The Viral Expert: Anthpo

0:00The Colin and Samir Show is supported by Microsoft Copilot. This is something I thought I would never say, but can I share with you my favorite prompt? I mean, like when you say something like that, I have to say yes. Were you going to say no? No, but okay. Just let me hear it. So when I'm researching for a guest or I need to know a lot about a subject matter, I say, make me a podcast about. And when you do that, you're going to get a short blurb about that subject. And then in like two minutes, you're going to get a podcast. So check this out. Welcome to Co-Pilot Podcasts. Picture this, a guy working the front desk at a hotel, making lacrosse videos in his spare time, completely unaware that he's about to become one of the most influential voices in the creator economy.

0:38Today, we're diving into the remarkable story of Colin Rosenblum. Wow. Did you pay it to say that? That's crazy. That's very kind. It's crazy, but it's my favorite way to learn about a subject matter. I'm learning about so much more now that I can turn this research into like a seven minute podcast that I can listen to just when I'm walking. Did you tell it that I worked at the front desk of a hotel? Dude, the prompt is just make me a podcast about Colin from Colin and Samir. That's it. I may be biased, but I'm on the edge of my seat. I'm hooked. So if you guys haven't checked out Copilot, check it out.

1:10Try it for your research. Try it for getting variations of your titles, your ideas. It's one of my favorite tools on the internet right now for our creativity. And now back to the show. I know this will go viral. You never know like how viral it'll go. Hundreds of people showed up to watch him eat cheese balls. There's a contest to find Timothee Chalamet look-alike. Viral for putting crocs on the feet of statues. The crowd got so big, four were arrested. That I did not expect. Getting people to care, like that's so much more meaningful than getting 10 million views on video. It's like, how do you get someone to care?

1:45I worked for Beast for a while. Sue me. You shouldn't say that. Don't sue me. That was a joke. And this is my secret sauce. I actually shouldn't be giving this out, but it's fine. I think everyone should be a creator. Today on The Colin and Spears Show, we're joined by Anthony Portero, aka Anthpo. We've been telling people about this conversation for the last few weeks. And whenever we say we sat down with Anthpo, sometimes people know who he is immediately. Other times they don't. And you say, okay, kid with Crocs, cheeseball man. And then lastly, the Timothee Chalamet lookalike contest. And once you say that, they're like, oh my gosh, I love this guy.

2:17We like to think about bringing guests on the show, like bringing a guest lecturer into a classroom all about the modern media landscape. And Anthpo is one of the most unique and sharpest minds when it comes to how attention works today? He would be one of the most memorable lectures of the semester. I think if this was a real lecture hall, he would come in dressed like a superhero and he would, I'd really believe it. He'd come in probably with a mask, but he would deliver some of the most interesting and up-to-date insights about what works on the internet today. I would say that this is a pen and pad episode.

2:50Like this is one where you're going to want to write down a lot of things he says because he has such a clear vision of how to capture a mass audience's attention. So this episode is all about coming up with really unique ideas. And one of the best ways to come up with unique ideas is to make sure that you're brainstorming every single day. So to help you do that, we came up with something called 50 in 5. It's a five-day brainstorming sprint where every day we give you a prompt to help you write 10 ideas. And by the end of those five days, you have 50 new ideas for your YouTube channel. And we've partnered with our friends at Epidemic Sound to give away 200 seats in 50 and 5 totally free when you click the link in our description and sign up for a 30-day free trial of Epidemic Sound.

3:31We've been subscribers since 2016, and the team at Epidemic told us that over our lifetime as creators, we've downloaded 2 ,898 tracks. It's hands down the best platform for finding music for your YouTube videos. It's super intuitive. And our favorite feature is that you can download individual stems. So like this song that's playing right now, we can just use the drums from it, or we can swap that and just use the baseline. And if you find a song you like, we can find others with a similar vibe. It makes finding the right song in their library of 50 ,000 tracks super easy. Actually, in our 24 Hours of Mr.

4:04B's documentary, we pulled a track from Epidemic, pulled it apart from all the stems and laid it out across the whole piece before we started editing to set the tone and emotional arc for the story. And it's not just music. They also have over 200 ,000 sound effects. Sound effects like this. That's not a real sound of me sipping that coffee. So if you're one of the first 200 people to click the link in our description, sign up for a 30-day free trial of Epidemic Sound. We will send you our 50 in 5 Brainstorming Sprint totally free. It's a win-win because if you make videos, Epidemic Sound is the best music library and you get to check out our 50 in 5 Brainstorming Sprint.

4:39All right. Now for our episode with Anthony Patero, aka Anthpo.

4:50So do you guys start the podcast? No, no, no. It's generally you. Oh, okay. Do I actually say my name or something? No. That's good. Well, Anthpo, welcome to the show, man. Oh, thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. Also, do you want me to look at this one comically? Look at you guys. just be natural just be cool man just be cool um well it's a pleasure to be on i've been watching you guys since you started wow yeah like a long time like i probably started watching you guys when you had like 20 000 subs no way really oh wow i mean you guys started blowing up when i was like starting to get into like content so it's cool to be here oh wow that's awesome man i mean we've been we've been watching you for a long time and like many iterations of you um and i've always kind of we've always talked about how we feel like you know something that we don't just about the world and about human beings and i think that really came to a head last year with what i would consider i mean honestly one of the most culturally relevant moments of the year so much so that it like it permeated through almost every facet of of society and culture which was the timothy chalamet lookalike contest yeah yeah i've talked about this uh honestly pretty scarcely considering how big it got because like uh my onus is like do something cool and then like move on like i don't want to get stuck on like one specific thing um because after i threw a timothy shalmay lookalike competition i easily could have like ran with it like tons of celebrities reached out and were like do a lookalike competition for me but the world ran with it yeah yeah and that's what i prefer um do people need context or do we just yeah okay let's give some context um so i am a youtuber and uh i recently have been enjoying doing things like anonymously to kind of like prove to myself that like it's not like uh it's not like i fell into this like i feel like i care so deeply about it so i've been hanging up posters anonymously and the one was for a timothy chalamet lookalike competition um and then like 10 000 people came and it was obviously covered internationally and then the coolest part was like other communities and countries started doing it like there's been thousands of people doing it and like it's all a cool like it's what i wanted which was like to turn the internet into like a place for people to hang out in real life right like the internet can feel very secular and like perpetually in one place on your screen and i wanted it to be like oh we can like hang out in real life too and i think that's what happened there's a quote i heard from an artist recently that said we live in a time where it's easier to reach the entire world than it is to reach your neighborhood and i think to a degree that's true but you kind of flipped it on its head because you like you create these events like the chalamet lookalike contest that like start with bringing the world together first in your neighborhood, in your area.

