Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio Zaren.

Elizabeth, what's up?

You know I'm doing?

How you doing?

Good?

Good?

Good?

Nice?

I'm on the right side of the bars.

Well, I know, above ground and getting paid.

You know how we do.

That's us, that's us.

You know, it's ridiculous.

I do, Elizabeth, Oh do I I was you know, you know how we do?

Both of us.

We read do stories and we're like, oh, could that be something I tell the other?

And a funny story?

Well, this one was in a full episode, but it's definitely worth me telling you.

Okay.

So the headline is Prior Lake woman arrested with bag of drugs labeled definitely not a bag of drugs.

Oh no, So this forty eight year old woman from the Prior Lake area.

She had a bag labeled definitely not a bag of drugs and the midnight, just before midnight on New Year's Eve, she was a pulled over for suspicion of drunk driving.

And this was all due to the fact that the police when they pulled her over for swerving on this one boulevard, police asked the woman if she'd been drinking.

She responded a lot.

She added that she took a yegger bomb just before driving, like one for the road Elizabeth, and she had been drinking Jamison and red bulls all night.

Oh gosh.

So they breathalyzed her.

Right test comeback blood alcohol is point one nine, which is double legal limit.

Right.

So the police they arrest the woman and then they started to go through her car and she tells them if they do, they're going to quote find a bunch of in her car.

So the officers indeed found a brown bag with the riding on it.

In the bag was get this fourteen individual psychedelic mushrooms, so magic mushrooms, the pot brownie.

The police also found some more just loose pot, some cocaine, three pills of Motorden fidel.

It's like, I guess it's profagill.

It's an antidepressant and an oxy codon pill in her bag.

Definitely not a bag full of trucks.

My gosh, was on an adventure.

Yeah.

This is January seventh of this year that I saw this story report.

I hope she turns her life around.

I just love her, like real or candor.

She's like, look, it's like people lie to their doctor.

Yeah, why no, you know look, you got it.

All all the evidence is there.

You're going to find some stuff in my bag, not.

The misleading bag you've been drinking.

I love it a lot.

Sorry, there you go, ridiculous.

This is ridiculous.

Do you want to know what else is ridiculous?

I'd love to beige the color.

Yeah, this is ridiculous.

Crime a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers.

He and cons.

It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one percent ridiculous.

Damn right.

I know I've mentioned influencers here before.

You have.

Yeah, it's a phenomenon.

I just don't understand.

I don't understand following a person online because you like their fashion or lifestyle choices, Like who cares you really?

Don't you understand I don't make anything.

They just pose with things, or like they show their butts on beaches.

You know, but sometimes they do like there's a lot of outfit of the day, or buy this look kind of stuff, or like musicians whore Like I found this shop that sells these records.

It's different thans a musician who's trying to get like a side hustle.

I found a shop that sells records.

I also will sell a look often so that you know they will sell propus.

The ones that really creep me out are the parents who put their kids on social media.

Oh yeah, are they still doing that?

But yeah?

Well sometimes I'll see a video on Instagram of some kid doing something that's cute, and for a moment, I'm all, and then I immediately snap out of it and I'm like, that is so exploitive and how dangerous, Like there are a lot of creeps out there.

I think people need to have these different tiers of exposure, Like there should be some things like for friends and family, and then some things for the group chat, and then some things for like wider public consertion.

They need like inside jokes, outside jokes, like this is not an outside joke, Like I'm not saying that's not funny, but it's really offensive to a large so maybe don't make that joke.

Exactly Exactly.

In my family, we've got like the the group chats that involve like what we call content pictures of and videos of my nephew.

But he never appears on no one ever puts anything online.

Yeah, exactly, no matter how cute or funny he is.

Although I have to say he was on America's Funny Somethings Videos, so there is a little bit of it.

So I don't know what you're talking about.

A videos I forgot about.

Yeah, that is aside from Burnette.

I totally anyway, I gotta let kids be kids.

So I'm guilty of doom scrolling online, oh yeah, and getting dragged into like endless streams of Instagram reels because it takes me a while to kind of likes.

I'll say like, I'm going to bed, and then an hour later, I'm still laying there, but I can't just fall asleep.

And so you know, I have to say that I think things began to fall apart for us as a society with social media.

I said this to you the other day.

You do.

I mean the intention is great, connecting people, blah blah blah.

Sure, but it's become a poison.

It's terrible.

It messes with people's heads.

I don't think it's the what, it's the how.

No, it is it's the how too, like when you monetize and m and the whole thing.

It works for both sides of the influencer equation.

So you have the consumers seeing these videos and photos of altered reality and wanting it for themselves.

Ah yeah.

The images are manipulated, not just like with photoshop or whatever, but like the behind the scenes tricks, so it's an unreality.

They make a place look amazing and then tourists descend on it and turn it into a hellscape.

They pretend to eat some confection, whether it's like an improbable pastry or like a milkshake esque coffee drink.

Yeah mean you know they're not actually drinking.

No, they'll like buy it like pose and then throw it away and everyone swarms on the places like locusts and they disappear for the next thing.

And all the camera tricks that are involved in presentation yeah yeah, I'm not talking like actual editing force perspectives.

On the other end of it, the influencers create an unreality in which they live like they demand freebies and deals.

Oh yeah, They block walkways in airports and like tables at restaurants to film idiotic clips.

They come to believe their own hype.

Yes, I'm sure it takes work to launch oneself as an influencer effort, but I don't believe it takes.

Talent, No persistence, I think is what it takes.

Yeah, they aren't creating anything.

They're serving corporate, capitalist, consumerist interests, like they are tools of a commercial machine.

I will say that there has to be some talent for some of the real goers because of the ones who other people end up imitating.

There's a lot of imitation in the space of influence.

I think it's more luck than talent.

They're fungible, right, and even more so as they all start to look like each other.

But I think for whatever reason, and sometimes when one of them hits, is that because of corporate influence, that extends their reach further than there is one to try it.

You know, Organically they get enough followers, they start to feel that like their fame.

Is far reaching, right, Yeah, and it's real.

They start to with like the whole don't you know who I am?

Thing?

Like when they are denied what they want.

It's like a super big sized version of do you know my dad is?

Totally?

And like what they want is like free stuff or preferential treatment.

