DISCLAIMER: What follows is a mixture of fact, speculation & satire therefore “ALLEGEDLY” prefaces & applies to all posts. Updated April 11, 2019.
IT'S EASY TO SEE THAT THE KERZNERS HAVE RAISED A LOT OF MONEY FROM US ACROSS MULTIPLE FUNDRAISING PLATFORMS....... SO WHAT ARE THEY SPENDING ALL THAT MONEY ON?
There is surprisingly little about this on their crowdfunding sites. Ed the Sock's fundraising pages are especially tight-lipped when it comes to what he actually "needs" your funds for. In fact, the only detailed "budget" they've posted on any of their fundraising campaigns is on Shitty Liana's Kickstarter page:
On its surface this may seem reasonable, but several parts don't stand up under scrutiny.
1. "Research, Writing"........
I bet Liana K set aside a nice big chunk of her budget for these research and writing fees, because you'll never guess who does Shitty Liana's research and writing....... HER FUCKING SELF.
But don't take my word for it. Here it is in her own words:
So she actually told her backers that she can't make Lady Bits unless she raises money for "research and writing" knowing full well she's just doing it herself? What the fuck is this fresh hell-shit? Sorry but if this really is a dream project of yours, Liana, you can get off your ass and research and write it anytime. You don't need to take up a collection first.
I'd really like to know how much she pays herself for this job. I'm guessing she thinks she's worth a lot...... she always has.
2. "Designing & Building a Set"..........
Uh, okay, but what set Liana?
Because this is what you promised your backers if you were "fully funded" at $16,500......
A big, clean, flowing, wide open modern set with great lighting, colourful accent pieces, and all new furnishings (some apparently with classy sci-fi themed LED underlighting).....
But this is what you ACTUALLY delivered when you were given $31,500+...........
Liana plopping her ass in her chair in the Kerzners' basement, in front of their crap on their shelves, beside a cheap white plastic tote with a Dollarama "String Light Party Decoration" stuck inside it. This is not a typical Liana K video or Lady Bits "episode zero" either, this is her final episode where they made the most improvement and actually cleaned up a bit. Yep, Liana picking up her filthy laundry and cat toys and wiping her husband's animal cracker crumbs and tiny fingerprints off the arms of their TV watchin' chair is literally their best foot forward after collecting six figures plus from us.
Seriously, she's not even trying to make it look like she spent her backers' money legitimately based on her pleas for funding.
<--- The only thing from those "set inspiration" pictures she actually bought was this white geometric bookshelf from Wayfair.ca that costs about $200.......
Assuming the cheapskate Kerzners even bought them new. With just a quick eBay search I found the same geometric bookshelves for as low as $87.
But whatever she actually paid for her "set pieces", she shouldn't be charging donors for them. Because THESE SHELVES ARE FURNITURE THE KERZNERS WANTED FOR THEIR NEW HOUSE ANYWAY.
Here is a recent non-Lady Bits Liana clip, shot in the Kerzners' living room. Do the shelves behind her look familiar?
They should, because they're the ones her backers bought for the Lady Bits "set".
Liana K's "set" (their home) includes shelves and other "set decoration" they'll be using in everyday life anyway. I guess if you had a suspicious mind you might ask: "WTF, THEY HAD US BUY THEIR FUCKING FURNITURE?"
Maybe they spent money on other sets though.........
Here she is by her dresser which is covered in her collectibles ------>
<------- And by her other dresser, which is covered with more collectibles (but unfortunately not a hairbrush)
Finally, here she is on her couch with her fatass cat (slash only living thing she truly cares about besides herself), Momo. These are the only other "sets" I found when I looked through her YouTube thumbnails.
And they all have one thing in common:
NONE OF THEM ARE FUCKING "SETS!"
So what have we learned about the Kerzners' claim they need money to "design and build a set?" We learned that if they actually did buy anything new for Lady Bits they clearly didn't spend much, because putting your shelves in your basement and putting some of your crap on them doesn't tend to cost a lot.
