Speaker 1: Really now, really, really.
Speaker 2: Now, really hello and welcome to really Know Really with
Speaker 2: Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden, who remind you that if
Speaker 2: you subscribe to our show, we could be the Mister
Speaker 2: Beast of podcasts. And if you're asking who is mister Beast, well,
Speaker 2: we're here to tell you he is the number one
Speaker 2: person on YouTube who's followed by over four hundred million people.
Speaker 2: Today you'll learn how he's mastered clickbait, cracked the YouTube algorithm,
Speaker 2: created a Hollywood style studio system, sent millions of dollars
Speaker 2: to charity, and even created food products and a fast
Speaker 2: food chain, all.
Speaker 3: At the tender age of twenty five.
Speaker 2: Really, no, really, we'll find out who this dynamo is
Speaker 2: and what makes him tick.
Speaker 3: From Rolling Stone senior writer E J.
Speaker 2: Dixon, who embedded herself with mister Beast and his compound
Speaker 2: in Greenville, North Carolina to get some answers.
Speaker 3: Now here's Jason and Peter.
Speaker 4: Now, really, mister you forgive me because I know he's
Speaker 4: a big, big star. Until you said, hey, we're going
Speaker 4: to do a show about mister Beast, I went.
Speaker 5: You know what's right? May I break the wall? If
Speaker 5: there is a wall By the way, sometimes putting the
Speaker 5: show together is a bit of a challenge because you're
Speaker 5: busy doing what you do and the world is spinning
Speaker 5: over there and you don't necessarily kind of check in
Speaker 5: on certain stuff. So I said, to the folks who
Speaker 5: do the show with me, we're going to talk to
Speaker 5: someone who embedded themselves with mister Beast. And it's going
Speaker 5: to be fascinating because mister Beast is by far the
Speaker 5: biggest YouTuber in history, by hundreds of millions. He's a
Speaker 5: fascinating character. And I said, Jason is going to have
Speaker 5: no idea who mister Beast is.
Speaker 6: You're absolutely and there I was, one hundred percent, you're
Speaker 6: absolutely right.
Speaker 4: In fact, Now here's what's interesting is the number one
Speaker 4: YouTube when I go to my homepage at YouTube, shouldn't
Speaker 4: something that Beast come up?
Speaker 5: So YouTube American online video sharing and social media platform
Speaker 5: we know owned by Google. Yah. Yeah, formed by the
Speaker 5: guys who started PayPal. But there were two stories.
Speaker 6: We didn't know YouTube was a PayPal offshoot.
Speaker 5: These guys, three form employees of PayPal, really started it. Yeah,
Speaker 5: look at that. Well, they collectively watched more than one
Speaker 5: billion hours of videos every day on YouTube, Okay, So
Speaker 5: what I didn't realize because we had heard the story
Speaker 5: that YouTube was launched based on this dating service where
Speaker 5: they wanted to share info about women like like, I
Speaker 5: thought that was Facebook Facebook. Well, I guess, I guess.
Speaker 5: When you get twenty year old guys together who know tech,
Speaker 5: that's usually where they go. But one of the guys
Speaker 5: said it was actually the Super Bowl halftime commercial where
Speaker 5: Janet Jackson's breast was beefly exposed. Yeah, people wanted to
Speaker 5: see that. How do you get that out? So that
Speaker 5: motivated them to do this.
Speaker 4: Jesus cut the humanity. I have no hope for humanity, right,
Speaker 4: one of the biggest pieces of technology started because America
Speaker 4: went you miss Janet Jackson's breas?
Speaker 5: Really, YouTube are one hundred and twenty two million active
Speaker 5: users daily. One billion hours of content is watched across
Speaker 5: the world every day, one billion hours worth of content.
Speaker 4: I'm I'm actually surprised to hear that it's that YouTube
Speaker 4: only has one hundred and twenty two millions asta user.
Speaker 5: That's half of the theation in the United States.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but I'm thinking YouTube is global, isn't it.
Speaker 5: It is global, but there's still a lot of one
Speaker 5: hundred and twenty two millions now the top five because
Speaker 5: I know.
Speaker 4: Like I know younger people who they don't know no TV,
Speaker 4: they don't have cable, they don't have streaming. They eventually
Speaker 4: everything goes to YouTube and that's where they watch.
Speaker 5: My son, who's twenty seven, Saint Ajor's is ger Your
Speaker 5: tweeny only watches stuff from YouTube because watch whole shows.
Speaker 5: If a show is on the Grand, you'll never watch
Speaker 5: a whole show, right. He watches pieces of shows on YouTube.
Speaker 5: I have seen every fight moment from Equalizer three. I've
Speaker 5: never seen the movie, but you should. I do what
Speaker 5: the movie is. I got all the best moments. The
Speaker 5: number five A show on YouTube is a Kid's Diana Show,
Speaker 5: a YouTube channel run by Eva Diana, a ten year
Speaker 5: old German Canadian girl. They explore new things, take on
Speaker 5: challenges and share what they learned to get. That's number five.
Speaker 5: Really know, really why we were working so hard? Why
Speaker 5: Sunny Television Entertainment in India is number four. Coco Melon
Speaker 5: as one hundred and seventy one million subscribers. Melon.
Speaker 6: What's Coco Melon?
Speaker 5: It's It's owned by a company in Britain called Moonbug
Speaker 5: Entertainment it's that they make learning fun. They have songs
Speaker 5: and videos out. Oh it's like, yeah, it gets.
Speaker 6: Which makes sense.
Speaker 5: Yeah. And number two mister beefs, mister Beees.
Speaker 6: We're interviewing about the number two.