7:50And then all of a sudden they scale to the entire world. So did you say you were hanging up posters? Like, were you hanging up posters and then you just landed on this idea? Was that one of many ideas? Yeah. So it started with last January, I wanted to eat a jar of cheese balls in front of people. Right. Another story. Yeah. And then I was like, that was like a fun community thing. uh so then i've probably done like 15 different like poster based projects um and i i don't want a huge crowd most of the time because it becomes like a production nightmare um but the timothy chalamet one like all i did literally was hang up 50 posters like i did no like seating i didn't pay any pages like it was just like me in my golf office my garage office with my friends and i was like this is funny and like i know this will go viral it just you never know like how viral it'll You can't like control that.

8:44So wait, why, why did you think it's funny? And why do you think it would go viral? Like what's the anatomy of that idea? I think a lot of like creators and like brands think of things backwards. Like instead of like observing a community from the outside, like you really have to like engross yourself in it. And like, I'm just chronically online. So it's easy for me to like look at something and go, oh, like if I saw this organically, I would post about it. Like that's just the North star for me. It's like, I just remove myself from the thing. And I'm like, if I saw this, what I think it's funny.

9:13and that is like that has not failed me yet because i i just i am on tiktok instagram youtube like all day like it's what i unfortunately it's i'm addicted what's the genesis of the idea though how does it come about like do you see something else and then you're like oh interesting i could do an iteration of that yeah i think good ideas are uh both familiar and different i'm sure you've heard that yeah yeah um and so like you know i have proof of concept with big groups hanging out And like, I also know that people care about celebrity culture and like other intellectual properties. And I know that people like something that feels absurd and dumb.

9:52And like the notion that a person hangs up a lookalike competition poster throughout the city is like funny. Right. Like who is doing this? Like that's a funny thought. And then I think you just. Cause it's kind of like, what's their incentive? Yeah. Right. Like it's clearly just for the absurdity of it. Yeah. It is for the love of the game. And that's why. For the love of the game. that's like um one of my favorite um youtubers his name's uh atriok he makes like economics content yeah yeah yeah uh when i did cheeseball man i ate a jar of cheeseballs in front of like a thousand people he reacted to it and like he said like this is such a marketing win because it's a guy doing it for the love of the game and like that kind of like stuck with me granted like i'm a youtuber so it's also kind of my job but i think if i wanted to turn this into a career i would make commentary videos and i wouldn't do these like high lift like low profit events i guess i'd probably be a bit smarter about it i think you also have to reevaluate the premise of profit because like if your currency is cultural relevance or like giving a gift to society and culture like with the lookalike contest you you did it and uh i think in the in that world like everything about it was absurd down to like the cash prize.

11:07And I've heard you talk about why $50 was the cash prize. And a five foot statue, right? Yeah. Which was$250. Can you talk through like the poster itself? Like what is on the poster? Because that's almost like a in real life thumbnail in a way, right? It's an in real life way to create enough curiosity and enough like tension to get people interested. And like, I think every part of it is well crafted in the idea, even again, down to the cash prize being$50. Cause it's, there's something about being, being$50 that is so absurd. Yeah. Well, it's funny. We in my golf office fought about the cash prize for like an hour.

11:44It's like, no,$20 is funnier. Like, no, I'm like$50 is the funniest. It was a real conversation we had where I think like everybody is so digitally native now and everybody's doing a lot of the same things. And it feels like everybody's trying to like grip at your attention and like listening to these like you know books there were like youtube videos about retention and blah blah where it's like how can we just evoke a feeling of like wonder and stupidity and like that's what i i loved the internet when it felt stupid like when i was watching ryan higa do these like crazy like that was such an important fun internet and i feel like we're now returning to like the former glory i feel like i'm slowly starting to see it but for a while it was like dang like everything is like grabbing at your attention and is like selling you a product and there's nothing wrong with that but i'm like how can i you know if i'm gonna come back to the internet i want to bring like some sort of like whimsy back and i'm gonna like make mistakes and like fail but eventually like something's gonna hit and that was kind of like my thought process yeah the internet when early days was kind of like especially early days of youtube it was kind of a place for like counterculture rejects yeah of hollywood right or like you're just like the annoying orange or like the my spoon is too big it was people doing it for the love of the game right there's no incentives there was no money to be made yeah right so you had to be doing it for the love of the game yeah but i also think we lack a lot of uh humor and like in in the world of youtube like of course there's funny content but it's almost like strategically funny.

13:19And I guess what you did is strategically absurd, but I think you can feel so much of the strategy behind what people are doing. Right. And I think it feels uncomfortable to experience that. And I'm curious, you've referred to yourself as a YouTuber multiple times, but do you really see yourself as a YouTuber or do you see yourself as like almost a street artist or like performance artist? This is a real good story about Bronx and his dad, Ryan, real United Airlines customers. We were returning home and one of the flight attendants asked Bronx if he wanted to see the flight deck and meet Captain Andrew.

13:50I got to sit in the driver's seat. I grew up in an aviation family and seeing Bronx kind of reminded me of myself when I was that age. That's Andrew, a real United pilot. These small interactions can shape a kid's future. It felt like I was the captain. Allowing my son to see the flight deck will stick with us forever. That's how good leads the way. Yeah, I've definitely gotten that a lot more recently. Yeah. Because I think there's a lot of people that like, this is a weird thing for me where like before, you know, I made college content which i hold very dearly but people didn't know who i was like if you weren't like 18 to 24 like you you won't know who i am now like there's not a single person i run into who like hasn't heard of something i've done uh which is very different and i'm very grateful for that um so i guess now i'm more of like a yeah like a performance artist i guess i've been getting um like dumb internet banksy which is like a funny comparison we were calling it like tiktok banksy it's banksy of gen z all right well i'm gonna wrap it up yeah yeah um yes it's a cool that would also piss a lot of people off because they'd be like like how dare you how dare you compare this kid to bank well it's dumb bank like it's i think i mean banksy is like a political commentator right he makes very important at the heart of what i'm doing is like almost politically motivated like i i'm trying to inject my ideals into the internet which is like i think we take ourselves too seriously i think we should all come together so in that sense it's political but past that it's just dumb and i want yeah i'm creating the things i wish i could see on the internet so bring us through the experience a bit because you had asked about making the posters yeah talk to us about putting the posters up and then kind of what happens after that yeah so our thought process is like we're not trying to like create an artful poster we're trying to get a message across which is why like we're never going to make a complicated poster there's a really great creator in new york city um named cool looking bug i don't know if you've ever heard of him i haven't uh fantastic he basically finds poorly made posters on the street and like recreates them oh yeah i've seen that yeah he's fantastic like he runs across my posters often um and he says he's never recreated them because like there's nothing you can do to get the message across better it's just like here's the picture here's what it is and here's a time and that's like we're not you know like we're not doing anything past that it's like show up like be there be square um and i've seen again people realize it's a great way to just like engage the community and people have stolen that so it's like i sit in the golf office with some friends and we think about what is funny and we have a giant whiteboard wall and we write a bunch of funny things and then i put them all in one giant art board in photoshop and we spend like a couple hours coming up with them and then we print them and then we hang them up and then that's it and then we wait and then like i think so much of the fun we have as like a little group is like what is going to take off because we're confident like every idea has the capacity to be large um but it's a matter of like who runs into it on the street and posts it on their twitter or posts it on reddit or posts it on instagram like that's always the fun game to play um and it doesn't change our strategy which to just like make a fun video in the end.

