NZXT PODCAST - #225 - He Lost His Entire Audience Twice?! (Ft. Driggsy)

Episode Date: July 31, 2026

On this week's episode of the #NZXT Podcast... we are joined by Driggsy! Vine died. Mixer died. He started over both times and built it back bigger. We get into the craft: how he turned one setup video into an entire channel while he delivers a masterclass on how to get brand deals (and how to avoid burning out!) Follow Driggsy here: hoo.be/driggsy

Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 225 of the NXC podcast, the official podcast at NXC Community. This podcast is called live on Fridays at 10 a.m Pacific Standard Time on the official NCC Twitch. It's available to stream on demand on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and SoundCloud, and available for replay on YouTube. My name is Mike Kim, and before I introduce our very special guest today, I want to give a quick, quick shout out to Intel for helping us sponsor the NXT Intel Club. As you can see, we're wearing our NZXT Intel Pucci in Shippy shirts. If you guys go to nzc.co slash club or SMOGPoint Club in chat, you guys can enter the NZXI Intel Club. All you have to do is just do quests. Very simple, very easy.

You guys can then earn Pucci points, which is our mascot right here. And you can see them in the background of Driggsie right there. You guys can enter a giveaway, and then you guys can win shirts, plushie. which is a plushy set, chippy and poochie right here. And the best one of all is a monthly Intel PC. A couple of people, I think, or one or two people in chat here, may have actually won one. So that's super, super dope.

So please go ahead and take a look at the NCC Intel Club. And thank you, again, Intel for helping a sponsor. I think that's it for me. So let me go ahead and introduce our very special creators today. Introducing a creator whose entire bio is just, three words, I like tech. He's been on camera since Divine Days through mixer, through Twitch, and now to more than 100,000 people who trust him to say what's actually worth buying. He's a set-up perfectionist. He's a 3D printing problem solver and even a paintball champion.

All the way from Boston, everyone, please welcome Driggs E to the NZC podcast. Drigsy, please introduce yourself to our audience and tell us what you're all about. Wow, that was a killer intro. I'm like, Oh my God. Yeah, thank you so much for having me here. Huge thank you to Intel and NZXT as well. What's up, guys? My name is Trigzy and I see a lot of familiar faces in the chat. I just want to say it's so dope to see you guys in there. This kind of makes me feel like I'm streaming again. It definitely makes me miss it.

But yeah, I think we're going to have a really sick episode today and I'm really excited to just talk about it. Yeah, and also everyone, like, please take a look at Triggs's like channel. I have his socials, I think his X-M-Spoenaed in chat, probably one of the cleanest, like, content creators out there for tech. It's so clean. It's so good. But before we get into all of that, we love, I love to start at the beginning where pretty much everything started, right?

So, first of all, you know, where did you grow up and like what got you into gaming? Yeah. So I grew up in a really small. town called Blackstone Massachusetts. It's a dot on the map. So pretty much whenever I tell anyone that I'm from Massachusetts, I just say Boston, just because like that's the easiest way to vocalize it. And I owe my introduction to gaming to my older brothers. If it wasn't for them, who knows, like when I would have got introduced to gaming. But the very first game that I ever played was Super Mario Brothers on the Super Nintendo. And, you know, like I watched my brothers play games as I grew

up, you know, they played everything from Star Fox 64. I remember my brother like geeking out about it way back then because of the fact that it had a huge leap in graphics, right? Because I was like one of the first ones that had a dedicated, was it a dedicated hardware on the cartridge itself, I believe. So that was really cool. And then, you know, eventually we got a Sega Genesis, but then my brother returned it because he wasn't a fan of the Genesis. And then N64, Dreamcast, PS2. And then by that time, it was the 360 days. And that's really kind of where I took over as being like the gamer of the family because my older brothers kind of grew out of it. But for me, it stuck with me my whole life.

And so ever since the Xbox 360 days, dude, I've just been glued to the sticks. Then I transitioned into PC gaming more and more. Even up until recently when I started getting back into console gaming when I recently got the Switch 2 because it kind of sucked me back in with what do you call it? Tears of the Kingdom. Oh, such a good game. Such a good game. I still have not played,

what's it called? I didn't play Breath of the Wild. I didn't play the original. And then my friend's like, try out Tears at Kingdom. Oh my gosh. It was so fun. So good.

But actually, I do want to talk a little bit about that. So, you know, you had all these like concerts and stuff like that. your brother was like the one that really got you into gaming. As someone that grew up with an older sibling, did you actually play the game or were you like just watching while they played? So I definitely watched a good amount.

I remember like my brother's friends would come over and he would bring over this big case of N64 cartridges and he had all the games. And, you know, I would just sit there and kind of watch quietly as, you know, they played. And then this one memory sticks out so vividly in my head. dude uh my brother was almost done with Mario 64 and I wanted to start my own account by mistake I erased his save file and I just remember just absolutely blowing up on me because you know obviously I erased his save file when he was almost there almost finished with it but yeah yeah to that day I always double check to make sure I'm

actually make a new file and not just deleting one that's my older brothers Gosh, did you get some anger from your brother? It was classic older brother anger. There was nothing too crazy. Okay, okay. I would have definitely gotten some, you know, chokehold nuggies, you know, stuff like that. Oh, man.

Yeah, yeah, no swirlies. Okay, good. You also, when we sent over some questions, you said that Aukri at Time was one of your favorites. So first of all, like, when you played the first original Aukriot Time, What was the reason why you were so drawn to it? I just remember her like my brothers kind of freaking out over the whole musical aspect of it because one of my brothers was really involved with music growing up. So he thought it was really fascinating.

And I think his excitement over it kind of impacted me as well, like just me experiencing it through him. And then it was just the fact that it was like this massive world that you could walk around and do anything you pretty much wanted to at the time, which was like unheard of, right? It was like one of the first games to ever do it. And then for me personally, I never beat it on the N64. I would always get stuck at the Shadow Temple as a kid. Like always. Understandable. I get that.

Yeah, dude. It was tough with the, what is it, the eye of truth? I would always get stuck at that part. But eventually I did beat it when it came to GameCube on the Master Quest. But yeah. No, Ocarena Time definitely sticks out as being like one of my favorite games of all time. and then I'd also have to give it to Half-Life 2. Like that game.

I know these are like really stereotypical answers, like from gamers. If they're like, oh, like, what's your favorite games of all time? But legitimately, like, Half-Life 2 was the game that I think brought me into PC gaming in terms of like understanding how components impacted your gameplay. Yeah. I'd actually love to talk about that. By the way, don't feel bad about it. The reason why they're stereotypical is because they are actually good, right?

Right. Like they're good for a reason. You know, if you're saying like, you know, a very offshore game, then I'm like, okay, that's not a serious. But like, I mean, they're so good for a reason, right? They literally influence the whole generation of games. Exactly. Exactly. Like we wouldn't have any of like the modern day, you know, platformers if it weren't for or adventure games. If it weren't for Ocreen and Time, really, I feel like. I'd love to start getting into since we talk a little bit of console, but, you know,

Now it's all about PC and tech, especially with your content creation and stuff like that. But first, like, I remember you saying you love CounterStrike, and then Half-Life was the thing that really made you get into PC, PC gaming, because, you know, you had to upgrade. So, first of all, Counter-Strike, like, what was that like on that? Do you remember the first PC you were playing on? Do you remember the specs of it? It was horrible, but it was definitely, it wasn't a Pentium-4. It was before Pentium 4. I forget exactly what the specs were, but it could barely hit 30 FPS.

And at the time, the monitor that we had, it was a CRT monitor. So, like, I was always so confused, like, why my game felt not as smooth as my buddies. And so that's what kind of also, like, started me into knowing, like, what a graphics card was and all this stuff. Because I remember asking my brother, I was like, how do I make this game feel better? And he's like, oh, I think we need to do a graphics card. And then ever since then, yeah, that was, I think that was a jumping off point from there. But I do remember playing CounterStrake as a kid. And, dude, I would just get torn apart in the lobbies because my voice was so high-pitched.

