Reckless Ben Breaks Silence on LEGO Lawsuit, Getting Arrested, & Losing Everything

23:43Graham Stephan:opinion is on the matter yes i was thinking if the roles were reversed and some youtuber comes to you would you think this is brave journalism or would you think it borders harassment and i was does steal uh old man's collection and bully him i think i think there's an argument to be made because i'm i'm on your side here but i'm just trying to play devil's advocate i think there is an argument to be made that this guy did take over the store the prior owner has really poor record keeping a lot of this you can't prove without forensic accounting and anything he says is going to be used against him in a lawsuit uh that it's best for him to just shut up and let the legal system kind of worked through its thing.

24:37Graham Stephan:I think it was really irresponsible for him to say anything and to make any threats or like anything. He should have. It was amazing that, yeah, because most people do just shut up and he just kept talking. He was the one making threats to you. You made no threats to him. So I think he was an idiot, but I also think there is an out there that he could say, listen, the prior owner, I have no idea what's going on with this. Bring me some sort of civil action or something. but until then I'm out of it I don't know what's going on the prior owner they're a mess and leave it at that and then maybe it wouldn't have gone to such an extreme yeah but at the same time also like the prior owner she gave us pictures of all the lego sets in the store still when they were kicking her out so there was proof that at least a bunch of these lego sets were still in the store and so um and he said like yes and have them back you know and then when we show up they just try to call the cops on us so um like if it was truly the previous owner like i i cut a lot of this out of the video because i thought it was kind of boring and it didn't really lead to anything but there's a lot of parts in the video where i'm trying to team up with them you know i'm like hey let's if if you're saying the previous owner stole these sets let's team up together and get the previous owner but right now she's sending me a bunch of pictures of these lego sets still in the store with the metadata time stamps on them so it seems like you guys took the set you know we're skipping ahead a little bit but i saw in the coffee zilla video the prior owner did admit that there's a chance of sloppy record keeping yeah yeah that she might have stole some too uh yeah i think there's a equal chance that the previous owner stole some and the the new owners stole some but i tend to think just from my own opinion here that it's maybe not theft but really just irresponsible placement record keeping you probably have employees who are in there sets get misplaced sets are sold not recorded money goes elsewhere and it's not maybe intentionally trying to like money but it's just these are people who maybe weren't the best business people who yeah that's what the previous owner seems like and it seems like uh so her response to this is because I've asked her, I try to be equal with both sides to bricks and minifigs and crystal.

26:53And so when I asked crystal that her response is, yeah, maybe I did underpay Brian for some of the sets we sold. But when I ask, I was kicked out of my store without warning and I lost all my inventories. I lost all the record book keepings and stuff. And when I ask for that back so I can see how much like I underpaid Brian, they will give it to me. And they said I can sue them for it but that's the only way i'll ever get it and so it she it seems like she wants to make it right for if she did underpay brian but bricks and minifigs won't give her the inventory to let

27:27Graham Stephan:her do that but just the fact that she would underpay brian tells me right off the bat i don't trust her numbers i don't trust her accounting i don't trust anything yeah i want to take that clear too is yeah she could be just as bad as bricks and minifigs in this situation you know like i think she could be just i think that there is a pretty big difference though one is hiding behind like the courts and one person is willing to have a conversation with you whenever you know she's open and yeah willing to say hey i'm here's all the evidence i have here's everything like let's work through this together and she's always been open to try and solving this and then bricks and minifigs just calls the cops on me every time i try to solve it with them yeah so what i want to know is you get charged with like six different crimes explain how you ended up getting to the point of like getting sent to jail for this?

28:15It's because when I tried serving papers, they said the paper, it was not a real lawsuit. And so they had to arrest me because if it wasn't a real lawsuit that I, you couldn't make an argument. I was just being there for the sake of being there. And then that is stalking, like you guys were saying. But because they were real court papers, I did have a legitimate reason to be there and we were serving the papers. But so they arrested me because they thought it was a fake lawsuit. And so because it was fake, then that makes me being arrested. But they didn't actually think that it was fake because in the released.

28:52Yeah. So then the body cam really body cam footage where it's that I post the video where it says, like, is this a real lawsuit? And she says, yes. So they have to change their story. So they make a press release. the chief of police comes out with his his asmr voice and he goes the the court case was real we verified it was real but the papers have already been served and because they've already been served ben was just reenacting this for youtube views and then the unredacted footage gets released where they the police officer says have have these papers been served yet and they're like nope they still have to be served he's like okay so they still have to be served and he's like yep so then they got caught in another lie and now my guess is they're coming up with another lie to counteract that.

29:36So basically the pattern is let's lie. Proof comes out to show they were lying. So we change our story. More proof comes out to show that the change story is a lie. And then they change their story again. So it's a pattern that we're seeing basically every plot point of the story is follows that same formula. But is there going to be any actual material consequence to the police department's malfeasance, their inability to actually serve good justice? I hope so. I've been thinking about this a lot. So the part that kind of pulls at my heartstrings is if I sue the police department, it's not the police that are paying for it.

30:14It doesn't come out of their budget or anything. It comes out of the taxpayer's money. And it's like, why do the innocent taxpayers have to pay me for what happened? It just seems weird. I would argue it's worth it. If someone wanted to sue my corrupt police department, I would be happy. like even if it meant that like there was more budget there's already money being wasted literally everywhere not to say that a little bit more budget wasting is a good thing it's the same way of saying like oh there's trash everywhere i'm just gonna throw trash on the ground not the same but i will say you're a victim of someone spending your taxpayer money you're also a victim of being subjected to a corrupt police department so like it's it's bad either way it's just like which one is the lesser evil and i think you want it anyway yeah i think you want to have Yeah, I have heard that they have a budget just for like lawsuits and stuff like they have a budget allocated for when people sue the police department.

31:03So I think that's already like written in the budget or something. and probably also have insurance to a certain degree

31:08Graham Stephan:to cover lawsuits and then also a lot of stories have been coming out recently of people saying like thanks Ben for exposing this like the American Fork Police has been harassing me in the exact same way like I got falsely arrested they're doing all this like I've seen some crazy stories of this police department that have come out and people just don't film it you know what I mean and so you're right like by suing them it might I hate to use the word like teach them a lesson but it might in a sense like make them not do this to other people because it for me it's fine like i turned into content and i've capitalized off this so to me it's worth it i'm happy this happens personally but to literally everyone else this happens to that isn't capitalizing off of it and it hurts that you know like sometimes like this is happening to people they're just they're innocent it just destroys their life you know and that makes me really sad and it makes me want to do anything i can to make sure that never happens again to more people the problem is when the people that are supposed to be arbitrating or mediating something like the referee, the umpire, when they're biased, then there is no rules.

32:10There's no common language that you can that you can use to try to find equity or equality. And so like the same thing happens with freaking SGA in basketball. OK, he can flop as much as he wants, but it only actually makes an impact when he's not called on it and he's able to do it as much as he wants. Same thing as 08. Like a big reason why the recession happened is because all of these like mortgage backed securities or whatever, they were like rated or, you know, there's 500 data points within it. And they were supposed to rate each 500 data points, but they were selective and only rated a couple.

32:39We had like a whole episode on this. And so like they would approve them as like very safe investments when in actuality they weren't. It's like the referees, the people rating the thing, like the umpire, the referee, when those people are corrupt, that's when nothing can be trusted. And that's exactly what's happening here. So I'm actually more frustrated with the police department than I am with bricks and minifigs. That's about equal. Yeah, I'd say the police department was super frustrating. When you do look at some of the unredacted body cam footage, some of it makes a little bit more sense.

33:07Because I didn't know they were threatening that I was trying to murder people. Because Josh is telling them I tried to kill the manager. I'm trying to bomb their house and stuff. He's like, you have to get rid of this person. He's trying to kill me. And so if I'm a police officer, I don't want to take that chance of someone. I might just arrest the person that they're saying that about. But even so, when they approach Josh in the body cam footage, he says, just take him away for anything. He says, whatever it is, just get him away from here. I don't care. Charge him with anything. That does not sound like someone who wants to use justice or like reason or any system of fairness to try to like find the clear truth.

33:47When they talk to you, you're very composed and you're very patient. People in the comments were joking in the released body cam footage that you should be called not reckless, Ben, but patient because of your extreme exhibition of patients with these like insane things that are happening to you. I've never really had like bad encounters with the police. I've had a lot of police encounters and it's always been good. And I guess I've always just been taught, like, if you show the police respect, they will show you respect. You know, it's always worked like that for me in my life, except for, yeah, pretty much this.

34:15And I guess like maybe a few other videos, but mostly this. This was like I show them respect and I expect respect back. But then I just get met with them arresting me. So why is this any different when you have facts and logic and data on your side and evidence and you're showing it to the police? This other person, you know, bricks and minifigs has no evidence, no facts, no logic. Like, why are they siding with him as opposed to siding with you?

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35:50Graham Stephan:Again, that is netsuite.ai.com or click the link down below in the description. Built for every industry, ready for every boardroom, netsuite.ai.com. When you have facts and logic and data on your side and evidence and you're showing it to the police, this other person, you know, bricks and minifigs, has no evidence, no facts, no logic. Like, why are they siding with him as opposed to siding with you? I hate to say the whole Mormon thing. I know that's been kind of like a viral thing. It's like a Mormon conspiracy. I'm like not a conspiracy theorist. Like, I hate conspiracies. I'm always like the logical like, OK, here's what's actually happening.

36:29like let's prove this with facts and stuff but it is weird that every time they talk to josh and brandon in the body cam footage the first thing they always say is i'm on like this board of people of the church of latter-day saints you know they're like i'm like high up there so i think from the police's point of view it's not like oh they're like my mormon friends like it's a mormon cover-up but i think it's more of oh well if he made it this high in the church of mormonism he must be trustworthy right because mormons don't lie it's against their uh like religion to lie and steal so this person's saying a mormon lied this youtuber comes from california like and also i feel like los angeles is a bit very like anti-religious like stereotype to it you know so like this guy comes from los angeles he's probably like some anarchists like you know like a cab person you know how like he's like defund the police probably type of person because he's from Los Angeles, you know?

37:25And so he, this hooligan comes from here to this person who is really high up in the Mormon church, like saying that he is lying and stealing that doesn't, the YouTuber must be lying, you know? And so I think just, which makes sense. Cause I feel like most Mormons don't steal and lie. So I feel like it's like a very rare for a Mormon to steal and lie. There's no way after your videos, let's just say this entire series across all the reactions, all of the, just the overall exposure of it. There's no way you don't have like 500 million positive impressions about you and negative about bricks and minifigs and this person in particular.