Speaker 5: Well, he's the number he's the first individual another the
Speaker 5: number one, the number one because no, because the number
Speaker 5: one is an Indian YouTube channel. It's it's it's a
Speaker 5: series of stuff. It's not a person. He's the biggest
Speaker 5: person person on YouTube. And mister Beees currently has two
Speaker 5: hundred and thirty six million subscribers if you add all
Speaker 5: his channels together.
Speaker 4: So he has more subscribers than people who are using YouTube,
Speaker 4: is what you're saying, one hundred and twenty two active users.
Speaker 5: Of ja more. He has to subscribble it. He's doubled it.
Speaker 4: And if you don't understand, that's a mathematical equation. Yes,
Speaker 4: so are five apples? You have ten? How How how
Speaker 4: is that? Even you put that out on SAT people's
Speaker 4: heads explode? The math doesn't add on.
Speaker 7: His YouTube channel is over lying, So so I know
Speaker 7: the answer to it.
Speaker 5: Go ahead, David, David is sorry, I was gonna wait
Speaker 5: for this to get don't be sorry.
Speaker 3: Peter is correct.
Speaker 7: YouTube sees approximately one hundred and twenty two million users
Speaker 7: per day per day, but if you look at monthly
Speaker 7: active users, it's two point seven billion around the world.
Speaker 4: David, thank you for clarifying that. So what I've learned
Speaker 4: is Peter introduced to you introduced it that you have
Speaker 4: a false impress.
Speaker 5: Somebody was literally for somebody was limited intelligence, barely got
Speaker 5: to college. Okay, so we reached out because we couldn't
Speaker 5: get Jason. So funny he goes, we got mister Beast.
Speaker 5: I said, I said, mister Beast is doing our show.
Speaker 5: I actually said, don't be an idiot.
Speaker 6: You did, he said, don't be an idiot, it's.
Speaker 5: Not he's not. Even if he's the biggest seign fulp
Speaker 5: fan in the world, he's not coming. But we have EG.
Speaker 5: I want to get this name right because they got
Speaker 5: every name wrong. Dixon. IT'SJ. Dixon. What it's not. This
Speaker 5: is remedial spelling.
Speaker 6: EJ.
Speaker 5: You didn't even have to read three names in the
Speaker 5: A J and A Dixon anyway. EJ is a writer
Speaker 5: with Rolling Stone. She's written a lot of other articles
Speaker 5: for a lot of other publications about tech, et cetera.
Speaker 5: She got to spend time with mister Beasts, and we
Speaker 5: wanted to find out what everybody wants to be an influencer.
Speaker 5: Everybody wants that to be the thing the gig economy
Speaker 5: knows us about that ship. What does it take to
Speaker 5: be mister beasts? And I got a sense, a bit
Speaker 5: of a sense of it. I know you to too.
Speaker 5: Let's find out right now, EJ. Dixon, you spent time
Speaker 5: with him. First out, how do you get aos?
Speaker 4: And is he insulated? Do you have to like get
Speaker 4: through the layers to get to him?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean it was pretty much like first of all,
Speaker 8: I just I just want to say, this is like
Speaker 8: watching an old Jewish couple, like married.
Speaker 5: Couple of give and this is going to numbers.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean it was pretty much.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 8: He was the He was the cover of our first
Speaker 8: Creators issue, which is an issue that we do every
Speaker 8: year that's specifically focused on the digital creators. And at
Speaker 8: that point he uh, it was pretty much like reaching
Speaker 8: out to you know, any other celebrity that we put
Speaker 8: on the cover. You know, he works with like a
Speaker 8: big pr for me. I think he works with this.
Speaker 8: I think he still works with the same guy who
Speaker 8: represented Jimmy Kimmel, which sort of is is a testament
Speaker 8: to just how big he is. I mean, there was
Speaker 8: there was a point like in the history of the
Speaker 8: digital creator space when YouTubers were sort of ghetto wise
Speaker 8: or marginalized, and they were considered you know, like different
Speaker 8: or other than like mainstream entertainers. But this guy, you know,
Speaker 8: has tram amount of like mainstream industry backing behind him
Speaker 8: at this point.
Speaker 4: Does that include like does he have an agent or
Speaker 4: clear he must have somebody representing him legally, but does
Speaker 4: he have an agent and a manager creating opportunities for him?
Speaker 9: Or Oh yeah, he's got he's got a huge team
Speaker 9: behind him.
Speaker 8: When I spoke to like one of his managers, he
Speaker 8: basically compared it to like the studio system that he's
Speaker 8: built in in Greenville, North Carolina, where he's from.
Speaker 9: He compared it to like Tyler Perry in Atlanta.
Speaker 8: Like it truly is like a giant, sprawling studio system
Speaker 8: where he's like one of.
Speaker 9: The main income drivers for the town.
Speaker 4: Is he sponsoring other influencers or other YouTubers as well?
Speaker 5: Are they?
Speaker 4: Is he sort of generating his own little herd of
Speaker 4: studio talent in this space?
Speaker 9: Kind of yeah, it is.
Speaker 8: It is kind of like an old school Hollywood studio
Speaker 8: system in that way, because I mean when he this
Speaker 8: is how all YouTube creators you know, get big. You know,
Speaker 8: if they're doing it, they're just like pulling around with
Speaker 8: a bunch of friends, you know, asking them to be
Speaker 8: in their videos. But these guys who are his friends, Like,
Speaker 8: not only do they live next door to him, like
Speaker 8: he's bought houses for them and they all live in
Speaker 8: this you know, little cul de sac, but they've got
Speaker 8: like millions of subscribers each. These people have really built
Speaker 8: brands for themselves based on their proximity to mister Beets.
Speaker 4: Are his proteges all doing some variation of exactly what
Speaker 4: he's doing these sort of for lack of a better words,
Speaker 4: stunt oriented kind of videos or are they doing something
Speaker 4: completely different and unique.
Speaker 8: They're definitely not all doing something completely different and unique.
