I’ve ignored contracts and deals. I’ve signed bad deals. I’ve been I’ve been fucked over. I haven’t paid attention to this boring stuff because that’s not me. That’s not for me. But I assumed this role as CEO. I sold the boys a dream on fucking FaZe being the biggest thing ever and we succeeded.
This whole thing cost millions and millions of dollars. And I told them, “I have this vision. I have this plan and it will work.” And it did. It did. I thought that in good faith, if we did a good job, that we would figure the business out later. ; What I feel like I’ve been working half of my life on to build is about to fall apart, you know what I mean? ; This award goes to these guys.
You brought it back. You guys have heard the story a million times. We got the shit stolen from us. People told us we were dumb. People told me I was ruining FaZe. ; And the streamer award goes to FaZe Clan. ; These kids are getting ripped off. They’re getting taken advantage of. These contracts are not okay and this needs to never happen again.
And there’s tons of people in contracts this bad just like me. ; Let that fucking sink in. ; them I need this contract terminated today or I’m going public with it. ; All the stuff about the gambling, the stunts, the drinking, told my lawyer I did not want that in there. ; Somebody help this man. ; 50K. Oh, man.
Is he done gambling for the day? ; You’re going to be the biggest organization in the world leading by example and you can’t even take care of your members that’s been in for 12 fucking years. ; I guess this saying is true. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. ; A 95.8% decrease, it is disastrous. A lot of FaZe Clan veterans have come forward with their horror stories about ; Let’s step into the Omniverse and see life as nothing but a game, a tournament to be won.
Rules can be bent, and being a good person isn’t as cool as being a bad guy with great one-liners. ; I CAN’T FUCKING COMPETE! I JUST CAN’T FUCKING COMPETE! ; FAZE UP OR FUCK UP. ; Everything is a digital currency. Your stats, your wins, your followers and fans, all counted and categorized, giving you an exact numeric value to determine your worth.
In this digital age, where your currency is how many eyes you have on you, how much attention you can gather, very few have mastered the game as well as Faze Clan. Faze Clan has become one of the most well-known social media groups, and most long-lasting, creating titans of the social media industry. Yet, when it came to their own business and success, they completely fell apart.
; group side of things with Faze, all the guys I think was perfect. Sometimes on the business side of things, we just never aligned. ; They are bad at making money. They’re all hype with no substance behind it. They do not know how to effectively make money. ; As social media became the new frontier in business and entertainment, Faze Clan went from a humble group of gamers into a corporation with investors and celebrities working alongside them.
The very heart and spirit that got Faze to its success, ending up lost along the way. ; I know you do. You know this is my life, homie. This brand is my life. It’s my soul. I work every day for it. I’ve sacrificed so much for it. So much to this day for it. ; Hi friends and internet acquaintances. Welcome or welcome back to another video on my channel covering deep dives on internet lives.
If you like that sort of content, don’t forget to subscribe, and if you like this video, then give it a like if you want to. And now, let’s get into the story on Faze Clan. The story of Faze Clan itself is a lesson on how social media collectives are ultimately an unstable market, a gamble where no one wins, and where people get caught up trying to profit off of the next social media hype.
So, let’s talk about the rise and fall of FaZe Clan, and really try to answer the question, who is to blame? ; Isn’t it deserving of at least a little heads-up that you’re about to try to destroy my fucking brand, something I put my entire heart and soul into, something that my entire life relies on, my family’s life relies on, 40 somewhat kids that you called friends rely on? Like, what? Don’t I deserve a little bit more than that? And if I don’t, tell me.
Like, if I don’t, tell me. Maybe I don’t. ; On the FaZe Clan website, they describe themselves as the center of gaming, sports, culture, and entertainment, contributing to how the next generation consumes content, plays, and shops. Right there, they’re kind of admitting they want quite a bit of control over influencing the upcoming generations.
And with that sort of power comes a lot of responsibility to be a good influence. I would also like to point out by them saying the next generation, FaZe Clan is admitting that their audience base is somewhat younger. They’re not saying the current generation or the adult generation, which will become important later on, because what are you selling to this next generation? How are you trying to influence how they play games and shop? On the FaZe Forever website, they list what they describe as their three most
important eras, or phases, missed opportunity there, starting with the OG era from 2010 to 2014. FaZe Clan became known as an organization filled with some of the most famous gaming influencers and streamers. FaZe Clan itself started off small with members that most modern viewers may not recognize today.
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Only three members, FaZe Clips, Housecat, now known as Timid, and Resistance. According to FaZe’s website, the trio were the original creators of innovative trick-shotting in Call of Duty, which basically just means, for the non-gamers out there, I’m obviously not a non-gamer, I’m a pro gamer, as you can tell, trick-shotting is just like shooting someone in a tricky trickster sort of way.
A montage of the original gameplay moments are now filled with comments that are reminiscing about the early days of FaZe and how none of this original trio is in FaZe anymore. In July 2010, FaZe Timid answered a question about how to get into FaZe if you wanted to be a part of the clan. ; Yours crack little boy Timid, aka FaZe Housecat, and lots of questions and messages and people just wondering how to like try out for FaZe or how you can get into FaZe, send us a personal message. And in the personal message,
you have to list these things. You have to put your gamer tag, if you have any past videos, what you think you can bring to FaZe, videos, montages, commentaries, whatever. We just We want people that can help us grow and help us be successful and uh ; Anyone could join and be a part of the movement if they were talented and an entertaining gamer.
And at least in the beginning, if they were male. By August of 2010, FaZe added their first few new members. Uploading video titles like introducing FaZe Recon and introducing FaZe Temper. A year later, they developed their infamous logo. By August of 2011, FaZe had 300,000 subscribers. Then in 2012, FaZe had their biggest growth yet with 500,000 subs.
Only 9 months later, FaZe Rain joined, who became a very famous and well-known member of FaZe Clan, and the collective uploaded their celebratory 1 million subscriber video. One of the most notable milestones for FaZe Clan came in early 2013. When FaZe Banks joined on as a co-leader, Banks came over from another trick shot group called Soar, which he had led.
In his intro video, Banks talks about how Temper and SeaBass are the two leaders at FaZe, and how he’s there to help them. ; FaZe is huge, and right now it’s just Tommy and SeaBass running the team, and there’s so much more that they want to do. There’s so much more that they want to expand on and improve on, and I have a lot of experience with this.
Um if you didn’t know me before this video, I led Soar. Uh they just hit 300,000 subs. That’s absolutely amazing, and I have a lot of experience. I got a great welcoming from the team. I want to say thank you to those guys, and obviously last but not least, thank you to Tommy and SeaBass for giving me the opportunity.
Seriously, I like just thank you guys. Um it’s huge. I know again some of you might not really understand. You know, I’m glad to be on the team, and I’m really excited for the future, and everything’s going to work out. I promise you guys. ; The years a huge turning point for FaZe Clan.
They started posting vlogs and skits, and showed their faces more. ; We started taking a different direction with our content, making, you know, showing our faces, which we never did really. Most of us didn’t show what we looked like for the first like three, four, five years of doing YouTube. Thank you guys for watching.
Subscribe to my channel if you’re new, and help me reach a million. ; We couldn’t rely on Call of Duty to to come out with a great new game every single year. We had to do something else and step out of our our comfort zone, and so we started um integrating vlogs and and personality, and making showing our faces more. ; Which sounds like it’s nothing big, but at the time it was a huge step for us.
Nobody in our scene really vlogged, and it wasn’t really well received. Our fans did not want to see anything but Call of Duty videos. ; Their audience got to know them as people outside of gaming, which became integral to building up their influence and brand personas. They weren’t just gaming dudes doing fancy tricks, but real true social media influencers.
; We’re down here just chilling. I’ve been grinding BO3 pretty hard the past few days. So, now we finally are just we’re going to take a break. We can go out, go to Walmart. Ricky has to pick up some things, maybe get some food. I’m starving. It’s nice out. Decided why not vlog today? ; Though FaZe wouldn’t become an official collective until they joined together under the same roof and became one of the very first content houses.
On the FaZe Forever website is the second era or phase, the FaZe houses, between the years of 2014 to 2020, and the genesis of the concept of the content house. ; So, this is one of my rooms. I have this entire floor basically right now to myself. ; much. ; So, that’s pretty cool. I’m probably going to put like a sex doll in here or something.
Just chill with it in here. Now, this is like one of my rooms. I don’t What am I going to do with this? ; I don’t know. This is supposed to be ; Adapt’s room. ; Adapt’s room. ; But, you know, he’s not moving in anyway till the summer. ; Yeah. ; So, I don’t know. This guy ; Who knows what he’s ; We’re back in the FaZe house.
So, I’m here with Richard, Richard Banks, my new roommate. ; Yes. ; Um so, I just got here now. It’s Tommy, Cizzorz, and Apex. We’re all chilling out. We haven’t really done anything with the house yet. I’m just vlogging this. ; We literally just got back from ; Oohs. ; The FaZe members moved into the first FaZe house in Long Island, New York in 2014.
; New York house was amazing. It was just such a rare time. We were the first YouTubers to move into a house together. ; That was definitely like one of the best times of my life. Those were times in my life that I did not realize how special they were while we were in them. ; Most of my favorite memories are from the New York FaZe house.
Just cuz it was so pure. We were so young. ; You got all these people from different walks of life and different parts of the world moving to a house together just to make YouTube videos every single day. That was special. ; This was a core memory for many FaZe members, their early days of success, living in a house with their bros, and when everything was looking up for them.
During this time, FaZe members also formed an official company. Members Temper, Rain, Apex, and Banks officially becoming co-owners of FaZe Clan. The FaZe house was one of the first content houses ever, and they were able to dominate the market, attaining a sponsorship with G Fuel and SteelSeries, some of their earliest sponsors.
; What are you doing, dude? With the G Fuel. ; We are at the G Fuel offices, Gamma Labs. ; The Long Island FaZe house lasted from 2014 to 2016. FaZe Clan also created a spin-off esports team called Red Reserve in 2014, which eventually became its own entity not associated with FaZe. Then in 2016, during the big content boom era, FaZe moved from New York to LA and created a lot of content houses.
While the Long Island FaZe house was big but not necessarily extravagant, the LA house was a legit mansion, elevator and all. ; I’m not trying to walk down all of that. ; Bro, that’s that’s too many stairs. ; Like chill, it’s Oh yeah, elevator. I forgot we had it. I was going to say Yeah. Close the door. So, this is the elevator.
; I think this is only the second floor. ; you’re too lazy Is it actually? ; Yeah. ; Oh my god. Yeah, this takes a little long. Basically, when you’re too lazy to walk, you’re supposed to take the elevator. ; Side note, I’ve never understood why having an elevator in your house is that impressive, especially when you just have two or three floors, it feels more like a safety hazard to me more than anything and an unnecessary flex.
You’re telling me you’re unable to walk up one flight of stairs? While the LA extravagant mansion content house might make for good flex content, since this was 2016 peak flex culture days and the literal biggest flex culture content creator RiceGum was a FaZe associate and collaborator. FaZe Clan was undoubtedly spending a lot of money on mansions.
A lot of overhead all just so they could have an extravagant home in the background of their content. ; Dude, no freaking way. It’s It’s FaZe House LA. FaZe, yes, dude. Oh, they got a freaking WATER FOUNTAIN. THIS PLACE IS so bonkers, dude. So beautiful. Think they’re going to let me in? I’m not sure. FaZe Banks.