And as a rule, I find I don't really patronize the same establishments as these folks.

Businesses, locales, travel destinations.

One time you and I were at Heifeiberger in Oakland to check it out, and there was a food influencer there who like set up a camera array at one of the tables to record himself, just like putting the hurt on a.

Birthday tabletop tripod.

Yeah.

I was mesmerized and it was like cringe inducing and for me it was.

Like a sociological experiment or like being a naturalist like in his actual environment.

The influencer.

So I've talked about scammer influencers.

Yes, what about influencer on influencer beef.

Oh yeah, let's on that one.

So, like there are food influencers like you know little kid at Heifeiberger, but also style influencers.

Obviously one of those cats is Ben Yang aka Ben Baller.

I have to establish first, like before I go into this, all the people I name don't come at me like I'm doing you a favor.

I'm talking about you, So don't get mad at me.

Influencers, You're welcome spreading their reach.

You're welcome anyway.

Yeah, I know, right.

So, Ben Yang aka Ben Baller he is an LA based entrepreneur whose public identity is built around three overlapping careers, entertainment work, celebrity facing custom jewelry and influencer media, so like podcasts and social platforms.

He's a triple threat Zerin.

Apparently he was your typical LA entertainment industry operator.

He got to start in the music industry.

He was a VP of A and R AT Priority Records.

Okay, his family owned a jewelry shop, and then he pivoted to that at some point and he became closely associated with custom quote iced out jewelry for musicians and entertainers, like pave stuff is basically you know when I think of like what you know looks iced out jewelers.

Yes, yes, I found a bunch of interviews with the guy, and all I can say is that I I had to control my rage for some reason.

This guy irritates the potatoes out of me.

There's this interview in Flaunt magazine right there, and it's basically gibberish.

Here's a sample.

Here's the question.

When you were a VP A of an R AT Priority Records, what was jewelry in your life at that point?

That's the question, what je what was jewelry in your life at that point?

You're a phenomenal interviewer, it was still here's his response.

I loved it, but working in the corporate world is interesting.

I was making good money.

If you deserve to make money, then you should make money, meaning if you have points on a record points would translate to somewhat ownership, but not really.

If you're making good money at a record label and doing well, you should be rewarded with the right salary.

A lot of people are doing well and they haven't hit it yet.

I hadn't necessarily hit it yet at Priority, even though we had successes.

The structure of the label back then, it's not necessarily set up for anybody to eat but the CEO.

Some people can, some people can't.

You have to be in the right position.

I went in there literally out of my means.

I wanted to wear Versace, whatever the fly is.

Clothes were have all the cool drive a fly car.

It's funnier every time I think about it, what made me happy or what I really looked forward to and that lifestyle.

I wake up daily now and I laugh.

Everything I wanted then, whether it was jewelry or anything.

Even if a watch is completely inflated in price, watch prices are now the worst they've ever been.

Some watches that cost fifty or sixty grand.

They're one hundred and fifty two hundred grand.

Now, even at that price, if I really really wanted it, I'll go buy ten or twenty of them.

It's nothing I really care about, sir.

The question was is this your sake?

Let's go back to the original question when you were VP of A and R at Priority Records.

Was jewelry in your life at that point?

Much of the rest of the interview is about a custom gold mini fridge.

Yeah, the whole thing.

I was like, am I having a stroke?

I'd have to clarify because they'resually saying words and I think I know what they mean, but maybe not.

When you say a gold mini fridge, is this a mini fridge to keep your gold cold?

Or is this actually.

Made of gold gold plated miniature?

I decided to be clarified.

I know, I know.

The La Times they did a profile of him in twenty sixteen about his menswear venture.

Oh lord.

They talked about his quote improbable, career.

Arc improbable, that's something an insult, Yeah.

And they said that part of the jewelry business was funded by selling a his sneaker collection for He sold it for more than a million dollars.

He was like a mad shoe beest.

Yeah, I guess.

So.

The jewelry business is icy Fresh icee like the seven eleven ries, but now it goes by IF and Co.

It's seven eleven threatened to suit.

Yeah.

There are categories on the store website like Jesus Pieces, which is different from Reese's Pieces.

And these are just like in golden crusted and diamond and crusty cross.

Yeah, because you know Jesus.

The first thing you'd want to see is that.

He was like, I love it so much, I'm going to kick these tables over.

I bet the poor really are benefiting from this.

This is perfect for me.

There's also cryptocurrency jewelry.

Of course, there is wolf jewelry, wolf heads.

And royal jewelry and this is what it says under there, Please enter the realm of majesty with IF In Companies Royal Jewelry Collection.

This exquisite range is a celebration of royal elegance, featuring designs inspired by kings, queens, crowns, and the grandeur of nightly valor.

Each piece in this collection is a testament to the opulence and pressed of royalty and it's basically like the king and queen faces from decks of cards what I'm not kidding and then a crown or two.

It's that like mid century cool, like oh Prince ran Year were I watch Heavens?

No his personal logo I remember, it's Ben Baller is an overlapping BB that's a rip off of the Rolls Royce logo.

Oh yeah yeah.

Oh, and he has a podcast, Cold de Ice with Ben Baller and Jimmy Boy.

Jimmy Boy is Jimmy Boy is all.

One word and boy is bo I.

Okay, it's not an iHeart joint, thank goud, that would be awkward.

Apparently he's bailed on that project though.

No.

No, he pivoted to short form podcast TikTok videos yeah, something he calls free game, which is just him Like it looks like just talking to the camera for a little bit.

I don't know.

I couldn't bring myself to watch any of that.

I love us becoming again an oral culture.

Yes, here's what those have to offer the viewer.

Jewelry and business insights.

Rising grind and also gets you shot.

Oh.

He shares his expertise as a celebrity jeweler and entrepreneur Lifestyle and culture, where he discusses trends, culture and his interests, including golf, and then quick valuable content short punchy episodes or clips offering valuable insights as he aims to provide quote free game.

Ah, so what do you drops three grand?

This is like say, like dating advice, maybe some dietary advice.

Yeah, his take on international relations.

Yes, plant your seeds early.

Yeah, there's that whole golf thing.

Like he's a golf guy.

Now, guess is that codes wealthy?

