We’re All Living in Casey Neistat’s World

26:57Yeah. Is that it? She's a great writer. Oh, I mean. Yeah, it was Ben and Josh Safdie, Ariel Yaniv Shulman, Henry Joost, who's an incredible filmmaker. Who's his brother. He works with Ariel very closely. Oh, okay. They're co-directors on a bunch of them. Greta Gerwig. Yep. That's a big part of the essay. And, you know, like Oscar Boison, who just has a new movie out right now called Balthazar. It's an incredible movie. Incredible movie. But he built the shelves in Lena Dunham's studio. Yeah. Like that was his job then was to build Lena's shelves. And, you know, his movie right now is in theaters like right now.

27:48Our hero Balthazar. Definitely go see it. It's a great movie. But it's just fascinating that we were all incubated in this one physical space. And I just ran into someone this weekend who's a super successful media guy. And he was talking to me about this article. Yeah. And I mentioned to him that the crazy thing is that what that era Lena's referring to is now almost 20 years ago. Right. That was like 18 years ago. I'm the only one who hasn't left the building. like Josh and Benny's studio on the fifth floor like someone else has it now and I think I'm two generations of entirely new people that have cycled through the space and now I'm in that building and I look around and it's still like an equal amount of people doing really creative kick-ass work all the time and like my neighbor above me this kid named Jordan Stuttered he's a fantastic artist and filmmaker and like I'll see him like twice a day three times a day we have a dedicated landline between my office and his office.

28:51And he just like bangs on the door and like, he's like, hey man, you used up all my printer paper. And I'm like, oh, I bought you more. And I like give him the printer paper back. Or like, I'll come up, I'll go upstairs and grab him and be like, I just need you to hold the camera. And he's like, okay. And that is such a special, like, I know you tried living outside of New York City. I tried living outside of New York City and failed miserably. And I think that was the one thing that no matter what I did, no matter where I went, I couldn't find that energy. And my office on Broadway might be the center of that for me, but I think this whole city is evocative of that kind of energy.

29:30And she called it the Red Bucket Collective. I had never heard that. Is that what it was? Yeah. So in 2002, like way pre-YouTube, Van and I had on our website, nicestatbrothers.com, which I got, I hope I still own that URL. If somebody buys it before I do, just email it to me, please. We had a bunch of videos and we had a contact page and we got an email from like films at redbucketfilms.com. And it was these teenagers, but it was Josh Safdie, Benny Safdie, Ariel Shulman, Neve Shulman, Alex Kalman, like all these guys that have gone on to build incredible careers. And they were just a group of kids that made movies together.

30:12And yeah, Yeah, so the Red Bucket Studios, the Red Bucket Film Studio was on the fifth floor. Do you think there was something special about brothers doing it or families doing it together? Yeah, I mean, I think it's just like collaboration in general, especially creative collaboration. Like it requires such a synergy that I think it lends itself to siblings. Maybe there's something unique about brothers. I don't know, but for sure. And of course, you made the HBO series and a lot of your early videos with your brother Van. The first decade of my entire career was there was no Casey Neistat and no Van Neistat.

30:47It was the Neistat brothers. What was that like? Incredible. It was incredible. You know, Van is he's the coolest person I know. And he's also like the greatest artist I know. Van was always the leader when it came to the creativity between the two of us. He still is. He's a big brother. Bigger brother. Yeah, but I would also say like objectively, he's a better creative than I am. Like he just has this sort of immovable creativity that cannot be changed. It cannot be altered. It cannot be molested in any ways. It's so pure. And I think I'm much more like, you know, more of a pragmatist to a fault.

31:30Like I remember when he and I were working together and we found some success. We like got into a fight once because we couldn't afford rent. So I got us like a Starbucks commercial to direct. And he was like, I don't direct a fucking Starbucks commercial. And he was right creatively. Sure. But I was maybe right pragmatically. And I think that's indicative of what the relationship was like. But Van has always been sort of the creative North Star for me. He's the reason why I started making movies. I bought a video camera. This is before I moved to New York City. I was 17. I bought a video camera and he had the computer.

32:03So he had a computer that could edit video, but no camera. And I had a camera without a computer. It was mutually sure destruction. Yeah, that's exactly what it was. Mutually assured creativity. You're still close. Super close, yeah. His son's named X. X, the letter X. And his son was born before Elon's kid was born. So just to be clear. I respect it. On the scheme of purity to whoring. Okay. Can't wait to see where this is going. I think people would be surprised to know that a man who has been online as long as you have doesn't have an OnlyFans page yet. No OnlyFans yet. Has never read an ad for Athletic Greens or MeUndies that I know of.

32:48Yeah, but you can't go too far down that road. I've done some. Okay, you've done some. No, I'm saying. Okay, okay. There's a spectrum here. Okay. There is no Nistat coin. No, that one I resisted. There was never a Casey Kahn. No. There was no NFT drop. No. Why not? I assume the tentacles were like. Yeah, very strong. Especially because during the heyday of NFTs, there was definitely an opportunity to like, I can do this. And I was approached formally by people that would organize the whole thing. And it was like unequivocal. FTX? It was FTX. Equally problematic though. But like it was unequivocal in that like if we do this, the amount of money you'll walk with will be a set for life amount of money.

