Taylor Lorenz’s Power User - The mastermind behind the Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest

Episode Date: October 31, 2024

Anthony Po is a creative genius who has a knack for organizing viral events in New York. This past weekend, he was responsible for a Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest attended by the actor himself. In April, he went viral after he assembled a crowd to watch him eat an entire jug of cheeseballs in the disguise as “Cheese Ball Man.” He's infiltrated a cult, hosted a dating show, faked an alien invasion and more. Taylor talks to Anthony about making things that matter in culture and bringing back 2014 internet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Taylor Lorenz. Welcome to Power User. Last weekend, thousands of people in New York showed up to a Timothy Shalamee look-alike contest. The event was chaotic. The crowd had to move locations. At least one Timothy was arrested. And to top it all off, the real Timothy Shalomey showed up. It was all anybody could talk about online. And today, I'm talking to the guy behind it all. Anthony Poe is a creative genius. He has 1.8 million subscribers on YouTube. And he's known for stunts like eating an entire jug of cheese balls. in the middle of Union Square as the cheeseball man.

And eat those balls, I did, one at a time, with absolutely no experience. He infiltrated a cult, hosted a dating show, faked an alien invasion, and more. Hi, Anthony, welcome to Power User. Hi. You're the mastermind behind this whole Timothy Shalameh lookalike contest. How did it all come together? Yeah, so I'm, like, pretty confident in my ability to get people to care about a thing at this point. Like, for the longest time, people thought you need a play.

platform to like reach people, but the way I see it is people almost like it when something is platformless, like authentic. So we're really confident in our ability to like hang up 100 posters and then make it go viral even though there's like nobody attached to it. I mean, eventually this formula isn't going to work and that's how culture works is people are already figuring it out, right? Like I've already seen a bunch of other lookalike competitions pop up. But like if you just have a good idea, people will show up. And we were actually joking about how I look like Timothy Chalameh. So the original idea was to rig it and let me win. And then as like over 10,000 people expressed interest were like, oh, we should probably have it just be run legit.

What was it like? I'm so sad I missed it because I'm based in L.A. But at what point did Timothy Chalemay show up? Did you know that he was going to be there? We would have put like $1,000 on him not showing up because like we just couldn't think of a worse security risk for Timothy Shalame. And it's a shame because he wanted to meet up with us. We were just sent a clip of him being like, who organized this? Like, I want to meet him.

And unfortunately, we were busy running the event, but... So you didn't even get to meet him? No, I didn't. He showed up actually somewhat towards the beginning, but at that point, we were ushering everybody to a second park because it was either that or get detained, which we had planned on me fully getting detained, but we're like, we had already location scouted another place,

and we're like, if we get detained there, that's when we'll run the detained contingency plan. But in the meantime, we just ushered everybody over. But, yeah, sadly, our paths, Like, we walked right by each other probably as he was arriving and we were ushering everybody over. What do you mean when you said you have a contingency plan for getting detained? Oh, we had made a bunch of signs saying hashtag free Gilbert. So, because we were, like, we're, like, I'm definitely getting put in handcuffs.

We're like fully prepared for it. So I made like a hundred different pieces of paper that I'll say hashtag free Gilbert that we were going to just throw to the crowd. And then it was going to be its own thing. Loki kind of wish that would have happened because I realize now that would have been really funny. So. I saw the arrested Timothy Shalame just spoke out, by the way. Have you been in touch? You post bail?

Yes. Well, he didn't get fully arrested, which is good. Yeah, I'll pay for as long as it's not. You know, I don't got like 100 grand. Honestly, if it's like a thousand bucks, I would put it forward, a couple thousand bucks maybe. But I'll do like a fundraiser for him, you know? Yeah. So how did you come up with the event?

