The Bossticks - Tank Sinatra's Wild Life Story - How He Chose Family, Sobriety, & Memes Over Chaos & Addiction

Episode Date: January 5, 2023

#532: On today's episode we are joined by Tank Sinatra. Many listeners may recognize Tank from his wildly popular meme pages.  In Tank's words "TankSinatra is the largest and most prolific meme creator on the Internet (not my words, although I don't disagree). Possibly the most reposted/plagiarized man in the world right now, and loving every second of it." Tank joins the show to discuss how he chose family, sobriety, and a life full of memes to combat addiction and a life of chaos. We also discuss how Tank has built one of the most recognizeable names and brands in social media and built a career using his wit and sense of humor.  To connect with Tank Sinatra click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential This episode is brought to you by Ring Concierge Ring Concierge is the leading luxury jeweler committed to designing for women, by women. Use code TSC20 and save 20% on any fine jewelry at ringconcierge.com  (Excluding bridal, classic diamond studs, and gift cards) This episode is brought to you by House of Macadamia Not all nuts are created equal. When you're choosing macadamia nuts, you're getting all of your fatty acids, 20 times more omega 3s than almonds and better fat composition than olive oil or avocados to keep you satisfied. Use code SKINNY at houseofmacadamias.com/skinny for 20% off your first purchase. This episode is brought to you by Arrae Arrae's product line is comprised of three products, Bloat, Calm, & Sleep alchemy capsules to help solve everyday problems that women constantly deal with. Use code SKINNY at arrae.com to get 15% off your first purchase + a free Sleep Mini. This episode is brought to you by Sakara Sakara delivers science-backed, plant-rich nutrition programs and wellness essentials right to your door. Their ready-to-eat meals are nutritionally designed to deliver results—from weight management and eased bloat to boosted energy and clearer skin. Go to Sakara.com/skinny or enter code SKINNY at checkout to receive 20% off your first order. This episode is brought to you by Sunday for Dogs Sundays is air-dried dog food made from a short list of human-grade ingredients. Unlike other fresh dog food brands, Sundays is zero prep, zero mess, and zero stress. Get 35% off your first order by going to SundaysForDogs.com/SKINNY or use code SKINNY at checkout. This episode is brought to you by Nutrafol Nutrafol is the #1 dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement, clinically shown to improve your hair growth, thickness, and visible scalp coverage. Go to nutrafol.com and use code SKINNYHAIR to save $15 off your first month's subscription, plus free shipping on every order. Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you alone for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her.

When somebody is able to put together long-term sobriety, typically there's no epic moment where they get a rest of, or they crashed their car or like going to jail, losing your kids, getting divorced, losing your job, all that stuff. It's all human aid. It's all like stuff that exists here on this plane. So it really doesn't affect you. You don't care.

When your alcoholism or drug addiction is active, you don't really exist as a person. Your alcoholism or addiction is live and thriving. And you're just kind of like along for the ride trying to keep up. Hello. Tank Sinatra, aka George Rush, is on the skinny confidential him and her podcast today. We flew all the way to New York City to interview Tank. I call him Tank. His name's George, but I just feel like Tank is perfect. You probably recognize his name from Instagram. He has three million followers. He has one of the most iconic meme pages. And he also hosts the podcast,

The Think Tank. He just launched a game called Influencers in the Wild, which is a good time, let me tell you. And he's the author of Happy is the New Rich. In this episode, we talk all about his journey with sobriety. We talk about entrepreneurship. We talk about building something from nothing. And he really opens up about being undatable, unemployable, overweight, a smoker, an alcoholic to now his life. He's happily married. He's a father. He's a bodybuilder. Non-smoker, been sober. He's going to tell you all the things. And I really like this episode personally because I feel like he's very vulnerable and he's open and he's honest and it is refreshing. Let me tell you.

On that note, let's welcome Tank Sinatra to the skinny confidential, him and her podcast. This is the skinny confidential, him and her. My wife was the first person who was like, I don't want to talk about this right now. I'm too angry. And I was like, what do you want to make an appointment to get mad later? What are you doing here? We're in it now. I'm already pissed off.

I don't want to get pissed off again later. I think it's really strategic to say. say that though because she's actually being stoic about it. It's so smart. So much better. It's so much. Well, it's better for everyone. Yeah, because I'm a maniac.

Like, if I get mad, I just say things that are not true and are designed to hurt because I'm mad. You seem like a pretty calm guy. Yeah, until I'm not. I'm Irish. So it's like it takes me a little bit to get pissed off. But then once I'm mad, it's like, I'm Irish and German. Okay.

So yeah. I fell in love with your content because I think you're so funny. And then you voice noted me and I was on the floor freaking out because like your voice is amazing. And you voice noted me about one of the posts that I did on having a nanny. Oh, people got so mad that I even would dare offer my opinion to you by the way. How does anyone not even know? Because I commented. I said, hey, I wrote you.

I sent you a DM about this and people were like, Like, you're a man. What do you know about this? The DM was actually really profound. Say what it said. Yeah, no shit. I'm the man. I fucking know what's going on.

Say what you said. It was about you, something about you and a nanny and like how crazy it is to just have a life, first of all. And kids. And I was raised by a mom and dad. Dad worked a lot. He worked for the Long Island Railroad. Then he was the treasurer of the union.

He had, you know, multiple jobs. coaching, you know, whatever. And my mom was just like barely hanging on by a thread. It was three kids all within like. She was watching all the kids. Yeah. And she cleaned, you know, she like did odds and ends jobs to like try and make a little extra money. But, yo, I mean, it's a lot. So when I have a 16 year old stepdaughter, an almost 10 year old son and a five year old son, when my five year old son was born, my wife was like, I could really use some help. I'd like some help. She owns an esthetician business. She's like busy. So how was she doing it without a nanny in the first place?

School, preschool, stuff like that. But then with the new baby, she's like, I'd like to get a nanny. And I was like, you know, I went, I try so hard not to do this. I don't like blaming the problems of today on the people who were younger than us. Like, we were here first. You know, we're raising them. I don't get that whole like, you know, participation trophies or millennials fault. Like, you ordered them, dude. I was seven. I didn't have a say. I didn't order the participation trophy. I was playing Little League. Meaning like it's not the kids' fault that they're getting participation trophies. It's our fault because we put them in place.

Of course, you're the one who sidelines the coach and said, hey, how come you not playing my son? Well, your son kind of sucks. You know, what's going on at home? Are you practicing with them? No, I'm too busy. That's your job. No, it's your job. You're the parent. Anyway, so my wife wanted a nanny and I was like, well, my mom raised us with no nanny and blah, blah, blah. And then literally my next thought was, she probably could have used some help though because it was pretty fucking crazy in the house. My thing is with the nanny. It sounds like you're rich and you're like disconnected from life, but that's not what it is.

It's nothing to do with it. I spend money on my time. And so I'm not an octopus. I can't give my husband a hand job while I'm, while I'm podcasting and trying to run a business and raise kids and clean the house and do the laundry and have dinner on the table and bend over. Like, I can't do everything at once. Yeah. So I have to.

