In July of 2022, the Kino was coming up on it's six month anniversary and the show seemed to be finding it's feet. Receptions were mixed and they had yet to face major controversy. This would change for them, not once, but twice in the month of July. The first time, it had to do with a former Killstram cohost turned enemy having been exposed having been an extreme pervert and viewer of shotocon (animations depicting young BOYS in sexual situations, read pedophile). This is known as "The Flamenco Debacle" and it may be covered in another entry, but today we are focused on the second July 2022 controversy, known as Power Chat Gate or the Great Chat Revolt of '22.
Power Chat Gate came in the wake of viewers and paypigs expressing concerns regarding the medium through which chats were sent. A sketchy website known as Power Chat, whose online presentation inspired all the confidence of a windowless van with a "Free Candy" sign, was the primary means by which paypigs would donate at that time. Paypigs would put their handle, amount of donation and message into the Power Chat website, whereupon Power Chat would use the backdoor of Paypal to process the transaction, while increasing the fees to the user by over 200%. Ostensibly, the advantage to this was that this would obscure any personally identifiable information contained in the display of a Paypal donation.
After the aforementioned dropping of the ball regarding Flamenco disaster, consumer trust in the Kino Casino was at an all time low. Their show and every aspect under it was under a microscope, causing viewers to (rightfully) get suspicious about the level of security the Casino had utilized while processing paypig donations and question to what degree sensitive financial and personal information was being put at risk at using this sketchy creator support medium. These suspicions would prove well founded. Notably, Power Chat was a project headed by loulz (Groyper adjacent public figure and Caked Alaska roommate) and Caked Alaska to process donations to IP2 (Ice Poseidon 2) personalities, whose controversial antics often led them to difficulties with mainstream financial processing entities.
This would ultimately culminate in a stream on 7/19/22, where they would ultimately swear off Power Chat and address viewer/paypig concerns, in what would turn out to be a softball grilling by Mr. Metokur, a.k.a. Janny Jim. For point of reference, the events of the farms leading up to and including the roughly 90 minute segment on that day comprise pages 240-270 of this thread or around 600 posts in approximately 18 hours. Nails were being bitten and anticipation was in the air. How did that stream go? Let's review the footage and the Farms and begin to get an understanding of this chaotic clusterfuck.
While I did view these events in real time, including the stream itself when it was live, I rewatched the vids earlier today and replayed them, pausing as needed, to assist in this write up. I pulled up the version on the People's Populist Press Odysee page, but it had the chat revolt edited out. As such, I went over to Xyzern's Odysee page (Xyzern is a long time fan of the show, modest paypig and only recently made contact with Andy directly in a post show stream where he joined their gaming server and played an FPS alongside of them. Andy kept mispronouncing his name and was introducing him to the inner circle, so we can surmise paypiggery increased around this time. It was a few months ago, I do not have an exact date. It was either Oct or Nov). Anyhow, what is important is that PPP's internal archive edited out the chat, whereas Xyzern preserved it.
Let's start with describing the chat. The chat was initially set to slow, for which Janny Jim's first order of business was to request that the chat be taken off slow mode. While the aforementioned Flamenco stream had it's own chat revolt, the Power Gate scandal was too much for even the janitors, leading to a mass janitor exodus and a completely unmoderated chat. As such, it was an alternation of tomato emoticons, disparaging messaging towards the Casino, disparaging messaging towards Janny Jim(with occasional displays of his address), celebrations of a Ralph W and just a chaotic clusterfuck of irate audience members with the chat cycling several times per second once PPP successfully took it of slow chat mode. PPP attempted to appeal to weaponized incompetence and learned helplessness about his supposed inability to take chat out of slow mode, but jokes by Janny Jim about pissing off his janitors, causing Jim to log in overtime on his day off, got Ashton to conveniently learn this on the fly.
It bears noting that Jim has chosen a hollerin rage pig as his avatar, having captured Ralph with one eye half shut, a flush red face and Ralph at his fattest, wearing a pink collared shirt. Ashton is wearing a rather busy XXXXXXL buttoned shirt (I may have missed an X or two, but that seems right) and Andy is broadcasting from his daddy's office. Andy, running the sound, has Jim by far the loudest, Ashton in the middle and himself with meek audio. Chat does not like this, but it is vaguely tolerable and every word from every party can still be understood.
Unfortunately, I am not well versed in the NP2 controversy, but I can briefly surmise that Jersh and Dick Masterson were trying to innovate a means of creator support beyond the reach of the censors (to the degree such is possible) and Ashton was a vociferous critic of both method and execution. I welcome correction or added context, but this is one part of the lore I am not familiar with. In any case, the opening observation by Ashton is the irony that his history of being a payment processor critic has now evolved to him being the subject of the criticism, as executed by his "daddy" Jim (talk to your real father you fat fuck).