38:03So there's no way this, this, this justice system or this police department is not getting inundated with people saying, listen to men. Now, I don't know, like maybe if I showed back up again and tried to serve papers, it might go a little differently now, but this will happen before I released any videos or anything.

38:20Graham Stephan:So do you feel like though, at the time being a YouTuber really hurt your credibility. Yeah. And I don't really blame them for this because I feel like most YouTubers that do the metaglasses thing, you know, like they are, I mean, you know, it's called like rage baiting. So they show up and the mentality is the more I can piss this person off, the bigger of reaction I'll get. And the bigger of reaction I get, the more money I make. So it basically is if I make you mad, I make more money. And I think that's a net negative for society. I think most people agree, like wouldn't agree with that. And so, but that's like what it's kind of come to, like, that's what the like metaglasses TikTokers do.

38:58And it's very, very rare. You find someone like me, who's actually trying to tell like a genuine story and actually try and like do something that's not for the clicks. Like, cause I'm not doing it for the clicks and likes and stuff. Like if I was, I wouldn't spend nine months making a video with no reward. You know, I like I'm doing this because I literally want to like help this guy and do it at any cost and like i want to tell the coolest story in the world you know that's like my motivation so what you said was actually a really interesting point it was by the time part two had been posted and like all of these things that you're documenting on your youtube channel there actually had been no public posting i posted part one and part two on the same day yeah okay so so that's that's actually fascinating because i as a viewer was kind of under the impression that like by the time part two had rolled around part one had already been posted.

39:44Even with all these millions and millions and millions of views, this police department is still just completely ignoring it. But then you also said that they had actually listened to your responses. And it came back with a changed story. That was in the press release. Yeah. So that was after I posted. So after I posted the video, then they did a press release because I think they were getting a bunch of hate, like you said. And then they changed their story to say, oh, it was a real court case. He just hasn't already served the papers and now he's recreating because I thought they, by saying that they could get out of it but then the unredacted body cam footage released and we got to see that that was

40:17Graham Stephan:a lie but at any point legally do you think that maybe you took it too far i i i try to to do a thing and everyone has a different line you know of what's too far uh but for my personal line i i so say like there's a line right here i try and see like okay how far can i go like how close to that line can i get without crossing that's my personal goal you know because i think that's just like the most fun for me like how like it's been the whole thing with everything like i don't know you've seen my slack hunting videos it's like how how dangerous of a trick can i do without dying you know like i want to get close to like where it could be like really dangerous but like i'm still gonna be you know how close i get without crossing it and so i try and do that with like every aspect of my life i guess and maybe for some people i think the line is here like a lot of lawyers reacting to it their line is like down here you know so just by me like like the first 10 minutes of the video where i don't even think i did anything yet they're like oh ben's already crossing the line you know so everyone has a different line the one thing i saw was that a lawyer was breaking down you having people sign a document without knowing what that what was in the document were you like changing like a little line in the document and adding it in and then like sneaking it in and a lot of them were oh are you talking about the mckaby banner yes so i don't know i just cope with like legal like ideas i guess that i just kind of pull out my butt i'm like this would be funny like i kind of like the chess move like this is like the stupidest chess move in the world but maybe they won't see it coming and maybe that's how i can get away with it and i just like i was in a i was like a mechanical engineer like a science major in college and so in science you just kind of come up with something you're like let's test it you know let's see how it works and so that's what i try and do in my videos i'm like here's a hypothesis.

42:01Here's some legal thing that may or may not work. Let's try it, you know, and, and let's document the results. And so, yeah, I, I, I'm happy to admit that all my ideas are garbage, but maybe it's not, maybe one works and it, it's not garbage. But I think what you're saying with the, I try to make sure that the stuff I'm doing isn't harmful though. So in your thing where it's like, okay, I'm tricking her into signing the document. A lot of people were saying like, that's illegal, but I'm pretty sure the actual legality of that is because she doesn't know what she's signing it's as if the contract doesn't exist so as long as i don't try to hold her up to and like pressure her into fulfilling the contract that she was tricking to signing then it becomes into fraud territory but like i brought it up in a joking way i'm like what about this contract that you know and like obviously the story yeah that's how i interpreted it i'm not gonna enforce that like i'm not gonna like 5 000 yeah i'm not gonna show up and be like oh you actually owe me 5 000 it was a joke you know like there was something else in the contract i think she had to call me like Lord Ben or something.

43:00So it's not anything I'm like actually enforcing. I think we said that like do the chicken dance in it, I think was one of the things we said. But so none of the things we're actually trying to enforce is just goofy for the sake of being funny.

43:10Graham Stephan:How do you come up with these ideas? Like the other one was the lottery. Oh yeah. How do you come up with this? I don't know. I just try to think of like, what would a lawyer tell me to do? And then how do I do the exact opposite kind of, or I just think of things. I don't know. I just have a weird brain, I guess. So the way I cope with the lottery specifically was, um, I, I try to, my storytelling is I try and take complex things and simplify them so anyone can understand. And so I had no clue what like a civil crime versus criminal crime was. Like, I knew they were like legal words, but I didn't really know what they were.

43:45So when I'm looking them up, I'm looking up, okay, so these are civil crimes on this side. Like it's something the court deals with. And these are criminal crimes, things that the police deal with. And like, it's just, we voted on like okay so there's two types of crimes like one the police deal with one the court and like we just vote on which who deals with what type of crime and so i'm going through like trying to educate myself on this and a way to make it easier i was like what if we just take one of these uh criminal crimes and see if we can reframe it as like what's happening you know and so i'm looking through and the one that seems easiest to me is the stealing from a lottery you know that falls under a criminal crime so i was like well technically maybe we could frame this is a lottery you know like if we actually run a lottery like there's still brines to give out like maybe we just sell one as a prize and then it could be a lottery so i thought that was an easy way to illustrate to the audience what a criminal crime versus civil crime was and and they're like okay now let's just act it out you know let's do it in real life let's do a lottery and they can pick it up at the thing and it ended up not working out but i thought it was worth a shot it made for some funny footage and how much legal research do you do like do you have

44:49Graham Stephan:a lawyer no just like to bounce ideas off of or no no because they'd probably tell me it doesn't work and then what's the fun in that you know like like maybe it does work you know uh like at the end of the day i think it worked like we shut the store down and uh i think we would have won the 10 lawsuits if we would have actually gone through with it because i think it would have worked you know um but i don't know like it's worked for me every single video so far like mccamey manor like everything we did to him ended up ultimately working we shut down i was the last person to ever go through that haunted house.

45:21So everything I've done has always worked so far. So what do you think is the strongest argument bricks and minifigs has against you? Huh? Well, right now they've lied so much that I don't really know. Um, so there, I'll just say what their argument is. So their argument is that crystal owed them$200 ,000, which I don't really know their business dispute. Maybe she did, maybe she didn't. She's claiming that they locked her out of her account. So she tried to pay that$200 ,000 and they wouldn't accept it. And I've talked to probably four or five other franchise owners that they've done the exact same thing to where they get owed money, but they don't let them pay it.

45:59So it seems like Crystal's story holds up. But anyways, that's none of my business, I guess. But Bricks and Minifigs' story is that Crystal owed them this$200 ,000 and they took over the store to reimburse for the$200 ,000. So Brian's sets being in the store is part of Crystal's reimbursement. So Crystal was forced to sell them sets she doesn't own. And now they're legally, because it says they're Brian's sets until sold. So they're like, it was a bill of sale that happened. It's our sets. But then when I questioned them on the bill of sale, they don't have a bill. They said there was a bill of sale, but there isn't one.

46:33Like they couldn't provide it. So that's their story is that they bought Brian's sets from Crystal. Now Crystal owes them the money. but I don't think that's how that works. I think it's like the car analogy. Like if my car was parked in the parking lot during the corporate takeover, does corporate also have to keep my car because does Crystal now have to pay them for my car that they took from me? Like that's not how that works, you know? Who do you go to for advice? Myself. I don't know, I just think on it. I don't really need advice, you know? I just think of something and I'm like, well, let's test it out, you know?

47:09I guess the world, it's like, you just come up with a hypothesis and you're like, okay, let's, it's just a test, you know? And we just simulate the tests and then record the results and post it online. You said something really interesting in a piece of content I saw where you said that you have like this like legion of people in a discord group of people that are hackers, people that are experts. They're the ones that helped me with the previous video I was just telling you about. that's how we found the guy in like two weeks so explain to me this this like group of people like where are they from how did you encounter them and what is like the what is the actual idea of the group what's the yeah there's probably like i'd say like less than 10 of us it's very small group but and i wouldn't say we're like skill they're all kind of like people like me they're just like really like passionate you know with like little skills but like very pat because i think passion will beat skill set any day you know as long as you're passionate about something like you put your mind to something like we'll solve it and so that's kind of what these people are there's just people that are like super like dude i want to solve this thing you know that don't really care about like getting super famous or anything or don't really care about like yeah like anything else except for like i have a problem i want to go to any means necessary to solve this problem and not take no for an answer and that's what this group of people is like and i just put the end of my video once i was just like hey anyone uh want to help me investigate things and I had like a couple of people hit me up and I just put them in a discord and we just started going to town, I guess.

