NZXT PODCAST - #110 - Mike Kim Returns

Episode Date: October 22, 2021

This week on the show we're joined by our favorite ex-intern: Mike! We discuss robbing Target, wearing an orange suit, and how to get a job in gaming. Follow Mike at twitter.com/mikekimreversed Tune in live every Thursday at 10AM PT on twitch.tv/NZXT and send your questions to: [e-mail]

It's going to go right into it. I'm going to waste any time. It's going to do it. Do it live. Do it real. Do it the best way we possibly can. We'll do it live. Yes.

Hello, everybody. Welcome to episode 110 to the NXD podcast, the official podcast of the NXD community. This podcast is recorded live every Thursday at 10 a year Pacific Center time of the official NZCT Twitch. It's available to stream on demand on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify, and SoundCloud. So remember that unpaid interships are unethical, and only serve to provide free labor to the ruling class my name is dennis and with me as always is

ivan what's up boopy ivan how you doing good spoopy ivan we got my got my h mug who knows what the h stands for i don't know doing good halloween how yeah exactly stands for halloween or hello uh we've done so much content this week ivan well you have not me we i've been watching by the the sidelines. We, we as a collective at NZXC have been doing a lot of content. We've done two back-to-back daily streams for the NZCGG sale that is now over. So congratulations to anybody who got, who paid 90% for a computer and got the whole computer. That's almost as good as free.

Almost is, it's almost as good as free. It's like I was explaining to Alex yesterday. Like, imagine you walk into a target and you buy a shirt, right? You buy that cool DBZ shirt that everyone's wearing. I've seen everyone who buy this Dragon Ball shirt at Target lately. I got one too. And you're like, hey, how much is this shirt? And they say, it's $10.

And you go, great, I'll give you nine. And then you walk out the store with a shirt. That's basically what's happening or what happened with that sale. You literally robbed us. I don't know if that's how it works at most retail stores. But if you know what store that is, can you let me know? We'll do. We'll do.

Today's special guest is the Master of the Palindrome and Penguin Connoisseur. also the forever intern Mike Kim. How are you? Good. How are you guys? Miss everyone. Oh, hi Josh. I see you in the chat. Yeah, welcome aboard Mike. It's a pleasure to have you, my friend. Thank you. Thank you. It's been a long time coming. Yeah. When's the last time you were on the podcast? Oh, God. I was during my internship. So that was 2019. I think you were on the first three episodes. And then we just ignored you for like

Never had you again. Yeah. Yeah, that was during, yeah, the internship, and that was when we were all just doing in the very echoey meeting rooms. Yeah. We basically just kicked you out. Like, all right, you're gone.

So for this I don't know, Mike, Mike was our intern in the summer of, what was it, 2019, Ivan? 2019. 2019. He had him and the homie Griff. Yeah, him, Griff. Oh, God, who there's the interns?

Mike. It was Annie, Akela, and Abby. Abby. The AAA's. The AAA girls. Oh, and Kenny. Oh, right. Kenny.

Oh, Rip Kenny. Wait, isn't Kenny working with us still? Or is he still working? He's on the marketing team, right? Yeah. What does he do again? What is Kenny do? Kenny, if you're out there, what are you doing?

He works on like the Amazon stuff. Right, right, right, right. Yeah. I remember he was under, under. the late great Jerome for a minute there. So yeah, congrats. You know, it's funny.

People ask about internships all the time and like we did it once, right? And then we didn't do it again because pandemic stuff happened pretty much, right? Like, I think we were gearing up to do like another batch of like another batch of interns. And then, you know, everything,

everything what the heck? The Fire Nation attacked and then we couldn't do them right now. So what can you do right? Yeah, and like someone actually like in Human Resources, like last year, not this year, last year, they asked, they asked me if I wanted, if I wanted an intern again for last summer. And I was like, I do, but it's not the same, you know, like I don't want like a remote intern. It's just like, I don't think that intern's going to enjoy the time. It's just like, you know, hopping on a Zoom call every, every day with me.

Because I think part of the cool thing about the internship and might correct me if I'm wrong was actually coming to the office and hanging out, right? And like messing around and having fun and, you know, walking over the railroad tracks to go to domestic and all that stuff, you know. I think that's part of the experience, you know. And I think if we were to do just like a remote internship, it wouldn't be the same for them and it wouldn't be the same for us. And, you know, hopefully once this pandemic thing gets a little bit more under control,

we can do it again. So I want to agree with you, but at the same time, the internship isn't just, or a internship isn't just like for funzies, right? And to be there in person, it's also getting experienced, right? So because they're all working in a remote situation, right? I think that we could, you know, that somebody could still benefit from being an intern at NCXT, at least getting some, like, you know, some experience and at the very least some like fodder for the resume, right? So they could put down, hey, I, you know, I, you know, I, I, in. internet nzxte marketing social media and you know they can take that to jobs because i can imagine

it's hard right now to get a job and feel like especially if we don't have like any experience you know it's true it's just uh but for me like the whole you know like i really wanted that internship to be fun and i hope mike had fun i think he had fun yeah had a good time i mean obviously i'm here so obviously i had it was it was i it was okay what was the what was your favorite part about interning Mike. What was the best part? The best part? Um, really? I think whenever we would uh, like we would spitball and like brainstorm stuff because that's when I was like

just, you know, just having really just like a fun time just like throwing out random ideas like, hey, we should do this, we should try this. And I think that was just really fun to like be creative versus like, you know, like for school, for example, like you don't really have a chance to really be creative. It's like you read the textbook, you answer the question, that's it. So you don't really get a chance to express yourself. I remember when we first started spitballing. Like we, Dennis and I, we kept kind of like pressuring you a little bit. Like, come on, man, give us something good.

Give us some gold. We want a viral mean here. And you kept throwing things out. And like, we just kept hating everything. And then you randomly like middle of the night, send us a bit of, send us a bit of. picture of your laptop with like a penguin and you said and you said penguins have knees yeah like yep that's the tweet we tweeted that one it did really well too i think that tweet actually did pretty good we should probably look that yeah it had uh it was like two or three thousand

likes and i was like oh sweet let's go that was mike's first tweet i just found it see i can show it off uh three three thousand likes mike good job so here's a here's a here's a shot of it. There's literally penguin knees. This is Mike's laptop. He's like, no, no,

no. He showed us the screenshot. And we're like, great, this is an awesome picture. And he's like, no, don't.

Like, I'll get you an actual screenshot. Like, no, like, it's even funnier if it's a picture of a computer screen for the tweet. That's funny because you weren't even like trying to make a joke.

That was like, that was just you literally just message you knows. Hey, penguins have knees. Yeah. I was just, I was just, I was so,

like in trance. I was like, wait, what? They're like doing an internal, like internal squat the entire time. And then ever since then, I've just, I've always rolled with the penguins thing. That's probably why they like waddle all the time, right? They just like, just like wiggle and they don't like walk walk. Penguins always have a no bones day. No one day. How about learning, Mike?

Did you actually learn anything in your internship? Yeah, of course. I mean, like, I learned that. You should not expect things to like, if you think it will go viral and you think it's funny, it does not mean that other people will. So there's, I guess, it's really, I know, it's like, it's not like a bad thing. It's like, you know, you got to also expect, you know, it's, you know, it's like I teach you to you to empathy because, you know, you realize that it may be funny to you, but it may not be funny to other people or vice versa. You know, like, for me, I thought the penguin thing was just like, oh, this was a fun fact. Everyone thought it was hilarious.

