VIKKSTAR: The Sidemen Almost Ended Because Of Me

0:00Coming up in this episode of Great Company. I started making YouTube videos when I was 14 years old. How many hours do you think? 14, 15 hours? Seven days a week for six or seven years. Go and sleep, wake up the next day, do it again. I destroyed my house. Feeling isolated, maybe feeling lonely. Why didn't you give up? Dude, that is insane. Hey, I'm Vixstar, and I'm in great company. Hey, guys, it's me, Vixstar123. Introducing the Sidemen. He's down. I've shut the fuck up! Wake up, make videos. You're just a username and a voice. You're sort of living in a virtual world almost. To the outside world, looked like psychosis.

0:43It's like, why are you sat in front of a screen and talking to yourself? You have now 22 million subscribers on Sidemen. It's like a third of the country. We've been a group since 2013. Our most expensive video was... What the... But the competitiveness within you guys, inside men, that never got out of control. It got a bit out of hand there. For me, I see someone who is addicted to what you do. It did kind of get to a point where after so long, you've tied your self-worth as a person to those numbers. It became, like for all of us, so, so addictive. I was so exhausted for a few years. When was the last time you cried?

1:31Hello everyone, my name is Jamie Lang and this is Great Company.

1:39Guys, I can't really hold my excitement for today's episode with Vickstar. I've been wanting to get one of the sidemen on Great Company for a long time, so I'm beyond excited for this one. Now, welcome back to the show. If you're an OG listener, you know who I am, you know what the show is about. Welcome back. If you're a new listener, welcome. My name is Jamie, I'm the host of the show. you're going to take so many learnings from this episode from Vickstar so many incredible things about being a YouTuber about focus and determination about capitalizing on your situation about working amongst a team there is so much in this episode so stick around for it, okay and before we start the show because I know you want to get into it I would just like to ask you one favor and I'm going to make it very quick one favor is if you can subscribe to our show I'll leave it there If you can subscribe to our show It's completely free And it really helps the show improve in every aspect If you can do that, thank you so much Okay, I'm really excited for this one So enjoy this episode of Great Company with Vicstar Hey, I'm Vicstar and I'm in Great Company I know exactly who you are Because I've seen your videos I've watched you for a long time And what I find so interesting, especially about YouTube, right, is that it's so personal to you.

3:04Because I can sit in my room by myself and I can watch your videos alone and you can talk to me and I see what you do and everything, right? But for, and I know how famous you are. You're very famous. Somehow, yeah. Although we don't like to see it that way. We try not to. Okay, but you're very famous. A lot of people know who we are. I don't know. A lot of people know who you are, but then a lot of people wouldn't know who you are either. And so you're seriously famous, but also at the same time... Underground. Underground. Yeah. Can you explain to our listeners who some know who you are, but who don't know who you are, what do you do and why are you famous?

3:44So I started making YouTube videos in my bedroom when I was 14 years old. And it was like this fun little creative hobby, just record myself playing video games, clip it up, put it on YouTube. You can't even monetize YouTube videos at this point. So it's just like a fun little hobby. I'm going to learn the skills, see where it goes. And then one day a company comes along and says, hey, we'll pay you to make these videos. And I think, okay, I've cracked the jackpot of life. I've won the lottery because I'm getting paid to play video games, if you think about it that way. so started doing that and you know over 14 years have really kind of revolutionized the way that is taking it from beyond video games to real life to every different kind of content you can make and loads of people have joined the journey across the kind of over a decade and support us in doing that and it allows us to kind of go bigger and better every time when you were 14 years old where were you were you in Sheffield yes so you're in Sheffield you're making videos in your room which I imagine at the time is kind of like a strange thing to be doing, right?

4:52Massively. So you must have felt like a bit of an outcast in a way. Yeah, yeah, 100%. It was almost like, almost to the outside world looked like psychosis. It's like, why are you sat in front of a screen and talking to yourself? Because no one did it. I remember the first time I ever tried to vlog. It was in 2012. I was going to an event in London called Eurogamer. And I'm there on a train talking into my phone. and everyone else is on the train is looking at me like, this guy's lost his mind. This guy's lost his mind. Because no one did it. There weren't influencers. There weren't YouTubers.

5:25There was none of this stuff. So I think that was the barrier to entry at that time. And you kind of had to push yourself out of your comfort zone to do that. And because we were the first people to do it, it meant that we could grow audiences first doing it. It meant that there wasn't as much pressure on us. There weren't expectations in terms of what quality content is now. The ceiling, I'm sure as you know, is so high for content right now. It has to look so good. But back then, people just were excited to see something real. Can I ask this? So firstly, when you were 14, 15, 16 years old, whatever, making videos, how much were you paid when they said, we're going to pay you to make these videos?

6:03What was it? Oh, I mean, maybe back then I'd make like 50, 60 quid a month. But as a kid, this is... That's gold. Oh my word, what's going on? So it was, yeah, enough at that point to really kind of be something that was worth pursuing as, hey, instead of, you know, having a paper round, I'm going to carry on trying to make my videos better and better. It was like I had my own kind of mini business in doing that. And then I carried that on throughout the whole of my time at school. And by the time I'd finished my A-levels, I was pretty much earning a good salary. and that's when I had the time to think okay I want to take a gap year and put all of my efforts into this I've been balancing it with school work so let's see what I can achieve in that year and also we were terrified because we were like okay we're getting paid to play video games when does this bubble burst when does a media company come in and take away all the rights from us when do people just stop watching our videos when do the advertisers say hey we don't want to advertise on YouTube anymore we had no idea what was going to happen so I took this gap year and fortunately for me in that year that's pretty much when the sidemen which is the group that i'm now part of formed because we were a group of young guys doing the same thing struggling to make content at home annoying our parents being loud being up late at night um so we thought we'll move into a house together make videos together and that was the start of something even bigger 18 years old what are you what salary are you earning from doing i can't remember the exact amount but it was it was it was tens of thousands um a year from but then also that was kind of working at that point like 18 hours a day or 16 to 17 hours a day on the videos and then I remember we moved into our first shared house together which was the sidemen I realized kind of like half of my earnings were going into rent or maybe even more than half my earnings I was thinking this is uh this is this is a bit crazy my parents were like what are you doing you can't move into a house with these strangers in london that you've met like once before so uh yeah it was it was a roller coaster but it was yeah everything happened at the right time when you're when you're 40 because i imagine you said you felt like a and i don't want to put words in your mouth but maybe you felt like a bit of an outcast because you were making these videos but you enjoyed doing them maybe you're a bit of an introvert whatever it is but then you're in your room doing something so extrovert so that's a weird like combination does that make any sense to you?

8:30Yeah, I get what you're saying. Because I was both at the same time. And I actually thank YouTube and all the friends I made through YouTube to get me kind of make me come out of my shell massively. Because it felt like first of all, in gaming, one thing that was really nice is especially back then, and even to a degree now, you're just a username and a voice. Yeah, you're not, you know, you go into every situation there. And it's just like you are just this person, and people aren't judging you on based on how you look, what you're wearing, where you're from. You're just this kind of username and a voice.

9:01So I think in gaming, I really enjoyed that, having all of these friends that I had through the gaming world that didn't view me in the same way that kind of everyone in the real world and at school might have viewed me. And then also going into the YouTube thing, again, it was this new group of people. So I wasn't inside my own head thinking like, oh, what are the people at school going to think about, you know, how I'm putting myself across, what I'm talking about. It's kind of all of these new people online, which was fun and it was this escape. And then when that got to a certain point, then people at school started to find out about it.

