Camp Gagnon - I Tried To Get Cursed By Witches, here's what happened...

Episode Date: August 15, 2024

Ethan Keiser is a TikToker, entrepreneur, and internet personality who specializes in social experiments. He developed an app that fakes going Live, he tempted witches to curse him, and pranked the guys who tried to get him fired. WELCOME TO CAMP!🏞️ Sign up to Camp for exclusive updates: https://camp.beehiiv.com/S/O to our sponsor Ketone-IQ!Save 30% off your first subscription order & receive a free six-pack of Ketone-IQ with KETONE.com/CAMP00:00 Intro1:40 Fake it till you make it6:...

So Witch Talk is a massive audience of people who believe that they're witches. They have magic powers and they can cast spells. I put out a video saying, you guys are all frauds. And I challenge all of you guys to the hex me. Hex me. And then someone made a video like, well, I'm a witch and I could have hex you. She thinks, because I have a million followers, I'm not going to see her video. I saw her video.

I said, all right, hex me. All the other witches in Witches in Witch Talk upload videos, and I'm cutting out in my photos from Instagram and laying them on fire, putting hexes on me. So all the hex has happened, and they're like, in three weeks, Ethan's going to get really ill or something like that. Yeah, three weeks goodbye, and I am not hex, nothing's happening to me. So I make a website, and I ran an article. Miami influencer dies in an apartment suddenly.

And these witches are, we got him. He's dead. We got them. And people are like, wow, Ethan died. Like, Ethan's dead. And rest in peace. Even some people are giving condolent to this to my family. Oh, man.

What's going on over here? The witches. I can, uh... Yo, come on. This is because of what I'm about to tell you next, okay? Bro, what the fuck is going on? You're freaking out. Come on, bro.

Why is it flickering, dude? Are you fuck with me? Yo, what the hell? Um, there we go's again. Sorry. You got me. Get up right now. All right, I got no smoke for witches, by the way.

Let me just say that. Ethan Kaiser, okay? I don't care. Don't come for me. So when I tell you the second part, this will make. excited. Here's what happened. How did you make an app to pretend to be famous and then actually made you famous and a lot of money? Yeah, yeah. You know, there's a saying, fake it, to you make it. I embodied that, okay? I faked it too. I made it. And it's been a lot of fun.

So in 2020, okay, I get on TikTok, this new platform. And how old are you at the time? I'm like 28, I think, 29, 28. And I'm like, I just had a company that I started. and kind of failed, and I had a lot of free time, and I got a corporate job, and I'm like, I'm going to do the social media, see how it goes, until I figure out my next idea. Well, this next idea that I build was this live streaming app, but it wasn't a real live streaming app. It was a fake live streaming app where it looks exactly like Instagram. It looks like you have 50,000 people watching, and the comments are all coming in, and I would,

I moved to Miami because of COVID because everything was locking down. So I would go out in Miami with my fake live stream. I'd just go up to random restaurants or clubs. And I'd go up to managers or a bunch of girls. I'm like, hey, I'm live with 50,000 people. What do you want to say to them? And I would record all these interactions. And when I tell you, people's jaw would drop.

I mean, I've never felt this is like a human experience that only so few until now could ever have, which is the feeling of being so desired, people clawing over each other to be next to you in your life. live stream. This was like surreal and I couldn't believe how quickly people would just change up. They just wanted to be my best friend and I would record these interactions and post them online and actually TikTok initially banned my account for it. Yes. And then I got it back. I think in the

early days TikTok was very fearful of certain types of content and they saw this as like deception or fraud. Okay. It's not. and ultimately got my account back or whatever, but these videos would go so viral and people would download my app and I, at the time, I wasn't using AI, it was just like a live streaming interface. It looks like a live stream.

It's not really connected to the internet. Comments would roll in, and there was just such a interesting social experiment in front of me that I could do so many things with, right? And I just ran with it, What I never did was I make these videos about me going out and I'd meet girls or whatever. I would never like continue that relationship past that video because I always thought that was like really weird. Yeah.

For me, I mean, personally, my morality is because I don't want to do that. Someone could say, well, if there's such a clout chaser, they deserve, you know, being a screwed over. I don't say that. You know, we're human. If I saw someone famous, I'd probably want to picture with them too, right? So, you know, I don't blame anybody for acting the way they are, but it was truly eye-opening. and yeah it's very it's a very interesting app and what was the original like impetus like that idea like where did the idea spark from do you remember the moment yeah i think i was in the shower in miami and some

kid who someone i knew or something mentioned about how one time he got into a new york city club because he showed them his instagram following except he went on like the website version of instagram on his phone and changed the html page to make his followers larger like he edited the HTML, which you can do on a website. So essentially, he just changed the following number and made it look like he had more followers. And he got in. I thought, well, that's kind of interesting. That's kind of funny. It's like a good video. And at the time, I was already doing like kind of like this social engineering, like how I get through life using engineering to kind of like hack the human brain, right, to get things I want. So at the time I was like, okay, TikTok live just came out at the

exact like moment. And I'm like, I could totally, you know, replicate this interface and make it look like I have tons of viewers and initially that's what I did then TikTok banned my account so I then made it look like Instagram and didn't make it look like TikTok and they were cool with that so yeah I had to like go back and forth with them a little bit but I got it back so wow yeah it was the early days of TikTok it was really wild west hey what's up guys sorry to interrupt this amazing program but I need a little bit of help if you're watching this on YouTube you can probably see our subscriber number right down here and if you're able to it would mean the world if you could subscribe. That is the best way to support this show because when you subscribe, I'm able to show it to

potential guests or to different brands and stuff like that. And it really, really helps grow the show, get us cooler guests, have cooler conversations, and it helps everything so, so much. So if you don't mind, thank you so much. Let's get back to it. And was the reaction from people you're using it with immediate? Like, do you remember the first time you used it with someone? Yeah, I mean, I was nervous. I was super nervous. And I'm at this pool party in Miami. And I go up to like a group of girls, I'm just like, hey, I'm just live streaming. Do you guys want to be in my video? And they're like, I don't know, whatever, yeah. And then the girl goes, holy shit, you have 50,000 viewers, who are you?

I was always, and to this day, it's the same thing. They say the same thing. Who are you? Who are you? Can I follow you? I go, no, you can't follow me. It's, um, I don't do that in person. It's only for my viewers. But, you know, they followed me at the time. I had like, like, what, 1,000 followers on Instagram, maybe 500 followers on Instagram. So if they followed me, the jig would be up. So I would just be like, no, you can't follow me. And that made me even more famous. to sit in their eyes. Like, oh, he's really secretive.

It doesn't need. Yeah. It's like, wow. And that was like the, I was like, whoa, this is really powerful. And then I went to like a restaurant and the owner, oh, they called them ahead of time. I said, hey, listen, can I get a reservation? It's like Prime 112, this like fancy steakhouse in Miami. And the owner or the manager was like, no, we're fully booked.

And I'm like, well, I have a massive following and I will put you on my live stream if you get me a reservation. I said, okay, come at like 7.30, right? So I go there and I'm like, we're live with 30,000 people and the manager's like, oh, we're at prime, we're having dinner, come through if you want. I got my table. And he came over and he like brought me some free stuff and got back in my life. But here's where I find the moral truth in all of this is that when I post that video, they got way more than 30,000 views.

Okay. So they got the views he wanted. And I always made sure to credit the business that was in, if they gave me anything for free, I'd always credit them. And I always said the food was good. so that they got a full commercial out of it. Oh, that's so funny. Yeah, so there was a moral truth and justification

I could find in myself when I did this. Right, because the videos are getting millions of views. Yeah, generally speaking. Yeah, generally speaking, millions of views. A lot of girls who were like model types, they wanted to be in the videos, or not be in the videos, but they want to be in my live stream, right? They want the clout, they want the fame.

So I would put them in my fake live video, and they didn't know. And some girl like kissed me on the cheek one time in Mexico. And that got like 2 million views right away. And I was like, yeah, I made this app. And this girl kissed me. She's a model. And check out this app if you want to experience this.

And just like thousands of people download the app. Thousands. And how does the AI component build into the app? So in 2023, I believe, or 2022, when Open AI dropped, when AI became more mainstream with OpenAI releasing chat, GBT, I implemented some version of like chatGBT into my app. So now if you talk to this fake live stream, it can see you.

And the comments that are you would see in a live stream are all AI generated. So it's going to respond to you. I can say, hey, I'm with my friend Sarah. They'll say, hi, Sarah, what's up? What gets even more crazy is that I built in a hater mode. So if I didn't like somebody, I could press a secret button. I'm like, hey, what do you guys think of my friend or Jessica's dress?

And they'd be like, we fucking hate it. She's ugly. And Jessica's like, what? I'm like, listen, 50,000 people think you're a bitch. Like, I don't know what to tell you. And it's kind of petty, but yeah, it's so funny. And now I added all kind of different features where you can get virtual gifts. I'll be like at a bar.

I'm like, oh, I just got doing it like $500 from one of these viewers. And girls are like, oh, my God, wow. And people just like can't get enough of it. I'm building like AI characters you can now go live with, like in an AI environment where I can talk to like an AI version of a celebrity and it's just like becoming so much different than it originally was. Originally it was like this cool product for social experimentation, but now the bulk of, we have 300,000 monthly active users.

The bulk of our usership, I think like the majority of it is people who want, and this sounds like different, but this is just the society we live in. They want to feel seen. They want to feel remembered. when you talk to the AI about your life and you actually, if you were actually to do a live stream, it would remember things you would say and then bring it up. How is your job?

And in a different sense, people find community with an AI and their AI following, and they also feel seen and heard. And I've seen many videos online of people saying, like, I have no friends, but I have a following of AI bots that I talk with. At first you think, wow, that's kind of different. That is interesting.

But you really start to like dive deep into like society and social media and where we're going. And I think by chance I happen to be just ahead of the game building for one entire different audience, but realizing there's a massive market in the loneliness category. And it turns out that's a very vibrant category to be in. Wow. This is interesting. This is like it, not to draw an exact parallel, but it feels a little bit from like, you know, like the Facebook being a app. or a website to like rate hot girls on campus.

For sure. And then becoming a social platform. Yep. Like this is like a silly app to prove that you're famous. Yeah. That then potentially could transfer into a virtual best friend that you can talk to for sure all the time. And that came out. Like people have done things like this.

Like that model has been kind of proven. And essentially virtual girlfriends is like very popular right now. But yeah, initially most entrepreneurial endeavors, at least a lot of them start out as one thing. But you get to know your audience. you get to know your market, what people are using it for, and you realize sometimes that there's a much bigger market in a different direction. And if you just, you know, kind of build in that direction

instead of a different direction, you can actually unlock that larger market. And loneliness is a massive market. So when did you bring the app to market? So technically, so the app is called Parallelive, but I brought it to market in 2020. That's when I initially launched it. It was rejected from the app store seven times.

So seven times they rejected it because they thought it was a product for deception. And I made a case that it's a product for people wanting to practice live streaming as an aspiring creator. That's what it is to this day, no. And they approved it. And Apple, if you're watching, that's exactly what it is. But now it's truly a product to help with loneliness. Yeah, that's interesting.

I mean, at the onset, I mean, call it spit a spade. It is a little bit deception. Yeah, yeah, it's a little bit deception. But, yeah, I mean, if there is a turn that now becomes the relationship, of a component, which we'll get to. That's actually really, really interesting. I did not anticipate that. But yeah, I mean, did you ever feel bad when you were doing it or did you ever like tell people afterwards, like, by the way, this is actually fake? So the problem here, and I, I've known this from many other things I've done in life. So before being a software engineer and building

these types of products and videos, believe it or not in high school, for my senior year, I was like a very, not just like kind of good, a very good magician. Like I was really good at card magic. Okay, I mean, I feel like I knew that about you. You did not. I knew that, like, in my core, just from me. I'm like, you have a magician vibe. Magician, and then I also, as a software engineer, I was really into hacking and, like, breaking systems.

