Posted by Ironically, just as I was about to record this video on the Fresh and Fit YouTube scandal, after having done the video treatment for it yesterday, the Oshay Duke Jackson channel came out with a bombshell, unexpected stern commentary on Fresh and Fit that might just be the Public Relations nail in the coffin for the popular Miami duo. If they can somehow manage a PR miracle by coming back from the growing series of very harsh videos about them this week, I’d personally congratulate the Public Relations agency that orchestrated it. I’m not sure what evidence Oshay has on Fresh and Fit since he declined to divulge that info, but given that he is a long time leading figure in the Black Manosphere, I honestly can’t see a path forward for Fresh and Fit from a PR standpoint.
And that’s probably a perfect segue way to this video. There are a lot of popular YouTubers, even in our community, who have grown independently into major influencers. Some of them are making quite a bit of money, which is how Fresh and Fit were able to buy the exotic and expensive McLaren cars and luxurious watches, among other pricey items. But what I see is that many of them have little or no understanding of managing their marketing brand, and especially the importance of using Public Relations strategies to get ahead of scandals like this one. Let this be a cautionary tale and a teachable moment.
So exactly what is the scandal that brought so much negative PR to Fresh and Fit? I’m personally not privy to any inside info beyond what you all may or may not know, but I’ll recap it first before dissecting the PR aspects of the business damage done. Fresh and Fit shot to popularity and money by catering to what’s called the Red Pill community. For those who still don’t know what this is, this is a community of men speaking out for men at large, to give them a voice that the mainstream media has silenced in favor of modern womanism. Like any other group, there are bad apples among them.
The term “red pill” is a reference to the classic, cult favorite movie “The Matrix” which came out in 1999. In it, the Lawrence Fishburne character, Morpheus, presents Neo in one hand, a blue pill, which represents those who want to stay mentally enslaved to the Matrix, which is the world system we live in. In the other hand, Morpheus offers him a Red Pill as an alternative to the Blue Pill, which symbolizes freedom from the mental slavery.
Along those lines, the men’s Red Pill community represents a group of guys who are tired of the anti-male propaganda from the larger society. A subset of this community are those men who speak out against the unfair treatment of men when it comes to dating, marriage, divorce and child support. I won’t go into more detail for the sake of time, but even before all of this blew up, I’ve been working on a new part of my social media platform geared towards men from more of a gentleman’s perspective, instead of sensational as I think the growing rift between brothas and sistas in the family setting is a red flag for our economy.
Getting back to Fresh and Fit, their channel is a prominent part of the overall red pill community, especially the Black manosphere where you also have the well known Kevin Samuels channel, Oshay Duke Jackson, etc., and also some beyond the Black Manosphere such as Donovan Sharpe and others. The year 2021 saw an explosion in the growth of the red pill community, led in large part by Kevin Samuels, who has been on the Fresh and Fit channel a time or two.
With that as a backdrop, at some point earlier this year, I believe it may have been February 2021, for whatever reason, Fresh and Fit did a show where they put the much larger and well respected Aba and Preach channel on blast as being supposedly being “blue pilled.” As I alluded earlier, this is a major diss in the red pill community as it conveys weakness, often associated with the term “beta male.” Aba and Preach responded in a carefully calculated PR way, but things snowballed from there earlier this week following an Aba and Preach review of alleged hypocrisy, where they criticized Fresh and Fit for saying that they don’t engage in pay for play with women, yet did it anyway behind the scenes. Again, I don’t know about this personally.
Sidebar: We always recommend more job seekers in our community consider transitioning over to STEM careers ASAP as the world is changing rapidly, and we don’t want to get left behind even further! Check out these computer programming boot camp scholarship opportunities right now: https://careerkarma.com/blog/best-coding-bootcamp-scholarships-list/
Fresh and Fit then responded in such an extreme way, that they gave birth to a growing PR cancer which looks to be terminal for their brand and their lucrative business. The straw that broke the camel’s back for many in the red pill community, and beyond, was when Fresh and Fit made very horrible comments about Preach’s wife. There are links below to some videos if you want more info on this, and the Miami boxing match that Fresh and Fit challenged Aba and Preach to, that they then backed off from after Preach was determined to accept it.
That brings me to the business focus of this video. When you mix ego, youth, money and popularity, that can be a toxic mix for young businesspeople who are not used to success. There’s an expression from the Bible which says, “Pride comes before the fall.” Another one is the expression, “the handwriting is on the wall” in the Book of Daniel. What do these verses mean? They mean that an inflated ego can lead to your downfall, because you’re not paying attention to the signs of failure growing around you.
This is a very important principle when it comes to marketing and PR.
Sadly, the unfortunate ego of Fresh and Fit led them to underestimate the importance of using calculated public relations strategies to do damage control when things go wrong. I actually have watched Fresh and Fit since Spring this year, and though I liked some of their shows—not that I need any advice since I am an older and experienced gentleman myself—but because I do support the positive aspects of the manosphere. I began to frown on some of the shows, however, when it seemed they were increasingly interested in gimmicks, like kicking girls off their shows for trivial reasons. To me, that stood out as being cocky for clout, something I didn’t see in the shows that I did like.
It’s that cockiness that leads us to the catastrophic failure we are witnessing right now. Being humble is the best business attribute because it helps remind you that you are not the best at what you do and there is always room for improvement. There is a principle from business called doing a SWOT analysis which is rooted in this principle. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. I’ve done some business videos on this channel regarding this topic, so feel free to check those out.
But long story short, you have to periodically check out your competition, and the public, for threats to your channel, and seek out opportunities to learn from the mistakes of your competitors, and find new ways to expand your audience. What strengths does your business or channel have right now? What are your weaknesses as a channel?
The strength of the Fresh and Fit channel is that it did a good job targeting a niche, and consistently providing the content they wanted. The weakness, however, is the ego, which led them to underestimate the influence of Aba and Preach, who it’s safe to say easily won this PR battle without stepping one foot in the boxing ring. When I tried to watch the first live stream on the Fresh and Fit channel after the scandal broke, I was only a few minutes late, but they had already issued their brief response. This was their first mistake. By being dismissive of the threat posed to them by the much larger Aba and Preach channel, they missed a good PR opportunity to do a last minute, emergency change to the live stream content, which should have then been to focus at least 1 hour on the controversy. They should have humbled themselves and took it head on, opening up phone lines if necessary to allow fans and critics to weigh in.
They should have issued a full, heartfelt apology to Aba and Preach, especially to Preach’s wife. They should have explained, in detail, the business steps they would take to not only avoid repeating the same mistakes in the future, but also apologize to women like Anna Quinn Fitness, whose expose they could have avoided by apologizing for their alleged reference to sexual quid pro quo to be on their show. They should have also explained how they would change up their business strategy to not require certain “favors” from attractive female guests just to come on the show. Also, the doxing of Anna Quinn to expose her to alleged threats on her life from their fans, which could lead to a slander lawsuit and cyberbullying crime charge, should be addressed fully so that it doesn’t happen again. Finally, there’s nothing wrong with getting some therapy, to not only repair the damage done to the channel’s brand, but also to re-capture their own souls, and regain the trust of their fans and the red pill community at large. The leaders of the red pill community in the Black Manosphere will likely seek to distance themselves from this for the greater good of their audience.
The PR recovery period for this kind of severe damage could take months, perhaps a year or two, depending on how genuine the public perceives their corrective actions to be. Learn from this, my people. YouTube can either be your greatest ally or your biggest downfall. It’s all how you conduct business with integrity. I’ll revisit this important topic soon. Until the next video, business warriors, war and peace.
YouTube Links:
Affluent Blacks of Dallas 