Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Karl Jacobs: A KFBF's Rise to Fame

Episode Date: February 17, 2025

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Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:07 What's up and welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Monday, February 17th, 2025, aka the day after Andy Cortez's birthday. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. And my sister's birthday. Oh, shit, man. A dual birthday. You'll love to see it. Of course, I am your host, Tim Gettys.
Starting point is 00:00:24 I am joined today by Forbes 30 under 30, aka the Patreon producer, Carl Jacobs. I did it. I'm a producer. You did it. You're actually here, though. I think that's the most exciting thing. It's been years upon years upon years of us trying to actually get you into the kind of funny studios. It was even back when we were at the old studio.
Starting point is 00:00:44 We were trying to get you in. You were supposed to be here for the launch of this event, but you got COVID like going to the airport. Literally the morning was the first time I tested positive. The morning to the airport at 11 a.m. was my flight or something like that. That was a whirlwind. That was two years ago. Yeah. Wow.
Starting point is 00:01:01 I couldn't believe. A lot has happened since then. You have just only gotten more. and more successful and done more and more insane things, Carl. Wow, I don't know how to respond to that. I appreciate that. Why are you here right now? It's really just like here in San Francisco?
Starting point is 00:01:19 San Francisco, yeah. Oh, it's because I'm, we just got done filming in the NBA All-Stars game. There was like, they did three games this year. So we did like a big bit for one of our videos that we're recording and also for them, between games one and two of the All-Star show, which was, I don't know why I just got to say that sentence out, and it'd be true. But this picture is the funniest thing in the world. Yeah, why is that real?
Starting point is 00:01:44 Also, like, I don't know enough about basketball to be sitting right there. I feel so, the whole time I was there, I was like, this isn't fair. Why am I here? Well, because you're a baseball boy, right? You love the Yankees. I really like baseball and hockey. Those are the ones I like watching. And I've seen you just living your best life with all this Yankees stuff, right?
Starting point is 00:02:00 Yeah, man. We're all over the place. Oh, wait, that isn't out. Sorry, like a year ago, right? You went and you actually got to go. Yeah, oh yeah. I went to the World Series. We just did something cool with a baseball team that I'm excited is also going to be coming out soon, which is sick.
Starting point is 00:02:17 It's been a whirlwind. This has been ridiculous. I absolutely freaking love it, Carl. Of course, this is the kind of funny games cast where each and every day we get together to talk about video games, whether it's reviews, previews, or just super cool people and their histories with them. If you like that, you can get the kind of funny membership. Of course, you can get it on Patreon, YouTube. Spotify or Apple Podcast.
Starting point is 00:02:39 If you do that, you can get the shows ad free. You can watch us live as we record them, and you get a daily exclusive Gregway. For a chance to be part of this show, YouTube super chat in. If you have any questions for Carl, please get them in, and we will get to those throughout the show.
Starting point is 00:02:52 Little housekeeping for you. I have a really fun announcement right now. Next Monday, one week from today, I will be debuting me and Gia's wedding on YouTube for everybody to see. Thank you very much. Who gets to say that they do that? Only weirdos like me.
Starting point is 00:03:06 You know what I mean? But there's enough weirdos out there that actually want to watch it. I promise you, it's going to be worth it. I've been editing my ass off the last couple of months. This is definitely like one of my magnum opus projects. I wonder if you got any trouble with her. If you were like editing things, she's like, why'd you cut that out? No, no, no, no.
Starting point is 00:03:22 I was editing less taking things out, more just like, you know, different angles and stuff. Like editing the live production. We're not cutting anything. You're going to see it all, including Greg and Nick's speeches, all of our introses, Cisco's performance, a whole bunch of insanity. And that's going to be next Monday after the games cast, a very special games cast that I can't exactly talk about yet. So Monday's going to be a big time for everybody.
Starting point is 00:03:43 So stay tuned here. A little more housekeeping for you. Blessing and Mike will be at MagicCon Chicago this Friday. If you're around the convention center, come find them and say hi. If you're in the Chicago area, they're actually holding a meet and greet at Portillo's off Canal and Taylor at 730 to 830 on Friday. So go hang out with Bless and Mike in Chicago. Remember, we are an 11-person business
Starting point is 00:04:06 All About Live Talk Shows. You already got games Daily where Roger and Bless broke down all the latest on Sony's Fair Game situation. Is it delayed? Is it not? Go listen to the episode to find out. After this, the stream will be Nick hanging out alone playing something. And then after that, we're doing the Cobra Kai
Starting point is 00:04:22 series finale review. Do you watch Cobra Kai? I haven't. You're missing out, my friend. I know. I'm catching up on everything. It's the greatest karate saga of all time. But you were actually starting in a more important place. Where is that, my friend? This is going to sound sacrilegious, but I've never seen a fast and furious movie up until about a week ago.
Starting point is 00:04:41 And now I'm three in. You're three in, man. The journey begins. We've always been there at one point. This is my stuff. I don't know why it's, I love movies that were made for humans and not critics. And like, this is like the best thing ever. I could.
Starting point is 00:04:54 That's a great way to put it. That is a great way to put it. And also, if only somebody had been telling you for the last 10 years to watch these movies, you know what I mean? To be parents, you and everybody else. But I started it. And I started it being obnoxious back then. But you know what? It doesn't matter.
Starting point is 00:05:10 I'm happy you're here. It's never too late to be family. Thank you. If you're a kind of funny member, you can get today's Gregway, a little housekeeping for you there. There's no KF podcast today. We have to double up and move some things around because we had a special guest to come through.
Starting point is 00:05:22 I didn't know who's coming. But the NBA All-Star game, you know, who could predict that our friends would be there. Not me. Thank you to our Patreon producers, Delaney Twining. Carl Jacobs. and A Bega Buster and Karen Linder. Today we're brought to you by Built Rewards Factor and Stash, but we'll tell you all about that later.
Starting point is 00:05:39 Now let's begin with the topic of the show. Tots, tuts, dots, dots, tots, tuts, tuts. The topic of the show is Carl Jacobs from KFBF to rising celebrity. And still KFBF, you guys don't get to revoke that from me. That is true. Why do I lose that? You don't.
Starting point is 00:05:54 You don't, you don't lose that. I mean, your history with us is storied, Carl. I want to start. I have a couple of things real quick. I want to bring up just for context for people out We first met you at TwitchCon. No. Momocon, 2016.
Starting point is 00:06:10 You were at Momocon? Momocon, 2016. That is absolutely what? So how'd you get there? That's Momocon, 2016. Oh, my God. I got to tell you. So right there, all the way to the right is my brother, the one with the Afro.
Starting point is 00:06:22 He is an Afro. I remember this kid so vividly. He was like R-N. You guys loved him. Yeah. You guys with that hair. That's so freaking funny. Oh my God. So yeah, Momocon 2015. This was the first convention that we went to as a group after leaving IGN.
Starting point is 00:06:40 Yeah, it was. I was very locked into IGN. I thought that that was my career. That's what I was like, I'm going to go become a game journalist. That was positive. And that this was like when kind of funny did their thing, I was like, oh, it's like a culmination of all of the what I like about IGN and now they're doing it like them. You know what I mean? And that was so cool to me. So how old were you there? How old are you now? I'm 26. I'm going to blow your mind. I was 17, I think. Maybe.
Starting point is 00:07:09 Maybe 16. Yeah. At the, at the oldest, I was 17 years old. That's absolutely wild, man. Like, that's how far back this goes.
Starting point is 00:07:17 And then, so where were you living at this point? I was in a high school in Charleston, South Carolina. That's where I was living. That in the middle right there ended up becoming my roommate in Portland whenever I went to Portland for college. But yeah,
Starting point is 00:07:31 that was before I was in college. So I was living in Charleston going to high school, just being a high school. And then so Momocon was in Atlanta. Atlanta, yes. So how did you get there? I did not have that much money. But what I did do was I worked at a retro game store. And then on the side, I woke up every Saturday, 5 or 6 a.m.