; Hey, dude. Welcome to the house. WANT TO JOIN FAZE? COME ON IN. WANT a free Xbox? GET MY SCUF? ANYTHING? ANYTHING YOU WANT. FREE! ; Banks said after a period of personal difficulties, he’d no longer be living at the FaZe content house. ; I want to grow. So, um the future what the future looks like for me is LA, for sure.
Um I’m probably not going to live in the FaZe house, but I’m going to live with some FaZe dudes. Um I don’t really want to talk too much more about that, but um there could be another FaZe house in the works. There could be um just me and maybe a couple other dudes, maybe not called FaZe house, but I don’t really care.
I don’t the environment of that is so overwhelming for me anyways. I’d rather just live down the street and be able to just hang out with these guys whenever rather than like living in the house and always being like It’s a lot. It’s a lot. It’s a lot. Like your life becomes fucking FaZe. ; Instead, Banks started a new content house called the Clout House with other creators.
Business Insider spoke about the Clout House, a really big deal at the time of 2017, saying FaZe Banks moved to Los Angeles to start a new influencer collab group called the Clout House alongside fellow YouTubers Alissa Violet and RiceGum. The Clout House eventually grew to include three mansions and 26 bedrooms in the Hollywood Hills. ; The Clout House.
As I said, the Clout Gang lives in the Clout House. The current members include FaZe Banks. FaZe Banks’ girlfriend is Alissa Violet, who is Jake Paul’s ex, or like not ex, but kind of ex, and a few other influencers live in the house. ; Because, again, this was peak flex culture era, FaZe members would brag about spending $100,000 per month on rent.
What? Why is that necessary? ; FaZe Banks tweeted that they added two houses to the Clout House, so now they have three houses and pay a collective $100,000 a month in rent. ; And is each member really bringing in enough to make up for that amount of rent? ; Especially with these types of influencers, so much of their appeal to their audience is what they look like or what they have materially.
So, obviously, living in a mansion like this, being able to take Instagram pictures, film house tours, viewers watch it because they want to see somebody else living in a dope house. ; The LA extravagant flashy lifestyles of the most popular FaZe members gradually became a core part of the brand, something that viewers expected FaZe members to embody.
Someone who lived out the rich LA lifestyle. And while that might be exciting to someone who’s young and new, green to fame and fortune, is it something that’s sustainable or a smart way to live? In 2018, FaZe Clan had another content house in Hollywood, which also looked like one of the Clout Houses. ; This came down because we film FaZe Cast in the basement.
But, there’ll probably be a few guys in and out a lot because we have open rooms and stuff like that. So, they’re here right now. But, anyways, let’s get to the rest of the house. They’re just going to be kicking out here. ; My biggest question with all of this is who’s paying for this? How can they afford this? And how is this sustainable or even feasible? Amazing content creator Tiffany Ferg has a great breakdown about the Clout House.
She mentions how in a video Alissa Violet, FaZe Banks’ girlfriend at the time and a Clout House member, gives a tour of the Clout House and says that the investors pay the rent of the Clout House. Who are these mysterious investors who came in and are paying so much money on these houses for these content creators to live in? And why are they doing that? Why would anyone do that? I mean, of course, we’ll get into that, but I’m just foreshadowing here.
; Danny is Danny Fitzgerald, who is the developer who created all of these mega mansions on the street. But, again, who pays for this? Alissa Violet in this clip from Shane’s series said that it is the business, the investors. ; We don’t even like pay for this. Like, it’s like our company that ; Wait, who pays for this house? ; Investors and all that.
; People were wondering, who are the investors? Why would people invest in these creators? Why would they pay for them to live in mansions? I can’t tell you who they are or exactly why, but honestly, it’s just money. If they see all of these creators making a good amount of money and they sign a contract or whatever, they’re willing to invest their money because they know there’s going to be a return.
; Tiffany Ferg also talks about the overall concept of content houses and how content houses give the illusion that it’s all these friends living together. They’re all so happy hanging out, making videos for everyone, when in reality, it’s sort of a business exchange where everyone mutually collabs to make more money.
; They are doing this collectively as a group. Being in that house gives you exposure. They’re always filming together with each other every single day. It helps boost each person in the group up, give them each more exposure, and then their own individual brand deals, sponsorships, or whatever are more valuable, and then their cut of the money that goes to the company just keeps increasing.
; This is something that FaZe Clan did really well, and I also think encompasses the larger sphere of streaming as a whole, especially nowadays. Everyone involved in FaZe Clan seems to be close-knit, a friendship or a brotherhood, if you will. And that ultimately is an illusion that they’re selling to their parasocial audience, who gets a certain amount of satisfaction off of seeing creators interact with one another.
There’s been many creators who’ve spoken about this and how in reality they’re not friends in real life, that they don’t hang out outside of making content together, or really even know details about one another’s life, that this illusion of them being friends, making content, hanging out, even living together is just that, an illusion.
It’s nothing more. It’s a business exchange fabricated to gain them more views, followers, and money. ; The businesses are paying for the mansions rather than the influencers themselves paying rent. If a business is paying for it directly, then it is a business expense. It’s just a lot more appealing in terms of tax deductions and all of that, I assume.
Let me just be clear. These living arrangements are 100% business. They want it to seem like, “Oh, it’s just a bunch of friends. We love living with the homies. We love living in the Hollywood Hills, flexing how much money we make.” Got that AdSense money, got those brand deals, but they are doing this for money. The company wants each member to be more and more and more successful, to make more money, so that it goes back and makes the company money, and they pay back their investors, and the investors are happy. It is pretty damn fascinating.
; Something about that feels very unhealthy to me for both the content creator and the viewer. Why lie? Why live a life of illusions all for someone’s entertainment? The Clout House would exist until around 2020 when RiceGum ended up leaving. ; year or so has been kind of the vibe has been more of like the FaZe House than the Clout House.
I mean Clout isn’t even really a thing. So it’s it’s been the FaZe House and so now they’re at the point where it’s been 3 years. FaZe kind of wants a new house, so they’re no longer living in this big house anymore. They’re getting a new house. So since I’m not even in FaZe, there’s no reason for me to go from here and move into the new FaZe House when I’m not even in FaZe.
So that’s kind of why I have to find a new place. ; had joined the content house again. According to Business Insider, this house rented for $80,000 a month. $80,000. Well, of course, this gave a lot of FaZe content creators the feeling that they made it. They were living a life of luxury, living out their dreams. With all of these more modern LA content houses, was the heart and soul of FaZe Clan lost along the way? Looking back at the early content house in Long Island, there’s a humble relatability to the content house. But once they moved to
LA, everything became about this LA facade, the appearance of wealth, opulence, luxury, and capitalizing on anything, which just became unsustainable in itself, yet intrinsically a part of the FaZe brand. FaZe Clan members or at least some became dependent on showing off their mansions and going to fancy LA parties.
But the FaZe brand couldn’t sustain that level of spending. FaZe Rain and Apex reflected on how they never partied in the New York house. ; Everyone entered a new phase, no pun intended, in their lives where like some people started partying. Those 2 years in New York, that’s when we were still like kids with a camera who played the game.
One when I wasn’t there, there was never one party at the New York house. To be honest, like theoretically why the LA house killed FaZe is because we should have been in the middle of nowhere where we weren’t allowed to do that until the job was done. ; I mean, everyone grows up eventually. The question is, do you learn the right lessons along the way? Investors in the corporate sect saw an opportunity to make money off these influencers.
With such a massive overnight success, that investors decided they’d like to get involved. They’d like a piece of the pie. The transition into a corporate structure began back in 2015, a year into the New York phase content house. An entrepreneur named Sebastian Gerdes gave the FaZe Clan money so FaZe could expand into professional e-sports.
Sebastian also brought in Lee Trink to help them guide their business expansion. FaZe member Temper spoke more about why the group turned their brand corporate, saying they were kids with a massive organization that was unorganized. So, they trusted Trink and Gerdes, but that ultimately that was the beginning of the downward spiral for FaZe.
; Back then, we were just kids with this massive organization, but really basically, we had zero organization under that. You know, we didn’t know about accounting, legal, finance. We didn’t know how to handle these things. And this guy came in and kind of swayed us into thinking that, “Oh, yeah, you need to do this, this, and that, and that.
” He was the first domino that kind of started this domino effect of a downward spiral of FaZe Clan. Created this entire corporate infrastructure, and then all these executives and other people from the corporate world that know nothing about the internet, know nothing about our brand, came in, started involving themselves in the FaZe Clan business over the course of the last 7 years.
It’s not like if we knew any better, this wouldn’t have happened. It was such a complex issue that kind of just happened over several years. ; Sebastian Gerdes is a Norwegian entrepreneur and the former CEO of a now-defunct social media site called Hubrick. But, there’s very little information about Hubrick, which is kind of sketchy as well.
The domain name is for sale when you search hubrick.com, and Crunchbase has very little on the company except for poor stats and a very poorly written description. Sebastian seemed to believe in this vision of phase clan becoming something more than just a group of gamers getting together and being a group of dudes doing social media.
He helped them with their vision for the organization and after getting help both financially and with connections through Sebastian Gertz by 2018 phase clan secured a high profile investments even from celebrities like rapper Offset and basketball player Ben Simmons. But Digiday reports that at the same time there was growing tension between the online creators who started phase and the growing and developing corporate arm of this company who may know what it takes to run a corporation but not in conjunction with social media and influencers. But the unfortunate
reality is once you get investors involved they now have a say over what takes place in your company. It’s direction, what happens often times to fulfill their own self interests. With all the capital and the success of the influencers the brand was doing really well with a ton of love from other huge creators. Before Mr.
Beast was as massive as he is now he made a video in 2016 about phase clan. ; Have you ever wondered who started phase clan? Who is the founder of phase clan? The world’s largest gaming team home to some of the most popular YouTubers out there. The phase clan the team that is worth $16 million. The team that is home to countless sponsors.
Just have you ever wondered who started this clan? ; Mr. Beast and Jason the Ween who’s a modern phase member spoke on stream about how Mr. Beast tried to join phase and was rejected multiple times when he was younger. ; You were rumored to wanted to join phase at one point in time. ; You just opened a huge You just opened a huge can of worms. Here’s the thing.
Not only did I want to join you guys were Well, I guess not you, because you’re not even in FaZe anymore. They The FaZe rejected me multiple times when I was always smaller. I have The FaZe Adapt started out. I have a video where I talked about every member of FaZe. And then I think I did unlist it. I had a FaZe recruitment video.
I had FaZe 5 videos. I like I literally tried to join FaZe for years, and they wouldn’t let me in. ; In 2019, FaZe hosted their first pop-up storefront called FaZe Arcade on Melrose Avenue in LA to sell apparel in collaboration with other brands. ; I’d say the project that I was most proud of being a part of FaZe, um, was our pop-up.
; The first time I ever shopped on the street, it was actually with Adapt, Nikan, and some FaZe boys. Came up and down Fairfax and Melrose, and I said, “Yo, we’re going to have a store on this street.” 3 years ago. ; We had like a pop-up for 2 months, and we absolutely balled out. We had events there. Famous rappers pulled up.
; The vision for FaZe completely changed, notably when they started receiving investment. The brand became all about building up some sort of financial and industry legacy giant, not just gaming and making content about gaming. During 2019 to 2020, FaZe fantasized about where they see the brand in 10 years.