AND DID THEY SERIOUSLY USE DONORS' MONEY TO BUY FURNITURE AND DECORATIONS FOR THEIR HOUSE? FUCKING REALLY??
I'm not even sure which part of "designing and building a set" bothers me more. "Building" makes no sense because there's not really a set so what the fuck did they build, other than maybe Allen key-ing those Wayfair shelves together? Was serious construction involved in putting those dollar store string lights inside that tote?
But I think it's the "designing" claim that really bothers me, because she's just sitting in her own damn house. I don't think it takes the keen eye of Cedric Gibbons to put your chair in front of your shelves, facing your camera. But I'm sure Shitty Liana paid her designer very well though, because...............
<---- SURPRISE! SHE IS ALSO HER OWN FUCKING SET DESIGNER!
So it worked like this: instead of buying new shelves and decor for her own home like a normal person with some semblance of a conscience, Liana K had donors buy the shit she wanted, then because I guess that still wasn't enough to make her happy (or fill the giant, gaping chasm of greed in her soul) SHE ALSO PAID HERSELF TO "DESIGN" IT? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME WITH THIS SHIT?!
3. "Production/post-production equipment purchases or upgrades"...........
I'm not sure where to begin here. It sounds legit and I think that's the point. The problem is, in a real production budget you don't just use a generic line like this that could mean anything. Because "production or post production equipment" literally includes every single piece of equipment you could possibly use on any shoot, anywhere, ever. Unsurprisingly, you're not using much "equipment" exclusively in pre-production, Girlfriends.
Also "purchase or upgrade?" Which is it?
If you're producing a show, you definitely know what equipment you need and whether you are upgrading it or buying it new.
The Shitty Kerzners have been producing TV for decades between them and they know this perfectly well. They are being deliberately vague because they know most people are not industry savvy and will just say "that sounds legit" then click on the big "DONATE NOW TO HELP A CANADIAN ICON SAVE THE MEDIA!" button.
But once again there's a big problem...........
THEY DIDN'T NEED ANY EQUIPMENT.
NOT FOR PRODUCTION OR POST-PRODUCTION.
BECAUSE THEY ALREADY HAD EVERYTHING THEY NEED.
They have their own sound recording equipment, including LAVs. They have their own lighting gear. They have broadcast quality TV cameras. We know this because they used their own gear producing every one of their independent shows and web series after being canned by CHUM/Much/City-TV. Those shows were produced with gear they already had, and they look and sound just fine.
Remember, they were already producing and uploading plenty of videos to their YouTube and Facebook pages when they began crowdfunding. So they clearly already had the ability to do exactly what they were fundraising to be able to do. In fact, their fundraising pages themselves included videos of them asking for money to help them be able to afford making more videos!
As far as UPGRADING the equipment? Sure. In the TV/film industry you can always upgrade your gear. But it was not necessary in this case, and the Kerzners clearly knew that. When you watch the videos they were posting earlier this decade and compare them to the videos they are posting now, years after they started collecting money from the public, there is no marked improvement in video or audio quality.
The only "equipment" based claim the Kerzners have made on any of their please-give-us-your-money sites that seems even somewhat legitimate to me is Liana's promise to purchase a 4K camera if her Kickstarter page reached its $31,500 "stretch goal" target. Sadly, apparently in keeping with their "let's say as little as fucking possible in case we get called on our bullshit" policy, her budget includes zero specifics about the cost, make or model of the camera other than it being "a 4K camera".
By the way, only her donors can watch her videos in 4K and only a few of them bother to and WHY THE LIVING FUCK WOULD ANYONE NEED TO WATCH A TALKING HEAD YOUTUBE VIDEO IN 4K ANYWAY?
Yes. This grating blowhard with a house full of cats, dogs, toys and junk giving her opinion on the movie Shazam is something we definitely need to see in 4K quality.