I was like, oh, cool. Oh, never mind. I think the best example of that was actually the first time, the first time Dennis took a day off, and it was just me and Mike, and I told Mike, all right, here's what I want you to post on Facebook. And I want you to write this in all caps. I want you to type, real gamers don't watch anime, exclamation mark.

Right. And then, because I thought that was really funny. You know, I thought it was hilarious, because for like the entire month, like an entire month leading up to that, Dennis was just posting like nothing but anime stuff on Facebook. And like, yeah. All these weaves were just like, you know, like enjoying the page.

And I don't know where NZX just tells them, like they're not real gamers. And I just thought it was funny. And but some people didn't take it so funny. Like people were like emailing customer service and complaining and like threatening that they were going to return their products because we're shaming, our core demographic and things like that.

But in the next day, we posted on Facebook, in all caps, with an exclamation, real gamers do watch anime. And then people kind of got the joke then. But I think you're right. I think that isn't something that, you know, I'm glad you learned because a lot of times, you know, what we think is funny is not necessarily funny. And there's been numerous examples of that. I won't go into all of them, but you're right.

Yeah. How about what was the worst thing that you, what was the worst experience about your internship, Mike? What was the worst thing that happened to you here? Be honest. Besides Griff. I think, I think, I think really, for me, it's the commute. Because I lived in Anaheim back in 2019 before I moved here. And it was like, like an almost an hour drive both ways.

Correction, Anaheim Hills. There's a difference. Anaheim Hills, yes, Anaheim Hills. Me and Dennis are from Anaheim. You're from Anaheim Hills. I'm from Anaheim Hills. I'm from the, like, nicer area. The busier part.

It was like an hour or so drive each way. That was, that's what I learned. I was like, oh, wow, community really is a thing because, you know, that's two hours of your day, just driving. So, you know, you got to figure out something to do in the meantime, because you can't listen to music for two hours.

It's a lot. It's driving. Anaheim Hills is basically Corona. Yeah, yeah, no, it really is. It's a nice area. I mean, I'm very happy to live there, but I'm glad I kind of got out there because it was a very, like, bubble area. Like, if you went in this, like, school, you're going to stay in this, like, area in school. And I went, okay, bye, and I went to New York for school.

So, I got it got out of that bubble. And for those that don't know, can you say what you're doing there now, Mike? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was a, yeah, so, well, I mean, I was just going there for school, but then I was also a mascot for about two years. I actually have a tattoo of his signature on my thing. I was an orange. Yep, when it turned to an orange. Otto the orange, no.

That heavily contributed to you getting the internship, by the way. When I found that out, I was like, wait, you're telling me you're a mascot. So here's a mic right there. Yeah, I mean, I was on. Yep, there you go. That's me. Literally. Actually, the one below that, the newer one.

This one here? Yeah, those are like newer ones. Yeah. Auto unpeeled, revealing the super secret life of S.U's orange mascot. I love that. I mean, I have clips of me. I, because I was looking up like, I was like, I wonder if the, because I shot commercials with like at ACCC Network. I was there for the Liberty game, like on TV.

I think I have the video somewhere. Let me see if I could find them. I see. But yeah, I was, I was physically on, like, I was on TV. I remember seeing you on ESPN one time. Yeah, I was, uh, because it was for the new ACC network, like their new headquarters in Connecticut. I was, they got me a limo to drive down. It was really weird.

It was like a chauffeur and this really nice, like, Bentley. And I'm like, this is weird. I got to sign the thing. I just did homework all the way through, a little, look, a nap. And you were sitting in, you sitting in the Bentley wearing your orange. Yeah. It's in the custom. No, no, that was in the trunk.

I'm not going to quit. I was wearing normal clothes. No one's allowed to know who he is. So he just always has to wear the costume. Yeah, it was funny because I remember when Mike told me, he's like, I'm going to tell you something, but you can't tell anyone. I was like, okay, he's like, I'm Otto the Orange. And I was like, what the hell is Otto the Orange?

He's like, oh, I'm the mascot for Syracuse University. So this, that's awesome. So this one, I don't think this one is Mike, right, 2016? No, that was 2016. So I was only there from 20. 18 to 2020. Right. But this is the stuff that Mike did.

This is basically what I did. Yeah. This is the costume that he wore and he just basically ran around the entire time. And apparently from what Mike told us, I don't know if you're allowed to tell us about the fraternity of autos.

Is that the thing that you're allowed to... Oh, we don't really have a fraternity. It's just we have a, we have to keep secret, you know? There is the fraternity, Dennis. There's the fraternity of autos. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah, because we have to kind of keep everything secret.

because the main thing yeah Josh is saying it correctly it's it's basically you want to keep your identity secret because especially for like kids you know like little little kids you know they all they want to do is just like say hi or get a hug or do something so like if it's if you kind of reveal that it's it's like Mickey Mouse you know if Mickey Mouse took off his helmet and you just saw a person behind it's no longer Mickey it's some dude in a Mickey Mouse costume so you always got to keep the identity secret I think the The most ironic thing about you being Otto, is that Otto is also a palindrome, like your name. Otto is a palindrome as well as Mike Kim. That was actually my,

that was my, what's it called? My Instagram post when I got revealed. That was most fun when I got revealed. Because for some, I thought everyone expected me because I would disappear like three out of, you know, seven days.

Like I would literally just disappear halfway through like games and stuff. And people wouldn't, Wouldn't realize and then when I kind of showed it. Oh, that's such, that's the old costume. I actually saw that old costume. Oh, wait, wait, hold on. I used to see up that. What's the old costume?

Where is it? I don't see it. Oh, it's in the beginning. It's the one with the very light blue eyes. Oh, that one? Yeah, that one's like the super, super like. DeMas, I can't really tell if it was any. I couldn't really tell.

That's, um, that's some big, uh, that's some, uh, BPE right there. Big palindrome energy. Yeah. sending you guys the clips of one of the things that I recorded because I was at the Liberty game and then at the AC net the eight dude shooting is the weirdest thing to do in a uh the weird shooting is just weird on like an actual TV set because half the time you're really just sitting around I can't really do it like I'm sorry and it was hot that it was like 85 and we're in a bus coming out and I was just like I was sweating so hard Otto's Army what's Otto's Army hold up what's what's what's what's what's what's what's what's what's Alato's Army. Is the like the student section. Okay, gotcha, gotcha. Yeah.

Good to know. My boys mostly just cry when they see a mascot. I mean, yeah, you're not wrong. I have made many, many, many children cry. And I feel really bad because I'm just like, hey, dude. And he'd scream and cry run away. I'm like, sorry. You look at this busted outfit.

What's up with this one? He's got like furry leg. That was like, that was when he was, uh, it's like 70s, 19. That was when he was first introduced. I like how his hat says, sus. Yeah.

So it looks like, it looks like, like a monster you see in like a Halloween movie from like the 1980s or something, right? Yeah. Like the fur, like that was,

that was when he was first introduced because we were, we were different before. I think we were a wolf before or we were going to have a wolf. And then we were just like, no, it was also Syracuse Orangeman,

but obviously not necessarily something you were. wants to have as a university thing. Former auto. Indigenous tribes near you. I just love that there's this like group of people who are like former autos and they're like doing any reviews and stuff. It's like, yeah, that was an auto from 1974 to 1976.

Yeah. It was real tough back then. A lot actually as an auto because it's such a, it's such a, uh, it's one, it's an honor because you're representing so many people. But like, yeah. People literally just try to get info out of view and I'm like, no, I'm not going to tell you. Because that ruins it for any other autos. That's my coach.