But we're getting away from one.

But he's think it's getting into skiing soon because that's the thing.

Because there's Saudi money in golf, all right, and that's what he's all about.

Okay, so we're getting away from why we're here though.

Okay, please crime, drag us back crime.

Ben Baller and his wife Nicolette Yang.

They were hosting a birthday party for their seven year old son.

Nicolette called up this bakery in La Studio City called Big Sugar Bake Shop.

It's like a cute popular place.

How about they probably.

Nicolette asked for a cake with a quote modern mad science.

Birthday party theme and then she gave him a reference image.

Thank god.

The cake and the photograph had a beaker spilling on the top and like a play on the periodic table, and then these like pill like jelly beans had fallen out of the beaker and like all around on the bottom.

It's like a big, breaking bad fan bea stuff.

So Big Sugar sent an invoice that itemized all the design components and the pricing, including a line item described as pills fifteen dollars.

Nicolette responded positively to this invoice and said, okay, sounds great.

That's a direct quote.

Really it is, okay, sounds great, and asked for a frosting color change, like it sounds great, but can we make this?

Big Sugar amended and resent the invoice, and it still said pills fifteen dollars.

So there is one matter at dispute here.

Did Nicolette tell the bakery that the cake was for a kid?

She says yes, The bakery says no, oh no.

So when the cake arrived, the Yangs freaked out.

What looked like jellybeans in the reference picture came to life on the actual cake.

As fond of decorations that look like realistic.

Pills, ecstasy pills, all sorts.

Of like you know, exact exactly.

So we had the dispute, is this for a kid?

And then there was the dispute how did it go down?

Once the cake was turned over?

So, as ben Baller tells it, he phoned and he sought an apology and a refund, and he calmly said it was inappropriate to put drugs on a seven year old's cake, and he claimed that the bakery employee was rude, blamed his wife and suggested they thought the cake was for a pharmacy school graduate, and then they hung up on him.

In Big Sugar's account of what happened, employees said ben Baller immediately threatened the bakery with his platform, saying he had a TV show, a podcast, and over a million followers who would quote destroy Big Sugar, I will injure you.

They said, he used all sorts of foul language and a variety of threats over multiple phone calls.

Yes, so the bakery they're like, okay, we triage, we got to fix this.

So they started making a replacement immediately because the party was still hours away, and so you have to imagine they have blanks like unfrosted rounds of cake on hand, and they just got to decorating as quickly.

I'm with it.

And then they delivered the second cake to the Yangs, but it wasn't enough.

So within minutes of the calls after he's calling him threatening, Ben Yang, Hey, Ben Baller, he starts posting about Big Sugar on social media.

Before the issues resolved.

Yeah, nasty, threatening messages.

He gave the name in the location of the bakery.

He posted about how the baker quote up royally and is now quote legit canceled.

On Twitter, he wrote quote instead of jellybeans, they put RX prescription pills on my seven year old's beatay cake emoji.

And then two days later he discussed the incident on his podcast.

Oh man, so what happened next is like totally by the outrage playbook, So Big Sugar.

They start getting calls and messages from his followers.

Oh, he actually does have followers that are not international.

They actually could get to the phone system contact him.

Angry stuff.

People threatened the staff, they left bad reviews.

They said they contacted authorities about how the bakery put pills.

On a kid's can actual drugs.

Yeah, like honey, that's gonna costs the costume more than fifteenth dollars to get actual.

So then Big Sugar notified Ben Baller via Twitter that they were receiving these threats.

He shot back that they were trying to quote play the victim.

So they go to their lawyers through council.

They demand that Baller retract or correct what they said were false statements.

My friend Ben Baller did not retract or correct.

No lawsuit times.

So then they go after him for libel, slander, unfair competition law which prohibits false or misleading advertising, and illegal business practices.

Nine offensive social media posts were cited in the lawsuit.

Nine yeah he.

Baller responded with a special motion to strike under California's anti slap statute because he said his statements were protected speech made in connection with an issue of public interest.

Oh man, this tends on what kind of lawyers you have to argue this.

Because he said there was quote candy confusion, and then this was a consumer safety issue.

And then he said also because he was famous, it made it newsworthy.

Famous.

Yeah, there it is.

The trial court was like, no motion denied.

He appealed too far.

He appeared gotten further, of course he did, and then.

The California's Second District Court of Appeal September third, twenty twenty one denied, and their headline conclusion was simple like this was a private customer dispute over a cake order, not made in any connection with an issue of public interest, which is what's required for anti slap.

The court also rejected the idea that audience size or self described celebrity status automatically turns ordinary grievances into public issue speech, and they the court viewed his post it aimed at trying to rally a crowd against a specific business rather than participating in a broader public conversation.

So important thing this, though, the ruling didn't decide who was right about the cake, and I couldn't find out what happened to the original lawsuits, so I'm going to imagine they settled.

Big Sugar Bake Shop is now permanently closed, although I don't think it's because of this.

Oh okay, so this is just on their unfortunate.

Yeah, let's stop for some ads and when we come back, more influencers.

Zarin Elizabeth.

This is the story of two influencers inside all of us are two influencers.

So we begin with Sydney Nicole Gifford.

She's a lifestyle and shopping focused social media influencer who built a business around promoting consumer products, especially through Amazon's influencer ecosystem.

Okay, any relation to Kathy Lee Gifford, let's say, sure what?

No, Oh, I got too excited.

I'm really excited about that.

There's a connection to Regis Philbin in this reag she's one degree away from Regis Elizabeth be.

Careful, tread lightly.

So she's an Amazon influencer.

Yes, this bums me out.

Why I don't know that.

Like, what's the difference between Amazon influencer and a TikTok Because Emma's.

Not even like, well, no Amazon, she's on all these various platforms, but she's just chilling for Amazon.

Okay, so I assume she's moving product and she just goes through lots of products and all of her post her like that I found this on Amazon.

Yeah exactly.

And so her whole operation is this family endeavor.

Like her mom is pretty much her manager.

She handles like the business emails and logistics.

The mom, Laura, says that her daughter was making stop motion videos and uploading them to YouTube at age twelve, okay, and that her influencer platform took off several years later.

So all I hear.

She's a talented little filmmaker and she's just trying to make her in the world think of it, spread her joy.