9:31And then there was this very mixed response of... What was the response? It was a mixed response of, oh, you make money from this. This is really cool. Like, tell me more about it. And then on the other side, why do you sit at home and talk to a camera while playing video games? That's really weird. Like, you should probably like, you know, do something else kind of mindset because it was just something so alien and different to people then. when you're sort of getting a love-hate response from something that's almost an exciting place to be yeah because you're that means you're doing something different 100 because people are admiring you for doing something different but people are hating on you because maybe they're jealous they don't understand it and that's a really good place that's what they say they always say like if you're trying to be successful in something you almost want people talking negatively about it because it's a sign that you're going in the right direction it's like you have to kind of see both sides of it so yeah i think you're right not that i knew that at the age of 15 I was so confused I was like what was going on because that is it's confusing that must be confusing right yeah and all you kind of do I know for me at that age that like man 14 15 16 17 18 I just wanted to fit in yeah like like I was so desperate to just fit in the whole time and you know I wanted to be admired and successful but also I wanted to fit in so So I imagine there's like a lot of people out there who probably had the same vision, same desire, same appetite for what you were doing, but decided not to do it because they were too scared.

11:01I actually remember early on in my career, so it wasn't just me that started making videos. It was actually a big group of about seven or eight boys from my school also who were making videos. But they kind of all stopped and I carried on. And that's when people kind of started to pay attention to it. But I remember at one point very early in my career, they had maybe a thousand subscribers at the time on their like group channel. And they put up this video and it was well edited. And it was, they had a HD recording device. And I remember looking at it and distinctly thinking, I'm sat here with a camcorder on a tripod pointing at my TV.

11:36When my screen turns black, you see myself sat there with my headset on in the reflection. My production quality is so far from what they have. I remember at one point looking at it and thinking, I'm never going to be that. Why don't I just give up now? Because it was kind of those doubting yourself thoughts of like someone else is already doing it better. So why even try? But I guess that's a lesson in life that if you persevere, you can go much, much further than you might think you would be able to. Why didn't you give up? I couldn't truly tell you, but I think it was just because I was fascinated by it.

12:13And again, like you say, I was kind of searching for the experience and the skills and I was thinking in the back of my head is I've learned how to use some editing software. I've learned a bit about video games, making content ahead of anything else. And also I think maybe I didn't have as much else going on. All these other kids were playing all their different sports, kind of going out, drinking, doing all their fun stuff. I was just like in my room playing games, making my videos, but it kind of worked out. That image of you when the screen goes blank and then you just see yourself. I used to edit out those little clips.

12:47I'm like, you can't see me. You can just see yourself just sitting there. You're like, wow, this is a bit lonely, actually. Man, when I look at you, right, above all the creativity and all those different things, I think people go like, God, and I imagine the question you ask, how do you make it so successful? How do you, you know, this and that. For me, I see someone who is addicted to what you do. Yeah. and is resilient and consistent. Yeah. And that is the success story, I imagine, plus the other things. But at the core of it, surely that's what the success is. So yeah, when I started my gap year, I turned down a place at UCL to do natural sciences.

13:30So kind of in my family's view, especially, that's a good place to be. If you want to set yourself up for life, you're going to take that. But I said, let me take one year and kind of focus all my energy into this YouTube thing, see where it goes. And I kind of almost made a deal with myself at that point. And it was if I'm going to defer that place, I'm going to upload a video every single day for as long as I possibly can. And I think I went something like six or seven years, every single day, a new YouTube video, and it didn't have to be the best video, it didn't have to, it just had to be a video.

14:05And I think that's also what people say, is they say sometimes it's better to be imperfect lots of times than perfect just a few times. So I think again, the 10 ,000 hour rule, I think I've uploaded over 10 ,000 videos to my YouTube channels. So I really went through a period of years where it was genuinely wake up, make videos for 14, 15, 16 hours, and that would be recording them, put them into editing software, editing them, uploading that doing that again four or five times in a day going to sleep wake up the next day do it again okay man so it's consistency that's that's that's how it works wow man that is beyond dedication do you think you have to be in a way an addict to be successful that's a good question um i think it definitely helps a lot and i also think actually thinking back to the early days of YouTube, it was very easy to really, really get into it because it was that real time response.

15:08Every day you post a video, you see the number of comments, you see the number of views going up every hour. It was, it became like for all of us, so, so addictive. And you're seeing that the revenues going up, the views are going up, the watch times going up, your number of subscribers, you're hitting 10 ,000, 100 ,000 going like that. It was, it was a very easy addiction to chase. And I think a lot of us have struggled to shift out of that later in life because it is a cycle that you can get trapped in forever. And I remember kind of at some points I would kind of upload a video and in the back of my head, there would be a countdown time.

15:45Be like, okay, 14 hours until you need to get the next one live. Three hours till the next one goes live. So you can get caught in that loop. But also it was a lot of fun at the same time. I can't act like I was doing something I really didn't enjoy. I was playing games I was enjoying. I was creating an enjoyable experience. I was editing my favorite parts of those experiences and just sharing them. So it was kind of, while it was a bit obsessive, it was also and still is a dream job, really. Dude, that is insane. So how many hours do you think you were spending, especially during that gap year, you were spending making videos?

16:22How many hours a day? on average i would say like 14 15 hours seven days a week for a couple of years on end it was all i did thick it was uh it's insane but it also it was it was so fun at the same time and so exciting especially when we were living in a house doing it together the whole lifestyle just revolved around it we'd go into each other's bedrooms and help each other record real life videos we'd go on trips and we'd make videos while on those trips because we were just documenting our lives and we still do that to this point it's it's uh yeah it's an interesting that is what thing okay like you i i'm i'm obsessed with what i do i'm addicted to what i do i love it i live it i breathe it i eat it like oh my god but what that happens with that is then it can lead to um i think burnout can lead to feeling isolated maybe feeling lonely feeling all these things have you ever felt that yeah definitely throughout stages and it was even more uh you know more more how do I say this more focused in the gaming space because I'd pick up a game that I enjoyed let's say it was Call of Duty, Minecraft, Grand Theft Auto and I would make videos on this game I'd be loving it it would be super easy for months and months the views on that kind of game would go up and up and up and it'd get to a point where I was like okay not really enjoying playing this game or making videos on this game so then you end up in this trap where you're like kind of hitting record you're like put this big smile on act like i'm having the best time ever but actually i'm not enjoying this game and the viewers are seeing maybe five hours of footage compiled down so they see the kind of pure best bits but you did kind of end up a bit burnt out on a title and i think for a lot of us it meant a lot of the times biting the bullet and saying okay i'm going to try starting making videos on this other game that i think is going to be a big hit at some point, maybe it's not there yet.

18:16I'm going to see my views drop by, you know, 50, 80 % to start making videos on this new game. But it was almost like you had to keep adapting. It's the same in business. You have to keep adapting how you run your business to kind of survive in business. So there were like these kind of little stages of burnout throughout. And then I think a big realization was when I did kind of decide to stop uploading every day, it was this, okay, I have some spare time now what do i do with this spare time what do i like doing other than playing video games going out and making youtube videos so it was like a kind of like a shock of a few a year or two where i was like okay i need to start finding things outside of work that i can do in my life like how strange is that it's true so there was a moment because you so you said you upload a video every single day for seven eight years but you're sort of living in a virtual world almost yeah not living in the real world when you do stop doing that as you said and you suddenly you leave your room and you're like okay fine i'm not firstly is that scary when you suddenly decide i'm not going to post a video day in day out yeah and then secondly how what was the feeling like what do you was it weird it was both at the same time it was scary because one it's kind of almost to be so successful and consistent you've almost scared yourself into thinking that i have to i I have to get this done.