The best thing is like everyone you see here interviewed like all the former autos you got to remember they all have a tattoo on their butt. Right? Only some. Only some. Me, it was really mainly our generation like the 2016,

2020 kind of area that like did tattoos. Like I think I'm one of three people to have it under wrist. But a lot of people have, it's not just like us, but many like, of the ACC mascots get tattoos on like somewhere most of the time it's on their butt because they can just they can hide it that's crazy i can imagine being a mascot and like for me for me this stuff is like so weird because like i i never went to like a college and even if i did the

colleges i would have gone to wouldn't wouldn't have had like anything like like this i feel like a lot of schools especially here on like the west coast right like like a lot of commuter schools you don't really have that sense of like i went to the school, you know, like, I, like, belong to, like, a thing because I would have just gone to, like, Fullerton, right? And that's not, you know, that's not really, like, a big, you know, like a, Like a, like, up with the Titan, man? I mean, I guess, but like, you know, would you really have pride over over Cal State Fullerton? I wouldn't, you know. Yeah, I have a Toughy the Titan tattoo on my wrist. Oh, yeah? Oh, snap. Tuffy the Titan. Um, yeah. I mean, yeah, you know, like, I, I, like,

mixed, I missed out on that whole experience. I honestly missed out, but I just never had the whole experience, you know, from like the school and like having that be like a part of my identity. Like, you know, someone tells me where they're into school. I'm like, that's cool. Nice. That's, that's definitely a school, you know? Yeah, I think it's just a little bit different because like, I was in upstate New York

where like the only, only thing and like a whole like hour drive out was Syracuse. Like it was literally like college's new, like college's team. So like everyone that lived in Syracuse was a Syracuse fan versus here in California You know you got Cal State Fullerton Santa Barbara got the UC schools as well So they got so many difference Did you ever see Tim the Tapman walking around Syracuse

He was in He was in Syracuse during a time But I couldn't go see him obviously But I think it was Wesley that's like dropped the PC off at his like house Or something like that Yeah I was like he's in here You should have gone and said hi

just like walked up hey what's up i'm mike i'm an orange i don't think i don't think he'll be very appreciative of some of an intern walking up into his house you want to see my orange tattoo mr tatman i would have to like you i'm just like you just be very awkward uh that's awesome so so mike you went from being an uh you went from being a a orange to an intern and now you're working at nzxt correct yes I am what are you doing now currently a customer service agent and I also help out social in the off hours as well yeah I'm excited you're actually going to come to the office today so we can shoot some TikTok videos yeah if you got so many ideas for my tic talks are becoming viral yeah they are you I think some of your tic talks are are like some of the best performing ones um except for the

except for the one that like stephen showed us that one is like magic yeah oh that one yeah the the Thirlplace one that was that was top now that I had actually people DMing me like messaging me going like I absolutely hate you just like like I had you had verbal like DMs from people saying that to me what's uh how's it been I guess working in customer service this last year it's not bad yeah it's not bad I just um I I graduated during the peak of COVID so you know that was that was rough uh going straight from Because we, like, we were on spring break when, you know, everything started to come by, which was around like March-ish.

And I was like, oh, okay, so I'll go for, literally it was a week. It was just a week-long break. So I was like, okay, I'll go do spring break, come back. And then if we have to go, say, you know, leave, we leave early. I get to say by to everyone. But like two days into spring break, they're like, don't come back. We're going full remote. And I go, oh.

So I had friends that already like just drove up, got their stuff left before I could say bye. So I physically didn't say bye to many of my friends, which suck because, you know, I spent with them for four years. I had the climbing club, auto. And I was just like, all right, bye. And then we all just went home. And it was a little rough. But, uh, and you know, being, you know, I also was kind of, you know, when I graduated, it was kind of rough, you know, finding a job. I was trying to come back to NSG, but obviously, like, everyone got affected by it.

So I'm not, like, mad or anything like that. I was just like, oh, shoot. All right. So let's go, go find something else to do. And, you know, everyone else is, you know, at home, remote. I found some other jobs in the meantime. But then I was like, oh, you know, what you could do? If I'm going to transition back into NSXT, I should might as well just work a job there and they need customer service agents.

So I think we're like October-ish. I, like, join customer service. And ever since then, you know, it's been blast. I mean, I work from home. I literally can just do whatever I want, you know, like literally just like, roll out bed if I need to. But usually I try to keep some sort of schedule. You got any funny customer service stories you want to share?

Um, oh, I had someone call the NZXT, like, customer service and was like, hey, this lawnmower is not working. And I go, what? And she was like, this is NZXT. T right and I looked it up it's n x Z T is like this lawnmower company well this woman was like furious that this lawnmower was not working and I'm like ma'am you have the wrong line and she's like is it just n x x t is like it is like it is but I think you dialed the wrong one is it an x londmower it's I forgot what it was

let me see if I could find it and X you I forgot what it was it was it was it was it maybe n z t or something Oh, it's NZT. It's like this limitless pill thing. It's like a supplement. Wait, what does it do with the Lonemoor? I couldn't remember exactly what, like, thing it was. It was this.

It was NZT. And this woman was like furious about, it's like this pill thing. It's like a supplement. And she was like, talk about it. I'm like, this is a computer company, ma'am. Knowing Mikey probably helped her fix the lawnmower. Well, here you know, just me Google it for you real quick. I'm trying to find

Is it trying to find we're talking about Do people ever Contact customer service To complain about social media No Mainly tickets Tickets of people like Hey

This wasn't funny But most of the time It's half the time Like the tickets we get Are like actual Agents Like you get like one every few months of that Most of the time

You guys are pretty You know You're not too controversial We have I think that we haven't we haven't made people mad in a while. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That was a conscious decision. Yeah. Yeah. We've learned our lesson. I think what it is too is like to be like 100% honest. Really it's like too busy to make people mad. Like I think that if we if we had a lot more time to just do nothing about social and think of stuff that were like provoking but not like offensive, we would. But like that that requires a lot of time and effort and let of like finesse.

and back and forth that we don't have right now. So now we just have fun. And we act wholesome, right? We are wholesome. We're the wholesomest PC company in the world. We're due, though. I'm pretty sure we're going to make someone mad soon. Yeah, I know for sure.

I feel like every, I don't know, every so often, like, you kind of have to make people mad, I guess. not even like on purpose right like you just you just do like yeah it's like it's like it's like it's one those things where when you're when you're branding and your brand voice is supposed to be fun and humorous and like you know can like be on the pulse of what's happening in the world like in the community um you're going to make some missteps and that's going to happen right the alternative is you're a very boring account don't never post anything funny they never post anything interesting you just do sales and just you know thank people for the purchases and that's it

and people complain that like we mess around on social but the alternative is just we just don't have any fun and then people just ignore us like what's the point of having a social media account right exactly and then the way i see it too it's like you know we work for a company that makes computer so people can play video games it's not that serious you know like we're not like you know this like serious company that just you know it's trying to commit people to buy stuff You know, we want to have fun because we like having fun. So the sad thing, though, is that, yeah, like, sometimes, you know, having fun, I guess you can kind of cross the line sometimes at people's expense and people don't really like that. So we're trying to be more nice.

