His behavior has to have consequences. Everything does. I’m just shocked it’s taking so long: how much more pressure can he put on the backs of those who have been supporting him for years until enough is enough?
I think his behavior has already had consequences. Sometimes it just feels like it hasn't because they aren't Phil's immediate demise, but unfortunately, it tends to take awhile for someone to implode without a significantly big outside factor, typically something like drugs or a gambling addiction or whatever.
It is one of the few areas where Phil's boring ass hermit lifestyle actually helps him out. Other people who made way more than Phil and were legitimately famous burned out much quicker because of overly expensive interests. I think if Phil had any of those, he'd be significantly worse off. I think the closest he's come that we can actively confirm is him pouring thousands into that wrestling mobile game.
Him living above his means is still hurting him though. I believe he is genuinely struggling financially, just not to the extent that he likes to portray. While he is making money, his reputation has been destroyed for years and he's burned so many bridges I can't imagine Phil ever getting a recovery or redemption arc. But the biggest consequence is his misery. Phil hates what he does, he hates his audience and while I think he's too egotistical to admit it, he's unhappy with his life. I'm guessing that's a large part of why he spends in the first place, he's trying to buy happiness.
The biggest reason DSP is unhappy is because he wants to live like the cool main character from an 80's movie/tv series. He wants people to openly respect and look up to him. He wants people to laugh at/quote his sick burns, he wants them to talk about and praise his video game skills and just in general acknowledge how he's a tough badass. Station has always been important to Phil, and I think he tries to display that station through his possessions more than his accomplishments because he has so few of them. Even then, we see some examples, namely bragging about being married, his 4th place evo win, and then through made up things like being the first person to invent LP's or being the sole reason his helicopter factory was successful.
The issue is, Phil can only succeed now by begging and making himself look like a victim. But for us, this often leads to hilarity. One of my favorite Phil'isms is when one of his actual fans points out he isn't doing well financially and should try doing XYZ only to have Phil snap and call them a moron and explain how he's doing fine/he's a much better adult than the dude who suggested it, even though it flies in the face of the narrative DSP was just painting with his begging. That's why I think there's a genuine financial struggle because DSP would love to be able to flaunt his wealth in front of people to brag about his station, but he can't because he knows he needs the pity bux. He keeps convincing himself that the next AAA release will be the playthrough that finally puts him back at the top, not realizing he only got there in the beginning by exploiting a flaw in YouTube's algorithm, not through talent.
Phil survives on pity and he knows it. He tries to convince himself otherwise by arguing he deserves this money and people are paying him for that and not his latest victimization scam. But not even his paypigs support this narrative. Sure, every so often he gets a paypig who openly says they're donating because of Phil being good/funny/whatever, but I think the majority of the time it is pity donations or people trying to spite detractors. The thing is, Phil's ungrateful attitude does push his paypigs away, so even then there are consequence for him. Imagine if he was kinder and managed to hook E7 or Tut and continued to get that level of support. That's how the actual successful streamers/content creators like Ninja/PewDiePie end up making bank. Phil keeps shooting himself in the foot, and while it hasn't outright led to his downfall, it is still hurting him, and he will eventually reach the point where he runs out of paypigs who can step up. IMO, he's never really recruited new ones, I think he just has a small following of old ones who couldn't compete with the previous paypig and are just waiting for the current ones to leave/be banned so they can step up and take over.
