Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - Ep. 64 Kassem G - Ear Biscuits

Episode Date: April 10, 2015

Comedian, YouTube content creator, and Co-Founder of Maker Studios, Kassem G, joins Rhett & Link this week to discuss how moving from Saudi Arabia to the U.S. shaped him as a young child, why a paranoid fear of getting murdered on the Venice Boardwalk halted the production of one of his most popular series, and the effect that the $500 million sale of Maker to Disney had on his outlook on content creation. *NOTE: This conversation contains adult themes and language. 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, this, this, this is Mythical. Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I'm Link. And I'm Rhett. Joining us today at the round table of dim lighting is our friend and OG YouTuber, the one and only, Kassem G. Kassem started his channel, which currently sits at 2.6 million subscribers

and 400 million views way back in 2006. He's one of the co-founders of the now Disney-owned Maker Studios and he's honed his signature sharp, sarcastic, comedic tone via his popular series, California On. Now you've probably seen it where he creates hilarious moments from impromptu conversations on the streets of Venice Beach and elsewhere,

including various conventions. You're watching California On. First of all, you want to do this shirts on or off. You always have the option. Tell me about your personal life. Are you single? I'm in New York. Taken?

Nope, I don't care about New York. I'm a nice guy. You're a nice guy? Yeah. Do you have to be because you're not attractive enough to be a bad guy? I'm just a regular man. I'm just a regular man. Just a regular guy with no job.

You're not related to Carmen Sandiego in any way. Nobody's in San Diego that I know. The girls aren't, there's not as many girls. Mind if I do something real fast? What? Mind if I do something? You want to kiss my head? What year did we sign it?

What? Can you say that again, but just even more stupid? Well, I'm doing makeup application and a glitter tattoo. It's last for seven days. Do you get naked at any point during this? Not at all. Cool, see ya. In this biscuit, we talk with Kassem

about his participation in the grueling desert race, the Baja 1000. His moving to the US as a little kid and trying to fit in, how he recently connected with his Middle Eastern roots, and his candid thoughts on his legendary YouTube series, including California On, Going Deep Deep and Ask Kassem. We also talked about what he's been up to lately. Not a lot of stuff coming out on his YouTube channel

until very recently his latest project about Bigfoot. Yeah, it's a half hour special on his YouTube channel. We've watched it since having the conversation. I highly recommend it. You should check it out on his channel. It's called California on Sasquatch, a not finding Bigfoot special. So we think you guys will enjoy

our conversation with Kassem. But first, we wanna mention our sponsor EF College Break. They make travel easy, affordable, and even more fun for anyone 18 to 28, college not required. Yeah, this is really cool. You're young, you should travel and experience global experiences while skipping around foreign destinations.

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Is that from you or is that from them? That's just from me. Okay. I take responsibility for both of those diversions. Bottom line, it doesn't have to be intimidating to plan a trip outside of the country. The world is out there waiting to be explored, people. Go for it. Then Instagram some pics to us

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that covers 17 days, pretty awesome. Kyoto, Osaka, Tokyo. What? Beijing, Shanghai. This sounds like a great way to fill up that where I've been app that people used to have on their Facebook wall. Remember that?

Where they would brag about how well traveled they are? Well, if you want to be one of those people, you should do this. For $100 off, go to efcollegebreak.com slash Rhett and Link. Now, on to the biscuit. I thought for my money, there was nothing better than the micro-built series you guys did. I don't know if that's what you call it.

The mini commercials. Those guys aren't what we want to talk about. But I thought those, for my money on the internet, were as good of just content entertainment as you could watch. And I was in France for some fancy thing doing like one of those, you guys go to those upfront things where you have to talk about your stuff? Yeah, we went to one. Yeah, we've been to one in France. Okay. The one maybe you were at or the year before, but they asked me to come up to the stage and talk about like just YouTube videos that I liked.

Oh, okay. And I had some that were just like sketch YouTube videos that I liked. Oh, okay. And I, you know, I had some. Of your own? That were just like sketchy. Yeah, they were all my own. And then the last one was, and I specifically saved it for last because it always gets the most last, was the Red House furniture thing. And I was just like, I think these guys do the best job of creating something. And at the same time, it gives back to a local business.

And it's like not harmful pranky stuff. It's just really good and I was always bummed that there wasn't more. Well, I appreciate that. You know, and I'll go ahead and jump into this. I think that- Jump into it, Link. You, it means a lot coming from you

because we've always respected you as a comedian. There's lots of people on YouTube who might call themselves comedians, but they're people who just came up as YouTubers who... No, I hear what you're saying. I struggle with that title. They call themselves comedian, but I'm just like, I don't find it funny. And honestly, when it comes to what's the funniest thing

we've ever done, I would easily put our local commercials at the top of the list and Red House up there because I don't know exactly why. Maybe it's because it's separated from us so I can appreciate it, whereas I'm very self-conscious of the stuff we try to do. And plus the stuff we do is, it's for a wider audience and for something to really resonate with a comedian

that you respect, it has to be something that's very specific. Yeah. So, you know, I appreciate that. I think there's kind of this chip on our shoulder that we, you know, what do the comedians that we respect think of what we do because a lot of it is, That is, I think, a real big issue for just YouTubers

or people that make online content. Yeah. And there's that constant struggle of validation. Like, I want somebody who's not a YouTuber to like it. Or somebody who's like, you know, a guy who was in movies 10 years ago to like. You know, just, you feel like you need that outside validation when, you know, you got there because of the YouTube community. Well, if you want to be a comedian, you want the respective comedians, not just commenters. Right. and when you got there because of the YouTube community. If you wanna be a comedian,

you want the respect of comedians, not just commenters. Right, I've struggled with that for so many years. I mean, it's like, now I think I'm a little older than when we all started, so we're a little bit more mature about it, but there was always that, is this funny? Just because it's just like, I think a 13-year-old might think it's funny,

or is it funny because I think it's funny? Yeah, because it doesn just like, I think a 13 year old might think it's funny or is it funny because I think it's funny. Yeah, because it doesn't necessarily translate that what is actually funny is what rises to the top on YouTube. I mean, when we think about what we're doing, I mean, the thing that makes us the most amused is definitely the local commercials, but we don't do them anymore.

I know, it's like, you have to explain to me why why because I don't really know why, but I just feel like- Because they had to work in spite of us. Like people had to believe that they were real and the more we associated them with us, the worse they would do because people want to believe that Chuck Testa made his own commercial. Right. That the guys at Red House, Big Head and 10 Gauge

conceptualized that commercial. Well, they kind of halfway did. The commercial always has to go, has to basically break before they find out that we're behind it. Yeah, but to me, that's what I like. Like I like you guys bringing your thing. Yeah, we did like that.

And then you still use the people that are, I mean the Red House one is like, it's not like you guys are in there saying all those things black and white. Right. It's them doing it, it's not forced. When people find out that we're behind it. So like now if we take a local commercial

and put it on like the Rhett and Link channel, then it's immediately, the people who are there waiting for the next music video or whatever, we haven't done a lot on that channel in a while, but when that happens again, they're not expecting another local commercial. They're like, what is this? Yeah.

You know, and so, I mean, it doesn't mean- You guys gotta make more videos, by the way. We are, yeah. Gosh, you guys slack. So that's the challenge is like, how much do you listen to those people? Yeah, but it's the same thing for you. I mean-

Yeah, I listen to just myself, it seems like, for the last year. No, no, no. When it comes to that stuff. No, look at Ask Kas myself, it seems. No, no, no. Last year. When it comes to that stuff. No, look at Ask Kassem, the show that, you know, we, you know, once you went full body on green screen, we were like, no, we were like, this is it. This is my favorite thing on the internet. I love that show, and to watch the evolution of that show

of like starting as a vlog that a lot of people were doing at the time, then all of a sudden, oh no, he's on a green screen too. No, he's in a cowboy shot on a green screen too. Oh, you know what, if you would just back up just a little bit. I know, I think if you would have told me, cause it's been, I don't know, three, two, three years

since we made the last episode of that show. And for anyone that doesn't know it's a show, it was just like, you know how YouTubers have the I'm gonna respond to comments show? You know, everyone has their own version of that. And I decided to do my version of it. And it started, like you said, just in my bedroom, and just putting streets.