Starting point is 00:07:58 Goes to every garage sale, went to every flea market, tried to like buy games to flip. Like I was obsessed with like just all things games Back then there's honestly maybe even up to now You guys can name any video game And I could probably tell you within $10 how much it's worth I love that so much By the way this is a slight spoilers But Carl will be joining us for a kind of funny game showdown
Starting point is 00:08:20 And so I'm taking it home Yeah I hope not Because you're against me You know what I mean I don't need any more bullshit on that show But okay cool so man that's that's while You're this young kid And going to MomoCon, saving your money with retro games to go to Momocon. But then there was many other places that you would pop up in...
Starting point is 00:08:40 Well, I want to talk about Momocon for a second. Oh, go for it, yeah. Because I haven't told you this. But this is, or any of you guys, this. But this was like, Momokon to me and why I'm always as thankful as I am to you guys and why I will never ever take it for granted is because of Momokon and how you guys treated me, treated my brother, my roommate. and my mom that took us.
Starting point is 00:09:04 You guys, like, this isn't just because I'm in their studio right now. I was holding this to tell you guys while on your guys' show, but that was, like, probably the biggest points of movement in my life
Starting point is 00:09:19 to push me towards content creating, to be honest. Like, I really mean it. Because it was always something I really wanted to do. And, um,
Starting point is 00:09:28 it was you guys supported it in like a, like, a, like, yeah you should try this you know and it came from you guys who I looked at as like this is what success should look like to me you know what I mean I mean that is incredibly kind of you
Starting point is 00:09:41 but I do think that you're tapping into something that is so genuine and authentic about what we have and that is community and I think that it's such a beautiful thing that it's a learned experience right like you don't know what community is until you're part of it and you can see how
Starting point is 00:09:57 special it is to be able to be in a room with people and just sit down and start talking to someone you don't know, but realize, oh, we have shared interest. We can talk about our love of obscure GameCube games or whatever it is and just have fast and furious. Whatever that the thing is that's just like, oh, wow, we can connect on this. And, you know, I've been so proud of you for so many reasons in the last 10 years of seeing you kind of skyrocket.
Starting point is 00:10:23 But what I love so much is that you value your community so much and that I would say that more than any of the other creators that I've seen, specifically solo people, like solo streamers. The Carl community, and the way you treat them and the way they see you and there's this amazing relationship, it's so special.
Starting point is 00:10:43 And I really do truly feel that that comes from things like Bomo Khan and things like actually being able to experience, like, people being good to each other. Well, I, again, this isn't just to like, I feel like this is like a glaze fest for me. It's happening. It's all good. I, how I interact with fans, like in person stems from what I like learned from you guys.
Starting point is 00:11:05 Like seriously, like I, like what I took in and really valued from you guys, because I probably bugged you guys way too many times at Momokon. I tried to like, you know, and it's funny because now that I have people that recognize me, I could tell when somebody like does like a, oh wait, you know, like the, oh, are you a, you know? But as a kid, that's what I was doing to you guys 24-7. and the amount of grace that you guys provided to me was just crazy. I can't explain to you how much I remember your brother. I can't explain.
Starting point is 00:11:36 Because MovoCon was such an important moment for us too, because it was not only our first convention as kind of funny post-IGM, but that was like definitely, I mean, that must have been Nick's first convention ever. Because like we had been to like, or at least as as like on-panel talent or whatever you want to call it. You know what's funny about that convention? Kevin was there, but he hadn't face revealed yet.
Starting point is 00:11:58 That was pre-face-revealed. Kevin. Yeah. And I felt I was astonished that I knew what Kevin looked like. I was astonished. That's where I was in this whole thing. It was awesome. But I want to do a shout out really quick.
Starting point is 00:12:13 Yeah. To Greg specifically. Of course. For a second. Because my mom is on board as me being a content creator on board with all of this because of one sentence that he did to her. One sentence that he said to her. We went to a gathering with you guys somewhere in Atlanta.
Starting point is 00:12:31 And he went to my mom and thanked her for taking us and brought up the fact that he thinks it's so important for parents to really lean into the things that their kids are passionate about and that it will go a long way for me as a person. And he really does appreciate it. Like to her. And that was like something I never saw. He got nothing out of that, obviously. I, you know what I mean? I was a high school kid. She was a mom. But it means so much to her that she loves you guys so much that I could be doing the coolest thing on the planet. And she's like, that's amazing. And now what's going on with kind of funny? You know what I mean? She's like, oh, like, when are you going to San Francisco? She, like, loves you guys. She loves you guys. Well, we love you too, Mrs. Jacobs. It really did start from that. And I do appreciate it a lot
Starting point is 00:13:21 because I, like, am a very family-oriented person and, like, to treat somebody like that, it means a lot. And Greg's a dad now. Like, that's crazy. Because back then, that was, like, not in the cards at all. But, I mean, now seeing him, like, that's definitely, like, how he has supported Ben. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:13:35 Supporting any interest Ben has, even a little of. Greg pushes and supports it so much, and it's such a beautiful thing. So he definitely lives by his words, which is great to see. Okay, so MomoCon. Yes. Then was the next time we saw you the world tour? Either that or probably like a Pax something.
Starting point is 00:13:54 Yeah, we were out a ton of Paxes back then. Yeah. I was trying to really trying to go to everything. Again, at the same time, I really thought I was going to be an IGN journalist at the time. So I was like, I was writing like things for publications I didn't know existed just so I could get media badges. Straight up just so I could just show up to like different events like and be able to pay for it. That's how my first number leaked. My first phone number leaked because years later, I responded to somebody's Reddit post with my phone number because they wanted to split their hotel room for Pax West.
Starting point is 00:14:28 I was 19 years old and I split a hotel room with a complete stranger. No, don't do that. Just so I can afford going to Pax West. I don't know. In hindsight, I'm like, wow, how am I alive? But, yeah, that's how my phone number leaked. Years later, somebody's like, this can't be true. Carl left his phone number on a Reddit post.
Starting point is 00:14:45 How was this? God, that's so great. So I think the next time, I don't know if, like, y'all interacted, but I know prom happened pre me. So. Yes, you're right. So, yeah, prom was first. So, Carl, I don't think you've ever seen this footage. Oh, God.
Starting point is 00:15:02 I need to show it. Oh, no. So, well, what's funny, before you bring it up there, like, it's funny is, like, I've had a couple, like, big projects that I've worked on in my life, the kind of funny lives, prom and now the wedding that I put my all into, like, the production of it and making sure that. every second being shown is like perfect. Prom was one of the ones that I had so much fun with because I got, we had so much footage just people in the crowd. And I have this footage of you so in the moment. Oh God.
Starting point is 00:15:27 And the best thing about this, again, I want to set this up a little more too because you saying, oh, I wanted to be an IGN journalist. Like that's what you thought your life was going to be. What I love about that is you are definitely of the class that so many people here are kind of funny are. Barrett, blessing, Roger. Mike, right? Like, so many,
Starting point is 00:15:47 you are in that kind of conversation where I feel like all of you, to some extent, like that was the dream or the goal. You know, Barrett even made it there. You know what I mean? It's on Tai Chi in for a while.
Starting point is 00:15:57 But I love that so much. And there is this like amazing kind of rising moment of different classes, trying different things. You guys all podcasting together. Like, you used to podcast with my brother. Yeah. I did a,
Starting point is 00:16:11 I did, I think, eight episodes of the series with Johnny Hayes, shout out Johnny. the goat. But we both were obsessed with cartoons and we were like, we should just get cool people to get in a podcast with us and just talk about their favorite cartoon. Because just like seeing cool people talk about things they're passionate about is awesome. Like I was literally just talking to Nick about I love his, the street, the Sina 2 Files. And I don't know any reference. Maybe I know 3% of the movies that they say out loud. But I just love watching him, Roger, Joey, being obsessed with like movies and just like, it's just awesome to me. Even if I don't understand it. So yeah. So great, man. Your brother was my first guest. He was the first episode of that entire thing.