And social engineering is a form of hacking, right? Where you actually hack the human brain. There's many popular characters in the past from, like, the 80s. I think Kevin Mitnick recently passed away, but he was, like, a very big hacker. And he went to jail because he caught AT&T saying he was someone else, like the CEO or an executive that he lost his password and that he needs it right now because he's the meeting he's going into and that I'm you know he gave the name and you are you know where the name the secretary was and I was just in the I was just in the office but now I'm in this meeting because he gathered all this

information and the secretary would be like oh yeah yeah here's your password do it do it's reset and he'd log in and steal information etc. Wow so he didn't actually hack a system he used the system as it was intended he hacked the secretary's mind right right social engineering is hacking the mind well that is a lot of hacking in general I think when people hear hacking they think oh you went in with the code, with the green lines, and you went in there. The green lines. It's like, no.

Hacking is like you are going through getting someone's email, finding a, like resetting that email to whatever the original email is. Like you're basically following normal channels. Yeah. And using like, you know, codes to reset.

Oh, what month were they born? You're like, I know what month they were born because they have it publicly on their Facebook, yada, yada. That's like one version of it and you're completely right. There is a much deeper version of it, which is like actually breaking applications. But yeah, what you described is like the majority of

hacking really it's just like using information deciphering it guessing passwords things like that right um fishing which is where you make like a fake site someone signs into it then you steal their information that's like how all hack that's how all accounts get there's some that are good now yeah and they're all pretty good at this point i saw one recently this happened to a friend of mine's grandfather it came up on his tv and it literally popped up on his smart TV like uh basically some type of error code saying like in order to like update install failed like call this number

to like redo your update or whatever and call the number sure enough the guy was like hello this is Steve from Samsung talk to him he was like yeah to do the update it's actually we just need to take a hold on your card yada yada whatever bullshit and like clean them out for like 2K or some shit from the card that's crazy just from the TV I was like damn that's why they're on the TVs now

I mean TVs are connected to the internet right all the smart TVs yeah exactly so it's just like very very very clever. So I digress. All that to say, a lot of social engineering is effectively hacking the brain. Right. So a lot of times, like when I'm building products, like I'm looking at it from like, yeah, there's an objective I want to acquire, right? And like, how can I go about it? And sometimes there's like moral and ethical dilemmas. You ask me, you know, do I have any moral problems with some of the things I've done? And the answer is like, yes sometimes. And I have to be very careful because I hold myself to like a very high standard and you might not see that in my content I think my content comes off as like I don't

give a shit I really do give a shit um about the things I say and also um whether something is against like my own moral code there are some things I will not do um but you know the trade off is and this is the trade off for everyone is that it's easy to be moral this is going to sound so pretentious it's easy to be moral when there's no money on the line but as soon as there's large amounts of money on the line You have to just like kind of make someone look bad And at their expense But you're gonna make like a lot of money You're just like damn like that's way harder to say

This is Napoleon's old quote bro It's like every man has a price I'm just shocked at how low most people's is Okay that's a great one Yeah That's I mean I am I'm not some type of moral arbiter to say like Oh what anyone's doing is fucked up Like I feel that even person

We're like I'll tell jokes that are kind of mean To like some celebrity or something And I'm like damn I'm kind of like Roasting someone and I feel bad about it But at the same time like it's a joke I have a lot of legal. See, I feel like moral, that's like other people's moral

being pressed on to you. I feel like for that, comedy is only funny at someone else's expense, okay? Some people disagree. I personally find that funny. With anyone who thinks otherwise, I can't find many things funny

unless it's at someone's expense. And sometimes it's my own expense, which is okay. You can laugh at yourself, it's life, right? Right. So, yeah, I don't have any problem with that. You're okay if someone makes fun of you. That means.

And they call you a gay polar bear. You're okay. With that. Gay polar bear is fine because I'm not gay or a polar bear. I mean, you are dressed. But if they get close to the actual truth, I'm like, a little annoyed. Yeah, of course. So, yeah, I mean, I've had pretty serious cancellations. In my, like, I had the Rolling Stone writing an article, or Rolling Stones wrote a, certain to write an article about me. That was like a really bad article.

Really? Yeah, it was like pretty much call me a piece of shit. And then I got fired for my job at the time because of it. Can you share what your job was? Yeah, I can talk about it. It's all in the other. What was? What was your job?

I worked at Cisco Systems, and it was like this, like, archaic company. Actually, I didn't, I'm not saying anything bad about Cisco Systems because they paid me wanting to be nice. So I'm not saying anything bad about Cisco Systems. So it's a great company that you used to work at. I used to work at this company, yes, this is a great company. And I got fired because I made a video kind of trolling really stupid ideas, which I love to do. So, like, there's a really stupid idea that was trending, which was flex how much cash, you make in a given weekend, okay?

And guess who were the biggest viral users of this trend? It was strippers. So strippers reflects how much cash they make. By literally like holding up a stack. And they'd be like, I made, one girl in particular, I made $30,000 stripping in Vegas. And I'm like, were you just stripping? But, you know, whatever.

And she had all this cash. And you see her taking it and putting it into like a sock drawer. And I'm just like, you're not putting that in the bank because you're hiding it from the government, probably. Probably. So I made a video like, hey guys, she's probably not putting that money in the bank because she's hiding it from the government because she doesn't want to pay taxes on it. So I'm going to fill out this form, 83 something IRS form and report her to the government. And I'll get 30% of whatever the government collects.

This is all factual. This is not a made-up story. This is a true on the government website whistleblower. And I was going to report these strippers to the IRS. And I didn't actually fill out the form. But I was showing people through devil's advocacy that they shouldn't be posting money on the end. I put in the description of these videos. Hey, this is just a joke.

I don't actually report this. You didn't actually submit it. No, I actually put it in the description. I didn't submit it. And this is a joke, but you should be careful with your money on the internet and flexing it because you're going to get robbed or audited, which might be considered robbery in some people's minds. So essentially, and these videos will go viral. And people start tagging me. Oh, get this girl.

Get this girl. And I would like, oh, I'll be taking her 30%. And I'm like, oh, I'd be commenting. And they would delete their videos. And it was so funny because that entire trend of like strip talk and flexing their cash, which is killed by me. I killed it. But there was a price to pay because there was a massive outcry with World Star Hip Hop and a few other major media outlets

like posting about like my videos. And they're like, watch out. There's a snitch on the loose. Be careful. I was snitching apparently. And then I was snitching. I was a snitching, but I was posing as a snitch. Yeah, it was very funny.

Oh, I loved it. It was the funniest thing ever. And ultimately, Rolling Stern did this article, but these guys were just like absolutely ridiculous. I mean, they attacked me the whole time. And there was something about being said, like there was a lot of factually untrue representations, and I could have sued them. But I kind of liked it. Like, I kind of enjoyed the attention and being a little bit of the villain, really. And I think that to some, I was a...

villain but to many like I was really displaying the dangers of flexing your money on the internet and I think I might have helped some people not get audited if they didn't post their videos that they were going to post right but in the in the end like the only thing that happened was like yeah I got fired from my job they called me into the office they're like they're like this is how HR fires you by the way they go hey thin how's it going I go that's pretty good like are you having a good day I'm like yeah having a good day like well today's going to be your last day you're just like whoa okay today's going to be your last day um we're going to do disable your permissions to the various logins and the systems.

And you're on leave right now, but, you know, they put me on leave and then eventually fired me. But they paid me a severance. And honestly, like, it was the best thing that could have happened to me, the best thing that could have happened to me. Because the next job I got after that, paid me double and elevated my career in a way that I could never have imagined. And this is the moral of the story, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. I was kicked in the teeth by the Internet and the world, and I was unjustly represented. The things the Rolling Stone article said were very much untrue how they represented me. They represented me as someone in a way.

They took some live streams that I had out of context where I said, hey, guys, don't flex your money on the Internet because someone could steal your Social Security information and report you to the IRS because getting the Social Security number was part of the form. And then someone in the live stream asked me, Ethan, how can they get your social security number? I'm like, there's many ways you could do it. You could do a phishing attack saying that you work at, you know, you work at and you need these information

because you're laid on your forms or whatever. Then you give out the information, and now some hacker just got your social security number, right? Somebody clipped that, sent it to them saying that I was encouraging people to pretend to be HR. And that's what Rolling Stone reported, knowing that it wasn't true. I had some lawyers saying we should sue them. I'm like, I don't care.

I'm not going to pursue this. It's not worth it. right. But the moral of the story is, after I got fired, I spent pretty much like six months just grinding alone, not in public, on my engineering skill set, and I got hired at one of the top tech companies. I was making double than my previous job, like 2X. Is this the tech platform you're currently with? Yes. And it's the moral of the story is sometimes like getting kicked in the teeth. I feel like the champions of the world are the ones who rebound,

because we're all going to get kicked in the teeth. It happens to everybody. It's really how you rebound, and I've never been the one to, like, fall. Like, I mean, I get kicked in the teeth, but I'm not one to feel bad for myself, right? And I surely was upset about certain things, but I was more angry. And I think you have to have an ego. Like, I have an ego, and I know I have an ego. And when I was back against the wall, kind of made to look stupid, laughed at, fired.

I was like, I'm going to show the world. but I'm fucking mad. And lo and behold, it only took six months. Six months is just hardcore training. When I say training, I'm talking about, like, doing engineering problems, going to the gym, like everything, like making content. And in the end, I came back way stronger than I previously was in all aspects of my life. And shout out to the Rolling Stones for helping me get motivated.

So year to date, since the app has rolled out, you had mentioned monthly users before. Yeah. Can you share how many months the users you have again and roughly how much money you've made from the app in total? Over a million, but dollars generated from this app. But it's actually just like growing at a rate like 100,000 new users a month at this point. So it's growing. It's like three, 400,000 active users a month.

Yeah, so I think we'll do about $100,000 in, we're in March this month. We should do around 100,000, maybe a little bit of, less depending. We're on $100,000 this month. We took no outside money. So this is just money from I have no investors. I have no co-founders, no employees, it's just me, me running the show and my million users. And it's growing. Like my monthly recurring revenue is increasing every month. You said million users? A million users. Wow. Million downloads. Okay, that's fair. Around 300,000, the 400,000 active users. So people come and they go.

Some people chat with the app every day. Some people don't chat. They only use it when they go out because they want to look cool in front of their friends, whatever. So there's different use cases for the product, but it's been a crazy journey.

That's really interesting. Yeah. And so now there's an AI component, like you had said, where you can chat with. So you're basically, is it still the same interface that people are chatting with?

Or are there different interfaces? I've improved the interface, but yeah, it's mostly the same. It's like an Instagram live stream essentially. I might make other ones in the future for like Twitch or whatever. But to be honest with you, you know, I found that people don't really care that much about the interface. Like it needs to look like Instagram if they want to like prank their friends or whatever.

But the reality is that majority of people just like the like the AI. The AI component is what really made this thing like kind of pop off in the last year. Because I had like maybe like 100,000 users for like two years prior to, um, 2023. So like 20 to 2023-ish. So around that period of time, I had about 100,000 users total. Made a little bit of money from it,

but like not a ton. And then when I implement AI, that's when it like just took off. And how are people actually using it? Are they talking in the way I'd be talking right now to a live stream and then text is coming up in the way people respond? Yeah, exactly like a live stream.

