EP.125 - ASIAN GHOST STORIES W/ YOUTUBE LEGENDS JUSTKIDDINGFILMS & TIM CHANTARANGSU
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My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big ROAS man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend.

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Yo, for real, this is like dream right here. Is it? I swear to God, like the reason I wanted you guys on the pod was y'all are the reason we're on YouTube. Oh, shut up. I said that for real. No, like for real. How old were you guys when you guys first saw our stuff? So my babysitter watched Tim. So I think she was the first one to put me on to like

Asian YouTuber at the time. Wait, how old were you when you were getting babysat? I was like, yo, I think it was like grade one, grade two. Sheesh, that's like seven? Yeah, like seven, something like that. And your babysitter was sharing his content with you? No, she would watch it. She would watch it and then like, I would watch it too because like, oh shit, I'm just watching what she's watching, right? And then as you get older, I started watching you guys all the time and of course like Ryan Higa. Yo, Asians ran YouTube for a long time. We did, yeah, we did. But the Whiteys took over

- Goddamn whitey fuck, whitey. - And that was like almost an empire and then I kind of missed that, right? I kind of missed that and right now there definitely is a lot of Asian creators but it doesn't seem as so prominent. - It's not connected. - It's not connected. - This is what I miss. It's back in the day when we first started, everyone knew each other, everyone did shows together. So when a bunch of the Asian schools, I mean the universities, like the Asian clubs, Chinese club, Asian club, whatever, they would invite us.

And then randomly, it would be like, oh shit, Tim's here. Or like, you know, Ryan's here or whatever. Like other people are there. And it was just... It's a community. It felt like a community. Now it's like there's like isolated groups. And of course, when you're getting hella busy and then, you know, college money ain't good enough or whatever, like they're not going to do the shows. Yeah. You know? And it was a perfect storm because back then it was every college show was a variety show. Mm-hmm.

So literally, like, musicians, rappers, like, comedians, like, all of us would be on the same show. Yeah. But I think now maybe, like, I don't know, each genre grew big. So if it's just going to be a music thing, it might be a few select... It, like, niched out. Yeah, niched out. Niched out. What you think about it is I feel like there wasn't a whole lot of us back then. You know what I'm saying? It's, like, a big part of why I think we got...

as much support as we did in the beginning. And then we were always kind of like, we were like, yo, we need to support each other. Literally, these fools, like, in the beginning, I saw them doing their thing and I hit them up. I'm like, yo, y'all should come eat at my family's restaurant just so we can be like, yo, let's connect. Let's talk about how we can work together, shit like that. Now I'm like, who the fuck are these Asians? I'm like, I saw y'all on my For You page. I'm like, who are these two? Who are these little young bucks? I do remember when we first started. You know what? When we first started, we were like...

Asians, go pursue your dreams. And then I started seeing Asians pursuing their dreams and I was like, yo, you guys can stop pursuing your dreams. You're saturating the market. You guys are taking our jobs. Nobody knows who we are anymore. Now we got these two. We're joking, of course. Yeah, of course. It's all of always. But I have a question. I have a question for you guys. Who inspired you to start? Who inspired y'all to start? Who were you guys looking up to? Not having us. 100%.

One of our inspirations was how come all the Asian comedians are fucking not funny? Bobby Lee was funny. I actually knew him more for comedic acting because of Matt TV. And then I actually went to a stand-up show and I was like, whoa, this guy's crazy, right? And then I did this all on Tiger Belly too. I printed out the picture we took back in the day and I'm all like, dude, that was us. Damn, what a group.

I know. And I'm like, no, I'm on your show. But there was, I think back then when they did their circuit, a lot of Asians weren't coming out to the show. So they had to do it for mainstream America. So their jokes had to be self-deprecating. Their jokes had to be like something that white, black, Mexican can understand and go,

ah, that shit's hilarious. So when we were growing up, we're like, how come we don't have an In Living Color or like a Mad TV that's like Asian style? And then that's when we started creating content that was for us, you know? Because we tried to get the Avengers today. Like, I think we also invited Fung Bros. They're in New York though. We tried to get the Ryan Higa. He's too busy, but I'm glad we got you guys. He's in Vegas. Yeah, he's in Vegas. Because you guys got the most free and not busy content.

Asians from the old days. But this is our perfect, this is perfect. Y'all are the ones who really, really want it. No, I'm not gonna lie, like, so I've been turning down a lot of people because, you know, Wifey just had a baby. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, congratulations. Thank you, thank you, bro. And I'm like, I've been telling people, like, honestly, like, if it's not for a bag, like, I'm not leaving the house. You know what I'm saying? Like, this is, like, the crazy time. All the baby's doing is, like, sleeping and shitting, like, cheating. He's at my two-year-old that's super hyper. I'm like, I'm not going

going nowhere but when I seen the DM from you guys and you guys were a very nice paragraph be like yo you know we look up to you blah blah blah like we're trying to get the you know the Avengers whatever together and I was like alright man like I feel like I should support the young booties coming up you know what I'm saying I appreciated the love I appreciated that y'all showed love and like and kind of like bigged us up you know I was like man alright alright and like let me get some of this young clout

That's one thing I don't want people to forget is to forget our old geez forget like we're all started from cuz that's y'all really started Yeah, yeah, I mean like when we first started like I think the whole first generation of tubers Yeah, like yeah, there was like the whole Asian community And then we would have like our fellow like black youtubers white youtubers and like Hispanic youtubers, right? And then they would see us like man that shit's so dope you guys have these college shows that you guys all get to go to and they don't have a

those shows that they get booked at. But then I would tell them, I'm like, but yo, but you guys got other people passing down the torch. You got Denzel passing it down to whoever. You got rappers passing it down to whoever, right? I'm like, who do I have? Fucking Jackie Chan doesn't even speak English? Manny Pacquiao? Literally our generation, this is, we're the first generation

To be able to pass it down to someone. I'm like him. I'm busy now. I got a kid. And I usually say no to everything. But if it has to do with the Asian community, then I'm always down for it. Yeah, bro. That's it. Unless they're fucking corny. I don't like the corny. You don't think they're corny? I'm not gonna lie to you. We could look corny. No, let me tell you. I think somebody sent me a clip of y'all. One of your TikToks. Because you guys were talking about the Ninja Turtles. And they were like, I fuck with Ninja Turtles. So I was like, okay. I was like, hey, I see these guys. I see these. Okay.

cool, cool. So of course I had seen the, y'all are always on my For You page on TikTok all the time. Because we're just going viral. Honestly, when we first started, we didn't think it was going to be this big from the start. First episode, viral. Second episode, viral. I'm like, holy shit. What got you guys starting? So what got us started? From your first episode, you went viral.

- No, I think it was second because our first- - That's still good bro. You know how many videos we took before we got viral? Still trying to go viral, you know what I mean? - 'Cause I think we have so much more accessibility 'cause we have freaking TikTok now. It's different. The social media game is so different. I feel like it's easier, especially for like new people to come up and we're just so blessed at the right time. And 'cause quarantine happened.

And we weren't doing shit. Yeah, we were bored. I was in school. I was in business management. I was going to become an entrepreneur. I'm like, fuck, I'm doing all this work. And it didn't feel like it's really my passion. So, okay, I got into streetwear. And I had my own streetwear brand. Okay. So when I started that, I had to rely on paying money to influencers to promo me, right? Mm-hmm.

So I'm like, fuck, I don't want to keep paying money to influence. Why don't I just become the influencer? Right, right, right. And there's always a dream of mine watching y'all growing up. You know what I mean? It's like, fuck it, let's do it. What am I good at? I guess I like talking.

First episode, boom. I think I said like a ghost story. Okay. And that shit went viral. A word. It just came up naturally. Like I just talked about conspiracy theories. Yeah, yeah. And then he just hypes me up all the time. Like yo, it's perfect. So the dynamic was there still. Are your ghost stories real? Ghost stories real? Yeah. You want to hear one? Wait, what kind of Asian are you guys? Filipino. Filipino. All right, all right. I was going to say, Filipinos always got ghost stories. Yo, Filipinos do have ghost stories. Y'all so spooky. What's a Filipino ghost? Are they like, putang in a booth?

Do they come out and say shit like that? I will fucking box you. Yeah, shit. You tell me. Y'all have any ghost stories, actually? You've probably seen one in Hawaii. No, I want to know a Filipino ghost. Tell us. Tell us about a Filipino ghost story. Tell me the time that it felt the most real. I don't want to hear no fucking leaves, bro.

blowing in the wind nah nah nah this shit is fucked I wanna leave here feeling like I'ma get haunted okay bet ready I have proof too okay I have a picture so check this out so in Toronto one year we had a crazy ice storm craziest ice storm ever it was on the news and everything isn't that every year nah nah nah this one was different this one was bare cold fam okay

This one was different. So my aunt, my tita, she's a photographer. And she takes pictures of flowers and stuff. But during the ice storm, she zoomed in super, super close on this icicle on a tree branch. Okay. Right? Super close with a macro lens. She took a picture of it. And what she saw...

was a face of a woman. Like, clear as day. And the face, it actually looked like almost Asian, like an Asian woman. On the flower or in the icicle? In the icicle itself. Like the reflection? I'm going to show you the picture. Oh, please do. What's crazy, what's crazy, right? Leading up to that, we already know she has like a sixth sense because as a child, she would see like certain things, even in the Philippines. You can't keep her around, man.

You gotta keep people like us around. So they can see all the spookies. Yeah, she has a lot of stories of those. She's super sensitive to spirits. Now, leading up to that, she had nightmares and she would see this exact woman. Oh, God. The same woman that's in the ice cream. I'm gonna show you the picture. Yeah, show us the picture. And then swipe right and show us the dick pic. He's like...

Show us the dick smith with the face.

