Phil Burnell/Controversy

## Controversy

Many on YouTube have become very critical of Phil because of his actions and/or decisions, for a number of reasons. Some people also don't like DSP for his attitude and/or his personality. He has been called a "hypocrite", "asshole", "elitist", "liar", "manchild", and "idiot" numerous times by not just his detractors but by bigger YouTubers, smaller YouTubers, actors, and videogame journalists. Even companies such as Achievement Hunter have laughed at DSP. Some people have also called him "the cancer of gaming". DSPGaming was named the worst gaming channel on YouTube by NFKRZ.

Phil is well known for shrugging off all criticism as hate. He is notorious for insulting those who criticize him or express a different opinion than him. As an indirect result, he very often ends up insulting fans to which he says "good riddance". He brands all criticism and parodies of him as hate and online bullying and has said that all YouTubers who dislike him are bad people and/or "idiots". He claims that anything negative towards him is not justified and that he doesn't understand why some people don't like him, and people in turn will say he has no self-awareness. He often accuses those who create videos criticizing him as jealous haters and trolls. He laughs at people's supposed immaturity when they challenge his statements. He also brands anyone who finds anything of his controversial as drama queens. Phil will sometimes admit to things he has said and/or done, or will say that some things that have been said about him have a "little nugget of truth" to them; but in the end, he will never fully admit to everything that has been said about him. Many critics have identified themselves as former fans but Phil dismisses them, saying they were not "true fans" and have been "indoctrinated" by his supposed detractors. Phil has called his critics: "mentally ill", "sociopaths", "haters", "trolls", "cowards", "idiots", "criminals", "kids/children", etc. He will even sometimes insult his own fans, and he also said that the common YouTuber is a "dumb fuck".

His critics have also become the scapegoat for all his misfortunes.

* When his views began to decrease, he said it was because his critics discouraged newcomers from watching his videos.
* After getting swatted, though both fans and critics were outraged by what happened, he claimed that the perpetrator was inspired by his critics to commit what he called "attempted murder" and encouraged his fans to find videos criticizing him and make a comment about how it, supposedly, nearly got him killed.
* After getting a copyright strike against his main channel, he compared the situation to having a gun put to his head, and blamed his critics for what happened.
* DSP said that he "could have been stabbed and if he survived, it would be less damaging" than what the detractors did to him in the summer of 2015 with the false copyright strikes and how they supposedly messed with his business. Even though DSP himself deleted the videos that caused him to lower in YouTube's search rank, not the detractors.

Phil has repeatedly had conflicts with everyone he encounters and wherever he decides to upload videos. Prior to YouTube, DSP would constantly trash-talk, insult, and threaten other members of the fighting game community, gaining wide-spread hate, and leading to the nickname "The King of Hate". One example is when he threatened to find Isiah "Triforce" Johnson and beat him up. He also bragged about being the best fighting game player in the country, superior to players like Alex Valle, Mike Watson, and John Choi after placing 4th at Evo in 2005 for a flawed port (which DSP readily admits) of *Super Street Fighter II Turbo*, further lowering his reputation in the community. Afterwards, playing a normal arcade port, Phil would repeatedly lose to all these top players. In 2016, DSP trash talked about FloE and Blackpeddles.

DSP has also been criticized for putting ads on videos where he talks about recent tragedies and disasters, such as Hurricane Sandy, the Sandy Hook Shooting, and the death of his friend. Many accuse him of attempting to monetize the situation. Phil did not make any defense against these accusations and simply threatened those who accused him, saying "I will come find you and I will beat the shit out of you." He did so again in 2019 when he made a lengthy minute video talking about Etika's recent suicide, and how it supposedly related to his predicament; said video also had 8 mid-roll advertisements on it.

In the past, DSP has addressed people who use ad-block, saying that it hurts businesses online who earn money based on ads, which is true; however, ad-block is extremely popular regardless. In 2016, DSP now has an ad-based contract with Machinima, and he encourages viewers to disable any ad-blocking software they may have. He even goes as far to say that people who use ad-block are "thieves".

As noted previously, Phil made YouTube his full-time job in 2010, after being laid off from Helicopter Support, Inc. in Trumbull, CT in 2010. However, his original YouTube channel, DarkSydePhil lost its Adsense partnership in later 2010 after Phil encouraged users to click on the ads at the beginning of his videos. Though he claims this is untrue and that the real reason he lost his Adsense is because YouTube could not stand the notion of him becoming successful and making a living off gaming. Even though Adsense tracks and blocks YouTubers by IP so that any YouTuber who has been banned from Ad-sense cannot open a new account, Phil has opened a new account thanks to him moving and getting a new IP address. To this day, he continues to deny all fault for this event.

