The Absurd Business of Being an Internet Prankster (ft. Max Fosh)

29:36Which is essentially whatever happens in front of the camera. So you put, like, that type of filmmaking is like you put the camera down and then the scene is like whatever's happening in front of there. The furniture, whatever's there, it's just like, that's it, no cuts, what's happening. Essentially, you know, theater. And I think watching you in that special, I was like, oh, this practice has made you better at being a creator. Because now you look at the camera and you're like, whatever's the performance in front of the camera needs to be interesting. I can't rely on the editing to be interesting, right?

30:09And so it's like, you know, Colin and I, when we were watching your videos over the past week, we were talking about that, that you are showing us stuff that is inherently interesting that's happening in real life, in real time, right? Like hatching an egg is a visual thing that is happening in front of the camera that is inherently interesting, that we can watch and see. You don't have to rely on editing to make that interesting. and the editing is so simple and sometimes you include the proof in the welcome to Luton there's as you're putting out the letters there's a guy doing like construction there and he's like oh are you pranking the people and you're like yeah and he's like he just starts cracking up that was a really fun I want to find that guy because I want to thank him because it was a lovely beat in the video where he immediately and it was a real relief for us when we're like oh good idea okay it's a good idea it affirms to me watching that oh this is a good idea like this is something worth my time that's funny absolutely The thing I really loved, and I think I look at your standup special, which I would encourage everyone to check out.

31:05It's fantastic. I absolutely loved it. But I look at that in your YouTube videos as like there's an incredible similarity in the way you're engaging with the material. Like in your standup special, it's primarily interactions with the crowd. And it's like the crowd is making the show with you, which is so cool. It's such a cool element to that show. And I imagine on YouTube, too, it's like you've done a lot of serialized content, too, which, you know, running for mayor, I would say, is an example where the crowd, like the audience feels like they're participating in that as well. And that's like we realized very early on that the people who are coming to the stand up show are people who have watched the YouTube videos.

31:46Yeah. So I can't be going up there and doing 60 minutes of like one liners. Yeah. What are you doing? So we needed it to be a show that was just towing the line that the YouTube audience, people who watch me on YouTube, they would enjoy. But also they bring their mums and dads, their brothers and sisters, their friends who had no idea what I did. And so we needed to cater to them. And then finally, we kind of after doing a lot of kind of like preview shows, me and director Ed realized that my strength was in my audience interaction because I'd spent three years doing Man on the Street content.

32:16So I had weirdly been working on my stand-up and knowing how to get a laugh out of somebody. Okay, that question is going to lead them to one of two answers. I'll have a response for one of those two answers. And we worked on that a lot. And we've realized the improv side of what I do is kind of a lot stronger than a lot of other areas. For sure. I would encourage, Colin and I have both taken improv. And I would encourage all creators to take improv. 100%. To become a better performer, like to work on the craft of being a performer. And we also do a lot of speaking, which forces us to stand in front of a crowd, say things and feel how they react.

32:56You know, like so immediate. It's so immediate. So much more comfortable with bombing on stage. Not that we bomb that often. But sometimes we do. But we started taking more risks when we were doing events and speaking. And some of them did not go well at all. Yeah. But you just go like, oh, I failed a million times at improv last week. Like, it's all right. What are you going to do? We try and when we speak, we go out and we try and within the first, you know, five, ten seconds say something that elicits a reaction to feel the warmth of the crowd. Right. Okay. So give me some examples of what you're saying.

33:27Go out and be like. Any TV execs at the room? Clap if you're a TV exec. No. Well, the moment that we bombed that I'm talking about specifically. Is it me? No, no, no. Both of us together. So there was it was this show, like a live show being put on by YouTube. and in between the different sessions, there were ballet dancers that would come out. And they would dance but also move the furniture around to the next setting of whatever it needed to be. He was the creative director of that decision. I don't know. But we thought, wouldn't it be funny if we arrived on stage ballet dancing after the dancers?

34:04That would be unexpected. I'm in. Unexpected. And we're looking at each other at the last minute. We're like, are we doing it? Are we doing it? We're like, yeah. We're talking about it. We got to just do it. and we went out and I like held my arms out and Samir came up and like picked him up picked him up picked me up and moved me around and uh not a single laugh nothing how long was the segment how long that was the beginning that was just I mean we also I don't know that we committed long enough to it to the bit and it was like there was also a huge screen above us yeah so there's a lot of reasons people didn't laugh it was a good bit we have the footage so we can play it over this yeah and people will laugh at home people will laugh we'll never know just add the laugh track yeah we'll never know it was just like crickets like nothing And that was the beginning of us having to go out and speak.

34:44So you just have to swallow it and be like, all right. But we'll come out and we'll say something even as simple as like, all right, how are we doing tonight? And you'll just feel if they're warm or not immediately. And I think that immediacy is very different from the experience of this. Like we have no idea what the experience is right now for someone or how warm they are, how cold they are to the conversation. If they're engaged in this part or not, you can see that. If they just like flick through the time law to a certain point. which if they had when is max gonna say how much money he makes yeah what is this about i just say something really weird out of context and just goats cheeses my favorite of the cheeses when i think about your genre which i i don't like calling it pranks stunts challenges whatever it is whatever you want to call it i think you are potentially in one of the most replaceable genres yeah i really do i think like if you pull someone away there is an influx of pranks and challenges to entertain i wonder how that experience and how in general you think about making sure you're not replaceable that people want to come for you and not someone else i i genuinely don't know the answer to that i do not know and um i'm not going to try and sit here and kind of wax lyrical about why i think that i've i've got it sorted out because i probably don't i just try every single time to make a video that i would laugh to or somebody will try and laugh to and you evolve as a creator over time and that's super important.

36:10But it's a worry, which is why I go back to the standup and the writing, just having other strings to my bow to be able to combat that if that does happen. If a newer, hotter version comes up. I mean, I would argue, because I did start watching you about three or four years ago. I think I sent you a message a long time ago. I think you had maybe 30 ,000 subscribers at the time. And it was, for me, it was the personality. Like at the time I was like, this is, I really connect with British humor. I think British humor is very funny. And it was actually this concept of posh that I had been introduced to through Street Smarts, through your man on the street videos.

36:51And I was like, oh, I want to learn more about this culture. It's funny to me because whatever you're including is clearly supposed to be funny. So I'm now learning about this culture through these jokes. Yeah. And you were very endearing in that. But I think what was really interesting was the man on the street stuff puts a lot of onus on the interaction and on what's happening. You have to go out and hope you come back home with an SD card that has good stuff. And I'm sure you strike out. People who do man on the street, we talk to them sometimes. And they're like, yeah, I went out and filmed all day.

37:29I got nothing. It's a hard thing because it's actually not about you. uh it's about if you're able to go create a scenario um and i think seeing you evolve into like leading with your personality has been what for me uh has kept me interested right and kept me wanting if i was still making man on the street videos like i yeah it would have been very boring but sometimes if the idea is too dominant in the video i'm less interested that's that is wild to me and like i i would the kitchen shots are really yeah for me what connected me to it this is like changing my perception of how people watch but but it's it's hard because you know like even for us i think all creators deal with self-worth issues we are people who are looking for validation and being like really is this good is this yeah which one's good this yeah this like this is i'm hatching a fish from candy on over here like i'm walking over back to the buffet.

38:27But we deal with this, like, you know, self-worth of, are we good enough? If we put ourselves on camera, is that enough? Or do I need to do a bunch of other stuff? And for me, it's really interesting and watching your progression. Um, of course, like the big ideas are going to hit, you know, like they are going to be inherently interesting. People can't help but click on an idea like that. But as I watch the videos and watch you evolve, my hope is that you continue to make sure that your personality is at the forefront because your comedy your delivery your personality um is what connects us and i think that's why people like ryan trahan are winning right now or specifically ryan is is where he is because he's one of the few creators that i would at this point i kind of like enjoy just watching him do whatever because i just like his personality i think and i'll be brutally honest i really don't think my self-esteem is at a high enough level for me to take that risk right i i hit and i find it really interesting because i always think that i'm very replaceable with the idea absolutely and and i remember we spoke we met in new york about a year ago and you were talking about i was i was like you know yeah i see you as a as a personality based i want to see you doing more things and that surprised me so much because um i really don't think that it's it's that interesting and for me to to risk i'm getting to a point now is like right okay how many more ideas do i have left with the big stunty things okay i need to start to diversify i need to have some intellectual property i need to kind of make some more sustainable formats but it just terrifies me the idea that i take my foot off the gas of the ideas and try and put more of me in there and then there's just kind of a slow progression which is actually probably in the long run what is probably helpful and sorry healthy and sustainable but i think my self-worth is too attached with numbers numbers and my sister's a therapist and like i tried to talk to her about this and i mean she's she gets all sorts of stick for being in the video she's a great sport but i do talk to her about this i mean the reality is you you by foregoing some of the titles and thumbnails that you get to use because of the stunts that you do yeah and leaning on personality you probably would get less viewership and you'd have to be okay with that and come to terms with that.