Yo, imagine you send a dick pic to a girl, she's like, "Yo, what is that spirit I'm seeing?" Why is there an Asian lady on her penis? That's a veiny demon. Hold on, I gotta pull it up. I showed this picture to almost everybody I know, bro. I think this is the first one that people were questioning us, like, "Yo, is this actually real?" And that's where we went viral. In my family, or maybe this is a Chinese thing, but in Chinese, it's like the ghost sensor is usually the dog.

Everyone's just chillin everything's cool. And then you just got a dog going *munch munch* It's going crazy like then it's like oh shit is there like a ghost around here? I think like cats too like just animals in general like maybe they're hypersensitive to it. You got the picture? I have the picture you ready? Show show show show show show. Alright this is not photoshopped. Okay okay. What am I looking at? I swear to god it's not photoshopped. No way! That's real! I swear to god it's not photoshopped. What am I looking at? Look at this fucking face. Are you just- No! No lie! Oh my god! Shut the fuck up!

- Fuck up dude. - Oh my god. - That's not photoshopped nothing bro. That looks just like my mom. That's literally my mom. - Why is your aunt taking pictures of shit like? - No, it just popped up. - Wait. - It just popped up. - What is, what am I looking at? - A fucking face dude. - Dude, but what's that orange thing? - No, it's like a leaf. - An orange sperm. - No, no, no, it's like a, so look, you can see it's a branch.

No, this is not even a branch, bro. It's so small. It's one of those like little... That's fucking scary. Like a pussy willow. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then it's super zoomed in. This is with the macro lens, bro. Can I give you some science, though? What? That's the reflection of your arm. No, bro.

That's crazy check this out right so she brought it to a psychic oh She brought to a psychic like a medium yeah, and she told it yo like there's multiple spirits in this picture Not just one so I couldn't see more than one she tried showing me more and I I couldn't I

I couldn't really see it myself. Why are they doing- why are they trapped in the ice? They should make this the fucking bot validator. Like how many faces do you see? And why did she go to a medium and not a large psychic though? Because you gotta- you gotta go to the ones with the large- the big ones that have all the powers.

But apparently there's like a dog spirit in there. There's like a baby. And then there's like a man. That's cool. Were they killed by the cold and it's captured into the icicle? Well, we don't know. So my theory is that because it's Canada, right? So that's native land.

She's Japanese clearly though. We don't know if native people came from Asia. Native have Indian eyes. She looks like Inuit, dude. Yeah. She does look like she's Inuit. Do you guys know the theory why we have small eyes?

Sandstorms. Yeah. Yes, yes, yes. You know about that? Yeah, like Gobi Desert or some shit, right? Fuck yeah. And I can fucking... Like, I could confirm because I was on my moped the other day. Rain was pouring down like motherfucking crazy, right? And I was like squinting like this and I can still see and I'm all like...

This is why. You're stupid. I'm so grateful to be Asian. Yeah. Can you imagine being like a fucking Mongolian raider and you're just on the horse and just like, I'm about to make them feel it. And then she's like going, yeah. Yeah, and it's just like. I do believe in spirits and shit though. And I do believe like babies and pets can kind of see things. So whenever I be holding the baby at night trying to rock her to sleep or him to sleep now, whenever they do like a

Oh shit. When the eyes like wander, I go, stop playing, man. Chill, chill, chill, chill, chill, chill. I'm like, what do you see right now? Relax, relax, relax. Close your eyes. I'm like, uh-uh. I'm not trying to mess with that. I never had a close encounter. Never? My lady, she sees a ghost. Word? Yeah. Like in front of you? No, she tells me. So one time we were at the Luxor in Las Vegas. Yeah. And we got. She saw Pharaoh?

No. Mommy? The body exhibit? She told me after we had some passionate love making, she was like, I was scared shitless. And I'm like, why? There was a dark figure watching us the whole time.

whole shit jerking off in the corner probably how come she didn't tell you i know maybe that's her king she doesn't maybe she said she sees them all the time um the weirdest one was uh we were by the projects one time driving by and then she goes oh my god there's a lot and i was like what if there's like a lot of like murders that happen yeah violence whatever and then they're just there

Do you think it's because she's a ginger and she doesn't have a soul that other souls are trying to come into her body? They're trying to go inside. She got that indigenous white power, you know?

I talked to an old man on a plane one time. Yeah. And he used to tell me he saw spirits all the time. He used to say to the point where it would get annoying. He'd have to be like, please, leave me alone. Because they were like, oh. He said he would be driving through intersections where maybe somebody got into a car accident and died. And then he'd be at the red light trying to chill. And they'd be like, oh, you can see me. You can see me. Hi. And he'd be like, no, no, no. And he'd just drive off. Oh, that's fun. Because he did not feel like talking to them. You know what I'm saying? The closest I thought I would say is...

So we went to Germany, me and Gio, my wife, maybe like a few years ago, like 2018 or something, 2019. And we visited a concentration camp. And because you know what happened there...

The minute we walked in, like, it just felt cold and wet and dark. And I had, like, this crazy, like, goosebumps. And, like, you know, the hair on the back of my head just stands up. And as you're just walking around that place, it just feels like, man, this place ain't right. There's definitely a vibe to things, right? Like, I bet you some place that had murders in it, you'll feel something. Because maybe if a soul's not finished...

That's what I'm thinking like maybe ghosts are just souls that get trapped there because fuck they weren't they weren't ready. Yeah, they got a resolved business. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah. But I remember seeing that vlog when you guys after the concentration camp you guys were like just there. Oh you saw the vlog? Yeah, and you guys were like like you guys were shocked like you didn't know what to see. I didn't know a place could like make me feel like that, you know. Because it's different when reading it in like history books or whatever but going there and then you're just like

Oh, she's fucking crazy. No, because a spirit actually affects my family. So in the Philippines, my aunt lives under... Like, under her house is a healer. Like a little goblin type thing in the Philippines. Which y'all call that in Tagalog? I don't know. Will we call it again? I don't know. We just call it healer. That's what it is. But then the healer loved my aunt, right? And so she didn't like him back. It was like some kind of drama thing. And she moved to Canada. So the healer told her before you go...

If you don't fall in love with me, I'm gonna set a curse on your family. What a simp! Yeah, simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No simp. No sim

And you don't know the medical reason? No, there's like none. It's definitely that guy. So this Filipino healer, this is like something that's like known amongst like, that's just something y'all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is probably everywhere. I don't know if it's the same as a Reiki. It might be. But like they do like energy healing. You know the crystals and shit? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You guys believe in that?

Hell no, bro. But what I do believe in how I believe the placebo effect. So I believe that humans are their imagination so good that they can make anything real. So if let's say like the healer, right? If you believe that the healer can put a curse on you, then it could stress you out to the point where you become sick. Yeah. So then that's kind of what I believe, but I don't know. So my mom has all kinds of fucking healer. She knows the time travel. X.

X-Men homies. X-Men homies.

All her homies, this one got special powers, this one can see the world. The one that's the trippiest, because I call that shit out all the time and I don't believe any of that stuff, but the one that's the trippiest, she has this one homegirl that I think does people's taxes, but also sees your future. Turbo tax business. Turbo tax. All in one building. All in one building. Yeah, she's like, you about to get audited. Yeah.

Yeah, combo. Turbo tax. So she's like this feng shui expert. Oh, yeah. And what's trippy about her is when I first... Every time I move into a new place or get a new house, my mom wants to get the place blessed. So I left my mom for the first time when I was, I think...

16. I got kicked out of school. I ended up living with my dad. And then so my mom wanted to see if that place would be good for me. And so we go there and this lady's in Diamond Bar, which is like a city in L.A.,

You tell her the address and she just starts like sketching. Ugh. Like she just starts sketching the house. Yeah. She sketched the house. You know my dad's house, right? Yeah. Start sketching the house. And then she's like, okay, so there's a parking space here on the right. Someone parks here. And she starts sketching. She sketched the upstairs room. Holy shit. Okay, there's a bedroom here. There's a master bedroom here. And I was like...

And then she was like, oh, wait. Oh, there's a light right here. And that light is out all the time. What? And it is. You know how there's that little grass area? Yeah. It's out. She goes, you have to put a light bulb there. So that's one of the times where I was like, oh, shit. And she would have never seen it. No. But my mom is also...

Dumb? So she's one of those people that leaks secrets without knowing. You know what I mean? She'll be like, hey, can you help me? So my son got arrested like five times. He really needs her help. And then the person will be like, I have a feeling your son gets in a lot of trouble. I knew it! I knew it!

You know what I mean? So my mom's like that too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I wouldn't be surprised if my mom... She fed her all that information. Yeah, she probably like printed out fucking Google Maps. Can you look at this house and see if you can bless it? So she already got the blueprint. She already memorized it. She might even

I didn't even visit it. That light bulb's always out, dude. Yeah. Because I've seen my mom interact with these people and I'm like, my mom's the perfect sucker because she gives the secrets and then when the other person just regurgitates, she's like, oh my God, it's so real. You know so much. I do. I high key, like, I do believe in, especially old Asian psychics, I do because like, one time, bro, I probably told y'all this on JK one time, but never told y'all this. When I was like,

A kid in Thailand, like probably five years old, my mom used to get massages from this masseuse slash psychic. Psychic. It's always on the side. They need a side hustle, right? On the side, bro. And this woman. Like, if you're so good, how come you don't just have one gig? Yeah, what the fuck? No one's paying. No one believes her yet. Yeah. So this woman, I was either five or six. I don't know. I forget. I was young, though. She grabbed my arm, and she's like, hmm.

he's going to get into a big accident when he's 15. And I was like, and I remember, I was probably like eight. Okay, maybe eight because I was in Thailand when I was four and I was eight. But anyways, and I remember thinking, impossible because I'm going to be famous one day. As a little kid, I was like, because I remember thinking her prediction doesn't make sense. I'm going to be famous. I'm not going to get into an accident. So when I was fucking 15, I totaled my dad's car. But I didn't make that connection until like a year later. And I was like, oh!