Fuck.
Anyway, I've got to give her a pass on this stretch goal because despite a complete lack of details she apparently did buy a 4K camera. The only reason I can't say for sure is I can't watch the videos without becoming a donor, and I'd rather burn my money using my own hair as kindling than give one more penny of it to these two shameless scumbags.
One other thing to note about their "equipment" expenses is that the Kerzners share all of their production and post-production gear, and their home is their studio. So the notion that these two needed to do separate fundraisers is disingenuous at best. They are double dipping, and not just that. They're triple, quadruple, quintuple-dipping and more, because each of them has posted multiple crowdfunding sites for overlapping shows on the same platforms and these "productions" will all be using the same equipment.
4. "Hiring designers for more polished graphics and logos"..............
Okay I'll keep this one brief. Steven Joel Kerzner has always done their graphics and logos himself.
<------- See? It says his name right there,
"Shitty Steven J. Kerzner"
So once again we have the Kerzners telling donors they need money to hire someone to work on their show, then keeping it because they actually had the ability to just do it themselves the entire fucking time.
This is the equivalent of saying "I want my portrait done, but I need money to hire an artist", then when people generously give you money for a painter, you take out your brushes and say "thanks but I'm just gonna keep all this money because I know how to paint, okay?" Except the Kerzners don't ask. They just keep the money and never speak of it again, hoping no one will ever notice what greedy scumbags they are.
5. "Commissioning some original music"............
Well, they actually do have some original music from an outside source. The thing is, it's not like they hired an orchestra or anything. It's typical for TV shows, especially micro-budget ones like the Shitty Kerzners make, to use "library" music. For about $20 you can get limited rights to use an already made song in your show. Exclusive rights aren't much more. One thing everyone in the industry who has ever worked with the Kerzners knows is they are fucking C-H-E-A-P, so this would not be a significant expense, if they paid for it at all, which I doubt. Because the Kerzners love offering people the "opportunity" to "showcase" their music/art/skills in their shows, for free.
In this case I'm especially convinced Liana K got her music free. Because it was done by HitHazard, who is also known as Morbid Complex, whose real name is Thorleif Valand, who is ONE OF HER BACKERS!
We did reach out to Thorleif/Morbid Complex/HitHazard but have not heard back from him.
6. "The per-episode cost of the original six episodes plus the bonus show works out to $2000 per episode", which is "extremely cost effective"...........
We've shown how spurious many of the Kerzners' "budget" claims seem to be, so where is this $2000 figure coming from? Again, how much does it cost to sit in your own basement, talk to your camera then edit it yourself on your computer with software you already have?
"Extremely cost effective" is the real laugh here though. Her web series is just a talking head! She's not traveling. She's not doing anything elaborate or anything at all really. It's just her sitting in a chair yapping while some basic over-the-shoulder graphics appear. Anyone could literally produce the exact same content for FREE using most laptops that come with decent editing/effects software.
It looks like Shitty Liana's typically getting in the neighbourhood of 5,000-8,000 views per video. Talking head YouTube videos that only get a few thousand hits don't normally cost anywhere near $2,000, and people who say it's "cost effective" to be spending up to 40 cents PER CLICK on your YouTube video should probably be given a mandatory Gail Vaz-Oxlade financial intervention.
Saying these price points for Liana's webisodes are "cost effective" reeks of grifter level shenanigans. It really looks like the Kerzners' aim is to con potential donors who don't know any better into saying "well if it's a good value then of course I'll donate money!"
Until they provide concrete evidence of these necessary "equipment" costs, etc, I'm convinced ALMOST ALL of their backers' money went directly into the Kerzners' pockets and toward their personal expenses.
Things get even harder to swallow when you look at Liana's Kickstarter "stretch goals":
Okay so....... uhh........ WTF? The original goal of $16,500 was what you said you needed to purchase all your "production and post-production equipment", your "logos and graphics," your "set design and construction," your "original music"..... That was what you said you needed to make your show. $16,500.
