Retronauts - Retronauts Episode 220: A Podcast About Podcasting

Episode Date: May 17, 2019

This time on Retronauts, we're talking about something that's rarely a featured topic on the show: ourselves! On this special Friday installment, Gary Butterfield and Kole Ross of the Duckfeed.tv network join us in our Midwest Gaming Classic hotel room to discuss the wild and woolly world of being a self-employed podcaster. Is it exciting and exotic, with danger around every corner? Or fairly straightforward, with a lot of staring at a computer screen while concocting elaborate excuses to leave the house? We think you'll find the answer is somewhere in the middle.

Hello, everybody, welcome to this one, Bob Mackey, and today's topic is gaming podcasts. right we have nothing left to talk about now so we're talking about gaming podcast before I keep going who is here with me today Jeremy Parrish wondering how come you didn't say anything about this week in Retronauts Oh I couldn't think of a joke

Oh okay wow so we really have reached the end Those are so hard to come up with Terminal those are very hard like I've kind of stopped doing them sometimes because it just It's sort of like the Simpson sign joke where it will take you four hours to come up with something And normally people groan or like They'll skip ahead past the theme song I think

If you're at home let me know if you skip past theme song. I need to know. Shout at your computer right now. But who else is here with us today in this room? You've got Cole Ross trapped in a very disappointing hall of mirrors. Wow, there's only one mirror, Cole. But I agree, it is disappointing. I'm Gary Butterfield. I'm not disappointed.

I'm quite happy to be here, unlike my partner. Oh, come on. Sorry. I was trying to come up with a joke since Bob didn't do the joke. All I can do is set people into the buses. Yeah. The hunter has become the hunted. I'm here. I'm full of cod. And I was thinking, I didn't have a lot of time to prepare anything before this trip because I was busy with podcasting. So I thought, like, why don't we talk about the life of the podcaster and what that entails and what having a game podcast is like?

Because we all in this room, podcasts for a living, Jeremy has a side thing. But you're mostly, you put a lot of, that was not meant to dis you, Jeremy. But we put a lot of our lives into podcasting. And of course, Jeremy is a pioneer. Am I? Yes. Oh, I didn't realize that. I would call you that.

it's a mistake I was just wandering around lost I was like what am I doing here you were assigned the job of podcaster I wasn't actually I wasn't assigned okay so it's just

it's just a thing that happened by mistake okay we get into that though but I want to talk to Gary and Cole because they're our guest number one but number two they do the amazing duck feed TV podcasts

and recently you guys passed your $10,000 goal amazing work there thank you and you guys make a ton of podcasts and I I think recently, in recent history, at least, as far as I've known you guys. So I met Gary, I believe, at Seattle Classic Gaming Expo in 2013.

I think I met Cole in Portland right after that. You guys were together. And at that point, you guys had like full-time jobs on top of podcasting, but now you are essentially living off of podcasting. Yeah, it is not ironically jokes aside the best job I've ever had. And I do think it is the job I was meant to do. You know, I was not happy at my other jobs. do you feel about this call i feel the same way to the point where anytime i feel annoyed i feel bad for feeling annoyed even though every job even if it's the best one does come with those hiccups

but no i'm i'm it is definitely the best job i've ever had no i totally agree with you i i feel like um there are there could be long hours and there could be uh more time you put into than like a day job but i don't want to ever complain on the air because like i remember what having a regular job was like and uh that was not very fun either but Yeah, I hear a lot from people where I tell them what I do, and I want to know if this is true of everyone in the room, number one. But what is the conversation you have with people when they ask what you do? Because I feel like there's a long answer and a short answer, and both are unsatisfying, no matter what you give people. But Jeremy, when it comes time to tell people what you do for a living, and you've been doing game stuff for much longer than all of us in the room, like, how do you get into it?

What have been some weird replies you've gotten or weird assumptions? I don't think weird assumptions but I spend a lot of time saying no I can't I can't make a game for you I do not write games I write about games I actually got that when I was in the games press

full time when I would tell people what I did for a living you know I review video games or I write about video games and they would think like for a second and say oh so you make the games like no no I write about them and then like my default explanation

was like when he was live I was like you know Roger Ebert writes about movies often they would but then I would say just like that but with video games they'd be like hmm well whatever you know that was basically a lot of Jean Chalotheads yeah I was a fan of the bald guy

I checked out when he checked out that's dark I'm sorry yeah actually now that I have a day job it's much easier I just say oh I work in marketing and people are like oh okay they know what that is podcasting that was harder

they usher you into the secret room right they were like oh yes you can you can enjoy our steak dinner well Jeremy is better dressed than most podcasters so he could he can he can fit in with normal society that doesn't mean anything that just makes them more confused today I was today I was sitting on an airplane and I got bumped up to first class for like a 15 minute plane flight it was it was ridiculous but it was just like so it was such an empty flight that they were just like anyone who has any kind like even the low tier status on the airline you get to sit in first class I think they knew you were in marketing

I just fly a lot. So anyway, I was sitting there in first class, you know, wearing like a jacket and really nice dress jeans and, you know, sipping a gin and tonic and drawing a Nausica cover illustration for the podcast. And the dudes sitting across the aisle from me was just like, I could see him like looking over constantly like, what the hell is he doing? he's drawing cartoons that's so weird he was slightly patronizing he was I mean I could tell on one hand he was like oh he's drawing something that's neat but on the other hand he was like

oh it's a little cartoon never mind that this is a man like clearly in his 40s dressed well but also in first class yeah in first class like what's I think it was just too much cognitive dissonance and that's basically that's podcasting as a whole like yeah we're making a comfortable living

talking about video games tough luck Gary like what do you go through you live in portland i feel like they could be more open-minded about uh the whole like weird tech job sort of thing like weird nerd job sort of lifestyle well first they offer me a punch bowl full of kale uh because of portland and then uh after we've exchanged kale bowls um this is this kombucha involved in this is this like the new business card yeah kale you grow your individual strain and what you what it tastes like says something about the person who grew it um no i get this question a lot um from like barbers like that's a real thing you know

those kind of service kind of situations i have aged out of the uh so house school question yeah i don't get school like what do you do and then i tell them and i say podcaster and the two misconceptions are like one obviously like how do you make money from that and then two um oh i don't watch much youtube and i'm like i you know that's it's a different thing like yes that is you know and i've had to not necessarily talk people out of it but people will be like yeah i thought about doing a youtube channel or started doing a podcast and then we say like definitely do it and then when they say like I want to do a YouTube. I have like an interesting life. And I say, yeah, you have to make like a...