That psychic lady said I was going to get into an accident. I didn't get hurt at all. And that's not what she said. She didn't say I was going to get hurt. She said I was going to get into an accident. And I was like, whoa. She was right.

Or maybe it was subconsciously in my head. And I was thinking about it without knowing it. And I was like, oh! You manifested it. You manifested it. Who knows, man? But I do believe. Why do you think Asians are so superstitious like that, though? Because they don't have logic and reason in the culture.

No one believes in science. You ever try to talk to an Asian adult? They'll hear a rumor, a newspaper article, something that they heard from a cousin. It's all facts to them. They don't separate any of that shit. And I'm just like, bro, like, come on, man. You got to believe some stuff and make sure it's credible. And they're like, my uncle is credible. Yeah.

Yo, my lolas, they always send me, you know those like chain messages? Like, the Lord will keep you away from heaven if you don't send this to five people. I get those all the time, bro. WhatsApp. WhatsApp, yeah, the WhatsApp. It has to be on WhatsApp. Exactly.

Yeah, Asian parents don't really know how to text, man. It's like, they beg me for pictures of my kids, right? And then I'll send all these pictures and I expect them to be like, oh, thank you, so cute, whatever. I'll send like 10 pictures of Veda. And then my mom will send me a video of like Thai monks singing. I'm like, this is not how texts work, mom. You got to give me some back and forth. Some reaction. Please, something, right? And I'll be like...

I'd be like, so what'd you think? Dad, you got to, you begged me for these pictures. You got to give me some feedback. He'd be like, you know, we love her. I'm like, okay. That's not how this shit works. They write like it's an email. Like, hi, son. And then they write and then they put sincerely. Regards. I'm trying to tell my dad to stop saying, okay, period. Because I'm trying to tell him that sounds like you're depressed or you're angry. My mom does that too. Yeah. How are you guys today?

Okay. Period. Or the dot dot dot. Dot dot dot. My mom dot dot dots all day. I'm like, what's wrong? Are you okay? What's on your mind? So if they all text that way in their generation, maybe they think we're weird. Yeah, maybe. Maybe grammatically incorrect. Yeah. Like, why is he sending me so much exclamation points?

Oh, so you're really big on manifestation then. Because you were saying like from a kid, you already knew you were going to be famous. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It wasn't manifestation. It was facts, dog. I just knew it. You know what I'm saying? It wasn't a belief. I just knew. But yeah. So what got you into that though as a kid? Just confidence straight off the bat? Well, I mean, when I was young and I really kind of felt like I was really... Let's see. How old was I when that psychic touched me? Yeah.

She straight up held you like that? She grabbed my wrist. That's how you know it was real. So for me to be thinking those thoughts, maybe I wasn't eight because I went to Thailand when I was four, eight, and 12. So it might have been 12, right? When I was thinking... Why are you four years like that? That's just, you know, my parents had to save up for trips to Thailand and shit. So I'm thinking by 12, I was thinking I wanted to pursue the entertainment stuff. And...

I just kind of always knew that's what I wanted to do. You know what I'm saying? Once I would like be in school, I would be in school doing like little school plays and stuff like that. And just always trying to entertain people. And I always thought like, okay, this is what I'm going to do. Right. And I was like, whenever people would ask me,

what do you want to do when you grow up? What do you want to be? I'd be like, I want to be famous. I want to be an actor. You know what I'm saying? So I was like, okay, this is part of the plan because I feel like people will be like, oh, I want to be a doctor. So they know what they have to do to become a doctor. I'm like, okay, well, this is my plan. I'm going to do this and this and that to reach this ultimate goal. You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was always just in my head.

Was there ever like an alternate dimension, Tim? Like you could think back, oh, fuck, I could have went down this path instead. Yeah, I mean, there was a point where I wanted to be like an animator. I like to draw and shit. There was a point where I wanted to like design and animate for Disney. It's never too late, bro. I mean, never too late. You know, who knows, man? These YouTube views are kind of... You still draw? Here and there. I be sketching. Sketching some bullshit here and there. How about you guys? Like from the start, you knew you wanted to get into content creating.

I actually know you were a Marine, right? Yeah, my shit was all accidental. Like, I would say, because like, I think I was so, you know when you're like, I feel like when you're on social media, like your view of the world is a little bit bigger and you kind of see things are going around, you know? Because you're just connected. Yeah, I think for me, I was so like zoomed in. I would say probably technically my first inspiration was probably Joe. Because he sent me the video of, you know, you're drawing on the eyeballs. Yeah, yeah.

I don't even know what entertainment was. I was so oblivious. I didn't even know that there were no Asians on TV. I pulled them out. I was like, what the hell are you doing? I was so zoomed in. I didn't know any of that stuff existed. When he sent me that video,

I just thought it was a video so I went to go record Uncle Sam Gets Jacked. Just to only send to him. - Yeah, and we would just go back and forth. - I thought we were just sending stupid things back and forth until we started getting comments and views and then so it started zooming out more. - Oh wait, so you didn't know it was public?

I know! We were using it like Vimeo. Like sharing video. Yeah, yeah. We had, I don't know if you know, back in the photo bucket, if you wanted to customize your MySpace or whatever, you can't just upload a picture. You gotta go to some other thing and then get that HTML code and copy and paste. IMG SRC, yeah. Exactly. So I thought YouTube was photo bucket for videos, so I would just send them videos like that. Bro, it feels so ancient back then. Yeah.

YouTube wasn't monetizable. This was 2007, all the way. I think 2008 is when they rolled it out. I want to say probably nine, yeah. But I remember you had to be invited, and they were just testing it out. But when we all first started, it was just a stepping stone. Like, most people used YouTube because they just wanted to mess around or, like, do random things. Everyone has different stories, right? Like, I was lonely. I wanted friends. I just wanted to do stupid videos. And then...

It wasn't until a little bit later on where you saw like Michelle Phan and Ryan Higa and Yahoo did this article of like, these guys are making a million dollars or a hundred thousand. I think it was like less than that. It was like, yeah, a couple hundred thousand. But we were just like, you could make money?

Same shit. When I started uploading YouTube videos, it was because I was just wanting to put videos on my MySpace for my MySpace homies to laugh at. Because me and PD Flow and the homies, we were making little short stupid films, submitting them to different film festivals, online film festivals, right? But his website ran out of bandwidth.

Oh, shit. And then one day, someone posted a bulletin on MySpace. It was like, LOL, look at these white girls dancing to Laffy Taffy, right? So I clicked on it. And I was like, okay, that's funny. But I was like, yo, this website, anybody can post a video from your phone? Yeah. And it'll give you a code to put on your MySpace? That's crazy. Yeah. So then I was like, yo, PD Flow, let's put our shit on here. You don't have to worry about your website. So I started putting little bullshit from my webcam, like freestyling or doing impressions or whatever. Just for the homies. And then I accidentally kissed this thing. Ugh.

just for the homies. And then I started getting views and comments. I was like, okay, this could be something, you know? So it took me a while to like zoom out and then go, like, I didn't even know what me and Joe were doing was considered like comedy. I just knew we're doing stuff that made each other laugh. It's just funny to you guys. It was just for fun. And it was just like from the heart too. Yeah. It was just fun. And then we're just like imitating the characters, uh,

that we saw. And then eventually when we started creating like actual Just Kidding films, that's when I started realizing, oh shit, we're actually doing some sort of art form. Yeah. And then that's when we started like taking classes and stuff and trying to like really... Oh, like hone in. Yeah.

Did you guys get made fun of by your friends when you first started? Because it was so like... Oh, fuck yeah, dude. The shit that you guys did. I can imagine that. But also, we did it to make them laugh. Okay, true. Because we're doing comedy. We're doing stupid stuff. But also, like, I don't know. The people that... Back then, everything you did, everyone called you gay. Yeah, yeah. And for us, we were just like...

I don't care because everyone I don't know man. It was a different time Yeah, it was it was I was lucky my good homies and my still my homies to this day We were all we were all trying to do the same shit. Everybody was super supportive But when I be at work at like I don't know when I was slinging pizzas at California Pizza Kitchen and some would be like I saw your video Oh God Which one oh my god. What was I talking about? Or if I'm like at sometimes you'd be a kickback and someone put on one of your parties. I'm like, oh

I'm gonna leave the room. That's just awkward. Actually, to this day, if someone puts on one of my videos at a function, I'm like, ugh. Really? To this day? It's awkward for me. I don't like being in the room when people are watching my shit. What about your podcast? Still. Same thing? Yeah. I'm like, yeah. Do you like listening to your own voice or not? I don't like being in the room when people are watching me. Because I'm like, what am I supposed to do? Like, oh, watch this part. Yeah, I get that. It's funny right here. Watch this. You know what's the worst? So, Gio's brother. Yeah.

He loves playing our old videos when we have a get-together. And it's all Mexicans. A bunch of, like, cholos and shit. And then me and Joe have these fucking, I was like, Uncle Sam, Uncle Chen, and we're, like, fucking parodying, like, Usher or some shit. And he's just playing it on full blast. And I'm like, motherfucker, dude.

What the fuck is this shit? It's hilarious. And that was like your main, what do you call this, roles that you played, like the cholo. Yeah, but it's got us a lot of crazy access. One of our biggest fans was this, he was a stuntman for all these movies. And one day, he just said, we're going to watch a UFC fight. This was right when we just started making those stupid videos on YouTube. And he, we were like around major celebs. And me and Bart were just like, oh my god.