But it became making fun of that genre. Totally. And then it became, I know I'm cutting you off, but in my mind it became, you were just like, F that genre. I'm just gonna, this is how I'm gonna be funny, and I'm just gonna make, I'm no longer even making fun of that.

This is just crazy. It's just weird, but it had its own flavor, which took some time to get. It took until maybe episode 20, 30. It was specific. And it had a flavor, which took some time to get. It took, you know, until maybe episode 20, 30. And it had a flavor. And it was, at the time, you know, I didn't really like, I thought it was all right. But when we stopped doing it and all the messages we got, it was like more messages than I got

than like any other type of series or anything that I did. People were just like, hey, you took something away that I looked forward to all the time. And it was unique and it was this. And my only thing is like, now I totally get it. I have a lot of nostalgia, even though it was very recent for that show. And like, sometimes I'll go back and watch the last episode because it's kind of like- It's a very epic intro. Touching moment in the end where we're all just kind of like hugging it out. And it was good. It's like Breaking Bad. We did it for a little bit.

It was a thing. And then it's gone. We took it away. Yeah, you went out when you're on top. But it's just funnier and better. But based on the performance of it, you don't have as much incentive to go back to that as California On or Casting Goes Deeper. I would love to do. And we talked about trying to work it

into some sort of podcast. I've been toying around with a lot of things, but a podcast was something I wanted to do early, early, early before podcasts took off, and the Ask Kasim thing kind of happened, and then it ended, and I was like, well, it'd be cool to take it

and evolve it into something else, but it really hinged on my animator, who was a great animator. He did all the animated moving heads and this is a guy named Dan Flesher who's super great he turned that stuff around

we shoot it on a Monday morning and he would have a cut ready Tuesday night and it would go out Wednesday morning so it was like once he realized how much work it was and he started getting other job offers, he just got another job getting paid somewhere else,

more than what we were paying him. And I was like, I can't afford to pay more. We can't afford to pay more. And I was kind of like waffling on the whole idea anyway. So it's like, all right, we'll just call it here. But I do still feel like I'm missing a whole piece of engagement because I do like even the comments, if they were mean or funny or whatever they were,

I enjoyed the engagement and being able to do that. I don't like to be this kind of transient YouTuber who just goes away and comes back every once in a while. That was cool because it kept me there weekly and that's why I thought of like a podcast or something or some sort of evolved Ask Kasim is still interesting to me but. But I felt like that Ask Kasim

was kind of the evidence that you kind of wanted to do things on YouTube on your own terms. You know, we always thought you were funny, respected you, and called you a comedian, not a YouTuber. You know, so based on the creative decisions you were making, the things you would do and the things you wouldn't do, did you see that yourself?

I mean, is that how you would approach things? Well, typically they would just, I would just vlog or I would do what other YouTubers are doing, but was that part you would approach things well typically they would just yeah i would just vlog or i would do what other youtubers are doing but right i did but i did that yeah i mean i i feel like i did all the standard stuff early youtube days like during the youtube live days you know and um i didn't go to seven eight nine but it was around you know that whole time it's like either you were just a vlogger or you did something else but you know vlogging was an easy way in and i did it and i just felt so like this felt kind of gross to me

i mean i i have the utmost respect for people that do it daily but i didn't like having people peer into that side of my life it's a personal thing and so she does it and it's great because i watch shay's vlogs i don't watch a lot of youtube videos but i i, and it's great because I watch Shay's vlogs. I don't watch a lot of YouTube videos, but I watch Shay's vlogs because it's like watching your family that you know. And even though I do know them, I feel like that's how the audience sees it. So it was more of a privacy thing than a comedic standard thing. Yeah, it was a privacy thing, and the comedic standard thing is definitely a part of it because it's hard to – The privacy thing and the comedic standard thing is definitely a part of it, because it's hard to,

you like to craft and take time with jokes, not just turn on a camera and just upload whatever there is. It seemed easier to me. Well yeah, because it's the complete opposite of standup, which is a thing that is honed over time and developed and every beat is in place, and then you'd say, oh, I'm just gonna sort of just throw up my thoughts here and edit them together into something. And then you'd say, oh, I'm just going to sort of just throw up my thoughts here

and edit them together into something. Yeah, but that's what makes, you know, at the same time, that's why the most successful YouTubers do that stuff. But I just think I made an early decision to not include that stuff. And it had to do, like, at the time, I was going through a breakup and it was like all these things seemed to just not work for me at the time. But I'm kind of glad I tried it. And it was like all these things seemed to just not work for me at the time. But I'm kind of glad I tried it.

I can understand what it's like to have to turn on a camera and then make something happen. I get it. And it's not easy. And I don't want to diminish vlogging in any way. It's not my style of content. And it's hard for me to do. It's much harder for me. Like Shay, I could turn a camera on and Shay will be bouncing off the walls and something will happen.

His kid will hit the ceiling, you know, and I just, I'll sit there and I'll just think of something weird. And I feel like more people would be kind of put off by me if they got inside my head more, you know? You never know. Yeah, you never know. We want to come back to you and YouTube and your entire story. Yeah, me too.

But I know in the time that you haven't been making as many videos, you've been doing a lot of interesting things including driving in the Baja 1000. Oh yeah, yeah, I did. Because you came here when we shot the What Women Want music video, you were driving this like Baja'd out truck. Yeah. I, you know, I grew up in Southern California for the most part. I've been here since 93. So that the whole off-road motorsports world kind of sunk into me when I

was like in high school. And yeah, like to me, my first two vehicles were trucks and I still have my Toyota Tacoma, which I did some work to because I enjoyed off-roading. And it's not that slow, rock-crawly type stuff that you'll see, you know, on the East Coast. Out here, we do fast, you know, sort of through the desert, jump off dunes type off-roading. Yeah, you can get some air. You get some air, yeah. That's the most fun, getting all four tires off the ground. But so what happened with the Baja 1000,

long story short is I was shooting it. And this is like the most epic, just to give people the definition. We went to the Baja 500 one time. Oh you went? We can tell you more about that. So the 1000 is twice that. It's out of Ensenada, Mexico,

and you're going down the Baja Peninsula 1,000 miles. This last one was 1275. So it was from Ensenada to La Paz. And anybody, and how long does that take for the winner? I mean, the winners are doing it. Like the four wheel class. Yeah, the winners are doing it in like less than a day. I forget what the winning times were.

I want to say like 18 hours, 20 hours. No, these guys are running, like the guys that finished first are running, like there's the unlimited class, there's a trophy truck class. They look like desert monster trucks. They are. But anybody can enter.

Like you could enter in like a Volkswagen Beetle. There's the same entrance fee for every category of racers, every, what do you call it, group. It's the same entrance fee for every category of racers or every, what do you call it, group. It's the same entrance fee and it's the same prize money at the end, which is like, I don't know, $4,000 or $1,000. But nobody, you know, you get these teams that are sponsored by multi-million dollar companies and their trucks are, you know, the race trucks worth almost a million. And then they have like three or four chase trucks that are all like a few hundred grand. I mean, there's a lot. They have helicopters few hundred grand. I mean, there's a lot.

They have helicopters that follow them. I mean, there's so much money in it. My problem is that like there's no one really doing a good job of televising the sport. Because I watched a documentary when I was younger called Dust of Glory, and it's a documentary on the Baja 1000. I thought it captured the whole spectacle perfectly. Like it's a holiday for the Mexicans down there. Kids are out of school. The trucks are lined up on the street for contingency. You can just go up and talk to the drivers, take pictures with it, get

in the trucks. And I think that's so cool. And when I was finally down there to see it, it was just, it was mind boggling. It literally is like Christmas down there for everyone. There's no school. There's nothing but like bros in race shirts and black build hats cruising around and black socks. And it's kind of a free-for-all. Like the stories we would hear from drivers was, you'll be

going over a hill and then some Mexicans will have created a homemade booby trap. Booby traps. Booby traps are part of the race. Dragging a mattress out. So when you land, you're landing on a mattress. The spectators down there are both really fun and can be really scary. Because if you're doing 100 miles an hour and you hit a jump and you can't see what's on the other side of it.

There may be a kid or a cow. Somebody dies almost every year. Every year, yeah. I feel like. And they're so close, the spectators are so close, you could just, if they stuck their hand out, they'd lose it. That's the thing we couldn't believe was we were actually,

we had access to the big river ditch thing there in Ensenada at the start. Yeah, right, right. Where everybody was just lined up against there. Because this was like, oh, eight, I guess, with Cadillac. Hummer. Hummer, yeah, yeah, right. Where everybody was just lined up against there. Because this was like, oh, eight, I guess with Cadillac. Hummer, Hummer, Hummer, yeah, yeah, Hummer. Oh yeah, yeah, I remember that truck. And so we got to like be with Rod Hall's team.