48:39Graham Stephan:What skills do you think are the most important to solving mysteries like this? Oh, just not taking no for an answer. I think you can be as skilled as you want, but if you're not passionate about it, you're not going to, I mean, this is like, you'll hear every YouTuber say this. Like I hear Mr. B say this all the time. You know, he's like, I don't want necessarily the best editor in the world. I just want someone who like won't take no for an answer and we'll just grind because that person like the only because that's how you become good you know is just by like because the more you practice something the more you try you're gonna get better naturally just from the hours you put in so I think that's what separates a good person from a not like a talented person from not talented person it's not like I was just born talented at this you're like no I'm good at this because I was passionate I tried hard you know and because I was so passionate about this I became the best at it and that's like literally the only thing stopping people is like either they don't care enough or they just don't want it badly enough but as long as you like want something badly like you'll figure out a way to achieve it is there something you couldn't solve i don't know actually maybe probably uh yeah i i think so like some things but then it just we don't put it in there's definitely a lot of dead ends i'll say that uh and then because i like my stories to be like this leads to this which leads to this which leads to this and it always like one thing leads to the next like i hate dead ends or it's like because it's like why did i just go down this dead end just to go back like why didn't that not lead anywhere so i hate doing dead ends i like everything to lead to the next thing so there are a lot of dead ends i'll just cut them from the video usually but i would love to see you solving cases like find serial cameras yeah i think it'd be cool too i've thought about it so there's two things with that first off i don't want to because like if i go after and stuff they could just kill because they're you know uh so they're already killing people they might kill me and if i'm dead i can't do more future investigations so that's kind of scary it's soft crimes that were maybe like 30 years ago or maybe now yeah a little senile and they might not be as like yeah quick yeah and the other thing is like i like to have fun with my videos you know it's kind of hard to like talk about like someone's like i guess and like because if i'm like having fun doing that then people are gonna be like oh why is he taking such a light-hearted approach to a murder like why isn't ben being serious and then it kind of because i i do this not because of like views or money or anything like i've never made money my entire life or like my whole career i've never made anything like i used to be an engineer i was making way more in college as an engineer than i am as a youtuber right now so like i'm not doing this for money i'm doing this because it's fun for me you know and if i start if it starts not becoming fun then i thought you would be making way more money with the amount of views that you've been getting well from the lego thing i'm finally starting to not have to worry about money now but i before i guess even mckay manor is when i could finally be like okay now i can finally pay rent and not be scared about paying rent and food but before mckay manor yeah i was like i don't know how i'm gonna pay rent this month uh like i don't know how like i remember like eating thanksgiving just like plain pasta and no uh like i couldn't even afford pesto sauce i was just eating it was so sad and i was like like one day i'll be able to afford pesto sauce was my thinking what were you doing though like month to month to pay the bills um i would just take like random gigs and stuff um like i was a cameraman for some of my friends they would pay me to like hold the camera for them like filming their videos and stuff and uh just like stupid jobs i don't know like what what kind of job like handyman jobs so i would hold the camera a lot that was kind of a one that was just like i'll just do that for like two hours and make like 100 bucks you know and if you do that 10 times that's like rent uh and then i was making some money from adsense but i would it was just so unpredictable because like randomly like i'll just get demonetized or my video will get taken down for no reason um i spent like my whole youtube career uh i don't know i did a tv show called the go big show that paid kind of well, I guess.

52:42I made$5 ,000 from that, so that lasted me like five months. I split a room with my friends, so we only had to pay$500 a month for rent. So it was a$1 ,000 room that we like, it was a teeny tiny room, and me and my friend both lived in there. So we split rent, and we would just eat canned chicken and wrap it in a tortilla every day, or plain spaghetti. That's crazy to me,

53:04Graham Stephan:because I see this now as like, oh my, you're so talented as a filmmaker. or I wouldn't even call them YouTube videos. Well, that's why I always thought that. I was always like, dude, I'm making the best stuff on YouTube, but then my stuff would just get demonetized and taken down. Within an hour, it'll go super, super viral, and then one or two hours in, it just gets flagged and restricted. How did you not quit? Because you've been making videos now for 10 years. How did you not six years in be like, dude, I can't be a friend? I don't need money to be happy. I don't need anything to be happy except for having friends and going on fun adventures.

53:42That's what I want. When I'm 90 years old, I'm not going to be like, oh, I'm happy because I made a lot of money. I'm going to be thinking, I'm happy because I went on cool adventures with my friends. So yeah, I could be a mechanical engineer I went to college for, sitting in a cubicle, making a bunch of money. But then I'm going to be 80 years old and I'm going to look back on my life and I'm like, wow, I threw my life away for money. I actually saw a really scary, like instagram video i think it was this morning when i was waking up like on reels it was like animation and this guy he's he walks into like a store and he's like he's like i want to give you 10 years of my life for like a thousand dollars like it's like kind of a metaphor on like corporate america and i don't know it's just really scary to me that you can like give your time away for money and so because i don't get any happiness from money you know like things don't get make me happy.

54:34Like experiences and hanging out with friends, that makes me happy, you know? So the more I want that, even if I have less money is kind of my goal.

54:42Graham Stephan:Are you stressed out right now with the lawsuits? No, it's fun. I love it. So I've always said, I think my favorite thing in life is getting into a hard situation and then trying to figure out your way out of it. You know, it's like solving a puzzle. That's what a puzzle is. You know, it's like I have something hard and I'm going to solve this, you know? And this is kind of the same thing. That's what McKinney Manor was. It's like, put yourself in a really scary, hard situation and try and get out of it. So it's kind of the same thing. It's, oh, I'm in a really scary lawsuit. Let's probably, if we, if we're creative, then we can come out on top, you know?

55:13And this is like exactly what I look for. This is, uh, this is so fun for me. Speaking of problems that you're not able to solve, I'm curious if you've ever considered looking into the federal or like local budgets of the government. Ooh, I was thinking about it. Um, I was actually talking about this, I think, yesterday. We were like, what if we looked into all the fraud the government does? Because I think the Pentagon has trillions of dollars that are just unaccounted for. It's like, where does that money go? And it seems like that could be a big thing to investigate. But there's two things with that.

55:51The first one is like, am I actually going to be able to solve anything? You might need really high clearance for that. like all of my antics are just kind of like you saw in the leg of it like there's stupid things i'm just pulling out of my like i'm a good storyteller but like when it comes to like real like deep state corruption i don't know if i'm like the man for that maybe i am i don't know but uh and the other thing is then say i do happen to solve this like where there's trillions of dollars of debt went or like there's trillions of dollars of unencadred money went like are you gonna like kill me if i like i'm about to release this secret you know i feel like you would kill someone for like a trillion dollars, you know?

56:27Yeah. What do you think about Nick Shirley? I haven't really watched many of his videos. I think he investigates some like really important problems to investigate. And I've heard some people don't really like his investigative style, I guess. Like he's kind of similar to me, I guess, where we just kind of are stupid about it. So I don't know. I got to watch more of his videos. I don't really have an opinion on them. But I have heard some of the things he's uncovered is like really insane. Like all the fraud and stuff he's uncovered is pretty crazy from what I've heard. Yeah. Maybe you could start with something like local government funds misappropriation or something instead of going straight for the Pentagon.

57:07Because I also think that realistically that's going to be impossible. Yeah. I think the government is really inefficient and they're really like wasteful. So I think we need people like us to hold them accountable, I think, you know, and to like shine light on it. or else because i think the thing with like they say with businesses right like you have like apple and microsoft competing to be the best right and so because there's that competition they're both gonna do the best they can to because if they don't if they're not trying their absolute hardest to make the best products then their competition is going to make the best product and people are to buy from them instead so competition forces you to make a better product and to like do things ethically and then with the government there's no competition so like oh i can just do all this fraud and stuff and no one's gonna keep me accountable you know because i'm the government they have to like keep paying their taxes like there's no competition with that who's gonna get mad at the pentagon for failing you like they've never won an audit yeah they've only ever failed

58:05Graham Stephan:but it doesn't matter no i think it's more relatable to show these stories like you're highlighting with lego that it is a normal person dealing with a company with a lot of money and legal resources behind them uh-huh i'm down to do whatever like the 12 videos i'm working on they're all kind of the same where it's like, oh, I'm just some dude solving these crazy crimes, you know, but all the crimes are different. You know, like they're all very, very different things, like ranging from like some of them are silly. Some of them are very serious, but all of them have a good story and all of them are like from the perspective of like a guy with just like no resources, which is how they're all connected.

58:43Graham Stephan:How many times have you been arrested? Now really quick, I just want to say that when Jack and I first started the podcast, we had to figure out everything ourselves. From the best cameras, the best editing equipment, how to get our guests. Every single day was a brand new challenge. That's why if you're starting or growing your own business, you know how valuable today's sponsor is. And that would be Shopify. For those unaware, Shopify is like having an all-in-one business partner. They support millions of businesses worldwide, from big brands like Heinz and Gymshark to everyday people just starting out.

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59:48Graham Stephan:It was so easy. Everything was in one dashboard. I had zero complaints. They've been fantastic. That's why with Shopify, nothing stands between your idea and a real business. So go and make it one. Start your free trial at Shopify.com slash ICH with a link down below in the description. Again, that's Shopify.com slash ICH or click the link down below in the description. Shopify.com slash ICH. How many times have you been arrested? Twice. And there were two days in a row for the Lego video. What was that like getting arrested? It was pretty fun. I like new experiences. So it was a new experience.

1:00:26Because normally I feel like I'm on the other side where I'm like, oh, like I'm getting you in trouble, you know. so now i get to kind of like see what it's like for a criminal to go through it how was it fun like did you actually go in the cell and everything yeah that sucked yeah that was boring yeah i was in there for it got boring after like the second or third hour where i'm just sitting there without a phone i'm just like like what do i do like it's like the middle of the day i tried to sleep but i was like i'm not tired so it was like just kind of boring i was like wasting time like i could be filming i have so many cool ideas i want to do and i'm just sitting here not able to do them so That was frustrating.

1:01:00But like, getting like my bug shot, that was pretty fun. Talking to the police officers, that was pretty fun.

1:01:04Graham Stephan:And when you're in a cell, are you in there by yourself or being with other people? I was by myself. If I was with other people, it probably would have been fun. But yeah, just being by myself, it was kind of like in solitary confinement pretty much. It was just really boring. Did you worry about going to jail for a long time? Because there was that incident where they were trying to get out of the bail. I actually didn't find out about that until after it got released. so I wasn't really scared. And then afterwards, I found out, I'm like, wait, they're trying to take away my bill? What the heck?

1:01:33And so I didn't know that when I was in there, so I wasn't really scared. I was kind of just like chilling. I was like, oh, I'll get out on bill. I'm going to go fund me. You know, like I can get out on this. This will be easy. I didn't think they would just hold me for like a month. But then later after I get released, I look at the paperwork and I'm like, oh, they weren't trying to hold me until my court date. That's insane. We had a very like limited conversation. We took like a small 15, 20 minute. Yeah. Because Graham wanted to bid on some items on heritage auctions more like jack skeleton skellington or whatever like art original art i don't even know but skellington during that like we had like a very brief conversation about not caring about money because i asked you would you want some of this original art that you used in the show or movie and you said no material possessions mean nothing yeah i want to dive deeper into that i pretty much own nothing i just have my computer and my hard drives it's pretty much all I own um and maybe like some like cords I guess like some GoPros and stuff uh actually just bought a drone because I think that could be a really cool shop that's pretty much all my like belongings that I own uh I don't really buy things um yeah I would just basically put all my money into videos and stuff um I mean I used to be different where I was like a mechanical engineer and in a cubicle and then I ended up breaking my neck and almost like clogged my artery and stuff And so there was like a week period where the doctors were like, oh, you could just like die and like you could just like be dead soon, you know, because they were like they didn't know if it was like fully clogged.

