've always believed. Recently, I heard about Naver Webtoon’s global success, and it's fascinating to think about how it has outgrown Kakao Webtoon, despite being a later player. Many factors contributed to this success, but someone mentioned that webtoons are also a "personal connection" business. Webtoon creators are tough to manage—they're artists, after all, and keeping them on schedule, especially with weekly deadlines, is a challenging task. CEO Kim Joong has managed to nurture relationships with these creators, making personal connections the backbone of the business. In the entertainment industry, particularly with idols, you can't overlook the importance of personal relationships. The key skill for managing this industry is the ability to connect deeply with both the creators and the artists. HYBE, for instance, doesn’t just need skilled managers who are good with finance or operations. What they truly need are people who can foster those personal relationships, especially when they’re dealing with artists as young as 13 or 15. It’s about ensuring that these young talents feel understood and cared for, so they can be inspired to do their best work. Managing young artists is tricky because their idea of success might be completely different from what adults think. A 13-year-old might not care about owning multiple houses—they might just want to spend time with their family or have the freedom to eat out whenever they want. The manager’s job is to tap into what motivates them and help them thrive in a way that’s meaningful to them. This kind of nurturing is not easy to scale. When a company grows too big, it’s challenging to maintain those close relationships. That's why multi-label approaches, like those seen in large entertainment agencies, are supposed to help. But if personal connections within those labels break down, the whole system can fall apart. This business model seems uniquely suited to Korea. It’s hard to imagine it working the same way in Japan, where there's a more hierarchical, command-driven structure. Japan's entertainment industry often depends on strong, central producers who direct everything. In contrast, Korean idols often rise through collective effort and personal connection, like BTS did. Despite the challenges, I believe Korea’s entertainment sector has room for long-term growth. Many of today’s youth are drawn to this field because it allows them to express their talents and passions. If scandals like the one with NewJeans continue to arise, however, it might dissuade some young people from pursuing these dreams. When you look at what NewJeans members have said, there’s not much to disagree with. They simply want to keep doing what they’ve always done and follow their own creative paths. Ensuring they have the freedom to do so can lead to even greater success. These days, if you ask middle or elementary school students what they want to be when they grow up, many of them will say they want to become idols or YouTubers. They believe that with enough effort, they can make it. The entertainment industry needs to be able to channel that passion and potential into something positive. If Min Hee-jin were to leave HYBE, it’s clear that many companies would be eager to work with her. She mentioned once that “everyone is crazy about money,” and I think that’s why there would be a long line of people wanting to meet with her if she decided to move on. Right now, for example, there are people in the entertainment industry, like CJ, who may not have fully established themselves, or even private investors, just waiting for an opportunity. Many of them are keeping an eye on Min Hee-jin leaving HYBE. This was evident during the recent Tokyo performance, where her creativity was on full display. It was incomparable. That’s why this situation is even more unfortunate. Some people say, "If it wasn’t for the money, how could that group have been created?" But I believe there are people who could have made it happen with or without money. That’s the crucial difference in this case. While I'm not an expert, I was touched by the process of recreating a hit song from a legendary Japanese female singer from the '80s. It felt like a major event. It was amazing because I had never seen anything like it before. Even though I wasn’t familiar with the original song, just seeing it was enough to draw in so much attention and make it feel like a historic moment. That’s what talent is—turning something simple, like a cover song, into a major event. I remember thinking, "How do the Japanese people feel about this?" because the crowd's reaction was incredible. The enthusiasm was surprising, and I wondered what they were thinking while watching it. This is the true power of Korean culture—it’s not just about promoting our own culture but also deeply resonating with others. The entertainment industry’s core business is making audiences happy and even obsessed. Min Hee-jin is undeniably a top-tier artist in this field. If she were to leave HYBE, there would be countless opportunities for her. But if HYBE mishandles this situation, it won’t just be about losing one person—it could destabilize everything. They really need to handle this carefully. As for stocks and investments, that's up to everyone’s individual decisions. We're just having a casual chat here about the entertainment industry. As someone with a child in the business and another who's analyzed the industry, we’re just relaxing with a casual discussion. So, let’s pour a drink and enjoy this conversation. 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![The most epic 13 minute AI rant I've heard in 2026 PS: My parent's heard this when I was playing it in the car and thought Jason ✨👾SaaStr.Ai✨ Lemkin went OFF like Stephen A Smith does on first take PPS: Full transcript below [17:00] Harry Stebbings: I I just wanted to ask Jason, if the people that we want are fundamentally different, the developers that we used to hire, we don't because AI writes the code for us. The marketers we don't want, the sales people we don't want—who who do we want genuinely? Like what is the attractive profile? Because your Anthropic’s and your OpenAIs are hiring, so so what are the people that we want in the companies of the future? [17:18] Jason Lemkin: Look, I know it sounds trite, but but the answer is simple. It's just the expression each year changes. We want folks that are genuinely AI fluent. It's pretty simple. Now you know, maybe last year we called them prompt engineers, right? That used to be a job. I don't know if you remember that actually used to be the hottest job on planet earth. Now no one needs a prompt engineer because it's pretty easy to prompt all these tools. That job died. Okay. Um and now we need go-to-market engineers. Um I think that job's going to die. We need—everyone needs so many forward deployed engineers. Like you can't hire enough forward deployed engineers. But uh you know um but Palantir just announced in whatever their their big their big event—they've gotten their deployment times down over 90% with forward deployed engineers. So that may become—so the this wave of disruption for the titles and the specificity, it's also exhaustingly accelerating. But it's really simple. You meet anyone for any role—sales, marketing, engineering, product, QA—they're they're either they're either they can't keep all of the ways they use AI to accelerate their job from spewing out of their mouth, or they're staring at you. It's there's nowhere