When Ben Wyatt was depressed on parks and recreation, he tried to make the stop motion in months to make just like three seconds.

That's her.

So in all sorts of media coverage, Gifford is repeatedly described as cultivating a highly consistent neutral palette in her home and content.

Okay, The Verge magazine describes her home environment as a content quote set, filled with Amazon products and maintained in an intentionally monochrome look.

Okay, so it's like kind of like a Martha Stewart, but without any of the soul brings her.

We'll get to her her income, really, Yeah, her income is tied to promoting products and earning commissions, and all these products have a certain like vibe.

So she's like a Truman show meets a Showcase showdown on prices.

Right, there's an aesthetic.

Can I vent for a second.

Aren't you already?

That's all I do.

I do nothing but vent.

Oh.

I know.

I talk a lot about what and it usually involves the younger set.

I'm an old crone.

I can't stand when people use the word esthetic to mean just basically pleasing or nice looking, like oh, that sunset is so aesthetic.

Oh yes, no, that does hit the just like something can have an esthetic like Rococo, nerd Core, little House in the Prairie.

I don't know.

Something can be aesthetically pleasing.

Sure, as a philosophy, they can be your aesthetic.

Precisely as a philosophy, you know, it's exploring the very nature of beauty and art.

It comes from the Greek right esthetia estheticos perception to perceive, you have to perceive something though, there needs to be an object.

Yes, okay, I'm done.

I just need to get that out.

This is so aesthetic, you're like, so, now let's meet.

Let's meet Alyssa Shield.

We have to no.

Alyssy Shield.

Alyssa's Shield Alissa Shiel.

She's also a lifestyle influencer working heavily in Amazon linked product promotion.

Both of these gals have like half a million people following them across various platforms, and both of these gals share a color palette and look something that became known as sad beige in all the media coverage.

Sad baby, Yeah, like hashtag sad basis.

She's a sad creator.

They actually look alike.

They both have long brown hair, straight parted down the middle, like lightly bronzed skin.

Everything else beige clothes, house, everything have you.

The meal beige.

Color hearts of like like the colors I saw on today, it was like interior and exterior colors people used for their home environments, for both for the paint and for the design inside their home.

And you go from like six different colors, six different colors for the twenties, the thirty six different colors in the forties, six different colors in the fifties.

Get to the seventies and they kind of like lose their mind on drugs from the sixties and everything goes like orange brown and avocado green.

Then the eighties you get this like the last little bit.

Then the nineties it just wash it out into the beginning of like earth tones, and then the two thousands just like beige is and now we're just down to like slate gray and beige.

It's really sad.

By twenty twenty four that esthetic neutral, minimalist, dominated by beige, cream, all these muted tones.

That was like everything with these lifestyle influencers.

I still get well.

I know for home resale, it's like, oh, it's easy for people to do that, but for your life environment, do you plan to live there?

More color in my life?

Oh, you know, I love color.

I was reading something the other day where a person was trying to just on a color for their cabinets and they wanted something gray or beige grays, and there were all these comments that were like, that's a really good choice because when you go to sell the house, people want to see neutrals.

But as you're saying, like you have to, this person just moved in.

That's like my friends who would buy it, we'd get toys and they wouldn't want to take it out of the box because they plan on reselling.

This will be worth of it.

I'm like my toys to play with the toys with the market value.

We are nine years old.

This is the attitude we have because these like these things that need to be staged, ready to move, because like, homes have become investments far more than domiciles, and so like you have to live in the place, enjoy this and habit.

Yes, color brings.

Enjoyment, Oh it does.

It vibes you into places you don't know you want to go.

And not every place has to look like a hotel.

Oh no it should not.

Yeah.

Anyway, so the influencers called this look clean, which my response is cluttered and messy.

Yeah.

No, I like, I reserve clean for really good.

I'm like, man, you look clean, right, But that's like they wanted to be like sterile.

Yeah, I don't using a better word for marketing purposes, but that's what they're selling.

And so they kept these things neutral when it came to fashion home decor, like other consumer products appliances, cars, luggage, prosthetic limbs.

I said to show that in there for you, Elizabeth Dutton, body.

There it is.

So their followers were all about this subdued palette, minimalistic composition.

But there wasn't room enough in this town for two sad beij ladies.

It seems Gifford thought that Shiel was biting her style or lack thereof, So in April.

They're both biting styles, like how can they We either wanted to be like this is totally my esthetics.

In April of twenty twenty four, Gifford filed a lawsuit in federal court in the Western District of Texas against Shiel and The lawsuit alleged that Shiel had systematically copied Gifford's signature neutral beige slash cream esthetic and leveraged it to promote similar products, thereby infringing on Gifford's intellectual property and commercial identity.

Gifford's complaint included a range of legal claims, so she was talking about copyright infringement, okay.

She said that Shield's social media posts bore unauthorized similarity to Gifford's original content.

Oh, trade dress infringement, asserting that the overall look and feel of her aesthetic was distinctive and should be protected.

So you can't also dress like Ronald McDonald is like and how to tell burgers let you.

Go, misappropriation of likeness.

She said that sheield replicated aspects of her personal image and presentation like a single white female and then violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act DMCA.

Oh, just basic copyright, Like, oh, you did what I did online?

Yeah, exactly I did online.

So lawyers for Gifford said that her visual style was her distinctive commercial idea, and they argue that the consistent monochrome, cream gray, and neutral beige color scheme, together with minimalist settings and personal presentation, constituted protectable elements of her brand.

And when I say like, their faces are neutral, like they look like they've had like all these injectables, so they're just like there's no expression.

Oh really, yeah weird, but like the same long row.

It's like the kind of like slightly curled bottom hair, you know what I mean, like like kind of pumpkin spice lady.

Hair, but they're a little bit of wave at the bottom.

Of Yeah, you know, I'm a I'm a hair aesthetic.

I'm a heretic.

So, like, can social media aesthetic or vibe be owned or protected under traditional intellectual property law?

I don't think so unless you're doing like a like you do you just say like, hey, I'm marsha On Lynch and you spell Lynch differently, like then you can any trouble.

Right.

The media loved this, this question this, They were all over it.