Do you? First of all, wheel the side. Yeah, well, I try to. Now you have to give up that life and make YouTube entirely your life. That's the thing. Is it such a... Podcasting is so weird in the creative commentary job sphere because in some ways, I think it is much more stable. Like, partly that's because of Patreon, like something you tweeted a long time ago, Bob, I really love is that like with Patreon means that if you're going to lose your job,

thousands of people decide that not just one jerk you know who decides that like you know there's no such thing as stability stability is an illusion you will never know security those are fake ideas the um but with patreon it is more social it's more secure switching to youtube i talk to these people about youtube who assume that i do that it just sounds like a nightmare like i follow a bunch of YouTubers and they talk about the algorithm changing and what stats YouTube uses to measure engagement like what you need to be chasing changing all of the time and I have to just like no I don't

do that like people people people are just really nice and and give us money to do it yeah youtube is more of a traditional revenue stream yes and uh that i mean we love ads we're looking for new ads right now but compared to what ads bring in i've seen the same experience on my other podcast having a patreon is always i don't know a roughly a hundred to a thousand times greater of a reward or a yield than any ad will bring you if you're lucky i think yeah yeah it is it is really um a direct relationship between people who like you and support you even you know you you give things in exchange for it and even that is something that a lot of times people don't care that much about like they just want to support like we'd get that even before we started the patreon like

how do we support you guys and it's just very like heartening and I have this like intense sense of humility about it not to be like I am the most humble in the room about this me decided at dinner who is the most humble we can't say his name there there's one man out there we all living up to his standard if you're listening yes it is about you I know that you can't actually accept that but it is it is you yeah he's too humble uh but cole how about you like what has your experience been in explaining uh your life to people and your job to people yeah so it's kind of strange because i live in rural rural Ohio now i always trip over that word it's actually one of the worst words in the english language so don't feel bad about it's really bad yeah so

but also i work from home so i don't have to encounter a lot of people um but like when i in Cincinnati, it was generally easier, you know, because most of the people that I met were at my old marketing job. Marketing is one of those things where you can just say it and then people like, they don't ask any follow-out questions, you know, so normally. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. It's great. I can just lie and say I'm in marketing. Yes. I say I'm a pilot. I'm marketing me. Yeah. So what I have found, if I've said podcasting, people say, oh, can you help me fix my iPod? but now that those are like that that connection is still there because second worst word after a rural is this podcast so i i have you know have said like internet radio is what i've said like yeah it's archaic

but that gets it across like to uh family members and people who might not be there and if i don't feel like having a conversation at all i just say writing yeah that works uh for me like i think the first thing that happens when someone asks me what i do is i break out to a cold sweat and i wonder what will happen next. But often people, I mean, I just, I don't know, because I live in the podcast world, I assume that it's a thing everyone knows about. But a surprising amount of people don't know about podcasts or podcasting, even if you give them something like, all things considered are serial. Like, even like an NPR show that becomes a podcast, they won't be Well, I mean, that only works if they're liberals. That's true. You can't be like, so, so Trump

voter. Let me tell you all about my job. Just think, just think NPR. Just think. Just think all things considered. I'm not asked by a lot of conservatives what I do in Berkeley, California. And I don't want to compare myself to Joe Rogan, the greatest man ever. Yeah, you know, like, he's just asking questions. I mean, they didn't name the hair stuff after him, right? What's that? They named the hair stuff after him.

Rogan, oh, I mean, he's a very shaved man now. I don't know if they would do that in retrospect. But, no, for me, like, the first thing that happens to me when someone asks me what I do is a break onto a cold sweat. And then I try to be like, I don't want to talk down to anybody, but I assume at this point that nobody knows what I did. Because, like, Jeremy, when I told people I was in the games press and tried to explain what that was, they would immediately assume like, oh, you make video games and I'd say, no, here's Roger Ebert. And like, at one point

I foolishly assume, like, because one up was purchased by IGN or acquired or whatever, I would say, I'll lead with IGN and be like, I work for IGN, the biggest gaming site on the world. And nothing, like dead eyes, like no one would understand what that was. So eventually I would just say, is that that insurance company, ING?

ING, is that a thing? Yeah, it's like a financial. Okay, I only know about progressive. The thing about people not knowing it is really a good point or something we're talking about because one of the things about even though I do think that I'm so extremely lucky to be doing this and not a lot of people do it. Like that is a reality, right? Like not a lot of people make their living doing this.

It is such in terms of like notoriety or whatever. It's such a subset of a subset of a subset of a thing. Like a lot of people don't listen to podcasts at all. It's a real lifestyle thing. Like if you have a commute or you have a job, you know, where you work and you're able to listen to something. you listen to them a lot of people don't listen to them at all then they have to be into games which is also kind of a subset then they have to be into like the kind of stuff we talk about right and it is such a a small lake i feel like that like being a big fish in it kind of doesn't matter

and i always try to be very humble about it and just be like you know if somebody's like oh like well i've heard of it and it you know it's just like well this is what it is i try not to talk down anybody i try to just answer in good faith but i don't expect most people i run into to know you know, if I talk to a hundred people on the street, they're probably not going to know about any podcast that I know. You know, it's small. I recognize this about myself. I have no illusions that I am like, you know, a mass market kind of guy.

Yeah. And I have no aspirations of making work that is, you know, going to be consumed by millions of people or even hundreds of thousands of people because it's just not, that's not interesting. to me. And it would be cool if all of a sudden the whole world was like, I really need to see this man's virtual boy videos. But no, that's fine. It's like a Jordan Peel. I'm here to do the things that I love. And the fact that there are any people who are along with me for the ride is wild and amazing. And I'm very fortunate. Yeah. I mean, I usually just start with podcasting. But now that I do Talking Simpsons and those podcasts, I feel like people can't understand that at even a greater level than

video game podcasting where again I don't want to I'm patronizing but when I talk about like oh what do you do for a living podcasting oh what kind of podcast if they at least understand that concept I'll say oh I do a Simpsons podcast it's kind of like those videos on YouTube where a dog is shown a magic trick and it's just like

they're just like they can't react and then they act like you're lying to them or something like that I mean um again we are niche people they kind of turn their head and bark quizzically they back out of the room but uh yeah I feel like again like like people like we serve a very specific audience I don't expect everyone to know but when I'm asked I just want people to give me the benefit of the Tao just like please this is a real thing and like convincing employers and service people and things like that and like accountants like this is real this is real money here's what I do that is difficult and I just even in a city like Berkeley that is very you know in the Bay Area very tech focused area it's surprising how many people don't really know about podcasts and podcasting the that whole bit about that kind of humility plays into when a

I have one of my friends and they apologize to me because they don't listen or something. I'm like, well, this is just, this is for a very small audience. Like if some, you know, someone will be, and I'll talk to somebody and they'll be like, oh, like, I'll, I'll check it out. You know, and I always like, I engage with that in good faith. Like, yeah, definitely give it a try. But I always try to be aware, like, you know, not everybody needs to listen to four hours about, you know, Bioshock Infinite or whatever we do.