; Where do I see FaZe in 10 years? Holy tolerance. ; 10 years? Well, hopefully with me still on it. ; 10 years, I see FaZe Clan literally taking over the world. We already are, right? Like we literally already are. ; I see FaZe Clan as being this crazy dominant organization, as if we’re not already on the top.
; See us alongside the greatest historic franchises in all of sports and entertainment. ; With ideas of it being a dominant cultural and financially successful brand, this vision is a drastic switch from just humble regular dudes gaming online and doing fancy trick shots. In January of 2020, FaZe Clan received an investment loan worth $22.
7 million from Canadian financial company Canaccord Genuity, further strengthening their financial position, giving them more money to play with. But at the same time, an investment loan sounds very risky. Your brand also has to be bringing in enough for investors to feel like it’s worth it.
And no offense, but is a group of dudes streaming about gaming really going to be the next Disneyland, the next Marvel Universe? Does it have that capacity? FaZe expanded their G Fuel partnership in March of 2020. They built out an entire G Fuel studio in their FaZe Clan content house and launched a FaZeberry hydration line that you could even buy in stores.
But then, only a few months later in June of 2020, FaZe Clan became co-owners of the supplement company CTRL. It seems like CTRL mainly sold protein cookies and drink mixes. So, wouldn’t this be a direct competitor to G Fuel, one of their longest sponsorships that they’ve ever had? On one hand, maybe FaZe thought that if they had ownership in a supplement company that had similar aspects to G Fuel, one of their most successful sponsorships, then they could reap even more benefits than their partnership with G Fuel. But one would
wonder if owning and promoting this company likely soured FaZe’s relationship with one of their longest-running sponsorships with G Fuel. ; Thanks. Man, that was a long day of work. ; Yeah, dude. I’m so tired. I’m thirsty. ; How about some G Fuel? What does FaZeberry even taste like? ; I don’t know.
It doesn’t help Let’s try it. ; FaZeberry ; In August of 2020, FaZe Clan partnered with TV and film producer Michael Sugar. They launched FaZe Studios, which specialized in scripted TV series and feature films, and made their first FaZe movie titled Crimson, which was released in October of 2020. ; I think I just heard something.
; Well, I think it’s amazing that YouTubers are branching out and releasing other creative works, like Markiplier. Personally, I only think that’s the case when they’re genuinely passionate about what they’re doing, and they’re pouring this artistic creative energy into something that’s truly creative and original, especially because things like the film industry at the moment can feel stale with a lot of films just replicants of what’s already existed on the market.
But, is that the intention of FaZe Studios, or were they just trying to find another avenue to profit from their audience? And if that’s the case, is this really what the viewers are wanting from FaZe Clan? Or is FaZe Clan just doing way too much with the way too much money they were given? Either way, FaZe was given even more money.
Towards the end of 2020, FaZe secured a $40 million investment funding. FaZe was a fully corporate organization, expanding their business rapidly. But, quickly after 2020, FaZe scaled way too quickly. They got too close to the sun and got burned. In June of 2021, FaZe Clan became the first esports team to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
Then, right before FaZe went public, they ended their long-term relationship with G Fuel in May of 2022. After this decade-long relationship with G Fuel from all the way back in 2012 to 2022, FaZe Clan ended the partnership and immediately partnered with the competing energy drink brand Ghost, doing a multi-year deal together and creating energy drink flavors FaZe Pop and FaZe Up.
FaZe Clan officially became traded company on July 20th of 2022, listing on the NASDAQ exchange under the ticker symbol FaZe. ; Oh my god, first time in New York and uh it’s for a special occasion. FaZe Clan is going public. ; FaZe up. ; We all somehow coincidentally wore the same shirt. You go ahead and show them the back.
; Yeah. ; Something wrong There’s something wrong with him, for real. ; Today’s the day FaZe is officially going to be a publicly traded company, but what I’m really excited for is that going public is going to give us the resources we need to get FaZe back to what it should be. ; I miss the old FaZe. It’s just different, though.
; FaZe at least made history by being the first eSports organization to go public. The company went public at a valuation of 725 million, even though they were hoping to have a 1 billion valuation. That being said, FaZe shares fell nearly 25% on their debut day, not off to a good start.
The same month that FaZe went public, they also acquired a significant plot of virtual land within The Sandbox metaverse, where they built out FaZe World, placing a sort of bet that the metaverse was going to be this amazing integral part of a future internet or the omniverse, even though there wasn’t much stats indicating that it was going to be so and still there really isn’t in my opinion at least.
FaZe integrated cryptocurrency and NFTs as part of their web 3 push. ; And now it’s really important. Cryptocurrency is the future. It’s internet culture and that’s exactly what FaZe Clan is. So naturally, we’re parallel with this market. This is going to be awesome. Let’s get it. ; Their business plan was that metaverse, cryptocurrency, and NFTs was how FaZe Clan was going to be valued at $1 billion encouraging their new generation audience to buy into the metaverse, cryptocurrency, and NFTs.
That was the plan on how FaZe was going to dominate internet culture. But when the metaverse didn’t become what they were predicting it would be, NFTs died off and cryptocurrency stagnated, FaZe seemed to struggle in how to actually make a viable business for all of its vested interests. Digiday acquired requests for proposals sent out to investors and found that the plans of how FaZe would be financially viable changed over time.
FaZe initially planned to sell NFTs to their audience as a source of revenue back when influencers were making a ton of money selling get-rich-quick NFTs to their audience. But when people were under a ton of controversy for NFTs being, well, kind of scammy, FaZe changed this to just saying the metaverse after so many NFTs were exposed for being rug pulls.
; I jumped in to the NFT community without knowing what an NFT was. I didn’t know what an NFT was. I didn’t know what crypto was. I wasn’t well-informed. ; FaZe Clan toned down some of its language between the 2021 and 2022 pitch decks. The 2021 deck lists NFTs as a future revenue stream on its deck on consumer products, which was changed to the less controversial metaverse descriptor on the corresponding slide in the 2022 deck.
Furthermore, the 2021 deck projects a revenue figure of 651 million for FaZe by the end of 2025. The 2022 version lacks a revenue projection entirely. Not that FaZe execs let these concerns stop them spinning a compelling yarn for everyone else. While they were carefully resetting expectations among their investors, execs were telling media, including Digiday and fans alike, that the company was going to become a media conglomerate for youth culture.
They even enlisted the help of talent agency UTA to ensure a smooth landing. The only way FaZe would be financially successful on the stock market was to accomplish what’s planned, to make FaZe Clan into a media conglomerate for youth culture. Again, youth culture being the keyword here. Becoming a media conglomerate for youth culture is also just downright outlandish and unrealistic without a clear set way to get there.
; We are at the cutting edge, at the bleeding edge of change. And it’s a change that that is underappreciated by the majority of the traditional world, but stay tuned, keep an eye on us, keep an eye on our talent, keep an eye on our community, and we’re going to do things that continue to break ceilings, and continue to have and create historic moments.
; Ultimately, FaZe lacked a clear plan. So, instead, the brand turned into a way to peddle products constantly. Then CEO of FaZe, Lee Trink, strongly believed that FaZe Clan being a public company would help them though in that process, lending them real mainstream legitimacy. As if the 14-year-olds who watch the gaming streamers would care about whether or not their favorite streamer is part of a company that’s traded on the stock market or not.
; Having the global profile that being public gives us gives us the opportunity to to create a future in the image of of our talent and our community. I think even looking at that stage and how we rang the bell and what was important to to to show up there is something different. If there’s an under appreciation for the level of change that’s happening right now and a change that we will continue to drive forward.
It’s exhilarating, it’s thrilling, um it’s inspiring and hopefully we inspire our community and more talent to join us on the mission. ; During this time, FaZe Clan partnered with a lot of mainstream brands like McDonald’s, DoorDash, and Porsche who had a multi-year deal with them. Porsche even posted an announcement video on their YouTube channel.
FaZe also released a shoe with Nike in 2023. They released apparel with Disney in 2022 featuring a specifically designed Mickey. They had a partnership with the NFL in 2022 and a merch collab with Naruto. They collabed with even more brands, but this is just a sample of some of the biggest. It seems almost like FaZe was willing to partner with every brand who wanted to collaborate with them.
Not only to grow their name as a big name brand, but also because well, they were desperate to sell sell sell and grow their valuation. But with all the money all of these partnerships produced, this still wasn’t enough or what they projected making when they went public. Despite a fairly strong IPO kind of, within a year their financial future on the stock market looked much less promising.
FaZe Clan reports a $53 million loss despite increased revenue. How? FaZe Clan’s high of $20 per share in August of 2021 had dropped to just 40 cents per share by March of 2022. A massive drop which led to the Nasdaq issuing FaZe a deficiency notice. Meaning unless they could get their stock prices back up to over $1 for 10 consecutive days, they would delist phase from the Nasdaq capital market.
Delisting isn’t great for a host of reasons. It can indicate to investors that a company isn’t doing well enough to safely back. It can also mean less visibility or accessibility for stocks to be traded, meaning essentially it’s a steep downward spiral for that stock. Why was FaZe Clan failing even though FaZe was scaling rapidly fast and working with high-profile sponsorships? Despite the sponsorships, FaZe Clan continued to spend more and more and more, all in the name of content it seemed, limiting the success of the
brand and business in the process. Most of the reckless and most irresponsible spending, or just plain stupid, is that fair to say, seemed to take place in the year 2022. FaZe Clan continued to spend a ton on real estate costs. In 2021, the brand spent a hundreds of thousands on LA mansions.
By 2022, the lease expenses rose to 1.5 million. FaZe also did celebrity partnerships that didn’t work the way they intended. Snoop Dogg was brought onto the board in 2022. ; Must be a stream. ; Let’s go. ; Hey. ; I am a part of the FaZe Clan. ; FaZe the fucker. ; Which was a decision made by FaZe executives.
Snoop received millions in stock with the expectation that he would participate in branded content, but Snoop reportedly showed little interest because the deal wasn’t big enough for his standards, so he exited the board in April of 2023. Additionally, FaZe would spend large amounts on celebrity events. A single party in San Diego featuring Travis Scott would cost FaZe approximately 1.
7 million in July of 2022. But here’s the thing, would Snoop Dogg promoting phase sponsors or a Travis Scott party, even if it all went according to plan, really have that much of a significant boost to the brand? Content creation is at times predicated upon a constant upping of the ante and the flash to amaze the audience.
FaZe Clan paid for celebrities and mansions in LA and other things for content that may have brought in views and status, but also made it harder for them to turn a profit. The biggest question of all is how much of the spending was ultimately necessary versus a detriment to the brand.
All of this spending ultimately led to corporate layoffs. There was a 20% staff reduction in February of 2023, followed by a 40% layoff that year. Yet top FaZe executives were pulling in salaries in the hundreds of thousands, according to public filings. Frustrated with the mismanagement in April of 2023, FaZe Blanks called out the corporate arm of FaZe, saying, “Give us our brand back.
” But the top leaders of FaZe Clan were the ones who accepted all the investment money without considering the consequences to the brand in the first place. I don’t know what all these corporate Fs think they’re doing, weighing options, plotting, doing whatever the F it is they’ve been doing. But the answer is very simple, give us our brand back.
You stole it in the first place. It goes to zero otherwise. You have no idea what FaZe is. While I don’t doubt that the corporate side of FaZe was mismanaged, on the other hand, to be as fair as possible, the influencers were also the ones reaping the benefits, living in the LA mansions and attending lavish parties, filming that, posting about it, spending the funds that are getting mismanaged.