People would just tell me to get off the game, dude. It was bad. So now it is, I feel bad. Like, whenever there is a squeaker or someone in a game, I always make sure to be nice to them, you know? Yeah. they're in their same situation you know not that long ago really exactly uh so when we said to it over to answer that i honestly love this answer because it really because i relate to it so much is so half life two like you said it was one of your favorite games and your family computer was just like

what what is happening to me right um yep your your brother was able to kind of help convince your parents to like upgrade a PC so like I would love to hear the story of how that happened because one that is all especially back then right that's a big it's like now it's it's a lot easier because it's a lot more mainstream but to ask your parents to upgrade a PC is like taboo especially back then so how did that happen yeah so at the time we had a it was an HP I think it was a like an HP pavilion um if for anyone that remembers it was like a gray tower and it had like a navy blue translucent shell on the front. It was like, what, a classic case.

And then my brother was like, look, we can either buy a new computer or we can build one for way cheaper. And that's how we kind of convinced my parents to do it. And so like looking back on it now, you know, nowadays we have such a wealth of information out there on how to build PCs, you know, from content creators or just like YouTube in general. And so it's like, I find it kind of amazing that my brother was able to piece it together back then because it was a totally different landscape.

Um, so he, I don't know how he figured it out back then. But I'd also love to hear. Do you remember, um, how big of a jump it was from the old PC to new PC? Like, was it like life changing? It was like night and day difference. It was like I was getting, so before I was getting like around 30 FPS and CS 1.6. But then once Half Life 2 came around, I was, dude, I was like pushing maybe 10 FPS on like the lowest settings. And once. we got the new PC, it had like a like a radion, I think it was a 9800 or a TIE 9800 back in the day. And yeah, so like from that point on, we were able to actually play Half Life 2 with a decent frame rate.

And it was just like, oh my God, this is it. Like this is how it's supposed to be played. You know what I mean? Can you imagine it's really cool little driggsy today? Like playing on a PC now then back then? I think I think no. it'd be insane it'd be like what is this

and this is like a norm now too yeah well so that that brings me to a comment that I got the other day so I posted a video where I'm playing CS2 on my super ultra wide monitor and like to most people you wouldn't typically do that because you know the nature of

of counter strike you would either play it at a boxed resolution or even stretch or something like that but I really enjoy playing it on the super ultra wide monitor because it's just like such a cool experience that if I could go back in time and show my younger self, like, this is how you're playing CounterStrike, I think he just would have been like, oh, my God, it's completely blown away, you know?

That's so crazy. That's it. That's the box. 100%. Well, not the Mac Edition, obviously, but I remember that little gargoyle character. Oh, here it is. Here it is. This is like old school.

This, this reminds me of like, yes. The beginning of things is like, if you put this on like a box today, people are like, what is this branding? But like back then, this is how you got people. Yes. Oh, yes. Look at that. 128 megabytes.

Gosh. USB sticks. Oh, my gosh. I can't even imagine. This is like, this was like the pinnacle, right? Back then. Yeah. Technology.

We had that paired with a Pentium 4. I forget what Pentium 4 it was, but yeah. Oh my gosh. That. It is always fun to talk with like tech contigrated because uh you guys always have experience of like the old stuff especially like then this is like one of the this is this is the PC parts to have right oh my gosh I remember I had a big old power spec case big old black box literally no no airflow like I think

had like two vents on it still a disc drive Oh, floppy disk drive too. Those are the days. Oh, the good old days. Good old days. And I know, like, since you started building the PC, you started slowly getting into tech. So what was like the point where it stopped like, I want to learn about tech? And then you started to be like, I really, really like doing this.

I think it just kind of happened naturally, if I'm being honest. It was like all throughout my childhood growing up. I would always want the latest and greatest new piece of tech that would come out. Like I would consistently sell my old consoles and upgrade to the new consoles. Like, you know, I had like the original DS and then I sold the DS to get the DS light. Then I sold the DS light to get the PSB. So on and so forth. Like all throughout my childhood.

Looking back on it now, I wish I kept those things because, man, that would have been so cool to just pick up. But yeah, it was definitely one of those things that just kind of happen naturally throughout like my entire like teenage life just going through and just buying new tech just because I thought it was cool and then it kind of like meshed naturally with with gaming right so like I would watch like e3 and all the conferences and stuff like that and just keep up to date like G4 I would watch G4 whenever they had their their coverage of E3 and so yeah it kind of just was with me my whole life oh my gosh I haven't heard of G4 and forever. That was, that was dope.

That was so cool. Also, something that I want to talk about, which is super sick, is you started posting on Vine. And I don't even know some people here, because there's some young ones here that have even heard of Vine. So, first of all, like, what made you start posting on Vine? And for those that don't know, it was six, seven, six, seven, six, seven. six, seven seconds, max? Yeah. Well, so it was, you could actually post up to 6.5 seconds.

And then eventually there was a little glitch and you could post up to 6.9 seconds. Yeah, a little insider secret there. People do not know how hard it was to only have that limit. But what made you start posting? I don't know. It was just like, I remember it was freshman year of college. I think when it first came out.

And one of my buddies told me about this new app. called Vine. And I was like, oh, that's pretty interesting. Let me check it out. I downloaded it and just like started just posting like funny little skits on there. Like, you know, just like silly things. Nothing to do with gaming or anything like that, really, until later on. Which I can talk about that later on.

But yeah, so I would just post like stupid little funny skits on Vine. And I really enjoyed it. I think that's where I got comfortable with being in front of the camera. And yeah. eventually uh so just for so everyone knows vine walked so ticot could run very very true honestly without vine and probably we would not have a lot of the stuff that we'd have now instagram reels we wouldn't have uh you know ticot in general would be it's literally like set like that forth of like video content creation uh did you also have the name driggsy during vine no so on vine i i just

went by just my full name and then eventually I took on the whole like driggsy name when I started streaming so that was until 2016 gotcha gotcha for I do want to ask what was that what's the thing behind it I think it's is it 3d printing behind yeah yeah so my last name is driggs so I just added a wide of it oh oh my gosh you know what I didn't even when during my research I never found like your actual last that makes so much sense oh my gosh I was like I was like what is the reasoning behind Drixie because you know we have people to have like the weird stuff and then no that makes so much sense so that actually goes back to like

when I was a kid like you know in like gym class and stuff they'd be like hey like Driggs they get over here that's it of stuff but one of my best friends growing up he also went by the name Fraskey so it was Fraskey and Driggs and so when I was trying to figure out a name to stream I was like I was talking to him and I was like man like what could I do and he was like oh well well you You know, like if you're, if you're a driggs, I could be fraskey, like when we're gaming, that type of thing. And so it stuck ever since that. That's sick.

Honestly, that's those, that's, I love when people have like a little bit of history behind the thing. Because that is such. Honestly, I really like that that you guys like took that on too. Sounds like a TV action duo. That's very true. I very, I can see that as like a buddy cop like, you know, thing. I love that. Yeah.

Yeah, but no, it was, it was on Vine. Really quick. I want to go back to that. So, so on Vine. GameStop was holding a contest and I posted a six second clip of me. It was just a meme of like when you're the last one alive type of thing on Battlefield 6 and somehow that won their contest that they were running. And so for the contest, I thought that I was only going to be getting like an Xbox one

and that that was the whole sweet sticks. But it turns out that the contest was actually trying to find someone one that they would take to E3 to live stream on what was it Periscope at the time. Oh my wow. Yeah, dude. That's so cool. That was in 2015, correct? Wow.

That was E3, 2015. What was your reaction to like that happening? It didn't make any sense to me. Like that was, it was in that moment that I realized, oh my God, like, it's, It's possible to do things with social media outside of just getting followers and making funny content and seeing likes and comments and stuff like that. That was the really first like breaking point of seeing the word influencer like tied to my name.