That's true. Not anyone's going to, you know, not everyone's going to do that. So I'm not offended when people don't listen to it. That nicheness is like very real. Yeah. But it's also, I mean, it cuts both ways. We're talking about how awkward it can be when we're trying to, like, talk to an accountant and say, yes, this is legitimate income, you know, that matter, though. But when we talk about like, okay, we're niche people, but also, like, you know, on a show, you don't have to just, like, be into one of us.

You have to be into the chemistry between the two of them. As it narrows down, you know, correct me of them wrong, Gary, but what we found is, you know, even though we have that small audience, it almost feels inversely proportional to, like, like the dedication. Oh, absolutely. So, like, I'm perfectly happy without having,

I'm, if I can have this relationship with this small audience, I'm happy, like, dealing with the quizzical looks of the person who's cutting my hair. I mean, ultimately, I appreciate everyone listening for free right now.

Hello. But, uh, we are ultimately working for the small fraction of people who pay us, because without those people, we couldn't do this for a living. So, uh,

even if, uh, you know, the larger world does not understand us, the 2,000 people who do are the most important. because they're willing to, yeah. It's two numbers that are really important, right? Because, you know, it's kind of the numerator and the denominator, you know, the top of the funnel, bottom of the funnel.

You kind of have to work to increase both because if you're not trying to, you know, at least broaden out a little bit, you don't have new people to feed in to become those others. So it's like you're kind of trying to, like, main two stats. That's true, yeah. It's a lot to think about. So I wanted to ask everybody in the room, this is what I hear when I tell people what I do. it's that I hear and I feel like people don't have enough faith in themselves or enough confidence in themselves and it took me a while to build that confidence where I tell them what I do and they'd say oh I could never work at home or I could never do that and I feel like people are just in general they're impressed or just kind of like bewoldered by the idea of working for yourself and having a podcast having several podcasts as we all do it takes a lot of I think discipline and self-control when you are left to your own devices all. day at home usually alone how do you how do you handle that like what is your what is your strategy and like how much time do you pour into a podcast usually I stopped keeping track of those numbers

a long time ago and the the the whole working from home thing for pretty much my entire adult life you know like I think I enter the job market at a time where like my first grown ass adult job working for somebody else was kind of a work from home thing some of the time so like that is kind of constantly a skill that I've developed even outside of working for myself. So it's hard to say that. I think that, you know, when people ask, just calendars, calendars, calendars. Yeah, lots of calendars. Yeah, it does require a lot of discipline.

It has this weird flip side kind of bit to it where you're working for yourself in any capacity, I think, is a lot like being a student and always having homework. It's true, yeah. I always feel like I have homework. I always feel like I can be getting ahead. I'm kind of always working, especially when I consider that a little bit, you know, like we manage a community on Slack. And then we also, you know, I'm just kind of a person online and what I do and say reflects the network a little bit. So there is a sense of always being working. And one of my goals, and it should tell you how successful I've been at that goal, because it's been a goal for about two years, has been to have more demarcated time and be better about just saying this time is not for work.

This time is for. So, like, the answer to question, like, the truth is I'm not good at it. Like, I wish I was better at it. I get my stuff done, but I'm not good at balancing work and life. And that's something I've been working on. It's easy to slip in. When there are no boundaries, when you don't leave an office, it can be easy to slip into that mode where I can find myself replying to people on Patreon and on Twitter a lot when I was like, oh, this is kind of like work. You know, if you don't make it in for yourself, it won't end.

But, Jeremy, like, I think you, well, you worked at one up for almost a decade. So was working from home after that, like, a big change for you, or were you able to slip into that easier? Well, I mean, after one up, I worked at U.S. Gamer and that was work from home. So there was the transition there. But, I mean, for myself, I'm just a broken person who always works. And that's how I've been for, like, 20 years. Like, I had a job working at a small college when I got out of college. And I would go home after work and then I would, like, create a job.

my website, my personal site, and, you know, contribute stuff to the gaming intelligence agency or whatever. And I just never got out of that mode. So that's just what I, that's just who I am. I just create stuff. It's a sickness maybe. I don't know, but it's what I do. I think I found that after working at websites, I'm working with you, I felt like the office is just a formality for a lot of jobs that does not need to exist. It's just sort of there to have some sort of oversight over you. But a lot of people don't need that. Like at my last website job, I'm like, why do I even need to be here. There are too many distractions. I can get more work done at home, but I guess not everyone is wired like that, as we're all like solitary weirdos sometimes. Yeah, I mean,

I just, I'm happiest, honestly, you know, I like doing stuff like going on vacation and, you know, seeing a foreign country or something. But for the most part, day to day, I'm just happiest when I'm actually being productive and creating things, like being able to make something and see it, like watch a video or look at something I've drawn. or read something I've written, I'm like, I did this. That's great. I'm really happy. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Cool. Oh, no. I was just going to say like this whole not being able to turn it off. Yes, ultimately in the long run, it's probably a bad, a bad thing. But it's a byproduct of working for yourself and being self-directed, right? Where I can follow my energy and do whatever, whatever I feel is going to be most productive at that time, right? You know, I don't have somebody breathing down my neck or I'm not accountable to anybody, you know, to say like, yes, I need to be working on this. right now. I'm accountable to Gary and I'm accountable to the audience and to this schedule. Yes, indeed you are. That's what a creative, that's what a creative partnership is. But the

other side of that, Gary, we joke about this a lot, but it's, you know, life is content, right? Yeah. And the reality is like, you know, some of our shows, like a lot of the stuff that we end up deciding to do is like, oh, I just like this and I feel like I either want to consume more of this or I have something to say about it. And hobbies, if they are not content, eventually turn into it. Yeah, we've made shows. about a lot of the stuff that we like that were not part of the original remit about things just because we knew we'd talk about it. We knew we had things to say about it. And that, you know, that feeling of like that Jeremy's talking about getting the thing done, like,

does feel really awesome. I used to think if you had asked me, you know, as recently as like five years ago or six years ago, I would have said I didn't like work. And I do. Like I love work. I just hate working for other people in things I don't believe in. That's true. that's been all of my jobs have always felt arbitrary, if not harmful, up until this point. And that's, I'm not saying that's a universal experience. That was more of the jobs I was working, which were kind of for nothing, it felt like. You know, a lot of people can do meaningful work. And I respect anyone who puts in the time.