Starting point is 00:16:49 I love it so much, man. Like that it's so freaking funny. But I just, I love that, and you and Roger had a thing together too, right? I don't know if it ever ended up even becoming a thing. We tried. And man,
Starting point is 00:17:01 I was just true. We were all trying. Yeah. That's what it was all about. But the point is y'all were trying. And you found each other in different ways. And I think that there's a lot of beauty there. And I love that there was definitely like a class of people that were the,
Starting point is 00:17:15 standouts in a lot of ways of the community just because of how active they were or how much they were attempting to try to make content themselves and uh at kv prom we had our like prom king and queen and all that stuff yeah and blessing ended up getting prom king uh ziger got prom queen and uh they did their first dance uh time after time and um i now you can play this please bear it i remember i remember my outfit from this that's all i remember yes so we have the dancing which is just hilarious. With the cape and everything. Yeah, right here.
Starting point is 00:17:49 There I am. And then there's Carl. Sicking it is hard. I'm loving it. I'm in on that, dude. There's Alex. Holy cow. I love it.
Starting point is 00:17:57 That's all I'm sure. But God, problem, what a night that was. That was amazing. That was, yeah, that was a highlight for me.
Starting point is 00:18:06 That's where I feel like I got much closer to, like, blessing. I, like, I mean, I knew blessing before then, but that's where I felt like I was really, like getting closer to like a lot of the people that I look at as like friends from, you know,
Starting point is 00:18:16 that I've gained from that era now, you know? So yeah, that was really cool. Amazing stuff, man. Banshee says, hey, I was in that video. Yeah, I mean, most people, if you were at K. Araf Problem, you probably are in that video somewhere. And then, yeah, after that, we had the next year we did the KF World Tour. We went to a whole bunch of places and one of the stops was San Francisco because we're here,
Starting point is 00:18:35 why not? And you were there. And I remember it blew all of our minds because you had and you still had. this like glowing young kid energy. You know? And you, we were like, all of us were just shocked like, how'd you get here? Because we remember it. It's like, oh, last time we saw you with your parents.
Starting point is 00:18:53 You know what I mean? And you found away from Oregon down to San Francisco by yourself. Yeah. And you were still young enough that that felt crazy. I think I took a whatever the equivalent of a Greyhound is. Maybe it was a Greyhound. But I took a bust to that. Yeah, I think.
Starting point is 00:19:08 It was for that. And I think, yeah, oh my gosh. that's college Carl I can tell But yeah So here we are at the mean greet in San Francisco And yeah you were there And we did a whole thing of like
Starting point is 00:19:21 What is kind of funny mean to you And you were being interviewed there Barrett do you have the Oh yeah the KFAF thing And like that was significant for me Because I remember that was like the first meetup I ever did as an employee And I remember you and I talking for a while Just because yeah we were so blown away of like
Starting point is 00:19:36 Dude how old are you and how did you get down here What is happening right now? But my favorite memory, hold on, I'm trying to find it, is I lost it. So for the vlog, we did a vlog for everywhere we went. And for this one, we interviewed a lot of the best friends asking, like, what does kind of funny mean to you? What's this community mean to you? And there was a lot of really heartfelt answers.
Starting point is 00:19:56 Of course, this was the time that KFAF was happening, the best show on the internet with Nick and Andy. And they always need to take all the hard work that we've done to make productions and stuff and steal it for themselves. So they decided for KFAF to ask all the same people like, what KFAF means to them. Yeah, hold on. I'm trying to find the exact time code here. We interviewed a lot of people.
Starting point is 00:20:19 That's awesome. Don't worry. I got it. I got it. You got it. Everybody stay in silence. Chat, stop chatting for a second. Watch KFAF because it's funny.
Starting point is 00:20:28 A.F. I watch KFAF because where else can I get? I just love it. I just love how deep this all goes, man. That's so silly. So that was the last time we saw you. And I feel, and so that was 2019. Wow, that's the last time I saw you.
Starting point is 00:20:42 Yeah. Well, then the whole pandemic happened. Yeah. So a lot went down there. But simultaneously, you went from just being the sweet young kid to this sweet young kid that I'm walking in the mall that I grew up going to, walking past a journey's clothing store,
Starting point is 00:20:59 and seeing a giant poster of you. Which was surreal. Which is, by the way, shout out journeys. They're awesome. I don't get paid by them anymore. It's because of it. We don't even have like a thing. going on her now, but they were amazing.
Starting point is 00:21:12 They're like one of the best friends I've ever worked with. So I just want to, they're cool. That was the moment, though, for me that I was like, what the fuck? Because I knew you were blowing up. Yeah. We know a ton of like big content creators. There was something different about this, though. It was around that 2020 to 2020 era that all of a sudden, you were everywhere.
Starting point is 00:21:31 And it got to the point. I mean, we even did a, that was back when me and Nick did Internet Explorers. We did a whole episode just about you. Yeah. And just be like, what the hell? Like how? happening with this kid because it you could not open Twitter without Carl trending. I so behind the scenes I one of my favorite parts of everything what I found out that I actually
Starting point is 00:21:53 really enjoy about content creation is like almost figuring out how to solve things and like figure out how to like learn things like the algorithms I love like so um me and a lot of people I don't even say anybody's names because I don't know who would care to be associated with this but like I had a Discord group chat that was dedicated to like learning Twitter figuring out and it wasn't even people that were within my exact like group but like just people being like hey I tried this it did better on Twitter now hey I did this and now this happened you know what I mean so I just loved like learning how to game it yeah gamify it so like that's that's that was that era and um Twitter since has been like algorithmically ruined by the way but whatever um it's it's uh that was so much fun for me that
Starting point is 00:22:37 that whole era of like figuring out how to make thinks trending and like it was there was a whole era where because you know the trending gives descriptions for the trending so i figured out those are well not that it's rocket science but humans wrote the topics they used to at least they're not anymore they don't definitely no they definitely do not anymore i will never forget when we were trending for the kind of 20 10 year anniversary last month and reading the AI garbage oh written about us it was like you're kind of there But I remember like for like a whole week because you would have to wait a day to fall off of trending to get a new description. So I would like intentionally try to talk to the guy that was writing the descriptions by talking to them and then forcing people to tweet that with the thing that would go trending so that we would like have this conversation back and forth.
Starting point is 00:23:28 So it was those were fun times. I don't know. I just went on a tangent. But I mean, I think that's awesome because like that shows I didn't know that you were intentionally doing anything with. the hashtag or with Carl itself, right? Like, I thought that that was just kind of like a side effect of you like making your content and people being super into it. But no, this was like a attempted.
Starting point is 00:23:49 But it was, to be clear, it was attempted with the community as well. Like it was like, oh, we're doing this. Like, this is a campaign for streamies. Like, yeah, just one worked and one didn't. Yeah. Yeah. So with that, though, like we're now talking about this era of, you know, you go from like making podcast with with cool Greg to all of a sudden you're trending.
Starting point is 00:24:08 what are we missing here? A lot of things. So I, at the time, I was close to finishing college. I was getting two associates degrees. I was working on two degrees at the same time for video production and multimedia. And I was really worried I was going to graduate, which is a weird sentence to say aloud.
Starting point is 00:24:30 But in my brain, I was like, when I graduate college, I'm going to have to just like kind of buckle down and do something like a, you know, maybe like more of a normal job. And it's just not where my brain was for me. Like I was like, I just don't think that that's what I want to do. But also I'm not, you know, like I just wanted to keep it in reality. And like my parents were so supportive. I didn't want to like screw anybody over or anything.