Yeah, there's. And it's also, it's also an idea like people think that, you know, every brand account just has to be, you know, like, like Dennis said, just boring. And we try to have some fun because I want to enjoy my work. and you know make people laugh but then there are people like why this is unprofessional i hate this i'm never but yeah it's a like that like that thermal paste video we did where we're just like put like four tubes the thermal paste on a CPU so many people got mad over that like oh dare you you guys are you guys are a reputable brand and you guys are are you know showing the wrong way to apply thermal paste someone's going to destroy their computer and i'm like thinking

dude like can you not tell this is a joke like of course come on it's just like five tubes of thermopace like no one's going to do that and if you do do that then you know you probably have to learn the hard way that's the wrong way but you know it's i guess not everyone can take a joke you know things are changing i mean there's a there's a video i forgot i think it was by someone like that where they use like physical toothpaste as like a cooling thing and then they used like a whole tube of toothpaste and you know it spilled out onto the sides PC still worked so even if you overload like we did in our joke like it's still going to work yeah it will not break have you how have you been enjoying working on on social with us recently

yeah yeah i mean i you know i went to college for you know marketing and stuff like that and i'm very i'm a very like i've like creative like impulses so like i want to make things or want to do things. So like I will want to go ahead and do make something so like we as like, hey make a post or let's go make a TikTok. I'm like, all right here here's what I got and here's some ideas. Tell me which one's good or not. And you know, I'll just like I just kind of spew everything out.

What's your favorite part about working on social media right now? Um, I do really like whenever I make, uh, like Instagram stories. Um, because it kind of shows that like, hey, we're not trying to be, we're not trying to force being a brand. Like, I'm a human too. Like, I play a ton of video games, literally almost every day. And, you know, like, I'm a person. I love playing games. Like, here are the games I play.

I'm not just trying to act like it, you know. So it's fun to have people go, wait, you play like Hunt Showdown or you play Warzone 2 or you play league, Valorant, like, you play all these games. It's like, yeah. I work at a game company. I'm going to play some video games. It's funny. It's funny you say that because every time someone tells us to shut up because we're a brand account,

I always think, don't they know that it's Ivan, Dennis, and Mike? We're people. We're not, it's not like there's like this actual like a company can't tweet, right? It's like there's like it's not the actual company itself that's tweeting. I think it's funny when people like call us a. brand i mean we're representing a brand but we're not like the actual like company you know it's kind of weird uh high yam shanks wants to know why everyone's hairstyle looks so good um because we're i don't know i don't know who has the best hair here i think i think mike maybe

no i think dennis physically has like actual styled hair mine was not really i just came out a shower because i'm trying to grow up my hair so i got like the short like sides and back and this thing usually this is i kind of i equated it this i'm going like Johnny Bravo right now because my hair is just unnaturally straight so like you should grow up Johnny Bravo soon you should go for a pomp straight up just like just

with like the suavacito you know what talking about do we have permission to show Mike's hair when he was in junior high yeah sure go for it it's in the social bro's chat on Slack Dennis okay hold up let me

actually could you throw it on Discord yeah one's like so I can open it in a browser. Oh, my God, skinny Mike. Yeah, I did. I'm not showing this one, though. Yeah, dude, the one with, like, my actual,

what my hair actually was. There you, okay. So this is Mike back of the day. Here we go, folks. That's a baby Mike. Oh, Chunky, Mike. How old were you in this picture, Mike? I was in seventh or eighth grade during that time.

How are you in this picture, Mike? Yeah, okay. Todd. 12? What are you? Like 14? 14 years old in like middle school. And how old are you now?

I'm 23. Oh, this was nine years ago. Yeah. So. 2012? Yes. I think that. Yeah.

It was like 2012, 2014. I can't remember which one. Oh yeah. Hold on. Let me see if I could bring up my, my, I think I was 11 pounds when I was young. Here, I'll send you the picture. When I was born, my mom. my mom will never let me live it down

because it's it's bad you're a bowling ball dude that's that's that's a heavy yeah I was 11 pounds I was a C-section baby it's my my mom will never let me down because she will always like we always show the scar

hold that let me just let me just there you go I had to clip that I had to clip that yep there it is I got backwards cap no cap yep that

was a my mom will never let me live it down because i'll see section baby so she'll always show me to scar whenever i do something wrong oh god this is you're a kid my i don't know if i was cute man i was something else that's cute little chunky boy it's cute little chunky boy it's funny yeah i would think when i was i basically like if you look at my arms i have rolls on my arms i was just bored like come on man uh I don't have the photo on me now, but there's a photo of me as a baby in like a little bathtub in Mexico. But it's like, it's not a bathtub. It's like it's just like a big like orange tub, you know, because we didn't have specific baby bathtubs. He's just like here's a receptacle.

You can put water inside. The baby sits in. And I think it might have taken a sink bath every now and then. Is that a thing that like regular people do? For babies, yeah. Yeah? Yeah. Is the baby in the sink?

when my daughter was little, we would bathe her in the sink just because they're tiny. Like you can't really put him in a bathtub. Well, they have like the little things I can sit in now. They do. It's just easier on the sink because you're standing up. You're on to like spot down or anything, you know. Is that like an every people thing or is that just like an immigrant thing? Because I always wondered that, right?

I don't know. I don't know. If you are. I just, I felt like it was normal. I didn't really think twice about it. I was like, yeah, that makes sense. I rather not squat than just, you know, stand up and bathe. Do you think it's an everything thing?

Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I was curious because like, it makes sense, right? It's just like, it's a tiny baby. The sink's right there, right? Clean the sink. You put the baby in there.

Yeah, and you wash it. Yeah. It makes a lot of sense to me. Yeah. I think it's also easier to, you know, if they, if you need to like reach for something versus like a bathtub, you know, the baby's so tiny compared bathtub, which is easier just to, you know, reach over and just grab some, you know, soap and dishwasher and stuff.

Yeah. Now when I bathe my daughter, I just turn around the shower and make her stand there. I'm like too lazy to like make her an entire bath. Mike, question for you. You were talking about you went to school for marketing. So have you learned anything in your marketing classes that have helped you at all with social? Because I did not go to school. And I'll say that's a million times I didn't go to school.

I think I'm doing pretty okay. I have learned a lot from like my coworkers. but I don't know if that's due to their schooling or due to their experience because, you know, you know, we got people like Josh and, you know, uh, Jordan, a lot of J's. Josh Jordan, Talley Jess, right?

They know a lot. They've been around, you know, the industry for a while. So I'm curious, have you learned anything that has helped you? Um, yes and no. In reality, the marking that I really went for, it was a double major marking and management. So like, it's very corporate, very businessy marketing.

So if I was trying to do something like PR or like advertising or like something like that, probably it'll work pretty well. But social media is just a whole different thing. They're really like, it's completely different. Like social media, it's, you know, you can't read. the textbook on like social media trends you have to actually look at social media so it's a little it's a little weird because like i loved my school and everything like that but in reality no i learned a lot more in the two three months that i was at nzxte than i really did learn at marketing uh school but i think i think i even brought that up that school's not really there to make you learn certain things like

you're not supposed to just look at a textbook and go. It's really about getting to work ethic down. Because like if you have a homework assignment done, do at like Tuesday at midnight, and you are at 1140 doing a homework assignment, that's not necessarily a good thing. Versus like here at 16, if you have a,

you know, we have a paid campaign coming up for like this sale. You have to get this done by Wednesday. It can't be a day late. So you can't just like, I'll just take a miss grade or I'll lose like 10%. It's like you can't do that. You have to get it done.