Like when the best thing we ever hear from people is when people say, I work a job I really hate and the shows make it easier to get through it. And I'm like, that's awesome. I wish I had that. I've worked so many jobs I absolutely despised. And, you know, if we can help you do that. that's awesome. Yeah, those are the comments that touch me the most because I was there so often using podcasts to get through bad jobs. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You know, and just realizing,

like, I actually do. I love to work if I'm working for myself. Like, if it's meaningful to me, it's the best thing. Yeah, I think we are all very lucky and privileged in that respect because it does feel more meaningful, even if we end up working a lot more than we would at a day job and that you own your work. And at least Jeremy and I've had the experience of we work at websites. And then when the website goes down or is bought out or no one cares about it, all of your work goes away or in many cases like friends of mine, oh, the CMS change. Your name is no longer on this article anymore. It says staff writer. Sorry, Jeremy. No, I mean, there's a decade of my work that vanished from the internet. It no longer exists. Yeah, I did mean to that that seems like,

I mean, I only worked for one up for like seven years, not as much as you, but yeah, like a lot of my writing career is tied up on a website that is only accessed through the internet archive, and even then it's very broken. Yeah. So having control over my content is very meaningful. And I feel much more pride and then it's much less joyless it's the opposite of joyless actually it's like I made this I own it I make money off of this I control

that it's up and it can't go away and you control whether it happened at all which means that you went into it with more interest like I bet you it is true of all of us in this room that we are doing better work with this than we were when we were doing stuff that we didn't care about 100% you know like when I was doing things I just work

better when I believe in the work, you know, and it's just, uh, just as an impetus to do it. Like it just makes the best of, of, you know, it's, it's the way to get the best product is to have people not feel insecure about making it. Um, you know, when people talk about, um, one of the things that happens with artists is they'll talk about how, uh, oh, like this, this is all grist for the mill. Like the fact that you are struggling and you're poor and you can't pay health insurance is going to make better art. And, uh, no, it's not. Uh, that's a terrible perspective. Not only is it cruel, but also it's not. true. Like you do your best work when you don't feel absolutely insecure. That's very true.

Thank you. So I was going to ask you guys, I hear people, again, this is a very self-absorbed podcast. It's very self-indulgent, but I did want to talk with podcasters about podcasting. We're all fanning each other. We fan the person to the left and then feed them grapes between comments. Yes. It'll be a great time later. Sorry about the noises.

The fuss and chewing of grapes. The scintz. We put a great pass on this. That's a podcast, you wouldn't know. But I do get a little bit. a lot of questions. A lot of people just want to know what the life is like. And a lot of people tell me, I have an idea for a podcast, or I want to do this idea for a podcast, but I feel like it's, it's very hard to actually have the initiative to do the thing. Or there's a lot of,

you can psych yourself out. You can worry you're not doing the right thing. And I was wondering if you guys had any advice everybody here. Like, if people at home have their own idea, what would you tell them to do? Because I feel like for a lot of podcasts, number one, anyone can put a podcast on iTunes. There's no, there's no vetting. It's really bizarre. Yeah. how many barriers people think there are. And there's a weird misconception. I think it's because iTunes are associated, sorry, podcasts are associated with Apple. Yes.

Because of the name and because of where the most playable, the device they're played on the most. But there's like a misconception that podcasts are hosted on iTunes or not. I just want to put that out there. A lot of people think that. It's not true. You just need to pay for hosting and then you submit to iTunes. But number one, that should not be the barrier of entry for you. Just anyone can have a podcast.

And if you go online and look for podcasts, it's very obvious that anyone can because a lot of podcasts are just unedited Skype conversations with no direction, just some people. And they're just having fun and they don't need to take it seriously. A lot of people think, oh, my friends and I are funny. Let's just talk to each other and put it online. And those usually fizzle out after like nine episodes. But I would say like my three directives for podcasting if you're interested in doing it. And it's very easy to do. It's a very achievable kind of content to make if you want to do it.

I would say number one, like have a plan and a goal. And I would also say have a, try to find an area that's not been explored. That's a big one. Yeah. And if it's been explored and you think you can do better, then I would say do it better. For me, there were other Simpsons podcast. I'm not saying we're the best, but I was unsatisfied by what I heard. And I was like, I want to do the best one.

And that's what I did. I can go over my other points after you guys talk because I've been talking a lot. But number one, I would say have a plan and like an agenda. There are a lot of, quote, unquote, shooting the shit podcasts out there that I feel like, unless you're a known quantity, people aren't going to look up you and your friends just talking about funny things you encounter during the day. But what advice would you give to people in terms of, like, starting their own podcast or improving their podcast even? That a lot of podcasts about shooting the shit is a big thing because people aren't just putting funny people. Like, you don't put funny dude into the search window and just show me podcasts with funny dudes on them. When people like a podcast that are about, it's a concept I call, I was called Friendship Porn.

And I, you know, using the porn word, but it's like you're pretending to be friends with people. Like, you get to know them. Like, you get to know the personality and stuff like that. It's like this kind of version of being in the room with people who you get to know, right? I think, yeah, and I think we all benefit from parisocial relationships like that. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And it's, so you can't build that from nothing.

Like, you have to give people a chance to get to know who you are. And they're going to do that subject-based, you know, so that, that, finding something to talk about, I feel like a lot of the time, just to get them in the door. You know, there are a podcast I listen to that are not on subjects I care that much about, but I just like the people. And that it took some time to get there. Like, they just changed subject or I'll follow people for one podcast or another. Like, if I find out someone's doing a show on something, I'm like, oh, you know, my friend

Jeremy, who does this podcast about Dark Souls, he's going to do a show about this other thing that I, is not, I'm not interested in by like him. Yeah, you're totally right. Like, I'm saying this as someone whose first podcast was, me and my friends are funny. It turns out we really weren't But we had fun But we were looking for fame or fortune It was just a way to like practice sort of

But you can't have can't get beyond that If that's your idea And I think it's like There are a few loopholes Like my brother, my brother and me They got in because they were like first Like things like that And oh yeah dude

Like they were around like over a decade ago And they got in and they became big And very good They're also a very sure Also to your point about If you're gonna find something Someone else is doing Can you do it better?