The way I think we look at it, too, is like, if we were like, you know, because the way I look at parenting is in order to be an effective parent, you have to be in a happy and good mindset yourself, right? Like, you can't be this disheveled person that's angry and pissed off and resentful about having children, right? Yeah. And Lauren and I consciously made the decision that like, hey, we're both going to keep working and both keep building the things that we want to build to keep us happy at the

same time. We do want to be parents. But to us, it was like, okay, just like running a business, you need help to run that business. You can't just do it all on yourself. And we're like, okay, we don't have any family around us. We can afford it, fortunately. And we need to bring these people in to help us with our children when we're doing stuff like this because we don't want to skip a beat. And so we didn't want to be in a position where like we're disheveled and resentful and like running around not able to do it. You know what I mean? So how did you change? It was in an instant. I'm very open to

change, by the way. I'm like very open to change. I know I'm not right about everything. And I know I've actually historically been wrong about most things. in my life, especially when it comes to stuff I'm not familiar with. It became very apparent to me because I wanted another kid and my wife was like, I don't want another kid. In addition to the three that are already there. No, no, no, no, the third one. I had to really like work for the third one. I was very aware of the fact somehow, I don't know, good parenting. It's not my body. I'm not the one who's going to have to gestate this life for nine months, 10 months. It's really 10 months. I don't know why they say nine months, by the way. Neither do I. I don't know why they, it's 40,

weeks. I don't know why they say nine months, but we just keep saying nine months like it's right. It's not. It's 10 months. Can we say 10? Let's say 10 months. Let's change the narrative around that. 100%. Let's do the math. It's 40 weeks. That's 10 months, man. Yeah. So your wife, when you said you can have a nanny, was very happy. Yes, because A, it's actually not that expensive. Listen, if you are working a job where you're getting paid, let's call it, I don't know, $15 an hour and you have to pay a nanny $12 an hour or $18 an hour. Obviously, it's not going to make sense. But she's a business owner and her time is valued differently. So if she goes in and she has a good day, that day could make up for the entire week. So it just made sense. Plus, I wanted a happy

wife. Happy wife. Happy life. I'm not one of those guys, but like happy family, happy life. well-adjusted kids happy life. I don't want to, you know, I saw it as like, let me make sure as much as I can that my kids are emotionally taken care of and well-adjusted and feel like they're cared for now when they're developing their personality before they're the age of five

so that I'm not dealing with a nightmare 17-year-old. 100%. It's an investment. Yeah, we all come with like the judgment of previous generations where many, like the dynamic was different. Many women were caretakers in the past, right? So many women are doing different things now. And I think that there's like this guilt people carry where it's like if I'm,

if I have help, I'm a bad parent or I'm not providing the proper kind of love. And so like that's probably more on us than than anything else. It's like that it's just a guilt that parents carry or feel. And it's like a judgment other parents pass on to people that are doing that kind of thing. Yeah. The whole like the one that that bothers me the most is when people say like it's totally unrelated but people say it all the time like I was hit growing up like I'm fine.

it's like, well, you're actually defending hitting kids. So maybe you're not that fine. Maybe you're not all right. I want to take a plot twist and talk about your sobriety journey. Before you got sober, what was your life like? Oh, it was just like, you know, it was great. I was killing it. I was killing it on every level.

I just felt like maybe I could save some money and get, you know, more ripped if I Stop drinking. No, I was dying. I was literally dying. I was going to die. What was the, what was it? Was it alcohol, was drugs? What was it? It was literally whatever I could get my hands on or whatever, whoever was around me would let me sniff or eat or whatever. I mean, I think about this all the time. The fact that I never came across heroin or crack when I was out there drinking is a miracle. Because if I, if someone was smoking crack near me and I was drunk, I would have smoked crack. So can you remember the first time where you sort of had an epiphany that this is a problem? Not saying you did anything in about that time, but like when was the time where you're like, huh, this is maybe not what normal people do. And just to pay the pictures. You guys are a great looking couple, by the way. Your eyebrows are like.

But who's better looking? Both of you are better looking than the other one. No, no, no, no, no, you can't say that. That's what I said. Well, I'm better looking. I mean, I don't want to, you know. Are you thinking he's better? Oh, my God.

Are we getting lost in each other's eyes? right now. He thinks he's, even if I wasn't better looking, you still have to stay I'm better looking. Listen, I don't want to upset Michael. His hair is unbelievable. My God. It is unbelievable. He thinks it's all because of him though. Well, let me, so, listen, I'll always take the credit. Blot twist. Yeah. Let me ask you this. To paint a picture, was this, were you somebody that was using it alone or was this like a social thing? You're out and like, then you're like, when you're out, you're out. No, the whole thing of like drinking alone. If you drink alone,

you have a problem, when you're an alcoholic, you're like always drinking alone, even if you're with people because nobody's really drinking the way you're drinking. Huh. So if I'm out with my friends

and like they buy the first round, or I buy, God forbid, I bought the first round, I was badgering, like whoever was next, like, yo, next round. They're like, I'm a quarter of the way through with this one.

That's why I never do the first round because you guys are so slow. You don't even, I don't even know how to drink. I could not get the alcohol in my body fast enough. Was it how, like, when did it start being like that? How old were you in high school? There's a tradition in the recovery group that I go to

where you don't talk about the group publicly. Okay. It's the big one, though. Okay. So I'm not going to name it. Okay. But it's what you're thinking of. Okay.

That's where I go. Okay. Where everyone should go, if you have a problem. Okay. They talk about an allergy, right? which is like just simply an abnormal response to an external stimulus. It's not necessarily itchy throat or hives or closing of the throat. It's like when I eat food, I get full eventually.

When I drank, I got thursdayer the more I drank. It was bizarre. Like I couldn't, it's impossible to explain. There was zero diminishing return on the liquid I was putting into my body. You could not drink that much water. It would be impossible. So the first time I drank, I had six shots of Southern Comfort and six beers. How old?

13. And my cousins were like, I know. And when you're 13, because you're a big guy, you're 13, are you like? I'm pretty big. Yeah, I'm like 190 or 200 or something like that. A 13? Yeah, it was big. Fuck, man.

I know. But. I was like 115 pounds wet. Yeah. No, I'm 250 now. I'm huge. Okay. So you were, you could, okay.

I'm just because the reason because that's a lot of alcohol still. It's way too much. I blacked out the first time I drank. I was a blackout drinker. Always blacked out. But my cousins were like, hey, the Soco is a little harsh, just drink some beer to chase it down. And I hated to taste a beer. And I took the shot of Soco and drank the entire beer.

After the third shot and the third entire beer, someone was like, you don't have to drink the whole beer with every shot. Just like a little sip. Yeah. Just like a little sip. something to wash it down. I was like, oh, okay, I didn't stop. So six shots, six beers, blacked out, 13. I was raised to believe that this was in me, though, like, because of my family and the history and alcoholism gallops in my family, you know, it's present pretty heavily. I'm Irish and German. Like, I never happened. Catholic, Irish, German upbringing didn't have a shot. No chance.

There was an underlining, genetic. Genetics. Genetic. that you, like, no one was surprised that you liked alcohol. No. Nobody was surprised. So it wasn't a shocker. My mom was like, here we go. So from 13 to what age were you drinking? So 13 I drank once, scared myself because I was like, this is not good.

14, I drank again. And the way of your brain works when you're trying to, like, corral yourself, I remember going to a party and my parents were away in Hawaii. Hawaii. And I was like, I went with my cousin to go get drinks for the party. And I was like, it was around the time that juice was out and like all those, like South Central and all those movies, I was like, I want to get a 40 ounce. And I was like, but 40 ounce is not enough. So I wanted to get two 40 ounces. And I was like two 40 ounces is too much. So I got five 22 ounce bottles of liquor, which if you do the math, that's more. 110 ounces or whatever. And I drank all of it.

blacked out, threw up again. Then I didn't drink again for two years because I was like, I can't, this is like not normal. So I just, I was scared. I started smoking pot around that time because it felt more controllable. Didn't have enough money or resources or time or, you know, ability to smoke pot all the time, but I smoked it whenever I could. But I was always trying to control it. I remember smoking pot at a party one weekend and I was like, I smoked pot this weekend. I think, did I smoke pot last weekend? If I did, I shouldn't smoke again next weekend. That's not a normal conversation to have in your head at all. Like I never enjoyed it.