Starting point is 00:24:53 So I was like, look, if I, in my brain, I was like, if I graduate college before figuring out a reason to drop out of college, then I think I'm going to get a real job. And like, just like, do like, because I don't have a real job right now, to be clear. but um so so i uh was trying everything and i didn't want to drop out for no reason i wanted to drop out because i literally would need to drop out to you know do something like of like the caliber worthy of dropping out if that makes sense to be clear i think college is like honestly i'm for my generation kind of weird but i think college is like very important i think it's really cool to go to college i think like getting an education in general is amazing i think it's like if you have the means and the ability you should really strive to, especially like I went the route of like
Starting point is 00:25:38 kind of going to a trade school learning video production in Portland with like people that were part-time teachers because they were working on Portlandia or grim and stuff like that. It was really cool. You know what I mean? So in those regards, I think that's awesome, but I wanted to figure out how to not. And I got an opportunity because I had a friend at Mr. Beast and at the time Mr. Beast had much, it was a YouTube channel at that point still. It was like 10 or 15 million subscribers,
Starting point is 00:26:07 which is still crazy. It wasn't a crazy. Yeah, exactly. I think at the time they had probably less employees than you have right now. You don't know what I mean? So it was
Starting point is 00:26:16 my buddy, though, he wanted to, he was like, hey, I want to start streaming. He's somebody that was on screen at the time. His name's Garrett. He was an on-screen person
Starting point is 00:26:29 in Beast. And he's like, I want to start streaming. You stream already. Even though, like, I didn't, I was never successful at that point. But you were, you were streaming consistently. Dude. And what did that look like? Like, what was your audience like?
Starting point is 00:26:43 I got to tell you, I was, this is like my flex of like, I was grinding. I was max credits in college and streaming on average five hours a day, minimum. So it was like every day. Like, if you averaged it out every day, including days I took off, I averaged five hours a day. and I was max credits in college so I was like really trying you know what I mean
Starting point is 00:27:04 and streaming wasn't taking off though but I really felt like I was becoming better at it like I was really kind of honing it I was every stream I would end up watching the stream back to like see like I hate I have like words that I keep saying
Starting point is 00:27:17 that I don't like I like pause here every time I do this I was really kind of like into it and then I told him I'd help him I'd set him up his whole stream setup all in return is ask if they are looking for an editor. That's it.
Starting point is 00:27:31 You know, because I was going to school for video editing. I thought that I was getting pretty good. And he was like, I could try. I fly in. And the day I fly in, he was like, I have a meeting with the manager to talk about you becoming an editor. And I was like, this is amazing. Wow. I was in my last quarter of college, period, like the last quarter and then I graduate.
Starting point is 00:27:54 And I had 11 weeks left. and um or six weeks left of an 11 week a quarter sorry and i uh took a week off to come visit to help him set up his thing and then try to get a job editing and uh he comes back that day i'll never forget and he was like so i was like how the meeting with the manager go and he was like uh the manager got fired this morning no and i was like oh okay cool i guess um uh that's awesome and then he was like, but, you know, we're talking about
Starting point is 00:28:27 his brother's starting a YouTube channel. His brother's channel doesn't exist yet, but they will need editors. Do you think you could stay another week, maybe? And then we can really try pushing you into that role. And I was like, that would be amazing, you know, but now we're talking about missing two of my last six weeks of college. And my mom is just freaked out.
Starting point is 00:28:46 I'm sure. She's like, what is happening? And then I met with, with the team at the time it was it didn't exist yet but it's the channel it's mr bro now um and i within i started and they were like hey we're doing this like we would love for you to be the editor but you'd have to start now um and then i was like i'd have to drop out of college with now five weeks left before getting two degrees you know what i mean uh but to me it was like I'm just going to bet on myself though, right?
Starting point is 00:29:23 Like, I feel like that's, that's the plan. And then I kind of, uh, made the right bet. Did it. Yeah, I did it. And that was actually, it was funny. That lines up perfectly with I went to Ian, Ian's wedding from OKVist. Okay. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:29:36 And it was like, they were like, whoa, that's crazy. Like, what the heck? You're like adjacent to Mr. Beast now. Like, that's actually insane. And, um, from there, like, it, in a couple months, it was, um, me and my friend Tyler. Tyler is, I love Tyler. he's my best friend in all of Mr. Bees for sure. And he was on Mr. Bro at the same time as me.
Starting point is 00:29:55 Wait, Tyler, is that the showrunner of these games? He's the director of Beast Games. He was the director of Beaschurch. He wrote, he was the macro level writer of it. And he's the most talented person, bar none that I've worked with in my life, in terms of anything. Like, whatever.
Starting point is 00:30:11 Damn, man, that's so great. I never can praise him enough. But we were at Mr. Bro at the same time. And it's... From there, within like three months, me and him ended up combined. We were writing everything. I was leading camera. He was directing.
Starting point is 00:30:28 I was on screen. And I was also editing the videos afterwards. You know what I mean? So we were basically like doing a lot. Yeah. And then quarter four came along. And Mr. Beast was like, we need to all hands on deck. We're about to do the craziest series we've ever done.
Starting point is 00:30:47 We need to bring the people from Mr. Bro over to Mr. Beast. So at this point, how big is the team? Um, is Mr. Bro has me, Tyler, probably three more people and C.J. who's Mr. Bro. And then
Starting point is 00:31:01 Mr. Beast probably has 15, 20 employees maybe. Um, and they have like a warehouse and stuff. And they just bought a old church that wasn't a church anymore. It was just abandoned.
Starting point is 00:31:17 And we bought it to turn it into a studio. which was, I remember walking to it for the first time. I was like, this is a YouTube, you know what I mean? Which is crazy because this is ridiculous too. Like, this is way cooler than what that was. You know what I mean? So at the time, it was like mind blowing to me though. And that was the series of, we did four Last to Leave videos.
Starting point is 00:31:39 And the winner of all four of those competed in last to take handoff, $1 million keeps it. And they needed all hands on deck. They needed more editors. They needed more camera work. And I did both of those things. Because you went to a trade school that taught you those things. So you had the ability to be good enough at editing and using a camera. Exactly.
Starting point is 00:31:57 And then because of that, I just started being a cameraman there. Whenever Mr. Bro went back to Mr. Bro, I stayed on Mr. Beast then. So then I became an editor there. And then I started making my way to doing camera work again. And then I started joining, like, writing sessions. And at that point, I was just always there. And then I kind of became friends with them all. and then I started just being in the videos because of that.
Starting point is 00:32:20 And then, yeah, the rest is history. So being in the videos, I mean, for those that don't know, Mr. Beast, which is a crazy thing to say, but I'm sure there are some people that are like, who is this, what's happening? Mr. Beast is one of the most popular, if not the most popular YouTube channels ever. Yeah. And a lot of the content is like challenge-based, competition-based for crazy rewards, like winning a Lamborghini or a million dollars or a private island
Starting point is 00:32:46 that it could then be yours. Yeah. Like a couple times, like, and I would say, at least outwardly, your public rise was the hide-and-seek video. Yeah. And then the last person to leave wins this private island. Okay, yeah. Those were, that's funny that you see it like that because that's, yeah, that's me there. I had blonde hair.
