Sad Boyz - Making a (big) change w/ Drew Scanlon

Episode Date: November 21, 2017

On today's episode of Sad Boyz, we're joined by the internet's foremost blinking white guy, Drew Scanlon, formerly of Giant Bomb, and currently of Clothmap (youtube.com/clothmap) to talk about making big changes in life! We talk Drew's transition from a well known fixture in games journalism to the uncharted waters of independence and the fears that come with it. Also, Jarvis has a hearthstone meet-cute at a McDonalds, Drew talks about the time he met Al Gore at a party, and Jordan is there too.

And you do currently have a pinned post I spotted earlier today. You have the pinned No Cure for MS white guy blinking. Oh, yes. That's right. Oh, yes. We have not explored that at all. That's its own episode. Wow.

Yeah, that's actually surprising. We wanted to respect you as an artist. So apparently you have some show or some shit, but also you're blinking white guy, right? Y'all have seen the gif. This might be the cold open. I'm calling it out. We found it. We found the blinking man.

We found a goddamn meme in real life. Welcome to Sad Boys, a podcast about feelings and other things also. I'm Jarvis. And I'm Jordan, likable personality coke. Today, we have a special guest, Jordan. Oh my God, we do? Wait, let me look slightly to my right. I don't see anyone.

Keep looking to your right. As a mirror, is it me? No, it's... No, it's... Sir! Is that Drew of Scanlan? Is that my medieval name? Sir Drew of Scanlan?

Oh my goodness. Maker of maps. Clother of maps. We're joined today by Drew Scanlan, formerly of giant bomb and currently of cloth map do you refer to yourself as mr cloth map uh only uh in my own fan fiction that i write oh interesting and that fan fiction is available where patron only that's an exclusive cartographers hate a thousand dollars a thousand dollars a month gets you there to be fair if i paid you ten thousand dollars a month you'd probably send me some oh yeah i would write

anything today dynamite cool you've signed up for that right you're confirmed yep can i get the fan fiction in advance no okay so we'll work this out for the podcast today we're going to be talking about uh a topic that is particularly interesting for our guests yes Yes, we chose a topic. That works out. Yeah, convenient, right? Yeah, no, it really is just completely random.

Really convenient because we didn't know we had a guest. I walked in, opened my cupboard, there was Drew. You went to the topic gumball machine and picked one. And you came out. And I came out. Which is strange. The topic today is making a change. So, you know, Drew is well-known and well- well known and well loved, well beloved by the Giant Bomb community and recently transitioned into Cloth Map, which is it started with the Patreon. Is that right?

Yes, it was conceived as a Patreon project. So cool. Well, the reason we wanted to bring it up is because it's not as though you're in this environment where, oh, well, you know, I'm kind of treading water. What am I going to do next? Oh, cloth map's a fun idea. Like, you are beloved in that community and still are beloved in that community. And we were curious what made you make that jump. Because sometimes, as we've discussed on the show previously, making a jump is maybe the scariest step in actually trying to do something.

The logistical elements of, oh, man, I really want to move to a new state. Like, well, you know, signing up for real estate is hard and moving all your stuff in boxes is hard, but the hardest part is consciously writing down, I'm moving to California. You know, making that conscious decision. And yeah, Jordan and I'll chime in with our own takes on that sort of experience as well. But first I want to talk about your weeks. How's your week been, Drew? Our week? Our week's been good um yeah uh just been kind of nose down on cloth map stuff yeah i just got back from a big trip so uh for those unfamiliar with cloth map it's a uh a travel documentary series uh on youtube video series

where it basically involves me going to a place shooting a lot of video then coming back and furiously editing that video yeah uh that then goes up on youtube so i'm in that editing phase right now how much so just out of interest um how much preparatory stuff is there before you go and shoot or is it okay there are here are like 10 things i definitely want to do but also i'm just going to figure it out i'm just going to improvise and then we come back and put it together in post yeah it's a um it's i think what i'm learning is that you you have to do kind of both you have to plan but then leave space for flexibility so i i had planned a lot of things for uh the most recent trip to to brazil uh and i thought maybe half or 75 percent of them would come through and it turned out that most of them did oh wow so i was i was really busy

shooting and you were crowned king of brazil oh wow so i was i was really busy shooting and you were crowned king of brazil yep which was a strange goal but you nailed it day one you know set the bar high man that's that's incredible and and uh for those listeners who aren't familiar with drew's work you should really go to youtube.com slash cloth map uh you were in ukraine before brazil is that right and the the pieces from there are incredible like there's a chernobyl uh travel doc which is like yeah it's eerie and then somehow heartwarming like you really did bring it back around and and i think that seeing the beauty in such a like desolate place yeah uh is is a great a great skill i think that you're you're cultivating over there i mean

if we're hopping aboard the i love cloth map train i'll i'll throw my hat into the ring um i would say you know keyword is like poignant it's not necessarily just light fun travel stuff but it's also not oppressive and ultra realistic it's just hey here are some things that i found emotionally resonant hopefully you do too here's also my process uh the part that stuck with me the most we've discussed it at length is the puppies oh my god of chernobyl yeah the public who knew by far my most trafficked video just search it just search it on youtube and your life will be better also worth noting that uh these travels are through the lens of of games right yeah yeah um it's it's the yeah i think the best way that I've come up with to describe it is a lens because I'm not going out and finding game-specific topics necessarily.

I almost work in reverse where I find a place that is interesting and then explore what Cloth Map could do there. Interesting. Because I don't want to limit myself necessarily to certain parts of the world. Right, right. Because I think that games in a broader

sense, play in general is universal to the human. Absolutely, yeah. To being a human. Like a transcendent language, right? Exactly. I don't want to say like, well, there aren't any video games in Mongolia. I'm not going to Mongolia. No, I'm going to go

what's in Mongolia that Cloth Map could explore. Nice. What's last on the docket? What's the next spot something that you are really curious about that's either logistically a nightmare to get to or something that you maybe pretty easy you've just been saving it for like when you're really ready uh well i think the the the no-brainer is japan yeah for a travel series that has a game angle japan is the place to go yeah they have games they have games of all kinds uh but i think i really need to do that one right yeah and um you

can have a 17 hour doc on pachinko only yeah dear god about the lung cancer you get from the smoke at pachinko boy i was uh just in japan a couple months ago so you know yeah i know the smoke at pachinko park oh boy i was uh just in japan a couple months ago so you know yeah i know he's a pachinko addict one one thing i i last thing i want to say about this is that uh in the chernobyl video there were so many moments just going back to this lens metaphor where you would cut to footage from a video game and i forgot that it wasn't real life for a moment like i like rubbed my eyes and I was like no this looks about right and then it just kept

switching so it's not beating you over the head like people who are not in games or in that culture would definitely find this like super interesting. Yeah super compelling and it's a great testament to the fact that well I say this as somebody that's been saying it for a decade but it's a great testament to the

fact that video games are not an emergent art form anymore they are an art form they are established they are impactful and you can view other art and other locations through the lens of video games it doesn't have to act as like this niche subculture yeah if you went to chernobyl and said i'm here to explore what ukraine is like through the lens of folk music that wouldn't be like oh really how interesting like yeah everywhere has music and everywhere has play as you said just as poignantly to explore what Ukraine is like through the lens of folk music, that wouldn't be like, oh, really? How interesting. Like, yeah, everywhere has music and everywhere has play, as you said, just as poignantly. And I think games deserve to be a touchstone for people.

You know, like, what I'm really trying to do with Cloth Map is to, like, I have one viewer in mind, and it's the guy in the middle of the country who's never been outside the state and like is a little wary about traveling like yeah it's it's not from it's for other people right that's i don't i don't have any interest in going to that i want to kind of show that like look even though you know you games are the one thing that you love if if that is indeed the case for you uh you can there's still a reason to go explore the world you will be able to find something

that resonates with you which i think is is makes uh i think it's it's it's vital to traveling i think you you can't just go to a place and say like, ah, I heard this is nice. Like you have to find some connection, right? You absolutely do. So this is like, that's another part of cloth map is like a demonstration of how I am making that connection and how other people can make it.

