NZXT PODCAST - #004 - Intern Mike

Episode Date: August 16, 2019

This week, Mike tells us what he liked, disliked, and learned during his social media internship. Thanks to Texowaste#3599 for the artwork! Let us know what you think about the podcast at discord.gg/nzxt

This podcast is sponsored by Stamps.com. Or Squarespace or MailChimp. Those are like the... Blue Aprons. The most popular... Blue Aprons, a big one. Big one to...

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Sponsored by Mixer. Oh, yeah. Sponsored for everything. Thank you. Yeah, sponsored by your generous. By the homie boost. Yeah, it's not. That's true. The homie boost. What's going on, guys? Episode number four. Yeah, kind of sad. This is Mike's last podcast before he leaves us and goes back to school.

It's been a great summer. All the interns. I know. I'm really sad. But at least we get to go to Korean Barbecue tonight. Yeah, I'm very excited for that. Thanks for the invite. I thought you were invited. I can go. I just haven't for you.

I might, but I got to ask Senko first because I told him we will play Destiny tonight. So, yeah, I don't want to break my date with him. Oh, okay, gotcha, gotcha. Are you cooking tonight, by the way? I can cook, yeah. It's really easy. It's really easy. I mean, you just make sure it's done.

You're fine. Yeah, it should be fun. You should go. Okay. What time is it? It's at 6.30. Yikes. Yeah.

and I told my wife about it this morning, and she was like, what did she say? She said, didn't you guys just have an intern meal? And I'm like, yes, but we want to have another one. But yeah. No, we're not going to Thirsty Cow. It's, um...

Well, live responses? What kind of podcast is this? Somewhere in San Gabriel. I think it's the same place we went to that one time Jeff drove to Korea town instead of the Korean barbecue place in San Gabriel. So if you guys don't know, We work in city of industry slash La Pueny, so like right next to each other. And Koreatown in L.A. is like an hour away, right?

Could be more. With like semi-decent traffic. Yeah, exactly. So this guy drove across the state essentially to the wrong spot. There's more to the story that makes even funnier. So this was Jeff's first time visiting the office. Oh. And it was also his birthday.

So the company wanted to celebrate, oh, cool, we have, you know, the new Forge team visiting us for the very first time. Oh, is that where we came from, a given Forge? Yeah, and it's Jeff's birthday. Let's all go out to Korean Barbecue in San Gabriel. So Jeff's like, all right, awesome. So we all go to Korean barbecue, and we're waiting there for hours until finally someone goes, where the heck is Jeff? And then we call him, and he's like, oh, I'm still stuck on the freeway, guys. I'm like, stuck on the freeway.

Why can you even get on the freeway? All you do is just go down one street. He's like, that we're going to Korea Town. And we're like, you might want to turn around. So he was basically just sitting in traffic for like two hours while we're eating Korean barbecue. And then he comes back and... You're all done.

All right. He looked really not mad, but I could tell he was thinking, like, man, I really made a bonehead move. And then he sits down and then he just orders like a giant, like one of those giant beer bong things. You know what I'm talking about? The beer box. It's like those pitchers.

Oh, like the picture. It has a nozzle. Oh. If you go to again, they have them there. Okay. Yeah. It's usually like turned a little knob and then the beer comes out. Yeah.

Yeah. And then, yeah, rule six. This is why, okay, so rule, don't look at chat. Just, just, let's just talk, right? Don't worry about what they say. Maxx and get banned anyway, so. For ruining the podcast. Okay, cool.

Yeah, that sounds good. It's Korean barbecue. Because, I mean, technically. I'm kind of managing Mike a little bit. Not really, but I'm offering a little bit of guidance, right? Because I would say I have a little bit of experience compared to you. Not the same way that like Ivan does, but just like overall from my years of doing crappy jobs. It was perfect timing because I think when Mike started, Dennis had been here for about a month.

Yeah. And I think Dennis training you helped him train himself as well. Yeah. And also helped me train both of you together because I was able to kind of, You know, instead of just telling you, we were all kind of working together as a team the whole summer, which I thought was cool. You know, it wasn't really me telling you, this is what I want you to do and how I want you to do it, now do it. It was more like, this is what I think we should do. Now you figure out the best way to do it.

And if you need help, you know, Dennis and I are here to help you. I think that's what we tried to do at least. Yeah, in my opinion, it worked really well. I mean, it's been fun. It's been probably like the most fun. Like last year, like I dreaded going to work. I had to drive an hour and a half there, an hour and a half back, and they just hate working there. This one I was like, I'm excited to work.

Trill people, tell people their weaves. Then why were you late today, man? I was only late by like five minutes. Plus, there's a huge. I was late on like Tuesday or something about like 30 minutes. I woke up super late. We're always late because we don't have a time. We're always on.

And even if we're not at the office, we're still working. Oh, yeah. It's funny because I left yesterday, like, early-ish because because you left. I'm like, well, like, Ivan's gone. Like, I don't want to talk to Mike, so I'm going to leave. I barely got home, by the way. My scooter battery was dying, and I live on, it's not like a big hill or anything, but it's like an incline.

And as I was going up, I was going like three miles an hour. And there was these... It said no juice. But it was funny because there was these gardeners who were like sweating like crazy. Because it was like 100 degrees yesterday. They're just sweating like crazy. You know, working on a yard.

And, you know, they're all wearing like these giant hats. And here comes this guy in a scooter going three miles an hour. And to make it even funnier is I had... I stopped at the liquor store to get a Gatorade. So I was like, drinking Gatorade. It was like, Chris Biden at three miles an hour. Just all refreshed. And they were all staring like six gardeners just staring at me.

It was pretty funny. Oh, Noah's here. Hey, Noah. We should have Noah on. Can you be on mute Noah so you can chat? Yeah, Noah, do you want to chat? Are you able to? Be more than happy to have you want.

Well, asking me, if he doesn't want to then. No, it's all right, don't about it then. Reporting what to? There's nothing to report to HR here, Vivian? You're crazy. Get out of here. I'm going to mute you. anyway

Rivian's like Should I report this to the person Who sits directly in front of me Who happens to be HR No actually I don't think it'll record it anyway Because audacity is not going to take it So We ought to have a different setup for that

That would be if you had music and then splice them together Or something that I don't want to do But I was late On Tuesday Because I spent all night Trying to build my new 510 elite and I was having issues in that case because the way that the 510 elite designed. So first off, it's a great case.

You know, it's real quick. It's got a show where fast. It's a great case. But if you want to add extra RGB, you have to redo the daisy chain on the two front fans, which I wasn't aware of because I've honestly never built RGB before. I've never used anything like that because. Or I mean, you also never built in a case that compact, right? Yeah, no, yeah.

That's the other thing is that is the smallest possible case for that form factor. It can't be any smaller. And because of that, you know, it's not the easiest of our cases to build in. Yeah. But with that being said, I do think there are a lot of features on it that try to make it simpler. So don't get me wrong. Like just out of the box putting everything together. So like if I just had a motherboard and I didn't want to add any extra RGB fans, it's easy.

Yeah. everything routes through, you know, there's a couple things. It's like, you know, it could be a little bit longer, but on that, it's not that big of the deal. Yeah, I mean, the more than you want to put in it, the harder. Yeah, for sure, yeah. But now, reverse scenario, use our biggest case that supports that form factor. It's like the easiest build ever, which is, you know, the 710 I now. Right.

Like, that one is just, like, literally all the space in the world. Yeah. So it's totally different. No, no, it's definitely a learning experience because my thing I said before, my old case is H440. So the case is old as heck, right? But it's also really big. So there's a lot of room to route stuff through. And it was definitely feeling the difference.

But that being said, like not having stuff like the cable routing channels is like, man, this is really easy. I just stick everything through these channels and it just routes in perfectly. And it's funny because when you work in a place where everybody builds computers and stuff, right, you'll get people like, oh, what are you doing? Oh, you know, I'm just rerouting my cables. You know, I want to fix some stuff. and I go, okay, let me help you. In like in 10 minutes, three people are surrounding my case working on it, and I'm sitting there like... Jeremy.

Okay. Yeah, I was going to say, yeah. And I have a photo of Jeremy, Josh, and Dom actually all helping me with my case. It was really, really cool. How many weaves did it take to build a PC? The answer is four. Yep. Now we know.

Well, three to work on it, one to sit back and laugh and make jokes. But is it good now? Like, is it all set? I'm sorry? Is it all set? Yeah. Yeah, it's all good to go. I have my RGB already, and it looks really clean.

And, no, it was, it was, it looks great. Like, it really looks great. It's funny, though, because it's smaller, and my H440 was able to fit kind of right under my desk, like really perfectly. And I had to reach down a little bit lower, so, like my muscle memory, it's a little different because I'd walk in my room, right?

First thing I do, I throw my bag, right? My nomadic NZXT bag on my bag. On my bed, I turn on my PC and now it's like, I got to move a little bit lower, so it's a little punkier. I don't care because it's on the floor. That's your fault. Yeah, why do you put on the floor? You have a lot of desk space. I don't know, yeah.

