NZXT PODCAST - #210 - The Price of Becoming a MASTER - 10,000 Hours, Burnout, and Mental Health (Ft. Znorux)

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

On this week's episode of the #NZXT Podcast... We sit down with a man nearing 10,000 hours in Counter-Strike alone: Znroux! We dive into what it takes to become a MASTER, examining the commitment and mindset necessary for such a task. But it's not all headshots and highlights... Znroux opens up about the hardships of content creation and burnout, along with the critical importance of mental health. Catch him on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/Znorux

Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 210, dang, 210 of the NXC podcast, the official podcast of the NXC community. His podcast is recorded live on Fridays at 10 a.m. Pacific Center time on the official NXC Twitch and is available to stream on demand on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and SoundCloud. My name is Mike. And with me, as always, is Ivan. How are you doing, Ivan? How we do, baby boo? Happy first Friday in Spooktober. It's my favorite month of the year.

It's my birthday month. I can't believe I'm going to be 21 in only a couple of days, man. Time flies when you're having fun on the NZC podcast. We have a very special guest today, but before I introduce them, I want to make two quick announcements. So if you are tuned in live right now on Twitch.tv slash NZXT, you can type exclamation giveaway in the chat. You will get a link to a giveaway that you can only enter when you tune in live.

We're going to give away some poochie plushies, some t-shirts, some stickers, et cetera. It's also pinned in the chat at the very top there if you don't want to type the command. The other announcement I want to make is that in case you missed it yesterday or two days ago, I forget time flies. We announced a brand new cracking and we're going to give away some of those crackins. But here's the catch. The giveaway does not go live until tomorrow.

So if you are tuned in live right now, you will get any three. Another secret word for that giveaway, which will give you a bunch of bonus entries and increase your chances at winning. So stick around to the end of the show and we will give you those secret words. Without further ado, I will let Mike here introduce our special guests. Mike, go for it. All right, everyone. Introducing a man that's not just a gamer. He is a master of the grind.

By the way, for point of reference, if you hit 10,000 hours in anything in life, you literally become a master by definition. And he, yeah, that's what they say. And he has hit almost 10,000 hours in Counterstrike alone. Introducing the architect of Angles, the Sultan of Clutch, Derek, or better known as Snorox. Snorox, can you please introduce yourself and tell us what you're all about? How you guys doing? Thank you for inviting me.

Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure we had like this pre-stream conversation and everything went super cool. talking about like multiple stuff. The NCXT computer, some lenses for my camera that I need. I definitely need one like, I don't know, more capable. And yeah, thanks for having me. I upload content mainly on YouTube and Twitch. I'm about to be back after a little break, especially doing a rebrand for my channel.

Mainly I upload videos about FPS games and the main one, which the host already said, like super accurate is CounterStrike. I've been playing CS for about, well, here and there, since I touched the game, it's been from 12 to 15 years. So it's been a while. I've learned some stuff. I wouldn't say that I'm a master in the game yet. I say that the real game starts after 10,000 hours, right?

But yeah, it's been a while. It's been a lot of hours. It's been a lot of years focusing this game. Sometimes it's actually like, I don't know, extreme, the focus that I have on CS. A lot of streamers, a lot of people that do videos, create videos about something else, and other games, some variety of games, and stuff like that.

But I focus mainly on FPS games, and the love my life is CS. Thanks for having me guys. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us, and we're definitely going to ask you a bunch of questions about Connestrike because that is personally my favorite game, and I know one of Mike's favorite games as well. So we have a lot of great questions to ask you about that. But before we ask you about Counter Strike,

I just want to find out how did you get into video games in the first place? Well, I'm fortunate to have my father that basically started everything. He started all at the beginning when I was a kid. I remember having this old Mac, this Apple computer he had in his office. It was this transparent Mac computer that looked like a fishball or something. And I don't know, it was a weird computer, but he will install the first games that I play on that computer.

And that was the first Doom games, some Call of Duty games, the first one, if I remember correctly, and United Offensive, which was a D.L.C. for that first Call of Duty game. And on the other hand, he will install the Worms games. like the worms Armageddon, all that stuff, like classic games. And I always focused on the FBS ones. Like I was fixated on those games and he will start playing with me over land. At the time, it was like on the internet, we will do a local and a 1B1. And that will be my childhood with him. Meanwhile, I was playing other type of games.

I was a console guy. It was a mix. It was playing with my father on the PC on the Mac computer and then going back to Xbox, PlayStation 1, Xbox 360, of course. And then basically it continued to this point. But it's been since I was a kid. That's why, because my father. That's awesome. And Mike was showing a clip of your dad playing, I think it was Call of Duty, if I saw that correctly, which is... Yeah. No, it's insane. It is insane The reason why it's insane to me is because You know

My dad was the opposite Like he's not a gamer at all And he did buy me some consoles as a kid But he didn't buy me my first PC But he always told me that video games Were you know A waste of time So I think it's

Right It's awesome to see when a dad You know Supports a son or child Doesn't matter if it's a boy But you know They're interested in video game And to see your dad

Actually playing video games video games, that's awesome. Oh, it's crazy. And I'm going to send you right now something kind of expressing under the water that not a lot of people know. You have it on Discord right now. That's my Steam profile on Steam, and he has more than 7,500 hours on Country Strike. Wow.

So he actually, I mean, he plays casually, but it's like, I don't know, it changed. I started because of him, but then he met Country Strike because of me, and he got fixated on it. Like, and this has been for eight years, nine years. Since I started my career basically on YouTube, it's when he started playing CS and he plays every single day, casual games in the office. He doesn't play competitive or maybe when he has free time, but he has a lot of hours in CSD. I like how he has 7,441 hours and one achievement. Oh yeah, because they change it in CS. it's like a weird achievement that says like this is counter strike as well it's the only achievement in in c s2

i think we just confirmed your dad's a smurf and he's hacking yeah yeah yeah he's cheating so what were those first games you played like i guess with and without your dad uh what were those first games you kind of went over you said worms but like what about fps games in particular well it was doom uh i remember that i played doom um somehow Half-Life dead match over Lan. It was here and there. I didn't really play that much of Half-Life, but Doom was a big one.

Call of Duty one was a really, really big one. I probably had, I don't know, 5K, 6K hours just playing in these servers that had this special like conditions. Back in the day, it wasn't really like this matchmaking system or anything like that. It was like going into a server, but we will play in these servers that had really strict rules and admins. Like, it was one that it was called First Rebellion Battalion, I remember to this point.

And what you had to do is in interiors, inside the structures, houses, or whatever, you had to crouch. If you didn't crouch, the admins will force you to crouch. So it will be like a weird mechanic. Like if you're outside the main building, you can run, you can do where you want. But if you go inside, you have to crouch

and have the fights crouching and leaning, like a tactical, ranked, weird, try-hard game. We'll play that stuff every single day. And I don't know, it was like the first ranked or tri-hard experiences that I had with my father in Call of Duty. And Doom. It was basically Call-A-Duty in Doom. And out of all those games, which one was your favorite?

I will say that Doom, single-player, because the multiplayer or land capabilities of Doom was like really close to arena shooters at the end of the day. It wasn't really a competitive quarter FPS like it was in Call of Duty won in those TriHard servers. So I preferred the Call of Duty experience going into this weird rank trihardt and score rules. So it was more appealing to me to have this strict.

rules, right? That is more competitive at the end of the day, I think. So now we kind of want to go, I know a lot of people are very curious about, basically, your entire career has been in Counter Strike. So he started off playing in CSGO, which, I mean, gosh, man, honestly, that was, that was my, that was my favorite game of all time. So what about Counterstrike just makes you want to keep playing it for almost 10,000 hours? Yeah, well, I actually started on stores and then I touched some of 1.6 because it was at the time when Source was like, it was a good game, but a lot of the pros and a lot of the scene like preferred 1.6. At the time I played it casually, I had no idea what CS competitive was. But then I got fixated on CS Go.

That's when I started my career. It's a really good question because CS is one of those games that don't really have a lot of content. quote unquote, it's not like you have a lot of variety in things that you can do. It's always, or this wingman or this casual or competitive or maybe third parties, like FACDSA platforms. And that's it. That's what you have. I learned in high school, I was in the local, they called it local Olympics of chess. I used to play chess. And I always like this idea that you have the same layout the same square and you do what you want with your creativity and tactics in that square. That square doesn't change.

The chance is being the same for what? Like centuries? I don't know. I don't know like how long chess has been. But I like that idea that the development of the game and the skill. It's in the player and is not in the development of the game and the content that it has. I know that this is weird because a lot of people want to play a game to, I don't know, change their mind to have a good time to have something different here and there. But that's what I actually like about the game and I've been liking it for a lot of years.