Was it just like people told you that you look like Timothy Shalamee and you were like, let's do that? What was the genesis of this one? Yeah, I don't know exactly what it was. I mean, we'll just sit in this room. I have a producer named Paige, who's also my roommate. We'll just, like, write stuff on this whiteboard until we have a funny idea. Our, like, North Star is, like, what's something people would tell her grandkids about? Like, oh, I went to a Timothy Chalameh look-a-like competition. And that's usually our pulse for it. But, like, I have this flyer guy, and we paid him, like, a thousand bucks, maybe three months ago to hang up, like, 1,200 flyers. Who's this mysterious flyer guy? How'd you find him? What's his deal? It's funny. I was randomly walking in the city one day, and it was a flyer with literally like 10 words saying,

I will hang up your flyers and then his email. Genius. Yeah. And then he charges me a dollar a flyer. He prints it and puts it up. And I give him like locations and all that stuff. Oh, he's great. That's amazing.

He does print it. Yeah. It's like $1.15 he charges me for each one. So do the math. I feel like you. You've done a few of these stunts. I totally forgot almost because it was a few months ago, but you were also the cheeseball man. You were going to eat like a thousand cheeseballs or something in Union Square? Yeah, I ate 3,000 calories worth of cheeseballs. I think it's about 1,000

cheeseballs. It was horrible. And you were like kind of dressed as a cheeseball, weren't you? Yeah, I called myself cheeseball man. I've had this like, this is a bit of a tangent, but I've had an obsession with this like real life superhero movement that's happening. in Seattle. And there's a guy named Phoenix Jones, and it's like, he actually fights crime. And my thought process was like, I'm obsessed with him.

So I want to make something that people are obsessed with here. And that was like the genesis of like a superhero. And then I was like, well, how do I get people to care about a thing? And I was like performance art. And that's when cheeseball man came to fruition. Why the flyer strategy?

Because I feel like it's such an old school way of doing events. What do you think it is about the flyers that makes the events kind of pop off? I think that we are now in the downturn of the flyer. I think now that everyone knows flyers are funny, it's going to become a thing where people aren't interested. We're peak flyer.

We're peak flyer. This is peak flyer. So people are asking me like, oh, are you going to throw another lookalike competition? Like, no. Like, the same way I'm not going to use another flyer. It's like not interesting anymore. Like I just got to keep one step ahead of what the culture is feeling. You also did it on Partifle, right?

Yeah. I had like used Partifle initially because I wanted to know how many people would come to the cheese ball event, and then I asked to work with them, and they said no. And so then I was like pretty much done. And then my producer had used it for the Timothy thing. And then they'd reached back out being like, wait, no, no, no. We do want to work together. I was like, right. Like, whatever. I saw the CEO tweeting about you. Like, this could only happen with Partifle or something. Yeah, a bit regretful. I should have asked them for more. Like, I love the team. They're great. But they definitely benefited more than we received, I guess.

I feel like you put so much effort into these stunts. How much work does it take? How long does it usually take to pull something like that together? Yeah, I think the most difficult part is production and like setting it all up, especially because like it's a lean team. Like really it's me and my friend Paige who I've hired full time for the time being and then like some friends. It's just friends like sitting next to me is my roommate and bandmate, Roberto.

And sitting over there is my cameraman. an old college roommate, Henry. Oh, there he is. Where'd you guys go to college? We all went to Rutgers. So we're putting Rutgers on the entertainment map, hopefully. Nice. But yeah, it's tough, especially because, like, you know, they're just, like, they're my best

friends and I love them, but they're not, like, in the entertainment biz, so they haven't been as long. So sometimes it's, like, a learning curve. Like, Paige is talking to the Jets right now. And, like, I'm just giving her full control over it, but obviously, like, it's a new territory for everybody, so. Yeah. I didn't realize this, but I think it said somewhere online that you worked for Mr. Beast.

Yes. Yeah. So I was with Beast for five months. Okay. When was that last year? Yeah, between May and, like, end of September, beginning of October. Were you down there living in North Carolina? I was, yes, in Beast HQ.

And I think I just, like, well, first of all, I was making less money than I was doing my own channel. And then the other thing was like, even though I was, like, good at it, like, I made, I was in charge of making the shorts for like those five months. I was like, this isn't fulfilling. Like I feel like even, you know, we can get 100 million views on a short. And I was like, this is doing nothing. Like these are just mindless views, which is fine. And it works. But, you know, I want to like be part of the culture and like inspire people and do cool things. And I didn't think I was finding that there. Yeah. What do you think of all of the drama that's gone down recently with everything? I was reached out to by tons of reporters.