1:02:59It ended up being fully clogged, which is good. But if it was partially clogged, I would have got like a blood clot. We go to my brain and have a stroke. So it's like kind of scary. And I just kind of started thinking, I was like, wow, like if I died right now, I would have worked my entire life to like get money, you know, like to like go to do a job. I don't like like study like a subject that I'm not really super passionate about just so I can have a job I don't like. So eventually I can get the reward of money at the end. You know, I was like, if I just now, like I just wasted my whole life for like nothing.

1:03:30So I like instantly just like dropped out of college. I was like, I'm going to live a life where when I, I'm going to look back and be like, my one chance at life, I lived it correctly, you know, where I'm just going to do things that actually bring me happiness, like friends and experiences rather than just like getting money for things. and so but yeah dropping out of college I just had a bunch of college debt because I was in college for like three and a half years I think it was like right before graduating is when I dropped out and um and so I just have all this debt and no money to my name and yeah I was just like I was like oh I'm just gonna travel around so I just started traveling for like two years and just going to like different parts of like the world and meeting people it was really fun and I had like nothing.

1:04:16I was just traveling for like two years. And then I finally landed in California and I just lived at the beach for like six months. And just, yeah. What do you mean lived at the beach? So it was like a slackline park. I was trying to become the best slackliner in the world. Is this like Venice? Yeah. Okay. Santa Monica. Yeah, I know. I've seen the people slackline. Oh yeah, they're good. Yeah, so I would just like live at the slackline. I just wake up slackline all day and go to sleep. Wake up slackline all day. Where would you sleep? Just like a sleeping bag on the beach. So I didn't have money for like a house or anything, you know i didn't have any money so i was just living there how did you afford like food um so i i created my own brand of slack lines and so i just had to sell like one slack line a day and that would make me food and so i would just like have like all the people there like knew i was like selling slack lines it's like a really touristy area so sometimes i would sell like two or three in a day and then that's like food for like two how much do you sell the stock line for like 100 bucks but then i would have to pay for like the materials and stuff so i'd probably make like$50 profit per cyclone I sold.

1:05:16And you just lived like this for six months. Yeah. And did you enjoy it? Yeah, it was fun. It was awesome. I got to like meet really cool people. We went on like cool adventures and stuff and it was, it was awesome. Yeah. And traveling the world, what was your favorite place you went to? Mexico was pretty fun. We did some cool stuff. I lived in Mexico for like a month and there's just like no rules in Mexico. You can just do like whatever you want. Like we set up a slackline over a nightclub at one point and we started doing like backflips over the people. I remember thinking, I was like, you don't need like a waiver or anything.

1:05:45You're like, is there insurance? They're like, no, you can just do it. Like the club owner's like, yeah, you can just do it. Okay. He's like, I trust you. I'm like, dude, we would never be doing this in America. This is insane. It was so fun.

1:05:55Graham Stephan:So what does that teach you then about life? And what do you think most people get wrong about like taking a traditional path? I don't know. I was definitely way happier doing that than as like a mechanical engineer, you know? So I don't know. I think a lot of people like myself included there's taught as a kid you know like this is your life purpose like you're gonna get a job make money provide for your family and stuff and I don't know I think a lot of people end up like just wasting their lives because of that which sucks because like you only have one chance like why waste it you know like we don't get a you're probably gonna be like 80 years old and be like oh I wish I could have done something different but then it's too late you know like you can't change it and I think a lot of people, at least for me, like I always knew death was coming, but you kind of just like put it on the back burner.

1:06:47It's like, ah, it's a low priority for me. You know, I'm dealing with this other stuff. And then, but then like once death becomes like your main priority, like if you have like a near death experience, then you start to prioritize like living life more. I think. How did you break your neck? Uh, I think it was like a double front flip 360 and I over rotated and they call it like a scorpion. So I landed on my face and then the rest of my body just like went forward. So I like. On what? On a slackline? No, I think it was on a trampoline going to like the ground. I was going for like trampoline transition to the ground and it was really bad.

1:07:19Yeah. Have you trampolined since then? Yeah. I still do it. I just did a slackline competition when I was in Mexico. It was fun. Did you win? No, I got 10th place or 11th place. That's pretty bad. I imagine that's good. It was like the top 20 people in the world showed up. Holy cow. I'm still like top 20 in the world, I guess, would you say? Now, I'm curious, when you broke your neck, what did it feel like? Actually, surprisingly, not much pain in my neck. It hurt my shoulder a ton. It hurt, I felt all the way out of my fingers. But I remember I didn't even go to the hospital for like over 24 hours.

1:07:51I actually went on a camping trip the next day. We went into the woods. I was like, we're on like a six mile hike. What? Because I thought I just pulled my shoulder. I was like, oh, I probably just like, I didn't feel that much pain. It was all my shoulder that hurt. I guess it hits nerves and stuff. But, and then finally I was in so much pain. I didn't take any pain medicine or anything, um, which was probably stupid about 20. It was about the 24 hour mark. I started like throwing up cause I was in so much pain and then like kind of passed out. I just like pushing myself, you know? And so this was like my full like moment.

1:08:23And I started having kind of like a panic attack because like, no matter what I did, like I couldn't like rest my shoulder. I was just so exhausted at this point, you know, where no matter what I did, I just couldn't stop the pain. I just had a panic attack. And yeah, I started like throwing up, kind of almost like passed out. My friends like took me to the hospital and then finally did the next day. And they're like, oh yeah, I have a broken neck. And I was like, ah, it makes sense.

1:08:42Graham Stephan:How could you take a hike and like go 24 hours with a broken neck? How is that even possible? I don't know. I mean, it was good vibes. You know, like we were having fun. It was me and my friends, we were chilling. But then I remember what happened was like, we were just having a good time. I think it's like the mental state I was in was just like good. And then, cause we were all having fun. you know, like this is like our vacation. Like we all, we've been playing this for like months, I guess it's like camping trip. Uh, we're going to go down to like new river gorge for like bridge day and watch all the base jumpers jump off and stuff, the bridge.

1:09:12And, and then, um, I remember my friend's dog like ran away. So all my friends went to go like find the dog. So I'm just sitting there by myself. And that's when like the positive vibes left me, you know, and then it's just me and my thoughts. And then I started, like, it was like a first time ever having like an, like a panic, like I had like a real like panic attack where I was like, I don't know if I can deal with this pain you know like i just pain's like more like it was like so overwhelming and i have like my friends to like because we were like making jokes and stuff the whole day it was all chill but then once it was just me it was bad what did it feel like to have a panic attack i don't know you know like if you've ever taken like a bunch of acid or something you have like a bad trip it was kind of like that i guess uh if you just like a really bad like i don't know like that's probably the best way i could describe like the way people describe like bad like dmt experiences or something then it kind of feels like that where like you're just your thoughts are in control of you you're not in control of your thoughts you know and uh i don't know it's just like you're having too many thoughts like you're having thoughts faster than you can process them and then you just and how did you physically experience a panic attack i don't know i just started like throwing up and i just felt like i was gonna pass out and then my friends came back and like oh yeah ben's not good we got to take him to the hospital.

1:10:26I don't know. I just remember like sitting there just like, I remember like no matter what position I kept like trying to change position. Every time I changed position, it would just get worse. And I remember like, I cannot deal with this pain, but at the same time I can't do anything about it. So I don't know. And how long after this near death experience did you decide to change the course of your life? Probably like the next week I'd say, I don't know. Maybe like two weeks later. No, I went to work. I remember I was working at a cubicle at the time. So I went to work for probably another like couple weeks and then i was like yeah i'm gonna drop out this sucks what did your parents think when you were living at the beach oh they were pretty scared i think they thought i was gonna become like some like homeless crackhead person but i was like functional you know i was like training to be like the best cycliner in the world at the time and uh yeah i was just like just training like it was just wake up just train and then go to sleep wake up train did they ever offer to like send you money for food no i i i maybe they would have but i wanted to like be able to do it on my own you know i didn't want help from people because i was like 20 something i was like 20 years old and what's interesting is that like i sort of share that same sentiment of like i don't really find the value in like acquiring more money i feel like i'm just supposed to get more money you know what i mean like for me like if if you know me I mean, most of the time I'm just wearing like, you know, shade options, Jack.

1:11:49Why do you do that? I like the I like growth. Like for me, it's really fun. So like an easy like an easy thing to grow is is money by selling options. But like for the most part, like these shorts, I bought at Ross for like eleven dollars and I've been wearing them for four years. I don't really care about material things. I just feel like I'm supposed to want to acquire more money. And so I just kind of do it for the sake of that. But I also know that it is actually like, there's a part of it that's very responsible because while I may not need or want very much money, I know that in the future I will have a family that does.

1:12:24And I'm curious, like, do you have a girlfriend? Yeah. No, I think about the same thing too. Like eventually I do want money so I can like give my kids a good life, you know, like it would suck if my kids don't have anything and yeah, it would definitely suck. And also the other thing I want money for is to hire like editors because right now it's like I film for this much and edit for this much, you know. So if I can like edit less, I guess, if I can like delegate that to other people, then I can film more things, you know, and then I can then therefore like live a better life, I guess, because now I'm going on more adventures and doing more things to help people.

1:13:02and I can take on more of these cases where people are like, oh, I'm in need of reckless Ben to help me, you know, that can help more people. How old are you? I just turned 30. Really? Yeah, I look super young, but now I'm old. Interesting, because I would have assumed that like if, yeah, if you were 30, like I've felt this pressure for like a long time. It's like, like I said, I don't need money, but I know that like, I don't even have a girlfriend, but once I get a girlfriend, she's probably gonna want to be taken out on dates. And then once we become married and have kids, like I have to pay for the wedding, I have to pay for my kids.

