Studio Sessions
Discussions about art and the creative process. New episodes every other week.
Links To Everything:
Video Version of The Podcast: https://geni.us/StudioSessionsYT
Matt’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/MatthewOBrienYT
Alex’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/AlexCarterYT
Matt’s Instagram: https://geni.us/MatthewIG
Alex’s Instagram: https://geni.us/AlexIG
Studio Sessions
26. The Pursuit of Genuine in World Driven by Trends
In this episode, we dive into a range of topics, starting with a personal story from Matt about his experience photographing a friend’s courthouse wedding and the frustrations he encountered. This leads us into a broader discussion about authenticity in creative work, focusing on the evolution of YouTube from its early days to the present. We explore how people attempt to balance originality with the pressure to follow trends, emphasizing the importance of staying true to one’s "vision" and the role of craft in fostering authenticity.
We also reflect on the broader implications of the media landscape and its impact on creative expression. As we discuss the value of unique perspectives and the wisdom gained through life experiences, we examine how the platform has shaped content creation and consumption. By drawing connections between personal anecdotes and larger creative principles, we highlight the significance of maintaining intention and authenticity in our work amidst the ever-evolving dynamics of digital media. Whether you’re a content creator, a creative professional, or simply someone interested in the interplay between originality and commercialism, this episode offers insights into navigating the complex landscape of modern creative expression. -Ai
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider giving us a rating and/or a review. We read and appreciate all of them. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you in the next episode.
Links To Everything:
Video Version of The Podcast: https://geni.us/StudioSessionsYT
Matt’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/MatthewOBrienYT
Matt’s 2nd Channel: https://geni.us/PhotoVideosYT
Alex’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/AlexCarterYT
Matt’s Instagram: https://geni.us/MatthewIG
Alex’s Instagram: https://geni.us/AlexIG
Matt's just sitting there silently staring off into nothing. We're back to daytime podcast, because I'm going to be out of town tomorrow and I was out of town last week, but we've got to squeeze this sumbitch in. We've got to squeeze it in.
Speaker 2:It had been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, I'm going to kind of tell a story about something that happened to me that's going to relate to what we're talking about.
Speaker 1:So I talked to Alex earlier this week and I told him that, you know, we we were just, we weren't necessarily like having a pre-pro or anything or a pre-show, but we just touched on what we could talk about this week and I had something that I was chewing on from an experience I had where a friend of mine got married, uh, at the courthouse, and I volunteered to take some photos of it, and that person likes my photography versus knows I can take pictures, and I felt like that person wanted me to kind of do my thing while they were getting married and it kind of happened, but it didn't happen to the extent that I would have liked it to. So I want to talk about that and and and and. What contributed to my frustration looking back. But then how that connects to what we're talking about, which is like early YouTube, 2000, 2008 YouTube, and then the people that are making stuff on YouTube right now.
Speaker 5:That is really engaging, but it's not the YouTube playbook at all and I think, like I do want to try to put a caveat in with the YouTube conversation of like I don't know, in my head I just I feel like I would start rolling my eyes, yeah, at the idea of like okay like right now, if you are listening to yeah, I'm gonna be rolling my eyes like yeah like there is a disconnect a bit between like youtube, and I think.
Speaker 5:The way we see it, though, is that's just kind of um, that's our biggest plug into culture yeah and obviously that's an area that we connect on. We put the podcast up there.
Speaker 1:And when you say our, you mean you and me, not people, yeah, you and me, and I mean, that's literally how you make a living.
Speaker 5:So it's just an area that comes up in conversation, which tends to that. But the caveat I want to make is, when we're talking about that, it's more of a vehicle for an idea, it's not. We're just we're not diving into YouTube tactics or anything like that.
Speaker 5:But it is a vehicle for an idea that I think we've been, and also just, you said something earlier when we were talking pre-show about just dissection of the form. A little bit Right, and you know, a lot of the form is visual communication and you know verbal communication, yeah, and I think that's uh, yeah, so I just I just kind of want to make that absolutely we're not talking about like yeah, we're not going to be dishing about, about like youtube strategy or sort of like what's trending on youtube or anything like that.
Speaker 1:This is talking about the content that we have gravitated toward, and even I have embraced some making it that way in some areas of my content.
Speaker 5:We consume content through. I mean content being anything. It's like we read, we listen to podcasts A lot of those are through YouTube or we find videos on YouTube or we watch films.
Speaker 1:I feel like there's very limited options and YouTube sometimes is the connective tissue between what we buy at the used bookstore, what we pick up on Amazon, the books that we read, the movies we go see. The movies we revisit some of the different art forms that at least I have been drawn to photographers, filmmakers writers.
Speaker 5:A wonderful way to just see the world through somebody else's eyes for a few minutes. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, to wrap up your caveat, I'm just my um, uh, my thing to it is just that we're gonna be talking about these youtube videos in how it relates to a concept, in how artists or people who make things make things, yeah, like where it comes from, what's at the center of it, the source of it, whatever. At least that's what I'm gonna bring to it. You, you're, you're going to bring your own um, your, your own stuff to it. Sorry, I'm a little inarticulate today. Okay, so the story about this wedding photography thing, cause I don't, you know, I don't shoot weddings, I don't do like commercial work, I don't do editorial here in.
Speaker 1:Omaha on photography. Yeah, I was here in Omaha, um, uh, you know, I I did have, you know, had a team help me shoot a wedding once video, and I've obviously done documentary stuff. That's like client work and all that. And when I'm holding a camera that's going to be capturing video, I've been doing it for so long that my brain really falls into a place of thinking about for me what kind of coverage and what kind of shot composition kind of captures the essence and the soul of the subject, um, but also um brings my perspective on, uh, a toy maker in a shop, people that are doing a community garden, a musician who's working on music, and it's very easy for me to fall into this place of just getting the shots and the coverage. That when I am thinking about what I shot that day and I don't meet or directed someone to shoot that day, I'm not kicking myself about I wish I would have got that shot, or I I'm like looking at the room omnisciently and going off. I would have put myself there, that would have been really great, or why didn't I do that, or whatever. I'm not sort of doing a post-mortem on it and kicking myself, for I felt like I was in the flow, things were going well, you know, whatever. There weren't all these other things affecting me making work.
Speaker 1:But at this wedding and I knew it was happening when I was shooting very small, so it was just the, the, the couple, and then two friends and then me, and you know, there's the courthouse and you're out, you know, um in like the lobby area and I'm snapping a few pictures there having conversation, then breaking out, and so, and there's the courthouse and you're out in the lobby area and I'm snapping a few pictures there having conversation, then breaking out, and so it's a little bit difficult to get in the flow because I'm good friends with these people, so we're kind of hanging out, but then I'm trying to break away to take photos, but then you're in a government building and we had to go through security to get in, like I don't, you know there's. So there's just like a little bit of um awareness going on about like what's the context?
Speaker 1:of where we are Right Versus sort of just being present, going oh, that's an interesting composition, or whatever. So then, um, the other couple that's going to be a witness for the bride shows up and we go into the courtroom. We had to step out to get some money to pay for the whatever the judge's fee or whatever it is that you have to pay.
Speaker 1:And then I got into kind of a vibe with the bride as she went to the ATM and I'm taking photographs of her and I'm like, oh, this is what it's, this is what I want, right, I'm feeling it Right and there's a great like what I felt was a great shot of her at the atm. You know, dispute this wonderful image of you know, a woman in a white dress getting married and she's withdrawing cash yeah, that's, that's good right yeah, then we get back into the courtroom, kind of talking, taking a few photos clocking.
Speaker 1:You know I'm shooting on film, so I I just can't shoot endlessly like I've got 24.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I gotta be.
Speaker 1:then the judge comes in, calls everybody up. I kind of okay with the judge. He's like, oh, we'll just come back here, you can be back here. And all of a sudden these gates went down where I'm like is this only where I can be. Am I breaking some rule If I go on the other side of the courtroom? Am I distracting him? Does he not want his face in the photo? And I'm like, but the shit already started, like the ceremony or whatever it is, when it's just the judge doing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it started and I'm like, well, can I interrupt? Can I say, hey, is it cool? Like do you not want to be in the photos? So I'm kind of reeling from not knowing what the rules are. And I got locked into this spot behind the judge and I just ended up basically firing off the roll with. You know a couple like 50, 85 millimeter shots of, you know, bride and groom. You know nice blurry background, all that kind of stuff, close-up of hands, the rings, like just kind of you know good stuff that somebody's gonna want to document the day. But it's not photography, it's something else. So that night I'm sitting there just sort of restless about it and I'm starting to kind of walk through the space.
Speaker 5:Monday morning quarterback a little bit, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm walking through the space and I'm sort of reshooting it, like what would I like? I'm free all of a sudden, cause it's not actually happening, and I'm walking through and I'm like what angles? So there was the couple that was in attendance as the witnesses. I found myself in these compositions where, like part of their head was sticking out of the groom's head at the altar and it just looked weird. And so I kept trying to find a frame where, like, the groom's head was blocking them in the background. So it just looked like the groom's head was blocking them in the background. So it just looked like the, the husband and wife.
Speaker 1:And then I'm sitting there going.