What's my frame of reference and how can you apply it? Yeah. Cool. Awesome. Jordan, let's go traveling. Yeah. Let's actually screw the podcast.

This podcast is over. I've got a passport and I'm not afraid to use it. I am a little afraid to use it, to be honest. Well, this time. In the current administration, I'd be afraid to use it too. Jordan, how was your week? My week was pretty good. Did I go to Chernobyl this week?

No, I skipped that this week. It's funny you had to think about that. Thinking about it, yeah, sorry. I did see a lot of uh radiated puppies though okay just out and about in san francisco um my week was good usually i have something of like extreme excitement yeah extreme enthusiasm but this week's been pretty work heavy so what i will say instead is um if anybody hasn't watched mindhunter please don't follow me on Twitter or like associate yourself with me we need to talk about Mindhunter maybe off the podcast

I watched the first episode this is a little extra bonus content yeah patron only yeah this is patron only the Mindhunter 45 seconds pledge $50 you get Drew's fanfic

but yeah please go watch Mindhunter tweet at me tweet me your opinion on Mindhunter in less than one sentence okay I'll do that

between one word and one sentence and it has to have proper punctuation don't try and play me okay well 280 characters you can do anything

it's a long sentence please send me a message in 281 characters you can have footnotes and cite your sources. Add a glossary to your tweets now. Oh, we're so current. We know what's up.

We just dated this episode. I, yeah, I've also kind of been heads down with like work and project stuff this week. But today I did have an interesting like sad boys-esque experience. Oh my God. have an interesting like sad boys-esque experience oh my god um so i was i left work uh and it was raining outside and i was like taking a um a lift line to get home um because it was surge pricing so it was like super expensive to do anything else didn't have an umbrella or anything like that and i was in a rush to get here so i went to mcdonald's the mcdonald's like near my apartment i worked a shift so i could afford a car yeah I

was I was hired in 45 minutes and in the next 15 minutes I earned a cool two dollars two dollar bill um but as I was in line uh there was this is a this is a missed connection story okay let's contextualize it meet cute yeah no this is this is my beer hamburger and then she went gross she picks it up it's covered in dust music is playing you ate you each ate one side of the burger from where i have no idea um but but yeah it was in very me cute fashion like uh this girl was standing next to me like looking at her phone and i was oh, what's she doing? And then her number gets called 343. I remember it.

And then I'm like, oh, hey. Jarvis said the whole number, but we have to bleep that. It would uniquely identify her identity. I thought I saw her SSN actually. And so like, I was like, oh, hey, I think they called your number. And as she walks over, it's revealed to me that she's playing Hearthstone on her phone, which is why she wasn't paying attention. And then when she got her food, she looked at me

and we locked the eyes for a moment, and then she walked away. No! That was the end of it. No! What if she was platinum? For context, I used to play Hearthstone really heavily. Yeah.

And now I get excited whenever I see somebody in the wild playing it. Cause it's a very casual game. You can like, I took it seriously, but most people don't. And so I, I kind of wanted to make a joke like a well met, you know,

like she would, that would have put you in a situation where technically it wasn't a misconnection, but you would be in jail. Yeah. Yeah. I saved everybody the, uh,

I'd rather have picked up a dusty hamburger and it's only you're communicating only with hearthstone emotes well met i'm sorry i'm sorry thanks is that locking you in the back of the police vehicle greetings greetings greetings greetings uh so yeah that's just like a thing that happened to me that's cute what is uh in natural sad boys fashion can you think of a similar story or scenario you've been through in the last few years be it an awkward missed connection or like oh i should have said something i mean any yeah any any embarrassment is is is sad boys fair please embarrass yourself

on my show it doesn't even have to be yeah it doesn't have to be from any other like it's just embarrassing i tweeted the wrong i typed effect instead of affect uh yesterday in a script that i sent to jordan and i got called out for it you got messed up i kind of did one of those i i said i really like the rouge one trailer oh And you're not on Twitter anymore. Yeah, that's right. I just called her right there. Dick Costolo deleted you. Yeah, it's weird.

They won't take off Donald Trump, but they will remove you from Twitter for such an infraction. Which, Kefefe is fine. Rouge is not. It's against their terms of service. And I, like, I am a real stickler for, like,

spelling and grammar and stuff for myself. Yeah. So I, I, I kicked myself. Did you maintain the bit? Like somebody was like, do you mean rogue one?

You're like, no, I think someone, yeah, I think there was a back and forth. It's my fanfic with Donald. Yes. And work with me on this one.

I, yeah. My reaction was to put that in the video but i didn't end up doing it oh i also this uh weekend made uh for some friends some brazilian food that i had sampled i was like i need to eat this all the time yeah uh so i had some friends over and and tried my best and i have some leftover Brigadero's here oh wow live Brigadero tasting for those watching the video version of the podcast

which doesn't exist Drew has just handed me a selection of delicious chocolates now two of them have coconut one does not now is the one without coconut unique and better or am I missing out it depends on if you like coconut they're exactly

the same just that one's covered in chocolate sprinkles oh that's true i'm actually kind of a unique snowflake so i'm gonna go ahead and take the one without yeah yeah so these are um they're little chocolate balls oh wow looks like a little raspberry and they're they're made with uh it's they're super easy to make it is uh sweetened condensed milk butter and cocoa powder just put it in a pan and stir it until it gets thick and then make little balls out of it you're kidding you cook it yep no that's it you just stir it and you stir it and it's wait we don't need to eat other meals anymore no congratulations everybody i'm chewing i can't even i can't even comment oh you went for

one bite yep that was fearless what just poured all of the pieces into his mouth yeah thanks drew yeah yeah we got you nothing except frankly an incredible platform to state your views and opinions yeah i mean this will almost definitely be heard by Joy Cope, Drew's lover. This is guaranteed to have a dozen listens. Perhaps one by Drew. There is a bottle of drink here. Yes. We got you this. We got you Jarvis.

So as many people know, as basically everybody in the country knows, the official sad boys drink is champagne. Yes. We always drink champagne. Now Jarvis decided to treat us this time by indulging himself in a $7.99 bottle of hey don't put me on blast it's this is andre so those uh those people who know their champagne will know how bottom of the barrel andre is uh this is rose champagne um in it i got it because it's pink and it's very i think on brand for for the sad boys

yeah we're running a bubble bath i'm already getting a foot massage thank you drew yeah golden gate park right now with some cheese yeah we're all about treating ourselves here drew learned some world-class massage techniques in brazil he's applying them all to my bunions thank you drew um i will say, Jarvis. Yes. Thank you so much for staying on brand. Unfortunately, the brand colors of Cloth Map don't really lean themselves to champagne. They kind of, well, you know, it's red and white. That's pink and white.

Oh, my God. You cracked it. Wait. I'm wrong. We're on brand with you. Yeah. This is your champagne. Perfect.

Our brand shifts. Our brand is the average of every guest we've had it's constantly changing that'd be a fun technique that would be cool so our topic for today yeah should we get this should we get this pop in and then start the top of this little bottle change this bottle into an open bottle yeah this is a this is a phase it's transforming phase shift right here greetings this isn't even its final form it just needs the confidence to open yeah believe in yourself young champagne oh a twist off so yeah that's how you know yeah so jordan was actually afraid of uh the twist off but now he's exhibiting extreme confidence yeah you don't get to introduce me to the uh locomotive power of a champagne bottle with an unfamiliar

opening method and for me to not run away i I think I left the apartment. I was like halfway out the door. You really did hide behind a wall for fear of something somewhere exploding. Thank you. It's not that I don't trust you, Jarvis. It's just that I don't trust you. Meanwhile, Drew went to actual Chernobyl and you're afraid of a bottle of champagne.