So, it sounds kind of like everyone involved are idiots. FaZe was floundering with no way out on its own. It needed a Hail Mary to save the brand. On October 2023, FaZe announced that the company GameSquare would acquire FaZe Clan. GameSquare is a Texas-based esports company backed by the Dallas Cowboys owner, Jerry Jones.
Part of the acquisition deal was that the FaZe influencers, who formerly led the company, would take on roles once again. FaZe Banks took on the role of CEO, Temper took on the role of President, and Apex took on the role of COO. The gaming influencers becoming involved in the corporate structure. When it came to FaZe Clan, it seemed like either you had corporate people who knew nothing about gaming and influencing, or you had gaming influencers who likely knew very little about how to run a company.
The greed and disorganization of FaZe Clan led to individual influencers getting hurt along the way. Member Turner, Tfue Tenney, sued the FaZe organization back in 2019, foreshadowing so many of the issues to come. Tfue alleged that FaZe had a downright oppressive contract that limited his earnings.
He claimed FaZe took up to 80% of his revenue, which is the most exploitative contract I’ve ever heard of. Tfue wrote about the situation, “Not only does FaZe Clan take advantage of these young artists, it jeopardizes their health, safety, and welfare.” Tfue claimed that FaZe Clan pressured him to live in one of its homes in the Hollywood Hills with other young YouTubers, where he says he was given alcohol before turning 21 and encouraged to illegally gamble.
Almost like a frat house mentality, but with very young kids. ; All the stuff about the gambling, the stunts, the drinking, I told my lawyer I did not want that in there. This is about me and this contract, this contract that I signed when I didn’t know any better. I’m an idiot. I shouldn’t have never signed it in the first place, this 3-year contract.
This contract basically allows FaZe at any point of 3 years to just fucking take all my hard earnings and all my hard work and just strip it. Over 49%, over 79%. And what I’m trying to do here is just serve justice to the e-sports community, the e-sports industry. These kids are getting ripped off, they’re getting taken advantage of.
These contracts are not okay and this needs to never happen again. #releasethefuckingcontract Release it. Please. ; People who are exposed to fame for the first time and a ton of pressure with the internet fame and sponsors and this massive organization pressuring them to do things, sign contracts when they don’t know the implication.
FaZe Banks, who is an influencer but also has a level of power and control in the FaZe organization, even verified that Tfue’s initial contract was horrible but that he was later offered different contracts that he didn’t want to sign. ; This changed Rice’s life, Alissa’s life, everybody in the FaZe house’s life. And that’s what I love more than anything.
I love to really take somebody because I was a kid who played video games, who was lost. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. This logo, FaZe Clan, this shit saved my fucking life and changed my whole world. And I know what it meant to me and I want to apply that to as many people as possible, people who deserve it.
And Tfue, you did deserve it but I did not deserve this, homie. I did not deserve this. ; Even so, FaZe Banks being involved in the organization and a front facing influencer, allowing influencers to sign terrible contracts so that those in the organization can profit off of them is so horrible and unjustifiable, especially when FaZe Banks tries to turn around and tell the influencers he’s on their side, he’s one of them.
He’s a snake in the grass. I taught you everything I knew. I was there for you. You confided in me. You told me things that your own brother doesn’t know about. But these bad contracts were also, in my opinion, a sign of an initial collapse. To make money, FaZe not only had to bring in a ton of sponsorships but also had to simultaneously exploit the talent as well.
Former FaZe member Tiko also confirmed these bad contracts saying that at one point he was also given a Tfue contract. ; to hear something even crazier? The only contract I’ve ever had with FaZe, guess what contract that is? The only contract I ever had. Guess. The Tfue contract, the only contract I ever had with FaZe.
As I was publicly defending FaZe on Twitter, everywhere, about that whole situation, I was in the same contract myself. Let that sink in. I told them I need this contract terminated today or I’m going public with it. And they did terminate it, okay? But here’s the thing. This is like 2019. Even at that point, no follow-up, no new deal, no new contract, no like, “Hey, we want to make this right.” Nothing.
; The somewhat shady company Hubrick also filed suit alleging that FaZe members raided corporate offices taking computers and furniture. They claim that FaZe took dozens of computers and gaming stations, some of the office furniture, all of the data available to it on the computers, and left it ransacked as little more than piles of empty boxes of expensive electronics and cleared off desks.
The worse off the FaZe company was, the more risks the company took in doing shady business practices on the corporate side. Meanwhile, on the influencer side, more and more FaZe members came under fire for misconduct. The thing is, you can’t predict influencer controversy, measure it in a flowchart, account for it on the stock market.
And the one thing FaZe Clan members came along with was their fair share of controversy. In 2017, during the days of the infamous competing content houses, Team 10 and The Clout House, Jake Paul posted and then deleted a video accusing FaZe Banks of assaulting his assistant Meg. FaZe Banks responded with his own video titled My Girlfriend Was Assaulted.
; Okay. Before I say anything about the situation at hand, please watch the entire video, hear me out, and just come to your own conclusion. Don’t pick a side based on bias. So, if you don’t already know, this is a response to Jake Paul’s video My Assistant Was Assaulted. I first want to come out and say 99% of what this kid said in his video was absolutely fabricated and not true.
I am going to be 150% honest about everything and every detail about this night from my point of view. It has gotten to where it needs This needs to be pursued legally. Defamation of character and slander to the highest degree. ; I was leaving, he sort of clotheslined me and put their arm out in front of me and tried to like pull me into the place that they were, into his table.
; At this point, anything that these kids say or do could be an absolute lie. ; FaZe Banks shows a screenshot with a member of Jake Paul’s team where the person tells Banks he did actually hurt Meg, that did actually happen, but that Meg doesn’t think he did it on purpose. As if that fully clears his name, when in my opinion that just kind of shows he did hurt someone.
Now, for obvious reasons, I’m not a Jake Paul fan, but Banks’ response video does also kind of feel like gaslighting 101. FaZe Banks calls Jake Paul a kid throughout the video and says that the whole video was lies. Banks also has his girlfriend at the time, Alyssa Violet, come on to camera and say that when she was dating Jake in the past, he assaulted her to almost muddy the storyline or make them both look equally bad, which I’m not trying to say is not the case because in my opinion everyone in this situation is all bad.
; Jake Paul, you guys know that I used to live with him for 2 years. I’ve known him for like 3 or 4 years. Honestly, he did assault me a few times. If we never agreed on something or something happened, he would spit in my face and this has happened multiple times. ; We’re sitting on a lot of shit, Jake. Like a lot of shit.
And there’s stuff that I know about you that if the rest of the world knew about you, they would never accept you again. They would They would hate you. ; Shoved me all the way into the bush. And see this I don’t know if you guys can see this scar right here were from thorns and my entire arm was bleeding. When I was living in his apartment, he took my phone, threw it at the wall, we got into a fight, I ran upstairs, he dragged me down the stairs and I actually have ; Yeah, that’s been on your leg since I met you.
; This has been here for like 2 years, dude. ; Banks then brings in his friend and her boyfriend who were allegedly at the club with him to provide their own testimony because his friends will definitely provide unbiased testimony. ; So, this is my friend Alexa. She’s a good friend of mine. Was I being aggressive at all ; No, you were like sitting there chilling, dancing a little.
; seems that at the time a large amount of the internet took FaZe Banks’ side in this sort of ongoing battle, believing Jake Paul to have over embellished the story, his video to be over dramatic, or even his assistant Meg lied and fabricated and made up the entire incident. In a Fox 11 news report from August 18, 2017, Meg describes the alleged assault to reporters, showing her neck and saying that there’s never any excuse for this kind of behavior.
; McPherson said it happened Wednesday night. When she was leaving the club, she says a man hooked his arm around her neck and started dragging her. We spoke with her via Skype. ; It was frightening mainly because my air supply was cut off. You know, when you hit your trachea on something, it it it hurts really badly.
; We are going to use this platform to spread awareness to everybody. ; With a combined 13 million viewers, McPherson is hoping to send a powerful message. ; Everyone should feel okay going out to a nightclub and having fun with their friends. No girl or woman or anyone should feel like afraid to be somewhere.
; And McPherson says she has filed a police report and is now letting eight LAPD handle her case. Meantime, FaZe Bank says that the videos make him out to sound like a monster and earlier he tweeted threatening legal action. ; The report concludes by saying that Meg filed a case with the LAPD. FaZe Clan never took any action as a result of the incident.
One of the most damaging scandals for the FaZe brand was the cryptocurrency scandals, mainly because they hurt their own fans financially when they promoted rug pull cryptos to them. In 2021, members promoted the Save the Kids crypto token, what was described as a pump and dump scheme leading to the removal of FaZe Kay. ; My name’s FaZe Rug. My name’s Jarvis.
I’m Teeqo. I’m RiceGum. I’m Nikan. And I support Save the Kids Token. Save the Kids Token. Save the Kids Token. Save the Kids Token. Save the Kids Token. ; Ladies and gentlemen, the scamming doesn’t stop. Today, we’ve got yet another mhm juicy little scam coming from the influencer section of the internet.
The biggest scumbag greedy people on Earth who are happy to sell you out for a few bucks. ; With their promo came the claim that some of the proceeds would go to charity. Many people bought it. The price soared. And then several members of FaZe Clan immediately sold their stakes in the crypto and the price dropped.
; So, the day of what happens? It goes to the moon, right guys? Well, no. The The answer is the first day it pumps and immediately it dumps all the way to negative 90%. What we know is that all the whales in the coin sold off immediately. And why would RiceGum, uh, the king of the Lambos, do anything if he’s not actually involved in some of the projects? ; This was early on in crypto pump and dumps, when the widespread knowledge of them wasn’t as common, and there were high hopes that people could still get
rich off of crypto. This meant that many people who followed FaZe members hoped for success in the crypto market, and believed them when they said it would be a legitimate financial opportunity. That, and the SaveTheKids coin being linked to a charity, meaning those who invested in it felt they were doing good, and it lent a certain level of credibility to the whole thing, until the rug was pulled, and those at the top walked away with all of the profit, and everything else came tumbling down.
No kids seemed to be saved. The price of SaveTheKids rose 30% before it plummeted 72%, and after the internet responded in outrage, FaZe Clan kicked out FaZe Kay and suspended three other members. We have made the decision to remove Kay from FaZe Clan, and have Jarvis, Nikan, and Tiko until further notice.
FaZe Clan had absolutely no involvement with our members’ activity in the cryptocurrency space, and we strongly condemn their recent behavior. The trust and respect of our fans has been and will always be our number one priority. Kay tweeted out in response to being kicked from FaZe. I want you all to know that I had no ill intent promoting any crypto altcoins.
I honestly and naively thought we all had a chance to win, which just isn’t the case. I didn’t vet any of this with my team at FaZe, and I now know I should have. Then, more recently in 2025, FaZe Banks stepped down as CEO following a separate meme coin scandal. When does it end? When do the meme coins and crypto things end? You would think by now people would realize and stop buying into it and stop promoting it.
Banks steps down as FaZe’s CEO following accusations that he and streamer Aiden Ross, surprise surprise, scammed fans through the launch of the meme coin MLG. And by this point, they clearly should have known better. ; The only thing I’m telling anybody to buy, I mean, that’s the ticker of the year, honestly, for me.