in the middle. Like, and the person that comes in and says—it's it's it sounds Captain Obvious—but like, you know, you just had the whatever from Lovable, the the marketing head that was super popular on the show, right? She's just spewing AI-native insights into Lovable, right? It's not that complicated. You hire her, Elena, or whatever it is. You just hire her. It doesn't matter whether she's still in college or a junior or a senior or a middler, a left or right. And honestly, if you interview people, I would say of all even of the best startups I've invested in, maybe 30% of the management team meets this standard at best. 30%. Maybe less. And of the interviews I do in general, it's single-digit percents. It's just and in in that sense, it's the same as ever. Like you either lower the bar in hiring or you hire someone that's actually great. And someone that's actually great is so far ahead of you in how to apply to to employ the efficiencies of AI in their role, your jaw falls on the table. The difference is we used to need warm bodies. That's what's changing. We used to need warm bodies to answer the call, to do QA, to do code review, to to get the blue pixel to go from the upper left to the lower right. You laugh, but you need you literally needed to brute force this with humans. With AI, every day that goes by, the AI—you do not need brute force human beings on your team. And that's another reason they're shrinking. Why are all these new companies so efficient? They're just not brute forcing things with humans. They're just not. They're choosing not to. And so these team—all the brute forcers out there—everyone talks about how bloated teams got in 2021. I don't agree with that. I think they got as big as they needed to be when growth was high and you needed humans to do everything. All you look at these teams that that doubled—well if growth continued at 60% like the rate in early 2021 for 5 years or can help me do the math and every single thing a software company did required a human. You were understaffed by your 2021 headcount. You'd be sitting here in 2026. You every office in SoMa would be triple packed and you there wouldn't be enough humans to staff your company. It's just the world changed. [20:33] Harry Stebbings: Jason, you live on the bleeding edge. I think me and Rory see that and I think the world sees that when they hear you every week in terms of how you run SaaS. For all of the CEOs and execs who listen to the show, what would you advise them in terms of determining whether someone is AI fluent when they meet them for jobs, for talent? [20:51] Jason Lemkin: Here's I realized I was just asked this. I just did a review with a super fast startup growing just crossing 100 million and I was asked this question. And one of my favorite executives, I thought his answer was pretty dated and because he gave me an answer that was about 6 months old. The answer 6 months old is: "I look for folks in my team, I look for you know at what tools they play with." Okay, that was a great answer in like summer of 2025. Okay, I tried Lovable last week. Okay, the answer in 2026 is: "What commercial AI tool have you brought into your organization this month?" That's the test. Anyone that is on the bleeding edge that you would want to hire—now there are so many great products in the market. Okay, there is no excuse in any role to have not brought one tool a month into your organization. Okay, there—now there's going to be better and better tools and better and better products as the year goes on. What's the one you did? And you will see folks with their deer in the headlights to this question. What what sales tool? What marketing tool? What product tool? What engineering tool? What did you bring in? Why did you pick it? How does it working? Because if you're at remotely at the cutting edge, you're all over this. You're looking for the next agentic tools that will radically improve how you do business. This is—you think everyone thinks SaaS is at the bleeding edge, right? You know, you know, all we do is we're just looking for the tools and trying them. Okay? Okay, we're one year ahead of everybody else because we did the simplest thing in the world. Like we tried the tools early and we trained them. We trained them for a month. Okay, I'll give you—want hear a horrible example from this week? Super hot AI company valued at 6 billion. Okay, I'm not going to name it. Um, this week yesterday told us we had to quadruple what we spent on their product. Okay, their agent told us, right? And why did this happen? Okay. Well, at this $6 billion company, no one had trained the agent on its pricing properly. No one had tested it. They said, "Well, well, we've been in beta." And we said, "Well, when did the beta launch? A year ago." Okay, these are people asleep at at the wheel. You want somebody who the instant this comes up, they exactly know what the issue is. And "Hey, when I was at Lovable Replit, we trained the agent. This is how we did it. I brought in this tool. I brought in this tool that that Rory invested in last week. It solved all these issues." That's what you want to hear. And if they haven't brought in a tool in the last 30 days, at least deeply evaluated it. I don't really care whether they bought it, but gone so far down the funnel they can tell you—pick whatever tool: Fixie, Regie, GC, AIGC—I don't care how you went through it, you looked at it, you can tell me the eight ways it would improve the productivity of your business and three you didn't. Just don't hire that person because they're going to run your company to the ground. This is the job today. The job today is not to screw around on ChatGPT and to be a prompt engineer. The job today is to bring the best AI and agentic products into your organization and leverage all the hard work that the engineers have done building those products. That's your job. You don't have to screw around. You don't have to be a prompt engineer anymore. You have to be an agent deployment expert. A—this is the new job we're making up today. An Agentic Deployment Expert. That's your job from C-level to junior. Agentic Deployment Expert. Don't hire anybody else. You're going to regret it. They're going to stare at the camera. He's good. Stare at the camera. He's honorable. We could probably just I could slip away, get a coffee, and come back. No. And I I sound exasperated, Rory. And I—but the reason I am is I can just see I can see my best companies doing it. And I can see some companies I've invested in not doing it. And I want to cry. I just want to cry when they have no ADs on their team. I just—like you're flushing your years of your life down the toilet by not approaching your how you're building this company this way. [24:33] Rory: Yes. And at the risk of being positive, it's worth pointing out two things he didn't say. Well, something implicit why he said—Jason didn't do the only hire, you know, he didn't commit the um employment law, I think it's a civil penalty of saying only employ people below X who get the new new thing because he implicitly said anyone can do it provided you're willing to learn. And I think that's the big aha that's one of the positive statements to make here right? Look and I think it applies—I'm always wary of being "Hey, coming across, hey this this is the things that you all have to do." I think it applies to everyone including investors right? I mean I will say I have found that unless you're willing to invest the time learning these