Starting point is 00:33:08 I dyed my hair pink at one point. And yeah, it just kind of faded because I never used the right. It happens. Are they hearing the audio for that, by the way? No. Okay, I was like worried I was speaking over. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, that's just be real. My bad. Anyway, yeah, that was that was that was my first video I've ever, I was on for a Mr. Beast video other than like, the island one. No, that was the hide and seek. Oh, hide and seek,
Starting point is 00:33:29 gotcha. I was hiding seek for 60,000. That was the first time I was on video that wasn't just like, occasionally I was in the background as a camera in, which I was like excited about even. But like, all of that led to that and I was so nervous about it. And I was like, I just need to crush this and I like spent the night before like freaking out Tyler was also in that video like and um we I remember the night before we went to Walmart and we were like looking around trying to like see if we should buy props for it like for our own like not for like the writers to write for us but like it'd be funny if we just had like props for no reason you know what I mean and you're trying to stand out yeah I really like actively trying to self produce yeah within
Starting point is 00:34:08 the production that was happening I I had edited at that point for months of Mr. Beast content. And I guess I got a good pulse on what the leads really actually wanted in videos. I would see what they would cut and I would see what they would keep. And I loved more the longer form, more drawn-out humor. And that never was the case back. Especially back then, we were much more like snappy, almost like to it like a, to me, like in hindsight, now we've evolved so much past that to where like we have more depth
Starting point is 00:34:42 and kind of storytelling. but like back then it was much more like neck breaking speeds you know um so i learned a lot from editing i i love that you said that because i i i've never been able to kind of put it into words the way you just did where i i truly believe that in this era of video production like the youtube era and we're so deep into it now but the change between oh i make tv shows or i make movies or i make music videos commercials or whatever to i make content for whatever that's worth YouTube videos and all of that. When you become this like, oh, what do you do?
Starting point is 00:35:15 Oh, I'm a producer. Oh, I'm an editor. Oh, I'm a creator is what most people would say. I think that the difference there is when you understand the edit, you then retroactively understand the production. Yeah. And I feel like you either get that or you don't. And like there's certain people like Roger Perkorni, I think is an amazing example.
Starting point is 00:35:31 Cameron Kennedy is an amazing example. Like they are such good editors that it makes them incredible producers because they know, because they've edited so much and they know what works and what does. and they get the voice of the thing. And I can totally see you actually being the editor of the Mr. Beast videos being like, I know what to do to make the cut, even if it's not going to be you editing it.
Starting point is 00:35:51 Yeah. You know, like, that's so smart. Exactly. It's because you like look at it. You have to look at it in like there's like way more than just one story being told. It's like the person,
Starting point is 00:36:01 we have a completely separate team for ideation than to creative, which sounds like the same thing. But like the people that come up with the frameworks of videos and titles is different from the people that write than with. those confinements of the framework. So then those are two different stories in my head. This person has a story in their brain when they came up with the title and the framework.
Starting point is 00:36:21 Then the creatives hears that and then they kind of write their own story. And then the producers, for better or for worse, have real life confinements now. And now they have budgets. And because of that, the story is what they have to tell
Starting point is 00:36:35 is like they try to take these two stories and make it to the best of their ability but as a producer. and then from there it gets to the editing room and that's where the final story gets told. You know what I mean? So as long as to me as an editor, I think I have so much respect for good editors.
Starting point is 00:36:51 I don't think I would be even the, whatever the lowest ranked editor could possibly be on Mr. Beast at this point. I'm like not a good editor compared to what they have now, which is so fine. But that's good because I'm sure so many of them learned from you. Right? No. I was an editor when we had four editors.
Starting point is 00:37:08 And I stopped being an editor. then there were still three editors. But even in the style, though. I feel like you can't undersell and underestimate the importance of the voice of the content that lives on through from that original origin days, right? Yeah, I appreciate. I think, I don't know, I look back at that time as like I was learning so much. I don't, I don't even look at it as like, I wonder what people got from me out of it.
Starting point is 00:37:32 But like, yeah, I guess definitely everything piggybacks off of like what has happened in the past, obviously. So I guess in that way, yeah, definitely. But yeah, there was, there was and there are and there always will be way more, like way better editors than I've ever been there. It's so funny. I want to keep talking to you, but real quick,
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Starting point is 00:41:02 not representative of all clients, and not a guarantee. Investment advisory services offered by Stash Investments LLC and SEC registered investment advisor. Investing involves a risk. Offer is subject to T and C's. And we're back. Carl, I want to ask you a wild question here. Ask it. So you, like, I first met you at Atlanta at Momokan, this young little boy. Since then, you've gallivanted the world and done some of the most insane things any human being has ever done. Recently, you were telling me that you went to Egypt. You got to go into the pyramid. Dude.
Starting point is 00:41:36 And you got to go into Osiris' too. So, yeah. So, by the way, we worked with some of the coolest people on the planet over there. It's like these people are like, real life.
Starting point is 00:41:49 I want to say Nathan Drake, but he steals stuff, so not them. The opposite of Nathan Drake, but also like the real life, but the aura of Nathan Drake. Okay, okay. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:41:56 Like, they are like, this guy, Rami was with us the whole time. And like, he, I don't think he's ever buttoned past the middle of them. And he shouldn't. And I,
Starting point is 00:42:05 I don't want him to. Hell yeah. And he's just the coolest guy on the planet. And all these guys were teaching us everything, the whole way. Like everything. It was the coolest thing ever. They took us to Osiris's tomb. I don't know if you know who Osiris is.
Starting point is 00:42:19 Not a human. So he's the god of the underworld for them. And I don't want to, also, I might be explaining a lot of this very incorrectly. It was just based on the 100 hours of sleep deprivation, Carl, trying to take in as much as I could about this land that I know absolutely nothing about. But I think it was, Osiris is the god of the underworld is the idea, but they put his tomb, they created a tomb for him to be like the passageway for the kings and all of the people that they make pyramids for, like including all of the wives and stuff like that. They made the
Starting point is 00:42:57 Osiris's tomb for when they die for their spirits to find an easy route to the underworld. So it was kind of looked at as a very positive way, I think, which you think of underworld and you think of like... Yeah. But it had a lot of respect and there was like, it was insane. And I could be mixing it up. So again, if I'm speaking like incorrectly, that's my bad. But we get there and they didn't tell me anything about this beforehand because I would love to not know because I love getting surprised right there. And they hand me a wetsuit.
Starting point is 00:43:32 and I'm like, oh God, this can't be good. Like, what are we doing? What? And they told me we're going to the tomb of Osiris. And the tomb of Osiris is not just a thing that you just go to. It's we walked through a gate into this tunnel. And there were Egyptian guides that we had that wouldn't come with us past that point because they were worried that they would get, like, they were like, this is bad energy.
Starting point is 00:43:59 Like, I don't know if they believed they would get cursed or like, I don't, I don't want to for them, but they were like to the point where they weren't willing to go in there. You know what I mean? Like some people that we were with. And we then walk through the tunnel and there's literally a 150 foot, 200 foot ladder to go down. That's rusted off of. Like snake eater. It was the craziest.
Starting point is 00:44:18 Yeah. It was like insane. We go down the ladder, go through another tunnel to another ladder that goes another some odd beat down. This is, this, look at this. Oh my Lord. It literally is like snake. That's crazy.
Starting point is 00:44:33 I guess the time code. I can't believe I like magically pulled that up. That was very impressive. Very impressive. Wait, so. That's wrong. Oh, damn. You're right.
Starting point is 00:44:42 You're right. I'm freaking out. Indiana Jones little get up here. Wait, so how scary was it to even go down the ladder? That seems like a lot. And there were sections. It was, it felt like, do you remember,
Starting point is 00:44:54 have you ever watched Spirited Away? Yeah. You know the scene where she's like on the side with the pipes? And then you're like, oh, I'm just waiting for the pipe to break because it's going to happen. It felt like. like that and then it's some miraculously it didn't um and then there's we get down and now we're in an area that have tombs and like a little offshoots of uh where people um in ancient times were
Starting point is 00:45:17 there to leave offerings so they would leave like oil and you know many different things for um for osiruses thanks for like safe travels to the underworld i i assume um and then next to that is one more ladder that's probably only 30 feet long, but the last 10 feet are underwater. And I'm climbing down the ladder and I'm now in water, you know. So, I mean, I know you're wearing a wetsuit and you kind of have at least some knowledge of what's going on. Yeah. Was there any part of you that's like, am I supposed to go in this water or not?