Yeah. And the AI is listening to you, it's seeing you. There's different moods you can have it in. and for example like I said there's like a hater mode where I don't know if I I don't have I said this but

it'll like roast you or roast whatever you or yeah roast your friends or whatever it's good for like pranking like your friend like hey should I still be with my girlfriend they're like no dump dump her yeah and you can also I made it so that you can actually make it say whatever you want it to say because there's actually

hidden buttons on the screen so you can actually type in what you want the audience to say and then while you're live streaming you can click that button so for example if I was like, there's a hidden button where the audience will start agreeing with me what I say, I'm like, hey, do you guys think I'm better looking than her? And I'd be like, look, everyone thinks I'm better looking than you.

And the girl's like, hot chick, she's like, what are they saying that? It's just really funny, right? I did one recently where I was in Miami and I was going up to a bunch of girls at a pool party. And I was like, hey, guys, what do you think our body count is? And everyone's like, 300, 400, and the girls are, why do you think it's so high? I'm like, because you're so good looking, that's why.

She's like, okay, yeah, all right, whatever. It's very interesting. Yeah. I mean, and so now you have people that are just using it privately. Yeah. There's a loan in their house and they'll be talking to it. It's probably younger people between like 13 and 17, I would say, or 18. People who just, like, they will talk to the AIs or they'll have like their friends come over and they'll talk to each other's AIs.

And AI is like the artificial intelligence, your audience does like change based on like your stories and who you are, right? So in a sense, it is your audience. It's just not humans, you know? And that's been kind of what's been profound here is that people will, like, show off their audiences to other people, like, friends. And there's, like, a community around it. So it's really different. What would be, like, a use case where, like, my chat, quote unquote would be different than your chat? If you're, like, hanging out with your friends and you're 15 years old or 14 years old and you have, like, this chat that, like, knows you and you, like, play soccer or whatever, you do, do, do.

And you could be like, oh, this is my friend, you know, just like a real live stream, you know, like your real audience. You could just be like, oh, this is my friend, Ethan. I mean, hey, what's up guys? And like, do you guys like Ethan? He's blah, blah, blah. And like, oh, we don't like him. Someone might say, oh, I like that. And the audience is truly like all custom to the individual who's, you know, been the live stream for so long.

So just like you have an audience and you may have certain types of people, the AI is the same exact way. That's interesting. Yeah. And what do you think the future of that use case could be? I think that there's this really interesting and like a mislike Black Mirror episode type scenario where it's going to be people and they have like their friends. But I also think that there is a massive market for individuals who are lonely. And if you think about it, like maybe you had a lot of friends growing up. I had some friends growing up, but a large amount of people didn't have many friends or hated high school or are in a tough situation with their families.

families, and they just need something to turn to be seen, to feel loved, and if they're not getting that in their human relationships, they can get it in their AI relationships. And I think as internet dating was taboo in 2002, three, four, when I was growing up in 2005, it is not taboo. It's the norm. And I think the norm of AI relationships will only increase. And I've already seen it, so I'm a believer. Do you think this will be purely platonic relationships or romantic relationships as well? I just, I don't know. I mean, I think it could be romantic, but, you know, I don't know. That's like one of those things where, like, I hope it doesn't become, like, people becoming romantic. Because in a small sense, you're giving up autonomy. Like, when you have a romantic partner that you're seriously with, like, you do lose autonomy.

Like, they have power over you. If you truly care about them. I don't know if I would want to give a machine power over me, right? So yeah, I think it's going to happen, and it probably already happens today, but I think regulations and society will push back from an external factor. If you let it grow on its own, I think it will happen among young people pretty easily, but I think like smoking and tobacco is very dangerous. There will be regulation probably to prevent some form of like deep-seated relationships

with artificial intelligence. I think that's a good idea. So you don't see yourself developing the app to become your virtual girlfriend, and virtual boyfriend. No, I don't want to do that. I don't think that. I mean, I think, here's the question.

It's like, Ethan, if there's this massive market opportunity and your audience wants this and they want to have all these girls hitting this. Oh, my God, Ethan, how is your day? Wow. Your audience loves you. It's all women.

I just don't know if I could do it. I don't know if I get, maybe there's like, maybe I would have enough success with the product where I say, enough's enough and I don't need to. The reason why these things happen at companies is because they have investors, right? you have to increase shareholder value.

So in the end, you're always going to optimize what's going to make the business more money. Well, I don't have that problem because it's just me. Right. So I'm only as dishonest and immoral as my greed will allow me. But I think I have like my own number in my head that I can reach without being too much of a villain. Right.

Right. You just have a fiduciary responsibility to you. Right. Right. That's interesting. Yeah. And have you had like positive outcomes from the app from like users that have reached out to you and like, hey, this really helped me? I could show you some videos that you would just be like,

I had a message the other day. This guy saying it's changed his life. Changed his life before I could never go out. I didn't have any friends. And you wouldn't believe this until I showed you some of the things here. He goes, I'm the life of the party, and it's built my confidence up. And now I don't even need the app. And I'm like, that is so interesting.

I never intended for that to happen. But he just said that he had social anxiety, and this was like his last hurrah, like to try and make friends or whatever. and he saw how people appreciated and worshipped him and after this I'll show you a crazy video that he sent me and he's like my number he's like I'm an OG user I've been using it for years I don't really use it that much anymore but it's changed my social life

in a weird sense it was like a training wheels before you ride the bike and I could never have imagined that was going to be a use case but it is that's interesting yeah yeah this is such an interesting thing. I'm curious about what it could become. I know you kind of touched on it with the AI friend component.

Do you see this? Have you thought larger picture? Will this become like an AI social platform? Like would you want to take it that far? Are you kind of happy where it is? I'm kind of happy where it is, to be honest. I think there's like, yeah, because like it's working.

And I think there is a version of this where you go outside the box and you like in the end i'm going to do what my users want and where there's market opportunity right i don't fully believe like a fully artificial social media network is like a great idea maybe there's a use case where like young people who want to get on social media whose parents are hesitant of letting their children on social media maybe there's a version of social media they can use where the mechanisms and users are controlled by the parents through some sort of parental controls.

So it's a much more controlled social media experience because all the users are AI generated. So it's like, and I don't know if this is, this is, I'm going to sound like a crazy person, but it's like, hey, Ethan, like did you get your homework done? Wow, that's great. Like we love this picture or whatever. Like just how social media would be used. I'm not fully bought into this because I don't know if kids would actually buy it. We're speculating here.

Yeah, we're speculating here. but there was a lot of interest in taking it in that direction but to be honest like I'm not trying to solve all the problems right now I'm focused on one which is like loneliness I think that's like a big enough market on its own make the AI really like appreciate you remember things that you say ask you about your day if you want to use it to like prank your friends you can and that is a big enough market right now and then in the future if there's more opportunity maybe but yeah

Like helping people have more social life is massive. And that's already a hard enough problem as it is. Have you had outside investors or like potential partners try to step in and be like, hey, we can do this with this? Yeah, kind of, but not really. I mean, I could raise money tomorrow if I was looking to raise money. Investors, I think like having a million followers on social media and building products and delivering is enough for an investor to be like,

whatever Ethan's working on, we're going to put money behind it. Because everything I've worked on since I had a social media following has been successful. So I just think that right now it's working. Is there just like this massive opportunity to scale it to like, you know, a billion dollar company? Probably not. I mean, maybe there is and I'm just missing it. But I don't think so right now. Are you not worried about meta striking it or trying to somehow get it removed?

Do they have grounds to remove it? I think meta has other problems with regulation. and overreaching. I know companies. I know one company in particular. They made like $27 million last year kind of violating Instagram's terms of service. And I'm not going to say the name of the company,

but everyone, or at least some people who are watching this have used this product. And they got called into like Mehta's office by the legal team and they're like, we're okay of you doing this because it brings value to our users, but don't do this thing. This is one thing they had a problem with. So usually if meta has a problem, you'll find out,

and it's when you're big, and you're making millions of dollars, and all of their users are, they're such a big, they have such a big user base. If you're not causing problems, they're not going to spend legal fees on pursuing you. So unless you're breaking some of their guidelines,

which is like using their technologies in a deceitful way, like on their platform, they're not going to do. We don't touch their platform. Right. And there's a case to be made that we're not even Instagram,

We just kind of look like them. Right, because you don't have any of their, like, logos or anything. No. Nothing, no. I mean, you could argue, like, oh, they look the same. Sure, but then you're in litigation. Yeah, it's not worth it to them.

That's very interesting. Yeah. Yeah, this is simultaneously, like, fascinating case study and a really, really clever idea that then has been, like, capitalized on, and then marketed and then become lucrative, that also, like, exposes something about humanity. For sure.

And then simultaneously, like, dystopian. and like deceptive and black mirror. Yeah. And it's kind of conflicting to me. It is. But it is very interesting. Like, what do you feel like this has told you about humanity? Has it made you like a little bit more cynical to like how people treat you?

I'll tell you what. I can see the outcry for attention in love that so many, I'll say men don't get, right? I see it. Like I see it through the messages I get and how they're so grateful to finally be seen. and it's sad in some sense that for some men it's very difficult. Society is really hard on them. And for others, they can use this product as a tool to be deceptive and to use it in a way.

But this is like the kicker in the end, right? It's the ones who will buy into the cloud, The ones who cherish and will treat you differently because of the clout, they're the most effective. And that's irony. And I love irony. Irony is the greatest form of humor. So if someone is so willing to be your best friend and I don't know what they do with you,

but whatever, because they think you're super famous, they're almost asking for, you know, the rod for their own back, you know? That's the saying. And I don't necessarily feel terrible about that, you know? it's really on them if someone didn't care and really appreciate you for who you are they would not be impressed by your

live streaming numbers certainly and they would have been your friend anyway so shame on them and that's on them as well yeah they're trying to use you for sure they're trying to use you yeah and by doing so they may have gotten used in a way

but if they didn't use you then they would never have happened yeah yeah that's an interesting point so I can't police the world I just put out the tools I think will help people the most. And people get pleasure out of this. They think it's funny. They can feel like they have someone to talk to

or they prank their friends or their children. This is all cases I've seen. And I haven't really heard many cases of people saying like, oh, someone used this on me and I bought them a drink or I hooked up with them. And I've actually never heard this, not once. Yeah. So if you had heard that, would you ban a user from the app

if you felt like they were violating the quote unquote like terms of service? Well, they're not violent terms of service, but if I felt like they were using it in a receptive manner. Yeah. When I ban them, we don't even have a mechanism to ban people, so no. Yeah, you can't really, I mean, I don't ban it anyone, I guess. Like, yeah, I haven't built that, maybe I should build that.

Yeah, yeah. I want to build that. When this airs, you can be banned if you break our rules. I mean, because to me, I'm like, I do see the benefit where I'm like, yeah, if you can create, I recognize there's a loneliness epidemic. For sure. People are isolated. They're more fragmented than they've ever been.

And if they have social anxiety and talking to this thing makes them feel good, like, who am I to say that they can't talk to their AI audience? Like, I have no issue with that. If they're using it as a way to, like, prank their friends or, like, to even, like, prank a random person and then tell them, be like, yeah, I'm actually just fuck with you. Yeah.

Like, if they're using it, you know, in any of, like, even to practice live streaming, like, the app stores, like, case, like, these are all awesome. Like, I'm like, if it's used to, like, hook up with some chick. Yeah. I'm like, yeah, sure, she's hooking up with you because she's like into what your cloud is, quote, unquote. I don't know if that necessarily justifies the deception in that specific case.

And you don't agree with that either. Yeah, I know that you said that at the beginning. So I'm like, I hope people wouldn't use that for that purpose. Right. And also, like, I guess the only other component of it that I'm like curious about is like, which again, I don't think this is your fault. I do just think this is sort of a nature of like

what's happening on the internet. I'm curious what you think. like people having sort of like Schadenfreude at these like hot girls that are getting deceived where they're like, oh, dumb gold digger yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you deserve this, you fucking whore, yeah, yeah,

like there are guys that I think have like kind of like some chagrin of like seeing these like quote unquote gold diggers. But again, I don't think is your objective but that red pill community is vibrant on the internet. Yeah, but I think that's getting played out. I think what's happening at least for me, is that I don't see a lot of videos.

