Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - Ep. 43 Devin Super Tramp- Ear Biscuits

Episode Date: August 1, 2014

Arguably the best outdoor action/adventure filmmaker on YouTube, Devin Graham, joins Rhett & Link this week to uncover one of the most surprising backstories in the history of Ear Biscuits involving a friendship with Kim Dotcom, the infamous founder of file hosting service Megaupload. They also discuss the event that caused Devin to decide to stay behind the camera, his various international trips including experiencing a bus hijacking in Jamaica, and his former relationship with dancing electronic violinist sensation, Lindsey Stirling. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is Mythical. Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I'm Link. And I'm Rhett. It's time for another conversation with someone interesting from the internet. And that person this week is Devin Graham, known on the YouTubes as Devin Supertramp. I think this guy's the best outdoor action adventure filmmaker on YouTube. Currently he's got over two million subscribers. If you haven't seen his videos, he's basically filming people doing insane physical stunts

in beautiful locations around the world, and the videos are intoxicating, and they make me feel good. The videos are intoxicating. Yeah, the camera work is amazing. It's the amount of creativity that goes into these things. He's basically, everyone's guaranteed feel-good viral video. Unless you just don't like fun and you don't like physical stuff. And amazingness.

Now, we caught up with Devin at VidCon. We had exchanged some emails with him about maybe collaborating on something that didn't involve us risking our lives. But at least this is a step towards that. Meeting in person at VidCon, recording this Ear Biscuit. Just to give you some context, his most popular

video with over 37 million views is titled Assassin's Creed meets Parkour in Real Life. Now we'd play a clip for you, but it wouldn't do much. It's pretty visual. It's pretty visual. Music and sound effects, which, I mean, we could make those with our mouths,

but that would be disappointing also because it wouldn't actually be from the video. Yeah, I mean, it's a parkour dude dressed as the dude from Assassin's Creed doing his thing around the city in costume, and it's just shot in an amazing way. I mean, you've probably seen a lot of his videos but if you go to your channel, you'll just be overwhelmed. Yeah, he's one of those guys who when you ask somebody if they've watched YouTube videos, they end up not realizing that they've seen one.

Like the human slingshot or the world's largest rope swing. Slip and slide off of a cliff. Trike drifting. Flyboarding. I mean, all these amazing physical things done in these amazing locations. A lot of good looking people in the video. We actually talked to him about that. Where does he find all these good looking people that he puts in his videos? But you've probably seen one even if you didn't know it because he's not the face

of his videos. You have to kind of go to the behind the scenes to see who he is. Right. Not only are the videos amazing, I think what we discovered in our conversation was that those videos and the product that he creates has gotten Devin into some amazing situations, some interesting relationships. So we talk about those. I would say we surface one of the most surprising backstories that I didn't see coming in the history of Ear Biscuits. I mean, we do some research. Sometimes we kind of know some things we want people to talk about, but when he started talking about meeting kim.com

in New Zealand, I was like, I'm so glad this is happening. And I don't want to give away the whole story, but if you haven't heard, because well, you'll hear it in just a few seconds, but if you haven't heard of Kim.com, I learned about him. I'd heard about him, but there was a whole Wired article about the guy.

Super rich founder of file sharing service Mega Upload. I'll read this little clip from Wikipedia about him. Kim.com faced US charges of costing the entertainment industry $500 million through pirated content uploaded to Mega Upload, his site, which had 150 million registered users. He's vigorously denied the charges and is fighting the attempt to extradite him to the United States.

But in January 2012, Kim Dotcom's mansion, kind of like a compound, was raided, and it involved 76 officers and two helicopters. And this is what was detailed in the Wired article, but the thing that I didn't know was that Devin Supertramp was almost there for it. That's crazy. You'll find out exactly whyamp was almost there for it. That's crazy.

Yeah, you'll find out exactly why he was almost there for it and his adventures with kim.com. And also, somebody else that might have tagged along that we have interviewed before, we're gonna find out about his relationship with one Lindsey Stirling. Yeah, he helped connect a few dots that were established but not connected in our conversation with Lindsey.

That's another interesting point to listen out for. In general, as you would expect from a guy who makes some of the most funnest videos on the internet. The most funnest. We had the most funnest Ear Biscuit conversation with him. Here it is. Our Ear Biscuit with Devin Supertrap. with Devin Supertramp.

There's the phenomenon in general of watching YouTube videos and you get sucked into the YouTube cauldron or I don't know what, people call it different things, but just getting sucked into the YouTube loophole. What do people call it, Rhett? Warpzone? I don't know what they call it.

But my point is when i watch the latest devin super tramp channel video and then it's i'm sucked into an endless cycle of re-watching other ones and oh i've seen this one but i gotta watch it again especially if i'm a little blue right like a. You mean like you're talking about inappropriate things? No, meaning if I'm a little sad or depressed. There's nothing like one of your videos to make me feel happy and scared at the same time. That's what we do best. We're all about it.

That's the weird thing. Is that the intention to, what feeling do you want people to have? I think for us, like originally when we started the channel, I mean, essentially it was me with a camera going out, having fun with my friends. We saw another YouTube video of people hitting a bike jump, like a pond. Like, hitting a jump, going into the pond, splashing.

And we noticed it had two million views and it was shot with an iPhone. So we're like, what if I went in there and did something a little bit more professional, see what happens, show the world something that not a whole lot of people had seen, put that on YouTube, and then it kind of exploded and took off. So for us, originally... So you had like a RED camera.

No. And like a glide cam. We had a glide cam and a Canon T2i and a Canon 5D Mark II that I borrowed from a friend. We didn't even own any of our own camera equipment at the time. So we were just borrowing it from friends because I was going to i was going to film school so i mean i was just going out hanging out with my friends and they're like let's just capture this we've seen a lot of youtube videos we saw what other people were doing so we're like let's see what we can do and then we posted that video but where was the pond i mean you you had to get a pond which wasn't easy you

had to get a ramp you had to get guys who could ride a bike and then go how many feet we said 40 feet because it sounded crazier but it was probably realistically 20 30 feet but really

the way it came about is the pond wasn't too far from my house it was like a 20 minute drive we saw the video we knew where it was so we did a post on Facebook

just our personal Facebook page because that's all that existed saying hey we're doing this video can anyone any BMX bikers out there that can hit this do any tricks? And then we just said the time, the location, and then we had maybe eight or 10 people that actually joined us, and then we spent the whole day filming it. So you didn't know any of the

bikers that went off of your jump personally until they showed up? Exactly. So it was all through social media from the get-go, and it was i didn't have a following or anything it was just essentially my friends and they got their friends to come join and then we spent the whole day and then after we spent that day i looked at the footage i'm like this is really cool let's do this even better so then we actually spent three days shooting that video to make it the best it could be and then we released it and then you watched you watched the dailies the first day the daily this is cool but i i gotta come back two more days two more days because like i wanted to get a perfect it was a little bit cloudy that day and i'm like i want to be a summer vibe video so i rescheduled it we shot two more days um and it was just me and another friend who was going to film school that shot

that video together we did that video and then i put it up on YouTube. And then the first day it got a thousand views, which I never had a video that had gotten a thousand views before. And I was like, so excited about it. And then the next day it jumped up to 80,000 views. And I just remember thinking, holy cow, like what's going on here. And then all these companies started contacting us. Flip camera, which existed at the time it's out of business now, they contacted me, it was four days later. They're like, we just saw this video. We want to hire you to do a nationwide TV commercial with our flip cameras with the same concept. So all of a sudden I got these huge job offers from this YouTube video. Did you do that? I did do that. And then it ended up on TV. So for me,

it was like all of a sudden I saw this huge potential. I was going to film school at the time. I was three years into it, about to graduate, and then I saw all that happen, so I actually dropped out of film school to pursue YouTube full-time shortly after all that took off. It's taken on a, I mean, from those humble beginnings, they weren't really that humble. I mean, you put together a pretty amazing video. It's gone to a whole new level. I mean, look at the latest video that you released when we were recording this,

and it's the 50-foot cliff slip and slide. Now, I just want to say, personally, this scares me a little bit because I don't even do regular slip and slide anymore. Uh-huh. There became this point in my life when I just thought, I'm no longer doing that. A, because I'm almost the length of the slip and slide,

the typical slip and slide that my kids will use. I'm like halfway there when I lay down. Right. But second of all, I'm afraid I'm going to injure something. But this slip and slide, it was like how many feet long and then how many feet, it was 50 feet off of a cliff. Right. Once you left the slip and slide.