God, how do I... I want a picture with them, but I feel like I should take a picture with them. And then he was out there, like, bringing everyone into his bedroom watching JK stuff. Ooh! Yeah. Isn't that crazy? Like, because you never know who's watching YouTube. He's fucking bored. I remember a mom came up to us. Yeah, that was a crazy moment. She had a son. And the son didn't know about it. He's like, who the fuck...

the fuck is this? But the mom, old as hell, like, yo, I know these guys. Give the phone camera to her son. Yo, can you take a pic of us? Yeah, yeah. Let me tell y'all this, man. We've been doing this shit for a long time, right? This is my fucking 17th year on YouTube, right? Yeah, my channel now... When did you start? 2006. Yeah, so... It's our 16th. In September, it'll be my 17th year with that channel. And so, I got a lot of people who...

who watched me when they were in elementary school, high school, who got kids now. They're like, hey man, you helped me get through high school. I watched you through college and this and that. It would be like, oh my God, I remember I had the biggest crush on you before when I was in junior high. I just graduated college. I'm like, yo, what the fuck? I'm older.

shit. When did this happen? You know, you forget. I feel like we're so just always kind of cranking out content. It's almost like a blur. Like I look back on now, especially the super popping, like the golden age of the YouTube shit. We were like getting booked for all these shows and we were traveling and we're doing all this shit. I'm like, this is like a completely different life. It feels.

It's kind of crazy to look back because I was like, a year and a half, I was just turning up every week at some random club and just traveling the world. And now I'm like, oh man, with these two babies, like, oh fuck, I can't even meet the homies for sushi. So say if your daughter said, oh dad, I want to do YouTube. And say Tycho wants to do YouTube. Are you guys like, since you guys know all the stuff that goes behind the scenes, how hard it is,

Would you recommend it or like... I'm 100%. Whatever he wants to do. Because I'm not like close-minded like my parents were. So like I know that anything is possible as long as you work hard and you have like the good habits. And what's crazy is at his young age...

he's technically born into it. So I don't think he knows another life. Like now, like, you know, when you start getting a little bit more fame, you kind of, you have this radar for the eye, you know, where you look at someone like, oh, that guy was going to want a picture in about five minutes.

five minutes yeah yeah yeah yeah Taika has the eye really you'll literally go hey dad he wants to take a picture no that's crazy because he's used to it and what's crazy is he'll like like smile for the camera too like he knows he's gonna be in the picture so I don't think he can process he can't process that like maybe his dad's famous or the family's famous because of the vlog or whatever that's his world but that's his world his world is for some reason a lot of people know who we are yeah yeah yeah I think you know uh

for VEDA, you know, I think it's a little different for guys and girls in the space, right? I would definitely, I want to make sure I raise a super confident, don't give a fuck ass girl because to be in this space, you know, people are mean. It's talkative. I think even us, like, we don't give a fuck now, but like, it hurts sometimes. Especially, remember in the beginning when you first started, when you would hit like a most viewed page or some shit like that and then you get the influx of new people who don't know who you are so they just talking shit and you're like, yeah,

Yo, yeah. We used to reply to everybody. I still do. Look, three burner accounts. I'll be trying to preach like, you guys, you know what? You can't waste your time worrying about what some random kid in Wyoming thinks. But sometimes I'll be in bed with Chia. I'll be scrolling. I'll read a comment. I'm like, take my laptop out. Hold on a second, baby. Let's go.

Let me reply to this motherfucker real quick. I fucked your mom. You know, and it happens, right? So I feel like a girl in the space, it's so much more you got to deal with, right? I think we learned to get tougher skin, but girls, you know, I think, you know, not only are people going to attack who you are, they're going to attack your body.

Yeah, there's a lot more. Physically, there's so much. So I think I want to make sure she goes into it with some proper mental health if she's really trying to do that shit. That's a big thing right now, too. Ever since Instagram and social media got really popular, the rise of Gen Z female suicide went up. Oh, for real? Yeah, because it just fucks with the youth like crazy. I mean, most of their worth is in their looks, right? I mean, that's what society tells them. So they're like, I don't look like these girls.

And I'm like, damn, that's so sad. They're all filters in AI, dude. You want to hear some crazy shit, dog? Love you. Chia's nephew, I remember when he was like in high school, junior high coming up, he told me, because, you know, he got little followers or whatever just from like, I put him in a vlog, whatever, whatever. So he told me that like, now how it works when the kids are in school, you know, when we were in school,

You were popular if you were, I don't know, funny, good looking. One of those. If people liked you, right? That type of shit. Sports person, right? Like a jock. Now, like a jock. Now, the most popular person, the one with most likes, most followers. Yeah. That's how they gain. Does it matter what platform though? Because what if it's some shitty ass platform like, it's some news. Truth. Donald Trump. Donald Trump. Truth social. I got a lot of followers on truth social. Damn.

No, but that's... I think that's the future of social media. And that's the future of the generation. It's like, it's always going to be just clout now. It's always going to be that. When did you guys graduate high school? Yeah. How old are you young buckles? Well, I'm 23 right now. Okay, okay. So I graduated at like 18. Yeah. Honestly though, I think... What do you guys think the future for social media is? Do you think it's going to just get more like toxic? Do you think it's going to get better? Like, what do you think about the climate right now? I don't even know, dude. You don't even know? Because the way that I see it is like...

I felt like, so I changed a bunch of different schools. Yeah. Because, like, I was just a bad kid, so I got expelled a bunch of times. The sad part is I lost a bunch of friends and I have to move from city to city. Yeah, yeah. But the cool part was I had a lot of reset buttons. You know, like, I could be like, okay, this is who I was.

this is the new person I'm going to try to be. And I can, and I, let's say that didn't work. You can fall back. I can go and be someone else, you know? And, but most people, they stay in the same city, same school, same friends all the time. So they're trying to work in this ecosystem of trying to develop who they are. And I think that's hard enough already. Mm-hmm.

But now, if you have the layer of social media of like whether it's in a good way, like let's say you got into makeup early and you have this huge TikTok, or you could be the butt of the joke that goes viral too. And you're that kid forever. Yeah, forever. Not only at your school, but all the schools. It's like a lot of pressure. You know like the backpack kid?

Yeah. He was like, yeah. Like, everybody knows him as Backpack Kid, but, like, and what? Like, we don't even know his name. It's not Backpack Kid? No, like, his actual name. Everyone knows the first thing, Backpack. Like, when you guys were in high school, was there, like, social... Like, did you guys... It was like that. It was like, yo, if you had a certain amount of followers, like, you're popular in high school. Does it matter which one? Like, is it Twitter or YouTube or Instagram? Instagram. Instagram's still the one, too. Yeah, I would say. And...

Back then, we weren't necessarily cool because we went to a prominently white school. Different kind of coolness.

Yeah. You had a big chat and a brad. Yeah, like hockey boys. The hockey boys will get the most pussy. Oh, Canadian. Yeah, so Canadian of y'all. Yeah. So we like... We kind of had to make our own group of friends and like our own culture. And then like we have to show how cool we are on our side, you know? Yeah, Taika, I think, has 200,000 followers. Holy shit. I don't think his friends give a fuck. He's still young though. Yeah, yeah. But do you think that's going to affect him when he's older? For sure. You're going to give him that account? Because you basically...

It's like a memories account. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then he could take over that account. That's so good. He could start with a fucking jumpstart. That's like, oh, that's so funny, dog. Like a savings account of followers. No more money, just followers. That's crazy. But it's all the pictures I chose. Yeah. So? No, no, he might be embarrassed. Oh. You got my baggage.

Damn. Why are you taking those pictures? I'm like, those are the ones I like. Yo, but coming up, like, as, like, younger creators, did you guys start to get, like, an ego or start to see yourself in a different light? I think everyone does. Everyone does, right? Everyone, especially young. I mean, when you're young, man, like, you think you know everything, bro. Because, like, it's a way to just kind of test your hypothesis. Like, being, like, when you're 20...

You might have a high belief in yourself and the world just doesn't know it yet, right? So you're really like, I believe I can do this, but I haven't done it yet. So let me go out there and prove myself. And while you're proving yourself, you're going to make a lot of mistakes. You might say the wrong things. You might hurt people that you care about, whatever. But that's how you become a man. In my opinion, you test all of those thoughts yourself.

And then you see if you stepped out of the line or you did it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't know that many people that are humble when they're 20. Exactly. And then if they are, they're like fake humble. And it's like, what? That kind of happens with you making mistakes. But I think like the way you execute it is different, right? Like Tim's always been a positive, kind person. And he's always been like a good dude where I haven't seen him with this big ego. But if he does have an ego, it's because he's so positive, he thinks he can do everything. Yeah.

I like to keep just the line of delusion and reality. I like to keep it right there teetering. You feel me? I think you need a little bit of delusion to really keep going in this shit because the whole world is going to tell you you ain't shit and you're wasting your time. You got to be like, nah, y'all are dumb. I'm going to make this shit happen. That's a good amount of ego. And here's why I feel like where we were able, like us specifically, were able to survive so long in this space, right, because I feel like even without the internet shit and

And without the clout and the likes, we've all kind of been, like, pretty confident people in our lives, okay? I don't know you guys', like, young history, but I think, you know, we're never really, like, nerdy pushover people, right? I think some guys...

that fuck up in the social media atmosphere are dudes that were lame or felt picked on, insecure, and then they get some likes and some clout. And now they're like, oh, I'm the shit now because I have this. So it's like a false sense of confidence. It's like a different identity now. And now they got some money, they're buying clothes that they think is dope, and they think girls should be on their dick when they're still lame.