I have a... When you buy a case with front tempered glass and load it up with RGB, and then you put it on the floor. Yeah, dude, it's nice. Wow. It's like a really great, like, floor light, you know? I want to see what I want to see your whole setup now. Like, I have to see what's on your desk, because I bet you whatever's on your desk. desk is not going to be as cool as a computer oh no definitely not it's like a bite stick or

something I've got see I've got my my Yeti with my boom arm I got two monitors that are on a on a clamp right I got you know my keyboard my mouse my stream deck I actually need to redo my desk setup because I have these two clipch speakers that it got for like 20 bucks at Best Buy there's a oh is it the they're super loud there's like the like the like the vertical ones like the two was like it's white and black I can't remember they're like 18 bucks no no no I think these are worth like three hundred dollars or something yeah yeah but I got a 20 because I used to do stuff like HP a Best Buy so I was like hey these are going on did you ever meet Best Buy's long lost son I did actually

it's a very popular parody account do you want to talk about that no okay so yeah I guess Mike's last tomorrow's your last day So I guess my question for you is, I know you had a good time, but what did you learn actually during your internship? Because one of my concerns was actually trying to make you learn something useful. And I didn't want to just teach you something that you could learn in school. I wanted to teach you something that you couldn't learn anywhere else. You could only learn at NCXT and you could only learn it by doing this internship. So what did you learn?

Hmm, let's see, what do I learn? I think one of the biggest things that was such a big thing was... Better community doesn't like our jokes. Yeah, community doesn't appreciate jokes. I think one of the biggest things was the difference between PR and social media, because everything that I did was PR, which was advertising products, and that was it. It was only, you know, like, we want to sell this product, send a link onto it, tell about the product

and that's it. And that was what I thought was social media until I realized what NZXT does and how much different it is and how much more fun because if I wanted to go into that I'd go into like advertising

where I make like these advertisements tell like what to say, what to do and that's it. But I really, really enjoyed that we got to actually be creative with it. Like it doesn't, we didn't, we were just post product like on Instagram or on Twitter but we could have a funny caption with it instead of like

oh buy this product at our website it was oh let's make fun of webes or let's say uh I don't know like a like the RG Bathwater thing like that was super funny I'm like wait you can have fun doing social media and have a lot of fun doing it yeah I think that was one big sense it's funny because we always get kind of like I don't say offended but it's kind of like laugh when someone says oh, your PR marketing is really bad. I'm like, oh, yeah, probably because we're not PR marketing. I know, it's like, yeah, it's really bad, but that's not us. Yeah, exactly, yeah, no.

We're not, we're not, yeah. Actually, with down on my notes, like, like social media isn't PR and it shouldn't be. I think if you're using your social media as PR, then you're missing the purpose of social media, right? Just connect, have a conversation. If all you do is post about your sales or, you know, talking about yourself, then you're not having a conversation. and you're just using it as like another billboard, and people are going to ignore that really quickly. You know, you look at other accounts,

just other branded accounts in general, and if that's all they do, their engagement's super low. There's a reason why we have, not just a lot of followers, but people who are constantly liking and commenting and retweeting. Most of its complaints, though, but that's besides the point. Yeah, exactly, yeah. I can't believe you would do this to your customer base.

Like, maybe we're not a customer then. All right. What the heck? Yeah, the door is being opened from the front. but yeah so what else did you learn let's see it's okay to it's okay to fail one of the biggest things like for me for like rock climbing like one of my biggest things is like talking to people like when I coach them is that like it's okay to fall off the route as long as you like take a step back and like look at your route because like that's that's what rock climbing is it's not just

like, oh, it's just an exercise. It's a mental thing. So, like, falling off, you don't, you know, run away and pout. You, like, go, oh, I put a left hand instead of a right hand here. Let me change that up. So it's, like, taking the step back and looking at it. There's a time where I was just not, like, getting any, like, creative ideas out. And I felt like, oh, man, this sucks.

Like, I can't think of anything. None of my spitballs work. But then eventually, I forgot what I did when I was like, oh, you know, I could do this. And we actually made it a caption. And I was like, oh, finally, something worked. And I think it was kind of poppy kind of like telling me, like, just do it. Speaking of captions, did you ever think it would take so long to come up with, like, one line? Oh, my gosh.

Because I think a lot of times people, you know, they'll scroll through their, you know, Instagram or Facebook or Twitter and, like, they'll see, oh, NXT tweeted something funny or something funny. But I don't think people actually realize the amount of effort that goes into coming up, that it's not like you know just I mean sometimes it could be something that we just thought about real quick and do but for the most part like the n-z-tigini like I'm like on the freeway I got a voice to Texas so I don't forget it but like 90% of the time or 90% of the time it's spent all day on it yeah yeah it's been all day on one tweet Dennis the other night or the other days he had an idea for a tweet and I told them I don't think it's ready to get there's

something there but yeah you need to work on it and then he said I don't I want to be up till 11 o'clock talking about this and we were up to like 1130. It's a lot of... But it's like that though, you know? Because like, you know when you have like a good idea, like a good template, but like there's something it's missing. Spice it up. And if it doesn't make you like laugh instantly, you're like, this needs to work.

And that's my favorite thing about having you guys working with me is I never had that before. You know, before it was just you. Me and then I would have to kind of go back and forth with myself. okay, is this funny or is it not funny? And it was a lot more failing. Whereas now, I mean, there's tons of things. I'll just like, I mean, you guys know, like, when I get, like, inspired by, like, some ideas, I'll post, like, 20 memes.

And then you guys will tell me, oh, these all suck. And then, all right, cool. Like, I just need someone to tell me that. I don't care. Yeah. But every once in a while, you know, there's a really good one. And then you guys will be like, okay, that's it right there. And boom.

and it'll work or if it doesn't work, who cares. But that was another thing I wanted to do. It's good to you to say that because another thing I want to teach you was that it is okay to fail, but more importantly, you're supposed to do it. Like that is really the only way you're ever going to learn, grow, succeed. Not just it didn't work, but in life. It's like it's failing and then figuring out, okay, what did I do wrong?

Why didn't this work? How do I actually do this better? Do I want to do this again? Should I do something else? you know, because it's that that actually teaches you. It's not, oh, I did something and it just worked. I'm great. I'm so smart. If that was the case, then you wouldn't need an internship, you know?

If that was the case, then that should be your answer. I think you brought up a good point that, like, it's not, like, it's not really about, like, the success and failures. It's about, like, just pushing through, like, hey, it's, like, for us, like, sending a random caption and the spitball doesn't work, It's like, oh, that's fine, whatever. Like, it's no big deal. Until someone does find it, and we're like, oh, there we go.

I found the gem in the rough. And I think I love that is that we don't care that you fail. It's just like just keep doing it until you finally succeed, which is great. Yeah, and if you compare, just go through our chat history. Oh, gosh. Like from when we first started, like what you were throwing out there, compared to now because now you post stuff and I'm like there's no way we're going to say that you're crazy Mike whereas before you would come with an idea and then it would be like come on

my you can do better than that come on come on come on now it's like okay quick slow down relax relax tone it down a bit so you definitely get too spicy up in here yeah you definitely learned a lot in that regard to like you know what you should be doing on social and I hope you know I know I I know you work on, without going into too much detail, you do work on other social media stuff at school. So hopefully some stuff you learned in this job, you can apply there and, you know, improve that and have more fun there too. Oh, yeah, definitely. What do you think you can apply at your school when you get back? Without telling the trade secrets.

How many retweets for free tuition? Yeah, gosh. That's a good one. Oh, my God, that's a good one. Um, without getting, too, giving our trade secrets, you know, the secret crappy patty formula and stuff like that. Um, definitely, Ravioli, Ravioli. Uh, I think definitely I'm going to make sure to implement more, it's not just about you posting it and that's it and you leave it alone. You do stuff.

You know, you reply. You got to have voice. I mean, there is the only trade secret that we have is that. We interact with the community all day long on Discord, on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram, on email, on whatever. You know, it doesn't really matter where. That's honestly the only secret sauce, secret crappy paddy formula or whatever. And I think a lot of companies or businesses that have social media,

they know that. They just don't want to do it. And why? Because it is a lot of work. It's non-stop. It's never ending. But if you actually enjoy it and believe in the community, it's not really hard, right? It's actually fun and it's worth it because you see the impact it has.

The people you help help you, and the more we help each other, the better everything gets for everyone. Yeah. So some of the best memes are from the community. Oh, yeah. Some of the... Except Thanos. His memes suck. It's really, really bad.

I don't know why you ever asked them for any memes ever. He's still making... First of all, his name is still Thanos. That's like a year-old meme already. That's number one. Number two, he's still making free PC memes. What year is it?

But yeah, and it's also like just constantly thinking about what we can do with and for the community. They've got this great idea that I'm going to do eventually and it's turned the back out into text memes only. Because I see a lot of like, well, first of all, there's a lot of, so just to go back real quick,

the Discord's growing for sure. We have a lot of new people. I'm sure people have noticed, there's a lot of new people in the Discord, which is great, right? But they've got to be trained, right, to do things the way the Discord does it, right? The way that we have trained everyone else to do it.

And I'm noticing a lot of really honky memes in the back alley, really terrible memes. And I look at them like, this isn't even a meme, it's just a picture or something. Like, I don't think kids know what memes are. So I kind of want to impose the same, the same restriction that we put on Griff when it came up with the Discord homies. Only, only text?

Yeah, only text. And just see if kids freak out, oh, I can't just steal content and post it. Maybe that's a good idea. Maybe the same challenges that I gave you guys, we should give back alley. Like today's challenge is to come up with text only memes or today's challenge to come up with, you know, Discord memes or whatever it is. maybe that would be a good way to kind of control quality. Not even control quality, but also just like turn the discord into a full

just nothing but memers, you know? It's like obviously you guys like these things, so we'll train you to be better. And you ever know, right? You'd be like, oh yeah, you know, like... Welcome to Clown State, y'all. Actually, yeah, we should rename the back, Kelly. Clown State University.