I did enjoy the effects of it, but it was always like, this is going to be bad. This is just going to be bad. I know it's going to be bad. So when I was 17, I went to my mother and told, this is when I decided, all right, this is it. This is how I drink. This is what it's going to be. I was going out every weekend. I quit the football team so I could drink Friday and Saturday night instead of just Saturday.

So you were like strategic with the drinking. Oh, yeah. And when you quit the football team, were you like, Were you a good player? Did you have a shot at doing anything else? Like, or is this like... I hated the coaches. So I was, it was more of like a fuck you to the coaches too because they were the worst.

They were just bad. I mean, I don't necessarily vibe with coachy type of people anyway. Like, so... You don't say. Yeah. Now. On all levels. I mean, there are good coaches out there.

I just didn't have them. You know, they just weren't working at Comac High School at that time. So you quit, you have your fire day. Saturday nights. Yeah, blacking out every night I drank every single time. Having fun, apparently. Not really thinking anything is an issue. But I went to my mother and said, hey, when I drink with my friends, I get 12.

They get six. I finish all 12 of mine. And then everyone usually has two or three left over. I finish everyone else's too. And she's like, oh, boy, this is after my mom telling me I'm going to have a drinking problem since I was like five years old. Do you think because she told you that that it perpetuated the addiction even more? No.

You just think she just was being honest with you. Yeah. She's like, hey, you know, your dad drinks problematically. All his brothers did. His father did. Just be careful. Like it's probably going to, you know, it's something to keep an eye out for. Same thing I do with my sons.

I don't, I explain to them. My 10-year-old knows I go to meetings. He knows I don't drink. He knows I used to. He knows my brain and body can't process it properly. it's like, you know, I just don't do it right. My wife is a great example for them. My wife said something, it's the most non-alcoholic thing that's I've ever personally witnessed in my entire life. In meetings, everyone laughs about like the person that leaves a half a drink behind or even like a sip.

Nobody leaves a sip. No alcoholic has ever left a sip anywhere at any point in time, unless they're arrested or something. My wife, we went to Hawaii. We sat down. We had a whole dinner at the this restaurant. We finish, eat dessert, check. We were there for our anniversary. We're walking back to our hotel and she goes, oh, I forgot. I wanted to have a cocktail at dinner. And I was like, what the fuck? You would have ever be. It's like, it's equivalent to me going to the restaurant sitting there for two hours and going, I got to order dinner. Like, it just makes no sense to me whatsoever. So at what point did you have a rock bottom moment or were there multiple rock bottom moment? I mean, it sounds like you were backing out. Yeah. What was the like rock bottom? So there,

that's the thing there. Usually when somebody is able to put together long term sobriety, typically there's no like epic moment where they get arrested or they crash their car or like, you know, they say in the book says we're beyond human aid. All those things, getting arrested, going to jail, losing your kids, getting divorced, losing your job, all that stuff. It's all human aid. It's all like stuff that exists here on this plane. So it really doesn't affect you. You don't care.

It doesn't matter. So like they have another saying, normal people will raise their behavior to meet their standards. Alcoholics lower their standards to meet their behaviors. So they'll say like, I'm never going to do that. And then they do that and they go, that's fine. And then they keep lowering it and lowering it and lowering it. So it's a bottom for most people in my experience and mine especially is just a slow grinding away of your entire existence until you're not even there anymore. And then you go, okay, do I want to exist or not?

And I don't mean live. I mean like when your alcoholism or drug addiction is active, you don't really exist as a person. Your alcoholism or addiction is live and thriving and you're just kind of like along for the ride trying to keep up. You don't have ambitions. You don't have a favorite type of music, a favorite movie, goals, dreams, friends, none of that. The only thing that matters is the high or whatever your fix is. Nicole of the Ring Concierge has been on the podcast twice. We invited her back because she is so freaking smart when it comes to jewelry.

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There was one day that I drank for the last day, but it wasn't like that much different than any other day. I crashed a car. So when I came at, somebody was like, what's the worst thing that ever happened while you were drinking? And how soon were you drinking after that?

And on New Year's Eve, Eve, I went out, got blackout drunk, stole my dad's car, drove it to some girl's house, drove back from her house, and crashed it on the Northern State Parkway. Oh, Jesus. I know. And didn't get it, you know,

just walked away, no. Walked to put my hand up on the side of the road. The guy who was driving happened to work right around the corner from my parents' house, where I was living. And I was like, hey, can you, you know, bring me home? He must have smelled the alcohol. He was probably like, this guy just got saved, you know, from a dewee for sure. I walk in the home.

I'm like, putting the tears on. I'm like, oh, I just going to do an accident. My mom's like, were you drinking? I was like, no. I mean, you think you don't smell. You smell a lot, especially if you drink the way that I drank. anyway, that night I was drinking. After you're drinking like a barrel of whiskey or whatever.

Yeah. To get you drunk at that point. So the worst thing that ever happened to me drinking was crashing my car. 12 hours later, I was drinking. There's just no, it's like, ah, this time's going to be different. But you said, you said the last day that I drank, did you go into it being like, this is the last day I'm drinking? No, no, no, no, no.

So then how did you end up in recovery? So my mom said that day when I woke up at whatever it was, 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock, She's like, you got to stop drinking today or get out of the house tonight. That's it. And I was like, whoa. She had bothered me before and nagged and like said things. But when she put it in those terms, I was like, am I missing something here? Is this like worse than I realize?

And how old are you? 21. Okay. And not married, obviously. No. Could relationship. Okay. What?

You said girlfriend. So I'm just making sure you weren't married. This is different. No, I wasn't a girlfriend. I went to go see some girl. Some girl. That like I went to college with. that I happen to remember the phone number.

Just like dialing, you know, anybody who would pick up the phone. Who knows? Anyone that's answering. Anybody, dude. Anybody. So your mom wakes you up? Yeah, she's waiting in the kitchen. She goes, you got to stop drinking tonight or get out of the house tonight.

I start to see, and maybe there's a piece of this puzzle that I'm missing. Then I did some quick math and I realized how people become homeless, like in that instant. Because I literally thought people were just born 38 years. old homeless on the street. I didn't understand how it happened. And I was like, wait, okay, so I'm 21. I could go live at my friend Chris's house with his parents for realistically, maybe a week. His parents would probably kick me out because I'll do the same thing there. And maybe I could go to my friend Steve's house. I get maybe three days there because his parents are actually stricter. Maybe I have enough for a night at a hotel, possibly. Then I'm in my car.

By the way, once you're in your car, you're homeless. People are like, you know, I'm living. in my car, man. Like, it's cool. No, you're homeless. It's not cool. Then once your car goes, because you can't pay that, then you're literally sleeping on concrete. And I was like, oh, my God, I would be homeless for sure. There's no doubt in my mind. In a month. It was about that. So I went to a meeting that night was met with like this feeling of everything that I was looking for before drinking, using, trying to surround myself with people that like just trying to get that feeling of being understood. Because when you, so like, it's a very uniquely

alcoholic experience, I think, to drink for the first time and go, ah, this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life to feel comfortable. This is the best day in my life. My wife, I guarantee you, does not remember the first time she drank. There's no chance.

I do. It was like the sound of a key going into a door and opening it. And then your whole life is like, oh, now my. skin fits my body. This is great. And you had the same feeling when you walked into this community. Yeah. Yeah. It was just like, they just know you're new. They go, that guy's, it looks like shit. Yeah, he looks bad. He's shaking. He's nervous. He doesn't know anybody. He's looking around like this.