All right, that's enough. Drew, did you drink any champagne while you were in Chernobyl? Champagne, no. Coward. You're afraid yeah there was a bar in the hotel i stayed uh what is your too tired actually that's a great question when you're traveling what is the most consistent and safest beverage you will order do you have like a go-to honestly beer is pretty safe not to go wrong. Water is the can be dangerous.

Especially ice water. Yeah, of course. Because the water itself is from bottles but sometimes ice cubes make with tap water.

Right. Classic mistake. Yes. Also, nowhere else do they serve you water at a restaurant. Oh, yeah.

You have to ask. That's probably a smart move. A very smart move for California. $7.99 of Pure Bliss. Yeah, it's... I mean, honestly, there's no denying that it is a liquid. Yeah, there's no denying.

This most definitely is a drink. Cheers, sad boys. Cheers. Cheers. Thanks for having me. Cheers, cloth boy. Two sad boys and one cloth boy. Two boys, one cloth.

Okay. Drew, are you going by a special nickname to your fans yet? Has that materialized? There's no real clear one yet. So, I don't know. That's got to, I can't decree that. They have to come up with it. Oh, I see.

This is a CTA. You're calling into action. You're saying, it's time. Now that I have returned from Brazil. Boy, you guys do work for Patreon. Hey, we're in the tech industry. No one tell. It's very subtle.

It's been changing over time. I was on the phone with my mom the other day, and we're figuring out she maybe wants to start dabbling in a couple of creative projects. Oh, cool. I mean, she's listening, and she's a goddamn genius. She's like me if I was like likable and smart. Like the two traits I don't have.

I like that you're so self-centered that everyone else is just you. Is just me with plus or minus. She's like me in that she has like four limbs and a face. You know, like people. But she's total talent and she's excellent at advice. And so she's thinking about potentially an advice podcast, maybe a blog, saying this to light the fire under her ass. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But we were specifically talking about like, okay, well, when do we want to do it by? What are the steps we want to make? And I said the words to my mom, who I have known my entire life, which makes sense. Oh, we should think up some action items you can set yourself. Oh, you're PMing your mom. I said that to my mom, and then I walked to Golden Gate Bridge, and I jumped off. It's like, wow. That was. I said that to my mom, and then I walked to Golden Gate Bridge, and I jumped off. It's like, wow. I'm every tool.

Congrats to me. Hey, mom. Hey, mom. I'm so sorry. How about you clean my room? Ooh, maybe I'll PM my kids. You came to her with an ask? Yeah, I came to her with an ask.

I went to the top, and frankly, once the negotiation phase was over, I left with a yes. We should mention, Drew, the topic of today is making a change. Yes. And the reason we chose that for you is because not only do you make a change quite often, physically, you will change geographical location as a job now, but also you made the very conscious change to move to that career. You want to speak on that a little bit? The career being? Cloth mat. Cloth mat uh i guess it's similar in career i was doing video work before uh at giant bomb

um you consciously said to yourself time to try this thing yeah i really care about it's a risk it's like it's not something i've done before professionally right it's pretty different pretty baller drew thanks yeah i immense courage and great results so far. Specifically the little chocolate balls you gave us. I'm just saying, maybe a little less coconut. Me, not a fan of the videos, but the balls are great. Yeah, a little long-winded if you ask me. The chocolate is on board.

Travel less, cook more. Yeah, I mean i it's funny people people ask me uh like were you scared or uh how did you make that decision it must have been you know really hard and arduous um and it it was all those things to a certain degree but not really to the point that i was expecting because by the time i had really realized that, okay, I have this, I have this opportunity in my life. Um, you know, not married, no kids. Uh, I, uh, have a pretty stable job and a pretty great, uh, you know, body of work. I, you know, have a, a, a family who, who supports me, uh, and, and encourages me to, to try new things. And, things, and I always have. So it was like I didn't really have a choice.

If I didn't do this, I would always regret it. Interesting. As soon as I saw the opportunity to do so. And there are certainly risks involved. It could have crashed and burned, and I would have been out of a job. But I think when you're're looking to if you're thinking about a change like this i think number one is that i had to realize because i'm i guess as a as a video person or i guess as any creative person somewhat of a perfectionist like i always

uh you know the video could always use a little more tweaking it's not quite done yet but i mean you work in a work environment, eventually it's got to ship, right? It's got to come out. Um, so I think there's a tendency, uh, at least there is for me to, to wait until the right time, but there's, there's never a good time. So you just have to do it. It sounds like the same applies to every step of the process, right? Like the traveling itself. I mean, if we're talking directly to that 15 year old kid you were referencing which i think is kind of the demo of this episode right like uh it's not only you need to just do it as in just decide to chase your dream or chase your ambition or whatever that is you also need to just decide to fly and just decide to put the video out

and just decide to hire somebody to help you yeah that happens all the time yeah that's what decisions are, right? Yeah, but you could very easily get bogged down in any step of the process. So yeah, being able to say it's not perfect, but it's good enough. And those words are tough to creative people sometimes, good enough. But I think the thing is, you're always going to be getting better and better and better. And the more you continue on, the better everything is going to be in the future. So you just have to do that. It probably means a lot to have a degree of

validation from the very people that you were worried about letting down, right? Like you have this feedback, this feedback loop of another great video. Yes, exactly what I was looking for. And then even if you know, it's missing some level of nuance that you wanted to put in or i didn't get like that clip from my final day in brazil or the sd card got corrupted and i missed xyz it's really hard to argue with results right like i found this empowering and i'm deciding to now go and travel shit it worked great yeah i'm very fortunate in that regard. I was wondering, Drew, what like obviously you do have a established group of people who are going to go like check out your stuff. But what keeps you up at night? Like, do you feel beholden to these people?

Do you feel like you need something that you haven't quite yet achieved yet? Or are you just trying to connect this new vision with as many people as possible i think the thing that keeps me up at night um when things keep me up at night it's providing i think an enough of cloth map to uh to the people that support it um and sometimes i don't feel like i'm i'm doing that uh you know i i've been trying to i think the call i made early on was at at least at the initial stage of cloth map it was the most important to me to get good quality instead of high quantity yeah um because it's at least in you know my perception is that people have enough on the internet right i they don't i'm-man band. I don't need to provide people an entire website's worth of video, which is what I was doing at Giant Bomb. It must be kind of jarring, right?

Yeah. Suddenly it's just, I'm the aperitif. I'm a little treat at the end of the month or something, as opposed to constant maintenance and updates. Yeah. And you're also on a team. Right. You're a member of several people putting constant content together. Right.