Yeah. Like my whole point of view on school is that, you know, anyone can be a good student because if you want to be a good student, all you have to do is just memorize things. It's just memorization. You just memorize, memorize things from books and like take a test on how well you remember those things. And anyone can do that. Like it's not like a special talent, right? It's just memorization.

But for me, like what's like getting a degree, a college degree shows, shows me at least, is that you can commit to something that's very hard and stick to it for like a long time, you know, because four years of doing that, it's not easy. You know, it's and like following through with something like that. It's not so much like what they do. teach you is just like it's that work ethic man like waking up every day and like you know going to class and and having the discipline to like okay i am going to memorize these things i am going to read this book i am going to ace this test i am going to stay up till midnight working on these math problems

because it's you know because i i want to you know succeed and that's what school really teaches you is that in my opinion it's not so much what you learn it's that work ethic I'm sure not everyone agrees with me, especially like people that are like doctors and lawyers and things like that. Oh, yeah. In certain professions, you need to go to school for. Like a doctor, you know, a surgeon and stuff like that. Yeah, you definitely have to. But I think you do learn more in the actual job because, you know, not every marketing classes could pertain to it.

Like social media, basically nothing really pertains to it. But, you know, there's some stuff in it. Like I learned data analysts. and data analytics for like certain classes and that's useful in almost every every job so yeah yeah you like you have to know that stuff but it doesn't mean you have to do that stuff exactly yeah it's happened in your back of your head so you go okay I remember doing this yeah I was you don't have to know every single you don't have to remember each paragraph yeah I was out to breakfast with the family last week and my little cousin was there he's like 16 17 or something

and he asked me like how do you do what you do like how do I get into that And I'm like, honestly, like, social media is really, really weird because there's so many different avenues to get into the industry like that. And I told them that school definitely does help. But what school won't teach you is things that you have to learn of the job, which is like things like the right times of post, what to post, when to post, how to hop on trends. If you want to post, if you want to run an account that's like relevant and interesting and fun, right? Um, there's, there's, there's some things that you have to learn just by doing and seeing, right? Like, just the things that like Ivan has taught me, you know, I don't think I would have been able to learn if I wasn't just in the field doing it, you know? And that's kind of the thing with social, you know, you can, anybody can run a social account and just post stuff all day.

But it's like, you know, do you know why things need to be posted the way they're posted or how we, or like, why we word things somewhere or another, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I've been like recently had like, I think a good learning experience with TikTok. Oh, yeah. TikTok's been interesting. Because for this GG cell that we just did, you know, Dennis' task was to make an ad for TikTok. And, you know, we were going to run it as an ad and then also boost it on the feed.

And then Dennis asked me like, which one should we do? Should we just do the ad or should we put it in the feed? And I said, well, we've never done either. We have no freaking clue how it's going to perform. Let's do both and find out what happened. Yeah. And we did that and we actually learned from that. If we would have just like, I don't know, there's like no book that you can check out from the library.

It's like how to go viral on TikTok, you know, like you open it and it's like, oh, I got to do these 10 things and it's going to happen. You know, and like with social, it's just a lot of experimentation and learning as you go and figuring things out like really on the fly pretty much. Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. It's a lot of going with gut feelings and then, testing those gut feelings, right? And especially with like social media, because it's not just like, you know,

it's, it's, uh, you're dealing with people on the internet and a lot of people from all kinds of different backgrounds, right? And, and you have to figure out like what not just works, but also what works for like you and your brand, right? And like what works for the people you're trying to reach, you know? Like our primary focus, our primary demographic is gamer. So we're gonna do some gamers. shit, right?

Right? For pretty much. So yeah, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's been interesting. Is there anything that you've learned in school regarding marketing that you're, that once you started working in like the industry, Mike, we're like, well, that was a lie. Like, that's not true. That doesn't work.

Oh, yeah. That happens a lot, actually. Oh, yeah? I mean, the, I think the, I think the, One course, like, that I really, really enjoyed, actually two courses. There was management and entrepreneurship. Oh, boy. Entrepreneurship was like, you've got to stay on top of things.

Like, you know, things change. The innovation comes, like, that one was very modern. And then management was talking about how you have to interact with people being empathetic. You know, you have to have empathy in social media. If you do not have empathy, you're not going to do well because then you can't think about how other people will feel, how other people will feel about this. What should they say about this? That's not true.

So those two courses, yes. It's actually not true. Most of everything else. Because some accounts don't give a shit, and that's what they're successful. But that's because they really lend into it. And a really good example is Dbrand. D brand does not care. They just do what they want, which works for them.

It's not my particular taste. I don't like the way that they respond to people sometimes. But if you're going to do that, you have to lean in all the way, right? You have to basically choose your lane, right? I feel like that's what a lot of people don't do is they don't choose that lane they try to do multiple things at once yeah they try to be too

and I think that's what's the difference between brand accounts and like NZXT is like brand accounts are very safe they are very very safe they do not want to offend anyone they're very like we will we will not make anything we won't go outside the boundaries just because we don't want to risk it versus like brand accounts like NXT DB brand Wendy's stuff like that where

they are pushing that boundary of a brand account. Yeah. And they're going well. You know, there's always risk and rewards for everything. But I think if you're too safe as a brand account, you're not really showing like the human side of you versus like Wendy's or D brand. You know, they're roasting people. But like people like that and people want them to roast them.

Like that's what it gets to at a certain point. And so it's funny when like we see the comments on other platforms like kind of giving us crap for the way you run our social. It's like, yeah, but it works, right? Like, it's working and people like it. And, you know, we're also able to, like, you know, to provide good customer service and to, like, let our voice be out there and to support people, right?

Like, like, example, today, we, we supported the Spirit Day hashtag, which is a glad's, like, a stand against bullying and harassment in the LGBTQ. community, particularly for the youth. So, you know, that's stuff that I think is really great that we're able to do as well. It's like, not just have fun and mess around and post memes and, you know, give away some stuff, but also just tell people that like, hey, you know, we see you, we support you, right? Your importance. All that stuff, right?

Yeah. My whole take on social is the same I have on this podcast. It's like, you don't have to like it. You just have to listen. Yep. Basically, yeah. how about i mike what's the what's your least favorite part about working on social media least favorite part

probably when you have a really like you you have an idea like oh i think this is a funny idea you know this is a trend people are liking it uh and you're like ready to post it you're like i think this will work and it doesn't work and you go and i think that's like it just comes with the job you know you're not going to be viral every single time but it is It does suck when you have like, you're like, I think this is the one. And it just flops. And you're like, oh, all right, that's fine.

You know, there's a lot of different like variables in it. Like, what time you posted? Do people not understand the post, you know? Do not people, but is a trend kind of dying off? Is it still kind of new? Like, there's so many different things. So, like, when you have that idea, you're like, this is it. There's no views on it.

Then you'll get like the random ones that, like, do go viral. And you're like, why? Why did this one go viral? Like the penguin one. Why? Or is it the actual times I tried? Yeah, that's always a bummer, but it's always a learning experience too. Sometimes you can't even explain it.

Yeah. Like part of the Harper right now is is understanding TikTok and like how the algorithm works because it's it's, we we have an idea of how they're pushing content. But at the same time, we also have new idea of. probably pushing content because they're they're able to swap and change so quickly like i don't know if you notice mike but like sometimes i'll i'll see different types of content all of a sudden just like flip of a switch i'm now seeing a completely different like side of ticot or i'll see like the same video that i've seen before a couple times like a month or two later and like something in my brain's like wait a minute something's kind of like not right here

and it's like they're like always tweaking the algorithm so i feel like You can never really get like a good beat on like how to how to change it. Like right now I'm, right now I'm stuck on Mexican TikTok. I am stuck on no Sabokid TikTok, which is funny because like a week before I was on, I think it was like anime TikTok or something. It's really weird. It's really, really weird. But, you know, that's, that's what we're trying to do with TikTok right now.