So somebody comes up to you. They say, hey, how's it going? I'm so and so. And, you know, you knew here is your first time? They're just because when you get into, a 12-step program of any sort, I went to the one for alcohol. Obviously, it's going to sound dramatic, but it really is. It's life or death. It's not like, oh, that guy, I don't like that guy's shoes or whatever. Or he's wearing a Trump shirt. Like, don't help him.

He's like, we don't like that kind of stuff here. It's like, whatever you think, you, like, nothing matters except for the fact that I'm an alcoholic, you're an alcoholic. I don't want to die. You don't want to die. Let's figure it out. We have many friends in recovery and we've had many conversations like this on the show over the years about recovery. And I think there's a common theme where people that are in the program or in recovery, to your point, you kind of feel like you're naturally in your skin when you start using and then you don't, you're doing it constantly to feel that way. And then when you get to this program, you feel like, oh, people, I can actually finally be myself and people finally actually understand what it's like to live like this. Yeah.

And it's much more like from the outside. It's, to your point, your wife could never relate to to this kind of feeling or this kind of way of thinking. But all of a sudden you're in this community where people fully get it and they accept, okay, like you're a human being. This is how you operate, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, there's something very comforting on a soul level to speaking your innermost darkest thoughts and emotions and feelings and looking around and seeing everyone go like this. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I understand that. Because you don't, like the... Like they've had similar thoughts and feelings. Of course. The comfort you get from alcohol completely. artificial. You didn't do anything to earn it and it leaves. And when it leaves, you actually feel worse. So the comfort you get from recovery is not on demand. It's not as extreme and it's not as euphoric, but it's long lasting. You earned it. And it's more genuine. That's the only way

I can put it. Like it's not a high. It's more of like a, it's like a buzz, I guess. Like I never had a buzz ever in my entire life. I went from sober to blackout drunk. every single time. I do not even know what a buzz feels like. Like you never got to the point where we were like, here's one or two drinks

and you're feeling good. It was like, dude, it was right past that right away. Literally never had one or two drinks in my entire life. Because by the time I would start drinking, I was already six drinks deep in my brain.

I had to catch up to my brain physically. And then it was like once the physical, once you start getting the alcohol in the body, the liver, the brain can't process it,

fast enough. You can't put enough of a physical substance in a body with a spiritual hole in it to fix whatever problem there is. It just doesn't work. So how do you go from an undatable, unemployable, overweight smoker and alcoholic to a happily married entrepreneur, bodybuilder, and non-smoker who's been sober for 14 years? And those are your words, not mine. 20 years. Oh, here it says, that's an old bio, huh? It's an old bio. It's an old bio. That's the one I sent you. That's my fault. 20 years.

I just celebrated 20 years. 20 years is a long time. That's good for you. That's awesome. I was nervous about 20 years. Why? Why? Nervous about it's like that milestone was going to like.

Yeah. It just feels made up. It feels fake. It feels like something people say when they're lying. You know? Like if I got pulled over last year and a cop was like, have you been drinking? And I go, no, I've been so over 19 years. He goes, all right, good job, man.

Take care. You know, excellent. If I get pulled over today and he goes, are you drinking? I go, no, I've been sober 20 years. He's like, get out of the car. Let's talk about what you're, don't start lying to me. I feel like that's maybe a narrative. I don't think that's true. I'm making it up. You're making that. There's a lot. It's rattling around in the brain. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's not real. It's not cured. I'm still insane. I'm still like, my brain is still, you know, still going. It's just more manageable. Isn't that dangerous though

when like, again, we had these conversations when former addicts say they're cured? Oh, yeah. Like that's no. If you ever say you're cured, clock is ticking for you. What do you think about what if, if, and this is your perspective. Yeah. What do you think about if you're an addict and you're in recovery and you start using psychedelics or ayahuasca? Like I'm actually curious about that because I've heard complete different opinions on this. I'm hearing people say you can use ayahuasca and psychedelics.

And like I said, this is. Your opinion. This is not like we're not giving anyone advice here. Well, my opinion is correct. Let's start with that. Okay. Yes. It's the right one.

So what is that? Around the 16 or 17 year mark, I think Bill Wilson, who's the founder of the program, along with Dr. Bob, started experimenting with LSD, which at the time was they didn't know, like, what it was. But Bill Wilson was a maniac. Bill Wilson was like a womanizer, egomaniac, crazy person who wanted to be a womanizer, egomaniac, crazy person who wanted to make this program. He wanted it to make him a billionaire.

And he wanted to be like, you know, his, he wanted his name on buildings. Like, that's the kind of guy. He was. Dr. Bob was more like, hey, bro, relax. It's not about you. It's about us and the people were trying to help. So anyway, he was experimenting with LSD

and I, around the 16 or 17 year mark, especially when all these people started talking about DMT and psilocybin and, you know, MDMA, Michael Pollan, my opinion is that that narrative for addicts especially is very dangerous, super dangerous. Do you feel because it opens up the gateway for like, hey, there's exceptions. There's things that you can maybe do that don't fall into substance abuse. Well, because you have the reason you're probably looking to do that. And thank God Michael Pollan at the end of the Tim Ferriss podcast that I listened to said what he said.

He goes, I should note that they did brain scans of people who did whatever it was, three treatments of psilocybin and brain scans of people who meditated regularly. And they were identical. I was like, the fuck, dude. Maybe you said that in the beginning. Yeah, he made me wait an hour and a half and sweat the entire time to get that information. So again, if you have an internal problem, a spiritual condition that is not comfortable to you, an on-demand solution that requires little to no effort from you is not good for an addict or an alcoholic.

I know five people in recovery who have done psychedelics as a way to increase their spiritual awareness, which is, again, a great motive, but the outcome has been a relapse 100% of the time. Wow. So I'm not saying that's going to be it for everybody, but... In your experience, that's what you've seen. I've had, you know, psychedelic experiences with acupuncture, breathing, rakey healing. This woman I went to with a rakey healer, like, I was a five-year-old kid again. And when I left her, I put my feet on the ground outside of her apartment,

and it was like my feet were touching the floor for the first time. No drugs involved. So there are ways to do it that are not compromising your integrity. when it comes to drug use. You're using an external solution to an internal problem. It's not going to work. Isn't it so crazy that... In my opinion. One of the things that can, that help you so much is free and you literally have to sit there and do nothing and just meditate. Yeah. But 99% of people won't do it. They won't sit there and just sit with themselves because it's, it's nerve-wracking and it, or they can't do it or they're bored. You just have to sit with your,

yourself in silence to solve so many of your problems and people won't do it. Well, because if you take psilocybin or LSD or MDMA, it's going to work. Then when you take it, if you meditate, you might meditate for two weeks and then all of a sudden two weeks from then, you'll handle a situation completely differently than you would have and you might not connect the dots. But the more you do it, the more compound interest, I guess you'll have on your effort. And all of a sudden, you're handling life completely differently, you're seeing life completely differently, and you are acting like a different person. And that's really what you want. You don't want to like, my friend who I just got into a debate with about this, I finally called him out on something

that I had been harboring for a little bit. So he told me about this journey. He went on with this shaman and suicide and it changed his life and blah, blah, blah. And he's telling me I should do it. And I was like, bro, I can't do it. It's not, you know, it's not for me. It's just I prefer other ways to get that results you're talking about. He's like, yeah, but you don't need to worry. It's not like the, it's not the kind of thing like you want to go back and do right away. It's not like, there's no addictive problems with it. I was like, all right, whatever, two minutes later in the conversation, he's like, so I have another appointment schedule three weeks from now. Same shaman, same deal. I was like, dude, you just said it.

I've noticed that with ayahuasca too. Someone will say, I had this amazing, profound experience. And what I've realized is sometimes it's not even an addiction to the plant or the drug. It's an addiction to the story that they can tell afterwards. There's an identity situation going on. And we live in Austin, Texas now, so you can't go outside without someone popping out of the bushes telling you they're a shaman. You know what I mean? It's just like, everybody's on this shit out there. And it's like everyone's got life's answers now figured out.

