Agreed. Nick's not that big of a deal tbh. He's only really known in this community and anime weirdos. Phil's been dissed by lots of people more prominent than him.
I agree with you guys to an extent. But Nick may be a more perfect storm of things Phil hates than the 341 meeting was:
- Phil streamed after the 341 meeting, but he hadn't mentioned it at all prior to that, so could just act oblivious - he talked to Nick on Twitter so it's clear he knows this time. This also wasn't nearly as neutral as the hearing - there's no way this was 'positive'.
- Nick is popular with the anime/anti-SJW crowds. That probably has some overlaps with Phil's own audience and more likely watched it than the hearing; some of his more neutral chat may have been redpilled out of the pignosis, or see this as a good chance to take some shots at the pig.
- Nick spent a good amount of time on it, meaning that while he is not big, he may well have just pointed a good collection of fresh autist trolls towards Phil's chat. This is a little more scathing than Pewds making a throwaway joke.
- Nick is, fundamentally, a bad target for Phil right now. Phil can shit on him as a content creator (as he does with the other people who have shit on him), but the 'lawyer' thing is a problem. Phil could only attack that by putting it in quotes, but Nick's education is problematic in terms of Phil's statements about the bankruptcy and copyright. After years of shitting on people for not understanding the law and talking out of his ass, a lawyer probably seems pretty inconvenient.
- Unlike some others that have shit on Phil, Nick immediately offered Phil a chance to have his say. Phil now also needs to also deal with his fans insisting he should go on and stand his ground and debunk the detractor lawyer man, because Phil is so correct and anti-bullshit. He already had to throw Rochelle out as a shield and claim that she told him not to engage, so he won't (implication being that he totally would have otherwise, right?).
- Following the mod leaks, Phil is now down a mod and the others seem to have backed away from him a little, so he has very little backup.
- I believe Phil almost used his 'allergies' to call in sick when the Champions shitstorm really ramped up, but probably reasoned that'd be far too suspicious. This finally got him.
- A lot of what was discussed on the stream was exactly the stuff Phil pathetically tried to 'debunk', and now the legitimacy is renewed and more people are in on the memes.
- Phil himself puts a lot of weight into these kind of interviews - he thought his interview with The Quartering was going to bring a massive influx of positive new viewers. It stands to reason he sees this as a negative issue on a similar scale - probably more since Nick is less of a meme than The Quartering.
The Nick stream isn't going to end Phil at all, but it's exactly the kind of barrage on his ego that upsets Phil, fires up exactly the kind of trolls that get under his skin, and he was probably too pissy to trust himself to deal with it in any way that wasn't going to exacerbate things.