DSP moved his content to **blip.tv** in 2010, but he was banned for anti-Semitic remarks that he made during his *Dead Space 2 Demo* playthrough. In the videos, he role-plays Issac Clarke (the lead protagonist) as the "last remaining Nazi" and refers to the Necromorphs (the enemies) as the "Jews", whose "greed" caused them to become monsters. Rather than apologizing, Phil instead blamed a "troll" who reported the video, claiming it was done out of jealousy. More recently, Phil has advanced the excuse that he was simply using a "well-known" character from the Howard Stern show, although no can recall such an event on Stern. And while he claims that he has apologized (again, which no one can recall seeing), Phil also stated that it's something only a small group of people care about and that they need to get over it.

Starting in March 2013, Phil regularly streamed on his Twitch channel, and was partnered with the website. After Twitch staff told Phil in November 2014 to reduce his streaming rate, Phil quit the site and started streaming on YouTube, resorting to a primitive IRC chat client, as well as short-changing his paying Twitch subscribers, many of whom were outraged. Several people went on thekingofhate.com and trashed it with nasty images and destroyed the website altogether. Many accused Phil of not caring about the viewers anymore and attacked him with negativity. The whole stituation was described by DSP as a "mess". It took several months before the website was up and running again with a new look, and people had to get used to the YouTube livestreaming.

Many have taken issue with Phil's style of commentary. His commentary can consist of snorts, burps, clearing his throat, whining/complaining, singing, toilet humor jokes, being over-dramatic, general stupidity, anger at and insults at the game developers, copious amounts of swearing, or sexual/sexist remarks about female characters. He sometimes tells a game or a character in a game to "suck [his] dick". He has become known for making offensive and racist jokes, such as saying "in China, dey say chicky chang wang Charlie Chan chicka chocka chocka cha". During his playthorugh of *The Walking Dead Season 2*, when Clementine, a young child, is about to stitch her arm, he laughs and makes sexual noises while she screams in pain. Many viewers feel he ruins cutscenes in games with his commentary, and he also sometimes skips cutscenes that may had important things in them. He also complains about too much grinding in some video games. He has also become known for insulting Troy Baker and Hideo Kojima. He is equally verbally abusive towards other gamers when losing online fighting game matches, punctuated by an infamous tirade during an online game in *Injustice: Gods Among Us*, where after losing to a Deathstroke player, Phil called his opponent an "asshole", "fucking idiot", "fucking loser", "your mother probably shat you out you piece of shit" who "sits in his mom's basement" "eating your whole fucking bag of Doritos and chugging down your fucking Fanta".

Phil's sportsmanship has also been heavily criticized. Phil trash talks his opponents. If he wins, Phil will boast how his victory came from skill. If he loses, he will blame lag, his controller, the character he is playing as, the character he is playing against, the actual player he is playing against, or the performance/connection/netcode of the game. He often accuses other players of watching his stream and counter picking or performing so called "online combos" and after losing will insult his opponent telling them to "go die in a fire" and calling them "a waste of human life". He also claims there to be something used against him called a "lag pattern", which doesn't even exist.

In addition to the problems with Phil's commentary style cited above, Phil often does a very poor job of understanding the controls and mechanics of the games he plays. He sometimes will complain about the framerate in some games, or bash a game for the framerate alone. Often, when a tutorial is offered, Phil replies with "shut the fuck up" and skips it, only to repeatedly make mistakes later, and he blames the game developers for not properly explaining the mechanics. Phil constantly complains about the game not working, or game bugs/glitches, when at times the issues are his own fault, and he rarely ever admits his own faults. He often complains about button lag, his game not registering his commands, or his inputs being dropped, when there appears to be nothing wrong of the sort, and viewers joke and call it a "haunted controller." Phil claims this is his "comedic persona" and that he could be good at games if he wanted to. This comes into direct contrast when he claims to have no gimmick and is the "realest person" on YouTube. He has over the years contradicted himself on whether or not he is actually good at playing games. Viewers have noted that Phil needs glasses, because he often states things that he witnessed in the game that are incorrect, but he was only seen wearing a pair in 2014 and hasn't used them again.