17:00So with the Chalamet posters, did you start to see things on Twitter, on Reddit? Is that what gave you an indication that like, oh, I think this one, there's going to be a lot of people there. The other thing we'll do is we have like a sign up for some of them that are like production wise a bit more like difficult perhaps. So we always have like somewhat of a gauge. Like we have a thousand people sign up. We can probably expect 3000 people to show up because to go out of your way to like scan a QR code is ridiculous. And also a lot of people find it online. um so like cheeseball man there was a thousand people that rsvp that are like they were like i will be there count me in and that doesn't include like most people probably found it on like the internet and we're like this seems fun and silly um so yeah it's always a it's always a numbers game i wish we could house more people but the parks don't like me so so the chalamet one how many people did you anticipate like when did you know it was catching traction there was a really funny uh picture of timothy in front of the poster like he like like a paparazzi took it like because we hung up like 50 of them or whatever maybe like 100 i forget he was like walking and then right behind him was the poster and that's when we're like oh this is gonna be bad and then we had a friend who was working on set with him and he was talking about it this is like maybe two weeks prior and me and my friend page are like this is we're gonna get timothy was talking about it yeah like on set got it um and then then the strategy was like no longer are we worried about this competition it was like how can we contingency plan me getting arrested like most of our production the next two weeks were like yeah like we made shirts that said like hashtag free gilbert which was like the alias i was going under and stuff but then i didn't get arrested so so then day of you roll up walk us through that uh i had a team of like 12 i think it was like you know friends acting as producers and camera people um how did you source the lookalikes they are they they just showed up they just showed up they showed up yeah posters yeah you're right you're right my bad yeah there was a lot of discourse on tiktok of like girls being like i'm gonna find my husband right and so i think then guys were like oh i'm gonna be someone's husband which is awesome yeah a couple of them the timothy i'm still close with probably like 20 of them uh are like long-term relationship with somebody they met at the competition actually yeah which is awesome i saw one of the bizarre fun fact about you that you have 20 friends who look like timothy there's a group chat called brother shallow and it's we all like you know like they'll like self-promo they're like hey guys check out my art piece and then 19 other timothys are like it's really fun one of them is like like teaching japanese something in japan yeah i came across him on instagram i was like wait isn't that the winner of the shop also a bunch of them ended up on snl with chalibre yeah yeah that's crazy yeah okay so yeah sorry the day of the day of yeah yes so we just showed up and it's like a lot of it is like me and i worked for beast for a while sue me um i think uh shouldn't say that don't sue me that was a joke retract retract so go back um uh so i i got the pleasure of working for beast and i think i learned a lot more about like like hectic production from that than i than i thought i would have and so a lot of you know that came out where it's like i'm telling you know i'm working with my friends like i'm not working with professionals so i'm like giving them like a laundry list like almost like a production bible like if this happens we do this if this happens we do this like i'm trying to just be the host so i don't want to have to deal with these fires um because ultimately like we want to make sure everybody if they don't have a good time they have a good story that's what i love is that like so many people who have come to these events have like something to talk about at like you know their next company gathering or like wow yeah a lot of like um i just threw a stuffed animal contest i saw that it was just like something silly it was because um baby no money was in town and we're good friends he's like let's do something set it up last minute uh the girl who won like she's been dming me she's like that was like the best day of my life like it means so much to me like being able to provide that is great so back to the timothy thing it's like how do we assure nothing bad happens one timothy did get arrested sure um but that all happens yeah that'll happen no charges you know and he's one out of 20 timothys that's not bad yeah what did that was actually what does that one timothy do he he was just like getting like the police were pushing people and he got pushed and he was like don't push me and then it was like a whole thing but it's fine um and uh there was there was probably close to a hundred timothys but it was so chaotic and we had to like move parks so all said and done there was probably like 20 to 30 like but it was at washington square park right it was and then we got kicked out and so we did like a timothy pilgrimage and i paraded like thousands of people through the street to another park right down the road so we had like contingencies for that in case we got kicked out so that was our plan how many people showed up it's really hard i had like a um i paid somebody like a hundred dollars to count like i was like use all the footage from like the ap and like my stuff and it's hard to say because like all of wash was packed and like the streets were packed and then the second park was packed but they had counted like 7 500 wow but it's hard to say it was fun so i you know did you know that timothy chalamet would show up no we actually made jokes in the golf is being like there's not a more unsafe place for timothy chalamet to be at noon on a saturday Like there's like, it's a security liability.

22:24Like he's not going to, we knew he'd say something, but I think it's good. Like we did good press for him, you know? So you're welcome. Little bro. Like, you know, uh, here's my, uh, Venmo cash app. What did you think though? When you got word that he was there? I was so not concerned. Like we were at the second park and I'm like, you know, shuffling people through and like, you know, running the contest. And, uh, my friend Paige taps me on the shoulder. She's like, Timothy's here. I'm like, I don't have time for this right now. Like, like whatever, figure it out. but it was cool and like I think he got a really there's like a really iconic wholesome image of like him and like two of the Timothys yeah it's cool it's cool to be a part of like something bigger like I'm no a-list I'm just a guy who makes videos and got to help him out help little bro out you know he needed the attention well there's also this interesting note that you chose anonymity around this right like you had an alias with Gilbert and like the idea is at the forefront not you.