1:13:32Maybe she's the one who makes the money, Jack. Yeah, she does well. If you're a woman that makes a lot of money and you're really attractive and you're funny and lighthearted, you know where to find me. In the description is my Instagram. Yeah. But also, if you look at rich couples and poor couples, I wonder if rich couples have a better relationship than poor couples. I don't know. Well, one of the biggest reasons for divorce is financial infidelity. so it's like really yeah so i i think that it depends it's probably a bell curve you know what i mean like if you're super super super wealthy like all of those wealthy people elon musk jeff bezos all those people have gotten divorced but then again like if you have no money then that's just another thing to argue about and so i'm sure that they're a healthy medium yeah yeah i've heard yeah like once you're like super poor it's like a big stress in your life because it was stressful like like i guess living in the beach wasn't that stressful because i was like i just wake up train just have fun all day and go to sleep there's not much stress in that i guess but uh with like when i first started like living in a house it was like how am i gonna pay rent this month am i gonna have to do something i don't want to do in order to pay like am i have to give away my time in order to pay this rent and that's that's like the worst feeling ever is like having to give up your time in order to like be able to just have basic needs you know so that definitely sucked and so I guess you're like once you start making more money you don't have to worry about stuff like that but then once you have like a bunch of money then I feel like it gets kind of crazy again you know where now people just want you for your money they don't want to actually have a good relationship with you because of you they just like maybe there's other intentions there and stuff and so I feel like there's that like medium point that's like the perfect amount of money to have you know I would agree but also I'll contend with that a little bit like I think if it's a girl that wants you just because of your money like what amount of money would you say that is oh shoot i don't know um yeah i definitely would hate to be with someone if they're like oh ben's rich so i want to be with but i think it's a lot of money because the type of girl that would want you for your money would not go after a dude who has five million dollars yeah like she would go after a dude who has like 50 million there's always going to be someone or like 30 million like 100 million like those are the people that they would realistically go after not some guy who has five million if you're the person that prioritizes that as like number one but it's also how loose you are with your money.

1:15:49It's not the dude with five million. It's the dude with five million who spends five million. Sure. But he's living like he has 50. The idea is like, if you, if you're living, like you should, if you have five, like you're probably not going to get a bunch of women that are chasing after you for your money, but it is probably a good thing. And I could be wrong here. Challenge me if you think I am that a girl does want the guy, or at least just like the unit in and of themselves to be able to be financially comfortable. Like that is, I would say, a good family.

1:16:15Graham Stephan:I don't know. I think more women would be attracted to the dude who's just like sleeping on a sleeping bag on the beach, living his life, having a good time. I think, yeah, at a younger age. But I think once you want to have kids, like I think they want security. Because the woman, too, wants the best thing for her family, you know, and the guy just sleeping on the beach isn't going to be able to provide for his family. Yeah, but that guy is carefree. He's exciting. He doesn't have any sort of like expectations. That is an adventure. And I think a lot of women would rather the adventure than the cubicle guy.

1:16:44I think they cheat on the cubicle guy with the guy who's going on the adventure. But they're not going to get married to the guy who can't financially support their kids.

1:16:53Graham Stephan:But do you want to be the dude that the girl's just going to settle with to marry? Which life would you rather live? Us three, I think, need to figure out what goes on in women's race. We know what women want. Yes, let's three men. We know. yeah well my my mentality is i want to be happy with no money and if that's the case but then once i get money that's like the sprinkles on top you know what i mean right so it's like i don't want to not have money you know like now that money's coming in because this lego thing it's like awesome you know i'm like super happy but it's like i don't need that you know what i mean it's just like the the extra on top like i'm already happy without the money and now i don't need the money to be happy because i think what happens a lot of times is people are like oh once I get rich, then I can be happy and then they get rich and they're not happy, you know, but I'm already happy.

1:17:41So now that I'm like starting to like see money come in, it's like, well, now I can be happy with that too. You know, I agree with you fully on that in high school. I was very, very, very happy, like running cross country. I had like my core group of friends. I loved life. And then like, I started working really hard and I started making good money at like the age of 21. I'm 27 now. So I had like six years of like aggressively saving. Like I really never spent more than 10, five to 10 % on like personal things. Obviously I had like other expense, like mortgage and whatnot, but like on personal things, I hardly spent any money.

1:18:11The problem is that once you, like I save so aggressively to develop a nest egg, but once you have a nest egg, then you have something to lose. And so like, yes, it may be fun, like in the beginning, but after you like grind and, you know, scrimp and save after a certain amount of time, I've noticed that like maybe the relationship with money can actually get a little bit less healthy because you're worried about losing it. Yeah, it's interesting. I haven't ever gotten to that point yet really.

1:18:42Graham Stephan:I think now it really makes a lot of sense why you're not bothered by a lot of the things that have happened to you, like getting arrested, these lawsuits. If you got sued, you have nothing to lose. It's like going from where you were and you were happy living on the beach, going day to day essentially. It's like now you're getting hit with a lawsuit. it's like who cares it's nothing like your worst case scenario is you go back to doing what made you happy to begin with yeah no i think the same thing yeah for sure people that like it takes at least somewhat of a while to earn money like not just like one year or two years but it takes you like five years to like have somewhat of like a nest egg they're very scared of losing it but that's that's because they did something they don't like to get that money i think so for me like doing this whole lego thing was super fun for me like i had a blast at in the editing room when I'm like editing this, I'm like coming up with ideas.

1:19:34I'm like, this is so cool. I get to tell this story and I'm having so much fun. So it's like, even if this Lego video flops and gets to monetize, I'm still happy because I had fun doing like, it was the adventure that made me happy, not the destination, you know? Yeah. But the thing is, you never know what you're going to end up enjoying in the future. And what if the thing that you enjoy in the future actually doesn't make any money? And that's like, like, while I do love what I've done and I love what I'm doing right now, I do worry like randomly on a random Tuesday evening, probably four years ago i realized i love pickleball what if i wanted to go be a pickleball pro like realistically i'm not going to make any money until i become really good and so like i want to open up my optionality like in the future i want to be able to do whatever i want to do we'll do both do a podcasting and be a pickleball pro true but then i also love chilling well then chill also jack likes doing a lot of

1:20:22Graham Stephan:things yeah i get excited over five percent of them making no money yeah negative money yeah Yeah. Yeah. We'll just do everything. That's been my life philosophy. If it's fun, go do it. How much do you sleep? I try to get eight hours of sleep a night. This month hasn't been good on me, but before this month, I try to get eight hours a night because I think even though you're sleeping for more than, say, someone who sleeps four hours a night, the person who sleeps four hours a night isn't going to be as productive during the day because they're tired. I think you're more productive to sleep more because then you get more done during the day.

1:20:53That's what I always thought about Elon Musk. Elon Musk claims he's like, yeah, I sleep like three to four hours. Really? Like when I'm really. But he's also like a weird one of a kind. Yeah. I don't know if that applies to like people like me, you know, like I need my sleep or else I'm not productive. I agree. Like everyone makes, let's just say like 3000 decisions a day. But I feel like it's really like down to 15 decisions that actually make a material impact on your life. And you want to make sure that you're in a really good spot, like mentally to make those 15 important decisions. Yeah, I think he has like Asperger's or something.

1:21:24So I think his brain works. He says his brain's always on. I think he probably has Asperger's. He realizes that his brain's different than other people. So maybe Elon Musk can get away with it. But your average person's going to need their sleep. I agree with that. They need more. I think we just solved Asperger's too. Actually, no, we didn't solve that. We did solve lack of productivity. You just need more sleep. How much money have you raised so far for your legal defense? Well, the GoFundMe is at half a million dollars. so what we the plan is is obviously brian's first priority let's refund him get him his legal fees because why are they going to sue brian like why are they going to steal from him and then sue him that makes no sense so let's get him legally protected then i'm probably the second priority uh because if i get sued i can't make any more videos on them and i know the public definitely wants to see more videos coming out so me and my friends were probably the second priority.

1:22:14And then after that, I still think there's a lot of money left after that. So we're giving it to all the franchise owner because we've seen a pattern of Brandon and Josh, the same people that took over Crystal Store. They do the same thing where they like, don't let them pay money or something. And then they're like, oh, you broke your franchise agreement, you know, like, or they'll do something that they got approval for. And then they steal the store from them and they steal their life. So say I'm just some like small business owner, like, I want to start my own bricks and minifigs. I'm going to invest my life savings.

1:22:40Like a lot of times it's like 400, $500 ,000, like half a million dollars. I pour this into this business and then corporate just steals my whole store from me and I get nothing in return. That sucks.

1:22:51Graham Stephan:Why would someone open a franchise of bricks and minifigs? Why not just open up your own store and just call it? Because before this, bricks and minifigs was a very, before my video on them, they were a very, very respected company. So say I open a bricks and minifigs. Yes, I have to give them 6 % to use their brand name, but I might get 15 to 20 % more customers because Bricks and Minifigs is a well-respected name in the community. And so if I open up Bricks and Minifigs, more customers are going to come in, you know, because it's a trusted name. It's like the reason people buy like Cheerios rather than the off-brands, just because it's a, even though it's basically the same product, you're getting the same like ingredients and everything, but I want to buy Cheerios because it's the main brand.

1:23:32I'm familiar with that brand, you know?

1:23:34Graham Stephan:And since a lot of these stores though are independently owned. How do you feel for the people who are not involved in this at all, who just operated honestly? Hey, by the way, really quick, if you want extra content just like this, as well as early access, and a bonus post show posted every single week, including an extra conversation with Ben, that's almost an extra hour long, feel free to join as a channel member to get immediate access to all of that, as well as early access to everything else that we post, along with priority responses to all of your comments. So if that sounds cool, feel free to join.

1:24:09Graham Stephan:Would love to have you on board. Thanks so much. We'll get back to the podcast now. How do you feel for the people who are not involved in this at all, who just operated honestly? Yeah, it sucks because they did nothing wrong and corporate making the decisions they've made is what's screwing them over. And so that's why, yeah, with the rest of the GoFundMe money, we're trying to get them all lawyers so they can sue bricks and minifigs for basically like, hey, you guys, like we paid you money to have a good brand name and you're destroying the brand name so can we like sue them so we can like change our name let's just say bricks and minifigs doesn't have any money to pay out and all these franchise owners get together then they're going to be throwing basically just burning money into a black hole because there's nothing to collect yeah what i think they want right now is not necessarily money because they've experienced like two weeks of like no sales which at the end of the day isn't like that it's bad but it's not like like closing down their store bet you know so it might be depending on how some of these franchises are operating because their expenses of employees and rent and utilities and there's a lot that goes on my guess behind the scenes where if they don't get business for probably one to three months i'd bet a chunk of them well we're working right now to get them a lawyer so they can change their name from a bricks and minifigs to like their own like small business you know like their own lego business like you were saying you know and that way they can disassociate from the brand and uh they don't have a bad name anymore and i the whole time i've always been saying too like these are independent franchises like they have nothing to do with what corporate says like yeah they're paying corporate money but they got into this contract before when they thought that bricks and minifigs was a reputable brand that doesn't steal from old people you know uh like they didn't sign this contract with saying like oh for the next 10 years i'm going to give you like six percent of my royalties if they thought that they stole from old people you know so all that information came out after they signed the contract now they're locked in these contracts and they have no choice they can't talk bad about it or else they get their sources and their life savings gets taken now they can't provide for their family and so it makes total sense like why these franchises uh did this and i so i've always been saying yeah like don't go out and harass the franchises and everything.