Speaker 8: I would say, you know, there are budgetary restraints with
Speaker 8: their channels that mister Beest you know does it you know,
Speaker 8: obviously doesn't have, which we can talk about. But I
Speaker 8: would say they're they're like pretty standard bloggers.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 8: They do a lot of like slice of life stuff.
Speaker 8: A couple you know, some stunts, but it's definitely not
Speaker 8: to the degree of mister Beat's main channel.
Speaker 5: So take us through your visit to his place. If
Speaker 5: people had read the article, it sounded pretty intense.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it was intense. I spent probably two or three
Speaker 8: days with him.
Speaker 9: It was it was.
Speaker 8: They gave us a pretty unprecedented amount of access for
Speaker 8: the story, which was really nice. I got to see
Speaker 8: his house, I got to meet his mom. I got
Speaker 8: to see, you know, the studio where he produces content.
Speaker 8: And like I wrote about in the lead of the story,
Speaker 8: I got to see the warehouse. It's like a prop
Speaker 8: warehouse that his stepfather manages. And and I got to
Speaker 8: see a million dollars just like in a tank.
Speaker 6: In ones right in one dollar bills.
Speaker 8: Yes, And I say it's a prop warehouse because I
Speaker 8: mean they true. That's truly how they like use money
Speaker 8: in the videos, like they use money as a prop.
Speaker 9: It was pretty staggering to me.
Speaker 5: So how much time did you have with him, not
Speaker 5: just the family or walking around meeting other people. How
Speaker 5: much time did he actually give you face time?
Speaker 8: A lot, actually a lot more so than I would
Speaker 8: say other people that profiled you know, we went to
Speaker 8: lunch at a Mexican restaurant. We rode around in his tesla,
Speaker 8: talked about life. You know, he was he was very generous.
Speaker 9: At this time.
Speaker 5: And your sense of him as a person, does you
Speaker 5: have a great sense of humor? Does he really because
Speaker 5: he does philanthropy, Does he really care? I just a
Speaker 5: profile of who you got when you kind of peel
Speaker 5: away the layers, what's going on underneath. If you got
Speaker 5: a sense of that, you know.
Speaker 8: I was there to do my job, you know I was,
Speaker 8: and I was there to you know, perform a service.
Speaker 8: And I was asking him, you know, of quest intrusive
Speaker 8: questions about his life and his brand and asking him
Speaker 8: to sort of consider like various ethical questions that he
Speaker 8: probably did not want to consider.
Speaker 4: And we should also point out that he's a very
Speaker 4: successful young man. But he's like twenty find so, you know,
Speaker 4: it's not like he has moved through the earth and
Speaker 4: he is a man of the world.
Speaker 5: Although he figured a lot of stuff out.
Speaker 6: Yes he has no I mean, would you call him
Speaker 6: a savant?
Speaker 9: He just I absolutely would. I absolutely would.
Speaker 8: And that was my first impression of him was definitely that,
Speaker 8: Like I think the first thing he said to me,
Speaker 8: which I wrote about in the piece, was so are
Speaker 8: you gonna start asking me questions now?
Speaker 9: Like he he is not. And he would be the
Speaker 9: first to say this, like he is. He did not.
Speaker 9: He is not a socially adept individual.
Speaker 8: Like there are there are a lot of people you meet,
Speaker 8: like in the YouTube space who really love like, you know,
Speaker 8: the schmoozing aspect of it and you know, getting to
Speaker 8: know people.
Speaker 9: He's not like that.
Speaker 8: What he loves and what he gets up out of
Speaker 8: bed every day in the morning to do. He loves YouTube,
Speaker 8: you know, like he loves He could talk for hours
Speaker 8: about like the YouTube algorithm and how to game in
Speaker 8: and like various you know thumbnails and ap testing them.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it was. It was wild when.
Speaker 6: I hear the YouTube algorithm?
Speaker 5: What are we talking about? The YouTube algorithm?
Speaker 4: So when we say he cuts up and he studies
Speaker 4: the algorithm, I go, what is he? This is not
Speaker 4: bal and touring, This is not the Enigma code. What
Speaker 4: is so hard about it? Kind of is though, Listen,
Speaker 4: why please inform me?
Speaker 8: Because and I should say, like, I'm not a tech writer,
Speaker 8: and like like I'm a culture writer who sort of
Speaker 8: like focuses on the convergence of like culture and tech,
Speaker 8: so I don't have like a ton of insight into
Speaker 8: like the mechanics of the algorithm, and and frankly, like
Speaker 8: YouTube and other platforms aren't super transparent about them either.
Speaker 8: But I mean, it's a really tough thing to game,
Speaker 8: like getting YouTube used. It's especially considering how saturated the
Speaker 8: space is and how everybody's just kind of trying to
Speaker 8: do the same thing. And when he started out, he
Speaker 8: was doing a lot of like throwing stuff at the wall.
Speaker 9: And seeing if it would stick too.
Speaker 8: I mean, he was doing a lot of like gamer
Speaker 8: walk like gaming walkthroughs, and he was doing a lot
Speaker 8: of videos like trying to estimate how much money various
Speaker 8: YouTubers make, yeah, and that and that.
Speaker 9: Stuff wasn't really like sticking for him.
Speaker 8: And then he realized that it was the stunt, you know,
Speaker 8: the attention grabbing stunts. I think the first big video
Speaker 8: for him was him counting to like hunting. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 8: ridiculous like that. That's that's what he realized, you know,
Speaker 8: really worked out for him. And basically, I mean, I
Speaker 8: would say he's basically done a variation of that with
Speaker 8: a more philanthropic bent.