I mean, whether a personal asthetic could be treated like a trade dress or other protected expression that had no clear precedent.

That's like the Chubby Checker to Fats Domino.

Questions, it's Fats demeano.

This has been done.

This is not a new question.

So Shield's attorney was all motion to dismiss your owner on a lot of stuff.

In late twenty twenty four.

The dismiss Your Honor.

The court ruled on the motions, dismissing some claims such as torturous interference, while allowing core copyright, trade dress and misappropriation of likeness claims to proceed into broader review.

So here's the debate on the underlying legal issues.

Copyright law protects the specific expression of ideas like individual photos or videos, but not broad ideas like a color palette or a general style.

You can't copyright an idea.

Yeah, this means that much of what Gifford was looking to protect is like outside of copyright reach.

Trade dress doctrine, which is a form of trademark protection, protects distinctive visual identifiers associated with a source of goods or services, but only if such identifiers are recognized as unique and capable of causing consumer confusion.

This is mickey mouse Well.

The most famous example is probably the Coca cola bottle, Yes, there you go.

Or the wax dripping from the cap on a bottle of Tiffany Blue for their packaging, the red bottom of a Christian Lubaton shoe, ok, the shape of goldfish crackers that's protected, the red tab on a pair of levies, and even the shape and colors used in an ie hoop.

I can see that because they're very distinctive.

Right, So there's a high legal burden to prove in a crowded esthetic space that there's some sort of trade ress doctrine there and.

The primacy you have to be the first, you can't be the second.

Exactly exactly.

So by late twenty twenty four, experts they're already treating the case as this bell weather for how intellectual property laws are going to apply to digital creators and influencer content.

Is this brand new world?

If they say so, oh some com no one's ever done it like this before because this is online.

Like oh okay, oh sure.

There were warnings that if the courts tried to enforce something as broad as a quote vibe, a judge's risked becoming arbiters of subjective aesthetic judgments.

Yes, you can't copyright a vibe.

No, so I've tried May twenty.

Prince ever copyright a vibe.

It was such a specific vibe.

We're like no one else can do exactly.

May twenty eight, twenty twenty five, Gifford voluntarily dismissed all of her claims against Shield with prejudice, officially ending the litigation.

So when it's dismissed with prejudice, it means that she can't refile.

No monetary jamages are awarded to either side.

Don't be bringing us back in my courtroom.

Yeah, so it came after mediation negotiation.

Her lawyer said that the cost and time of litigation influenced her decision to withdraw from the case and then refocus on her business, in personal life and her aesthetics.

Yeah.

Shield's attorney said that this was vindication.

I'm sure that both of these ladies were loving the fact that so many Manila envelopes were used in filing.

That some of the people are mentioning their whole beije core thing anyway, that's helping their reach.

Right exactly, So they were like, you know what, Shield's not paying anything.

Claims are meritless.

And then they went on like her content was independently created and not based on Giffords.

Both of them made public statements to their followers about their own perceptions of what happened, but it became known as the Sad Beige lawsuit.

And so the Sad Beaije lawsuit did not result in a judicial opinion establishing a new legal precedent, but it did really kind of highlight the challenges that are facing influencers and intellectual property law in this digital age.

You know, there's this difficulty of how do you apply traditional copyright and trademark framework to non traditional quote content that's built around, built around a brand.

You know, they're not like individual protected protectable works.

Yeah, exactly.

You can protect the Nike swoosh, but you can't protect the Nike Vibe.

Right.

You'll see a lot of coverage refer to this as personal brand.

But this is not something that these ladies created whole cloth.

No, that's what I'm saying.

They're chilling products from Amazon.

They are ads like, it's not personal, and I think that's something that gets lost.

You talked about Martha earlier.

So Martha Stewart created a vibe.

Yes, it was riffing off old money, and like fantasies of gardens and cottages.

But she wasn't shilling specific products until she created her own products and then became a brand herself.

She shilled for her own stuff.

That's right.

So she's a creator and influencer in my opinion, I'm probably wrong, in which case everyone can just keep it to them.

So I think she's an er influencer.

Yeah, because she wasn't, like I said, she self directed at first, and then so it wasn't like at the behest of these brands that she was going out and creating all this quote unquote content.

Let's take a break.

Let's take an ad break.

God bless them these ads.

When we come back, I have a doozy of an influencer.

Battle Zaren Elizabeth.

I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel here.

That's the best place to do the scraping.

Let's go, bro, let's do it.

Let's get down to the bottom in this corner.

Yes, we have Brian Johnson, not the lead singer of a CDC, although I would love for him to mix it up with an influencer.

And then, oddly enough, I'm not talking about the Brian Johnson who's the tech guy trying to stop himself from aging.

Oh yeah, the guy.

Oh, he's fascinating to me.

Here's this protocol he developed called Blueprint, and he's like, so there's a very controlled diet structure and meal timing.

All of this is to make it so that he doesn't age.

Yeah, or he lives forever.

Yeah.

So he's got like macros and all that he doesn't eat afternoon.

His menu is fixed, like his morning drink is what he calls a longevity mix collagen, protein, creatine, prebiotic fibers every day.

Sure, why not great?

And there's lots of exercise and movement.

He does a daily sixty to ninety minute training block.

That makes sense, that's good.

Yeah, move the body.

He has a set of sleep rules or routines.

Sleep rules rules, how he sleeps.

Consistent bedtime, oh okay, a wind down routine, which I don't think is like mine of I'm going to watch Instagram.

Reels until the doom and my.

Bulk send them to my friends.

He has a cool bedroom temperature range.

She avoids stimulants afternoon.

Okay, okay, he's funny.

I do a lot of these things just naturally because I'm just a jerk because like, I don't like to be over stimulated past noon or whatever.

Nobody needs that.

Yeah, I don't eat late, and I you know, I like to kind of wind down.

I only have one cup of coffee in the morning.

I don't really have anything after stimulant wise after that I do.

Okay, never mind, I take it back.

I like coffee all through out the day, but I don't considered a stimulant because it doesn't really feel like it.

He takes a crazy number of supplements, some that are sold as blueprint products.

And some not.

And then the ones are fatish I think.

So I couldn't even get a full list.

He takes a ton of prescription medications.

Oh really, Yeah, acrobos met Foreman, Candice sartan Jardis, thyroid meds.

