Digital Social Hour - TikTok Riches: Why Short Clips Pay More Than You Think | Mark Dohner DSH #718

Episode Date: September 13, 2024

Step into the world of TikTok riches and discover why short clips might pay more than you think! 💸 Join Sean Kelly in this episode of Digital Social Hour as he chats with Mark Dohner about the unexpected journey from YouTube vlogs to TikTok fame. Dive into Mark's candid stories of podcasting, viral content creation, and the surprising financial rewards of mastering social media algorithms. 🎥✨   But that's not all—Mark opens up about personal challenges, from battling creative burnout to navigating life in Los Angeles, and how he turned things around. His insights are packed with valuable lessons on resilience and innovation. 📈   Don't miss out on this engaging conversation filled with laughter, revelations, and insider secrets! Watch now and subscribe for more eye-opening stories on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! 📺 Hit that subscribe button and stay tuned for more exclusive insights and thrilling tales! 🚀 Join the conversation and be part of this incredible journey!   #HowToGrowYourPodcastListeners #HowToIncreasePodcastSubscribers #HowToMakeMoneyOnTiktok #HowToGetViewsOnTiktok #HowToGoViralOnTiktok   #HowToStartAPodcast #HowToGoViralOnTiktok #Podcasting101 #TiktokGrowth #HowToGrowYourPodcastAudience   CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Intro 00:33 - Mark Dohner 01:38 - Burnout Recovery 03:09 - TikTok Trends & Podcasting Insights 06:27 - Exploring New Features 09:59 - Your and George's Show Dynamics 10:46 - Your and George's Falling Out 11:31 - Meeting Logan Paul 17:55 - Addiction to Call of Duty & Red Wine 19:10 - Struggles with Alcohol Addiction 25:17 - Financial Issues During Depression 26:23 - Nude Only Spa Experience 28:17 - Dream Podcast Guest 28:51 - Mark's Music Journey   APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail]   GUEST: Mark Dohner https://www.instagram.com/markdohner www.youtube.com/@MarkDohner https://x.com/markdohner   SPONSORS: Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly   LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So my house got broken into. I come home from Lake Tahoe. I walk in the house. Everything's fine. I go up to my bedroom. My whole room is ransacked. Drawers open. All my clothes are on the floor.

Because I make YouTube videos. I'm like, are you guys pranking me? Like, are you guys filming a prank or something? And they're like, no, what happened? Messed me up. And then like a week or two later, and my phone rings. And it says my name is calling me. All right, guys.

We got Mark Doner here today. Thanks for coming in, man. Thanks for having me, dude. Are you still in Germany or are you left? No, I'm in Los Angeles. I lived in Germany for four months during the winter. Horrible decision. Don't ever do it uh but yeah back in

la and now i'm in vegas baby all right yeah poker tonight yeah my first time playing it's literally your first time literally i've never played a hand of poker in my life dude i've been like testing uh on like the apps and stuff yeah a lot of patience i'm learning a lot but tournaments are a little different this one is a turbo so what's that mean it's only six hours so you're going to be going all in a lot basically really yeah because typical poker you could take your time yeah you know cash game i feel a little disrespected heading into this tournament really i'm the lowest odds to win what were your odds plus 7500 holy crap i thought i was the lowest what are you at uh plus 5000 dude the disrespect maybe because they know they just have an inkling that i've never played i mean it's my third the disrespect maybe because they know they just have an inkling

that i've never played i mean it's my third time playing plus so they know my table is insane i got three pros on my table see i think that's a little unfair it's a celebrity poker tournament why are we putting pros in i'm with you on that that's too much of an advantage for the other people should be all amateurs right all amateurs yeah man level the playing field you're all in on your pod right now right yeah that's the main thing for you? Yeah. Doing the podcast, and I just started back up on my YouTube vlogs. Okay.