33:37Right. Generational wealth. except for life okay fine i we don't have to i mean unless you want to talk numbers like tens of millions low tens of millions yes um and like guaranteed and how i looked at it and i think i even talked to my wife about it was like it will be selling 100 of my integrity for this amount of money and there were definitely voices that were like dude you should just fucking do it. And then there were voices that were the most delusional, which was like, this isn't selling your integrity. These things are going to go up in value. Look at bored apes. And I just was like, I think there's an inherent honesty in reading a commercial for a fucking VPN.

34:26Which is like, I don't want to do it. But I got bills and I got kids that are going to go to college someday and like, fuck you, I have to be paid. But like you the viewer know okay what this is yes i'm going to sit through this for a 60 second read because this man is this is how he makes money if i disagree with this i can change the channel but i think that there's something that is very different between that in doing something that i think crosses the line towards exploitation like maybe a more acute example is this is one of my regrets this was a mistake I never did merch because I thought it was exploitive and I thought it was stupid and like all these people who show up to watch my videos every day and have enabled all this this greatness that I got to experience I'm gonna like sell them a sweatshirt for 50 bucks like no I'm not doing that and then after I ended the vlog like later like I had a conversation with somebody smart about it and they were like don't you remember like how bad you wanted that red hot chili peppers t-shirt yeah of course like fuck they're right and like this is a way for your audience to sort of be a part of what you're doing i'm like you're right and i did one sweatshirt yeah and it was like super it was great it was successful but like i really wish i had put more effort into that because again like an nft you're selling fiction for real money but like a merch i think is a really great thing you will get the sweatshirt yeah like you're giving someone something.

35:52There's a really fair exchange of value. It's like my, I love what my wife does, like her company, Billy, like she makes products that she obsesses over for years. And then if you choose that to participate in that, like you give her the money, you get this thing. And that I think is, is a really great example of, of a, I think a positive way to engage with your audience. I buy Mr. Beast Feastables. I really like their peanut butter cups. Totally fair. I got no hate towards Jimmy. But to sell an NFT that I knew, when I was at MIT, was when Ethereum first was announced. I have some understanding of cryptocurrencies and the entire nature of the blockchain industry.

36:31There was no doubt in my mind that every NFT sold is going to go to zero. Oh, really? Yes. Do you trade stocks? Do you see the future? No. Okay. And just so you know, I'm not good at any of that. My wife says how I buy real estate is buy high, sell low. Because I've lost money. I rent right now because I've lost money every time I've tried to buy a house. No, I'm not good at that. But like NFTs, I was like inherently like this is not going to, this isn't going to work. And I knew that this would be like extracting money from an audience because they trusted me. Right. And giving them nothing in return.

37:06Right. It becomes a little snake oily where it's like I'm going to sell you this new world and you're getting in early. and it's irresponsible. Yeah, I think that there was some part of me that was like, if this is still a thing in five years, I'll do it. Okay, interesting. But I don't believe that this is too new. And do you feel like other creators, YouTubers, are a little too quick to cash in? I mean, sometimes. Like Logan got in a lot of trouble for his NFT project. Yeah. And I know Logan. I love Logan Paul I love Logan and Jake I think they're great guys and I love the careers that they've built and I don't I don't I don't know I can't speak for Logan but I don't think he sat down and said let me exploit this shit out of my audience right but at the end of the day like he was left in a place where there was a really disproportionate my understanding is that he sort of won his audience sort of lost there and he has to deal with that and that's a shitty thing it's a shitty thing for his audience it's a shitty thing for him and his brand.

38:13And this is not to apologize for anything that he's done, but I have no interest in being in that situation. Right. And when I see my peers doing that, even if they win, it's like, no, integrity is like, it's expensive, but integrity is kind of the only thing. Right. And if it didn't feel true to me, it's... Do you have any ads that you're like, I shouldn't have done? Like you wish you did merch, but do you have anything you wish you didn't do? Not, you know, like I definitely got in some trouble for some ads, some that I think the audience was right and some that I totally disagree with. Like I did a Samsung commercial that was, I thought it was great, but we didn't say it was shot.

38:53It was a Samsung commercial till the end and people flipped out because of that. Interesting. I won't apologize for that. I don't, I don't agree. But you know, like I did a deal, I don't want to out anybody It was a great company, but it was with a VPN company. And it was one of the biggest dollar deals I've ever done. And I think it was supposed to be five engagement. And I think I did two of them. And I called my agent and I was like, get me out. And that was a really expensive decision. Yeah. And it was just because like, it's a good product. I use that VPN service right now. I pay for it every month.

39:31But I just didn't feel like I was working it in any way that brought value to my audience. Like Samsung, working with Samsung was one of the greatest partnerships I ever got to do. They gave me like really great budgets. Like we took over a shopping mall. That's really fun. And we turned the shopping mall into a Willy Wonka level Christmas sort of holiday themed wonder park where we had professional snowboards going down the escalators doing backflips over the fountain. and then we brought in a bunch of kids from like the Milwaukee Boys and Girls Club and gave them Samsung presents. And then they got to play.

40:07This is beast-ish. For sure. Yeah, yeah. This is pre-beast. Yeah. But we did this like, we did this as like, there was a real undercurrent of benevolence. Like I gave a significant, I think most of my fee for that, I donated to the Boys and Girls Club. But Samsung had to pay for that whole thing. Right. It was millions of dollars. Like that, I am so psyched that I got the opportunity to do that. Totally. So a lot of the brand work that I got to do, I thought was really awesome. And I think that's a good example of like, I couldn't have done it without a brand's money. But I think the viewers that watched that video liked it.