So it was pretty sick. It was just unreal. Yeah. And sadly we're going to have to talk about Vine shutting down. And that was 2017. that it was basically like we were going to kill it off, there's no more. How did you react to that? That was horrible because I felt like I was really hitting strides with Vine at the time.

It was like, you know, I had a consistent following and after that exposure to E3, I was like, oh, let's keep it going. Let's see how far we can take this. But it was, you know, once Vine went down, that's what really, kind of gave me the kick that I needed to get into streaming because it was like I was still looking for

a creative outlet right that's where that's where Vine was Vine was my creative outlet and then once I shut down I was like all right so what can I do now and that's where I picked up streaming just because of you know my love for video games and love for tech and then also just the desire to just build a community and stuff like that and be in front of the camera

it kind of just like all happen naturally I guess was this one you transitioned to mixer so mixer all right so I started streaming on Twitch back in 2016 I stream there for maybe I think it was like six months or something

had it so much fun and then I was like all right guys we're going to try this new site called beam so I streamed on beam for a little bit and then Beam is what eventually turned into mixer so Microsoft bought Beam and yeah, took on all their technology. They had like FTL, which was super low latency streaming. That was like the big draw to beam and mixer at the time.

So like right now you're watching on Twitch and I haven't monitored on my side, there really isn't that much lag. Like it's very, very minuscule, maybe like a second. Back in the day, back in 2016, it was much larger. Like it was maybe three, four, five seconds. And so, like, for me, I really want to just have that interaction with my community. So that's what really brought me over to Beam and Mixer, just because I love that low latency. So you can see how it influenced Twitch, because nowadays, there's no lag at all.

If it wasn't for Mixer, I really do think that Twitch would still have more latency in the video broadcasting. It kind of like pushed them to level up. Oh, man. That's insane to. to do that. You are also streaming when you had a full-time job, correct? Yeah. Yeah. So honestly, I, so after college, I graduated college in 2016. I went to WPI for a degree for game development. And then I got a job at Bose and I worked at Bose on the website side of things. Honestly, I haven't really told a lot of people this outside of like people that know me IR. So you're, you're getting to know me a little bit more. Yeah. So I worked at Bose for, eight years working on their website and also doing 3D modeling for them. If you go on their site right now and look at the little 3D spinner of some of their products,

you'll see some of my work is still on there. But yeah, just a couple of years ago is when I did eventually go full-time. So it took a lot of grinding to get to the point where I felt comfortable enough to go full-time. And so after work, I would get home, I would eat real quick, try to go to the gym if I could and then just like start streaming at around like 8.30, 9 o'clock until midnight. And I would do that five days a week.

And I did that for several years up until around 2020. Yeah, so 2016 to 2020. How tough was that to go live? Especially, did you immediately start out with like most people, did you start out with zero viewers or because you kind of already had a following?

You got a couple more. So like, I do feel a little, a little blessed because, yeah, I did have some people come over from, from Vine, like shout out Baniac. He was shout out Baniac. He was one of my, like, first followers on Vine, and he's like still commenting on my stuff today. And yeah, he's awesome. Huge supporter. But, yeah, so like that definitely helped me a little bit.

I do think that back when, you know, Twitch was still growing back in 2016, Definitely nowhere near as big as it was now. It was definitely easier to get introduced or to get found, I would say. So like I played Dark Souls for the first time and that's where I kind of built my initial, like little audience was from that. Wow, that. Yeah. So, so, you know, I love to talk about that.

You were mainly a gaming streamer. That was like your thing. I even checked like some of your old Instagram clips and it was like some of like Val, Valorin and you know, Dark Souls and some Counterstrike and stuff like that. So you went from gaming and now you're a tech content creator. So how did you make that transition over those years, especially building up a gaming audience? Yeah. So, all right.

I guess let's like kick it back to us 2020. So by this point, it was like, you know, like I had like an awesome community over on Mixer. And of course, this was during lockdown. So that's where TikTok really started to be downloaded on so many people's phones. And like everyone else, I picked it up. And at first, I was making content about Valorant and just making like purely Ballerent content. And then in one video, I posted about my setup. And it was a thermal take, RGB standing desk that I had at the time, which was like super sick and super just eye-catching.

So in that video, you saw the desk and so many people ask questions about it. And that was kind of the jumping off point for the tech side of things. Because once people started asking questions about it, I replied to the questions, see more videos about it. And then I would just make videos about like the stuff in my setup. You know, like everything from my GoXLR to like how I mounted my camera and all this other stuff. And so it happened pretty naturally, me just talking about the stuff that I had. Wow. Okay. Sorry, I'm jumping around too much because like there's so much like within your story.

Because a lot of people are very like, you know, especially like some of the streamers that we talk to, it's very like, oh yeah, I started streaming and then that's it. But you have gone through Vine, then, you know, shut down. Then you're like, okay, let me do mixer. And then that also shut down as well. I did find that you were in 2020, you became one of the first, I think mixer partners. on the ASUS stream team, which was pretty dope. So first of all, I want to talk about how was that experience? And how was it when he first got that invitation? Yeah, that was mind-blowing.

That was so cool. That was, I think, my first sort of tech sponsor, that type of stuff, because I sent over a keyboard and a headset and a mouse and all this type of stuff. And I was like, oh, my God, like, we made it. Like, this is so cool. So, yeah, working with ASUS, it was me, Vinny, Vinny B, Excellion, Jordan Lane, and lucky shots. I think it was the five of us.

We were all, oh, and Samby, in Simby, don't want to forget Simby. We're all on the stream team. And, yeah, no, it was so cool. Wow, that's, it was so cool. That's honestly, like, that was, I mean, that being, especially with Asus, like, that's such a big partner, right? Like, that's like, wow, you're really stepping up into it. and you're like, wow, maybe this is your calling.

And the mixer then shuts down. How it's such an awful thing because you never think about that, right? Especially with mixer being one of the top, like, stream platforms back then. How does it feel, how did it feel when you lost your Vine audience and then again, you lost your Mixer audience? Yeah. So when I lost the Vine audience, it really was horrible because there wasn't any sort of like diversification in my content, right?

It was like purely just on Vine. That's where all my followers were. And then when Mixer shut down, it was kind of the same thing, if I'm being honest. It was like, I didn't really like cross post enough to any of my other platforms. And I think that's like such an important takeaway is that you never know when a platform is gonna go down.

Like I hate to say it, but you literally never know, like, what if Twitch goes down? Like what if Amazon gets rid of Twitch for some reason? So it's so important to just diversify, yourself and like be posting on every single platform that you can that way if you lose you know your instagram audience well you still have your tic-tok audience or you know youtube audience that type of thing uh did you ever feel after that happened was there like a moment of you just been like man uh content creation is tough or were you like i'm going to persevere

through this it was always like man we just got to keep on going got to put your head down and just get to work you know you got to overcome it That's, man, I feel like if I was in that situation, I'd be like, man, this can't catch a break, you know, stuff like that. And I agree with the cross-posting because, like you said, you have no idea if one will go down or, you know, because a lot of these audiences are very different. Like a TikTok audience is much, much different from a Twitch or a YouTube audience. So how do you have any tips for people about cross-posting? Like, do you just say, just post as much as you can, or do you cater towards each audience? So for me, personally, I found that if a video performs well on one platform,

chances are it's going to perform well on all platforms, if I'm being honest. But there are, of course, the outliers where it's only going to perform better on a certain platform. In my opinion, I don't think it hurts at all to just, if you're going to post a TikTok, post it on Instagram, post it on YouTube shorts, posted on Facebook, because like you'd never know what audience it's it's going to hit true true true that's very true and like you said you have these different audiences and driggs tech really started to like push and and start to gain a following when was that moment of you switching from like driggsie gaming to fully driggsy tech yeah so it was i want to say like three summers ago

at this point. That's where I kind of just made the hard cut. And I was like, all right, we're going to give this, like, all that we got. Let's try doing just tech and purely tech. And that's when I made a separate Driggs-Z tech TikTok account away from my old Driggsie gaming account. And also, you know, that's when I made the Drigsy Tech Instagram and where I really buckled down and started posting my stuff on YouTube.