I did daily vlogs for two years. Damn. Yeah, honestly. I look back at that part of my life, and I'm like, how did I film my life every single day for two years? The burnout must have been insane. The burnout was crazy. And then I stopped for a little bit. I started up the podcast, and then did maybe two, three a week and then a podcast a week. And then I honestly took a break for a while. I just felt creatively burnt out. And, you know, when you film your life every day for two years straight, you kind of just start to run out of ideas. And I'm sure, you know, well, you have, you know, multiple guests, but the podcast, you kind of start talking about the same thing. So I just took a little bit of a break and, but now I'm inspired

again and back on it. So yeah, definitely with podcasting, if you have on the same type of people, it could get repetitive. Exactly. You end up just like recycling stories too. That's why I mix it up. Like today I had a chess player on, I had a music producer on, I don't ever do the same topics. I like that about your podcast. because I feel like a lot of podcasts are very driven by the same guests. You know, everybody has Jordan Peterson on or they have Theo Vaughn or you know what I'm saying?

It's like, it's really cool to see like interesting people who aren't necessarily like the guy. Right. You know what I mean? And I'll mix those in. It's the game we play. We got to get views,

but I won't. Yeah, I won't. Because some podcasts are the same 10, 20 people. Exactly. Especially the won't yeah i won't because some podcasts the same 10 20 people exactly especially the comedy ones they just rotate they cycle the same people yeah did you feel like that was happening with your show not so much um i guess the reason i started my podcast back up is when i initially did it what i learned was when i was having guests on that i was interested in talking to it wasn't performing well and this is before youtube shorts this is before tiktok yeah um and then when I would just talk to my buddy, George, they were doing amazing. People love to see me and my buddy, George, George Janko. He has his

own podcast now. So we did one together. So I just kind of more so leaned into that because it was being, it was a little more successful for me. And then, you know, TikTok came around and I'm like scrolling through TikTok one night and I'm like trying to figure out what's next for me. I'm always scrolling through TikTok, and I'm seeing podcast clips. This is when I was in long distance with my girlfriend at the time. I was bored. I got into bed. I was scrolling through TikTok. Then I threw up Instagram, and I saw a buddy of mine, Spencer Stone, who I had on my podcast.

It was the eight-year anniversary. He stopped the Paris train attack. There was a terrorist attack in paris on a train he stopped it got stabbed gun jammed twice like he has an insane story so he posted eight year anniversary of that and i was like you know what i'm bored right now i have nothing to do i'm just gonna go edit a clip so i get up out of my bed i go edit a clip it's like maybe six seven o'clock at night i wasn't going to bed i was just chilling a bit yeah um edit the clip and i posted it like 8 p.m 9 p.m and i'm like it's doing horrible because i hadn't posted any podcast clips on my tiktok yet right it's doing horrible and i

was like maybe i should delete it but i was like you know what i'll wait till morning so i go to bed i wake up in the morning and it went viral and i was like oh all right people are interested in hearing this guy's story so i posted part two and that went viral and And I was like, oh, all right. People are interested in hearing this guy's story. So I posted part two and that went viral. And then part three. And then I was like, all right, I have a backlog of about 100 episodes of guests. I'm going to start editing my old episodes down and post them on TikTok. New platform, new audience.

So then I uploaded an interview I did with this guy, Kevin Hines. He jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge when he was a teenager and he survived and he's one of very few survivors and I edited his clip down on a flight back to Ohio actually I posted it on a Spirit Airlines flight shout out the best airline in America um posted it and they had wi-fi on there yeah it took honestly it took like it was probably like it was like a five minute clip it probably took like 30 minutes to upload but i was like i edited it on the plane i'm like i'm uploading this now um and then that one did like 28 million views i was like all right yeah holy crap i was like all right i'm bringing back my podcast because i found what worked i guess right and

for the longest time i didn't really know what worked and it's interesting that you can like have an hour-long episode of a podcast and it doesn't maybe do too great, but then you upload a 60 second clip to TikTok and it just reaches a huge audience. Dude, I'm in the same boat as you. I'll get like 10, 20K on the long form, which isn't that great compared to the bigger shows, but my clips just get millions. And it doesn't make sense because the content is obviously there. It's all about the algorithm and the audience. So it's like your hour-long episode has quality content in it. So why aren't people watching that?

I think it's like that's something that I feel like YouTube has to figure out. I think I'm partially shadow banned because I have on some controversial people. But yeah, definitely YouTube shorts do decent for us. But YouTube long form is just like not the best. Yeah, I think that's what they push. And that's kind of like, that's what I learned later on, actually. So when I first started making videos, I worked for Logan Paul and I was filming all of his skits and YouTube videos.