Jim starts by asking them why they dealt with this in the most retarded manner possible, namely evading critics for weeks and minimizing concerns. PPP says they are the retarded pheonix and the half retarded Canadian and sometimes you fuck up, it is what it is. As of late, they have been ridiculing anyone who uses that latter phrase, so the irony of this quote in the modern climate is palpable. Jim mentions the tomato spam, the janny revolt and the chat revolt, which Ashton admits is not the first chat revolt. Ashton talks about Sargoy, an old janitor, and how he managed his chat in the pre-casino days. It is here Jim demands the chat be taken out of slow mode. Jim takes a shot at Ralph for being a day drinker and we proceed.
Jim gives them the choice of personal or professional, Ashton says dealer's choice, Jim chooses professional. The brief history of Power Chat, including the role of loulz and Baked, is discussed, as well as the fact that it was programmed primarily by volunteer labor by Groypers. It charged 7.1%, in addition to Paypal's 2.9%, meaning the paypig was paying a 10% processing fee, over triple the Pay(pig)pal fee of less than 3%. The safety of Power Chat is called into question, as to what information is retained by the owners/operators of Powerchat. On a recent stream, AF personality Beardson Beardly pulled up the paypal info on a donor who was clowning on him while on air, exacerbating audience concerns.
When it is all said and done, the Casino was correct to say that the card number itself was safe, having 12 out of 16 digits obscured, but using the service displayed to PowerChat (hereby after referred to as PC) the paypal of the donor and whatever name was associated. Those who kept their real name off their paypal were only partially compromised, whereas those with their real names on their paypal were fully identified. Of course, the handle, amount and message were logged by PC, but this was already disclosed as part of the message read on the relevant stream. While the matter was not as severe as the worst case scenario, it was still really fucking bad. Competing claims existed as to exactly who owned what share, but all parties enriched by PC were either Groypers or Groyper adjacent, with Nig Fuentes wanting a 10% cut of his own.
Andy asserts that the concerns stemmed from a dlive with Kyler (the person with whom he had the falling out with in November, leading to Vegas Gate and all subsequent controversies) and proceeds to dive into the aforementioned history. Powerchat was initially loulz.tips for the IP2 personalities and evolved from there. Andy says it was used by him for 2 years from inception and became Power Chat about 6 months ago, at the inception of the Casino (First show was 1/21/22, we are now at 7/19/22). The developer name "Saint" is dropped by Ashton. They then talk about a claim from Baked, weeks earlier, saying that he was a partial owner and Fuentes demanding a cut. They mention Jaden was using it and since he was in the know up until months prior, his lack of fear using the service as America First enemy number one indicates he had no knowledge of PowerChat compromising it's users, whether creator or paypig and the surrounding actions to bolster the sincerity of his claim.
PPP apologizes to "those who feel our/their message was undercut" and gives assurances that financial data itself is not exposed to the best of his knowledge (this is true) and that user info is contained to that which is entered and what is displayed on paypal (also correct, but not irrelevant). He admits error and asserts "everyone's information is safe" (unless you count people who don't want their online handles associated with their paypal or people whose paypals have identifying information, so false). Andy interjects and re-explains how Powerchat operates through Paypal's back door (too easy). He recalls the Beardson incident previously referenced.
Jim talks about the (roughly) 3% to PP and (roughly) 7% to PC as "developer fees", Jim inquires which end it comes out of (phenomenon is identical either way) and who ultimately gets access to those fees (competing claims exist, but all have the commonality of groypers and those who are groyper adjacent). Jim asserts, possibly correctly/possibly not, that Google ALSO takes 10% on top of the 10% already established. Andy says "we just get a percentage" and asserts he does not know what percentage that is.
A clip from loulz is played (Jim pronounces his name as Louise). This interview clip talks about the role of Groyper (free) labor in programming and talks about who owns what % of PC. Loulz speaks of an NDA, but that is regarding information regarding AF, not an NDA from sharing PC acquired info WITH AF. Jim notes that NEITHER loulz nor Baked is the majority owner and the majority owner remains unnamed. Ashton cites lack of leaks to this point as evidence that they don't have info above and beyond what is shown on PC or paypal (he is correct, but he isn't certain that he is correct at this time). Jim brings up the idea that any information scraped by PC will be useful to his upcoming plea deal (true). Jim notes that not only KC donors are on the menu, but AF donors as well (true).
Ashton goes on to state that access to sensitive details is unproven (true) and he is convinced that everyone's details are safe (not exactly, see above). Jim then references this post from SmartyPants on pg 238 (he vocalizes his source on the air). An image is presented below with what Jim is referencing.