Clown State University. It's like, all right, classes in session. Put your text names. Please pull out your textbooks and go to page 1337. Vivian would be the dean. The dean of the school. Security guard would be thinness. Oh man, that's funny.

How about what's one thing that you didn't like? And you can be honest. It could be anything. Oh, let's see why didn't like. Don't lie. Well, no. Let's see why. You're bad lie.

What didn't you like and what? Why is it Dennis? I don't know if this is like a dislike or it's just how it is in general, but it's, it's, my, my view social media has changed. Before I would spend hours, hours on social media scrolling through like Instagram, Twitter feeds and stuff like that, which I have stopped, which is good. You for your personal? Yeah, for my personal. Yeah, once you work in social media and it's, you know, successful, you don't have time to check your own social media.

It's just like, it's impossible. Exactly. And it's pointless because like, why are you going to waste a good meme on your own when it's like, okay. I can do it on this. But it's true. Like, I've, I've spent a lot of time on like doing the NZXT one. Don't worry, but. Okay.

I spent a lot of time on the NZXT one that I don't check any of my socials anymore. And I think that's good. but also I've learned a lot about what social media is in general and how much I realize like oh I'm just like a few ones I don't I just have like a I don't know I'm just I just not liking like like for what people try to do which is oh so one of your dislikes is the way people act on social yeah it's like their view and what people want to do on social which is I want tons of likes and I want tons of shares and like on Snapchat, like, I want to keep my streaks

and, you know, it's just like, well, why? And then I learned like, oh, I really don't care about it anymore. It's still fun. Don't get me wrong. I love social media. I love showing, like, you know, what I'm doing and stuff, but I'm no longer caring about, I care about this, and I want likes,

and I want comments, and I want tons of followers. Now I don't care about it anymore. So it's kind of, it's kind of fun. So, that's not really, that's not really a dislike, though. But that's a thing, though, is that, Like, I've, I've disliked what's, like, I've always said that I was the social, I use social media constantly. And now, like, I look at it in, like, a different view.

And I don't know if that's a dislike, but it's more like a, I just changed my complete view of, like, what social media really is to me. That's, yeah. And I think this job definitely changed my view, too, because for me, I don't see social media as, quote unquote, social media. I see social media as just media. Yeah. Because nowadays, it's like you get your news, your movies, like your podcast. You consume everything through social media. So you're right.

Like it's people do act different on there. And it's something as good, sometimes it's bad. But you're right. It's like you have to kind of be on there. So fortunately, not everyone's going to be nice. Yeah. Not everyone's going to be friendly. Not everyone's going to get your jokes.

But it is what it is, well. I think I also... I think I also seem like the fake side of social media too. Which I've also... Exposed the haters. Hashtag no links. I really only noticed ever since I started working here because before I'd be like, oh yeah, cool.

They're doing this. Oh, that's awesome. They're here. But then after working in this job, I go, oh, they're totally making this caption or something like that. Like, I had a friend that went to Machu Picchu. and I was just like, whoa, that's really cool. But I was like, wow, you know, this guy's going in and, like, seeing, like, this amazing, he took, like, an amazing photo and stuff like that.

But after, like, what happened was pretty much he was there for, like, I think he was only there for, like, six hours because he was on a cruise. And he talked, and in his thing, he talked about, like, how much he's loved this place and how he wants to live here and stuff? But I'm like, how do you know that from, like, six hours? and most of it's like just walking and stuff. And I'm like, wow, that's some, I see the fakeness. Whenever people post their vacation pictures on social,

I always do the same thing. I was like, why didn't you just show me the actual location? I don't care if you took a selfie in front of a mountain. Just show me the mountain. It's like you get to, I guess people don't really enjoy what this should be. Because they're thinking, like, okay, how do I? It's because people want to show that they were there, right? Like, if you just want a picture of Machu Picchu, you just look on Google some million photos without a ton of people in there, like some randos face in it, you know?

But it's like, oh, look, this is me, I'm here, this is me, look at me guys, give me the likes, give me the likes, give me the likes, game of the likes. You know, that's what, you know, I mean, we're wrong. We care about likes because it's going to determine how, what we're doing, but not in the same way. Like, we don't do it for us. We do it to see if what we're doing hits and if it's funny. And what we're learning from. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

As opposed to. And it is a problem. because people, you know, do things just for that. And that's why people get bullied or that's why people even commit suicide and things like that. So social media is changing. I know Instagram in, I forget which countries already, they're rolling out hidden likes and follower accounts. There's been like reports of like kids like being really depressed like at school because like they're not getting as many likes as their classmates. And these kids are like eight, five, you know, like eight, you know.

But they're definitely young kids and, like, that's so they're getting their self-worth from. And it's super sad. I already know what I'm going to do, though. Once they start hiding our likes and followers, I'm just going to post screenshots of him. Like, every day, like, they'll be our posts, just screenshots with, like, the likes and followers. What have you done today? There's a Black Mirror episode about that. If you guys ever have a chance, you should watch that.

I can't watch that show, dude. It's depressing. It's depressing. Yeah. Yeah, there was this one was literally about that. It's like, you know, you had to do it for the likes and the more, like, favorites or hearts you get, like, the more popular are and stuff.

You would rate people, right? It was, like, rating people, yeah. And then if you were rated higher, you had, like, a higher popularity and stuff, and people would do anything for it. They would do the most crazy things. They would do the craziest theirs just to do it. I saw a funny meme that it was like,

it was like, phones exist, like mirror. Phones are bad, phones are bad, or some crap like that. It was crazy. Yeah, it was crazy. Yeah, this is pretty good. What about, so you told me what you learned, what you liked, what you didn't like. What do you want to know more about?

Yeah, what do you wish you would have done more of? I wish we did the data thing. We were just super busy. It was like the calendar, we just never had time. Especially like the pop up. That was like super like, it was just too much. And I love to learn that. So you're right.

That's one thing I do wish I would have spent more time with you with. But on the flip side, that's also something that I don't think you should be like your priority at all. And that's why like with Dennis, I try. And you too, like, and Griff as well, I give you guys numbers. I show you guys numbers. But I don't want you guys worrying about those numbers or even knowing like or worrying. Are these numbers correct? Where do I get these numbers from?

I rather just tell you, hey, our engagement rates going up. Good job. Keep doing more of this. Or hey, it's going down. Like, you know, we need to do less of this and more of this or whatever. Rather than you being the person that's like, I don't like... Get your down, reed. Because it's enough, you guys already do enough work.

And that itself is another full-time job. Oh, yeah. Yes, I do think we should have spent more time on that, but I'm also glad that we didn't spend a lot of time on it. Yeah. But that's all something you can always learn on your own. Yeah, that's true. I learned it all my own, you know. Just every, just Google, like, anything you want to learn and you're in a fine.

That's how I've learned everything, basically, when it comes to that. And you have my contact info, so if you ever have questions, I want to learn more. I'll just charge you, you know, half price. Half price. Oh, we got the Discord homey discount. Sweet. Love it. How many school credits for a puppy advice?

Puppy advice. On social media. I give anything for that. I learn more from him than, gosh, I don't even know how many years of school. Really? Oh, yeah. Like, not just like... I'm in the wrong business.

Yikes. Because, like, school, school is a hit or miss. Just quit, dude. Hit or miss, I guess you... It's just, like, school, like, it just teaches you the super broad aspects of it, but it doesn't get... Like, I've been learning stuff, like, for marketing, like, the four-piece. That thing was there since like the 1990s, right? And I'm like, why am I still learning this?

I was watching Mad Men in their time about the 4Ps. I'm like, damn, this is old. Yeah, this is this old. Like, it's no longer like that. School doesn't really prepare you for the workforce in it. Unless, for most jobs, I would say. Some jobs. If you think it does, like, for example.

If it's like a technical skill, yeah. Yeah, exactly. If you're going to be a surgeon. Or like a coder or something like that, yeah. Yeah, you better, you know, memorize all those textbooks. things like that. At the same time, though, that's why I've been telling no, I just quit school, dude.

Just quit school. You're just interned at friggin' NXT. I don't think you should quit school, but I think... Quit it. Destiny full time. No, my advice is to just understand that school is important, but not for the reasons most people think it's important. Good for work, actually. Yeah, it's good to challenge yourself and do something that sucks,

and then, you know, it's good to try to get smarter and try to learn things, But at the same time, school does not really teach you, you know, how do you, okay, how do you solve a problem? What do you do if, you know, this happened or this happened? Or what are some things that you think? Someone's yelling at you in the DMs. How do you handle this? You can't learn that.

You can't learn that. Yeah, it's like, what do you do if you think something could be better? Like, they don't teach you none of that, right? And for me, I started college in the 90s. So, 1989 was my first semester of college. And I graduated in 2004. And for me, my dream was to work in radio and television production. Oh, wow.

Like, I loved radio and TV my whole life, right? And I studied radio and TV production. And I worked in radio and TV production for 10 years. But what ended up happening was I graduated in 2004 and everything they taught me in college was useless because in 2004, that's when everything started transitioning to, you know, digital. Right. So I basically had to relearn everything on my own again. You guys going to come back? Well, that's when I realized.