You know, we're trying to figure that out. And I think that platform throws a wrench in a lot of what we thought. social media was about and how it works. Like, at its base, funny, fun, interesting content will always win no matter what. But the way that it's served to you is really interesting. Like, they really hammer around. Like, like, I never saw the broken table thing. And all of a sudden, all I see now are like broken table remixes and all kinds of crazy stuff.

It's, it's been crazy. Yeah. Like, the for you page, I think, is probably one of the, like probably one of the best things I've ever seen on TikTok or on like social media in general. The 4U page, as much as people bag on TikTok and they're like, oh, it finds better and stuff like that.

The 4U page is insanely accurate. There is literally a post and it goes, if this is on your 4U page, you are mid-20s, you graduate during COVID, like the COVID era. You work out during these times. You do this. You're also a gamer on your off days off work.

And I go, it was like, it was literally like one or two things weren't right, but like out of like the 10 different things he listed, it was dead, dead correct. And I go, this is weird.

Like people in a conference like, why are you, why are you doing this to me? Why are you doing? And it's, it's crazy. It is so accurate to a point. And then I think what you said,

Dennis is like, they'll give you something else to see if like, do you like this? Do you not like this? Yeah. And it'll, it'll redirect you out. For a minute, I was on millennial weeb Hispanic TikTok, and then I landed on emo,

butt rock, punk rock from the 2000s TikTok. And then every now and then I'll get on like DJ doing samples TikTok. It's just really weird like, but it's always stuff they like I like and it's it's kind of scary. And I don't know how they got me there. There's a question. Mike, if you hear this, what's the TikTok are you on? There's so many good remixes of this thing, dude.

It's okay. Oh, man. It's funny. Yeah. It was one of those things. Like, I didn't think it was funny, but the more it gets posted and the more people like abuse it or like use it, the kind of funnier it gets. And the remixes are, oh, hold up.

What is this? Oh, yeah, man. I thought there's a better one. There was a really good one that I saw. There's a remix of that song, but it was literally like everything meme. Literally everything meme. It was like every second would be like a random thing and people. And it's basically like look or record your face when you see the things connect.

And it will be like a random, you know, sound effect from like 2012. And then there'll be like a song from like 2016. And then this random meme from like 2018. It just like it just keeps going. And literally as you listen to, you go. I know that one. Oh, I know that one. I know that it just keeps going.

Yeah. It's crazy. People were very talented. I got one more for you. Yeah. Yeah. Get ready. I'm worried.

He said, Oh, no. I'm getting old. It's no. Yeah, it's so good, dude. It's just like, it's like it wasn't funny until it was funny. And now I'm hearing all these remixes. There's another one stuck in my phone and I can definitely pull it.

pull it out, but I can't have the time right now. We've got to end soon because we've got to meet. But yeah, I, I want to do just like a streamer. All we do is like listen and watch TikToks. I think they'd be hilarious and just have everyone just like laugh with us. Do do some live reacts, right? Like some of the biggest streamers, just sit there and just watch videos all day. Like some of the videos on YouTube that I'll watch, it'll just be like Asmond Gold watching someone else's video on a stream.

So I'm watching a Vod. of a stream of someone watching a video because I want to get their reaction and stuff on it. It's yeah, it's a, we're in a really weird time right now when it comes to there. There's, uh, someone, someone posted and I was kind of shocked by it.

It was, React videos is so addicting because it's the idea that when you show a friend of video, that's what you want them to react as. And I go, oh, wait a minute. minute. That's a little weird.

Because you know, you show people, friends, like, videos, and then they are like, yeah, it's funny. And you're like, but I think React videos are like one of those things where it's like, that's what I want my friend to be. And that's why it's so addictive. Yeah. Someone said, right now there is a whole situation

of kids being dumb on the app, literally eight-year-olds doing dumb challenges. And I responded that, they've always done that. Like, there was a show back in the day called Jackass. I don't know if you guys remember. Whereas, like, dudes doing like really dumb stunts, I guess you could say, or like how jackass was back in the day.

I know, right? That was back when I was in like fifth or sixth grade. And we used to like pretend to do jackass stunts like in the playground. Like we would climb on the we would climb on top of that big fence that you use for like baseball

you know? Like that. Yeah. It was like a real small section. So we would climb on that and try to jump off of it and land on a tree. Jesus. In the playground. That's what we did. So, yeah, I think... That's a wild.

But I definitely did the same thing as when I was young, too. I think kids have always done that. It's just now it's being recorded, right? And we're just seeing it. Yeah, definitely. I mean, typods, everyone's like, oh, tie pod things happening. But, to be told, like, there are some really funny things that popped up during that time.

Obviously, I don't encourage people to, eat typods but like the idea of people making fun of people thinking that people do it that's when it was really fun the devious lick one that was that was wild dude that was a good one that was pretty funny my sister's a teacher and she was like so we're just going to email about this devious licks and she's like you know what this is because she's like I'm not on that side of TikTok I'm like yes let me explain to you what devious licks are people still like people still like toilets yeah yeah like the physical school It's almost stole like a whole ass a whole ass urinal. We got our video taken down for doing a devious lick.

Yeah, we did. Yeah, but it was just in our, it was just in our actual warehouse. I was literally just walking, walking through the warehouse. All I said was this is a devious lick and that video got taken down. We actually got a comment taken down on our account on TikTok. It was a someone's like, I don't have enough money for a computer. So we just told them, okay, we'll just rob a bank. and apparently TikTok flag that as like an inappropriate comment and they removed it.

So I felt an appeal. I had someone in college legit liked to taste the typos. You know, some people have different tastes and, you know, all power to you. Your appeal was reviewed. Thank you for submitting your request. We reviewed your appeal. And it was determined that your content violates our community guidelines that cannot be restored. We asked that all users follow our community guidelines.

to help us maintain a safe and respectful TikTok community. It says a comment that you posted on 2110, 10, 10, 20 was removed for violating our community guidelines and it says, you have a bank and they don't care about you. That was it. And I've been telling people that rob banks that say they don't have money for a computer forever. But yeah, it's, it's, it's funny. I don't think we really have ever gotten, like, I don't say censors. to censors the wrong word, but like,

gunner stuff removed on any platform other than TikTok. They have a pretty heavy hand when it comes to, like, removing stuff, which is like both good and bad, right? Like, you know, I don't know. It's like, it's very obvious that dictate a lot of what you see on that platform. But that's just TikTok for you. Mike, do you have any questions for us for me and Poppy? Um, when do I get a free PC?

You got one already, didn't you? I paid for this one. Oh. Maybe you can pull a devious lick today. Pull a devious lick and take one for myself. Grab one of the BLD kits that came out. Just like, I'll just take this. Yeah.

Yeah. How do I get a 700% raise? Yeah, I even went. How do I do that? Do you pull in a devious lick? Just like that. Devious licks are the answer. I got a question.

is his specs. Uh, I have an I7, 9700 K and a 2070. I could do all the other specs, but I think those are the main two. Yeah, I've got a 9700K, 2070 super 32 gigs of RAM,

and I'm running an X62. Yeah, an X62 crack in. I really shouldn't install that Z. I just, I don't want to open this thing. I should do it for, for a TikTok video. Like,

this is how I'll install the thingy. Like, I've had it forever. Let's try to start to install it. I think it's in the closet. You have a Z?