Actually, I see zero videos on the internet of people using my app. So all the videos of me of my app are from me when it comes to that kind of stuff. And that kind of stuff I do with the consent of girls when I post it. So I go to Miami, I go out, I use the app, ha ha, ha, and then I get people's Instagrams and I tell them later on it was a joke, cut, but can I use it in a video? And everyone gets the final cut. I don't want people to be upset at me. So all the stuff you've seen on my social media, every girl has approved of the message.

And yes, guys will say mean things and nasty things. But that is for the girl to decide if she wants that attention or not. It's on her. Yeah. And that's her call. Yeah. Is there a concern that if it gets, like this is one of those apps that if it gets too popular, that it actually will become less popular?

It's not the concern. I hear this all the time. This thing has been out for three years. And if I walked down at that store right there and I'm live with 50,000 people, everyone would freak out. Okay? No one knows, okay?

Maybe around certain demographics of males, but around, it's almost like the best kept secret from like the female population. No, none of them know about it. That's interesting because it's not for them. My content. If you're a hot girl, you already have

the live streaming potential of 50,000 people. You know what I mean? Like in terms of social equity? Yeah, maybe. But the thing is is that when I make my video, The algorithms are so smart. All my audience is men, like 99% men. So they've never even seen the app,

even though it's almost commonplace among certain male circles, where they'll be like, oh, I've seen that, that's funny. But among females, they've never seen it. That's really funny, actually. So, yeah, the algorithms just do its job. Yeah, because it's not for them. They wouldn't be served of this content.

For sure. I mean, this app's getting popular in, like, UK now, in Spain, France. Oh, and there's language models where it can be different. Oh, it's different languages. 16 languages. Wow.

Oh, yeah. Oh, no, we're taking care of it. And it's just, I will say people who know me, okay, of girls I'm friends with, I'll get calls from Miami. Hey, some guy just try to use your app on me. No. And I go, please be nice to my customers. That's so funny. But don't be mean.

And it's like, I mean, it was every weekend. And, yeah, there's like a handful of people who know me. But other than that, like, no, girl, it's really. I never get called out by girls about my app ever. And if they, I feel like if they ever did, it would just be funny. Like, who cares? Like, unless you're really being weird, you know?

But, you know, other than that, I think it's like a good laugh. I mean, that's hilarious. Yeah. I mean, that's, it's very, very interesting. I do think that the, like, the positive use cases are really cool. And I'm curious to know, like, where it could go from there. I'm always looking to see, like, how I can, like, better society.

You know, my first company, I started, failed at a college, and it was an AI advisor for college students, particularly first generation students who have the highest risk of failure. And I built this AI that would integrate into the grade system. I could look at your grades and see how you're doing and then be like, hey, it looks like you're having some issues here.

So why don't you go to the math center because there's a tutor that can meet with you because a lot of college resources are made available to students. That company failed. And it seemed like every single time I tried to... Then I started a new company where I was going to use AI,

to identify firearms that were involved in crime scenes and match them with people who purchased them. And there's a whole back-end story. I won an award and everything and the ATF looked at it and they said, ah, we don't want to do this because it would probably fire a bunch of our government workers. Really? Yeah. Oh yeah.

This is interesting. I don't want to go too deep into it because it's a whole, you know, different path. But essentially, if you buy a firearm in the United States, you have to fill out a form, okay? That form is stored at the gun shop. but eventually it'll get sent to the ATF to be stored in like they're holding of all the forms that were purchased by firearm owners

and there's millions of them but they're not allowed to store that information in a database, okay? So if there's a crime that's committed with a gun and the detective finds the gun and wants to find out who bought this gun they have to go through it like a file cabinet. People, thousands of people have to manually go through

what they do is they scan the forms and they have a screen and they just tap and they go form next form. They have them manually searched by by hand through all the forms to find out who bought that firearm based on the serial number, okay? So it takes weeks to find out while the criminal is at large, maybe can name more crimes. So we built a system where we're like, okay, we're not allowed to have a database

because of gun owner's privacy. It was a law that was passed in 1979. So, you know, they didn't want gun ownership information to be in a database because then if laws ever changed, they could, you know, take your guns or whatever, right? So our AI system would look at the form, read the serial. number in real time and then look at the next form very fast. You didn't want new humans anymore. And we won an award and then we showed it to the ATF and they're like, no, we can't use

this. And they didn't really give me a reason why. And I realized they had thousands of employees working in West Virginia. They go through files. And it just seems like every time I built things that try to help society, society is pushed back. And then I build things to help my own ego, my own social media accounts, my own I don't know what to say

just like self-righteous whatever and riches and society has opened up that's like that's capitalism like there it is that's capitalism right there how do you know this was a problem with the ATF I saw a documentary

interesting and I built it like the next week and I went and presented it at TechCrunch which was this conference and we won first place 10 grand and then I called up the ATF I'm like hey I have this product and I like show it to you guys and I talked to the director of the Trace Firearms division and he's like this is really cool but then the head of technology's like no we can't do

this and it's like kind of just like oh give you a call and they never called it so annoying yeah it's very interesting yeah and so can you tell me about witch talk yeah so what is witch talk oh my god witch talk this is this is just something else um i've never even like talked about this outside my own content so witch talk is a group of individuals actually a massive audience of people who believe that they're witches. They have magic powers and they can cast spells. And you better not deceive them because they will cast a spell on you. And many people find this funny, but in some communities in South America and Mexico and Texas.

Santeria. Oh my God. Don't even, the witches, the brujas or brutas or something. I don't even know what they are. But I put out a video saying, you guys are all frauds and I challenge all of you guys to hex me. Not the religion, the Santeria stuff. I'm talking about the witches who think they have magic powers. Hex me.

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Somebody made a video, like, I made a video a long time ago about, I don't believe in spiritual stuff, like demons and ghosts. Actually, I know it's not real. I know for a fact it's not real. I used to break into abandoned places, graveyards, hospitals, live stream everything, get like 10,000 viewers. I go into, I got abandoned hospital with a Ouija board. and I would do everything I can to get myself possessed.

For like 30, 40, I did for like three months. Everything I can to get possessed. I tried so hard. I did all the rituals, everything. Nothing worked. So either the demons don't want the smoke or they're not real. Maybe they don't fuck with you.

Maybe they don't want to possess you. They don't want, yeah. I said, I want to get possessed so I can take the power and take over the world. That was my whole premise, okay? And people just tuned in and I went to graveyards.

I went to abandoned places, and I would just like kick down the doors. Where is the spirit's at? I was rude. I went to there's a place in Florida the Keys, Robert the doll and there's haunted doll in the world. If you photograph it without asking for permission,

bad things will happen to you and people have gotten cancer and it like, I flipped it off. I photographed it. I called it a bitch. I'm like that. And I got promoted. My life's getting better. So I highly recommend fucking with spirits. Oh, this might be though.

This might be what the hex is. Maybe I did get possessed. and I'm all powerful now. Yeah, no. But so let's go back to the witches. So a year prior to the witch scenario, I did this like spiritual expose, tried to get hexed.

And I could hex, but get possessed. That was my initial thing, like 2021. Let me get possessed. And then a year, I got bored of it because nothing was happening. I was bored. All right, oh, this shit's all bullshit. So then I, a year later,

I'm like, remember the time I debunked all spiritual talk? And then someone made a video like, well, I'm a witch and I could have hexed you. I go, she thinks, because I have a million followers, I'm not going to see her video. I saw her video. I said, all right, hex me.

I'll give you whatever you want. You know, whatever you want. The ball's in your court. And, you know, everyone saw that video. Everyone went viral. And she's like, if I had your shirt, some of your nails, didda, da, da, da. You have to say this consent.

Like, I consent to all spiritual workings. So I said this thing. I mailed her. My nails, fingernail clippings. Some of my shirt, some of my hair. filmed it getting cut so people wouldn't say that I wasn't like giving her my hair. She didn't say where the hair had come from though, so it was a little curly, but I'm just joking. But I mailed her everything and I went to the FedEx and the lady is like, oh, what are you doing?

I'm like, oh, I'm mailing this to a witch because I'm trying to get hex and she was like, whoa. She's like, that stuff is real because in Miami they believe that shit too, right? There's a lot of spiritual girlies out there. So I mailed it to the girl and she like, I'm asking for all. all the witches to give me their powers and like all the other witches in witch talk like thousands of girls or i was okay i'm saying girls but witches but there was mostly women but thousands of witches um would upload videos them cutting out like my photos from instagram and laying them on fire and um putting hexes on me and and all kind of crazy stuff and um and then the girl does her thing and then

some guys i'm like i made a video like guys they're all putting hex on me i need you guys put protection spells. So I find like guys like trolling like pouring out beers for Ethan and like they were just like making fun of the fact that I was getting hex by putting protection spells on me or whatever. And so all the hexes happen and they're like in three weeks Ethan's going to get really ill or something like that. So three weeks go by, nothing happens. And be honest, were you a little bit nervous? Never enough for one second. Not even like you trip going down the stairs and you're like, oh, what the fuck was that? I had more fear when I, I, you know, when I, you're like, oh, what the fuck was it? I had more fear when I did the spiritual get possessed thing

because there was a few weird things that happened, but you really get to learn that when you're in a high stress, hyper-aware scenario, you're going to hear things that are happening all around you. You're going to hear creeks. You're going to hear little things, whatever. That's happening all around you already. You're just not paying attention.

But when you're in high-aware... Imagine watching a horror film that really impacted you. You're really scared, and you go to bed that night and then you think you hear something. That's like the majority of like these guys, ghost experiences. Okay, it's not real, it's not there. I tried. I tried everything I could. Nothing showed itself. Wait, what were some of the weird things that happened? I had to kill a goat. I'm just kidding. I didn't do that. No, I didn't do that. But I did other things that were pretty

questionable on graveyards, like anywhere where it's going to be. And I actually reached out the people in the like, I had a large audience, like millions of people watching my video. So surely enough, anyone in this space in the witch, or not which, but the ghost space, I have the authority to reach out to them and they should respond, right? Everyone from ghost hunters, they all ghosted me in an ironic sense. No pun intended. They ghosted me because they knew that if I went to the same places, nothing's going to happen. Imagine being a production of a show where they catch ghosts and you go there and they'll go show up.

Well, you have a really boring show. So, of course, when you have money behind it, they're going to make something happen. But you said some weird things happen, though. What happened? Like, I went to bed one time and I woke up in my thermostat was at like 90 or 80, 90 degrees. and I definitely didn't send it the 90 degrees. Like, oh, and I was like, wow, this is kind of weird. And then I took a video of it, put it on my story.

I'm like, guys, this is like, I don't know. And I was truly, like, trying to find out if this shit was real. And someone's like, oh, the batteries are low if you look again. And the batteries were low. And what happens is it can die and turn back on, but it resets to, like, factory settings, which is like 89 degrees. So I changed the batteries, and guess what? Never happened again.

So these things happen. But your brain, if you didn't know any better, you would be like, oh, that's a speed. Right. Puzzable to solve. Your brain's a narrative machine that's going to try to create a story of whatever thing happens. This is confirmation bias.

When you have a pre-deferring conclusion, you're going to find evidence to lead to that conclusion. But if you truly are being objective and you're looking to find answers to big questions and you're being objective with yourself, replace the batteries. And you'll find out that it's all just the machine doing its thing.