It was either three or four years ago. Yeah. I tried finding one of your. first driggs tech videos and i believe i found it and it's such a i love how simple it is it's a uh unboxing of a 14 pro max from 2022 i believe this is your first take dog video you may have had some that you privateed but i love how simple and easy it is it's just unboxing it quick cuts with good sound man how does it how do you feel about this was one of your first one of your first one of your first first videos that you made.

All right. So if I'm being honest, this is what I had the vision of making my entire channel about. Like it was just going to be really quick unboxings. Like, I buy a piece of tech, unbox it, make a little trendy video about it. Move on in the next one. And then somewhere along the way, I kind of got, you know, more roped into doing like the full review type of content. But yeah, man, this is a throwback.

What made you transition fully from doing these short ones to that long-form content? Was it just people where you see more views coming or were you like, I actually prefer this? I think it was just, I was having fun. Like, I was having fun providing more substance in my content to my viewers rather than just, oh, look, you're a pretty thing. You know what I mean? Like, I really enjoyed showing people the things I enjoyed about a product, things I didn't like about a product.

And yeah, I just got a kick out of doing that. Okay. So when you do, so from the beginning to like now you are, do you have any tips that you would give the person, you know, a couple years ago? What tips would you say like this is what you should do to make your content better? I would say don't obsess so much about the gear that you have. If I could go back,

I would say don't obsess about getting a super fancy camera and super fancy lighting and all that stuff. Continue to pump out content just with your phone. because there was a point where I think, and I still do today, like I obsess a little bit too much about how perfectly, you know, frame something is or perfectly lit something is. But I really enjoy the practice of the art of making something look good on screen. But at the same time, it's like, well, not exactly everyone cares about that stuff when they're consuming your content. Maybe they just want more of like the story of the product or like what the product actually does. Like they want to see how it's going to impact their everyday life.

And so I think that's where, yeah, if I could go back in time, I would say, dude, just make more content with your phone. Do you have any tips about obsessing over that perfection to making sure the content is good? Because I know there's, that's very hard to balance between the two because, you know, you don't want to post something there. You're like, oh, I could have done better on. But also, you don't want to, like you said, obsess over perfecting it. Well, how do you find that balance? It's something I'm still working towards. If I'm being completely honest with you, like I'm up until super late hours working on stuff even to this day, like just because I want to get it to be perfectly cut or perfectly in time or like, you know, adjust the audio a little bit.

I would say like if you can watch it through one time and it's enjoyable and you think that other people will enjoy it as well, then hit the post button. I like that. Yeah. I know there's some people. I saw a couple comments here about like I'm I saw someone here that was like I'm in the same place as Driggs E like I want to become you. So I'd love for you to give some tips. I guess how about let let's start with the first thing, which is like how do you make your content? I know I know there's a lot of people that like will just like grab the phone and stuff like that.

But what do you do you do you do you storyboard it? Do you plan out everything? Do you plan out your script or do you just wing it? So this is actually, it's a pretty interesting topic, I think, because there is something that that goes to say about like purely organic content. When you just film it straight from your phone and just like riff and just like do the, do the content straight from the TikTok app and just get it done and recorded and edit it all inside the TikTok app. There's some sort of like organic nuance that comes with it that I think makes it a little bit more fun to watch personally in app. Like I think it, it kind of like draws viewers in that way. And yeah, so like for that type of content, it's literally just inside of the TikTok app.

I'll just record it using the native TikTok camera. Edit inside of TikTok, add captions inside of TikTok, maybe add like some text overlays inside of TikTok as well. And yeah, boom, post that. And then I'll cross post it to other platforms as well. And then there's the more like produced style content where I'll take more time. That's where I'll bring out my cameras. So like this is my ZVE-E-1. This is like my trusty shooter here.

And for those types of content, that's where I really take my time and I will script out everything, like literally line for line, how I'm, what I'm going to say, and then what that shot pertains to. So like what action I'm doing on screen or what I'm going to be showing in the scene itself.

And I'll kind of just record it and go like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Take it all into the DaVinci your resolve, edit it altogether, add all the captions, add the color grading, all that stuff, right? So it's definitely not as streamlined at all as just recording directly inside a TikTok, but then you get a really pretty video at the end of it. Like that, you know, one thing that I would love to ask you, what is, so you know, you talk about like, you know, you do all the color grading, captions, everything they got.

What is that one thing that you do when you're editing a video that like no one would actually notice, but it's like probably one of the most important things? Because I know there's a lot of people that are like, oh, I want to make sure I have captions and it looks good. But what's that one thing that you're like, you need to do this, but no one's going to notice it except you. All right. So like I try really, really, really hard. Whenever I'm doing, whenever I'm setting up different shots, it's like from the point of view, like let's like, let's like, let's like, it's a point of view that I'm taking. I'm never going to do the same point of view for the same clip two times back to back. It's always going to be like a front point of view and then maybe

like a side point of view or a left point of view to keep it, to keep the visuals interesting. And so, you know, you're not just watching the same angle basically throughout each clip. So that's why I'm always constantly moving the camera just to kind of keep things different. Interesting. I actually, that's very, I didn't think about it. that but that's actually a really really good tip for those that are here because you want to make sure to keep the the user's attention you know the viewer's attention so just doing a quick cut like that that's actually very smart i don't even think about that yeah yeah that's like that's i think one of my biggest things is like let's say you know i'm let's say i'm making a video about chippy

back there in one clip it's always going to be straight on the next clip will either be left or right and then i just kind of like rotate between the different angles i like that that. Is there something that when you first started, then you look back that you're like, why did I do that? What's like a tip for those that are going to start the content creation journey here? Well, I know this is obsessing about video quality and stuff like that, but it was, it was my lighting. My lighting back in the day, it was like, it was so bad. It was like, I would have a bounce light on my ceiling and it would just light up my entire ceiling and blow out the highlights. But that's really obsessing, again, about the quality.

And that's like one of the pitfalls is like, you don't really want to obsess too much about the quality. But looking back on it now, I think like it's like if I go back and watch some of my earlier pieces of content, I really pick up on how I talk. And it's like I'm trying to, even to this day still work on that, like trying to talk more casually in my content. It's one of those things that I feel like any content creator out there knows you get a sort of like a content creator voice. and it just kind of like happens, right? It just like turns on. And so like even to this day, it's still perfecting that

and trying to get away from the content creator voice and try to be as yourself as possible on camera. Like you're just talking to your camera. I guess that's something that I would love for people here, especially those that are going to do that grind, that want to be a content creator or a streamer or anything like that or an influencer. There is a hard part about

work-life balance, how do you differentiate the work-life balance to I'm going to grind and I want to succeed? It's really tough because I feel like if you want to grind, you're going to be losing sleep. Like, that's just the nature of it, right? It's going to be like after you're, after your nine to five, you got to carve out some time in order to make that content. And so I think for me, if I went back in time, I would tell myself to not stream as much and make more content. Because I think that with the, although like I don't regret it at all because I loved streaming. It was so much fun. And I love the community that I built over there and I loved hanging out with you guys.

But I really wish that I had made more content versus streaming. So then that way, you know, I could continue to build offline. You know what I mean? That makes sense. That's the one hard part that comes with streaming. Yeah. I don't know if you watched it, but there was a streamer you thing with Kaisenat and he had a bunch of streamers on and he had like the top like, you know, things like Ludwig and Valkyrie

and stuff like that, talk about how to make it in streaming. And one of the number one things that they talked about was you guys have to post content because Twitch is one of the hardest things. to just be like, yeah, I'm going to stream to zero viewers and that's it. Like, you're, it's going to be the hardest thing. Contagration is really that thing you have to do. Yeah. And like back of the day on Mixer, it was a little bit different because on Mixer,

it was such a small platform at the time, especially when it first started. So you could make a name for yourself on Mixer literally just by being live 24-7 because if you got to the top of a gaming category, for example, and a new viewer was like, oh, let's go check out PubG. They click PubG, and then you're at the top of the game carousel. And they're going to click you and they're going to watch you. And then that's how you would grow your audience that way.