Phil has his own forums for discussion about his various videos. However, he constantly deleted posts, banned users and locked threads that looked upon him in a negative light. It got to the point where a majority of his mods had felt he was behaving childishly and abusively. Many moderators attempted to convince Phil of this and, after multiple failed attempts, he finally agreed to stop closing threads and consult the moderators instead. However, he did not keep his word and continued to close threads and even rescinded the administrator status of the moderators. Phil struggled to keep the site running on his own and eventually an unknown party hijacked the full access of the site in late 2014. Phil decided to shut the forums as well as all of Kingofhate.com until further notice.In 2015, with help from one of the moderators, he designed and reopened the site and forums stating he would be using them for utility purposes of gathering fan created content for his content. However, all his moderators chose to finally leave. Phil has stated that he blames them for what happened to his forums and within 3 weeks of the website being open again, he again started to close threads, ban users and delete postings that either stated negative facts about him or had conversations about the group known as the "SoK" (Sons of Kojima) or any other "haters".

Phil has also been criticized for his behavior and responses on his own forums. He is known for disregarding and breaking forum rules. Many forum users and moderators have complained and even flagged Phil's posts to which Phil responds with an insult laden message and even once wrote "I cannot break the rules. I am the rules".

Many viewers of Phil have also complained of their treatment in the stream chat while watching his live stream. Many of them complain of moderators that abuse their powers, banning anyone that gives criticism, says anything negative, or says anything that is not directly related to Phil or his video. Other stream moderators have brought this up with Phil but he ignores all the complaints and insults the moderators who take these complaints seriously, saying they are being "fooled by the same group of people over and over" and that anyone who agreed with the complaints were "deluded beyond belief."

In early 2015, Phil decided to open a Patreon page, which he has admitted is a donation based service. Even though he had stated numerous times in the past he would never do so and making fun of Angry Joe for his page. Ever since, people on YouTube have accused Phil of only caring about views, money and Patreon.

Phil has criticized the mainstream media for being unprofessional in their game reviews by saying they don't finish games from start to finish, to give that game that they're reviewing a fair review. Despite this, DSP himself has reviewed games without completing them, such as *Tony Hawk's Pro Staker 5, Lords of the Fallen* and *Homefront: The Revolution*.

In addition to groups which Phil calls his "detractors", he also has had back and forth disputes with other well-known YouTubers as well.

* TotalBiscuit: In 2012, when Phil gave the video game *Journey*  a much worse review than the majority of the critical acclaim given by others, Phil called out TotalBiscuit for having a differing opinion, as the latter had declared his Game of the Year for 2012. In more recent years when Phil was subjected to mass criticism, TotalBiscuit accused Phil of name dropping him in an effort to seem like he was a respected associate of his. Furthermore, when asked about Phil and his recent behavior in response to the negativity surrounding him, TotalBiscuit expressed his dislike for Phil's attitude and content, citing his reputation of pinning blame on everything and everyone else but himself when it comes to his video game playthroughs. He also stated that although he doesn't like seeing people getting harassed online, he feels that Phil has brought that harassment on himself due to the premise of his content, in which he acts like a "court jester that doesn't want to be taken seriously". Phil responds by calling him an "elitist" and says TotalBiscuit never of his videos for feeling this way.

* Tobuscus: Phil has had multiple feuds with Toby Turner. In 2012, Phil was pissed that ads appeared on his videos that were advertising content by Tobuscus. In 2016, Toby Turner had personal issues that were going on, and viewers wanted Phil's thoughts on the matter. He posted up a video as a result, which got mainly negative reviews by fans and haters alike. He managed to take a story about a woman possibly drugged and raped by Toby and turned it into a 24 minute video complaining about his own problems and whining about how he is treated. Only a small part of the video actually has Phil's thoughts on the subject. He said, "I don't give a fuck about Toby Turner" despite ranting about him for almost 20 minutes prior.

* EventStatus: In 2014, EventStatus criticized many of Phil's actions and challenged his claims of being a "former pro-fighting game player". EventStatus challenged Phil to a match saying he will give Phil as much time to prepare as the latter wants and the loser will permanently leave all social media. Both fans and critics encouraged Phil to take the challenge but those who did were banned. Phil declined and insulted EvenStatus, saying that this was done as a way to get attention.