40:45And it would, you're not conditioned right now to be okay with that. And there's probably an element too, from a business perspective, it would change your business. Right. Have you guys experienced that? Yeah, I think, but I've come to a new space with my relationship with numbers where if, if we build an audience that's only interested, if we do something that is a bit uncomfortable for us, I don't want that audience because how long i'm i'm now you know i'm turning 34 next month like i i can't he's great he looks great isn't he yeah yeah it's not that i'm turning okay yeah to say to say he looks great assumes that my age is like unbelievably old like oh wow he looks great for his age he's doing this guy he's doing so well he's healthy he can sit up straight for this long anyway you're saying sorry yeah if i have to like pretend for an audience, then I, if I had to do that for my career, I would have been an actor, which I tried to be, and I was terrible at it.

41:48I can't act. So I recognized that whatever version of myself that I can do for a long time, that's the version. And this show has created a situation where we get to just be ourselves. And that I'm just like, if you want to hang here with us and have, be a part of these conversations, then I'd love to have you. But if this, if this is not for you then i don't want to convince you to stay here because it's not healthy for me to pretend we weren't great at doing things that were uncomfortable no we were terrible at it like what would you go what would what would you guys what was your like iteration of you being uncomfortable well i mean if you look at i think you started watching us with the 24 hours to meet yes theory right yeah great vid watch like all indication would have said do that again and again 24 hours to meet someone else go through these journey of trying to meet someone in 24 hours like the metrics said that's what we should do and we just didn't do it because it was kind of a crazy i just don't think we wanted to be known for that or go through those types of experiences and and i think on the relationship with numbers like that is something that we will all as creators like i'm not going to sit here and say i'm evolved past that you get it you get a 10 out of 10 it feels like someone punched you in the stomach and kicked you in the face you're even in youtube yeah saying why have you shadow banned me yeah or you're you're just like i don't know like there's like There's nothing that feels worse than that as a creator.

43:06And I would say now I have a little bit of a lighter relationship with all of it. And, you know, it does evolve. But as creators, we do have to now think about ourselves on a really long window. And I wonder if when I was really obsessed with numbers was when I thought it was all going to end the next month. I was almost living month to month as a creator. Like looking at it as – I am. And you are right now. and I would ask because again I've been a fan of yours for a long time I've watched your different attempts at this career and it's all been a progression that makes sense when you look back but where are you in your relationship to the stakes of the career right now do you feel like the stakes are high like you're at risk of losing the career or what is making you hold on to the numbers so much right now I think I genuinely think it's just elements of like I am so tied like the name of the channel I mean with you guys it's it's Max Foch it's me and it is that number next in gray next to my name and those things have almost kind of like you could almost put a bracket parentheses on either side of that kind of bit of the channel the YouTube home page and I hate myself for that I I hate myself that that is, well, not hate myself, I hate that that is in my thought process how it is.

44:27But I've got a lot better at being able to separate work from life. Like I used to work in the kind of, I was a residence area in the bottom of my apartment block. But now I've got an office and I go punch in at nine and leave at six. And so that's helped a little bit of separation. I've brought more people into the team and made it slightly more like a media company, like a business. But I still don't know the answer as to what end. I still don't know the answer to what's this all for? Why am I making it? Why am I? Okay, I'm literally after this interview going to Iceland to cook a ready meal in an active volcano.

45:07Why? That's just for fun. I'm not filming. He's just hungry. I'm just hungry. Stag do. Dad, what's he like? I actually want to know, like right now you're about to go do that. Yeah. Where's your energy level for doing that? That's really high, actually. I'm super excited. I think it has to be. It has to be. No, no, no. Because this is a video that we've been trying to make for over two years. We've got a volcano guy in every country where there is a volcano, and they're all on alert saying, as soon as it erupts, give me a call. And our Iceland volcano guy gave me a call. He said, it's time to go.

45:42Wow. When was that call? Last night. Last night? Yeah. Oh, because you texted me last night. You were like, I might have to go to Iceland. Yeah. so what's the title uh i cooked an oven ready meal in an active volcano and how did you come up with that idea two years ago it was just superlative scale i was i was making an oven ready meal i was putting it in the oven i thought where's the weirdest place i could cook this uh a volcano great let's do it um so then was that before you had team because i know now you have aziz and molly yeah that that was before i had a team that was before i had a team i had this idea And then weirdly, the same volcano erupted in Iceland last August.

46:21The exact dates that I was touring, from the day the eruption started to the day the eruption ended, that was the tour dates. And so I was absolutely gutted. What a shame. I was thinking, fuck comedy. I'm messing around the volcanoes, guys. But no, I'm super energetic about that. And I think that if you talk to me at the end of last year, before I got Molly involved and before Aziz and I changed up a lot of how we work, I was just crawling to the end of the year. I've now got a little bit more energy. And I think that that's with surrounding yourself with the great people and making the environment to work with.

46:56I would love to know how it's different traveling with them and getting to share this strange experience with them as opposed to going to Las Vegas by yourself. That was the worst day of my life. I went just before COVID in January 2020. I filmed a video at the AVN Porn Awards in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Hard Rock Hotel. And I turned up. I arrived by myself. I found a cameraman from Instagram by searching the hashtag. Las Vegas cameraman. Hashtag Las Vegas cameraman. A lot of them were already at the convention. Like a dangerous move. Yeah. And I was walking around. I had spent hundreds of pounds to be there.

47:34and I was trying to talk to porn actors and actresses, trying to get some silly things. And I was miserable. I was so, so low. I just sobbed when I got back to my hotel room. I was like, what am I doing? And I think that people is the most important part of the business. Like I went, we just, I saw you guys in LA about two weeks ago. I was there with Zach. We were filming a collab and I was there with his team. There were six of us and we had the best time. It was great. And it was like, yeah, we were filming a YouTube video, but we were having fun with friends as well at the same time. And so I think that was.

48:09I think this was advice from Tim Ferriss to us, but he was talking about decoupling the financial reward of being creative. Yeah. And the life reward, like the non-financial reward. How does he do that? So he just says there's two metrics, right? Like, so when we're done with this conversation, if we had fun talking to you, that's a reward. That reward is done. You can't take that away. Now there's going to be another one, and that's going to be the performance reward. Does this episode do really well? Do people really love it? Is it? No. Does it take, right? But at least we have the time. We have one of those together.

48:49We got one. But if you look at that, and you go, actually, the non-financial reward or the non-performance reward is so much more important because that's the majority of your life. The majority of your life as a creative is pursuing these ideas or pursuing this work. So if that's the majority of it, it's going to be, do you like hanging out with Molly and Aziz? Do you like going to work with them every day? Is that a question? Because they all look you behind the glass. You can answer as honestly as possible. They look them in the eye. Yeah, they're looking, they're actually saying no. They don't like saying no.

49:19They've actually just walked out. Aziz is holding a sign that says, I quit. Yeah, he's just, I want to raise. Max Lash currently hiring live on the show. But like if you guys have a fun trip to Iceland and it's a unique experience, that is a reward. And I think we have to hold onto that because if you're going to the AVN rewards and all you're there for is the performance reward and you hate the life of that. The video was demonetized. So you got zero. So you got zero rewards. Yes, then that sucks, right? That's like, I think sometimes we've become so metric obsessed that it's like, you just sacrifice whatever, you sacrifice your life for these numbers, right?