Speaker 1:What a great shot it would have been to have framed it up so that the couple is in the background, all these empty seats, and it's just two people in the background and the bride and groom at the front. You know, at the by the judge maybe the judge is a little dirty in frame or whatever and then there's layers to that composition. Right, you've got the judge in the immediate foreground, you've got the bride and groom as your subjects and the distant background. You know, just just, that would have felt good to me, but I kept trying to frame them out to have a clean shot. And then I'm starting to go around the room and I'm like, oh man, if I was in the back corner by the doors and the two people in attendance, the only two people there the whole courtroom's empty. Two people sitting sort of in the middle of all these seats, bride and groom up at the front at this tall judge's desk. The judge kind of over them like a pharmacist, you know giving medication to someone in those old pharmacies.
Speaker 1:You know medication to someone in those old pharmacies. You know bad lighting.
Speaker 5:You know from the clinical lighting, like just a real nice like 28 millimeter wide shot of that whole space, just the second context, yeah, of what this was, and I'm like, man, that would have been a good shot.
Speaker 1:So I won't describe any more, but I probably came up with three or four shots that if I had it could have a do-over. You can't have do-overs with weddings.
Speaker 5:If I could have a do-over, I'm like those were the can't have do-overs with most most photography.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm like those were the shots. Then I start going what happened? Yeah, what was going on? Because my photography muscles are not as honed as my video muscles, my motion picture muscles. I don't even think twice about it. When I have video, it's we're documenting this thing, we're getting coverage, we're getting footage, whether it's fly on the wall or I'm directing people or whatever, like I take over the room because I have to get what I need to make the film, to make the video, whatever it is. And all this weird stuff just got in my head like, well, the parents of these people don't know that this is happening, but when they do eventually find out, I want them to be happy that they got these sort of like iconic, not cliche, but just sort of like the standard shots that you're supposed to get the baseline yeah, you know, whereas I know the groom really wanted the, those more photography you know my unique perspective on on the thing like that's what, that's really what they were excited about.
Speaker 1:So I I just got in this trap and I'm like so what happened, you know, to me? I go back to acting school, you're in acting school and this is what happened in acting school. I was out of my element, I didn't have any craft, I was just trying to survive it, right.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's it almost. I get the you've said before about not listening to the moment, but it's just waiting to say what you have to say. Yep, and that comes to mind right here.
Speaker 1:It's like you're not listening to them and maybe you were no times, but yes, a couple of times I think I fell into it, but then some you're you're listening for the end of their response so you can give your your line.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And and and, uh so. So in acting school, you know, I would craft a performance when I memorize my lines and I would come in just on rails, like the director wouldn't be able to break me out of my preparation. Like I stuck to, I clung to it, like flung to it, like somebody might cling to a bathtub in a hurricane.
Speaker 5:You know like.
Speaker 1:I'm not letting go of this thing because if I do, I'm going to lose it. I'm going to forget my lines.
Speaker 1:It's all going to fall apart, this thing that I had to craft to survive this and it wouldn't be art, just be like execution of a task to get to the end. Now, with the acting school, it was like I can't wait for this to be over. With photography, even in this instance, I was looking forward to letting all that artifice and edifice fall apart so I could get in the flow, but it never did. Well, it couldn't, cause it's so it's. This is the other thing you're not aware of. I don't know how long this thing is. Is it 30 minutes? Is it 10 minutes? Yeah, so complete lack of experience, which is, to me, part of craft Um, just having no idea, and part of craft um, just having no idea, and then also the pressure of putting it on myself, like I want to get a little bit of video of this with my old camcorder, you know. So I'm like I'm a little bit trying to do too much.
Speaker 1:I'm wearing multiple hats things at once, but like I'm glad I brought the camcorder because it kind of saved me, because when I shot my last shot on the main camera I had the bride and groom hadn't kissed yet yeah, so I'm like well I've got the camera so at least we'll have video of this um, of this moment.
Speaker 1:So I even there craft, right, you know how many shots you have. You're checking your counter, yeah, you know how quickly you can reload or whether you can. You have multiple cameras because you're shooting film, so you got a quick swap to the next role, whatever like that element of it too.
Speaker 1:Anticipating yeah, just knowing all the ins and outs right, and I've never shot anything like that with film. It's always been our street photography or me going out and getting you know cityscapes or rural landscape or whatever and I'm like okay so much respect for, like people covering events right big time, especially especially yeah, like I mean the majority of the great photos.
Speaker 5:Yeah, because I think since digital we've kind of oversaturated so there's not a lot of like iconic photos in the last 20 years or so yeah but you had a lot of iconic photos when there were still magazine culture and things like that and most of those guys were going out to cover these events right. Pocket full of tri-X.
Speaker 1:And combining all the skills and all the craft that they had developed of that sort of supreme focus on the objective while still listening to the environment around them. If someone who was an authority figure or the client or whatever came in and tried to push them out of their flow, they don't know they're doing that, but they're trying to tell them oh, we can't go over there. Blah, blah, blah. The artist is just like almost whatever it takes within reason.
Speaker 1:Like I'm, not going to go lay down on railroad tracks or something to get the shot if there's a speeding train coming up or something like that, but they're not like worried about. Well, does the judge want to be in the photos? Am I in? Do I get in trouble if I photographed the judge? Is that like a rule? And I don't know about it.
Speaker 5:You know all that kind of stuff, you have the best excuse. Like I love it when people come up to me and they're like, can you?
Speaker 1:delete. I can't film.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I can't do it.
Speaker 1:So so I wasn't listening.
Speaker 1:So I was listening and this is what goes back to. Actually, I was listening to fear, I wasn't listening to the truth and the purity and the simplicity of the moment and I let all of that stuff, I let authority figures in the room. Um, an intimidating government facility, you know, and, and just sort of like the facility. You know, and just sort of like the. You know you've got armed guards and not that they're going to come in and get after me because I, I'm shooting, your shooting a wedding, but are they going to? Um, you know, I don't know. You're just sort of like in this place where you don't feel the ease of movement, you don't feel like that you can. I, I felt like I was stuck behind the judge at his what do you call it?
Speaker 5:I think it was, would you say, like there were walls that came down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just walls that came down both mentally and sort of um, uh, figuratively in the space, like figurative uh uh walls that were containing me, but then stuff in my mind as well, and so then what you make just turns into something you know, kind of mid right. You're like, oh, you know, oh, but he's got the photo of her down the escalator and this like oh, so what happened in the you know like? Then there's stuff like that. So I'm probably raking myself over the coals a little bit too much. I think they're definitely going to be happy with what they've got. I think expectations were low.
Speaker 1:Like we're asking a friend to do a favor. He's shooting on a camera he's never used before. Um, you know he's doing something that's a little bit out of his normal. You know the normal type of workflow that he has. But at the same time, if you do show a couple of photos, we're like, oh, that was really cool, that's a great moment. And then at the, the biggest moment, the nuials yeah, sort of like oh you know, didn't have that, yeah, or?
Speaker 1:even that person might go. A shot from over here might have been good, or you know whatever. Like we've got 15 shots of the two of us at various focal lengths from the same general perspective. One's a little bit left, one's a little bit right. You know all that kind of stuff. So I really kicked myself. But and I'm wrapping up here as we segue into the other thing, because this is going to be connected um, part of me is happy that that happens, because it's learning right.
Speaker 1:You learn through failure even if it's just you're building that craft and now you know, next time you're sharper, the next time something happens you're gonna have a. I do this at least. All right, I kind of go through a checklist like, look, dude, you're in a place you're not familiar with. You don't know what this arena is like, or you don't know what this bar is like, or you don't know what this whatever place you're shooting in, you don't know what the rules are, the subjects, the story, whatever. And while you may not hang from the rafters or get a rickety ladder and suspend yourself over a precarious position or whatever, do anything that's really dangerous and unsafe. You need to focus on telling that story. And when you see a shot in your mind to move to that location and make it happen, don't let these walls come down. And when you see a shot in your mind to move to that location and make it happen, don't let these walls come down and lock you in.
Speaker 5:Make sure I think that goes for filmmaking too like you made a distinction between like video and. But I mean, that's the most important thing in film, right, it's?
Speaker 5:like when you cut, when you need to see something that's not in the shot, like what, what needs to be in the shot and what doesn't, to tell the story Right, and like people get caught up in composition, and this goes, for I'm talking about both now, photography and film, and there's a lot of things that are similar between photography and cinematography. But, yeah, like people get caught up in composition and yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. It's like, at the end of the day, there are humans doing things and environments. Yeah.
Speaker 5:And all of those things feed into each other the, the environment, the situation, the drama that's created in the situation, the interaction between the humans, the lack of interaction between the humans, whatever it is it's all of these things build together to say something that's right. And you need to figure out what is, even if it's just intuitively. You don't need to be like what is this saying? Yeah.
Speaker 5:But you intuitively have to be like what needs to be included in this to best portray the message, and if you can do that, you're going to make great work. It's just a matter of time and attrition. That's right. But a lot of people are not, and I think part of it is that kind of fear of like well, I don't know how this is going to look. Yeah.
Speaker 5:I've seen this before, right, so this is the safe option. So I'm just going to do this Like I have this image of my head. I don't have that one, so that one's more dangerous, therefore, because I've never. And it's like most of the time, though, if that one is what's called for, that's what's going to produce the best result, at least in my experience, or at least how I, how I look at it, and that's tough. A lot of people don't point the camera at what's most important or what needs to be. I want to say what needs to be said, but it's not necessarily yeah.
Speaker 5:I don't want people to read that too literally. I think, but yeah, super interested. Sorry to cut you off.