It's walking that line between spending the time to make high-quality content that the people deserve, but also letting people know that, yes, I am still working on it. Or making them feel like they are, in fact, getting a return comparable to what they put in. Right. So I think it's only gotten better though in that regard. And I think the more I do this project, the faster it gets, the more efficient it gets,

the more I realize where the bottlenecks are and how to alleviate them. So, you know, it's kind of a slow process, but I'm learning and yeah, I'm excited for where it's going nice you kind of have a weird question what's up that's an interesting answer

yo what's up very game oh what's good girl he's wearing a do-rag that's so fast how it's very Marcus he did that so quickly

Dom one of the incredibly old video game references could be made dom ferrera references way out of date do you ever feel that from a creative standpoint since you made that transition a that there is an unreasonable expectation because you were known as somebody that was able to you know be churning out single location single style content like like

at giant bomb that ever feel like a weird pressure that you get from the audience. And B, if there was no audience, no consistent watching, but you still somehow had like the financial backing to do cloth mat, what would you do differently? Uh,

to the, to the first question. Um, I, I think I feel that pressure more than it is there more than, more than people. Yeah. Like I'll get a few comments sometimes but

those are the ones that really sting yeah oh yeah and then it it it grows in your mind right like everyone is just is like uh really anger at me for not putting out a video right shittiest thing about the human brain yeah like just quantity wise imagine for a moment if each of us held on to positive comments as healthily and as consistently as we do negative ones yeah it would yeah nothing would ever be bad like uh uh like i i make youtube videos and me and a friend started making them around the same time and one of the comment i i like still i can't tell you any single positive comment that we've gotten but one comment was war on white america and i can still recount that one from memory and it's come up on a previous uh sad boys episode what if it's just he's only doing it

so it'll be memorable he's actually super woke it's a really nice guy it really is like i want jarvis to remember me what does he hate oh racism it really is a life hack because if you think about the life hack be a racist if you think about the inherent value of a comment and and if you're only maximizing for the amount of impact you can do a person positive or negative then you're gonna leave a negative comment because that's what Four words for two references on a podcast, that's some serious ROI

right there to go back to tech references. Garboy49. I wish that was his name. Well, actually, you mentioned that the other day. One episode we did

where we talked pretty extensively about our early RuneScape experiences and were you a RuneScape smith? I never was. Ever an MMO-man? I tried. You dabbled? It was, it's really hard for me runescape experiences and were you a runescape smith i i would never was ever an mmo man i tried oh it was it's really hard for me to play a game that does not end that's fair i never thought

about it like that and if i had i wouldn't have started we didn't know it didn't end yeah yeah we were just dumb children i bring that up specifically because we referenced by name people in oh yeah yeah because it was so damning. And I can guarantee that at some point in my MMO experience as a kid, I probably had a pleasant conversation, right? Like everybody, somebody traded me something I need.

I Smithied the thing I needed. No, I remember exclusively friends leaving when I wanted to hang out. I remember people taking me into the wild and killing me. Like there's no memories of, it was nice when Derek, yeah, you recalled a club penguin experience going awry.

Let's not record this. I don't want to talk about that again. I'm actually getting teary-eyed. Derek! But I guess where you're going with that is Drew, are there any experiences online, maybe before your career in video where you were constantly pumping out things for people to judge?

Yeah, a lot of positive ones. I used to play in high school. I played a lot of a lot of shooters on the PC. I played a lot of America's Army, which is a heck of a game. I actually had had not heard anyone mention it at all until we, we, Giant Bomb, had,

My peons. At E3, they do a live show during E3, and they have industry people on that they interview, and they had PlayerUnknown on, and he said one of his influences for Battlegrounds was America's Army. Ah. This guy gets it. That's cool. Of course, that's why this, he understandsgrounds was America's Army. Ah. This guy gets it. That's cool.

Of course, that's why he understands the magic of America's Army. There was a small indie dev team that previously made that game that all woke up in their beds the second he said that. They'd been asleep for 20 years. Yeah. What happened? America's Army 2. Jordan, going back to our original topic, this is a bit of a shift.

So we were talking about, so in drew's experience cloth map was something that like he just had to do uh you've made a few changes in your life for one you live here now i took the do rag off i don't know if people know this about jordan but he studied film yes and that's not currently what he's doing no but he's very good at what he does do currently i thought to myself well what's a degree that i can work hard at that means nothing how can i combine those two most of them oh yeah sorry i meant what's a thing i can do that means nothing and it was university um yeah i studied film i got a bachelor's in film um from 2012 to 2015 it was fun it was interesting and it was university. Yeah, I studied film. I got a bachelor's in film from 2012 to 2015. It was fun.

It was interesting and it got incredibly tedious in the last year or year and a half. Right. I think a big issue for me and we can probably speak to this is that I am also naturally a perfectionist.

And one thing I want to point out is I do not count that amongst positive traits. No. I think that should just be a small burden that you have to live with it's a compulsion it's yeah exactly it's it's ocd it's nothing special it's not something that makes you

better it's something that holds me back yeah and thank god we have jarvis here who was willing to like push me to actually start recording the show for the longest time we talked about doing sebo's like ah yeah but i'm just not in the mood i've had a bit of a sugar drop i haven't had like this champagne isn't the right champagne you have rose but then finally got me to do it. And we pushed forward. I mean, I'm also a perfectionist, but my life hack, my trick is that whenever I get exhausted, I publish the thing. Like if I've like just gone deep onto a thing, I've like spent an hour editing like four seconds of a video before.

And then I'm like, you know what? I think we're done. Who's this for? I started, I edited a video for Facebook and you know what I think we're done who's this for I started I edited a video for Facebook and you know Facebook videos have captions it was a five minute video and I was just doing an experiment to see if I was just doing an experiment to see if a long form video could be like successful on Facebook the same way it was on YouTube and I started captioning it and two minutes in I was like you know what they've probably already started watching the video with

sound at this point I'm just just going to stop the captions. Oh, wow. Pro move. Life hack. Try that for cloth mask. Okay. It did okay. It did okay.

What were we talking about? I was asking you if the changes that you've made in your life were ones that you felt like you had to do, like you were compelled. Yeah. Sorry. And I mentioned I'm kind of a perfectionist i was in this position where uh i was studying a thing i enjoyed but i knew that i didn't want to work in the film industry that was never of interest to me my few experiences internships and the like whilst compelling were just not environments that i like they were like uh well to be honest they were very male driven and that felt i grew up in a single mother household

and that felt a little strange to me it was quite a shogunistic environment it's very aggressive it's quite sportsman-like like there's a lot of competitive elements to it and that's just not something that vibed with me uh also it's it's just a nightmare like it's just really hard being on set like it's not a fun place to be right and i'd grown up with the assumption of it's just hey it's movie making kid come over we'll do some special effects we're gonna make it look like a man can'll do some special effects. We're going to make it look like a man can fly. And instead it's just like, we're going to make it look like a man can lie down on a green table for seven hours.

And I'm going to shout at you because you didn't get the right Subway sandwich, Derek. Sorry, it's a specific, same guy from Club Penguin. Craft services, Derek. So yeah, that's the environment I knew I didn't want to be involved in, but I knew I loved internet culture. I knew I loved loved video production and so i started to move towards that and then after a while i was just like well damn this is fun but i there's no roadmap for this like there's

no as i'm sure you know drew like there's no especially when you started when i started there was no roadmap for this is what an internet creator is right here's the the key here's the best case scenario here are five to six gaming blobs already thriving and doing really well with really healthy video environments like that's obviously not something you had you built it from the ground up and i you know to a lesser extent kind of felt the same about my degree well i like learning this thing yeah yeah but i'm not really interested in carrying it anywhere else and that's what made me so disillusioned and anyway the reason i go on this incredibly long rant is because I want to touch on the idea of speaking to the fan base you were talking about,

that 15-year-old kid living in the middle of nowhere. He's not really sure he wants to leave the country, not really sure they want to mix things up. I want to speak to that person and say, hey, you just have to try a little bit. You don't have to go the whole way. I didn't go for like, oh, I know, I want to work at a tech startup in San Francisco and then just, I don't know which one or where, I'm just going to start running around until somebody grabs me by the arm.

You just have to decide what you don't want to do and start pushing away from that. Because everything else in the world is in the other direction. Literally everything else is in the other direction. Or, you know, I just, I kind of like doing this. It doesn't need to be like a bolt of light. that's not the way it was with cloth map yeah it wasn't like i need to do this yeah yeah it was like well i like doing this thing

i'm gonna go do that yeah that's kind of the way it was like in college and just growing up, I studied media arts, not because I thought it would get me a job. You're a fucking doke. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Film's the real course. But I was fortunate enough to make this decision about what i wanted to study um and it was my thinking was always um and my parents encouraged me in this was if you if you always are doing things you like to do you'll always be doing things you like to do so it's a weird way that works my parents were rappers not good ones

they didn't have a rhyme but it was amazing and impactful it's interesting because you mentioned like i found again not like not everyone has the ability to do that yes but and another part of this is that like i i feel like i've been given these opportunities and if i did not take them up if i just let them slide by again i would regret not taking advantage right but if you're if even if you have limited means, I think there's a way to lean towards the things you enjoy. It doesn't even need to be a career move. It doesn't have to be, oh, well, I do enjoy traveling and I enjoy games.