49:58Just fuck it. I'll just, if I have to go fly over there and it sucks, doesn't matter it's gonna it's gonna do well yeah so and i think that's a quick path to a short career um or a very what by by forgoing that the life yeah yeah fun element for the numbers yes um and i think we as creators don't think enough about what making it looks like we just want to make it yeah so like you think about yourself and i'm curious about this but like prior you know three years ago as you're you know really pushing on this youtube thing and you didn't grow much for a while no right you didn't have much growth but you were committed to it which means you really wanted to to make it you wanted this that you have right now which then creates a new relationship with if all you want is to make it then all you want once you've made it is to not lose it yeah right people uh someone says to me people are either trying to be successful or stay successful yeah um and i can't remember what it was like when i was trying to like i was i was pushing like i was i was looking forward to five years now when i'm sat on the colin samir podcast i'm not sure what i was trying to do i was a bit of a deer in the headlights and that's why i think it's so difficult for a lot of creators because you celebrate the wins and a lot and you commiserate the losses by yourself it is so lonely you edit you shoot you do everything by yourself it is it's just quite crap um and so i don't really have anything more to say because i can't really remember but i do remember covid was the best thing that happened to the channel because i'm still doing the street interview thing i then cover i couldn't i couldn't make videos for six months and that's when i tried something new which was the uh trying to find the woman in a stock photo um and that did that was the first like foray into storytelling and it did super well and um it caused a global pandemic for me to yeah like stop being a little bitch basically i mean you know same that was an accelerant for us too as creatives we need constraints and we need things that actually get us out of our whatever you know funk we're in or whatever moment we're in um but i think that you know part of the reason i would say that for me also it doesn't feel that different what we're doing now obviously there's a lot of difference to what we're trying, mainly because we were just trying so many different things.

52:21Now we have a thing. And we're not trying. You're not trying. Now we don't try. Yeah. But when I don't - I can tell with a question. When I look into the future, I'm like, it's not going to be that different from this. There might be more resources, but at now I've committed to this career. This is the thing. We will sit together and be like, is that a good idea? Should we do that? Is this an exciting interview? Yes. Let's take some notes on it. Let's do it. Is that the right title? Is that a good thumbnail? Could it be better? That's the thing we will do for the foreseeable future. And that to me is making it, getting to work with people you like on a project that you like.

53:01I do want to say though, I feel like we're not complacent right now, but it is the first time in our career when we've been consistent. And is there a lot to be said for consistency? Yeah. I think we're experiencing a lot of growth, brand growth for sure. like you can sink into a little bit of a lifestyle but i also realized that we may have to be comfortable shaking that at some point now you know just because we've we've found something that's worked and we're consistent and we like it but we do have to be ready to evolve again i think do you know what's funny is whilst we're talking about this which is slightly deeper like about who we are i'm thinking in my mind i generally was just thinking are they gonna need a story about a silly video in a second like they're gonna i mean i need to tell like a silly story of experience i've had in a video so that in my mind during this conversation you're like i'm i'm like no they need to they need a they need a clip now of like when i kind of like how i got my sister to sign a contract and that that's just like quite a quite a wake-up call for me to be like okay i'm so in tune to be like i audiences need to have a story stop talking about yourself no one gives a shit they need to have a story which i do think is is one of the the most valuable piece of advice you can give to someone who's starting out which is that no one cares about what you're making so you have to make you have to you have to really take that 10 minutes or eight minutes or five minutes and really make that like yeah there's so much competition so you like win them over in that 10 minutes and that five minutes but you're so conditioned to be that guy who did that thing yeah and most times that you're probably on an interview it's tell me about that thing yeah tell me about the school let's go do you want to do the school bit now How much she did it afterwards?

54:39Well, I'll ask you about a video. Yeah. The video that I want to ask you about is the video that kind of launched your channel. Oh, yeah. Which is Zach and Jay's video. Zach and Jay's video. I loved that video. I mean, everyone. A lot of people. 32 million people loved that video. That's a YouTube history video. It really is. It really is. It is established. What's the title of it? It's I Fate My Friend to the Top of London Fashion Week. Isn't it funny how important titles are, but we can't remember it? And we can't remember it. Yeah, we can't remember it. It has 32 million views. Yeah. It's just wild.

55:13I remember watching that video and, again, like being enamored with the, first of all, the creator scene in the UK, because I had not really been familiar with it at that point. But also so pleasantly surprised and excited by you. You were such a great character in that video. That's very kind. And the name, like, oh, was it Maximilian Bucharest? Maximus Bucharest. It's such a hilarious concept. And that, I think, is one of the greatest examples of the victim of that prank. Well, I guess you should describe the prank or the stunt. The stunt was, can I turn this blank, unfashionable canvas of a man and take him to the top of London Fashion Week?

55:56And I had known Zach and Jay for about three months before we shot that video. when I first moved down to London I was walking to Tesco supermarket we have here and Zach walked past me and I was a big, big fan of his and I messaged him on Instagram being like, hey, I just saw you in the street. Oh, you didn't talk to him? I didn't even talk to him in person. Like I was like, hey, I just saw you. If you ever need a cameraman, let me know. And weirdly the next morning at 9am he messaged me saying we actually need a cameraman in 45 minutes. Can you make it? And I kind of, it was like one of those like looking over the clock, looking at my watch, looking at the phone.

56:29Yeah, I can do it. Just like montage. so I then started doing a bit of work as a camera guy I was terrible I didn't know how to Zach even said he realised that I only knew how to do autofocus and press record that was it so I was just basically a tripod which is almost kind of everything you need yeah all of you GOPs out there I know you've all got an autofocus you lied so I became matey with them and then they said we've got this idea to sneak you into fashion week and at this point I was just trying to make it on YouTube they had about 100 ,000 subscribers and I thought anything out of this is a positive.

57:05Just to work with these guys is a really cool opportunity. So I did it. We turned up, we went to Primark, which is kind of a cheap clothing store here in the UK and just put together this monstrosity of an outfit. And we kind of filmed the video and I remember I said to my dad, I was like, this is really exciting. And he said, well, let's just kind of temper expectations a little bit. And I said, well, I think I can get maybe 1 ,000 subscribers out of this. And the video got launched, and I think I gained 100 ,000 subscribers in about two weeks. And they went from 30 ,000 subscribers as a duo to 400K in a week.

57:42And it was like back in when that would happen. And actually, what was really interesting, we're seeing it more and more recently. There's a guy in the States called Preston Goes, who I love. He just hit it. He just hit it, and it was just a brilliant long-form. sticks guys sticks guys love them what you're doing is amazing and so we're starting to see it again which is really exciting like um but yeah that was kind of what all allowed me to suddenly just be a youtuber was that exciting or scary so exciting so exciting because but then i just went back to making extremely smart videos like i didn't learn i didn't learn like oh obviously they like it when there's a story behind it we're doing something what should i do interview people so um i was just excited it was just like i was the the the the rat in the in the um cocaine experiment where he presses the button on social blade and just refresh her and just seeing the numbers turn around and like oh when did it when did it click for you to actually do something similar to what they were doing to tell stories like that as opposed to the going back to the man on the street it took me 18 months after 18 months yeah wow i mean colin says this sometimes that as creators, we don't typically learn from our success.

58:55We learn a lot from our failures, but we actually never take lessons from our success. Like you're like, hmm, why are they subscribing to me? Why did that video go so viral? You're just like, oh, great, now I've subscribed. I can keep doing the thing I do. Yeah, that's exactly how I thought about it, which is wild. But it was an incredibly exciting experience. It was like... I had been so unsure as to what I was going to. I left university and I was, I was bigger into radio. Like radio was, was my thing. I spent four years at a hospital radio station called Radio Tyneside in the Northeast. And I got some good opportunities in the Northeast and I walked in, they were kind of like demo auditions and they were like, right, welcome to BBC Radio Newcastle.