PPP then casts aspersions on the qualifications of Smartypants and Jim reinforces his assertion with a snide joke of his own, which is where the interview takes it's first turn in the janitorial arts of broomkata. Jim doubles down on his jokes about Smartypants, evoking a hyena cackle from Tardski. Ashton admits the current events are reminiscent of his critiques of NP2 and now he is in the position he was accusing others of during the NP2 debacle (I am woefully unaware of the particulars of this controversy). He asserts that he was overstating the NP2 controversy and claims that the same thing is happening here. Jim concurs, reinforcing the sweep job. Tardski asserts the Baked stream convinced them to get an exit plan from Power Chat (technically true, but in an untimely manner after trying to minimize legitimate concerns). They assert they are not returning to PC, which, to their credit, remains true to this day. Don't give em too much credit though, it was only an audience revolt that cemented this.
Ashton asserts that he addressed it, but goes on to explain how he tried to divert criticisms by putting the spotlight on Josh and NP2. Chat is NOT happy with him. Jim has shifted tone from interviewer/(extremely lackluster)interrogator to buddy buddy chucklefuck laughing at this oh so whacky turn of affairs. PPP asserts this is a good faith razzing, but the chat and myself are pressing X to doubt. He was just pretending to be retarded after all. After some banter, Jim asks Ashton what "old PPP" would say about this. This is where we come up to our "cold cabin" villain origin story where he calls his old self immature and the tribulations of poverty made him embrace the grift, whereas his old self was immature and coming from a position of comfort, being able to look down on grifters, whereas now he had to make that cheddah. He (dubiously) asserts that offline income was not an option because of his internet history and that he was coasting off COVIDbux that were drying up.
He also draws aspersions to "2014 Jim" that would have similar critiques of "2022 Jim", as they are now mature adults who understand how the world works, not prima donnas with a sense of entitlement. Andy characterizes this as "growth" (while clapping) because of course he does. PPP characterizes his old positions as "interfering with the income of others" (paraphrase, not direct quote). His monologue is NOT well received. He then recounts calling up Andy to help him make money, where Andy helped get him situated with equipment purchases and startup cash, which he would not allow Ashton to repay, categorizing it as a gift. We then get some variation of South Park's "I learned something today."
They talk about squashing the beef and becoming friends. They note that Ashton changed and try to frame it as a good thing. They then talk about the Godwinson affair where Ashton asserts that the attempt to replace Andy with Godwinson would only occur after "the business with Andy ran it's natural course" and with Andy's consent/blessing, not as an attempted coup. He proceeds to talk about what Godwinson is up to professionally, which Jim recoils at, given the amount of identifying information in PPP's synopsis. Talk of Godwinson's received payment for his Casino appearance comes about and how this was a violation of his strict anti-grifting position. Ashton claims he was drunk when he accidentally revealed Godwinson's real name and that he erased it the next day. The chat, at this point, hates Jim more than the Casino. Tomatoes have been replaced by brooms.
Talk of a potential Godwinson third chair occurs, which was going to transition into a PPP/Godwinson show once Andy voluntarily went on to other projects. None of this aged well. The talk of Godwinson's new professional/political position occurs and Jim becomes upset for the identifying information. Ashton asserts he is just "providing context." I am going to skip ahead somewhat, because the Godwinson chapter is long closed.
We are skipping ahead for a recap of the Flamenco debacle, where Andy admits tech fail(while asserting being underinformed, true) and Ashton admits overconfidence/underpreparation. The writers room gave them the talking points, which they were too arrogant to review. Ashton asserts the blame lies on him, not Warski. Godwinson was trying to put blame on Warski at this time (partially true, but everyone fucked up big). Jim ridicules their defeat to a 34 year old autistic pervert, but in a matter to encourage laughing it off. Ashton likens himself and Godwinson to Tyson and Ali vs. a disabled cripple. AT MOST, they deserve to be likened to varsity athletes and that is overly generous, especially given their L.
PPP states that the Writer's room was lackluster in performance, but mitigates this by asserting that they are just burned out. Jim makes "throwing under the bus" jokes, which get repeated later and will not be brought up later. Talk of the upcoming Salt Papi fight ensues, as well as the Surfer relationship, both of which I am skipping over to get to the sweepy wrap up.
We start the closeout by ridiculing Flamenco and recalling those events, in an attempt to get the focus off the Casino in the closing moments, in true broomkata janitorial fashion. We talk about the Flamenco fail and have a good chuckle about a silly series of errors and proceed into the closeout. Ashton talks of squashed beefs and unified fronts and audience reassurances. The first third of the interview is softball criticism which is limited to "tell us your side of the story" while only bringing up objections in the meekest and most defeatable of forms. The middle of the interview is just talking of events unrelated to PC. The end of the interview is their assurances on how they'll do better going forward. Jimnosis has pacified and placated large portions of the revolt, having characterized it as a goofy error than a serious security concern. Jimnosis must never save them again. They were only saved by his sweeping on this date and the last 2.5 years of shows are owed to this. Let history not repeat itself.