When the waiter comes up and asks me what to buy, everybody wants a ticker. And it gets boring to tell them Bitcoin and Solana over and over and over. That’s the right answer, but the only ticker that I can tell anybody besides those two is MLG. Been saying it since 3:00 a.m., going to keep saying it till 420 billion. Um yeah, that’s that’s that’s it.
That that’s it for me. ; Banks and Aiden definitely bought MLG before the stream knowing that leading up to it, it’s going to get hyped up, and then when he mentions MLG, it’s going to be like Dogecoin when Elon went on SNL, and then everybody fucking sells. ; FaZe Dubs was suspended in 2020 for using a racial slur during a stream.
All of FaZe Clan members were required to go to sensitivity training after the incident. FaZe Dubs then posted an apology following his return. ; He returned? ; FaZe Barker was removed in 2020 following allegations of misconduct involving a minor. He would send unsolicited nudes, sexually explicit messages, and images of him himself.
In one instance, one of the girls claimed he asked her for nudes when she was 16 years old. Yes, former FaZe Barker asked me for explicit photos when I was 16. If you need the proof, I will send it to you. But I can promise I am not lying about this. In November 2022, streamer AstroNova posted a tweet longer about an encounter with FaZe Mew.
The tweet longer was titled My Story and talked about how she flew out to Texas to visit FaZe Mew. How he acted like a friend, but after an event when they were both drinking and AstroNova might have gotten too much to drink, he took advantage of her and his roommate seemed to try and cover it up, leading her to believe that they had done this before for him.
FaZe would go on to announce through Twitter that they would suspend Mewes to conduct an investigation, and Mewes eventually responded with his own tweet longer a couple days later claiming the whole encounter with Astro Nova was consensual. What was his proof of this? He posted screenshots of Astro Nova being flirtatious with him in the DMs.
As if that’s proof that she consented during the IRL interaction. Ash put together a doc with a bunch of screenshots and links to corroborate her initial claims in a folder of screenshots from other women she connected with who shared similar stories, and she submitted that to FaZe with their permission.
He was officially dropped in January, but they silently dismissed him. After Mewes was let go from FaZe, he posted what he said was the phone call with FaZe as they let him go. ; It was definitely yeah, it’s it’s a he said, she said kind of thing. ; Yes. ; Yeah. ; And there are too many questions. It was obvious that that girl was, you know, a little bit of a you know, there was some like drama looking for attention kind of thing, but there’s also, like I said, the the people that were looking into it felt like there was enough feedback that
was not good. ; brand has faced criticism for its boys club atmosphere. In general, it’s fairly well known that sexism and sexual misconduct is an overall problem in the gaming and streaming industry. There was a 2020 report from the New York Times about a weekend where over 70 allegations of sexism and harassment went live in just one weekend.
All from women in gaming spaces. In their recently released 2025 report, Stream Hatchet, which is owned by Game Square, the same company that most recently owns FaZe, showed the viewed hours of the top 10 male versus top 10 female streamers. The top female streamer, Amouranth, had 23.8 million hours watched. By comparison, the 10th most watched man, xQc, had 70.7 million hours watched.
In their 2021 report, they wrote that only 27% of the top 3,000 streamers are women. And it is undeniable to say that FaZe Clan is sort of a part of this problem. FaZe Clan clinched the market and made it a boys club. And by the time they tried to add more women into the space, the members of FaZe Clan were resistant, adding to the problem.
In May 2023, FaZe announced the addition of new recruit FaZe Blue Fil. Otherwise known as actress Grace Van Dien, who’s most known for her role as Chrissy on Stranger Things. Now, there have been women who were members of FaZe. Kaleid joined in 2021 and left in 2024. And without realizing it, FaZe recruited their first trans player in 2019.
Ewok came out as trans on National Coming Out Day in 2020, which was met with overall support by FaZe. Fast forward to FaZe Blue Fil joining the team. In an interview with IGN on the day of her announcement, under the tweet of her announcement official FaZe account, there was a lot of hate directed toward her. A lot.
Even though really she’d already been a streamer prior to joining FaZe, there was this sort of red pill talking point that Grace was only added onto FaZe Clan to make FaZe Clan look better in terms of its diversity without actually caring about the quality of its members. I guess I don’t particularly understand what the big deal is.
It sounds like really what fans were upset at is the change in FaZe Clan as it was becoming more corporate and caring more about brand over authenticity. But instead of being upset at the company and taking out their frustrations on the company, fans directed all their hate onto Grace.
Despite the backlash, FaZe’s account made a collage of the positive welcomes and tweeted them out. But FaZe Banks himself responded with the following tweet, which got over double the likes of the tweet welcoming Grace. You forgot our response with a group of FaZe Clan members pointing and laughing as if it’s a joke and they don’t take it seriously.
Rain posts a video titled The New FaZe Clan where he breaks down his frustration with Grace’s recruitment saying that he’s mistrustful of the way FaZe is managed on the corporate end and that corporate doesn’t care about the creators and community and again directs all of that frustration onto Grace. ; it’s all political.
Whenever they want a sponsorship or to appeal towards these brands, they always say, “We need a woman. We need a person of color.” They wanted Gucci so they want to get a woman. THEY WANTED NIKE so they have to get people of color. I could never be biased when it comes to FaZe Clan. I only have to do what’s better for FaZe Clan.
; He says Grace is just a way to fulfill a sponsorship. That sort of talking point of adding someone on just for the sake of diversity. Almost dehumanizing them within your own talking point. While I understand the concept of wanting to keep FaZe Clan elite and only the best gamers because you’re so focused on ousting people you don’t think deserve the spot, you are also ruining the brand through doing so, through allowing hate and vitriol into the FaZe Clan brand.
In fact, I would argue that ruined the FaZe Clan brand even more so than just having a famous person on FaZe Clan. At the end of the video, FaZe Rain watches a clip from Grace’s stream where she calls out Rain for saying the only reason she got recruited was because of Stranger Things.
He ridicules her, calls her a bitch and that he wouldn’t touch her on his drunkest night. ; FaZe Rain said that the only reason I was signed with FaZe is because I was on Stranger Things. Um I’m sorry, sir. Were you in the meeting with us? ; THAT’S MY FUCKING BOY, BITCH. ; SO, get fucking wrecked. To everyone saying that and FaZe Rain. ; you up.
; Holy ; Grace, I’m sorry. All I want to say is you’re golden Valerium, you make Stranger Things your entire personality even though you’re only on ONE EPISODE. YOU FOUND OUT ABOUT TWITCH THROUGH TUMBLR. NOT ONLY HAVE YOU NOT HIT A TRICK SHOT, but you don’t even know what the fuck that is.
When you were still playing with Barbies, I made my first million out of this industry. And on top of it, you’re excruciatingly mid, who I would never let touch me on my drunkest night. ; He somehow also claims in this same video that he wants to see more women in gaming. And he pins a comment in this video that says, “Once again, this isn’t against Grace at all.
It’s entirely about FaZe corporate. Had to troll her at the end cuz of what she tweeted though, lol.” As this comment points out, while so many FaZe members have such a huge problem with a woman who’s a famous member joining FaZe Clan because it’s deemed not authentic, because she didn’t join FaZe for her talent, they didn’t have the same problems when Offset invested in FaZe or when Snoop Dogg became a member of FaZe.
Coincidentally, they just whined and raged when Grace joined FaZe. Yet, they claim there was no misogyny behind their actions and it was all solely because she wasn’t a true gamer. ; Eventually, Grace and Rain made a video together to try and make peace, but by the end, the discussion falls apart. ; me to be demonized a horrible human for calling you mid that I wouldn’t touch with a thousand miles of my drunkest night? Like, what do you want? And it’s like, how could you let other people hurt your feelings? Do you not believe
in yourself? Do you Are you not a confident woman? You should be. ; I don’t like you. ; Okay, that’s fine. I’m just being very logical. I understand how you feel, but you brought things up against me. ; I think you’re a terrible person. ; Really? ; Yeah. ; Oh, she’s pulling the acting out now. Because I said that I could ; Pulling the acting out now.
; How am I a terrible person? For what? ; Pulling the acting ; person. Explain. ; I don’t owe you an explanation, actually. Tell Vera that I’m not doing this video, and if they release anything that I’m leaving FaZe. ; By 2024, Grace and FaZe Clan are even worse off. Grace deactivated her Twitter account after tweeting about how the FaZe Clan guys stared at her and whispered around her at the Streamer Awards in 2024.
Banks, Keemstar, and responded saying, “You’re a slam pig, lol. Nobody’s afraid of your baby voices or your 80-lb emo boyfriend. Stop clinging onto our shiz. Nobody knows you or gives a f about you. You tried to force your way into FaZe, lol.” Says the person who woke up the next day and is tweeting about us rent-free. Humble yourself a little.
I promise we do not care about you, respectfully. Let’s fix this, Grace. Let me take you out to dinner. No, no, no. Not the FaZe boys, just us. The FaZe Clan, a welcoming space for everyone. Former FaZe Clan executives Greg Selkoe, Clinton Sparks, and Will Eddins, together with Marco Mereu, have launched a new gaming brand called XSET.
Gaming is the new pop culture. We’re creating an entirely new gaming organization. XSET means excellence and inclusion. We will set the standard and be the kind of role models the community of hundreds of millions of gaming fans deserve. The way I look at it, the future is set. The strangest thing is, as much as FaZe Clan members have done in terms of racism, bigotry ; Listen, bro, the reason I wanted Trump was because I wanted to make more money, all right? That’s why.
I’m going to I’m going to say it. At least I’m honest. I don’t give a I’m not sitting here lying. I don’t give a who’s the president. I want to make more money. I’m a greedy ; There are still people with progressive views that want to be a part of FaZe Clan and women in the streaming spaces that continue to collaborate with FaZe Clan members, even controversial FaZe Clan members.
It’s almost like when it comes to FaZe Clan, views go out the window. But what precedent does that set? What example does that set? When you’re labeled an influencer, influencing your audience, and you’re willing to set aside your core belief system to collaborate with someone of prominence in in space, propping up and normalizing the hatred in the process.
I don’t want to necessarily call out specific streamers for doing this because I know it’s a complicated situation, especially for women in the streaming space. As noted earlier, women have it rough in the gaming industries and streaming spaces. They’re isolated, it’s hard to get ahead, and there’s so much that’s weighing them down.
In April of 2024, there were announcements of new members, FaZe Adapt, Silky, Jason, and Lacy. These members brought new life into FaZe Clan. Each were a new era of streamer, better versed on the most popular phases of streaming at the time, IRL streaming most notably, which helped to keep FaZe relevant as much as FaZe helped boost each individual streamer’s profile in turn.
FaZe announced the lineup with the infamous blue screen post. Temper said he was excited about this new wave of FaZe. ; Thank you, Game Square, for helping us accomplish this vision, and we’re so excited to bring this back. Thank you to everybody that’s been a part of this. Thank you to our company, the people that are with us today. ; But around the same time that the announcement for the new members came, 17 people were kicked from the clan suddenly in April of 2024.
Just kind of seems heartless. Banks shared a long tweet on the changes after the announcement. A couple notable snippets include, this gaming clan collective org shit has felt extremely played out, washed, not well lately. Definitely in part to gaming in general feeling a bit dry, but I really do believe in part has to do with the fact we all effing lost the plot.