50 feet straight down into water. Insane. So where was this, first of all, and how? I mean, how do you even set this up to where you can do it without being arrested? Well, half the things we do are technically illegal. So you're actually like, that's the truth of the matter. And I mean, we go in, it is a small, we call it guerrilla filmmaking so we're a small crew it's not like a professional Hollywood crew where you have all these people

otherwise we would have got stopped right away but we shot this at Lake Powell and it's actually illegal to cliff jump so I'm not sure if we want this people that are listening but this is the truth this is the uncut unedited unrated version but yeah you can only jump Lake Powell which is in Utah

essentially that's three hours from where we're based out of so just a short little drive and yeah we just essentially decided to do that you can only jump 20 feet there legally so we were doing 50 feet so we were already breaking a couple rules but we did it kind of out in the middle of nowhere so there wasn't anyone that was going to stop us

and that's essentially kind of how it went down but it was like 50 feet sliding down and then 50 feet flying off of a cliff. But how, where does the idea come from the, the inception of the thing? Yeah. I think with all of the videos that we do, we try and take little kid ideas and put a grownup twist on it. So, and cause people connect with that stuff. Everyone's done a slip and slide, you know, like everyone's done a slip and slide, generally speaking. It's like, what can we do to basically put a macho guy twist on it?

That's how a lot of these ideas come from. For example, our rope swinging video, this is one of our most watched videos, everyone has done a rope swing. It's like, what can we do to make it the next step? Let's make it 400 foot rope swing. Let's make it the world's largest rope swing. It's always trying to up the ante,

show it in a new way, but people can connect with that because everyone's done a rope swing. Everyone's done a slip and slide. Okay, so you think, okay, slip and slide. Got it. I'm going to put it on the side of a cliff. There's one three hours away.

Not really legal, but it's really isolated. So no one will ever know. And you're not coming in on a helicopter. You're like hiking in. You're like... Yeah, that one we actually took like a houseboat. So we drove out there and then we shot all day for a couple of days with a bunch of our friends.

So essentially that's how it goes down. But you know, when you're jumping off of a 50 foot cliff, how do you... Obviously you're doing this in a place where somebody's probably done this before, but it's not like, this is the designated jumping area. You've got to kind of know, like no one's going to hit the bottom. Right. So how does, how do you work that stuff out? How do you know how, how deep are these people are going to go? And we know that they're not going to hit a rock and. Yo, no, great question. It's like to come up with essentially the concept.

So we figured out the concept and then a couple of our friends that do all the videos with us, we sent them out a couple days early because there's no designated spot. This is where you do the 50 foot slip and slide. There's no sign. It's not an amusement park. They went out and they spent literally two days driving

around Lake Powell trying to find a location that would actually work. Who are these people? Stunt people? Yeah. Just Facebook friends? Essentially, they're just people that I've met as we've been doing YouTube videos. Like this guy in particular, I was at a restaurant. He stopped me and he was like, hey, I saw that you did this video.

We do a rope swing. And he showed me on his phone a rope swing that they had done. It was the arch one. And I was like, I saw that. I was like, I would love to do that. So we did that together and we just became friends so essentially as we create videos we make friends and then essentially now our fans inspire our ideas we're constantly getting submissions saying hey you guys should do this you guys should do this so we're seeing other ideas from our fans and then we're

going out there and creating it on a much higher end level so you got two guys who now work for you. They location scouted. Yeah. They're also cliff divers. They're everything. I mean, they do their rope swimming with us. Anything that requires any kind of dangerous stunts, these guys do.

And I mean- Bonafide stunt guys. You can call it whatever you want. Hold on, but they don't, they're not like movie stunt guys? Not at all. Like, it's funny. The main guy, he was studying to become a lawyer. The guy with the blonde hair?

The guy with the blonde hair. Like, every time I called him when I first started working with him, he was always in the library studying for the bar exam. So this is not just like some lifelong friend. This is a guy who was like, I'll do this. Yeah, exactly. And now he's become a bar. I'll try this.

And now he's become this star. So it's worked out great. But he hasn't gotten any training. What's his name? His name's Creighton. Creighton Baird, this guy we're referring to. He's a blonde-haired guy. He got really famous when we did a video where he pushed his girlfriend off of a rope swing,

and she broke up with him as he was falling or she was falling. And that's true. Completely true. Now, she said, I'm breaking up with you, but they actually didn't break up at that time. They broke up like two or three months later. Different story. Say that for a different day. But that was all part of the process. Yeah, it was all part of the process. didn't break up at that time they broke up like two or three months later different story say that for a different day but that was all part of the process yeah it was all part of the process and

then we just became friends as we've worked together and i mean for me that's what i love about what we do with youtube is about finding passionate people in their fields and then working with them and creating cool things well passionate is one way to describe them i can think of another word to describe them it's's called crazy. Or stupid, or this or that. No, stupid's a little harsh, but crazy in the most endearing way. Right. Oh, for sure. Well, you've kind of answered the question in terms of where these people come from. You've got a couple of the core guys who are going to kind of always be involved, but then every once in a while, it seems like you find a group of people or a person who does something amazing and you're like okay i can put the devin super tramp slant on that i can

capture that in the way that only you are capturing those kinds of things now for sure um let's let's talk about another one that world's largest rope swing which you've talked about a little bit you said this that's the guy just coming up to you and showing the video on his phone so they had figured out how to tie a rope to the top of one of these unbelievably large arches in like what a utah national park no so it wasn't a national park so actually there's nothing illegal about that video which you think there was something but it was on public domain land where anyone could go out there.

It's still legal now. They actually censed that video because it got so much traction, so many people started going there. They have a sign that says, due to a popular video showing a rope swing, be very cautious, because if you don't know what you're doing,

this can be very dangerous. How high is that? That rope swing, it's a 200-foot rope swing itself. The rope? The rope itself. It's 200 feet. So maybe 240 feet-ish total, but they're swinging 200 feet. Now, okay, so you've got these guys who've done this before.

They have conceivably figured out the physics involved. But, I mean, you never know. I mean, these guys could just be, it could be me and Link showing you this video, right? So how do you gain a sense of, all right, these guys are legit, no one's going to die. And okay, we can move forward with this. I always kind of just assume when I look at something like that, like, oh, there must be some, somebody is like really analyzing all this to make sure that it's going to be totally legit and safe. Right, no, for sure.

And it's like the guys that we're using, they're not guys we just randomly pick off the streets. Like this guy was studying to be a lawyer. Like the guy that actually did like the calculations to make sure it was safe, like he's a mathematician. And then basically we go up there, they figured it out on their own.

And then there's like seven of them and they're all hardcore rock climbers. So they're used to working with those kinds of ropes and they do this like every week. And so I know they're already passionate about it. I know they have a good sense of what they're doing. And then once we get up there, they spend all day setting it up. Like it was a full day of setting up for the canyon rope swing. And then each one of them checks it, double checks it. and then the last person to, or the first person to jump is the last person to check it. So you know

they're double, double, double checking it. And then before they jump... You don't like send a dummy first? No, so that's where I'm going next. So after they do all the testing, then they got a 200 pound bag. They hooked it up to the rope and then they swung it off just to make sure the way the rope swung and everything, it would

have been safe and no questions as far as that. You want to make sure that it doesn't just go right into the side of the arch. The things we do as far as stunts, generally speaking, you're not going to get hurt. You're going to lose your life. I don't want to have that on my shoulders. No one wants to have that on their shoulders. We do all the testing possible. There's always

different variables, but generally speaking, we make sure it's as safe as possible for everyone there. But they're kind of handling that aspect of it, the people who have experience with this specific stunt, I'll call it. Whereas I would imagine most of your time and energy is how do I capture this in the way that I want to capture it? How many cameras are we talking about? What's the team involved, say, with World's Largest Rope Swing? Yeah, so for that one in particular, we shot that on two different days. And the first day, it was just me and another guy on camera.