That I can go into the game is going to be practically the same in terms of mechanics, ideas, rotations, maybe some updates and some balances when Valve wants because there's low sometimes, like really, really slow. Um, but that's what, uh, keeps me into the game just to improve and develop as a player in the same layout every single time. I love that. I mean, I, I, I kind of at first, I was like, yeah, I'm wondering because like, it is the same game pretty much essentially, you know, everyone just has this amount. There's no RNG. There's no like random event.

It's just the people and what they decide to do for strategy. So like beyond like just, you know, being better at shooting like what are like some of the most like important skills like a player should learn if they want to become better at CS amazing question so i'm about to make a video like what did i learn after 10,000 hours what is the most important thing no BS and one of those things is uh movement it it basically does 50% of the job like it's a lot of people think that it's the mouse that you control everything and you need to be insanely precise one millimeter of precision. And it's how you mix the movement and the mouse, like aiming with movement.

At the end of the day, your movement affects your aiming. When you're moving, it moves your, your, your crosser. So it's a mix. And a lot of people skip and basically totally ignore the idea of counter-striving and the idea of how balanced and how precise you have to, you have to be good, your movement. So I will say that movement and counter-straffing, it's incredibly important. And it's easy to pick up if you start playing with that in mind. Otherwise, you're going to start developing some weird habits, like, I don't know, spamming keys or going forward without shifting and counter-straffing like vertically, quote-unquote, like W and S. If you start with those ideas, I think it's going to be much better than having to fix them later on.

right? Very true. You know, it's once you pick up that habit, it's really hard to break. Yeah. So now that we're kind of, so now we're talking about people that are just like playing the game. Now we want to talk about the people that are like going to that next level. Like you've played in a couple competitive environments. You know, played in leagues like the ESEA.

Yeah. And you run your own, you know, face it league and clan and everything. So how big of a jump is it? from going, just playing, like, rank to, like, this competitive environment? Is it, like, something that people should really understand and prep for, or is it not that big of a difference? No, I mean, it's a big difference. At the moment, you step out of the, of that competitive, quote, unquote, casual,

in-game matchmaking system or third party sometimes. You'll feel the weight. Like, you'll feel how the skill level goes. vertical and that doesn't mean that it's impossible but there are different levels in these league environments like at least on the ESA you have like open Intermediate Main advanced CPL I think is called and then you have like pro league and stuff like that it's basically tier two tier one um yeah open it can be here and there because some mix of all levels I always say intermediate it's okay it's

decent level main and advanced which is the one that we are, that's when you feel it. Like when we go against advanced teams that been playing for years and they have this synergy with each other, I mean, we've been winning some games, some are like tied, but dude, sometimes you just like eat smoke, you just like eat dust instantaneously. Because the level is so high that you're just trying to compensate with the individual things that you learn and I have, but at the end of the day, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, are better as a team because the team play they have.

So it doesn't go to, okay, how good I am individually. It goes to how good we are as a squad or as a team. And that increases the level and comprehension of the game to another exponential level that not a lot of people can experience because they're not in that environment. But I think it's addictive because it forces you to improve. like eating like dust and eating dirt it's like part of the game and that forces you to improve at the end of the day for sure

what was the toughest match or team that you ever had to face oh man we ate smoke like multiple times like multiple multiple times but I remember one of the hardest times that I had actually going back to me starting on ESCA back when the platform was like face it right now which is this PUC system, like this matchmaking individual system.

Right now, ESEA is only the league tour, right? All the circuit, all the team play, it's only that. There are no Pox anymore, only face it has that. They merged anyway, but ESEA is only the league. Back in the day, about seven or about seven years ago when I started on ESEA, it was exactly what Mike said, jumping from competitive in-game matchmaking to a more serious environment,

which was the ESEA Pucks, I got smoked in a way that I cannot even explain. It was just like, dude, I cannot even play the game. I'm just like, coming out of the spawn, 15 seconds into the round, and this guy is just destroying me. It was like, it was a destructive state for about two weeks

of basically just eating dirt over and over again. I don't think I ever won one game or maybe two games in those two weeks. I won't one, I think, because somebody carried hard. But it was this environment that it was much faster. Like, everything was faster. Everything was, everybody was picking angles, flashing, smoking, pushing smokes. And I came from playing competitive, being probably a Nova or a master awarding one, which was a middle ground rank, going to this super, a lot of communication stuff and super fast.

So that phase of my life and that phase of like transition was really hard. It was definitely hard. But I mean, I went through it. Somehow I went through it. I don't know how I didn't need a psychologist after that phase. But it was bad. It was really bad. It's funny you say that because I, so I have a little over a thousand

and Counterstrike, nowhere near you. Oh, yeah. What made me actually quit the game was, apart from getting smoked all the time, was I got tired of like the people that were, you know, cursing me out and saying things about my mom and teagging me and all this stuff. Like, how do you feel about the CS community now? and where it stands. Well, I always say, and this is going to sound crazy, but it's, I mean, it's, of course,

it's my point of view and it's in a respectable way. Comparing communities, like, for example, Valoran versus Counter-Strike, which is a controversial topic, but I think Valoran is a younger audience. It's a younger player pool. And Counter-Strike, what I'm going to say sounds crazy, but it's a mature, not really,

player base community, but it's a really tryhard one at the end of the day. A lot of people are fixated in winning and how this can happen and no mistakes are allowed. I mean, I was there. I was that guy years ago. I was that guy. I was definitely that guy. I wouldn't say that I even say something horrible that you can imagine to another guy. I'm never being like that. But I've always always been a passionate player. Right now, I am like more collected, but some good years ago, I was that guy. Like, how they're pushing made. Like, super mad about it, incredibly frustrated. I worked a lot on my mental, like, stayed in the game. And I mean, I had to,

otherwise we cannot win anything. Um, yeah, it's complicated. It's a complicated situation. It's such a passionate community. It can be, uh, as well, super, progressive and insulting at a times. But I mean, at this point, in 2025, which competitive, hyper-competitive game doesn't have those players, right? I think it's impossible to don't have somebody that is frustrated of losing. Nobody wants to lose, and some people are not able to handle the frustration that losing comes with.

Nobody wants to lose. And I think you're right. I think the people that play CS, most of them are try-hards. And then the other thing to, I don't know how it is now, but when I was playing, there was like a lot of smurfs, a lot of hackers. Oh, yeah. Is that still going on in CS? So just right now about, I don't know, this month, it's been historical, in my opinion, for Counterstrike, because they added multiple stuff. They updated the VAC system.

I know it sounds like the same. Oh, yeah, they updated VAC on Reddit and everybody says it's the same. it's better in my much much better in my experience at least the rage hackers spinning and stuff I didn't have those in years since the game came out basically

I know it has something to do with trust factor internal system that you have like this reputation number system that is hitting from you and if you have something really bad that they report you a lot you go with cheaters

but at least in my trust factor or a player that has quote unquote a good reputation with that system and that number, I haven't found any rage cheaters at all. Like, just, yeah, Colise Cheaters, this wall hack, for sure. I had multiple of those, but it's not like it was in CounterStrike Global Offensive years ago, that it was these people just spinning, spinning and killing everybody through the walls.

I haven't seen that at all this last year, at least, maybe at the beginning, probably, a couple. And about the smirfs, there is no control at all about smurfing. It's just like, I guess like Valerand or any other game that you can just like make another account, buy another account and just play. That's why personally, when I do like this video series or a show about ranking up, I like to do those here and there sometimes, but I feel bad like, yeah, I'm not going to do this super often because I have to smurf. If I'm going to start from the bottom, there's going to be a phase that I'm smurf. So I don't feel good because sometimes there are new players and they get smoked and it's like, what happened, dude? I have seven hours in the game and they get frustrated and they leave. So I don't want that for the game.

But it is much better. It's better. Definitely better. I always thought it was hilarious when I would hop on a match and then there'd be like a guy who's just like spinning like this. Just jumping up and down like all over the place. I'm just like, oh, God. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's it's bad because you see them spinning, but in their in their in their monitor in their POV

They see the game normally totally normal. It's something they inject into the game into the server that makes the server think that they're spinning, but they're not spinning. It's an anti a sin anti- aim kill system for another cheaters to don't kill them. That's why they're spinning. It's it's I don't know and it's such a level of like, like a scene-and-game kill system for another cheaters to don't kill them. It's it's it's I don't know man it's such a level of like, Like, dude, you took this amount of time and money because they pay for private cheats to cheat into the game. What about if you put those hours as improving in the game, right? Like, there are a lot of hours that you're putting into this. Like, come on, man. No, that's, that's crazy talk. Yeah, it's a lot. You guys?