And I just remember so many people just lined up there and these trucks coming through there and just spinning. I was like, if they lost control, they would just roll right into this crowd of people. Oh, well, the race started. Four or five trucks in. It's coming down to go into the ditch down that embankment, and it just rolls over into a group of people.

And, right? So you would think like, oh, my God, the horror. But they all scattered. And then after they realized nobody was killed, the entire place just cheered and erupted. And it was like, I'm like,, oh my God, this is awesome. It's so dangerous. So dangerous.

It's up to you. Let's go back to the beginning of Kasim G, the human being, the comedian. Yeah, the human being. So where are you from? Where are your parents from? Let's get nationality up in here. I was born in Jordan in 83 to a jordanian father and a egyptian mother and um i didn't ever live in jordan i i was just born there and maybe stayed

there for like two three months and then as a family we all moved to saudi arabia so i spent the first four years of my life living in a compound in Saudi Arabia. But you don't remember any of that. I do remember a little bit. I remember my last, my fourth birthday party, just because there was like a huge Mickey Mouse cake and like. What do you mean a compound? A compound is like in Saudi Arabia, there's a lot of people that go there for work

and they don't necessarily have to be Middle Eastern. They could be white people on business, but they build these sort of like concrete neighborhoods that are walled off. Yeah. And there's, you know, one entrance, one these sort of like concrete neighborhoods that are walled off. And there's one entrance, one exit sort of thing, and it's safer. And that's where we lived. And there were other Middle Eastern people, there were white people that lived there. My dad worked in the hotel biz. So yeah, a lot of the business people worked there and we lived there for until 87 and moved to Florida

because my dad got a promotion and was offered a visa. So he worked for the hotel in Florida. Yeah. So he got his ability to leave the country. Because when you're in those countries, you can't leave unless an American company offers you a job in America so you can get a working visa. Or you marry somebody that's an American company offers you a job in America so you can get a working visa, or you marry somebody that's an American citizen.

So there's really not a whole lot of options, which I realized last year when I went back to Jordan, which is a different story. But he got his visa, and we moved to Florida, and we did six years in Florida. Think of it like a prison sentence. So until you were 10 years old. Florida, that's where everybody, you know.

My brother was born there. All the weird stuff happens, all the great news stories come from. That's where the worst stuff happens in the world. But what is it like being eight, nine, 10 years old in school, this Jordanian, Egyptian kid? It was very weird. I was-

What part of Florida are we talking about? This is Kissimmee, like Orlando. Okay. But Kissimmee, which is much worse. It's where we go to Playlist, you know, where Playlist is and they put you up in those. Right. It's like right next to all the attractions. So it's a tourist town. Yeah. But it was right next to the Marriott World Trade Center where my dad worked. So he had a little short five minute drive there um what was your question was it was it a pleasant place for you to be no as an outsider no uh i had i think it happened more when i moved to california but i was as a kid i was very self-conscious of being a foreigner in a in america and um you know i might have had a little accident when I came here and I didn't

do things right, like raise my hand the correct way or like, you know, little things that you get corrected on. But all you want to do is just assimilate and fit in and not stand out as a kid from another country living in this country. And I have a thing that i'm writing which hopefully will shed a whole bunch of light on this stuff but it was kind of hard email it's a it's it's a show it's a tv show which it has like flashbacks of me as a kid and there was uh but it takes place when i moved to california and i was like 10 trying to kind of like the wonder years because that was my favorite show um And I think part of the reason I screwed,

I just was so weird because I did watch The Wonder Years and I thought that's how families were supposed to be acting. You know, like Wayne the Big Brother treating Kevin like s***. Sorry,

I know you bleeped the show. Right, you were, I never watched The Wonder Years but you were obsessed with it. Very big time. I was cried at like every episode. Oh,

there was a lot of crying. You come to school the next day and you're like, oh, I watched, did you watch The Wonder Years? Very big. You cried at like every episode. Oh, there was a lot of crying. You'd come to school the next day and you're like, oh, did you watch the one of yours last night? Yeah, Paul and Kevin really connected last night. Right, and I was treating my brother like crap because I had a younger brother, so I was like, I gotta be like Wayne and hit my brother around

and lock him out of his, you know, out of everything. So there was one specific, okay, so that's Florida. We lived there till 87. I go to Montessori School and part of public elementary school there. My brother's born. Dad gets another job. Now it's in California.

So it's 93. Okay, we leave Florida, which just had Hurricane Andrew. And then we come to California. And then a few months later, we have the earthquake, the 94 earthquake. So we thought we brought a lot of bad luck with us. But kind of 93 in Southern California

is where like most of the story picks up, you know. Going to school, fifth and sixth grad, started in fifth grade. So I did most of elementary school, middle school, and high school all out here. And, you know, just to kind of piggyback on what you were saying about how I felt and I felt very alienated,

there's a story I tell that kind of sums it up pretty well. When I moved to California, started a new school. It was one of the first days of school, right? And I didn't have any friends, and I was just kind of like a wandering dude, just like that weird guy at parties that hangs in the kitchen, just waiting for people to talk to him, sort of. I was that guy. And one afternoon after lunch, our teacher said, okay, we're going to do an activity in the quad.

And in the quad, there was a painted mural of the United States, right, with all the states all outlined and bordered and everything. And she said, okay, kids, you guys go stand on the state you were born in. It'll be real fun. It'll be real fun. It'll be real fun to see. And so like all the kids. She didn't think through that one. A couple of kids walked over to like where New York might be or was.

Most of the kids were huddled around Southern California. This is some weird kid from Washington. And then you would look over and I was standing in a plane or maybe 50 yards away because that's where I thought I would be relative to the United States. And I wasn't trying to be funny. I was just like, I'm not from that mural. I don't, that's not where I came from.

I'm from the planner. Right. And so I'm feeling soup. It's like me and then the rest of the class, right? And they're all looking at me because the teacher's like, what are you doing? I was like, I'm born in Jordan. It might be over here somewhere.

And I look over and there's another kid who's kind of close to me his name was craig normal white kid blended in perfectly god bless him and he was kind of standing by me and i was like where were you born he was like saudi arabia my my dad was on business wow yeah so me and craig kind of hit it off well so you were thinking the same thing. I went from feeling like the most alienated person in the world, more alone than I have ever, and then looking over and seeing like, oh, there's a buddy who knows what it's like. There's a white dude here. He knows how long a plane flight is. That's great.

So it's moments like that that kind of shaped me as a kid. And there's endless moments like that. But it was weird. It's more weird for me as a kid and there's endless moments like that but um it was it was weird it's more weird for me as an adult to look back at it because when you're a kid you're just going through it and you're like even when i was 20 and 22 it's like i was just a kid who cares you know but as you get older then you see especially when you hit like 30 and you start asking yourself like who am i why am i here and uh you start to reflect on a lot of that stuff and for a while i was like angry with my parents for not like instilling culture in me but Who am I? Why am I here? And you start to reflect on a lot of that stuff.

And for a while, I was like angry with my parents for not like instilling culture in me. But they did, you know, then you're like feeling great for your parents because I got a chance to go back to Jordan to see how hard it was for my family or my dad to leave. Was that the purpose of the trip? Well, my grandma got sick last year. And since I had never been back to Jordan since I was there for that first three months, and they had been asking me to come and I just was like, I got my own thing going. I was always younger in school or something. But when my grandma got sick last year around April, it was like a very last minute thing. Me and my brother just got back from Hawaii visiting my folks. like a very last minute thing. Me and my brother just got back from Hawaii visiting my folks.

And then three days later, me, my dad, my mom, my brother all on a plane to Jordan to go see my sick grandma. And it was also like, you know, meeting your cousin. I have one cousin that lives in the United States that I talked to. His name's Michelle. And he's, you know, he lived with us when we were younger. And he's like a brother to me and my brother. But other than that, I don't know any other family members, really. So I got to go back and meet cousins and cousins and cousins and grandparents and people that all share your own blood that you've never seen before. And then you talk to them, and you find out what their lives are like, and you're like, well, my ass is not as bad as what these guys are going through right now. Or it's just very different. And I'm very lucky to be where I'm at.