And then the second day, I realized how cool it was visually. So I brought three other camera guys. So I guess there was four guys total shooting that as well on the second day. And it was just two full days of filming. And essentially, four camera guys on those projects oh wow trike drifting i mean where do you find people who can do that barefooted these are describe this to me i mean what's your first exposure did you didn't invent trike drifting i did not invent trike drifting so what's your first exposure to it we always our videos just happen from living life and meeting the most random people. So backstory on this one, which most people don't have no idea,

but I get an email from a guy in New Zealand. He's like, I am super wealthy. He says, I love your videos, and I want to fly you first class and meet you. Oh, yeah. So I'm like, okay. I love emails that start with the phrase, I am super wealthy. That's honestly how he started it. But he's like, I can't tell you who I am.

So it was a little creepy as well. Okay. So I'm like, okay, sounds a little sketchy. So I didn't respond. And then he responds like a month later. So like, he's really serious about it. I give him my number. He calls me at four o'clock in the morning.

So I'm like, okay, I'm not sure what's going on. So I decided to go. So he flies me first class, first time flying first class to New Zealand. Just you. Just me, and he flew my friend as well. So we got there, and then he picks us up with his private helicopter. And he owns a website called Mega Upload. His name's Kim.com.

Oh, yeah. I've heard of this guy. Oh, no. Kim.com flies you to New Zealand. He flies us to New Zealand. You don't know it's Kim.com Flies you To New Zealand He flies us to New Zealand But does it You don't know it's Kim.com We don't know who it is

Until you get there Until we get there You're serious Dead serious This is great So it's like All these stories We have so many stories like this

That are so like random Like how does that even happen Kim.com was like Held up in his compound Well there's another story right there Which I'll tell you in one second Alright so finish this one story And don't forget the second one held up in his compound. Well, there's another story right there, which I'll tell you in one second. So finish this one story and don't forget the second one.

I promise I won't forget. It's part of this story. So he flies us. He has two huge cars pick us up, and one of the cars says Mafia, and the other one says Evil. So he picks us up in those two cars, and then he takes us to his private helicopter,

flies us, and he has the big... Was he in the car? He wasn't in the car. He had two gangster mob guys, which, the nicest guys I've ever met. This is, like, first impressions. Like, don't judge, you know, because you don't know what you're judging. Right. The evil mafia, I think is what it is.

But it was a little scary. So he takes us to his mansion. It's the biggest mansion in New Zealand. Oh, yeah. And then he just, like, he says, I love what you guys are doing. He's like, I have my private helicopter take it out whenever you want so I stay there for two weeks and he loves

we've never gotten an email like this I just will go and say that so maybe we're making the wrong kind of videos maybe you never know just take out my helicopter anytime you want so we'd literally fly from one side of the island to the other side of the island and it was a seven seater so we had full access and we would would stop, and we would film.

How did you know how to fly a helicopter? Well, I didn't know how to fly, but he did. His pilot did, I guess, is who it was. Okay. But it was funny. Talking with him, he was like, I love the villains from James Bond movies. So it was like, I want to become like a villain from the James Bond movies. So his lifestyle, the way he lives, is completely like that.

One of the nicest guys I've ever met. So what's the house like? I mean, what is this mansion like? You were there for two weeks? Yeah, I was there for two weeks. He has like 30 sports cars. Like he is a race car driver. Like that's what he's passionate about. He loves video games. So he'd spend like 12 hours a night playing Call of Duty. And he was the world's best Call of Duty player online, which is like, how do you have so much money and play video games all day? But he was so nice. What was the first meeting with him like? Because I imagine you go into this long room

with an executive chair facing away from you, and then it slowly turns towards you, and there's Kim.com. It wasn't as dramatic as that. Inspector Gadget is what I think of with that, with the cat. But no, he had us come in his living room, and he had a gigantic table with as muchget is what I think of with that. But with the cat. But no, he had us come in his living room and he had a gigantic table with as much food as you can think of. Like they had like 20 different waiters that would serve you any kind of food for each different kind of culture. Like if you want an Asian food, if you want a Mexican food, they had it all. And it was

just like, I love what you guys are doing. And he said- But where was he standing and what was he wearing and what did he look like? He looked like a normal guy. He was just wearing a t-shirt. It was really hot out, so he was a little sweaty. And then he was just sitting at the table and he was like, welcome to my house. And then he just was one of the nicest guys I've ever met. And he's like, I want to just help you guys get to the next level

because I believe in what you guys are doing. This was two and a half years ago, maybe. I'm trying to think what was the first video. Oh, we did another video called Trike Racing, where trike drifting, which we just talked about, was actually the sequel to that. He saw that video and he's like, I loved how you had normal speed and you go to slow motion.

He's like, I've never seen that before. So I just love what you're doing and I love racing. So he's just like, this whole island is yours. Do whatever you want. So we took the helicopter. We flew around. We shot a couple of videos. And then he was like, I have a couple of friends that do trike drifting. He's like, and he showed me one of their things. He's like, I have their phone number, their contact. He's like, if you want to do anything with them, just go out there. And he says, we'll make sure you get there. So that was all filmed in New Zealand.

Yeah. So that video itself was filmed in New Zealand. And he literally, he told us that story about these guys the day before we left so we actually only had three hours to shoot that video total so we just shot it at sunset and an hour after it got dark but yeah he was a super awesome guy and describe that it's like

it looks like a kid big wheel but it's got a it's like a professional grade big wheel big wheel in the front it's like a professional grade big wheel big wheel in the front it's like a tire but then there's two small tires in the back that look like if you took all the TP off a roll

and just left the Bayer cardboard what was that? I don't even know how they made those I know they were all super passionate about it and they all made them themselves and it was like this posse of New Zealanders. I think there was like nine of them that do it, and they do it all the time.

And in New Zealand, you can basically get away with anything as far as the cops don't stop you. The cops would just sit there and watch and smile as we would film taking over the street. Oh, yeah, you were like in a minivan shooting them behind you. You'd pull them with a rope, right? Yeah, yeah. Then they would let go, and they'd be zooming down this hill,

and oncoming traffic would be barely missing these guys on each side of the oncoming traffic. Yeah, it got a little scary. And then one of the guys he's like, I longboard. He's like, I'm going to longboard down this hill barefoot. So I was like, I don't feel comfortable filming that. So if you guys want

to do that, go ahead and do that. So he went down and then all of a sudden the other guy ran up and he's like, the guy's down there passed out. he had to stop and he jumped out and he knocked and got everything knocked out of him so he actually had to call an ambulance but it was just the whole thing you didn't catch that on camera because i didn't catch on camera because i refused to film because i was like i don't think that's a smart idea going down a steep hill where you can't stop barefoot does kim.com bring his helicopter to take you to the hospital at that point or is it or is it like no it's just a normal he's not actually there for that part of it um he was just at his house hanging out

and what's the what's the second story where he you know he's raided by the new zealand authorities or like international authorities or something yeah he's there for that so yeah so he sits down with us and he's like, I want to start funding every one of your videos. Unlimited budget, you just go out there and do your thing. So it's like, I have no problem with that whatsoever. So he's like, we're going to fly back home and then we'll work out all the details.

So we get in the airplane, we take off. What did you know about him at this point, other than the fact that he's super wealthy? Because before he was in the news, I didn't know anything about Mega Upload or Kim.com. Yeah, I didn't know anything about it either at the time until I got there. And he told me, essentially, that Mega Upload is similar to YouTube as far as people are uploading all this stuff, except for they don't stop people from copyright stuff, essentially, is what they got in trouble for. But that's all I knew about the website and about him.

But then as I started researching, I'm like, there's so much stuff about him. And he used to be this big hacker, and then he changed his life around, he got back in the game, and then he started giving back to society. But yeah, I didn't realize he had such a kind of a crazy, cool history about him. So you get back on the plane with like a blank

check. So no blank check yet. He was going to write it soon. But so it speaks. Yeah, so it speaks. So we flew back yet. He was going to write it soon. But so it speaks. Yeah, so it speaks. So we flew back to America, and then the second we landed, I got on my phone to check more information about him. So I type in Kim.com, and the first thing that pops up is FBI raids his house four hours after we had left. It's 91 FBI agents, two helicopters. They swarm and take over the whole perimeter.

Yeah, he's like going into an inner sanctum, like a safe room, and he's like holed up in a safe room in there. Exactly. But it kind of blew my mind. But it was like we just left and all that happened. Like how does that all happen right when we leave? But it was like interesting too reading the media because they were saying how like all these guards were there.