23:18And that's also something that's kind of the antithesis to what we've seen in the modern creator economy, right? It's that it is the individual who's at the forefront a lot of the... And the idea, the best creator is the ideas at the forefront and the idea leads, but oftentimes it's the personality that leads. So I find it interesting that you put so much emphasis on the idea that you chose to be anonymous in a world where like the concept or the idea is rooted around someone who is quite the opposite of anonymous right like chalamet is probably one of the most popular people um so what what made this like a uh a win for you and actually the first thing i want to ask you is was this a reference to the charlie chaplin lookalike contest because i don't know if people know that but like i mean frankly i didn't know that until we were researching it a bit that charlie chaplin there was a charlie chaplin lookalike contest yeah and charlie chaplin didn't win yeah he came in like seven yeah yeah that's fascinating was that something that you were aware of yeah okay it was i think so much of what makes good culture is like the that like you take it in original you take a concept and you like innovate on it where it's like again this happened what like 100 years ago um and i was like that was we have like a laundry list of just like things in culture that we love and hold dearly and like that was one of them and i was like what's the modern version of that and i i'm no longer like i had a my my friends say i have i've had twink death but um i used to look like timothy chalamet now i think i've i put on like 30 pounds so the reason we chose timothy was like we were gonna make it that's fine we were gonna throw it and then make me win but then as it gained its own legs we're like we need to play this thing straight um but i want to wait your original question i'm stuck on a twink death i don't know what that means i gotta be 100 honest i do not know what that means yeah it's basically i i used to get called on the internet a twink a lot and then recently i don't get it as much i see anymore but um yes charlie chaplin that's why i wore the outfit i was like i want to like pay homage to it but like if you know you know type thing and i learned how to write a penny farthing yeah um for the bit and that was really fun but um to your point on the anonymous thing i think where i've kind of found my footing right now is like i want to inspire people that like my videos are like low lift like they don't they could cost money but like they don't um and they're done completely anonymously and like i like the notion that like like and i get it a lot now like people are starting pages or doing new things and i'll get a dm and they're like this like you inspired me to do this and that is like so much more impactful than things I had done previously, I think, where it's like I'm, you know, getting people to get up and do their own thing.

26:09So that's why I do the anonymous thing. It's funny. It feels almost anti-creator in a way, right? Because the whole idea of a creator is that they should have a leg up. Like a lot of people want creators to be in TV shows, acting or making their own shows or promoting products because it's like, oh, they have a face. People know it, but you're taking it down to the root level of the idea. And at the end of the day, I feel like it's giving you more credibility or it's giving the idea credibility yeah i think in a perfect world i wouldn't ever have to reveal it's me but like i can't sustainably do it if i don't make like a foundational piece at the end of it um meaning because that's where the like income comes from yeah like i make ad revenue right yeah and like realistically if i wanted it again to be a career i would just make commentary videos because i'd cash out a lot more but i think again i like the idea of like scrappily doing this and showing people that there's no secret formula.

27:04It's just people who do it for something they love. If you just put your heart and soul into a thing and you think it's good, then it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. You allow time to create your ideas. I think that's maybe an undervalued thing of like, hey, I'm just going to spend time on this idea right now. you know, versus kind of like, I think again, like the premise of being a YouTube creator right now is like building a media company and being like, I got a bunch of different projects going on right now and I'm working on a bunch of different videos and I'm releasing weekly or I'm releasing monthly.

27:41And like, you're just constantly doing multiple things at once. And I get the sense from the outside looking in that you're kind of operating on like, here's the project right now. Right. Yeah. It's actually funny you say that. Like I'll get DMs occasionally or like people make posts about me being like dang like like the past three months i've been focusing on a large project uh that just came out but those three months i was like uploading these like random like almost like nothing burger videos of like like a bad hairline competition and like an anthony meetup and i you know got dms and posts like wow anthony's really lost his magic like what's going on and it was because i was like working on a larger project and i'm like i got one dm that was like uh it was like yo bro like i don't know how to say this but i just feel like your recent videos haven't been the same like i don't know what happened and then i released my recent video and he just responds like my bad like yeah um so yeah it's tough because like if you don't play the youtube game you know people will be like what's going on or but i am trying to just like be myself and like make things that i care deeply about and it's it's you know it's i'd rather give a bunch of timothys something to tell their grandkids than to like play the youtube game i guess is my onus so the day the day of the chalamet contest ends like let's see that that ends were you immediately just like whoa that was a success and did you know what was about to happen next i had no idea it was gonna like be like a cultural moment like across the globe yeah i knew that people were gonna do like and again i encouraged people to like do it themselves like i think that's the beauty in it is like a community event right um so that was really cool seeing it internationally that i did not expect that week after it was just like grinding the youtube video because everyone had already reported on it's like right can i you like i need to make something almost late to the yeah to covering your own event i was the last person you're the last person which is fine like again it's not about like for me it's not about the youtube view right it's the fact that like i can if someone's like what do you do for a living it's like i have to say it's like oh i did the timothy shawmy look like competition like oh what place did you get it i'm like no no like i like it was me and like my friends um so that is what i care deeply about it's just like that whimsy is really cool yeah yeah we were having dinner with this uh one of the most interesting guys that i we've ever had dinner with his name is sir john hegarty okay it's like old school advertising executive he's 80 years old he's been in the advertising world forever and uh he said this thing to us at dinner he said the original viral concept was a joke that like before there was virality through the internet there was a joke and if somebody told a good joke it would make its way around the world yeah and he they like tried this thing where they came up with an original joke and saw if it would come back to them oh that's a banger and often whoever came up with the joke doesn't get credit they don't get people don't cite the person who came up with the joke they just spread the joke yeah which i feel like is somewhat similar like there was a lot of press that does not necessarily like cite you as the person who orchestrated it yeah did you feel left out at any times no that's fine like that's what i want that's what i want you want because if i wanted if i was doing this for like a monetary gain or for the attention i wouldn't be doing this exact thing like i again i'd be making more traditional yeah you're smart enough about youtube to actually be a massive youtuber and make a ton of money being a youtuber i think so or i could be like i've gotten so i don't know how much of these i can talk about i've gotten tons of crazy job offers um like the craziest things i've ever seen uh like politically high to like run social medias um and i don't care for it like i'd rather inspire people comedically and like be a sure almost like a pusher of culture and again make the type of internet content that i wish existed it's an incredibly powerful thing to anonymous anonymously be able to bring thousands of people into a space and create something that spreads globally.