59:37We got Max here on the mic. And I was like, hello, good to see you all. I obviously didn't get those jobs. Why did you do that voice? I don't know. I just thought of endearing them. I endeared myself to them. And so I was kind of big down into the, into the radio side of things. there's a fun story when I was at hospital radio I nearly got fired because I played Highway to Hell by ACDC during on a hospital radio that's good comedy it's good comedy that's good comedy the patients didn't love it and so suddenly with this YouTube thing just exploding it allowed me to think huh oh okay because all the StreamSmart stuff was doing really well on Facebook Facebook it was pumping this was 2017 2018 but YouTube it wasn't doing very well so I kind of that's when I kind of thought hey YouTube could kind of work.

1:00:20And this was kind of before people on Twitter were writing threads about retention and click-through rates. And so it was kind of a bit of... That's a recent thing. That is a recent thing. It's much more recent. Like when we were uploading, it was like... People like writing those. Yeah, yeah. It's much more recent. I was going to say, so to be posh in the UK, what exactly does that mean? And does that have negative connotations to it? Oh, yeah. Because like you obviously, I think on your ring... On my ring, I've got some branding that says posh twat. Right. So you're like, you connect yourself to it.

1:00:49talk about it a lot in the comedy special on the channel. It's like synonymous with the name Max Fosh. But I'm curious to dig into what exactly it means, the stereotype of it, and why connect yourself to it. I mean, I open my mouth and people can tell. Oh, really? In the UK. In the UK, people can just tell. Because I guess my accent to an American audience is like, oh, it's this British guy. But in the UK, I talk and it's like, oh, this guy is posh. right so i can't i can't remove i can't take that away i'm not i'm gonna change my accent i'm not gonna change how i where i grew up with but i can really uh take control of it and take control of myself and so initially the the phrase posh twat is banded around a lot what does posh mean explain it to our american audience someone who is predominantly not necessarily some uh someone with money but somebody from a status an old like family status there's history there's heritage There are certain schools that you posh people send their children to.

1:01:50They're normally boarding schools. It's kind of like the quintessential early 20th, mid 20th century British ideology. Got it. It's tea and crumpus. It's top hats. Got it. Is it political as well, in a way? Very political. Like more conservative? More conservative. If you look at the two kind of major boarding schools in the UK, Eton and Harrow. I went to Harrow. Eton has had 17 prime ministers of this country. Winston Churchill went to my school, Harrow. So it's so tied into the establishment. It is like being posh has been part of the establishment. And so, yeah, I mean, as a result, there's a lot of hatred towards posh people.

1:02:33But there's also a lot of fascination. Like in television, we have a show called Made in Chelsea, which is one of the most successful reality TV shows here in the UK, which just follows young 20-year-olds who live in Chelsea, a very posh part of London, and their lives. So there's this weird fascination about posh people. I mean, same with the US, right? Same with the US. Yeah, we're obsessed with wealthy people in their lives. And so when I started doing interviews with posh people, it was kind of an absolute just, it was the perfect storm for that kind of content because non-posh people loved watching posh people look like idiots.

1:03:06Posh people weirdly loved other posh people looking like idiots. It's like this weird Stockholm syndrome where I'll meet a posh person. They're like, oh, interview me right now. What am I going to say? I'm going to use it. I'm so stupid. Expose me, please. Yeah, it's so weird. And a lot of comments I would get is like, well, this guy, the interview is also posh. I'd say, yeah, that's the show. That's the idea behind it. And so in my early 20s, when I got to university and I wasn't at this boarding school, there was a lot of like, oh, you're a posh twat or like, fuck off, you're posh. and initially I was like, well, no, I'm trying to be kind and polite to people.

1:03:44And I kind of realized, well, that's almost kind of none of my business. I just, all I can do is be polite, kind, courteous, interesting, fun to be around. And that's all I can control. And so the posh twat ring is kind of like a little bit of an homage to, that's my background. I can't change that. Take ownership over it. I'm going to take ownership of it. Yeah. I am. Some people might think I'm a posh twat. That's absolutely fine. But I know kind of better who I am. Yeah. I do think we should talk about ideas. I know people like, it's probably the most common question to ask you, right? And like when we sat down with a notebook and said, what should we talk to Max about?

1:04:18The first thing we said was, uh, where does he get his ideas from? Like, where does his ideas come from? And then we want something else of yours. And you're like, everyone asks me where I get my ideas from. Where do your ideas come from? Oh no, that's our first question. That's our question. And it's, but I think it's a testament to your ideas. Thank you. like the fact that everyone wants to ask you that that everyone's like well where do these ideas come from and not because we're like that's what the audience is here for but it's because they're authentically curious like yeah do you and it comes from a real place of like of of love and yeah it's my fact i actually have to i had to put a ban on my family saying you should do this like because you should make a video about this i was like guys i really appreciate the support and it's coming from a really positive place but it is super frustrating because all of them are not very good I'm not going to you dad you should ensure this this is a good thing to ensure um so just kind of leave it because I think people assume that it's a very often hmm I don't actually want to do this today whereas there's so much time so much time that gets put into the every minutiae of of the idea and there are some frameworks to it I get a lot of comedy writers in um again the director who I work with on my special head Stan Baluian is is brilliant at that he came in and understands the channel really well and he kind of runs these sessions with me and oh wow so you have like writing sessions we have writing days we have writing yeah another guy who james comes in who's uh a comedy writer for jimmy carr and um we all sit there and it's just kind of like towards the end of the day it's really funny because we just kind of like swivel on chairs yeah just like what about yeah yeah and but there is a lot of structure that comes with that we've put bucket but my ideas into buckets so there's the loophole bucket there's the sneak in bucket there's the uh a british bucket and we try and see whether we can uh put things into various different bucket i mean when's this video coming out in a bit in a couple of months probably yeah probably at least a month and a half if not two months okay great then i could probably say this i've we had a we knew that sneak ins were a really fun uh genre on youtube and so normally people like sneak in by going through the security and we were talking about okay how else could you get through security I mean, you could go under.

1:06:34I mean, Zach also did a great video of sneaking into Glastonbury where he went under the fence. And then someone just said, well, no one's ever gone over. I was like, oh yeah, keep talking. And eventually we ended up on an idea that we're hopefully doing in a couple of weeks of I broke into a music festival by skydiving in. That's funny. And it's fun because it's just taking what you know thing, doing different thing with that thing. That wasn't explained very well. And it's just taking extremes. is the juxtaposition of those things. And so a lot of the time, I'm just kind of walking around. So a video that we had, I turned roadkill into a Michelin star meal.

1:07:10We got that because Aziz and I were driving back from a video, one of the worst videos that we have ever made, which was I made someone's actual dream come true, which is when we found somebody who had a weird dream that they dreamt that gravy was being poured on them from a pickup truck. So we went and filmed this video and we were kind of driving back. We're like, well, that was rubbish, wasn't it? Anyway, we were driving. Was it weird because you were pouring gravy on a person? I was pouring gravy on a person. But also it's like, what are we doing? Did anyone, did HR, did you check this? And we were driving back and we saw some roadkill on the side of the road.

1:07:42And we were just spitballing. It's like, okay, roadkill. That's a thing. Everyone knows. What could you do with that thing? You can turn it back into a living thing. That's not possible. Can you eat it? Oh, that's not very good. Oh, maybe let's work on that. Okay, who should we serve it to? Our parents. No, need more steaks. Oh, food critics. great and that's how the iteration just slowly builds and builds and builds it's a little bit like uh improv it's yes and it's like okay and then everything needs to have kind of stakes in the end so you want to be able to sit down and read that title and kind of get everything you want from it the other most important thing is to go back to the conversation about that guy you need to be able to have a sentence that somebody will say to their mate in the pub have you seen that guy that insert thing there and it has to be easy to say and it has to be something easy to say yeah um and if you've got that then you've got a good video so have you seen that video where that guy technically became the rich technically became the richest man in the world for eight minutes no oh you should check it out but if it's have you seen that video where that guy tries to find a woman from a stock photo and the stock photo was in his flat for like two years and he always wondered who the woman was but he never really took out it out because he was too lazy so he was wondering who is this woman that doesn't work so it's got to be really succinct does it pass the pub test a great creator called uber butler well actually i'm not sure whether he's a creator but a real kind of uh trailblazer in these kinds of ideas used to work for vice used to say the same thing he said if someone at the part if i tell the idea to someone at the pub and they look at me in a weird way i've got a good idea that was that was his that was his way of looking at it i wanted to ask you about serialized content versus one-offs because yeah you know running for mayor felt like a series felt like a movement yeah you know and you ended that um series by announcing another series and uh with the treasure hunt oh yeah yeah so like did terribly well let's talk about let's talk about serialized content versus one-offs because we're in the era of youtube where serialized content is kind of coming back right now ryan trahan leading the charge with the penny series and kind of recognizing like ephemeral serialized content is very fun something that has an end date right it's very fun for people to latch on to um you know ryan went from 30 days to seven days.