Yeah you could be as funny as a mackle But there are so many of those that you will just get lost. And you probably won't have a good title either at this point. Yeah. For me, because there's a lot of people approach us asking this kind of question. I don't know if they come to you, Gary. But oftentimes, like, people ask me about technical stuff. And, you know, our audience is nerds and nerds love toys, not to overgeneralize.

And I think that kind of along with your comment about iTunes, you know, you're over complicating it. There's a barrier here. what I would say is like don't let a gear fixation stop you from making something you know by no means like yeah like if you put money in put money into mics but you can also use a cheap mic and use free editing software to improve your sound quite a bit yeah even in post and get you know kind of do a proof of concept yeah like um you know audacity which is the program I still use has grown leaps and bounds like it used to be pretty garbage used to crash all the time and the point where you needed a third party program yes To recover to find all your weird little stems. And now it works great. You know, I just, you know, I tell people, you know, just go for it because you can do it for very cheap. And if you have that and also have it sound okay. Yeah.

Like you don't need to get professional quality right out the bat, but you also don't want to have that unedited Skype conversation thing you mentioned. I feel like there is a minimum threshold for podcast where it's, it's fairly easy to meet, in quotes, fairly easy to meet. But I would say 90% of things you can download at random from iTunes do not meet that. It's just, it is the unedited Skype conversation with your rock band mics you got 12 years ago. That's basically it. Yeah, I mean, when we worked at IGN, they thought it was so weird that we edited our podcast. Yes. They were like, why would you do that?

Just put it out there. Because people are listening to it. No, like, you wouldn't do that with an article that you write. You wouldn't do that with a video. I mean, if you have a benefit of the platform that big, I guess at a certain point, it doesn't matter. I guess, but like, why not put some effort? Like a modicum of effort You don't have to kill yourself for it

Just like one pass where you cut out the dead space And the awkward conversational dead ends It's not that hard On the other side of that though Don't over edit it Don't edit your stuff You turn into an Aaron Sorkin nightmare Like you can turn into the newsroom the podcast

And it's just can be really really rough I mean when we started our Kickstarter Six years ago it's been that long Jesus People I mean whenever you try to raise raise money for something or whenever you have money, people are upset for dumb reasons. But one of the things people said to us in like bad comments were just like, you could just Skype.

Just use Skype and headsets. But clearly you benefit from this, people in a room and nice mics and stuff like that. But you're totally right, Jeremy. Like editing is a big part of it. And when I was learning how to do podcasting, I was learning from you, Jeremy and other people at one up. And you told me basically a rule of thumb was, and this is just the way that we do it. And this is how I've been doing it from now, from since then, is that forever long a podcast is, usually twice as long to edit because what I do is I sit down with it and I will usually be

playing a game I can pause. That's my style. You don't have to do that at home. I can multitask because my brain is like that. And it's just like I listen to the podcast as it plays and then I edit as I go along. I listen to the entire thing all the way through. I'm sure there's a more efficient way to do that and I probably should be doing it that way like marking things where I can tell there are mistakes. But I feel like listening to it as a whole as I edit is the best way for me. In the olden days, when the one-up podcasts were first starting, we had someone who did that, Skip Fister, would sit down and he was the producer. He wasn't on podcasts very often, almost never.

But he was in the room every time, and he was making notes about time and just kind of keeping track of how the conversation went and figuring out in advance how we could edit. And he did a great job. We had to all learn how to do that on our own. I mean, we've had to learn how to do everything on our own. But I mean, I know podcasters now that have a producer, and that is a very expensive thing to have. Like, even like Talking Simpsons, I can't afford that yet.

And we can ask for some editing in the future, I guess. But at this point, like editing is super time-consuming. But the end result is worth it. And I think people notice it's like, oh, you edited that. Yeah, you know, honestly, I don't mind podcast editing because compared to video editing. It's right. Because I'm doing podcast and videos. Podcast editing is easy because it doesn't, it's not really active.

You're just like listening. Oh, oh, there's something I heard. Okay, well, I got to cut that out. I got to cut out that phone buzz that was just there. I can't even. But it's like, yeah, it's super easy. Then, you know, every 10 or 15 minutes, I throw in some music to kind of, you know, just create a little bit of a breather for everyone.

But it's so much easier than video editing. Because video editing, it's like, assume it's, you know, 15 minutes of editing time for every minute of video, if not more. So, yeah. Two minutes, that's no big deal. No, and you're totally right. Like, I have not done a lot of video editing. The most video editing I've done has been, like, through Imovie.

When I see the Adobe Premiere screen, I have a panic attack. It's too much for me, so I can't do video editing. But, yeah, audio editing, like, so we've gone through the basics, at least our own recommended basics, like have an agenda, edits. Can you guys think of anything else? Keep a schedule. Keep a schedule. Stick to it. Be consistent.

That's also very true. Yeah. It helps if you have people who aren't flaky. I think like a broad rule for these things we've been talking about is take it seriously. Not super seriously. You're not like suddenly somebody's boss, but like be on the same page. Like we're doing this. We're at least going to do it for this long.

We're going to put it out every day. And if we're unsatisfied, we'll stop. Yeah. But, you know, a lot of people can lose interest or not be immediately satisfied with the process. Because you guys probably can speak to this more than me. I had the benefit of starting podcasting at one-up where there was a built-in audience. You guys had to work a lot harder for your audience. And I'm sure in the beginning, it was slow growth.

Yeah, we made decisions and such, but we just do a thing that we like, you know, we liked the podcast that came out and do it every two weeks for years. Yeah. It was years. And so that kind of plays in another thing is like care about and like what you're doing. Like, that kind of plays into being serious. But if you're not having fun doing it, if you're not like looking forward to talking with the people you're talking to you, if you're not talking about stuff you're interested in, like,

you're not going to want to keep doing it. Yeah. Like set yourself up to succeed in that respect. And the only way that we were able to succeed doing that is because we liked doing it. You know, and if we didn't, we wouldn't be here. I guess it helps to vet your friends well or at least no good people because I feel like there's that common saying that, you know, never mixed friends in business when I feel like, no, business reveals who your friends are.

It reveals who the bad friends are. Sorry, cool. Like, look like you're going to say something. Yeah, no. I mean, I was just going to add on to that, you know, podcasting as a team sport. You know, Gary and I, we didn't know each other really before we started. We just liked each other's shows. We met on something awful in like a podcast workshop. It just happened that we worked really well together. And I think that our skills and preferences overlap in important ways, but also we specialize in important ways. That's hard to find. It is incredibly hard to manufacture. And it is really hard to maintain if you don't start off on a good phone. I totally agree with you. Yeah. It helps to, I mean, it's fortunate to find the right people. But, you know, you never know who someone really is until they're required to be responsible, I guess. It's a lot like finding people for a band.