19:35I have to get the video out. I have to be getting, keeping my views up. And it was almost, it was also part of it as YouTubers. We're all, we are all competitive. We're hardworking, we're competitive. So it is like, I'm getting this many views a month. How many views are you getting a month? Oh, I got this video over a million. Did you get this video over a million? And you chase that and it's six, it's great at driving success and kind of pushing yourself forward. And it was always kind of a friendly, competitive nature, but it did kind kind of get to a point where after so long, you've tied your self-worth as a person to those numbers.

20:05So if I'm doing 60 million views a month, I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm that, I'm that guy right now, you know, I'm walking around and then it's like, oh, if three months later, it's dropped to 30 million, it's like, what am I, what am I doing wrong? Like I need to, and I think following through all of that, it was, it was difficult enough when I thought, okay, I'm putting in my best efforts and the views are still going down. And, but then every time that happened, they cycled up and down up and down you become more okay with that that is something that just happens but even then when I was working as hard as I could it was kind of like easy to say okay the views have gone down but I'm trying my best it's fine but then that mindset of okay I'm going to post less videos I'm going to put less effort into my videos and then I'm going to watch the views kind of and the revenue kind of go down it was this thing where you had to like almost like pull yourself out of it and think like it doesn't it doesn't matter it's and I think again it was this inherent fear of like turning down university and potentially all these other careers to do YouTube that made me push so much with it because unreliable unpredictable that's it and it was almost yeah and it really was and actually I'm glad for it now they say you know make hay when the sun shines and we really really did when it was not ultra competitive when the quality standards were not super, super high.

21:25We could really kind of have a lot of fun and make a lot of content. We really went for it and I went for it. And that's one thing that I'm really happy for now because when it is now hyper competitive, super challenging, quite stressful, we can one, build a team to help with that and two, step away from it a little bit and kind of rely on the hard work we put in earlier. So yeah, that's the work side of it. And then on the personal side, I was just like, okay, I need hobbies. I need to get into health and fitness. I destroyed my health. Like I barely did any exercise. Are you serious? Barely got, I was, you know, awake throughout the night making videos.

22:02I barely saw this sun. What are you drinking? Are you drinking Red Bulls or energy drinks to keep awake or no? Not really. No, I never really got into, no, I wasn't ever super caffeine heavy, but it was like, we're talking ready meals in my bedroom, like in between two videos. I'm living off sandwiches and crisps and it was not great. So I think kind of, yeah, taking control of my health again was a big step. getting into kind of music and just learning how to actually not be doing stuff.

22:34So then you had to make a basically a risk in your head. You had to say, right, we're going to stop doing this and go and get another go to save your mental and physical health, basically. What does that teach you in life about making those decisions to adapt, change, move? You've got to do it. But if you don't do it, and it's also in doing YouTube for so long, we've seen so many creators become the biggest thing on a certain game, a certain kind of type of content. They blow up to these crazy levels where we're all sat there watching them going, whoa, they're doing crazy numbers. But then two years later, you ask, oh, what happened to that person?

23:11Get out of here. People come and go so much in this space. And it's because you have to keep changing what you're doing. if we were still making the videos we were making in 2016, 2017, 2018, not many people will be watching them because they're just not what's currently trending. They're not edited and produced in a way that people expect content to be now. So it is that, yeah, you've got to keep going for it, trying something new. And also a lot of our best and most successful things have been, again, I'm sure you'll know in life, it's when you get out of your comfort zone, when you take that risk, when you start a new business, when one fails, but then another becomes something 10 times bigger than you thought it might be.

23:51And actually, the Sidemen project itself, we all collaborated. We had these huge audiences that we combined. But then again, our system of collaboration broke down in a sense that it was difficult to always appear on each other's channels. And it might be you'd be on one other person's channel for three videos in a month, but then you wouldn't have anything you needed them for, or they wouldn't be able to be on your video so we made a group channel where we said hey we're just going to get together and make one really great video every week on a sunday if we you know the best video we can and that now is our biggest series ever each of those videos gets kind of eight to 15 million views every time and again that was us trying something new saying hey let's try this it might succeed it might fail and it turned out to be kind of bigger than everything a lot of us had done individually before then what you do you guys as a side menu do and on those weekly videos i find it's amazing because not only do you have all your other stuff going on you may be getting married you've got relationships you've got social things going on you're doing your own videos but then you're also creating a big video which is on the sunday right which is just kind of mad as a group and i think what people don't realize is the i come from a tv background right and what's amazing that i see on YouTube now is like, YouTube is the new television.

25:12Yeah. Without a doubt. And you can see, I saw a crazy statistic, which is something like a hundred percent of 18 to 35 year old men have watched something on YouTube. Yeah, I believe it. A hundred, that was a hundred percent, which is wild, right? So that's where everything's going. So when you guys are making your big production shows for The Sidemen, how much does it cost to make it? How much, what is the cost of putting on production like that, which people don't realize. So those weekly videos of Sidemen Sundays, now I would say on average are around£50 ,000 to£60 ,000 per video. And that's factoring in, we have a big team, around 40, 50 people that make those videos possible.

25:55We sometimes hire huge sets, locations, cars, flights, all of this sort of stuff. So some of the videos, we can still make a Sidemen Sunday video that cost you know five thousand ten thousand to make if it's just us walking around with cameras doing kind of a silly challenge but then some of them you know our most expensive video was i want to say i think it was five hundred thousand um it cost to put together so which one was that one it was uh our video where we competed against mr beast and we built these big sets almost takeshi's castle yeah um challenge against him and that was also him coming over we're like it's mr beast we got we got to pull out the pull out the we got to pull it together guys and make something big happen here and it was still nothing compared to the scale of his productions but it was our attempt to you know doing something a bit different so yeah having access to that now is also pretty crazy again when we because you can do one thing yeah and when we started our videos every video was zero dollars to make you know we've got thousands of videos we've made that were you know five hundred dollars to make Like some of our biggest videos, you're talking like crossbar challenges we used to film.

27:05We would go, we would set up cameras ourselves on tripods, hit record, kick footballs at a crossbar for two hours, edit it ourselves. Let's say that video cost us a hundred pounds to make and it's got 30 million views. So back then you could do that. It was easier. Now you've got to spend the money. Because it's high quality, spend money. People are expecting more, more, more, more, more. yeah but but if you're if look and just because i i like looking at from the business side of things right if you're if you're creating a video which is going to cost 500 000 right as a production uh value and then you get good views in it do you make profit back on that or no i think we lost some money on that video so you're just doing it just because you know it's going to work yeah well yeah just because sometimes you just need a need to do stuff but again we were just trying to work out what do we do with Mr.

27:56Beast and we're like we'll just build something big and also we had time constraints because he'd come over for our charity football match we had a half day before the match we were like what can we build that works and it's almost you have to think about how reliable a video is as well because we're thinking you know sometimes we spend a lot of money on a video we turn up we shoot it we're hoping things go as we hope they go if not we save it in the edit that's always the way but yeah what is it when you see like Mr. B's come over and like these complete and utter machines like you guys are you know and we're going to get into the side and how it started and how many because you have now 22 million subscribers on side which is 22 million yeah dude that's that is absurd it's a lot of people it's absurd it's like a third of the country like it's absurd that many things what is the one attribute do you think that each of these relentless amazing successful people on YouTube have in common I think yeah one thing is we've gone over it the consistency the second is that the risk taking they're like they don't worry about how they're going to be perceived for doing certain things they just they just go for it they try it they'll try things that fail they'll try things that succeed I say that's another key part of it I think those I think those are the two main things kind of be consistent I guess I guess and also they love it they just absolutely love it and they they come across as someone who enjoys doing what they're doing.