Speaker 5: We should say yes, So we should say to people
Speaker 5: who don't know mister Beasts, a lot of his stuff
Speaker 5: is philanthropic. Now, yes, he got cataract surgery for a
Speaker 5: thousand people. He's bought shoes for people in Africa. He
Speaker 5: does all of these stunts that involved and I wrote
Speaker 5: down the various names that has been called charity as spectacle, inspiration, porn, stunt,
Speaker 5: philanthropy gets yeah because he gets pushed back. Well, again,
Speaker 5: you're that big, You're going to get pushed back no
Speaker 5: matter what you're doing. The the interesting thing is he
Speaker 5: defends that. Is that pure for him? Or is it
Speaker 5: about the getting the numbers again, I'll give out money
Speaker 5: to somebody and help cure cure somebody as long as
Speaker 5: I'm going to get the number. You know.
Speaker 8: That was basically my my guiding question when I went
Speaker 8: out there, Like how much of this is, you know, like,
Speaker 8: is just purely for the purposes of getting clicks, of
Speaker 8: getting views, And how much of this is truly driven
Speaker 8: by altruism?
Speaker 9: That was what I was most interested in, And I was.
Speaker 8: Also interested in sort of the ethical question of well
Speaker 8: doesn't matter, you know, like if he's actually doing good,
Speaker 8: if he's actually and he does.
Speaker 9: He undoubtedly.
Speaker 8: I mean he's planted more than twenty million trees, he's
Speaker 8: you know, donated thirty million plus dollars to cleaning up
Speaker 8: the seas, He's fed countless people. I got to see
Speaker 8: his pantry in Greenville. I mean he he undoubtedly like
Speaker 8: does good. But there's also this question of like, well,
Speaker 8: doesn't matter if the intention is essentially to just like
Speaker 8: maximize eyeballs on your product. And that's a question that
Speaker 8: I was really interested in talking about with him. It
Speaker 8: was not, I think, a question that he was really
Speaker 8: eager to engage with.
Speaker 4: So how did he did he answer it at all?
Speaker 4: Did you get a sense of what we talked?
Speaker 1: We talked about it a lot, So how did he
Speaker 1: did he answer it at all?
Speaker 5: Did you get a sense of.
Speaker 9: What he talked? We talked about it a lot. We
Speaker 9: talked about it a lot.
Speaker 8: I think that he is of the opinion that the
Speaker 8: motivation doesn't matter as long as you're actually doing good.
Speaker 8: And I think he also feels that he gets a
Speaker 8: lot of unmerited criticism in this regard because the net
Speaker 8: effect is positive and you know, not really debatably positive,
Speaker 8: it's just like objectively positive. So I think he I
Speaker 8: think he got a little annoyed by those questions, and
Speaker 8: I think that he feels that intent is really immaterial.
Speaker 5: Everything you read now is basically clickbait because all these
Speaker 5: publications you're trying to save their ass by putting out
Speaker 5: articles that you will read. This guy now is in
Speaker 5: this cycle of always having to up it and up
Speaker 5: it and up it. Right, how does does that bother?
Speaker 5: How do you do that? How do you do that?
Speaker 5: If you're him, Well, you always have to beat the
Speaker 5: last thing and it may not work, and it may start,
Speaker 5: you know, going the other way.
Speaker 8: I I don't think that he is. I did not
Speaker 8: get the sense that he's a guy who's particularly play
Speaker 8: plagued by self doubt.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I don't know. Maybe maybe that maybe.
Speaker 8: I'm wrong, Maybe maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he is, but
Speaker 8: that's certainly uh. I think that what gets him up
Speaker 8: in the morning is not so much you know, is
Speaker 8: this going to be the day that I'm canceled? Or
Speaker 8: is this going to be the day that you know,
Speaker 8: the YouTube wakes up and decides to change his algorithm
Speaker 8: and completely screws me. I think he wakes up figuring
Speaker 8: out like, how do I up the ante. How how
Speaker 8: do I make this bigger? How do I make this better?
Speaker 8: I think he's he's actually he talked a lot about this.
Speaker 8: He talks, he's he's pretty. He was working with a
Speaker 8: life coach, and he's pretty obsessed with like the idea
Speaker 8: of a self optimization.
Speaker 9: And he actually had.
Speaker 8: When I visited in his studio, he had a portrait
Speaker 8: of Elon Musk dressed as Napoleon Bonaparde in his office
Speaker 8: and I was like, Oh, that's like really telling in
Speaker 8: terms of this guy's priorities. I think he is a
Speaker 8: guy who grew up in the age of self optimization,
Speaker 8: of startups, of you know, constantly remaking yourself, refashioning yourself
Speaker 8: in the image of who you want to be.
Speaker 4: Is your takeaway that this is a this is a
Speaker 4: good guy or is he just a smart kid?
Speaker 2: Is he?
Speaker 5: Is he a barnum?
Speaker 4: I mean, do you sit there and go I think
Speaker 4: he does what he does because he's essentially a good
Speaker 4: person who's just trying to do something to entertain and
Speaker 4: make the world better.
Speaker 5: Is he like a.
Speaker 4: Really savvy guy who goes, uh, I know how to
Speaker 4: make myself a success, and I wouldn't begrudge him if
Speaker 4: he was, because again, as you say, if the net
Speaker 4: is positive, I'm not terribly concerned about the motivation. But
Speaker 4: in that Barnum sense of going, yeah, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 4: gonna do these things. I know what that's gonna do.
Speaker 4: It's gonna make me a star. I mean, do you
Speaker 4: do you have.
Speaker 6: Any take on who the real guy is in that respect?
Speaker 8: I'm gonna give you a really frustrating answer. I think
Speaker 8: it's a really good question, and I'm going to give
Speaker 8: you a really frustrating answer.
Speaker 9: No, I don't. I don't know. I mean from my
Speaker 9: own personal perspective. Uh.
Speaker 8: Do I think that he's doing a ton of good
Speaker 8: in the short term and his motivation doesn't really matter.
Speaker 9: Absolutely.