That hasn't been used yet. What? It's because I have this thing strapped up to like RGB cables and like RGB. RGB such a pain in the butt to like run. I just,

I just, I love RGB. It looks nice. But it's also like annoying. You know what I mean? Yeah. I feel that.

Doing all the cables and stuff and making sure you don't accidentally fry your LED strip did that yeah well it's just that it's just like writing all the cables is a pain of the butt you know are you afraid to overclock yeah no need overclock yet I'm gonna I undervolted mine um so under clock are a little better I I uh I super clock it that's what I do super clock all my on my computer stuff all right um Ivan we got any community questions There's a couple.

Let's go. Let's go wants to know what games you all play. There we go. Something music for the... I'll go first. The only game I really play super mega baseball. About you, Mike? I play a bunch of games.

I got... Valerun, Hunt Showdown, League, Risk of Rain 2, a bunch of games. Literally almost any game you'd think of. probably play it. I bet you, Dennis. I have been playing a lot of new world here and there. Finding a hit level 42, trying to hit that 60 so I can do the, the, the, the, the

PVP. And then I'm waiting for the Halloween event to start and hunt showdown, so I can grind that a little bit over the weekend. Yep. And then I have also been playing back for blood, which I'm really, really digging. And remember when I talked about it on this podcast, I did not like the beta. I thought it was boring. And it goes to show that sometimes a beta or like a preview build does not, is not indicative of what the full game is.

And the full game is so much better than what the beta show does. The variety in enemies is so much better. The variety in how you can build your like class almost with the deck system is great because someone took my doctor and I'm like, okay, well, let me play another person. This guy has a sniper. Let me just build a sniper deck. And like now I do like super cool damages. This is really cool. It's really, really fun.

It's like a nice, it's like a nice, it's like a nice, it's like a nice, it's like left for dead three pretty much, right? But like left for dead 3.5. Like it's not just like a sequel, right, in a sense or a spiritual successor. It kind of like takes it to like another level. And like from, in my opinion, like way, way better. I'm having way more fun with it. Shooting actually matters, right?

You have to actually aim. I feel like you never had to aim in like wriggle life or dead kids, right? You just point to shoot and you and you kill things. Gator Leger, Leger, Hunter, let's go. Next question here from Donnie, TM. He wants to know how we manage our time between work. Medication and coffee. By you, Mike.

For CS, I have a, one thing I really do love about customer service is that you have a set time. So it's like, you work at 8, you clock out at 5, and that's it. So I try to at least work out. you know, every other day, you know, just try to do some sort of activity. But social media is 24-7, literally. I mean, I literally, I'll randomly, like, send a random link into the Slack channel. And then Dennis and Ivan will go, are you, are you brushing your teeth? Are you on the toilet right now?

And I'm like, yeah, I literally spend, like, an hour or two on the toilet just washing. I'm not even doing anything. I just literally brush my teeth, finish brushing, and scoring to TikTok or Twitter for like an hour or two. Hang us sit on the toilet. Yep. Time to poop. That's why I get most of my aspirations is into toilet. Kind of a related follow-up question from Vinar is do we work normal hours and how do we keep up with the trends and come up with content?

So I guess like Mike was saying, you know, like we do have like normal office hours here, like any other business, 9 or 5 or whatever, but you know, social media is 24-7. So it's not uncommon for us three be, you know, spitballing ideas in the middle of. the night or on a weekend even just because that's the nature of the job you guys always you got to stay on top of it it's not like you know a class where you're like oh we finished the homework that says it's like no you got to keep going there's something going to pop up sometime yeah like uh for for myself like i've been managing the ticot right um and so i see a lot of my face on there and uh sometimes you just like have to hop on stuff before it goes away because it's also hard to save content on ticot it's really hard to like get packed

to stuff you want to see or like you have to be very deliberate if you want to save something or like save a sound or whatever so you just got to do it and like last night I think it's like one in the morning I was walking my dog and it literally just like posted like a video

on TikTok that I just had to do it slash stitch or like whatever on it because it was like okay well like if I don't do it now I'm gonna forget because we had a bunch of of dude tomorrow morning so I'm just gonna do it now and so literally outside it was like 55 degrees my dog's like pooping or something and I'm like well let's send I record to TikTok

and out in the middle of the dog park in front. And like, I'm in a dog park in between like five buildings that all look down to see what the hell I'm doing on my phone. Do you get to have zero shame? Yeah. Especially for TikTok or Twitter. You got to have zero shame. You got to put your body on the line for content.

Next question, Ivan. Next question. Legalized meth. That's a great username. Wants to know, how do you get a job in the gaming industry? Well, my first advice would be to don't do math. Yeah, that's probably a good start. Good start.

But honestly, my advice for anyone that just wants a job in general, like no matter what industry, it's always the same. It's like you have to solve a problem for that business that you're applying to. So whenever you're interviewing, my advice is always to like, you know, just tell that company what they're doing wrong and how you can step in and do it better, basically. So if you want a job in the game, industry, you know, apply to jobs and just like go to, let's say, NXT and say, hey, I see you guys are on social media and here's what I think you guys are doing wrong with social media.

And here's how I can fix that if you hire me. And nine times out of ten, the person interviewing you is going to be, you know, listening to that as opposed to just you like sending in a resume with like, you know, a job description of everything you've ever done, basically. Yeah, and as someone that, you know, got into the gaming industry, especially from like, in Syracuse, it's very like corporate, you know, you're going to like big four accounting firms or you go into like New York City. It's very like corporate boot and tie thing. And then I went away from that to go to the gaming industry. Just apply, you know, find, fine things that you really want to do.

You know, NSXT was awesome. I had a bunch of NZXT things before I even bought this computer. So like, you know, if you find an industry, you know, if you find an industry, you know, like you find some sort of like company that you're like, oh, that'll be fun to do. And if it works in your kind of major, it doesn't have to be specifically it. Like I don't have a major in social media,

but a major marketing that could kind of work with social media. And then you just apply. Just keep applying and then find out if something works for you. And Ivan somehow got stuck with me. So yeah. So some business related questions here. I have advice. Oh, what is that?

I can't need this tree. So I would say, Honestly, and this is going to sound really dumb. Try to work somewhere for free. It sounds really dumb. But the reason why I say that is because, especially in gaming, there's a lot of people who are willing to do that work for free. And it's, it is a really crappy fact, but it's 100% true.

There's a lot of people who are in volunteer positions who are in, like, community moderator, volunteer positions who aren't getting paid to do it. And they're the ones who're building experience. And that's a sucky thing. And, you know, you had to have a certain level of, like, privilege and freedom to be able to do work for free. And that's how I got in. I got in volunteering doing work for free where I met people.

I got to know folks. I learned a lot. And then I translated those skills into like a resume, right? Say, hey, this is what I've been doing for free. This is what I can do. This is what I've learned. This is what I can do for you. Just like I've been saying, right, solving a problem.

The problem with solving a problem is that you have to know what problem to solve and how to solve it. And if you don't have the skills necessary to solve it, then you can't do it. So like if you say you want to do social media, try to run a social media account, right? Try to run your own successful social media account. Try to run your own successful Twitch or something. Where you show experience that you've learned stuff.