Starting point is 00:45:52 So I could tell you with certainty, less people have been right here, what you're seeing on the screen, than have been to space. it's in recent in modern times in modern times less people have been right there and then I went You go under the water Carl what are you doing? You're going to the underworld
Starting point is 00:46:10 So I hear that That's the coolest thing that's ever existed to me I'm like wow we are doing And like people don't document as far as we Like there's so many other than that section All over what we were doing in Egypt That were never documented To the full extent that we've documented
Starting point is 00:46:25 With our cameras You know what I mean? Like a lot of it has almost never been shown to a person just on YouTube before, you know, which was surreal to me. And so you decided to put your head in the water. That seems like a choice, my friend. It was a choice, but I thought it through. And I'm, I don't regret it.
Starting point is 00:46:46 Explain that. Explain that a little bit. What does that mean you thought it through? First of all, we were the first people in modern history to be down there during nighttime. And apparently, I think either some or they, or many people believe that that, uh, at night time is when the passageway to the underworld opens. We're the only people in modern history that have done this. And the passageway is not just his tomb. It's in his sarcophagus. Because even though he wasn't, you know, he didn't have a body. He's like a god in this, in this, he had a
Starting point is 00:47:19 sarcophagus, like obviously because it's a tomb and they want to show respect. And his sarcophagus is what is the gateway to the underworld. And we're standing along the edges of the sarcophagus, but it's open. and I'm like well has anybody tried it you know what I mean has anybody tried this to like go
Starting point is 00:47:38 technically you know if this is like their idea to go through to the underworld would be that and nobody's done it in modern history ever and I asked Rami
Starting point is 00:47:48 I was like am I like is this disrespectful is it and he's like I don't think it's disrespectful I'm like a lot of people
Starting point is 00:47:56 wouldn't do it but like it's not disrespectful and I'm like was like, well, I'm going to try it. You know what I mean? And he's like, ah, you probably don't want to because you'd have to go underwater. Like, like, your head would have to be three or four feet underwater to do it.
Starting point is 00:48:10 And like, Kenji in the chat brings up something that I wanted to bring up. Like, this is pretty much exactly what Moon Knight did. I just want you to understand. I don't, I'm not, the Marvel character Moon Knight. Like, like, he literally does this exact thing. But, okay. The curse of Osiris is like, the thing. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:48:28 It's like a thing. And I was like, I want to do it then. I want to do it. And I'm like, I'm going to give it a shot. So I literally, like, went underwater. I hate the way that that was cut. I'm very upset at the way that that was cut. Because it looks like I didn't go all the way underwater.
Starting point is 00:48:42 And man did I. Man did I. I was full feet underwater. I was feet underwater, man. And it cuts right as I'm going under. Look at it. Wait, go back one, like, uh, maybe five seconds. Yeah, it doesn't even really show that I was like,
Starting point is 00:48:58 you know what I mean? Yeah. I was like, dude, I full sent that. And I didn't get it. You know? I was like, I couldn't believe it. So, um, you, are you, were you okay? Did you get any type of, uh, sickness from this or anything?
Starting point is 00:49:11 Well, thanks for asking. Apparently, still water, uh, that's been still for thousands of years. Yeah. Uh, leads to getting an ear infection. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'd imagine.
Starting point is 00:49:22 That's, you lucked out if that's all you got there. I got an ear infection. I did. Um, that's insane. But, but, but I wanted to ask. like that is a crazy example of what your life is now going doing something that like few people in the entire world that have ever done what are other things like that that you can't believe you've done it's that and um that is officially my favorite recording we've ever done now uh but it beat out
Starting point is 00:49:45 i think over two years ago we went to antarctica which was my favorite recording we've ever done uh we went not just like to antarctica but we went so deep into antarctica that i think we were a three-hour flight away from anything living except for us. You know what I mean? Like we were deep in there. We were living in a camp of scientists that are there for like actual things that actually matter and not just camping in Antarctica. But that was a whirlwind.
Starting point is 00:50:15 I feel like, yeah, there I am. Oh, that's not me. But there we are. There you are. I spent my whole time digging a hole. I had a lot of fun. You're so Minecraft-brained. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:50:27 I was like, I feel like this video needs like a B plot. And I was having fun because I, there was a section of our tent that had an opening on the ground. So I was like, it'd be funny if I secretly made a tunnel. So I dug very deep and we had, um, safety guides that were like, any deeper and you're probably going to cave in and die. So probably chill out. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:50:47 And I was like, okay, fair enough. But it was like eight feet deep. I'm pretty proud of it. Dang, dude. And that was, at Dark Eagle was probably the craziest experience of my life because of because of this. It was like just snow. You had to wear sunglasses outside
Starting point is 00:51:02 or else you would get what was called snow blindness because of how bright the snow was. Makes sense. Reflected from the sun. I see you P. Jesus Christ. Children, a lot of them. All right, so this is crazy.
Starting point is 00:51:17 These are just the Mr. Beast videos. These are the normal YouTube channel stuff. Yes. This last week, Beast games. Yep. The most record-breaking show of all time, but literally, like when we're talking about world records, what was it? I think it was 43 or something.
Starting point is 00:51:33 43 world records by this show, including most expensive unscripted reality show of all time. 42 after I took a world record from the set, I stole a world record, ladies and gentlemen. Some of the people at Amazon are finding that out right now. Yeah, yeah. And that's okay. I mean, so the show's wild. Kind of funny, me and Mike were watching it week to week religiously. what I loved so much is that Gia was watching it
Starting point is 00:51:58 and Gia is everybody knows she loves reality TV we all the housewives and all that stuff but she also loves Survivor and the more competition based like you know the good stuff when it comes to these shows and Survivor is legitimately a perfect show like it's so well designed
Starting point is 00:52:14 the people that get that show and what makes it tick the competitions and challenges are so well thought out but also it's about the people and it's about finding the storylines between the people seeing Beast games kind of take that and just up the ante to such a ridiculous extent week after week and then every couple minutes seeing you show up on my TV screen Carl it made me giggle literally giggle every time I would see you it was it was pretty surreal to me it was easily the hardest I've worked in my entire life
Starting point is 00:52:45 it was easily the least amount I've ever slept in my entire life but it was the one of the most rewarding things we've ever done I think it was always worth it It was so fun to me. I had so much fun making that. It was a dream to me. It's crazy to me that you say it's the hardest you've ever worked because earlier you joked saying that you don't have a real job. And like while that might be true in terms of like just by definition or whatever,
Starting point is 00:53:07 the way you want to look at it, I don't know how anyone can work harder than you do. Like, and there's a level of people that I've met in my life that I feel very thankful to have met and lucky to have met and to have been around. It's also very humbling because I think I work very hard. but then I see people like Austin Creed, Xavier Woods, you, then I'm just like, how is this possible?
Starting point is 00:53:29 But legitimately, you in the last couple days, have traveled to so many different places. And like the flights and the time to even sleep and then having to do these, you're at the NBA All-Star game, working, doing stuff. And now here you are, just hanging out, but it's work. Like, you work so hard. Like, are you, are you okay? I think I really enjoy, like, working on stuff. I really, really enjoy it.
Starting point is 00:54:00 Also, I feel like I'm pretty lucky to where I don't really need that much sleep. I don't know if that's, like, scientifically a thing that actually exists. You sound like Kevin, man. Really? Yeah, that's such a Kevin Coelhole thing to say. I really don't sleep that much as is. Like, even if I had all the time in the world, I think I kind of, like, my body, like, wakes myself up in, like, in six hours of sleeping even. you know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:54:22 Like I, there's no way I, I probably slept on average like three hours a night during the filming abuse games. Like I was, but it was really, I was not overworked.