VC gets involved, these finance bros get involved, and effing ruin it every time. We’re all running up these contracts against each other, being greedy pigs about slapping a brand’s name on top of random streamers and YouTubers who might be popping at the time of negotiating, taking bets on whether they’ll maintain the success or not, but contributing exactly nothing to them as people or their career.
It’s so disingenuous. No, not today. Not anymore. I’m effing over it. It’s trash, doesn’t work. The way FaZe Banks describes this almost feels like FaZe Clan was a way to get investors to almost gamble on the long-term success of a streamer in a similar manner to the stock market when there are far more factors at play when it comes to streaming and influencing, like all the controversies that different influencers enter.
Banks can continue saying, “FaZe Clan is the next Nike. It will outlive any one person that wears the name.” This is a very important story being told, a movie playing in real time. Mark my effing words. Um but the relaunch of FaZe publicly was seen as a success by FaZe media management because of all the public interest in the relaunch.
When FaZe Clan relaunched the brand on April 27th, 2024, it experienced unprecedented engagement across social media platforms and was the number one trending topic on X. In addition, FaZe Clan search interest was the strongest the brand has experienced on YouTube since May 2020 and on Google since May 2019.
In May 2024, FaZe’s new owner, Game Square, announced the formation of FaZe Media, which combined the FaZe creator talent roster and non-esports assets, meaning the more IRL streamer-focused content creators rather than the esports-focused gamers, into a creator-led IP and internet media company under the leadership of CEO FaZe Banks.
The entire goal of FaZe Media seemed to be to return its reputation back to what it once was. FaZe Media is focused on building on the value of the FaZe brand IP and returning creative control of the brand to its founding leaders who made the FaZe brand an internet media juggernaut. That being said, when you look at the corporate restructuring of the brand, there’s certain implications that I’m not sure legally if I can say since there’s never been an official statement of the intention of FaZe Media.
That being said, FaZe Media seem to be more of the influencer side, focused on selling things. And the way they recreated their corporate restructuring is very telling. As Matt Kalish invested $11 million into FaZe Media and would be joining the board of the company. I’m so embarrassed. I’m so embarrassed because yet again I mispronounced a name.
I don’t watch a lot of content revolving around DraftKings. The co-founder of DraftKings is Matt Kalish, not Matt Kalish. ; who owns the most shares of FaZe now is a guy named Matt Kalish. You probably don’t know the name, but you know what he’s created cuz he’s a co-founder of DraftKings. ; And I cringe at the fact that I say his name constantly throughout this video and mispronounce it, Matt Kalish instead of Matt Kalish. Please forgive me.
I feel like I need to watch a variety of content and practice the pronunciation before filming to get better at it. I’m working on it, but I feel like I’m failing and I’m not doing a good enough job, so I’m really sorry about that. This means FaZe Media, the arm of the company where a lot of the new members, influencer, IRL streamers joined, was only about half owned by GameSquare.
GameSquare owned 51% of FaZe Media. And Matt Kalish, just Matt Kalish, this guy, owned the remaining 49% of FaZe Media. Whereas on the other hand, GameSquare owned 100% of the e-sports arm of FaZe, which is a weird way to split up FaZe. Matt Kalish’s $11 million went only into FaZe Media. Matt Kalish also launched the company Hardscope in conjunction with buying almost half of FaZe Media.
Heartscope describes itself as the operating system for the creator economy, connecting brands and fans with the most influential streamers built to lead culture. ; What is Heartscope? The way I understand it, it’s basically trying to Disney-fy streaming. You can call it a glorified ad agency, you can call it a management team, but what they’re trying to do is they’re trying to get a contract with streamers, a 365 deal, where they’ll get a percentage of every single dollar that walks in the door for that streamer in exchange for making that streamer’s life
a lot better, making them a bigger creator overall, getting them more deals overall, yada yada yada. Okay? That That’s what the idea is. ; Basically, the goal was to create FaZe Media, get the most influential streamers, and connect them with brands through this company Heartscope. But what kind of brands would these influencers that are dominating the streaming world be promoting exactly? Who is Matt Kalish? Matt Kalish is the co-founder and president of DraftKings.
Yeah. Mhm. Matt Kalish is the co-founder and president of DraftKings. ; All right, guys. We got Matt, co-founder of DraftKings. Thanks for coming on today, man. ; Thanks for having me. This is great. It’s been really cool to see the evolution of the company since I was in high school. Yeah, 12 years now.
You know, we started with fantasy sports and now obviously the culture in the country has changed a lot. Sports betting is in about 50% of the US and being on the forefront of that really, really amazing experience. Think the best is still yet ahead as well. So, it’s been quite the ride so far. ; So, what does this mean when members of FaZe Clan are constantly promoting DraftKings in their content? And is Matt Kalish becoming the co-owner of FaZe Media a roundabout way to use influencers for self-promotion? FaZe Clan does have a long-standing
relationship with DraftKings. Back in 2021, FaZe Clan made DraftKings their official betting partner. Doesn’t FaZe Clan define itself as defining the new generation, influencing youth culture? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought sports betting was only for adults. Those two things seem to contradict each other, but nonetheless, DraftKings became FaZe’s official betting partner.
And the deal was intended to help both companies reach new audiences, which feels like a roundabout way of saying exposing FaZe’s audience to sports betting. ; Damn, oh my ; I already put in this game, though. ; Are you ready for the game? ; No, we got this, wait. ; What the ; Damn, pass, bro. ; This is weak.
; I was dead. ; What’s up? ; I ain’t getting none of this since ; Put the glizzies down, homie. ; WHAT ARE Y’ALL DOING, MAN? STOP PLAYING IT. ; HEY, NOW I’M GOING Uh listen, I don’t do this. You guys have never heard me do it, but I’m going to do it today. Uh my neighbors are too much. ; FaZe Clan is a juggernaut of internet engagement and culture, built from the ground up into one of the most influential esports and content organizations in the world, said Matt Kalish, president of DraftKings North America, in a statement. The strong
crossover between DraftKings customers and FaZe’s tens of millions of viewers and followers made this a natural alliance. And we hope to create excitement, competition, and community around sports and video games for adult audiences everywhere we operate. DraftKings appeared across FaZe’s digital content ecosystem, including custom content, live stream, tournament events, plus new IP and formats like original series and planned podcasts.
So, FaZe Clan has had a long-standing partnership with DraftKings that may have proved to be very beneficial in bringing on new audiences. But, maybe Matt Kalish wanted more control over the influencer-facing side of FaZe. So, he became a co-owner in FaZe Media. But, the story that was being presented to the media was that FaZe Media was successful because the content creators were now leading it with FaZe Banks leading FaZe Media instead of the corporate arm owning FaZe.
FaZe Clan bounces back under the direction of content creators. After FaZe Clan entered new ownership, it took a few months for the effects to show. In April of 2024, FaZe Clan weekly viewership hits 4.8 million just 3 months after the lineup change. In this modern era, FaZe was the least focused on strictly gaming content as opposed to their early days when they were gaming content creators first and foremost.
Nowadays, with streaming and content creation, you have to be everything and let everyone into every aspect of your daily lives. It’s also a way to up the ante without overspending through pushing influencers to stream constantly and let people into their lives into the most parasocial way possible.
New FaZe Clan members push the group towards IRL content. New FaZe Clan members heavily favored non-gaming content. Even with the newfound success, FaZe Clan still couldn’t escape controversy. In September of 2025, FaZe Rain accused the co-founder of FaZe, Temper, of sexual misconduct involving minors. Temper denied knowingly doing so, but did admit to sleeping with a 17-year-old that he believed was older.
And the fallout led to Temper’s removal from the roster. ; The fact that I’m even having to respond to this, that my My is in the same breath as the word is so sick, twisted, and insane. You stated if you don’t get paid that, you’re going to air this out. Now, my kid has to grow up and see this, then see that his father is in the same that my name is in the same light as what you just called me.
; FaZe Banks left in July 2025 following the crypto scandal with Adin Ross. FaZe Apex left in August of 2025. Former FaZe member Kaleid got a call while she was streaming that she was kicked from FaZe. ; I got kicked from FaZe. It is not all love. ; It’s really weird trying to help a team out when they don’t want help.
And it’s very unfortunate that they are doing this hours before the actual announcement. ; That has to be brutal to be kicked out of FaZe simultaneously while a bunch of new people are invited in. When Banks spoke with Adin Ross on his decision for which FaZe members he decided to let go, he said that FaZe was at its peak when it was just the homies.
; How did you pick on who to choose and who to keep? That’s actually what I want to know. ; FaZe is at its best when it’s It was at its peak when it was the homies around, working off each other, bounce off each other, watching each other’s videos, being in involved in each other’s like just with each other, bro.
Like it starts there. ; Rain posted about no longer being a part of FaZe saying, “Hey, so obviously I’ve left FaZe because contrary to popular belief, 51% of the company is still corporately owned. I can’t get burned again. There’s so many people involved in that team that are strictly there for money and attention.
” Despite some major hits publicly, it looked like FaZe was reaching success once again towards the end of 2025. FaZe won best content organization at the Streamer Awards in 2024 and 2025. ; And the Streamer Award goes to FaZe Clan. ; All right. Uh, first thing I want to say thank you to anyone who voted for us Uh, this year.
We did our second ever subathon where all of us reached 100,000 subscribers. ; I’ve been a part of this for almost 15 years now, y’all. A part of FaZe and I think I think I can confidently say I think I can confidently say this is the most proud I’ve ever been of where FaZe is at. Everybody on the stage, I want to thank you guys so much for voting for us, for believing in us.
It means so much to me. Thank you guys and yeah, FaZe the fuck ; FaZe Rain also won the Streamer’s Choice Award in 2025. FaZe Cason performed with The Chainsmokers and FaZe hit 1 million total subscribers in NOVEMBER OF 2025. ; A MILLION! ; WITH EACH OF them running subathons where they each got at least 100,000 subscribers.
After the subathons, they were the top 10 Twitch channels worldwide. FaZe Clan reunited with G Fuel in an all new multi-year, multi-million dollar sponsorship deal. FaZe Media received an equity stake in G Fuel and G Fuel became presenting sponsor for the month-long subathon streaming marathon making the revival of esports’ most iconic partnership.
; Victory requires teamwork. It requires reaction. It requires focus. It requires endurance. And most importantly, it requires energy. What fuels you? ; And all of this is what made the quick downfall so shocking. On December 25th, 2025, Christmas Day, suddenly out of nowhere, major talent including Adapt, Silky, Jason, Lacy, and Stable Ronaldo all announced their departure from FaZe Clan.
Most of them simply with a tweet left at FaZe Clan. FaZe Banks tweeted out, “I have nothing to do with what’s going on at FaZe Clan right now. I left 4 months ago and have moved on with my life. Unfortunate to see.” Since right before this had happened, FaZe Banks had departed since he’d gone under controversy for that crypto scam. “Unfortunate see.
Wishing everyone involved the best. If there’s anything I can do to help, I’m here. Nobody loves FaZe more than me.” The streamer Ludwig posted a video titled “FaZe is Dead” and pointed out a clip from Plaqueboy Max’s cousin streaming and saying that while Banks said he doesn’t have anything to do with FaZe anymore, Banks is a part of the company Hard Scope.
You know that company Matt Kalish started, which is intrinsically a part of FaZe Media. So, he is kind of definitely still a part of FaZe and still has a vested interest. Ludwig confirms that in relation to a Hard Scope issue, FaZe Banks ended up reaching out to Ludwig. So, he is definitely still involved in some capacity with Hard Scope and therefore FaZe Media.