So now they got money They got followers But they're still fucking lonely and sad And then they get depressed Cause they're like I'm still not happy Yeah Fuck

That's that wisdom, though. That's so true. Yeah. Yeah. And I think for us three, too, we kind of just kept it real to who we were. Whereas I think a lot of people, they see someone else's success. So they try to like mimic that or mirror that. But that might not be them. So I do see a lot of people, too, where if you follow something and you're writing and it's going good, you're happy because you're reaping the benefits. But then if that thing doesn't fit the algorithm anymore, now you're like, I'm making content that's not me.

not me, and it's also sucking. Versus with us, I think whether or not we have the views of 2015 or the views we have now, we're happy making the content the whole time. So that's why you don't guys get creative burnout or have you? Or not as much as some of our peers, I would say. I mean, this space attracts a lot of interesting people, right? Entertainment, you got to be a little bit crazy to like entertainment because we all think...

we can entertain. That in itself is already kind of egotistical. We're more interesting. That's why we should bring this out. That's why y'all should watch this. You have to have it, right? But I do think the reasons why people get into this space is different, right? Some people get in because they're lonely or they want to be famous or they want whatever. I always like the people that go into a space because they have a purpose or a skill.

Like, we got into this space because I saw a need in the Asian community. It was like, yo, man, our comedy isn't being represented and I just want to have a good time. And also, I had another mission during that time because Asian kids had this weird...

self-belief of like we can't do entertainment we can't get fit we can't there was so much negativity we can't get fit bro we would go to the gym right and it would be like hella buff ass Asians because where we lived but then you would talk to everybody in high school during that time and they had this weird idea that Asian men couldn't get

fit. It was like a self-defeating belief. Now that doesn't exist. But there were these weird racist self-hatred beliefs that I was like, where does this shit come from? They're like, yeah, I'm not good at talented stuff because I'm Asian. And I'm like, what are you talking about? And I don't know because I grew up in a creative family. My parents are musicians. Yeah.

That was a normal job to me, like teaching music, whatever. That's normal. And then I started hearing these stereotypes like, oh, you know how Asians are all lawyers, doctors, and engineers? And I'm like, where? Not my friends and family. Or, you know, I'm awkward around girls because, you know, I'm Asian. I'm Asian. Yes. Come on, bro. And I just started hearing this shit, and I'm all like, where does this come from? And that's when we were like, we just need to make comedy and stuff and tell stories about the people that we know because, like, we got to change the perspective and thought.

I mean, that's why, like, representation is so important, right? True. I mean, like, I know I feel like a lot of people say that now, but...

Like you said, one of the main reasons I got into this shit too was I loved the Fresh Prince growing up. And I've told this story a million times. But I was watching the Fresh Prince and the first time I ever saw an Asian dude on there was this episode where Carlton's tuxedo shrank. And he had to wear a little lame baby blue tux. And he was at the dance. And a group of nerds walked up. And the Asian dude, first Asian dude I ever saw on the Fresh Prince, nerdy Asian dude was like, Hey, Carlton, nice tux. And I remember thinking like,

this is the first time I've ever seen an Asian dude on the Fresh Prince or on TV. And I'm like, I grew up around all types of Asian dudes. I know we're not all like this, but for people that don't grow up around Asian dudes, this is the first time they've ever seen a young Asian guy. That's all they're fed. That's all they're fed. That's all they're going to think of when they think of Asian dudes. I'm like, okay, that's not me. Mm-hmm.

We need to get out there and, like, show that there's more to us than that. You know what I'm saying? So that's something that still drives you to this day then? Yeah, for sure. To make content. Yeah, 100%. Because I feel like even though a lot's changed over the years, you know. You've been winning Oscars and stuff.

We've been winning Oscars and shit, but I feel like we just started winning Oscars and shit. You know, there's still like a lot, and we've been getting cast as like just sexy Asian dudes, which is nice. Like just sexy dudes in different shows. I'm like, oh, that's lit. Yeah, objectify that, man. That's tight. I think, you know, there's still a lot to be done. I think,

One thing that kind of bugs me is that I love, that's why I love Everything Everywhere All at Once because it was like goofier almost, but still dope. I think a lot of the Asian movies that have been winning awards and stuff, they're so serious and so sad. I'm like- Yo, Asian people are dark, bro.

I'm like, do we have to be sad all the time? Like Parasite? They're so serious. It's like dramatic. Parasite was sick though, yeah. You know who's killing it though? Korean cinema. Oh yeah, Korean cinema's crazy. It's a golden era, bro. Because they have like comedy. They have so much. They just have good content. I think there is the Asian American experience. I feel like

there is a chip on their shoulder. There's a bit of like darkness. And I know what you're talking about. It's so serious. Like, why is it so dramatic? Maybe they got to go through that. But I don't know. I love comedy and that's always my mind and how I operate. But I think my original passion was that about the community and things like that. And then as I started to have non-Asian fans, like it used to be like 90% Asian. Now it's like 50%.

50 word like we have because also we have a multicultural like group you know that's very true right and we're all like with non-Asians and like it's just you know everything's just mixed and I was like you know

At one point, I thought it was about representation. But then it got to this place where it felt like limitation. Like, I'm not including everybody. Limitation. Limitation, right. And it felt like, yo, I have this white fan and I have this Mexican fan. Or, like, do they feel left out? Because I'm just doing only Asian stuff for Asian people. And I was like, well, I'm American. And also, like...

I have all these different cultures around me that I want to represent for them too. But maybe it's not about culture. Maybe it's just about the human experience. And that's kind of where I got to. It's like, how do you boil it down to like... Now, in the beginning, it was about trying to shape and influence and kind of motivate the young self-defeating Asian minds. Now the next level is like, okay, I see...

young males not really getting attention. Everything is about young female and the LGBTQ, right? And then almost like it's a stain to be a male. Like they don't like masculinity. They don't like like just traditional stuff, which I argue might be kind of good for men. But there's like all this stuff going on right now. And I'm all like,

What about that? Like, regardless of culture. Yeah, regardless of culture, just people in general. Yeah, what are the things that kind of where people need help and then just kind of focus there and use comedy as a way to like...

change people's perspectives. What are y'all trying to do? Is this like you love podcasting and it's your main shit? Honestly, I love storytelling. I love just thinking differently. My biggest message with Jumpers Jump is just to make people think differently and don't be so shy about having your thoughts out. It's a lot of people like, oh shit, that's cringe, bro. You shouldn't be posting. Fuck that. Why can't I just...

speak my mind, can't just be myself. I hate that comment. When it was like, cringe, I'm like, where? Where? Who's cringing at this? What are you talking about? But it's not cringe until you blow up and you're famous now. What cheeses me the most, bro, is we get comments sometimes, especially in Toronto. Whenever Toronto, like, I guess, IG accounts post us, the comments are like, why are these guys so excited? What the fuck? We can't be excited? Yeah.

They're hating on being excited, being happy. Interesting. That's one thing I wanted to ask y'all. So Gen Z, right? Most of my employees, Gen Z. We've been hiring a lot. Because I have a matcha tea shop in Hawaii. And what I noticed is that Gen Z, expressionless.

Stereotypically. What do you mean by that? So like, not you guys, but like, very little like, it's like, they're very chill. It's the best way I can explain it. Like it's not cool to be happy and excited. I know, man. That's it right there. It's just like, they don't, the social skills is different. Like they don't high five and shit. I don't know, bro.

Not everyone, but what I've been noticing is like in interviews and stuff like that, they're very quiet. They're like one-worded answers. No like... They're like toned down or something. Toned down. Bro, and then some guys would take like three minutes to answer a question and just say like one word. And I'm like, I've never... I mean, I get some people could be shy, but I don't know. Is it a thing? I don't know if that's...

I don't know if that's a generational thing. I feel like I know, you know, just coming up, seeing people in interviews that were just trying to be cool. So they're just they're not excited. You know what I'm saying? I hate when that happens. Yeah, I think they're not acting cool. They're just they're they're taking it serious. But they're so scared. They're super mellow. Well, maybe it's the drugs.

I don't know what it is man do you think technology is fucking us up it could be is it fucking y'all up COVID fucks us up for sure I do think I mean I think it's fucking up a lot of things cause you got like

like people aren't hanging out as much. Yeah. You know, like social media, like people are like, I mean, it's the stereotypical two people sitting next to each other. And then just on the phone. Yeah. And then maybe people that are consumed by porn and they don't have a healthy sex life. Oh, but it's so tasty though. It's tasty.

Yeah, I just think like, there's like, we have a lot of stuff in this generation at our fingertips. Yeah. It's up to us to like, maintain that balance. But I've seen people like, look at like, pictures of nature and that's enough. You need to go outside and get some sun or something. But it's cold. Nah.

it's cold out there boy i think in this generation it's weird to go out your way and try stuff and it's kind of weird to support that too if you support someone someone's gonna say oh you're a dick rider get off his dick silly so you're dick riding your dick right so we're not we're not supposed to support our friends no more so you can't have fans yeah like apparently you can't have

You can't support people you're a dick rider. You can't be too happy. You're corny. You can't be too excited. What the fuck? You just can't be yourself no more. Right.

And then that's the culture we're trying to defeat. Because we're the opposite of that and we're just trying to show that side. I guess that's what I'm trying to point out. There are a lot of people that try to be too chill. Like too unmotivated. Too lazy. But that's not the word. I feel like it's boring. You want to live your life like that? But is Gen Z like that? It's like a chill generation? If you do too much, you're doing too much. You're just supposed to be like, whatever.

Oh, whatever. But obviously people fuck with you guys and your energy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because all your shit's going well. That's the main thing is like if we're going to come here and talk to you guys, we're not going to be sitting down like this. Yeah. You guys are idols. We're going to be fucking bringing the energy. I think that's what it is. It's how they speak. It's monotone. It's chill. It's low energy. And I'm just like, what the fuck is happening? Yeah. Wow, you old. Do you also think... I'm too excited. That's how every generation views the other generation. You know Kevin Hart had that one...

like bit where he's talking about was it his uncle where he was like say it from the chest oh yeah is it like probably like every every generation like you get the confidence and so now you're like more expressive you're more like you know it's okay to just put something out there and if it's wrong I'm sorry I think that's different though that was about that was about just the him not saying it like strong enough him just being weak like this is about people being too cool you know what I'm saying so I think it's like a little different so you're wrong

Even celebrities, I want to say too. Because y'all are cool meeting you, but I can tell there's some influencers that will treat you like, oh, he's a fan. You can't be a fan. What the fuck? It's a lot of people that think it's too cool. I fanboy all day. I don't care. That's weird. Well, you know what? I try to like... I'll only fanboy sometimes. I don't... I think being in LA, you kind of do sometimes have this...