Any glucosamine android.

That's it.

That would be ab oral monoxidyl repatha to dalophill.

None of these are to treat conditions other than getting older.

Also, isn't isn't monoxophyll for hair?

Is that active?

Ra?

Yeah, he's doing that.

I know.

He used to be a redhead.

Now he has black hair.

Yeah, I don't know how that happened.

But yeah, thyroid meds Jardians met Foreman.

I don't know.

He has a whole skincare routine, of course, and then that prescription you share the prescription hair growth meds.

He uses red light therapy for both his scalp and hair and then his whole body.

Oh, he does a hyperbaric oxygen therapy thing.

I'm sure he just soaks in it.

He does.

He does young plasma exchanges Keith Richard style, including one involving his son.

What.

Yeah, he's right, he takes his son, His son's his blood boy.

Yes, it's very lance armstrong as it sounds exhausting.

His life sounds exhausting and sad and sad like I'm here for a good time, not a long time.

You know how many people have tried this and no one can pull it off.

You'll be the guy to list forever.

I'm like, it's not going to be the trust me.

We're not there yet.

No, we don't understand enough about the human body for you to know what buttons to even push combinations.

And he's just taken all sorts of garbage.

And experimenting on himself too.

Might Yeah, he is no the Brian Johnson I'm talking about is also known as liver King.

Oh lordy oh, I see it on social media.

Yeah.

I don't follow him, but occasionally someone who posed him and.

Lou That's what I'm talking about.

He was born in nineteen seventy eight, an apparently landbag.

He was really bullied and picked on as a kid, and as a result, he turned to fitness.

Of course, that's what friend durs Over did it.

He went to Texas Tech University and got a bachelor's in biochemistry.

Okay, After graduation, he worked as a pharmaceutical sales rep in Houston, and then he later you know, put money in on his wife's dental practice, so.

He was like selling oxycontins to the doctors.

Sure, and then social media came calling, of course, and so he adopted the online persona liver King.

Around twenty twenty, he started promoting what he branded as quote ancestral lifestyle, and this lifestyle philosophy had an emphasis on primal nutrition and behaviors.

So that meant eating like huge amounts of awe, unprocessed organ meats.

So like the height of humanity.

Yeah, do you hear yourself?

Animal fats?

You know, he's all about that.

Beef tallow and other foods rooted in like this romanticized prehistoric diet.

Okay.

His videos featured extreme workouts like ice plunges and these elaborate strength challenges.

Yes, so he was sure picking up boulders and stuff.

He went virals Aron.

Of course he did TikTok Instagram YouTube.

Yes, he's a living cartoon character, yes.

And he had like millions of followers.

He's a short king too, right, so he's like kind an extra spark plug energy.

Like, what's his name?

Who's the little guy who always poses on his tippy toes?

Oh yeah, barstool Sports.

Yeah, Dave port Noid.

Yeah, he's look up, Dave Portnoy's standing on his tippy do tippy does are like posing anytime he's in a picture with people.

He's what like five foot four.

I don't know what he is, yeah, but I know that he has showed me the photo he's on his tippy toes, and it's like the question is is like does the person's taking the photo?

Obviously he thinks on purpose.

It seems like it's a dick move to really point out what.

They have to and I applaud them for it.

So uh, so okay.

So he's this guy Liver King.

He's got millions of followers, and he's got a lucrative personal brand, like he has this supplement company, Heart and Soil that he and this doctor named Paul Salagino started a little clos there and though but like his his company spin off, like his brand is Ancestral Supplements, which like, right there is amazing I like, and he like reportedly he had an annual revenue in the nine figure range at its peak.

What yes, yes, so the Liver King.

I feel both bad for all the suckers who get conned by these people, but at the same time, I can't believe how many give ups so much money to these.

So he had these claims about achieving this physique purely through the ancestral diet.

But like all these medical professionals are like, absolutely not, do not do that.

Don't just eat raw liver, chug eggs, and they like climb a tree and scream like don't do it, do it for you?

No, They're like, this is really harmful.

And then the whopper not from Burger King.

In late twenty twenty two, there were these leaked internal emails that revealed that Johnson had been secretly using anabolic steroids and human growth hormone.

If you look at pictures of him with it, he always has his shirt off, so you see his chest and all the way the veins go.

You know that that's an antibox steroid body.

And he was spending eleven thousand dollars a month on all these drugs.

Oh yeah, wow.

And so he initially was like, no way, man, No, that's bogus man.

But later he's like, okay, yeah, man, like I did it.

So he did a YouTube apology video.

It's one hundred and thirty two thousand dollars a year just ster ruds.

Yeah, and he acknowledged that, you know, he misled.

His audience misled.

I love an apology video.

They're always so terrible.

Oh totally, let's get past my foundational lie and just talk about it like it's a bummer.

I did this.

So there's this whole scandal.

Some of his followers filed a class action lawsuit against him and his supplement company, claiming deception that was later discontinued.

He also was the subject of a twenty twenty five Netflix documentary called Untold The Liver King, and it kind of traces his whole you know.

Okay, so that's him, and then in this corner we have Joseph James Rogan Junior.

You know him as Joe Rogan Joe Rogan.

Huh.

He started his professional career as a stand up comedian and the teen eighty eight Yes, and then he built a name for himself in what I saw described as observational and often provocative comedy.

Huh.

You say so, I.

Think it's like really breaking out in news radio, Like yeah, then he goes.

He broadens out in television, so he's on sitcoms, he's on news radio, and then he gets a gig hosting that weird show fear Fair Factor.

That really when he became a star.

Yeah.

And then he got really deeply involved in mixed martial arts ye early guy.

Yeah, so in the like late nineties, early two thousands, he was working as a commentator and an interviewer for Ultimate Fighting Championship UFC.

In two thousand and.

Nine, like the John Madden of MM.

Yes.

In two thousand and nine, he launched The Joe Rogan Experience, a long form conversational podcast.

Yeah, and you know they have he has guests on from like really diverse fields science, politics, entertainment, sports, culture.

He's got tens of millions of listeners.

In twenty twenty, he signed an exclusive licensing deal to take his podcast to Spotify.