Yeah, yeah. Like, it's a lot like being in a band. Like, it's the closest, like I've been in a bunch of bands. It's the closest experience to that. Like any kind of creative team effort like that where you're making a product. It feels a lot like vetting band members. And the same way you wouldn't want. on a bass player who showed up late to practice or, like, showed up drunk all the time.

You don't want to have, like, a podcast partner who misses schedules and is obviously high. Yeah, you're like ripping bombs during the podcast. Or if there's an ambition mismatch, like, if you come in and somebody's like, oh, my gosh, we're going to be going and we're going to be at all the big shows. Serial, too. Yeah. And it's like, well, there needs to be like a, you know, a realism match almost. Yeah, yeah. It helps to not be self-defeating.

That's one thing I'm not a fan of the self-defeating podcaster. Or just like, number one, welcome to the show, it's going to be bad. That's absolutely true. So like self-defeating. And then also, though, just being real. Like I think what Cole is saying is like being realistic about how any, any kind of success in a creative endeavor is largely luck. And I've always believed that. And I believe it even more now that I'm like making my living at this.

Yeah, I totally agree. It's total luck that I'm here doing this. It's like, I don't think that we're bad at it. We're not defeating. I'm not being self-defeating. I think we're actually really good at it. But I think there are a lot of people who are really good at it. And there's a lot of luck involved.

And going into it with eyes open about that means that if it takes a while, you know, or if it doesn't happen, you know, you don't have one person who you're going to have the similar levels of patience to allow for that. Another, like, something that occurred to me while we were talking about this that I would consider advice is that, and this is kind of general creative advice, but we, I found that it makes a lot of sense with podcast is that learning that it's important to consider all feedback, not act on all feedback. Yeah. That's very true. And I've recently been learning how to do that. It's hard. Like if you, if one person says, hey, do this differently, like that can be information. But if you're not getting a lot of feedback, that sounds really loud.

You know, if people, if you're starting out and no one really says anything and then one person says, hey, do this differently. You might think like, oh, everybody wants us to do this differently or might follow that advice in a vacuum because there's no other advice, you know, competing with it. But you have to consider those things really carefully, you know, and still make the thing that you want to make, like just because someone tells you to do something doesn't mean you have to do it. And this comes up, a lot of times this stuff is based in bad faith. I know a lot of people who have ladies on their podcast who are just like, hey, she has an annoying voice. She doesn't have an annoying voice. You're a sexist. That's what's actually happening. You know? I find that in certain areas, having a woman on the podcast will magnify the complaints. 100%. Yeah. People may not be aware of why they are getting more upset than normal. They just don't like vocal fry, man. Yeah, guess what my voice is all vocal for either too.

She talks at least 15% of the time. That's way too much. So, and that, I feel like that that's obviously rooted in something real, but it also extends to other kinds of complaints you can get. You know, if somebody doesn't, if they think you take too many music breaks or whatever, and if like a few people say that, sure, maybe that's good feedback. You know, if one person just like, I'm annoyed when they play music, I wish they'd get back to it, you know, think about what you want to make, think about what you would want to

listen to you, maybe put out, you know, ask people, you know, hey, what do you guys think about this? Like, that's always something you can do. But you don't have to follow everything blindly. Like, there's a podcast group in Portland I belong to on Facebook, and there are a lot of discussions about that. And it's a lot of people who post on there, and they're new to podcasting.

And they say, hey, like somebody gave me some feedback for this episode, and they said this. But I think our show shouldn't be that. And every time I'm like, yeah, you're right. Like, you don't have to listen to that. If everyone's saying it, that's one thing. If one person says this, though, they can just be one person.

And that's okay. Yeah, I think it's really important. to learn to read criticism, not just to take criticism to accept the fact that, oh, sometimes people will be critical and maybe they're right, but to, I don't know, like, to understand that most people who are going to give you feedback are not going to be positive, and that's not a reflection on you. It's because of people enjoy something. Sometimes they'll be like, hey, that's great. Thanks for doing that thing. But people just online complain. more than they praise.

And that was the thing that I, you know, that really killed retronauts in the early days was that pretty much all the feedback I got was on forums like Neogaff. People were just complaining. And so the entire time I was like, I'm terrible. Like I'm really want to create a podcast and want to create something good, but I'm not doing a good job of it. And it wasn't until after I finally stepped away and said, I'm done. The people were like, well, why do you stop?

He was so good at podcasting. It was such a good show. Well, I mean, even, you know, after that, like, people were just like, I don't know, I started seeing people say, he was so damn good at podcasting. And I was like, what? Where did this come from? I've never heard this before ever. They successfully gaslit you, I think. I guess.

But it was just really bizarre, like, to go from just basically, like, this constant wall of hatred to this, like, oh, that was such a great show. Jerry Parrish should do more podcasts. I was like, how do I reconcile this? It's very difficult. Part of the function of the job, right? Because you don't have a traditional feedback system. Like in a traditional job, you have systems set up for that, even though they're flawed and garbagey where like you get reviews and it's like, well, this is just a person telling me this as well. You know, like my immediate supervisor on a job doesn't necessarily have the insight that they're presenting is having.

But, you know, since it's a non-traditional job, you don't always have that. Like you don't have those checks. It's not. And also because they're traditionally free. So if you're writing a book, you can look at sales numbers and those things get reviews. and you can look at reviews. Podcast is a weird art form that shares more in common with like periodicals. And it's not like magazines get reviews, you know, like they don't get like they have sales,

but it's not like, oh, this issue of time was specifically super awesome, but this issue was not very good. What do you mean? You don't have a subscription to quarterly's monthly? It's a time. Quarterly's monthly is better than mine. I had time time, but time time is not as good. But the, yeah, so it is just there aren't really those systems in place. So you kind of have to do more work, even in that sphere on your own.

of kind of figuring out whether you're flying right. Yeah, I will say that in terms of other advice I would give is that if you're worried about money and you just start your podcasting, you'll probably have to make something of an investment in equipment and in other things like hosting, but I feel like that will help you take it more seriously, and I feel like taking it serious to some degree is important.