29:23I think it's really important. I think it's really difficult to fake enjoying what you're doing. And I think I see a lot of the new generation of creators and influencers, if you like, really going in and they're acting as if they're having fun because they're trying to get the Lamborghini, the business class fly, all of this kind of stuff ahead of just enjoying making the content. They're copying other people and not enjoying it. And I think that's where a lot of people kind of fall down now and it is hard it's hard to look at what everyone else seems to be having and not chase that so so who in the in the digital world would you say is a personality and who would you say is the one in the this is it's like a negative term but i don't want to be taking is nerding their way into it it's a really good it's a really good question because everyone is a huge blend of both because you because i would say jj ksi i would he feels more personality yeah maybe he's not yeah if i go within the sidemen definitely yeah you've got yeah on one side of the spectrum you've got um harry and jj um who are very very much they're just they're just brilliant on camera they they're funny they're entertaining um they have very very little sense of self-embarrassment i think that's one of their biggest kind of perks they've never never they you know have these huge big reactions to everything they're really you know open to make a fool of themselves but it's all in the spirit of the content and then i guess on the other side of the side man you've got myself and josh zirka and we're definitely kind of more logical more interested in the kind of business side the ins and the outs the data yeah the data looking at the analytics simon as well it's kind of me josh and simon when we live together we would be sharing wow all sorts of you know ideas hey longer videos are working right now actually at the moment like you want to do a shorter video you want a longer overall average watch time and then oh actually no now you want a higher percentage of your video view wow so you were constantly you're an analyst you're basically you're the analyst and then yeah and then you have almost the big personalities and you blend it together and that's what's the perfect mix i think that's what works so well inside man is with seven very unique people and when you combine us in different ways in different environments you always get a different outcome it's kind of like this pandora's box of content that we've stumbled our way into.

31:45I have so many questions, so I just want to keep going. So like, okay, so what are your thoughts on building a career around Grand Theft Auto or Fortnite? Yeah, great. I think you could, well, you could argue that the Sidemen began on Grand Theft Auto 5 2013, this huge, huge title that everyone was watching. We all started playing it together and it was this sandbox open format, great place where we could mess around as a group of guys on the game, race each other, drive into each other, blow up each other's cars and have this human kind of interaction. And that's actually where we made our GTA V crew, which was called the ultimate sidemen, which was a shot at ourselves.

32:27It was like, we're the sidemen. We're not, we're not important. We're just having a laugh. Is that where the name came from? That's where the name came from. It was a GTA V crew, believe it or not. And then... Because you weren't the main men, you were the sidemen. Like the in-betweeners in a way. yeah yeah i guess you could yeah and also especially back in 2013 it was like the grime scene it was like you're a sideman like it was like it was like yeah it was like that's like where it came from it was like it was not a good thing but it was almost like a bit of a laugh kind of thing so you're doing self-deprecating from the beginning i think that's also a big part of our culture and uk culture is like you'll put you'll take the piss out of your friends you'll you'll put each other down but it's it almost makes you tougher and it makes you more real as well we're not all sat there going oh you did so well in that race it's like no you what are you doing why are you stuck at the bottom of the ramp like why have you crashed into me you idiot kind of thing that kind of like friendly band like work towards it yeah that's it gave us a great platform to display that then we hadn't even thought about becoming a group but off the fans of all of our all of our individual channels enjoyed us coming together in that dynamic so much they coined the term they said hey we love sidemen gta videos because they didn't have anything else to name it by so then we became the sidemen then we went to a gaming event called insomnia and we thought we'll print a sidemen um logo on a t-shirt and we sold a thousand of those t-shirts and walked away with real cash and we were like hang on a second this is not just this could actually be a brand of its own thing so yeah i think it's all of these games it can be a great place to build yourself but the the main thing is you have to transcend beyond that this is what i find so just absolutely mind-blowing you're in this together how do you stop being competitive with each other or are you competitive in a healthy way with each other always yeah at that time it was healthy yeah competitive um yeah it was friendly competitive nature and also we all were sharing our own audiences that we built and kind of bringing them together and that's actually what let us go so much further.

34:35And I think a lot of the YouTube community, especially in the UK, fortunately sees that, is this idea that if you try and guard what you have, it's collaboration. Yeah, it doesn't work in the long run. It's better just to collaborate with people, share your audiences, share your ideas, kind of bounce off each other and kind of all move forward together. And also it's helped us in the Sidemen in that we've been a group since 2013. 13. So yeah, 12 years now. And by forming kind of an official group, if someone has a year where they are going through something, they're struggling, they're not feeling great creatively, they're not making that content, it's fine.

35:16It doesn't matter. They're not kicked out of the group. It's not this mindset of, oh, you're not contributing right now. So therefore you're worth nothing. It's kind of, we're all, especially in the UK, we're all in it together. So then when somebody does have a great year then they can help everyone else out as well and it's kind of we move as a move as a as a team and we're more powerful as a collective than as individuals 100 % too collaborating is one of the biggest things and we don't realize it like we all it's why like you know school I find sort of an archaic system because you're told not to copy or collaborate and but actually life is should be about that yeah and you know especially in I you know the one of the most some of the most successful people in the sort of television landscape have been co-pros you know they they make shows so they collaborate and people we don't we want to hold on to our stuff for some reason we don't want to collaborate but collaboration is the way that you grow massively yeah all of like our best ideas as well we'll work with other creators and be like oh they did this in this way like maybe we could do a bit of that and i'm sure people come and film with us and they see the way we do things and they're like i will take a bit of that on and then even with ideas we take kind of formats that already exist and change them and make them in our own way.

36:26And if other people do the same with us, it's kind of all fair game. It's let's just make cool videos and run with it. So yeah, it worked well. Did the competitiveness within you guys, inside men, that never got out of control. There was never, it got out of hand. Friendships have never been lost because of it. No, no, definitely not. We did have a slightly funny, funny period in 2017 where everyone started making diss tracks about each other that were half real, half not real. It got a bit out of hand. Yeah, a little bit out of hand, yeah. But they've got tens of millions of views and everything all came back together in the end.

37:03Do you know what? The biggest successes in life, right? If you look at like TV shows like Friends, right? Or if you look at like Kardashians or whatever, it's because people stay together. It's the same thing. Yeah. The format stays the same. And The Sidemen is the same thing. What year is it now? 13 years? Yeah, 12. Okay, 12 years. Coming up on, I think, 13 in October. So 13 years together this year. And the success is that you guys have stayed together. You haven't shipped, you haven't moved. And I hear loads of reasons why that is and because you split everything equally. And you're all equal board members and all these amazing attributes which build success.

37:44But as you go into music, as you are getting married, as, you know, you guys have kids, everything, it does such change. How do you make sure that the sidemen don't split up? It's a lot of mutual respect. I think that's kind of one of the key things. And just understanding that everyone is doing their different things, but at the same time, we respect the project and kind of we show up for the project. And I think we are giving ourselves and each other more leniency now with things that are going on outside in our life. And the nice thing we've been able to do is we're kind of, we've been really focusing on building our team to take more and more of the pressure off ourselves.

38:22So while the work rate is a lot, it's a lot more manageable when a huge amount of the behind the scenes is now being handled by other people that we've effectively trained to think and work in the way that we would. So while it looks like we're kind of developing loads of outside work responsibilities or outside sidemen responsibilities, at the same time, the workload within sidemen is kind of coming down for us to balance that out. How do you get people who are not the core members of the Sidemen obsessed with what you do? Because that's what it takes. We spoke about it. It's like obsession, right?