Speaker 1:I just no, you're not. You know, I would definitely want to share my stuff and then hear your reaction to it. So again, I'm not beating myself up and you're a shitty photographer and all that. It's just an acknowledgement like, look, this stuff is these specific tools, and it's nice to kind of feel a little bit of what the differences are between photography and video or film, and that a set of instincts for one medium needs to be adjusted for another where instead of capturing moving pictures, you're capturing stills, and it's just, it's different and it's also there's sometimes there's not imposter syndrome, but just sort of.
Speaker 1:I haven't logged a lot of hours doing this. Yeah, Um, with video. I've been shooting video for 15 years, Like it's just second nature to me to stand in a room and and spray it down with coverage that I really quickly see in my mind and then and then can essentially replicate, uh, when, when I'm holding the camera, or if I'm directing someone who's holding the camera. And with photography, especially film photography, I just haven't had as much time with it. And to make another point, so much of my time has been spent sort of with the freedom of movement, shooting in public Street photography, or, you know, it's like cityscape photography other than going like into private property and trespassing or something to get a photo.
Speaker 5:It's the best kind of photography. Just kidding.
Speaker 1:Kidding, I feel relatively free to move where I want and that I have sort of this thing I can go back on, which is hey, you're in public, like I understand you're upset. I mean no disrespect, I really liked this moment that you were this or that or whatever, but like I'm not doing anything wrong, whereas in that courtroom I'm like, am I doing something wrong If I go over here? Is that wrong? Is like the judge going to snap at me? Is he going to stop the ceremony to tell me like oh, you can't be over there, I don't want to be in the photo and like you just you just imprison yourself in this, in this, listening to fear, yeah and um, I think oftentimes.
Speaker 1:You know we used to joke about this in the rock industry, you know, like working on tour and all that stuff, because we would never have our backstage passes with us. You know they give them to you and my buddy nick would always be just act like you belong here. Yeah, like yeah. He's like obviously you do, but if you there's any part of you that's like, oh, I don't have that.
Speaker 2:They're like they smell it on you, they can sense it.
Speaker 1:Just walk through like you belong here and guess what?
Speaker 5:Every single time 99% of the time, and that doesn't mean that you know, especially because they see you throughout the week or whatever. A lot of times like I don't know what's it, what's a good? Example um oh, so this is a weird example, yeah, but you know, a couple years ago I started getting into into whiskey, yeah, and um, I noticed that after, you know, after about a year of kind of learning about it and starting to do whatever like I, every bar I went to I stopped getting carded. Yeah.
Speaker 5:And I mean, part of that might just be. You know I look older, but a lot of people do say I look younger, yeah, um, and. But it's just like when you go in and you're like, hey, I want this, do you guys have this? Or like you just have that level of confidence, because it's not false confidence, or false bravado, but it's not arrogance.
Speaker 1:It's not arrogance, just like hey do you guys have this Right.
Speaker 5:Then there's like oh yeah, yeah, they know what yeah, knows. Knows what they're looking for, knows what they're looking for, knows what they're. It's like the same kind of principle, right?
Speaker 1:Just like you know if you're like hey, I don't know if I can, or da-da-da-da-da but, get in there and just do what you need to do, and that's certainly been a part of my life, you know, healthy confidence in a lot of areas. Yeah. And then in areas where I'm not as confident, I can really listen to the fear and like be clinging to that bathtub in the hurricane. I'm just like you know. Sometimes I'm like trying to mask that. That's what's going on.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But like people can feel energy, like they know, oh, a hundred percent.
Speaker 5:They know and um it's like animals Like you you have. You have people that are afraid of dogs or something.
Speaker 1:It's like yeah just act, not afraid, and they're just like okay, and the dogs are just like this person's not having a good time, like and that's too where, like just in human interaction, I think in art too, it's like when, when there's there's a truth that's there, but then like something is being managed on top of it.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, god.
Speaker 1:What a segue we're making here Whether he said it's out to dinner with friends, and maybe friends that you don't know as well. You know them tangentially or their whatever, and you're just like. You want that feeling and this is what we had when we first met. You want that feeling. You've known this person your whole life. Well, people say that because when they're with that person, they are just feeling that person's true, true self. And that's not to say that when I met you or you met me or other situations, there isn't some self-management going on yeah.
Speaker 1:But it's nothing. Where you are crafting an artifice you know, a false storefront behind what's really there. You know, and sorry for these, whatever bad analogies but metaphor day I'm in articulate today I think, like almost like the more worked up I get, sort of the more my like the emotion I don't know I'm pointing my brain for emotion, but the emotion I don't know. I'm pointing my brain for emotion, but the emotion happens and like the words just struggle.
Speaker 1:This artifice huh Emotion Right yeah, so that you know you joked about the transition and that really plays into the second part of this conversation. And sorry for every once in a while when I listen back to our podcast I'm like ooh, I wish they would have gone into this a little bit more before we transition. Is there anything? Are we good? Do you feel like we're good on the first?
Speaker 5:part of it. I think so. I mean, yeah, I think there's. I respect how you look at the situation. I think people can learn from just like the reflection part of it, and nothing's going to change if you don't sit back and reflect on it. I was telling you in the pre-show how I've been spending a lot of time thinking about like quality control and quality control as a result of reflection and refinement over time, and I think that, um, yeah, I mean just you sitting there at home and being like, okay, like you know that it you didn't get the result you wanted. Yeah.
Speaker 5:Yeah, but a lot of people in my experience will just stop there, yeah, and they'll get emotional about it, yeah, and they'll react and there'll be a spiked tension for a period of time and then that'll dissipate and then you're back to normal. Yeah.
Speaker 5:Back to baseline. The baseline hasn't changed and so you're just setting up for another spike, right? Or you can manage change the baseline and prevent future spikes, right, or you can manage change the baseline and prevent future spikes. Yeah, I think that that's something that I have a lot of respect for, the idea of you going back and just sitting and working through it. I think that's if there's anything great to take out of it outside of the artistic level of just like hey what is?
Speaker 5:the true, what is true about this moment and how can you represent that with four walls? Yeah, it would be, you know, reflecting on situations.
Speaker 1:So and I think, I think to the reflection that you know deploying self-awareness. But then I I also think about talking to myself like I might my daughters when they're beating themselves up about something or frustrated about something, and doesn't mean coddling or oh, you know you'll get it next time or you know whatever, but it just means like, look, this is what happened, this is, these are the forces at play. Yeah, these are your. I don't say issues, but these are your. I don't want to say issues, but these are your things that you're managing or trying to surrender to a little bit from your past, or just your personality, your stronger traits and your less strong traits. Like, let yourself off the hook a little bit. You know, do better the next time.
Speaker 1:Like hold yourself accountable and do better. The next time.
Speaker 5:But like you know it sounds corny but like just love that that person that was there yeah, yeah and and and shine that light on them so that, when they oh, and it almost, when you reframe it in a way like that experiences where you may have in your mind, like lacked or had you know, not kind of lived up to the yeah, quote-unquote expectation that you had in your mind. If you are able to reframe it in that way and suddenly you're able to look at this situation as just something that you grew from. Right Like it's a very positive thing and it like and then when? You revisit?
Speaker 5:in your head? You're not. It's not a toxic relationship to that concept, it's a very positive thing. There's this guy, so I go to the Y? Um in Omaha a lot. I just doxed myself for all of our hundred years now. Um, so I'll go to the. I'll go to the why and I was.
Speaker 5:I tell audrey about this, like the last year. There's this guy and usually the tv stays on espn. I have some big theories on. I think we need to keep you know when you're in, when you're in a locker room. I think espn should almost just be the only option. Yes, like, just leave it on ESPN. It's very. You know, and ESPN knows this, they know they are the go-to source of airport entertainment and locker room entertainment around the world. They keep it tight. Yep, not like a huge ESPN fan or something, but there's this guy and he always changes it to CNN and then he leaves. Yep.
Speaker 5:And it's like the most offensive thing to me.
Speaker 1:I'm just like letting a match yeah.
Speaker 5:Like you're turning. You're turning CNN on, which, like any cable cable news, should be banned in any public place Like that is my, especially like oil change places. I'm so tired. Oh turn that shit off. And so he does this all the time and I've. Every time he does it I complain to audrey. I'm like this fucking guy just turning it on cnn. He's, yeah, dropping a matching gasoline and then leaving.
Speaker 5:I'm out and he just leaves, turns the volume up, and so I always go over and like turn the tv off yeah I, I can't take it especially like that is my time to kind of decompress from the day like sit in the sauna for you know, know, 20, 30 minutes. Think, I don't have a phone, you can't take a phone in there. Yep, sometimes I'll read, but sometimes I just sit there and just, you know, think, and it's really nice and it's quiet, and then in the locker room, like ESPN is white noise. It might as well just drill into my brain. But yesterday I was talking to Audrey about this idea and this relates. I promise, it seems left field.
Speaker 5:Hang in there everyone. Yeah, reframing the situation, but I was talking to Audrey about it. I was just like what, if this guy is just doing this as a joke, do you know how fucking funny that would be to just go in, turn it on CNN and leave? That's's hilarious. To me, that's the funniest thing you could do and like. So then I'm like thinking about like what channel would be even more like?
Speaker 5:even funnier than cnn. Um, but no, and I was just observing that phenomenon in the car last night. I'm like now, like I choose to kind of look at that now is like every time he does it, he's doing it on purpose yeah, and it's just hilarious to me.
Speaker 5:So now every time, I mean obviously this just had this like thought a couple of days ago, but, um, now every time I'm in there and it gets flipped on scene and I'm just gonna laugh and like go on with my evening, and it's such a more positive way to deal with that situation than to be like this fucking guy just cnn and it's nothing's changed, right?