Cha-ching. My point is, like, put your trust in the fact that you like it. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Because chances are it will turn into something. What could be more validating than the fact that you already like it based on instinct alone? Yeah. And I would also caution people

to not, to, as they pursue something that they like, still be open to other things. Don't say that, okay, I'm a film major.

I guess I got to like finish this film major and then go into the film. No, like, all right, internet video, what's over here?

Yeah. You know, like still keep an open mind. Marine biology. Yeah. Sure. Like, I really like it's over here. Yeah. You know, like, still keep an open mind. Marine biology, theoretically. Like, I really like making videos of things. What else do I enjoy? I had never really explored marine, but I like that way better than videos right now.

And we talked about this, I think, on the Simone episode. Maybe. We talked a little bit about how the idea, a lot of contemporary education and also just a lot of parenting techniques tend to trend towards, by age 15, you need to at least have like a path, like a rough idea of where you're going. You need to choose an industry.

After that, you can stream it a little bit. Sometimes in some countries, literally. Yeah, immediately. And that's a really unhealthy mindset. Of course, if you have the means to do otherwise, don't be afraid to explore. Like Jarvis, you're a great example, because if I'm remembering correctly,

you didn't have a background in computer science. Right's not you didn't go like oh i enjoy this and i've already trained so i might as well go to college for this yeah yeah yeah so i kind of like picked it out of the lineup real real quick though i um will say that like the way that we condition people is as if they're they're like paralyzed by choice because they're like what i choose is going to be my choice yeah for like forever and yeah, that's just not true. Like we have countless examples of that, but yeah, I, uh, I, I guess I'm a weird case cause I studied computer science and now I'm like working, like, like applying my degree as a software engineer, but it's not what defines me as a person. It's really something I've done for the past few years you know i've done it

maybe for the last seven years yeah but like i there i had interest before this and i will have interest after this and this is a thing that pays the bills i like didn't i'm lucky in that i found it interesting and did it and did not know about silicon valley because i you know studied computer science in georgia and wasn't really aware of like what was happening out here and then i was like for context the same as being a witch no it was weird like i got to school and then there were representatives from like microsoft and google and facebook who like came to our school to recruit and i was like you can work at those websites that are on the internet like i just had no computer? I had no concept of that. And I still, to this day,

like I think that there is a career for me to have. Like I'm lucky in that regard that there's a career for me to have and that like the market really values the contributions that my skillset provides right now in that space. But I'm not limiting myself to that just because I spent four years getting a degree in it and a few years like working in the industry. You know, it's like I because who knows, right?

Like going back to your job doesn't exist yet. We were recently at a conference. Hank Green, who is like, you know, a very popular Internet video creator, gave a talk about how his job is hard because no one's done it before. And I think that that is a deterrent for a lot of people because it's not clear what the path is. It's not, it's not clear how to do, how to succeed there. The checkpoint, it's a game that never ends until it does. Right. Uh, and it's not clear what the objectives are or how you get to a particular path and i think that that does paralyze uh paralyze people with the weight of of making choices so with that in mind true as somebody that recently and often makes pretty impactful changes in their life would

you say that is that fair um well i'm saying it for Okay. I've decided that's what you are. As somebody, you know, you made, in the last year, you made a very conscious change. So we'll use that as a frame of reference. What advice would you give as like 10,000 foot, as vague and as meta as you like, to somebody that is afraid to make another change? Now, this could be somebody that wants to change their degree,

change their career, change their friend group, and even maybe leave a relationship. Change their iPhone wallpaper. I still haven't done that one. Nope, still on default, my friend. But really anything. What's like the essence of doing it as opposed to thinking about it? I think what really helped for me was the realization that even if it doesn't work out exactly the way that you expect it to, just by virtue of doing something different, more doors will open. Step in the right direction. Yeah. Yeah.

So for example, when I was in school studying media arts, I wanted to make video games. And I tried to get internships over the summers in video game companies. Right. And my first year the closest i could come was uh current tv do you remember this no this was pre-youtube uh it was pretty it was al gore's tv network oh that was uh well he invented the internet so he may as well yeah dabble in television uh user-submitted video. Oh, wow.

So people would, they called them citizen journalists. They would go, you would, the thinking was you would go out with your camera and film the news happening where you were and send it to Current TV and they would put it together. Send your floppy disk and or VHS into Current TV. I'm not that old. Send your smoke signal into your zip drive. But it was barely related to what I thought I wanted to be doing, which is making video games.

And that whole making video games never panned out. Well, it kind of did. It didn't end up panning out in the end for me. But because I had that experience at a tv studio or a tv network i guess right at al gore's house al gore's house i actually went to not al gore's house the ceo's house and met al gore at a party one time whoa that is bizarre yeah how is al gore at a party what year is this by the way because i'm curious this is um 1999 the summer of 2009 okay so he 1999. Give us some tips. The summer of 2009.

Okay. So he, this is post ManBearPig. Yes, it was the launch party for Current TV. Wow. Yeah. Dude,

YouTube is so young. YouTube is very young. What is happening? Yeah. How is that like the preeminent video service in the world? Yeah.

It's got a firm handshake. And I, to the, I brought my dad to the launch party who is al gore and i met al gore despite the fact that i had technically been working for him for months right um i'd never met him before and uh i shook his hand and then i said hey this is my dad and al gore shook his hand and then says oh you know he's been doing some great work for us despite not knowing who i was at all. Wow.

Like, full-on politician mode. Damn, Al. That's amazing. And he sold it. Like, of course Al Gore is a politician. Dude. Because, man, that guy. What a pro move.

That's incredible. Wow. Thanks, Al. I got to start using that. He started talking me up. Yeah, it was great. He's not. He's like the other Al.

Not weird Al. He's cool Al. Yeah. Cool Al Gore. Apparently, he used to play football, like in college. Really? You can tell. Yeah. The dude is built. Okay. He's got that, like, perfectly rectangular frame. Yes. he's cool Al yeah cool Al Gore apparently he used to play football like in college really you can tell yeah the dude is built okay he's got that like perfectly rectangular frame yes it looks like a fridge I could not knock him over no he doesn't need a tailored suit the suit comes in

his size I think that's a really powerful message like just uh you never really know what your experiences are going to give you and so you know you were talking earlier about having 50% of a plan or having things planned out and, you know, maybe they land, maybe they don't. It helps to have a plan, but it also helps to be flexible. Yeah. Don't let your plan hamstring you. Yeah, because you know what's really frustrating? Have you ever, quick aside.

That was just leaned in eight inches. If you ever like travel with people who are like, all right, we're in this new country at 11 a.m., we have to do this. And at 1 p.m., we need to do this. And if the slightest thing goes wrong, it's this really stressful situation. You must know this.

Yeah. If I tried to plan like that, things would crumble immediately. Yeah. But when you open yourself up to to life's experience if you take for granted the fact that life is just going to throw a wrench in your plans then there is a lot of opportunity um out there for you yeah and just take you know i i think for me my my advice to this mythical 15-year-old.

Name him. Name him? Yes. His name is... Don't. Drew? You know I'm sensitive about Derek. His name is Derek Gore. His name is Almond Gore.