To your point, I think it's difficult when somebody who maybe is not an addict says that to someone who has a problem. with substances because like that may be your experience as someone who's not addicted to substances but to say that to somebody who may have that kind of issue like that's irresponsible to say because he doesn't know that you wouldn't go and do that and then go on a full you know iawaska bender or whatever the hell it is yeah and the the catch 22 is that the people who don't have addictive personalities or uneasiness about them or anxiety are probably not looking to do ayahuasca anyway they're good they can watch one episode of dr phil and their life is fixed they got it now.

You know what I mean? They don't need a crazy, intense psychedelic trip. There's always work to be done on a daily basis. I'm watching this documentary right now that Jonah Hill did with his therapist. Have you seen this? No. Jonah, I don't know you. Sorry.

He's a big listener. Is he? Yeah, big one. The movie is a little boring for, I think, normal people, but for me who's super into self-development and therapy, I was glued to the screen the entire time. And his therapist Stutz talks about, same thing my therapist talks about. That's why his therapist actually kind of reminds me of my therapist. He's thin, older, bald, little goatee, whatever. He says, there's three things that are constant in life, something like that. I just watched last night.

I can't remember. Pain, something else, and constant work. That's what my therapist says. And he goes, the sooner you can learn to fall in love with the constant work, the better off you'll be. People who are looking for an eight-hour experience to relieve them of having to do the work, that you're missing the point. That doesn't relieve you of doing the work. You have to, if you're going to use that as a tool to open up your mind and soul and whatever, then you're going to take that and you're going to start meditating and start reading and praying and, you know, being kind of people and all that stuff all day, every day, great. But you could also, do all that stuff without going to Mexico. You could. It's possible. And you'll get similar results.

Or without going to the bushes in Austin, Texas. Or whatever. Yeah, jumping out of the bushes and yelling and everybody. So that's the other thing. It's like a lot of these people come very self-righteous about this stuff. They almost tell you like you can't be a real human unless you figure out, you know, what the plants have to offer. Yeah. Like that kind of drives me nuts. Yeah. So along, that's a side tangent. While you're going through all this, at what point do you start? I mean, because you, I feel like I've seen you, I mean, maybe this is just because I'm old now too, but I feel like I've seen you for at least a decade. Maybe

not. Maybe that's like 80, but like I feel like you were one of the very first people creating this type of content online and like obviously you've extrapolated that into a million other things. But like when did you, when along this journey did you say like, okay, like this is going to be something that I'm going to dive into? First of all, you're not even that off about it being

a decade and that. Well, that's because I feel like we've been around Yeah. Yeah. 2015, it's almost eight years now. Well, great, cool, I guess. When I started, I thought I was late to the game. Like the fat Jewish was already going. Fuck Jerry was already going.

Girl with no job. Daddy issues. I was like, they already exist. What am I going to do? You know? But I had been making memes on Reddit since 2009. You were doing, you were like, you were creating digital content just on different platforms. How does one like make a meme though?

How do you wake up one day and say, I'm going to make a meme? You look at memes. all the time. And then you go, I could do better than that. So that's basically as simple as it is. So the creation process is like, so there's an image going around.

Someone adds their commentary to it. You look at it like, I can update and do that commentary in my own voice and do it better. Yeah. So one of my first memes that ever hit the front page of Reddit was there was this cat

reading a newspaper. Okay. Do you know the image? Yeah. So it's the first one, he's just saying, I should buy a boat. nobody I don't nobody knows why the internet doesn't need to make any sense to anybody by the way

so he's saying I should buy a boat then there was all these different proliferations of that meme then when Obama ran against Mitt Romney in 2008 yeah yep oh no 2012 oh because we need second term yeah yeah yeah um I guess it was the first term was 2008 yeah I guess it was 2012 so there was a picture of Mitt Romney there reading a newspaper and he's rich but he lost so I wrote I should just buy the country and that went absolutely berserk and I was like oh my god it's on the front page I I me I made the front page it's a good feeling seeing people resonate it's interesting though what you do because it's kind of like a high oh yeah for sure I mean to have that go viral is a high

oh my life is never better than when you're going viral or when you're pages are all banging. You guys have a good episode up. Life is just better. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, it's nothing worse than when you have a dud and you're like, oh, oh, God. Like the whole thing sucks. All 550 episodes, just throw him to the trash. This is what he does.

He'll fucking spiral and I'll do what your wife does and I just don't speak. Yeah. I'm just like, there's next week. I'm like, oh my God, the show's in the tank. Yeah. Get rid of it. We just shut it down. Dear stupid.

Deer sucks. Deer sucks. I have, done stand-up comedy, which I didn't love doing. I didn't get, I guess it's a, I guess to bring it back to addiction. It's like some people do pills and they don't like them, but they still, like, I never got into like Vicodin or anything because I just didn't like the high that it gave me. I loved cocaine and smoking weed and ecstasy. And I even like Valium, like a 1960s housewife for some reason. I don't know how I got someone or even where even found it and drinking. Love drinking.

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Code skinny hair. I'm telling you this is the move. What do you do when you're creating this page? It starts to get a lot of attention. You're going viral. And then you see all these people, these trolls who are copying your content and ripping you off. Those people aren't trolls. Those are just like shitty people. When I think of trolls, I think of people who are like actively trying to make my life worse. By pointing out a flaw in me. Great example when I started influencers in the wilds. I had enough thick skin at this point to not take this seriously. It was actually comical.

So Tank Sinatra completely unprepared for people disliking me. Did not know how to handle it. Took everything personally. And do you mean when the person behind tanks are not? I can't remember. When was it that you actually started showcasing your physical self as opposed to just the memes? So I had like 30,000 followers on Tank's. when I posted the first picture of myself.

And I remember, I said to my wife, I'm like, I feel like this page isn't even my own anymore. Because before memes, it was me posting like shirtless bodybuilding selfies and workout stuff. So that was me. And then once I started posting memes, this is one thing that I find funny because I did Ed Milet's podcast. And we were talking about, he's like, so tell me about the journey from zero to 10 million. And I was like, it's not from zero. It's like you start from 187 and then you post a

couple of memes and it goes down to 174. And it's like, what the hell? Why am I losing followers? Your aunt unfollowed you, your cousin's wife unfollowed you, kid you went to high school with unfollowed you. They're like, what are you trying to be a meme account now? Yeah, I guess. I don't know. Is there a problem? And then it's like, you know, these people who followed you for you, you try and switch and they don't like it. So it's like they rail against it. Then you got to start over again. Then you build it up and then you show your face and people who came to know your page is one thing. Then you show your face and they're like, what the hell is this face doing on my meme page account? It's like it's my account, dickhead. What do you mean? That's why I'm showing you

that I'm a person. We don't care. We don't want to see your stupid face post memes. Well, no. So I lost five or 700 followers out of 30,000, which was a lot at the time. Now I lose, I don't know what the hell, you know, 2,000, 3,000 a day and gain 4,000 or 5,000 a day. Really? It's wild, yeah. It's just like this constant people like coming in and they're thinking it's one page and then it's not. And like they fail to recognize that it's like there's a person behind the memes and they can be bored of it or, you know. So you weren't prepared when you put your face out there to hear what people have to say about the way you look, the way you are. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I knew it. I knew it was going to be a problem. But I didn't care. It was me like cutting the fat. I was like, if you're,

if you don't like the fact that I exist, I don't really want you here anyway. You were going to bounce eventually anyway. So I knew it was going to be painful, but I knew I had to do it. And then I started doing, you know, the videos and tanks good news. Talk about tanks good news for What was the motivation behind you? Because I remember when you did that, I was like, oh, this is like,

and I think you did it at a time also when there was a ton of bad news. Oh, yeah. There is still consistently. But what was the motivation? I mean, the motivation was,

what the fuck? Like, all right, next question. Yeah, no, like enough already. Yeah.