Speaker 1:nothing about the core interpretation of his intention has changed, yeah exactly, and you went from a dark intention to something or just like, even not even like dark.
Speaker 2:It's a dark intention, but just like even not even like dark, not even like it's a dark intention, but just like, yeah, just something that causes me to feel frustrated into something that causes me to feel you know, delight, delight, yeah, yeah, like actually borderline delight and you know, I think the same goes for reframing.
Speaker 5:Yeah, you can have this very toxic mentality of dealing with a situation very toxic mentality of dealing with a situation.
Speaker 1:So in our first days of acting school, our um chairman of the acting department, henson, got us you know, we're all in the room, freshmen like brand new class of 15 actors ready to engage in theater, and I think the other theater students were there, like theater studies and the technical stuff in theater and the faculty's all there, and he leads up to this phrase that he, that he used and I still use it to this day you know, we are going to be coaching you, we're going to be directing you, we're going to be telling you maybe something you're doing wrong.
Speaker 1:That's like you're breaking a rule, like you can't do this cause it's safety, or this or that, or you're. You know you're not embracing the technique like we intend you to blah, blah, blah. Sometimes our tactics or the way that you think we're telling you this may come off as harsh, abrasive. You know, whatever, we are here to help you be as excellent as you can be, we are all invested in your excellence. So he uttered the phrase. So everything that we say, everything that we do, assume benevolence, don't assume malevolence 100%. And I have carried that phrase with me my whole life when I'm in a situation where my first read of it is this fucking guy, this, yes son of a bitch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I go assume benevolence yep, yep well, and they are not there. They are not choosing malevolence, yeah, and while some people might, you know there's, you know this is a whole separate thing, but you know there, there often is. You know there's a positive intention, even if the outcome or the tactics they use feel negative harsh, hurtful, whatever, and there I think there's extremes.
Speaker 5:That too I've been reading about and listening to uh, um, so the um, the plot thickens, which is TCM's podcast, and they do annual seasons, and right now they're doing John Ford, oh nice. And so I've been reading a little bit about John Ford. On the back end of things, too. I'm a big John Ford fan. Yeah.
Speaker 5:And the podcast has been really good. And then they mentioned Kubrick, who I'm also we've talked about on the podcast before. But these directors who would use, like a bit of a psychological manipulation, and I mean there was an instance that they talked about on the most recent episode Hitchcock, oh, 100% Hitchcock.
Speaker 5:Like Hitchcock replacing the birds and the birds with real birds, right? Or like John Ford they talked about like okay, there's a dialogue between, like an actress and a black, a black actor, and you know, he's over here telling the, the black guy who's doing the scene, like hey, she's kind of racist.
Speaker 5:Oh yeah, and I'm sorry, yeah, but I can't do anything about it. Yeah, and you know the act, the actress who's performing the scene with him like not at all, right, not at all, but that, yep, you know what does that do? And it's funny because the actress was like he didn't trust me.
Speaker 5:yeah, to deliver, um, what needed to be delivered yep you know, again you're framing the situation and that, in that intent, is usually felt absolutely when you're, and this actually segues great into what we're going into, but we promise we're going to get to the youtube. Hang in there but you know he's trying either. He's trying to have and kubrick did this all the time where?
Speaker 5:he'd be like hey, I'm sorry, like I know she made that comment that you're a piece of shit. But just making these drama situations up to where you're reading a scene with somebody and that's shining through and the camera feels it. When they say the camera feels everything, I don't think that's a hyperbolic statement, I think it's just it picks up on what's happening pretty well, typically, or the camera doesn't lie. So you know the a lot of these directors would and you.
Speaker 5:I you know some people think that's going too far, some people think that's just part of the craft. I think you can go too far, but I do think. But it kind of, you know, assume benevolence is a is a version of that Right, where it's like they're just trying to get the best out of you. And I think if you do that with strangers you're typically that's the best, going to lead to the best psychological mindset. But it's also interesting that we kind of have a nose for you know the fact that they are manipulating. Be like, hey, this person doesn't like you but you're gonna have to do the scene. Yeah, so there's, you're doing the scene. You're like in the back of your mind. You're like this stupid son of a bitch doesn't like me. He's lying right to my face right now like I bet they can't wait to get out of this scene, and then then that gets into perfectly. You know we've been obsessed with these old YouTube videos of people, just completely.
Speaker 5:How would you? How would you describe it? Unaware Like, but that sounds negative. I don't want to frame it negatively, but just well, you know the, yeah, the, the I.
Speaker 1:I think this this comes with um intention and uh, and definitely artifice and sort of like crafting something for some impure outcome. And by impure I mean like, oh, if I follow the YouTube playbook and like, put all this shit on my video and like, do what they all did, I'm going to get what they have where they're a subscriber, count revenue, whatever. Like you lose the magical thing that had you even think about making a YouTube video in the first place. So there's some people that go let's make a really good YouTube video. But then they do their research right, like, okay, well, how do you do this? Cause they care about when they put their thing out there. That it's, it appears to be well made or well crafted or whatever. So they might go well, this YouTuber does slow-mo and and this one does this and this one does this, and they start collecting all these tools for how to make a video. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then they start seeing well, I just watched these videos on how to have your channel blow up, how to hit 1,000 subscribers as quickly as possible. They start bringing in all this bullshit. Yeah. And then that magical thing that was an impulse, a desire, an inspiration to make something gets completely overshadowed by something that's fake in my opinion.
Speaker 5:So do you think the camera doesn't lie? Just to kind of piggyback off of that point because you're still recording yourself doing something? Do you think you've become such a good actor that you can lie to the, you know, to the camera? Is it that the marketplace doesn't care if you're lying? Maybe they're in on it, yeah, or is it that? Yeah, what, like, do you think it's?
Speaker 5:I mean, I think I think, at the end of the day, some of the best because I think I think a hundred percent agree and you see things where you're just like this is a completely authentic right, this is, and you feel it right. And you see other things and you're just like this is kind of bullshit. Yeah, but why is it that the kind of bullshit is the stuff that gets massive commercial appeal? If it is such bullshit, which is interesting, I think?
Speaker 1:that's because there have been hundreds of generations of storytellers and human interaction and the dissection of human psychology and how we react to propaganda and what public relations does to us and what headlines in the National Enquirer do. Well, what words in the English language trigger an immediate emotional response when you read them? What imagery, what type of imagery, what thumbnail, whatever. You can figure out what it is that makes a human being instinctively react to whatever they're reading, seeing and then watching crowdsource manipulation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there are. There's just truths of of what we are susceptible to and the savviest of us from the high end public relations firms that are working with all the biggest companies in the world, government agencies, institutions, whatever, and this isn't I'm not trying to get into like um yeah, I mean just yeah just like mass, mass manipulation of people.
Speaker 1:You know, I think that does happen we advertise the advertising industry, like we know what works and sometimes people come up with something that's that's playing with the foundation that's been laid, but they change one thing, or they change a couple things and it feels like it's something entirely new. Maybe the famous Apple 1984 ad from 1984, or some of the Nike commercials, or some print ads some print ads. You know we watch Mad Men and you know what it was like to watch some of those scenes where he pitches his idea for avocados or for Kodak camera or whatever it's effective, right. So I think sometimes YouTubers can kind of figure that out. They read the books, they watch the videos. I mean, I read a book, david Ogilvie book, um, you know, sort of one of the inspirations for mad men, and don draper, and he basically distills down everything he learned in his career advertising yeah, about what headlines are good and how much copy.
Speaker 1:You should have negative space on the page, like all this stuff. If you're savvy you can take that stuff and use it for not nefarious purposes but for more commercial outcomes. You know the movie studios do this, like what ingredients have to be in the movie.
Speaker 5:Well, you're optimizing for the thing that you think is the best or you're optimizing for the things you care about assume benevolence yeah.
Speaker 1:You, you know yeah, right, optimizing for the things that benefit yeah. And they want. You know we want money, we want box office results. You know all that stuff. And you know the the the box office this year has been pretty tumultuous. You've got um, you know, fall guy not doing very well. Then you have inside out to. You know the first film basically bombed. They're pushing the release date for the second film beyond.
Speaker 5:August to see what it can do to pick up some steam on V VOD, all this stuff.
Speaker 1:I want to see that.
Speaker 5:The biggest thing for me is I. Just then I saw it was like three hours. That's going to be tough and that was the biggest thing, too, and that was that, that.
Speaker 1:that, that's another thing. How long is your video on YouTube? And what is that sweet spot that makes people go? Oh yeah, eight, eight, I think. About eight and a half minutes is sort of like if it's a good thumbnail and a nice title and then you deliver on the promise. An eight and a half minute video is about the sweet spot.
Speaker 5:Statistically, you will do better than that.
Speaker 1:But I have videos that are 22, 23 minutes long and have shitty thumbnails and I'm just sitting there talking to the camera and while they don't you know go viral so if, if we're, if we're using that, I guess, then idea that people, so people do have noses for this.
Speaker 5:Yeah, typically like this is kind of bullshit, this is bullshit this is not bullshit. Yes, which I do think, and I think now it's better than ever, because just sheer exposure therapy.
Speaker 5:Yeah, um, most people can kind of tell when they're being put on Right. Um, being naive about a subject is seen as like a great um disadvantage in any social situation. I feel like, yep, so people have this just culturally right now, at this current point in time, people have this like fear of missing out and they need to have all this. So, through all of that, I do think people have pretty good noses for um, when something isn't authentic. Um, I want to try to be precise with the language, but do you?