What the heck? Like schools like so far behind, you know? And I think schools, they want you to just, okay, memorize. these textbooks and then I'm going to grade you all on how well you memorize these books and whatever you know like it's not really realistic because if it was realistic my teacher would have probably been or whoever all right guys there's a shift in the industry we shouldn't be learning these like how to use a mixing board from the 1970s because there's a thing called the internet you know and they don't really voice meter banana is a thing they're really prepared for

that fact and then I think when you're young you know especially like you Mike like a lot of kids going to college thinking all right I'm gonna go to college I'm gonna get a good degree and I'm set gonna get a job and I'm gonna learn everything you learn it's like learning never stops like every day I learn something you keep learning you have to man because if you if you just think okay I graduated now I'm set now that's time to get a job and they're just going to like you know you're just going to be stuck in that one part of your life and sucks you know yeah this question for you mike yeah what were you surprised about the

company about the company yeah or to people anything anything so so separate i'm surprised the company had people separate separate from like like our work like what what happens the officer like this is the thing that happens here? Like, what the heck? Let's see. Because I got a specific thing in mind that I want to talk about. I'm curious if you notice it too. Let's see. I mean, I was overall surprised about the culture. I remember talking with Ivan during my interview was about our CEO, Johnny, and he used to work by the water cooler. He didn't have like an actual office or whatever. I don't have you told that story. Yeah, so basically he just, he just, Just he didn't really want to have an office.

Like when we moved to the new one, the one we're at now, he could have gotten an office for himself. And he goes, no, I'm good. So what he... Because his exact words were, I want to be in the pit. Yeah. Whatever that means. Yeah.

When I first started, I was doing my interview and, like, Ivan told me that Johnny sits, like, in the little cafe by the water cooler. And he literally would sit in the corner of the cafe, had a little stand for his laptop, his headset was there, his mouse was there, just walk in the office and we'd just plug it in and like,

this needs just sitting like basically on a bench doing his work. Everyone else here has like desks and stuff. Like I just joined the company and like we were growing and like I got my own desk and on computer these guys on a laptop. I mean that's one of our core values

is be humble, you know? Like he doesn't care what his title is. For the longest time he didn't even want the CEO title. Right. You're telling us that, right? Can you guys hear that the Gardner out there? Probably, yeah.

Yeah, he didn't like the CEO title because, and I agree with him, you know, a lot of people just throw that title around and it's very pretentious and it really doesn't mean anything. And, you know, we get emails a lot of time. How many dot GGs have a CEO? I'm the CEO of a new e-sports team or whatever. It's like, how are you going to call yourself the CEO? And it's just literally because you registered a website. Yeah. We get those emails and those DMs, especially.

on on on on Instagram all the time right oh yeah oh I'm the CEO of a new e-sports or death gaming and it's like three and you you you look at their accounts like three people follow them it's all quote-unquote employees it's like you guys even get paid like I don't want a CEO out of my name I'll have employees and I'm getting paid to do this job yeah but now he he actually uses it because now it makes sense because before it really didn't make sense because we were a lot smaller you know and he didn't want to be seen like a joke you know like oh this guy calling himself a CEO there's only 20 employees here you know so he was um for the longest time he was just call me founder call me founder

um but now you know we actually have a vice president we have you know directors we have managers we have interns so now it really doesn't make sense but he still he still doesn't have an office he's he has a he has a desk that's literally like when you walk into the office and you're like trying to go to your desk he's right there that's him cutting the grass right now he really cares about the company he's like listen guys I don't want to spend money in gardeners I'll do it myself he's out he's out there with the with the John Deere working when he when he took us out to eat for the you took the community team out to eat and then Mike wrapped at the dinner or lunch he said

can't believe I just had lunch with the CEO yeah yeah it's crazy to think like what you see every day what he talking about It's still weird to think that like, oh yeah, you know, he's just right there. We went out and did lunch with him like no big deal and we talked like, I love that. I love that. That's the thing I've really surprised. Can you imagine I have lunch with a CEO of Best Buy? Yeah.

So I've been saying jokes for you all. So one thing that I noticed that was really obvious when I first started working here was how weird the build warehouse is. Oh, yeah. So I think in the past two months, right? one we're sitting and all of a sudden all you hear is and then five people start joining in I'm like what the heck is going on in that in that warehouse and then like yesterday the day before

somebody was on a bullhorn yelling at them I think it sounded like they're they're being scolded and then after just start cheering and like clapping and like what's going on? That's what I love about this company is that everyone's like that everyone here no matter what department yeah Things are yelling at me. It's like you have fun, right?

So I feel like it's very rare to be in a company where really anyone in this company can do other jobs because we're all passionate about NZXT and we're all working towards the same goal. So, for example, I'm sure there's plenty of people in the company that come up with a good meme for Twitter. There's plenty of people in the company that can build an awesome-looking PC with great cable management. There's plenty of people that can sell. There's plenty of people that can make an ad or, you know, whatever. But everyone, like, is on the same page when it comes to having fun, right? Like, in the builders, I think, out of everyone, they're probably the ones that not necessarily work, quote, unquote, the hardest.

But they definitely have the most time-sensitive job because people, you know, spend a lot of money on these computers. Some of them pay, like, extra to get them built and ship them in the same. day and we can't let them down you know and it's a lot of pressure and they do it so I think they they deal with it by having fun you know by playing Katie Perry songs or whatever it is and dancing or watching anime with a QC yeah yeah like I've definitely walked out through the warehouse to this little area where we like we had chill and we like have like a babe because no one smokes anymore everybody babes and I'm like what are you watching?

Are you allowed to, like, are you allowed to watch this? Isn't that allowed to Discord? What's the matter of, which? He's not allowed to take terms of service. Yeah, it's actually funny because Emily, I was talking to Emily, she's our partnerships. She's a manager, right? She's a partnership associate or something like that, right?

I don't know exactly how. But she works on partnerships, so, like, you know, she works on getting the deals with, like, the streamers and stuff. And we're just talking, and she was like, hey like I think it would be cool if you would like let other people make memes and I'm like you can always send me a meme like I'll know like if it sucks I'll tell you it sucks right but um but um but you know like anybody can do anything you know like even uh Amanda she's one of her contractors she's working with Emily on some some special projects and uh you know she'll send me memes

sometimes they're not very good you know like 90% of time but uh you know but anyone's free to send as anything if they think it's funny, you know? Just be prepared to be treated like the rest of the social media team, where if you tell you it's crap, we're going to tell you it's crap, but we're not going to lie to you about it, you know? So it's just, you know, it's just one of the things, too, is that like we, especially on the community team, have a very different culture than the rest of the team.

Oh, yeah. Because it's a lot of tough love because social media is not nice. I taught you guys by berating you. Yeah, literally, yeah. You guys, I, there were some days where I thought I was going to make you cry. And I was like, just so you know, I'm just, I'm saying this because It's a piece of working

environment, but you hear you and say me. I have to, I have to treat you the same way social media treats, so. I'm serious. It's like, there's like no respect. It's like, we're all morons, right? Like, we have no idea what we're doing.

But at the end of the day, you know, the numbers don't lie in our work speaks for itself. And if something's getting humble brag. Something's growing. It's because of work. working right so the only way honestly that I can teach that to you guys is by not be right or being mean but just never settling always pushing you to do more to

think more to like try to think something else even so there's a lot of times where you guys will you'll post something like nine in the morning be like is this good and yeah it's freaking amazing but I know that's not the best thing we're ever to come up with. So I have to say, all right, it's all right, but what else you got? Sure. It's okay, but can we do something different or even, sometimes I'll even like it and I'll just say, okay, we're going to save this for later, but I don't want to do this today. This is something else. Yeah.

But, you know, sometimes I guess it could be seen as like me or a boss, I guess being mean, but I don't see it that way. And I hope you guys kind of understand why I have to do that I think I think it is mean you are mean but you're mean for a purpose yeah well that's what dude I learned because I didn't have a bus you're not being mean to be mean so the community was mean to teach us yeah the community would tell me I sucked like don't do that you suck I'm like okay I won't do it oh I like that I like that that new Thanos meme there finally you you you passed the clown 101 yeah but like it's like like it's like like we're like the clown name just came out of nowhere

like I forget where I saw it I'm like I'm gonna start calling these kids cloud and then it became the whole thing and like now we'll get clown emojis all the time and I don't think I saw client emojis anywhere before on PC Twitter until we did it just saying right and now round some other wave right

we're on the Discord homies wave and that died for a little bit and we just we keep moving along and keep making things better because if it hits it hits and if it's funny it's funny but like you know something like food's gone wild

yeah oh yeah we got like tons of comments like that like NZT is wild today. I'm like, all right, cool. Yeah. I'm trying to think what I was going to say here. And then I saw Thanos'

Den ZXT clown, which I'm definitely saving now, and that's going to be on the... Oh, he's making the stream. As I'm saying, yeah, no. It's definitely going on the stream. But yeah, so... By the way, we're recording this live. If you're listening and you're wondering

what the heck we're talking about. Yeah, exactly. We're looking... This is our first live... The Discord chat as we're recording the podcast. I like this for my bedroom. Yeah, it's something that I was saying that I like to do with a full studio setup with like mics and stuff, you know. Because I think it's more interactive and a little different, you know.

But, yeah, if you're listening to this after the facts real quick, this is a live recording, you know, so it's going to sound different. It's going to sound more instruction than before. We'll do it live. We'll do it. Heck it. Heck it. I was going to say speaking of doing it live and being interactive, we should probably take some questions here from the community that's in the podcast chat.