Enough. With the bombardment of just like negative shit. Enough. Like, if an alien came to Earth and they were like, what is this? media you talk about, they would think, oh, it's a system designed to keep people in constant fear and anxiety.

But then why does everyone have it on in the background in their house? Like I don't understand. Because they can't turn away. I think though the news doesn't isn't the one that needs to take the accountability. I think it's the people. Of course. But it's not even us. So it all goes back.

This is one of my favorite facts of all time. I'm not a big fact guy. I think we've ever had anyone come on and be like, just not a big facts guy. Yeah, I don't like facts too much. me more of opinion guy. No, I'm not like one of those like tidbit dudes who's like, did you, like Neil deGrasse Tyson, did you know that if you rub your finger across,

shut up. So. Poor Neil. I know, I'm sorry. I make fun of him on the meme daddy's podcast all the time. That was a good impression too. My favorite things to do. We love him, but we love making fun of him more. I was playing trivial pursuit with my family as a child.

And the answer, trivial pursuit, they give you the answer, then you have to guess the question. It's like Jeopardy, but like not. So the answer, was when this happened on this date, whatever it was, 1971, it would change the way that news was reported forever. And my dad goes, that was when Roger Grimsby told a joke for the first time on the news. And they flipped it around and it was that. Roger Grimsby and Bill Boutel lightened up

the news. Because news before that was dead serious. Facts only. Not my style. So, There used to be no advertisements during news. It was like a state-sponsored thing. You couldn't buy a commercial during it. It was just to get information out to people. Then they made this joke and everyone was like, whoa, is this going to be fun? And from that point forward, it became a zoo circus. Who can keep people entertained the most?

Then I went to 24-hour news. How can we keep this going 24 hours a day? And now it's at the point where if people are not glued to their TVs all the time or at least have it on in the background, then these companies are losing money. What they figured out is that people don't even know that they're programmed literally to stay alive first and foremost. And the number one thing you have to find if you want to stay alive and identify is threats. So just because there's a threat somewhere in another country, your brain doesn't care about that. It's like saber tooth tiger.

Yes. Your brain doesn't care that there's a saber tooth tiger in Africa. It might as well be here now. When you're Michael's parents like love your parents but when I go to their house they have the news on the entire time I'm there. And I think a lot of that generation does. I just can't believe though the whole time it's like you're just pumping cortisol into your veins. Oh yeah. It's almost be the news almost becomes addicting to get that cortisol rush all the time. Yeah. I am like turn it off. I don't want it anywhere near me. But then again, we probably get it on social media and we can't help it. Well, it depends on who you follow. Right. You know Shane Gillis is, the comedian? No. I won't ruin his bit, but the gist of it is basically he's got a Fox News dad. He's like, it's a good dad.

Like, you don't want a Fox News mom. You want a Fox News dad. He goes, my dad watches Fox News every night until he just can't anymore. He'll wake up, he'll sit up and go, ah, fuck, I can't. Mr. Potato had his trans now. I can't even watch this anymore. It is literally just a fire drill all the time. And what they figured out is if you create a visceral reaction in somebody, they'll stay tuned.

But what I planned on and hoped for was that if you create a visceral reaction in people on the opposite direction, they'll stay tuned and they'll keep coming back. So if you make somebody cry tears of joy or feel hope or inspiration or see themselves in a hero story, even though they've never been in that position, they go, I would like to think I would do that in that situation. then they'll go, have you seen this page? This is like incredible. It's all the good stuff that happened today.

There's so much good that happens. You have 10% of life in my wildly rough estimation. That's incredible. Graduating high school, prom, having kids, getting married, being on the skinny confidential podcast, winning a million dollars in the lottery. It's so small. Then you have the other 10%, which is like losing a parent, getting in a car accident, horrific. The other 80% is what you make it by your perspective. And my goal was to just get people

to say, oh, I'm not going to scroll past that thing. I'm going to try and see it a little differently. Or at least glue yourself to the news that's scaring the shit out of you, but veer off a little lit a little bit once in a while to say it's not all bad. Because if you watch the news, it is all bad. You'd think the world is, you know. There's nothing good being reported. And if it is, It's a sliver of the programming and then back to bad news. Yeah, back to bad news. How do you manage all these different things? You've got tanks good news.

You've got Tank Sinatra and influencers in the wild. How are you managing all these pages? Are you actually doing it yourself? Yeah. A lot. That's a lot. In deep breath. There's not like a huge team behind you.

No. I was sure that it was, none of it was going to work, first of all. Then I was sure that maybe some of it would work and some of it would not work. And I wanted to just keep piling stuff on top of stuff, on top of stuff. So that like eventually when one thing died, I would be left with some other stuff. And none of, you know, none of that happened at all just kept working. If I'm taking a selfie in the bathroom, getting the good light and Michael videos me,

can I be featured on influencers in the wild? Because I haven't been featured on it. And I'm a little sad about it. We can figure something out. We got to make it look real. No, no, no, no, he'll do it real. Like, how I... What do you mean?

There's a million things that I could get from her actually doing that stuff in the wild. She gets, she just... Oh, yeah, do it. Yeah, I'm going to start submitting stuff to you. I haven't been featured. I have all the stuff. Yeah. No one's ever featured me.

Yeah, listen, we don't need to fabricate this. This is, she is an influencer in the wild doing this shit regularly. No, but I'm not like the normal ones that you post for the boyfriend or husband's taking a picture. My husband won't take a picture if his life fucking depends on it. I'm the one that's like, has to like hold my arm out myself to get my own picture. Yeah. We had a deal early on where I'm like I'm not doing any of that stuff. He doesn't do shit. That's good. Through that boundary.

Yeah. You're really early. Honestly, and I throw such a fit about any, even if it's a sim just because I want to really set the level that like the same for me. On the day my son was born, he wouldn't even take a picture of me. Really? No, I can't. Yeah. He threw a fit. Slippery slope.

Unbelievable. I pushed a nine pound baby out and I go, could you take a picture of me? And he's like, oh my God, I can't take a picture of you? No shade, but we see these. No shade, but we see like, you know. We have friends that do this kind of, and I see the husbands, and they got the big camera strap around them,

and they're running, and they've got the phone, and they got another lantern with another camera, and they're chasing their wife in the middle of the street. I'm like, fuck that.

That ain't for me. No, no way. So can we do like a different plot twist on influencers in the wild? All of a sudden, somebody that's somebody that studied chemical engineering as a full-time photographer. I'm like, no, no, no.

Yeah, everyone's a photographer now. That's the thing. When I first started that page, anybody taking a picture anywhere would go viral. Anybody. Now, Anybody taking a picture anywhere? What do you mean by that?

Like if it was just a person in the street, taking a picture of themselves and somebody happened to capture it, people were like, oh my God, this is so crazy, they're everywhere. Now they're so bloodthirsty. If it's not a girl with a G-string, twerking with seven, three-year-old standing behind her.

Okay. Like, they're like, she's just taking a picture. They're just taking a picture. I actually wanted to ask you this about memes and with influencers in the wild. There's this thing. experience stretching.

Like you, you, right? It's like your, your profession is, your audience is constantly experiencing stretching. So after now we see twerking, there's 50 people taking a photo, they're on the ground,

they're like, when is it? Like, it's going to get bigger than that even. They're going to expect more and more and more and fun and more funny and more funny. How do you deal with that? I don't care what they want.