Speaker 1:also feel, cause I do but do you also feel that there's such a glut of inauthentic content that the demand for is higher than it's ever been, is, or is just just currently, exceptionally high?
Speaker 5:Yeah, no for sure, I think it's probably higher than it's ever been. Yeah, I mean exceptionally high, sure, but higher than it's ever been. As a statement that sounds outrageous, but if you think about it, we're only dealing with a 15 year period here, right, like I mean, if we're being completely honest. I mean, even YouTube has been around for what? 2005?
Speaker 1:so barely not even close to sort of not what YouTube is now, but sort of like what YouTube is, which is people making videos and putting them on the internet.
Speaker 5:But we're literally just about to hit 20 years of like that, and so we're. We're not talking like. When I say it's like the highest it's ever been, that's not trying to be again, not trying to be hyperbolic, but it is just saying like in the 20 year period we started out, we then we started optimizing. Just saying like, in the 20 year period we started out, we then we started optimizing and again, like you said, the cut, like youtube thumbnail or you or you know, youtube title is literally just copyright from a magazine. That's right.
Speaker 5:So maybe you are going back to, you know, late 19th century yeah and printed yep like copy headlines like that yeah and you'd propagate in world war. One move that forward, so, but I mean still you're dealing with 120 years yep and um at least in our current understanding.
Speaker 5:So I do think that you know, people are more savvy about it than they've ever been in the entire entire period, and a lot of that is due to the absolute influx that we've seen in the last 15 years, and yeah, so I think there's a big hunger for it. But what's going to happen? Because this is what always happens you're starting to see markets get served. It's a market. When a new market comes up, there's always somebody waiting to exploit that market, right?
Speaker 5:So what happens when the market is authenticity. You're going to see a bunch of it's. It's a paradox. You're going to see people try to serve the authenticity market. That's right. And by way of serving that market, you're going to see a lot of that authenticity go away, right? So how does that? What does that look?
Speaker 1:like, because when you're trying to be authentic, it's the question that I'm trying to. Yeah, is what I'm trying to fight with. Authenticity gets the money subscribers, the, the, the, the community the strength of community that we all as brands or or YouTubers, or whoever you know, whatever it is that's, that's trying to exploit that market, and I definitely I think there will be people that will get big, like large followings with original thinking and actual authenticity.
Speaker 5:And there always are like there are plenty of people right now with massive followings who I have tremendous and this is YouTube and non YouTube massive followings and they're very authentic and true to themselves and they could have more massive followings if they started doing the playbook and following the formula. You could you could even argue that there's audiences right now, or people who have audiences right now that are way bigger than you know historical yeah markers would suggest that aren't are bucking the playbook or just like uh, not for me, right, and that's why. Yeah.
Speaker 5:But that's more the exception than the rule Right, and it's always been and there's always going to be people like that. Yeah, that's how trends change and new ideas are presented. And then all those ideas, when they are presented to the marketplace, some of them do better than others, and then whoever it is is trying to just literally exploit the marketplace, is going to go and try to exploit those ideas. But it's just interesting because, yeah, we are reaching a point where authenticity is becoming the measure. So what happens? What does that look like?
Speaker 1:It's becoming a major ingredient in the recipe, right, and there are people that know that and they're trying to create authentic authenticity, like I'm gonna make authenticity, well, yeah, you don't really make authenticity. That's the exact opposite of what you send me that mtv documentary where it's the cool chasers or whatever the merchants of cool. Merchants of cool.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I'll link that in the show notes yeah, it's just like you know they're trying to be like well, if you do this, it's cooler, like hey sprite, sales are shit.
Speaker 1:So we want to get a team of marketing professionals to do like six months of research to figure out what the angle with sprite is, and yeah I won't spoil the outcome, but it's just fascinating how all that works and it makes you a little. This is back in the what was this the?
Speaker 5:90s, 90s, early 2000s.
Speaker 1:MTV era like late MTV era. This is the stuff that makes you go, oh, like all that was going on behind the scenes, to like get me to like Sprite, how they put Sprite in the hip hop community, because that was really surging, and try to use those emerging markets or growing cultural movements to throw product in there, to ride the coattails of it, and so what you're saying is essentially that so authentic YouTube, the channels that are like, really authentic.
Speaker 5:Grunge. Look at grunge. We've seen small scale examples of what this looks like when you corporatize authenticity. Or I have that book, the Conquest of Cool, about the flower power movement and the hippie movement being kind of co-opted by advertising and it lost its effectiveness. I mean, we just we've just gone through a period where we've seen a lot of like, a lot of um, you know, social causes get hijacked by corporations trying to turn it into more money and it what did it do?
Speaker 5:it eventually kills the concept yeah like it eventually kills the purpose of the movement, like any kind of altruistic intent or you know possible, you know quality outcome gets hijacked for commercial gain. When something becomes commercial, I don't necessarily agree with it. There's a lot of good people, good, authentic people who are? Probably going to make a lot of money as this movement kind of crashes and starts to dissipate out into the culture.
Speaker 1:But again it goes back to what we've talked about before, the hierarchy of intentions. When you have somebody making something because they care about the thing they're making, it's.
Speaker 1:Artifact Bag Company. It's Patagonia. It's some of these channels that we're going to talk about, when their first intention is to do that earnest, simple, authentic thing communicate something, give you their point of view, tell you what they, this unique perspective they have in a video essay about the Shining or William Eggleston or whatever it is. You watch that stuff and you go like I'm being told the truth right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this person is making money and they know they can make money if they keep doing that, but they are never betraying their desire to communicate this thing or make this thing, that's always the first priority.
Speaker 5:If there's anything that's different about this moment in time as opposed to the last 150 years, where you did have this parasitic thing that attached itself to these movements and then embodied these like vectors of the movement and like I mean, yeah, you had advertising and corporations that were literally just parasitic, yeah, and then they'd come in and basically say you need us in order to do what you need to do. If there is anything that's different about this is you can have a laptop and manage everything you need.
Speaker 5:Right is you can have a laptop and manage everything you need, right, you can. You know it's easier to kind of take it all in-house, for lack of a better word, and that's the one thing that I think could protect against that a little bit. So maybe you see, some of these parasitic, you know, companies or tendencies die out if another wave of authenticity comes through, because, yeah, you have plenty of people out there that are just creating things because they're just telling their truth to the world. That's right. And um, like they make bags, cause they want to make the best bags, yep.
Speaker 1:They make airplanes because they want to make the best airplanes, yep.
Speaker 5:They make airplanes because they want to make the best airplanes. Who's that? What company is that?
Speaker 1:Boeing started out like carrying there's a couple documentaries out, but there was one in particular and I'll try to link it in the show notes. I don't remember the title.
Speaker 5:Sounds like propaganda.
Speaker 1:But they just went so deep into, but it wasn't even like from Boeing's point of view and you know, I don't know for sure where it came from, but they just talk so much about the Boeing. You know the sort of post post world war two Boeing and what they were about and their quality standards and how.
Speaker 5:If I was doing marketing for Boeing, I would say we need to make some documentaries on how much they cared, and then we need to hire a new CEO that goes we've strayed from that and we will do everything to get back to that. Give them metric and then there you go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you know, that to me has been the example of a company that was doing something. Their main priority was to build the safest airplanes in the world to have the long view on their corporate outlook planes in the world to have the long view on their corporate outlook. If we put every resource we have in quality control, safety, scrutiny of the materials, working with our manufacturing partners or keeping it all in house, whatever their principles were, we're going to build the best aircraft in the world and everybody is going to make us our top choice because they trust us. We're the sure thing where we're the no brainer. And then they got bought out and that company, you know, wanted to capitalize on that brand and increase profits and all that stuff, and I'm oversimplifying it.
Speaker 1:But the hierarchy of intention shifted. It shifted from let's make the best airplanes in the world, and because we make the best airplanes in the world, we're going to be very profitable. Maybe not as profitable as we could be, but we're going to be very profitable. Um to hey, let's make, you know, oh, let's make some good airplanes, let's make a crap ton of money.
Speaker 5:Yeah, let's make as much money as we can, and that's what we're talking about with these channels?
Speaker 1:right, we are starved for a connection.
Speaker 5:Well, and also like just that's what youtube, that's where it shines. Yes, when you can watch a guy's video who lives in alaska or you know on the other side of the united states or in south america or in Australia, or you know in Russia, or you can watch somebody's video from the other side of the world and know that person yeah on like an intimate level, yes, like know what they're thinking about, what they're concerned about, know them on a human level, like me and you sitting down every week here and talking.
Speaker 5:I, I mean, you had this experience. You talked to my buddy today and, um, he was like I feel like I know you. You've never met him before until you just talked yeah, that's right, like that's what. That's where this is special, it's where these things and podcasts and YouTube videos and channels. That's where it shines and that's what the promise of the whole internet thing was in the first place was, you know, free access to information and community. Yeah, and it got co-opted a little bit there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, ability to make money or to build an empire. You know those things can. Those things can yield great results and people can have very fulfilling lives by deploying their talent, their creativity, their knowledge and expertise on kind of cracking the code or figuring out the formula or or whatever it is at the end of the day. And I think that there are a lot of people making content on YouTube that come from a place of, you know, of business and capitalism and entrepreneurial instincts and all that stuff, and they have good intentions, they are benevolent people, they want to, um, they want to build an audience, they want to build an empire, whatever it is that they want to do. Um, and you know, certainly sometimes some of those tactics can be questionable.