Speaker 8: Do I think that the ecosystem that is helping to
Speaker 8: create and contribute to is going to be helpful to
Speaker 8: humanity in the long term.
Speaker 9: Probably not.
Speaker 8: But I can say that of a lot of YouTubers,
Speaker 8: you know, it's it's I don't think he's you know,
Speaker 8: singularly guilty of that of contributing to this environment where
Speaker 8: more is more and you know, let's let's reward, uh,
Speaker 8: you know, altruism with clicks and eyeballs like, but yeah,
Speaker 8: so I don't know if I can speak to his
Speaker 8: intent so much as I can speak to his impact.
Speaker 4: So why is he Why it seems to me he's
Speaker 4: got more resources, because he's got more money. But why
Speaker 4: is what he's doing breaking through in a way that
Speaker 4: other people doing similar versions of the same thing are not.
Speaker 4: What's the magic? What's the magic that he's got. I mean,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of people out there doing stunts.
Speaker 5: And if we may say so for people again who
Speaker 5: don't know, He's done stuff, like I said, the charitable stuff,
Speaker 5: but he also dug a giant hole, bought a train
Speaker 5: and drove the train into the giant hole, which has
Speaker 5: nothing to do with philanthropy.
Speaker 4: And I saw the one where he tried to live
Speaker 4: in isolation for seven days and in term, you know,
Speaker 4: and then he puts.
Speaker 5: Up going Lamborghini in the world's largest.
Speaker 9: Shredder, buried alive.
Speaker 4: I mean, he's got he's got bigger versions of stuff
Speaker 4: that other people are trying to do. Why is there
Speaker 4: is there something about him that you think just fascinates
Speaker 4: us in a way that other YouTubers.
Speaker 5: Is he the star? Is he the star of the channel?
Speaker 9: I don't think that he's the star of the channel.
Speaker 8: I think that the success of his channel is predicated
Speaker 8: on a number of things, some of which are more
Speaker 8: quantifiable than others.
Speaker 9: Like I think he really learned how to use how
Speaker 9: to game the YouTube algorithm.
Speaker 8: I think, you know, setting his headquarters in an inexpensive,
Speaker 8: you know, southeastern town and really like building a brand
Speaker 8: there and really using because he like he goes into stores,
Speaker 8: like local stores, and he and everybody knows who he is.
Speaker 8: Everybody I talked to so many people in the town
Speaker 8: who are like just waiting for the day that he's
Speaker 8: going to come and like tip them, you know, ten
Speaker 8: thousand dollars for a video, like using his hometown as
Speaker 8: like a resource for content.
Speaker 9: I think that was a brilliant move on his part.
Speaker 8: So I think there are some quantifiable factors that have
Speaker 8: contributed to his enormous success. But do I think that
Speaker 8: it's him as a brand, like as a charismatic front
Speaker 8: person that is so appealing to people. No, not really,
Speaker 8: And like I don't I think he would probably say
Speaker 8: the same. I think he considers himself rather unremarkable, except
Speaker 8: in terms of his you know, mental acuity.
Speaker 9: In terms of the digital.
Speaker 5: Space, it's really interesting that these two guys were interviewing him.
Speaker 5: They have their own show. I guess they're Colin in
Speaker 5: the Samir you.
Speaker 9: Know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: And the one thing they asked him that caught me
Speaker 5: was they said, because he's launched this feastable, this chocolate
Speaker 5: company that has all these different chalk boards, they said,
Speaker 5: that's going really well. Do you see yourself as just
Speaker 5: a distribution company for your chalk And he laughed and went, well,
Speaker 5: kind of, which which took me to while he's got
Speaker 5: four hundred million people, he launches a food, he can
Speaker 5: feed it to that audience continues, So he grow this
Speaker 5: and make it a thing.
Speaker 8: I think that's his goal with everything he does, with
Speaker 8: absolutely everything, and he doesn't I think it he takes
Speaker 8: it very personally when it doesn't work.
Speaker 9: Out that way.
Speaker 8: I this happened after I interviewed him, but he's actually
Speaker 8: in a litigation with mister Beast, the distribution company that
Speaker 8: he partnered with with mister beees Burger, which was his
Speaker 8: past food chain, and it expanded to like three hundred
Speaker 8: locations like across the country, just like huge explosive growth.
Speaker 8: And he started tweeting about how like he had severed
Speaker 8: their relationship with them because they had focused.
Speaker 9: On growth over quality.
Speaker 8: And actually I do remember this. This wasn't in the article,
Speaker 8: but I do remember I had tried a mister bees
Speaker 8: burger prior to going out there, and he was like
Speaker 8: genuinely curious as to what my experience was. And I
Speaker 8: was like, you know, it wasn't a great experience, Like
Speaker 8: it wasn't a great it wasn't a great burger and
Speaker 8: was He really took it to heart. And I think
Speaker 8: that's really like his approach to everything, like to all
Speaker 8: of his revenue streams, because he has a ton of
Speaker 8: revenue streams.
Speaker 9: I think he's a perfectionist. He just wants.
Speaker 8: Everything to be the biggest and the best, Like I
Speaker 8: think he wants to be Oprah basically, Like I don't think.
Speaker 9: He would say I wants to be Oprah. I think
Speaker 9: he would say he wants to be Elon.
Speaker 5: But I think he wants to be And also to
Speaker 5: that point, it's funny that mister Beast had posted and
Speaker 5: I wrote it down one of his charity things, subscribe
Speaker 5: if you don't hate charity is one of the messages there.