To the young Derek Gore, I'll say it helps. Yeah. Like your vision or your dream will guide you, but opening your, you have to be open to new experiences because I've personally never, like every time my plans went awry, it always worked out. Yeah. You know? And I think that just being open to that, like the fact that life is going to throw a wrench in your plans is going to make things a lot more bearable. And also just open you up to a whole new like wealth of experience yeah and to throw a slightly strained segue or like thematic circle into the conversation i would say the jarvis that saw hearthstone girl playing away in mackie d's right that was the jarvis that didn't grab it right that was the rare

occasion where Jarvis didn't quite dive in that's true and you can follow Drew's advice no and I what if she could be your Al Gore love her like Drew loves Al Gore it was weird she was looking at the weather on her phone and she was like it

shouldn't be like this she was she lost the game and she went well this is an inconvenient drew we got jokes that's the one that's the one i i set him up you set him up and i set him up i set him up we go home we do have fun we do have fun don't we drew we do we drew have fun we do have fun uh jordan do you have any um do you have any last words for either either uh are you gonna kill me donald travis so no they're gonna kill me uh jordan yeah do you have any last words on the topic before i i murder you oh what do i prioritize well uh jarvis lives at this location please stop him from killing again he's been talking for 23 hours

please unlock the door it's getting dangerous how often we joke about the fact that we're going to murder our guests this is not the first time nor is it the last

yes final words I mean who's for Derek for Derek Gore Derek Gore I mean I would say I mean Drew nailed it

right like I think so I think so don't be afraid to chase your dreams and also don't be afraid to change your dreams. Like identifying it day one does not mean, well, this is me. I've decided that I'm going to make games and that's the only thing I can do. Now everything I do that deviates from making games, bad move, wrong move.

Chase, what was the exact phrase you used? Do exactly what makes you happy or do what makes you happy and you'll always be doing what makes you happy yeah yeah do it javis okay what makes you happy all right i i think i would also add to recognize what you are afraid of because it's not it's it's hard to just not be afraid of doing it yeah um but i think if you are afraid or if if you're not doing it it's because you're afraid or if, if you're not doing it, it's because you're afraid of something. Sure. And if you can identify what you're afraid of and then attack that, break it down.

If you're like, I don't know if I have the money, then like do some spreadsheet work to see if you do. And if you don't save until you do like you know i'm making it sound easy but break it down into its component pieces well that's the thing it's not easy but it is simple and i think that's the problem a lot of people will often assume that if something's hard to defeat or you're having a problem that's hard to surmount that it has to be complicated no if your problem is oh i don't know what i want to do for a career well there's probably like three things you're actually interested in it's not exactly a complex situation.

It's just so scary that a very simple thing has become a very scary thing. And there's also nothing wrong with being wrong. You can, on a Tuesday, think, I think film editing is my thing. I'm feeling like I'm in a film-edity move. And then you build out like a Trello plan and you plan the next few weeks. And maybe you don't have the finances to back it up maybe you don't have the time to invest yet but you started you've touched something you've built some baseline yeah and then on wednesday you decide actually film editing sounds a little stressful i don't want to be sitting that much it's fine you didn't

waste a tuesday yeah you invested in yourself you had some revelations now you know exactly you know what you don't want to do yeah and. And there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah. You shouldn't be investing for success. You should be investing for knowledge and learning. Yes. Because, like, but you can't be afraid of failure because failure is going to come all the time. At least I, like, for me.

At least I hear. You can't let your fear of failure cripple you. Exactly. Like, when I was, and I did this. Like, I used to, when I was 14 years old, I had a podcast and a YouTube channel and I had two viral videos on YouTube and they were very stupid. And, and I was, I was afraid of not making a viral video as my next video. And I, that as like my 14 underdeveloped brain, I couldn't make anything. I couldn't publish.

I was like, you know what? Just screw YouTube. I'll just like, let this live on until like this year, when I went to VidCon where enough people beat it into my head that, that it's okay to fail. And there's like a space for my voice on the internet that I am comfortable creating again. And you know, like my, I haven't gotten as many views as i got in 2007 but you know i'm i this is like it feels like a failure to my like monkey brain uh uh but it's not it's just it's just learning well you funnily enough your first video is called baby steps and it is like just a thematic breakdown of exactly what you're talking about right yeah yeah you put me on the spot there didn't you it's at youtube.com slash user slash Jarvis Johnson.

And not even slash users. It's that new channel domain. Whatever. Don't embarrass me in front of Drew. All right, just keep talking. This is my new voice now. All right. I'm curious, since we've mostly been talking

about career-centric change, mostly discussing either changes in the career you're pursuing or the career you have, I'm wondering if any of you have any thoughts on how to unblock yourself outside of your career things that you're scared of changing things that you're scared of doing be it like um changing your diet or breaking up with somebody i know is a really really common one like fear of change as a nucleus instead of just applicable to your career and job but you know how do you surmount i don't really want to go to this party but i don't know how to text the person

and say that i don't want to go so i'm just going to go end up going and not having fun like that feels like a very pervasive problem and i'm wondering if either of you have some advice on that to uh derek well for me i think uh i i've been in the situation a lot where i'm afraid and i don't know why or there's something keeping me from doing something I want to do and I don't know why. I think if you continue asking why, you eventually get to a root cause and you're like psyche that is the cause of whatever neurosis that is at play. And so it's like, oh, why don't to you know ask my friend derrick gore to the party and it's because i'm i'm afraid that derrick will say no it's like why am i afraid derrick will say no it's because i think derrick uh i'm more of derrick's friend i like rely more on derrick than he relies on me yeah so so it's like and then and then you can just like keep asking, you know. Damn, Jarvis, that was a really resonant story.

Who's crying? But yeah. It's Rosé. He's crying pink tears. I think ultimately you start to understand your own like hangups. And when you see them like at their root, it's a lot easier to address than when it's in a specific scenario. It's kind of like when you're learning a language and you're like, oh, well, how do I say this sentence?

How do I say this sentence? How do I say this sentence? And it's like, no, if you learn the grammar and you learn the structure of how everything works together, it's not wrong, it just is. And then once you can learn that you understand how things ebb and flow and you can start to

use it as a strength instead of something that's holding you back damn you two are so smart you're so cool and smart and I'm just here with my sleeveless hoodie I feel like I cut you off no it was good man

Drew just wrote an in-person iTunes review. Five stars. And you too can do that if you go to iTunes. Yeah. And as we've mentioned in the past, there is a strange bug where you will have to go to jail if you put anything lower than five stars. Honestly, I keep emailing support about it.

Can't do anything about it. That's weird. But there is still a different bug where if you leave us a five-star review on iTunes, you just get a million dollars. You get a lot of money and one kiss super weird and one kiss or one kid honestly one kiss um you will get one kiss from your crush if you uh like us on facebook okay cool uh so you should do uh both of those things do all those things but true yes I would like your answer as to how to surmount scary things that may not be associated with your career. Yeah, I think, you know, like Jarvis said, it helps to know yourself and to know what you're afraid of and why you're afraid of it.

Because then just like, you know, I mentioned with, you know, making a big scary decision, you attack why you're afraid of it, scary decision, you attack why you're afraid of it. Um, or, or you, you at least see why you're afraid of it and then you can make a more informed decision. I think that kind of self-reflection is really tough. Um, and so it, it, it takes a lot of, takes a lot of thinking or it takes a lot of like active working at it, whether that's, you know, journaling or, um, or um meditating or stuff like that yeah i feel like there's a general hesitation i've certainly had this and in true sad boys fashion i want to briefly dive into like hey what's the thing you often feel strangely insecure about that you know isn't super rational but is also the thing that you're scared to change right

i could consider us relatively proactive people right people that identify a thing oh i'd like to change that thing but i haven't really changed it um but the reason i bring that up is specifically because in reflection what you were saying drew i feel like far too often people are afraid to even acknowledge the thing like that's the scary part like it exists and you know it exists but if you write it down if you figure out what the thing is yeah actually scaring you you think it's gonna spiral out of control like like it's organic but you make it real yeah yeah you give it credence you give it weight yeah i totally feel that yeah it's like there's this weird sound that comes from my closet but i mean i don't want to open the door because like who knows what the sound could yeah who knows like

what like sort of mutant mouse yeah is uh is behind that right the number of times that i have had uh like no forks available and i've just ordered food and i'm going like well if i get like two knives and i could create some kind of rube goldberg throws food into my mouth as opposed to spending what 15 seconds to clean a fork is it's in the hundreds at this point like it's shocking and that's a very small scale version but it's the same philosophy right the feeling of uh i could challenge this feeling that i'm having but my instincts are saying that change is hard and i'm just gonna run away so either of you have a really pervasive one that you feel on the daily or at least fairly often? I'm a pretty shy person.