So he also he has trained in Brazilian jiu jitsu since the mid nineties and he has black belts in both no Gi and ge forms.

And he talks all the time about martial arts training methods, physical conditioning on his podcast.

And he has like really strong views I guess on health training discipline.

I'm sure it's not all roses for old Joe.

He's a polarizing figures.

Eron the guy from the host of Fear Factor.

He's got this huge platform and let's just say he isn't very careful about what he says.

It takes the stand up comedian when it comes to politics, public health, drug policy, free speech, culture.

Jimmy put up on the board talk radio guy gone.

So uh, it's there that he crossed paths with Liver King.

Oh my, can you imagine the conversations that they are em.

You don't have to you have it.

So by spring of twenty twenty two, you know, Brian Johnson has turned Liver King into this like viral masculinity and organ meat brand, and the core promise is that his cartoonishly muscular physique comes from an ancestral lifestyle.

From eating the organs of animals.

Then, Joe Rogan.

Are you want to go to kill your own or you can go to the supermarket and just get some organ made war enough as your ancestors would have done.

I have done so.

Rogan.

He you know his podcast regularly functions as a think tank.

Oh yeah, a cultural loudspeaker to say on fitness.

He clocked the act early on and treated it as performance not revelation.

Oh yeah, he was on to him early on.

Too much of that false WATCHO.

One human growth hormone user to the other.

I saw it recog surreal.

So in a twenty twenty two profile of Johnson, GQ talks about how Rogan dismissed Liver King's messages as a quote gimmick, and then they landed the line that became the feuds, like seed crystal quote.

He has got an ass filled with steroids is what that guy's got.

That's what Joe Rogan said, And they put include that in the profile, And did Johnson get a respond to that is the profile.

No, it mattered less because I mean it was cruel, but Joe Rogan says things like that all the time.

Still it was more because it was aimed at the exact fault line of the business model men's but steroids and butts like you know, this isn't an ancestral lifestyle.

This came out of it steroids.

So in late June of twenty twenty five, so at this point liver King's life is spiraling out, okay Johnson, liver King started posting direct, escalating videos addressing Joe Rogan, repeatedly framing it as like a man to man on her challenge.

Oh I call you out to the oak tree.

Oh yeah, you show up shirtless.

We get down, zaren watch you to picture it.

You are a wolf, or rather you were a wolf.

You met your maker and now you've been taxidermied, made into a pelt with your head intact, and right now you're resting on the head of Brian Johnson aka liver King.

You are in his living room.

It's walls painted black, various gold spray painted stencils adorning the space over the fireplace and surrounding a full length mirror candelabras, rest on tables, a battered leather club chairs behind you and beneath you.

Liver King.

He is topless and wears black sweatpants, his beard long and his features rough.

He stands with his legs spread.

He's just finished working out and is terribly dehydrated, giving definition to his muscles and oddly shaped torso.

His belly button protrudes like a large cyst an OUTI, if ever there was one.

You once prowled the woods and bayed at the moon.

You are now perched on the sweaty scalp of a madman.

He holds two guns, both with impossibly large barrels, one plated in gold.

Before you is a tripod and a ring light, and inside of it an iPhone.

Liver King scurries over to press record, then takes a few paces back and hunches forward in attack stance.

He clears his throat.

Joe.

His voice is rough.

He clears his throat again.

He takes in his looking back at him from the selfie mode iPhone.

He turns his head this way and that raises his chin, lowers it.

He widens his dance a little more and then begins again.

Joe Rogan, I'm calling you out.

My name's Liver King Man to man, I'm picking a fight with you.

Yeah.

His left leg vibrates in an odd tremor.

He rants a little more about rules and such.

You can't really make out what he's saying.

You're a liar.

You can't pick a fight with a real king and expect there not to be an actual fight.

Bro.

He leans back and laughs a maniacal chuckle.

He then straightens up and walks over to the phone, ceasing the recording.

He sets the guns down on the table and lifts you from his head.

He restsued gently atop of the guns.

He leaves the room, mumbling to himself.

You have never wished more for a house fire than you are now.

All you want is to be consumed and cleansed in flame, allowed to return to the earth that cradled you.

Oh man, I hear these things, and I just like I want to say, like I knew Randy Macho man Savage, and you, sir, are no Randy Mochu Man Savage.

It is.

The radios.

The videos are so uncomfortable, I bet, and I have to say that when I went when I went to watch the various videos which were totally untinged.

The lead in ads were bonkers too, Okay, Like there was this one with a guy just like standing in his kitchen and he's saying how people need to drink warm water with cinnamon dissolved in it before bedtime to eliminate blood parasites.

Blood parasites.

Oh yeah, and sure, why not?

So this is the point where the beef shifted from internet heckling into something that law enforcement could interpret as a threat.

So the posts were just like general trash talk about training or ideology.

He starts doing all this stuff where he's like directly summoning Joe Rogan like in Austin, Texas, and the visuals that read as menacing to outsiders.

Crime.

This is a crime.

So it starts like wrestling promo energy like I'm going.

To and he's like, I am coming to get.

You her address.

So, according to Austin Police, is quoted by ABC News, detectives quote reviewed the posts and observed that Johnson quote was traveling to Austin while continuing to make threatening statements.

So like he keeps getting out and taking more videos and the travel is crucial, Like it turns a loud instagram dare into this scenario, right, we got a person with a large platform posting about a fight with weapons.

On toward the target city.

So the detectives contact Joe Rogan, who quote had never had any interaction with Johnson and considered the post to be threatening.

And so then the police they get an arrest warrant for a terroristic threat charge.

Oh Mma.

Fighting Magazine later added an important connective detail.

Sure police were initially contacted by a member of Rogan's security team as the videos escalated, So it's not like they saw them themselves or stumbled upon him.

Like Joe Rogan's security was like, hey, guys, I'm gonna send you a link.

Now.

Do you think that that was to give like one degree of removed from Joe Rogan, Yeah, rather than him the cause.

Yeah, so.

Since his kung fu wouldn'tet him out of there, what.

So, like, this is a security problem and Rogan's side sees the posts, they see the travel, they like, something has to be done before these guys a ninch.

That's the thing is that you don't with something like this, You won't know that he's going to do a crime till he does.

The crime exactly.

So they find him.