38:58Yeah. So how do you make sure that your team members are also obsessed? It's just interviewing, finding the right people and creating kind of a work culture of people who are kind of, they just care about the final product. And I think, yeah, that works well. and also we're not kind of too obsessed with you have to be working, you know, nine to five every single day. It's like, okay, if everything's in good standing, you're done at 2 p.m., you know, go and do whatever you want. But if something's not right, you know, we'd hope that you will keep working until it's right in the same way that we would.

39:34So it's creating that kind of work culture. And what people don't realize, right, I think, well, maybe they do with the Sidemen, not only is it creating videos and building your careers there, you also build products you now have a um you you've done this new netflix show yeah which is uh inside yes inside which is insane yeah that was that was really fun as well you sold a whole concept to netflix yeah which is wild and you also have a vc arm yes yeah it's a bit of everything yeah which actually yeah me and josh are heading up the uh the venture side of things and again that's really really fun and it's this new learning experience this whole new digital age is a crazy one right and i think we put a lot of our worth now the numbers and numbers and the views man and the algorithm is crazier than ever because it really like we there wasn't really an algorithm when we made content so it felt really nice what do you mean for somebody doesn't know what the algorithm is.

40:40What do you mean by the algorithm? So there weren't so many people making content when we were across Instagram, Twitter, TikTok didn't even exist, YouTube. It was at a point where it was not oversaturated. So we would make content. And if people subscribed to us or followed us, they would see our content because there was not so much content that they couldn't see all of the content and there weren't the social media platforms hadn't built in algorithms to hyper hyper analyze the way people consume the content what they think what the platform thinks the viewer wants to see um but now it's the complete opposite way and you do have to play the game of human psychology to really keep people's attention and that can be exhausting in itself give me an example of that what do you mean how do you lean into someone's psychology to know that this video is going to work so for short form for social media clips they have to be they have to be captioned they have to be quick cut it's like no a lot of people don't you won't capture a wide audience if your video is just a one minute unedited conversation unless unless you have built up this really great fan base and what you're talking about happens to resonate with loads and loads of people but it is just the way stuff is edited now has to be kind of it has to have that hit your endorphins yeah because if i mean if half the people that see it go not interested and move on the algorithm then decides your video is no good we're not going to show it to more people and that's like a new shift which is also exhausting and also it makes it very difficult for creators trying to build a following an audience now we were again we started in a time where if people were a fan of us they would see most of our content because it there wasn't so much content that they couldn't and there wasn't loads of i guess non-specific content being fed to these people but now it is it's like anything right you get that early it's easier now there's probably i think yeah there's probably more you know i think they say it's being an influencer or a creator is the most desirable job with the younger generation now because they see that but then you're competing with all of them you're competing with all of them yeah how much content is put out to YouTube every single day, do you think?

42:58I have been told the stat. The last I heard it was something like 20 ,000 days every day. Matt, are you ready for this? Okay, I'm ready. Over 720 ,000 hours of new content is uploaded daily to YouTube. Okay, yeah. So that's about 20 ,000. Yeah, or double 20 ,000. About 10 ,000, yeah. 10 ,000 days. Is that 10 ,000 days? No, 10 ,000 days. How have you done that math fact quick? that is outrageous sorry it's 30 ,000 how have you done that it's 30 ,000 days yeah you've done that maths that quick sorry that's the biggest thing in the episode you've just done that maths that quickly are you kidding me like what the hell was that see that's the funny part about me is I wouldn't describe myself as creative I'm like a maths and science nerd really and I just I science the maths my way into this creative world I'm like not creative by nature I'm more of a and yeah I'm just I'm like a chameleon no one knows mate but this So firstly, that's crazy.

43:57That's 30 days. 30 ,000 days every day. 30 ,000 days. Every day. Worth of content. Yes. Every single day uploaded onto YouTube. What? So yeah. That's the most competitive industry in the world. It's got to be. Yeah. But also, I guess the other way you can look at that is you've got billions of people consuming YouTube every day. Totally, right. more people than ever are there watching consuming so many niches you know you can you can be the best at making you know flying rc airplanes there's there's a niche for that and that's what i think we all love about youtube it's super empowering and was for us and even with that much competitive nature you'll still see new channels blowing up so so the talk me through this thing what you just said which i find so interesting right which is where you're saying you almost nerded your way into this industry?

44:51Because I sit a lot with Mr. Beast. I now see it from you. With music production, right? And I know, you know, you DJ and it's all mathematical. And what I find, there's a really interesting thing, right? Which is, okay, so we look at these international DJs, right? Calvin Harris or, you know, yourself who's now DJing Tomorrowland and things like that, which is just mad, right? It's crazy, right? But, and if you, you know, I watched the God rest his soul, you know, Vici documentary. And these people who are achieving stuff over here, which seems as like an extroverted, you have to be this creative, outgoing person who sprays bottles and everything like that.

45:30But actually, if you talk to a lot of these individuals, slightly introverted. All about the craft. It's all about the craft. It's about how you're mixing and mathematically getting things together. And that's the music. And you're saying the same as with YouTube and creating. But explain that to me for someone. Because most people listening and watching now would go, No, these are outgoing creative people who can sit in front of a camera and talk because that's what a TV presenter is. But that's what you're saying. Yeah, it's almost the, especially early on in YouTube, it was like you had to be everything.

45:58You had to be the on-screen personality. You had to be the content strategist, the video script writer, the editor, the everything of the video. And I think that creative people definitely thrived in that, but it almost required a systematic approach. approach in that basically you build a team and that team is yourself. Isn't that a weird, what a weird concept. But I guess a business, a small business owner is the same because as a small business owner, you can't hire someone to do all the accounting and the product and the, you know, the distribution and the marketing. So small business owners do it all themselves.

46:34YouTube creators are kind of the same, but it is this very strange forward facing humanly perceived side to it so um i think yeah there's different ways of doing that but in my experience it does take a bit of a kind of logical business approach to it i think either you go for that route or the most you know wonderful creative people i know who hate the business side they hate the ins and outs if they hire a good team then they can be supported doing that so when you're in when you're lockdown and you were playing call to duty yes how good did you get i got pretty good pretty fast early on i think i pick things up quite quickly how though because that's coordination or what it's coordination tactics it was like 10 years of well i say 10 years probably 20 years of playing video games up to this point which i think also just set me a good groundwork and then also So what helped was it was my job to play the game.

47:37And I guess a lot of people, you know, lockdown, they're still working remotely. Whereas I was on all day, every day playing that game. And that let me kind of pick it up quite quickly. I guess also I had the high stakes on me because I was live streaming it. So I'd have like, you know, 10 ,000 people watching me playing at all times. So that forces you to perform at that kind of higher level. How many people watching you? It's like 10 ,000 on average, like sometimes like 50, 60 ,000 people watching me in like these tournaments that I was playing, which was also this crazy thing. But also you think during lockdown, people, they didn't have, they had so much more time and a lot of people were in on this game and they wanted to see me playing the game so they could pick up things from how I was playing.

48:24And I was also playing with people much better than myself. They did exist. And I was learning from them as I was kind of playing. Does the game pay you to play? No, no. But you would earn revenue from uploading, add revenue from uploading videos or whatever it is. That's it. So for anyone who doesn't know, Call of Duty is like a war game and there's a thing that you can play, which lots of people play, which is like Warzone, where you get dropped into what is like a... A map. A map. A city, yeah. A city and you have, you know, 160 people or whatever it is. It's the Hunger Games. It's the Hunger Games.