So back in the day on Mixer, it was possible to grow just purely by putting in the time and grinding. And then especially there was this thing called Hype Zone, which I don't know, you guys remember Hype Zone, but basically if you were in like the top 10 in a battle royal game, Fortnite, PUBG, or whatever, it would put you in this special category called the Hype Zone category which would put you on their channel which would typically have like a couple

thousand viewers and so that would boost you to the top like crazy and so yeah like I said like back in the day mixer was definitely possible to grind and grow your audience that way but then once mixer shut down you know we moved over to Twitch that's where I realized I was like oh my god like this is going to be tough this is a much bigger ocean here I was in a lake before this is an ocean And so that's where I really started to buckle down and make content, yeah, outside of streaming. And I guess we're going to have to talk a little bit about it is you talked about losing sleep. Yeah.

And, you know, there's a thing of like, I need to get the grinding in. I need to succeed. How did you deal with feeling, have you ever felt burnout before where you're like, I don't even want to do this anymore? How did you overcome that? Yeah, so there was definitely a bit of burnout. And I do think that taking breaks, you know, for a little bit, definitely helps out. But you don't want to take a break for too long because you realize how much free time you might have. So you definitely got to get back on that horse and get back to it.

I don't want to advocate for like losing sleep or anything like that. Like, please be healthy. But at the same time, you know, you still have to put. the effort in to make content, right? Is it possible to take a, like, a real day off in this type of position? Or is it pretty much like you're pretty much on 24-7? I think my girlfriend will tell you. She's in the chat right now.

Yeah, I'm on pretty much 24-7. Thank you for the high drink, Grim. Got to make your drink. Yeah. Yeah, no, I'm literally on 24-7 and she has to like slap the phone out of my hand and tell me to get off. But yeah, it's one of those things that since going full-time, like I'm still trying to figure out how to not be so consumed by it. But it's pretty hard because like I've been so consumed with social media since Vine. So like we're going back 10 plus years, right?

Like I started in 20, I think I started Vine in 2013. Yeah, so 13 years. I actually I would love for during the chat like how do you how do you especially as like you know someone that sees like him grinding but you also can notice like when he's stress or anything like that Jordan like I would love for you to be like how do you like understand like oh he needs to work to like I need this guy to relax a little because I mean for a lot of us you know we get so sucked in and like I want to finish this video and it can literally take I what's the longest time you spend on a video a lot a lot of time if we're talking about a long form content like

a long form video will take me like legitimately a week of work maybe a little bit more like a week and a half of work is it a week like couple hours a day or is it like you're grinding eight to 10 every day for a long form it's like a week a solid week of grinding more time than my full-time more than 40 hours, I would say, for a long-form video. Yeah, it takes me a long time. I don't know if I'm just slow

or like, again, it's that perfectionist coming out of me to try to make everything perfect, but it takes me a long time. And then for short form, I want to say like my average, if I'm filming on TikTok through the TikTok app, it definitely doesn't take me nearly as long. It might just take me like a couple hours.

Wow. You know, to get everything ready with captions and whatnot. But if I'm shooting with my full camera, my ZVE1, each video could take like 10 hours, I would say like 8 to 10 hours, depending on what the subject of the video is. Wow. Jordan says he gets pretty silly when he's worked too long. Yeah, Jess. She calls it, she hulked in because there was just one time. I was just completely sleep deprived.

And I don't know why. It was just me and her in the apartment. and I was making food and in my tired state I just said does anyone want to watch She-Hulk and she was like it's just me here so that's been like our little inside joke

oh my gosh but why she-hawk out of all the things you get into just like She-Hulk like what was that I love like all things Marvel you know what I mean so that was at the time when She-Hulk was like the new show that was out

and yeah that's so she calls it now my my my she-holt comes out when you get loopy oh man yeah yeah uh how so how do you know do you now versus back then or is it kind of the same when you get into that sleep deprived you know grinding state how do you kind of how have you changed with like protecting yourself and understanding you need to rest yeah so i feel like i've gotten a little bit little bit better with giving myself a hard stop being like, all right, let's get off the computer at 11 p.m. So that way I'll be able to get off and get adequate sleep and rest so that the next day I can wake up and continue that project. And I think like realizing that me sleeping is going to

let me put better effort into my content, right, instead of just like grinding throughout the whole night. I think that's really where I stand on that. Yeah. What is like, I guess that's a, for people here, they usually only see you on your video format, right? Yeah. That's, that's who they see. What is like that part, the hardest part, I guess, that most viewers and followers will never see. Like, what is the hardest part about it? I think, like, always trying to be, on. So like right now, if I'm being honest, I'm pretty sick. So I'm trying real hard right now, guys, to be here and, and, you know, like, be myself on camera, but I'm under the weather. Like, I really, I really want to go lay down. But that's, that's part of being a content

creator is, is, you know, being there for the content, you know? How do you make sure, how do you push through that or how do you make sure that you get rest. I know I've said it multiple times. For me, I'm worried about your health right now because you're like, yeah, I'll be fine. Don't worry. You know, like, how do you make sure to be like, I need to rest? How do you know when to rest? I don't know. It's like really the adrenaline kind of kicks in and you just kind of go. You just do it for the love of the content. You know, I think a good example of this is like at CES or CompuTech or stuff like that. Man, you're lucky to get like five hours of sleep during.

those events, four hours of sleep during those events. But like those weeks are our content heavy weeks. So like you got to be on. And I think it all just comes down to like having that pure enjoyment out of making content, you know, and it kind of just keeps you going like literally for the love of the content. Well, I hope you get your rest suit. I see a moon, Moon says it. Please get your rest. I hope you get some rest sued. I know that there's people here. And I saw someone that a comment asking for like sponsoring and stuff like that. This is like one of my favorite sections because it's like this is like good insight everyone. This is like a masterclass of like how to do content creation.

So everyone please take notes. You know, obviously you've worked with us. You've worked with other people like, you know, Elgado. You know, you worked with G fuel, secret lab, stuff like that. How do you go about doing a deal? You know, like what is that balance of like I'm doing this for money to I need to stay true to yourself? Yeah, so I think for me, the big thing is like if a company comes through and they want to sponsor you, I think it's researching the company, researching the product, and then really taking it in and be like, okay, yeah, this is something that I want to be on my channel that I would absolutely use in my everyday life and that I can like honestly talk about and honestly geek out about and be excited to talk about it. because I think that when it comes to creating content,

if you're making a video about a piece of tech that you don't really care about, that's gonna come through to your viewers. Like people are gonna notice that, like, you don't care about it, right? So super important to do that. And then on top of that, like, I think that in order to get those types of brand deals

and those types of sponsorships, one, having your email in your bio, it's very important so that they know how to actually contact you because brands, they might DM you, but I think having, an email in your bio is huge. And two, just sort of like making content that they would want to represent their brand is also important, right? So I think kind of like having that baseline there is super important.

And then, yeah. I think some people in the chat, and I kind of love to talk about that is when is it like, awesome when you get a brand deal. Like what is exciting about when you get to work with a certain brand? You know, like when you get to geek out over tech, is it because like the tech is itself cool? Or is it because like they give you freedom on how to make the video or anything like that? So I think that's huge.