tools you actually shouldn't be investing in them. One of my partners Andy had this expression: "You know, if you decide you want to stop learning new things you probably should retire within 6 to 12 months and never write another check again." Maybe that's down to 3 to 6 months at this stage, right? And I think, you know, it's— [25:27] Harry Stebbings: Yeah, I actually I actually had a meeting with mine and Jason's biggest investor the other day and I—pretend he's not here—I said I think he's the most equipped investor for this generation of investing because I don't think anyone quite sits at the bleeding edge like he does on the investor side. [25:42] Harry Stebbings: Why in terms of using the equip stuff? Yeah. Yeah. In terms of using the stuff, understanding understanding bottlenecks, constraints. For sure. [25:51] Jason Lemkin: But can I just add one point? We can just cuz it's so important if it helps people. Okay, we are—and thank you Harry. We're going through these phases. Okay, and when AI started to blow up for real for us, uh call it early 2024, right? Maybe late '23, I wasn't equipped. It was too technical. I wasn't going to go in and figure out—I wasn't smart enough to figure out how to deal with a massively hallucinating LLM API and turn that and turn that into something magical. Kudos to investors and others that that got it in early '23, '22. I mean I remember I—I guess it was maybe SaaStr Annual '23. I was with David Sacks and I did a Q&A and I said, "How you thinking about AI at Craft?" He's like, "Well we're all in. We want 80% of '23 of investments to be AI." I'm like, "Great but like show me the show me the great ones in market." He's like, "They're all prototypes. We're all they're all they're all proof of concepts but we're all in anyway." That's where you kind of had to be in '23 if you weren't investing at like the LLM level. Okay, I wasn't smart enough. Then we went through this weird-ass prompt engineer era where like you you could torture these products to do something good, right? But you had to torture them. You had to like craft these crazy things that made no sense. Now we are in the era where mere ordinarily smart generalists can make these tools do magical things. And literally I go to these meetings and people be like, "I don't know how to like this is so scary. I don't know how to do this." And we show them our backends. Do you know how to do a workflow generator? Do you know how to do a a decision tree? Like we've been building these since software in the '90s. Okay, if you—I can show you all of our agents. The how they work is novel. They do have to be trained. You can't be lazy and have these agents work. But honestly, the the UI, the UX, the way we interact with them, it's just software. And so my point is: Pick yourself off the ground. This is your time now. If you felt lost in AI era, if you felt like you're behind, you don't understand what all these people are saying on X and Twitter and their Claude and and their and talking about all the 4.6 point Nano point and it's over—like you just it's not your world. This is your time. This is your time for the generalist that knows how to use software tools really really well. And I—this is my last point but it's so important. If ever in your recent life—and this is why you could be all you need to be is young at heart to Rory's point—if in the last three to five years you have successfully deployed a piece of enterprise software of any sort you yourself, not some agency you hired, but if you have deployed it, you can deploy any agentic tool. Any. And you can become the hero in your company and you can become the hero in your functional area. But I watch folks—I'm literally helping a company now that they're adding hundreds of sales folks this year with a new pre-IPO COO—he's not hasn't brought in a single tool, totally scared of it. Okay, it's not that hard. Did you use SalesLoft? Did you use Outreach? Did you use HubSpot? Do you know these tools? If you can deploy these tools, you can deploy a world-changing AI agent. And so this is the time for people like the folks that that were shut out of the AI revolution right now. The generalist folks that are not that know how to deploy software that don't even know how to build software. Like vibe coding for me was folks who knew how to build software, but you didn't have to be an engineer. Now, you just need to know how to deploy software to win with AI agents. That's all you need to know. So many people have these skills and they're petrified of AI. "How did you do that? How did you deploy an AI BDR?" Well, we bought a piece of software, we figured out how it worked for a day, we set it up in an afternoon, and then and then we did spend 30 months training it, which you didn't do with this old software because in the old days, we just had to manually upload all the data, right? And there was no training. The the only non-intuitive part is training these things. And it's it's it's just work. So that's why when I see folks on the management team not doing this, there's no excuse. You do not need to be technical to win with AI agents in Q2 of '26. You do not need to be even 1% technical. Not at all. So it's your time. Or you're going to get laid off. Or you're going to get laid off because you're not going to matter.](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2036795243681423518/amplify_video_thumb/2036794127560613888/img/52_cdbzzL6_foTSI.jpg)
![Good morning. In November of 2024, I laid out why Brian Tully, Kate Peter, and Jason Broyles leaked an unredacted 15-year extraction of Lindsey Gaetani's phone. I didn't want the world to listen to me. I wanted someone, somewhere, to protect Lindsey. I can finally breathe. Here is the full text of my report (that now has 700,000 views); Okay, fine, as a special treat (on this, the day of oral arguments in the #KarenReadTrial appeal), I will lay out some of what I am thinking as to the timeline of events between August of 2023 and the spring of 2024. You are going to get a lot of inside information in this post. You have been warned. In the fall of 2023, via a woman named Natalie (who was friends with Karen Read and enjoyed talking about houseplants with Karen), I believe the Commonwealth of Massachusetts came to be in possession of evidence indicating that Read and blogger Aiden Turtle Boy Kearney were conspiring to intimidate witnesses in Read's ongoing criminal trial related to the murder of John O'Keefe. See the evidence of that contact (which started in April/May of 2023 --because of Natalie-- and occurred directly with Read and via Read's lawyers, David Yannetti and Alan Jackson) here - As a result of this information being uncovered, I believe the Commonwealth then began targeting Mr. Kearney with criminal charges related to witness intimidation in the context of Read's criminal trial (Kearney had been organizing, with Read's help, rallies at the homes of witnesses in the case and running smear campaigns to poison the jury pool in the lead up to Read's trial). I believe the intent of this targeting was multifaceted but, primarily, involved the following: 1) Getting Kearney to stop his abhorrent behavior related to witnesses in Read's case (which included, in some cases, Kearney's followers putting semen on pictures of witnesses' children and then sending those pictures to said witnesses, as explained here - 2) Placing criminal charges on Kearney in an effort to pressure him to "flip" on Karen Read and, in turn, testify that Read did, indeed, order the witness intimidation in question via a conspiracy. Kearney, when he was eventually jailed in late 2023/early 2024, confirmed that such an offer was presented while he was incarcerated. 