And then he got busy and I started making skits. And this was post Vine dying. And this is right when Instagram introduced like 15 second video. So I started making Instagram skits at 15 seconds and they were doing pretty well. I didn't really have a big audience. I had access to a lot of like the Viners because they were all living in that 1600 Vine building. So I had some good cameos. They're doing pretty well.

And then Instagram introduced 60 second video. And then I started uploading 60 second videos. And all my stuff was just getting millions of views and i only had like a hundred thousand followers and you know the big viners in the building i remember rudy mancuso coming up to me in the gym and he's like dude how are your videos performing so well i was like i don't know i mean maybe they're just good or whatever but looking back on it when i when a platform introduces a new feature and you attack that feature, they push you. Facts. So I didn't know it at the time, but they just introduced 60 second video. They're

looking for 60 second videos. I'm making 60 second videos. They're pushing me. So that's like the same thing with shorts. You know, they introduce shorts. It's like attack the feature. They introduce TikTok. You can do more than a minute. Attack the feature. Same thing with Instagram Reels. If you just attack the new feature and then you're gonna get pushed yeah reels are crushing on ig for me yeah so tiktok right now over 60 seconds they're pushing yeah that's good to know and then i get notifications too like and i don't know if there's like i've tested it hasn't i haven't really seen anything but if you upload in landscape and it's over 60 seconds apparently they're supposed to boost your views interesting yeah they're doing a bunch of stuff like that.

Dude, the money on TikTok's my highest paying right now out of every platform. It's crazy. It's nuts. I'm making more money off of a one and a half minute clip on TikTok than I would off like an hour long YouTube video. For real, same. It's nuts.

And it's way less work. So easy. Yeah, because for me, I've outsourced editing. I mean, you're an editor, so that makes sense why you're doing it. But yeah, I just wake up, clip will have a million views. I'll get like 500 bucks. It's like, all right.

Yeah, it's a, well, it's interesting because I don't know what it is that I do in my edits because I tried to outsource an editor and it just wasn't clicking. Yeah. And I finally just outsourced an editor and they're doing clips for me, but. It's tough, dude, to find a good one. Yeah, but they finally figured it out. And I don't know if i had like a formula or what because i i do it a little bit different i do i kind of structure them like i structure structure my vlogs i'll have a hook in the beginning and then do like a little intro tag and then get into the question and i think

that like that helps lead with the juicy part yeah first few seconds are key because people will just scroll if they're not interested in two seconds. But what is interesting too, like, you know, you can have them pop off the millions and then the next one does like 3000. Yeah. No, TikTok is so inconsistent. It's so inconsistent. For me, it's like one and out of every 10 videos will hit a million. Yeah. It's like super random. Doesn't make sense. No sense at all. Next video will have 3000 views and I'm depressed. We're talking algorithms over here. Yeah.

But IG is consistent for me. IG Reels, always hit. And how many times do you post in a day? Three to four. Yeah. What about you? Not enough. Yeah?

I'm trying to, well, my Instagram, I'm trying to push my podcast channel. I just, I converted. I had two Instagrams. I had like a backup account. Yeah, yeah. And I switched the name to like podcast. And it's not, I had one finally pop off, did a million views. Um, but that's been a struggle.

Yeah. If you don't already have a following on Instagram, it's very hard. Yeah. Yeah. For me, I spent so much money in seven years on Instagram growing it that it's finally paying off. That's good. Yeah. So you and George had a show before his show. Yeah. So I had a podcast, I called it live in large and then I did a few episodes with George. And then I changed the name to The Tuman Show. Tuman? Tuman. What does that mean? Two men.

Oh, Tuman. But I say it like that because I modeled it. I saw The Truman Show. Oh, got it, got it. And I loved that movie. One of the best movies ever. And I modeled it as like, oh, it's a podcast within a podcast because I already had my Live-in-large one.

So kind of like the Truman Show, world within a world. That makes sense. And we did that for a little bit. And then he got off of it. And then he started doing his own. And he's had tremendous success. I'm super happy for him. Dude, he's killing it.

Killing it. He's got an amazing guest. Just crushing the game. And I'm proud of him for finally finding his lane. That's so cool cool so when he was co-hosting impulsive was he co-hosting yours or was yours before that no we actually did we uh so we were really good friends we had a little bit of a falling out um over the podcast no i wasn't over the podcast just some personal things and then he went and did impulsive and i just went continue to do my own thing and then uh funny enough we we've been in contact a little bit recently.