And it was like I was at that perimeter and they only have one guard and it's super low key. I felt like all the things the media was conveying was actually not true at all because I had just been there. I had seen how it was. So I was kind of frustrated with the media. They're making them sound like this awful guy when in reality I was there and I saw all that stuff. And if a mazillionaire is going to fund everything I'm going to do, I'm going to like him too. You're going to like him too. But honestly, he was a super nice guy.

So you were like, dang it! Yeah, I was sad about it. They kept him in jail for a month, and it was sad because his wife was having twins, so he kind of missed that whole thing. But afterwards, he got arrested because he had two servers that he was running his website in America. So that's why America could come in there, take over, because it was America that actually did that.

But then they did it unjustly. So they actually had to release him and give him everything back. So he was off the hook and his criminal record, as far as that goes, was completely wiped. So what happened with your relationship? So our relationship, we still talk every five or six months. I haven't asked for money because i'm like he's already dealing with all these other things you know and things are going good now where we have all these sponsorships and stuff like that so we're okay as far as funding the ideas that we

want right you know so i was okay with it you know but it's just kind of a cool experience seeing new zealand in that way because most people don't get that kind of experience well let me ask this then a more open-ended question If that's happened to you as a result of these type of videos, what other crazy things and opportunities have happened to you as a result of making the most epic videos on YouTube? I'm trying to think. I feel we get all these amazing... A lot of times people give a lot of crap,

excuse my language, but for YouTubers working with brands, but for us it gives us opportunities to essentially do what we want. We YouTubers working with brands, but for us, it gives us opportunities to essentially do what we want. So we're working with all these brands now, and basically they're like, we want you to create whatever you guys can think of. We've seen what you guys have done in the past,

so whatever budget you guys need to make your ideas happen, we'll fund. So essentially that's what's happening now. I mean, a good example... So no other Kim.com emails. That was the craziest one. Yeah, that was definitely the craziest one. So we haven't had any crazy, gnarly stories recently anyways.

I'm trying to think of anything that's happened that was just kind of mind-blowing. But when Mountain Dew contacts you and says, hey, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is going to hang out with you guys, just make any video you want to make, that's kind of like another day at the office at this point. At this point, it is. And that's exactly how that kind of went down. We're like, you have his backyard, do whatever you want, and you have him as the star.

So we're like, we'll do it. So at this point, are there any videos that you're just financing yourself? Or is it now? I mean, there's always a way to tie somebody in, whether it's the company that owns the hoverboard or whatever. Are you always involving a sponsor now because it's just such an easy fit?

It's a really easy fit because I feel our content is very brand friendly. But at the same time too, though, we're very, we want to do products we're passionate about. So a couple of months ago, we ago, I'm really passionate about Iceland. I went there a couple years ago. I love the country. So I want to tell a story of us as filmmakers and capture that.

So I want to tell that by going to Iceland because it's super harsh, super bad conditions. And I feel if we can show people what we have to go through to get shots, we can tell our story. So that was kind of a project that we funded ourselves that cost a fair amount of money. We flew our helicopter guy down there and several other film crew members. And we spent two weeks out there in awful conditions, but filming the Northern Lights and getting all these shots we've never gotten before.

And that's going to be an hour-long film. But that's essentially things that we're passionate about. And essentially, I mean, we're using YouTube to basically help us get to the next level. We'll always stay with YouTube, but we're using it as a vehicle to do these projects that we're passionate about. And essentially, I mean, we're using YouTube to basically help us get to the next level. We'll always stay with YouTube, but we're using it as a vehicle to do these projects that we're passionate about. And it's through working with brands and other people that we can make that happen. So this documentary, I guess, for lack of a better word, is that going to be distributed on your channel? Yeah. So we're not positive exactly how we're going to do it. I think

kind of where we're gearing is we want to have access that everyone can watch it regardless of the price. So I think we're going to kind of do something think kind of where we're gearing it is we want to have access that everyone can watch it regardless of the price. So I think we're going to kind of do something where you pay whatever you want to pay, whether it be a penny, whether it be $30. And we're not so caring about making our money back

so much as just telling our story and inspiring other people because essentially that's what we want to stand for. What's the favorite video of yours that you've made so far? Sadly, it's usually the videos that do really well because that affects how we feel about it, even emotionally.

Some of the videos that I really was passionate about when we actually shot them, they completely flopped. And then it's like every time I watch that video or look at that video, it hurts my heart. Like what? Two examples is I did a Halo video for the video game Halo. They didn't fund it, I funded it myself. It cost, I want to say, $14,000.

I had to fly nine people. I was just funding it myself, no brands attached. What's the concept? It was a first-person shooter. Basically, it was Halo in real life. The new Halo video game was going to be coming out soon. I did that, we released it, and then people didn't like it at all.

Every comment was just a hate comment. We released it. And then people didn't like it at all. And then every comment was just like a hate comment. We hate you guys. And also, too, it was right after the big shooting happened in Christmastime a year, two years ago. So there was a lot of violent things going on with that. So we obviously, that was a very sensitive subject. So it was just bad timing as well. But it was something I put my heart into, really cared about.

And then it flopped. So every time I think of that video, I have a really like my heart hurts because of that. But it's still on your channel. Yeah, it's still on my channel and you can still go watch it. I can't remember if it's Halo in real life or something of that nature. You can still go and leave a negative comment. Yeah, you still leave a negative comment. It doesn't hurt as much at this point.

Yeah, it doesn't hurt so bad. Well, speaking of hurt, I know that sometimes people do get hurt. You got hurt in the behind-the-scenes video we saw where the jet ski that was, I guess, powering the hoverboard hit you in the back of the head. Tell us about that. Yeah, so kind of our motto on our channel is it's all about the shot. So it's all about putting us in dangerous situations. Obviously, you have to be smart about that. But in that case, we're filming a hoverboard video,

and I was trying to get as close to the action as possible. Now, the way this hoverboard works, just to kind of... I've seen it, and I'd like for you to explain it. Yes, so it is essentially a snowboard that hooks to a hose that hooks to a jet ski or a sea-do. And you basically, someone sits on the sea-do pulls the throttle and then it lifts the person on the board 30 feet up

in the air and it's propelled by water. It shoots a hydrant sized stem of water out of the back of a snowboard. Is it shooting the water that's coming out of the

jet ski normally that would propel the jet ski it's just shooting it through the hose. Exactly so instead of it coming out of the jet ski it's actually coming out of jet ski. It's just shooting it through the hose. Exactly. So instead of it coming out of the jet ski, it's actually coming out of the board itself. Yeah.

So it's a new invention, and it just, I mean, it actually gets released next month, so it's technically not even out on the market yet. Okay. But, yeah, it's all done that way. So when the person rides on the hoverboard, it pulls the jet ski behind them. So I was trying to film the hoverboard fly over me,

which also means the jet ski is going to be falling right behind that. And you was trying to film the hoverboard fly over me, which also means the jet ski is going to be falling right behind that. And you're in the water in scuba gear. I'm in the water with my underwater housing and it flies right over me. And there's so much pressure going off that board that I get sprayed so bad that I have no idea what's going on. And then all of a sudden I hear the jet ski right behind me and then it completely clobbers me in the back of the head. And he has no control over it, right? Yeah, he has no control. He's being pulled. So I get clobbered in the back of the head and this time I don't think I have a life vest on. Maybe I do, but I don't think I do. I wouldn't suggest that. So I get hit and then I'm like terrified because I'm like, I'm going to pass out because it really did hurt and I'm in the open

water. So I put my head down. I just wait there for a second. I had two friends. There was a lot of people there watching as it was happening. I had two friends jump in there to make sure that I was okay. I ended up being okay, but it was one of those terrifying things as far as what's going on. I was completely disoriented.

I got ran over by a jet ski, but I survived. What other videos have had things go wrong? Out of all the videos we've done, the video we did on the blob, more people got hurt on that than any other video. What that is, it's a big, gigantic, and floatable balloon. You jump off of a houseboat and you have someone sit on the end of that balloon.

Then the pressure from the other person jumping on the other end, it repels them or shoots them up in the air 50 feet. That one we had two guys jump off at the same time to basically add pressure to the other end. And one of the guys was a bigger guy. He jumped on the guy's collarbone and it popped the collarbone out of his neck. It didn't actually come out of his skin,

but I don't do good with that stuff at all. Like very crazy. I don't do good with stories about that stuff. You're like squirming right do good with stories about that stuff. So that happened. It was very nasty looking. When it happens, do you keep filming and now you're filming the collarbone? That situation, yeah.