* ReviewTechUSA: Him and Phil have somewhat of a relationship on YouTube, but nothing big has ever really happened between them. On November 19, 2016, Phil ranted about low stream attendance on his *Pokémon Moon* live stream, which lead to Phil controversially calling his fans lazy for not coming out to the stream, and complaining that they don't attend despite asking for the content. ReviewTechUSA called him out on it, which brought a bunch of new haters DSP's way; the following day, DSP made an apology video.

* AlphaOmegaSin namedropped Phil in a Street Fighter V rant video in 2016, making Phil seemingly a infamous rage-quitter in fighting games. Phil claims this to be completely false, and claims he never raged-quit in his life in fighting games. He first addressed this in a pre-stream video, and he got into a Twitter war with Omega later on. Phil then posted up a video to clear the air.

2013 was a particularly bad year for Phil, including the birth of "This Is How You Don't Play" videos. 2013 can also be credited for marking the end of Phil's good viewership on his videos that he had from 2008 to 2012 and the beginning of low viewership on his videos from there on. As a result of this, he posted up a video titled "Addressing the Negativity" which is one of the most controversial things he ever did, claiming that everything said about him was either slanderous or exaggerated, and that those who "hate" on him do so to "jump on the bandwagon". He said that his negativity on YouTube has now become "online bullying." He also talked about the PC that was built for him in 2011, which is a situation that people bring up when it comes to negativity that surrounds Phil.

For his 2013 Christmas Special, Phil created a video parodying 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas'. With his own written song lyrics, he tells the story of how a jealous Troll, who lives in his grandparents' basement, dedicates his life to hating on Phil and creating This Is How You Don't Play videos. But, just as the Grinch fails to steal Christmas, the Troll fails to stop Phil who continues playing. The Troll represents Phil's detractors, at least how he views them, and their supposed dedication to ending Phil out of jealousy, causing the video to be heavily criticized for its misrepresentation of that group and insults. The video's lyrics have also been criticized. In one segment, he sings "If you said this shit to my face, can you guess what I'd do, Mr. Troll?" and plays a clip of Phil punching a small piece of cardboard. Another segment had the lyrics "If I had the chance to be filthy rich and going back in time to prevent your birth...fill up the DeLorean!"

Phil had also gained notoriety for allegedly having recent parody videos taken down with the help of his Machinima contract. The resulting backlash he received from people on social media caused him to go on a twitter meltdown, hurling numerous profanities at each and everyone involved including Slowbeef and TotalBiscuit, the former of which uploaded a video montage of people parodying Phil's persona while the latter took another stab at Phil via a video comment using the writing style of said persona. As a result of the recent drama, Phil's potential audience took yet another hit.

For several years, Phil had been known to bash the extremely popular game Minecraft and people who enjoy it, even using the phrase "you probably play Minecraft" as an insult, though he never played the game himself until in early 2015, in which through Patreon, the Patrons had voted Phil to play the game he once never even thought of playing.

During a *Mortal Kombat X* stream on May 10, 2015, Phil was approached by a viewer regarding an incident that occurred two years ago involving an altercation between PandaLee and people on Twitch, now known as the "*Kingdom Hearts incident"*. This instigated a very hostile reaction from Phil, leading him to insult this person, threaten him with physical violence, and encourage his fans to cyberbully him and spam his inbox. The resulting backlash was so immense that Phil had to make a public video apology in an attempt to clear the air surrounding the issue. But, while he apologized for his volatile reaction, he did not apologize for threatening said individual nor did he apologize for encouraging his fans to cyberbully him. He even claimed that this was a plot to have him react like this to slander him.

Phil has been known to go on angry tirades on Twitter, insulting more successful YouTubers and well as anyone who has a different view than him. One notable incident: a fan of DSP tweeted that his mother had recently fallen ill and Phil's videos helped him feel better. Phil did not respond to this tweet though he did respond to a question involving his schedule. A Twitter user known for criticizing DSP responded to the tweet and expressed his condolences. When Phil heard of this, he called it harassment and bullying and encouraged people to flag all the critics tweets so Twitter Support would shut down his account.

Though Phil has been known to get extremely combative on Twitter and his forums, he also becomes very sheepish when confronted directly. With the aforementioned "Kingdom Hearts incident", his first instinct was to attempt to shut off the PlayStation 4's voice chat feature. He has done this numerous times in multipayer games whenever he is confronted about something he has either said or done. In addition, he has insulted people in his stream chat after banning them for saying things he doesn't want to hear, reinforcing his own cowardly behaviour despite calling other people cowards.