3) Getting information for the Massachusetts State Police, and the Norfolk District Attorney, as to the nature of an ongoing federal probe into the conduct of those departments (an investigation which, in time, it turns out had moved on from investigating John O'Keefe's death and, in turn, evolved into a probe of a potential cover-up of the death of Sandra Birchmore). Read more background on that complex situation --involving two Troopers assigned to the Norfolk DA, who also worked on the Read case, that signed off on a "misleading" state-level police report into Matthew Farwell-- here - At the same time, and in furtherance of those investigatory activities, I believe the State Police began working directly with a former colleague of Aiden Kearney, a woman named Kate Peter AKA MafiaMasshole who has a small online cult following related to humiliating First Amendment Auditors (which, admittedly, is noble work). What may have not been so noble (along with Peter taking cash in a Chick-Fil-A parking lot for her "efforts" on behalf of some wealthy witnesses in the Read trial), however, is that --as Mr. Kearney became the subject of police investigations related to the aforementioned witness intimidation-- the Norfolk DA announced to the public that a Special Prosecutor would be appointed to oversee those charges (because of the numerous allegations of corruption that Kearney had made towards the DA in public). That Special Prosecutor, Ken Mello, was nonetheless assigned to work with the same State Police Trooper (Brian Tully) who worked on the Read case and who reported directly to the Norfolk DA at the time. And, furthermore, I believe the State Police and the Norfolk DA, via Brian Tully, also around this time (fall of 2023) began working directly with Kate Peter (who, for some time, was working for a Private Investigations firm with ties to a number of figures in the orbit of the Read case) in order to obtain evidence against Mr. Kearney, seek out and catalog information from sources close to Mr. Kearney and, in some cases, even help draft parts of Mr. Kearney's eventually October, 2023, criminal indictment. However, what I think the State Police (and the Norfolk DA) did not know at the time was that Aiden Kearney was working as a confidential federal informant, specifically looking into allegations of civil rights violations against said State Police, since at least May of 2023. Furthermore, I also think the State Police were not aware that it was Karen Read's lawyers, Alan Jackson and David Yannetti, who had the necessary connections in order to help Kearney obtain that status. Read more here - That said, at the same time, when Kearney was initially brought on by the federal government in May of 2023, in my view, I don't think the DOJ was finished looking into the death of John O'Keefe. In fact, I think the DOJ pulled out an old FBI tactic (which I can confirm exists) and, after the US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts wrapped-up the O'Keefe probe in the fall of 2023, Kearney was encouraged by the FBI to use his coverage of the Read case to generate leads related to other misconduct by the State Police unit attached to the Norfolk DA (in particular Brian Tully). Read more about that FBI playbook here - Indeed, that timeline perfectly synchs with a recent announcement by US Attorney Josh Levy indicating that the federal probe of Sandra Birchmore's death began in, roughly, August of 2023. See more background on Birchmore's tragic life and death here - Nonetheless, because of Kearney's ongoing work for the federal government in the fall of 2023, and because the State Police did not realize this was happening (although they should have been able to put it together, because Kate Peter and Kevin from Yellow Cottage Tails for sure knew, as early as May of 2023, that FBI agents were calling around, on behalf of Kearney, related to ongoing criminal cases entirely removed from the Read trial) I believe said State Police, stupidly, committed some of the very civil rights violations that the FBI was looking for. I believe the State Police did this, in particular Brian Tully, by way of his relationship to Kate Peter. [Side note: I will always remember talking to Kate, over winter and spring of 2024, and explaining my firm belief that Aiden Kearney was an FBI agent. Peter simply could not come to terms with that reality, despite having been the person who called the FBI back in May in order to confirm the agency was poking around some of Kearney's criminal cases, and, in that moment, I knew that pride was, indeed, about to cometh before her fall.] And, indeed, I also think Karen Read, herself, was well aware that the federal probe into John's death had ended in the fall of 2023 (for the most part) and that, in turn, the feds were going to move on to other serious allegations of corruption related to Tully and his unit at the State Police. However, for many reasons, I think Karen was happy to let the FBI (and TurtleBoy) use her trial as "cover" to get more information, and leads, related to said Troopers (this was, after all, the very same unit that had investigated Read and mocked her with horrifying language during that process). [Also, another side note, there is an intense history of tension between the Norfolk DA's office and the DOJ in Boston which dates back to the 1990's and William Delahunt, but which, in reality, really heated up during a 2015 mob trial.] Basically, there is a connection between Josh Levy (Acting US Attorney For District of Massachusetts) + Karen Read (accused murderer) + Dustin Chao (head of Boston DOJ's Public Integrity Section) + David Yannetti (lawyer for accused murderer Karen Read) + Rachael Rollins (former Suffolk County DA, and US Attorney for the district of Massachusetts, until Spring of 2023, who was also Josh Levy's boss in November of 2022 and who previously had direct contact with Read's lawyer, Mr. Yannetti) + Aiden TurtleBoy Kearney (blogger indicted with 19 felonies in relation to targeting witnesses in the Read case, until he was thrown out of Read's inner circle for exposing Read's connection to Acting US Attorney Levy). Chao (aforementioned head of the DOJ Boston's Public Integrity Section) had a grudge to use whatever means necessary take down the Norfolk DA since 2015 (After Chao's wife was passed over for a promotion and left that DA's office on bad terms) and, in turn, the proxy-battle behind all of this chaos becomes a bit more clear. Read the primary source documents laying all of this out here - and here - That said, I think there one was wild-card who came into the picture between October of 2023 that no one (be it Kate Peter, the FBI, the DOJ, the State Police, Aiden Kearney or otherwise) expected, and her name is Lindsey Gaetani. At first, between October and December of 2023, Lindsey was simply someone who had met Mr. Kearney online, chatted with him, and then begun to form a bond. Little did Ms. Gaetani realize, however, that, by virtue of a simple twist of fate, Kearney's pillow talk related to Karen Read and Josh Levy having direct contact, FBI agents, and civil rights probes of the State Police would put her directly in the middle of an unholy conflagration that was, on the night of December 23rd, 2023, about to take a turn that would change the course of history for an untold number of human lives. For, you see, in the weeks leading up to Christmas of 2023, the State Police discovered that Ms. Gaetani had information about Karen Read and TurtleBoy being in direct communication (along with information that Read and Josh Levy spoke directly). See those documents here - That, in turn, meant Ms. Gaetani was going to be forced to provide testimony at a Grand Jury scheduled for the week after Christmas (roughly December 26th, 2023). When Kearney found out this news, on or around December 22nd, it sent him into a tailspin (for good reason, it turns out, as what Mr. Kearney did next would, over time, lead to him being kicked out of Karen Read's inner circle and sent to jail...or, as Kearney says it, "...