He hit me up this weekend, so we're supposed to hang out next week. Dude, that's cool. I think it's important to let it go because that shit eats at you. I've had some falling out with business partners. It sucks, too, because we were friends first. That's the worst. It's tough to go into business with a friend and it works out long term. Yeah. I don't think the falling out

was business oriented, but yeah. That makes sense. So how long were you editing for Logan? Funny story. So I met Logan at college. We both went to Ohio University and I was a sophomore. He was a freshman.

And I was making these party videos at Ohio University. Have you ever heard of I'm Schmacked? Yeah. I used to follow them. Yeah. So they used to make all these party videos going to colleges. And I was like, at the time, my school, Ohio University, was voted number one party school in America by Playboy.

Wow. So I was like, I'm going to make a party video, and it's going to go viral um so i went and filmed everybody partying we used to have these things in uh the spring i think it was it's called fest season so they'll shut down a whole street a bunch of college kids that live on that street will host parties you just walk up and down the street drinking doing whatever you want and i'm running around filming it i filmed the the first one. It was called Millfest. I posted it. That was on a Saturday.

I posted it Wednesday. And it gets like 30,000 views. I had zero subscribers. It just was like word of mouth around campus that I made this video. So everybody saw the video. And then the next weekend, there was another street shutdown.

It was called High Fest. So I filmed the whole thing. Everybody heard about the first video. So they wanted to get in this video. So I got a ton more people in this one. And I learned that if the more people you get in the video, the more shares it's going to get, because they're going to send it to their friends like, yo, I saw you. I saw you. I saw you. So I started to get more and more people in the videos because I wanted to go viral. So that video got like 75,000 and it got on like a barstool posted it. And then I learned the power of like, oh, if the media picks

up what you're doing, like you can help grow. grow and like i didn't know anything about youtube i just watched casey neistat videos every single day in my uh bedroom uh oh gee oh gee big inspiration and devin supertramp too i don't know if you know him who devin supertramp i don't know he's like og um but anyway so i made those the first year and they did well and then fest season was over and I was like I don't know what to do because I make party videos and there's no more parties yeah so a year goes by Logan ends up coming to campus I don't know I might be mixing up my years I don't know it's been so long but the next year I was like I'm gonna make the most viral party video ever I I'm a broke college student.

I bought this big bottle of Belvedere. It was a display bottle. It was filled with saline or something. I had to get the cork out. I filled it with Kamchatka, which is the cheapest vodka you can get. I had this idea in my head of a thumbnail. There was a dwarf on campus. They him frat dwarf and there was a guy he had a donkey so I was like I'm gonna have the dwarf drinking this bottle of vodka that's the size of him on a donkey with like a

bunch of girls around him and it's gonna be crazy it's gonna go viral like I put so much money into it I did like a slip and slide intro totally tanked ah and i was like dude fuck youtube like i just spent so much money i mean it wasn't a lot but it was a lot to me in college and it did horrible but anyways what i'm getting at how i met logan getting off track here telling my whole day he was at that party that's how you met him he was at one of the parties he was not drinking he was an underclassman and he saw me filming everyone and that's how we connected and i threw him in the videos and then was he big at the time or was he just big on vine He was not drinking. He was an underclassman. And he saw me filming everyone. And that's how we connected. And I threw him in the videos.

And then. Was he big at the time or was he just. He was big on Vine. Probably had half a mil on Vine. Maybe a mil. Probably, you know, early on. And I don't think I've ever told this story. But I used to.

This is going to sound really creepy. So when I. One day I was walking back from class. And I looked over and. I saw him in his dorm room. He had dorm he had a dorm room and he like had a computer right in front of the window yeah and I was like oh shit that guy lives there so I used to take that route to class from now on I usually didn't take that route because I was like I want to run into this kid and hopefully meet him and film YouTube videos with him yeah yeah never did I saw him at the parties, obviously.

And then I just was like, screw it. I think I DM'd him on Twitter and I was like, hey, bro, I make those party videos. Would love to help you with your YouTube. And then he lived in Cleveland. I lived in Cleveland. So then in the summer, we just went up there, filmed. He moved out to Los Angeles.