It's a lot. I mean, with the new update and, you know, now it's Counterstrike 2, which was a huge, you know, change. you know, I thought it was to say, CSGO for the next 30 years. Do you have any thoughts on how to improve, like, CounterStrike as a whole, either, you know, the community itself or fixing the hackers or anything like that? Oh, a lot. Past June or July, I remember when the major was. I had a little meeting with Valve implodges talking about the game

I mean, talking about how they can improve the product. CounterStrike as a whole has a lot of loss, a lot of problems. What saved the game, in my opinion, it's the gameplay. There's nothing like it. It's always something trying to be like it or be different, which is absolutely respectable. But it's nothing that flat and raw like CS, right? No, I mean, I'm not against Valerant personally, but it's no skills, no weird stuff, no random stuff. Everybody has the same weapons, skills, quote unquote, that are the grenades.

Like, that's it. Everybody has the same playground. That's the only thing that CS has like solidify over the years, but the problems come with anti-cheat system, which scare new players and just kick them basically from the game. The tutorial and the new player experience absolutely sucks. That's what I told them in this little meeting that we had. Like, you guys need to do something that players basically, I don't know, can enjoy the game since the first hour, because I always say, if you want to go into Country Strike, you're going to have to, if you're really, like, focus into learning, it's going to be fast, but it's going to be about 40 to 50 hours of grinding the base knowledge.

and eating smoke and eating dirt and getting absolutely smoked. So the curve, the learning curve, it's vertical in CS for a new player. It's impossible to understand the game. The basics is easy, plant the bomb or defend it. It's really easy. But the mechanics are not explained anywhere. Not even the movement or stay still to be precise. Nothing.

Not even a flash, not even nothing. So that's a bad one, the new player experience. they need to improve on that one. Another one is the performance. Contrastract 2, it's decent. I'm not going to say that it's horrible. It's decent. But back in the day, CSGO, you could run CSGO in a microwave.

Like that thing, if you just load everything and play in, I don't know, the 1280 but 10, 24, 4,3 ratio, you could play it on 90 frames, 50 frames, which was playable. But right now, I had like this retrocompetre. computers, they have like this integrated graphics card, and the game can go to 15 to 20 frame. It's impossible. You cannot play the game even the lowest. The optimization is being getting tanked with each update. Sometimes it goes higher, sometimes it goes lower, but the optimization is a big one.

And at last, I think they need to focus more in this operation contents. Operations was this type of update back in the CSGO. days that it was a big update. They will do like this compendium or type of battle pass that you will do different missions and you will unlock like little stars or coins and you can unlock skins. So you had a progression system. And right now everything is focused on micro transactions and just buying the skin or buying these like armory pass. They're super focused on that. They're getting more money with it. A lot of more millions of dollars, I am pretty sure. But it's not good for the players. because the players have nothing to do more than playing wingman, casual, or competitive.

That's CS. And I think it can get boring for somebody that is not fixated on competitive gameplay, right? I mean, you talked a little bit about it, and I wanted to transition into that, is that you talked with some Valve employees, which is great for them to, you know, get feedback and stuff like that. You also interviewed the creator of CS, which is amazing. So what was that like to actually interview the person that made the game? Yeah, well, everything started as an idea for a video. And I contacted the guy.

So like every first contact, you know, every first contact. It can go like a yes, you can go like a no. And suddenly I get this message like I was talking with a friend. Like if it was, I don't know, I met him for a lot of years or something. But he said like, yeah, dude, absolutely. No problem, man. why don't you want to have like this interview? I'm down. I was like, wow, dude, what's up with this guy? Like, absolutely. And I don't know, we scheduled the interview in my idea was to have

the interview for about 45 minutes. Something really, I don't know, focusing to his life, how the first builds of Counter Strike, where, how he developed the game, what happened when he sold the game to Valve or at least the IP. And from 45 minutes, that was the main idea, We went about to three, three and a half hours of just recording and talking about the game, about mechanics, about personal stuff. And I don't know, it was really, it's a really cool guy. His name is Bingley. It's an amazing guy. He became one of my best friends to this day.

I speak to him often. We share stuff. He's working in a new game that is called Alpha Response, that he's marketing everywhere he can. He's passionate about FPS games. I cannot even believe to this point that it sounds super weird and it sounds like I'm just trying to look cool or something, but at the end of the day, I became a really, really good friend with Mingli,

with the creator of CS. So it's, I don't know, it was super random, but I love the guy and I love the opportunity to have the interview with him, for sure. Did you ever expect, you know, little Derek, little Sonorok, back when you're, you know, just starting gaming to think that you will be interviewing the creator, like a creator of a game that you pretty much like have dedicated your life to.

Have you ever thought that you'd ever get to that point? I mean, I don't really that I, that you, when you're starting, you ever think about that, right? It's not even in your panorama of things. And as a plus, it's Contrastrike, which is a really hermetic game and close when it comes to development So no, I never thought about it. I never expected it. But things go well sometimes, and I'm thankful that this interview happened. Because, I mean, other than a good video, I met a good friend.

So it's cool. Yeah, that's an amazing story. Yeah. So with all this passion and love and dedication that you have for playing video games, how did you take that and transition into creating content? So I always liked watching YouTube. And I remember when I was a kid, like watching videos in this weird old YouTube website that had like the stars. And people will say, give me five stars if you like the video.

It was like super old stuff. And I remember watching those videos from people that were huge. And huge at that time was 100K subscribers. That was like, oh my God, dude. Like that's insane. And when I was a kid, I was like, dude, I want to be like these people one day. I didn't even know how to upload a video. It was like, uploading a video on YouTube, it was like how they did it.

Oh my God. They must be geniuses. How they upload something. And oh my God. So I really like the idea. And I've been uploading videos. My first ever uploaded video on YouTube was when I was probably like 12 or 13, uploading this how to download,

Photoshop cracked, full no viruses, media fire. I'll do that like a lot. Every single weekend, I'll be on these like Juarez, that were these like forums that you could download pirate software. And I will basically share it with people in these videos. And with Kampasi Studio, Bandicamp, like all this stuff. I don't know. And then I stopped on it, like I stopped doing it.

And after that, when I was about, about 17 to 18 years old. It's a long story, but my grandmother gave me a job opportunity at her like business, which is a magazine business or something. And the idea came back to me like, I love this game. I mean, I was playing CS for a while at that point. So I was, what about if I share this? I mean, I don't even know like how to do it, but what about if I share this?

And my grandmother supported me in a every single way to have a place to record. It was a really small cubicle and like a storage unit for magazines where I started recording and uploading. But she gave me, even though they were basic, they were critical for my career, these tools to start doing this video. So I went back to it and it's been nine to 10 amazing years since that happened. And how did you decide, you know, I'm going to call myself Snorax?

Oh, so it's a, it's kind of a nerdy one, if I'm totally honest. Like, it's a nerdy explanation. I love space stuff. I love everything about universe, about infinity. To this day, one of my biggest dreams to become an astronaut. Since I was a kid, to this day, it's probably like double what I was when I was a kid. Like, I want it so hard to go to the space one day. And I remember that I was watching this documentary.

I don't even remember what it was. And it was this... I don't know language, like a Viking language or something. And there were subtitles. And he said something that sounded like my name. And at the bottom it says like infinity between the stars. And among the stars, my bad. Infinity among the stars.

And I was like, I don't even know what he said in which language. But I started typing how like it sounded to me. I typed it and I love the Z, the N and the X. Those are my favorite letters. So I typed this name on Google. Oh, that one exists. What about this one? This one doesn't exist.

And I love it. And that's my name. No wonder you like NZXT. Those are all your favorite letters. Yeah, yeah. Speaking with Luis from the Latin American marketing team. I think the NCXT and my name goes in a design way.

It goes well. It's weird, but it goes well. It makes sense. Yeah. NZN. Snorix. You said that your dream is to go to space. Do you ever think that you actually are in space already?

Oh, that's a really good one. What about if space is where we are normally, right? But here we are like another plane. Yeah, it makes sense. It makes sense. What about if we are in a simulation? or something like that. I think about that all the time, man.

And I always think when I really think about it, I have two little girls and they love looking at the stars and the moons and things like that. I'll stare at that with them. And then I start thinking, we are literally on a flying spaceship right now. Exactly. Just spinning around, like out of control in like in the middle of nowhere. No, it's math. It's massive.