Fans and critics alike take issue with Phil's usage of Patreon. He has, on several occasions, failed to live up to the promises he makes. One instance was his promise of 7+ hours of *Crash Bandicoot 2* gameplay if given enough money. After reaching that goal, Phil played for less than five and a half hours and said he would only continue if donated more money. A more infamous instance was the reboot of Project 7. He promised that if enough money had been donated he would reboot the series and would include the names of his highest payers and would show the progress made thus far. However, after reaching the goal, Phil announced that he would still postpone Project 7 and would not refund the money given but would thumbs down the video instead. Phil has also developed a policy that he would not perform any of the reached milestones unless it is several hundred dollars above the mark. He claims that this is done to counter false and dropped patreon pledges. He has began to only allow those who have pledged to his patreon to play him in online multiplayer because of recent 'trolling'.For 2017, DSP wanted Patreon money to buy a new PC for gaming, as well as a PS4 Pro. He set his Patreon goal to $2800, more than twice what it was previously; however, after a few weeks he removed this goal because it wouldn't happen, realistically.

On September 2016, Phil streamed *Banjo Kazooie*, a game voted as part of the Patreon Goal. He played it for 4 hours and had help from the Stream Chat. From that moment onwards, he never streamed it online again, and instead played the game offline, with many people finding out he was using a guide to speed through the game and know all the secrets. Some people accused Phil in the comments of parts 9-12 of the playthrough that he was using the stream chat for help. Phil went on a tirade at the beginning of part 16 of the playthough, saying that he wasn't using the stream chat anymore after the first streaming of the game. However, Phil did receive messages from viewers who told him certain things in the game, such as using the gold feather power to defeat ghosts, an ability that Phil never used until it was mentioned to him.

Phil abruptly and acrimoniously ended the playthrough for *Persona 3*, which was a Patreon's Choice Playthrough, on August 1, 2016, being unable to defeat the final boss. Phil got $1,250 dollars for a playthrough that he didn't end up finishing, which has gone on for several months and ended at 166 parts. Fans and haters alike were both upset at this, especially considering the fact that Phil was playing the game on easy level.

In late November/early December 2019, Phil played the latest game in the *Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games* crossover franchise, only playing a little bit of the story mode before giving up on it. However, when asked if the game was a wate of $60, Phil revealed that he didn't buy the game himself, but instead received a review code for the ga,e from either Sega or Nintendo. At no point during the the streams of the game did he make this fact known to his viewers, and made the excuse that he wasn't paid to play the game, therefore he didn't feel the need to disclose it. However, since the lack of disclosure for paid promotions or receiving products for free from the company are major violations of the FTC's disclosure policies, Phil quietly added a disclaimer in the description on YouTube. Whether or not this will be enough to cover his tracks is up for debate.

Phil's spending decisions have come into question. He often talks of his back problem and his inability to afford a treatment. He also often talks about the difficulty he has paying off his bills and mortgages. Despite this, he has taken vacations with his girlfriend and staying at executive suites. He also possess numerous models and action figures that had occupied most of the space of his original condo. He was selling some of these models at high prices, but he gave up since around late 2015. Phil also claims that he can't afford certain things, while at other times, he buys things that could cost a lot.

Phil has criticized people who get advanced copies of games before their street date and play them before street date, saying that everyone should get a game and play it at a similar time. However, Phil has gotten games in advance himself, and has broken street date before as well. Examples include *Fallout 4* and *Dark Souls III*.

In 2017, Phil has decided to approve certain This Is How You Don't Play videos for his KOGaming channel, in a similar way to accepting Community Submission edited videos for the channel. However, viewers have been critical of this choice, because of how Phil has treated TIHYDP videos in the past and what he has said about the people who have made them before, including saying that such video have supposedly nearly gotten him killed and calling anyone who has created one, mentally ill children.

Phil's former relationship with PandaLee has also become a source of controversy. Not only had fans and former fans objected to her attitude and commentary, but there is controversy over when Phil started dating her. Phil has repeatedly insisted that he only began dating PandaLee after she reached legal age, but a number of people who claimed to have known Phil in real life claim that he and PandaLee had been dating long before she reached legal age and had simply kept it it a secret. However, the validity of any of these claims from both parties have yet to be confirmed.