I pulled the camera and I was shooting this story until I got too queasy. Everyone's jumping in though. It's not like I'm filming and everyone's laughing and partying still. People are jumping in, pulling them out. I'm filming it just to capture that story. They pull him. It's not like I'm filming and everyone's laughing and partying still. Like people are jumping in, pulling them out. And I'm filming it just to capture that story. They pull him, he's okay. We obviously take a 20 minute break

and make sure to figure out what we can do to fix this problem. And we realized don't jump and everyone be holding hands and have your arms actually interlocked. And what happens to the guy with the collarbone? He leaves? He's fired.

He's fired. No, so he was like, I'll be okay. We gave him a bunch of painkillers and then we got a boat and then we sent him to get fixed. So he's fine now. Get a rubber mallet and just kind of tap on the collarbone. All problems solved. But yeah, that happened. A girl jumped off the cliff while we were

there filming and she bruised or broke her collarbone. We had one girl spitting out blood from just the impact of the water. Oh my. And then I was running across the deck of the boat because the sun was setting and the lighting was really pretty so I was trying to hurry and then I land on the water, I slip so I ran

to the side of the boat and then I broke my toe. Stupid. Out of all the things I do, that's where I break it. So, okay, this raises a couple of questions. At this point, with the size of your operation, do you, like, what is the arrangement with the people who come and do this? Is there some sort of insurance policy that covers everybody? Is there an on-site doctor?

Right. This kind of thing. Great question. So originally, starting off, we didn't know what we were doing. We were just going out there with our friends, having fun. Now, as it's gotten bigger, you have to take a lot more precautions. So the precautions that we take is we actually have insurance that covers

everyone that's there if something does go wrong, whether it be a death as far as making sure everyone's protected or protected, or if they're hurt we have, it basically will cover them as far as hospital bills and stuff like that. Everyone signs a release form. Everyone

signs a waiver, basically saying we're okay if we do get hurt. We're aware of what we're doing. And then depending on the project, we'll pay the people or we'll not pay the people. And that just depends on if it's a branded thing or if it's not branded thing. If it's not branded thing, we just make sure it's a really awesome, essentially, party where everyone has a really good experience and we cover everyone's costs as far as that goes. Right. So it's pretty easy to get people to show up when that's the yeah we just hold a big thing and i mean we could get thousands of people but usually it's kind of

invite only um we just did something in san francisco actually where we made a gigantic slip and slide down the streets of san francisco and then i just did an instagram and twitter post saying hey all my fans you guys are invited The first 100 people that sign up get all access. Just different ways of working it. Now, you rarely participate in any of the stunts. I mean, you're directing and shooting, right? Correct. But you're not a dive-in kind of a guy. No.

Why is that? I broke my back in high school, and I was told I would never be able... I did it snowboarding. I was told I would never be able to snowboard again. Was this a jump story? Yeah, it was a jump. I was trying, it was the last day of the snowboard season. My goal originally was to be a cross country track runner. Like that was what I planned on doing with my life. So that happened and that obviously changed things pretty dramatically. I was in bed for three months. I had a metal back brace. Did you go off a jump and land on your... Yeah, so I went off a jump and it was probably about a 70 foot jump and I didn't clear the jump.

So you're supposed to land on a downslope. I landed flat. So it'd be like jumping off of a two-story house and then just landing straight. So my back, my... Sorry, I'm hiccuping. But my back, it actually, my vertebrae squished. So it's an L2 compression fracture is the technical jargon. Did you land on your butt? No, I landed on my feet, but my vertebrae literally squished from the impact from just falling too high. But you technically landed it.

I technically landed it, but then I rolled a couple of times. And that's a problem with cameras. Like we had a camera, so I got it all on film. Oh, really? You're always pushing things when you're on film. But I think that makes it so I'm very cautious now

because I know people are going to push themselves more. But I'm like, I'll say, I don't think you should be doing this. I make sure I'm constantly asking people, do you feel comfortable with this? Because I don't want anyone hurt. So at this point, can you break something else too, though? Yeah, then a couple months, well, after I was able to walk again, and actually I got back and started snowboarding again, right back away a couple weeks later, I break my leg. And this time, my bone actually shot out my leg,

and my leg was just flapping left and right. So how did that happen? And where was it flapping? Was it the shin or the femur? It was the femur. You broke your femur? The femur is this part of the body, right? No.

No, that's the shin. The femur is the biggest bone in your, right? No. No, that's the shin. The femur is the biggest bone in your body. I never took the whole anatomy classes. You broke like the tibia or something. Yeah, the tibia or whatever fancy name you guys call it. How did you break that one? I was at a snowboard camp and I was jumping

on their trampoline that's supposed to train you and I over jumped and I landed on the spring. Landed on the spring, it instantly broke the bone out jumped and I landed on the spring. Landed on the spring and instantly broke the bone out and then I flew off the trampoline and landed on the ground

with my leg flopping back and forth. I got that all on video as well. Really? So. Are these just like videos that you watch

just to yourself? No, in high school, I mean, that's kind of made me learn how to edit is I would always go out there and make snowboarding videos

with my friends and then I self-taught myself how to edit because I wanted to show my friends. So we were always going out there filming each other snowboarding. And I think that's kind of what got me in the whole extreme sport kind of genre that we are in now is, is this all started, I mean, it started before high school, but that's when I started pushing it. So it's your, it was a personal interest, but then the injuries kind of sidelined you a little bit. Yeah, they sidelined me a little bit. And I mean, the truth of the matter is half the things I film, I'm actually afraid of. So I am absolutely terrified of heights, but half of our videos deal with heights. But that's why for me, it's a challenge. I feel intrigued by it. So I push

myself and I face my fears, even though I'm not doing a lot of these things myself. I push myself as far as just challenging myself to do things I'm afraid of by leaning over the cliff edge and other things like that. So did you grow up in like a stunt family? No, not at all. Or a snowboard family? No, I grew up as just like a boy scout doing my thing,

Eagle, you know, and I grew up making Lego movies with my siblings. Like that's kind of what got me in the whole video world doing stop motion, Lego movies and music videos with my siblings. And where was this? This was in Oregon. I'm from Portland, Oregon. That's where I grew up. That's where I was raised.

Three other siblings and I would just take them and we'd make Lego movies together and music videos together and just stupid random ninja movies together. And I just always loved it. I mean, I was taking my parents' cameras and I probably ruined three or four of my parents' cameras. But they've always been so supportive. How do you ruin a camera?

Making a stop motion. Push the shutter too hard? Well, this is when VHS existed so the tapes would get cramped in there and it just would ruin the whole camera. Okay. It was old school stuff, not digital at all. But that is kind of the knack that then followed you into snowboarding.

Yep, it just carried over. It all gets crumpled together. It is. It's all one. No matter what you're doing. And then I started doing wedding videos, so I've gone through a couple different phases, but I'm always learning different aspects as far as filmmaking. I love that.

I always love it when I hear that somebody who's doing what you're doing now made a wedding video. We made a wedding video. There's just this thing that there are people out there who can say things like, yeah, our wedding video was made by Devin Superdrip. It's like, at the time, it was just Devin.

No, yeah, Devin's got a camera. He's going to do this. There's just something about people being able to say that after the fact. Maria Matthews is the only person who can say that they have a Rhett and Link wedding video. We did a good job on that one. The montage, the dance montage. Oh, yeah, that was so sweet. I went to black and white, and I did a lot of fades.

No Devin glide cam or anything like that, though. No. Now, I know you went on a Mormon mission. So you grew up Mormon? Uh-huh. Grew up LDS or Mormon. Okay. Went to Jamaica?

Yeah, I went to Jamaica. You guys know your facts. I'm impressed. But yeah, I went to Jamaica for two years. So right after high school, three months after high school, I got a mission call to go for our church and basically represent them and we went to Jamaica or I went to Jamaica for two years was that an easy decision for you

like automatic yeah I've always known I'm going on a mission yeah I've always knew because I just love working with people talking to people I always knew I wanted to do it it's not required that you do it in our church but I knew it was something that I wanted to do so I sent out my paper saying I would love to go on a mission. And then that's when they asked me

to go to Jamaica. They're like, you're needed in Jamaica to serve the people there. So I spent basically two years serving the people as far as community service, and then also teaching them about Jesus. And that's what I did. And for me, it was awesome because I got to see a whole new experience as far as culture. And I feel everything I do now is tied right back into that because we travel all around the world and we're constantly meeting different people. So it's just, it's been really cool as far as balancing me that way. Do you wear a black tie, white shirt and a name tag? Yeah. So you wear the whole...