Do they have any. It's time for puppy advice? Whatever, whatever they want to do some puppy advice. You guys have any questions out there for us in the podcast show? If you're in the podcast chat and you want to ask us something or tell us. Everybody is typing. Several people are typing. Level 30.

Oh, several people. That's not a question. Dang, it's nice. When will we get admin? That's also not a question because there's no question mark. Dang. Why? Because?

Because we must. When will Slega admin? He technically already, I believe, does have the admin rights, he just is not an administrator. The reason for separating admin from moderator is twofold. One is because administrators, ideally, should not be dealing with the moderator stuff, which is, you know, enforcing rules and things like that. Administrators should only be focused on the back end of the server, making sure the bots are working, making sure things are set up appropriately.

And I don't think it's basically more work, right? So I think it's fine the way to... It should be administrators, manage the server, moderators, moderate the discord and the apprentices are the guiding light to keep the pepagas from applying to clown university right true it's kind of the idea right favorite mod hold on let's skip the question myself when will the podcast be on spotify so the plan is to have the podcast on spotify iTunes Google podcast all that stuff but we're not going to do it until we're 100% satisfied with the quality and the format of the podcast.

So right now we're just basically trying different things, different ideas. The first podcast was structured, right? We had topics and we hit every topic. And that was okay, but it was the oldest training. Second, which is free flow. We just kind of tried that. Third time, we tried that again with like maybe just a little bit more openness and going with like zero plan.

And this time we're going in doing it live with people in the chat. So until we figure out the format that works best, not even for us, but works best for the community, like what they want the most, then we'll start putting it out there for mass consumption, which is why it's only currently on SoundCloud. Yeah, pretty much. Also, Spotify podcasts, from what I know, like, nobody uses.

I know people use, but people don't really use it. I also know that a lot of people that have popular podcasts don't put their podcasts on Spotify for different reasons. So it's definitely not like a priority to get on Spotify, to be honest, but we'll do it just because people want it on there, but I wouldn't say it's like we really are focused on that. Right now we're just focused on making sure we come up with a good podcast that we could put on there.

Yeah, but I mean, you know, once it's ready, we'll put it everywhere that we possibly can because, you know, we want to take over the world. That's a plan. One podcast at a time. Stream podcast live on Twitch. Next question is going to be, how many hearts for a free joke?

So everyone has to say one joke. All right, Mike, go first. What did the, peanut say to the other peanut when I was chasing it. What? I'm a cashew. Dennis, peanut joke. Peanut joke.

I'll go first while you think of one, right? I don't want any peanut jokes. Think of a peanut joke while I say my peanut joke. All right. Did you hear about the two peanuts that were riding the subway in New York City? One of them was assaulted. Hey-oh!

Got them. I don't know, peanut jokes. I don't deal with like one-liners. What did the peanut say to the other peanut. I have no idea because I'm bad at these kind of jokes. Got them. Next question is Ivan, why do you

always break the server? And the answer is very very easy. The server breaks when I give people more permissions like admin stuff and when it's just me that can change stuff, everything works and then people say, I want to edit this, I want to control this, I want to do that and I

just, I said, fine, you guys want to do it? I'll give it to you. sure enough a week later everything breaks and then it's like they blame me I have to fix it but I don't care you you guys are lucky I don't care if you blame me it's because you're always wrong I'm always wrong I think it's always wrong but it's like it happens every time and it just happened like a month ago or I was the only one in charge of the permissions everything was working fine and then people were saying that they wanted the the permission to up get the permissions and I said, are you sure?

Because every time I do this, everything breaks. And they're like, no, no, it'll be fine. I'm like, okay. So then I open it, and then sure enough, it breaks again. It is my fault because I trust you guys. But also, like, Discord is really odd in the way you said permissions and bots and stuff like that. Like, one little change can ruin a bunch of stuff.

So, like... Especially on a server this is large. Yeah. Yeah. And also, like, it's part of the community's fault, right? Because we fix one thing and they find it's broken. abuse the heck out of it. Like, I added in a bot, so M8 bot, so it could automatically announce mixer streams because me-sixthist to support it. So you're welcome people who like to stream

my mixer because I'm thinking about you, right? And I wasn't aware that the bot had this memes command. And what it did is you would type in like exclamation point Bob Ross, right? And it would generate a image with Bob Ross and in the painting would be your avatar. So people found it and they thought it was hilarious and literally like it was just spamming the server and it's like don't don't spam the server like you guys are being you guys are being giant pepagas right don't do it but you know but you know but that's that's how we learn right and i can assure you that the server is definitely not broken um you can go in go you can go to any other server and just compare like ours versus theirs i don't know maybe they might have a better server but

the one thing i do know is um we have people that work at Discord in our server and every once in a while I'll ask them and you know take a look at the back and make sure everything set up how it should be and they always say the same thing and it's you guys run this thing like a well live machine. Johnny stop we're trying to record a podcast or you swear to CEOs is going nuts right now. Sorry going? Yeah like people people that work at Discord are in the server and they check on it periodically and let us know if how things are

running and they always say you guys are doing a great job keep it up you know and sure you know it's not 100% perfect but I don't think any server is no I've seen servers that have like broken permissions broken not only broken permissions but like in the rules it'll have links to like an archive channel and the rule that I've been updated in like three years and they were posted by a next employee is not even there anymore and they just leave it there and like no one said anything it's perfectly fine so I rather have you know like like some stuff broken but have most of it actually function the server breaks because we're actually actively trying to maintain it the important stuff is working right right most

important stuff works if the server never broke that means that we're not doing anything to it and that's I think that's when people should actually be worried is not when it breaks is when it's never any more breaking because it means we just don't care right like the reason why it broke when I did the mixer thing is because I realized hey mixture is becoming a thing they're growing right I'm on mixer now mr. slide guy in the sky is on mixer right so you know they know so why not add it in there it's gonna break stuff you know heck it yeah and then yeah sweet being a good point is other there's a lot of other servers the moderators just ignore the rules and people ignore the rules right and that's one thing that that's honestly the most important thing

for us are those rules. That's why we're so very strict with them is because we don't want to have chaos in this server, in this community. It's not just disparate Twitter. Like people complain because we'll ban them on Twitter because they'll, you know, curse or say something bad against, about, not even, not even like an influencer, you know? Like, and for them, it's like, why are you banning me like and say this on some other page? I'm like, well, you're not on another page or on our page and we don't let you talk to us like that. here so we do take it seriously and that you know not everyone likes it but we do yep and that's all that matters right you don't like it there's a bunch of other servers that you can go on to that

you want me yeah exactly I mean there's plenty of other servers that you can cuss and do whatever the heck you want you know and you see field trip to Shernoble one oh I don't know that'd be cool I was going to say I'd be down Have you guys seen the show Chernobyl? It's dope It's good

It's funny Actually Well It's not The show itself isn't funny But there's a lot of memes That the show generated If you go to the subredit

It kills me It's so funny It's just like People find humor And like all these hilarious situations No Ivan Ivan does travel I just don't travel for work

If I get invited To go to an event because of work I'll just say no thank you well why am I going to go to Taiwan to work I'll go on vacation I'm not going to sit in a 20-hour flight so I can like you know show show the media a new case inside of a hotel suite for 12 hours a day for a week yeah yeah I'm not gonna job I'll travel for community meetups that'd be cool yeah we went like for example E3 yeah we had a booth at E3 and we didn't work the booth I didn't go to E3 we went to E3 to have a meet-out yeah we went to E3 to have a meeting

I got a pass for E3 just to flex on social media. Hey look guys I got to imagine having a pass for E3 but I'm actually walking in. Events I hate working events. It's just they're tiring like a lot of planning and a lot of and then once it's like so much work before the event and then when the event happens It's like that's when the real work starts because then it's like nonstop and it's all day then you get so tired you don't even enjoy anything so we can't even do like our actual jobs because of these events too you know like It's like I was saying we did the pop-up right and if it wasn't for me and Mike being there we wouldn't have posted half the stuff that we did That's the first event I've ever been at where we've been able to post stuff on social media like that because every other time Too busy. There's no time to do anything and so yeah that's that's why I don't travel You should be exempt from all non-social media way I don't travel if I have to work

I can tweet from my couch I can tweet about Pax East from my couch man, do you guys see that so? It's so cool. Someone sent me a photo so I can pretend like I'm there. Any other questions for poppy advice before we move on to intern advice? Intern advice? I'm not that much. Give us some rock climbing advice.

Rock climbing advice? Yeah. Like how to rock climbing? How did you get started in rock climbing? Why do you rock climb? My sister worked at the place that I go to, which is called Rock City. And my sister worked there. Rock, Coochick, rock, rock Coo.

And I would just go there. And she'd just get me in for you. Like, here, go. go go you just go in and I would do it very casual like once a month every once every few months and then I think once I went to college I'm like I kind of miss rock climbing so then it took a while until my friend's sophomore year wanted to go rock climbing there was a place about 10 15 minutes away we went we enjoyed it and then the next year I started a rock climbing club because I really wanted to get everyone my friends random people just into rock climbing

and yeah and ever since then it's been really fun the new rock there's a new rock actual climbing gym in the actual university now and i think that was the only reason why we really like got accepted into being a club was because like oh there's a rock climbing gym being made in the new gym yeah rock club sure go for it i think that was the only reason why we got approved yeah but it's been fun um you know i coached the little kids uh the people that don't know how to climb at all it's really funny because I was there and yeah it's a it's a good sport but it's also like a mental exercise as well it's puzzle it's puzzle solving you know and you know being except accepting failure like the rock is social media the rocks yeah there we go that's a tweet

that's a tweet right there and it's fun it's just I have a great time it's very relaxed I have a good time yeah all right good advice I should don't think it was a single bit of advice oh if you want that in that but you know hey I can I can't I can't It works out. I can tell you. How about this? How about advice? What advice would you give to other people who might want to intern here?