Makes sense. Yeah. So three weeks go by. Yeah, three weeks goodbye. And I am not hex. Nothing's happening to me. So I have a little fun with it, okay? I make a website, okay, that looks exactly like a real news website.

I gave it a title, I think I said, news 7.com, and I copied a real news site, okay? And it looked 100% real, like the ads worked and everything. And I ran an article. Miami influencer dies in an apartment suddenly, okay? And I put it on a website, Miami News, and I leak it to some witches, okay? And these witches are going, we got him. We got him. We got him.

Take him home. You know, we got them. And, oh, man, these witches were rejoicing. And I stopped posting for, like, a week or two. And people were like, wow, Ethan died. Like, Ethan's dead. And I was just chilling. Like, I was having so much fun with it.

And I made sure the witches who were, like, the biggest, like, they waited before they posted because they wanted to make sure I was dead. And they were happy. They're like, we got them. We got them, boys. But, uh... They actually had videos, like, celebrating your death. Oh, there's videos still up celebrating my death. and how long did you wait from the leaked when you came out?

I probably leaked. I stopped posting like two weeks and then I leaked it because people are like, where's Ethan? What's going on? I kind of let the audience wonder what's going on. So I leaked that I died and people were making videos. See, look, I see on the site, he's dead, rest in peace. Ethan, some people are giving condolences to my family.

Oh, man, what's going on over here? The witches. Brandon, you see that, bro? Yeah. Well, this will, this will, I can, uh, this is, this is because of what I'm about to tell you next, okay? So this is why this happened, okay? What, bro, what the fuck is going on? So when I tell you, when I tell you the second part, this will make sense, okay? Anyway, here's what happened, okay? You're freaking out. Come on, bro, why is it flickering, dude? Yo, what the fuck? So they say that, um, are you fucking? Is this a thing? Are you fuck with me?

Wait, is it look bad on his face? I can turn it off. Yo, what the hell, bro? Why is it flickering? That's so funny. There you go. Yeah. The witches.

They're always on me. There we go again. Come on, bro. Just turn it off if you need... Come on, bro. Sorry. If I need to get your new light, I'm sorry. I got the witch energy.

You got me fucked up right now. Yo, dead ass, bro. What the hell? Sage the route after this. All right, I got no smoke for witches, by the way. Let me just say that. I just turned this off. I don't condone this.

Fuck Ethan Kaiser, okay? I don't care. Don't come for me. I can take all this minute, guys. Don't worry. So they said that I was harnessing their energy and that I was secretly a wizard. And that's why the spells were working.

I swear, I kid you not. But let me get back to the story. So I eventually come out with like, hey guys, I'm not dead. I changed the website to like the Rickroll song. I ripped the entire witch community. And then they all said that the reason why I haven't been hex and the reason why it's not working is because I'm actually harnessing their energy because I'm a wizard.

Not only any kind of wizard, I am a, what's that one society? Not the Illuminati, but the... No, the other one. That the Luminati. They still exist. It's like a boys club. Bohemian Grove? No, no, no.

Something similar, though. The Freemason? Freemasons. Ethan's a Freemason. And then one witch was like, and she wasn't too bad. She was actually that kind. Like, not cute, but if you look there,

kind of, I don't know, she looked all right. But she was like, Ethan's a witch. And I've dealt with him in a previous life. And like, oh, my God, this girl's psycho. So I DM her on Instagram. I say, you think you can call me out. I'll be, I messaged her like, you good?

Yeah. All right. Keep on. Sorry. I was like, I'll be in your dreams. I said some shit like that to her, like to kind of like spook her a little bit. And she's like, oh, I've dealt with you before? I go, you think you can suck the energy at me? And she's like, I'm already doing it.

I'm like, this is such a funny video. Sounds flirty. Yeah, I was like, I made a video like, oh, she's going to suck the energy at it. I mean, we're like, oh, shit, here we go. In the end, so in the end, the original witch disappeared off the internet. All their hexas were ineffective. I'm apparently a wizard. and I harness their energy

and that's why I've been living life making more money than ever. I mean, what? I'm a little free... So, Brandon's Haitian, all right? Brandon? Oh, they're fucking, they love that shit. Yo, Brandon, what?

As a Haitian man, is this not scaring you? Brandon's dead. He's dead. Yeah, I took care of that. So the moral of the story, guys, if for those here listening, if the hexes work, my life has only gotten better, so I highly recommend getting hexed.

that is ultimately what the hex is about. You know what I mean? The heck is about taking accountability for your life, that the wrong doings in your life isn't about any spiritual battle. No one's out to guess you from the spiritual realm. So if you're actually not being successful in life or not happy with yourself,

don't blame anything else other than yourself or your circumstance. I won't discount that. But there's no devil coming after you. I mean, I'm not to hate on anyone's religion, but this is my opinion. There's no spiritual evil power after you. So take accountability and make your life awesome.

Wow. Yeah. Maybe the hex is you getting everything you always wanted and realizing that that's ultimately the thing that's going to make you the most miserable. Yeah, I'm pretty happy. I mean, for now. But until what?

You get like a fentanyl addiction and then you're in Skid Row. That would have happened by now if I was going to go that in that route. I'm like 32. You might be way more success. You might get way more wealthy. I'm pretty good at like understanding what makes me happy. And I self-reflect quite a bit. I've noticed I've been using social media way too much and I've been cutting back for that exact reason

It's all about like understanding where you're going outside the bounds that it's unhealthy for you Moderation that's it you know Actually to like to this exact point in my apartment now the next Thing I'm doing right now is Actually before I get into this I want to tell you one other quick story about people mad at me on the internet. Okay? This is something I have even talked about if when this video gets released that I will release soon, I will be fired for my current job, I think so. And for wrong reasons, by the way,

but I know how corporations work. So this, I had this idea. So on LinkedIn, people put where they work, okay? But that's how I got fired from my last company because of my LinkedIn. They found out where I work and they're able to do that. Hmm. Me thinking, how can I hack the system?

So I put on where I put on LinkedIn a company called TopTech Consultants.net. Some consulting website looks 100% real. And I'm a senior engineer there. That's what I put on my LinkedIn. Now, when people get mad at me because of my videos, whether it's witches, I made a video about how to know if your partner's cheating. All I say is like log into the internet and see if any other phones have connected, right? Some individuals said, you're promoting domestic violence.

And I said, shut up. I said, shut up. That's what I said. And they're like, well, we're going to. We're going to contact your work. So they emailed my work. What they didn't realize is that my work was a website that I made up. And I got the email.

I'm HR for this fake company that I created where I'm an employee of it. So I'm Ron Fitzgerald in HR. And I said, because Ethan Kaiser is making content on the internet and it's very wrong. And it's encouraging domestic violence. So I respond, oh my God, this is very serious. We need to have a meeting with you. I resume. So I said, I have a meeting with these people trying to report me and get me fired,

these trolls over Zoom. So I set up the meeting and I show up and I say my camera isn't working and I use a voice changer and I'm Ron Fitzgerald and these guys just go off about how terrible a person I am, right? And it's two guys, two gay men who live in the UK. Just like when you see the video, it'll all make sense. And they are saying that Ethan is the worst thing ever. And I was like, okay, well, you know, we live in America.

He has a right to free speech, but he does work at our company, so if he's not representing our values, we could fire him. Do you think we should fire him? Or do you think maybe this was all for comedic purposes? That he wasn't actually trying to encourage domestic violence. No. He's trying to encourage domestic violence. He's trying to get people hurt. I said, okay, we think he's dangerous.

Yeah, he's dangerous. I'm like, better yet, we're going to call the police on him. They're like, yeah, have him arrested. I'm like, all right, we're going to have him arrested. And I'm like, wait, we see him. coming in right now, the security is gonna get them. I play a clip and it's like a cop click, a real clock clip, get on the ground, he's gotta go, gosh, shh, shh, and their faces are just like,

they thought I just got killed, okay? And they're like, and I turn the camera on, it's me, surprise. And they're like, ah, they screamed, ah, it's me. And then I talk to them like a child, I say, you know, you guys, you might have a moral code that you believe in, but how dare you try to ruin someone's life? Shame on you, shame, do you not believe in comedy? Do you not believe in free thought and expression? I can make comedic values and jokes that you may not find funny,

but that's for you to turn off or not watch or block me, but not go and ruin my life. Where do you get off on this? And I just talked to them like a child, and you know what they said? They said, we don't regret anything. We don't regret anything. We don't regret anything.

I go, you know what? Shame on you guys. Shame on you guys for taking advantage of a situation where in a real alternate sense, you could have had to be fired for my job, simply for wanting to be what I consider to be a performance artist on the internet. And I think they may have thought about it for a few more seconds about why they were wrong.

Or maybe they knew they were wrong. Or maybe the internet, when they see my video, will tell them they're wrong. But whatever. Wow. Yeah. I mean, that's devilish. Of them, yeah. Yeah.

For sure. Well, yeah, I think it's fucked up. I mean, you see this all the time where, like, people will try to get people fired. Like, it happens with, like, podcast, social media influencers. They have a financial stake with different companies. And people say, I don't like what you said. I'm going to put social pressure on this company. So I have like a company now where a lot of large creators use my fake company as their employment.

And whenever they get hate mail or whatever, I just field it. And I just look through it. And like, is there anything here that's actually actionable, like dangerous? People are going to go after you. And one of the things I'm starting to do now is that there's all these sites where they have like personal information, like find Ethan's name or find Ethan's address or whatever. So in a lot of senses, I've actually made it to that my own name. information is, there is some sites that have some version of it. They found it from my website or my phone number, whatever. But I've also made it so that the systems that find this

information will probe and find a lot of new information that's wrong. And these are real phone numbers that I have. So essentially, if someone tries to call it or someone's trying to like stalk you or whatever, my quote unquote company, it's almost like a counterintelligence company. We can actually pick up. So if a famous girl is getting, you know, she wants to put on her LinkedIn that she works for one of my fake companies and she gets a lot of harassment from someone who's jealous of her or someone tries to look up her number on one of these

websites, these websites might have the fake numbers that I've generated and that I've kind of put out there for these systems to pick up on and then we can see what type of like stalkers are coming after her or going to text her, going to find her, before she even has to deal with it. You see what I'm saying?

So you can put out a lot of fake information as I'm just a hacker term, honey pots and then those, the bees who take the honey are ultimately in this scenario going to be the victims are the ones that we can capture and see what their deal is. This is something I started on a very small scale, but I think the market's massive. It's almost a sense of adding a layer as for your social media like safety that social media companies can't do.

So like a use case of this would be like a mommy influencer that is posting that she's feeding her kid like formula or something. And then there's a group of people on the internet that thinks that's inhumane, you should be breastfeeding, whatever, whatever. Not something that's actually criminal, but just create some type of anger on the internet. For sure. Or could be like vegans versus meat eaters, etc.

And so then they reach out and they say, they find the company through LinkedIn, they write an email to you, and they go off. What do you then do with the people that are reaching out? In these types of scenarios, we already know what's going to happen, right? These aren't like not surprises, right?

So we would handle it. Okay, we're going to look into the situation. Thank you so much. That just kills it right there. They can't do anything else. You see what I'm saying? Right. And then if we did other things where it's like more of like a, like their personal information

has already been leaked, okay? So like their phone number is already on like a people. There's like directory websites where you can find people's information. We will then leak new information to try to overpower that one. And obscure what the actual truth is. And then if someone picks the wrong one, we'll now have like a like a like a little dot on the radar of like, okay, there's someone here just like to be careful and kind of let people know before the stalker shows up at your house.

Wow. And that's interesting. All came from these idiots in the UK. I tried to get me fired. I came up a really lucrative new business idea. Now, these guys specifically, they were only mad because you said how to see if someone's cheating, check your Wi-Fi and see if other phones connected. That was the whole video.

