Here's A Few "Fun Facts" From Yesterday's Dave Portnoy Show You Might Not Have Known
Well yesterday was fun. CBS wanted to go all-in on this, but for better or worse he was put back in the cage. First off I need to get one thing straight - Billy was not given a PC by Barstool. It was a specific situation I was not fully aware of, so my apologies to Sir William and others.
Other than that, I have no redactions or revisions to my statements from yesterday's Dave Portnoy Show. Will anyone else? Gee golly me, I guess we'll have to wait and see!
As you all witnessed, I'm not the greatest master debater. ESPECIALLY when I get a little heated. I feel like some things got lost in the sauce because of the emotion. So we're going to some things out there on this blog called Barstool Sports and go from there. When I was saying "I'm no longer in control of my own destiny", I was wrong. The genius that is Dave Portnoy was, as always, correct. I am in control of my own destiny. Always have been. Always will be. However, what I should've been saying was this - "I'm not in control of my own destiny, or have any say for that matter, with the brand I started 5 years ago - Barstool Gametime."
That's what it comes down to. It's not about a PC. It's not even about respect. It’s about working for 5 years on something, spending 1,400+ hours a year live streaming, and dedicating myself to something basically full-time while not being involved in any of the decision making on how things are done, even if/when they're done wrong. The toxic, conniving, and condescending bullshit towards me and others actually doing the work didn't help, either. Devlin is a hard worker. One of the most diligent, nose to the grindstone people at Barstool, for sure. If everyone here had his work ethic this company would be worth a zillion dollars by now. Yes, he is responsible for mostly growing the Gametime Twitter, Instagram, and some of TikTok account (Karim also contributed a LOT to the Gametime TikTok account but that was conveniently left out Devlin's monologue). I've never denied those facts and always applauded him both privately and publicly for his efforts on social media. Shit, I've even given him and others who have helped what ended up being half of my bonus money for multiple given years.
Devlin is also a super prick. A huge Masshole, if you will, just way less endearing. He's easily one of the most negative people I've ever met and that demeanor is carried through in multiple situations, onto others, and I suspect even himself. The type of passive-aggressive person that just wears you down, especially after a long while. He even offered up a perfect example yesterday:
The freaking dude says "Smitty left the stream to do his laundry" when I was, as they knew beforehand, during, and after, that I had to leave at times to help my 9-month pregnant wife. That's the type of unnecessary, toxic shit that is unacceptable in my mind. A complete bullshit statement solely intended to make me look bad. And stuff like that was the norm for Gametime behind the scenes by the end of 2020. Do I deserve to be talked down to on a daily basis by someone who is at best my equal at work? Probably not. How about being constantly criticized for my content from a person who has spent over a decade forcing his way into the content game yet somehow still has less followers than my burner account? I don't think so, either, but that's just me. Look, I'm all for constructive criticism and having notes given to me, but I'm also for not surrounding myself with super pricks. It tends to lead to a more positive life.
Now when it came to Gametime over the past few years, Devlin and Logan were on their high horses of orders. Wait, Logan? Yeah, the F1 guy. He does a lot around here behind the scenes, and a lot of those things well, but for better or worse those two got in the groove of dictating orders to people like myself and others while giving little reasoning and even littler feedback - Unless it was negative, of course. Whatever was said just went and was trusted. Personally, I'm all for taking orders. It's easier to be a follower, but when it turns out the swing and miss rate becomes so high for something you commit that much work into, I'd at least want to be involved in the conversation of most things and maybe, just maybe, have a say in how those things are done. I mean, I'm the one cooking the meal and I can't even take a peek at the grocery list when it consistently ends up being rotten fish heads and rancid dick meat? No bueno.
I'm not going to get into every little messed up thing that has happened at Gametime over the years, so we'll just offer up a few Fun Facts regarding yesterday's programming:
FUN FACT #1: Devlin said at 47:57 he hasn't been giving orders in Gametime for months and Logan moved out of the brand "During The Winter", which I'm assuming means late 2020/early 2021 to people who talk fucking human. Not too sure what that means since both have been in Gametime meetings giving directives and executing personell decisions for most of the year. Shit, Logan was the one who told me I couldn't take the PC that's still been sitting unplugged in the office since April home. What does that mean if he clearly wasn't involved with Gametime in the Spring? I have no idea. Just know it's a fucking lie fun fact.
FUN FACT #2: Keep it in your pants, Wiggle Dickers, cause it's time to talk NUMBIES on TikTok! At 58:04 Devlin says he had to take the Gametime TikTok account on "Full-Time" (even though he wanted to and Kariim was doing it, too, again, a point conveniently left out). He stated I did no original content for the account. Well, as reality has it, myself, Blaise, and hen Radio Bren were making original TikToks. Some were trends/news but most of which were from our original Twitch streaming content to be put on the Barstool Gametime page. Things seemed to be going swell until Devlin specifically told Radio Bren not to make Smitty TikToks anymore because, and I quote, "They Don't Do Anything For Us." Now, children, let's take a gander at the results of the few dozen or so original and swiped TikToks posted on the Barstool Gametime account...
I see a 2.2 milly pinned Tok, a few 100K's here and there. Cool. But mostly we can agree recently we're floating around low mid-five figures. In fact, even less. Like 10K-30K for most clips. It's whatever. The Gametime brand had no use for my original TikToks cause they must of been performing like dead dog dick when posted, right? Well, let's see how the numbies shake out when my TikToks were posted on the Barstool Gametime account.
*Please note Steven Cheah getting ballwashed by me at Connect 4 was seen over 1.5 million times. That is all.