Phil's treatment of Leanna has become quite controversial. While many viewers, fans and haters alike, still take issue with her they have also taken issue with how she has been treated under certain circumstances. On one occasion, Leanna was sick and had to stay in bed all day, Phil had her get up and cook him dinner despite her condition. Another time, Leanna had a panic attack and had to go to the Emergency Room in response. Fortunately, her condition was not serious, but Phil was angered by this since he now had to pay the bills for sending her there and publicly said if such thing were to happen again, he would not let her go to the ER. These incidents eventually led to the break-up of Phil and Leanna in May 2017.

On October 21, 2017, while doing a pre-stream Phil was talking about how stressed he was having to keep up his schedule, when someone said they had lost their brother and was able to still sleep and cook meals. Phil immediately accused the person of trying to claim they were better than him this lead to him banning them from the stream and he began to insult the person. The day after at the end of a Week in Preview Phil continued to say that it was an attempt to make him look bad and even went as far to say that it was bait and nothing they said was real and called anyone who disagreed with him an idiot. This event has enraged even more people both fans and haters alike, showing just how quickly he'll take things out of context, despite accusing others of doing the same to him.

On November 9, 2017, Phil got enraged at a person on stream who asked why people with different opinions get banned from his chat. Phil claimed that it doesn't happen and that anyone who thinks that is an idiot. This incident further shows how aggressive Phil has become ever since starting on YouTube, and since his break up with Leanna as he now easily becomes angry even at innocent questions driving even more people and remaining fans away from him.

In late February 2018, Phil attempted to start a fundraiser stream to help pay off his taxes. However, he received a 24 hour suspension from Twitch, since soliciting bits for financial support is against the site's Terms of Service. He was suspended again a month later for unclarified reasons.

In May of 2018, Phil chose to take a day off. However, before he did, he tweeted a rant about YouTubers and streamers getting early copies of State of Decay 2. He said that everyone who gets early copies are "not true gamers", "walking advertisements", and "paid shills" who only do things for attention and money and insinuated that he was vastly superior to all of them. This outraged many YouTubers, streamers, their fans, and even some gaming journalists like Ryan McAffery. The backlash was so immense that Phil was forced to delete the tweet. The tweet in question read as follows: *"Those playing State of Decay 2 a full week early are paid shills. They are walking advertisements, not true gamers, and are doing so solely for a paycheck. I'll be PAYING FOR THE GAME and playing it this Friday just like many of you, and my reactions will be legit as always."* Though he did apologise for it, he later backtracked on it claiming it was taken out of context.

Phil's fans have also become a source of criticism. To counter the rising number of groups exposing or criticizing Phil's actions on the internet, many of his fans have created channels to supposedly expose the actions of those groups, often using similar names. However, the videos posted on said channels are often slanderous and often makes accusations with circumstantial and sometimes no evidence. This has caused at least one channel, DSP World Order, to be terminated due to repeated and severe violations of its terms of service, though another channel with the same name has been created. Other fans, while not creating separate YouTube channels, have gone to videos criticizing DSP and attempted to instigate fights, make similar baseless accusations, and threats of violence. YouTuber AggyPlays once asked Phil to do voice acting for a Machinima series she was creating. However, despite accepting the role, she reported that he was difficult to work with. Upon hearing this he accused her of using him to get attention from the "hater" community and his fans soon began to harass her over this. In a separate incident, a fan claimed he had proof that the Sons of Kojima were involved with DSP's swatting; his proof: DSP was swatted on a Wednesday and the Sons of Kojima hold a podcast every Thursday. Attempts to start debates simply resulted in more insults.

Phil gained newfound attention from other online personalities when he commented on the ProJared controversy in early May of 2019. However, he was criticised for this due to his previous claims that he doesn't follow drama, and he was using drama here for positive attention. In light of this, Phil decided on May 12th, 2019 to make a nearby 2 hour long video in which he tries to debunk the most common criticisms of him over the past 7 years. Unfortunately for him, the video was not that well received, with more prominent critics of Phil decrying the video as a poor attempt at deflecting all criticism towards him with poor excuses, and without providing any real insight into his behaviour, Phil instead just stating "it didn't happen" despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Bare in mind that all evidence against Phil can be traced back to his own content.