I truly don't. People started giving me a hard time because there was so many women. on the page. There was this whole thing going around. My TikTok account got banned, by the way, because I guess people mass reported it. People are, you guys know, they're insane and annoying and bored and like, they interpret things in the worst way they possibly can. Bad faith interpretations. I shared some fiction books I liked the other day that I personally like and have read. Yeah. And admittedly, like, there was from mail office.

But I just these are books that I had read and that I wanted to recommend to it. Admittedly like it's a problem. Yeah, but but no like they were male women can't write Everyone knows that. Well this is what I was trying to point out. No but but you would be I got all these gems No female authors. I'm like listen these are just books I fucking like I don't know like it wasn't it wasn't some like Political statement. It's just books I'm recommending to people asked they said what are you reading I said this is what I like and then I got you and I'm like you know what just go the fuck away. I don't care I'm not open for feedback. I don't care if you don't like it. Go somewhere else. Yeah. Don't read the

books. Yeah, don't. I don't care. I don't care if you don't read Lonesome Dove. I don't give a shit. I'm just saying I liked it. Seinfeld, when he was challenged on his, uh, his diversity and casting for comedians and cars getting coffee, he was like, what? This is not meant to be an accurate cross-section of American, fuck demographics. This is, these are my friends. What are we doing here? Like I don't I don't It can be performative Performative

Oh dude What happened the other day I can't even I don't even remember what it was I told Adam about this He lost it I actually just saw it I watched there's an episode

Of our podcast coming up And we start off And I forget what the video was But it's some girl goes This is giving Performative kinkshaming What the fuck Are you talking about

Do you even know the girl's like 21 years old. This is giving like I literally put down my phone for like two minutes, which is a long time. And then I picked it right back up. I was like, I need a break. You got to meditate between that. That's a meditation vibe.

Yeah. What are you trying to say? Well, if you tell me you're offended by something that I don't even know exists and you know what I mean? Like I can't address it if I don't even know that like if you tell me right now that I said something that's performative king shaming, I would have to go on Google and Wikipedia and look up and see what it even means

to begin to address it. I don't know. I'm sorry. There's so many different triggers in the world. And I say this a lot. If I'm offended by something, it's a me problem. I need to work on myself.

It's not someone else's problem if they trigger me. Well, do you guys know Ryan Holiday? Sure. Yeah. So, yeah, he's the best. He posts constantly this quote. I forget who it's from, but like realize that if you're offended,

by something, you are complicit in the offense. Like, you're, sorry, I don't know how else to tell you that. No, you can't. Then people have to take personal accountability. Big problem. I posted something on tanks good news. I'm going to start doing more video because I like, the more I'm in this game, the less I care about what people think.

And I just get a little belligerent. And I'm like, you guys don't want to see my face. Get ready to see so much more of my face. I like that. I think, you know, we get this question a lot. And like, we've been doing this long time. And I think to your, it's 100%. What happens is in the beginning, you know, before you've created for a while, you get a little pushback.

Oh, did I like say something that people are like, and then you go a little more and a little more. And eventually you realize that no matter what you say and no matter what you do, someone somewhere is going to be pissed off, irritated, mad, unfollowed. And you realize like, this is a zero sum game. You just got to be yourself and do what you want because if you try to go into this and appease everybody constantly, it's just it's not, it's impossible. It will not work. What I just said just now, it was piss someone off. Someone is throwing their phone across their car or across their room mad about what I'm saying at this moment. I'm furious.

I cannot believe you just said that. But so the point is, you just get into it. And it's like I feel like these people that go on these massive apology tours for things they're not actually sorry for. They don't even understand how they offended somebody. Like those are the most problematic people because they open the doorway for people to constantly worry about what they're saying. Well, I hope, I believe at some point, I've been, I'm 42 years old. So I've seen some things come and go. I saw the Atkins diet come and go.

I saw the zone diet come and go. Veganism, you know, trend. I don't think that's gone yet, but. Well, it's not what it was. People are starting to question things. Yeah, which you should. People are starting to understand aminos a little more. But anyway, we can go on.

Yeah, truly believe that at some point there's going to be some kind of reckoning for the people who have made a career out of ruining other people's lives and I don't think it's going to go well for them. A hundred percent the pendulum's going to swing. And by the way, if you're wasting your whole energy thermometer every single day on worrying about what everyone else is doing and thinking, you're just taking away from yourself. You're hurting yourself. It's happening right now to a lot of, I mean, maybe people don't realize it to a lot of people

that have made their careers in traditional journalism but have taken the road of trying to tear down people with those pieces. It gets clicks. But what's happening to them is they're starting to develop these toxic, not relationship, but these reputations where people are now saying like, okay, you're the person that only tears people down. And like there's only so far you can take it where one people stop taking you seriously. Because like, okay, your thing is just to always tear people down.

And then it's like, where do you take that from there? It's like you're just creating a bubble of negativity around you. Over time, people don't want to be surrounded by that. No. Yeah, you can. It's not, there's no way to. make that into a career, it's hot right now, great right now, big business right now to tear people down. But I refuse to believe on a macro scale that everyone has their life so in order that,

like the video that I posted on Tank's Good News was like there's got to be some kind of statute of limitations established at some point for how far back in time we're willing to go to get upset about something. I saw people were upset about Ace Ventura because it had transphobic jokes. Fucking Einhorn is a man. John Wayne. John Wayne doesn't give a fuck about you. He's been dead for what, 50 years?

And that's how, listen, I understand that people, if there's a problem that was illustrated in a movie or a story or whatever back then that's still going on today, let's address its current iteration. Let's do that. Let's address racism now, homophobia

now, transphobia now. Let's address it now. Let's not bring up Ace Ventura. What are you bringing up Ace Ventura for? There's plenty of issues right now that need to be dealt with today that we don't need to time travel and go back and dig in the crates for things that, I mean, literally people have forgotten about. And aside from that, I have plenty of work to do on myself. I can't get into other people's issues, but it is so much easier to say, look how messed up this person is. Look, look at them. I don't want to look at myself. That takes like...

It's gossiping on a mass scale. Yeah. Great point. It's gossiping on... Gossip's fun too. Gossip's fun. I get it. Like, we gossip sometimes

on this podcast about pop culture, but like at what point does it like... This blame, blame... That's pointing the finger away from yourself. Like, imagine going through life. No, I know. And all of a sudden, one of you're like, you know what?

Fuck John Wayne. I am pissed. Yeah, who said that? What are we doing? We're digging up these old dead actors from 80 years ago. There was a, do you guys know the Reductress account? Yeah. It's fucking great.

I don't know if this who it was. It may have been the onion or whatever, but the headline was, was Hitler a Nazi? What? Like, yes, obviously. But it was like an investigative piece. Like, they're going to find out if he was problematic. He was kind of like in charge of the whole thing. It wasn't real.

It was a joke. It was a joke. Yeah, like saying like, was. Hitler or Nazi? Let's find out. And like, cancel him. A play on. Yeah. Got it. Yes. Like, yeah. He's just basically highlighting how how absurd we've gotten. Oh, yeah.

You have done such a good job of you, you content marketed before you launched product. And it's very smart. And you built community before you launched product. And Michael and I were talking about this morning, a lot of people launch product and then try to build the community and then try to content market. Or then try to.