40:41So there's a very equitable exchange of value there. I think that's something Mr. Beast does really well. Every video he makes is sponsored sometimes by multiple sponsors. but when you see the video and how over the top it is and how well integrated you know like the dude that's stranded on a floating island and he gets a starbucks shows up then he gets starbucks for life like okay like that's cool like i like that was fine by me yeah and if that's how you have to pay for your video like no hate from me for stuff like that when you when you were approached just going back to like you know you were offered something where you would could have walked away within the low tens of millions of dollars.

41:19What was like the ultimate thing of like, like what did your wife say actually? I'm curious about that. I don't remember specifically and I wish I could remember which one of my smart friends told me to just do it because he had the most compelling argument. I don't know that I had a serious conversation with her about it, but because I never considered it. Okay, you were never gonna really do it. No, but I still think about that money. like I've done really well in life but I'm not I'm like I stress out about how to pay for my kids college like we rent an apartment right now and I'm like Candace we're not renewing this lease like we're moving to a cheaper apartment next year you know like I'm not I'm not in that that that level I haven't reached that level you're not optimizing for my you are a hard man to get in touch with first of all there's no assistant I have no assistant there's no you go to the website and it's like contact page and then it's essentially in a much nicer way no literally Literally, there's no way to contact me on the contact page.

42:16And it's like, and you've said like, by living this way, you are foregoing gobs of cash. Yeah, it really hurts my career. Yeah. But like my whole studio right now, I rebuild my studio every three years. My whole studio right now is hostile architecture. It's designed to make sure there's nowhere for anyone to sit but me. So even if it's my wife, like, can I work out of your office today? There's nowhere for you to work. Yeah. Being alone, I think, is the ultimate luxury. And my favorite thing is to be alone in my office working. And that's expensive. So I lose a lot of opportunities because of that.

42:54But for me, that's sort of the ultimate thing. And I'm at that weird place in maturity and adult life, which is like, what do I want? And it's definitely not a Lambo or a Porsche. I think it's like what brings me meaning and purpose in life and being with my family. And then like when I'm able to sit and focus and be alone, like that is the most valuable thing. But yeah, it hurts the old pocketbook. And now a quick word from our sponsor. At the Free Press, we're pretty obsessed with one big idea that most topics deserve more honesty and more depth than they're getting. So I want to tell you about a podcast that's doing exactly that.

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44:06And in today's climate, that's rare. Find Unpacking Israeli History on your favorite podcast app or YouTube and subscribe today. Okay, speaking of Lambos and Porsches, we talked, we hit a little bit about this, about sensationalism. Yeah. And how the algorithm sort of rewards, as I see it, like many things, but two things, I think, especially if you're like a man who commands attention. One is sensationalism. I got my assistant a Tesla. I, you know, paid these bums to fight. It's sort of like carnival stuff at a certain point. I bought an elephant. I filled a pool of shaving cream and that's kind of your like clickbait world.

44:48But if you, if you deliver on it, I think it's like, can be totally legit because people are choosing to watch it. And the other thing that I think it rewards is extremism. And I'm talking here about figures like Clavicular, the Lux Maxxer, maybe Andrew Tate. And there's like a really wide spectrum. Some, I think, are sort of righteous, others not so much, of people who go really hardcore into politics, conspiracies, alternative health. Was that ever tempting to you? How did you avoid that part of it? no i don't i i understood sensationalism as something slightly different and i think you're correcting your characterization but for me it was like you know like a video i made last week is something about it i think it's a really fun video my kids like it but it's it's fairly intellectual it's about like procrastination and how i'm guilty of like doing these things to procrastinate doing the work I should be doing.

45:50And there's definitely a take on that that could have had a sensational title. But that's a movie I'm really proud of. It took me forever to make. And I knew when I posted that, I was like, this isn't going to make a lot of views, relatively. And the video I made before that was about the big blizzard we had here in New York City. And the thumbnail is like 24 hours, hour by hour of the snowstorm with a really good thumb. And I'm like, this need to do a shitload of views. Yeah, it was a banger. I think it's a good video. I don't think it's a great video. I don't think that's a video that if I didn't, if I hadn't made it, if I were to watch that, I would watch that and be like, oh, that's a great video.

46:27It wouldn't, it wouldn't make me think. It wouldn't be my Rushmore. You know, it'd be like, you know, it'd be like two enjoyable hours. It's like 10 fun minutes, but doesn't, it, for me, it's like that video is such a gimme. Like it doesn't mean anything to me as a filmmaker. I had fun making it. I love doing that shit, but there was no, there's no real depth to that it felt more like one of my daily vlogs it was just sort of a little experiential video and then the more intellectual videos infinitely more work way harder for me to make i know reward super low reward yeah and so how where and how sensationalism fits in there for me i think it's something i'm i'm aware of but i'm less conscious of when i'm making videos like Like when I did my most watched video, which I think is 80 or 100 million views or something like that, which was about a first class airline seat.