It was good. And I had a lot of respect for my mom and especially my dad for making that leap. Now, you said that there was a time that you had some resentment towards your parents because they didn't instill enough of your heritage. Right. So, maybe when I was like 25 or something, you know, just when you start to like, you know, your car insurance rates get lower and then you start thinking more inwardly about yourself and realizing you probably have a ton of emotional problems that you've never dealt with. You know, that's, I had for a while, and it wasn't a long time, but I got into a fight with my parents for not instilling more of the culture in me. But they did. They did and they continue to,

and they never turned their back on their culture. They just had to do certain things to, like, for example, like the day after 9-11, we bought an American flag, right? And I was like, why do we have to do this? It's like, I was upset about that later. Like, why'd you guys have to do that? I mean, I know you were just trying to blend in, but that's just what being in this country is about. You support the country that you live in and you're proud of where you came from. And they did their best, but I didn't think that for a long time. That was just my ignorance. My parents worked really hard to get us here, me and my brother.

Did you deal – I mean, I know a lot of kids whose parents are from another place kind of deal with that embarrassment of their parents embarrassing them. They'd drop us off like a mile away from school, or we would walk. There was no way – I didn't invite them to parent teacher night or the pta open house like they would mysteriously never get those invites um i was embarrassed i i really i really was it was it was uh not it just made me stand out more than i needed to because in my in my in my world at that time as a 16 15 year old I just needed to be playing the game just socially just be normal be a regular dude don't be that weird foreign guy you know whose mom cooks weird things and like she would she'd cook weird things and the

smell would get on my sweatshirt and I'd like wash my clothes a lot just to make sure I wasn't so I'd have people check me and like always'm always smelling myself. It does a lot of bringing weird foods to lunch. I showed people for the first time what pita bread was, I think. Right. Before pita was pita. Yeah, it was awkward at the time. Forget Maker Studios. If you'd have gotten in on that one here,

I should have brought pita. That was your ticket. Yeah, it was hard, but I am so grateful for the fact that I had to go through it a little bit differently than a lot of people I know, because I think it made me who I am, and it made me, you know, I was very defensive and I didn't like being made fun of,

so I had to develop some sort of like quick wit, because it was the only thing I had. So that was the development of the comedy, was the coping mechanism. Right, I had to keep people's attention off of my either glasses, my nose, my crooked teeth, or my acne with some other method. And what was your biggest venue?

A Wisecrack here and there, or did you find a larger audience at a young age? I think I was very much the class clown, but I think I remember specifically in sixth grade, I was in drama in sixth grade. And the first show, I improvised a thing where I hit somebody in a butt with a giant mallet, like a rubber mallet.

I'm laughing right now. And I thought- Improvise, you need someone in the butt. Yeah, exactly. I thought it was such a cool move, you know, go off script, but I got a huge laugh, a huge laugh. And I'm thinking about it now, it's so dumb.

But it was like crack, I guess. It was like, oh, oh. See how this works. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, okay. All right, I'm buying mallets now. I'm buying big rubber mallets. But yeah, I didn't do,

I think I wanted to do drama in high school and things like that, but I was too worried about my social order to risk being labeled as a drama person. So I experienced that stuff in like, call it the community college. It was like the first time I ever, you know, decided to do it seriously and take some classes.

And then I took some formal classes, actually just down the street from you guys. I just passed it and had all these terrible flashback memories of my old acting school on the way here. Which one was it? I don't want to drop them. I don't want to drop them because they weren't that great. But I did meet a lot of cool people in there. And there were some good teachers there, but I wouldn't want to drop them. I don't want to drop them because they weren't that great. But I did meet a lot of cool people in there.

And there were some good teachers there. But I wouldn't recommend it. The unnamed place. So you said that you're mining your experiences as a kid for a show. Yeah, but I don't. You're just starting to write. Yeah, I don't want to talk about it I'm not the type of guy that because it may not ever happen

but I am trying to write a TV show that deals with my experiences as a kid and specifically you know like when I moved here and how that worked it's like you want to do this it's on spec kind of a thing it's not it's not something that's bought that we're going to

see in a couple of years this is something that you're conjuring up. I'm hoping to get a pilot written and then go pitch it. And it'll be made, it just depends on who wants to make it now. And I'm in this place where I wanna do things that are like, that mean something. And they're like stuff I could show my parents and it would be good. As much as you know as much as i loved doing californiana and all those things

there's only so much of those you can do before you want to try and do something bigger uh and then i'm also like seven years older than when i first started eight years older doing youtube videos so your sensibilities change um. And what you think is good changes. So yeah, I'm gonna try and do something that's not just so forgettable, I feel like. Well, let's connect the dots and then come back to that. You kind of move through the YouTube story. So community college, you're doing a little,

you're taking some classes, that kind of thing. I was taking improv, I was doing. When did you get into the standup thing? Because you're living out classes that kind of thing I was taking improv I was doing when did you get into the stand up thing because you're living out in Ventura County I was living in Ventura County and driving

I was working at Best Buy full time and then taking acting classes after I would get off my shifts what were you an expert in at Best Buy

what was your section I'm a I'm a home theater guy oh yeah yeah yeah wow that's I'm a home theater guy. Oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. I love speakers.

I love sound. 5.1 it up. Sure, man. You know? 7.1 these. And 7.2. Get 10.4. You don't still work there, do you?

No, no. Sometimes I'll go back into Best Buy and just like cry. You know? Just like by the office chairs and remember the pain that I suffered there. Well, at least you weren't at Circuit City. Well, you're right. Then you have no place to go back to. You're right.

But either way, both those stores are screwed. Or one of them. Yeah, right. So, yeah, I was working at Best Buy. I was taking acting, formal acting classes in North Hollywood. So it wasn't just strictly comedy. It was acting. I did stand up. Well, I was doing stand doing stand I guess you'd

back up I was doing stand-up and improv before I decided to do formal acting classes like where I would pay money to these so yeah I was I was doing improv and then my improv teacher community college a guy by the name of John Loprino super nice guy um was an actor himself and uh really saw whatever I thought I had he saw it too and he he took extra special took extra special time with me and like talked to me and and told me to do stand up and he was the first person I did stand up in front of and was the reason why I went out and did open mics and things like that. But all this stuff kind of happens around the same time. So forgive me if the details are a little hazy. But I was doing stand up on the weekends.

And then I decided I would also strengthen my acting muscle, which still needs a ton of strengthening, but I was going to learn it and try and work on it. So I was taking classes. And then by this time, I went down to part-time at Best Buy because I knew that the train was going to stop soon and I needed to get out and figure out where I was going. Oh, at Best Buy, before I actually quit and before I went to part-time, I hired a gentleman by the name of Corey Mr. Safety Williams. And it said that on his resume? Yeah, it said Mr. Snow.

I don't know what it said. I actually didn't even see his resume. Some guy's like, yeah, some guy here needs a job. He looks like a nice dude. And I was like, all right. And I interviewed him. And he told me in the interview that he moved from Modesto because he had a viral cat video

that was huge. You know, I saw it. I said it had like, I don't know, 100,000 views at the time. I forget what was a lot back then. You had already seen it or you went and saw it after? No, no, I saw it after.

Okay. I think he maybe even showed it to me then. I don't know. He had a newspaper clipping of him from the Modesto, which was funny. It was very Corey. Yes.

We got to know Corey later. Yeah, we all did. So, yeah, that makes sense. And I wouldn't know you guys if it wasn't for Corey either. Right. So, God bless him. So, Corey got hired, and he was telling me that there's this. And at this time, I was putting stand-up clips on YouTube.

I had a YouTube account, but it wasn't under KSMG. I would just take my sets and then put what I thought were funny jokes, which they weren't, but I'd put them on. I'm like, oh yeah, this is what, this is the future. You just put these clips online and then people will love them. Get the big hits. Right. And then nobody watched them.

And I didn't understand anything about the community, but Corey's like, there's a whole group of people that like want content, but you got to like talk to them and you got to like, you know, get in. And he showed me like, there's like YouTube to them and you gotta get in. And he showed me, there's YouTube meetups and there's these things. He pretty much held my hand in the very beginning. Yeah, as one of the top comedic YouTubers who also had a cat who, in the cat's own right,

was a top YouTuber. The cat definitely, I don't know when it happened, but there must have been a time where the cat was bigger than all of us, probably. So, I mean, Corey was gung-ho. Corey was so nice. He is gung-ho in life. He's gung-ho in life.