He's like, hey, come with me. I was like, I can't, dude. Like, I've already done a couple years of college. I'm not a, you know, I don't have millions of followers. I'm not making the money you're making. So he dropped out. He dropped out, yeah. And he wanted me to come to LA and be his videographer.

And I was like, I got to finish my junior year. So I took enough credit hours my junior year so that I could finish online from Los Angeles. So I took all the, I found out what all the courses that you could take, that you had to take on campus. And I took all those my junior year. And I saw which ones were offered online and i took those from living in his closet on an air mattress in los

angeles while working for him so yeah i flew out here after my junior year of college summer slept on an air mattress in his walk-in closet i had like a tiny twin air mattress clothes hanging above me i'm taking online classes at Ohio University, editing his YouTube videos because he was starting YouTube at the time. And then he had this little Honda Grom because I didn't have a car out here. I'm 6'3", and this bike is literally like, I'm not even kidding, like lower than this table. Holy crap.

I literally, you seen that Dumb and Dumber? Yeah. Bro, I was driving to CSUN from Hollywood on the, uh, the 101. Cars are like zooming past me. It only goes 50 miles an hour. I'm just like going to take these proctored exams so I can graduate college. But yeah. That's wild, man. So you were a day one for him. Not day one, but you know, high university. Before his YouTube youtube that's very early like yeah his youtube took off from there that's cool dude i did i wasn't i mean i was in the vlogs we lived together but i didn't uh edit those you were more behind the scenes yeah i was filming i was helping

to film his skits majority of his instagram skits i filmed and helped edit and then his early youtube videos on the that's cool did you see him taking off like the way he did? Yeah, it's insane. I mean, he's a genius, dude. I learned so much from him and I wouldn't be where I am without him. Like the knowledge that he taught me and just like what you talked about, the first few seconds are important. You know, I would just study him and what he did and how he saw things. I saw things a little different from the technical side than he did, you know, so that's kind of the only like differences we had in that but he is a genius yeah when it comes to marketing and i mean you've seen it i mean with prime yeah billion dollar

company he knows exactly what he's doing he knows exactly what he has to do and you can learn a lot from him yeah impulsive was actually one of the first podcasts i really watched heavily yeah yeah i watched probably the first 100 episodes really you watch every episode you studying it or you uh at the time i didn't have this show so i wasn't studying but now looking back i probably did pick up a lot of stuff from that show you know because he went through a few co-hosts i noticed so that was important to me to pick out a really good co-host and i had three as well that i went through really yeah did you did oh you went through a couple too right yeah i had uh george and then i had my buddy pearson and then are you solo now i do right? Yeah, I had George and then I had my buddy Pearson. Are you solo now?

I like doing the interview solo. And then I like to do the friends episodes. I do it with my buddy Iggy. Got it, yeah. I got more comfortable. So now solo just works better for me. It's important to have someone that can add something. George is a really good co-host.

Oh, yeah. I don't know what happened with their falling out. He was my favorite co-host. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I do know what happened, but i don't think it's public knowledge i thought they thought they publicized it but i don't know i don't think so okay but yeah i mean he's an incredible co-host he's a really good storyteller and i think it's important for him because he he has so much to say so i think it is good that he has his own podcast yeah because he doesn't he

didn't really get like much of a voice on Logan's because it's Logan's podcast. It's tough when there's three people too. Exactly. I mean, you're only going to get like five, 10% of show time. I went through your YouTube.

There's a couple interesting videos I want to talk about. The first one was alcohol addiction. Yeah. You went through that in college? More so COVID. Oh, yeah? Yeah.

I think COVID, COVID was a huge turning point in my life because I'm a very social person. So, oh, what was it, four or five years ago, I went through a breakup, and I really lost myself in that relationship. I put on a lot of weight. That was daily vlog era.