47:19Oh, yeah. You know, like that, the origin stories of that video is like flying first class was always an obsession of mine. Like I never got to do it. And it was such a breakthrough. And the truth of that was when I was, I was daily vlogging and YouTube asked me to go speak at VidCon Australia. And I was like, I can't spend 23 hours on a plane because I have to make a video. And they're like, what if we fly a business class? And I'm like, oh, hell yeah. So if you look, three days before I posted the video that got 100 million views, it's a video of me traveling. And it is a daily vlog, but 80 % of it is me sitting in business class and how excited I am about it.

47:53And I show off that like Emirates has a little bar and like it was cool. Emirates saw that video. And while I was in Australia, they figured out who I was and all this. And they intercepted me in Dubai and like, we've upgraded you to first class. And I was like, this is it. But yeah, this is I've been waiting my whole life for this. and no one had made a first class review video. Like there were like the points guy type people that would have sort of GoPro, this is what the seat looks like. And I was like, I'm shooting. Sort of practical. Yeah, I'm gonna shoot this like a feature fucking film.

48:24And like, it was lit perfectly. If you look at most of the shots are on tripod with like an SLR with a 12 millimeter super wide lens. This is the video that did the most thing, okay. So like for me, I was really passionate about that and like brought waterproof cameras into the shower. Like everything was so specific. But like that was something I was just genuinely interested in. And I posted that video and I expected it to do what my daily vlog did. And then it did 60x what my daily vlog did. And I looked at that and I was like, good God. And it was only afterwards that I was like, oh, that's what, that's sensational.

48:59Like the title$30 ,000 airplane seat, that's sensational. And I thought it might do a little bit better. I didn't expect it to do that. Yeah. And it's funny because Emirates invited me back like a year or two later to review one of their newer planes. I made a video I'm super proud of. But I called Mr. Beast and I was like, hey, how do I beastify the title and the thumbnail? And he's like, just let me do it. Yeah. And his team did the title. He's the thumbnail team. And the thumbnail. And it was like literally applying his sensational veneer over a video without changing the video in any capacity.

49:30So in any event, that's my very myopic, very narrow, very vanilla take on sensational for me. What I see more often among my peers are this really intrinsic, unbreakable connection between the more sensational, the subject matter, the greater the views. Right. And that leads to sort of an inevitable kind of destruction. and I think when you look at creators that were really really popular that had a falling that were canceled that did something really fucked up that something bad happened someone was hurt it was it's always it's invariably in pursuit of that sensationalism and I think now that's manifested into what we see with like some of these male influencers you know like there's a guy named Vitaly who just spent eight months in jail in the Philippines because he was doing something sensational over there.

50:25And they were like, no. And they arrested him and locked him up for almost a year. But I think that is, there's an undercurrent that that is by intent, like what they're signing up for and their recipe for building a successful career in the little sort of area of the media landscape that they live in. I don't have much relationship with it. I don't have that much of an understanding of it. I just watched Louis Thoreau's video. So anything that I can share with you will be based on what I learned from him and through his journalism, but it means nothing to me. And I pay next to no attention to it.

51:00Is what you're describing, do you think, is that what happened to David Dovrich? Yeah, I think David's a unique character. And it's funny because in the film I made about him, the opening scene is the line for me behind the camera is, David, I asked you three years ago, or three years ago, I said to you that the pursuit of sensationalism invariably ends with something bad happening. And here we are three years later. Does it mean anything different to you now? And then like it cuts and the opening title sequence starts. Like that was the narrative of that movie because that's exactly what happened to him.

51:37And like David, I think, is one of the greatest YouTubers in history. Like the show that he created was extraordinary. It was amazing. That was the ultimate jackass. Yeah, I was about to say that was the spiritual heir to jackass. Yes, because it wasn't about, you know, people getting hurt. It was just like this friend group and the characters were so well-defined. And I know all those guys, they really are those characters. They're amazing on camera. And David as the ringleader was like, so, and then seeing him edit how obsessive he was. Like when I was making that documentary, I watched him once spend eight hours to get a scene.

52:14And then I watched him in three seconds delete the entire scene. See, like it doesn't make the cut, throw it away. Oh, he can kill his darlings. He didn't care. It had to be four minutes and 20 seconds of perfection. And like the lengths he would go through to get that. But then like, you know, again, after years and years of pursuing that and pursuing ideas, something horrific happened. And there were multiple victims there. And, and it's, you know, I think it's tragic. It's tragic for the victims. It's sad for, for that his career was torpedoed because of, of that. But I think that, you know, you were asking me earlier about YouTube fame and what that means.

52:51Like, David went from a high school kid in Chicago to being like, at that time, I think he was probably the most popular YouTuber on planet Earth. Yeah. Inside of like three years. And so when I said it's interesting, when I see peers of mine go through that experience, I think of him. When that video that got, you know, the 100 million views, is there a rush there? Or are you like, oh, I need another hit of this? Well, the video of the first class, I was still doing my daily vlog. Oh, okay. So like I posted that and then immediately went back to work and it's like making the next day's video and the next day's video.

53:28The more of the rush was like the snowboarding in New York City video. Yeah, it's amazing. Because that was at the peak of the daily vlog. And I knew the video I wanted to make because I've been trying to make that video for a decade. I had kept a Jeep, like a four-wheel drive vehicle in a garage in New York City on standby for five years. to make that video. And finally, we got a snowstorm that shut down the city. And like, the intent was there. Like I had my whole crew ready. I had a professional stunt driver. Like I had everything set up. So like that video, I was that video was published before it stopped snowing.