I can get lost in those ideas often. What about, I mean, yeah, what about if space is the basic environment and the planet, it's like this really exclusive place, limited into space. So we should be grateful of being in the planet and the space, right? I don't know. You can go spinning and spinning around in those ideas. But I love space. And I wish one day I go into a spaceship for sure. take us with you absolutely i'll invite you ncxte the whole office i know uh you call yourself

snorox too i apparently i've heard that your community calls you snorlax because it's kind of related to you do you feel anything do you like do you like like that they call you snorlocks or you're like oh my god i love it dude like it's been like an old meme i mean not really old but it's been a lot of years since that started. And I even call myself like that when I'm mimming around and I did something really stupid. I called myself that way, right? Like the uncle snarlags being stupid again. Like, I do it.

I do it all the time. I do it all the time. So I'm pulling going to have some of your oldest videos. Oh my gosh. Look at the rage comics. Oh my gosh. Like, look at this. Let me check that out.

What was like the like the toughest part about? you know, one, starting it, but also like continuing and making a career out of your YouTube chapter. Well, I mean, the first years, I wouldn't even say that they were hard or difficult because I didn't really focus in, I need to grow up right now, but it became into a point that it was super slow. It was like, I remember the first 100K subscribers took forever. Like it was and I had a problem because I didn't know anything.

I was starting. I was learning and I'm learning to this day, but I was learning the basics. And I will be obsessed looking at the subscriber counts every single day, every hour. And that will feel much more slower. Like it will feel much slower just being like, oh, it's increasing, it's not increasing, it's about the views. I got focused and obsessed, looking at the analytics,

how this can improve, how it cannot improve. So it was really hard. It was taxing mentally. The first 100 K subs were really meaningful because I awarded for them, as I am probably being waiting for the $1 million, right? It's going to be something like that.

They were really big And I continue every single day Just doing something different Trying to do like, okay, I can do a video tomorrow about this. I've been uploading about three to four videos a week For eight to nine years. So it's been like, yeah,

I have to create something because tomorrow I had this idea But what about if I do this one? And that's what keeps me and kept me continuing Like thinking, what I can share with people and maybe how it can help people. Because a lot of videos that I upload is trying to help with, and I don't know, with something, an optimization, strategy, or way to see things, stuff like that.

I thought that I, you know, I went out of like ideas. It was one day that I said, dude, I'm out of ideas officially. I don't even know what to upload anymore. And that was about six years ago. I don't know how I continued six more years. When I said that I had no ideas, right? But I don't know, every time something new comes, and yep, that's what keeps me here.

So when you told yourself six years ago, I'm out of ideas, and six years later, you're still making videos, how do you see your content evolving from then to now? Well, yeah, my project, it's been maturing. Definitely, my videos. the visual personality, everything has been maturing, it's been getting better. At the beginning, it was like, at the end of the day, you do what you can with what you have.

Right? It's like, if I have this like horrible mic, I mean, I'm just going to do it, man. I'm going to try to optimize it. And that teach me a lot of things. From my thousand something videos that I have in my channel, I probably edited it a thousand and fifty. Like, that's, I just started with a specialized team about three months ago. Everything else was, yeah, some editors here and there, but 90% of my videos were edited by me. The thumbnails were edited by me.

So that, that thought me how to do things. And that is fascinating because I like to learn new things every single day. So when you go into that rabbit hole of like, okay, I'm doing this, but what about the bitrate? And what about the resolution and the codec from YouTube and how you to take the codex and this and 2K is better? And you know, you go into that rabbit hole. You learn stuff and that keeps me interested in what I do.

I know it has nothing to do with the content that I am uploading, but it makes me improve it with time. Right now, I think my content has more serious, like, I don't know, like visual identity, content identity. I can be really stupid sometimes, like go into a humorous way. But it's not like I'm trying to make people laugh. It's like I just laugh about myself, like how stupid I'm being or something. I laugh like, you know, I'm hearing myself and I'm like, do what am I saying?

And I just laugh, you know? It's weird. It's weird, dude. Mike and I can't relate with being stupid in front of a camera. Yeah, never. Never done that. Never. Wish we could relate.

Another thing that I think makes you unique is that, you know, you are in Mexico. Yes, sir. How has been a content creator in Mexico influence your content and your community? Well, from the pavement side of things, Mexico is one of the worst YouTube ads, people. Hey, like country, it's horrible. Like if I had to live only with the ad system, oh my God, dude, it'll be horrible. Like from that side, I just want to get out of the way. But from the content, I need to be absolutely honest.

And I think I'm like a little bit of an outsider of my country. I am not really into the content creator groups that are in Mexico. Like people know each other and they record with each other. even gaming people. There are a lot of like gaming content creators. I don't know. It's not like I don't like them. It's just like I've never really linked socially with them.

And that happens to me in a lot of sites of my life. I'm a little bit hermetic and, you know, closed doors in that way. I don't really know why I know from the side of collaboration it will be much better to have these social interaction interactions and stuff like that. But I just, I don't know. I just stay in my cave, do my nerdy things that not a lot of people like or understand.

I know that because it's just like technical stuff and computers and FPS and whatever. And I feel not everybody, but the majority of the Mexican content creators in gaming, at least in Mexico, are like kind of commercial, let's say. They will play Call of Duty. They will play Fortnite. They will play Minecraft.

And that's it, right? They don't go into the technical side of things that I really, really like to go into, right? So it's not like I match. It's my problem. They're not the problem. I am the problem. So that's why I don't really get along that much in those groups. But, yeah, I do things my way.

I don't really think that Mexico really influenced a lot of my content. But I have respect for the people that watch me from my country because at the end, they support me, right? and they're locals. So that's awesome. And, you know, what do you think is a tough? You mentioned the ad payouts are bad in your country, but in general, you know, what do you think is the toughest part about being a full-time content creator and a full-time streamer besides the YouTube payouts?

Yeah. Well, there are a lot of like good things. I am fortunate. I'm really thankful for having my career because not everybody. it's allowed or it has that like destiny, let's say, or was helped by his grandmother, like my grandmother did and my parents, of course, they supported me, at least with the idea to do this, even though they didn't even know what I was doing, but they supported me. So I'm thankful.

I'm blessed. There's some bad things as well. One of those things is probably the social part, the, like socializing. it becomes a problem and people will say how, dude, you're always like playing, you're with people talking, you know, they're doing like these communications in the games and going to events and people like ask for photos, like how you cannot have friends? It's different because yeah, I met really cool guys, really good friends that I have. But there's always this link with people that are in computers, in games, fixated into competitive. of improving, it kind of goes among and along with not being that social. Like, I am social, you know, capable.

But when it comes to developing, like, after that, like, first interaction, developing real deep friends and meaningful relationships, it kind of dies down at the end. And that happens more and more, the more you grow up and the more, and the more you are, get older and stuff like that. So the social part is a big one if you don't know how to manage it, like because it will eat you. Like the feeling of it alone, to eat alone, to be alone in your house.

It's amazing. I love it. But sometimes it's like, man, dude, I'm almost 30. And I basically know nobody outside my industry, right? I'm like bubbled into my industry. So the outside, it becomes basically impossible. Because if I go to, I don't know, know, like a guy that it's an engineer or somebody like that, like in bridges, by our structures,

you have nothing to do with that industry. So it's like, how do I link with these other worlds other than gaming industry and CS? It becomes more problematic because the YouTube and Counterstrike and the games become your world and that's what you know. And it's hard to know something else. That's why I wanted to rescue deep diving that I do deep water diving because I wanted to go outside this like world for a little bit, right? So yeah, that can be hard. That can be hard.

I guess that kind of leads into my next question is, you know, you obviously there's, it's tough in this industry, especially with, you know, having to work with other people and stuff. Do you have advice for people that want to start their content creation journey? Like, do you recommend that they either stick with their guns and just, you know, do what they got to do or to actually like talk with other people and try to make these groups and everything like that? Right. So I always tell to people that want to do this just to follow their dreams. Like the life is too short. Life is too short.

I know people will say, yeah, dude, but it's kind of risky. Whatever, dude. It was risky when I started. And it's risky to this day. Nothing is guaranteed. So do it. Just do what you want. If this is the dream, if this is what makes you happy and you just project yourself on this, just do what you have to do. Stay honest. Don't backstab other people for your career. But just do what you want and do like what makes you happy. I know you need opportunities, context, support to be able to do this. At the end of the day, life costs money.

But if it's in the possibility, just follow the dream. Don't go into, I'm going to study a lawyer, right? I'm going to go into a lawyer college stuff because they say they pay a lot. But I want to do a content YouTube channel. But I'm just going to go because of money. I think at the end, going just for the money. is going to kill you mentally because you don't like anything about that. You just like the final destination.