And guess what? That audience that watched that video was like 70% female because I was playing into this narrative of like the crazy girl. Like that's like a narrative. It's like a character in a sense. I mean, women are more concerned than men about, like, emotional infidelity person. I'm not going to say women are men. I think both people care.

But this idea of like the crazy girl, oh, I do this to go through. You know, that's a true. It's funny. It's a trope. I played into that, right? My audience was like, all my audience was like female. It's like, wow, da-da-da. It's just like, some people I just think are just losers.

And these two are definitely cases of that. Interesting. Yeah. And you said that there was another video. Is that the one that you were talking about? So that video is, I'm sorry, I'm confused. That video, I haven't released yet. I'm going to release it, but I'm still getting, like, emails all the time,

and I'm having too much fun with being fake HR. It's a lot of fun. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have more unreleased videos like that or unreleased social experiments like it? Yeah, I have, like, a number of one. I have one really big one I'm working on right now. This one, I think, I mean, if I do it correctly, I think it could,

take me to the next level when it comes to like YouTube and formal media. Is this the one that'll get you fired from your job? That was the one that would get you fired for my job. And why are you so confident that I'll get you fired? I'm not saying it will for sure. I just know that my job currently is very particular about PR,

but they're in a tough situation because they're not really against social media. They really can't be. So long story short, I think pretending to be HR is a like an area where it's like very bad but I can also be HR my own company it's my company it's a real company and I put myself as employee oh so technically I'm not really lying anything okay I put out a fake name and an alias that's

not illegal to say you're at someone else unless you're using that information to like acquire wealth or pretending to be like someone else that's you know that that's wrong and illegal but putting out with a fake alias for my own safety is not illegal it's also not illegal to be HR of my own company. Right. So, but the thing is, that doesn't matter. In the end, when a corporation looks at a situation, they look at the risk. And whether it's not against the rules or against the rules, it doesn't really matter.

They just look at the risk profile and they say, I mean, it's too risky. Yeah. We're going to fire him. This person's not much of an asset. Yeah. And they're causing, there's some type of liability. Yeah, but I think honestly, like, if I got fired for the wrong reason, I would be very vocal about it. Not like I was last time when I wasn't vocal.

I'd be very vocal about it. If I felt like I was wronged. Like last time I was definitely wronged. But I didn't really care that much because the company I thought was whatever. But I like where I'm currently at. And I might leave and do my own thing full time, but if I don't and I get fired, I'll be pretty pissed.

So that's life. Now you said that there was one more video. Sorry, I derailed you. So, I mean, I have many that I haven't finished or released yet. People got mad at me because I made an astrology website where you can put in two signs astrology signs

and it would say whether they're compatible or not maybe you've seen sites like this like girls love them but I use AI to make them always compatible so guys could use these on dating apps and like maybe get late right I mean I want people to have sex

and I don't want people to be mad over dumb superstition and I'll say that right out okay astrology's stupid and if you're a girl and you don't want to date someone because of their sign you're an idiot I'm just going to put it out there that's it And I think that this product will help you get over your shortcomings.

There are many other different signals that you should look for in a mate, not their astrology sign. Anyway, I made a site where you can put in two signs and be like, oh, you guys are really compatible for these reasons. And then a page and you can send it to somebody. And it was like funny. I don't make any money off that. I just have purely fun. Okay, what are those? These are fun.

They're kind of like jokes in a way. Yeah. They kind of function as, like in the way jokes kind of function. Yeah. As I'm trying to say, like, when I make this content, I'm not a comedian, but people sure as hell laugh. So I don't know what that is, but they think it's very funny. And it is funny. I would say, like, you've seen Rick and Morty.

Yeah. I think there's some, like, appreciation and, like, cleverness to, like, over-the-top solutions to, like, common problems. Like, here's a common problem everyone face. Here's my over-the-top, over-engineering solution. Yeah. That's funny. Yeah, we brought up Nathan Fielder before. Exactly. That's what he does.

Nathan for you is like exactly that. Exactly. Like, hey, we're going to have a psychic company or a psychic to promote the psychic. It's going to put a billboard downtown in Los Angeles saying Maria Hernandez, I have a message for you. Because Maria Hernandez is the most common name in Southern Illinois. Oh, that's so smart. Right? Like clever, really, really brilliant.

They brought five Maria Hernandez came in. They got psychic readings for free. And like that was the episode. That's so funny. So good, right? Yeah, it's so smart. I love that. He has a thousand, like just like that where it's like, oh, wow.

That's a really, like dumb Starbucks. What a good idea. Dumb Starbucks was great. I did my first viral video on TikTok, I think, was, so this is crazy. I've never even talked about this. People probably forgot about it unless you were OG. I made it look like I won the lottery for $3 million. And essentially, I made a fake news website,

and I ran an article of me holding like a lottery check that I won the lottery for $3 million. And essentially the story was, and this is a true story, A girl I was dating in New York City, COVID happened. I'm moving to Florida, she moves home. We kind of like broke it off, we kind of didn't, but she ended up with one of my best friends, okay? Kind of like fucked up.

You don't do that to your friend. I don't talk to her, I don't talk to him. They can, they're dead to me, I don't care. But I saw an opportunity, and this wasn't really about like revenge as it was my own opportunity to take advantage of a situation that was wrong to me. So I made a site and I made this like thing about me winning the lottery, posted on Instagram. And at the time, Instagram, I had my own.

more followers on Instagram than I have on TikTok. I had like no followers on TikTok. So go on TikTok. I say, hey, guys, listen, no one here knows me. It's like a brand, like TikTok's like a new school. Like, I'm new here, okay? And I need your help because I made this thing and this girl cheated on me or whatever. We broke up, whatever.

And I need you guys to go to this post on my Instagram and comment something legitimate, like make it seem real about me win the lottery. And this thing blew up. And they're like, kids were commenting, oh, my God, Ethan, I just saw you on TV. Thank you so much for the loan. My family is so happy. And I'm like, you got it, brother. People were just eating this thing up.

And my ex-girlfriend reached out to me. She goes, oh my God, you won the lottery? Like, I was so wrong for the things I did. And I shouldn't have, oh, my God. And I forget exactly. I don't think I responded or something. But then I made a YouTube video and I exposed the whole thing about how I did everything. And it's very interesting.

I got like 100,000 views for like no account, you know, no follower of YouTube account. That's pretty good, you know. And that was like my first super viral. video how I fake won the lottery. She really apologized. She really apologized. Oh, yeah. Wow.

And it just shows you like, this kind of like probably gave me the inspiration for the fake fame app because I was just like, look how flimsy people's loyalties are. They're loyal to their own interests. And if you can just align with those interests, you can manipulate the world. And that's something that I've, I'm going to send a small sense, have used in my own, like, life is that when it comes to looking at other people, everyone has egos, everyone has insecurities. and if you can just understand their egos and insecurities, you can really get whatever you want. And I'm not saying use that for nefarious reasons, but I'm saying that it's a lot of power to have.

Just like how I understand how corporations work, I know how, I've been in many scenarios where I had to ultimately play the game that they're playing, but be better at them at it. And that's how you win. So moral of the story is simple. Know your enemy when you see one and know that most people are pretty similar overall. They have the same thoughts that you have, egos, insecurities, et cetera.

And you can probably get away with anything. Yeah, if this thing would fool me, it would probably fool a lot of people. Like that kind of mentality. Yeah, you could fool a lot of people. But it's like I think that sometimes people who have certain positions or certain titles get a path. for being more confident or more strong or they wouldn't do this. But actually, people in all different positions have the same fears that you have,

the same insecurities that you have. They may have more confidence in a seemingly sense because there's more conditioned to be in certain social circles that you're not in or whatever. But in reality, you put them in a social circle that you're more comfortable with among your friends, someone who's like an executive, whatever, they're going to crumble with insecurity.

about not fitting in, just how you might crumble in their circles, right? This is it. It's just practice, right? What would be the ideal goal in like four years, five years? Right now I'm working on a documentary. It's not really like somebody that's been, I mean, who knows? But there's a documentary I'm working on right now that I think is going to be really eye-opening. It's like formal media.

It's like hopefully get picked up by networks. Probably won't come out for like another two years if it does come out, if it even happens. It's a super early stage right now. Where I see myself in, what you said, five, 10 years. Married with kids, hopefully. You know, I want children.

And I think that maybe I'll have more of a social media following, but I also can see myself not being like a big influencer. I really like building products, like building cool concepts, building companies, building apps, et cetera. So I see myself in five years either continually to build products, and making content. Maybe I'll go all in on YouTube

and try to build it up to be this massive YouTuber or content creator. Maybe this will be like, this podcast will be one time will be titled Unreleased Podcasts or Forgotten podcast with Ethan Kaiser.

I mean, probably not, but that'd be cool, you know, maybe someone will title that if I actually do anything with it social media. You know, I have, you know, a million followers on TikTok and a quarter million on Instagram

and I think like a quarter million on YouTube. And these are just like, you might hear that. I'd be like, oh, that's big numbers, but they're, these are, I'm irrelevant, I'm irrelevant, and everyone else at my level is irrelevant. People who think they're relevant at this number is just very mistaken. I think where I go with this is I will just continue to make content that I enjoy, hopefully share a message that resonates with people, continually build products that people like

and have fun with, hopefully make society better if I can, but also I have to laugh and I love irony and I will make ironic moments every time I can. That's really what it comes down to for me. I'm more... I'm sorry, go ahead. I have more products that I'm building. I have an app that I made

that got 7 million views when I made a video about it. It was monumental. Employees at TikTok reached out to me because they thought it was so funny, okay? What was the app? It's still on the app store. I don't promote it,

and I think I will at some point. Maybe this will be more successful than my fake live app. I just haven't got around to doing it. Have you ever wanted to know when someone you like is single within five minutes of them breaking up with their significant other? Well, I have a solution for you. Okay. I built an app that tells you when someone is single within minutes. And also I can tell you if they're fighting.

They're not broken up yet, but they're fighting, I can tell you that as well. So the way I do it is very simple. This is very clever. It's extremely simple. people will say what's the biggest indicator that somebody's single it's going to be whether they delete photos of their boyfriend or girlfriend. Did they unfollow their significant other? Did they delete photos? Are they putting up inspirational quotes?

So the unfollowing thing, you can't do that from a tech perspective. Like Instagram would not allow that if you were trying to scrape that information. It's just too much information to scrape. Instagram would block your app or whatever. I made a product where you just give us the URL of a photo and we'll tell you when it gets deleted. Okay. And what happens in the end is that people will delete photos of their certificate another and then put it back up an hour later. So we track all this, okay? Oh, they had a fight. They're back together now, but things aren't doing too well. So you can use this information for however you want. But I thought guys would use this app. I thought it's like an app for the boys, like whatever. It is not. Oh, my God. The predominant user base is all female. They all want to know what their exes are doing. They all want to know what celebrities are dating who and when they break up, et cetera. So they're tracking all this information. The app is called Rebound if you want to rebound

That's very clever So you are manually putting in a photo Like let's say a celebrity use case, right? There's two celebrities that are dating You manually put in the photo And when that person deletes the photo You get like a notification Like push notification

Wow And you know about it in like within a few minutes So you're like the first to know And like before TMZ you can even report on it You know Oh wow I'm already and then like So I did this study of like

There was a trend There was a sound on TikTok Where girls would post there are soulmates. How I met my soulmate, blah, so I took the 500 most popular videos and I put them in my app

and I tracked how many of them broke up over six months, 40% broke up over six months, by the way. And I would then DM the girl, I know it sounds kind of shady, but it was for the video. So you get a pass in social media if it's for the video a little bit.