* However, ProJared broke radio silence in September 2019 to dispel the accusations made against him, causing his reputation to begin rebuilding. This in turn made Phil's tweets about him look more spineless, opportunistic, and spiteful, since the only reason he even said anything in the first place was because of a grudge he held towards Jared for 3 years over a relatively innocuous tweet the former made about him.

Throughout 2019, Phil has been trying to convince his fans that he is viewed more positively now after years of hate, and that he has less haters now. This is clearly pure self delusion however, as there has been no change in perception of Phil, and the "People" he says view him as a better person don't exist and are made up.

## End of Friendship With John Rambo & Howard

After Phil moved to Washington, his contact with John Rambo and Howard declined until it stopped entirely. During this time, John Rambo created a Paymeton parody. Many of accused that the parody was directed toward Darksydephil, causing many to wonder what happened between them, but John insisted that, while Darksydephil was a source of inspiration, the parody was aimed at YouTubers as a whole who overly relied on Patreon. He also asked that people not make assumptions about events they do not know about and that he rather not talk about what happened to not harm Phil's reputation. Eventually, Phil was asked about it again on an Ask the King episode and said that he has not heard from John or Howard. Phil claimed that he did not know why he has not heard from them and that 'real men' discuss their problems. He said that the only possible thing he could think of was that they were jealous and bitter of his rise in popularity.

John and Howard felt they had no choice but to respond to this and created a video describing everything that happened between them. The original video was flagged and removed by an unknown party though others have re-uploaded it.

John and Howard describe how Andre and Paul (Respect the Pact), childhood friends of Howard, had attended film school and were interested in starting a project. After deciding to bring Phil in on this, this became Project 7. However, the editing and special effects took a great amount of time and effort. Furthermore, Andre finds out he is going to be a father, making it even harder. John suggested to Phil that he pay them for their effort, but Phil said that he had offered to pay Andre and Paul but they turned it down. However, Howard talked to Andre and Paul and discovered that Phil had never offered to pay them and lied to keep the money for himself. In fact, none of the people involved with Project 7 were given any cut. The only person who was paid was John but this was so he could continue to help produce Project 7 since his car broke down and he needed to buy a used one. Howard was particularly irate that Phil then began buying figurines, a BMW, and other luxury items with the money, feeling Phil was making money off the backs of others.

The same was done with the Project 7 T-shirts. They all contributed in the cost of making the T-shirts, but Phil made all the revenue and did not offer any of them a percentage.

They talked about how when Scott passed away they informed Phil and asked him to contact them. However, Phil did not respond but created a monetized video on the subject, irritating everyone in their friends group that Phil would try to make money off of the death of another, and most likely marked the final straw in his friendships with them.

Howard recalled that not long before Phil moved to Washington, he called for a final playthrough together. However, Howard had already made plans with his girlfriend. Phil said that if Howard doesn't attend then it solidifies that they are not friends, so Howard had cancel his plans with his girlfriend. However, once Phil moved, Howard had not heard from him. He would send him occasional messages, but Phil wouldn't reply back.

John also talks about several times Phil ended up saying something untrue about him on a video. One incident was: after seeing comments praising John Rambo's performance in Project 7, Phil claimed that it was all his idea. John and Howard both confirmed that Phil actually had nothing to do with those parts and were irate that he would make a video talking about it instead of talking to them. John confronted Phil who apologized. Another incident was when Phil wished to play Mario Party 10 with Leanna, though his viewers wanted it with John. Phil responded by saying John does not like games like Mario Party, causing his viewers to send insulting messages to John Rambo about the subject. John confronted Phil again who apologized. Both John and Howard say that Phil would repeatedly do things they dislike and he would apologize after they confront him but made no effort not to do it again, leading them to no longer associate with him, feeling that attempting to confront him about it would bear no results.

They ended the video saying that they still wish Phil the best but if he takes issue with what was said he should contact them, not make a reply video but text them. Phil was originally going to make a reply video but chose not to, saying that the 'haters' would twist his words.

On October 26, 2017, two years after these events, during an Ask the King segment a question Phil got asked about a moment that really hurt him personally in his life. Phil spoke of two moments: his breakup with Leanna and the end of the friendship between him, John and Howard. Phil claimed that the response video they made felt like a betrayal to him and he also claimed that John and Howard never told him about anything he did wrong during their time together putting all the blame on them as the reason their friendship fell apart. This has caused outrage among many, who feel Phil is lying to save himself. John and Howard have yet to comment on this.