Hmm. Interesting. And that's not even accounting for the gaming stuff that did consistently well on my own page - GeneralSmitty1v1. Now I'm no social media genius like Devlin, but one would think those numbies I had compared to the average, original content and/or stuff that is swiped/shared through every Bleacher Report-type account would at least be along the lines of "Doing Something For Us" territory? Oh well. I won't tell Devlin how he does his job in social media no matter how many times he attempted to tell me how to do mine in content.
FUN FACT #3: Remember Blaise? Devlin for some reason doesn't as he claims at 52:20 to have orchestrated the beginning of my Fortnite career and even edited the first Smitty Fortnite montage we put on YouTube. Yeah, that's not even a fun fact. That's just flat out horse shit.
As for Blaise not knowing how to edit when he was here, as Devlin claims, he only put together some of the most viral original content Gametime has ever put out. Just go to the Barstool Gametime YouTube and click on "Most Popular":
26 out of the top 30 highest viewed videos on the Gametime Youtube channel were edited by Blaise (#7, #10, and #22 were Logan who crushed it and #30 was Radio Bren, who also in my humble opinion was a good editor). I guess Blaise didn't put out enough original cut ups for the precious social media accounts so people couldn't take credit for his work…even tho he fucking did. With A+ stuff like this, too:
Blaise was let go towards the end of 2020 without my knowledge beforehand. He's now Paddy The Baddy's video guy. Almost like he knew what the hell he was doing all along. I obviously haven't been involved in the last couple of months, but for as long as I was working with Radio Bren he did everything he was asked to do. He was let go, too. For those keeping track, that's two people who each did well over 50% of the daily behind the scenes operations for Gametime that were fired and the people actually doing the content, and thus relying on their services BIG time, had no knowledge beforehand. It's hard to control your destiny with support like that.
These exchange weren't quite a fun fact, but related hoots:
Devlin: "You weren't taken off anything!"
Smitty: "You took me off the Gametime text group starting in April."
Devlin: "We removed you because you wouldn't respond to anything!"
…
Devlin: "Gametime 2.0!"
Smitty: "I wasn't even asked or informed of the logo switch."
Devlin: "YOU WANT TO GET SUED BY FUCKING NINTENDO!??!"
Smitty: "I want to be informed if we're switching logos so when I fire up a stream our old logo isn't everywhere."
Devlin: "Oh well it got changed in a day anyways."
And how about the Big T and White Sox Dave slander by Devlin insinuating genuinely funny and entertaining stuff like this is bad content? My word.
That's it for now. There's a lot more examples but we'll just keep it at debunking a few of the tall tales told on the Dave Portnoy Show. Devlin is gonna come back with a few convoluted sayings that make corporate squids get wet and claim more bullshit. One being I didn't blog every Twitch stream I've ever done or write about relevant daily gaming news like Mrags (not my job to do so every time and not his job to keep track of blogs like Nate in his prime). Another is I didn't Tweet Gametime specific stuff out the ass 24/7 (ACTUALLY his job to build up the social media and not mine to use my personal accounts to do it for him). And my personal favorite, his "Tricks" he mentioned to get views on Twitch. This one is special. So when we blog about a Gametime-related subject and have a live stream going on, we embed the Twitch account in the blog so people can be directed instantly to it. Makes sense. We even did it on our personal, non-gaming blogs where me, WSD, Balls, Honk or whoever was live on Twitch at the time we would say at the bottom of the post something along the lines of "PS.- We're LIVE now on Twitch if you wanna come thru and discuss." Hell, even CBS took advantage of the system to get eyeballs on the Twitch stream. Views are views…within reason. Devlin's favorite "Trick" was to take something he was directly involved with, like the College Gaming Championship, and embed it inside the #1 trending blog of the day for INSTANT numbies. The problem was it didn't have to be my blog, Mrags, or anyone who is related to the stream's post. It was whatever was trending at the time. Now I gotta admit, it's clever and somewhat funny to put an auto-playing Call Of Duty video at the bottom of a completely unrelated Jerry Thorton Teacher Sex Scandal viral football post or a somehow relevant Kate Barstool blog about breastfeeding that's popping off the charts, but it may have been a bit much. It was a cute practice that seemed to be accepted for a bit before someone from behind the scenes came down on it and came down HARD. Thus ended said tricks.
So what now? Well, I guess I'm not going to be featured or tagged in a Barstool IG story for the foreseeable future like I conspicuously haven't been for the past year and half. Weird coincidence there, right? Oh well. But again, Dave was right. I'm in control of my own destiny. That will involve starting up something with my own setup at home come the 2022. What will that be? We'll find out. As for Gametime, support the shit out of Mrags. He's what Gametime has needed from the jump as an actual gamer and does what he does well. If anyone asks me for my advice after navigating this shitstorm over the past 5 years at Barstool would be to HIRE A REAL ESTABLISHED PROFESSIONAL WHO KNOWS WHAT THEY'RE DOING TO MANAGE TWITCH/STREAMING/GAMING AT BARSTOOL. Way too many people who have been throwing shit against the wall when it comes to the big picture of streaming/gaming here for the past 5 years - Myself included. The difference is I at least know I’m throwing shit against the wall while others here have some sort of God complex and think they’re geniuses in the field. They ain't. I wish they were, but they ain't. Barstool has hired a professional to oversee the likes of TikTok and YouTube and I very much think one needs to be brought in to manage this space. But hey, that’s just my suggestion.
As for Devlin, he should probably listen to what his boss said about 3 years ago involving the dictation of other people's content.