54:01Wow. Like that was a video that was a rush. And an interesting footnote to that is the minute that video was published, I then sat back down and edited the vlog. So that day, I put out two videos, like the snowboard video and then the daily vlog of that day, which was making the snowboard video. Yeah, those were crazy times. That's really, that's too much. I struggled to put a video. I mean, I have a full-time job now that's not making videos. What is it? And I struggle to get a video out once a month now. And when I try to think of making 31 videos a month, I don't know how I got into that place.

54:38But like my biggest conflict now I was trying to figure out how to, I mean, I'm very distracted with work, if we can talk about work. And I struggled to make a video. But then it was like that level of cadence was something. Like I look back at that. I'm like, how the fuck did I do? He said it's hard to get in touch with me. My agent called me when I was doing the daily vlog. And he's like, hey, Jeffrey Katzenberg wants to meet with you. And I was like, I can't do my vlog. And he was like, you should take this meeting. I'm like, I'm not taking any meetings. And he's like, Casey, please take this fucking video.

55:10Yeah, yeah, like, come on. But like that was, I didn't do phone calls then. It was like a very, very heads down tunnel vision, get the video done every day. Wow. It's almost like a meditation. It's like no distraction. Like this is what I do. Like the little grains of sand and like the mandala on the beach. Yeah. And look, my whole life fell apart around me. My wife and I were on the precipice of divorce for the entirety of that. But when I talk to my friends who are like having kids now, I always say that like the beauty of having kids in the house, something you know well, is that like, you know exactly what you're supposed to do every day when you wake up.

55:45And like the beauty of my daily vlog was like, every day I knew exactly what to do. And like right now with work, like we're building a big company and it's like daily, it's like six Zoom calls and 10 phone calls and a hundred emails. And there's, at the end of the day, there's like not even an episode of the vlog. You know, It's like, what are we doing here, guys? What is your full-time job? So I made a video a couple years ago about a company called Mod Retro. Oh, yes. Yeah. The Palmer Lucky. Game Boy company. And, you know, I say this in the video, but like I was very skeptical about this idea of like building a$200 Game Boy.

56:23It didn't make sense to me. And then I met with him. And I was like, oh, shit. This is, I saw the vision. And I was like, I'm in. And I joined as an advisor. And I advise a number of companies. It's one of the great luxuries of being a bit of a technologist and having a whole shitload of C-level YouTube fame. You get to be a part of these. But about seven months ago, I joined the company full time. Mod Retro. Mod Retro. The company expanded from the vision of the company and what we're doing. They just closed a big round of fundraising. The entire agenda of what this company is and what this company is trying to be so aligns.

57:02minds with everything that I am that I was like, yeah. And it's weird. I'm 45. I've never, I've never in my life had a job where the company wasn't mine. Right. Like I've never, the way I talked to Torin, the CEOs, I'm like, I've never sailed on someone else's ship before. I've only ever been the captain. And it's like, it's, I mean, very senior. I don't ever feel like I'm answering to someone, but it's like, it is a, it's a learning curve. And like spending three hours a day on Slack managing is like, it's necessary. Yeah. You know, we're only whatever, 45 people right now. Like I need to do that right now.

57:38But it's super exciting and I love it, but it's demanding and it's in direct conflict with making videos. I feel like your personality a little. No, because the mission for the company. Yeah. You know, like iPod's Dirty Secret, that movie, which launched my career 23 years ago, was about my frustration that Apple was shipping this$500 magical device that was designed to die in two years. The mission of Mod Retro is to literally build the best consumer electronics technology that are built forever. These are like products that will exist for all of time, the last and best things ever made of this generation.

58:20And then when I look around like at where technology is today, when I like my wife and I are trying to decide like how much screen time is too much for our kids. And, you know, when I realize like when I look at my own screen time or when I delete Twitter off my phone for the 50th time this month, when I realize how angry social media is making me, you know, I think technology is headed in this direction where it's like technology has stopped serving us and we now serve technology. Right. Your TV that you buy, it's like it has a microphone in it. It has all this fucking bloatware so it knows exactly what viewership habits are.

58:54It's shoving ads down your throat. You know, like Instagram is not there for you to look at pictures of your friends anymore. Instagram is there to understand your viewership behavior so it can better serve you ads. So I buy things. Yes. Technology has become this thing that is just meant to extract from you the person. And if you look at the entire hardware landscape globally on planet Earth, there is not a company that has like a stake in the ground the way Mod Retro does that says, okay, we're going in the opposite direction. We're identifying products that people loved. We're building the best ever versions of them.

59:27And they're entirely antithetical to that. There are no fucking microtransactions on the new Nintendo 64 that we're shipping. It's called an M64, M for Mod Retro. It's clever, right? Can you buy a new battery for it? Or do you have to rebuy the whole thing? Do you know what kind of batteries the chromatic the Game Boy takes? Double A? Double A. And when I asked Palmer, I was like, why does this take double A and not lithium ion? And he said, my guess is that in 100 years, lithium ion won't be around, but double A will be. And I was like, that's when I was like, I'm in. I'm like, fuck yes, I'm in.