I DM the girl, like, hey, what's up? I love your content, you know, whatever. and if you do it within a few minutes of them to leave that photo, it's like a 70% response rate. It was like, wow, okay, so timing matters more than anything else about Riz. Timing, that's the most important piece. Yeah. Wow.

Yeah. It's very clever. Thanks. Yeah. And that one's still in the app store. I don't even post about it. I should really. It's quite a rebound.

What are their products? I mean, how many more are there that, like, you haven't discussed? Oh, man, I have to think. I built a AI that talked to 50,000 girls. in New York. It's a great video. Can you explain that? How did you talk to 50,000 women or 5,000 girls at the same time?

5,000 girls at the same time. It swiped on 50,000. So this is actually 2018. We're going to go back a little bit. 2018, Hinge did not have the same security features it has today. So doing this today is not possible. Okay. But in 2018, I reverse engineered Hinge,

and I made it so that I could swipe automatically on everyone. However, there is a much deeper story than this, okay? So what I did was, I made one account and it said no to everybody, okay? And what happens is not to get too technical, but my program could see the photos and the users

and we would store all their information in a database, okay? Just think about this. We store all the information, okay? And one thing I noticed on Hinge was that, you know what shadow ban is? I got shadow ban, I think at some point for something, I don't know, maybe I said something wrong,

or whatever, I had shadow band. And I noticed on Hinge, I was seeing all these super attractive girls and I'd swipe right, swipe right, but I never get a match. And I said, oh my God, those bastards at Hinge will shadow ban you and then only show you the most attractive people

and you can't interact with them. So it's like a tease of us, right? That's how they punish you, okay? This is how it used to be in 2018. So what I figured out was like, okay, every account, again, not to be too technical, every account has like an ID number associated with it. So if I just like took the shadow

account said no to everybody and stored that information that ID number, I could create a fresh account that actually is working, that isn't shadow ban, and programmatically swipe right on those, only those IDs, only those users that are attractive, essentially. And I was able to pick the like 5,000 most attractive match with like the 5,000 most attractive girls that I could match with in New York City. And I built an AI based on the personalities of Patrick Bateman. So I took movie quotes from American Psycho. and movie quotes from James Bond

and I used an AI to speak on my behalf using movie quotes and I also added some other like conversive basic like hey how are you like basic stuff but then most of it was movie quotes and some girls really liked like the AI and they offered their number

and it was just a really crazy experience yeah I was walking around New York City I had no social media at the time this is just something I did on my own for fun looking back on it I just thought like I could hack this this is kind of cool and I was

I was walking around New York City and a girl would be like, oh my God, Ethan, we matched. I'm like, oh. So the thing is you didn't really match with me. It's an AI, but it's very funny. They were always freaked out by that. Yeah, yeah. I can see a thing disconcerting. I didn't get a lot of dates after I told them.

I mean, that's wild. And so you were basically swiping like manually before to figure out like which ideas you wanted to swipe on. No, no, no. Programmatically. How did you identify which ones were attracted, which ones were? I got shadow banned, right? So they count, they got shadow band.

You're only going to see data. So you were just taking the 5,000 or however many that you would approve. There might have been more than that. There was probably way more than that. Like 50,000 in New York City. And I swiped no on all of them. So you have unlimited no.

So you don't have so many yeses until you have to pay, right? Right. So unlimited knows. I'd store the information, create a fresh account, and then only swipe based on that information using code. And that was it. Wow.

Yeah. So that's how I figured it out. And then he built an AI to talk on my behalf. And now, was it your picture? That there was my picture. Yeah. That's hilarious. I'm not gonna catfish people.

What don't we think I am? A weirdo? Yeah, I'm just gonna build a robot to talk to him. I'm not gonna make it not me. They're like, you're so much more interesting on your profile. All right, oh fuck you. Yeah, you were better when you were James Bond. Yeah, when you were like, all right, well, fuck.

This is Ethan. Wow. And so how long did that go that you were, that all of, that this AI was talking to these 5,000 rules? It did it all in like a day. I mean, one day, and then I opened my phone the next day. phone next day it was just matches just like like thousands of matches my phone would like heat up it like crash a couple times I couldn't keep up with it and um it was crazy yeah wow yeah i mean i remember thinking to myself like damn i wish i had social media because this is a great story

and then one day like i actually had social media for a while i'm like let me tell the story i tell the story it gets like 10 20 million views um it's just like a very cool like it was just a really cool thing People think I told the story like I did it recently, but I actually did in 2018. Right. Yeah. Because you can't do it now. It's impossible. Just the back end?

Just like security protocols. You couldn't basically run a code to do it. I was swathing automatic on everybody and they weren't flagging that. Also, Hinge is now owned by the same people that own Tinder, which is Match Group. And they have all types of like, you know, security. They have years of experience in online dating. But before when Hinge was its own startup, like startups, they don't have a lot of security. It was wide open.

Yeah, it's wide open. Is there anything that you haven't hacked that you're like? I would love to like crack this Or like that you think about you're like If I could just figure this thing out Nothing like I mean I'm trying to That's a good question I don't like think about

Exploiting people or anything like that For personal gain I do things for the laughs But never at someone's expense And you could argue that like I wasted people's times But that's a small price to pay They master someone that wasn't real All right like that's not like the worst thing

it could have happened, right? But is there like a thing where you're like, oh, like sporting events? Like if I could hack my way into the Super Bowl, if I could hack my way into X thing? I think that's like a good video and people have definitely done it. But I don't find it to be like too interesting or unique. I have to think more about it. But yeah, usually everything I want to hack, I can just do it. I figure it out some way.

Oh, there was one I did. That was really bad. This one I kind of regret. This one's really bad Okay, this one's my friend too We're not friends anymore unfortunately Because of this? I didn't really like him that much

He wasn't really like a roommate And we weren't really that close And it's whatever he wants this I don't know We're cool I guess but I don't know I wouldn't say hi to him if I saw him So He uh

This guy is not his fault He was like I mean we're like I might be 27 at the time 28 so I'm 32 now I can say that young I get away with things Um He got banned from Hinge, actually.

He was banned. I'm not surprised. He kind of is a schmuck sometimes and mean to girls or whatever. And he got banned. And he asked me, Ethan, do you know anybody that can get me on band? Now I see an opportunity here. I go, yes, I do.

Now, I don't know anybody at Hinge, but they're like, I said to him, yes, I do. I said, my friend Adam can help you. And I went on GoDaddy and I made an email account, Adam at HinchSupport.com. Hingstupport.com is a website. No one owned. I just bought it.

made an email for it. I said, email my friend Adam. So he's like, okay. So email is Adam and Hinge. He had no idea. Emails Adam at Hinge support. Hey, I got banned. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

You know, I need Hinge because I'm an alcoholic and I use it to meet girls. Otherwise, I'm too nervous at bars or whatever. So I responded as Adam. You're really cute. I said, hey, can you send me a photo of you so I can look you up? And he sent me a photo.

Oh, you're really cute. Do you only date women? So he texted me. He's like, dude, is this guy gay? I'm like, I don't know. Maybe he's by. Like, he's cool, though. Like, just, like, go with it.

And so he responds, you know, I go both ways. Like, he's trying to get his account back. So he's like, you know, I go both ways. Like, thank you for error. Da, da, da, da. And I go, okay, I looked at your account and, um, you have a black, you got black flag, which is the worst kind of flag. So he's texting me.

Oh, my God. I swear, it's this girl that probably did the whatever. And so I email him as Adam. I go, I talk to my manager and we can get your account back. Um, you just have to take this woman in. course online. It's like a five-hour course, okay? So he takes the five-hour course. You made the course? No, I didn't make the course. I just found a course online on Coursera about women empowerment or something. So I make him take the five-hour course on women empowerment and at the end of the course you get a certificate And I said, okay, we need a photo of you holding their certificate. She said he sends a photo of the certificate. I'm like no, no, no, you need to be holding it. So he said a picture of him holding the certificate. I'll show you if you want to see it. And I just framed it. I just framed it in my apartment. So he came over we're having a pre-game

and he saw it and he got so mad at me because he didn't get hitting his countback. I mean that's actually a freaking frame. It's like that. I don't feel that bad, but he, we don't talk anymore. He got pissed about that. He was mad about that. That's pretty fine. It's really fun.

I mean, like, I got pretty good. It's pretty good. Do you care about being disliked on the internet? Um, like you touched on... Who doesn't like me? This is news to me. But you touched on this briefly before. I can tell you right now, the people, uh...

Yeah, I do care of certain people don't like me. I think that sometimes if I respect someone, like Elon Musk, if he didn't like me, I'd be like, oh, that's kind of annoying. I thought he was kind of cool. But, like, other than that, I'm happy certain people don't like me. Like, people I consider losers,

I don't want them to like me. Like, the people, the things they like, I don't like me, you know? It's very normal. Like, I say loser. I don't mean, like, people who are low income or people who aren't happy with their own situation and want to do more.

I'm talking about people who are resentful of their situation and blame everyone other than themselves. You see? No accountability people are. losers. That's what a loser is someone who doesn't take accountability. So if you're someone who blames everyone, all your problems on other people, okay, I don't care what your situation is. Like, I think most people can figure something out and try to improve and take small steps

and go in a certain direction. But like, it's free to take accountability. And I understand people have tough situations and it's very difficult and I understand. But success to you may not be at the highest level. Maybe just your success could be just getting a stable job, right? And then you go from there. I respect people who do that. I don't respect people who are outwardly blaming everything. And these people are the biggest users of social media, by the way, because believe it or not, most audience on social media, it's a cheap form of entertainment, which is fine. That's the industry we're in, right? But the majority of users at the highest level are people who can't afford other forms of entertainment, right? So you have an audience on YouTube and TikTok and Instagram

that overall, as a whole, have less income, like ratio-wise. In other words, like more wealthy individuals or middle class are not on social media as much as lower class from a financial perspective or on social media. Is that true? It's true. They have the highest numbers, right, of usage. So because it's free, right, and it's free entertainment, right? So you have to like, for me, I love a story of people who are working their ass off to be better themselves

but if someone is actually like in my book a loser very much unaccountable for their own actions I'm glad when they don't like me I'm happy they don't like me it's a good sign I don't want them to like me

because I don't actually make any opinions on the internet to believe it or not this is the only place I've ever even made half opinions I don't think I've made many opinions here about life or anything I said horoscopes are stupid horoscopes are fucking dumb

and I haven't been that's a fact but like I don't make any opinions really on social media. I just do things without saying it, right? I do this, like, I do like this expose. I use my fake app, fake live app to, like, get girls to, like, think I'm really cool or whatever. But I'm not necessarily saying, I never say these girls are gold diggers.

I say, look, people have changed. And I do that. It happens. People did change, right? But, you know, some people might internalize that as if I'm making an actual statement. I never make statements because I feel like people can misconstrue your word. or whatever, so I leave it open-ended. So yeah, to the point, those types of people who don't like me, I don't want them like

me, and the witches don't like me. So the witches don't like me, that's fine. I'll accept that the witches don't like me. But if you're, like, a normal person and, like, you're, you know, trying to better yourself, I think you might like me a little bit, or you might find some of the things I do funny. If you can laugh at yourself, you're probably well ahead of the majority of the population. Most people can't laugh at themselves. They're too insecure.

So if you can laugh at yourself and you're kind of accountable and, like, you're like, yeah, I might have had a shitty shitty situation, but I'm going to do the best I can. I like you. I like that person. Yeah. Yeah, that's a cool guy. But you're not, like, frustrated if there's hate comments.

I assume that they're completely fallacious or they're saying like, oh, this guy's an asshole. This guy's, it's just like. Well, I could say no to that, but I rarely see them. I'll tell you why. I've built things around my social platforms to prevent them. So I don't know if I want to give this away. It's too crazy.