I think all companies should give creators the freedom to talk about their product like and not give any sort of like constrictions. I think that's really, really important. but I do think that in general just be really excited about the product itself like for example when I worked with you guys talking about the H2 mini PC I was just so excited to

do that one because I've been a huge NXT fan pretty much my entire life so that was like a you know like the initial thing that got me excited but two I was just so hyped about the form factor of the H2 mini PC I could just talk about that thing all day because

I built just his first PC inside of the H1 and so it was cool to see the progression of that case specifically. Actually, Samurai has a beautiful question that I actually would love to hear you answer because it's always fun to hear how, because you get a lot of people coming to you, correct? Like you'll get people like, you know, Ed's like, hey, we'd love for you to do this thing. How do you go about getting those deals done when they aren't coming to your email? Yeah.

So I do have to give a massive shout out to Andrew over at the Blended Group. He's my manager. And so if I ever have like any sort of request of like, man, like I really want to work with X brand to cover X product, like he will reach out and try to secure that sponsorship there. So having that sort of backing definitely does help. In the past, I have reached out to companies like just on myself before. I was represented by the blending group, just reaching out to a brand and, you know, kind of

telling them like, hey, like introduce yourself, right? Be personal about it. Be like, hi, my name is so-and-so. Here's my channel. I cover these types of products on my, you know, on my socials. And I would love to have the opportunity to work with you to cover so-and-so. And I can provide this type of content in exchange for a product if, if that sounds good to you type of thing.

Definitely, I think like reaching out to companies, shooting your shot is worth a, is worth a try, right? You miss 100% of shots you don't take. Seriously. Exactly. That's a thing for everyone here. Most, like, probably like 99.X amount of times, you probably won't get a response back. But that 0.1% time, that 1% time, you do get.

Congratulations, you got to work with an awesome brand. So try it out, everyone. Exactly. Exactly. And I do think that it is important to look at your content, kind of like a portfolio. So if you're looking at your content and each block on your profile is literally a piece that you can use to represent yourself to the brand so that the brand will be like, okay, yeah, I want to work with this creator.

I see that their content is good or it's like super engaging. It all depends on your content specifically. But then I think that, you know, once it reaches a certain criteria and you have like a following and stuff like that, brands are going to be more open to wanting to work with you. Oh yeah. That's to say closed mouths don't get fed. Very, very true. Yeah.

I guess for those that are here that want to work with brands and they want to shoot their shot and, you know, they're not getting to eat. What is a tip that you would give these people on how to approach these brands and how to get those deals done? Yeah. Oh, so I will say that one of the really good stepping stones to getting a brand to notice you is like, let's say you have a, product from that brand already. If you make a video about that product, it might get that brand's attention. The brand might see you and be like, oh, who's this person? They make some really cool content. Like, look at this and they might show their coworker. And then that's how you can secure that deal working with them that way. And as someone that I don't work on the partner's size,

I'm social media and community, but if you tag us in a lot of stuff and I go, wow, that is an awesome video we'd love to do that i'm not going to say who because i don't think i can we have worked with many people because someone makes a video of like one of our cases or coolers or makes like a cool setup video and we go hey that's one of ours we should work with them it's it's probably like you said it's a portfolio like you're like hey look what i could do here and look how good this video looks and your product looks at this video Like you're pretty much like telling them like, hey, look what I can do. And that is very good.

Yeah. So some people in chat, I take a look on socials all the time. You make a good video. Who knows, right? Is there something that brands for us and, you know, all these other brands, do what do they consistently? I don't want to say get wrong, but something that they misinterpret during these type of deals. I would say maybe it's kind of going back to the piece of being too rigid on what it might take to fulfill the requirement of the sponsored post.

You know, they might want you to say something a certain way. They might come back with feedback and be like, oh, the video's great, but can we include this? And it might not feel natural in your video. So like it's a, this is going back to that point that I made a little bit ago. trying to find like that stepping away from the content creator voice and making it really feel like yourself. So it's really like taking, if they have, do you have any sort of feedback, taking that feedback

and kind of like reworking it in a way that you would say yourself. How do you make sure to allow yourself to be yourself with brands? Like you know, there's that thing of like I get to work with this brand, but like I also want to be true to myself. How do you how do you tow that line, that balance of it? Like do you like hard set like, hey, I need to do. this, I won't be, like, would you be willing to turn down a thing, a brand deal because of that? Yeah, yeah, no. So if a brand like was like super rigid and they're like, hey, like, you got to say this.

If you don't say this, it's not going to happen. Then I'm sorry. Like, then we can't follow through with this deal. That's, that's, I think that's very true for a lot of people that, you know, it's hard to turn down the paycheck, especially when you're beginning. And like, this is like one of your first ways to really make, but you have to say true yourself. And I think, yeah, for those that are out there, brands will take it will actually respect you a lot more if you say like, hey, I don't want that. And who knows? Maybe they go, you know what? You're right. Go ahead and do how you want to do it and you still keep the brand deal. Who knows? Yeah. So like I don't want to say what brand it was or anything like that. But like in the past, a brand wanted me to say something

in a video. And I was like, well, that's not actually like how it works, that type of thing. And And like, and then they double checked and it was like, okay, yeah, you're right. So it's like, you got to have a backbone. I like. Yeah. I do want to get this before we go into the rapid fire questions. Yeah. I do have a couple of things I want to talk about, which is your paintball thing.

Because, you know, we're talking about content creation and everything like that, but I always love to see the person behind the camera. and like look how sick this is. So first of all, how did you get into paintball in general? Oh man, this makes me so happy. All right. So yeah,

I started playing paintball back in 2007. Actually, so that right there, that's one of my best friends growing up. You can kind of see him with the little kid picture. But yeah,

so we started playing paintball together. And so, yeah, it was like, I got into it in 2007. I got the bite. And that was the sport that I played growing up all throughout high school, all throughout college. And then I haven't really played this season, unfortunately, because my team, we kind of, we're taking a break right now.

But we do get out there. We have gotten out there a couple of times this year to play in these what's called 10-man events, which is just like super relaxed, like you're kind of playing on a big old school hyperball field is what they call it. And 10 guys versus 10 guys. and it's just like OG 1990s paintball. It's so sick. But yeah, no, paintball definitely was something that me growing up, it kept me busy.

It brought me, like, I was traveling because of it. Back in 2010, I went to Phoenix to compete in PSP, Phoenix 2010, which was sick. We got absolutely smoked because we were like 13 years old out there. But it was so much fun. Yeah, that was a blast. And then went to New Jersey. and then to Florida a couple times for World Cup. And then, yeah, hopefully going to World Cup again.

No, definitely going to World Cup again this year just to kind of go and hang out. I like that. So I saw that you guys also won a championship, which is super, how did that feel? Like when you're like getting smoked in these tournaments to wit. Like how did that feel? Yeah, I know, that was awesome. So this team right here that I'm most recently on, this is Hello Nassie, and they've been an organization that's been around since, like, 2012.

They're like one of the longest, like consistently running, actually no, before 2012, way before 2012. I'm not sure the exact year. Jeff, if you're watching this, please don't be mad at me. But yeah, they've been around for years. And so this was the first place that we have ever had in that division. So it was like a huge celebration at the time. but yeah it's so much fun

if you've never played paintball before please get out there and play like it is an absolute blast how much does it actually hurt I've heard some like oh it's not that bad to get used to it too oh yeah it hurts a lot what was like how much does it actually hurt so like it depends on one where you get shot

and two like how close you are to them so like see me being here at the back line it's really not going to hurt at all but typically I'm in I'm in the front playing snake and if you get bunkered which is where a person comes around the the bunker and just blasts you in the back I'm not gonna lie that hurts and I've had a welt there I've had a couple of welts there for like a couple weeks from the last tournament Oh it does hurt it does hurt but you have so much adrenaline going through your body that like It doesn't really affect you until after you know what I mean? Oh is it is it one of those things where like after you finish up the adrenaline wars down? You're just like sitting in bed your life Yeah

Oh, absolutely. Oh, my God. And then especially now that I'm getting older and stuff, it's like the day after a tournament, like, oh my God, I can't believe how much this hurts. I'm really, I'm getting old. Do you remember the worst hit you ever had? The worst hit.