1:09:55And it was very enjoyable to watch seven days of a series. You've done series. Talk to me about that difference between a one-off, you know, kind of viral concept or, you know, idea versus I'm going to commit to this for multiple episodes. Yeah. The mayor stuff was the first time I tried it and it was really scary. Not only was I entering legitimately into one of the biggest political processes in this country as an independent candidate but i remember i well the way i i ran for londonware was because a mate of mine a group chat literally said you won't run for london mayor but you must have said something prior to that like i'm going to run for london no i had i had sent in there was a bbc news article that said who we think is going to be running for london man had all of the candidates and i just like put this in because there was a few odd candidates and my mate george just responded so you won't do it and i kind of i think i looked into it and there's a moment in my apartment where i was with my housemate dan and i was kind of like pacing furiously i was like is this a good idea or is this awful and he was like mate just go for it and so i handed in my papers i paid my 10 000 pound deposit which is what you need to do um and then i was like oh we've got seven weeks of campaigning here what am i gonna do so the serialization of the content was almost an afterthought yeah it was almost like oh i've got myself in this mess i now need to do something about it so that's when of course i i i worked with lovely lawrence uh lawrence fox um my my bestie very good storytelling to have an adversary absolutely you needed one in that and i was i was i was worried that with with the with the running in in a political election yeah you've got to um I mean, whatever side you stake your flag, left or right, you lose 50 % of your audience.

1:11:42And so I needed to make it very apolitical, but whilst also still having an adversary. And luckily, I had Lawrence, who was so polemic in his kind of reputation that universally, he was a great adversary for me to have. You needed an opportunity to win because ultimately you were not going to win. I was not going to win. Of course I wasn't. Nor were you trying to. Nor was I trying to win. My number one point of my manifesto was don't vote for me. And then Nico Omelana came out and he was also running for London Mayor as well, which was interesting. Let's talk about that. Because I think for someone who I would assume prides themselves on originality, originality of ideas, for me, it would bother me if I was like, I am doing this and then like, ah, now the narrative is two YouTubers run for mayor, not here's the YouTuber who ran for Mer.

1:12:36I initially had that thought process. Of course. I was on about 400 ,000 subscribers at the time. He was on about four or five million at the time. And I handed it in, I handed in my papers. And then the papers, like the newspapers released the list of the official candidates. And I saw Nico's name on there and I thought, oh, he's done it as well. Luckily I had got my video, I'd got a video out there already. So I know that we had the same idea at exactly the same time, but to the kind of the casual observer, it might have looked like I had had the idea first and then Nico had kind of taken it from me, which he definitely didn't.

1:13:10I just want to put that on the record. Absolutely not. But that made it a little bit easier. But then I kind of started realizing, no, we've got completely different audiences. Number one, I'm not doing this to try and get votes. If anything, I'm going to be in the next up on the recommended sidebar of YouTube. So I'm actually super glad that we both ran. He did something completely different in terms of like his campaign videos than what I did. It meant that I got to know him quite well and us have chats. There was a great moment where when the election results get announced, we are all in a room about the same size of this room as we are now.

1:13:4720 candidates who have for the last six weeks been slinging all sorts of shit at each other. And it is so awkward. You have the far right, the far left, everybody in there and you're just kind of awkwardly shuffling. and Nico was stood next to me in children's sunglasses. And I just kind of looked to my left at this guy and thought, you are like one of a kind of an individual. And so that was a cool moment to have. But initially it did frustrate me. But ultimately we are all, a rising tide lifts all ships. And he was, we were both YouTubers making content and the UK has a very proud reputation and history of alternative candidates.

1:14:24Let's just say that. I got a lot, the only stick I would get would be like, oh don't you think it's like uh you're you're you're taking away the um the serious process to be silly or to do a stunt i was like no i think it actually celebrates our democracy so well that literally anybody can run if they would like to so that was but weirdly although it didn't do the biggest numbers or um it is still the thing that people come up to is oh i voted for you for under mayor and that's and it's the it's the golden goose it's what we all are looking for because As a creator, it removes slightly the burden of having to come up with something new every single time.

1:14:58Audiences really buy into it. They really, really enjoy it. We've seen it with Ryan's Penny series. But it's hard to find a format that you are really bold enough in your own kind of thought process to be like, yeah, this is the one. I'm going to make seven videos about this. Because previously, if a viral video I did doesn't work, it's fine. We've got five others that we're going to be making over the next month. So that's okay. But if you start and it doesn't do well at the beginning, you're like, oh, no. I'm in it. I'm in it now. This is a worry. Is there a personal test that you have in terms of appetite for risk of, no, I won't do that?

1:15:30Because maybe it's an assumption, but when I watch your videos, you don't strike me as someone. And maybe it's because I see some of you in myself that's like, I don't think I would do that. Yeah. Risk is a really good thing to talk about because I've done things that are inherently relatively risky. I mean, I put up a golden statue of Vladimir Putin in a town that had a penis head on the top of his head. and I spoke to a few people and I said is this a really really stupid idea and I don't speak to my family because they immediately say no don't do that but I try to talk to people who know who are in the know and say is this a risky thing to do and I think we have definitely I can't think of any off the top of my head but we've definitely not done videos because they have been probably too risky he says as he's about to leave this interview to go cook something in a volcano but yeah it's risk is a big big part of it it's interesting because that Putin statue is something that John Oliver would do but John Oliver has the backing of HBO and a huge legal team and you don't have the same resources so you have to be even more careful were there ramifications for that?

1:16:40no there weren't I mean not that you know of not that I know of just yet and I was very paranoid for a couple of weeks slash months afterwards and And I still am quite nervous. I spoke to more and more people who work in security services and work in the government, and they've said, no, you're okay. They think I'm okay. That's not a test to anybody. Well, they seem a bit weak to me, candidly. I would say the Russian security might want to... Moving on, because they might consider... so there has been a few times where it's been a bit like oh yeah is there a brand test for you like in your head are you like the brand of max fos shouldn't go that far i think that's just like with the team the team it's like does that make you laugh is it not max foschy um yeah we've we've had a video idea of of starting um of starting respectful chants at football matches so like the referee's doing his best and like we spoke for a long time is this Max Fosche and we've kind of we're kind of on the fence about this because like football is such a it's such a special thing to people for me to come in and to kind of like ooh look at me I'm playing with it and that I don't want that idea I mean candidly what I'll say is I don't think it's funny enough right okay yeah that's good to short maybe yeah to that might be yeah something that like you can get like that feels like what you were talking about before like an instagram idea yeah it's like i can get it pretty quick yeah it would spread spread it'd be a clip it's a clip it's a tiktok there you go i'll make a tiktok because the process of that i understand there would be challenges but i can already envision the challenges and i think again like when we talk about the fact that your videos start with the end and then you have to care about going into the process yeah the process has to have ups and downs yeah pinch points yeah what goes wrong exactly and so i have to be like so unfamiliar with the process that i'm willing to sit in on it like wing walking i was unfamiliar with um hatching an egg i was unfamiliar with right even the one where you uh spoil the play for your friend yeah yeah that was funny that was i was unfamiliar i was like how's this gonna happen yeah you know so i think you have to be relatively unfamiliar same with the private investigator yeah you're unfamiliar with don't know what's gonna happen i don't know the private investigator video i think is just like i'm really proud of that idea because it just taps into like it's pub conversations that you'd have with your friends and like real life thoughts which is really important real life thoughts and idioms that's where the elephant in the room came from i was just an idiom what about like what if i actually spend 24 hours with an elephant in the room and that's really funny i actually i have to be honest i never thought about it as like the elephant in the room well yeah this is we we came like the video did terribly the video really poorly because it was too much of a stretch for the audience the idiot you had to know the idiom you had to get the context actually living with an elephant for 24 hours not much happens they just eat and bathe and sleep i thought it was just because it was a big scary thing no it's like there's a big elephant yeah there's an elephant Let's address the elephant in the room.