Speaker 1:How much are you manipulating people psychologically? What things are you deploying in order to get sort of maybe a vain or egocentric or materialistic result? And you really have to watch out for that. You know, you really have to watch out for that. Me, I have rejected a lot of that content, and the more polished and sort of formulaic and playbooky it is, the obviously the less I want to watch it and I find myself gravitating towards these channels that typically have not very many subscribers. It's somebody sitting in front of the camera talking about something that I'm interested in or something that I'm becoming interested in, and we are just hanging out. I feel like I'm hanging out with that person.
Speaker 5:There's so many good sub communities. We were talking about this before. There are so many good sub communities.
Speaker 1:I mean I wish.
Speaker 5:I listed off like 15 of them of that I that I unplugged into.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're plugged into 15 others, 30 others Right and some of mine overlap with yours, like typewriters, photography, of course, things like that, and I'll sit there and watch a 22-minute video I just did about a photography YouTuber talking about an Epson scanner that scans printed photos like one every second and it was like 20 minutes. I'm like, oh, you know, down the road, I might you know something like that would be good to whatever, and you know the price and all that.
Speaker 1:But I just like you, you've got a good vibe, you've got a good energy and I can just feel and this is again like the word of the decade I can feel your authenticity. You're just here because you had an honest, simple moment of inspiration to talk about this printer.
Speaker 5:So you made a video about it. You're not trying to sell me anything. You're not trying to get me to buy into your way of seeing things.
Speaker 1:Right Indoctrinating me.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's just sitting down and having a conversation with a buddy in the park.
Speaker 1:Telling your friends what cool thing you figured out. Yeah, yeah, and the channels that you showed me during pre-show. Is that a tattoo? It's a stamp? Okay, I was gonna say, oh, that's legit, audrey and I both did yeah, like a little ghost.
Speaker 5:That's really cool. But she was like just get a tattoo. And I was like I'm not doing a tattoo until I see it for a little bit yeah, um so, uh. So when you that's a subculture I haven't jumped into yet. Temporary tattoos, tattoo subculture tattoo subculture.
Speaker 1:But yeah, when you find those channels and you're like, ah, now, some of those channels can have a lot of craft to them. They can have flashy editing, really good lighting, and I don't mean flashy editing in some inauthentic way, but maybe that's their comedic style, or that's their comedic style and that's their voice as someone who and how they I really there are some channels on there- and the same goes for film photography.
Speaker 5:The ones that I followed the most are the ones that are more vloggy, late 2000s style yeah where it's just somebody sitting and like some of them are in black and white.
Speaker 5:Some of them have, like classical music intros or just whatever, like old camcorder. Yeah, and it's just like you, but you can tell like it's produced. Yeah, well, right, like they spent a few minutes in the editing software. Some of these guys are just record. Yeah, you see the thumb coming down at the start and you see the thing at the end where the you know the hand is.
Speaker 5:Yeah, camera falls down in the middle and they pick it back up and, yeah, like some of these things are raw, right, but all of them have their own little charm to it. Yeah, but the, the, the thread is, and I, of course, I'm I'm looking at the form, you're looking at the form. You're looking at the form. We're kind of dissecting, like, like you put this into words and it resonated, but you said you're looking at why this works. Yeah, and like you were able to, you're seeing why this works, but the, the, the biggest thing, like, yes, there are things of their reasons, but the biggest one, and this is the thing that people, you know, people are like oh, it's just simple, you just click record and do it and then it'll be good. But no, these people have an original perspective.
Speaker 5:They're not just repeating nonsense Like you see this all the time where you see somebody a video blow up of somebody talking Four million views Four million and it blows up the number. One thing I learned Then you see a bunch of people trying to replicate that. And they're doing this just. They're chat, gpting, or they're looking for repeat something that somebody else has already said. They have no original thoughts. They have no original anything. It's just complete regurgitation of shit. They try to copy the form of the video and it's like no, the like, the form is great and you can dissect that.
Speaker 5:But the reason that these things are working at their core, because it's authentic, it's original enough to where you're. You're listening to it and you're like I haven't thought about that before, that's interesting. Yeah, that You're listening to it and you're like I haven't thought about that before.
Speaker 5:That's interesting. That's exciting. We love that as humans, when you get to talk to another human or read from another human and be like that's interesting. I have a great Harold Bloom bookmark. I have no idea what book it's in Might be one sitting over there, but I'm going to butcher it but essentially it's like I enjoy reading because I like finding, you know, thoughts that are way more original than my own. Absolutely that's the joy of read. It's like that's.
Speaker 1:I think it goes beyond reading, like that's what we're looking for when we're watching films when we're looking at people do vlogs on YouTube or reading I haven't thought of it that way.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's just. Yeah, yeah, you're looking for that Exactly. I haven't seen that. I've never looked at it that way. I've never thought we love that. Yep, that is like the best feeling in the world to just. It's like something unlocks. You get another branch on the tree, that suddenly the door in the video game that was locked off.
Speaker 1:I haven't explored this one yet and I just had that the channel member video I made this morning sitting in front of a Canon HD camcorder at my desk, just speaking for about 15 minutes about a couple of things to update channel members on what's going on with my channel. But I brought out the Technopoly book and read a couple passages and I said you know these passages, even if it wasn't this profound reorganization of my mind. These passages really kind of articulated something that you kind of always knew, but you just didn't quite have the words for it.
Speaker 1:So sharing that with my audience to say, if you're someone that is in a similar place, where you're feeling these things or wondering about these things, this may be a good book for you to read. And it's just, you know, um, you know, take a look at this.
Speaker 5:There's no pretense, it's just. This is what I'm interested in right now. Maybe you're interested in it too.
Speaker 1:Now I will say there are a lot of videos out there that are very authentic. They are very hard to watch.
Speaker 5:Yeah, A hundred percent so the videos that you showed me, yeah.
Speaker 1:Can we dispatch our critical eye and go? These people have a baseline of talent and skill that they're bringing to YouTube because they've sat around campfires and told stories. They've sat at the dinner table and communicated.
Speaker 5:I like that you're clarifying this point, because this is exactly where I wanted to go with it. I think and I kind of prefaced this before they have original thoughts. Yes, they have thought. The prerequisite is they have sat in, contended with ideas, and they constantly do it. All of them are the same in that regard. Like when I say it's authentic content, it's that's they're looking at the world in a unique way and they're sharing that. Yeah, Like you can make something that is authentic to you.
Speaker 5:But if you I loved you titled the one of the podcasts a couple of weeks ago. You said if you're bored, or if you're bored, you're boring. That's right.
Speaker 1:Which is a lyric from a song. What is it yeah?
Speaker 5:Okay.
Speaker 1:If you're bored, then you're boring.
Speaker 5:I don't know. I don't know if I know the song.
Speaker 1:I think it's called Flagpole. Sitta is the name of the song S-I-T-T-A. I always forget the musician.
Speaker 5:But I'll put it in the show notes Great though, If you're bored, then you're bored. I think it's like. Yeah.
Speaker 5:A lot of people just don't have, and part of that is because I do think it is the easiest way to do things or to approach the world, especially now. This is why consumerism is so popular. It's to just kind of jump in line with a very narrow sphere of information and to just swim in that stream. It's easy. It's constantly evolving. Generally, you're going to find a portion of the bell curve that is interested in willing to talk about these topics. You, you still get you scratch that itch to communicate with another human like and. But it is. It's boring and there's typically so many people talking about it. It's national inquiries You're talking about what's in the national inquire. It's got a big audience. You can absolutely. But it's national inquirers you're talking about what's in the national inquire. It's got a big audience. You can absolutely. But it's not that interesting. Everybody's. Everybody's contended with it already and yeah, I think you know, comparing like youtube pipe community members to like stanley kubrick, it's a bit of a stretch, but I'm gonna do it, he's gonna do it, bring buddy.
Speaker 1:No, I love listening.
Speaker 5:Um, I listened to a. This was a couple of years ago. Louis CK did like a podcast on Stanley Kubrick and he was talking about why Stanley Kubrick was so interesting, and I um. Louis has a very original voice too, and it's comedy.
Speaker 5:I think there's a reason why he's so well regarded in the comedy world, but he's talking about why Stanley and he's like this guy's literally an alien. You watch any one of his films and it's like seeing the world that you live in and contend with on a daily basis through an alien's eyes and it's so unique to his and that's kind of what you gotta have some original thoughts it's not just you can't just be like I'm gonna sit down and make authentic content, right, you've gotta actually just contend with things a little bit.
Speaker 5:yeah, and I think the best of that community they're, you know, contending with and it might you're not. You don't have to contend with the world's issues. You don't have to make make 2001 A Space Odyssey, to make an interesting YouTube pipe community video or a running community video or film photography or typewriting video.
Speaker 1:But you're listening to them and you're hearing something that is it deviates from the norm a little bit and that's yeah, you're hearing a stance, You're hearing a unique perspective, you're hearing someone that experienced something and has good, constructive criticism exactly or like, has or has stance is great because it's like a lot of times you're hearing a stance and then they discuss why they take that yeah, and a lot of times, if on just about anything, you might not agree with it but, if somebody sits down and they say this is what I think, and here's the logic to how I got here A thesis, if they've put the time together to, yeah, come up with a defense for the thesis A lot of the time, and this isn't the case for everything.
Speaker 5:Yeah. But a lot of the time you're going to be like oh, I can see exactly how you got there. Yeah, you still might not agree with it, but Right.