31:48Like there are a lot of organizations politically, companies who are like, yes, please give us that. Yeah. Yeah. And so I'm, I'm just grateful that it's like, you know, I like all of this could disappear tomorrow and I I've, I've had a good run. Like I'm very, I'm stoked. I'm happy. You know, when I first came back to YouTube, I was kind of like rushed into it. Cause like friends were like, just do it. Like, you know, one year anniversary, like you've already filmed a couple things i was like all right and then i think that up until my most recent project i was like i don't know if it was worth it but i think now i'm at a point with like my local community and friends and like content i'm like it's dope i'm making content dope what'd you think about when snl parodied the child may look like contest it was cool i mean i don't want to like i i think you guys probably like snl because you're like old and lame yeah i was so that was basically my question like is it lame that they covered it or is it cool yeah i think it's cool because to me it's like oh that's a really big deal for me that's how i know if it crossed over in culture right in a way yeah yeah that every millennial's told me that how old are you guys like 42 yeah yeah we're in our 40s uh no yeah i i am grateful for any sort of attention that i've put into the world like positively but i don't watch snl and the only experience i have with snl is uh they like stole one of my youtuber friends is like bits bar for bar so that was the only thing oh i saw that i saw that friend joel yeah on tiktok yeah um yeah that's crazy yeah but i mean snl's a big company like whatever but uh it was cool they like even got my they like wore a white belt and stuff yeah they did the whole bit i was like that's funny it's cool again like i can't complain yeah sure and then the timothys went on which was awesome which is cool and that's like they're gonna tell their grandkids about that and it's like i got to facilitate that in like some capacity so yeah it's amazing how undervalued the like real life story is today at least i feel that when i talk to creators that like you do a craft and then you film that craft and then it turns into a youtube video but the craft is actually what's happening that day yeah and that's just like that's not actually very common the craft that um you know a lot of people do on youtube i think happens in the world of post-production 100 i'll fill you in but i'm not writing anything i just drew a cat smoking cigarette yeah i was wondering what you're doing um uh no so basically uh this is some of my secret sauce is like i think the internet right now is in like a the internet right now is in like a transition phase where people have kind of done everything on the internet like mr beast just went to the pyramids of giza okay like that's crazy yeah now i think what matters more than that is like not the narrative of the video but the meta narrative of the page and who they are like that is like that's what all these projects have in common where it's like you know you can talk about the video itself but what's infinitely more interesting is like everything around it right like a guy eats a jar of cheese balls but like he's anonymous and like why did he do it like there's it's what i tell my friends like when we're ideating it's like what is like the story past the video of course right and so um that's why like starting a brand new account it's so i can do it a million times over like go from zero to a hundred thousand followers because people want to be at the start of something like that's like our urge to like you know be a part of the meta narrative like i was here for a lot of the comments for kid with crocs were like i feel like I'm witnessing history I think that's a common thread with you right that they feel like you're saying I'm a part of the early stages and that's what I love like I again I was such a consumer of culture when I I mean even now but like back in the day was all I did all day was play video games and like watch things and so I'm just using the same like fascination I had with the internet to like pass it back right like most of my audience is like two years younger than me but like kid with crocs the recent project i did was the first time i've ever had like a fan under like 16 17 i was like oh like these people like this this is part of their like cultural media consumption i was like that's really cool just on the meta narrative i'm gonna say something like pretty millennial to you because it's brooded in like amazon's corporate structure yeah but okay that's crazy this is crazy it's a crazy lead-in but uh one thing that that that amazon does is when they're going to launch a new product, they force their team to write a press release about the product.

36:23So how someone would cover the launch of their product. And that's how a product gets pitched. So how would the world talk about this? And I think that's actually something similar to what you're talking about, right? Where it's, hey, yeah, this is an idea, but how do we think the world is going to talk about this idea? What's the meta of this idea? Because that's what makes it go, right? It's if we actually have something worth laughing about with your friends. Like, if you think about the real life interaction between two people who are laughing about the concept, that makes it inherently more viral than just thinking about the singular video.

36:56The singular video. Wow. Actually, it makes me kind of sad knowing that like I am thinking parallel to Amazon. Dude, you are so corporate. I'm so corporate. I mean, we're kind of making equally as impactful things. Like, sure. You know, one of them is making like, you know, real tangible change on the earth and like you know shipping culture and ideas out to people and the other one's amazon right so it's like maybe we shift this from banksy of tiktok to the amazon the bezos yeah the bezos of tiktok okay so the second point i was gonna say wait sorry go no i'll go for i i think uh like i could be using my cultural thoughts for like nefarious purposes i think about that often with like some of the offers i've gotten i'm like i don't know like I don't think I have that special of a brain um but I think I again I'm just constantly thinking about the way people psychologically perceive things and I think it's like the way I see it is like very evil people also have that same I you know what I mean like not that Amazon is evil I love Amazon and our corporate overlords shout out um but yeah you know so the second thing I was going to say is like uh around video game culture and it's like we've had this conversation actually recently on the show, which is that I find that people who played a lot of video games are extremely good with the internet.

38:11And I think sometimes we forget how interactive the internet is and how interactive media is meant to be. Like with the lookalike contest, you essentially created a real life meme that everyone got to play with and interact with. And it got so niche. I was going to show you this picture. I took this picture on Abbott Kinney. It says Taylor Zakhar Perez lookalike contest. I was like, who is this? I don't even, who is that? And it was like$25 cash prize, December 7th at Echo Park Lake. And I was like, I don't even know, this is now so niche that I don't even know who this person is that people are supposed to look like.

38:46So you gave the world like an interactive meme to play with and to have fun with in real life. And so I think that the nature of like video games and playing video games is you are a part of the story. You're interacting with the story. And I think if you're a kid who grew up playing video games and chronically online, your expectation of the world and culture is that you get to play with it. It's malleable. It's like somebody throws something over the fence and you get to throw it back versus like when we were growing up with TV and media, it was like a one-way street. It's like, here's the film for you, not you get to play with it.