48:59That's it. The last one, Survives Wins, and you get a kid. what was your best what how many what was your kill count your best kill count on the call of yeah the biggest video that we did was when there's a hundred and uh yeah there were 135 players in the lobby but the thing is when you die you have a chance to come back you go to this prison you fight in the gulag and you can come back and the lobby is the map that's the place yeah yeah and uh so during one of these lockdown games i think me and the three other players who I was playing with who were they're part of FaZe Clan's professional Call of Duty team so they're like some of the best ever and we were playing and we got we got 138 kills in the game which is more more players than there were actually in the lobby so we killed some of those players twice in the same game and we pretty much we split up so it was teams of four and we each went off individually and we were taking out teams of four players at a time.

49:58but also it's funny if you go back and watch that now like anything the skill level is like just so much lower it was just early on where other people hadn't quite got to grips with the game whereas we'd been playing it every day so we were nowhere near as good as the people that play now but we were so much better than them back then that we could walk through entire teams of people so that was yeah a fun time because people used to say you were that good that means you must be cheating. I got a lot of that. Yeah. There were entire Facebook communities that would share clips of me playing and create conspiracy theories about how I was cheating at the game, which was, again, in gaming, they say that's the best compliment you can get.

50:37If someone says you're hacking, that's high praise. So I just kind of had to roll with it. So that was a fun chapter. And again, that allowed me to get back into this obsessive state about what I was doing. Because before that, again, it was more kind of sideman focused, but we went into lockdown and we were like, well, we can't even meet up to film Sidemen videos anymore. We were sat on, you know, like video calls making Sidemen Sundays, which is, and they're some of our most viewed Sidemen Sundays to this day, actually. People were just inside. They had to consume stuff. And everyone else stopped.

51:08Everyone stopped doing it. Stopped making content because, and we almost stopped. We actually had a vote in the Sidemen and it was four votes to continue making videos through lockdown. Three votes to stop. Wow. I was one of the votes to stop. because you thought this was a time to rest and i thought we can't live up to the quality standards we're trying to create voted to continue i i want to i i yeah i don't i know i don't want to put someone else forward and say that they you know said to continue um when they or they said they wanted to stop when they didn't but i just remember i was wrong in that and that's the power of the side man is i love the loyalty you just did you didn't want to say you didn't want to say yeah Because I think, yeah, it's just one of those things.

51:50But it was me and two others said we should stop because how can we make good videos? And I remember one of our videos, we went and did a mukbang on one of the boys' rooftops. Which is where you eat food, right? We just sit and eat food and talk. And we were sat two meters apart on these different chairs dotted around the camera. We sat and we eat. And it's got, I think now, like over 30 million views. And I remember, again, we said at the time, we're like, we can't just make a video of us sat eating. but you've got to tell me 30 million just give it to you 30 million views what revenue are you making?

52:2130 million views let's I would you know between 250 and 300 ,000 dollars as an average it might be more it might be less but but to get to 30 million is impossible yeah it rarely happens ever and that was a video that cost nothing and we were just sat on our roof eating and it was a video that we were all sat there scratching our heads thinking how on earth are we uploading a video that's an hour of us eating food and talking? How is that like, how is this our big production piece for the week? But it also goes to show and I think that's kind of what has taken us further is a lot of the audience just want to hear from us rather than other channels where it's all about the spectacle and the show.

53:05It's balancing both.

53:15You got married? I did. Just over two years now. Let's go, man. How was it? Yeah, it was great. It was the best day ever. It is so surreal, kind of. Yeah, having that occasion. Everyone, kind of everyone that's important in your life all in one place at the same time. Isn't it the best? It was, yeah, it was amazing. If you ever, I'm about to be a dad in December, which is like the most... True, actually. Congratulations on that. Thank you so much. would you ever think about kids? Is that something that you would want at some point or no? Yeah, at some point, but also kind of at a point in my life now where a puppy is enough responsibility.

53:57And it is, it's a genuine, it's a good kind of step of just this, okay, I can't go away as much. If we are going away, let's find someone to kind of watch. So it's almost like that half step of responsibility that kind of made me realize, actually, I kind of want to try and travel and kind of do a lot of stuff now that get it all out of the way to the point that when I do kind of want to have a child, I can think, okay, this is my new responsibility. This can be my consistent project that I'm there for every day. So yeah. Lots of fans turned up at your wedding in Malta. That was surreal. That was a bizarre experience.

54:36I think there were a lot of fans in Malta in general, which we didn't particularly realize. I guess it's an English speaking country is, I guess, again, it's one of those places that I don't think many YouTubers go to. So when we all turned up, it started a little bit of a buzz. And yeah, during the, well, we were told during the wedding that there's, yeah, like a hundred fans outside the wedding venue. And I'm thinking, what on earth is, because I'm thinking in my head, we love our fans. We'll always give time to our fans. But if there's one place, I really think it's fairly obvious. Yeah, yeah, don't come to my wedding.

55:16It's fairly obvious that you probably shouldn't show up to was the wedding. So yeah, they were just, fortunately, there was a gate on the venue. So they shut the gate. They had one police officer who was kind of just stood telling them. But you can't also, they were outside the venue. So you can't really tell them to leave. I did feel bad for some of the guests because obviously they've come to a wedding. What do they think some of the guests who don't get it? They didn't understand. Yeah, a lot of family members were just like, well, the other thing is actually to them, it was much more funny because it's like, I guess a lot of my family that don't understand the YouTube and that kind of world, to them it's like, I guess it's a bit of a laugh.

55:52It's like, what? But I think some of the other kind of, yeah, creators who were invited, I think they were, they did really, like we did feel the privacy is just violated. It's just not. What did your wife make of it? Yeah, she wasn't happy. There's actually, I remember we drove out of a different exit and she was hiding below the window of the car as we left the wedding. She's like, I don't want, I don't want loads of like social media pictures of like me through the car window partying. It was good fun. So we just wanted to, uh, to get out of there. You want to have fun and just be married in that moment, right?

56:26Yeah, that was, uh, that was a very, very strange, strange situation. It's not one that we could have predicted really. But I mean, fortunately, nothing, they didn't come into the venue. Nothing bad happened. It was just a bit uncomfortable and just felt, just a violation of privacy. Do you like keeping your relationship private as well? Is that one thing that you don't really, not that you share everything, but you want to keep that to yourself? Yeah. Yeah. It's just something that we just, yeah, keep to ourselves. And I think it is also nice to have part of my life that isn't all broadcasted.

56:59Yeah, my wife, she has zero interest in. having people know who she is or followers or any of that sort of stuff. Do you know what? My wife is the same, but I force her into it.

57:13Also, last year you amazingly revealed, you did a video saying that you had Crohn's disease. Firstly, how are you doing? Much better now, fortunately. Okay. Yeah, I'm on some immunosuppressant medicine, which so far, touch wood, is keeping it pretty stable. but yeah that was a tough thing to kind of go through can you explain it to you so yeah Crohn's is an autoimmune disease where effectively some cells in your gut your immune system they don't really understand it properly yet it just kind of attacks them so it just causes kind of damage within your gut and it can be uncomfortable painful stop you from kind of eating um trips in and out of hospital so yeah that was difficult to kind of go through and also like if you're not eating your energy level is is like struggling so yeah when you're kind of on camera all the time i was and traveling i was so like exhausted for a kind of few years and it's a difficult one to kind of diagnose you didn't know why no it was that's the thing it's it's it's a there's a series of kind of gut conditions and it is just like it's probably one of the more the one of the less understood parts of science so it was difficult going through that and kind of working out what it was trying different treatments eventually getting something that worked um and yeah that was also then a thing of kind of like I was just going through it and it was it's also it's one of these things that people call an invisible illness so you kind of from the outside other than I lost a lot of weight I looked kind of myself so it's difficult to say like I'm really not feeling well because it's kind of like inside you so man it was a challenge to get through but again through time found the right medication and much better now as a result of it.