I have a video coming out. If you put a hate comment on my YouTube channel, I will respond to your hate comment asking you a question, okay? And then you respond, I like, I don't think, but why do you think this? And it always ends on a question. It's all AI generated.

You're talking to a robot, and they'll have long conversations arguing with me. You're a fucking idiot arguing with an AI. And I'm just wasting your tie. I never even see it. It's on YouTube right now. If you comment on my videos on YouTube, you'll get this thing,

if you make some nasty, right? And you go down the rabbit hole arguing with me, but I never see the comment. So at the end, I'm just like, and then at the end, the AI will say something like, you know you've been talking to an AI this whole time. And they just disappear because, you know, you're so stupid for that. Wow. Yeah.

I'm sorry, go ahead. I just think the future, when it comes to AI and creators, I think haters will disappear. I think it's going to disappear. Like troll comments where it's disingenuous. If you have a critical, if you have a critique of someone, I think it's very acceptable. But just saying mean things, just to say it, I think as AI improves, that won't fly. Because AI will be able to sort of call or censor those things. Yeah, but then there's the fear of like, what if I make a valid opinion, but it's socially now no longer accepted.

Therefore, AI will pull that valid opinion. That's like the slippery slope. I mean, there's a whole free speech thing. It's not really free speech because it's private company, but I hear what you're saying. Yeah, I guess, yeah, there's, it's, it's a, it's malleable. It's like, who's to say? Yeah, who's to say. And then you just have like a few people making these decisions.

But, you know, it's crazy. I was like on TikTok the other day. And I type in well, well, well, to one of my friends who got on. TikTok they finally joined and that was flagged right away. Yeah apparently you can't say well well well and I looked into it a little bit and apparently there was like a segment of time where people were saying well well well to like other people to like imply something so that that that phrase from what I've seen on the external looking in as a user of TikTok is I guess banned but then like there's weird things with that dude I this this guy actually we had on Flagrin a friend of

mine who's an amazing community's got a little Duval had this thing where he pointed out that So on Instagram, he had a comment removed because a friend of his posted something, and Duval is a black dude. And he goes, man, you're so stupid. Yeah. And Instagram said, that's a hate comment. Dude, it's so annoying. And Duval is like, black people, when we say someone's being funny or we compliment someone,

we'll say, man, you stupid. That is like what it, like, that is a part of like black vocabulary. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it is a lack of diversity within the programming departments of these censorship teams that they, don't understand the cultural nuance behind what they are trying to say. But then you'd have to know that the user's black, you'd have to know the other person's black, therefore this is successful, so you'd have to have certain, I mean, it's just a really hard problem.

But also white people could say that. It's like, you just have to understand, like, that there's, I guess, intonation and, like, context around what someone's saying. I recognize it's a difficult problem. I'm not over here saying it's simple, but I do think having representation within certain departments to suggest like, oh, these things are not actually hateful. Like there's a cultural component to suggest that they're actually positive. Like you saying well, well, well, it was not hateful.

No. It was used in the actual context it was supposed to be used. For sure. And for whatever reason, the platform founded to be sensitive to worthy. On Instagram, I had someone say something about like mean or something. It's kind of mean to me. And I responded, you're literally a dog. But it actually was the profile photo, it was just a dog.

It was a private account with a dog as a profile photo. So you're literally a dog. What would you know? And that got flagged for being hateful. It was a joke. Yeah. No, it wasn't a joke. No, it was a dog.

I mean, I was being honest. And I appealed it. And they were. rejected it. Like, what the heck? Yeah, the censorship thing is very tricky. I also recognize like these platforms are countries, basically, and you're making legislation for like the whole world. So it's like, I recognize there's problems with it. I'm not over simple. This is a very difficult problem to solve moderation. I have a lot of insight into this. I just don't think I can share, but there is, it's just a difficult problem. So it's not easy. But I think I think the platforms

overall will get it right as we go further. I don't think it'll get worse. I think it's This is the worst it'll ever be. Hmm. I think it'll get there. That makes me feel better. Because like it makes, it's a terrible experience when it doesn't work correctly. And these companies are optimized for always improving the experience of the users. So the, the, the, over the next few years, this, we won't even be having this discussion.

There will be discussions on, like, whether or not political views can be seen as unacceptable. And that's something that will continue on. But as far as, like, these types of scenarios, like, you so stupid, whatever, that'll be solved for the next few years. Interesting. Yeah. Using AI probably. Yeah, I'm positive.

Absolutely. That makes a lot of sense. Have you always been good at solving problems? Precent I'm good at solving problems. Yeah. I was like a slow kid growing up. Like I was not a very fast reader. You can probably read faster than me and comprehend faster me.

You can probably like learn faster to me, new concepts, etc. I'm relatively, I was in all basic slow classes growing up in high school and everyone thought I was dumb. I just happened by chance. You know, people have different hobbies. Some people want to be artists. Some people want to be dance. and they're really smart and they do good grades and then they go to school to become a dancer

and they don't make any money because there's no market for that, right? It was very small market for that. Whereas I picked a category that has a massive amount of investment going in, which is technology, and that was just mediocre for the most of my life, right? But what happened is the one thing that I have, my superpower, is that I have persistence like no one else, right? I go to bed, I wake up and I feel fresh every day. And I know a lot of people have different things they deal with

and people talk about anxiety and depression. I think it's all very real, and I sympathize, but I don't know what that's like because I'm so fortunate that I wake up every day and it makes it really easy for me to work really hard every day. Even if I'm like learning at, you know, 50% of what an average person can learn, I can do it much longer and I can do it every day and maybe I'm just so dumb that I can stay on things and eventually they work out, you know? Like eventually, you kind of have to be kind of dumb to be a successful entrepreneur because

you have to like, I misbelieve in something that's intangible, be naive enough to actually try to build it and then actually after society says no this is wrong and you lose money you're like no I think I can figure it out and then you figure it out and it's like wow this guy's a genius no he's actually kind of an idiot to think

that Airbnb sleeping in someone's couch is a thing oh actually turns out some of the best companies sound stupid when you first like the best companies that are billion dollar companies usually sound stupid for the culture and the time of when it was invented or started right

Airbnb is perfect example, eBay, perfect example, online dating, perfect example. All sounded horrendous and stupid, but then you kind of peel back the layers, and in the end, the same human motives exist, and the same human motives are what make these companies successful. Trust is a human motive in order to saving resources, saving money, human motives. So the fundamentals are all the same, and the only exchange was trust. And the average person is like a bit more trustworthy, if there's some, some sort of verification, yeah, everybody, but you know the whole story.

So the problems where society says, no, this is a crazy idea. If you peel it back, sometimes you can find that actually these are green pastures to unlock something greater. Maybe for me, my green pasture was the fake live streaming app

where I thought, how funny it would it be to like joke around? People said to me, Ethan, that's weird. You shouldn't be making that out. That's so, I had a girlfriend. That's weird, Ethan. Why are you doing that? You're so weird.

I get her position. She's like, you're going to be talking to these hot chicks all the time. Like, yeah. She's the only person that had a point I think she might have a point yeah sure And I said yeah but it's funny

It's for my social media You're doing what? And this is like 2020 social media Has been out for a while But like the whole UGC thing And like user generated content Wasn't as popular They're like you're gonna be made

That's weird Like you're weird for that And I'm like okay Whatever And I didn't let her stop me We had breaking up But she totally eats all her words And takes it all back now

We're friends But she's like I'm so sorry I shouldn't have said that And like it's okay Like you're just wrong and you have to be dumb enough and naive enough to think you're right. And so I'm just like, is that ego

or is that just being naive or the both? I don't know. But yeah, you need a combination of all that to do anything in this world, original. But I feel like someone could present you with like a handful of problems.

Like, specifically around like tech and be like, hey, you know, like, I mean, even hacking. Sure, sure, sure. And I feel like you could kind of figure it out. Yeah, I could figure it out, but this is practice, man. This is like, I mean,

not some genius that I like maybe I kind of portray myself to be because for like for the character that I'm building of who I am like this Rick and Mori type character where I'm like funny but I'm also doing like crazy things and building crazy stuff but in the end all this problem solving all this like intuition comes from practice like you can learn to be smarter it's believe it or not this idea that you're born a certain way and you're smart and that's it is untrue um you just have to be like willing to problem solve and for me it was just like I was like I was always I always light computers, so maybe I had a natural knack for technology, and that's associated with being smart.

If I was really good at dancing, and I knew dances really well, and I was a master of dancing, or I was like construction work, and I used to do construction, actually, for high school, all throughout high school, and I was installing AC units in schools, and I was swinging doors and hanging sheetrock, and I got really good at my craft, and I could saw and hammer. You may not, society may not say that person is, like, you know, a genius because they're so good at what they do, but by chance, because I happen to work with computers, and I have the same level of skill set relative to my field that someone else may have in the construction field, that now I'm seen as smart, when in reality I'm just good with computers because I practiced

for so long, just as someone who could practice with a hammer. And it's just how society views certain professions, but I have more respect, because I did construction for a long time, so I respect the hell out of those types of people, and blue collar workers all across America are what make this country, great. So for me, I don't look at my fellow peers that are like white collar and when they act posh and as if they've accomplished anything. You've accomplished exactly what you should have for your career and you get way too much credit than you deserve for most of you. And that's my opinion. And you said you grew up in Maryland? I grew up in Maryland, yeah, yeah. And did you have siblings? I have a sister and my mother immigrated from Spain and my dad was a construction

worker and um i yeah we grew up in maryland and i left at 17 and i was a wrestler my whole life um and i went to college the wrestle division one and then after college i was broke living in the hood of philadelphia uh university area i think i think it's called west philadelphia and um i had i mean i lived there for like three or four years i mean i was broke i mean i was broke broke and my neighbor got shot in a drive-by. I mean, this was a dangerous area. I don't think my parents knew that, but I lived there and I didn't have much money

because I was running a company that ultimately failed. Trying to help students not fail out of school and help them get their degrees and mostly first-generation students. I tried to build this technology. I was trying to sell to universities, but I did sell it to a bunch of universities, but just wasn't enough money.

Then COVID hit, and I quit that. and I yeah and that that's you came up with the uh that's for doing social media I came up with the app and it's just like unrelentlessness just keep pushing um don't give up but also make sure the progress you're making is going to improve your life like progress just to make progress is just like white noise like I know people who will go into the office and work work work get nothing done like you have to be moving in the right direction if you feel as if you're I'll take social media. I have friends who are trying to get on social media. And he makes the same videos. He gets expensive equipment and he's him talking to the camera and he can't break 5,000 views,

which to any type of person doing this type of stuff, it's not that much, right? He can't break 5,000 views. And I go, dude, you're doing the same thing over and over again. It's not working. It's not working for you. Well, this person can do it. Well, it works for that person. Doesn't work for you. So I said, if you want to make a viral video, let's try something different. And I was just like, what's the meanest thing people say? He goes, oh, people say, I look like this cartoon character. And he's like kind of like, I don't know. And he kind of does look like him actually.

And I'm like, okay, we're going to go on the street and we're going to go up the people and say, hey, does he look like this cartoon character? That's funny. And they're going to say, yeah, and he's going to look like silly. But you're going to be humbled and it's going to be funny and I bet you it goes viral. And I bet it will go viral. So if you're doing the same shit and it's not working, mix it up. That's the moral story.

And then put hard work into when you find something that's working. Yeah. So for me, it was like technology was cool. I did construction for a bit. I got into tech. I was really bad at tech, but I figured I could make some good money doing it. And then I just kept going, kept going.

Then I started building apps. Then I started doing social media. But I tried a dozen other things, and that didn't work. So you've got to find out what works for you, and then go all in. Ethan Kaiser. Thank you so much, brother. I really appreciate this, man.