1:26:23And like, it makes total sense. Like they're not supporting this theft that happened. They're just trying to have their own local store, you know, like going and harassing this innocent store. There's nothing to help the problem. So who's the main bad actor in all of this? I think there's the McNiff family is the CEO who, well, I guess Brandon and Josh technically are the ones that got hired by bricks and minifigs. So they're all working together. It's, it's the McNiff family and Brandon and Josh. And they like to say that they're separate, that they have no relation to each other. But we found out someone dug in newspapers from like the 1990s or something.

1:26:59And Josh and the CEO actually went on a Mormon mission trip together. And when you're on a Mormon mission trip, like you're not allowed to separate rooms for like three months or something, or two years, I don't know how long Mormon mission trips are. But from what I've heard, you can't even shower because they're afraid you're like doing sinful things in the shower. you have to shower with the door open. So there's no privacy when you're on your Mormon. So these guys are closer than any two human beings can be pretty much. And it's funny now they're saying like, Oh, we're completely separate.

1:27:28Like we were not working to, you know, so it is kind of just like one entity of these people. Like they're just this says Brandon, Josh and the McNeffs, the McNeffs are the CEOs kind of that kind of hired Brandon and Josh to take over these stores illegally and yeah so i guess that's who it is and then the police department as well yeah i mean there were some cool police officers um but then they lied i mean they changed the story like they have no goal of making things right it's just protecting them yeah it's hard to tell who the good police officers and bad police officers like there were definitely some good police officers who would like in the body cam you can see they're like pushing back they're like wait we can't do that it's illegal you know and and they're like fighting back for like us you know uh like behind the scenes which you can see in the unredacted footage but um most of the police officers i feel like kind of sucked yeah speaking of that why did so much footage get redacted and then how was some of it leaked i i don't know um i'm still trying to figure this out but so i was like pissed off when they just redacted everything.

1:28:35And then it turns out that some of it was just them turning off their body cameras during the most important part. So even with the unredactions, they're still on, like the most important parts, like right before I get, like they find out the court case is real. They turn off their body cam for like 10 minutes and then they arrest me. So it's like, what happened during those 10 minutes?

1:28:52Graham Stephan:Is that illegal to turn off your body cam? I don't know, maybe. It seems like it defeats the entire purpose if you could just turn it off. In Oregon, they don't even use body cam. So it's, every state's different. yeah we could look that up i don't know um but yeah during all the key moments they turn off the body cams same with the the heroin incident like during all the key moments they turn off the body so even in the unredacted stuff it's like we still can't find out but uh so all the stuff that got redacted i i kept arguing i was calling with them for like two months probably like every day like hey like can we get this unredacted and they're like oh no it's protecting the victim i'm like but he's making claims about me like don't if i'm being charged with these crimes don't have a right to know what I'm being charged for.

1:29:34And they're like, yeah, but if we tell you, then we'll, I actually show up to court and I'm like, I don't even know I'm in court right now. Like you guys redacted all of the claims against me. Like, can you guys please tell me why I'm here? And then the prosecutor says, well, I'm hesitant to give him the footage because if we show him what he's being accused of, then he's going to use it for likes and clicks on his YouTube channel at the expense of our victim. And, and it's going to hurt our victim. If we tell him what he's being accused of. I'm like, well, then what am I doing here in court? You know?

1:30:02And like, okay, we'll schedule another court hearing. Why represent yourself though?

1:30:05Graham Stephan:Why not get a lawyer on your behalf to maybe argue some of these claims that are against? I don't know. Cause I think the whole point of the video was to show like, it's like standing up to the bully with no resources, you know, can the little guy stand up to the big guy? But if I get a lawyer, now it's the big guy standing up to the big guy and there's no incentive for the little guy. And so I wanted to really show like if we're creative, the little guy can stand up to the big guy, you know, like that's the whole like theme of the video. And I think getting a lawyer involved would have defeated that purpose because then people would write it off.

1:30:38They'd be like, oh, he only won because he has a lawyer, you know, not because he's right or not because he was creative or not because he stood up for himself. He only won because someone he had to hire someone to stand up for him, you know. And so I think it just completely defeated the message.

1:30:51Graham Stephan:Is there anything that they could offer you to just say, all right, you know what? I'll shake hands, put this to rest and I move on. Yeah, I would love to move on. I thought I was going to move on a long time ago. I didn't think they would. I thought they were going to do the right thing a long time ago. First, they have to look at, like, give us the inventory because they still haven't given us the inventory yet. That way we can see where the sets are, you know. Still haven't done that. Second thing, probably, like, end the lawsuit against us because, like, that's just silence and criticism, you know.

1:31:21So, like, stop that. That sucks. well I guess basically if they said they were sorry they would end the lawsuit because by them doing the lawsuit they're saying like we want to silence you the next thing would be I think I want them to do the chicken dance I think that would have them show they're sorry I think that's something we said in our videos I think all the bad people at Bricks and Minifigs that caused Brian harm and the American Fork Police I think if they did the chicken dance that would show that they're sorry and what is it what is the chicken dance i don't know uh but i think you probably look up on youtube probably you go like this or something you go like this flap your wings yeah because we we had it in the contract they signed so they signed they have to do it already but um uh yeah i think that would be like a good way to show them that uh they're wrong and they're sorry i think that would that would be proof that they're sorry for me yeah would you like them to be sent to jail no i don't think anyone deserves to go to jail except for like maybe like and like rapists and stuff well it depends uh i i think i think jail i don't like jail is like a punishment thing of like oh you did this bad thing so now as punishment you're gonna go to jail i think that sucks i think if anything it just makes the problem worse because don't people that go to jail come out even like worse people you know so i think jail though is effective at holding someone back from doing something bad as I say, there's a mother like killing people, right?

1:32:47By sending him to jail, you're going to save people's lives because now he's not out on the streets like killing people. So if bricks and minifigs looks like they're going to keep doing this to people and like keep stealing people's like life savings, how there's a pattern of them doing this to multiple franchises, if they're going to keep this pattern of behavior without any sign of improvement, then jail might be a good way to keep them away from the public to keep screwing people over, you know what I mean? But like if they've learned their lesson, they're like, hey, we actually want to become a good, productive member of a society now, we want to stop scamming people, and we want to start helping people, then I think there's no reason for them to be in jail, you know, because, like, I don't care about, like, revenge, you know?

1:33:26I just, I don't know. I think jail as a revenge thing is stupid, but as a way to, like, keep them safe from harming other people, I think it can be effective, I guess. Can you find any sympathy within your heart for the bricks and minifigs executives right now? No, I've tried so many times. I guess if they're willing to talk to me, I'll, I I'd still be down to talk with them. I think it'd be so funny. I, me and my friends always joke about this. How funny would it be if we both just get set up to like lie detectors, you know, and just have a like hour long conversation, like no cuts or edits, you know, we just sit down like me and Amon both with lie detectors and we just have a cover and just talk out the whole thing.

1:34:03You know, I think that would solve a lot of problems because then we know if we're lying or not, you know? And cause every time I've tried to talk to him, he just lies and he's like, Oh, we already sent the inventory list. Uh, we already reimbursed Brian. We already did all this stuff. And it's like, and so the conversation goes nowhere, but if we both had lie detector tests on and we could talk to each other, it'd be a productive conversation. Maybe, I don't know. But I think I, I, if he's down to willing to have a conversation with me, I'm still down to give them like a 30 second chance. You know, I think everyone deserves like a 30 second chance.

1:34:31And, um, yeah, but so far, every time I try and talk to him and like, Hey, let's solve this. It's just, I'm calling the cops on you, you know? And like, if you want this back, you got to sue me, but it's not going to be worth it for you because then you're going to lose even more money, you know? And that's what every conversation with me and him has been like, so, uh, yeah, I mean, so at this point it's kind of like, Oh, I've given you every chance. Like at this point you've screwed yourself, you know, but I'm always willing to help him get out of his situation. How do you predict this will all end?

1:35:03Shoot. I think he's going to destroy his whole company. And I think he's not going to admit he's wrong. I think even like we'll keep saying like, hey, we'll work with you, you know, and we'll try to make things right. He's not going to accept it. He's going to destroy his whole company. I think the franchises will all be forced to rebrand to something else and hopefully survive this, I guess, is the goal. Because now it's kind of getting to the point where it's like, okay, like we've already destroyed corporate. Like, how do we save the franchises now? And I think the only way to save the franchises is to have them rebrand to their own thing.

1:35:35Graham Stephan:But what are the biggest lies being told about the story right now? I think the first one is that they tried. So Bricks and Minifigs' main narrative right now is we tried to give Brian his Legos back. Brian just didn't want him back. Like we tried to give him the inventory list and show this, but he didn't want it. and in my third video you can i have that footage i'm saying that i think he said it on every single podcast he's been on every single news station he's been he said every public appearance he's been on so far which is like probably at least like six or seven at this point that's the main narrative they're saying and then in my video it just cuts straight to their like email thread and brian's like can i please have my stuff back and they're like like like we have no obligation to ever give you your legos back this matter's closed he's like well like can i please have him back like nope we're not giving them back to you like you are not getting the legos and then they go on fox news and they're like we tried to give him his stuff back but brian was the one that didn't want it it's like well like obviously like i don't know it's just there's evidence and then there's what bricks and minifigs is saying the two things just don't match is anyone believing bricks and minifigs no because they have no if they would provide evidence then maybe people would believe them but they can't because it's everything so even on like news stations and stuff are they Is there any pushback or are they just going with it?

1:36:50The news stations are kind of just going with it. They're kind of just like, uh-huh. Okay. If you say so, okay. Because I think the news stations don't really know the story that well. They don't really, you know, they're kind of just trying to hear his side. Which is good for news stations to do, you know, because if they pushed back and Bricks and Minifigs would be like, oh, they're pushing back. Okay, this is a hit piece on us. Let's not do any more. So it's good what they're doing, you know, because they're getting them to talk. So I'm all for it. Like they're not pushing back.