And he applied all of that to YouTube. And he was a hell of a salesman, too. Yeah, great salesman. He's like, you gotta invest buy, but also for you to get on YouTube. Right, so one specific thing, he was like, all right, I'm going to put you in a video. We'll shoot it on your lunch break, right? And I was like, okay, whatever.

And I'll upload it later tonight. And I was like, whatever, okay. And we shot this thing kind of like in the truck receiving area in the back. And I don't know what it was. It was pretty dumb. I was like holding a stereo that he broke. And he uploaded it. And then like the next day it had like,

I don't know how many thousands of views, but I was, I went and did stand up that night at a local Chinese restaurant. And there weren't a thousand. And there was no one there to see me. There was the only people there were like finishing their chow mein

and their orange chicken, and they were probably going to leave soon, but it was not a room built for comedy in any way. They had to move a piano like into the corner, and I was doing stand-up, and it was fine or whatever, but there was six people there, and I went home and looked on this video,

and there were like whatever many thousands of views on this one video. And I was like, what am I not doing right here? You know, there's all these eyeballs here, people craving this stuff here. And I'm talking to an effing wall in this Chinese restaurant. So that was important. I remember that specifically as a moment where I decided I think I would try and crack some sort of, you know, try and make some format or make YouTube videos. And from then, it's kind of a blur because you get swept up in all the YouTube meet and greets, right? And then you collab, which is, oh, man, you got to collab when you first start. And the fact that you guys asked me to be in Fat Dippin', I was on the moon.

Oh, I'm gonna be in Fat Dippin'. I just deans in it. And I don't know. I don't remember anyone else. Yeah, we made up our minds that, okay, we're coming out to LA to shoot this thing. There's a good number of YouTubers out there. We're gonna reach out to everybody we know.

Corey was involved making his own videos. That's how I, so Corey. It's part of a Sanyo Zacti campaign. Waterproof camera. The first one. Because they came out with a second one, the second campaign, and we ended up, I made videos for it. Oh yeah.

And that money started Seated Maker. That's how we started our company. Right, because it wasn't long after that that it was the second round. No, no, so we got everybody. Zacti days as I like to call them. And I'll tell you from our perspective, so we're just asking everyone we know,

and we told Corey to ask everyone he knew. So I think that's probably how you showed up. Yeah, yeah. I'll just be honest and say, we didn't know you were coming. I didn't expect anyone to know who I was. I was just happy to be there, because it felt like,

I was like, oh, this is happening, man. We're around the pool. We're giving a speech to everybody and then all of a sudden it's like, okay, here's Kasim. What do you want him to do? And then it was our first meeting and then you turn around and you pull your pants down and you have on a G-string. Oh.

Oh, I forgot about that. So then we proceed to put you in the most clothes of anyone in the entire video. Yeah. So I had this like snowboarding jacket that I flew from North Carolina with because I thought it would be funny. Yeah.

And I was like, I'm gonna put it on. And this was a Tom Petty's house? Yes. His old house? This is Tom Petty's old house. Oh my God, the memories we had there. So you got a good shot. You're plopping in the pool with like the most clothes on. I got a very good shot. You're plopping in the pool with the most cars on.

I got a very good shot. Very boy. I know G-string you had on pants. You know those days when you can just count your subscribers coming in? Yeah. After you collab, it's like you don't leave the computer for a while. Yeah, right. You're like, hold on, honey.

I got 300 more just came in. I'll come to bed soon. It was like crack. You just wanted to collab and collab and collab and collab and collab. You hadn't done a California on it that way. No, no. So, like, I got to know. So, throughout all the YouTube meetups, right, I met Shay.

I met Phil. I met Shane. I met you guys. I mean, there was a whole bunch of people. And we just, me, Shay, and Phil got along pretty well. And we, us three hung out. It was more like Shea and Phil were buds, you know, and I was still just kind of like a no one. I knew I was funny, but it was just like, all right, you know, I'm still cutting my teeth, getting my lumps.

teeth, get my lumps. And by that time, I had, let's see, quit Best Buy, but I transferred to a Magnolia audio video store. So I still had, I was still selling TVs. But now it wasn't in Fun Best Buy. It was in Dreary Magnolia Audio Video, which is a standalone store owned by Best Buy. It was right on Wilshire in Santa Monica. Because I moved from Ventura County to Santa Monica so I could audition. Because I had a commercial agent. I thought I was going to be in a bunch of commercials. And I needed to be close because I couldn't drive an hour and a half, two hours at a drop of a hat for an audition. It was too far. So I moved to Santa Monica. And... The station forms. And the station forms.

Yeah. I mean, that happened kind of a little bit after that. Almost exactly after that, that second San Jose Acty campaign where we all had to do the same thing, except just like it was a new camera this time. I don't know what it was. Right. You guys did it, too. Right. We didn't do the second one okay so the second one was like one of the first times i actually got paid to do a video

um the first time was when i did a collab with lisa and shay for a crank 2 movie um that was our first collab but the actual one where we got paid uh i think we got paid 30K total for all of us. And we just said, okay, well, we'll put that money back into, let's start this studio where we, because some of us could write, some of us could shoot, some of us could edit, but no one really could do it all together. And then the idea of the studio was just to have a place where we could pool resources and share resources.

A central location because it was Lisa's and Danny's house at that moment. We were all just working out of Danny's backyard. And Lisa was editing, and Danny was editing the videos. And it was a waste of time because they needed to be doing other things. So if we could bring in an editor and hire a guy to shoot and maybe rent a space where we could keep this stuff. It would give us a place to talk ideas. We'll put up a green screen in a room where we want to shoot.

And it was very much just that in the beginning. And then I think I did California on was the first time. And you still had a day job at the time. I still had a day job and that was coming to a very quick end when I made one phone call. I was, I thought, and Phil has a new show and I thought, Phil has this new show. I can easily go to the beach, Venice Beach, do a man on the street, cut together like a quick segment and then have him use it in the video, kind of like a

throw to field report. Correspondent. Correspondent, right? So, I texted Phil, which I was okay friends with at the time. I was like, hey, if you want, I can... It's no pressure. I've never been the guy to say, hey, put me in, or like, hey, when are you going to put me in? That's not my style. But I did call him and I was like, hey, if you want, I can go shoot something today for your new show that you're putting up tomorrow. Just tell me if you have any your new show that you're putting up tomorrow just tell me if you have any ideas of stories that you're going to talk about and he was

doing a story on Miss California some like racy photos that got leaked so I took my roommate Alex I called in sick to work I didn't go because by that time I was I hated every second I was in that place I called in sick said I'm going to go do this.

And I took my, I borrowed Corey's camera, the one that he shot me and Kitty on. I took that camera, gave it to my roommate who doesn't know how to use cameras, realized we didn't have a microphone. We stopped by a Radio Shack on our way down to the beach, bought a corded Radio Shack microphone with too short of a cord

so we can never get a wide enough shot. And then when we got down to the beach, it was super sunny and my roommate Alex doesn't know how to expose a camera. So the whole video is blown out. Yeah. So it looks like an effect. You can kind of see me

and you can kind of see me talking to people and you can hear it fine, but I just didn't know how to fix, just didn't know how to do that stuff, and I didn't know how to edit. I knew very little, but I knew I could just take clips of this interview and smush them together and make something that's short. Right, because it turns out none of that mattered.

What mattered was... Yeah, I was so shocked. You had balls to say the things you were saying to these people. You got good things out of people, but you were in character. Yeah. It seemed like,

and it wasn't fun. It's not like there was much of an evolution either. If you look at California on in success, even the most recent ones, it's not much different. I mean, it's a little, it's less malicious because I was quick to realize that I should not make fun of the people on the boardwalk because I'm here every day and this is where I live and I would rather be a part of the fabric than tearing it up.

So I kind of switched my attention after like the second one because there was an incident with a homeless guy that I made fun of and I felt really bad about. And his family didn't know he was homeless and they saw the video and then they found out he was homeless. And how did you find that out? He came up to me the next time I was on the beach. He's like, hey, what's the deal? My family knows I'm homeless. You're ruining my life. And I felt really bad. And then I like, for some reason, just gave him 10 bucks out of my pocket. And he said, thanks, and walked away. He was like, okay.