You don't like the process. So it doesn't make any sense. And that's what I will say. Just go and be yourself. It doesn't matter if you're a weird, anti-social guy or whatever. It's just go and do whatever you want and what you like. I love that. I guess before we go into more about like your life as a creator soon,

Do you have any funny or memorable moments with your community? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I have multiple. So I have randomly this blue screen clip went super viral on Reddit because, so I had this two PC setup that you use one to process the stream and the other one to do the whole thing. and it was one day that I was in this like match competitive match in CS I remember that I left my phone in my living room

downstairs and I don't know what happened that I threw a flash that is like a puff flash that you used to destroy the guy that is about to pick you in underpass on Mirash and the map Mirash and as soon as the flash pops my whole game computer goes blue screen with a little sad face of Windows.

I started screaming because it was an important match. I started screaming, but because the gaming PC routed my audio into the streaming PC. The stream had no audio, but it had video. So I was like, where is my phone? I need to tell the admin and tell my friend that is in the match to stop the match. I couldn't find it. I started running. I basically stumbled like downstairs.

It was bad, dude. It was bad. It was like a whole mess. And I couldn't find my phone. I came back. I started like looking everywhere with my phone. But everything was being streamed. Everything.

It was like people look at me running, like failing, going back. Where is my phone? And my phone was like on my seat. It was below my leg, right? I got to find that clip if it exists out there. That's hilarious. Yeah, no. I want to send it to you later.

I think I haven't like in a bookmark or something. Dude, that's bad. It was really bad. But it was funny because it was my honest reaction. Like, where is my phone? We're going to lose, dude. Like, I need to tell this guy. And yeah, it was bad.

And well, I have other moments as well. Definitely a lot of comments from, I have this from Noof to Pro. It's a series that I do analyzing some YouTube subscribers and Counterstrike people, normally silvers and pro players sometimes so I compare like what you can do better and how you can improve and dude some of the chokes that some subscribers have

it's insane like dumping the whole 30 bullets mag not hitting a single bullet getting destroyed and then the enemy trash talks in the chat and me laughing now it's a good time dude I love doing those videos dude it's so good dude

just get a P90 and Rush B close your eyes just close your eyes and hold your go yeah can you walk us through a day in the life of what a typical day looks like for you

yeah sure so first I have a problem with time schedules with sleep schedules I really like to go deep into the night I'm a guy that can go

I'm not always right but I don't know. I'm happy at 3, 4 in the morning, just being like outside when this, like, when the street or this gas station has like no people in kilometers probably. I like that vibe. Like, I really like that like liminal space vibe in the middle of the night, in the middle of the road in a gas station or a convenience store. So I have a problem with that, with sleeping time and stuff like that. But when I wake up, I go directly to a laptop that I have besides my bed. I watch some emails.

I look at some emails, watch some videos. I play a lot with the Steam Deck. I stay a lot, like playing in bed and stuff, right, for a long time. It's not like I wake up and I just like, you know, I start running to the kitchen or something. No, I just stay in the bed like for a long time on the laptop. I write some ideas that I have for videos that I want to make. I talk with my media team, like what we were going to do, like in that day specifically, some things that are urgent.

I go into the PC after that. I order something from Uber Eats because I'm a lazy guy that it's horrible cooking. I am useless cooking. Totally useless. I know it's expensive, dude, but listen, if I go into cooking, It's not like I hate it But it's like dude I can't do this man

Yeah I can do that cereal or something Super basic Some eggs fine But like oh yeah Cooking like steaks and putting like some spices and stuff That's not gonna happen dude I'm incredibly bad at it So I order something from Uberit's

They get it to me I play conscious break For I will say that it's about Six to seven years daily There's some times that I don't like touch the game, but it depends if I'm busy doing something. I train with my team at about 6 to 7 p.m. for 3 to 4 hours every day from Monday to Thursday. And the free time that I have, either I play the switch to I listen to music every day, every time, at all time.

I'm into music, electronic music. And that's it. That's rinse and repeat with some variations, but I'm really like a monotonous guy. I have like this routine that is really square. It's not really structured. Like, oh, yeah, right now it's time for this. But the activities that I have is like really repetitive, right?

So you can tell that I'm definitely not the best boyfriend ever, right? Like, it's boring. It's really boring for girls, I guess. Or I saw a comment in the chat. made me chuckle and said, tell me you don't have kids without telling me you don't have kids. Exactly. Exactly. If I didn't have kids, I would probably be living the same life as you just wake up and play video games in bed. And order Uber Eads.

Yeah, dude. Question for you, though. Well, thank you for sharing your day of life. But follow up question is, you know, how do you deal with the burnout or slow? growth periods because even doing that, even though yes, it sounds fun and all that, I know it can burn you out, you know, especially like what you said if every day it's the same routine, you know, sometimes that routine gets old. Sometimes that routine is not doing good things for you. How do you deal with that?

Well, it's a really good question. It's a deep one. This has something to do as well with a, well, it's a cause and an explanation. It's not like a cause of all bad. but I got diagnosed some years ago, like, you know, neurodivergence at the end of the day, they call it autism level one, that you're functional, you're functional, but you have like this autistic like things. And it's real, it's real. I know it's on super cliche and everybody has autism now and I know it's it's super cliche, but in my case, it really, really affects me to have the same routine and not getting something back from it

almost in an instant way. It's like, I don't know, I feel stagnated, I feel frustrated, I feel burned out instantaneously. So every single time that I feel burnout, it becomes a large process, a really big process of getting out of the pit because it's a pit that I don't wish anybody to be in. And I know a lot of people that are listening to,

this can relate. It's a, it's bad, it's a bad mental state. To get out, I do two things. What helps me the most is to complete tasks or deliverables that I have to do and I am delayed on. For example, if I had a video with NCXT and I'm delayed like two days, I'll be like, dude, this is killing me. I don't know. I don't like delays in anything. I'm like stupid about it. obsessed with it. So if I get something out of the way in a way that I like, and for me, it's good and it's perfect, how I like it, that puts a level down of frustration and burnout.

It helps. It's like, I don't feel pressured that much, right? And something that really helps me, but it's expensive, is this, like, music since, doing music with this, They're called, well, they're basically group boxes that they sell, that you can do music on all-in-one device, and I go out of media routing and stuff like, I don't know, I get lost in that stuff,

and that puts me out of that bubble, so I get out of it. And at the end, something that I really like to do when I'm super burned out, and I don't even know what to do with my life, it's hacking old-school consoles. I like that stuff, like the jailbreaking and, you know, PS3, hacking and I love that. That helps me. That actually is actually one of the next questions I had.

First of all, we really appreciate like, you know, you being open with, you know, mental health and everything like that. I feel like this day and age, especially for content creators or streamers,

people just assume, oh, they live such an easy life. But reality, it's tough. No. It's really true. burnout is it's tough and doing the you know doing these things to try to break out of that stagnant feel is like a necessity um yeah do you have for someone that is getting into the content creation field i know you gave some tips about it but is there something that you really think

that content creators should really focus on as they get through this thing because it's it's like the idea that, you know, you can try to break out and do certain things, but how do you really make it feel like it's worth it in the end? Okay. So, well, I feel the most hypocrite guy saying this because I don't do it. But it's about balance. It's about, I've seen that people have, like, that feel the best or feel better in their life is the ones that have like, I don't know, they do this sport, but they play a lot.

And they go out with a girlfriend and they go out with a family. This is an utopia, in my opinion. And it's possible for some people. It is possible for some people that are compatible with these ideas. But in my case, that I hate sports other than diving, that I don't really like going out of my social circles, and that I am fixated and obsessed doing some things, I am not compatible with that.

So when people say, yeah, you just have to have balance, dude, it's not like that. It's not like everybody. It's compatible or it's super flexible in their way of thinking and what they actually like to do or they enjoy doing. But if it was me and replying and answering that question, I think it will be what you do.

It doesn't matter what it is, but if you do something, edit a video, make an idea, play a game that you like, always have in mind that it's something that you're supposed to be enjoying. If you start doing it as a job or something, it happens sometimes after some years that you're like, dude, what am I doing? right, it's like a repetitive cycle. I think it's a good point and it's interesting to approach that thing that you actually enjoy with another point of view and another angle. That way you can like renew that passion that you have. An example will be a stop focusing in Contrastrike only for winning, winning, winning, playing Pucks, Pucks, every single day that I've been doing for for some time.