Speaker 5: Like in other words, I'm guilting you right, sure, which
Speaker 5: is which I guess he figured out through He calls
Speaker 5: it ten thousand days instead of ten thousand hours. Ten
Speaker 5: thousand days of figuring out this algorithm, and I noticed
Speaker 5: that it's not that he was cocky about it. But
Speaker 5: they asked him, could you think you could show somebody
Speaker 5: else how to increase their appeal? And he said, oh,
Speaker 5: oh yeah, I could show somebody how to get a
Speaker 5: couple million downloads immediately, because I know what the formulas are,
Speaker 5: and I mentor people and do that. But he said
Speaker 5: it so assuredly that he figured out the system so
Speaker 5: easily by this point that he knows what work.
Speaker 4: Why shouldn't he be Gaki's pretty started doing it fourteen.
Speaker 5: It is amazing and to me, and I don't know,
Speaker 5: because you're of a different generation. I watched a lot
Speaker 5: of mister B's stuff, and I know I'm not the demographic.
Speaker 5: But you watch a train go into a hole and
Speaker 5: you don't feel, there's nothing that you feel. You know,
Speaker 5: there's no takeaway, there's no you come away from that
Speaker 5: and you go I learned something, I felt something, I'm
Speaker 5: passionate about something. It's just watching an accident, watching stunts,
Speaker 5: watching whatever, and that to me is kind of fascinating
Speaker 5: that people spend that kind of time being attracted to
Speaker 5: watching that and seeing what he's going to do. But listen,
Speaker 5: he's brilliant. Again.
Speaker 6: I go back to that.
Speaker 5: What code did he crack?
Speaker 4: Do you know the biggest one of the biggest things
Speaker 4: on YouTube is fail Army. People screwing things up in
Speaker 4: their lives and go, oh, I'm sending that to fail.
Speaker 5: Arm And every week fails the.
Speaker 4: Muck sit there and go wow, and I'm laughing and
Speaker 4: I'm I'm like, ooh, I'm having my experience. There's nothing,
Speaker 4: but there's redeeming. There's nothing that is as you say, left.
Speaker 5: On, but you feel better about yourself.
Speaker 4: I just in fact, I feel worse about myself for
Speaker 4: going Why do I enjoy this?
Speaker 5: Why does this make me give? Do you get a
Speaker 5: sense of that? Do you get a sense of that
Speaker 5: though that that when you watch them? Do you come
Speaker 5: away going got to see the next thing? Got to
Speaker 5: see the next thing?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 9: But I'm not the target audience either.
Speaker 5: Who's the target audience?
Speaker 9: Chill kids? He has a huge.
Speaker 8: A huge percentage of his demographics kids. When you see
Speaker 8: kids age like probably. I mean, this is not you know,
Speaker 8: he didn't cite this to me, but so don't.
Speaker 5: Like, yeah, we won't quote you don't ye, don't.
Speaker 8: Ask legal about this, but yeah, something like kids eight
Speaker 8: to twelve.
Speaker 5: Wait wait, wait, they're supposed to be on TikTok. Don't
Speaker 5: they get that memo? TikTok is for that demographic? Don't
Speaker 5: they know what demographic where they're supposed to be going.
Speaker 8: If you meet a kid it's fourteen years old, I
Speaker 8: guarantee you they will know what.
Speaker 6: Mister, you are trying to heel to the wrong demograph
Speaker 6: were going to.
Speaker 5: Talk to eight years I don't know how to do that.
Speaker 4: I don't know how to do how you do a
Speaker 4: show for an eight year old?
Speaker 6: We do uh that mister Rogers, We become mister Rogers.
Speaker 5: Or you put on a clown out. But I don't
Speaker 5: know if you're going to go for that, but I
Speaker 5: think the kids like clown By the way, what other
Speaker 5: if you maybe you don't know this, what other thing
Speaker 5: appeals to that same demographic? That would be we would
Speaker 5: be shocked about.
Speaker 8: That's so funny that you asked this because literally, while
Speaker 8: you guys were talking, I was thinking, do these guys
Speaker 8: know about skibbity toilet like, should I explode?
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, skimmity toilet.
Speaker 8: Happy to explain skibbity toy, skibbity gibbity skimbity toilet yeap
Speaker 8: is also a hugely popular YouTube thing. I think some
Speaker 8: Russian guy, like some nineteen year old Russian guy made
Speaker 8: it up. It's essentially a series of very short clips
Speaker 8: that tell the story of a war between robots and
Speaker 8: humanoid toilets?
Speaker 5: How many? How many.
Speaker 9: Regular hundreds of hundreds of videos?
Speaker 6: Yeahs, would you say?
Speaker 5: Here we go?
Speaker 9: I know, I don't know off the top of my
Speaker 9: head for that one guy.
Speaker 5: But google Google hoim, look up how do you smell
Speaker 5: skibbitty skimmy?
Speaker 6: All I know is my head is about to spin
Speaker 6: around like their.
Speaker 5: All I know is we're putting a toilet in the studio.
Speaker 5: That's what I know.
Speaker 9: You guys should watch them. You guys should really watch.
Speaker 5: Thank you for that? Really should we really?
Speaker 4: The number toilet to the numbers that are being logged
Speaker 4: on Skibbitty Toy from now on Jason's shares a toilet.
Speaker 5: I just won't figure it out there forgive you just
Speaker 5: earned just you just earned it with Skibbitty.
Speaker 6: Oh.
Speaker 8: I gotta say, I'm very proud of myself for having
Speaker 8: introduced gibbity toilet to an original cast member of Merrily
Speaker 8: We Roll Along the Oh.
Speaker 5: Wow, thank you very much for.
Speaker 8: That, because the theater kid in me is like freaking out.
Speaker 5: That is I'm actually very flattery. Thank you for maybe
Speaker 5: this might be fun.
Speaker 7: I I texted you both a picture of the Skimmity
Speaker 7: toilette that before she before she leaves, and my kids
Speaker 7: love skimmity toilet.