And so I was like, oh, he took my 10 bucks. So I guess we're even. But I really had to like think about what I was doing out there. Instead of trying to get the easy laugh, there's another way to do it where you can still get the laugh and not be so mean. So I think there is a slight, I mean, it's not a dramatic, but now the californians

versus when i first started i i tend to only make fun of tourists and people that are just passing and going young kids you know stuff like that that are are happy with it but stayed away from making the locals in venice look a certain way uh because that's not what i was there to do. And I love Venice. Venice is one of my favorite places in the world. And I feel like more people came to visit Venice once they saw those videos because there's that wall that I always shoot in Venice. It's kind of a pompous thing to say, but people would always want to come down

and see where my filming spot was. And I figured I had some sort of responsibility to not be a dick or an ass. Because everybody, you quickly discovered, it is a community. It is a community. And if you keep stepping in there, they're going to recognize you. And they were nice, and they let me slide in a couple early screw-ups. But then this sort of whole prankster thing happened, and people started coming to shoot videos in Venice

that were not in good, you know, they weren't in good spirits, and they were a little malicious. And I felt like I had to kind of maybe take a step back because I wasn't liking where all that was going. People on the boardwalk would associate me with pranksters. So when you saw the Sam Pepper video, like the pinnacle of this, the controversy, what was your, how did you react?

You know, you could say what you want about the content. I just felt like it was not the type of stuff that I would be into or like to watch. And I feel like I don't know who would be into watching this sort of thing. And it felt like it was giving the area a bad name because it wasn't just Sam Pepper. I mean, there's other people that just came and went. And I don't own the boardwalk, but if I see something I don't like, I would rather just be like,

oh, F it, I'll just step back, you know, and like let these guys run themselves into the ground. I didn't want to contribute to any of that in any way. So I think that would come as a surprise to, unless you've shared this with other people, that one of the reasons that you, you know, lowered the frequency of those videos had to do with the way that-

That's a small reason. That the way that it was kind of infiltrated by these other guys who were out there. The timing, you know, the timing was a thing, you know, and then I was up in my own head about how to change the show because it's fine and I'm glad people appreciate it. And when every day I read a tweet that's like,

did you die? Where's the thing? How come you don't make videos? You're such a deadbeat. I know that's just people saying like, we miss your videos. Just make more. And that's fine. I get that comes from a good place. But I didn't feel like that show was in a spot to just keep going. And I still will make them, but I want to make them different. And I guess the whole reason I'm here is to pimp out this Bigfoot special. But this ties in nicely because the Bigfoot special is 30 minutes long, and it's kind of like a Kaleon, but it turns into something completely different.

And we're real happy with it. I feel like there's some heart in it. So it's finished, and it's going to be released. We just came from a final round of notes just now and it's supposed to be ready to send out tomorrow. It should be on YouTube hopefully a week from tomorrow. On your channel? On my channel.

It's 30 minutes. 30 minutes with an extra bonus video. I felt like, look, I know I've been gone for a long time and you guys have no idea and I don't update you about what I do but here's like, you, I know I've been gone for a long time and you guys have no idea and I don't update you about what I do but here's like, you know, I've been doing a lot of stuff and here's one of them.

Here's a fun little 30 minute video. It's the least I could do for the viewers. But it was a lot of fun. So, I mean, what's new about it? You're not just interviewing people on Venice about Bigfoot for 30 minutes, are you? It's like, no, no, no, it's not in Venice at all. It's my own Bigfoot special where I go on the road to go hunt for Bigfoot for 30 minutes, are you? No, no, it's not in Venice at all. It's my own Bigfoot special

where I go on the road to go hunt for Bigfoot. It has nothing to do with California On. It's in California, and it starts with some man-on-the-street stuff. That's California On style. Got it. But the rest is more of a travel documentary, me and my road crew.

You've been working on this for quite some time. Right, yeah. I mean, we filmed it in August, but I decided that I would, A, race in the Baja 1000, cast in another thing I had to shoot. Then I decided I would do all the artwork for this video on my own,

which was a bad idea because I don't know how to do art and it takes a long time. What do you mean do artwork? I decided I would have some artwork in there, some dramatizations, some illustrated reenactments. Animation. Well, it's watercolor that I had somebody cheaply animate stuff onto.

Okay. So the watercolors in this, it's called California on Bigfoot? It's called California on Sasquatch and not finding Bigfoot special. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So there's a spoiler in the title. Or a tale of the virtue of ignorance. But all the watercolors, that is your work.

It's all my work. Okay. And I think it matches my sort of lo-fi, I mean the art's not very good and this video, you know, I think we had a lot of fun making it but it's not like a fancy slick video. I think it's a good next step for Kalyan is doing these things and we want to do a ghost one and I want to do aliens and these are things I'm kinda into in regular life which is a lot easier than thinking about your own feelings and problems.

Okay. Which I wanna find out about. I wanna find out about that because when I hear Kasim G is interested in the Sasquatch, what I think is okay, he's gonna have his day with these people who are into Sasquatch. He's screwing with everybody. I don't screw with these people at all.

It's something that if somebody's going to come out and talk to me about something that's very real to them, and when they tell you these things, most of the time that you can tell it's very authentic, and it's not something that they probably talk to and a lot of people said look i've never told anyone this because i think people will think i'm crazy but yeah i've seen one like i saw one it was i didn't know what what to think of it it was just weird and um my job is to not make fun of that my job is to at least for this video to encourage more information because i'm genuinely interested so where's the comedy?

Well, the comedy comes from the absurdity of the situation that we're in. There's moments in there. It's not like California where we try to rapid fire jokes. There's an arc and there's a whole thing. I'm interested to see what you guys think about it. Okay. Let me see it. So there's a-

If you got 30 minutes to spare. There is a legitimate search. You go with thermal cameras. How did you become interested in this? I've always loved, I mean, there's a Leonard Nimoy Rest in Peace documentary that I watched when I was a kid about finding,

searching for Bigfoot. And then every Bigfoot special that's ever been out since I've watched and digested. And I listen to Bigfoot podcasts. And sometimes I stay up in the middle of night and read encounters on the BFRO website. And you decorate your home with Bigfoot. Yeah. I've seen the Instagram. Right. I definitely went deep on some Bigfoot merch. I have a picture of Patty, a cell of the Patterson footage that's blown up and it's like framed on my wall. It's real fun.

I have a Bigfoot doormat. Well, they say no more. And it's mostly fun. But I do, you know, I do hope that we sold the episode to Samsung, which is great because I wasted a lot of money. I wasted a ton of money and resources on this thing. What was nice is that we did it and somebody saw some potential and paid for it. Hopefully,

we can continue to do more of these. What's their integration? You're using the light from a Samsung phone to find Sasquatch? There's no product placement at all. They just get the video for a week on their Android app before I release it on YouTube, which I thought product placement at all. They just get the video for a week on their Android app before I release it on YouTube.

Okay. Which I thought was a killer deal. They're going to help pay for actually almost all the production that I spent just to have it a week early. And if you have an Android device, you'll be able to download it and watch it. And then if you don't want to, you can just wait until it's out for free on YouTube a week later.

So it's really not a on YouTube a week later. So it's really not a bad deal at all. And I hope to be able to do more of them. I am very intrigued and I'm certainly committed to watching it. I think it's good. And if you want our thoughts, I'll be glad to give them. I would love to hear what you guys think

because I would love to get people's thoughts that I respect and watch because it's different than anything. I mean, it starts off feeling kind of familiar, like maybe a Cali on Comic-Con where it's man on the street in a different area. And then it has a little bit of like a reality show vibe to it, but then it's not.

And it's kind of like a travel doc, and there's a little bit of suspense. And we don't find Bigfoot. We're very clear it's in the title. But it's more about just us being out there, and we were't find Bigfoot. We're very clear. It's in the title, but it's more about just us being out there. And we were pretty scared. But yeah, I want my team. They're all my best friends. And they're also having to be the guys that helped me make videos. It's my brother, it's John, Lane and Ricky, who's in the other room. I mean, these are guys I hang out with on the weekend.

So if I can get into a situation where my production team and my buds were getting paid to go shoot stuff that I'm really into, that would be cool. And make content that's like, you know, you could sit down for a while and watch it and not just digest it so quick. So this represents an evolution of California On.