Attitude or you feel like I don't want to look like a groupie in front of you When we're like at an event or you had a party like you don't want to be that one guy that's there and it's like yo Can I take a selfie when we're supposed to be like? It does make it awkward because you don't want to be that guy Do you think that's just LA?

It might just be LA Colts because we just came here and then like it kind of gives off that vibe a little bit. It could be just the whole Hollywood entertainment culture where you don't want to be too cool because you do know that like clout does help but you don't want it to make it seem like you're there for the clout. It's just like this fine balance. It's like a fine line. You don't want to be the guy where it's like Steven Spielberg's like, hey, I have a spot

Oh yeah you do you do Oh yeah I'm gonna check my schedule Inside you're like Fuck yeah You know it's like It's weird Yeah Cause we were at Wrestlemania And we had seats Over to the right And then I looked to my left I was like Yo Carlos Is that Gina? Yeah Gina Darling was like With the thing I was like I don't know if I wanna Like this is kind of She's with her man You know I don't wanna Go up to her And be like that fanboy Oh no she would've loved it Yeah She was out there Taking pictures Like posing in front of them So

If you were like our age coming up in the industry right now. Oh, right now? 23? What's some advice or what would y'all do? Well, let's see. I'm 25 now. It's just two years back. Yeah, a couple years ago. Well, for me, I blew money like a rock star. Did you? And you regret it? Shit. We didn't have mentors. Did you need that though?

Because I feel like that's something maybe people need. Like, for me, I knew in high school, I had to spend my whole paycheck to realize, oh, the value of money. I still don't know, bro. Really? I'm just...

I don't know. It's just a fun part of who I am. But I would say right now, there's so much information financially. And what you guys are doing is a business. As much as you hate being an entrepreneur, you are one, right? Yeah, that's true. And we had to kind of... We had books. We had very little mentors. So we made a lot of mistakes. So I would say like...

structure yourself out and understand like you can kind of like have a savings ready, have things like, yeah, or else you're going to have to constantly work and you're never going to be able to retire. Dude, that's so true because I remember like watching like those sports documentaries and I would watch like these NFL football players like they have millions and then they're like homeless or they blew it. I'm like, man, you guys are stupid.

And then, when we started getting into money, and when you're in it, you think the wave goes like this, non-stop. And then the moment it goes like this, right, it comes down, but then your expenses are still high. I'm like, if you do, and we're Asians, we do the math fast, and I'm like...

Oh shit. I can totally see what happens, you know, cause you make, you keep spending. So like every time we would go out, we would just, everyone order everything. It's totally fine. And it's easy for like a bill to come out to like 300, 500, maybe even a thousand dollars sometimes. And then you have like,

three cars or whatever and you pay for this you pay for that oh yeah I'll cover my I'll cover my uncle's cell phone bill my mom's cell phone bill everyone's cell phone bill and then now your expenses are like crazy right and then you start to not make as much money it starts coming down and you still have all those things and it's hard to tell your relatives hey I'm not gonna do this for you anymore I'm not gonna do this anymore so like I think uh

Yeah, like what he was saying, being able to put a little bit of money away for the future as if you're not going to make it, that's probably one of the first things I would have started doing. Yeah, man. I think to piggyback off that, as far as the money goes, right, it's like you really do need to keep a balance. You know what I'm saying? Because, of course, you're making some money. You want to spend a little bit, and you should spend a little bit for your taxes and shit, right? I think the issue that a lot of people have,

Like what we talked about earlier, the person that used to be lame and now they got a little clout and money so they want to stunt on everybody. I know a lot of these younger YouTube vloggers back in the day or even recent. They'll spend mad money to have... So they can vlog from a house in the hills and they're leasing mad cars so they can be like, oh, check out my new spot vlog title. You know what I'm saying? Clickbait. Oh, I got a new... I'm pushing this and this and that, right? And then it's like...

And there are two, like, people blowing mad money, like, 5 to 10K for an apartment out here. And it just, like, it doesn't make sense, right? But...

I think the key is to, I mean, for me, I was always a little paranoid about it. So I was always saving some money. Oh, that's smart. But I think we all have that stage. And, you know, I think it's fun too, where you want to stunt a little bit. You want to flex on people. Like we all, we were all, we all had some like, we were all driving the fours at one point, right? And at one point it's like,

For what? Who the fuck cares? You know what I'm saying? And, you know, you have your fun. And I was doing my thing. I was like, okay, I'm a stunt. I feel nice to pull up in front of a restaurant in the fucking Maserati or whatever. But then it's like, eh, who cares? You know, who am I trying to show off for? So materialistic side, that doesn't even matter to you anymore. Or does it? Because for me, I know like I was a huge sneakerhead back in the day. And like I really, really wanted like a set lineup of kicks.

Once I completed that lineup, yo, I felt fucking depressed. Really? You had nothing to look forward to. I had nothing to look forward to. It was like, you know when you have a video game, you get excited to play, you finish it, and like, fuck, what's next? That's what I felt like. I feel like guys are just big kids, you know? Yeah. We just are...

Toy trucks become real trucks. You know what I mean? Like, our water guns become real guns. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We just keep upgrading, right? Yo. I'm not, like, materialistic in the sense of, like, luxury brands and flossing and stuff, but I have my toys, right? We all have our toys. But I think, for me, I think I wish I had mentors in the business sense. Because I blew a lot on stupid decisions in business. Because I was just...

I was ignorant, right? But right now, you guys have a lot of people that are ahead of you when it comes to podcasting, entertainment, how they structured their media companies. It's even out like in the open, you can read about them or whatever. And I think that would have helped us a lot, big time. Yeah, yeah.

What about content wise? You got any like advice for us content wise? You guys are crushing it better than us. You should give us. You guys give us advice. What can we be doing better? I saw you guys do the, you're on TikTok now with the JK news. Yeah. That's a good move. That's a great move. You don't even post it. Who does? Someone's doing it. I mean, I feel like this, and we touched on this earlier. I think, you know,

Like we've been saying, the key is balance, right? Yeah, it's important to pay attention to what people are talking about, what's trending, what's popular. But if you spend too much time focusing on like,

what people want and not what makes you happy and you're always chasing that you're gonna you might get the views but you're not gonna feel fulfilled you know what I'm saying you're gonna be sad I don't know if you ever went there to the deep end but I feel like we started at a certain point and at some point I wasn't doing any content that I wanted but it was bringing in the views and the money and then I was doing that for like a year and I was like

wait, why do we have all these channels? It was fun. But is it fun after two, three, four, five years of doing the same game? And I'm like, I know the viewers like it. But then I was like, I'll do something different, man. Yeah. When you guys were coming up, would you guys change anything? Because I know you guys were working on a movie. Did you guys go through with that or no? That's one thing I guess looking back now that I would change is we probably...

Doing a movie was for sure one of like a big goal for JK. And I would say like when you first start doing something, you feel like you have to put out the perfect product. And so we were working so hard on this movie. We probably rewrote it like four or five times. We wrote like six, seven different scripts. And by the time we go back, that opportunity...

is only going to be there for this one shot. So one of the producers that first hit us up, we had a rewrite and we finally went back. Like, that funding disappeared so there's no longer for that, that movie is gone. You know, you can't do that movie. So what I realized is in the beginning, I used to be like, shit on people's like bad movies. I'm going to make a movie so shit why they released that, why they released that. Or you see people's

Like earlier stuff and it's like kind of shitty now I understand like when this studio has this much money. It's for this window So if you're not happy with the movie fine put it out at least you got it out a little bit and now you have a working relationship with the studio they'll grant the next couple more and you'll get better as I think everyone wants to win an Oscar on the first one

You're right, dude. And that's what happened with us where we had so many rewrites on just one movie and we're trying to make it perfect and then that opportunity is gone and we would do a bunch more like that. I would have to add going back to that ego conversation, that's probably the ego that fucked us up. Where we wanted to crush it so hard that it prevented us from getting anything done because we're trying to make the perfect movie, right? So like I said earlier, we made...

Six full scripts. We even, well, we shot a pilot actually. Because we were like, you know what? Maybe TV series is the way to get picked up. And then we did a whole series called Danger Boys. COVID whooped our ass on that one. Right. And right when we got it going, we were having studios like basically they're ready to buy it. We're touring with it. And then boom, COVID stopped. Everything stopped. Everything was just like done.

And then the time passes. Like, every single time, if you don't just jump on the opportunity, sometimes it's okay when you got B work, man. C work even. Just get it done. Just get it done. And I'm like, alright. You've done so much and you're on TV and stuff like that. But I've been trying to write a movie for like four years. Yeah, because the way the producer's table works is...

We had Danger Boys and we immediately, we put out the pilot. Yeah. I think we got like booked for like 14 schools that wanted to screen it. One of our first ones that we went to was UC, did you go to the UCI one? No, I couldn't make it. But 500 people showed up. It was like bursting at the seams, like just to watch it, right? And so we're like have crazy momentum.

COVID hits and then all the schools of course cancel because we have to be meeting people. But then also the networks, they don't know what's going to happen. So they have to use the money to finish filming the stuff they have in the works. And all the new projects that they were going to greenlight, they put to the side.

