Since it feels like things have calmed down a little, I wanted to throw in my two cents about what is/interesting about Phil. Well, interesting might be a stretch, but you know what I mean.
I've seen Phil compared to Wings or Boogie before, but I don't think that's really accurate. Not anymore, at least. Years ago, way more during the Twitch days, Phil would average around 500-800 viewers, many of which were trolls who would throw change at him to say such hilarious and original things like "Leanna got blacked." Even then, it was honestly a point of contention, we had a thread about the merits of throwing pennies at Phil and I believe whoever was tracking tips and stuff even had a separate section for tracking "troll" tips specifically. Generally, anyone who came here to brag about wasting 5 bucks on a generic insult was given the appropriate stickers and tophats.
I think it was around the vest streak these trolls really started to die off, and while you still get some people superchatting insults at Phil, he's more or less been locked down since starting on YouTube. A common joke is posting screenshots of Phil asking if anyone is in his chat, followed by the number of active users which is usually around like 2-12.
Someone mentioned that trolls were constantly trying to milk Phil for content and that's why Phil sucks/the boards should be shut down, because Phil won't ever chimp out like he used to. And, again, I think it makes sense for types like Wings or Boogie, but that's never really been Phil's thing. Phil doesn't need trolls to chimp out at. Phil does that plenty on his own. One of my favorite Phil sagas was the BK saga. For those unaware, I'll give a very abridged version. A few years ago on his wife's birthday, he failed to make reservations or something so they ended up having lunch at BK. Phil got a burger that had a bunch of ketchup and mayo on it and, in his mind, was inedible as a result. Phil angrily tweeted about it, and demanded BK customer support make it better. The next day, he dedicated a prestream segment to it, adding such details like he couldn't go in to complain/get a replacement because there were people actively shooting up in the parking lot in the middle of the day. He continued to rant/tweet about it for I want to say at least a week or two, and periodically brought it up throughout the rest of the year. That isn't me being hyperbolic, this "ruined burger" was actively on his mind for that long and I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if it was even brought up more recently.
That's the kind of content the majority of us tend to enjoy from Phil. It has nothing to do with Phil being trolled or forced a reaction. Phil basically has two modes, he's either hungover and completely quiet and a complete bore, or he's going on some sort of manic rant, ranging from someone moving something out of his cart and equating that to being mugged, Amazon delivery drivers that are stealing from him, game developers purposefully wasting his time, or lambasting his own viewers for daring to talk about anything non-Phil related in his chat. For non-troll examples of Phil flying off the handle on his supporters specifically, I'd recommend any of his "viewer suggestion" streams.
Things like Phil being a beggar, while true, are just sort of side details. On an average day, the main thread tends to get 2-3 pages. It's not just "oh man, can you believe Phil is begging again?" We'll make jokes about it, sure, but if Phil suddenly decided to stop begging, or hell, stopped mentioning money period, it wouldn't really change anything about his cow status. I think it's Phil's hermit/boomer style rants combined with general life inexpereince and a massive sense of entitlement and chronic lying that make him interesting. It's little things, like him saying carrying his groceries up and down the stairs once a week is a workout, or rushing offscreen and pretending to effortlessly do 20 pushups just by counting that's entertaining.