The cops find Liver King at the Four Season was in downtown Austin, and they arrest him on misdemeanor terroristic threat charges.

He was there with his dogs and he was they had made a video like these were like dorments or something, and he was like, I'm here with my dogs and we're going to get you.

But do I really love that he was at the Four Seasons.

That's the best detail.

Is just like the ancestors would have done.

And you can picture him like the really plush robe they give you, and he's gone around like eating his liver.

Belly button, popping his erect belly button.

He's got like a ice chest of raw meat and he's like, I need a bigger fridge exactly.

And so Johnson posted a video showing moments before the arrest and he's just like pacing around and talking about impending prison time and a fight with Rogan.

Yeah, the cops show up, he's cuffed led away.

The consequence total.

So after booking, his release conditions were not like the slack on the risk kind.

So the Houston Chronicle reported that Bond was sad at twenty thousand dollars, and conditions included no contact with Joe Rogan, which I'd be like fine, and staying two hundred yards away from Rogan and his family, plus mental health supervision and evaluation.

So like, if this you're starting to see, like this conflict's shape is pretty clear.

It's not too loud, Guys arguing it's a public figure with a massive platform, a perceived threat.

Police report guys, not so well, it's.

Well ahead, like road rage incident.

Yeah, just the road rage was traveling.

I'm sure that there was a fear factor.

So the criminal complaints said that the police believed that Johnson's behavior exhibited some you know, signs of like a mental health episode.

Sure, and then he could be a danger to himself for others, And so you can see why then it goes to like no contact orders.

There was no no sanctioned fight, no Rogan appearance, no public resolution between the two guys.

The court process just ran out.

He ran out the clock.

Travis County Criminal Court confirmed the charges against Johnson were dismissed, like it just faded away.

What's wild is how many videos spun off from these videos.

So there are so many videos with commentary on the original videos on the whole situation, And that gets into two of my other pet peeves when it comes to online content and social media.

I can't stand when someone posts a video of themselves sitting in the front seat of their car, trying to lecture me on something like you're automatically not an expert in that moment.

I'm a little more forgiving on that.

The thing that I cannot abide is I'm watching a video of one person.

There's a split screen.

I'm getting I'm getting to that, But the ones who sit in the car, they like drag out whatever they're saying.

There's lots of preamble and repetition.

If someone I know forwards me a video like that, I refuse to watch it.

I see someone in the seat of their car, I'm like, no, I'm not watching it.

The other one is what you're talking about, Like, I guess they call it like a stitch.

So there's the original video where someone is then superimposed over the top, either pointing or nodding or doing like an outsized reaction.

Yeah, there's multiple ways.

Yeah, there's a superimposed where they they just see them like kind of floating.

Are either above or below or to the side.

And then the other one is the literal split screen, which is like I would, and they're taking up space just to make faces.

At me nod like the nodding.

The other one that's I keep seeing now it really irritates me is when people will scroll through the comments, funny comments on something and just crack up about it.

They don't read them or make.

It, No, they just yeah, it's just them like wheezing, laughing.

I hate those.

Hate is a strong word, and I use it on purpose here.

So and I also you know now that they're letting me vent for one seron, please, I can't stand all the like fight videos or videos of bigots acting badly in public or like people wilding out.

Like I know that stuff exists, and the videos exist to get us all riled up.

And that's not the stuff to get riled up over right.

It does water down the ridge.

Yeah, Like we have more urgent, route worthy issues.

Yes, I don't care about someone getting slapped in a taco bell, right, yeah.

And I don't want to be so mad.

I don't want to be so worked up.

I want peace and quiet and safety and creativity and community.

And we don't have that right now.

Or if you are going to get into fight, it better be one of the most epic crazy like guy gets knocked off of a cliff by a donkey.

No, no, I don't want to see that.

No I do.

I want to see that.

I want to see that.

I you know what, a man.

Fights an animal and loses.

I will watch that every time kangaroo beats up a man.

For all of this, I put blame on both social media and reality TV, among other things, obviously, But and then now I'm just gonna go check my instagram, Zaren well, I look for reels to forward to you.

What's your ridiculous takeaway.

I can't believe I admitted to you that I will really am a huge fan and victim of the genre of man fights animals videos like I don't like watching like two people fight generally, and like listen to some like righteous moment or some like they're getting justice through the violence, and I can watch it and I have no problem, no qualms.

No, But if it's an animal, like I don't feel the least.

But you know, of course, I know it's like I'm always written for the animals, you.

Know, well, they hope the animals always win.

I'm a get on, mister bear, get them.

I don't want to see like graphic gore, but I do want to see like the man get scared up a tree by a coyote whatever.

I'm like, yeah, you tried to fight a coyote and realized it was a coyote after the fact.

I don't care what happens.

So I'm a silly sod that way, and I admit it.

What's yours, Elizabeth?

I wish takeaways.

I wish that just for once, you let me vent.

I'm trying.

I'm really trying.

Yeah, let's have a talk back.

Oh my god, Hello Jeet, Hey Elizabeth.

So I heard about the black garlic gerrito dip.

Sounds interesting, but I'd like to let you know that I've made black garlic sugar cookies.

One of my coworkers said it tasted like Christmas.

I did add ginger to it, but give it a try.

Okay, love the show.

Bye, black garlic sugar cookies and ginger.

So it's like a ginger snap.

I am very intrigued.

All right, I'm gonna look up a recipe.

Thank you for that hot tip.

That's it for today.

You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com.

We're also Ridiculous Crime.

I'm Blue Sky Instagram, Social Media.

Let's see YouTube as Ridiculous Crime pod.

You can email us at Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com, leave a talk back on the iHeart app.

Please please, please do so reach out.

Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zara Burnett, produced and edited by Kidney King, Dave Kusten starring Emilie Rutger as Judith.

Research is by Spleen Queen, Marissa Brown and Baron Vaughan.

Appendix Jabari Davis.

The theme song is by Duke of Thyroid Thomas Lee and Sinus Cavity Prince Travis Dutton.

Host wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred.

Guest hair and makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre.

Executive producers are inventor of the Happy Beije aesthetic, Ben Bolan and rival Happy Beije influencer Noel Brown.

Why Say It One More Time?

Ridiqulious Crime.

Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.

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