The latest South Park movie on Paramount Plus, “The Streaming Wars,” plays like a prolonged crypto roast, targeting celebrities who made fools of themselves hyping up cryptocurrencies and NFTs.
Crypto-mining and NFT-minting are incredibly energy intensive, belching out carbon emissions for the sake of enriching a handful of investors; South Park connects the dots, telling a story of an environmental crisis exacerbated by greedy con-artists.
The movie shows South Park suffering through a crippling drought, which is making the town’s inhabitants even more unhinged; hence, a waterpark-owning entrepreneur has a plan to replace the town's water supply with urine - what could go wrong?
Beloved celebrities are soon enlisted to push the propaganda campaign, and convince the townsfolk that urine is just as good as clean water. Of course, it’s directly referencing the ridiculous crypto advertisements that so many celebrities associated themselves with - Matt Damon’s infamous “Fortune Favors the Brave” Superbowl ad provides the punchline, the mantra celebrities chant to themselves before taking a sip of urine for the camera.
Damon’s painfully self-serious ad, which frames the act of buying crypto as an adrenaline-fueled adventure, has never been forgotten by the writers of South Park, who have mocked and referenced the ad several times.