Speaker 1:Majority of the time it's like oh, I see how you got there. And I think that that, like our episodes where we come in hot with something, where we have a stance and moving that we might have a thesis and maybe we have a perfectly crafted defense of it, but we're volleying back and forth with a challenge to that thesis or, um, agreeing on it, and unpacking different defenses between us of a that kind of thesis, versus episodes where I remember you, you know, kind of talking about technopoly before I finished reading it and I'm like I don't feel equipped right now to really have a stance on this I'm still figuring it out, and so that episode, while it might be interesting for some core viewers, isn't going to be as interesting to a wider audience, because I'm, I'm or we, on a different subject, are working through something like we don't know yet.
Speaker 1:Uh, and, there is something interesting about that process, but there's something certainly much more dramatic about thesis defense and then and then um argument, you know, a debate really even if it's not heated and uh, which you know, we certainly don't do.
Speaker 5:I think like, yeah, I think debate is so over indexed in this, in our current rendition of culture. Yeah, like, I think people just want to sit down and listen and not have an opinion on things a lot of times, and I think that's what's like I know, that's what's great to me. But a lot of the YouTube pipe community stuff is I can just sit down and listen, yeah, or, you know, especially with film photography channels and things like that, and some of them are like actually like sensory, like ASMR. Yes, they're very satisfying. That's some of your pipe guys. How did their voices, their accent?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Like I was mesmerized by just the one gentleman's deep Southern yeah, like it was just a beautiful song to listen to Absolutely, and then, if it's poetic, yeah absolutely, and so those are some of the things I'm talking about too.
Speaker 1:When it comes to just an authentic impulse, isn't always enough. Yeah, because if you have bad audio, if your framing is uncomfortable, yeah, um, if, uh, there are other things that are beyond your control, it could be the sound of your voice, it could be other things that that I do think give friction to like experiencing your video.
Speaker 5:I agree with that less now than I would have a couple of years ago, because I I do think the content is the most important thing 100%. You can be Stephen Hawking. Yes. And if you're talking about some shit that people care about, people are going to pay attention. Rfk, for example, 100%, yeah, perfect example.
Speaker 1:Ben Shapiro on the other side of things. I don't want to start getting into criticizing people's voices yeah. Perfect example Ben Shapiro. On the other side of things yeah.
Speaker 5:His. You know, I don't want to start getting.
Speaker 2:I don't want to start. I don't want to start getting into criticizing people's voices. I don't want to. I don't want to be like, no, but it is but his, his voice is less pleasing to my ear than uh.
Speaker 1:Sam Elliott, you know, you showed me like there are some aesthetic qualities to things, whether it's visually or orally, that are a warm blanket that wraps you up, in addition to the authenticity in addition to the ability to communicate, and it's also. It's also a differentiator.
Speaker 5:Yeah, like, true, like you could play a clip of. I mean rfk is a great example. You could play a clip of rfk and people anybody who's heard him?
Speaker 1:is going to be like I knew that struggle yeah, and some people are like.
Speaker 5:Some people might be like, oh, that's a turnoff, but it's like having the same. We use the same intro in every one of our videos, right? I'm sure there's some people, yes, who have been listed. There's probably a couple of people who've been listening for a year, who they have heard that 52 weeks in a row. Yeah, and it's like there's a comforting psychological effect.
Speaker 5:Maybe you were on vacation one time and you watch three of our videos and that is embedded into the experience of your vacation that's right and so it is a differentiator, and so, yeah, it gets like the content is the most important thing, and then, yeah, having you know which I believe, that's firmly what I believe, now more than ever. I mean, yeah, that's a great example of you know, I found his voice off-putting and then, over time, it becomes less, way less. You're listening to what he has to say.
Speaker 1:Desensitize, is not a good word, but you're sort of the rough edges are rounded off. It's like a non-factor at some point. Yeah, Especially because what he says is so engaging.
Speaker 5:That's what I would. That's what I would detach from a little bit in terms of yeah, I mean, I think some of these guys have had crap video. Yeah, like, especially in like the youtube hype community or the. I mean, the best is like when you do photography stuff and it's like crap video. It's like, well, you're making it, but then you hear some of the stuff they're saying and it's like, yep, like the video might look like crap, but this person is like a master at photography, right like it is, and just abundantly clear listening to what they have to say and they may just be also a good communicator.
Speaker 1:They don't have to be some like great storyteller and and all that, Even if they're not telling a story necessarily, but just communicating something. But I, you know, I found where I'm like, ah, this guy's really authentic. I love this old camcorder that he's using. Like they're starting to check all the boxes and I'm five, 10 minutes into the video and I'm like we're going all over the place here. We're taking long pauses, your audio is a little rough or like you're kind of meandering. You're not really staying on track. Like I'm just like your communication skills are making this difficult to stay focused on.
Speaker 5:I wonder if people feel that way about this podcast right now.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 1:I know that we have episodes that are like that you know the hope is with us, and part of why we did this is the cameras. Don't really that camera's out. By the way, the cameras don't really affect us, you know. It doesn't like the judge telling me shoot back behind me. They don't box us in, you know like we're not locked down, um, so you know, the hope for our podcast is I feel like I'm hanging out with two guys that are having a legit conversation at a coffee shop. Yeah, like these guys are just having a legit conversation and conversations can be a little messy, they can be a little in and out, they can have a really great segue, but then the guy takes us back five minutes and then we go off to the YMCA and it's like but then some people and I think this is where, like the right viewers, the people that we're really going- to have a good connection with go.
Speaker 1:That's the magic of it.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's clear, and it's clearly not for everybody. Like the pipe community is perfect, perfect example of this. Like it's rare that any of those guys have more than 10 K or whatever. Yeah, um, that's not why they do it. No, you know, and the audience that is there cares. They are loyal. Yeah, these are friends. These are family members. That's right, I mean there is. I showed you one of the guys before we started and it's like he passed away. Yeah.
Speaker 5:And I mean thousands of people came out like dedicate. I think there's like tobacco blends dedicated to the guy, like there's literally a pipe that was released from like a major pipe manufacturer to honor him. I mean. So it's like you know, you look at it and you're like he had 16, 15 000 subs at the time, probably 9 000 whatever, but that night he had 9 000 people that cared deeply but that and that.
Speaker 1:That's that trueness, the purity, yeah, um, you know, those things are really special and yeah, and that connection to my photography incident is, I got disconnected from that and I couldn't get it back.
Speaker 5:That's gotta be the North star right At all times.
Speaker 1:You have to listen, you have to rely on your craft, your intention, the objective, the objective, uh, and when you are off, what you make is not going to be right, it's not going to be, it's not going to be centered, it's not going to be um, it's not going to be authentic just before we close. But that doesn't mean like with the like with what I did, like my photography, that it was like a lie or it was bullshit, it just was. Yeah, it just wasn't in the flow.
Speaker 5:Yeah, that's all Well, and I think you raise an interesting point that you can have the intention and still miss the mark. Yeah, which is interesting.
Speaker 1:And that's where craft comes in. In my instance, Like I had the intention going in, I'm like I'm going to make photography here.
Speaker 5:Is there a craft to authenticity? Is it a practiced skill?
Speaker 1:I don't know if there's a craft to authenticity, but I think there's a craft to like laying the foundation for it to happen.
Speaker 5:Is it simplicity on the other side of mastery Like authenticity on?
Speaker 1:the other side of.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I wonder if we, if our tendency is towards, because, yeah, I mean, if you, if you think about especially on the pipe thing, like a lot of these guys, you're like man, that guy's super I have. There's plenty of people in there in that community who are inauthentic. It just doesn't attract a lot of that because the audience cap is like 10k, you're huge, right so there's just like if you're making videos and you can't monetize because it's tobacco content, right, yep. So if you're making videos for any purpose, other than communicating.
Speaker 5:It's disincentive. So it's really a great governor on.
Speaker 1:It is on just because that's the corrupting force typically is wait, I can make money at this yep yep well now I'm good. Well, I wouldn't make a video about this. It's a hyper effective.
Speaker 5:You know social experiment, I didn't even think about?
Speaker 1:isn't that they can't?
Speaker 5:monetize it. So it's it really kind of walls itself off, yeah, and the people that are going. There's a reason that they've been doing it for 15 years yeah, because they all really just genuinely care about the people in the community?
Speaker 5:yeah, um, but what I was getting at is I've seen younger people make videos for that community and it is kind of you're like this is not right. But a lot of it's like older, older guys. And I'm not saying that the younger people are doing it like they have some like a whole exploitative, you know impulse or anything.
Speaker 5:I think it's just going into authenticity as a learned skill. A lot of these guys are older guys, like fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, even Um, and you know they, they, a lot of them, just don't care. Yeah, they're having a great time. They're like wow, there's a way that I can talk to people about something that I really am passionate about.
Speaker 1:Or I'm trying to find this information out there and it's not out there. Like I have a perspective and there's things I'm looking for this stuff with the pipe, or that stuff with the cleaning products, or that stuff with the tobacco. And every time I go to look for it, to find that person who's going to communicate those things that are important to me. They're not there, so I better do it.
Speaker 1:Better do it myself that was my impulse behind my photography channel. I'm like I just want a channel that isn't any talking. It's ambient, synthy, weird music that just kind of feels good, it's soundscapes and it's a combination of photo and video for 15 minutes.