I'm sure. I denied on speaking on it back then, but I mean, it's kind of blown over for the most part now. Yeah. It's fine. I mean, my issue is like the second I, like, speak on my experiences. It's like a detriment to not only Mr. Beast who I don't care about Jimmy like that, like we're not like buddies, but like a lot of really like good people work at a company. And it's like they could lose their job type thing. Yeah.

So I'm always like, but yeah, it's fine. I mean, it happens. It's a company of like over 100 people. And what were you doing before that? Because I think at one point you were in a content house too, right? I was, yes. That's how I had first come in contact or familiar with you because you did a piece on us. Yeah. I think it was the house that nobody asked for, right, in Vegas? Tell me more about sort of like your origin story and when you started creating viral videos on the internet. It's been a long time. When I was 15, I started a sketch comedy show on Instagram with my friends.

and we gain like 300K on Instagram in like a month. And this is like we're 15, so our parents are like, you can't be on the internet, blah, blah. And from there, like, it just snowballed. I think you post a video every month, correct? But you're going to stop posting or you're going to spend two years posting and then stop. And I know on the top of your YouTube you have kind of a countdown to almost when you stop posting. Why are you sort of like counting down to that moment? I like giving myself a deadline.

It's the only way I'm going to hold myself accountable. And also, like, I think ends are good and so are beginnings, and every end is a new beginning. I'm already bored of YouTube. I have been for a long time. Like, transparently, I fully prefer short form. I think it's more creative. I think it's more fulfilling. I think more people care about it in general.

Really? Yeah. YouTube is the weird in between right now. Like, I'd rather make a full movie or make a short form video. Like, YouTube, like, people don't watch YouTube for creative. They watch, like, body cam, like, true crime and, like, predator-catching videos. Like, no shade, but like full shade. Like, I think commentary channels are the death of creativity.

Like, I think it's where things go to die. It's like, that's when the cycle stops. What's your beef with them? Why do you think so? I watch them. I mean, like, my beef is purely creative where it's like, I'm fighting an uphill battle. Like, this Timothy Chalemay thing, I got a $500 ticket. That's fine.

But, like, it costs me, like, minimum $4,000. Like, minimum. Did you make any money on it other than the Partifold brand deal? No. And like the YouTube video might not even make that back in ad rev. And people will probably react to it or have reacted to it and will make more money because they can make a 30 minute video milking the whole thing. So I'm playing a harder battle than they are. And that's what people prefer to watch that. Yeah. So I have no like, I don't hate them, but like I do think it's unfair that we operate on the same like level. If that makes sense. But it's like I feel like that's always the case with original content. Like people are going to rip it. Yeah, my hope is that, and it's worked for me so far, like, most people have an internet career for like a year, and I've been fortunate to be doing this for like eight now. Yeah. Or longer than, I guess almost a decade. But, you know, some people make the news and other people report on it.

My thing is like, I'd rather just work a corporate job before I start doing the commentary stuff. You're very anti-commentary. Yeah. I hear what you're saying. That would be really frustrating. Do you do like special, I mean, do you have a Patreon or anything like that? Do you paywall anything? or do like, I don't know, subscriptions in any way?

Yeah, unfortunately, no. I, my thing is like I just dislike making people pay for a thing that should be free. So I've been scrappy with how I make my money. Like, my thing is like, I took a better help brand deal, which like I received flack for, even though like, you know, I only took it because I had like, you know, my producer do a bunch of research. I'm like, is this worth it? Like, I'm not trying to get that much flack.

And she's like, yeah, they seem to clean their act up. And it's like, you know, people make a big fuss about it. It's like, dude, like, it's either this or I like don't pay rent and can't do the videos. But yeah, I mean, moving forwards, I, my mom makes jewelry. So I'm launching starting next video, support my mom.com, which is like, she literally just makes like silly little bracelets. And I wear, I wore them in the Timothy Jalamey thing. I love that. I heart weeners. She sells on Etsy, but I was like, I made a website called Support My Mom. mom.com. Henry helped me make it. And I'm just going to start selling her bracelets. And hopefully that covers like at least somewhat of what a sponsor would be each video. And then maybe that'll

help. And I can keep doing it. And then hopefully maybe I become a bigillionaire and don't have to keep doing this rat race. What do you mean when you say you dislike making people pay for something that should be free? Like what do you think should be free? I think if you are making like incredibly in-depth art and creative things, I think, you know, you have movies. You have movies. have the right to charge, right, as an hour or a half long experience. But if I'm making a short internet video, I'm like not against the idea of somebody else having a Patreon, but I've just, every time I've thought about it or I had one for a while, I was like, this doesn't feel right. Like I'd rather people just, I want to give them something, right? Like an item or like an experience.