[that night] was a very expensive trip to [the city where Lindsey lives.]" Leveraging a very difficult time in Ms. Gaetani's life, Kearney demanded he be able to visit her, at home, late at night on December 23rd of 2023. Then, Kearney forced Gaetani to allow Kearney to review the contents of her phone (specifically her messages with Kate Peter) and take notes (using an ongoing medical situation that Gaetani was going through as leverage to get permission to do so). However, after Gaetani raised an objection to Kearney taking those notes, and after Gaetani retrieved her own notepad (that Kearney had used to take said notes) Kearney entirely lost his cool, pushed Gaetani onto a couch, and then began illegally recording her with his phone (an audio file Kearney would later try to edit in order to suggest Gaetani had consented to the recording, although that plan failed when a copy of the original recording, without the line about consent, was introduced into the court record). That, in turn, led to Kearney being criminally charged (again) with witness intimidation, illegal interception of an oral communication and assault and, as a result, a warrant to arrest (with probable cause) was issued. Kearney, after being a self-admitted "fugitive" from justice for multiple days with the warrant active, then turned himself in to authorities and was sent to jail after a Judge in Dedham district court revoked Kearney's bond as a result of the new charges involving Gaetani. See the post where Kearney admitted to being a fugitive here - See full coverage of the moment Kearney's bail was revoked here - In turn, Kearney then spent the next 60 days in jail (in protective custody, per my sources, because of his status as a federal informant) and, during that time, Kearney has confirmed that he would have been able to "walk free" if he "flipped" on Karen Read in the context of an ongoing conspiracy and witness intimidation probe into the pair of star-crossed attention seekers. However, Kearney did not do so and, in turn, was released from jail in late February of 2023 after serving the full 60 days on his bail revocation. For Ms. Read, however, a newly-leaked series of text messages confirm that, even thought Kearney stayed loyal and sent love-letters begging Read's forgiveness while locked up, the incident on the 23rd with Lindsey was Karen's red line and Kearney had been cut off from Read's inner circle. See that leaked text message (from March 3rd) here - Interestingly, on one of the first day's that TurtleBoy was out of jail (February 26th, 2024), I captured this fascinating moment where Karen clearly is uncomfortable around Kearney (she entirely ignores his presence outside of court and her lawyer, Alan Jackson, puts his arm on Karen's back to gently tug her away from Kearney as they walk by his hallowed-shell) - And, even more interestingly, it was also on the same day (2/26/24) that Lindsey Gaetani (under mysterious circumstances that, again, trace back to Kate Peter being shady) attended a court hearing, wherein, because of Gaetani's active restraining order on Kearney, Kearney was forced to leave the courtroom during Karen's case (and, on this same day, Kearney was also charged with a violation of that RO for hiding in the bushes outside of the court after being asked to leave the area by authorities). See video of that day here - However, sadly, I believe Gaetani's "usefulness" also quickly ended around this time as Kearney, within weeks, got his RO amended to allow TurtleBoy to attend any court hearing in the Commonwealth (even with Lindsey present) and, furthermore, the pressure tactics to get Kearney to "flip" on Karen Read had failed. Furthermore, because Karen was now in fear of TurtleBoy (having cut Aiden off), I believe Peter, Tully and the Norfolk DA took an entirely new direction. They would try to get Karen Read to cooperate regarding the ongoing investigations into TurtleBoy. This move, however, had unintended consequences (in particular for Lindsey Gaetani). In what I believe was a colloquial "crime of opportunity" -- and because Gaetani was no longer "useful" for the purposes of pressuring Kearney into a plea or for the purposes of keeping Kearney away from Karen Read hearings -- Kate Peter came up with a new idea: Kate, before knowing anyone else in the case, was connected with Jen McCabe (a witness in the Read trial who heard Karen confess to hitting John O'Keefe and who was tormented by TurtleBoy, for months, as a result of her willingness to testify on behalf of justice for John). Kate, also, had extensive connections to a network of Discord operatives who use fake profiles and hunt down bad people on the internet (again, a noble calling). However, I believe Kate weaponized some of those people (including someone named Father Mark Murphy, who used a fake profile called "The Jennings Report" and a parking clerk named Jason Broyles who moonlights as a woman online named "Hailey W.") to, in a last ditch effort now that Lindsey had no other use and because TurtleBoy could not be stopped, deflect the attention of TurtleBoy's fans (known as "TurtleRiders") away from Jen McCabe and onto --an unwitting and entirely innocent-- Lindsey Gaetani). What makes this even more shocking is that the way public attention was deflect onto Lindsey involved, what I believe, was an operation (run by Kate) to leak sensitive documents about Lindsey (along with other private information) to those fake profiles (including Jason Broyles, who Kate Peter has known since 2019). Interestingly, Broyles (and Murphy) began operations targeting Lindsey, and her support network/allies, right around the end of February, 2023 (and, interestingly, those accounts, for months, went out of their way to avoid mentioning Kate Peter or Jen McCabe, nearly entirely). Read more about the fake "Jennings Report" profile here - and read more about the disturbing tactics deployed by Jason Broyles here - and here - Anyway, that entire fiasco was the subtext (that I referenced in earlier posts) behind my question to Karen Read, in April of 2024, regarding whether Karen wanted to apologize to Lindsey for what was happening (as, by that point, Karen knew full well what it was like to become the target of Aiden's ire simply because Karen had cut him off). Karen may not have responded to my question, but she is a smart person (really, I don't mean that gratuitously: Read plays on a level I don't think most of us understand, and she does it by hiding in plain sight) and Karen knew exactly what I was talking about (she probably could have written this post herself, in fact, but she probably wouldn't have said as much about her gilt as to John's death). See video of me asking Karen that pointed question here - So, where does that leave us? Well: 1) In my view, Karen Read is vulnerable, concerned about what Aiden will do to her and her family, running out of money, and constantly at risk of having her conversations with TurtleBoy and other insiders (past and present leaked). Karen, after she loses her appeal at the SJC, is likely to look for a way to take a plea and cooperate against Aiden (Robert Cosgrove, the new special prosecutor in the Read/Kearney cases, and Hank Brennan, the new ADA in Read's murder trial, are serious legal heavy hitters and Read is in deep trouble, in my view). 