That I want to intern here in general. Just intern. Well, I guess two questions. Intern and ZXT, intern in general. Okay. Yeah. What advice would you give? For applying for a job, it's tough.

You're going to, and that kind of comes in with the failure again, you will get rejections. You won't, sometimes you won't even get an email back. and you just kind of have to accept that which kind of sucks but you know that's how it is but it's laughing because I was thinking of like the people who applied

to the internship some of them were so bad that's my first advice take it seriously because it could actually backfire on you if you don't take it seriously like someone tweeted about

about an internship and they're like oh my god they didn't hire me like screw these guys blah blah blah never got hired after that. Like, no company would accept that because they're like,

why would we want to, you post it on social media, you post it on a public place, why would you, why would we want to hire you? Like, why would we do that? So take it seriously. Advice number one,

don't be a pepega. Yeah, don't be a big, be serious when you apply. But, you know, apply to places that you really want to do. I was applying to a lot of places in New York City where I'd be paid minimum wage

and pay like $2,000 for rent, living in the worst place and you know ever and just having an absolute miracle time. It's not a fun place. I don't like New York City. And I could have been working there. I could have been working there. But then I saw the NZXT thing.

I go, oh my gosh, social media and NXC. All my friends have NXT cases, so I applied. All I do is fly across the country to go. I mean, I live here, so it's okay. But my advice to, like, for NXT or in general, just take it seriously. Apply the places that you want to do. A lot of my friends are working. in like the city but they're just doing grunt work they just get told here's some

Excel files meet me at the end of the day don't talk to me and that's it they just stay in their corner and that's it sometimes I wish I could do that to you guys but but then they talk about like oh I want to I'm working here so that next time I'll be able to get a good job after so I'm like why are you doing that then like why don't you just work at an intern like why don't you enter out of place that you actually like working at why do you hate what you're doing now just so that you can do it and sometimes you kind of have to do it what sucks um well you're just lucky that you learn that early yeah because i i spent 10 years working in an industry that i grew to hate that i when i went in i liked

it or i loved it and when i left i hated it and i had to leave because i just couldn't take it anymore and it's because of all the things you said it's just like what am i doing here like i just if you don't enjoy what you're doing then you're just going to not just going to hate your job you're going to hate your friends you're going to hate your girlfriend, your wife, your kids, your life, you're going to hate

the cashier at the gross you're just going to hate everything because you're just going to be like in that mentality of, going to hate poochie. My job sucks everything sucks. Yep. But if your job doesn't suck, then everything's awesome you know, everything after that is like

kind of falls into place right? Like I know know the cheesy saying like oh you you know love what you do and you'll never work a day in your life it's kind of true though because like that's a lie this is hard work do you talking about it's like it's like it's a lot of work and that's one of the things that like I learned is that like no there's two really from that is one like the social media never sleeps like that's our slow it's like kind of like what we say all the time and it's true like I'm only an hourly so I only get paid whenever I'm in the office like I don't get paid outside of the location at headquarters but like when I'm climbing I'm gaming in any sort of off time I am on the Instagram DMs or on the Facebook DMs and that's why you get spoiled

yep I have to spoil you because I know that like I know what it's like to be a broke college student getting paid minimum wage at a job you don't like so you know that's why I was like I'm make sure my intern has a good time and he gets spoiled. Yeah. And it's been awesome ever since. Like, trusting me to maintain the 500,000 follower account is really weird. Like, people go like, oh, Mike, so what do you do? I'm like, oh, I do social media for NXC.

I'm like, oh, NSXA I never heard of that. It's like, yeah, it's a piece of game company. Oh, how many followers does it have, like 10,000, a few thousand? I'm like, oh, 500,000. And I go, what? And I go, yeah, I handle a lot of the posts, the social media, the DMs. and to go, what? You're an intern, though.

I'm like, yeah, and? You're like, yeah, but I have poppy blade. Exactly. Poppy play. But I guess to go back on track for the advice, just be who you are. Like, just be who you are. Because, like, if you apply to somewhere and you're trying to be as fake as possible. Unless you're a pepega, then don't be a pepega.

Yeah, don't be a pepega. But if you, yeah, exactly, 532,000. But if you work out a place and you try to, like, fake it, and then they show you, then you show you real colors, why would you want to, like, work there? And if they don't like you for who you truly are, then why would you want to work there as well? Like, if you, like, apply saying, like,

oh, I love playing video games, and I love going out with it, and just like, no, we only do business here, then why would you want to work there? That sounds terrible. That sounds like the absolute worst. Yeah, sorry, might get mad. It's just, I just don't like that.

And when you said, that's what everyone always says, is, you know, do what you love and you want to work your day in your life, whatever, but I agree with that to a certain extent, but I also think you have to kind of dig a little bit deeper, not just with work, but in life is you have to find things and do things that give you meaning. Yeah, of course. Because if you do something that gives you meaning, that's what's going to make you happy. That's what's going to make you love stuff.

That's what's going to make you enjoy, you know, life and what you're doing. So, for example, for me, it's like I do find meaning. and making people laugh on social because I enjoy making people laugh, right? The anime channel gives me meaning. I find meaning in teaching you guys the hard way. I find meaning and whatever. Everything that we do here,

I try to find meaning in it because that's what makes me happy and enjoy my job. If you seek happiness and you just want to do stuff you love, you might not find meaning, which, and if you don't find that, you're not going to have the other. So it's like, meaning, honestly, I do think it's something that no one ever talks about, and it's really the secret to finding that happiness is yet to find that meaning. Like, if you find meaning in anything, it could be, it could be, you know, rock climbing. If you find meaning in that, you're going to love it and enjoy it and want to teach people,

and you're going to look forward to it. And you find meaning in being in a costume all day. and social media man yeah yeah um you find me in social media then dressing up for your job you know people people enjoy doing that fun do i'm wearing a suit right now yeah we're we never did that we never actually wore like a suit i don't have i don't have like an actual suit though buy a suit tonight just buy like a few hundred dollars suit just because that's your homework rent a tuxedo go to target right by the cheapest suit you can buy no go to one Walmart, but the cheapest that you can buy at Walmart, and then just wear that.

Yeah. And vice, just be who you are. If you don't be accepted, don't worry. Like, just find somewhere else that you want to work out because, like I said, if you don't, if they don't like you for who you are and you don't want to work at that place, then don't do it because it's just going to be miserable. You're going to hate it. And yeah, I think, I think that's just kind of my advice. There's no, you know, if it was easy and if I told you that this is how you do it and it's, it all

works out in the end, everyone would do it. It's just you just got to work hard for it. I mean, I spent, oh, I spent like hours researching the company. Do that too. Research the company. Look at the people on social media. Oh my God. It sucks, but you got to do it. I started about that.

When I worked on Black Desert, I put a buddy up for a job to be a GM, Game Master, right, which is basically the admins, right? and it said hey we're hiring a GM you should definitely apply right so it goes in for the interview he doesn't know jack about the game we only had one game we had just one game black desert right and even like that up you know anything about it I'm like dude like the game's like five bucks pick it up and just play for like a couple hours just so you show that you give any kind of a crap like it says like I don't understand how people do that especially if it's a

company it's very specialized in what they do like they expect people who work there and to also have that same passion, right? It's like, as you see, right, we do video game computer stuff, we're a video game PC company. Why wouldn't you know anything about the cases or at least know the brand or like in what we've done or who you sponsor or anything? Like that just shows you're going in just for a paycheck, you know?

Oh, there's a job here at the job job at job center. Let me go grab one of them, right? That's not how it works. You got to do research at the company because if you don't, they're just like, why would we hire you because you're just going to waste our time at this point versus someone that comes and go oh my gosh you know nccc's the piece of gaming company they sell cases coolers with let's but i go oh that's this guy actually did his research and he now you know they can he does this

or says this or he goes hey i really like what you did here you go oh okay this guy actually cares about what you're doing and that just that just shows a huge initiative towards it one of the things i mentioned in my interview i think i talked about this in a previous podcast was how impressive I thought it was that BLD when he came out was selling the video cards that cost right uh sorry at MSRP at MSRP and that's something that I mentioned because to me it was like you know this is why I want to work here because you guys obviously care enough to take a giant hit on the cost of these video cards so you know to me it was uh you know it was it was uh you know it's just like to mention anything with that you know it's like one thing you like about the company

why don't you do that right why do you want to be here because you guys do dope stuff this is the dope thing that you did you know I'll never forget Mike's first question I was like at the end of our interview I said all right do you have any questions for me and he's like let's put this whole poppy thing what did he call you poppy but that's actually one of the reasons why I need you're the ones because like it showed me that this guy did his research you know this guy actually went to the community and saw what was going on and puppy and not everyone did that you know and everyone took that initiative so you're right you know you have to do your research you have to know

what you're jumping into um what the company's all about but also what the competitors are all about and what why are we different why are we better why are we worse what could we do to improve things like that um you have to do that research and it's not easy and that's why it also has to kind of hopefully be something that you enjoy doing you know and here you know that's why a lot of people here love playing video games is because you know we we do stuff for video games and why would you work here if you didn't like that yeah or anywhere right like I wouldn't want to work somewhere that I didn't you know like okay cool yeah things good place and I've been here for about an hour or 13 minutes so any any

last things you guys want to get out real quick before we were bounce and I got to do the editing okay okay you guys want to self-promote. How about we go to 1.30 instead of 115. It's got me. 15 more minutes. Let's see what I want. Because I think the last podcast was an hour and 15.