It had to have been on my forehead. Actually, I don't know if I have a picture of it, but it literally left a welt like this big. on my forehead I definitely have it somewhere and it was so bad it's like yeah you're wearing all the head gear you have the mask on and stuff but sometimes a shot will get through and like it was such a big well on my forehead that when I went to work at the office people were just like looking at me like what is going on with this guy this is like so cool I love when like a lot of like content creators have like that

because most of time we always see like you just you know creating content unboxing stuff but when you see stuff like this this is so cool Do you have any tips for people that want to get into paintball and what you should get into, what type of gear you should get? Yeah. So I would say first off, get a group of friends together. Like, if you can try to get like three, four, five of you guys together to go out and enjoy a day of paintball, do that because having friends with you is what's really going to make it super fun. So that's step one.

And step two, once you do get the bite to get into paintball, invest in a good mask. because having a good mask really does change the game. Like if you use a rental mask, it's going to start fogging up and stuff like that, potentially depending on the field. But if you have a good mask, when you have that perfect vision, it really does make the game just feel so much more immersive

and a lot more fun. And then don't go out there and buy like really fancy markers and stuff like that until you know for a fact that you want to get into the sport because I've seen a lot of people sink a lot of money into it and then never come back again. So, because it can get really expensive. So yeah, but I think that if you try it and get out there, I think that you're going to

really have a good time. Like I saw someone, I think was a beard that said, yeah, FPS IRL, dude, totally. It's 100% an FPS IRL. And the cool thing about it is it has such, it's a relatively new game. You know, like late 80s, I think was the first game of paintball, but there is already such like a deep culture inside of paintball when it comes to. um the the stuff that you were on the field to like paintball talk to paintball speak it's it's really close if i'm being honest it's really close to gaming there's like a direct crossover there

it's pretty cool do you still like in counterstrike how you like take certain angles and stuff but do you also do that as well people that's exactly what paintfall is painful it's a game of angles just like counter strike oh that's so cool how how do you feel i've seen so many videos of people you know like when you reload edit a reload it completely all All the paint just falls that. How do you feel when you see videos like that? It happens. It happens to the best of us.

It's just like, you know, it's whatever. Yeah. Yeah, I'm guilty of it. Let's see. Okay, let's get through. I have three community questions here from the community doubt. I want to get through. Actually, well, this one, these two are kind of the same.

So from Moon says, not going to lie, we miss you streaming, but love your content. And for Buzz King, do you ever miss gaming streams? Absolutely. Like I miss it so much. I was just telling Jess the other day, I was like, man, I really miss streaming. Like, just because like it, there are so many like just fond memories of streaming and just like doing streamathons and subathons and stuff like that. And like it literally is like just such an absolute blast. I definitely do miss it. And I will hopefully be back streaming consistently. But for right now, it's just really hard to work into my schedule. from the Samurai Trojan

Question as a smaller streamer How do you suss out good sponsorships Versus the Fate? That's a really good question So you have to be Like you gotta make sure that one The email is the right email Because I have noticed that a lot of fake company

sponsorships will have like a fake email Or something like that So definitely don't reply to them But But, you know, I do think that once you reply back to one that does seem legit, if they reply back to you and they're using like good language inside of the email and maybe in their bio, it also looks legit as well. Then I think you can kind of like go from there and like verify that it's actually legit. I see a couple of things about your streams that I want to talk about. What happened?

I want to From Aikosin I want to throw another pie in your face I miss the Taco Bell streams and I miss the spooky shrieves What happened during those three things? Yeah so pie in my face

I think was a was it a charity goal It might have been a charity goal It was like if we've reached X amount of Of dollars donated to a charity Akosin could pie me And so yeah you threw a pie in my I think what was it was a charity? it Jess Anacosin?

Yeah, I forget. Either charity or PACs giveaway. But yeah, it was a ton of fun. They've hide me right in the face. And then Taco Bell streams. That's a throwback. So that's going back to me and Fraskey. We would go and stream IRL to Taco Bell and just eat Taco Bell in the car way back in the day.

Oh, that's I love that. That's cool. You guys just talk about anything in general or? We were just literally talking about anything. Yeah. I don't even know. It was just fun, just viving with the chat. Honestly, like, when it comes to streaming,

I really much am, like, the type of streamer that loves talking to chat. So it's like I like to involve chat in the stream as much as, like, I like to be talking, if that makes sense. You know what I mean? Like talking, answering people's questions and that type of stuff. I, you know, I've seen a lot of streamers. And I think here people don't think that streaming, you're here to entertain. You're not just here to play video games.

You're here to entertain. Yeah. You shaved a smiley in your legs and a flicks painting. You got to start streaming again. You have to really get into it. Because if I saw someone doing this stuff, I'd be super interdade. Yeah, that was another goal. It was like, I'll shave my, I'll shave my legs.

Yeah, my leg was really itchy with the hair grown back after that. Oh, it's actually like, it's like awkward too because it's a smile. Oh, ooh, I hate that. All righty. All right. This is one of my favorite parts is rapid fire question. So I'm going to ask you just random little tidbits. We'll ease into it and I'll get into more like weird and obscure ones.

So starting it off, what is your favorite counter strike skin you've ever owned? It's got to be the hyperbeast. Like absolutely love it on the M4A1. M4A1S. But my friend has let me borrow his Vulcan. Back new AK-20 AK-47 and like I got so many compliments on that in game. Yeah. What is the skin or knife that you want the absolute most?

Probably a Doppler carambit. Oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, gosh. Silly. So good. How much money do you think you spent on CS? Honestly, not much.

I'm proud to say, I'm proud to say that the knife that I got, I got back in 2016. it was 50 bucks it's a what is it's a huntsman fade no not a fade what do you call it oh my god I'm blanking on the name

it's like a purple to blue uh someone in the chat now anyways yeah so I got that for 50 bucks and nowadays it's like 300 let me see is it ultraviolet

no oh the actual the actual um the knife is irides yeah the actual yeah the actual yeah ah case hardened case harded oh yeah nice nice what's actually worth more than I thought too okay cool keep that in the mind but yeah yeah hey it's it's guaranteed right it's 50-50 you either get what or you don't is it that right exactly that's how it works What is your favorite? Oh, what is your favorite Overwatch main? Junk rat.

Oh, nice choice. Nice choice. Would you rather get a winner-winner chicken dinner in PubG or a Victory Royale in Fortnite? Victory Royale all day. All day. What is one thing the Ocarina of Time remake

has to get right? Oh boy. The one thing that's such a hard question there's so many things that it has to get right if it doesn't if it like messes with even one thing out of it in the game it's gonna just break people's hearts

but if I could choose one thing the opponent gameplay if it doesn't feel good I'm gonna be really upset do you want it to be like a full like it's just it's just graphics or do you want some things to change or anything like that

no honestly like if it could just be graphics great. Like camera controls as well. Maybe like work on that. But I really don't want them to touch anything from like the original formula, if I'm being honest. If you could go back in time and replay one game to play with your brothers, what would that be?

Halo 2. That's a good one. Halo 2. That was one of the last games that I played with my older brother. Because my older brother, he's like 10 years older than me. So he was in college when Halo 2 came out. Meanwhile, I was still a kid at home playing Halo 2 and we played that on the Xbox that Christmas and yeah that was such a cool memory that

I have. What is the what is your single favorite piece of tech that you've ever reviewed? I think recently it has to be those XR glasses that I just had a crack at. They're really sick. Oh, the AR ones? Yeah. Oh yeah.

Let me see. I'm blinking on the name right now. I'm sorry. I'm going to blame it. on the sickness. Um, the vitcher beasts. Oh. I think that it's like really like a step forward into being like, oh my God, like this

is this is the future. Like we really are getting closer and closer to that point of a pair of glasses just being a full on display that can totally immerse you. Yeah, here it is. So what about this is like your favorite part? I think it's just how small of a form factor it is. Like especially on the plane. Like I wore these on the plane to Taiwan.