1:37:13Graham Stephan:How do you balance your videos with like escalating? things because it seems like sometimes you'll do something and it just escalates the situation sort of you know settles it calms it down i don't know i always start with the calm thing and then i feel like you're right i'm very strategic when it comes to i think so like first i went in very politely asked i'm like hey one of my friends has legos in your store it's like a big star wars collection she's like get out right now so i always let them like Is that your first interaction with her? Yeah. And then within literally 15 seconds, she's like, get out.

1:37:51I'm being harassed. You know, I'm like, well, I'm not like harassing you. I just politely asked. But it's like a game of chess, you know, like I'll take like a defensive, I'll let them make like a stupid move and then I'll make a stupider move, you know? And I try to like match their energy. So I'll come in like calm. And then if they, like I'll start in calm, if they bring up to here, then I'll match them here, you know? And if they bring up to here, I'll match them here. So I feel like I don't, ever escalate something more than their like i just try and like bring my side to match their side you know because otherwise they'll win you know so what do you think is the most realistic outcome i think like i said i really think bricks and minifigs is not going to apologize i think the police department might apologize i feel like they have more to lose you know i think i think the police department might actually kind of like make things right because it's like i feel like i don't know um i feel like the police might make things right but i think the bricks and minifigs i think they're so stubborn that they'll never admit they're wrong and they'll just destroy their company and all the franchises will have to figure out a way to save them somehow uh i'm also

1:39:00Graham Stephan:curious because of the virality of this entire story do you think in the future when this is kind of wrapped up do you think that companies out there are just going to shut down as soon as they see you approaching well they shouldn't because like i feel like uh it's like i don't know um is that going to make it harder for you because now a lot of people have seen your face and as soon as you walk it's not gonna make it harder no it's gonna be easier because now i have like more resources more people behind me if anything it just makes it easier but uh because I can always just like send someone in on my behalf you know I mean like it doesn't have to be me going in I can just send someone else in that they don't recognize so that's not a problem at all but um yeah if they see me come in just shut down I don't know that would be good I guess you know because ultimately the goal I always say like like every single video shoot I've ever done I always tell everyone involved like our first priority is to have fun and make sure like we accomplish our goal the second priority is to uh to get the footage you know and like to tell a cool story but that's never the first priority it's like what we said in slacklining like in slacklining i would always say first priority is have fun second priority is look good doing it and then third priority is be safe you know so that's like my checklist so the first one is have fun like and part of having fun is like accomplish our goal you know so like get the legos back in this example that's our first priority second priority is okay like let's film this and like tell a cool story you know and make it good for the audience and i guess the third priority then is be safe and don't get in trouble but that's i tell every single person we film with those three rules like that's our priority checklist what's your advice for other people who want to follow in your footsteps oh that's a great question i think my main piece of advice is i'm not really like naturally talented at anything, but I just try really hard and I don't take no for an answer.

1:40:52So I think that's probably the best advice is, I think a lot of people don't do things because they're like, oh, well, I'm not as talented as him or I'm not as good at like talking or I'm not as creative as him, but it's like, I don't think I'm like naturally creative or anything. You know, it's just, I just try really, really, really hard and I don't stop until I accomplish my goal. So if that's your mentality, you're going to be successful, you know? And like all my friends that are successful and not successful, I've never seen someone try really hard at something and not give up and not be successful.

1:41:25The only time people are not successful is when they end up giving up. So as long as you just want it bad enough, then you'll achieve whatever you want in life. I sucked at balance. I remember my first time on a Slackline, I was with 10 of my friends and I was the worst one in my friend group. And out of every single person, I was naturally the least gifted person at Slacklining. And then, but I just tried harder than all my friends and I actually ended up becoming like the best in America at slacklining. And now people see me and they're like, oh, I wish I was born with as good of balance as you.

1:41:57It's like, if only they knew that was like, had the worst balance, you know, when I first started. So people will just write, they'll see someone who's talented and skillful and just write that off as, oh, they were born that way, you know? And when really it's like, no, literally I was born not that way. I just tried harder than everyone else. And that's the only difference that separates me from other people is I just try harder. What's the most reckless thing you've done? Oh, shoot. We might have to censor this, but that was exciting. But that has to be censored. We can't say that yet. I don't know how to talk about that, but that was fun.

1:42:35What's the most reckless thing you've done that you could talk about? I guess one that's on my Patreon right now. I had a 10-day standoff with the police. We were trying to turn this skyscraper into the world's biggest dick, I guess, for an art piece. And we tried to turn a whole skyscraper into a giant art piece. We had a 10-day standoff with 100 police officers. There was two or three police helicopters at all times. we'd like hire people from craigslist like throw us in food and stuff uh that was pretty crazy it's funny because i did that right before the lego video and i didn't get arrested on that and then we did the other thing that i just told you about which involves like the secret service and stuff didn't get arrested and then i do a video on legos and i get arrested twice so it's like maybe serving papers to josh that's the most reckless thing i've ever done it's the only time i've been arrested so yeah it shouldn't have it was dangerous for me to serve him those court papers or maybe making the GoFundMe, that was pretty reckless.

1:43:29Making that, it's the only time I've ever been in trouble. You infiltrated Scientology. Oh, that was pretty crazy too, yeah. What is like the conclusion? I forgot about that. Overall thoughts of Scientology, their practices, like give us the general idea. So Scientology is interesting. I was living in my car at the time. So I was off the beach and into a car at this point. And I was, one of my friends lived right across Scientology. So I'd hang out with him at his house sometimes, like take a shower and stuff. and it's literally his house, Scientology, like right across the street. And I'm like, what goes on inside there?

1:44:03You know? So I'm Googling it. And they're like, basically all I could find is that people pay like millions of dollars to believe in an alien that a science fiction writer wrote about. And everyone's like, why do they believe in this? Like it's, it's obviously science fiction, you know, like, like fiction means not real, but they think it is real. Like, how does this make any sense? So the more I looked into it, just the more questions there were with no answers. I'm like, why has no one just gone in with like secret cameras and just filmed inside? You know, it was pissing me off that no one's thought to do this because I wanted to find, I'm like, I want to see the footage of what goes on inside.

1:44:37You know, I, the harder I looked, I couldn't find it. So I was like, you know what? I'm, I've never done a documentary. I was just a slackliner just living on the beach at this point, you know? So I was like, you know what? I'm going to be the person to go in. Like, I don't do documentaries, but I'm going to, sorry about that banging. I was like, I'm going to go in and be the first person to find out what actually goes on inside Scientology. I'm going to answer this question for all of us. And I did it. I posted it online. I think it was kind of viral, I guess. And I was just like this surfer, extreme sports dude, just taking down this huge religion, I guess.

1:45:07And people liked it, I guess. I was like, yeah, I guess I'll just keep doing it. It's pretty cool. I like solving mysteries and stuff that have never been solved. It's kind of like a fun thing for me. So I was like, maybe this will just be my genre. I was kind of getting to a point where every month I was going to the hospital for slacklining. Like I was just breaking a bone like every single month. So I was like, yeah, maybe this will be a good like change of careers for me. You know, I can like not have to like go to the hospital all the time. I'm curious if you could distill Scientology down to like one general conclusion or idea, what would it be?

1:45:39I think they've hijacked how the brain works. So our brains aren't really always the most logical. Like we only remember things the way we last remember them. Our brains are very flawed. And I think they take advantage of that and put false memories in people's brains and stuff. And so that's how they can get people to believe in things that aren't true. How do you put false memories into someone's brain? So for me, what they did is they had me start with a story that was true. And then they would have me keep repeating the story. I had no breaks, no food breaks, no bathroom breaks for 10 hours.

1:46:13and I had to repeat this like three minute story over and over and over for 10 hours and they would change the story like this much each time. So I'm sitting there like, say it again, but like say it more like exaggerate this, you know? And so if your brain repeats a lie enough, it's gonna think it's true because you just literally are rewiring your brain. Your brain's like a muscle, so you can rewire it, you know? And so you will literally believe that a lie is true in your brain if you say it enough times. And - What if it's a positive lie?

1:46:41Graham Stephan:What if it's an improvement? like they could make you think that's how they start yeah successful person in the world you are talented at everything that you do and you walk out of it thinking oh man i got this amazing confidence and then it spirals and that's how they start yep so they start with uh that's what they did to me they the story i told them was about my broken neck so it was like probably one of those like scary moments of my life because i was and then they turned it into a positive thing for me and that's how they get you hooked they're like oh my gosh like i turned this negative memory into a positive memory, like Scientology is the best, you know?

1:47:12And so that's what gets people hooked. But then they start to say, okay, like now our mission is to like defend the world from this Xenu alien, you know? And they start saying stuff like that. Like basically if any of your friends or family don't believe in this Xenu alien that we have to defend from, then they're on Xenu's side and we have to, like, you have to block them from your life. You can't talk to them. They're evil now, you know? And also you have to give us all your money. like you saw what happened to the braille skateboarding guy uh oh no did you see oh he was uh this huge youtube channel who basically scientology took over his life he had like viral and all his employees he had a warehouse just like this with like huge a giant skate park it was helping the community out he had to sell it give it all to scientology to have to fight xenu uh it just destroyed his whole life basically so it starts out positive like that you're right and it's like it's like doing heroin you know like maybe doing heroin gives you a good feeling you know when you first start like oh this is great i should just always do heroin you know but then you can see it ruins your life you know if you like no heroin addicts gonna be happy they did hair even though the very initial stages of heroin might be positive but then it just destroys your whole life i totally forgot we have like a standard content release oh yeah with uh this yeah oh nice oh no i'm signing without reading it you guys oh jack You just say I owe you$5 ,000 for every police officer called?

1:48:34Graham Stephan:No. Oh, it's probably the last thing here. You should trick someone sometime and make them sign something really weird. That would be a good idea. That would be funny. Yeah. So the latest update, I just want to get your reaction on this, and I'm going to read it to you. This is the bricks and minifigs requested I share this latest statement. Wait, really? So Internet Anarchist did a video. Oh, I haven't seen it yet. So you'll get your real reaction to this. This is their official statement. We've worked diligently to resolve the Mansell collection issue. This is an isolated and unfortunate incident related to a single location and does not reflect the integrity of more than 300 other franchises.

1:49:17I agree with that. Yeah.