; Banks was pushed out of FaZe by the the FaZe members, right? So, now there’s this thing called Hard Scope that now owns FaZe, which Banks has a part of. So, you’re still part of FaZe. What are you talking about? ; Banks is pushed out because he has interpersonal issues with the talent, but then he is a part of Hard Scope, which I know to be true because Banks is the one who hit me up initially about that ad for Streamer Awards.
You see, there was an ad, I don’t know if you guys remember this, that aired at the Streamer Awards, which actually promoted one of Matt Kalish’s businesses. Let me show Now, this is a POV ad of you being a successful creator and then promotes Hard Scope at the end with coming soon. And all links to his website called Heart Scope, which if you go to still by the way, it would link you to a website that shows you their services and then their creators.
Which you can see here are all FaZe members. ; With almost every streamer that’s involved with FaZe Media tweeting out that they left FaZe, FaZe Clan tweeted, “It’s heartbreaking to see this era of FaZe come to a close. It’s beyond tragic the way it all ended. It’s been an emotional few days.
We wish the boys the best not only as creators but as people, too. FaZe has always felt like a family, so we will always unconditionally root for and support them. FaZe eSports has always operated as a separate entity. Nothing on that side will change. Rather, it will become our main focus moving forward. FaZe forever, 2010 to infinity.
” On Christmas Day, Banks posted a video on Twitter where he spoke on the sudden mass departures from FaZe Clan saying it was a terrible effing day. He reiterates that he left the organization four or five months prior. One of Banks’ biggest points in the video is that he doesn’t feel like the FaZe guys or former FaZe guys realize how good they had it.
That FaZe helped the members and he personally sacrificed and put himself in debt to help FaZe succeed. ; I used my entire network, every dollar that I’ve ever made, everything that I’ve ever had, this brand that I built, I used all of it as leverage to start these guys as a content group and to kick this shit off with the sole goal and intent to bring FaZe back to the top, which we did.
We did that, all collectively. Um over the last 2 years, FaZe has won org of the year twice. And um yeah, I was the first guy in the room. These guys would have never lived in the house together if it wasn’t for me. These guys are all at minimum 10 times the size in terms of audience and platform now as before they joined FaZe.
This was one of the worst decisions I’ve ever made in my entire life. I gave up my entire adult life to this. I have put myself in millions and millions and millions of dollars in debt. I have never made not one singular dollar outside of my salary to via FaZe. Not selling it, not buying it, raising money.
Um I’ve just put myself further and further in debt. ; I feel like FaZe Banks being that bitter over all of the former talents’ departure definitely meant he still had some skin in the game. As if he had no more ties to the organization, I don’t think he would be that upset that people left.
So, in my opinion, that further adds to the claim that he’s involved with Hard Scope and had something to gain from the talent. Banks also claimed that the talent was ungrateful and their relationships are fake. ; know I haven’t really seen eye-to-eye with a lot of the talent because, truthfully and honestly, I find you guys all to be incredibly ungrateful.
I find you guys all to have insane egos, and I think it’s disgusting and makes me sick to my stomach that your guys’ relationships with each other, with every other streamer, and your community included is so incredibly fake. You guys are the best actors on planet Earth, and you’ve made a complete career out of all of it.
I would hope I would hope anyone watching could sit here and understand why I would be frustrated while a entire hate mob is coming after me on Christmas, my first Christmas without my mom, when all I’ve ever wanted to do is help FaZe be successful. Where’s the money? I’m this guy who’s trying to take everything from everybody.
Where is it? Then why the am I millions of dollars in debt? I wish this never happened. I wish that I never did any of this. ; So, FaZe Banks is claiming he’s not involved in the organization, making it seem like he’s some sort of unbiased source that’s on the talent’s side. But now FaZe Banks is acting like the talent is all selfish and ungrateful for not accepting whatever the corporate side offers them, no questions asked.
Banks also tweeted out, “These guys had free housing, free filmers and staff, all phase channels, 0% income shared. Their money and platforms all skyrocketed after meeting me, but I’m the bad guy. None of it makes sense.” So, what caused the phase exodus of 2025? It seemed like everything was going well under phase, and along with the new talent, there was a surge in popularity, but management just wasn’t satisfied enough.
They tried changing the influencers’ contracts so they could get more money from the deal. Management under Matt Kalish, the co-founder of DraftKings, who bought around half percent of phase media and created the company Hardscope, offered independent Hardscope deals that creators found unfavorable, allegedly including a proposed 20% cut of earnings.
; The ask was 20% of some chunk of revenue from the creators. The problem is that deal would have worked on basically every single creator who just left phase in April of 2024. They are now individually 5, 10, 20x as large as creators. Like they’re 20x larger than they used to be. There’s just no reason for them to be individually giving up that much percentage when they could be using that money to pour back into themselves to promote their own brand rather than promoting the phase brand.
; This makes no sense, as these influencers are already highly successful and desirable in the industry. So, to suddenly change the deal so they make less money, and expecting these influencers to say, “Sign me up.” Why would any already well-established influencer agree to that? In December of 2025, Hardscope announced its launch as a vertically integrated creator media platform, aiming to scale talent growth while providing brands with infrastructure to build partnerships with creators.
And of course, Matt Kalish is the leader of Hard Scope. Matt Kalish offered the FaZe members the option to go independent or sign deals with Hard Scope, his creator agency who funded FaZe. He felt the business side of FaZe was unsustainable. ; They brought back the deal cuz FaZe is not having it.
I guess FaZe is broke, they needed money. So, they used the same deal they said we’re not doing, but now it’s Hard Scope and now FaZe doing it. ; After pouring in $11 million into FaZe and after all this time, now they’re realizing it’s unsustainable? All of a sudden, these new creators become confident and felt like something was working, and then bam, the management corporate side becomes unhappy and had to switch things up drastically.
The influencers felt the terms Kalish offered were unfavorable. According to a person with knowledge of the discussions who asked not to be identified, the talks had gone on for about half a year, but other information about the terms and the specific details were never released. Of course, this is just entirely speculation, but I do wonder if any of this would have to do with the specific brands that these influencers would have to promote as well.
And if there was any specifics within the deal about that. That being said, overall, when it comes to the FaZe Clan organization, there’s been talk about more global reach, more diverse content creation across various platforms, and more focus on e-sports. Was this sort of restructuring and offloading FaZe media influencers FaZe’s way to focus more on the e-sports wing? Following the exodus of content creators, the entertainment division of FaZe Clan shut down operations, refocusing solely on competitive e-sports. One wonders if
that was maybe kind of their intention the entire time. Ultimately, FaZe is great at building hype, but not as good at creating sustainable business practices. ; What was FaZe really, really wildly successful at? Hype. Poster boys of cliff farming. Okay, the new era of streaming. FaZe Clan has had an issue that has plagued them for about the last 15 years.
And it is probably their biggest weak point as an organization. They are bad at making money. They’re all hype with no substance behind it. They do not know how to effectively make money. It can dupe people into investing, but they basically stretch that line as far as it can go. ; Ludwig thinks one of the issues the talent of FaZe had was FaZe Banks remaining in a leadership position as they have interpersonal issues with him.
; Their whole deal was having Banks not be a part of leadership because they had interpersonal issues with Banks. And Banks was going to remain a part clearly because of his relationship with Matt “Nadeshot” or Matt “Nadeshot” trusts in Banks or whatever. ; FaZe adapt tells his chat he can’t answer too many questions without getting caught up in legal shit.
; I I mean, I can’t answer too many questions without it being getting caught up in legal shit. I can’t look back at this and say that I didn’t try. Like I really did try. I was the only one trying sometimes. ; On a January 5th episode of the Fearless Podcast, Jason talks about the end of FaZe.
There are a lot of things he can’t talk about, but that he’s grateful to have been a part of FaZe. ; There is a lot of things I can’t speak about. ; And we will not force you to do that. ; Some things I don’t even know why I I I don’t know what I can and can’t speak about, to be honest. Um but I can say ; We’ll send you a cut afterward.
And ; I I mean ; Oh, yeah. We can’t ; Never mind. ; Just be careful, motherfucker. Keep that part in. This is raw. ; Hey, listen. All right. Um FaZe was a great part of my career. Right. great statement. Helped me meet a lot of cool people, including my closest friends like um, everybody that lives at the current house right now.
Um, uh, and uh, yeah, it was a great part of my career, but you know, things just didn’t work out. Um, I know y’all want the juicy part, but I I feel like I can’t really talk. ; Jason says he thinks it was easy to align on the content side of things, but that the business side is where disagreements often happened.
And after the FaZe exodus of 2025, there was a FaZe eviction. Members were served eviction notices for the content house they were staying in in January of 2026. ; Everything is getting taken apart. As the days go on, y’all will notice slowly and slowly everything will start being taken apart. From what I’m being told is that we have to clean up this house as in fix all the damages, clean the house, and move everything out within um, roughly probably within the next month is my guess.
; In a collab live stream, some former FaZe members get together and say they’ll continue to make content the way they did when they were in FaZe. ; It looks crazy, um, and you guys don’t know a lot of what is happening behind the scenes, but what I can say, what I will add to that is that nothing is going to change from the viewers perspective, from the chat’s perspective, um, with our dynamic.
Like we are all still rocking with each other. We’re all staying together, and I do think that this will be for the better. ; That’s really what it is, yeah. ; After their eviction, former members and streamers Jason, Ron, Silky, Lacy, Marlon, and Adapt all live in a content house together that doesn’t have an official name behind it.
They all seem to be making content together and still seem to be doing okay, even if they’re not a part of an official organization. ; Would you ever join another content house? ; No. No, right now I live in a content house, but there’s no name behind it. It’s just me, Ron, Lacy, Silky, Adapt, and Marlon. ; In fact, I would say these streamers, just being solo streamers living together and making content, feels like the truest return to FaZe Clan’s roots since its inception.
; Right before we were about to post this video, some major news took place in the FaZe Clan world. ; First off, recently Jason Laween did an interview with Complex, where he was asked about the FaZe exodus, but he was fairly cryptic about the whole thing. I think that the way former members have been kind of cryptic about leaving FaZe Clan and the reasons for leaving have led fans to wonder if maybe one day they would all reunite again.
; Are we leaving content orgs behind in 2025? I’m not joining any content org anytime soon. Make org Make an org? Maybe maybe. ; With the same crew or you trying to like build up your own roster? ; Same crew. Yeah. Same crew, maybe an addition. ; So, Jason saying, “I may be creating an org with the same crew.
” led many fans to wonder what that meant. Was it going to be involving FaZe Clan or something entirely different? And then everything erupted again, all stemming from FaZe Banks, or just Banks now, being as dramatic and cryptic as usual. This all took place on the Twittersphere with FaZe Banks, or sorry, Banks, vague posting about some major announcement that was taking place.
Fans jumped to conclusions thinking that maybe Banks was going to be involved in reuniting the FaZe Clan members, and a lot of fans almost immediately got excited about that potential. The truth about FaZe. Find out what I’m doing next tomorrow. ; Yo, let’s go. We got to get there before it gets dark. Keep up, man. Let’s go.
No way. It’s the old FaZe house. ; It’s weird that there’s Monster energy drinks all over the place when that wasn’t the FaZe Clan’s main energy drink sponsorship. Guys, look at this. ; Woah. ; The haunting picture of FaZe Banks, the spectre who haunts FaZe Clan’s image forever.