58:58And then that was kind of when I, on a video, I got really ill to the point where I just was like, I got to get out of this video. And then I kind of thought if I tell everyone now on the video, also other people watching who have the same condition will hopefully kind of realize that, I think a lot of people do have it, but again, it's one of these invisible conditions. A lot of people don't talk about it. So people who have it can feel like they're kind of alone and it's kind of like they're in this unfair situation. so yeah that was something yeah i kind of went through and fortunately better now scary time right but yeah definitely very yeah uncertain and scary and just it is any just it also kind of it's a challenging one because you start to blurb in your head what is actually i'm unwell and what part of it is i know i'm unwell so i feel unwell or what part of it is i'm just run down and tired it's like you're battling all those things in your head at the same time so it's hard thing isn't it yeah makes you realize how important health is definitely yeah yeah and yeah i've kind of focused on health since then and i think that's also helped alongside the medication is just kind of cleaning up my diet kind of there is to go into another tangent there is just so much unhealthy kind of food and drink and things in an environment that exist now that I'm sure was also contributing to it.

1:00:20Do you know what? To be healthy, it's expensive. Like, that's the crazy thing. We talk about the problem with obesity and the problem with, you know, lots of different issues that go on with unhealthy eating. It's because to go and buy an avocado is like three quid. Like, it's crazy. And it's inconvenient as well. And it's inconvenient. You've got to sit, cut it all up, get the stone out, like... What's easier to go and get is go and get a frozen pizza and chuck it in the oven. Yeah. That will feed a family. Yeah. And I did that for a long, long time as well. Like I said, I was on the ready meal to frozen food.

1:00:53It was funny. When I first met my wife, she was horrified. She was like, you live out of this fridge full of like ready meals. And you're like, yeah, this is sexy. I was like, I'll put this up front. This is the deal. This is part of the deal. Listen, here we go. When was your first date? Where was it? It was at a bar near the O2 back in, must've been like 2016, 17. a long time ago that moment when you decide that you're going to did you ever have I had the moment when you suddenly go I think I'm going to marry them did you have that did you ever clock in jail and go like I would marry this person I think it changed at some point but I don't have like a defining point but I know a lot of people do I remember mine was like sitting it was a few times but then sitting on the loo and I was like I think I'm going to marry her like honestly nice it's a great place to think and reflect right so you get away from your distractions it's honestly was just insane.

1:01:48If you guys have kids, if you ever do, what would your rules be on social media? Great, great question. I wish there was an answer to that question. I think also it's, I think it would be even crazy now to try and project that decision. Because in, you know, even in two years time, what is social media going to look like? Even in five years time, seven years time. So I think it all depends on where the world is. your your music career as well man so now you're you're drifting to the space where you just you've been booked you did tomorrowland yeah what was doing tomorrowland like unreal that was yeah it doesn't get in my eyes it doesn't really get much better as a festival and it's one that i've been to four or five times so it was yeah the coolest moment and we were all there the funniest part is we we were all going anyway so i'd booked for me and all of like all of our friends to go to Tomorrowland months prior.

1:02:46And then I get an email saying, Hey, would you like to play a set at Tomorrowland this year? And I'm like, what? And it was funny. All my friends were joking. They're like, Oh, we're going to get a sneaky set. And I'm like, yeah, fucking right. It came as a big surprise. Yeah. Super, super highlight moment. And I think, yeah it has a nice story to it in the sense that it was yeah one of the first dance music festivals i went to it's one of the kind of most well respected in the world and just the vibes are great so now i had yeah i had the best time man that is amazing so so but then how do you juggle everything right because if you're djing you're moving into this area into music that feels like it needs to take a lot of focus it does yeah so it is just but again i've taken focus off I'm not doing the kind of gaming videos and live streaming, which was this huge time investment.

1:03:42And it's actually worked out kind of well, because for me personally in gaming, there's not any game that I love right now that also works great for content. So it kind of, it's a natural place to step away. Whereas if I forced myself to be doing gaming videos and live streams, after doing it for 12, 13 years, I wouldn't be enjoying it. So it's just like massively out of my comfort zone, which is good. And it's just a place to learn new things. skills and also what's what i really enjoy about it and that makes it kind of worth the time commitment is the real world engagement with this audience that i've built through a screen wow it's so nice because we've done events before i mean there's things like the charity match which is huge but also it's kind of they're there to watch everyone in the sport itself and then we've done like events where we do a meet and greet but i'm sure as you know you can kind of meet like 100 people or so an hour any more than that's a bit impossible if you want to give the people a good experience so you're a bit kind of limited in terms of how many people you can share an experience with and then i played my first set at ministry of sound about two and a half years ago and there were a thousand people in the room and it was cool to be able to share something with them in a real world environment you're not you're doing you're sort of almost in a weird way sort sort of giving back.

1:05:02Because weirdly, when you stand there just signing stuff, maybe it's a bit odd. But that is sort of, you're saying, no, this is something that I've done and I hope you're providing it for them. Yeah, and it was going from seeing numbers on a video, like X many views, 200 comments, it's just text strings, seeing real faces of people who are supporters. So yeah, just at that point, I was like, okay, I'm going to try and follow this to wherever it gets to. And again, even at that point, someone said, oh yeah, you're going to play festivals and Tomorrowland and support people like Alan Walker. I would have been like, there's no way.

1:05:36I'm like, this is just a fun hobby. But I think, again, it started in a similar way to how YouTube started. It was just something that I wanted to do because I enjoyed doing it. And I think those are sometimes the things that go the furthest. Do you ever get imposter syndrome? DJing, big time, massively. Like it's especially now going to a festival and like getting taken around on a buggy, going into a green room with drinks rider there. And I'm like, no, I'm the guy who plays video games. Like what's going on here? No, with the DJ massively. And it's, I think it is, it's a tough thing to get my head around because I think everyone enjoys the environment.

1:06:17But again, you've got people commenting from kind of the outside and they'll be looking at these performances and making comments based on what they're seeing. But actually the real world, you know, environment in that room is very, very different. so it has yeah there have been a few times where i'm like what on earth am i doing like this is not for me and i think especially i had a lot of resistance into getting into it of course and it was actually through alan walker kind of really being a great friend and pushing me and saying like you will enjoy doing this and helping me that i got into it but it wasn't something that i'd even considered because it was like how can a youtuber be a dj it just didn't didn't really like didn't align in my head makes you realize that really if you want to do anything you if you really want to do stuff.

1:06:59And you can just put your mind to it. You can kind of do it. Unless it's like becoming an NBA player. I'm not going to be able to do that. I really don't think. You know what I mean? But if it's something that you can create and do yourself, you can kind of, doesn't matter how big or small it is, you can kind of do it. I think that's where sometimes the best things happen is when you don't really aim for anything in particular. You just kind of do it again to learn the skills. It was just this challenge. It was this unique environment. And I remember one of the big imposter syndrome moments was before I played for the first time at Ministry of Sound, I had some friends who DJed there and they were, they basically said like, Hey, they taught me to DJ a bit.

1:07:38They were like, you should come and play a set. And I remember I was practicing in my bedroom and I was playing all of this music. I was like, yeah, this is good. And then I was like, this is great. The audience of zero people. I got to Ministry of Sound and I play like really upbeat EDM dance music. I walk in and they're playing like some Drake and some Travis Scott. And I'm thinking to myself... This is not good. No, this is... And I'm thinking to myself, I've convinced myself that the music is good. Me and my audience of myself in my office playing this music has said, yeah, this is going to be good.