I would like not to be. I can get on video, but interpersonally, with new people especially, I can be pretty shy. So that's a part of me that I'd like to change. I don't really know how, but I'm always trying to improve it. Do you ever think that that might be a surprise to the people that watch your content? Because what you do is so naturally and literally outgoing. Probably, yeah.

It's weird. I can get up at a PAX panel or something and talk to a room full of a thousand people. And that's, that's fine. But if it's like a group of people, then some of them are new and I don't know, I get kind of quiet and shy. Interesting. Right.

Yeah. That's really interesting. What do you, have you made strides to tackle that or is it just not a priority? Cause I mean, we've met a few times and I've never detected that. made strides to tackle that or is it just not a priority? Um, cause I mean, we've met a few times and I've never detected that. And I'm curious as to whether it's something that you're.

I'm much better. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I think, yeah, again, I think it comes from,

um, knowing yourself and knowing how you just relate to other people and, and try to just remind yourselves of, of things. Yeah. Things like, you know, we other people and try to just remind yourselves of things. Things like, you know, we're all, everyone's just trying to be happy. That's what literally every human on earth is just trying to be happy.

Totally. So you already have something in common with them. Yeah. The reason Kevin stole your lunch money is just because it gave him a level of catharsis. It's not that he's evil. He's just trying to be happy. Yeah, it explains everyone's actions. And so even if you don't really know what's going on with

somebody or you know they think you think that they're being weird to you or something um that's like the underlying motivation is everyone just wants to be happy so it's it kind of demystifies everything yeah so that's that's what i try to tell myself everyone's just trying to be happy i like that i like that for me um i think the one thing that i i claim to try to get better at and i guess i am trying to do this is that i feel like i work very hard for other people's like acceptance or like admiration and stuff and like i you know i i want to get their promotion at work or i want like everybody to see my like new thing that i'm i've i've made but when it actually comes to like someone bringing it up or commenting on it like my brain expected when i was doing it in the first place i have no idea how to deal yeah like it'll be like oh hey i i watched your video and i'm like why did you do

that i i have not i i i'm sorry i i it's like and i can't just i can't take a compliment and i and it bums me i think i've gotten better at it over the years and it really i empathize with people who are like this but it's become a pet peeve of mine when when people like deflect compliments because it's it stinks for the person who's put themselves out there by taking a chance by giving you you the compliment in the first place. And so that's something that I'm actively trying to improve, especially as, you know, for a while we worked together, Jordan, and like for the first year of that, I was only doing improv comedy. So I was performing like live somewhere else.

And so it would come up and I never had to like be face to face with somebody who'd seen something that I'd done. Sure. Yeah. And in the past like six months since I've like restarted this YouTube thing and we've started this podcast, more and more people have engaged with us about like that or engaged retroactively about something. And then I just, I, yeah, I kind of don't know how to, how to deal in that situation.

Yeah. That's probably kind of a warping scenario for you, Drew, because people are experiencing a performative version of you and then getting a certain taste, right? They're like, Drew's out going, right? He's just in Japan. He's chatting. He's hanging out.

This is Drew. And then somebody watches Jarvis' video. He's like, everything's put together, and every sentence he says is clear and perfectly scripted. What's up, Jarvis? I just watched your video. You're like, that's not me. It blows my mind that people think that

I just like look at the camera and then just say all the words. It's like I wrote that for a week. If you did that, I wouldn't have the opportunity to comment on how you wrote Affect instead of Effect. Which would be a big miss for me.

Stop reminding me. Derek. Derek Gore. What about you, Jordan? What's the thing that I'm, that crops up often? It's like a little insecurity and nibbling. I think the big one for me is approval specifically from men.

I was thinking about this very recently. So I grew up in, as I mentioned, a single mother home. Wouldn't change it for the world. Complete dream scenario. I love my mom to pieces. What up, Joy Cope? Shout out to the fam. Start the advice podcast. Yeah, start the advice up, Joy Cope? Shout out to the fan. Start the advice podcast.

Yeah, start the advice podcast, Joy Cope. You have one week. The reason that that comes up a lot is because, you know, me and my dad have a decent relationship. It's fairly stagnant. We chat every couple of years. We'll sync up over the phone or something. And as a result, I didn't realize this until I was older.

But if I'm hanging out in like a group of five dudes, I need some of those guys to like me. Oh, yeah. I can't just be like one of the guys. I've got to be the funny guy. I've got to be like the weird guy. I've got to be the fun guy. Hang out with a group of five other women.

Not a problem. It's just, oh, let's be Jordan. Right, right. And that has come up recently because, you know, the tech industry is predominantly male. And thankfully, that's changing. But it is certainly still a problem in our industry. And as a result, sometimes I go to a networking meeting or a hangout or just a regular meeting internally in the business.

Yeah. And I'll just feel like, how do I cement myself? How do all these people in the room who I know and get along with, there's nothing to prove. Right. How do I make sure that they walk out like, that's a real man, right? Oh, yeah. That's a guy.

And I love him. And he's my son. Like that stuff crops up for me a lot, and in the way that it doesn't with women. I've been chewing on that lately. Oh, yeah, we've got to do an episode about that. Oh, we've got to do an episode called Papa. Oh, yeah.

Daddy-ep. Want to come on that one, Drew? Just dad talk. All dad talk. We just do role play. Drew's both of our dads. Let's give that a run now. I know.

Patron only. I think it's interesting that we all sort of trended towards a similar environment too. Because one answer could just be, I feel insecure about the way I handle my finances or I feel kind of insecure about my driving. I am insecure about both of those.

But we all trended towards i'm insecure about the way that i present myself to others in the network that i care about right yeah i mean these are all pretty like core yeah yeah uh personality traits yeah we're like level we're like we're level nine uh self critiquers we're not just talking about i'm late to meeting sometimes we're like looking deep into the uh i'm just not good my issue at the moment is being bad fundamentally the barrier i'm having day to day is me but yeah this is nice this is nice this was truly sad yeah and it truly sad. Yeah, this was frankly boys. I really do. Thank you so much, Drew, for coming on.

Because I think that new like guests coming into like our space really brings a different perspective and brings a different energy. And like this is like the first episode of the set of sad boys that felt like this one. So I really want to thank you for contributing to that yeah thank you for being a sad boy with us you're being an officially is it a deliberate misnomer because like you guys okay good yes that's exactly like so happy so we are ultimately very optimistic people yeah uh uh who who want to talk about their feelings and so the way that we've reconciled this is is sad boys with a z i think sad boys the title is actually pretty indicative of an insecurity i think we both have yeah which is like we love the idea of emotional sincerity but still have all

that cultural conditioning that you can't be too sincere right yeah like hey yeah oh yeah so and also you love the queen right guys right oh you did force me at gunpoint to sing god save the queen last episode you did pretty well two episodes ago uh but yeah it's this is the outlet for the sad absolutely no and i think we are uh uh no we do both have that insecurity because it's like haha sad boys anyway let's actually be emotionally sincere like we leave that at that insecurity because it's like haha sad boys anyway let's actually be emotionally sincere like we leave that at the door but it is like a little bit of a front to be like

no we're in on the joke it's the podcast equivalent of making sure that you've made at least one good joke in a conversation before you sink into being the introvert that you really are like haha right I'm just making up it's us.