Speaker 5:So so I can just like vibe out to it People people aren't going to like this, but like is the prerequisite to authenticity. Just time Cause it's kind of like you either have it or you don't know the time. Hopefully you like, time draws it out of you. Maybe I'm literally thinking through this right now in terms of like authenticity as a result of I mean it's. I'm literally thinking through this right now in terms of like authenticity as a result of I mean it's life experience. Right, it's like. I heard this.
Speaker 5:I heard this quote the other day from one of the sages on the YouTube community and he was just like he's like. You gain wisdom through experience, but a lot of times, the experiences that give you the most wisdom are experiences that you wouldn't choose to go through. Yeah. Like, so it's like the people the people are like losing a loved one or something like that, like real serious pain, trauma, yeah, trauma.
Speaker 5:Yeah, exactly, and it's like so the people who you know have the most wisdom have the most pain, yeah, scars, yeah, and I I just like obviously we've heard that before, um, and it's been almost fetishized culturally, um, but I think there is something to that of like you have a lot of people that just haven't experienced a lot. Well, and we?
Speaker 1:and a lot of people sitting at their desks staring at a blue rectangle all day.
Speaker 5:And I say blue wondering, wondering why time went by so quickly.
Speaker 1:I call it blue.
Speaker 5:cause it's blue light? Not because it's blue, but the blue rectangle the magic rectangle. You wear blue light blocking because it's blue, but the blue rectangle, the magic rectangle, when you wear blue, light, black and glasses no, um, but yeah, we.
Speaker 1:You know, if you're just sitting there staring at your screen all the time, and so maybe is that is that a reason?
Speaker 5:why culture is seem to be, it seems to have reached such a high point of like inauthent, inauthenticity over the last few years, is because now you just have a bunch of people with no wisdom, essentially well, that's a blanket statement.
Speaker 1:I don't mean that this goes back to technopoly too and the glut of information out there without purpose and without we gotta we gotta be very careful not to put our foot into this rabbit hole, because we are deep into.
Speaker 5:We're an hour and 30 in already, okay, well, we can.
Speaker 1:We can make a note of this for a follow-up episode. But to me, if you have people that are staring at magic rectangles all day long and they are just being stimulated and being and just ingesting massive amounts of information without the maker of that information having original thought, um, you know a strong thesis, a stance, you a way to challenge the status quo, whatever? Um, or just like truly sharing knowledge or wisdom, um, you just have people that are just sort of numbed by the magic rectangle and they can't make authentic content because all they know to do is to take if they're even have this level of awareness, to take the ingredients from the recipes they've consumed and just try to make that themselves like a facsimile of the yeah, yeah and it's yeah, facsimile, a copy, a parody. We know whatever you, you know some, some, some theft of something else well, and we, we talk about it all the time too.
Speaker 5:It's it's always the surface level that there is being copied. They're always missing the point, right? They're trying to copy the. Well, if you just shoot something on your phone and you're like in the left lower third, that's what's making this popular.
Speaker 1:It's, yeah, always missing the and that's where the rule the people who follow the rules like well, the rules like well. Well, you can't bold your slug lines in your screenplay because that's that's breaking the rules. Like hell I can, I can do whatever I want my screenplay. If it's good and it's engaging and it creates an emotional response in the reader, I can get away with murder with this thing yeah, um, and as soon as you do, everybody's going to try to do that.
Speaker 5:That's exactly right.
Speaker 1:That becomes the new norm, and they'll do it because it didn't come from a place of authenticity, earnestness, um purity, intention, and it'll just feel like a ripoff. Yeah.
Speaker 5:It's never the end. It's never the end point. Everything is constantly in flux. We have too much of a like I need to possess this thing, this idea, this, whatever in our society, I think, and understanding that just everything is in flux is a very powerful way to contend with that, especially in terms of, you know, presenting something with authenticity. I think.
Speaker 1:Well, and then, just you know, making something, with making something, where the thing you're focused on is the outcome, not not the inspiration that would make you want to make something yeah uh, short-term thinking versus the long view, outcomes versus inputs, whatever I don't know if that's a thing.
Speaker 1:But that was my whole career not going to go in the rabbit hole, but everything I've done was we talked about in a previous podcast. I've got this somewhat traumatic experience that I want to write a screenplay around, but I have to come up with this commercial formula vehicle for it, because the haunted runway, the main priority for me is, uh, selling something and paying off my student loans and winning the lottery, so I can keep doing this, but that's what's going to keep you from having those from having from from having something to to have a agent or a manager.
Speaker 1:Read your script and go.
Speaker 5:This is something like you just nailed it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 5:Like, at that point, you're just playing the lottery. If you're being yourself, though, and you reach a level of craft with that authentic originality, you're almost guaranteed that something's going to work. Like it's just. It is almost. In my perspective, and just from what I've seen, it's almost impossible. Like, if you reach a level of craft paired with a level of originality and authenticity, it's almost. There's no chance. It's a matter of time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a matter of time.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's a matter of time.
Speaker 1:Especially.
Speaker 5:If you're doing the other way, though, you're constantly just jumping on whatever the thing is, go buy lottery tickets. You're doing the exact same thing, you're just changing the structure.
Speaker 1:And you might win the lottery with that. If I kept writing scripts like that, you might win the lottery 100%. I got really close, or you might get really good at creating that thing.
Speaker 5:That's close enough. And you know, then it's just mass produced. Yeah, Is that going to, you know? Is that going to outlive you? Probably not. Does that matter? Also, probably not.
Speaker 1:We all put different weight into different things, but when you and you hear about burnout and you hear about, you know this YouTuber is quitting or scaling back, or this screenwriter is pursuing something else, or this novelist is doing something else. I think a lot of times that is. That is an indicator for the fact that maybe they weren't leading their work from a place of authenticity and from the truth of inspiration, it was from outcomes. Well, I got to keep the lights on, so I'm going to write this script or I'm going to write this novel. I'm going to write a sequel to this novel.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't normally do it, but I can't pass up $4 million and blah, blah, blah and maybe it's good, maybe we like it. You know that sequel novel or that script or whatever you know is like. You know it's good. There's, there's craft there. There's some moments that really ring true, but ultimately it didn't come from that pure true place.
Speaker 5:Or maybe it's so authentic, though and I'm going to counter that because there's a person in the YouTube pipe community, um, who also like that high status, like legendary figure in that in that small sub community, yeah, and just stopped making videos like three years ago. Yeah.
Speaker 5:And people are like, why'd you stop making videos? You made the best videos. Like this guy was literally like, and he's just like I said everything I needed to say about it and that, like, why am I going to, why would I spend? Like that's how, like dialed in there, like, yeah, I didn't feel like I had anything else, like I'd sit down and do a video and I just didn't. I had nothing else to say, I'd already said it, so that's it. That's it.
Speaker 5:So you know, yes, burnout as a as like you could stop as a result of burnout or maybe because you're out of touch with something, but then also, I think there's something incredibly authentic about just being like I had, like I had nothing else to say. My whole purpose was to figure this thing out, and I think I accomplished that. Now I've got other life to go live. That's what.
Speaker 1:I recall I don't know if it's a legend at this point, but Harper Lee saying that after To Kill a Mockingbird, Said everything I had to say. I said everything I had to say and I think there is like supreme beauty in someone being able to resist continuing something they built because of expectations or possibly the financial aspect or just the habit of it, and to say I said everything and I moved on to something else. Maybe it was a different craft, different hobby or whatever. Yeah right, steve Martin's like yeah, just wrap it up.
Speaker 5:He felt it changing and he was like this isn't what I loved and sometimes that's it too. Yeah, that it became something outside of him, yeah, betrays, and what they think it should be yeah, and then he said I'm not gonna be a part of this, I'm gonna go focus on something else. Yeah, so there is incredible authenticity. I think authenticity.
Speaker 1:I think well that's the reciprocity of it, right yeah you know, if I'm going to give youtube my authentic videos, I'm expecting some authenticity back from them. They start fucking with that shit too much. Yeah, and betraying you're gonna you're gonna start going? I'm just we're gonna my website go to, yeah, yeah, we're gonna find some other way to or some other I think that's why a lot of people are so frustrated with the algorithm things and stuff like that.
Speaker 5:But anyways, we are way over, we are way over.
Speaker 1:It was a long episode.
Speaker 5:It was a good two. We got a little sucked in there.
Speaker 1:One camera down. I'm only going to have wide angle coverage.
Speaker 3:The one day you're late, I know the one day I'm late. Son of a bitch.
Speaker 1:This was all by design. I'm going to assume benevolence from you that you did not plan.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I planned it on camera. I actually think we might need to rechargeable. You didn't go golfing with me.
Speaker 1:I'm only going to give you half full batteries. Son of a bitch.
Speaker 5:I think it might be a sign that it's so. We're about to hit our year, are we?
Speaker 1:Yeah, this will be 25, right. No 26?, 25 or 26. Well, 20. Oh yeah, we don't want to say what.
Speaker 5:No, but it's something like that.
Speaker 1:Because you have one in the hopper right now right, yeah. So next week's not next week, but the week after is 25. Then I think this one would be 26. Is it Might be 26? Is it might be? This is the year, this is the year. Episode, wow, wow and way to go out. Not go out, but go into the next season, next year. Strong episode 26, coming in hot buddy with a nice little disconnected two-parter that we masterfully link together, and then the um of course I have no coverage.
Speaker 5:I think we need need to fix the batteries because we've run into a couple battery issues, so we'll fix that, wow.
Speaker 1:Well, congratulations. Yeah, one year of studio sessions, buddy.
Speaker 2:It had been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