And then so you would think, okay, cool, no worries. Two years later, I'm going to hit up the same producer and we'll just get the talks back. But by that time, Danger Boys is like 20 stacks down because scripts keep coming out. So that's the nature of the beast where I think a lot of times you're trying to make the most perfect thing because you want to do like a mic drop project, right? Like JK...

Yeah, yeah. But there's a thousand mics coming down. I know. You know, so you just got to get one in there. Right. And then, yeah, yeah. See, I have a dilemma, and I think Tim could relate to this too, because he does so much. You, like, act too. You were on Wild N' Out. Trying, yeah. Yeah. And for me, like, I started with streetwear first, and then obviously the podcast. At one point, I was juggling it.

And I'm like, shit, I want to do vlogs too. Shit, I want to do like... I made my own board game. And then I'm like, shit, I started acting class. Like I'm doing so much at once, but...

Coming from you guys, what's some advice for me? Because I feel like sometimes I spread myself thin and that's what a lot of people say. I don't know, man. I feel like if you can find the right balance, then do all that shit, dog. This is a good time to do it. You know what I'm saying? Especially if you're popping on some TikTok shit, right? I think it's the perfect example of how you don't need...

to have a consistent formula anymore, really, because TikTok is so, like, all over the place. You know, I think a lot of us in the beginning with YouTube, right, people would have told you, or for me especially, like, I struggled with, do I keep doing all this random shit I'm doing or do I stick to one thing, right? For me, like...

I was doing the rap shit, I was doing the skits, I was doing DJ La Guero's, and I almost felt like it was so inconsistent that it was keeping me from really growing in subscriptions. And someone told me one time, they're like, you know what, look, for YouTube, here's the thing, right? You got to treat it like it's your kitchen cabinet. Like when you go to your kitchen cabinet every day to get cereal, you don't go there because you think, oh, I might have meatloaf in there one day, or I might have cereal in there one day. You keep on going back because you know there's cereal in there. And I'm like, ah, fuck, maybe I should stick to one thing

But honestly, for me, I think the fact that I didn't just do one thing on my personal channel, I was still able to really navigate the changing tides of YouTube. Because at the end of the day, people were still kind of, they were subscribed for me, even if it was my skits or a dude like Ghetto. It was my personality, right? I think for y'all, man, if you got a bunch of shit you want to do, do it. Just do it, right? Do you have ADD?

I don't know. You probably do. You're creative. Because if you got ADD, I would say do everything. Do everything. I am. I think success actually comes from when you're aligned with who you naturally are. You know what I mean? So I think if you are a, I could do one thing, motherfucker, like a fucking sushi chef, then do that, right? You're fucking looking at the fish and shit. That's who you are. But I got ADD like crazy. And it actually helps me write an email if I'm looking at car parts at the same time.

You know what I mean? Like, yeah, like three tabs open. Do what excites you. That actually helps me. Yeah. So I would say like that's long term aligning yourself with who you are, like what your strengths are. And if that is like your acting class might make you a better podcaster or your streetwear might inspire you to do a vlog about something. And sometimes it is that whole ecosystem, you know? Yeah. I mean, like.

Even when we were at the height of YouTube, we had like four channels. We had the sketch. We had the party for the game show behind the scenes. We had news. But you have a team, though. Yeah, so that's the thing, right, is you can do it with a team. Anything you want. Even right now, right? Like I'm running a boba shop, and he's running a gym. And on top of that, you know, we have personal channels. We're like able to sit down with you guys. We have JK News. Mm-hmm.

He has a clothing brand, you know? So like, dude, I, so whatever you get excited about, you can do it if you could create the system around it. So it's really about like finding all the things that take up your time that you can outsource or hire out, start doing that. And then what if like, so if in a perfect world, you probably just want to come in here and do what you're doing is just talk. Right. And then what do you like, how long does this take? Like an hour?

hour or two right and then how many more hours do you got in your month a ton so you could do a bunch of other stuff if you want to vlog but you don't want to edit you don't want to do all that hire someone to record you or maybe you could just go around and then you dump the footage to your editor and they'll do all the stuff for you hire a manager you gotta

I edit my own vlogs. See, there's a thing for me too, because I love being in charge of everything. Yeah, me too. I love being like, I'm the creative. Everything has to be my way. If somebody else does it another way, I'm going to get pissed off because it's like, fuck, it's not in my light. 100%, but then you learn how to train. So then you do it. You create the system. You figure out what the formula is to your system. And then you get somebody that can edit close to what you want. Oh.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but man, sometimes I also feel like maybe I am doing too much. Not too

That's forever the artist struggle, though. I think the artist struggle is always like, oh, that's cool. I got 30 TV shows out, but I don't have one Oscar. You know what I mean? That's forever. It's going to always be like that. You got the Daniel Day-Lewis who's like, I'm only an actor, and it's just, I have an Oscar. Or you got the other dude that got 30 TV shows, and I think that's just always forever the struggle. Bro, you know what I do now? Because I'm notorious for starting new projects and just shiny new objects. Yeah.

I have an end goal for every single thing I'm in. And I said, I can't start a new hobby or a project or business unless I get it to this point. That's what I mean. Yeah. So that's what I didn't do in the past. So I could beat one project up for like 10 years and then never stop it.

And then I'll start up 20 other projects and be sucky at all of them, right? So then now I'm just like, all right, I need to get this to this amount, this price point, whatever. And then once I get it there, then I'm allowed to whatever. That is something that like venture capitalists like Silicon Valley, they built it into the startup system. Oh, word. People that like, let's develop an app

They build the exit into the business plan. So this is what we're trying to do. This is what we're going to try to take it. And in three years, we'll revisit. Five years, we'll revisit. And these are the tiers that unlock whatever. And they already plan all of that out. So it's almost like planning like a...

Like a prenup. Yeah. Because who knows if this app is going to go forever? Is it going to be like Amazon where it goes for a long, long, long time? Or is it something we just hit it and quit it and we all make a billion dollars and we're out? That's actually really, really smart. I was really trying to finish the album before this other baby came. You fucked up though. And then the baby came. You got your priorities all mixed up, bro. Or now you got baby sounds that you can put in the ad-libs. Yeah, the ad-libs. The ad-libs, bro. True. Timbalandia's baby sounds. Yeah, that's...

Yeah, I, you know, you know, you guys are right. I do need end goals because I've been trying to write this movie and do this album for like so long, but I'm always like, Just pick one and then, Just do a musical and do both. Just do a musical, yeah. That's true. You could get two done at once. Yeah, but now there's babies here. I don't have time for anything. Oh,

No, but you guys helped us indirectly too when we were going to buy a new studio. Oh, shit. So money started coming in. You know, like Tim said, Tim said, oh, we want to flex. We want to get this new studio. But I remember you guys saying, I think when you guys tried to move your set to a bigger studio, that was a mistake. Didn't give up.

Right? We wanted to be like, oh, we're going to do so good. See, that's another ego move. Yeah. It's like you think the audience is going to be impressed by this cool set. It doesn't matter. They don't care, bro. It's just the content that you produce. And we were filming out of his basement. Just two of us cameras. We're like, my bedroom. And you lit. Yeah. They just want to see your pretty ass little face. One of the biggest channels right now, at least in the fitness space. Do you guys know more plates, more dates? No.

No, I've never heard of him. So he's the one that calls out if people are taking steroids or not. He's very, very smart. Oh, that guy? He's just a webcam. Exactly. Shitty-ass webcam. I don't even know what the fuck's behind him, like a vintage microwave or something. And he has multiple businesses. He has a supplement line. He has a hormone therapy clinic. He's crushing it, right? And he was on Joe Rogan, and they asked him, like, yo, so what's up with your setup? Yeah.

Why you still, like, have this ghetto ass setup? And is it because to keep relatability? Exactly. So he doesn't, he wears his old, like, stretched out shirt. It looks like he's been sweating the last, like, 15, 16 days. But it keeps why people love them. And then also, it doesn't hurt the piggy bank, you know? He just keeps the exact, the way it is. Versus us, we dropped, like, fucking almost, like, half a mil on that studio. And you didn't even use it. I know, dude. Damn.

Was that going to be JK News? No, no. So we had this studio. There was a business model behind it. Okay, okay. So we have a set side and an office side. The set side was probably like 10,000 square feet. It was pretty big. Half of it was for JK Party, which we did shoot. Okay, okay. We used it. Yeah, it was dope because it's actually big enough to like...

like run across so you can do some crazy shit. The JK new side, I think it was too newsy. It didn't feel like this, you know? And then so that one, it was like, what the fuck?

So we had to go back to our old set. But originally, we were popping out channels left and right. A lot of the channels back then, too, they were building out their own networks. Like Smosh was doing that, all that. So we wanted to create our own network and then have studios like here in Spotify. You just had a lot of different places to film and record. And then we wanted to build the company bigger until we realized, dude, like,

we're so spread thin, do we want to continue doing this? So I think that was where you got to push yourself to see what your max capacity is. You know what I think would kill for y'all still? Just kidding party. Because look, I remember you guys were doing that. That shit went viral, right? Yeah.

Check this out. People are doing that with Cut or Jubilee. True, true, true. Oh, really? It's technically the same thing. And the reason it's going viral right now and still blowing up and it's still such a big genre of content is because people react to it on Twitch. So it's like the other side reacting to the other side and then no matter what, it's still going to get fed views. Because people are still watching your videos to this day. Yeah, they're watching your old videos, bro.

Yeah. Yeah, no, Just Kidding Party, I think it still gets like, what is it, like a million views or something a month just by itself? Yeah. Really? People are watching it, yeah. Cool. Why don't you guys revive that though? So, like I said, like we started creating content because we just wanted to see which one is going to hit.

hit yeah so like we got into this space to make sketches but sketches don't pay the bills so just kidding party was the behind the scenes and vlogs of the of the making of the skin okay and then we started doing challenges like when the cinnamon challenge came out yeah those did really well and i was like you know it'd be funny if we turned this into like a game show channel instead of a behind the scenes channel so we started doing game shows and like adventures um

And then films, we had to kill it because we're like, you know what? At the end of the day, it costs so much. We've been producing a skit every Sunday for four or five years straight. Every Sunday, no breaks. And we built JK News as a way to like, hey, we need to fund JK Films. Yeah.