1:20:02This is this guy. Yeah. Learning. I didn't go to Harrow's. I'm not part of your posh elite. I don't understand things like you. What makes, you've talked a lot about the stress and the like intricacies of good hook and hook's position in like the beginning of the video. What makes a good hook and exposition? Like what makes people continue to care? The best videos are always, you get the joke, but there needs to be a question that you have that gets answered at the end. So PI, oh, that's a funny idea. I wonder what they found out about Max. You have that at the end. Spoiling the theater for my friend using bald men.

1:20:49Oh, that's a funny idea. Get the concept. Oh, but was his friend pissed off? So we always, there's always a bit in the voiceover when I do my voiceover voice. It's like, so I had to buy 12 bald men to get them into the theater. But why? Well, and so the but why is normally the question that I want someone to answer at the end. So that's the main reason. That's good. I mean, we've been found for some of our episodes that were just Samir and I that were a little bit more scripted, especially at the beginning. It was important for us to open a new unclosed loop in the beginning. like you're not just getting what you clicked on yeah but we're gonna hit you with something unexpected that you didn't know you're also gonna get this and you're like oh wow that hopefully would keep people from the other side of it as well um creative partner ed he said that he realized he's got access to my analytics he said i realize people drop off when you say the word and so and i know that you guys spoke to the try guys about this yeah where you do the big stunt and when you're trying to then hit them with the emotional tie up to it they don't care right like and so i've gone wind walking and so i have shown that you can actually do all of your life admin while strapped to the top of don't care i'm off i'm gone your videos end very quickly yeah you don't on the experience and so we're trying more and more with the videos we're making at the moment to weave in that and so whilst i'm doing the thing whilst i'm at the culmination of the video so then it ties it up from an emotional storytelling point of view but also it ties it up from the big stunt that's bit that's happening right now yeah i uh i wanted more of that in the hatching video because i was just like is he not just completely floored yeah that this happened go and be free

1:22:49you know it almost moved so fast at the end that i was like wait hold on max aren't you isn't this insane yeah i guess that that's the my that's your attention brain on yeah um also do you ever visit the fish that's what i wonder too i was like wait a little longer he's he's being looked after by a guy who lives quite close to me so i'm gonna need to check in with with max fish and see what he's doing but we had an argument in the office about okay how much more of the video do we have after we see that a fish has hatched out of caviar because some people in the office were like no as soon as they've seen the fish they're clicking off you've you've done what you said you're going to you hatched a fish from caviar that's the end of the video and so we kind of came to a happy meeting but that's why it just is so quick through that last bit is like oh he grew up he was great and now he lives in here bye i guess for me if i was sitting in that room i would have said the next question is well how big does like how big does this fish get and did you actually like hatch a healthy fish because i would have assumed it would have been like crazy weird because it was you know we hatched there were quite a few uh in the video was like that there was there was one there were there were quite a few that hatched but then there was one that we really kind of connected with connected yeah it's like you you're coming um and so yeah but that's that's a little bit of creative license.

1:24:05How do you balance making comedy for a UK audience versus an American audience? And do you think about that? And what is even your breakdown of like where your audience is from? Mainly US actually. So 35 % US, 25 % UK. So it's mainly US, but mainly because there's more of you. And in the US, I am, I think I'm, I'm viewed as British guy. I'm the British guy. I'm the, I'm the posh, well, not even posh. I'm the guy from Britain. So in all the movies that you might have seen about a british guy like i probably sound a little bit like the people from notting hill for example i mean i grew up in notting hill um lovely place lovely place lovely part of the world and i weirdly have a channel in china on their version of their social media called billy billy and my nickname i've amazingly got about half a million followers in china in china and uh whenever i meet somebody on the street who is kind of chinese and they've come over for a vacation they just point at me and just say uk guy so my my nickname in china is just the uk guy how did that come yeah can we talk about your chinese yeah distribution yeah because you say you're not a businessman but like syndicating your show to china seems like a very businessman i mean financially financially i think i'm being absolutely i'm not actually not gonna say that but i think that someone might be pocketing some money because the money that i'm getting in is not very much at all.

1:25:24I've got half a million subscribers over there, but I'm seeing nothing. That came about because a company reached out to me and said, we'll do everything. They didn't even ask me to send them the videos as like an MP4 file. They just ripped it from YouTube. So there's a world where they could have done that without you knowing? 100%. So in the reality, you're winning here. Because at least you're getting something from there's more eyeballs and I think I want to make a documentary where I do a stand-up show in China I think that would be whoa that's a good idea I like that so interesting because is it will they be a translator next to me will it be subtitles like subtitles above the stage how does that work I mean within the next year or so there'll be live dubbing and live translation probably just be curious to know do you actually have an audience there yeah is there a fan base but is there fandom I think there is fans so I did a show I did the stand-up show in Edinburgh at the comedy Fringe Festival yeah And last year, it was for a whole month.

1:26:19The venue I was performing in was about 120 seats. Every single show for the 30-day run, I would have in the front row maybe 10 to 15 Chinese fans. And they would come to the show. They couldn't speak a word of English. And they would sit there, stony-faced. They couldn't understand it. They couldn't understand a word. And then after the show, and I kind of like say, a lot of people get a few pictures, they were so excited and they were like but I realised very quickly they couldn't speak English so they would buy tickets to the show that they knew they wouldn't be able to understand it was quite off-putting as a comedian like your entire front row is not responding at all and they would just kind of say the words Max Fosh Billy Billy so Billy Billy is the name of the platform so Max Fosh Billy Billy Max Fosh Billy Billy and that fandom is they're not as cool around people that they might watch.

1:27:14So I was having lunch once outside and this woman walked past and suddenly I heard a thud and then a huge scream. And I thought, oh my God. And she was just pointing at me. And she was like, Max Walsh Billy Billy, Max Walsh Billy Billy. And I was like, hi. And she just kind of like, she showed me the profile on Billy Billy and said, yeah, this is like pointing at me and then pointing at the phone. I said, yeah. And we got a picture and she left. but to have someone audibly, like I was at a Harry Styles concert, audibly scream at me just being there was something really interesting. That is fascinating.

1:27:50I'm incredibly fascinated by why you think your videos and your comedy and just in general, why is it universal? Why does it work there? Because my question was about why you think the UK comedy works in the US, but now I have a new question, which is why does it work in China? I have no idea. But what makes comedy universal? What makes a good joke or a good bit of comedy that can travel? I mean, contrast. It's juxtaposition. So, I mean, Mr. Bean, I think, is the largest entertainment export of the UK because he's silent. Kabe Lame, most followed creator on TikTok. Kabe Lame? Kabe Lame. I've actually never said it.

1:28:31I've actually never said it. You've never said it out loud. I've said it written down. I was watching you work that out. You can tell that's coming out. Kabe Lame. It's like when I met Michelle Carey. I was like, Michelle... How intense is this R? Yeah. He's just... It's just... It's completely, like, voiceless. You don't need to... And so I think that maybe is why the videos do well in China. And in the States, I don't know. I don't know. It's just kind of floppy-haired posh guy being silly. I think it's the silliness. I think silliness is universal. We all have experiences at school where someone's played pranks, But what I'm kind of doing is hopefully amplifying that to a new level.