Speaker 5: By the way, really I got to watch it. Oh
Speaker 5: there it is. Oh my god, Oh my god, really
Speaker 5: depressed I am now so I'm scared. I'm seeing her
Speaker 5: head come out.
Speaker 6: I never I'm never using a toilet.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: I used to be worried that a rat would Thank you.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 5: This was worth it for skibbty toilet.
Speaker 9: Oh my god, thank you so much. Guys. This was
Speaker 9: so fun.
Speaker 8: You guys have like the best dynamic I've ever seen
Speaker 8: from podcasters.
Speaker 5: Well, I'm not.
Speaker 4: Looking because our producer David google Heim sent me a
Speaker 4: send us a picture of this is a man who
Speaker 4: looks like a serial child killer coming coming up through
Speaker 4: a toilet. I used to be scared when we heard
Speaker 4: about the rat guy with the rats coming up.
Speaker 6: Now I would welcome a rat in my toilet.
Speaker 5: And you know, it's scary for me because I know
Speaker 5: how I function. Wow, I'll be watching hours of this tonight.
Speaker 5: I'll be going down. Are you going to go watch
Speaker 5: it tonight? That rabbit hole or the toilet hole, whatever
Speaker 5: that is? Yeah, I am, because I have to know
Speaker 5: about I like when don't you like when you find
Speaker 5: out about something that you know nothing about culturally that
Speaker 5: exists and billions of people know, it actually scares me.
Speaker 5: It scares me on two levels.
Speaker 4: One, it scares me that there's something that's big and
Speaker 4: out there and that I don't know.
Speaker 5: It feels like it feels like.
Speaker 4: I'm being left out again at school in camp by
Speaker 4: the ways number one.
Speaker 6: And then when I find out what it is they're
Speaker 6: excited about, I go, I can't live on this planet anymore.
Speaker 5: Before we do, David and David, thank you. Here we
Speaker 5: go to find out additional information. I just think, you know,
Speaker 5: we should piggyback off of mister B's success and do
Speaker 5: something like all ourselves, mister beast Lee. And it sounds
Speaker 5: like a butler from the nineteen six.
Speaker 4: Yes, here's why we here's what we need to factor
Speaker 4: in his His stunts now are like million dollars stunts.
Speaker 4: We don't have access to that kind of coin because
Speaker 4: I'm certain so I got the hook. I got the hook, right,
Speaker 4: So we recreate his stunts. Yeah, for our hook?
Speaker 5: Yeah is watch us create the stunts for under one
Speaker 5: hundred bucks. I like that's a good premise. People may
Speaker 5: watch it.
Speaker 4: We can be mister least, mister lease, mister lease, we
Speaker 4: do we spend the money at least amount of monk we.
Speaker 5: Will take on. We will do squid at least squid games. Yes,
Speaker 5: no problem a hundred bucks, right right, get four hundred
Speaker 5: people to do squid games for a under a hundred bucks? Yeah, David,
Speaker 5: will you start working on it? So we cater. We
Speaker 5: cater with subways, you know, six twenty.
Speaker 6: We cut it really thin, thin slices.
Speaker 5: House. It's a house that's been the least Who are
Speaker 5: you on the show? I don't know. Who should I be?
Speaker 5: My sidekick? Dollar Bill? Dollar Bill? And we get dollar
Speaker 5: story shirt there? I think, doesn't that sound like? Can
Speaker 5: we get a subway?
Speaker 6: And ninety nine cents stores, the spontsor the show.
Speaker 5: We get huge, huge, We're huge. We get our kids
Speaker 5: to start taking the hole in your backyard.
Speaker 4: Here's the first take your underwear off over your head.
Speaker 5: Okay, let's see.
Speaker 4: Let's see four hundred and sixty five people do that,
Speaker 4: even when it gets one hundred dollars.
Speaker 6: Take your underwear off over your head.
Speaker 5: Here's another thing. We could be the guys to pull
Speaker 5: the train out of the hole, out of the right,
Speaker 5: get the train back. What do you got?
Speaker 3: Well, I'm good.
Speaker 7: I'm looking forward to bearing Jason underground and just like
Speaker 7: here's a straw man.
Speaker 5: If you do it, the numbers would go through the roof. Man,
Speaker 5: Oh my god, yeah through the roof.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And we have a toy. Said he do that?
Speaker 4: He got buried underground and had a strong buried alive. Yeah,
Speaker 4: he was bur It was the under there.
Speaker 5: I think like a.
Speaker 6: Day or it was my room.
Speaker 5: How long could you last? You think? Buried underground? We
Speaker 5: all have the box bill? Now, was he in a box?
Speaker 5: Or was a dirt on him? For you, I'll do
Speaker 5: it differently into it. What's it called the catch Cain? Yeah?
Speaker 7: Right, as I recall, it was somewhat comfortable, but coffin.
Speaker 5: As he's mister beat, he's not gonna come on.
Speaker 6: David blamed it that he did that for days.
Speaker 5: Everybody's making money doing that day.
Speaker 3: What if we tells me it was a week?
Speaker 4: He was whoa wow, all right, how do you I
Speaker 4: don't want to go right to it, but how do
Speaker 4: you's release the beast?
Speaker 5: What's component of that? Who's helping with that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm gonna get buried for seven days for Cohen's caskets.
Speaker 5: And you start small with illnesses that are almost like leprosy,
Speaker 5: stuff that's manageable already, and see if we're get eradicate
Speaker 5: it like something that's almost on the no, that's still present,
Speaker 5: something it's almost on the way out, almost on the way,
Speaker 5: and we just put the final touches. Yeah right, headaches
Speaker 5: would be it's almost on the way. Help get rid
Speaker 5: of us. Do you not care about chardy? David? Go
Speaker 5: ahead tell us moy Yeah, Well, well a.
Speaker 3: Couple of things.
Speaker 5: Couples give it a toilet just.