Uh-huh. I just want to see like an hour and 30 minutes and just see people. Okay. You don't go with it. Yeah, so I guess something I do want to talk about then. The Destiny Clan and Destiny 2 on PC. I'm bringing it back. I'm working to get people in there.

I'm tagging people. No, thanks. We actually kind of can. fell back but I actually kind of convinced somebody to buy the game and we played the other day and it was really cool granted he was lower level than I did so he was dying a lot but I was like listen I just need a body so I can get through because because I'm trying to master work my armor right and one of the things was do do a what is called a strike with clan members and nobody was on so I was like hey listen as long as we finish it I don't care how long it takes I just want to get this thing

done. So that's the thing, you know, I mean, we also have a bunch of other communities in the Discord. Like, you know, we have a bunch of people playing Minecraft. I know Mech will give you a free Vic Royale if you play with them. I think we used to have a clash of clans or something, you know? So, like, you know, if there isn't a group, you know, if there isn't a group that exists, just make one. Yeah. Just let us know, you know, because I actually asked Ryan, he's one of our admins, I asked them, hey, can I have the clan for destiny? Because I know you don't play right now. So I'll be more than happy to take it because I'm going to go, I don't go hard on that game. I'm going to go hard on that, right, when it comes out. So yeah, you know, like,

you know, sort of Dr. Mario clan. You do it? Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, it doesn't have to be a PC game either. It can be whatever you want, you know. If you want to, you know, if you want to play Barbie's horse adventure on your switch, you know, and we want to fight people to, you know, dress up your horsies. That's totally cool. I'm playing a PC building simulator on my switch now. Yeah. How is it? It's pretty cool.

Yeah, I love that game. We were one of the first companies to be in there, right? We were the first. Yeah. Yeah. Did I tell you that story? I think so, but you should probably tell. Yeah, you want to go.

All right. Tell the story. Tell the story. Let's go. Yeah, a couple years ago, I randomly stumbled across his subreddit. I forgot which subreddit it was. I think it was hardware, maybe PC Master Race.

I don't remember. And just some guy posted a thread. He's like, hey, I'm making a game called PC building simulator, check it out. And I downloaded the beta that he worked on. I thought it was great, and I didn't really think about it. But I just thought it'd be cool. You know, it wouldn't it be cool if we had any of C stuff in here? I just thought it would be cool. And then like a couple weeks later, the guy sent NZT an email and he said, you know, like he's reaching out to Harbor manufacturers to see if they can send him the files he needs for the game. And he's having a hard time because he's reaching out to harbor manufacturers to see if they can send him the files he needs for the game. And he's having a hard time because he's having a hard time. because no companies are helping them, no one's replying to him or whatever. And I was like, dude, heck yeah, what do you need? What files do you, let me give him for you?

And I gave him every single product. And then he was like, wow, you're the first company that did this. And I was like, really? I would think every company would want that. But then what ended up happening a couple months later, a gaming publisher or gaming developer, or gaming developer, I don't know, which,

but they ended up buying the game from him and spending a lot of money and resources in it. And then next thing you know, it's like, yeah, every Harvard manufacturer is on there. But yeah, we were the first and because of that, there's like little Easter eggs in the game. For example, right next to the workbench,

there's an NZXT, purple NZXT puck on the workbench that never moves, it's always there. Oh, really? Yeah, so cool. And then also the first, when you go into the free build the case that you work on is our case as well so s340 so it's cool yeah there's like little there's little hidden pucks in there yeah that you're gonna find out and I mean but but that's like that goes to show like how at least us in the community

team you know we try very hard to stick to like when you join the club right like if you go to the nzxte.com slash club or dot co slash club it shows what the core values are right one of them is be humble, right? We're not better than this guy who wants to make a game and wants to put cases in that. Great Kendry Lamar song, by the way. Yeah. Yeah, he got us.

He does it too. Just about this thing. It's like, I don't know what parts of it can sing and I can't edit this live. But it's true, though, right? Like, we're not better than some guy who wants to make a game about building PCs, right? And also the last one, look further

because it's not just about us. It's about other people. Exactly, yeah. When we saw that, I was like, yeah, why not? Like, some guy is making a, that has an awesome idea. Why wouldn't we want to support it? Yeah.

Just help him out, right? Because, like, what did it cost to get him to the files? Just time. Right, that's it, right? It's, you know, it's like, it costs us money. He's not going to take those files and, like, build his own cases, you know? Ha ha, you know, now I can, you know, contact him to manufacture, make my own NXT knockoff cases. Like, no, you know, he's using it, obviously, for the game, so there's no reason not to you.

It's just fun, you know, so it's definitely something that, you know, that we could, you know, that we're always looking at NCXT. Listen, man. Come at me and send it to me IRL, not online, and watch what happens. Let me kiss you, good night. Anyone else in the podcast chat

have questions? We've got ten minutes. Ten minutes. We're going for a record here. TXZ TXZ NK. TXZ and Kis. I'm trying to think of what else we could do. Oh, actually, Dean, do you have any leads on with the next regional channel is going to be? No, but I do know what we're going to do next with the regional channels

is, I don't know how we're going to call them yet, but we want to have like regional moderators, not necessarily with the same responsibility as the regular moderators, but just responsible for making sure, you know, that those regional channels don't get chaotic. And I've asked all the people running the channels and they said everyone there's like, you know, following the rules, no one's anything crazy, but I do think we need to have someone in charge from the community and they're just kind of keeping an eye on things, the same we have on the overall server. And yeah. Yeah, it's definitely, like, actually, it's a good question, on that real question, but

English Channel when? We don't have a region for the U.S. or England, which is actually interesting, or Canada, which we can easily do, but I think right now we kind of, we kind of, want to experiment with like the what you call it the the the foreign language channels to see if we can make those work first because having like a US channel or English channel is gonna is easy you know like we just open up but you know but but but server is primarily English yeah exactly so it really isn't a reason to have it yeah Southeast Asia Channel 1 I don't know so the the goal is to have every country every

region represented Antarctica right yeah everyone like We want to have regions for everything. Atlantis Channel When? The same thing. The same thing with the podcast is we're not just going to do everything all at once at the very beginning and then fix up whatever we mess up because it's just going to be more work. So we've got to just take things slow. There's no rush. Whether it takes a year or 10 years, as long as we do it right, you know.

Yeah. Isn't that too much and messy? No, not really. Because you can't see the channels unless you are under that region. There's plenty of channels in the server that you guys don't see. Trust me. There's a lot of channels in here. And there has to be a lot of channels.

There's a lot of people in here. And there's a lot going on in here. It's not just like one chat room. There's just a lot of things going on. I think the eventual goal will be like we have this whole giant, right? Like NXT server. And like you only see the parts that you're a part of, right? Like for example, like this is what I envision, right?

It's like in five years, 10 years, right? someone logs in right and before they even can chat they select their region right they have that cool down and now all they see are the regional channels right so think about an anime channel just for mexico an anime channel you imagine how lit would have like a Nigerian anime channel like what were they talk about they that be so cool it's just all be like Ugandan knuckles she's like every channel should be anime yeah no anime it's like anime food anime pets enemy music, enemy back alley, enemy lounge, enemy hardware, enemy announcements, enemy support, enemy streaming. Why are you guys a company? That's a good question. Because we must.

There we go. So we have plans to take over the world? We can't do it for another company. All big companies take over the world. So, you know, that's your plan. invented this company because he didn't think companies were representing gamers the way he thought they should be represented when it came to computers. So that's why he started NZXT and for a long time the company was just him and then little by little he started bringing on more people who thought like that and now there's a lot of people that think like that. And they're all weabs.

that's basically we just the company exists because there's no other company like us and we have to do it another question for you Ivan who is the better dad you or Alan I'm my better puppy

level 30 rewards whenever they're ready there's I don't know I didn't know we're not even supposed to I don't know what everyone keeps asking about level 30 rewards when it was never never promised to them ooh it's like that well I don't know if you'll always ask

Where's my level? I don't know. Where's my level 30 reward? I can't even get levels. I still want to get levels. Oh, yeah. I don't have a single level because you don't do it when you're admin. Yeah, staff rules, don't get, don't get ranks.

I want it just like a flex on people. So, hey, look how often me as an employee chats in this, in this server. No, over. I see. No, yeah, I forgot about that. It's like, listen, you can have this internship, but you can't earn Pucci. What do? What I do?

Pooch. He's just like balancing it. It just like doesn't know which one. It's like that meme with the guy who's like, who's like, all the sweat. It's like sweating his two buttons. Pucci become an NCCC intern. Press one. Stuff makes all the cast. Staff gets all the, I give the staff everything. Everyone that works here has a Poochie. I have three Poochis. I have the black Poochie. I got three Poochis. Come at me. You can't flex harder than me.