But if you get to $25,000 you can make another six episodes? Sorry but when you already have everything you need to make your first seven why does it cost another $8,500 to make six more episodes of what, to remind you once again, is just you talking in a chair?
It looks like the only place the cash for these extra episodes could possibly be going is to "salary," and Steven and Liana do all the jobs on this show. You do the math.
7. "I also want to offer a small honorarium to providers of game footage"............
Again this sounds good. In a bit of skillful self promotion Liana even says she WANTS to do this without having to. What a nice thing to volunteer to do!
But they themselves say "small honorarium" so it's safe to say we're not looking at anything close to a significant chunk of that $2000 per episode budget.
In fact, it's probably much closer to $0. I know this because I successfully contacted one of the people who provided them with game clips, and asked whether Liana K paid them for the use of their footage:
"I most certainly am sure they didn't pay me anything."
Ouch.
If the Shitty Kerzners didn't follow through on paying one gamer for their clips, it's safe to assume none of the others were paid either. Which is not surprising, since the Kerzners historically seem to have a big problem following through with actually paying people what they "intended" to.
But it gets even worse, because Liana not only failed to pay honorariums to the owners of the game clips - SHE DID NOT EVEN ASK PERMISSION TO USE THEM!
*Update - We're going to call these non-payments confirmed, since I have since contacted a second provider of game clips and they have also never even heard of Liana K:
It's a pretty big jump from "I want to pay providers of game footage" to "I'm not even going to ask if I CAN use their footage", but I've been told time and again that's just the kind of people the Kerzners are. Dishonest and greedy.
So what's the verdict?
Looking at what the Kerzners promised versus what they actually delivered, it would be hard for them to justify Liana K's $16,500 Kickstarter fundraiser for Lady Bits. So obviously the $31,615 "stretch goals" total they raised (minus whatever they may have actually spent on a 4K camera) raises even more alarm bells.
But remember, the Shitty Kerzners have also used multiple other overlapping Kickstarter, IndieGogo and Patreon fundraisers to take in what I conservatively estimate to be at least $116,400 total between them.
That estimate uses only the numbers the Kerzners have left publicly available and only covers the limited dates we have access to. We do not have any figures at all for some of their fundraisers. Most significantly, there's no way to know how much they have collected through their PayPal requests on their websites, which they have collected since at least 2016 and continue to collect today. SO THE AMOUNT OF MONEY THE KERZNERS HAVE TAKEN IN IS LIKELY SIGNIFICANTLY HIGHER THAN $116,400.
Whatever their real panhandling total may be, the Shitty Kerzners collected all of this money from good people despite already having (1) their own significant savings as well as assets, (2) ongoing incomes and revenue streams, such as their current tour fees, ad revenue from videos, etc, (3) their house, which serves as their "studio", (4) the production and post-production equipment they needed, (5) their "network" website and YouTube channels already up and running, and (6) zero labour costs, by shooting very basic videos and using only "volunteers" - whether they knew they were volunteering or not - whenever outside help was needed.
And what have they have delivered in exchange for these generous donations? Next to nothing.
I don't think anyone with basic critical reasoning skills would believe that these people have spent anywhere near $116,400 on the projects they sold their donors on.
It's April, 2019 and all they have produced so far is a handful of Lady Bits YouTube webisodes. They've made zero movement on the other productions or the network that they promised. It took them forever to even start sending donors the simple digital and physical rewards they were promised, and even now they're only sending them because we literally shamed them into it with our questions, complaints and demands.
So we are still left to wonder WHY the Kerzners collected so much money from people and WHAT they actually did with it.
Unless maybe there are other legitimate expenses they can point to. For one thing, they had to spend a lot of that money on the incentives they promised their backers, right? So let's take a look at............