That's what it was. Yeah, so we created all these different concepts just to see what will work. Because we were trying to make sure everyone got paid a decent rate. We were just trying to see...

What's gonna work? You just don't know like you're just testing everything. Yeah, and there's no model back then There's no like method like right now. There's like okay. You got your fitness industry method You got your you know vlogger or whatever right back then you just try everything hoping that something's gonna stay and you find which one and all of them started profiting so it was like a cool thing where it was like all of our ideas are working yeah, and then

It's like we're too busy now working on stuff that we don't really want to. It was like a B project to only fund our passion. You know what I mean? And then it was like, oh, shoot. But then the machine's going now and you can't stop. You can't stop. And then the brand deals roll in and then you just can't refuse the zeros because you're like, oh, shoot. Yeah, and then it also gets to a point where

you spend more time as coworkers than you do as friends. That's another thing. And then also even relationships. Like, a lot of our relationships got hit so hard because we would be filming from, like, 9 a.m. till 9 p.m. Like, almost, like, every day. So other parts start to suffer. But I'm also glad we went through it because you got to kind of figure out where your limits are and where to dial it back down to kind of know what's the healthy balance, you know? Because a lot of the time, like, I'm hiring my homies or, like, I'm filming with my homies. And those are the main guests we have on the podcast, actually. Yeah.

All the influencers that we had on our podcast do the worst. People hate it, right? Yeah. I know. And then our just homies, they do numbers. It's crazy. Yeah, because people just like your guys' chemistry. You know what I'm saying? And that's the struggle I have with my podcast, too, is that I feel like I should get a guest in there to kind of switch it up, maybe get some new eyes on there. But people are always like, ugh, this person's whack.

Can y'all just be you guys talking like normal? Yeah, we'll bring in some people like big ass following and does whatever. Exactly, yeah. They come in, they sit like this. They're not entertaining at all. Oh my God, bro. It's because most people don't know how to talk. Yeah. They have millions of followers or whatever, but maybe they're just good at that one style of what they do. Yeah, that's not their thing. But this is actually just being a human. And if you're not entertaining telling stories, then it's like, yeah, it's not going to work. Yeah.

People don't know how to just talk without, you know, feeling mad awkward sometimes, you know? I think podcasting is... People will sit with their homies and be like, we need a podcast. We should have a podcast. And then as soon as those mics come on, this shit's awkward, you know?

You know what? What we realized too is like some people, they're like really popular. They're good at just talking by themselves, but not in the group. Oh, I can see that. They're not used to sharing. Like a vlogger or something. Yeah. And they feel self-conscious if they're not filling the space with their words. Like they're like, oh, am I doing enough? And it's like, dude, this is a group thing.

Like a group chat is like, this is one voice. We're like, we're an organism working together. And they're used to just like, sometimes stand-up comedians are like that too. They feel hella self-conscious if they don't have the attention. Because they're used to being the only one speaking on stage, not sharing it. Oh, because this is a different setting in general. Dude, and they just dominate. They won't shut up. And we're just like, yo, is this a conversation? I'm like, what? Are you doing a bit? Chill out. Chill, bro. Let's talk. Yeah, man.

well okay one last question I have because I'm running out of time here but one last question what's y'all's like end goal still end goal in life yeah like what what drives y'all because I always question that myself like with the podcast what I really really want to do with this like what am I looking out of my career and I'm just curious like like in the future if we end up like y'all like what are you guys looking forward to

I mean, for me, man, like, I still kind of have the same goals as I did when I started out. Like, at this point, I did some TV stuff, right? And I've done a couple, like, whack-ass movies. But I'm trying to, like, take everything that I've done so far, elevate it. You know what I'm saying? Like, yeah, I've been on a cable show. While now, I did that for some years. I would love to be on ABC, NBC. You don't have to have cable to watch this shit show. You know what I'm saying? Like, a...

A ABC, NBC, like some type of scripted show, right? I also, you know, I'm trying to get this fucking movie done. I would love to, you know, be in some like real ass movies. Like that's the goal for me. And I'm still, you know, I'm still putting out music. I feel like if people fuck with the music, I'm still putting it out. And, uh,

And, you know, just that. Everything I'm doing now, but times 10. Times 10. So just getting better at it. Yeah. Just getting better at it. Okay. And raise my children right. Of course. I guess. That's my goal. Yeah. Make my wife happy. Get a six pack. I think for me, I realized that I'm...

like artists in a way where I do like creating. And I realized for me, I think I like creating when I feel free. So like, kind of like with what we're talking about, we had all these channels and when you look at it from the outside and you're like, oh shit, these guys are creating like a motherfucker. Like I think one time we, I counted like,

Like I was coming I was in maybe like 200 videos a month like from the vlog to all the JKs Yeah, I was like god damn I was just counting like how many videos I'm in yeah, and I'm like that's creating a lot but then I'm just plugged into a machine like each one of those channels are a machine we have to meet a quota or don't the algorithm like fucks you, you know, so like now I realize I do enjoy being an artist and creating stuff and

But I don't want to be tied into a machine. So for me, I think I want to create from like put myself in a position financially. We're kind of like ties everything full circle where I can be in a place where I can create like purely for what I want to create. Regardless of just making money, regardless of like people thinking about your content, just doing what you want. Yeah. So now at my age in like.

I've been diving deep into real estate finance for the last two or three years. So I'm trying to slowly leverage that so that I can be in a financial place where I can still kind of go back to my roots, but then now without having the bills to

I was just going to say, isn't that crazy that, like, we started off just bullshitting, making shit that we love, and now it's like we're grinding so hard to make money so that we can do that again. Yeah, dude. It's crazy. It comes full circle. It's like you make shit that you love when you're broke as fuck, and then you make money and you're not really making shit that you love, but it looks like you are. It's crazy, yeah. Because they kind of stick you, like, your audience sticks you to one thing, and then you have to keep running with that to make your bread. Yeah, yeah.

I guess it kills like the true artist in you, right? Yeah. We got mortgages and shit now. It's our fault. But it also makes you a better artist, I think, you know, and you kind of have to go through it. Yeah. You kind of have to go through it to go, oh shit, like this is who I really am, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I realized that I'm actually like, um, more of an entrepreneur and, um, just opening up a store and just doing more business. Yeah. It's like hell exciting. And, um,

It's kind of sadistic, but I like the feeling of starting over. Wow, yeah. And then from nothing. I like fighting. To me, it feels like I'm panicking every day and I'm in war. But now I got to battle...

through business. It gives a purpose. No, I feel that 100%. Because I always tell people I worked hardest and was grinding my hardest when I was like broke and hungry. Exactly. And then we make a little bit of money, we get comfortable. Exactly. And we don't feel the need to work hard anymore. And you almost don't feel as fulfilled, right? Because during COVID-19,

I had the retired life. I was single. I did anything I wanted to. I had single friends that were like, yo, let's go here for a trip. And I'm like, as much as my heart wanted to do, let's just hop around the world and snowboard, do whatever. And there was something missing. There was something that was like, oh, I thought this would be what I wanted.

Because when you're busy working, you kind of fantasize about what life would be like if I had the freedom, right? And then you get the freedom and you eat what you want. You do what you want. You sleep when you want. No one to answer to. And then to me, there was just something that was lingering that was making me kind of sad. It wasn't what you thought. Yeah. And then I lost a ton of money on crypto. Almost everything, bro. I got wiped out clean. Just enough.

to finish up the construction on my shop. And then I went in and then something ignited in me that felt like I haven't been this hardworking and motivated and happy in a long time. Wow.

And it was one of the most stressful, but it made me like awaken, like, oh, fuck, this is who I am. I like to fight. I like to work. I like to do a lot of stuff. And I think that's just like my goal is like I like to think about what I want to accomplish and just execute it while I have a fire going.

under my butt telling me, you know, yeah. I can't do it while I'm comfortable. That's what I realized. If everything's too easy for me, then what ends up happening is...

There's nothing whipping me. Like, there's nothing telling me that you need to do this. So I'd rather just go play. They say comfort is the enemy of progress. I believe it now. Low-key comfort is like almost depression. I remember I was chilling just playing video games. Like, fuck. I'm just super chilling. Loser! Yeah, but I'm depressed. I'm not doing nothing. I feel like shit. And there's nothing to look for. I think the scariest moment in my life, I feel like, fuck.

I kind of did what I wanted to do now and I'm still in it of course but what's my next purpose like the shoes yeah exactly exactly just like that and that shit like it scares me get all the pairs except for the last one that's how I should do it oh yeah it's like in GTA when you have all the money and all the cheat codes that's just the fun yeah put the cheat codes in the game like fuck this game sucks now then you play Tetris dog then you switch up the game okay start buying sandals start a sandal collection yeah

Yeah, thank you guys so much for coming through. Thank you guys, bro. This means so much to have you guys on. Y'all are for real my heroes. We wouldn't be here right now without you guys. We have to give y'all your flowers. Thank you, man. You know, I appreciate you guys for the flowers and for taking the time to show us love. I got nothing but respect for y'all for doing your thing. Appreciate that.

As youngins, as the next generation. It's beautiful. Thank you for the blessing, bro. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, so if we're ever back in L.A., we'll hit you up. Yeah, come on, J.K. News. Okay, I'm down. Definitely. We're always open, bro. Thank you so much. The show! Thanks, guys. Jumpers jump out. Jumpers jump out. Jumpers jump out! Jumpers jump out! Jumpers jump out! This was recorded at Spotify Studio in L.A. Boom.