I don't want you to just pay me because you think I'm cool. Like I want to, I want it to feel if you're going to give me money, I want to give you something in return. And I feel like content. I already give you that for free. So. Yeah. What did you study in school? marketing, unfortunately. Okay. Oh, so you're like a real marketing head. Yeah, it's a shame because marketing has such a negative connotation, but like the way I see it is like, how do you get people to care about something? We'll be back with more Anthony Poe after the break.

It feels like a lot of your content. There's something like the virality of it, especially the Timothy Shalame thing. Like, it was so, I'm on a group chat with a bunch of other, like, internet culture reporters. And like everyone was like, who's going? Is everyone covering it? like I feel like it was this talked about event in a way that I think is kind of rare now. Like some of your stuff feels kind of early internet where it was like flash mob or like remember the viral Facebook event type things. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Are you inspired by any of that content or like how do you sort of think about the way your

content fits into like the evolution of YouTube? That's exactly what we're inspired by or I guess me, but like I've I've kind of like positioned everybody to think about that too. where it's like, first of all, I think anonymity is like a big part of it. Again, like, people don't want to be advertised to. The only reason that Timothy Chalamay thing went viral is because my name wasn't attached to it. Like, same thing with Cheesball Man. Like, I'm a firm believer that, like, people don't want to be advertised to.

If I could have it my way, I wouldn't let people know it is me. But the reality is, like, that's how I build the business and keep doing it. But yeah, yeah, I think people, like, want stories to tell their grandkids or, like, have these, like, wholesome fun events because, like, mostly everything is commercialized. It's like how do we make a profit, you know, Ryan meetup, which is like a, you know, that old, like a bunch of Ryan's got together. I actually met the founder of it. No way. He came to, I did a really small event.

I hung up one poster for watching me finish this 1,000 piece puzzle. There's just like a small bit and I ended up getting like 25 million views. But one of the 10 people that came, he was like, yeah, by the way, like, I do this thing called the Ryan meet up. I was like, no way. But yeah, I love stuff like that. Like, I think that's like what I hate the internet right now. Like I'm, you got me all riled up. I mean, isn't part of what makes the Internet so miserable right now the move to short form content and like just the like lack of attention span on everything?

I don't think so. I think that's part of it maybe. I don't even mind that as much as I mind just like everyone's attention being put towards negative things. Not even like I think politics is fine, right? Like I think that's fine. But I think that like the drama cycle is so frustrating and it's tough because it works. Again, I get stuck in watching it. I've been pretty good avoiding that.

But again, like now I'm watching these predators. Catcher videos or like, it's like why, like, it's the least productive way to spend it. You're better off doom scrolling than you are watching Predator Catcher content realistically, right? Yeah. I mean, I know, but it's like I also just feel like the platform ecosystem is really bad. I mean, it sounds like you spend a lot of time on YouTube. Definitely I do too, but I know you're also on like Twitter, which is, I think, definitely gotten weirder in terms of like they also there's just a lot more video on Twitter these days too. And Instagram is so sanitized. Like I, I feel like there's not that, like, fun that we had when it was, like, Vine era or I guess

it was also, like, the premonetized era, right? It wasn't all about making money and, like, growing your brand. Yeah. And I do think that's part of the reason why I've been able to stick around is because, like, I'm doing the thing that doesn't make that much money. Where do you see this going? I know you're sort of working towards this deadline, but, like, what are your long-term goals? Yeah, I think just be a part of culture, preferably, like, in a cool, wholesome way, right? Like, I'm happy that this is. is kind of like the mark that we're leaving is like fun. Like, because, you know, we could be much bigger, I think, but I like the place we're at right now.