And what about if you focus on going super technical into it or going like, I don't know, a tactic side of the things or maybe some tricks and stuff like that can really lead that fire and it can make things matter. I love that. I mean, I think that actually kind of leads into the next section, which is we're going to talk about brands and working with, you know,

other companies and stuff like that. When a brand approaches you, especially when, you know, you have to do these deliverables and you have to, you know, send this post out or you have to make due to stream or sponsor stream and stuff like that. Uh, is there something that content creators should always look out for when doing these brand collaborations, uh, to, you know, maybe place boundaries on or something like that

or make sure they have, you know, creative freedom or, uh, product access or something like that. Right. So you mentioned pretty good ones, but I have like about three that it's, it's a no limit for me at least. It's a no negotiation. The first one is I focused in the brand, knowing and thinking if this collaboration is worth for them. If it's worth for them, it's worth for me. Like, I'm not going to be like, yeah, dude, I'm just going to farm money and farm, you know, farm everybody. And I don't care. No, dude, like the first conversation we're going to have is like, does this like make sense to you and how it can make sense?

or what we can do to make sense. Like, it's not going to be like, yeah, dude, I'm just going to make this post and post and post. About NCXT, I'm never going to use their stuff again, right? It doesn't make any sense because it doesn't make sense. It wouldn't work for me. What will be the idea of working with Kingston or another brand if I don't use their stuff?

It's like, they're just paying me to show a little picture and that's it, right? To be, I think it has to be. I think it has to be honest. Like a collaboration has to be honest. And it has to be with a brand that you enjoy, at least with me and in my experience, like a lot of collaborations that I have with brands. I mean, they were brands that I used in the past. Like I used when I started that I bought in a Best Buy or something.

So it makes sense to have a collaboration. And another one is to don't really force things because I think sometimes like the marketing teams and, you know, accountants and stuff like that balance a lot of like their value and what they can invest in in quarters, quarter one, quarter two, quarter three, quarter four. So it's like, dude, we're in quarter three, but we have this opening for quarter four, but people don't know what they're talking about. It's like, quarter, dude, that's an excuse. It's like, no, it's not, dude.

Like a brand has like these investments in different like scenarios. So I think the people have to think about those things so they don't get. frustrated about like the collapse. Sometimes it doesn't happen like one day to the other. You need some planification from the, from the business or the brand side. And another one, at least for my country and for my region, I feel a lot of the brands are being like farmed and milked, basically. Like for a lot of people, they just, I don't know, this content creator gets into a

collaboration and they have like six deliverables. And they are late six months or something and they just publish one, right? They end up basically stealing the money or stealing stuff like that and burning bridges. I think some brands are kind of like done about it. And that's why when you are having a negotiation or you're having a conversation about a possible collaboration, brands have the clause ready to go. Right. They're like, I'm so ready and so, like, I'm so, like, I'm so, like, like defensive because 7,000 people just like abused right and and didn't do anything. So I don't know, it starts small if it's impossible to deliver and in that way you can deliver more and more with time.

But don't get like, you know, fixated and sign a contract for 40 videos if you upload one a month, right? Yeah. And that'll be my. Yeah. That's a great advice. And I'm also curious, how do you measure success when it comes to these brand collaborations? Well, in different ways.

If it's, I don't know, about like a launch product, for example, I'll measure it for the amount of questions that people do to me when I have like these pictures or stuff like that. Even though I have some details, for example, about the elite series that the N60 team asked me, I can tell that the mic, the one that I've used in right now actually was like the one that was like interesting for a lot of people. It was like, what are you using? That looks weird. That looks that. And if I see that volume is like, okay, this is making a certain amount of click with the people. It's not like this amount of clicks technically, but the idea of it and the view of it, like they are seeing it.

So they really like it. Another way to measure this, it will be, I mean, just cold numbers from these, like, tracking links that you can use that are like campaign equal something. So it tracks for the brand. I like to do it that way. So the brand has like all the control with the statistics on my side. And the last one that is the most important, and I kind of mentioned it before, is if it's going to be a collaboration about, a launch or about a certain product or a certain brand, whatever, it needs to make sense. If it makes sense and the two names, you know, get along and that person, me or that person,

whatever, content creator, actually clicks and links with that product or that brand, I think the 50% of the collaboration, it's perfect. It's awesome because the guy is not using it just because he's being told. It's because he likes the thing. So he's going to speak about it. He's going to criticize it. He's going to say the things that can improve, the things that are better, the things that are good.

And that helps the brand. So I think that's a success. At least from a side of feedback, it's a success. Sales and stuff like that come with time after the collaboration. But the start, I think it's set for a future success with a good percentage. of happening, yeah. Yeah, I like that. Speaking of, you know, going together with the brand, you mentioned earlier that Snorax and

ZXT kind of go together. How did you first get introduced to NZT? I mean, N6C, I've been introduced to N60. I know XNST since I was like, I don't know. It's been years upon years, years. I actually bought cases from NXT. I bought, like, fans back in the day. I'm talking about, like, before I practice.

I would buy stuff. And then I worked with multiple brands. Nvidia, Intel, I was with MSI at the time, and I stopped working with them because they change a lot of their budget to retail. They focused a lot on stores and Amazon and stuff like that. So content creators were basically out of the question. And I knew this guy, his name is Luis. And we started talking about in 16. I was like, yeah, of course I know in 16.

like the other brands, I have cases and stuff. Like, I've known for a long time. And we discussed and we had a conversation about the aesthetics of my channel at the time, which are the ones that I have to this day, but I think tomorrow they're going to change. That is like this gray, white, and lila purple. And I was like, that looks like the NCXT, like visual identity. It's practically the same. It's like white and purple.

And I checked the pantone, the pantone number and stuff, and it was practically the same. I was like, that's insane. That's crazy how we like those things. What about like if we actually, I don't know, do a collaboration or something like that? If you can give me a minute, let me connect the headset to my computer because I think it died. One second. Oh, yeah. While he does that, Mike, do you?

Do you know the NZXT purple pantone color? 5107A. That's correct. Yeah, I know that on a, I know that on a lot. Yes, we also have a poochie giveaway going on. Actually, all three of us have poochies in our backgrounds right now. So we do have a giveaway for, was it, Push, shirt, and stickers. Right.

Yeah. One minute because that's such a fail. And Apple I need to connect them again. Yeah. All right. I can hear you. You can hear you. Yeah, we can hear you. Awesome.

I'm so sorry about that. No, it's okay. Apple is not made for gaming. All right. Last question before we get into my favorite part of the show, which is where Mike asked you a bunch of fun, silly questions is, what is one dream collaboration that you hope happens in the career of Snorax? Oh, man. I mean, I have some, like, really good ideas.

But the definitive and something that I would really like to do, it's kind of collaboration. maybe a one million subscribers, animation, custom made, or something like insane with Dead Mouse, with Joel Zimmerman. He's a producer, a DJ, a lot of people know him for sure. And yeah, not only because I like the music and stuff like that, that will be the superficial side of things. I really project a lot of the things that I do,

with his work, like a lot of it. Like, uh, sometimes I, I even said like back in the day to when I started like having the visual identity is like, okay, so I want to have this that is original, that is not, I'm not going to copy anything, but how can I feel visually and artistically in the graphics that I have in the things of how I edit my stuff, how I can make it look or make it feel like, if I was listening to this song from this guy. It sounds super weird. It's such like an artistically way of thinking,

but I really like his stuff massively. I like his process. I know a little bit about his life. Super insanely obsessed with processes, with perfection, frustration, definitely. So I feel, you know, mirrored with some of those things. and that's one of my dream collaborations for sure with him, with Joel, for sure.

That would be a good one. Oh, yeah. All right, Mike, I'll let you take it away from here. All righty. We are going to do some rapid fire questions. So, Snorax, whenever you feel like answering, go for it. These are going to ease into it. We'll start very simple and we'll get into some more funny, complex ones soon.

So are you ready? Yeah, there should, man. Shit, you should. All right. First, very simple. You know, what is your favorite CS knife you owe? Oh, it's Carambit Autotronic. Ooh. I'm going to see.

Oh, wow. Yeah. Wait, do you have multiple of these? Oh, no, no, no, no. No, no. Those, I mean, it's like three different versions of the same. But they're like one, two, three, one, two, three. One, two, three.

One, yeah, yeah. And I don't have that merely like carambites and skeletons. No, no, no. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah, yeah, yeah. AK or M4? M4.

M4 silence, dude. I love it. I know it's not better than A.K., but I have something with it. I like the M4 silence. I'm in the same boat. I know AK is the, you know, what a headshot. But like, for some reason, you give me an M4. I don't know why.

I just do much better with it. Yeah. Yeah, it's more precise. Yeah. What is your favorite CS map? Oh. the solid and well-weighted cash. Wow.

Cash? Okay. Oh, yeah. Wow. I like that. What is the worst one? Sorry, the correct answer was dust two.