1:00:02He's like talking dirty to you. Yeah. Like this is - Talking iPod's dirty secret. Yeah. And I think, look, for me as like a founder, like I love being an entrepreneur. I love building companies. Yeah. And when I look at hardware, it's always been an obsession of mine. but it's also something that like be cognizant of your limitations i'm not an engineer i don't think i have the capacity to do that and then you meet one of the world's greatest prodigies who has demonstrated his ability to do that over and over and over and that's what he's doing like the opportunity to be a part of that was maybe one of the most exciting opportunities i've ever had the thing you're describing with you know the ipod being you being unable to replace the battery we now understand is planned obsolescence.

1:00:43You're still hammering it, you know, 20 years after that video came out. Why does it matter if someone can replace their own iPod battery? It's they're offering you such an amazing convenience of, you know, gigabytes of storage. Why can't you just buy new? I think if you take that narrow purview, it's fuck it. It's not a big deal. Yeah. But But in 2003, I made 800 bucks a week, which was a lot for me then. But I lived in New York City and made 800 bucks a week. That$500 iPod took me like six months to save up for. And it was like my whole world. And the fact that it was designed to be dead in two years, it was a huge fucking deal for me then.

1:01:28And I think we've grown accustomed to that now. But I think what it is emblematic of is sort of the shittification of all products. Everything we touch in this world. Like my wife's car, we bought like a used Mercedes minivan SUV thing. It was really cheap off lease. We got it for like 38 grand and knew it was like 90. And we're like, great deal, we'll take it. It's got like 50 fucking screens in it. you have to tap a screen 25 times to make the temperature go from 58 to 83 how is that better like why is there not just that knob that's blue on one side and red on the other how is that fucking better and i think that planned obsolescence is part of this much bigger issue with technology which technology is most of what consumers are spending money on because now technology is cars technology is everything we interact with um and technology is getting shittier.

1:02:29It's not about better serving the consumer. It's about serving something else. And it's not getting better. It's just about extracting shit from us. And I hate it. I hate all of it. And it's a constant frustration point. So I think that planned obsolescence is part of that frustration that I live in with what technology has become. But I don't think it's the whole thing. I think the whole thing is something much more kind of dark and nefarious and ugly. And it's like, we can't change our own batteries anymore. Like we're the iPod and I have to outsource, sorry, I'm mixing like a hundred metaphors here, getting food, communicating with people I love, finding someone to date to corporations in exchange for convenience.

1:03:18Yeah. Or what about like, did you read John Height's book? Oh, yeah. He's a columnist here. Okay. If you want a book that will fuck you up, especially as a parent, you know, the Anxious Generation, you know, that is what like, and I know that he's spoken about since he published that book that he didn't go hard enough in that book. That whole book is about how, you know, technology, algorithms, phones, screens are destroying an entire generation. And, you know, it's like, why is that the case? And there's a very obvious answer to that. There's a pragmatic answer to that. but it's not a positive one.

1:03:52It's not a positive outlook. So like why do I in my mid 40s when I've got some degree of financial independence and certainly a lot of options join a company like Mod Retro? It's because their entire thesis is the opposite of that. Right. Like literally shipping a product comes out like next month. We haven't shipped it yet. Shipping a product that is a video game system from the 90s. Because when I played that, it was me and my three friends in front of a TV socially engaging and hanging out. There's no microtransactions. There's no bullshit. And when I look at my daughters, they're not allowed to play Roblox, but there was a moment when they downloaded it and you see a child playing Roblox.

1:04:28It is the exact opposite of that. It is shutting out the entire world around them so they can be alone on this machine that's trying to constantly sell them shit versus like my parents buying us a Nintendo 64. So me and Joe and Kyle can sit there and play Smash Brothers and like socialize and be together. Like that's technology making things better and this is technology making things worse. I mean, Roblox is also, I know I'm going to sound crazy, like turning people into like terrorists. There's like a whole thing with like the Roblox like gangs. Yeah, yeah. Roblox protests. What? Roblox protests.

1:05:03It's crazy what happens on there. And like people just let their kids go on there unsupervised. Roblox, and then they just lose some huge lawsuit. I don't know. I know about the Facebook lawsuit. I don't know about the Roblox lawsuit. There's like, there isn't a, I think it's a class action suit against Roblox because of child safety issues. Oh, yeah. Well, it's crazy. And like there's sextortion and just like horrible, horrible stuff. There's none of that on the Mod Retro. On the Mod Retro. I promise you. In addition to not falling for the NFTs and the cryptocurrencies, you've also avoided many things that happen to people online.

1:05:38You were not me too'd. There were no bizarre tweets or recordings of you that came out. But you have been publicly shamed, which is maybe a feature of being online professionally. But it wasn't for a mistake you made. And I think a lot of people are like, oh, I've been canceled and a horrible video of me saying a horrible thing came out. And it's like, well, that's different than, you know, getting backlash for a thing you believe or perhaps the person that you are, which I think is an important difference. But two years ago, you published a video and you called it Jew. Yeah. Really subtle. and it was four days after the October 7th attack.

1:06:16Why did you make a video called Jew? You know, I've always been vocal. I've always been vocal. You know, three years before, two years before I published that video, I published a video at the peak of sort of the George Floyd. And it was just standing up for how I interpreted the entire BLM movement. And I know it's like, it's been incredibly obfuscated. It has different definitions. For me, what the Black Lives Matter movement was, was that African Americans, like my peers, there was an ethos of lesser than because of these publicized events like George Floyd. And that was something that I felt I had an obligation to be true with my audience about how I felt about that.