And it's very terrible advice in a sense that nobody should be working for free, but that's the nature of the industry, right? It's a lot of passionate people who will do it for free because they don't know their worth. And you're fortunately are fighting an uphill battle with those who have the time and a privilege to do stuff for free and not have it, like, affect them as much. like when I was working for free or sometimes for free, I would do Uber lift on the side and do Instacart so I could deliver groceries.

So I had money to pay for like my car note or to pay for rent or to pay for food or something or for gas because if I didn't, then I wouldn't be able to do anything. I'll go to like, you know, the events I was working at. So that's my advice, unfortunately. I know it sounds like it's fun. And also go to school.

In the sense of figure out what you want to do in the gaming industry. If it's like you want to be a graphic designer if you want to do whatever. School isn't a bad way to do it. Especially in like the more creative stuff, you can do that on your own. You can like self,

self learning, like, you know, do stuff that way. But if it's, you know, in like the marketing side or I don't know, like engineering side, obviously you get to go to school for that kind of stuff, right? So make sure you know what you're doing. I think people are against free volunteering too much nowadays. No one should be volunteering.

Everybody should get paid for everything. 100%. I agree. I'm actually doing this for college credit. Yes, I'm here. You are providing a service. You are doing something for that company in some way, shape, or form to allow them to make money. So you should get something for that.

But that's not what you should and what is happening or two can play different things. So we shall unionize in the gaming industry. Anyway, moving on. Business related questions. Trillo G24 wants to know when the airGB. 120 millimeter triple starter pack is dropping. So he's been waiting for three weeks. And the answer to your question is there is no official launch date other than coming soon. We know that sucks. We know you want an official date. But the best way to find out when that stuff's available is to click that purple notify button on the product page. And when that stuff comes in stock, you're going to be the first one to know, be able to buy it. Another person here. I didn't get the username, but they want to know when the,

when is the NZXT H710 flow coming out? The answer is it's, there's no plans to do that, but we, we hear you. A lot of people have been requesting it, and we have been letting the product team know. So hopefully one day it will happen. Do you want to know my theory on that, Ivan, on the 710 flow? I don't think they'll do it.

And I'll tell you why, because when I've seen people who, bought those like custom front panels for the 710 there they don't report any change in temps it's like really really slight it's like three to four degrees and I think like from the 510 to the 510 flow people report what like like 7 to like 15 degrees lower or something like that and I think part of the reason is because the 710 has some pretty decent temps you know we have a lot of venting on the side that's our that's our best case when it comes to air flow yeah yeah so I think like if we if we were to do it like we would drastically change

the look of that case to make sure that like the error from the front is being used. People always want to put holes and things though. Yeah. And I'm just like basing this on like what I've seen, um, my, myself, right,

from, from people who bought these, these panels and just replaced the front with like a bunch of holes. And the difference seems to be pretty not negligible, but not enough to warn all, you know, a whole new production line of like cases. Um,

but who knows, right? At the very least, the front panel on that case is removable. so, you know, it's a little bit more. It's a little different than like the 510, which is just like a solid sheet of metal, right? And the last question we have here from Let's Go.

Want to know when we're going to start delivering computers to India. And the answer is one day, you know, one country at a time. We're going to take over the world. So far we are in the U.S. and Canada. in Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Australia. And yeah, hopefully just business keeps growing and eventually we'll make our way to India. Yep. Michael, before it was just US-A-Canada.

Now we're in so many different countries. Literally so many, it's crazy. But yeah, that was it for the community questions, Dennis. All right, cool. Thanks. You're welcome. So last minute stuff, last minute things in here. I'll be, I'll be a professionaler about it. Why'd you put a UTM here, Ivan?

Okay, so before we go, we have a couple last minute announcements. Number one is check out the BLD kit that we just launched this week on nancy.com. It is a surprisingly popular and, like, well-supported product, way more than I thought that we would get. TLDR if you know what it is You Buy a computer We ship you all the parts With a really cool neat handy guide

Video tutorials All kinds of stuff And you build it yourself And it's supposed to be a very simple Very easy step by step Guide Think like if you ever bought like a Lego kit It was like big books they give you

That's what people have been saying It's basically like a big old Lego kit with the computer We've been getting A lot of positive reception People seem to really love the idea I think we have actually done Something like really special here So definitely check it out.

Maybe buy it as a gift for a friend, right? If you're already like a pro builder. I already myself, I'm thinking like I have like a couple cousins who haven't built a computer who are like, oh yeah, I really want a PC who I would love to buy this for and they can just do it themselves. And, you know, you also get a warranty and and customer services part, right? Which is something you don't get if you build it on your own. If you don't need it, that's super cool. But for those you need it, this is amazing. So check that out.

I got the reviews too. Yeah, the reviews are really good. has a really awesome video about it. So if you guys want to look into more of that, look at Jason Sets video. It's awesome. Right. And as, yeah, exactly. And as I always say, I can tell you all day, every day why I think it's cool,

but don't listen to me, listen to reviewers. That's why we, that's why we literally ship things out to reviewers so they can give their opinions because you should trust them more than you trust us. But trust me, this is dope. Next, check out of TikTok. TikTok.com slash at NZXT

or just search NZXT. We're verified, you know what's up. There's a lot of cool stuff on there. We got a lot of poochie. Get a lot of fun, fun stuff that you can interact with. Comment, like, subscribe, follow, do out stuff. Throw us on notice. If you have ideas, if you don't like what we do,

if you like what we do, there's a Q&A section on the app. You can ask us a question. Maybe we'll answer it via TikTok. Finally, damn it, I keep clicking the wrong thing. So opening the browser. Finally, I was going to type in there. Battersea. We're still supporting the Battersea,

gaming to the rescue charity, get involved by either donating or starting your own challenge via Tiltify, so I'll show you here to you folks. And say some puppies and kitties. Battersea is a UK-based animal rescue and they do a lot of cool things. They actually have a really cool TikTok too. It's a lot of puppies and kitties on their TikTok. So check that out. Or if you don't want to do your own challenge or your own stream, you can donate to them directly

or you can support someone who is supporting them. So check them out, battersea.com.org. That UK. I keep thinking.com. I think that's it. Mike, do you have any announcements? Wash your hands, eat your veggies. Wash your veggies and eat your hands, folks.

Yes. All right. And with that, thank you very much for joining us. Mike, you really appreciate you, man. Thanks for having me. I'll see you guys in a little bit. Yep. and thank you to everybody who tuned in remember to tune in next week at 10 a m pacific center time

on the official nzx t twitch and follow at n xx t yeah yeah what uh tuned in sorry i have to turn something down remember to tune in next week at 10 a m if they said so spil lblah restart hold up we're gonna restart this we restart all over oh we're gonna go all over okay perfect even better because I'm a jackass. Thank you for joining us again, Mike. And thank you to everybody who tuned in. Remember to tune in next week at 10 a.m. Pacific Standard Time getting tired on the official N60 Twitch

and follow at NZXT on all relevant and irrelevant. Oh my God. All relevant and irrelevant social media. Going too quick. Got to slow it down a little bit. And send an email to podcast.nc.com. If you have any questions, you want to ask us off the air because we do love our offline on demand peeps.

Don't forget to listen to previous episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and SoundCloud, if you want to hear it off the, off the air, or wherever you find your favorite podcast, if you don't find the show on the platform of your choice, let us know, and we'll fix that ASAP. And finally, share the show with a friend or an enemy. Whatever you think. All right, bice, bice, all right, Bys, bays, bays, laters, peace. Stick around for the, stick around for the, for the, for the, for the raid.