2) Likewise, I think Brian Tully and Kate Peter are also deeply concerned because they didn't realize the FBI is, in reality, probably coming for them (and it has nothing to do with John O'Keefe's death, but instead it has everything to do with Kate and Tully's actions between the fall of 2023 and the summer/fall of 2024 and, also, probably Tully's actions in the context of the Sandra Birchmore investigation). I think this is why Peter is facing so many state-level criminal charges (despite trying to use her connections to get those cases to "go away" and, even in one case, managing to get the Norfolk DA not to recuse itself related to one of those charges, despite a special prosecutor being assigned to Peter's other criminal cases in the jurisdiction because of her connection to the State Police and the DA). 3) I think a lot of people are trying to keep Lindsey Gaetani and her story away from the media, and away from documentaries/podcasts that they do not control, in order to hide this information from the public, punish Lindsey for "knowing" Aiden, and insulate Peter and Brian Tully from accountability. I do not think this strategy is going to work because, and I cannot understate this enough, Lindsey is actually a genius (and none of you can see it, because you're blinded by greed, ego, jealously or otherwise). 4) I think, at the end of the day, Karen Read killed John O'Keefe, while Karen was drunk driving, at 12:31am on 1/29/22 by hitting John with her SUV and then leaving John to die. In turn, I think Karen was mad that people "flipped on her" related to Karen's actions that night, and, in turn, Karen leveraged her political connections (which I don't fully understand, but which I think are based in the intelligence community) to "punish" the Norfolk DA and the State Police Troopers who uncovered said evidence of Karen's guilt. Little did Karen realize, all the way back in November of 2022, that she had stumbled onto overlapping social circles of power that, when the dust settles, would have been consumed by their hubris --and wanton disregard for the memory of John O'Keefe-- regardless. "Remember," dear friends and readers, "it's about Justice For John." I'm a towel, and that's what I think happened (as of November, 2024). Usual disclaimer: I am a towel, not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. You are reading social media. Get a lawyer if you have questions about the law.](https://image.24vids.com/tw-1951990598375796787/amplify_video_thumb/1951989042272227328/img/AR5vFlH4FWaF-znG.jpg)
![Ch. 14 of NITRO: The Inside Story of Hulk Hogan's heel turn - #OTD 30 Years Ago (7/7/96)! AS DAY BECAME NIGHT at the Sullivan home, Bollea deliberated his participation in the pay-per-view. “Everybody was telling him that it was the wrong thing to do,” Kevin Sullivan says. “He was getting booed out of the arena, but they were all saying, ‘this is gonna kill him’.” With no end to the discussion in sight, the wily booker casually suggested that Bollea and Young make use of his two guest rooms until the morning. “I isolated [them],” Sullivan admits. “I was just afraid that at the last minute, he was going to use his creative control [clause] and pull out.” If Sullivan could deliver Bollea to the arena by showtime, the finish of the match called for Hogan to star in the most dramatic of surprise endings. In a sequence devised by Kevin Nash, an unannounced Hulkster would shockingly interfere in the match, but only after the heels gained an unfair advantage through cheating. It would be a brilliant misdirection, Nash thought, as fans would instinctively believe Hogan’s appearance to be in support of the babyface team. “I knew there were gonna be 55 different ideas,” Nash says, thinking back to the eve of the event, “[so] I actually put a lot of thought into it. I called Scott [Hall] two or three days before that, and said ‘what do you think about this?’ “We had to make it a 2-on-2 match with Lex Luger getting injured [during the match] and going out. We would cheat to get Macho [Man] in trouble and all of a sudden Hulk comes down, which of course would mean ‘ok, here comes Hulk to make the save’. [Hall] said, ‘I love it’.” There was, however, the looming possibility that Bollea could reject his turn at the eleventh hour. Thinking ahead, Eric Bischoff developed a contingency plan in which Sting would play the role, ultimately revealing himself - despite not having prior experience with the WWF - as the ‘third man’ instead. “I remember Eric came in to the locker room,” recalls Marcus 'Buff' Bagwell, “and said [to Sting], ‘I wanna talk to you about something’. I could hear them going over the idea, and then when they got done, Sting told me what they were talking about. He said that [Eric said], ‘there are only two guys that could turn heel where it would really matter’. That would be Hogan and Sting.” “He was offering Sting the job first, [as I recall], and Sting didn’t wanna do it. He didn’t really say it wouldn’t work, but he just said, ‘it doesn’t intrigue me. I don’t wanna do it’.” According to Andre Freitas, a special effects artist who worked in costume design and character development for WCW, the proposed Sting swerve was to involve the use of a doppelganger - or ‘phony’ Sting - presumably in an effort to fool fans that the real character had switched sides. “That was their original plan,” says Freitas. “Eric showed me a picture of Jeff Farmer (a lower-card wrestler) and said ‘can you make him Sting?’ I told him that they have similar bodies...then we looked at Sting’s hair and Jeff’s hair...and talked about all that stuff. I did a head cast for [Farmer] and some prosthetic and test make-ups. But when they secured Hogan, we didn’t do [the angle].” ----------- Amazingly, even as Bash at the Beach began, Bischoff continued to consider Plan B. “I remember walking by this perforated wall in the Ocean Center,” divulges Nash, “and Eric said to me, ‘Hulk is with Sullivan, and he’s not sure he’s gonna do it yet’. It was up in the air.” Meanwhile, viewers of the pay-per-view - and, for that matter, WCW’s own production staff - speculated as to the identity of the third man. “They were trying to ‘work’ everyone,” asserts Jason Douglas, a WCW producer backstage at his first pay-per-view event. “‘Rocket’ (staff member Rick Sancher) came up to me - they were kinda testing me because I was new on the road - and said ‘hey, I think it’s gonna be [WWF wrestler] Bret Hart’. I guess it was to see if I would leak something, and so I was just like ‘oh, cool, Bret Hart’.” In reality, aside from Bischoff, Bollea, Young, Hall, Nash and Sullivan, the turn would be concealed from everyone - even the announcers, according to orders from Bischoff - as to ensure their most realistic reactions. With less than an hour before the main event began, production staffer Woody Kearce discovered a revealing clue in the parking