Starting point is 00:54:33 I like forced myself to get, to be able to work more spots. You know what I mean? I just loved it. It was my favorite thing ever, you know? I don't know. I feel like uncomfortable
Starting point is 00:54:42 with like a full day off would be really, really weird to me. You know what I mean? Like it's just, I don't like it. But it's like, not in like a flex way.
Starting point is 00:54:49 I don't look at it like that. Because I feel like a lot of people like to, talk about how hard they're working in the grind. And to me, it's not really like that. It's like just... You found the ability to do something that you love and it's still something that you love. It's not something that you feel like you have to do.
Starting point is 00:55:03 I mean, we're talking about, like I... You just talked about how much I'm traveling, right? And how much I've flown and how much, how little I've slept. But then obviously we can't speak about some of the stuff that I did. But in that time frame, I was at the NBA All-Stars. we did something with the baseball team, like I said. We did, like, I'm like, who can ever be upset about this life? You know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:55:26 Like, this is, I'm so grateful for it, you know? So it's like, cool. And it's so well worth the work because it pays off so much in like such, so many different ways, you know. I don't want you to have to say anything you don't want to yet. But do you have, is there a goal still? Because I feel like, you know, let's just say your goal was, I want to work at IGN. Now here you are with where you're at. Like, do you still have?
Starting point is 00:55:50 have something, are you kind of just like, I'm going to take every opportunity and make it to the max? That's the goal. I really, I don't ever want to feel like I, um, there was a fork in the road and, and I don't mind if there's a fork in the road. I made the wrong decision. I, I don't want to be, there's a fork in the road and I made a decision based on like, not willing to put in the work for the other. Does that make sense? Yeah, totally. I think I don't really actually have an exact goal. I mean, like I do have goals of like I really want to make sure like my brother I want him to be able to do whatever he wants to do in his life. I don't want him to just be lazy but I also want him to know like he can strive for what he wants to get done and then not worry about if it doesn't work out.
Starting point is 00:56:35 You know what I mean? Like that's the kind of stuff I have is like my goals you know. But beyond that it really is just I just like doing this I just want to take advantage of every opportunity I keep trying to get you know. So, okay, this is a big question. Okay. What do you do? I have no idea. I don't know yet.
Starting point is 00:56:57 I'm still figuring it out. It's funny because there's times like, there's times where I'm like, I, for instance, Tyler again was like the lead of all of the creative for Beast games. And he like, even just the amount that he let me access like what he, what was definitely his baby. There were parts where I was like, I don't even care if I'm on screen. I love writing and I like just being a part of creating stuff. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:57:23 Like I don't even know if it's always going to be that I'm in front of the camera. I don't, that's not the part. It's a part that I do love and I am passionate about, but it's not the passion to me. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I have no idea. I can relate for sure.
Starting point is 00:57:34 I have no idea what I'm doing right now. I've no idea what I'm going to be doing in three years. You know what I have zero clue, you know? So, but that's kind of the fun part to me. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and again, only answer to the extent that you want to or can, but like, what? Besides just being on camera for for Beast games specifically, what did you do?
Starting point is 00:57:53 In Beast games? Yeah, because obviously, I mean, if you watch Beast games, there's episodes where I'm not even like in it, you know? But there was a lot. There was a, I felt that it was very important that there was somebody that the contestants could recognize that was kind of there if they were ever going through like struggles, like struggles that come with it. Or like, for instance, I remember one of the days,
Starting point is 00:58:16 there was like complications with hotels. So like there were some of the contestants that couldn't sleep in, like one of the days before starting, I mean, and there was like complications at like 2 a.m. where there were contestants waiting in a hotel lobby. And I was like,
Starting point is 00:58:31 this is ridiculous. And I need to go over there. You know what I mean? Like I was like, I should just be there with them because if they're there, we have a great team on the back end that was there to like support them
Starting point is 00:58:42 and be there for them. But they also don't recognize those people. They join, for the people that they recognized. And I wanted to be like, hey, this is terrible. I'm here for you, you know what I mean? So that kind of stuff was like important to me. Just being there for the contestants in general.
Starting point is 00:58:56 It got to the point where like closer to the ending, like episode six, seven, eight, I started being like sad when contestants would get out. Like we like literally grew connections, if that makes sense. And other than that, I did do an okay amount of writing for the show in general. but just tried to help be like a tool for specifically Tyler again was the dude
Starting point is 00:59:25 The brain of it And well him and a guy named Sean Clitzner So it's Tyler Conklin and Sean Clitzner It's like they are like Such a duo of Sean Clitzner I just have to give him his flowers for a second He is the guy that landed us Egypt Everything that you saw in Egypt was Sean Clitzner
Starting point is 00:59:44 and also was the guy that got us the Eiffel Tower rented out. And I'm like, you're... You rented out the Eiffel Tower, bro. Like, what are we doing? What are we doing? Like, how is, like, he is the best producer, or we call that producing.
Starting point is 00:59:59 So whatever everybody calls that, but he's, like, probably the best problem solver I've met in my life. And I think those two together, just, like, being a tool for them whenever they need me, like, was kind of what I did for the show. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:00:11 Man, so freaking cool, man. All right. You're big, you're powerful, you're successful The Mr. Beasts blah blah blah blah blah blah It all comes back to the video games Carl What was your first console? Ow You got on slashes himself
Starting point is 01:00:25 My sister had an N64 But my first console was a PS2 That's like the first like we had it as a family So yeah The PS2 is my first thing Jack and Daxer was my first game Hell yeah Perfect
Starting point is 01:00:37 It's perfect It's still great It's still like amazing Yeah So getting into video games Like you earlier were saying you worked at a retro game shop. Like obviously, I got about 10 years on you.
Starting point is 01:00:48 So, like, there's a lot of different touch points for me. But I feel like we're similar in the way that I fell in love with video games early on and wanted to go back and learn the history. And, like, I wanted to, like, play all the old stuff and know all the old stuff. For you, was that, like, did you fall in love after Jack and Daxter? And, like, that was the moment you were like, this is it? Yes. I mean, the first game I ever played or maybe the first game I ever, like, be.
Starting point is 01:01:13 probably with the help of like my older sister and like my, you know, friends and stuff was Majora's Mask. Holy shit. Which is a perfect first game to beat by the way. Like what a, that is. What a star-studded lineup I got. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Um, but yeah. That's wild. Yeah, I think, man, that game I fell in love with. I fell in love with Majora's Mask so big. Jack and Doc. Yeah, I pretty immediately was like, this is the best, like, why, like, people read books still? Like, What are we doing? I was like, wow, okay. Yeah, I've always been obsessed with video games
Starting point is 01:01:44 since I remember. So now you play a lot of, like your channel, the Carl Jacobs YouTube channel, is mainly Minecraft stuff, right? And like you're really, really good at it. It's funny you say that. Why? Because when you look at my channel,
Starting point is 01:02:00 it's all Minecraft, but like a lot of it is basically us creating videos, but like we use Minecraft as a set. Of course. And you'd assume that I'm very good at Minecraft, but I've competed in Minecraft championships before. And the first one I ever competed in, we actually won. So there's 40 people total, all in teams of four, and my team won.
Starting point is 01:02:22 But to this day, I still have the record for being on the winning team as the lowest individual score. I got 38th out of all 40 people, but my team won. So I am not good at Minecraft. Oh, okay. You're just number 38. like out of the best people ever. Like, no, it's absolutely wild because I, in the last couple of days,
Starting point is 01:02:44 I've been like trying to see like, what's Carl actually making on his channel these days? And I popped in and I was just watching a couple of videos and I'm like, I'm so, I shouldn't be shocked. But I'm just so shocked at how much production is in your let's place. Like, like, and you said you use it as a set. It reminds me so much of rooster teeth using Red versus or using Halo to make Red versus Blue.