But to take a step back, I've always been curious about whether it's California On or Going Deep or talking to cosplay women at conventions, there's, is there an element of having to psych yourself up and how much of a character do you assume in your own mind? Tell me about the place you've gotta go to in order to interact with people and create these comedic moments. It's not that hard.

It's, honestly, we were talking about this, I forget with who, but I've had a lot of experience talking to people. Now, I did 10 years at Best Buy selling TVs for 10 years, right? So that's like you're cold starting conversation with people for 10 years every day. And then I did Man on the Street and you're cold starting conversations with people for one of the last seven years or whatever it is. I don't have a problem with getting into a convo and I don't think I have to psych myself up.

I just get so tired. don't have a problem with getting in to a convo and i don't think i have to psych myself up i just get so tired like if it's a comic-con especially and i have to try and like think of a soundbite or a witty thing to say while there's like you know a giant transformer walking around there's like dubstep blaring in your left ear and there's like a chick with an amazing body who's half naked over here there's so much stimulus that if i walk around comic-con for four hours i need to sleep for like two days yeah it takes a lot out of me and it's like you're just making internet videos dude like shut up but uh it's it's not more of like i gotta get myself in the moment if i can just get there and then that's half the battle like getting getting there

and just turning on the camera and then once i get a few in the bank, it's fine. And then, you know, when you get warmed up, everything comes out better. And then when you get in that zone, there's like a good three or four hour period where I'm in a zone. And then I get maybe 70% of the footage. And then if I don't get anything, I'll piece it together. How wrong have things gone? I mean, have you ever been slug what slug yeah i got slapped i mean everyone always asks me i got slapped by some guy at south by southwest uh i think he was a

gangbanger so i'm glad it didn't escalate any farther um but i honestly i'm i should have been attacked more than what did you say to that guy? He was... He... I don't think I... I forget. It's in the video. It's in the South by the... Oh, so it's part of the video. Yeah, but I just started shouting at him and then he slapped me and then I ran after him with the camera on and then I tried to make

fun of him, but there was a lot of like... There's my own problems coming out. I don't like when that happens. But nothing life-threatening. You know um i just feel a little exposed at venice beach sometimes just because i have been doing it for a while and if for some reason i really hated casmg i could just probably hang out at the beach for a while wait for him to get there and they just stab him in the temple you know it's like i don't have you've legitimately thought this i have i went through uh a good year or two where i had very bad anxiety um where i had i had panic attacks and things because it was like uh maybe a year into people

like saying hi to me on the street that would recognize me from videos which is great i love that but i had a real issue with it just like being noticed i was very uncomfortable with it it came from a weird place i don't know why i didn't like the thought of somebody possibly knowing who i was in a restaurant but me not knowing any of these people and then it would be validated by me getting a tweet from like somebody tweeting the back of my head at a restaurant or something so i'm sure it's happened to you guys but at that time i don't know a few years ago but i had a pretty big anxiety disorder thing that uh happened with it but it's fine now you know i don't i don't have panic attacks anymore i did worry about getting murdered on the beach um there was a group of skaters i think that really wanted to beat me up for a while. But, you know.

How did you find out about that? Just like somebody's like, there's a group of skaters over there that really want to fight you. I don't know. I don't know. There's so much that can happen at that beach. Like I've seen people get in fist fights that had nothing to do with. It can erupt at any moment.

That place is so volatile that, you volatile that you don't have security. It can be a scary place. But the tattoo guys that work right next door, all the vendors were really nice and they looked out for me, which is part of why I was happy that I tried to show Venice in a better light as opposed to make fun of it. I think a lot of people on the outside looking in might think, oh well, it seems like the timing

really works out. You know, Maker gets bought by Disney. I know Kassim was there from the beginning, so okay, he just cashed in a little bit. He doesn't have to make videos anymore. Oh yeah, I cashed in. But I would've, I think the, well, whatever happened with my videos, just think the what would ever happen with my videos just like the

uh would have happened regardless whether or not the disney thing happened it had a lot to do with just me being unhappy with the formats and where they were at and wanting to do something new um but yeah i mean getting millions of dollars is also uh gives you a little bit of a buffer to not have to worry about like i've never i was in that spot as a youtuber where it's like oh friday i got no videos like what am i gonna do i gotta mail it in i never want to be in that position again because it it's cheap for the audience if you're mailing it in it's cheap for yourself um and all it is just to kind of feed this like never- ending monster that is always hungry.

And I don't wanna be caught up in that. I feel happier now. Well, how does losing that sense of desperation that I think a lot of YouTubers feel when you experience, you know, when you cash in, how does that change the way you approach your work? You take your time with it. But it's hard to, you know, I have to do something.

And that's the Bigfoot thing was the impetus behind that was so we've got to do something new and bigger. It'll take longer. I won't be putting videos up, but at least I'll be taking a step in a direction that I want to go. But it is a risk. You've put a lot into it i mean i've look is there anxiety associated with doing it the wrong way you know like if you want to be successful i on youtube it's it's consistency and um i just i'm not as worried about it as when i was playing that youtube hustle years ago it's i have i've carved out a nice little like uh audience for myself that

you know i'm happy with if the subscribers keep coming great but like there's no way i'm gonna play that game i couldn't even imagine being somebody like pewdiepie or like guys that are uploading three videos a day it's they've i've seen i've seen it's take its toll on myself and i've seen it take tolls on other YouTubers. And it's no way to live just to feed a machine that way. And also, like, I got to do other things, you know, that if I didn't take the time away from YouTube, I would have never got to do. So, I'm happier. I get to do different things.

But ultimately, like, my love is just YouTube. Like, I really want to, I'm not. I get to do different things. But ultimately, my love is just you two. I really want to, I'm not going away. I'm just going to change what I do and maybe it'll be less or maybe I'll find another format and it'll hit. So are you doing Going Deep anymore or is that done? That hasn't been decided. It's another one of those things where I'm pretty unhappy with where I'm at or what I think is funny and and I

don't necessarily think that shows is funny now is when I used to do it early on I mean how do you give me in looking back at it how do you feel about it I'm happy I'm happy with all I mean there's there's ones that um I feel like you, I probably crossed some sort of line and there's probably a lot of moments like that. And I feel like I made those at the maturity level I was at when that happened. But if I was to do it now, it would definitely have a different feel, more like a Kalyan is changing. I would change going deep to be be less going deepish i don't know and i know a lot of people get bummed out about that because they like the show in what way what are you going deepish what do you mean it's just like i don't know it's like

a guy talking to a porn star for laughs you know it's fine i think it's it wasn't like there's most real funny moments um and one of my favorite videos is the Asa Akira one because I don't talk to them at all before and I just let it go. And then sometimes really fun stuff happens like the Asa Akira one. And then other times I can't air the episode because they have their manager call

and say that that's not gonna air. So you were certainly in character, but there's no prep whenever you're talking to a porn star. No, there's prep. It's half written, half improvised. I shoot for like an hour and a half, maybe an hour and 45. They don't meet you until they sit down. No, no, no.

I actually will do like, I used to do things like yell at my crew before I stepped in. I wanted to create a sort of environment of like where they thought I was a huge, huge asshole. Yeah. And I would like yell at the person putting my mic on. Why are you doing it this way? It's taking too long.

And if they didn't have something ready for me, I'd blow up about it. And I wouldn't look at them or talk to them until the camera was rolling. And sometimes they would just be looking at me like wondering when I'm gonna acknowledge them, which is great because those moments are real to me and they're not forced and it's real awkwardness, which is great. I don't see, especially these prank videos, like half of them, 80% of them are staged. Like why are we watching

these? There's no real reaction here. There's no human emotion being displayed. There's nothing risky about it. But when we sit down and do those interviews, I don't know what's going to happen in there. And there's two or three interviews that haven't aired because of the person not wanting them to air. Had you met porn stars in person off camera before?

What are porn stars like as people? Maybe at conventions or something like that. As people, porn stars? Like your experience interviewing all of them. All the girls, most of the girls I chatted with, really nice, right? Very nice people, seemed really lovable and fun and like, oh, they're cool when they don't do porn.

But some of them are, I would have to say most of them are that way because of some sort of like trauma and like some crazy thing that happened in their lives. Like they're not, they're broken people for the most part and not every one of them. People think that, yo, I'll hang out with porn stars it's got to be the coolest thing like it's super depressing there's a lot of like there's a lot of drug use there's alcoholism there's like domestic violence there's there's a whole slew of problems with the porn industry that I don't really agree with, you know, and.