lot. A Hulk Hogan motorcycle had appeared mysteriously in one of the spaces, sparking another round of backstage conjecture. Finally, with what Sullivan recalls as “thirty minutes” and Bischoff remembers as “forty-five to sixty minutes” left on the air, Bollea belatedly arrived at the Ocean Center. The mood suddenly changed. Upon realizing that his star had been convinced, Bischoff began to relax. “Once he got to the building, I recall a sense of calm,” he reveals. “All of the anxiety, all of the tension, all of the worry, all of the effort to make sure things stayed quiet...all of that just kind of dissipated. It was like fog lifting when the sun comes out - it all just went away. I was thinking, ‘it is what it is, there’s nothing more I can do...so let’s just roll with it’.” To cement the turn, Bollea knew, he would have to deliver a monumental post-match promo to explain his actions. While typically, he enjoyed using Bischoff as a sounding board to rehearse interviews, the need for complete privacy - on this occasion - was unquestionably paramount. And so, away from prying eyes - and ears - the two met up in the most unglamorous of clandestine locations - a utility closet. In the midst of the run-through, Bischoff stopped to emphasize an important point: When you grab that microphone, I want you to say...‘this is the beginning of the new...world...order’. The phrase - ‘new world order’ - lingered auspiciously in the air. Bischoff surprised himself with the utterance, realizing slowly that the term encapsulated everything that the invasion storyline could represent. In 1990, then-president George H.W. Bush famously utilized the same expression in a speech to Congress, although its origin could actually be traced back to the 28th President, Woodrow Wilson. But if Bischoff was unsure as to the source of his spontaneous inspiration, perhaps the answer could be found closer to home - on the preceding Nitro, just six days earlier, announcer Larry Zybysko serendipitously made the following proclamation: “This Sunday, I promise you, there will be a new world order of wrestling…” Fans at the Ocean Center waited anxiously to see if Zybysko’s prophecy would materialize; for after all the hoopla, it was suddenly time for the main event. Before the opening bell, the audience was already on its feet for ring announcer@Michael_Buffer’s pre-match introductions. As Hall and Nash sauntered to the ring for The Hostile Takeover match, Buffer set the scene with theatrical aplomb: “Ladies and gentleman, at this time, let me introduce the men whose plan and goal is to takeover the WCW with force and hostility. We were told there would be three of these interlopers, and I must apologize as I have been informed - as you can see - there are only two. Ladies and gentleman, introducing...the Outsiiiiiders!” In a moment that played off perfectly on television, Sting’s entrance music began - and quickly ended - as ‘Mean Gene’ Okerlund traipsed cautiously into the ring. After exchanging quizzical looks with Buffer and referee Randy Anderson, Okerlund confronted the Outsiders to get some answers, an inspired plot device designed to build the tension even further. “Gentleman,” began Okerlund, “if I could have your attention...I don’t have police protection with me at this time, but I wanna confront you in front of this full house here at the Ocean Center, and millions of others watching across the country and around the world. I don’t see three men here tonight. Where is your partner?” Responding in a manner consistent with their WWF characters, Hall and Nash assured Okerlund that the third man was present - and ready. “Let me tell you something,” announced a confident Nash, “we got enough to handle it right now, right here.” Once more, Sting’s entrance music blared from the arena speakers, this time preceding the man himself, accompanied by Luger and Savage. “Here we go!” screamed color commentator Bobby Heenan as the wrestlers passed an unusually large contingent of security personnel on the entrance way. “The war is on!” Less than two minutes into the bout, Luger collapsed to the outside, a move in accordance with Nash’s plan to even the sides before the climactic reveal. “Now it’s two against two!” yelled Heenan. After a brief delay, the concerned crowd looked on as Luger left the arena on a stretcher, leaving Sting and Savage alone to fight valiantly for WCW. As the match progressed, the contemptible Outsiders used every trick to stall their opponent’s momentum, until a revitalized Savage began a furious rally at the fifteen-and-a-half minute mark. The invaders were suddenly down, but not out - as with the referee distracted, Nash landed a low-blow to bring the Macho Man to his knees. All four men lay on the canvas, exhausted, as referee Anderson started a ten count. As Anderson yelled ‘ONE’, several rows of spectators rose to their feet. Within seconds, the reaction diffused from section to section, the noise level increasing with each passing beat. On the live broadcast, viewers at home caught glimpse of a familiar figure making his way down the ramp. “Hulkamania!” screamed Dusty Rhodes on commentary while Hogan walked methodically towards the ring. Noticeably, the Hulkster seemed oddly disaffected - even out-of-character - but after exchanging the briefest of glances with the crowd, he continued stride with the din reaching fever pitch. “Whose side is he on?” bellowed Heenan, a question that seemed inexplicable given the history of Hogan’s on-screen persona. “Whose side is he on?” repeated Heenan, who as longtime fans could recall, had opposed Hogan for years as a manager in the WWF. For that reason, the comment flew over the heads of most (but not all) viewers; meanwhile, the live crowd was cheering as if their team had won the World Series. Nash and Hall retreated to the floor as Hogan tore off his shirt, an apparent signal that the archetypal good guy was here to save the day again. “Who’s bad now boys?” taunted play-by-play man Tony Schiavone on commentary, confident that WCW’s honor was no longer in jeopardy. Savage lay prone on the mat as Hogan surveyed the scene. Above the cheapest of cheap seats, peeking through a curtain with palpable anticipation, was Eric Bischoff. “I knew that something big was about to happen,” he recalls. “It was either gonna be a big failure, or a big success.” Seemingly out of nowhere, with his unsuspecting devotees enveloped in celebration, Hulk backed up to the corner. With the coldness of a serial killer, the once-honorable hero shockingly shoved referee Anderson, and executed his patented finishing move - the leg drop - to the helpless Macho Man below. The audience became completely, utterly unglued. “I was standing back with the announcers,” remembers Michelle Baines, newly hired as a production assistant. “One of the producers turned to me and said, ‘you need to go to the back’. “‘I said, ‘what do you mean?’ “She said, ‘it’s gonna get ugly real quick’.” “She was right - the crowd turned ugly quick.” In retrospect, it was clear that even as Hogan’s body approached the canvas - contact with Savage just milliseconds away - the gravity of the assault started to hit home. “What has he done?” questioned a crestfallen Rhodes, “is he the third man? What the hell is going on here?” Heenan was even more direct - “Hulk Hogan has betrayed WCW! He is the third man in this picture!” A breathless Schiavone could barely muster more than three words: Oh My God, he repeated. Oh My God, he continued, as Hogan high-fived a grinning Hall and Nash. The courageous Sting, stumbling to his feet to stop the injustice, was quickly dispatched, and in the coup de grace, Hogan tossed Anderson to the floor. Sardonically, he covered Savage for the pin, the contest now clearly a farce. “I hope you love it,” a disappointed Rhodes wailed on commentary. “You just sold your soul to the devil.” The third man was a mystery no more, and Hall, Nash, and Hogan raised their hands in victory to a genuinely astonished audience. The immediate outrage, which first gave way to shock, was now inspiring unmitigated rage. Simultaneously, the evil trio continued to taunt, pose, and antagonize while the announcers lamented WCW’s future. As Sting and Savage hobbled back to the locker room, a visibly distraught Okerlund returned to conduct an explanatory interview, based around the one Hogan and Bischoff had mapped out earlier. “Mean Gene,” commanded Hogan, “the first thing you need to do is to tell these people to shut up if you wanna hear what I gotta say.” For the next four minutes, Hogan rationalized his turn with remarkable clarity. “The first thing you gotta realize, brother, is this right here is the future of wrestling. You can call this the new...world...order of wrestling. These two men right here came from a great big organization up north, and everybody was wondering who the third man was. Well, who knows more about that organization than me, brother? I made that organization a monster. I made people rich up there. I made the people that ran that organization rich up there. And when it all came to pass, the name Hulk Hogan, the man Hulk Hogan, got bigger than the whole organization!” Bischoff watched from his secretive seat in amazement - he had not seen, nor had anyone, this intensity of emotion on display at a wrestling show before. It was almost as if the assembled masses had lost themselves in the performance, perhaps even forgetting, if only for a moment, that they were witnesses to a pre-determined event. Hogan’s actions had ostensibly interrupted their critical faculties; in other words, they had suspended their disbelief by reacting to the incident as if it were real. Moreover, the shock was manifesting in the most volatile ways imaginable, as in an incident edited out of future showings of the pay-per-view, a rather large man, likely intoxicated, ran into the ring before being knocked down by Hall and Nash. Concurrently, a stream of debris rained down from the stands, with one object hitting Okerlund, and the rest filling the ring in a stunningly unique visual. Hogan continued as the trash piled up around him, even referencing Ted Turner in his diatribe: “Billionaire Ted promised me movies brother. Billionaire Ted promised me millions of dollars. And Billionaire Ted promised me world caliber matches. And as far as Billionaire Ted, Eric Bischoff, and the entire WCW goes, I’m bored brother! That’s why I want these two guys here, these so-called Outsiders. These are the men I want as my friends. They are the new blood of professional wrestling, and not only are we going to take over the whole wrestling business...with Hulk Hogan, the new blood and the monsters with me, we will destroy everything in our path, Mean Gene.” “Look at all the crap in this ring,” responded Okerlund. “This is what’s in the future for you if you want to hang around the likes of this man Hall, and this man Nash.” Hogan raised his finger as if to stop the interviewer midstream, the perfect line instantly coming to mind. “As far as I’m concerned, all this crap in the ring represents these fans out here,” he boomed defiantly. “For two years, I held my head high,” ranted Hogan, alluding to his rather uninspired WCW tenure. “I did everything for the charities. I did everything for the kids. And the reception I got when I came out here, you fans can stick it brother! Because if it wasn’t for Hulk Hogan, you people wouldn’t be here. If it wasn’t for Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff would still be selling meat from a truck in Minneapolis. And if it wasn’t for Hulk Hogan, all of these ‘Johnny come latelys’ that you see out here wrestling wouldn’t be here. I was selling the world out, brother, while they were bumming gas to put in their car to get to high school!” In closing, Hogan foreshadowed the future state of affairs in WCW with a prophetic preview of coming storylines: “With Hulk Hogan and the new world organization of wrestling, brother...me and the new blood by my side...whatcha gonna do when the new world organization runs wild on you? Whatcha gonna do? What are you gonna do??” Despite mistakenly bungling the ‘new world order’ phrase at the conclusion of his speech, Hogan still provided the perfect punctuation to a sensational heel turn. His promo, inarguably the most dynamic of his career, came across as strikingly authentic (“it felt real, because it was real’,” offered a proud Eric Bischoff upon reflection years later). On commentary, Schiavone - who most inspiredly suggested that Hogan had planned to double-cross WCW all along, since his debut in 1994 no less - added to the realism with some mournful final comments: “We have seen the end of Hulkamania,” he grieved. “Hulk Hogan, you can go to hell! We’re outta here. Straight to hell.” ---- To the layman, there appeared an obvious explanation for the feverous crowd response that accompanied Hogan’s turn. Clearly, the element of surprise - one of the key elements of Nitro’s success - had been exploited to a masterful degree (“nobody on earth thought that the third man was going to be Hulk Hogan,” highlights Nash). To Kevin Sullivan, however, there were several layers of story at play. “People thought that it was an invasion from the WWF,” he begins, implying that the success of the angle could be correlated to its realism. “They really bought into it, and when Hogan turned heel...they were sure of it. “So while Hogan gets the credit for the reaction, it was [Nash and Hall] who set the whole thing up. Those guys built the foundation of heat, and when Hogan came down, it just blew up.” “We were red hot coming off WWF television,” agrees Nash, “and then you had the biggest turn in the world on top of that. The biggest babyface of all-time finally turned heel!” To the ever-meticulous Sullivan, always a keen observer of the nuances present in a wrestling angle, an often overlooked element was also noteworthy. “He did it to Randy [Savage],” the booker emphasizes, speaking of Hogan’s betrayal. “People knew there was real-life heat there. That helped out too, but everyone played an intricate part. “Lightning...you can’t catch it in a bottle but one time.” The above is an excerpt from the book, NITRO: The Incredible Rise and Inevitable Collapse of Ted Turner's WCW. Amazon USA: Amazon UK: Amazon Canada: Amazon Australia: 17+ Hour Audiobook Available at Audible and Apple Books Audible USA: Audible UK: Audible Canada: Audible Australia: Apple Books: Ultimate NITRO Bundle: Deep Cuts - Wrestling Stories in 60 Seconds! David Penzer AdFreeShows.com 83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff On This Day in WWE Allan Conrad the Mortgage Guy IandrewDiceClay WCW Archive Because WCW WCW4Life ᴀʀᴅᴀ Öᴄᴀʟ 90s WWE Secrets of WCW Nitro #WCW #nWo #HulkHogan #BashattheBeach #HeelTurn #Wrestling #WrestlingBooks #OTD #WWE #WorldChampionshipWrestling #Nitro](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2074461260037472650/amplify_video_thumb/2074458245859618816/img/LGSM61_LAq--YROA.jpg)