And I was able to watch content and also edit my video on the plane. That's cool. That's cool. Yeah. Let's see. Ooh, what is a piece of tech that you recommend everyone here to upgrade or to buy? It doesn't actually be a specific one too. It just be in general.

But if you have a specific one too, go for it. Yeah. I would say a nice keyboard. and a nice mouse. Like that combo, like having a nice keyboard and mouse combo, amazing. Other than that,

an OLED monitor. Like, once you go OLED, it's such a game changer. It can really take, like, your PC from being a really awesome experience to just elevating it even more. Wireless or wired keyboard mice? I'm wireless.

All day. All day. Cable management. Does that generally matter or is it just for the photos? I think it matters. I definitely think it matters. It's like if you have a really messy desk and like messy cables going everywhere, it might just be me, but it kind of impacts my mood.

And it's like I can't like think about doing anything else until like everything looks nice and neat. Like back there, like there's cables all running through there, but you can't see them. They're all nice and nice and neat. What is your favorite paintball marker? Oh, man. I'm going to go back in time. I'm going to say the DM7. That's a marker from 2007.

That's one of my favorites. But if we have a marker nowadays, got to go with the CS3. Would you rather do a full day of paintball or a full day of gaming? If it's nice out, you got to go paintball. But if it's rainy out, let's go gaming. Let's see. Oh, how disappointed you when the Patriots lost during the Super Bowl? You're going to hate me when I say this.

I'm not that big of a Patriots fan or like it in general. saw that in thing because you took a photo with the mascot and someone goes, you're not even that big of a fan. And I'm like, what? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, I know. It's sacrilegious, but yeah, I'm not like that big

of like a traditional sports fan. I'll go to the events and like have fun, but I'm not like a diehard hats or Red Sox fan. Sorry guys. What is the best G-fuel flavor? I would say chug-drug. Yeah, the blue raspberry chug jug jug. It's really good.

I and I think this is my favorite question I'm going to ask you. All right. When will you ever wear this banana costume again? Stop. No. Oh my God. I can't believe you found out. I don't you.

I do my research on all my influencers. I check out. Dude. Oh, that is so funny. When will you wear this again? Maybe that'll be my stream back. I'll wear the costume. What was the reason?

behind this costume in the first place. All right. So this goes back to Vine. So bananas were always the butt of the joke for me because of vine. One of my like, one of my biggest vines that blew up was me going into a radio shack with a broken banana. And I asked the radio shack worker. I said, can I upgrade to an apple? That was you?

That was me. I remembered that Vine too. Yeah, dude. Yeah. That was me. And so, you know, ever since then it was like bananas, I tried to incorporate it in like funny ways. And so one of my buddies had a banana costume and I just tossed it on. Oh my gosh.

I remember that vine. I remember it was like pit part like the like the little top part was off and he came in. I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. I told you I did my research. I found this thing. That's crazy.

I gotta ask this. I have to. That's so funny. Let's see. What is your favorite memory from the community? Favorite memory. It's going back, I think, to 2019 packs. I believe it was 2019 packs.

And it was just like everyone came out with wearing their Driggsie shirt, and I had my logo on it, and I've never felt so special before in my life. Like it was just such a cool day to take a picture with everyone wearing the shirt. It was like, oh my God, this is crazy. Thank you guys so much. And one of my favorite, fun, little philosophical questions to end it on. Are you happy? I'm happier than I've ever been.

Love that. Okay. I'm going to go ahead and do one quick announcement. I'll just do another shout out to the thing, and then I'll hand it back over to you for some fun stuff to pop out. First of all, thank you again. Intel for helping a sponsor this. We're wearing our nice little shirts right now.

So super cool. Thank you to Intel for helping a sponsor. If you guys want to join the NCC Intel Club, I see some people collecting some poochie points right now. You guys go to nccc.com slash club or Smoich Point Club, join the NCC Intel Club. And then you do quest to earn poochie points. And from there, you guys can enter into some awesome giveaways. It is use only. I'm so sorry for those are global.

I've been trying to work on it for the past couple months. It's been very tough because of everything going on in the world. But you guys, for those in the U.S., you guys can win some shirts some plushies and the biggest prize of them all an intel PC so start now because the more entries you start or the more quest you do the more points you have the more entries you have which means the better chance of getting those points so start now and uh best of luck to everyone i'll be pulling winners tomorrow okay now back to you driggsie what is next for you do have any exciting projects that you can talk about any events you're going to yeah so i'm really

excited for Pax West 2026. I'm going with Akosin. We haven't been to Pax West since 2020 or 2019. Yeah, 2019. So I'm really looking forward to getting back over to Seattle. And, you know, being back in that city and going back to that Pax, because it's, Pax East is awesome, but Pax West is like a whole other level. And then besides that, of course, we have CES. As someone that used to live right by the Paxeast, West and downtown. Do you have anything you're looking forward to going back to Seattle? No, I think it was like there was a really it was a really great restaurant that we went to because and I'm blanking on where it was, but we got to hit that place back up again.

Yeah, he's excited for Vegas as well. But yeah, no, I want to go back to the pier. I feel like we didn't really like explore it too much when we were there last time. So yeah, just looking forward to it. Yeah, there's Africa. I cannot remember the bar, but there is literally a bar right by, right by the pier. They redid everything. It is single-handedly the best thing.

I think you guys are going to go. I think Pax West is in a couple of weeks, isn't it? Yeah, it's in September. Yeah, yeah. If the weather's great, it is probably the single-handedly the best. I'll try to find it, but is the best bar because it overlooks the water. And during the summer, it, oh, man, it is. it's probably one of the best places just to get a drink and just overlook the bar.

It is. Let's see if I could find it. It's right by this. Let me see if I could. I'll try to find it soon for you, but it is the best because it's just, it's so, I used to live like two streets over from downtown. So awesome. Oh, so you know where all the good spots are. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. If you need anything, DM, I got you. Oh, where can our listeners, for those I are listening to audio, where can our listeners find you online? Yeah, so you can find me on TikTok at Driggsitech, YouTube, Driggs, Instagram, Drigsy Tech. Or if you just want all of my socials, you can just go to who.b. F.S.combe. That has all my socials there.

Oh, it is old stove, old stove brewing. That is, it has the. view of the Ferris wheel, it has a gray view to sunset. So good. So, so good. Do you have any thoughts for the audience and any shoutouts? No, I just, I mean, I want to give massive shout-outs to everyone that's here from my community. I've seen you guys in the chat.

So thank you so much for pulling through. I appreciate you guys so much. And for anyone else that maybe isn't a part of my community yet, thank you so much for hanging out with us and joining in this podcast. This was a ton of fun. And just a huge thing. Thank you to NZXT and Intel for having me on here. And yeah, Mike, thank you for hosting.

Of course. And for those that are here, we're giving away a hoodie, a shirt, and a mouse pad out to one of you, or not three of you, right, three random viewers. We have a secret code that gives a thousand extra entries into the giveaway. That's my way of holding everyone hostage to make sure they're watching the stream. What would you like the secret code word to be? Me? Yes. There's a lot.

You can do anything. Banana. Beautiful. Banana. Easy. Peasy. I am updating that code. I called it.

Yeah, Jess and Sage both called it. Beautiful. The code word is banana. Everyone, please refresh your gleams because I just updated code. That is for 1,000 extra entries into the giveaway. That's our way saying thank you to the viewers for watching. And thank you, Driggsie, for joining us today. Thank you guys for joining us.

And remember, tune in live on Fridays at 10 a.m. Pacific Sandal time on the official NCC Twitch. And don't forget to listen to pre-use episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, and YouTube. If you have any questions for us, send an email to podcast at ncc.com or tag at N60 on social media platforms. Thank you so much, Drigzie, for joining us today. That was awesome. Thank you. And I hope everyone here has a very safe and very awesome start of August. Have a good day, everyone.