No, what I was saying is I was in a, you asked what I was in a meeting yesterday and I was saying like and you've been in this game a while now. It's like, everybody thinks like, oh, I could just create a product. And then like after that I'll like kind of think about content. And then like I'll just serve that content of like this massive community that's going to care. And it's like, well, you kind of got it backwards. Like maybe like create some good content that a real community actually cares about and then figure out what to. A lot of people don't do that though. And so was that always your strategy and how are you dipping your toe into product now? Definitely wasn't always my strategy. My goal and goal in life is to go affect people positively,

probably in the form of speaking somehow, some way. I'm not totally into stand-up comedy because you've got to be funny for an hour. I'm not really into being a motivational speaker because it's like kind of corny, for lack of a better word. Like, I don't want to be like, you can do it. Like, maybe you can do it. I don't know. Let's figure it out. But I like mixing humor and inspiration together to deliver a message that I think can at least inspire some thoughts in people, right? That's for your followers. Not for her. I'm not being weird. Okay. So anyway, what if I just over here like, like now I'm pissed? You flex your arm at me. But the influencers in the wild page was built before the game, obviously. It was unintentional, but, you know,

to have your whole career and livelihood at the whim of, you know, Mark Zuckerberg and his algorithm, I trust Mark Zuckerberg with my life. You see what's going on with Twitter right now. What happened with Vine? I knew people who were making their living on Vine and all of a sudden you got, you go to log into the app and it's like, we're not here anymore. Best of luck to you. You know? So I trust Instagram. I trust Facebook. But still, the algorithm is problematic and It's always changing. You can never figure it out. So I wanted to launch something that would free me from that a little bit.

And the game came of a conversation between myself and Adam, meme daddy's co-hosts, brilliant, unbelievably funny, creative person. We were on the phone and it was just like, dude, what if we created a game where people traveled around the world to all these influencer hotspots and racked up followers instead of money? Like, give us some examples. Where are we traveling? You have the pink wall in L.A. Did you have that one? That's where you end the game. Yeah.

I mean, to be honest with you, even having the community and then launching the product, it's still hard. People don't just go, oh, yeah, I'll buy that. It's still, you're trying to extract money from people. It's not easy. But the game, we tried to make it so that the game was so good that once people started buying the game, the game would just explode. It sell itself.

So the game, the premise of the game is that you pick it, influencer playing piece. You pick the girl in the yoga pose or the fitness influencer guy or the Coachella girl or the dog with sunglasses. Like, you know. I'm the selfie, huh? The selfie? I'm the selfie girl. You're the selfie stick. I think so. And the guy dancing, like a TikTok dance. So the six pieces, you roll the dye and you go around the board. If you land on no Wi-Fi, you lose a turn. If you land on an influencer hotspot, you gain 100,000 followers. If you land on fire festival, you go back to the middle of the board. You lose 100,000 followers.

But there's like Bali, Tulum, music festival, desert rave, because we couldn't put Burning Man, but I think Desert Rave is funnier anyway. I just picture somebody coming out of Burning Man, like high as hell. They're like, I was in some desert rave, man.

I don't remember the name of it. And then when you land on the blue spaces, that's where, in my opinion, all the fun is. So the blue spaces are like 80% of the board, maybe 85. And you pick a random playing card and there's rewards, penalties, challenges or questions. Questions are like, has a person to your right ever had oat milk?

If you guess right, you get followers. Who at the table is most likely to, you know, post a picture of their Starbucks drink? Like stupid little questions to get conversation going. The challenges are my personal favorite one is you got to give your best hustle and grind motivational speech to the camera and then post it with the hashtag influencer game. That's amazing. That's smart. Yeah. Yeah. So the challenges make the promo build into the game. But it's also designed to make you feel uncomfortable as being an influencer is. It's wildly uncomfortable to record yourself out in public walking down a street. I don't care what anybody says. It feels weird. Unless maybe you're Gary Vee. He might be the only one

that's immune to it. But he's who we made that card for. Yeah. The rewards are like your video goes viral on TikTok. Will Smith likes your post. The Rock reposted your meme. John Mayer comments on your posts. Things that like have happened in my life. And then the pen is, penalties are the best part. That happened in your life. Yeah. Kristen Bell repost your account and tell you. Who has been the person that, and I'm,

Lord, maybe asking the same thing, that shocked you the most, that senior content and it was like, holy shit. Will Smith's pretty gnarly. The Rock? I mean, at this point, at the time. Besides Lauren Boston. At the, at the time, to this day, the most exciting thing that's ever happened is the Rock reposting.

100%. That's amazing. And what did he repost? It was a Photoshop of him and Barack Obama, and I just captioned it, the Rock Obama. It was so stupid. What's the funniest meme you personally think, not the audience? What do you think is the funniest mean we've ever posted? It's so dumb.

Tell us. There's a guy, Seamus, in the WWE. You know who that is? Yeah. He's pale. Yeah. Beyond pale. We think that one.

So I just saw this meme one day. And I mean, sometimes, I mean, it may have been a mood I was in. I don't know. But it's him standing like this and it's white font. So like if you use white font, obviously he can't read what it is. So it says they said I'd never make it. They said I didn't have the look. And then it goes white and it's over his body and you can't read it.

Oh my God, dude. That's a pretty fucking funny. And so you just can't see what this. He's so pale. They said I didn't have the look. Wait, what does it say? Oh, he's pale. That's why I can't read it.

Like, and every time I posted, I've posted it probably like six times because I just, I get in a, I want people to understand it. Half the people think it's the funniest thing they've ever seen. Half the people are like, I don't get it. Well, when you explain it like that, I think it, yeah, that's pretty fucking funny. Where can everyone buy your game, find you, follow you, all the things? Get your book. The game is at Target. Probably the best place to get it unless you want to go to influencers in the wild game.com.

But if you like need the game, go to Target and get it because they have it. Pretty cool that your game's in Target. Congratulations. That's awesome. I mean, that's a big deal. Yeah, I know. I'm saying I know like, I'm not like, oh, so you think you're pretty. It's more like, yeah, I agree.

From an outsider's point, if you're like, I can't believe it's in Target. It's wild. Influencers in the Wild game. Influencers in the wild on Instagram. Thanks, good news. Thanks, Anatra on Instagram. Meme Daddy's podcasts. We're having a blast over there.

Me and Adams just look at memes and laugh our asses off for an hour. That sounds amazing. Every week. Yeah, it's so much fun. Michael and I are going to take the game home and we're going to play the game. Yeah. A lot of things might hit a little close to Home loan. I want reviews.

I think it's fun for people who are fully immersed in the end. internet. But then there's like one of the penalties is your, you know, your dad finds your only fans, lose 50,000 followers. So like playing it with an aunt or an uncle who like, what's only fans, like explaining it to them is, I think, funny. But I'm weird. I don't know. Maybe it's not funny, but I think it is. I think it's a great idea. I think it's funny. I think it's funny as fuck. You posted a booty verse with a Bible verse. You posted a booty pig with a Bible verse as the caption. Lose 25,000 followers. Why? Why is that bad?

Well, a lot of people try to, they try to post the picture that's hot and do the quote underneath it. Oh, it's so weird. It's so bizarre. Jesus would not like that. Don't use your butt in my words. Tank, you can come back anytime we're in New York City. You're a real hoot. Thank you so much for coming on at Tank Sinatra on Instagram.

Yep. I'm glad we do this, man. This is fun. Yeah, me too. Tell your wife that I'm dying to meet her too because I feel like she has an art of dealing with you. Yes, she does. She's the best. Cheers, ma'am.

So we're coming on. Thank you. Not only are we giving away Tank Sinatra's game, influencers in the wild. We also are rounding out the ring concierge. So this is the last week to enter. We are giving away three diamond tennis bracelets, real diamond tennis bracelets. I'm obsessed with this giveaway. All you have to do to win both giveaways is tell us your favorite part of this episode or the ring concierge on my latest Instagram at Lauren Bostic.

I hope you guys love Tank. I'm obsessed. I feel like he could come back as a reoccurring guest. Make sure you check him out at Tank Sinatra. And we'll see you next time.