I think we both have this where we're like in a group of people and we're like, all right, now I'm going to tell a joke that kills and then I'm going to go home and I'm not going to talk to anyone for 48 hours. And like 50% of the time, you never get that joke that kills.

No, no, no. You just chase it for four hours. Yeah, and you're just a slave to like the need for external validation. I really want to go home but i've got to get these bits out oh man true you did bring a very fun energy to the show thank you and thank you for doing that and i encourage everyone like do yourself a favor and go check out cloth map you're in for a treat i think that there's like some sincerity there is some some perspective

i think you'll be better off. You'll never walk away thinking, well, that was a waste of 10 minutes. Like I do when I watch random video game trivia videos on YouTube. Compared to, well, little sad boys behind the scenes. My main hobby is playing smash melee.

Is it really? I did every day. Wow. I love melee. I love the melee community. And as a result, wait, is your star button shaved down?

No. I'm not a serial killer. But I'm very into the community. And as a result, often I will come home, play like two hours of Melee, and then I'll hop on my laptop and watch one genuinely good thing. I'll think to myself, well, my Falco got no better, but I just watched an episode of Trothmap and I feel like a full human being. I would say that's what your show does. It makes me feel like a full human being i would say that's that's what your show does it makes me feel like a full human being

thank you very much i thank you for that yeah i think they're i i really gravitate towards like comfortable uh comfortable hosts with like really good content and i think that drew like brings you in and he really like lets you experience what, uh, what he's experiencing. And then you're just like, yeah, fuck. Yeah, this is dude.

And then, then you walk away and you're like, I don't know. Maybe I'll look at the world different now. I will say as somebody that watches, we're just going to gush. This is 45 minutes. We spent the first hour talking about feelings.

The second hour is gushing about Drew. We spent the first hour talking about feelings and we didn't record it. Time to do the real show. Gush, gush show. Gush boys. Gush boys. Gush boys. But the reason we bring this up is like I'm a big travel show junkie. I used to watch a lot of the David Attenborough stuff growing up.

But cloth map is unique. And I don't say that just to butter your bread. I say that because it gives me like a level of insight, a ground level insight that i wouldn't have otherwise like i've watched uh meta documentaries about chernobyl and the events surrounding it i've never seen one clip of the chernobyl puppies in my life yeah and that that surely has to say something this is almost like like like sort of bringing down drew's art but it's like first person travel vlog yeah like there was a point where i was like oh shit the first person perspective i love this it like feels like i'm

in it i like see what's happening here and uh it is first person both in in visual like camera perspective and also in you know light world perspective yeah and there's a lot of that right like when we we talked way back before you even initially started the show you were talking about how your mission was to talk to 15 year old your goal was to talk to just any 15 year old believe us the way that you outlined it uh it's a 15 year old uh al gore or whatever derrick gore and and encourage him to explore and change things and and try and travel. That was like the main goal. Yeah.

And you fucking nailed it, Drew. You killed it. We're excited. I'm pumped for Japan. Yeah. Speaking of Drew, since we're in the gush hour, Drew Scanlon. Yes. Where can people find more of Drew Scanlon?

Oh, I'm thirsty for some more Drew. Yeah. As you mentioned, youtube.com slash cloth map. There's a cloth map Twitter account account but it's mostly just like official stuff I have a twitter account Andrew Scanlon that's kind of it

and you do currently have a pinned post I spotted earlier today you have the pinned no cure for MS white guy blinking oh yes that's right

oh yes we have not explored that at all that's it's own episode wow yeah that's actually surprising we wanted to respect you as an artist.

So apparently you have some show or some shit, but also you're blinking white guy, right? Y'all have seen the gif. This might be the cold open. I'm calling it out. We found it. We found the blinking man. We found a goddamn meme in real life. But yeah, you can find you on Twitter.

You can find you on Twitter you can find you on the gram you gramming cloth map yeah I think a cloth map gram would be pretty exciting that would be

trying to yeah trying to do more with it trying to mix that up any puppies on there I put the like I trimmed down the puppy video

was like my foray into okay how how do I package this into social format yes it was a real pain the chernobyl puppies are the cutest puppies are the number one thing um also you know i guess you watch the other videos um it's not really for me but uh personally i like to i don't like to travel

i've never been outside the US. I try and keep it nice and simple. Yeah, I can tell. At least as far as I can remember, I hit my head pretty hard a few months ago. Young Jarvis. Yeah. How the hell do I get another sip of Jarvis? Okay, you can follow me on Twitter at Jarvis.

Yes, that's right. I have my first name on Twitter. You did it, Jarvis. I made a deal with the devil. Fortunately, Drew's real name is Cloth Map. So he also nailed it. I feel like I heard about Twitter right when it came out. When it debuted at South by Southwest.

Because I had friends in the design community in college. I may have been able to get Drew. I don't know. But I waited until I was like, I don't need Twitter or whatever. This isn't going anywhere. And then everyone in Giant Bomb had it had i was like penicillin no way that's not gonna work out what is that that's like i just had no concept to that like i was like i was in the gmail beta and i was like you know what i need magic jarvis like how about a very specific thing that no one would even take in 2017? Great brand investment, though.

What, you've got Twitter 10 years ago? It's finally paying off. Yeah, finally. And then you can also find me on YouTube, youtube.com slash Jarvis Jonathan. Jordan Cope, where can we find you? Oh, he scared me. If you want another, if you want to take a deep sip of Jordan Cope,

I hate that phrasing, you can find me either at twitter.com slash Jordan A-D-I-K-A. A-D-I-K.com slash Jordan A-D-I-K-A Jordan Adika. Or you can find me at twitch.tv slash Jordan Adika, where I play a game every four to six months. I love that you continue to plug that. But you play Smash every night.

I know. I've got to get back into it. I'm saying this to hold myself accountable to start streaming it, because it's really fun yeah it's just something i forget to do um you can also check out sad boys which is like this fun podcast i do sad boys pod my more likable friend jarvis twitter.com slash swag says swag swag boys god twitter.com slash sad boys pod i still um uh and you know we haven't done well we haven't given them homework oh the homework Sadcom slash sad voice pod. I still like that. And you know what we haven't done? What have we done?

Homework. Oh, the homework for today. Let's give our listeners a little bit of homework. Is to talk about a time where you took a leap of faith. Yes. You can, you can, not all leaps have to be a faith, but there has to be faith involved. There's no such thing as a leap of complete knowledge.

Leap of comfort. That's not a leap. Yeah, yeah. That's turning over. So if you've had one of those in life and career or anything in between, tweet us at sadboyspod or DM us if you don't want it to be public. We just want to talk to you. Yes, we want to hear your stories, and we promise not to share them, but I will be writing them in my tell-all autobiography coming out later this year.

Drew, any final words for the crew? Where am I? My mom's listening to this. The rosé was really good. Yes. Yes, it was actually pretty good. It was really good. I got to give it up to Jarvis for $7.99. That was a hell of an investment.

I risked my life. Who knew that twist-off champagne could taste so good? I think that the best part about twist-off champagne is how hard you have to twist it and how primal you look while you're like twisting it I like the idea that twist off was supposed to be an easier solution and it is by far harder and scarier Oh, absolutely. This has been the sad boys. This has been the sad boys We like to close out every episode the same way if you'd like to do our weird little ritual you're more than welcome

We say we love you and we're sorry. Okay. Do you want a couple seconds to maybe prepare yourself? I'm good. Okay. You look stoic. You look ready. We love you. We're sorry. Whoa!