And is that part of it? Because it seems like, I mean, I would have assumed that after the initial success of Going Deep that people would be contacting you so that you could break these girls on the show. I have people contacting me still, but they're not people I want on the show. Right. I only have certain,

I have, i will say i will do another one if there is one thing i've been trying to find which is a couple that where they both do porn but the male does gay for pay porn and if somebody can step out that i will do that's what it's gonna take well you heard it here yeah on your biscuits but otherwise it's like you know it's repetitive i didn't want to keep doing. And a lot of the porn stars that reach out to you are just, you know, they are just looking for some sort of just anything, sort of attention, whether, you know, like, oh, it's fine. They'll make fun of me, but I'll get a bunch more followers.

And I like to think of that show as like I'm taste making. I'll pick the porn stars myself, you know, because in the comments, it's like's like hey i just looked her up after this video and i'm a big fan now i like to feel like i have some influence over who people uh jerk to um so well and i would assume that people uh when when you lose the uh you've you lost your cover a little bit you know you got these girls coming in and now they know oh i talked to her yeah the last you. The last, you know, it's a few. They're acting at that point. They have to, you know, I make sure my producers tell them, look, it's an act but he's not going to talk to you. He's not going to be nice

to you after he'll be super nice. And I am. After the interviews are done, I'll go and try and be like, that was really funny. I know you probably think I'm an asshole. I'm just, that's just that way for the camera. But I have no need to go back and do more unless I think it'll be really funny. I don't, again, I don't feel like I have to just feed a machine just to feed the machine.

Yeah. Which is, is that pompous? It's more just like I want to keep the quality at a certain level. I think it's sanity is one thing. Yeah, and I think it's refreshing that I'm not playing a YouTube game, you know, and collabing with people that you don't want to see and making videos that, you know, are social experiments. I don't know. I'm pretty happy with where I'm at.

I think you're happy with me too. Oh, yes, very. And you're also. As you wave your hand. You're acting. Magically in front of our face. Yeah, I try to do a little bit of that too. Did you actually get directed by Michael Bay

for that scene in Transformers? I did, yeah. What was that like? It was fine, it was a trip, it really was. Being on that set is, you know, I've been on a few sets. I've been on two film sets, but that film set was like a film film set it was like you know okay you're gonna be looking up uh at the top of the ceiling you're

in a wind tunnel right it's like a gm wind tunnel it's like a room that maybe 20 other people have ever been in their life and you gotta pretend you're looking at a transformer and uh meanwhile there's like 100 extras running around behind you and Stanley Tucci's banging on the board. And I got my lines that morning. I just was told I was going to improvise them, but I didn't get to. He just told me what lines to say. And they came out weird and they cut some stuff. It was fine. It was a good experience. I got that because of going deep. They saw going deep and they're like, maybe we can use that character somehow in the movie. And I ended up auditioning for like four different things. And, uh,

they're like, uh, well, you didn't get any of them, but, uh, they want you in it, uh,

and just, you know, improvise some lines. So you'll go there for five days and see what happens. So I was like, okay. Then I did that. And it was pretty stressful getting your lines 20 minutes before you shoot them,

you know, on something that'll be there forever. Yeah. And Michael Bay's interesting. He likes funny guys, which is cool. He's cool. It's fun to see him work a set, especially if there's

women on it. There's always beautiful women when Michael Bay's around. And he's kind of like... I don't want to say, he's a nice guy. He loves funny guys. So how much, I mean, how much do you want to do acting versus, I mean, you said you're loyal to YouTube and you're not going away. Well, I'm not, but it doesn't mean I can't do other stuff. And I auditioned for a couple pilots.

I shot a pilot last year. I'm shooting one now. But until they're out, you know, I'll talk about them. But I like to work that muscle because it's not like YouTube. It's like somebody else gets to do all the work, and I can just kind of focus on this one thing, which is nice. And it's also a great way to get paid. Like, you know, five days of work getting paid

on a motion picture is great. It's like money just keeps coming every day. As it comes out on DVD, there's more money. Came out in the theater, there's more money. Pretty nice. Yeah, it's cool. Well, I mean, back at the top, you talked about how one of the factors

in not wanting to play, quote, the YouTube game was just to preserve some level of privacy. And I know being- With the vlogging, yeah. Yeah, with the vlogging. But I think with the content that you've created over the years, people have,

they have a perception of you that, you know, you don't let a lot of people in. You know, I appreciate over the course of this conversation, you've been very candid and, but you don't choose in a lot of people in. I appreciate over the course of this conversation you've been very candid but you don't choose in a lot of places to put yourself out there that way. I'm like that and that's just how I am.

I keep people around me that I trust and that I like. I don't feel like I have to change that for any reason. It's not because I'm guarded. It's just I'm i i've old enough to where i like certain things and uh can draw boundaries with other things you know it's it's uh i have a lot of friends but it's it's

yeah i guess i guess i'm a weird. I guess I'm a guarded weirdo. Yeah, I don't think being guarded makes anybody a weirdo. I just said I have a lot of friends on a podcast, which always means I don't, right? So it's like... Really, trust me. Yeah, yeah. Truth is, if I don't have to leave my house, I won't. I got my dog, and lately I've been painting.

It's been very serene around my house, so it's nice. So when are you going to start the online gallery where people can go and buy a Casamge painting? And lately I've been painting. It's been very serene around my house. So it's nice. So when are you going to start the online gallery where people can go and buy Casamge paintings? I know. A lot of guys were like, hey, you should give these paintings away. And I'm like, no, it's just like they're not that good. I don't want to give them away. Maybe I do find the appeal of like those time lapse painting videos. You know? You ever You ever watch those? They're so easy to watch.

It's like, oh God, I could make one of these. I'm painting right now. Why can't I just make one of these? It'll leave people like Mary Doodles to do it. She's great at it. Well, it's time for you to sign the table as we wrap up this thing. And again, you know, I think we gotta come back and do

a part two, right? One of these days? Yeah. Oh, we'd have it. What are you holding for part two? Well, I don't know. We just talked about so much. I'm sweating bullets here.

And there you have it, our conversation with Kasim G. Let Kasim know how much you enjoyed this Ear Biscuit. His Twitter is Kasim G, K-A-S-S-E-M-G. Use hashtag Ear Biscuits. Also remember you can leave a review on iTunes. It's very helpful. And you can join the conversation on SoundCloud. That's happening over there.

I really appreciated Kasim. We're friends with him. And like you said, he's a guarded guy but you know, he came on the podcast and we gained a lot of insight into who he was. I think some of you may be pleasantly surprised that you know, he's an actual person. He has a heart, guys.

He's not just a guy who has confrontational humor on the sidewalks of Venice. He's tapping into something there. And I can see, I'll tell you right now, the whole idea of there being a, you know, some kind of sitcom or whatever that focuses on his experiences as a kid, like the story about standing out there

next to the potted plant or whatever that was. Right. I totally can see that working. That needs to be in front of people right now. He should just do it on his channel. Well, he might. Forget about television. You don't know how he's gonna do it.

I wanna plug his California on half hour special on Sasquatch again. You should. Because like I said at the top, when we talked to Cass and we hadn't seen it and since then we have, it's a lot of fun. California on Sasquatch, a not finding Bigfoot special. I watched that on his channel.

So he kind of gives it away at the beginning as it was intended. He doesn't find Bigfoot, but it's very entertaining. But they have fun. Have a lot of fun. I find it very interesting that he approached it with a different tone, like he described to us, than he does with some of the California Ons,

because he let all these people who believe in Bigfoot speak. Yeah. Bigfoot. I can't speak right now. But he just let them speak and it was fun to kind of be a part of it. He wasn't trying to make fun of them. It wasn't like, hey, I'm gonna ask them questions and make them look stupid.

It was very much, I'm gonna go hang out with these guys and we're gonna have fun. We realized that what we're doing is, you know, even people who are with us, like John, for instance, totally thinks that this is the most ridiculous thing ever, but that's part of the humor is that he's got this rag tag bunch of guys who are going out there, including HiImRon being by himself all night,

which I think was one of my favorite parts. Yeah, that's true. So check that out and again, let Casim know, tweet at him what you thought of his ear biscuit. We'll be here next week delivering another one to your ear holes. Fresh.