I mean now. Oh, now? No, not at all. You're not wearing it right now. I'm not wearing it right now. I'll wear a white shirt and a tie when I go to church on Sunday, but no name tag. But yeah, that's the church standards as far as the missionaries go. So when people see that, they know as far as, okay, those guys are the Mormon or the LDS missionaries. Now, is Jamaica dangerous? Is there a dangerous side of that that you kind of interfaced with as a missionary yeah it's actually the at the time anyways it was the third most dangerous country per capita so i

mean i was on buses where the bus got hijacked i was walking down the street with people seeing them like plot guns i saw a guy get killed as far as get shot i mean we ran through gun battles so it was like a third world full experience. What happened when the bus got hijacked? How'd you get out of that one? Trying to remember exactly, because we were sitting near the front, and then all of a sudden this guy pulls out

this huge machete, this huge knife, and then he holds this lady with all her earrings and stuff and pulls a knife right up to her neck, and then he starts taking everything from everybody. Everyone just basically was giving everything off. And then he walked in the exit of the back of the bus. Did you give anything up? I wasn't asked to give anything up.

And we were in the front of the bus, so we weren't face-to-face with the guy. But it was kind of one of those experiences where you're just like, what are you going to do in that kind of experience? And it was definitely very traumatic. I realized early on, because I'd write my mom every week. And I told her about a couple of those stories. And then she got really terrified. So I was like, you can't tell her everything that's going on in Jamaica, because you don't want to scare everyone back home. But I felt safe still there. I wouldn't have gone there if I

didn't feel safe with what we were doing. And the people there was awesome, because they loved the missionaries. So they would take care of us, you know, and people were very respectful as far as that goes. Is your faith still a large component of your life now? Yeah, I mean, I honestly feel with all the videos that we do, I try and stay true to who I am, you know, and it's about inspiring people. It's about being positive, having uplifting messages.

So, I mean, and one of the things we do is like, we don't swear, we don't smoke, we don't drink. So in our videos, and it's also about dressing modest as well. So in our videos, you'll notice that we don't swear, we don't drink, we're not having girls completely nude or anything like that. We're very conservative as far as that stuff goes. But I wanted to hit, and honestly, I feel like... When you're nude, it really hurts hitting that water.

Oh, believe me. I think one person actually did go down nude just so he could say he did it, but we didn't capture that for the video. Different story. But honestly, too, I feel it's actually, by doing that, it's worked to our advantage because it's made our video super family-friendly, almost kind of like a Disney of YouTube. So all audience can share it, and it's not just an older audience or a more mature audience. And also, too, because kind of like a Disney of YouTube. So all audience can share it. And it's not just an older audience or a more mature audience. And also too, because there's not a lot of dialogue in our videos, it's also made it very international. So a lot of people can share international. So I feel it's really helped us as far as all that stuff goes by living our faith.

Now, we've talked to, Shea kind of told us about his mission, which was similar in that he was in a Caribbean country. Where did he go? He went somewhere that also spoke English and then some similar things happened to him. But we also talked with Lindsay, who, tell us a little bit about your history with Lindsay Sterling.

Yeah, I actually saw your guys' podcast that you guys did with her, so I heard her whole little shenanigans. But yeah, I was actually living in Hawaii at the time, and someone showed me one of her videos from America's Got Talent, and I was all about finding interesting people because interesting people, people want to watch on YouTube. Now, you were in Hawaii, just to connect the dots, you went to BYU after your mission.

But as you said earlier, you dropped out in order to be a YouTuber, right? Yeah, so that happened as far as the bike jump video. And then I got an opportunity to go to Hawaii for a year and do a documentary. So it was basically, I moved to Hawaii to do that documentary. And then I had a lot of free time. So I started doing YouTube videos constantly to kill time, essentially their budget actually ran out so it was like I just dropped out of school they had no budget so that's when I decided I'm just going to go for the YouTube thing because I'm already here in Hawaii and I can't go back because I just gave up everything

else so I started doing videos there in Hawaii after that bike jump video and you made something that really popped that really built your channel after yeah Yeah. So after that, I did another video. It was a water reservoir that we snuck into. It wasn't drinking water, but we did a big slip and slide. We did that video and then it exploded. Then we kept on doing videos and it just got bigger and bigger. It was a pond, but the whole thing was just black. Yeah.

Yep, that was it. Carp holding water. So yeah, we did that video and it just exploded again. We got all this commercial work from it as well. So it was just like, we just kept on trying to ride the wave. And then I started putting out a video every other week and then I started doing a video every week and then that's when it just truly took off. And you saw this amazing violinist on America's Got Talent and what happened? So I saw that and at that time, the piano guys, are you guys familiar with them? So they contacted me

and they were like we see what you're doing on YouTube we want to try this as well. We'd love to fly you down to Utah because that's where we're based out of

and that's where I was going to school at the time. You come to our mansion with all our sports cars. Come to our mansion. One says evil one says mafia the other says piano.

They were a little bit smaller humble beginnings. They just had a piano for those guys. But I was like I'm going gonna go into utah i know that's where lindsey's based because she was actually going to byu as well which we never met when i was going to byu um because she was going on her mission at the time when i was

going to school there um so i contacted lindsey i'm like i'm shooting the piano guys this day and i have one free day i love to shoot a video on you it was not going to cost you anything and then i get to put it on my channel and then you essentially get all the iTunes sales from that. So she's like, that sounds good. Let me think about it, essentially. And then she came back to me and she's like, I just checked out your channel.

And she's like, I'd love to do something with you. So I was really excited about it. So I did the piano, guys. And then we shot all night. So after we got done shooting, I went straight to Lindsay's house, picked her up, and then we spent all night so after we got done shooting i went straight to lindsey's house picked her up and then we spent all day filming her video um which was for a video called spontaneous me put that on my channel um and then it literally the same thing happened as far as it took off people had never seen a girl dancing and playing violin right so once that took off and you put

the word epic in the title epic violin girl you have to have epic because then people think it's epic and they click on it. But it was epic. So there was no faking people out there. So yeah, we did that video with Lindsay and then we just started talking back and forth. I mean, it was the whole long distance thing as far as we were just friends.

But talking back and forth on Facebook and then I had another opportunity to go back to Utah a couple weeks later. So I went back there and we shot another video together and we just became best friends. And then a couple months later, we started dating as well. And then I moved back from Hawaii to Utah. And then we ended up dating for, I want to say around 16 months, give or take. I'm not sure what she told you guys, but somewhere around that general area. Yeah. And then I had been in the whole YouTube scene for about a year at this time. And then essentially, I think I shot the first 23 videos on our YouTube channel. And then wherever I went, I'd take her with me.

So for example, New Zealand, we just talked about, that was who I actually took with me. It was Lindsey Stirling. And then we knew that. So we're like- Hanging out at Kim.com. Kim.com. That makes it even more interesting There's always other stories with that

Oh man But we're like we're going to New Zealand So let's do a Lord of the Rings medley So we took this guy's helicopter That's where that was filmed Yeah so it was filmed in New Zealand That's where the movie takes place So we're riding the helicopter we see a pretty spot

And then he'd land the helicopter Lindsay would get out and then I'd film all these aerial shots from Kim.com's helicopter. So when you watch the video, you're like, okay, that's how that happened. So hold on, is Kim.com financing Lindsey Stirling now? I guess. If you look in the description at the bottom, it's special thanks to Kim.com for making this happen. Arguably, you launched Lindsey's career. I mean, it's one thing to be on America's Got Talent and she's fabulous

but it was that video which really set things off in the wake of America's Got Talent that changed the trajectory of her entire career and I mean that's what she said as well did you do the same thing for the yo-yo guy?

did you launch his career? well I don't know about launch his career. It definitely got his name out there in different ways. I'm not sure exactly what he's doing right now. Well, he's probably yo-yoing. Probably yo-yoing, let's be honest, because he was like the yo-yo champion. But he started getting a lot of jobs as well. And honestly, I feel for everyone that we get to work with, I mean, I think that's kind of what our YouTube channel is. It's like America's Got Talent, but on YouTube, on steroids as far as we're trying to find people with weird,

cool, hidden talents, and then essentially launching them. We did a video on Assassin's Creed meets parkour is what it's called. I think it has 36 million views. Your most viewed video. Yeah, our most viewed video. But it's the same story. The guy I had do it, I just heard that he was a local guy that did parkour. So I contacted him, and he did construction work. So I'm like, I'm doing this video on Assassin's Creed. I'd love for you to be in it. And I wasn't doing this with the video game company.