Starting point is 01:03:04 Like you are just making shows. competition shows inside of Minecraft. But it's so impressive. But obviously you and your team have to spend so many hours playing Minecraft. Do you have time to play other video games these days? Not as much as I want to be. Yeah, this is, I did like, I called it Realistic Wars in Minecraft. So we like created a ton of mods to make this happen.
Starting point is 01:03:32 This is like practically. Even the camera work, right? Like there's just so much production here. Our team has a proprietary camera system that we developed in Minecraft, specifically because there is a really cool mod called Replay Mod that is open source. It's amazing. The fact that it's free is crazy. And like, it's basically B-roll in Minecraft that you can get retroactively.
Starting point is 01:03:55 But then it does have limitations. But since it's a free product, I'm never going to. But we were like, oh, we want to be able to do like, you know, like, twist. Cinematic. Yeah, very, very more cinematic. And, yeah, they, I have a whole team dedicated to just camera work in Minecraft. It's so funny. How big is the Carl Jacobs team?
Starting point is 01:04:16 I think we probably have maybe 15 full-time employees, I think. That is amazing, man. And, um, they're amazing. I think it's, I can't, I'm so grateful. I literally have the best team on the planet, I think. I don't know how by happenstance, it just happened this way. and like little by little, we pieced it together with, like, who I think everybody is like the best of what they do.
Starting point is 01:04:40 It's the coolest thing ever. I love them so much. It's amazing. So, who can relate? But with the, with that, so you don't have that much time to play games these days. No. But when you do have time, do you find yourself playing new games? Are you going back to older stuff?
Starting point is 01:04:58 Right now, I am playing need for speed most wanted. Yes, you are. For the Xbox original. Yes, you are. I set up a room in my house. Me and my roommate, I live with a streamer called Foolish. And we have a whole room in our house dedicated to retro stuff. So I got like a 27 inch CRT TV.
Starting point is 01:05:17 And we have like a bookshelf just filled with GameCube, Xbox, PS2, N64 S&ES and like all of that. Just because we, whatever we're like getting the chance, dude, most wanted, this is the remake. Yeah, no. This is the remake. We got to go back. What are we doing? Sorry, I didn't think you would notice. That one didn't look enough piss yellow.
Starting point is 01:05:39 It was that era, man. Because most wanted was post underground and underground too. We went from like all the colors to you're just getting yellow, bro. Dude, man, most most wanted its cutscenes are to die for. But I'm having so much fun at that, yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. So what are some other formative Carl games? Psychonauts is probably the most important game of my entire life.
Starting point is 01:06:05 I think it's... Barrett loves Psychonauts. Yeah. Barrett has good taste. He's a psychonaut. He's persona. Barrett's correct as a human, I think. Jack and Dexter as well?
Starting point is 01:06:13 Yeah, there you go. Jack and Dexter. We're doing it. You know what I mean? Psychonauts is the funniest game that's ever been written to me. I think Tim Schaefer is the best writer in video games history.
Starting point is 01:06:22 I don't even know if it's close to me. He's like my biggest inspiration. Tim's amazing. Yeah, I would probably... I don't know how I'd react if I saw him in person. Wait, have you not? No. I don't know how I'd react.
Starting point is 01:06:35 Oh my God. God. I think I'd freeze, like, just on the spot. I think I'd start potentially crying. Yeah. I mean, it would be a moment. Psychonauts, yeah, psychonauts for me is that, I feel like there's more. Kingdom Hearts is gigantic to me.
Starting point is 01:06:49 Kingdom Hearts, baby. Hell yeah. Have you seen Mike go through Kingdom Hearts for the first time? I was watching a little bit of it. I love that, dude, because Mike is just the opposite of a Kingdom Hearts fan. And like when you picture of King of Arts fan, you don't know what I mean? Exactly, exactly. God, Mike's taste of video games is one of my fit.
Starting point is 01:07:03 I'm so bummed. He's not here today. He's out doing business somewhere doing some fun stuff But the energy of Snowbike Mike is unlike anything else, man I have a DVD of his He gave you yeah Snowbike Mike the movie I got him to sign it for me I love that I love that so much
Starting point is 01:07:18 I'm trying to think where else do I want to go We're wrapping up is there anything else that you You want to talk about Um oh God I should have thought of something No um I mean I guess it's been cool on my end as well So because I feel like we've talked about your perspective of me. It's been so cool to watch how you guys have evolved.
Starting point is 01:07:39 I think it's the coolest thing on the planet. I think I love something that I care about deeply for anything that I do is like I want to, it might be as random as anything. I released a comic book whenever my fan base at the time was probably predominantly preteen to teen girls that aren't the target demographic for comics. But I the idea was like I was like I grew up reading comics I really like comics and maybe this is my chance to like open you guys to that
Starting point is 01:08:08 and it's really when I make anything the hope is it might be the most random thing on the planet but I'm going to put a lot of work and heart into it and I think um you guys do that better than anything I think it's so cool
Starting point is 01:08:24 how many things you guys like try you know it's cool how like experimental you guys can be it's you know it's like games showdown is like brand new and it's potentially the best show you guys have ever created, you know? I say brand new. I guess it's not new new. Like it's like KFAF.
Starting point is 01:08:40 I can't wait for it to come back. One day, maybe. Who knows? It's not on me. Let everyone know that. But yeah, it's just I think you guys are always doing such cool stuff. And like every like to this day I always look to it as inspiration. It's like so cool to me.
Starting point is 01:08:55 Thank you so much. I just hope that that's seen and like felt and, uh, yeah, respected from everybody else whenever they watch your guys stuff. It's like, this is like a special channel to me. I really think so. It's like probably the only channel I have consistently watched as often as I have for as long as I have. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 01:09:14 Well, thank you so much. That truly means a lot. And thank you obviously for all of your support as being a Patreon producer. Like it really goes a long way. So many people are like, all right, Carl Jacobs. Like, there can't be the Carl Jacobs. And it is. Here he is sitting here.
Starting point is 01:09:27 Like thank you so much for all your support. But also just thank you for your support. just showing up to things like Momocon, right? Like, you know, just like being in the chat, like doing all this stuff, like you are such a shining example of anybody listening or watching right now can make it. If you, if you
Starting point is 01:09:42 have the dream of like being a creator and doing things, it's like it is possible. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. But it's possible, man. I feel like I got a lot of really cool lucky breaks. And I think the amount of lucky breaks that somebody might have in their life
Starting point is 01:09:58 definitely varies a lot. I'm never going to argue that and I think I am very lucky with the amount of opportunities I've had in my life. But I guess like the only like piece of advice that I'd have to anybody that's like, dude, how do I like do anything? Is like instead of trying to capitalize on a lucky break that you were trying to generate yourself, be ready for the lucky break whenever it gets there. So like I went to college for video editing, you know, so that I could have that opportunity to be an editor for somebody. It's not like I'm reaching out to edit to edit for a channel and then learning to edit it. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 01:10:31 It's like it's put in the work to be ready for whenever a lucky break might come along and kind of set yourself up to receive that, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Amazing stuff, man. Carl, thank you so much for taking some of your very, very, very busy time to come out here and talk to us. Like I was saying, you will be on Game Showdown. I'm very, very excited for that. Is there anything that you want to talk about for people to check out of your stuff?
Starting point is 01:10:54 honestly I'm Carl I think my YouTube channel is just Carl KARL so if you want to check it out I don't even think you have to understand
Starting point is 01:11:03 Minecraft to enjoy it that's the hope at least so check it out if you want to and the only other thing I want to say is maybe maybe we got to talk about what stars
Starting point is 01:11:12 I should be taken from you and stars in the bank baby not you too not you too Carl stars plural don't forget no well everybody thank you so much
Starting point is 01:11:22 for hanging out with us if you're on Twitch you can stay right where you are. If you're on YouTube, you're going to have to make the jump over to whatever stream Nick is about to do. Carl, thank you so much for hanging out. Everyone else, I love you all.
Starting point is 01:11:34 Goodbye.

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