During his Special Retrospective Series in February 2019, Phil reminisced on old times by watching various videos on his former vlogging channel, THEKINGOFHATEHD. In particular, he watched his old vlogs on his trips to Chicago, Illinois in 2009 and Nashville, Tennessee in 2010. He, John and Howard traveled together to both places. During the final part of the series, Phil talked about the friendship he once had with them, and how life and drama led to the end of his friendships with them. However, Phil claims that John and Howard had built-up resentment towards him when he started to make revenue on his YouTube videos and the way Project 7 royalties were handled, citing those as the reasons for their friendship ending.

## **Break up with Leanna**

Phil said that in May of 2017, he and Leanna had broken up but said that he would not discuss the details of it. Over time, more information has been made public about what happened as many had claimed that Phil's recent video talking about her panic attack and saying that he would not take her to the hospital again if another incident like this occurs is a possible reason. In a recent Twitter post, Phil said that it was related to finances and so far has been putting the blame all on Leanna herself. A comment made by a YouTube user who claims to have spoken to Leanna said she told them that Phil would not help with chores around the house. She stated that she did all the work while he refused to help and would only play games in some stream's when she came into the room Phil would ignore her and say "I can't hear you, I have headphones on." Many people have said that after living together for years, Phil only used Leanna as a housekeeper, and the SOK said Phil only asked her to marry him to keep her around a little longer. She had grown sick of what had become of their relationship and wanted to be with someone who actually appreciated her. Phil has also changed the story about their break up saying it happened before the Hospital trip. Many don't believe this as it does not make sense that Phil would be angry about paying for her bill if they were no longer together. Phil has yet to give a comment on these claims.

## Phil's current mental state

Many people speculated that Phil suffers from "Narcissistic Personality Disorder", as he never admits to his mistakes and will blame everyone and everything else for his own problems. An example would be the time when he was banned from blip.tv for his remarks about Jews, he immediately claimed that the report was false and the person who reported him did it out of jealousy of his popularity. Ever since then, he always acted in a similar way to anything that has happened to him saying it's because of the people who don't like him and his fall is because of those who made TIHYDP and other videos about him that brought criticism on to him. He also continues to push the narrative that he is superior to everyone else, and that his style of video making is the best way, and everything else is bad. Many people believe that Phil is beyond help due to his delusions of grandeur and because he has acted the way he has for such as long time.

This Narcaissism has only gotten worse over the years, especially near the end of 2018 and most of 2019 as Phil has further tried to paint his detractors in an even worse light going as far as to call them "criminals who should be arrested". Almighty Tevin, a well known Detractor and restreamer of Phil's content, has become his new target starting at Halloween of 2018 Phil blamed him for Kat leaving his stream, and threatened him both then and the next day saying he was eventually going to pay for what he's doing. He also implied that people were going to take action against Tevin and that he and others were going to have authorities coming down on them. However, nothing has happened to Tevin or other detractors since then as they have broken no laws or rules, proving this to be nothing but empty threats; this also shows that Phil's psychie and mental state have further deteriorated over the years due to increased isolation, to the point where he has faked having depression, in addition to having no empathy for anyone, and only caring about himself and money. Phil also believes he could win law suits against his detractors for slander and defamation even though everything Detractors call him out for is true futher showing how delusional Phil has become over the years.
Phil also now believes he was never actually hated by the internet and he was used as a "test case" for cancel culture, and as a way for people to gain popularity. He insists that people only like the idea of hating him to be apart of something and not because they do actually dislike him, while also saying all reasons for hating him are either outdated or untrue with no evidence. He also refuses to believe that any of his detractors use to be fans of his, showing a complete lack of self awareness as after nearly 8 years of criticism, Phil still does not understand or want to understand why he is so despised, and refuses to admit or take responsibility for anything he might have said or did that turned everyone against him.

He genuinely believes himself to be a good person who hasn't done anything wrong, has never hurt anyone, and believes himself to be a victim of unfair hate. He thinks everyone who hates him are the bad ones with no vaild reasons to hate him, and have destroyed him for no reason. One look however, shows the truth that Phil Burnell is a truly horrible person who uses, bullies, and abuses everyone from strangers, to his fans, friends, and family to get money. He will shamelessly manipulate people and do and say anything to get what he wants with no regard for who he hurts in the process; at the same time, he acts like an entitled manchild who believes he is better than everyone else and has a right to take whatever he wants, as well as hurt and roll over everyone he comes across.