1:29:11I think it's also the wholesome nature of the pranks, right? Like, again, like, I get uncomfortable watching pranks that are ruining someone's day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes me really uncomfortable. It's punching down. Yeah, it's a very uncomfortable thing to watch. I mean, candidly, I love, you know, Nick Almelana, I think, has made some of the greatest videos on the platform, including The Most Racist Town in America. I think that's one of the greatest videos on YouTube. But him and Gideon, their biggest menace series, there was a lot of that that made me uncomfortable to watch and i think that um that some of the pranks like i think i also have an adverse reaction to the concept of like youtubers being connected with like pranks that would mess up someone's day i have like so much pride in what we do on the platform that when something like that goes viral i'm like ah that i don't want that brand for you know youtubers so i do think that you know probably it's not about uk humor it's just that you are doing more wholesome versions of pranks or you know uh silly jokes which are fun because you want to see people's reactions and you want to see what happens but it's wholesome it's always done with the cheeky smile like like even with the the the pranks on my sister like i sued my sister and getting her to turn up to a courtroom that had like a jury and a judge and her own lawyer yeah at the end uh she won the case because if i had got her into that scenario and then i won the case it looks really mean it's like oh this doesn't leave you with a good feeling it doesn't leave you with a good feeling in your mouth so i'm i yeah a lot of the times it is okay where is the cheeky wink to camera or even the cheeky wink to the person that i'm talking to here um that makes the audience feel like okay no that's that's fun and sometimes i don't get absolutely right and the audience lets me know what are some of those instances have you had specific videos that you think have kind of weirdly actually um the the finding the woman in the stock photo um series was i got a quite a lot of negative reaction towards that because i can understand that it looks like guy on internet tries to find woman that doesn't want to be found yes yeah totally yeah and and so in the first couple of episodes i've seen these comments coming through and I was kind of like, oh, huh.

1:31:23Yeah, actually, I agree with that. That's valid criticism. That's a valid criticism. Because that video could change her life in a way that she had no... Exactly. And actually, in the end, that was exactly the case. I managed to find her, I emailed her and she was like, I'd rather I've stayed anonymous and obviously completely respected that and didn't put her in the video. But I was approaching, and that's when a time I probably got it a little bit wrong, but I was approaching at it at the time. I was like, hey, we're in this global pandemic together. Let's show how interconnected we all are.

1:31:49And I was hoping that the cheeky wink to camera and the, hey, this is all fun. I'm going on Australian national television to try and find this woman. And being a bit silly, I was hoping that would convey through to the messaging, but obviously didn't to everybody. And I can understand that criticism. What's the vibe of YouTube business in London? Zach Alsop and I speak about this a lot. We laugh that if we were doing this properly, we'd all move to LA. Yeah, you'd move to America. I moved to him at the US because the difference in brand budgets and opportunity over there is wild. Really? I spoke to Yes Theory.

1:32:30I spoke to Thomas and I asked him, I was like, hey, like transparently, like how much you get paid for branding? And what he said blew my mind. I mean, that's a jaw dropper. Yeah, I agree. But they're also a very premium brand on the platform. They are a premium brand. But I was looking at it from, okay, right, over the last six months to maybe nine months in terms of average views, we're pretty similar. And I asked, and I looked at other creators, okay, okay. And it was just completely different. And I found that super interesting. They also skew, though, self-development, which I think does carry a different weight than just pure entertainment.

1:33:06That's fair. Yeah, I think there's a transformation. There are some other reasons there. There are some other reasons there. But you are right, obviously, like the rates in America. The rates in America. If I was a channel with an average viewership of over a million viewers per video, and I was going to a brand, I know what I could charge in the US, and I know what I could charge in the UK, and that is completely different. And the only people in the UK, there are a few that come to mind, obviously the Sidemen, with what they're doing over here, is truly revolutionary from a British or UK standpoint.

1:33:36yeah um and they are now like not only just one of the like the biggest like youtube british youtube group they're like one of the uk's main media exports right from like a like a macro level national level yeah um and that is really inspiring and really interesting and i speak to i try and learn as much as i can from the guys that that work with them and them themselves what about adsense for you is it like what i guess how much do you make on adsense in a month So probably around a really good month is£20 ,000. And how many views is that? That is, I mean, it's warped now with shorts. That's fair.

1:34:18But I would say the best month I've done is like 46 million views. Wow. On long-form content. No, no, no. If that was on long-form content, I would be eating good. No, it's probably the Welcome to Luton month was like 15 million views. And that was like 30 to 35 ,000 pounds for that month, which is a lot of money. It's a lot of money. And so now the average for 2023, it's probably 12 to 18 ,000 pounds a month. And that immediately goes to the cost of the company. Yeah, team and ideas. The team, the ideas, the rent. Money. Flying to Iceland with three people. Before I've even filmed a video. And so that's where the money comes from.

1:35:08The brand deal money is always paying for the video. Like those margins might be different every time. But if I'm spending more than six or seven thousand pounds, I'll get a brand deal on it. But there are some months that are incredibly profitable because the video idea doesn't require a huge amount of money. Actually, the ISA video is one of those because all it is is flights and accommodation and walking. But you aren't getting U.S. brands as brand deals, right? Although you have a U.S. audience. Yes. Interesting. I'm getting brands like Dashlane as password manager. They're a U.S. brand, but I'm getting U.K.

1:35:46rates. Interesting. They obviously, even though I'm providing the exact same value as a U.S. creator in terms of the demographics and the numbers, I'm providing that exact value. I'm getting the UK rates. I do think time in market dictates rate quite a bit. Yeah, absolutely. I think Max Fosch in three years, if you remain even at the same place you're at, if your views are in a similar place, but your brand is more established, I think you'll get better rates. The more irreplaceable you become, the higher the rates. The more solidified Max Fosch is, the higher the rates, right? And I think that's important.

1:36:20I think, yes, they are absolute behemoths in the sense of like their time in market has been enormous and also how influential they've been on the platform is enormous. So although like the objective, like numbers on their videos at the moment might be similar to like, I agree all of their other metrics are much more valuable. Do you look out at the year and say, I need to make this many videos and this many of them need to be branded? Like what are those numbers look like? No, I need to, it's, I'm a little, I should be more like, okay, this year, I'm going to speak to a brand. let's do a deal now for 12 videos for the year but i'm so nervous that i'm not going to be able to um provide the video that i said i'm going to because of so many external factors that sometimes just mean it's not possible if this volcano doesn't erupt i can't make the video and so i often find myself scrambling in a situation where like and you sell the idea to the brand i sell the idea interesting um and i can i say to them look this is going to do really really well and i'm trying actually i'm trying to sell the this the the um volcano video idea at the moment because i was It's expensive to get there.

1:37:22But I'm like, guys, this is going to be a really big video. The way I would do it and the way we do it is say, hey, buy across a minimum three episodes. And you don't really have much say in what those episodes are, but buy across three and it's a portfolio of Max Fosch. One of them might hit. One of them might be average. One of them might do a little bit better. But the aggregate of those is going to perform. So I've done that in the past. Actually, that was after we had this exact conversation in New York. Oh, that's right. You said the same thing. And I started doing this. I'm so predictable.

1:37:55And then the only worrying thing that I had after that is not being, it's like three videos over three months, is not being able, just in case something goes wrong from a production point of view, that I can't give them that third video in that third month. It means it goes to four months. So I sometimes do deals of three videos over six months. That helps me a little bit. but it's so changeable that I need to be better with and also I think that brands have become at the moment they might have less spend to do with UK creators to know whether you guys are feeling that in the US but they might be feeling a bit of a pinch from marketing budgets potentially that's kind of across the board I think that's across the board are you looking at that are you nimble enough you said you had a ton of runway are you nimble enough to deal with that or are you trying to diversify now and expand.

1:38:46I'm definitely nimble enough. Yeah, yeah. 100 % nimble enough to deal with that. I think people who are creatives, like true creatives, have to remain nimble enough to do that. Yeah. You just have to be able to pivot. You don't want to put that amount of strain and stress on what you're doing. No, because otherwise it's just a bit of a disaster and that's when I really would lose it. Yeah. Is, you know, as you're like focusing so much of your time and energy on making videos right now, when I watched your comedy special I thought it was very good thank you especially like as your first comedy special I'm like that's that's really fun if I was if I paid money and went to that and didn't know who you were I would have a good time great and that's like I think that says a lot we're looking to tour the states next year oh you are really yeah we would love to come the Palladium is big too the Palladium was big the Palladium's plane was big it's crazy I feel like insert any comedian and you'd go yeah that seems about right yeah you look at his name and you go that's a big show big show big show that's a big show big show is so you you obviously you said you're going to tour next year in the u.s like how much does stand-up comedy play into what you view the next chapter of your life oh massively massively massively like it's super important it's super important to to view me as a kind of an all-rounding entertainer someone actually said to me the other day they were talking about a conversation they were having with their friend and my name came up and their friend said oh the comedian and that was really life affirming I was like okay there's there's I'm not just the the guy on YouTube and so some in some corner of someone's mind they view me as a comedian um and so I'm looking at in in the comedy space there's always space for a posh floppy-haired British guy currently it's held by Jack Whitehall who is very very well known both here in the uk but also in the states and so i'm looking a lot at what he's doing and thinking okay jack has been able to he's done stand-up comedy then he's pivoting into acting and pivoting into other things and other forms of entertainment some some tv presenting does the the netflix show travels my father which is incredibly successful and that's more that's more kind of presenting and than it is stand-up comedy and trying to really watch his progression um about how he's doing things um and so yeah i think the stand-up is so important that it's not just it's not just guys growing into comedic storyteller yeah and also it just makes me a better storyteller on youtube like i came back and the the the the muscle of of being inspired was just going through the roof coming up going up on stage and having to be funny and trying to think of things on the fly means that the i mean this volcano video came up what on like it came up whilst I was on stage.