39:20And so I think to expand on that, one thing that I've noticed is beyond the like meta narrative of creators, I find that like fame and celebrity is currently created through, not through the celebrity's account themselves or through the creator's account themselves. It's actually created through the interactive media around it. So like Speed and Kai, I think are great examples of two of the most culturally relevant creators i've never sat and watched one of their streams but i consume a lot of their clips and not from their accounts just from the platforms from other people clipping their content and yeah playing with their content in an interactive way yeah if you want uh here's some some hidden ball knowledge um do you guys know what that like ball knowledge you guys tapped in okay definitely tapped out yeah i think i could yes right like it's like oh like you know when you know ball like oh yeah he knows ball yeah sports sports yeah got it he's got all in the hoop yeah sure yeah you guys will learn um okay so some knowledge every like fan page for like a big artist is just run by the label every like literally 80 to 90 of them and the ones that aren't are also paid by the label to post about and same thing with like kind speed it's like all these clip channels are just run by their teams and they're just they're they're on retainers i don't know the ftc legality behind it but it probably doesn't matter since they're not like it's not some they're not shilling something it's not necessarily an ad yeah it's not really an ad so it's like in some gray area um but yeah there's like uh it's it's almost oh cringe it's almost like a marketing funnel oh no it's like you have the bezos is coming out in here so so much more corporate than i thought yeah it's like are we destroying your brand right now no you are no it's fine it's funny i did go to school for marketing oh okay but it was a ruckers so it was like nothing what's wrong with ruckers man it doesn't count they never gave they never threw me a bone my whole time there i bro i get so many damn people being like i go to ruckers because of you i'm like where's my kickback anyways um where's my affiliate that's what i'm saying i feel like i just everyone just expects an affiliate link now um they all run these pages um what was i saying oh yeah labels so it's like a clip is so consumable and you know these they have the money to spend and then only a small small small small percentage at the bottom are like fans right but everyone's a viewer because you pay these like big clip pages um so like you know i've recognized that i just don't think i'm like a character like like i've thought about like oh what's the universe where i'm doing say little twitch streams but i think i i'd rather just be a the figure i'm where i'm at right now i'm happy being this figure as opposed to some like guy being clipped and yeah i don't know i like the creativity clip pages place a lot of bets right it's like let's clip out a thousand videos and see which ones rise to the top yeah there's lots of like there's incentive programs where it's like in in these creators as discords it's they have like oh if you get a million views it's equal to like 200 bucks right so there's those and then there's like bigger pages that are on like retainers with these creators where it's like you have to make 25 posts a month you get a thousand dollars um so i say that because i feel like it's the exact opposite of what you do yeah right like if we're gonna move on to kid with crocs yeah let's do it this is an instance and i'll let you explain it but where you collaborate with crocs and you've basically placed one bet that you hope will work because you're now working with a brand it's a performance street piece again and you're placing a bet with a brand which is a very different scenario if you're just doing something on behalf of yourself you put up some posters doesn't work it's like all right that one didn't work let's move on to the next one yeah but there's more stakes with a brand and i think it's also what makes it potentially more interesting so tell us about kid with crocs oh uh dang he he had a full like sequitur for that he's got where are your notes at he's got a teleprompter right behind you dude yeah oh that's crazy i never even there actually is a teleprompter behind this entire podcast is fake i'm acting um so let me just open my notes here um that's just a drawing of a cat for the cigarette yeah so basically uh i have i've been a creator for like 10 years now i used to do sketch comedy and then i made like random in real life social stuff and then i did skits i was at a tiktok house i'd made college content i worked over at beast for a bit and now i'm doing you know random culturally relevant things the one thing that has stayed consistent when like a brand or an agency would ask me like who's your dream partner like who would you want to work with i would never have a legitimate answer except like crocs because they don't work they work with like bad bunny and like justin b they don't work with losers right so it's like a tougher ask um but after the timothy chalamet lookalike competition um my producer slash bestie page made a linkedin post about it i don't know if you saw it it was like maybe the second or third most like linkedin post of the month it was about how we threw the timothy shanmay lookalike competition it got like 80 000 likes or something and the upper management at crocs saw it and they were like we want to work with this kid so like the agency reached out and they're like what do you want to do because it was from like the croc it wasn't from the agency was from crocs um and so then like i sat down with page and some friends and we came up with a bunch of ideas and we settled on anonymous anonymous was like non-negotiable i was like that's like what is moving me right now like like in my heart like i want to do something anonymous and i want to make a character and so they like the idea of me putting crocs on statues and so i basically from zero followers and like zero seeding zero ad pay grew kid with crocs from zero to 700 and like 80 000 followers in 40 days so so kid with crocs is essentially its own street artist personality who has its own form of art that you're saying goes around the city and makes 3d prints crocs and puts them on statues yeah okay yeah yeah and you have no idea how hard it was to articulate this thought to like an agency i'm like no no but like they're like so are you gonna post on your account like no no like it's a new account and like keyboard crocs is the character and like so how does it do well like well you just make a good video i can't imagine pitching to a brand i'm gonna make this content i'm gonna put it on an account with zero followers they have to have a lot of trust in you yeah that this is gonna work and it's not just gonna go nowhere yeah well i think it was because like it was crocs that asked and not like the agency digitoss um that they were kind of just like we well we trust you and i had a lot of contingency plans like my again it took up three months of my life kind of maybe like probably 70 days total of like real intense work which is why i was making these like dumb videos on my main account um but i had a lot of like if it didn't blow up on the accounts it was like i had like a press play and i had like bigger publicity like it was like it wasn't a matter of like if it would do well it was a matter of like to what capacity and like where culturally it would do well um that was like my big pitch to them it was like just trust me like trust me bro that was like and i think i had like the previous back catalog of case studies where i think they really let me just do whatever i wanted um and there was a lot of gray area like no one's ever done something like it before as well so it was like a really weird thing for them but also a conventional brand deal does not work like this no right a conventional brand deal is actually there's like a pretty built out system for that hey you know crocs has a brief you know they want to promote this new shoe can you just integrate that into one of your youtube videos all good thanks man you know like that's like a pretty built out system so to challenge that system is probably exponentially harder for you and not necessarily more money right no not at all not at all no no i they very grateful for even being paid again my dream brand being paid in general is great but like the amount of work i did was like insane like i should have just been paid like a salary you know right and like um but it was because it came from such a like meaningful place for like these are crocs yeah yeah i love crocs this is actually what i wore for why does gen z love crocs uh i think are they like a meme in themselves it's like counterculture yeah it's like i first liked them because they were comfortable and then people were like they're ugly and i'm like well that's kind of beautiful isn't it yeah that's i'm excited about that yes and there's like there's gibbets which like you can customize your shoe and i think that's really silly like it's it it makes you more approachable right like i'm very anti like like yo shout out wisdom my boy but like i'm very it's amazing amazing but i'm like the antithesis of that like i this is all thrifted these are like falling apart like i like you just wear whatever as long as you're like approachable i mean that's like the so i love crocs that was like the big thing they're like the anti-self-serious which is kind of the whole thing we've talked about or a lot of what we've talked about yeah it's hard to style crocs right like it's not an easy um and so that's why i was so excited and i think that the page also gave off that energy of like again it was really just it was me editing and doing all the work um but i think i tried to so bring us through what was it though like where did it start did you hang up posters what's the evolution of this idea so it was first like scan the statues um so it was like put crocs on statues that was like the north star but there's so many angles to it where it's like we need to like hang up posters because it'll help with like becoming a new york thing and like i need to make amazing they didn't understand the reason why i needed to make videos on it they're like why can't you just do it and people will like organically see it i'm like well because that's It's not like a Timothy Chalamet lookalike contest where it's like a very fascinating thing that's happening.

49:01Like, oh, it's Crocs on a bear. Like, where do I even start? Like, if I'm a Twitter, like meme account, it's not particularly funny. So the thing I kept pitching was like, I'm going to use my knowledge as like a 10 year long content editor to just make the best short form videos I can. Like really just like put my heart. And so like I was working on vacation, like I was spending all my time editing these videos for like they're done, like 40 seconds. They're stupid, right? Like, um, so I made, put Crocs on eight statues, made eight videos and then hung up, um, eight sets of 50 posters for each of them.

49:35And that was just like an additive. Cause again, like I had these contingency plans where it's like, I planned the first four videos in their entirety, like scripting and like feeling and like musicality. And then the next four was like socially listened to the first four. And like, what were people reciprocating? Um, where did people, you know, comment the most, engage the most, um, and kind of make the next four like that um and i when i pitch to a brand i always talk about like the psychology of consumption this is now this is some cringe stuff oh marketing um i don't know if you guys know like the principles of influence let's hear um it's social liking scarcity consistency um authority reciprocity um i wrote my my notes um and similarity so like those psychologically like that's how we consume those six things you can wait can you break those down again yeah so so and i and this is my secret sauce i actually shouldn't be giving this out but it's fine i think everyone should be a creator um how we consume things and are influenced by things every bit of feeling and emotion we evoke can be categorized into one of these six things scarcity when you say someone is mysterious and has aura that's what psychologically you're trying to describe like you upload once every eight months and it's like a big deal that's a michael reeves that's like you know someone who's uploading high quality low quantity content that's people like that right um consistency the opposite of that in a sense it's like um uploading every day like it's almost like when you come home from school or work it's like oh i'm gonna watch this creator i've come to like like almost make it a part of my routine um Um, and you could also combine those two, right?