Sorry. Oh, no, man. No, dude. How do you feel about the dust two changes, especially with like mid and everything like that? Do you want it to revert back or are you fine with it? I mean, I'll be really happy if they,

changed to the first dust two basically that had the car with the fire. Yes. Like back in the day on CSGO. I love that CS2. And it's not because nostalgia. I really think that the map was better structurally than it is right now. Yeah. I agree.

What is the worst map that? Dude, I hate Inferno with all my life. Like that, that map can get absolutely removed from the video game. It's not like I hate Mirash, but dude, it's been there. for 20 centuries. It's like just remove it, rework it, do something.

I'm done playing Mirage, you know? Like, oh my God, I'm done with it. It's too much. Who do you believe is the single greatest Counterstrike player of all time? Oh, man. I mean, it's kind of easy to say at this point.

If you look at Dupre, ex-Australist player, a simple dunk, those are insanely crazy. crazy, amazing, stupid. I say stupid for me, it's like high insane. Like this guy has mental problems and he's amazing. It's weird, it's weird.

But for me, I have a special feeling for Guardian. He was an ex-A-WP and I loved his gameplay and I based my gameplay. It's an evolution from the Guardian one. So I think he's one of the best players that this is. game has seen for sure oh yeah i remember navi yeah oh yeah i remember yeah i know what i'm talking dominance oh my gosh i was a big uh ninjas and pajamas back then i was a big nipi fan so dude dude dude dude dude touch that they do dude so yeah yeah i i am uh the the biggest fan of nip like literally but but the old one the one with a brown star yeah yeah yeah oh gosh what was his name the

He was the captain. Forest. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, no, man. An Injas in Pajamas was insane. A side note. I started CounterStrike because Forrest didn't get right. That's what actually interesting me, right? I was looking like these clips in 1.6, like looking horrible in this like nuke or whatever it was.

And then it was in CSGO. The first builds of CSGO, So, NIP was the team that pressed the button involved office to launch the new update of the skins weapons of CounterStrike. It was NIP. So it's big. It's really big. NIP is meaningful. I went in 2022 to the mayor at Rio de Janeiro.

And I was with this guy from ESL, the tournament organizer. And, I mean, he knows a lot about me because I started my career with him. He, I used to be a caster. I started as a caster and then I played. It's weird. I didn't have the experience and I started casting. But that did teach me some things. And I was talking with him, speaking with him in the event.

And suddenly, he tells me like, yo, look at behind you. They're your heroes. And it was Get Right Forest and Freiburg, the three of them that were my, the guys that I started the game. And then I was like, yo guys hello i'm derrick and this and then get right and hello and get right this who like oh my mexican friend how are you man i was like oh damn i spoke to him like two times and it was about me right like that's insane and yeah yeah big nip fan man big nip fan someone said that you look like forest and i put up a photo of forest and i was wait a minute if you if i get i had dude i don't

have one here i think but dude if i get something and i put it backwards Yeah, I'm like his nephew or something like that. It is weird. That's so cool. Yeah, it's a meme in the channel. Do you believe the 10-2 curse, halftime curse? Totally. I mean, I think it was more evident in CISGO. It was 13-2.

It sounds basic. It sounds like we won the game. We didn't win anything, dude. I lost so many 13-2. and seven ones. I believe it was because the Brazilian stuff. I don't know anything about football, but it has, I think it has something to do with football.

I don't know. But the seven two's, seven ones, sorry, seven ones are dangerous, dude. Like those were dangerous, especially because there were a lot of rounds, right?

It was 50 rounds a half. And, you know, anything can happen. You can be like seven one, I'm winning everything. And then they win seven in a row and you are seven eight. So you're like,

Like, what happened? You get super tilted and you lose. So it's like, it's bad. Would you rather have near perfect aid or be guaranteed a gold every few days? Oh, my. A gold, you mean a knife? Yeah. Or whatever, whatever gold you get from a crate.

No, no. Aim. I'll be the number one in the world and just like get $20 million worth of golds every day. So I think I get it right. See, that's the, that's the same. People are like, oh, do I want to be really good at the game or do I want guaranteed money? So I was wondering which way you go for. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, the aim, for sure. Yeah. So, by the way, congrats on passing the Patty Rescue Diver course. So first of all, like, why did you want to get that certification? It was incredibly, like, weird. But one day, I was super burned out. And I was like, watching these videos and these guys. said some this guy remember his name but it's the one that saved the kids in Thailand it was a

really a really bad case of a cave flooding in Thailand and this doctor with a group of people that were a specialist in diving and stuff like that saved these students and another staff member from drowning and you know in a cave but but dude i think it's Netflix or something it's like a documentary that you they were like these like curves and weird things pitch black visibility and they saved these kids and he said something and you're going to see why it's interesting to me he said like diving is like going space but backwards and i was like hmm i like that like it's like going space but down i was like right right dude and i was like okay what do i need to do this this correctly and not kill myself.

Okay, so it does this party stuff and I went to open, open water diving and it went into, uh, this like advanced is called. And then I went to another one and then I went to emergency rescue first action, whatever like what people use in hospitals as well. And then I went into rescue diving because it sounds going to sound a little bit grim, but I, I feel like, I feel like, attracted of the idea and I think it can give closure to people, they retrieve it, you know, retrieving the bodies, retrieving a body from a water,

you know, a water body. And it's technical. It's something that requires a skill and like knowledge. So that part of it, it feels like I was in space and I think if I can help somebody to give you know closure to something horrible that happened that made sense. So that's why it became a rescue library. I love that. What was the hardest part about getting the, uh, the certification? Well, the, the beginning was like all fun. To be honest, he was just going down and just testing the tanks and breathing, you know, breathing in the water. It's such a weird feeling the first time you go. Uh, because you feel like, dude, if I breathe, uh, something bad's going to happen. But, but no, uh, everything was fun. Um, the physical part of the rescue diving and the other that came after

that that one was bad because the school that I was, I mean, it was, they focused on realistic situations. So you have to do like revival and, you know, reconscion stuff. Like, you need to put air into the lungs of the person. And I was like, oh, I'm pretty sure that's going to be simulated. I'm not going to kiss this guy. And they were like, no, you're going to do it, dude. Is it like this 55 years old guy, you're going to have to give him like mouth to mouth breathing. you're going to do it right now. And I was like, oh, man. So you have to do that.

And you need to protect yourself because if somebody is like in panic mode, they have the force to harm you to put you down the water and ground you. So you have to basically choke somebody and control him. And they have this test, this last test of the certification. that you need to rescue a diver that is non-conscious, but it's breathing below the water. And he has like this, the regulator connected. And I was like, okay, it's gonna be easy. So I went down and I was protecting myself, keeping my distance,

but the instructor, that is an instructor that is simulating to be the diver, just waited for me to get closer and start choking me. He started choking me and removing the like four meters below the water. So yeah, yeah, that's, it becomes physical, it becomes really, like exhausting and you're fighting against the guy that was hard for me especially because i don't have like the best uh physical condition but yeah that that's it that's how i got like into rescue diving yeah that's so cool that's awesome i also love the reason uh reason why you want to get i i really uh i i agree as well closure is definitely something that helps a lot of families out yeah yeah yeah

and yeah it's it's cool dude for sure uh what is your favorite dead mouse song Oh man, I have three in my top. It's not going to be strove. A lot of people think it's going to be that one, which is the most commercial one. It's a really good one. But I love Bleed. That song is amazing. It's incredible.

Another one that is called Phantoms Can Hang. I love that song as well. And Abaricia or Avaritia, however you call it. those are the three main songs that I like I love those songs have been a lot I love that if you could spend a day with him

what would you do if I can spend a day with a day with Joel I'll I will like to jam with him some stuff and put some of my sins and do some weird stuff with him for sure I will teach him how to play

country strike if he wants and we can play together some matches and we can have dinner and listen to music blasting out of the speakers. I'll do that. I like that. You can end the night by choking him underwater. Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to put like a diver suit and stuff and I'm going to take it down the water.

And that'll be cool. That'll be cool. How do you keep your beard so beautiful? We actually had some DM that. I was like, oh, yeah, no, right now it looks horrible, dude. Like, let's be honest, I look like, I don't know, I've been in my computer for 20 years, right? But, well, I don't know. I don't do anything, dude.

Like, when I go to the, like, the studio, so they do a haircut and a beard like trimming, to be honest, it looks like, dude, it looks horrible, close and personal. And when they ended, it's like, okay, okay, now I look like a human being. But I don't do anything, dude. I mean, keep it clean, whatever, like some soap, I guess. But that's it. That's it. No oils, not nothing.