But also, I will say to all people out there, and I'm stealing this advice from my friend Matthew Jay, who told a friend of ours this, and she really profited from it, is like, no matter what you're doing, if you're doing creative work, start a Patreon. Because no matter what, you can't lose anything. If anything you can gain, I mean, you will only gain. And at this point, I think at a certain point, you will lose more if you sign up after a

percentages. So especially if you're listening to this now, do it. Because it's a better time to get grandfathered in or whatever because it's not a perfect platform. You know, we all love it. If you want to establish like a certain URL for the site or a certain username or whatever, do it now. And it'll be done. And even if you have a small amount of patrons, like three or four patrons, it's still better

than nothing. And there will be a place for people to go if they want to give you a dollar or two. You might find being on Patreon will give you more of a reach, too. Just people will see your Patreon page, take you more seriously, too. It's the easiest way to support people. Like, one of my favorite podcast is called the HP Lovecraft Literary podcast. And forever, they had this proprietary subscription system. And I would do it until, like, a card ran, a credit card expired.

And then I would forget that I wasn't giving them money and then have to, like, re-up it. and I kept writing them telling them to get on Patreon because I'm already in that ecosystem and I just have my Patreon bill every month and I was like this would make it so easy to give you guys money please let me just give you guys money and they finally did it like it is the easiest way for that it really is it really is in spite its problems and despite its issues I feel like there's been nothing better I have to say thanks to Patreon and when there has been issues they've usually addressed them well at least in recent time sometimes they do things to us and we're like you should have told me about this yeah it would have been nice to know but

But the way they handle certain harmful users, I will say, has been good as opposed to most other platforms. So I will say that's good for them. And I think they are getting better in terms of both their messaging and their tech. Like the Patreon app is really good. This is not an app for Patreon, by the way, but they kind of are the people who make me able to live every month. So I feel like the platform is beneficial despite its issues. And I think, you know, just of course we would say, oh, everybody use Patreon because we might have something to gain from that. if more people are on Patreon, but like, I feel like if more people were honest and open and kind of

like clear about the relationship between listening money and the work, that is just healthy for everybody involved. If you, you know, even if you're just starting out or if you're still relatively new, that is a bit of honesty to say, hey, this is what I would like the relationship to be between us. And the longer you wait to do that, the more kind of expectational debt you're going to have to work off. Yes. Like, this has always been free. Why are you, you know, because the whole thing about making a living with us that makes it weird is that it has traditionally always just been a free thing. You know, and when we, you know, went to Patreon, I'm sure you guys experience this too. Like, there's some blowback where people are just like, no, you guys just,

this just happens. Like, yeah. Yeah. There's just something I'm just granted, you know, and it's like, I love doing the thing. I love that people listen to it, but I can't just have it be something that takes this much work, just be granted. Yeah, I, you know, I have issues with Patreon, but, you know, when I was studying art history, back in college, we got to the Renaissance section and I read about, you know, like the Medici's and that sort of thing. And I was like, man, I wish something like that existed now. That's such a better way. Like just to have someone say, I'm going to pay for your existence. You create things for me. I wish, I wish, you know, that that could be the way things work now. And Patreon came along. And it

kind of is that. I mean, unless you're very, very fortunate, you know, you don't have it like a single wealthy patrons supporting you but you know having an aggregate of patrons pitching in a little bit of money it's in a lot of ways it's better because you're not tied as you said earlier to one person but but it is a direct relationship like I want a thing you create the thing I will give you some money for it and you can keep creating the thing that I enjoy I appreciate that we used to do that and there was a middleman that made that much more difficult a lot of the times not always but um i feel like patreon removes that they are a sort of middle man but they're very tiny and they just they chisle off a tiny amount it's the middle child yeah the middle child

it's patreon in the middle it's a jan brady life is unfair business world we're wrapping up now but another thing if you do have a patreon i recommend that you do if you do podcasting number one uh don't be ashamed of it because i hear a lot of people they will have a patreon or they will get a patreon and i'm not trying to throw any of my favorite podcast under the bus but some of them will be like uh we have a Patreon. I guess you can get, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Number one, I'm sorry for advertising. But I will say part of enjoying this is being proud of what you do and realizing like my time, my labor is worthwhile. My time is worthwhile. And I'm doing this for a reason. I might not be able to live off of it. But if you value what I do and want to give me money for

it, there's nothing shameful about that. Let people decide what their monies were. You don't get to decide it for them. Like when I was in a band, we went on tour and stuff. We gave away so many CDs because I had this punk ethos about how the relationship between art and money was profane. And it's like, I don't need to tell people what they're willing to spend money on. You know, like if I say, this is what I would like. I'm operating in good faith. Like, hey, if you do this, we'll do this. Does that sound good?

And they can just say yes or no. I don't have to say no for them. Yeah. And do as I say, not as I do because we spend way too much time apologizing on our podcast. But like by starting, say by putting yourself on that foot, like we have a Patreon. I'm sorry. Maybe it was. That takes so much longer.

It is so much more irritating than if you like this, you know what to do. Here's a Patreon. Check it out. And then boom, you're out. And ultimately, I think you want to at least seem excited about what you're doing. Yeah.

People will want to be on the same page as you. If you're just very reluctant and not very forthcoming about what you want to do and what you're trying to, what goals you're trying to meet, people will not be excited for you. They won't want to help you. And I am much more willing to give to people if they are all like, it seems like there's a future there, you know. One real quick thing about Patreon, too. just while we're on Patreon, if you're starting one, if you're a podcaster, don't overpromise and beware of physical goods. Yes.

Those things all are super expensive. You can really, I see patrons that are just starting where they have like, you know, $25 a month. We'll do an extra show per week. And I'm like, that's not enough money. Like you need to probably price these things a little bit differently. Like find somebody who does this and have them look at it because we definitely got into trouble overpromising kind of at various points. And, you know, like we owned up to it.

Like it's not great, but we did. It was just, you know, this was more than we can. actually do we just didn't really understand it you know so uh physical goods and don't over promise i would say yeah i mean i'm i'm actually running behind on retronauts uh fulfillment right now like some of the the bonus goods like i have i have the uh you know the spreadsheet of everyone's name they're going to get stuff but it's not coming along as quickly as i intended so yes it's dangerous uh it's coming folks don't worry you know promise yeah and over promising it accumulates too you know like just if you're not if you're not constantly checking to make sure like what's piling up

you might find yourself carrying more than you than you expected you would yeah i would say just overall if you're just starting uh i would say start small just treat it like a tip jar and if you are established and you want people to uh give you money if you have a fairly strong listener base or at least regular listeners uh look around see what other people are doing on your scale i feel like uh i've been doing fairly well and jeremy has too my strategy has been just like, oh, what are the things that make money doing? And do they have the same bandwidth as me? And if not, it'll happen I adjust this. And that's essentially how it's been working out for me so far. And I feel that having podcast behind a paywall has been very

beneficial or just having any content behind a paywall. It might seem unfair if you're not used to that. But it does really, if people are interested enough in you to listen to you, they might be interested enough in you to give a little bit a month to get an exclusive piece of content. And like we said before, like we're essentially, we love the free people. and we welcome them. The show is free, but we ultimately are working for the people who give us money. And we want to treat them the best and give them the most content. Well, and it's also just the economic reality about it.