I was just doing it because I liked the video game. And I was like, it'd be cool to do this in real life. So he said he'd be down. So he did it for free. We spent seven different evenings filming it, launched the video. And he didn't have a YouTube channel at the time, so he created one just so we could send subscribers over there and I think it made him get like 80,000 subscribers

and then all of a sudden all these big TV shows started contacting him Disney actually did a commercial featuring him so all of a sudden he actually quit his construction job

and then he's been doing stunt work full time since we did that video so it's just been really cool seeing that community I feel that's what's

so great about the YouTube community it's about everyone working cool seeing that community. I feel that's what's so great about the YouTube community. It's about everyone working together, building off of each other's strengths, and then everyone benefits together. It's a beautiful thing. I mean, what can you do for us? Put us in the video. Now, you made

Shay Carl jump off of something. Yes. Right? Yeah. He wanted to do it, though. What did he jump off of? He jumped off of rope swing. He did the biggest rope swing we've done yet, which was a 400-foot rope swing, and he contacted me. Don't ask us to do that. Do that.

We'll figure out something, though. You guys have your dancing zebra, though. We still do have one of those. Well, you know what? We didn't even get in that thing. Right, so let's put that zebra on the rope swing because we're not in it. Yeah, that's true.

We can take credit and make people think we are. Now, so and to finish the story on Lindsay too, I mean, her analysis of your relationship was that you guys both love the same types of things and that kind of you were kind of headed

in the same direction, but maybe at some point realized that there wasn't, maybe this wasn't a love thing that was going to last forever. Yeah, so we were both definitely very passionate about creating videos. And we definitely loved each other at the time, or at least I thought we did. You never know nowadays. But yeah, and we got along so well.

We were best friends, me and Lindsay. And we did everything together, and we were shooting all these videos and creating all this content. And at the time, too, I'd only been doing it a year, so it was still new to me as far as exciting. So we were learning together, we were growing together and we were helping each other together. And then over time, like she got so busy with everything that was happening, not that work's ever more important, but it's just trying to figure out balance with everything. And then I was traveling everywhere and we just thought, I mean, it wasn't the best fit for everything that was going on. Well, when you have a Mormon faith, I mean, there's a lot at stake. You got to make sure

that you're dating the right person because when you marry him, it's forever. Yeah, exactly. I mean, you're forever, you populate a planet. This is a big deal, right? No, yeah, because we believe when you're married, it's for time and all eternity. So, I mean, where we stay is far away from divorce. Obviously, there's certain reasons when you have to have divorce, but we believe you get married and it's forever. You make it work. You figure out how to best get along.

So this isn't just testing the waters kind of thing. Yeah, this is a forever thing. So it's like we wanted to make sure, and it was like we dated for a while, and it just wasn't the best fit for us. It's hard to have two very passionate people that are doing two different things make it work is kind of what I've realized as I've done the whole dating scene and tried to figure that out. But yeah, it was a learning process. And I mean, I still look at Lindsay as one of my best friends. And we've gone our own separate ways and done our own things. But

it's been really exciting seeing what Lindsay's going out there and creating and changing the world in our own unique ways. It's been exciting knowing that I had a hand in making that happen and seeing that process unfold. All right, so what about dating life now, which is on the internet as well, more than with you and Lindsay. Right. Tell us about Haley.

So this is a sensitive subject. Oh, really? No, it's all good, though. This is the uncut, unedited, unrated version. That's right. That's what a near biscuit is. Yeah, near biscuit. We're all about that.

But yeah, we're still trying to figure it out as well. Haley's amazing. She's an amazing musician. And it's just the same thing, though, is just figuring out. So she's one of three Gardner sisters. Yeah, three Gardner sisters. They're a YouTube channel as well. I met Haley on our fly board video, which was similar to the hoverboard video.

Went to Hawaii. She came to my shoot. And we just, same thing. We became really good friends. And then I heard she had a YouTube channel. So I was like, let me check out your guys' YouTube channel. Because it wasn't huge, but it was just doing OK. And I checked it out.

I'm like, these girls are amazingly talented. So I contacted them. And I sat down with them. Because I'm all about giving back and helping people, because everyone benefits that way. So I kind of told them the secrets I knew about YouTube as far as how to grow, and what the best ways I saw that happened for Lindsay, because it was a similar thing as far as musician, musician.

And then how they could actually monetize by selling iTunes cover songs. So I kind of went over that with them and then they started doing that and I started shooting their videos and then me and Haley fell in love, essentially, is what happened. And then that's kind of how it's been with that.

And I mean, right now though, we're not together and we're just trying to figure out life because once again, it goes back to that same thing as far as two passionate people trying to figure it out because you go in different directions, you know? Okay, so i'm not going to say i sense a pattern here but you i mean we've

talked about two girls yes but uh do you think that this is uh just related to i mean you you've you've stated in other places that you like to stay busy i mean all i have to do is knowing what we know about youtube you can look at your channel and know that you're busy. Not to mention the fact that you're not making, you know, videos in one studio every single day. I mean, you're all over the world. Does that make it difficult to have a long-term relationship? Yeah, well, there's a couple different things, I guess, that happens with each of the relationships. In Haley's case, she's going to school at BYU Hawaii in Hawaii. And we've been separated for the last five months. So, I mean, I've had to keep myself busy. Hawaii in Hawaii. And we've been separated for the last five months. So I mean,

I've had to keep myself busy. But it's like when we're in the same place together, we make sure we spend time together. So it's not an issue of that. I feel that it can work, but it's just due to the circumstances that we've been put in as far as she's been gone for the last five or six months. We've been FaceTiming everything every day, but

it does get really hard. It does make things complicated. The good thing now, though, is I have a team of other people that I trust as far as Team Supertramp is what we call, I guess, our group of filmmakers, where I can send them out. So I can be home a lot of the time instead of work and whatnot. Right. But, yeah, just figuring out the balance. So it's kind of on – you're on a hiatus right now, but when she finishes up, who knows what will happen. Yeah, who knows what happens. I think the world of her and she is my best friend.

Yeah. Okay. Well, just keep us posted on that. Let's bring it back full circle. At the beginning, I talked about how there's a vibe to your videos that goes beyond what I'm seeing is awesome and scary and an amazing stunt. There's a tone of just exuberance. Everybody's having fun. Everybody's happy.

One of the things that Ron and I discussed when we rewatched the videos in prep was the choices of who you show when in the video goes a long way to make it something much more than what you would think it would have to be to be a viral video you're not just shooting an amazing hoverboard and you're not really explaining how it works who because who you know there's a whole channel that could be devoted to that but you're not even just showing the amazing thing that happens in the air or while this is swinging or whatever the case may be. You're showing the people who watch. The people's faces. You're seeing the reactions.

I mean, tell us your philosophy there. Yeah. So my philosophy there, I'm going to tell a quick little story really fast because I feel it explains our philosophy. Maybe a year ago, I get this email from this guy in Morocco and he was like, I have never been so depressed in my life. And finally one day I decided I was going to end my life. So he said it was like four o'clock in the morning and he got everything to basically slit his wrist and end his life. And he said he was 100% committed to killing himself. And he said right before he did that, he said he got this thought to go back on my YouTube channel and watch through the videos because he wanted to be reminded what he would be missing if he wasn't alive. And he said by watching those videos, it was like it created all these experiences for them, even though he had

never had them. But it made him realize how amazing life is and the people that are in life. And that's kind of, I feel, our philosophy with what we do is we want to show people how amazing the world is. And it's not about the hoverboard. It's about the people and the experience with the hoverboard that, I mean, I feel with the media, especially, it's all about negative this and that and how the world's falling apart. But at the same time, we don't see all the positive things because that isn't news, quote unquote. But it's like the way we look at it is show people how amazing the world is, the people around it, put them in these amazing experiences,

and then inspire them to show them life can be great. Get outside, get your friends together, have fun and do what you love to do. And if you break a collarbone, cut that out. Cut it out. But it always makes the cut like it's in the behind the scenes but yeah it's in the BTS you get this feeling I remember I don't know specifically what video it was but I do remember the first time

I watched one of your videos and you and I got the sense that I wanted to be there that I was like who are these people and why are they having such a good time I know that this awesome thing is happening, but it's just like this community that you want to be a part of. And they're all beautiful.