1:07:08And how I felt about that is that that's fucked up. Like, no, I don't subscribe to that. Like, I'm here to support my peers, my black peers. And I want my audience to know this is something that's important to me. You know, like when Barack Obama legalized gay marriage nationally, like my wife and I were outside of the Stonewall Inn, you know, with like our gay flag headbands on. I made content about that. I've always been extremely vocal about gay rights. and these are the things that are important to me. And, you know, like speaking up for, for against anti-Semitism, educating people as to what anti-Semitism is, like it's something that's important to me, especially it's important to me because it's consistent with just who I am.

1:07:58It's so important to me because I'm a Jew or as the internet would call me, a fucking Jew. And so, no, I felt a need to speak up about that. And yeah, I was like eviscerated for that. And I think that it was evocative of what was to come. Like I saw a guy on Instagram yesterday and he showed a picture and it was a woman posted a picture from her daughter's wedding. And in the picture, her husband, her new son-in-law had on a kippah and they were standing under a kippah. She said, congratulations to my, and every comment was like something horrifically anti-Semitic. and like I there was no doubt in my mind that like oh we're gonna get there quick and we're there and it fucking sucks and I think it's awful and I think it's awful that more people don't speak out about it you can disagree with what's going on in the Middle East like you can how I like to look at it I know this doesn't mean anything to fucking irrational Jew haters but it's like I am an American I fucking love this country my blood runs red white and blue my kid brother was a retired is a retired air force captain like i love this country like i spent my first few years as an adult on welfare and since then i paid that back in taxes a hundred thousand times over like this country gave me everything like life liberty and the pursuit of happiness it didn't give me happiness it gave me the opportunity to pursue it and i did it in the country delivered on it like i fucking love this country but like it doesn't mean i love what i see going on in politics it doesn't mean that I love everything this country's done.

1:09:33It doesn't mean when you like read a history book and understand, you know, like what Vietnam was about or, you know, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, like the million Iraqis that are dead because that's a deeply shameful, horrific thing this country did. Vietnam is one of the worst things this country ever did. And two things can be true. The leadership and the politics of this country can have done some fucked up shit and this is still a great country. and like i think you should be able to disagree with what israel is doing um you should be able to disagree with that without having to completely disparage what that country is and like i fucking love israel i've only had the opportunity to go there a couple times in my life but i have a number of israeli friends and when you go there you meet some of the richest most vibrant intelligent intelligent, optimistic human beings, this sense of community.

1:10:29One super close friend of mine is an Israeli, but he's also Muslim. And he's incredible. He's an entrepreneur. He came from a very low-income household. He went to Harvard. Nas. Yeah. I texted with him this morning. I fucking love the guy. And the idea that a country is simply reduced to what its leadership is doing at any given time, and that's an excuse to shit on the whole country. That's not a standard we hold to any other country in the world to. And I think much like you would with the United States, you should be able to criticize some of the things this country does and still love this country.

1:11:02And that's how I feel about Israel. And that's not to say I criticize everything they do. I don't fucking understand Israeli politics. I don't pay attention to that shit. All I know is it's like it's a country filled with great people that has an incredible history. And that's how I feel. And I don't apologize for feeling that way. And like you can, I'll be shamed for that. But as we've learned in 2026, there's nothing a Jew can do that they won't be shamed for, including posting a picture, celebrating your nuptials. You will be shamed for that. You'll be ashamed for existing as a Jew in 2026.

1:11:35And that's a horrific thing. But like, if I'm to be shamed anyways, at least I could be honest with myself and honest with my audience. Do you put any of the blame for the fact that that is true at the feet of social media? Most of it I put at the feet of social media. Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, I think that anti-Semitism is sort of a scourge that's existed for 3 ,000 years now. And you can read into the history of the ideas around why. I think a lot of them are still proved true thousands or hundreds of years later. I think that it's similar with this country with racism towards people of color, whatever it might be.

1:12:17I think these things just exist and they're shitty and they're horrific. And I think me getting to grow up in the 90s, it was sort of the heyday where the antisemitism wasn't really a thing. The holiday from history. Yeah, it was like, you know, Seinfeld's the greatest show. It wasn't because he was a Jewish guy. It was just the fucking greatest show. And you hear the stories from your grandparents about like, watch out. Like, Nana, what the fuck are you talking about? Right. And then this happens. And it's like, I think it gives people permission to sort of vent their hatred. And I think social media is an accelerant for that sort of hatred.

1:12:55And we've seen that manifest. It's manifesting with anti-Semitism now. We've seen it manifest with myriad other things in the past, whether it's conspiracies, whether it's about politics. You can find it everywhere. But I think that social media becomes an accelerant for these sorts of social issues. Do you feel like potentially unsafe as a jew in america? Like would you ever leave? I mean it would take a lot. Yeah It would take a lot like I fucking love this country. I believe in this country Like i'm a die-hard patriot like I fucking I have an american flag sticker on the back of my truck Like I love this country I love I mean I want to touch on this because it's like you you said this but you know People hear jewish boy from connecticut.