Even if I'm not valuing those people differently, it's just like, this is something that I have that people might pay for. You know, and I need dental insurance. You know, at the end of the day, like all these things end up falling down to dental insurance. Like, as much as I'm a punk and I'm a punk musician at heart in a lot of ways, like at the end of the day, I don't want my teeth to fall out. I mean, you can't bite the head off a bat if you don't have any teeth, so come on. And, I mean, like, think of the sound quality if you have no teeth. People are going to want to listen to that. Yeah, the Jasper cast with like Geys or Butterfield, like, over here.

It's your instruments. You need to keep it in good shape. Time for another slurp off on the Duck Feed Network. They're paying for your instruments. It all makes sense. For research purposes, Graftreon is a good place to go. Yes, yes. I have no idea who runs it.

I'm not sure if they're going to be a milkshake duct, but it is a really useful service for like looking at um different patreon campaigns kind of roughly by income uh level and you can sort it by like monthly or is it you know per thing um and you can actually like use that to do a lot of like really quick like gut check path you know to kind of see what pond you're swimming in but also try and find uh things that are like you to compare to and just because it's tough to serve a stuff on patreon they've actually made discoverability a a little bit worse recently. Graftreon is a nice third-party thing that can help you find that stuff.

Yeah, I do use it a lot. Thank you for bringing it up. I totally forgot about that. Grafreyon is great. I think the Graftreon has a Patreon, too, if you want to get that deep gift to a Patreon that gives you graphs of Patreon. It sounds like a 20th generation Pokemon, eventually. That's like the Pori-Gone super revolution.

I guess it's almost been an hour, but thanks a lot, guys. I've been very busy with podcasting. before this trip and this is the first show I think I've done with zero notes just like conversationally because I am too worried about running out of things to say but it turns out I can say a lot about my job so thanks for being on the show any any final comments before we get going here all those all the bits of advice we gave you about starting a podcast are true but you should still do it because it's really fun and like you know the the nice thing about the pie is that the pie is infinitely big there's enough for everybody like you guys succeeding in a podcast

If you're listening to this, doesn't take anything away from me. And I wish you all of the success. Like, we're not in competition. So go give it a shot. Like, see if you like it. I think it's really fun. Maybe it'll work for you. Like, definitely do it.

I encourage you. You have my blessing. Yeah, that's pretty much what I was going to say, too. Go for it. It's fun. Anything from you, Jeremy? Thanks for listening. Follow your dreams.

Nobody do a Duck Man podcast. Once I am wealthy enough, I'll finally do it. No one will listen, but it's mine. It's my idea. I'm still spitballing the Prague Rock podcast. It's happening. People want it, Jeremy. I mean, it's the 50th anniversary of King Crimson this year.

Everybody, The Crimson King, 1969, it's going to happen. Everybody at GameSpite on Twitter and let him know. And if we covered something that you have questions about, let me know in the comments or possibly on Twitter. I might not be able to get back to you, but I'm just curious. I think it's in this hour. We've covered a lot about podcasting, but there are lots of nuts and bolts you might not be aware of that I could maybe help you with if I have time. Like I said, we're always on the clock as podcaster. So I don't want to get to go to overboard.

But I want to help people. But thanks for listening to this episode, everybody. If you'd like to help our show, speaking of Patreon, we're going to talk a lot about that now. If you want to help our show and get episodes one week ahead of time and ad-free, please go to patreon.com slash retronauts. You can do just that. It helps support the show. We are in the beautiful town of Milwaukee right now because of you people at home listening.

And we appreciate it very much. It pays for travel and accommodations and equipment and hosting and everything like that. I really appreciate it. I had cheese curds last night. They were delicious. They were fried cheese curds. Patreon curds. At the Pabst Brewery.

Crowd curds. And they were bought for me. Curd funding. In parts. Yes, Kurt. Let's call it a crowdfunding. But again, I can't top that. So Patreon.com, Slat dreshernots, and you can find out how to curd fund us.

Gary and Cole, separately are together in unison. Yeah. So we do podcasts under kind of a podcast under kind of a banner duck feed. TV our main show people might know us from just from guesting in the past watch out for fireballs it's a kind of a games club kind of podcast used to be about retro games now it's more kind of freeform also we have a patreon people who have listened who like the dark souls series bomb fireside chat is back that is our it's back so the kind of an area by area dive into securo is what we're doing right now so if you're curious about that seek us out

yeah and that's patreon.com slash duck feed TV And Jeremy, you've got plenty of video. Yes, those videos that I put together, one a week on my YouTube channel, which is just look for my name, or I think technically it's, the address is Toasty Frog, but whatever. Look for Retronauts VideoWorks, Jeremy Parrish, whatever, NES works, Game Boy Works, Virtual Boy Works, Super Ines works, Seguiden, there's all kinds of videos that I publish, I jump around, so it's not just the same thing all the time. although I am really focused on Virtual Boy right now. I'm going to get through that by the end of the summer,

the whole catalog, and I'll have the eye strain to prove it. It'll be great. I learned so much about Nestor's funky bowling. It's really not as funky as promised, but it's very strange. Yeah, it is strange. It's weird.

Sometimes he's so upset that he gets only nine pins instead of ten, he loses his hair. It expands the universe as one character, the gender swap nestor. Yes, yes. What's her name? Hester. Okay.

Hester. She's like three minutes older than him. You can learn all about Hester by going to YouTube.com slash Toasty Frog, right? If anybody doesn't want that series to end, start making virtual boy games. Yes. Oh, please do. And as for me, speaking of more Patreon stuff, I have too many podcasts, but you might know about the Talking Simpsons podcast. In my associated podcast, like What a Cartoon.

We're currently doing Talk King of the Hill, which is the first season exploration of King of the Hill. And that's all at patreon. dot com slash talking simpsons we do a ton of cartoon podcasts but again I talk a lot

about those and you probably heard enough about them but I'm still proud of them god damn it but thanks again for listening

folks we'll see you next week for a less self-indulgent episode of Retronauts Thank you.