1:41:35I was like, okay, I'd had a seed of an idea about volcanoes. Oh, shit, I'll get that. I'll remember that. What's your name? Where you're from? That kind of thing. That's cool. It's really, really useful. I think it's a big part of even why we knew we wanted to sit down with you. For both of us, it's really interesting to look at creators right now and ask ourselves, is this someone who in 5, 10, maybe even 20 years will still have a career no matter if it's on YouTube or if it's in television or comedy, whatever it is. How long will the AdSense pay off? Yeah. Because if it's not five to ten years, we don't sit down.

1:42:07Yeah. That's good to know. Exactly. People always talk about creators being the entertainers of the future, right? Or the next generation of Hollywood and entertainment and all of that. But I think it's really interesting for us, who are talking to all these people, to really sit and think, is this someone that we think actually will, in 20 years, someone will look back at this interview and get so much value and find it so interesting because you have done so many other things? Yeah. I really hope so and I kind of want to say on the record there's unfinished business in the comedy I want to do more things and I'm going to I'm going to play an arena at some point in my mind that's going to happen but I've just got to think about how I make that happen is that like the case of just keep plugging away on YouTube videos and building the subscriber base and building the numbers or is it just like no you've got to completely remove yourself and just do stand-up for a year, I don't know.

1:43:03Well, I mean, you know, there's a lot of comedians whose first big special or first show doesn't look like the London Palladium, right? And obviously you'd done it prior, but like I would say these two, this is the advantage of the future entertainers. You come with distribution, right? And like I do think you need to cut your teeth as a comedian, you know, more before you get there, which is, you know, you saw how long it took to become a YouTube grader. yeah yeah look at how long that took i mean i know it too it took us a decade to become actual youtube creators that you're gonna have to put in a decade to that too right and just keep performing and um you probably have an accelerant because you have a you know distribution behind you um but going back to the conversation about like you like youtube is being the entertainers of the future who do you see in the youtube space as obviously like logan joj Jimmy as the next kind of like The Rock or Jimmy Fallon like who are the creators that you really see I mean I guess we're already seeing them we're in the majority of the people that we try and sit down with yeah you know it's Emilia it's Emilia Chihuahua here in the UK I mean even the Yes Theory guys Michelle Correa yeah Michelle I mean I think about Thomas Bragg from Yes Theory and Amar and like they made a movie it was so good and it was really good it's so good and it was it was like really good and they filled their own theaters they filled their own theaters and I look at the future And I'm like, I think they're going to make massive movies.

1:44:29Like they might not even be in them, but they are some of the best storytellers right now. You know, Thomas just turned 30. Like you think about how young these people are compared to who's running Hollywood and who's in the business. It's like, you know, obviously like Ryan Trahan, he knows more about how to engage an audience than most people in, you know, our world. So whether or not these people will be in front of the camera or behind, I don't know. But I think this crop that we know as the creator economy of right now is the future of entertainment. And it's the present of entertainment, but I think like it will progress into a lot more.

1:45:04And we might see people behind the camera that are behind the scenes that we are familiar with, but are just so good at storytelling. I mean, look at Liza Koshy, right? Like Liza Koshy had a whole period of time on YouTube, heavily on YouTube and is in five movies this year. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like even that right there, there's already comps for this already happening. And there's people already moving into Hollywood. That is wild. And yeah, people don't see it. People don't see Logan now as a YouTuber. They see him as a wrestler. They see him as a businessman. So I know you have to catch a flight to Iceland, to a volcano.

1:45:35We do. But you did this in the special and I'm going to have to do it. Are you doing? Oh my God, here we go. This is amazing. I'm going to see. Are we going to tell them what you're going to do and just kind of see what? I wasn't going to do that. but I will. I'm actually going to do something different. I know what you're thinking. You said the eyes are the window to the soul. Yeah. I mean, yeah. And then you said, and then you said that's not true. It's actually someone's iPhone notes. Yeah. May I have your phone? Oh no. Yes, you can. I've done this. I've done this to like enough people that I deserve to have my notes looked through.

1:46:15I can't wait to read these. i mean first this is incredible because the first one is passwords in all caps which is just for a guy who's been followed by private investigators this is unbelievable they gave you advice about

1:46:34here do you want to feel free yeah i mean there's a lot of ideas in there there's a lot of ideas i don't want to give away your ideas please do because those are the ones that i've decided there's there's one at the bottom of the ideas where i just wrote down things which are oh wow a lot of street smart ideas a lot of street smart ideas okay so you had an idea for street smart to go to wimbledon done that done that okay yeah things to say in the chair mixed oh these are like oh this was this was a brother this was a thing i did a brand thing i did for wimbledon last week really oh wow you did yeah fine yeah oh it was a brand deal with wimbledon yeah go all the way to the go all literally bottom go to scroll that's what i would do i would go all the All the way to the bottom.

1:47:12Sorry, we're not experienced with this. Well, if I go all the way to the bottom, I'm at 2013. Perfect. Fine. Yeah. What was Max saying in 2013? There's a bucket list. Let's read the bucket list. Let's see the bucket list. See King Tut's grave. Be part of a flash mob. I don't want to be part of a flash mob at all. This one just says Great Wall of China. Sleep in a hammock. Visit every continent. These are so attainable. Sleep in a hammock. Also, these are the most bucket list-y, bucket list things. It's like I went on Google. Graffiti, a public wall. Graffiti and public wool. That was my bad boy phase.

1:47:44Skydive. Start own company. Make friends with five strangers. I've written that. This is what I was watching a lot of yesterday. Yeah, I was going to say, get kissed in the rain. And? Ten years later, anything? I need to organize that. I don't normally snog in the rain, but I could probably organize it. Skinny dip. Wait, wait, wait. It says punch someone in the face. does it? yeah no I've never done that let's knock it off

1:48:17that's so funny I think I've been headbutted before but I've never actually punched someone it's not on here no it's not on here I failed now that you've brought it up it does feel like I should try the other thing okay a lot of times I think I won't be able to do it before this though yeah when we were having lunch yeah you know I realize that it's possible yeah great what do we have for lunch? capture this moment when I tell it to you not what I asked but that's fine it was a wrap it was a wrap yeah just capture that was it a nice wrap? delightful it was okay it was delightful where are you guys what are you guys doing after you're in London for a bit where are you guys going over the next kind of week?

1:49:04everywhere everywhere? that sounds like a lot frankly it is Okay, that is, I mean, have you got anywhere in particular or just everywhere? Great Britain Great Britain, so literally just everywhere Okay, so you're going to Northern Ireland as well? Here and there Here and there, okay Are you with, like, is it just you two? Are you just here in London by yourselves? Or are you with, like, family and friends? I am mainly us I am here You're here With Colin And Colin as well Is there anyone else in the team? Just us Okay Yeah Okay, I'm up to this studio how did you find this studio?

1:49:43Conundrum it was a conundrum

1:49:47does that count? only where they came to mind was kangaroos you know what's funny is working out the alphabet in your head while you do it it's the hardest thing it is the hardest thing to do for a bit of context I would play a game no context that's the end you gotta get to Iceland thank you so much for coming on Max Fosh everybody thank you for coming on Do we clap at the end of the show? Some people would. Some people would. I, for one. Would not. Sexy green man over there. Looking right back at you.