And long term, like, we have a lot of projects that we think can turn into much, much, much, much bigger things. So, yeah, just keep doing things. I mean, the main thing right now is like, how do we build a business? Because, like, obviously, like, that's hard. So I guess would you bring brands into the videos or would that just totally destroy it? Yeah, we have a couple ideas for stuff in and around that. I think in the short term, we'll take a. a really good sponsor. Like cool shirts. We worked with them for like cheeseball man. Like that was cool.

Like because I've known them and like actually just dropped my management because I realized I secured my biggest brand deal just by like talking, right? Yeah. And I prefer that. But yeah, sponsors and then like selling bracelets and then I'm cool operating on a thin margin. Realistically like I don't care if this isn't a job in five years. Like my thing like if I died tomorrow I'd be cool. Like I did my thing. Like I, you know, like I've made some cool art inspired people. We'll throw like a cheeseball man event. I had a face off for my upcoming fight right after the Timothy Chalemay thing. And, you know, it was like small. We didn't advertise it that much. It was maybe like 400 people, 500 people. And afterwards, like, you know, all the NYU kids are just

like, I'm so inspired by you and your friends. Like, whoa, blah, blah. Like, that's all we care about, I think, at the end of the day. How much of, I guess, like, your success in all of this, do you think is tied to also being in New York where like these types of things I feel like can happen? there's always some kind of shit going on in New York, you know what I mean? And there's like a density to it that, I don't know if you've ever lived in L.A. Like, I think would be hard to replicate. Yeah, 100%. I lived in L.A. right before and right after the TikTok house.

And, yeah, L.A. is horrible. But I think New York City is awesome. And I think a lot of YouTubers are kind of like Ben came here recently. It's why I've been doing stuff with him. Oh, yeah, I saw that. Yeah. Good friend of mine. I love him.

I'm convincing more and more creators to come here because it's like, it's also less toxic. It's a lot more artistic. Like, L.A. felt very transactional. Like, hey, we're shooting a video versus here. It's like, hey, I'm doing something fun. I want you to be a part of it, which is cool. Yeah, I feel like New York's always been a place for fun, creative, like, internet stuff. It's ironic because I think especially the stuff that was that pre-monetization era of the internet that your stuff is very reminiscent of was always very New York-centric. I feel like that's why all the prolific, like, artists, artists come from New York. Like, L.A. has a lot of entertainment famous people, maybe musicians, but New York has always been like all the people who are doing

like really cool art and changing things. Who are you really inspired by on the internet these days? I'd say comedy-wise, people like almost Friday, right? Like people who are like putting themselves out there and doing the hard thing. I've been getting called Dumb Banksy, which is so funny to me. I like that. Like I think that's a fair title, like Dumbanksy. And it is kind of like how we operate too. It's like anonymous pop-ups. And then, you know, I'm a big fan of like old YouTube as well. Oh, my favorite YouTuber of all time is a guy named Atrioc. He makes like marketing content.

I just like the way he talks about like business in the world. And like he reacted to cheeseball man like without knowing it was me. And it's funny because it was like exactly what I wanted. He's like, this is a guy doing it for the love of the game. Like I still love it even knowing its content. It's such a beautiful, spontaneous moment. I love it. He just put a little joy in the world.

People had a good day. He does marketing Mondays where he goes through all the marketing things in the universe. At the heart of what I'm doing is kind of marketing. It's like, how do you get people to care about a thing? So I think that's where I take some of the inspiration from. I mean, it's so much of it is marketing. It's kind of like genius marketing. It's the type of marketing that I think brands would usually kill for. But I think part of what the appeal is like you're saying, it's not the Oreos sponsored, whatever. Right, right. Well, Anthony, thank you so much for joining me today. This is fun.

Thank you. It's a pleasure. Keep doing the good work. You're a great journalist and a good reporter and a cool Twitter account. Thank you. That's the show. You can watch full episodes of Power User on my YouTube channel at Taylor Lorenz. Power User is produced by Travis Larcuck and Jalani Carter. Our video editor is Sam Essex. Our executive producer is Zach Mack. Power User is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. If you like our show, give us a rating and review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen. You can sign up for my weekly newsletter, UserMag at usermag.com. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode of Power User.