I mean, if anything, this video shows that Banks knows how to build hype, I guess. ; No way. It’s old man Banks. ; BOO! BOO! ; FUCK. DUDE, WHAT THE FUCK? ; FUCK, MAN. YO, BANKS? ; BRO, you’re literally 40. ; Yep. ; I started a family at ; Here we go with this shit. ; GET A FUCKING JOB! ; AND THAT’S how Banks made his announcement that he was going to start streaming and that people should tune into his stream.
But still, people weren’t quite sure if that was it. Surely, there must be more. There must be some other big announcement. Banks wouldn’t do that sort of massive video production just to announce a stream and not do some further announcement, right? The next day, Banks streamed and talked about what exactly his streams would be revolving around.
And suffice to say, most people were disappointed and others thought that this entire streaming concept was another grift, another scam for Banks. Perhaps the most blatant and transparent one of all because at least with FaZe Clan, Banks could hide behind the facade of a professional organization. Now that it was just him operating solo, his true intentions seemed more transparent than ever.
Also, another thing worth pointing out is Banks has said that FaZe Clan caused him to go broke, yet he’s invested into this elaborate announcement video. Why? Is that a smart thing to be doing if FaZe Clan caused you to go broke? Someone said, “Banks coming back year after year, scam after scam.” But a lot of people held onto the hope that Banks’s live stream would be related to FaZe Clan somehow, some way, even though he wasn’t involved in the organization supposedly since the crypto scam when he got kicked out or left. But for the
majority of Banks’s career, whenever he had a major announcement, it always revolved around FaZe Clan. So, many eagerly awaited Banks’s live stream to see what Banks was up to this time. He says, “Live now, twitch.tv/fazebanks” with this photo. Please don’t tell me that’s what he was wearing when he was live streaming.
Is this supposed to be his professional attire? For Banks being new to streaming, he went live with a large amount of viewers, peaking at 66,000 viewers. And what exactly was his announcement? The stream was an announcement for Banks’s new show that he wants to do on Twitch called Market Bubble, where he’ll be giving out trading and financial advice.
FaZe Banks, the person who claimed he went broke because of FaZe Clan and was connected to an organization that historically had financial troubles, wants to give you financial advice. So, listen up. While it’s unknown the exact type of demographic that Banks’s specific audience is. It seems from the vague information from FaZe reports that most of their audience had been somewhat younger, trended towards the young demographic.
So, in my opinion, this feels like Banks is just furthering the grift that stopped when all the FaZe media members left. And it feels like this has always been somewhat of a main focus for Banks. And yet, he’s literally made a claim that he’s broke. Why would you trust anything he says? He got kicked out or left FaZe Clan because he promoted a crypto rug pull and now started a whole podcast show.
So, it seems he can keep promoting exactly that. So, let’s watch some clips from Banks’s stream. ; This is crazy. Um I’m FaZe Banks and I’m live in 2026. And just the fact that you guys care, you’ve changed my life, you’ve changed all of their lives. Um our employees, like I’m living a dream. My life is quite literally a dream come true.
So, don’t at any point in any of this feel sorry for me or anybody else. ; think anyone is feeling sorry for any former FaZe Clan members, especially Banks. ; The truth about FaZe, the tweet, the truth about FaZe. And people ran with it, new FaZe members this, that, what’s he going to say, the FaZe files. I’m going to just say it right here, right now. There’s going to be none of that.
We’re not sharing conversations ; I’m just going to say it right here, I lied about what this stream is going to be about so I could get people in to watch it. ; the truth is the truth about FaZe, the truth is I think that everybody lost. I think that I lost. I think that the boys lost.
I think that FaZe, of course, lost. And I think the biggest loser in all of this is you guys, to be honest. ; Yeah, the audience especially lost when they bought into your scammy ass crypto coins again and again. And then you pulled the rug out from under them. ; I wish I could say fuck it, I didn’t know, do, like mistake, whatever, but I did know. I did.
My entire career I’ve ignored contracts and deals. I’ve signed bad deals. I’ve fucking have been fucked over. Um I haven’t paid attention to this boring stuff because that’s not me. That’s not for me. But I assumed this role as CEO. I sold the boys a dream on ; What? It’s your job as CEO to do things like contracts and iron out the fine details.
And you say that you weren’t paying attention to the boring stuff like contracts? What? What? What are you talking about? ; being the biggest thing ever and we succeeded. We succeeded on the vision. Everybody’s much better off because of it. But then you guys got to you guys got to understand my POV and like my partners POV because I sold business people on this as well.
We needed to fund it. This thing this whole thing cost millions and millions of dollars. And I told them, “I have this vision. I have this plan and it will work.” And it did. It did. It just again, I thought that in good faith if we did a good job that we would figure the business out later. And ; It’s not working if the business isn’t working. It’s not.
You can’t just keep running running running yourself dry and then hoping somehow the pieces align. If the numbers aren’t there, it’s not a viable business. ; I love working with talent. I love investing in people. I love investing in the future. And I feel like I’ve done this successfully my whole career. I haven’t been able to figure the business part out.
I’m about to show you guys what I’ve been working on. And I am going to continue working with talent. I’m going to continue investing in people and in the future. And um I’m going to continue trying to be the best version of myself. I did step down as CEO when when all that happened um months before Christmas and months before the shit ended.
And just a quick cliff notes on that. It was when all the Aiden Ross calm drama was happening and these kids called me and they’re like, “Hey, we’d like you to publicly step down as CEO.” And I fucking flipped out. ; What the heck, guys? I’m pissed off. You’re not okay with me openly scamming people and you want me to step down? Not cool. Not cool. This is not okay.
Like I love how in this statement there’s absolutely zero accountability for the scam that he perpetuated and pushed out to his audience because he wants to keep doing that. He very much wants to keep doing that in my opinion, and that’s what this entire new venture is going to be about in my opinion because it’s very profitable.
; example is the trailer that you guys watched yesterday. I’m on set. I paid for that trailer out of my pocket, like $70,000. I’m on set. I’m stressed out. I’m going to do it again and again and again as many times as I need to, and I fully believe in it and and it’s going to work and it’s going to be successful even in the face of a million people telling me that it’s not and that it’s over.
; Good luck. Banks, I love you, bro, but a crypto market show immediately after having to step down from FaZe because of MLG is disappointing as a fan. Even the fans were seemingly not happy with this new pivot. With this stream’s views so high at 66,000 views at its height, it led a lot of people to believe that Banks was view botting because how many people were tuning in to view FaZe Banks announcing a new investment stream.
I mean, how many people wanted to view that out of their own curiosity or passion for FaZe Banks’s new podcast? And more and more people have been talking about how common view botting has become, especially on Twitch. My personal theory for why this is is because Twitch’s algorithm is predicated on ranking people based on how many views they’re getting.
Like, imagine on YouTube if the only videos you were shown was based on how many views they had. So, your homepage was just like filled with Mr. Beast videos or something. The algorithm is essentially dependent on who has the highest viewership, so a lot of people end up botting just to rank higher in the algorithm on Twitch.
While view botting on Twitch in some ways is more understandable than other platforms because you’d have virtually no visibility otherwise, especially if you’re a newer streamer. It is still deceptive, and I would also argue it’s using money and privilege that you have and leveraging that to bring yourself higher and push others out.
Others who may have had equal opportunity and visibility otherwise. I feel like that’s what used to be cool about social media is that anyone could start and make videos and make entertaining content that people could view and enjoy. Well, fans were disappointed with Banks’ announcement and what it really turned out to be.
At the exact same time, former FaZe media members announced their new organization called Core, which stood for create, own, run everything. The members that joined were streamers Marlon, Adapt, Lace, Stable Ronaldo, Silky, and Jason the Ween. This announcement happening at the same time Banks was streaming, coupled with the fact that people were disappointed with what Banks was actually doing, not anything related to streamers or FaZe members, led to his streaming numbers dropping significantly.
On Banks’ announcement of his Twitch stream, someone replied, “It’s Core Boys’ Day. They made a wild announcement that eclipsed your announcement. How you feel?” They created new pages for their organization and announced their organization with this tweet saying, “Create, own, run everything” with this photo of the Core members.
Former FaZe member YourRAGE ended up not joining the Core group saying that he wishes them the best but doesn’t want to be in a group at this point. So, the ultimate question is, is Core moving towards a better future, having learned important lessons after the failures of FaZe? Well, Core’s very first live stream was about their $20 million mansion that’s going to be their new content house, but allegedly they got swatted.
Swatting is horrible and one of the most reprehensible things that people do to content creators. Core house day one. ; The only one turn this way with your hands up. ; Are you unplugging the camera? ; Backwards. More than backwards. ; That’s correct. Keep walking. ; Of course they picked the sexiest one. ; Did you guys see the sniper up there? ; Oh my god.
; But also I can’t help but feel like Core is just immediately right out the gate making the same mistakes that FaZe Clan made. One of the biggest reasons for FaZe’s failures was because of too much overhead. Yet right out the gate Core gets a $20 mansion. What about saving for retirement? I feel like I sound like Caleb Hammer.
I mean no judgement, but also maybe a little bit of judgement considering these streamers are broadcasting this lifestyle all to their young and impressionable fans. Marketing it as the lifestyle of success. But this lifestyle feeds into a funnel of more, more, more until all of a sudden you’re marketing crypto and going broke because you can’t keep up.
And FaZe Clan is the ultimate example of how all of this is just an illusion. That being said, fans were really excited over the launch of Core. In just 7 hours of launching the Core YouTube page gained over 100,000 subscribers. 100,000 subscribers in 7 hours. Thank you guys for showing so much support. The best is yet to come.
Only quickly after the Core boys hit a massive roadblock. YouTube unexpectedly terminated the Core account just when it reached 130,000 subscribers. The first video upload of their mansion has playback issues and says it can’t be played because the account has been terminated. While the specific reason for why the account has been terminated is unknown, some people think maybe YouTube’s AI thinks that the account has been botted because of its initial massive subscriber gain or maybe there’s other issues with the account or
their initial mansion video. Whether it’s Banks who continues to promote shady investments that are unveiled as scams or former FaZe streamers continuing to spend too much on style over substance like the flashy mansions they use for content which is seemingly what got the FaZe organization into a lot of financial trouble.
It seems like the main thing that has plagued the FaZe organization is their inability to learn and grow and because the FaZe organization has had such a large impact on young individuals as a whole it seems social media and the streaming world it makes me worry what their impact will be on those who have watched them for years.
The one thing I’ve learned from covering so many internet controversies is that while it might not seem like it at times people are constantly outgrowing things and always changing. If you don’t change with them you’ll get left behind. Every era or phase must come to an end. So what is the lesson of FaZe Clan? I think FaZe Clan shows how easily greed and money can cause people to lose the plot completely.
So many of the extra things that FaZe Clan did felt completely unnecessary. The multi-million dollar mansion content houses, the celebrity parties, $40 million investment funds, the stock market, the major collaborations. When it comes to content organizations, management companies, and content houses the lesson is not learned.
People will still try to create ways to exploit both influencers and their audiences to make as much money as possible and maybe one day there’ll be someone who’s smarter at it especially the side, compared to FaZe Clan. And that honestly feels like a dangerous prospect. But that’s all for today’s video. Thank you so much if you made it all the way to the end.
I hope you enjoyed watching. I hope you’re doing well, and I’m looking forward to seeing you in the next video. Stay well until then. Bye.