So where do you find these beautiful people that you put in your videos? Yeah, that's a great question. People are always like, why do you always just have such pretty friends? I mean, that's not true because I have all kinds of friends and everything else. I'm trying to think of the right way, but yeah, we just invite our friends that we feel are photogenic. Okay. Well, we'll have other people that aren't photogenic. Don't get me wrong,

but we obviously, yeah, put them in the back. But yeah, we just like showing everything. But we, I mean, our videos, they do have big people, they have little people. And generally though, it's who's ever in that area is who we capture so for example san francisco we had people of all different races colors different sizes and we featured all of them so it just depends on what area what demographic we're in is who we feature and we have no problem featuring anyone as far as any of that stuff people who are willing to hang out on the edge of a cliff tend to look a certain way and be, you know, so you take what you can get. Okay, yeah.

They're always athletic, too. I'll take that. Athletic, you know. Well, another thing, too, and I think this plays right along with why everything that you do is so sponsor-friendly, but you do also get the sense that whatever these people are into,

I'm going to buy. You know what I'm saying? It's just like the music is great. What they're doing is fun. They look great. Oh, they're drinking a Mountain Dew. I want to drink a Mountain Dew. I mean, it seems like it's just ready-made for sponsorship.

And I would also think that it would be the kind of thing that your door would be getting knocked down to go direct commercials. Is that happening? Yeah, it's happening constantly. And a lot of people say, like, how do you get started doing commercial work? And what I tell them is when we started, I was just featuring my friend's clothing company. At the time, it was Vure. No one knew about them.

So I was like, I want to feature your guys' product. Don't pay me anything. But what will happen is other clothing companies that are much bigger will see, hey, he did this with Viret. It has 14 million views. What can he do with us? Right now, we're about to do a big video with Champion Clothing Company. We have all these other sponsorships. We just did something

with Speed Stick Deodorant. That's actually a zip line through Panama City, like the city itself, to BaseJump. They're seeing our videos. They're like, hey, Devin did this sponsorship here. And even though it was a small one at the time, they're seeing that. So now they want us to do bigger and better things. So I mean, that's kind of how it's evolved with all that.

But they saw that we were proving ourselves with other people. OK, so lastly, tell us what's the biggest idea that you haven't been able to do yet, but that you want to pull off one day? One of the ideas we're going to do sooner than later it's not crazy crazy crazy extreme but everyone absolutely loves our rope swing videos so the first one we did was through an arch 200 feet the follow-up was 400 feet the next one i want to do because i'm always trying to think what can we do that's going to be bigger and better than the last one that will give people a reason to share it? So we're like, I want to do a rope swing through a gigantic city.

It'll completely change the look. So it's basically going to be Spider-Man in real life through a city. It's kind of the next big thing that I want to do. And obviously, getting permits and all that stuff is very hard. So we'll probably have to do it in a foreign country. But that's kind of the next big thing that we're going to do. We're just still working out the details with that. But you're actually laying the groundwork for it?

The initial groundwork is just figuring out the right sponsorship. Because I feel we have so many opportunities with different sponsors, but it's like, who's going to be the best fit that's going to let us tell the story that we want to tell with this? Because we're not going to personally be able to close off all the roads, get all the bills and stuff like that. We'll have to have a sponsor to do that. So we're just trying to figure out the best sponsor for that.

Well, listen, man, we'll be excited to see whatever you come out with next. And it's been cool to hang out here. So thanks for the time. Yeah, thank you guys. You guys are rock stars. Over and out. And there you have it, our Ear Biscuit with Devin Supertramp. You know, I think after having that conversation with him, we have significantly increased our chances of collaborating.

And that sounds exciting, but you've got to count the cost of a thing such as this. The cost could be our lives, Rhett, so we might need to pull back on that one a little bit. It's no ordinary collaboration. I mean, this is not like some vlogger who's like, hey, I'll come be on your GMM, or you can come to my bedroom and make a video with me. Well, you know what I mean. Not that kind of video, but the kind of video

that vloggers make in their bedroom like a vlog. This is like, we're gonna hook you up to something that... Well, he did it. Shay Carl went out there, and I don't know if it was the world's largest rope swing. I think it was. It was one of those that he actually did that. The interesting thing, I mean,

sometimes when, like, just in conversation with friends, things like bungee jumping or skydiving comes up. Nick asked me this the other day when we were going camping. He was like, we were talking about skydiving. He was like, would you ever go skydiving? And I said, well, for a video I might, but I wouldn't do it just for the fun of it, but I would do it. I might do it if we were making a video. I mean, I think that's the only scenario where I would do something. But if we were going to do it,

we would make it into a video. So it sort of answers itself. I mean, will you do it? I mean, I'm the one who's scared of heights. I'm very scared of heights. I don't like ropes, courses. I don't even like standing up as being the tall person that I am.

But Nick did skydiving just to do skydiving. There's plenty of people who do that. But it has to take me making a video and creating something in order to push me over the edge. Would we do it tandem? Like the two of us together? Is that how you do it the first time? No, because the implication is that

the one on the back of the tandem knows what they're doing. Yeah. And I don't think he'd do. How about three tandem? How about me and you, but then there's a guy behind me? Triple up. Is that, can you do that? So you wanna make it even heavier.

I just wanna make it a funny video. You wanna make the human glob underneath the parachute as heavy as possible. That doesn't sound smart. Oh, you just get a bigger parachute. The thing that, I just got a trip out of Devin talking about how I assumed that these were like stuntmen and like there were safety officers around

and things like that. And it is more of this, let's just get a group of friends who are willing to do these things and have some sort of- Well, you gotta remember, it's YouTube. Yeah. You make these assumptions about it, but you gotta remember, this guy- Because it looks so high quality.

He's still a YouTuber. And that's what I love about it. I mean, I don't love the fact that there's not a team of safety officers. However, it is getting to that point, like you said, that he's doing these big branded projects and that kind of thing. So it's becoming more like a traditional film shoot

or whatever. When I worked for IBM, there was a man named Rick whose full-time job was safety officer. And this was at just a corporation, you know? Like paper cut? Rick Poling was his name. He kind of was like a swirly sailor type guy. He had like white hair and a white beard.

Like don't lift the water cooler by yourself? I don't understand what- He oversaw the safety features of the manufacturing facility. So it does make a little more sense, but he also designed like the offices and to make sure that, I don't know, people didn't run into walls.

Slammed their hands in laptops. And he had the greatest sense of humor. It was like a swarthy sailor. He looked and sounded like one. You can hurt your finger on that little mouse that the IBM ThinkPads had in the middle of it, that little nub. Oh, the red nipple.

You can dislocate a digit on that red nipple. I've never touched the red nipple. Stay away from that thing. Shout out to Rick Poling. I miss that guy. I hope he's... He's probably still alive. He's so safe.

Right. What if he's not? What if he's not? This would be tragic. I don't know. You guys should tweet at Devin. I mean, you can try to track down Rick Poling, too. I think that's fine.

Take it or leave it. But definitely tweet at Devin and let him know what you think of his Ear Biscuit. His handle is Devin Super Tramp. D-E-V-I-N Super Tramp. So let him know what you think. Hashtag Ear Biscuits on that. And we will

be rope swinging back your way drifting into another death defying Ear Biscuit. Next Friday. Yes. Happens every week. And if we do the drifting into another death-defying ear biscuit. Next Friday. Yes, happens every week. And if we do the Devin collaboration,

then we'll obviously let you know because that's the only reason we're going to be doing it is so that you can watch it and laugh at us. I think we're going to be put it in post. Oh, we're going to be put it in in the post? We're going to be put into one of his videos in post. Okay. I'm not gonna actually be there. A lot of rotoscoping.

Okay, see you next week. Okay, see you next week.