Just water and soap. Oh, there you go. What would your last meal be? I always love asking this question because you get to learn, you know, about their childhood. Or like, oh, you know, I had a great memory at this dinner. What would your last meal? My last meal, if I was, for example, in Dead Row, which is like a little bit grim to say that. But if I was like in this process, it'll be this green spaghetti that we have in Mexico in Christmas.

So you have these like apple salad, green spaghetti that is made with like some green chilies and like cheese. Dude, that green spaghetti is my favorite thing ever. So I get that. I'll get a cigar and a good cognac. That'll be the best. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Technically a cigar and cognac is not a meal, but I'll let it slight. No, yeah, no, it's, I mean, it's a compliment of the meal, right? It's like, it's part of the meal, you know? Yeah, you got to have that. That is. Yeah. I feel like I'm missing out because I am Mexican and I've never had green spaghetti. And I just Googled it right now.

Oh, yeah. I'm going to call my mom after his podcast. No, you are missing out. I'm telling you. Like, missing out. It's amazing. Yeah.

Yeah. This looks good. Honestly. It does. It's so good. All right. Let's see. Okay.

Got two more questions for you. Would you rather have, would you rather have the immunity of one non-fatal injury of your choice? Or one sickness of your choice. So would you rather be like, like immune to the cold or a fever or anything like that or would you rather be immune to like, you know, breaking bones or bruises. Right, right. Um, that, that's pretty cool.

Uh, so what I will do is like, I will be immune. No, I will be immune for the necessity of breathing. That'll be awesome. Oh, and we, like the necessity for diving. Yeah, exactly. I'll put it like carbon dioxide, I think you call it in English,

like out of your body and put an oxygen in. I will remove that totally from my system and just be like no oxygen needed. Dude, that'll be sick. That'll be perfect for diving. You'd literally be aqua man. Or maybe go into a space with a suit that the cold doesn't kill you.

You can be there forever, right? That's cool. That's cool. That's so cool. Would you rather fight 10 angry geese with your bear hands for $100,000 or risk it all to fight one brown bear for $100 million? But with the bear, you can get a weapon of your choice as long as it's not a gun. With the bear. I'll go with the bear.

What would you fight with? How would you fight the bear? What weapon? Without a gun. Oh, it cannot be a gun, right? It cannot be a guy. It has to be like a hand-to-hand weapon kind of thing. Or like a sword shield or something like that.

Yeah, no, it'll be like, uh, dynamites are possible? I'm gonna say no, it has to be hand-to-hand. Yeah, yeah, okay, okay, hand-to-hand. Hand-a-hand. No, I'm gonna like super long spear, instantly long spear. Just like keep the distance, go behind the train, poke until he's dead.

That does what I will do. For a hundred million dollars, man. That's a, oh man, that'd be, that's life-changing money right there. I mean, I think without two zeros is life changing, but yeah, yeah, for sure. Let's see. Okay, that is it for the questions. I have a couple things for you after I get through some announcements real quick. So I'll just get through these real quick.

I'll get a secret co-work for some people and then some fun stuff after. So first off all, we have, we just launched just two days ago, three days ago. I forget two, Ivan. We just launched our new cracking core and gold, cracking core coolers and our gold core PSUs. So these crack and core RGB coolers are available in 240 or 360 millimeters. They got strong thermal and airflow performance for a killer price. And our gold core PSCs are available in 750, 850, and 1,000 watts.

It comes with ATX 3.1, PCIE, 5.0 capabilities. You can take a look at nc.com or exclamation point new stuff in chat and take a look at a stuff that we have. We also have some awesome Amazon sales going on on our Amazon page. You get coolers, cases, peripherals, you name it on a crazy good discount. You can go to nzxty.com slash Amazon for that or just go to Amazon and just type in nzxte. You will find a bunch of stuff on sale there. We have a PC giveaway going on right now every month.

It was basically part of our NZXT Intel Club. Special thanks to Intel, by the way, for helping us give you guys tons of free stuff. You guys can get shirts, plushies, gift cards. And the biggest prize of them all is a free NZXT Intel PC. Go to nzxti.co slash club or estimation point club in chat. You guys sign up and participate in our community. You can see in the chat right there, there's someone that claimed poochie points from the thing. Basically, if you participate in our community, you earn poochie points.

And basically, oh yeah. And basically, the more poochie points you have, the more entries you have into the giveaway. So if you want more chances to get a PC, start now. So seriously, join the club ASAP. Thank you, Ivan, for the sound effect. Yes, sir. Okay, a couple things for you, Derek. So is there anything next?

What's next for you? Any cool, exciting projects or content you're working on? Yeah. So I am working on an animation project with a studio that is going to be a special for a certain amount of subscribers that I'm going to have. It's going to be focused on my life, life and death and counter strike. Like that's going to be like the main idea. And we're going to pitch it for Valve to be able maybe. So it's going to be like an official media content.

But that we're going to we're going to see what happens with that. My rebranding is coming like in a couple of. days. It's going to be like a new rebranding for my channel. I'm going to be back on streaming after a little while. And I was focusing on YouTube for like all these changes and stuff. And I'm going to go to the AGS event. It's an event in Argentina. And I'll be flying basically in three days. So it's Argentina for me. It's real special. It's like a family to me because it's one of my biggest audiences. And they love Counter Strike. For me, it's one of the capitals of CS in Latin America, so it's going to be fun, man.

That is awesome. Do you, where can our listeners currently right now find you and your content online? I mean, practically everywhere in every social media on YouTube, Twitch, X, Instagram, everywhere. It's the same name. It's Norrooks, so YouTube.com slash Norrox and the other social medias as well. You can find me there, man, and we can have a good time for sure. Awesome. So we currently are doing a giveaway right now for a Poochipush, which you can see actually in every one of our backgrounds right now.

Oh, yeah. Right there. A shirt and stickers that's currently going on right now. We have a secret code word that gives you, I think I put it to a thousand extra entries now to really entice people to stay for the podcast and, you know, participate and everything like that. we actually now are asking the guest to choose the code word for that thousand extra entries. What do you think you want to change the word to? What about if we put CS2? CS2.

All righty, guys. I am updating the code right now for the 210 giveaway right now to just CS2. I'll put that in the chat for. everyone. We should do CS dos. CS dos. Cs dos without it too, but like DOS. I love that.

Ivan, should we talk about the cracking giveaway right now? Yeah, let's give him. Yeah. So also, very special thing. Great timing is that we also have a cracking core giveaway going on.

We're making the post tomorrow. So this is kind of like our, you know, this is for the extra, you know, early people, you know, this is the poor discussion. We basically have a giveaway for two cracking core coolers, your choice of color and size and everything like that. I'll put the link in now, but you guys are getting the... The color choice will be easy because it's only available in one color, Mike.

Oh, it's... Oh, shoot, my back. You can have any color you want as long as it's black. Perfect. I put the link in the thing right now, and there is an entry for extra points as well for the giveaway. And the code work for that is hardcore. So there's two codes right now. There's hardcore for the Brackencore giveaway, and then for the Snorox giveaway, it is CS2.

All righty. That is it. Do you have any final words, Snorok? or not before I end the podcast. Well, thank you for having me, man. It's been like an amazing conversation. I always like these conversations that go, like if we were in a table, just drinking something.

You know, this is not like a business and corporate set of things, which I really like that it wasn't like that. Just, I don't know, cliche questions. It happened sometimes in like in some interviews. But this time it wasn't nothing like that. I love what you guys do. At the end of the day, we have a really good. relationship for like more than a year.

But I like what you guys do. It has like this nerdy, minimal thing that I like. So it's like, it's pretty, pretty cool that you told me that you're having like a new AIO, right? Yeah, a whole new cracking. Oh damn, dude. I need to check that out. I mean, I have this one that is big, like super big.

I like it. But yeah, let me check like check that out. I think I saw like one of the pictures in Instagram with the lets. He has the let's like it is cool. It looks like techie. I like it. We'll make sure you get one then. Absolutely, guys.

Sounds awesome. Well, thank you guys for having me. Thank you, everybody that tuned in the end into the stream that is going to like listen to this on like distributors, like Apple Music and Spotify, stuff like that, YouTube. I don't know, man. It was a blast. Let's do this stuff like more often.

I got a good time. All right. We'll see you're next Friday then. Absolutely. Right now, man. All right. Thank you guys for joining us. And remember, too, didn't lie.

on Fridays at 10 a.m. Pacific Center time on the official NCC Twitch. And don't forget to listen to the previous episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and SoundCloud and YouTube. Guided questions for us, send an email to podcast at nc.com or tag at N6T on all social media platforms. Thank you, Ivan. Thank you, Derek, or Sinox, for joining us today. And we'll see you guys next time. Have a good weekend, everyone. See you later. Thank you, man.