Health wasn't really a concern. It was like you're post-mating food. You're constantly busy uh you don't really have time to go to the gym so i put on a lot of weight went through a breakup and then just got really into self-help and read this book the subtle art of not giving a fuck which really changed my life highly recommend it um and i started going to the gym every day twice a day i lost 40 pounds got in a really good shape nice started to feel amazing mentally i brought back my vlogs I was doing two or three a week I was doing the podcast crushing crushing crushing crushing and then COVID hits and I start posting vlogs and majority of my vlogs we go do stuff and I'm reading the comments and people are like, you know, you shouldn't be out. Like it's COVID,

people are dying. Like you're setting a bad example. So I like kind of let that get to me a little bit. So I kind of, I moved into a house with my buddy in the Valley and started making like a lot of videos from home. He ends up booking a movie in Toronto. He was in the movie, The Man from Toronto. And I'm in this big house in Sherman Oaks by myself and bored at night. So I start playing Call of Duty to be able to socialize with my friends

because you can't do anything. It's COVID. Getting clapped online for doing stuff. Start playing Call of Duty. Next thing you know, I don't even know what happened, but for some reason one night I was like, oh, let me get some red wine. Dude, I never had drank red wine in my life except like the body of or the blood of christ at church like i was not a wine drinker and next thing you know like i got super addicted to playing call of

duty and drinking red wine while doing it wow and i just spiraled honestly and it got so bad i got i got to a point i moved so when i was living in that house it got broken into in arizona uh no in the valley oh valley oh sorry i forgot we're not in la uh in like in sherman oaks you know what it is and i've heard of sherman oaks yeah it's called the valley got it um so my house got broken into when i wasn't home and when my roommate wasn't home i I come home from Lake Tahoe. I walk in the house. Everything's fine.

I go up to my bedroom. My whole room is ransacked. Drawers open. All my clothes are on the floor. I obviously notice things missing. I call my buddies because I make YouTube videos. I'm like, are you guys pranking me? Like, are you guys filming a prank or something?

And they're like, no, what happened? And I'm like, dude, my whole room is robbed. They only robbed my room. Wow. So I call the police, they come over and they, I'm like, why did they only rob my room? Like, is this like a hit, like a targeted attack or whatever? And they said, you know, most robberies, they just go to the master bedroom because that's where the valuables are. So I was like, all right. So that kind of messed me up a little bit. I'm living in this house by myself. My house just got robbed. I like the first night sleeping there. I remember I like I locked every door. Obviously, I put a ladder in front of my door. I had a knife by my bed. I'd be doing the same thing.

Dude, yeah, because I don't have a gun. I don't know what the gun laws are in California, but really hard. Yeah. ladder in front of my door i had a knife by my bed i'd be doing the same thing dude yeah because i don't have a gun i don't know what the gun laws are in california but really hard yeah um messed me up and then like a week or two later i i'm laying in bed it's like it's early morning and my phone rings and it says my name is calling me. What the hell? It says Mark Doner is calling you. I'm like, this is, what? So I answer the phone. I'm like, hello? And it's like, hello, is this Mark?

And I'm like, yeah. He's like, I am a Russian hacker. I'm a big fan of you. And I was like, how'd you get my number? He's like, I am a Russian hacker. I was like, well, can you not call me? And he's like, yes, I am sorry. I just wanted to say hi. I was like, all right. That was it though. Holy crap. What a weird encounter, right? He didn't want anything. Uh, and then I like, yeah, just weird things started happening.

Like I got credit card fraud and I was like, I'm going back to an apartment by myself. Bad idea. So after my breakup, I went to an apartment, lived by myself. Great, great time. This time around, just kind of like stayed home. I moved to like the East side of LA. No one wants to come over there. Isolated myself. Yeah.

Fell into like a pit of depression. And then I called my parents and I was like, Hey, cause they're from Ohio. Yeah. And I was like, Hey, you know,

I would call them occasionally, but Hey, when you guys come in to visit me, cause I hadn't seen him in a few years cause of COVID. And I was like, hey, you know, I would call them occasionally, but hey, when are you guys coming to visit me? Because I hadn't seen them in a few years because of COVID. And they're like, oh, we'll get out there when we can. And then, you know, I was spiraling a little bit, and then finally one day I just called my dad, and I was like, dude, I need you guys to come out here. Like, I need the support of my family.