Speaker 10: To lock that down, Oh my god, or put the
Speaker 10: close the yeah yeah, has.
Speaker 3: Thirty eight point seven million subscribers.
Speaker 5: Me, Well, now, now.
Speaker 6: A guy whose head comes out of a toilet is.
Speaker 4: Getting thirty eight million hits per episode.
Speaker 5: Don't judge skibbitty in how do you like create a.
Speaker 6: Season arc A guy who's head is in the toy
Speaker 6: I have.
Speaker 5: A feeling that every week our next episode is about
Speaker 5: a question asked in the last episode, like really not
Speaker 5: really skibbity okay.
Speaker 3: The brainiac behind that?
Speaker 7: And also to answer where did mister Beast come from?
Speaker 7: The name was actually auto generated by his xbox as mister.
Speaker 5: Beast six thousand and a pair.
Speaker 3: I liked it.
Speaker 5: I guess it worked for him at Halo, And there
Speaker 5: we go. That's how we have.
Speaker 7: But here's the thing that you guys are clearly ignorant
Speaker 7: of what's going on.
Speaker 10: On the I have a question for you, who is
Speaker 10: the top person in all social media? Okay, so you
Speaker 10: have a selection here and you have to pick a
Speaker 10: top person across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, the whole thing. A
Speaker 10: Selena Gomez, no b Justin Bieber, C Taylor Swift, yes,
Speaker 10: d Cristiano Rolando or e Canabe.
Speaker 5: Lame Beabe Lane. I have no idea who it is,
Speaker 5: but you wouldn't just throw that. I'm gonna go with
Speaker 5: Taylor Swift. I'm a Swift, So.
Speaker 7: Jason is c Taylor Swift? And Peter you were going
Speaker 7: for e kanabe lamee. Yeah, you're both incorrect. It is
Speaker 7: d Cristiano Rolando with eight hundred and ninety seven million
Speaker 7: followers across all social media platforms.
Speaker 4: May I add, may I share with whatever part of
Speaker 4: the world listens to our show my further ignorance and
Speaker 4: ask you.
Speaker 5: I really don't know who that is? The athlete? Is
Speaker 5: he is?
Speaker 6: He?
Speaker 5: He's the guy.
Speaker 7: He is a Portuguese professional soccer player who is the
Speaker 7: captain of the Saudi Pro League club.
Speaker 5: Sign that, David, do you have the right there? How
Speaker 5: much he signed for? What his contract is? I do
Speaker 5: not psych a gazillion? It's more. It's more money than
Speaker 5: mister b.
Speaker 6: I ask you this. Maybe you know or maybe you
Speaker 6: can speculate.
Speaker 4: Why do I want to follow Cristiano Ronaldo more than
Speaker 4: I want to follow Taylor Swift.
Speaker 5: Why because it's the biggest sport. It's like the biggest
Speaker 5: sport in the world, and it's got a billions of followers,
Speaker 5: and you want to see what he's doing, what he's buying,
Speaker 5: what he's eating, where he's going, why not you? Not you?
Speaker 5: You didn't know, mister Bee, so he didn't get me.
Speaker 5: I'm the I'm the holdout.
Speaker 6: Let him come after.
Speaker 5: You didn't know, You didn't know, mister b Not a
Speaker 5: toilet guy.
Speaker 4: Ronaldo, if you're out there listening, let me tell you
Speaker 4: what it's gonna take to get me to be a follower.
Speaker 4: First of all, you have to come to our show.
Speaker 5: That's happening, that's happening. Wow, Yeah, he's the guy. I
Speaker 5: feel just like mister beast. We made people's lives better today,
Speaker 5: did we? Not? Really? No, not at all?
Speaker 6: Thanks everybody, really.
Speaker 3: Now, really.
Speaker 7: Really really?
Speaker 2: That's another episode of really No Really comes to a close.
Speaker 2: I know you're dying to know some crazy YouTube statistics,
Speaker 2: and I'll be happy to share them with you right after.
Speaker 3: I thank our guest EJ. Dixon.
Speaker 2: You can follow her on Instagram and exit EJ Dixon,
Speaker 2: and of course her work can be found on rollingstone
Speaker 2: dot com. Find all pertinent links in our show notes,
Speaker 2: our little show hang out on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and
Speaker 2: threads at Really No Really Podcast, And of course you
Speaker 2: can share your thoughts and feedback with us online at
Speaker 2: reallynoreally dot com. If you have a really some amazing
Speaker 2: factor story that boggles your mind, share it with us
Speaker 2: and if we use it, we will send you a
Speaker 2: little gift. Nothing life changing, obviously, but it's the thought
Speaker 2: that counts. Check out our full episodes on YouTube, hit
Speaker 2: that subscribe button and take that bell so you're updated
Speaker 2: when we release new videos and episodes, which we do
Speaker 2: each Tuesday. So listen and follow us on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And now
Speaker 2: some mind blowing stats about YouTube. Every minute of every day,
Speaker 2: almost seven hundred thousand hours of video gets broadcast on YouTube.
Speaker 2: That's driven by the more than five hundred hours of
Speaker 2: videos posted to YouTube every minute.
Speaker 3: There are fifteen billion daily.
Speaker 2: Views of YouTube shorts viewed by its two point four
Speaker 2: to nine billion users, who combined are watching more than
Speaker 2: one billion hours of video each day. And the most
Speaker 2: viewed YouTube video of all time is Pink Fong's Baby
Speaker 2: Shark Dance with just shy of fourteen billion views. And
Speaker 2: not to brag or anything, but our podcast Really No
Speaker 2: Really currently has six thousand YouTube subscribers, So watch out,
Speaker 2: pink Fung. Move over, mister Beast, Jason and Peter are
Speaker 2: riding your ass. Really No, Really, is a production of
Speaker 2: iHeart Radio and Blase Entertainment.