51:18Like you can upload every year, but you do so consistently. So you can combine those two principles of influence reciprocity. That was a big part of kid with Crocs where it's like, this is a new account and I am kid with Crocs. I would always respond to fans. And like the first thousand people that followed me, I followed them back and like just had full conversations with them. And so now these people are like rooting for me. And in a way, like I am not like, like manipulatively thankful. Like I'm just thankful. Like you're here for the start. And like, I would talk to them and like those thousand people who i like gave reciprocity to were in it from the first second to the last second and like now they're like fans of what i do and like that's such a like lovely feeling both ways right uh consensus or social liking this is super important it's like you are more likely to watch a video that already has a million likes because it is that social proof like oh it people already like it right it's the same reason why it's really hard to go from an account with you know, zero followers, zero likes to a thousand likes, but it's pretty easy to go from like a million likes to a million and a half likes.

52:19Right. Cause yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of an obvious one. Similarity. It's what we talked about before. It's like, you want something that feels similar. You want something that feels similar, but is ultimately different and creative. That's where like creativity comes in. Right. You need to be able to understand how people consume content and then like innovate on that. Right. So it's like, you know, there's best practices like having your face in the the first frame and like having text on the screen but also like if you follow every single thing in the rule book people won't care it's already been done right um and that's where like some of my weird creative urges come out where it's like i have a character and i animate and i make music for the videos right and then authority it's like if you it's like if you're a doctor like dr mike right like people should hear about that or if you're already a big creator you already have that like yep pathos right is that like a smart word chat is that smart i'm seeing some nods in the back let's go great um sorry to yap so those that is how i think about how culture and consumption works and this has all been deep rooted in my brain and i learned this in ap psych back in like sophomore year of high school as i started like making content and this set of guidelines has like not failed me because again like i've lived it like i consume content and this is how i think about it and maybe again part of this and the way i like neurotically think is like things will change and maybe like big thing is like kaisenat and speed are bigger than like a mr beast is right now culturally and a part of that is because we've shifted culturally away from like big grandiose 10 minute videos and people like spending hours with a creator yeah i think you guys talked about that yeah yeah we said time spent is time metric yeah yo let's go let's go somebody watches colin and samir um so yeah those are my thoughts and that's kind of like that's how i managed to get them on board where it's like he's like oh he's smart i'm like i'm lying wait so what what talk through kid with crocs and what it fits into there because it doesn't necessarily check off every box right it's kind of like like how many of those boxes do you feel like you need to check yeah i mean you could only check two of them and it you can still you know get people to care right ultimately that's a word i haven't said yet getting people to care like that's so much more meaningful than getting 10 million views on video sure think about how many videos have 100 million views and it goes nowhere yeah like how do you get someone to care and like that's through like heart and soul like you can follow these to a t but if you're not making something impactful like people will see through it like scarcity um i'm only doing eight videos like the bio of kid with crocs was the eight statues and like i slowly x them out as i did them um i don't think that was super important um consistency i uploaded every five days that was the hardest part was i was i pitched them i'm like hey i need three months to do this and they're like you have 40 days and i'm like i'm screwed like this is not gonna work but it luckily did reciprocity it's like i followed people back um consensus again i knew once it took off i'm making really quality content so it's only you know a matter of time um similarity i think most artists street artists 3d artists they think they're too good to follow like trends and sounds and put text on the screen and that's something i was like i can't be afraid to use proxima nova font like the tiktok font like i can't be afraid of that i can let my artistry shine through in other ways yeah but i need to be familiar um and then authority i think that oh you left oh what's so funny no i just called a big font yeah there we go great yeah i just love i think he was just excited that it was a font drop on the show yeah yeah i just love the idea of look i can't be afraid to use proxima nova so i'm like yeah man like have the courage yeah it took a lot out of me it's the idea that matters give me top three fonts i mean i gotta put helvetica at the top right and then probably like helvetica new and then maybe like new hoss grotesque oh wow it's mainly just like a helvetica a joke because they're all basically helvetic yeah yeah i'm fascinated why you hate yourself it's just a perfect font man it is a good font i will not deny my favorite's thunderman it's what i use for like my it's it's niche yeah that's a where did you get that like that's like the crocs of font yeah yeah it is like the crocs yeah i get it it's it's like my if you've ever seen one of my videos i'm sure you haven't because you guys are like employed but it's like um we're employed by who by ourselves it's better than others i don't even have health insurance we actually work for amazon yeah um yeah it's like a it was actually the font used in adventure time and it's like a cute little like hand-drawn font by the way i've seen i've seen your videos i know the font yeah it's not like i get to watch videos thank you for the ad revenue yeah also for the record i have my own custom font hand-drawn he does yeah that's awesome thanks that's so i'm not all helvetica all the time yeah good boy um okay and yeah that's pretty much it i think the thing this doesn't account for is like like effort almost that's kind of like authority i kind of chalk that in there like the one thing i really tried to do in all the videos was just like show how much time i'm spending like the one video uh i put crocs on paul manship's group of bears in central park like the one bit and again pitching this to crocs was so like i felt like an idiot i'm like okay i'm gonna put honey at the base of the statues but i'm gonna hang up posters for honey taste testing and bring in a bunch of taste testers and have them pick their favorite honey and then put that honey at the and they're like well why do you need to do that i'm like well because like it's funny like i don't know like i just i was like it is good like just trust like it's just if i saw that i'd be like that's so dumb and beautiful well high effort low stakes is inherently funny right that is like the juxtaposition of that is inherently funny always it's always funny it's like why my favorite creator right now one of my favorite creators they're so it is like the perfect intersection between art and content and just like what i love about the internet is um sunday nobody you might have seen one of his videos it's one of the highest performing long short form videos i've ever seen he made like an art piece of raccoons in a dumpster i highly recommend you check this out okay it is amazing it was kind of like what i was pitching to crocs is like i want them to feel similar to this but like my own style and like artistry he like he calls himself a meme artist it's beautiful i highly i think it is like Like, again, we talk about, we're like Ouroboros-ing content right now.