1:08:13And I'm going to walk out and everyone's going to boo me off the stage. And you're just like, this is not going to be good. I've got to go. I was like, I've got to go. It's actually not going to be good. It's like when you're about to tell a joke and you realise it's not funny and you're like, oh fuck, what now? Oh God, this is not going to be good. yeah and there's a room full of people that it's been advertised big stars here but again as soon as i went out it was you know a lot of people in the crowd knew who i was then they were just ready to get on and enjoy anything and that was and it went went great but it was funny if someone's listening right now and maybe they are at the beginning of their journey on youtube or the beginning of their journey doing content creation or just anything anything in that space or in this world what advice would you give them i think again our theme has been work hard consistently and also i think use everything as experience and a learning yeah not everything has to be you're making good money from this not everything has to be you're creating huge success from this so often the things that you go into for the experience to meet new people to learn those skills i guess a way i see it in my head a lot now is in the way that you create your own luck.

1:09:23It's almost like the more things you do, the more people you meet, the more places you go, the more things you attempt to do, you increase the surface area of your luck. And the more you increase that, the more good things that will come to you. That is so... Right. Because it is... That's where we go to, like, we create our own luck. And the way that you create your own luck is putting yourself in environments where that luck can happen. Exactly. You've got to put yourself out there. Yes.

1:09:54can I say I've loved every second Monday after the weekend that was kick ass in every single way I really appreciate it man we we end our episode with eight questions quick fire are you ready for this I'm ready to go and thank you as well great questions you did your research and your homework dude it's freaking amazing appreciate it what's a saying or phrase that makes you smile or cheers you up oh um probability has no memory and I say that because it's one that I used to say with the sidemen a lot and they would laugh and they'd be like it's just my way of saying that yeah probability has no memory it's like things things will happen and happen again I love that I'm gonna use that what scares you most about yourself what scares me most about myself my inability to focus sometimes very easily distracted and kind of mind wanders and it's can be problematic that's also leads to success though because you true yeah you end up in weird tangents but there's time and a place and sometimes yeah i'll just be especially in a relationship yes there you go you know you're not present yeah i'm here you're not present i'm like i am i'm here like yeah i've had that chat before as well when was the last time you cried it's probably when when i was like frustrated with trying to get on the right medication for my crohn's and it was just and it wasn't kind of sad it was just like really just frustrated and kind of going to doctors and kind of not being able to get a proper answer on kind of what was going on and it just kind of got to me a bit but yeah i can get that yeah um that frustration yeah and well done for speaking out about it because so many people probably dealing with it.

1:11:43Yeah, and they feel like it's just them. But I think a lot of people do go through health issues and it can sometimes be... It's a very lonely place. Yeah. I get it, man. What's something you can't let go of? How good of a video game Halo 3 was. How good was it? It's so good. It's so good. It's like one of the first multiplayer games on the original Xbox. How good? Is it unbelievable? It was just at that time, it was just... It was just... we'd gone from playing video games on our own to this first multiplayer experience that everyone was playing. And it was just, even though it was like, as a kid, it was like, oh my God, that's another real person I'm playing the game against.

1:12:24So yeah. Man, I remember when, for me, I think, one of the things I can't, is still GoldenEye and the Nintendo 64. Yeah, the split screen. Oh my God. It's up there, that's up there. Unbelievable. That was a great game. What's your guilty pleasure? My guilty pleasure is a video game called Dota 2, which I have, I think, 4 ,000 hours of playtime on. Shut up. And it's the, yeah, I think I'm in top 1 % of the top 1 % rank of all players of this game. What is it? Like what type of game? It's a MOBA. It's like League of Legends. I don't know if you've heard of that. So it's kind of like a strategy, kind of fantasy.

1:13:05Like fantasy. Yeah. And it's the funniest part is it's my guilty pleasure. Because every other game that I've played, I've made loads of content on and got loads of views on. Dota, I've maybe made two videos in my home. It's like your secret thing on the side. And I used to play it with all my friends all the time. And now I play it on my own. I just lock in and play this game. I love that. So it is truly a guilty pleasure, but I love it. In general, what's your biggest turn off? Turn off? Ooh. it might be just kind of superficial conversations that are very superficial at a very surface level I think yeah it's just going deeper is where it's at I'm with you man 100 % I'm 100 % where it's at get in there definitely what turns you on I think intelligence like complex systems yeah in all sense yeah really?

1:14:07yeah so AI must be exciting for you wow um it's also but actually it's also terrifying it's almost too intelligent actually there's a a human level of intelligence when it goes beyond that you're scared of it a little bit? yeah yeah yeah skeptical definitely but I think that's everything and everyone yeah I think that's you should be I agree I 100 % agree what do you like most about yourself?

1:14:35Oh, probably my work ethic and consistency. Again, it's this reoccurring thread through here. But I think it's done a lot for me. Yeah. Bonus, who's your favorite member of the Sidemen? Ha ha, trick question. If you had to pick one member of the Sidemen to live with on a desert island forever. To live with on a desert island. And everyone else is... Oh, they perish. They perish, yeah. Oh, that is, that is. Well, you've made it easier with a desert island question. I'm going to go with, I'm going to go with Josh because he's very pragmatic and I think we'd be, we'd have that whole desert island operational pretty quickly.

1:15:20Oh, Vic, this is amazing. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you coming on. This has been awesome. Thanks for having me. Cheers. Thanks, man. That's amazing.

1:15:30Wow, what an incredible episode. I've always wanted to meet a member of the Sidemen. I'll tell you why. Because I find them fascinating because of the longevity they've had, the fact that they've been able to build an audience over this time, the fact that they're different people from different backgrounds, but they still have remained together as a team. Because in a sense, they're like a boy band, right? They're like a boy band, but typically bands break up, but they haven't broken up. And from that episode, you learn all the reasons why. Because they make it equal the whole time. You know, being a YouTuber, a lot of us still look at YouTubers as they're not famous.

1:16:07They just sort of sit in their bedroom making videos. But actually what I realized from this episode is that Vicstar is probably one of the hardest working people I've ever met. Making a video every single day for four years or whatever it was, that is insane. No one can say that. That just shows that in order to become successful in anything you do, you have to put the work in. You have to put the graft in. You can't cut corners. You have to dedicate your life to making it work. And Vickstar is a true example of that. The focus and determination you need to succeed, man, it was off the charts.

1:16:42This episode also really reminded me of another content creator called Italian Batch. You may have seen him online. He makes very funny videos. He makes YouTube videos now. And some of you may see just him as that funny guy who makes funny videos, but he's so much more than that. So if you like this episode with Vickstar, trust me, you'll like the episode with Italian Batch. Here's a little clip of what you will find in the episode with Italian Batch. So I hope you enjoy it. Why the name Italian Batch? It was at the time that I was studying like Mr. Beast and stuff like that. And I was like, a lot of the YouTubers and creators who go far have, don't use their name because it's more memorable to use something someone hasn't heard before.

1:17:22Because I could be Isaac Smith, but there'll be another Isaac Smith or there's other Isaacs already, but there's not another Italian Batch. There's not another Mr. Beast, there's like a name like that will stick in your head. So I thought, okay, I'll go, I'll go under an Elias. I'll go under Italian batch and that's how I'll do it. And yeah, I was posting like five videos a day constantly. I said, that's a real marketing skill. Well, it all came from just watching other people who had done it before. And I was like, I was trying to recognize patterns. Yeah. But there's a difference between, there's a difference I think between copying and actually having a sense of why they've done it.

1:17:58Don't forget, we're going to be back next week on Wednesday for another episode of Great Company