Because there's something about your family visiting you that hits different than you visiting them because it shows support in your life and an interest in your life for sure for sure you know like my family hadn't come out to visit me in a long time and I felt like alone you know I'm from Ohio my family I have three brothers and two brothers and a sister they all live in the same town we grew up in and then I'm just out in Los Angeles by myself and yeah they came out and kind of started to turn my life around really that's cool yeah you got lost in the sauce that's common in LA I heard though yeah you know because you leave one friend group and then you feel like you're alone

yeah I think isolating yourself is a really bad thing right you could get in your own head get in your own head especially with alcohol involved yes yeah yeah that can be deadly man yeah that's tough dude sorry you went through that yeah um no you gotta go through it man it's all part of the story ups and downs right yeah life is like that uh you also made a video seven financial fails you wish you could do over so while you were going through this, were you having financial issues? Yeah, I was living off of savings because I wasn't making any videos. I made some bad investments in the stock market. What'd you buy? Well, the thing is my buddy was like, oh, you know, get in the stock market. And I was like, what do you do? And I can't remember what

I bought, but we were like day trading. Oh, that's the worst. Options? No, it wasn't options. It was literally just buying and selling. And I can't remember what I bought, but we were day trading. Oh, that's the worst. Yeah. Options? No, it wasn't options. It was literally just buying and selling. I can't remember what it was, but one day he's like, all right, let's buy it. I bought it, and I think I bought $10,000 worth or something, $20,000. Yeah. First buy ever. I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

We buy it, and then I lose $1,000 in 20 seconds, so I'm panicking. I'm like, sell, sell, sell. Yeah, and then I lose $1,000 in like 20 seconds. So I'm like panicking. I'm like, sell, sell, sell. And yeah, and then I just made some bad investments. Yeah, day trading's not for everyone, for sure. Well, yeah, especially if you don't know what the hell's going on. Because you hear everybody online, they're like, oh, yeah, dude, I make so much money on the stock market. All you got to do is buy low and sell high. You're like, oh, all right.

Social media makes it seem easy. And I bought low, and it kept going low. Another video, you went to a nude-only spa in Switzerland. Nude-only spa, yeah. That sounds fun. It was. Was it packed? Well, I just titled it that.

That's some clickbait. I'm not going to lie. But yeah, you know what's funny? So in Germany, I had a culture shock moment. I go to the gym and I was dating a Swiss girl at the time. Yeah. And men's bathroom, women's bathroom. She's like, oh, I'll meet you in the sauna. I was like, Swiss girl at the time. Yeah. And men's bathroom, women's bathroom. She's like, oh, I'll meet you in the sauna.

I was like, all right, sounds good. So I go through the men's bathroom. I go into the sauna. And at LA Fitness in LA, everybody's got their clothes on, you know? You just take your shirt off, and you sit in the sauna. So I go in there with, like, my boxers on or whatever, and I walk into the sauna part, the spa spa part and i just see a bunch of naked women like older women i'm like oh my god i'm in the wrong spot like this why are there naked women

i'm like well she told me to go this way so i'm like all right so i go in the sauna and i'm like obviously like this is a culture shock to me because i'm usually in the men's bathroom in la fitness it's just dudes we're all wearing clothes and now everybody's walking around naked it's i only see women and finally i saw a dude he's naked and i was like oh this is like a european thing wow so yeah that video was just clickbait it was just a nice spot that's interesting i don't know if i could do that honestly it's very weird yeah did you uh stay or did you leave? No, I stayed because I didn't want to panic. I stayed and I just kept my eyes down. And then I didn't feel comfortable walking around naked with, I don't know, a bunch of people there.

It's like, what if you see someone out in the gym? You're like, dude, I've seen you naked. I don't even, because people change at the Lifetime locker room. I'm under a towel when I take my boxers off. Yeah. I don't know. It's bizarre to me but yeah one time i went into the spa and this girl like i don't speak german my girlfriend did and

she like whispered to her boyfriend she's like why is he wearing boxers in german that's wild dude it's been fun uh any uh dream podcast guests you want to get on your show dream podcast guests i just like honestly i really like telling people stories that don't really get a chance to tell their stories so anybody that has a very good story to tell i would love to tell that um that's a rare take yeah people think of like celebrities for their dream guests but i love the the normal person with this because i think everybody has a story to tell. And I love sharing those stories and using my platform to like spread awareness. Yeah, that's cool. So we're similar in that regard. Yeah. Awesome, man. Well, dude, anything else you want to promote or close off with? Check out my podcast, Living Large and check me out on Spotify.

Got some new music coming soon. Inspired by the breakup. You know, I'm talking about those are always the best Taylor Swift. Yeah. Songs ever. And then, yeah, just YouTube, Instagram. Check it all out. Awesome. Thanks for coming on, Mark. Thanks for watching, guys. See you tomorrow. Subscribe.