58:38I think people are finally realizing, like, wait, I low-key shouldn't be making Mr. Beast videos. Like, everyone's finally like, oh, wait, there's more to content. Sure, sure. So now I think it's like, how do we innovate? And Sunday Nobody is a great example. Another thing that's very important, and I think people get lost in the sauce here. not all likes and views are made the same yeah and i think people still don't realize that but like 800 ,000 likes on this is like an army versus 800 ,000 likes on like some kid like like this with like text on top of the screen it's still cool and like you should be very happy that you have that but like no one's talking about a meme that has 800 ,000 likes the way i'm talking about this guy is sunday nobody yeah you know what i mean totally yeah i think uh people undervalue depth quite a bit right and they overvalue width and so i think i think you're you're absolutely right.

59:29I think even a hundred thousand, like a hundred thousand views on like a personality vlog, or even like I was telling Colin this morning that you have a video after your cheeseball man fight that's just titled, I fought him and it has almost 600 ,000 views. Those are very powerful views because that title thumbnail is not algorithmic by any means. That is not for like a random passerby view, right? That is for a core community. And we, we always talked about like this one emma chamberlain video that's called you totally caught me making soup that's a great title yeah that's really funny yeah and it's like that has like millions of views and it's just emblematic of like how massive her community is yeah so yeah anyway kid with crocs he would crocs and that was pretty much it i mean you know it was like a weight off my chest finishing it because it was like now i can get back to my own stuff and then the video was very well received lots of people were you know giving me some flowers and crocs liked it obviously and the youtube video like that was i just did that because i wanted to like it wasn't part of the deal the deal was like i make these eight videos and that's it like that was the deal we cut and so it was considered a success for crocs yeah and i think they don't realize it yet but i think that as like awards and like linkedin posts and like articles are coming in they're like wait because again they don't get like in their head it's like well the washington post didn't write about it yet so what the heck it's not successful but like all these people like i haven't gotten like fan art of myself like consistently in a long time because like my fan base is a little older now like when i first started you know i but kid with crocs like people were like fans enough to like make sketches and make their own like like use the sound like it was very culturally significant to a group of people and i'm very grateful i mean you essentially launched a new brand mascot if they wanted it right it's like a very intricate way to launch a new character for their universe right that maybe younger audiences are interested in yeah yeah and if they want it i mean i got a price tag on it but you know yeah is that part of the deal that's like you own the account and that was one thing that was non-negotiable interesting uh i get my only thing i fought on on like the red line for the contract was like i want award show credit like if if it comes down to an award show like i want to be recognized for it and i want to be the owner of the account like you guys can have to sign off on posts i make but like at the end of the day my account because i'm going to put my love into this account and i don't want it to just be yoinked on some like you know youtubers will make a show with a company and then they'll just like take it away right right right i'm not that i think i love crocs so much it's great but you know i just never know so what were the ways that fans of crocs were interacting with the videos interacting with the statue Like what was the experience that Crocs is looking at and being like, oh yeah, that's, that's positive for us.

1:02:16Yeah. I mean, I think the attention and like the positive attention was so good. Like at the heart of like product placement, for example, is just like positive association, like almost subliminal positive association with a thing. And at the end of the day, in a weird way, Kid with Crocs was not about Crocs. Like it's about storytelling and like creativity, right? So it could have been Kid with Converse realistically. And the videos would have kind of been the same. but um you know to them it's like there's over 55 million views that are like very positively associated with crocs now like all of kibu i maybe got like three in any capacity hate comments on the entire thing sure um up until the reveal where obviously like some people are always a youtuber the whole time that's fine i mean expected because it was a huge thing yeah um but again i think it's just me and like i this this kid i met named danny voicing it yeah like made me a cool lighter so there's always going to be contractors and stuff but uh i think again they probably pay bajillions of dollars for like a k-pop star to just wear the shoe they paid me like very grateful scraps to like put on this like well thought out campaign so i i think they'd be hard pressed to think of like uh any any anything negative about the thing in hindsight i do think it's important to like explore why it matters to a brand like why does that matter to crocs right like what what what is a win in their world from from the brand side because i think we've been exploring a lot like how do brands and creators actually engage with each other moving forward past the like 60 second brand integration.

1:03:58And I think just maybe the simplest equation is that positive sentiment and awareness lowers customer acquisition cost. Easily. Right. Like that's just the, if you're just going and you said it, not me, but like marketing funnel wise, you know, then we're your words, not mine. We are the Amazon podcast. Welcome back everybody to Amazon, the podcast. We're going to be talking about key performance indicators and marketing jargon. It's all you, man. I didn't bring it up. You're running the show. You're The big R. The big R. Oh, the alma mater. Scarlet Knights. Oh, come on. That's a Jersey boy right there.

1:04:33You think I'm not from New Jersey? Oh, man. We have fun here. But it does, right? Like, inherently, if you... Positive sentiment also, where does that come from? It comes from, like, you being a part of... You being cool with my friends, right? As a brand. Like, oh, is Crocs cool with the crew? Oh, okay, cool. They're cool with my group of friends. So, I guess I feel positively about them. You know, and we always kind of explore. it's really hard from a brand perspective to not show up to the party like a weird stranger. Like, how do you show up to the party and blend in and be cool? And it's hard, but it's actually, like, Kid With Crocs is a great example of that.

1:05:08And like, my perspective is that that activation, that like campaign should win awards. It's really unique. It's a very unique concept to bring like a major brand into the world of TikTok like that. And honestly, credit to them for like, agreeing because there's not that many brands i don't think that would agree to that yeah right what you could have made eight videos that no one watched and the account the account could not have grown yeah it's a real reality what were the pitch meetings like like how easy was it for them to agree uh i think i'm a good yapper and i think i i'm one compliment oh it's not really compliment one thing i've heard a lot recently is that i'm very neurotic sure i chat is that good is neurotic good oh i'm seeing some oh man nobody's reacting to you chat is silent uh w's in the comments yo oh my gosh i love the thing you guys do when you're on someone else's podcast you're like now make sure you guys follow make sure you subscribe that's such a we do that we do that you guys have done it before we're like you're on somebody else's page and you're like let me help you out real quick and then you know no we've never there's no chance we don't help the community out we barely i got no that's what i like about you guys that's how anti-creator and anti-consumer i'm about to burn this just so you know yeah um what were you talking about the oh pitch meetings yeah what are the calls like um i am very passionate about my ideas and i always come with a plan again it's like i didn't get arrested at the timothy chalamet thing but if i would have it would have been fine like we had everything planned like we had a video made that's the one video we came with ahead of time where it's like i got arrested yeah got it um so again if what do you mean you came with it ahead of time like you just had that planned out or you actually shot it yeah we shot it yeah yeah we shot like a video on if i got arrested we were i had my producer on ready to release like the thing oh like almost like a tape to the audience of like i'm in jail yeah yeah that's really funny so that type of like neuroticism of like like i want to be prepared if the videos get no views And I can, and I, the one thing I said to them over and over again, I'm like, you need to trust me.