The level 30 rewards should be the privilege to stay in the server. stay in the server. How about that? Or level 30, level 30, level there it is, there it is. There you go, easy. Dang, that's easy. Level 30 is, that's a back alley meme. Level 30 reward is, we reply to you. Oh, you know, you have a good idea. Level 30 reward, we have a one-on-one interview on why you should stay in the server. Level 30 reward is XP reset.

No, no, extra reset and then you had to get double the XP to get back to you over before. Noah's like I've been gained XP in two months. You asked about it. You asked about it. Actually, you reset three times. Nick for mod when. If you're going to ask a question, just ask it, man. Don't be all cute and sneaky.

We need apprentices. Apprentices are the band-aids for the server, for real. I can do they stop a lot of bleeding they do a lot of work and it's a very necessary role it's a really weird way to say no it's like this

the server's bleeding and you gotta fix it the apprentice's job is to not be a mod the apprentice's job is to hopefully prevent people from getting a warning because like I said be the guiding light to kid them from becoming Pepegas

right? Yeah so that's what I mean but there's a bandit like there's a flexio of the server Like, you know, the lot of people don't know. I'm actually watching the server all day long. People, and then when I chat, he'll go, oh, I've been here, and they get surprised. But I have it open on my second monitor all day long.

I see what you guys are doing. There's been plenty of times where I could give warnings, and I don't because I wait, and I know the apprentices to step in, and they always do a good job, and the apprentice will go in there and they'll guide them. Or a lot of times, if I am in there chatting and someone breaks the rule, I won't even warn them. I'll tell them even, okay, like before the mods get in here,

you should definitely not do that again because it's against the rules. And we need, I think it's important to to do that, you know, because people get warned every day, people get banned every day, and you don't have to,

like if you just actually take a moment to learn how the server is structured and what you can and can't do in here, it'll be a lot more fun for you. And apprentices, you know, they don't get a lot of, the respect they deserve. You know, people make fun of them

calling micro mods and all this stuff, like tattle tells. But do you think I care? The answer is no, I don't, because I respect them and they got that job because they set a really good example in the server to begin with

before they were even offered the opportunity to be an apprentice. Like, they stood out because I saw they were helping people. I saw they were welcoming people in the server. They were teaching people, they were explaining the rules and to me that's like something that you know it's super super crucial and important for the server and you might not like it but but it keeps the server yeah too bad it keeps the server going you know it's you

don't like it other discords you don't have prentices we don't want chaos here man like we could very easily just have the same exact server as everyone else and but guess what if that was the case then then not only will you not get a level 30 reward, you won't get level 5, level 10, level 20, level 40, or level 50. I hear that certain Discord Zucargu spend a ridiculous amount of time for simple, simple perks. That's all I'm going to say.

Y'all know what it be? Y'all know who it could. Yeah. Yeah, like we want to reward people who, who, Ooh. We should do a reward where if you get to level 30 with zero warnings, you get a nice bonus price. How about that? You get to stay here. Do you guys say?

The reward is the only thing that keeps the server alive. Nope. I'm close. I don't know. Ask the people who spend nine nights here. Let's find out. All rewards canceled. Let's see what happens.

All right. Here we go. Thanks for this suggestion. Please return all over. Shibbore says he got his first warning and like the first two days. That's unfair. Is it unfair? What was the warning for? Here we go. Get ready.

Like, oh, I said at Kirschberg. Did you read the rules? I don't know. Let's find out. What was the warning for? First word was my first message. Yeah, but like now, right? Now you're red rank. I mean, this video is bad word. There you go. That's against the rules. That's right there in the rules. Right there in the FAQ.

Like, there's a reason why there is, we make, give me 10 minutes. It is if, where did you post the video? What? I love that. I love that about it. much. People's in the chat. Everyone, people's in the chat. No, it's not your bananas. But it's like, but it's like if you're, if you're getting worn for something like profanity, that's like the first thing you're, one of the first things you read is like, you know, nothing that could be considered not safe for work, no profanity,

nothing to get people in trouble when they're, you know, when they're, you know, when they're, you know, when they're at work or something is it's super obvious. You got warned for a freak. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't get warm for frick because then you'd get another warning right now. So there's probably more. context to it. Did you get bored? Did you get more? There's always more to the story. It's like maybe he said the effort and told him, don't say that.

And then he's like saying, oh, I'm going to say Frick then. I don't know. There's always more to the story. Yeah. Just, I mean, do we really want to do like a whole investigative report on every warning? Not really. Yeah. Yeah.

If you guys ever feel like things aren't fair, talk to the moderator. Just, you know, hit him up and they'll look into it. And, you know, they get them. make those adjustments if they want to but 99% of the time they're not going to do it because 90% of the time says you'd not read the rules or read the channel topic and I think you know people say oh but no one does that too bad if you can't read them you don't watch you any panda saying do you guys think some moderators review and manage a server differently than others my answer is no I don't think they do but I do think people think that moderators or

admins or apprentices have this like vendetta against them or they think like Why is this only this moderator warning me or why is only this guy warning me? And the answer is because everyone has different things going on in their life outside the server. Some mods are on a certain time. Some mods are on at other times. It's the same way like... But they all do the same thing. It's like if you break a rule, you get warned.

You break more than you break a rule over and over again. You're going to get banned. That's basically it. It's like it's the same way where like, you know, we're like you get stuff. by a cop, right? Like, sometimes a cop's having a bad day is going to be more rude to you than others, right? But at the same time, though, like, if you break a rule, you're breaking a rule. So regardless of, like, whether they're quote-unquote seems like they're strict or not, if you, if you said a bad word, you're still going to get warned for it regardless of who it is, right? And if they

don't, then I don't know about that. And if, honestly, and if you notice that one moderator is warning more than others, I guarantee you it's because they're probably on the server more. Maybe they're able to actually be on their moderating more. Not every moderator could be on their 24-7. I mean, Meg, I haven't told anyone this yet, but Meg pretty soon is going to be really busy with school, and he's not going to have as much time to be an apprentice and doing that. And he messaged me and I told him, hey, that's pretty really fine, you know, because everyone does that.

Even moderators like Jack recently, he had to take some time off because he had to do school stuff. so he's not as active. So does that mean that he's slacking off at being a mod? He's not doing as good a job as another moderator. No, it just means that this moderator is not going to be able to be on as much. And for other moderators, they're on there more and they're able to warn more. And it's not because they're picking on you, trust me. Just stop breaking the rules and you'll notice they'll stop picking on you.

Yeah. All right. Who is who? Can everybody say their name? Yep, I'm Mike. I'm Poppy. Their name? The monkey paul in the

No I mean that some mods are not going to warn in silly And it's like a verbal warning I don't know I'm always wrong so I don't know Don't break the rules Simple don't break the rules Just you know some people get luckier than others I guess Just don't break the rules

Read the rules don't break him Easy peasy lemon squeam I never warn people. I always tell them. I'm trying to hold back on it. It's hard though, because I'm like, I don't, I never warn people. I just go straight to a band when they try to test me on it. Yeah. Oh my God. Because at that point, I have to almost prove a point like that, not just to them, but to anyone who thinks I can get away with things because you can't, you really can't. And it's not too. mean, it's not to be like, you know, show like, oh, I'm better or stronger than you or anything like that. It's because it's for the whole community. It's for everyone in the server. I want everyone in the server to not have to worry about a troll, to not have to worry about getting bullied, to not have to worry about any cursing or opening up an image that's not safe for work at school or whatever. It's about everyone. It's not about you and no one's picking on you. Trust me.

Like, we get thousands of messages a day and I don't even know who I'm talking to. I just, it's like one long message to me, for real. Since the podcast started, I have like 10 DMs. Yeah. And that's it even like a lot. That's like a very small amount compared to what we normally get. And also a lot of mentions. Because I'm like you're mentioning before.

And a lot of times people get banned and they'll DM me and they'll be like, why did I get banned? It's not fair. And then I'll just, I'll do a quick search of, and then I'll just see, this person got 12 warnings. you literally got warned 12 times and it's like why don't we ban you sooner and why do you think it's unfair it's not it's a perfectly fair system

you know it's there's nothing I don't think we're doing anything that's not fair it's just not everyone agrees with with it but but at the same time if you think it's not let the moderators know ask them and they'll be more than fair

and give you a you know an honest answer you know so yeah all right so anything else you guys want to throw in there? I think we're good. I'm hungry. What's for lunch?

You know what's for lunch. Yeah, boy. All right, guys, things are joining us. We will upload the podcast shortly-ish, depending on how quickly I can get it edited. And, yeah, we're testing this out. Let us know in the channel after we leave, and we're not looking at it,

what you thought about this format, doing it live, and we'll do more of it, If you like it, if not, we'll go back to the pre-recorded stuff. Stay tuned for the thumbnail. You guys will see it soon. And so thank you, everyone, the server. It was awesome knowing you guys. I'll try to peek my head in every once in a while on a Discord server.

Just that I'll be busy with school, senior year, Capstone, all that stuff. But we're going to take away your role, so you have to grind for XP. I had to grind back again. Great. Maybe it can actually get like a level 10 rewards and stuff. But, yeah, no, it was great meeting, everyone. I hope that everyone here has a, you know, has had a good time. So see you guys when I get back probably.

All right. Can I say it? I don't know. I got them to say it. I'll be here next week. All right, guys. See you later. Thanks a lot.

Peace out.