1:13:39They might think certain things they might not know that you're a teen runaway. We could have spent the whole thing on this, but you're a teen dad. Your son is born two weeks after your 17th birthday. You have a job washing dishes. Like you said, you're on welfare. You live in a trailer park. You have nothing and you have no prospects. Are you the American dream? Are you the 21st century American dream? No, I left home when I was 15 with nothing and never took money from my parents thereafter. Never have. Never went back. never 10th grade was the last year of formal schooling that I ever completed yeah but um the American dream I think that the American dream it is getting harder and harder to achieve when I look at my grandmother the greatest generation she passed away a few years ago like I think that the American dream was really alive and well after World War II, and it's been fading since then.

1:14:35And I definitely think it's harder for a 15-year-old today than it was for me as a 15-year-old 30 years ago. But I do think that having had the luxury of traveling this world a dozen times over, I think that what I was able to do with the effort I applied to it, I don't know of another place in the world that I would have been able to do that. So I attribute that to the American system. And I had all kinds of benefits and privileges and like, you know, born healthy and born with a brain that works. And I was like, you know, parents that tried their best. And I had privilege, don't get me wrong.

1:15:14But I definitely think that like, the ambition combined with what this country enabled is what has provided the life that I have now and I'm able to give to my children. I love that. I mean, do you get frustrated when people today complain? Yeah. Oh, yes? Yeah. With like how unfair everything is? Yeah, I think that it's harder today, but I think there's more opportunity today than there's ever been. And I think that, you know, there's this great Dana White quote. I love quoting Dana White, where he's like, I just love how unapologetic he is. He's like, if you have any savage in you, I don't know what the word was.

1:15:51I love that. He's like, if you have any of that in you, you will fucking crush today because everybody is so wimpy and weak or some Dana White version of that. I think there's a lot of that that's true. I think that like teaching people that the world is against them, I think you start to believe that. And if you subscribe to that, you're going to have a really tough time finding your place in this world. and if you're sort of, if you have an optimistic outlook, I think you have a much, much greater opportunity of finding, you know, finding your place. And when I see so many young, especially privileged kids that spend a lot of time complaining, like if they're to sublimate that energy, I think that they would, they'd have an easier time getting where they're trying to go.

1:16:32I am curious because you kind of came up in this new tidal wave of digital media. or there's another tidal wave coming called AI. If there was an old legacy world and YouTube, the thing that you wrote killed it and video killed the radio star, is AI going to kill you? Yes. Really? Yes. No. I hope I'm wrong. And like Ben Affleck gave a really strong talk. He was being interviewed somewhere about how - It was Rogan, yeah. Was it Rogan? Yeah. It was anti-AI. and I'm like, fuck, Ben Affleck, please be right. But I have a very nihilistic outlook on what AI is going to do. I just think that most people don't value quality, like real filmmaking, real storytelling enough.

1:17:22And that's indicative of what the most popular movies are. It's indicative of what Netflix is putting out. Watch any one of Netflix's shitty action movies and ask yourself, could AI do this better? The answer is yes. it could and we're like this far away from the technology being there and i think when that happens like when you're not looking at like you know the 300 movies that were released last year and 10 of them are ai but it'll be 300 movies being released made by people and then 5 million being released made by ai and then the next year it's 50 million being made by ai ai is gonna figure it out and like i don't think it's a title i think it's like some apocalyptic it's a black hole tsunami that's going to overwhelm all i think tiktok is going to like with every scroll it's going to know what you want to see more and the next video it will create for you will be that that said i don't i don't know where this nihilism comes from and i pray that i'm wrong because i love shit that people make the more broken it feels the more i like it the less ai less cgi the less the more i can see the human hand lilo and stitch was one of my favorite movies of last year.

1:18:32Did you see it? The live action. It was so good. It was all shot on location. The little girl running around Hawaii. I've got two daughters. We saw it in theaters three times. There's a little girl three times. And then we bought it before it came. It was a little girl like running around a Hawaiian Island, like trying to figure it out. Nobody liked her. And she lived with her sister. Then we loaned Stitch Store. But it was like a really human story when Disney's almost only put out these very over the top Moana fantasy movies. This one felt like it was a story about a kid and it meant so much to my kids.

1:19:04It was the total opposite of AI. That's the future I hope for. I just need to be wrong in order for that to happen. Casey Neistat, can I do a quick lightning round? Uh-oh. Favorite tattoo? Oh, I hate them all equally. You hate them all? Do you regret getting them? I thought this was a lightning round. I know, but come on. no I I don't I like my tattoos are just so I can remember stuff it's not meant to like I don't like I don't this this let's just go down to the next question okay are you difficult yes extremely difficult are you religious not really what kind of parent are you um hold on hold on hold on I value resiliency over any other trait when it comes to parenting.

1:19:57Oh, I love that. What's your latest disappointment? That's tough. My own inability to finish what I start. Have you ever talked one-on-one to Seth Rogen? I think so. What are you doing the rest of the day? Going back and trying to finish a video. Something you've changed your mind about recently. God, that feels like a trap. No, it's not. I think that cinnamon toast crunch churros are actually better than cinnamon toast crunch, the traditional ones. And then I switched back and I honestly think the original is better than the churros one. Casey Neistat, thank you for being here. Thanks for having me.

1:20:41Thank you so much for listening to the inaugural episode of Second Thought. If you loved it, please consider leaving us a review here or sharing it with a friend. And for more amazing culture stories, including my own weekly culture column, check out the free press at thefp.com. We'll see you next time.