1:49:19Graham Stephan:Much of the reporting on the issue includes inaccurate information, most notably the collection's value, which is far less than the reported$200 ,000. yeah it could have been like i think they said the thing that was on the set was about 107 000 120 the most plus maybe some more uh sets that weren't included on that list that crystal didn't put on that inventory so maybe it was around 150 000 but uh yeah i guess that excuses they only stole 100 something thousand not 200 000 they're good yeah okay yeah we can let them off of that at no point did we make any legal attempt to seize the mansell family gofundme account nor did that was on the phone with gofundme gofundme told me they did nor did we ever approve consignments as an authorized sales process again that's between bricks and minifigs and crystal that's not right that doesn't excuse them to sell steel brian stuff following a thorough legal investigation of this matter, we have determined this location operated in contrast to corporates' procedures and expectations for franchisees.

1:50:27Graham Stephan:As a result, we have implemented three immediate changes across all of our locations, including more rigorous record keeping and inventory management, transparency in the buy, sell, and trade process, and comprehensive staff training on professional conduct and corporate protocols. my experience with bricks and minifigs is they say they're going to do something and they don't do it that's what the history shows so i would be surprised if they are going to but maybe maybe now with all the public pressure they will uh that it sounds like they're trying to do a good thing according to that uh but also i mean they said i could have the legos back if i just walk in and i walk in and they call the cops on me they said they would give me the inventory list if i email them.

1:51:13I email them. They say, if you email us one more time, we're going to call the cops on you. So they always say they're going to do things. So maybe I'll get proven wrong. But I think the world is skeptical right now. We got this last sentence.

1:51:26Graham Stephan:We remain committed to resolving this issue in a way that all parties can endorse. Yeah, I think the world wants to see them follow through with what they're saying. I think they're saying the right things, you know, except for the GoFundMe. They did try to take the GoFundMe. How do you know they tried to take the GoFundMe? It's like called GoFundMe. They said, hey, we received this letter. Like, we can't keep this up. I was on the phone with, like, some top people from GoFundMe. And we were talking, like, all night. And they were, they're like, hey, Bricks and Minifigs is going to come after us if we keep this up.

1:51:56And they're, like, they're sending us, like, the TRO and stuff. Kind of like they did with the Patreon. Wow. They're probably also going to say, like, oh, we never tried to take Patreon down. And then they do. Like, here's the thing about Bricks and Minifigs that we've realized is if they say something, 99 % chance it's just not true. So, uh, that's kind of how we've been working. So if they say something, it's about, say about 98 to 99%, I think is what it probably about, I'd say is an accurate, uh, thing of like what they say is not true. So, um, yeah, so it's just, I would love for them to follow through with what they're saying.

1:52:34Cause they are saying a lot of times they do say the right things. They just don't actions speak louder than words. You know, I think that's why they're getting so much hate right now is because they say they always say the right thing and then they do the wrong thing so uh we would love to see them do the do the right thing instead of just say the right thing i would if they do the right thing i will give them credit for it you know i will be like hey bricks and minifigs finally did the right thing let's like applaud them for this i would be happy to do that but it seems very easy all it would take is just about

1:53:02Graham Stephan:100 grand to make it all go away i think possibly less yeah because he's already been paid for some maybe crystal stole something you know like we're not we're not asking for bricks and minifigs to pay for maybe what crystal underpaid him you know so if crystal did take some they would owe him less than 100 grand you know yeah so uh i think they only need to pay him what they owe him and uh but they won't do that for whatever reason but i don't think they need to pay him more than what they owe him just what they like just the sets that they still have of his you know and they have to do the chicken dance and the chicken dance yeah because at first they wouldn't have to do the chicken dance but because they brought it on this long and because they've done this much harm to us i guess and brian i think the chicken dance is now a good measure you know like i don't think like sending someone to jail is really like i would feel bad honestly if i sent someone to jail for like punitive reasons uh if you're like a danger to society then you can go to jail but as long as they are like okay we're improving we're not a danger to society anymore then i think the chicken dance would be a fair you're not asking for much yeah i mean it seems pretty reasonable what do you think the percentage likelihood is that you somehow end up in jail i don't i don't think it would happen i think the internet under yeah under a half a percent like i would say so small i think i mean they're trying as hard if you ask bricks and minifigs i think they would say probably 70 to 80 percent uh because they're confident they're sending me to jail but for me like i mean i film everything so everything they're accusing me of i didn't do like you know like they're saying i made all like the main reason they're trying to send me to jail right now is for making all these like death threats and stuff against them and like trying to burn the place down and stuff and it's like i you can go you can have my whole hard drive like i didn't do anything you know like i've already submitted most of the footage to the police already so the police already know like what really went on you know yeah so through this all what is the main lesson that you've learned oh i think the power of the internet is kind of underrated uh like because you can um i think a lot of people are like oh i'm scared that i'm like to do the right thing because like maybe i'll get sued and stuff you know but like if you have the power of like public support behind you it's kind of one of those powerful things in the world you know like it we're kind of doing what to this corporation what they were doing to brian in a sense, you know, like, oh, we're going to win because we have more power than you.

1:55:29And now with the power, the internet's kind of doing that to this company, which is crazy that the internet has that much power now. But I guess it really speaks links to how powerful the internet is. And what would your advice be to the average viewer watching this right now? First off, don't harass the stores. Like we're actually trying to help the stores right now because they are suffering because of something that's not their fault. So they're kind of the same situation Brian was in, you know, Brian was suffering for something that corporate bricks and minifigs was doing something that wasn't his fault.

1:55:56And it's now all the stores are kind of in the same situation. So harassing the stores would be kind of like joining bricks and minifigs aside, right? Because the stores or bricks and minifigs corporate is hurting these franchises. And now if you're also going and harassing these franchises, you're just teaming up with corporate bricks and minifigs, which makes you the bad guy. So I'd say, first off, don't do that. I want to help these franchises, not hurt them. I think think they're innocent and we need to do whatever we can to help them um that's probably number one message right now what about any message outside of the whole bricks and minifigs thing just something about life in general um i'd say go out and do whatever is like fun for you and i think like i'd say if you want to improve your life probably just sit down and think like what truly makes me happy you know like for me it's like helping people and like having fun adventures with my friends.

1:56:53So that's what I do with this Lego thing. You know, I'm like, I get to help someone and I get to have fun adventures with my friends and we get to experiment and do cool things. And so I'm like, that's what makes me happy. So I'm going to go out and do it, you know? And I think if you truly do what makes you happy, then life will reward you. And now I'm finally seeing monetary benefits for it too. So I think it's just the best way to live life, I think, is find out what makes you happy and then see if you can make money doing it. And we'll also just let you know, like however much it is that you owe us.

1:57:18so if you could just send that via wire that'd be great i should have read it no i was joking about it what's it say oh no i sent to being recorded is there a funny thing what's it say every time i say yes yeah nope oh you got me well it's a legal contract so uh i guess i gotta do it it's the what's it called the

1:57:47duty to read contracts law. I just wanted to take this back. I have a... It's like Nathan Fielder. I have a duty to read contracts and I didn't read. I had a duty to read it. Every time I say yes, yeah, no, or nope, I owe the iced coffee hour$5 ,000 per occurrence. Each individual instance is billed separately and the amounts are cumulative. I understand that compensation, if any, for my appearance will be discussed separately and is not guaranteed by this agreement. Nods, head shakes, mm-hmm, Yup and nah count two at production's discretion. So it's, and we'll count everything. We could easily just settle for an amount of now.

1:58:21Roll the clips. There is no limit and no refund. And there is no one that didn't count. So duty to read contracts law. I should have read the, I have a duty to read and I didn't read it. Your contracts. Unless it's like 30 pages. Cause that's just, that's just way too much time. But if it's like a short contract, I mean, you have no excuse, no reason. You see how short this is? Yeah. They didn't even want to like glance. I think I made that joke while we were. You were like, look at me, not reading a contract. Oh no, I'm sorry without reading it. You guys, you just said, oh, you$5 ,000 for every police officer called?

1:58:53No.

1:58:55Graham Stephan:Oh, I thought for sure you're going to be like, wait a second, let me read the contract. All right, well, there you go, guys. We're going to frame this and put it up. Nice. Thank you guys so much for watching. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It was a really enjoyable episode. I think what you're doing is extremely noble. And one thing I like is that it does not seem like it's your goal to take corporations down. Like your goal is to not take a company down. It's to make something that's not right, right. By whatever means that is. Like you went and actually tried to get information from the company.

1:59:24Like you tried to, you gave them the honor or like you seek justice. Well, I really want to take them down. I just want to see them do the chicken dance. I think that would be, that would be a win for me, you know? They're probably listening to this. Oh yeah. Their lawyers are for sure watching this entire thing. My advice would be, I would say, do the chicken dance. It's funny. The lawyers are probably going to be meeting with them right now. All we have to do is do the chicken dance. Do the chicken dance. And we can get business back on track again. You know what?

1:59:54Graham Stephan:It would be an easy thing to do. The problem is that it sets a legal precedent that if they admit to any wrongdoing here, it could open them up to liability elsewhere. Well, just reach out and you guys can come to an actual contractually binding agreement. that involves a chicken dance. And that is so much easier because realistically, from the way you're speaking, it really does. And it's the way that the court of public opinion, it sounds like you guys are going to go bankrupt. But the thing is, all you need is mediation. It's just getting in a room with you and just talking for a few hours.

2:00:24Graham Stephan:Can a chicken dance be in private? Could it be in private? Just in front of you? Mediation. No, no, I'm saying the chicken dance though. Or does it need to be posted online? We can always negotiate the... Like what if it's just you and them and they're just like... Yeah, yeah. And just the lawyer in the corner in her chair just like taking notes. That's like a creep of like, oh, this is like for my personal entertainment. That's weird. I think that's the sign to call it. Guys, thank you so much for watching. It really means a lot. Shout out to the members if you guys want to see the uncensored version.

2:00:54We will still censor the things you requested us. And by the way... You can post it later once I post the videos. I'm still undercover. Someone's going to contact them. I'm still undercover, I guess.

2:01:05Graham Stephan:There's a lot of bonus content for all the members out there. You get full access to this podcast and there's a lot you probably want to hear. So we recommend joining the membership and you also get access to our next episode before it goes live. So if you want early access to all of our episodes, join the membership. It really helps out tremendously. We'll also link to your GoFundMe down below in the description. Does that open us up to liability? No, I'm sure it's fine. Okay. And if we get sued, can we use some of the GoFundMe fun stuff? Yeah, for sure. So if we get sued by Bricks and Minifigs, then we have someone to go for a big money support.

2:01:40So anyone Bricks and Minifigs sues, we're going to try to equal it up as equal as we can and try and get everyone lawyers. Guys, thank you so much for watching. Really appreciate it. Me so much. Until next time. See you.

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