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Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media. Hello everybody, Two quick plugs here at

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Speaker 1: the top. First, it is the last call for listeners

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Speaker 1: to get tickets to the Bechdel cast post Oscars live

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Speaker 1: celebration at Dynasty Typewriter this Sunday, March second, in LA.

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Speaker 1: There's going to be live and streaming tickets available right

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Speaker 1: after the Oscars viewing party at Dynasty. If you want

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Speaker 1: to come early and watch the ceremony with us, you're

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Speaker 1: welcome to. Tickets are in the description, and it's going

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Speaker 1: to be super fun. Secondly, this Thursday, February twenty seventh,

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Speaker 1: the subject of today's episode of sixteenth Minute, Liam Kyle

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Speaker 1: Sullivan aka Kelly, is workshopping his latest show, a Liam

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Speaker 1: Kyle Sullivan Show at the Lyric Hyperion in LA. Tickets

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Speaker 1: also in the description. I cannot wait to see it.

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Speaker 1: Enjoy the episode. Drag in comedy has a long history.

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Speaker 1: I can never have children.

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Speaker 2: We can adopt some. But you don't understand.

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Speaker 3: I'm good.

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Speaker 4: I'm a man.

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Speaker 2: Well, nobody's perfect, not indigent.

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Speaker 1: Hello, I'm a church lady and this is church chat. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's so great to be back.

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Speaker 5: I've been gone for a while doing missionary work on ABC.

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Speaker 1: And drag and comedy have been connected since the moment

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Speaker 1: both existed. Obviously, there's a million ways that people have

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Speaker 1: interpreted this from case to case over the years. There's

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Speaker 1: the point of view that many of these actors are

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Speaker 1: sist straight men playing against type for laughs, some would say,

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Speaker 1: at the expense of making women look silly. An example

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Speaker 1: that comes to mind is Will Ferrell as Janet Reno. Hi,

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Speaker 1: I'm Janna Reno.

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Speaker 6: Welcome to Janna Reno's dance party. Coming to you alive

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Speaker 6: from my basement.

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Speaker 1: See I really like dance.

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Speaker 5: Do that soon.

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Speaker 1: There's the historical truth that comedy has generally been overwhelmed

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Speaker 1: by this men, making drag performance necessary. If theem characters

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Speaker 1: were to appear on screen at all again going to

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Speaker 1: SNL in the long stretches of time in which they

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Speaker 1: never cast a black woman, actors like Tracy Morgan and

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Speaker 1: Keenan Thompson would be in drag anytime a black woman

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Speaker 1: appeared on the show as a character at all. Here now,

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Speaker 1: the preview of her work is Maya.

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Speaker 2: Angelou Sina.

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Speaker 7: As always you ever vest the sweet aroma of women

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Speaker 7: in full bloom like that?

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Speaker 1: That's good?

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Speaker 8: Right?

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Speaker 1: Oh yes, But drag on mainstream TV isn't really drag

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Speaker 1: culture in order to define that, and I'm not the

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Speaker 1: person to define what drag culture is. It encapsulates a

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Speaker 1: far wider community, spanning class, race, gender, sexuality, location, history

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Speaker 1: in general. So for a working definition, I'm gonna kick

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Speaker 1: it to Kareem Kupchandani, author of Decolonized Drag, whose drag name,

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Speaker 1: by the way is Lahore Vajistan. Incredible, he says, here's

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Speaker 1: my take. Drag is a genre of performance practiced in entertainment, nightlife,

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Speaker 1: and festival contexts by and for gender and sexual dissidents,

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Speaker 1: primarily the people who fall under the umbrella categories of

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Speaker 1: queer and transgender, but also many others at the margin

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Speaker 1: of normative gender and sexual configurations. But when it comes

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Speaker 1: to mainstream culture drag, before drag race, there was a

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Speaker 1: genre of drag that was basically, wait, this famous cis

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Speaker 1: man shouldn't be in a dress. See Jack and Jill

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Speaker 1: or The Nutty Professor. But in other famous pieces of

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Speaker 1: mainstream media drag, characters are real characters, and drag is

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Speaker 1: used as a storytelling tool about gender and sometimes race,

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Speaker 1: culture or sexuality. I think to see missus Doubtfire, White Chicks, Hairspray,

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Speaker 1: Juana Man, She's the Man, Tu Wong Fu, The Birdcage,

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Speaker 1: Some like It Hot. The list goes on, and there

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Speaker 1: are plenty of criticisms of all of those movies to

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Speaker 1: be had. However, no matter how many politicians try to

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Speaker 1: suppress and weaponize drag performance as dangerous, that is so

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Speaker 1: clearly horseshit. Drag has been around for as long as

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Speaker 1: we have, although the way it's been presented in mainstream

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Speaker 1: culture tends to be fairly prescriptive. You probably know that

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Speaker 1: drag culture has gone very mainstream in the last fifteen years,

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Speaker 1: in large part thanks to the ever expanding, occasionally fracking

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Speaker 1: RuPaul's Drag Race Empire.

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Speaker 7: Room.

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Speaker 1: While drag race queens are selling out gigantic theaters and

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Speaker 1: becoming mainstream celebrities in ways that would once have been

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Speaker 1: unheard of. But drag race has its complications.

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Speaker 4: Too.

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Speaker 1: Many performers would agree that drag is inherently political, a

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Speaker 1: case that is carefully made by Kupchandani in Decolonized Drag,

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Speaker 1: and he does not spare drag race in this assessment.

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Speaker 1: He carefully outlines the ways in which drag race has

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Speaker 1: been historically reluctant to change, especially not including trans competitors

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Speaker 1: on the show for years, as well as racial tokenization

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Speaker 1: and often enforcing this colonial lens of beauty onto the

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Speaker 1: queen's whether that means criticizing body hair, fatness, imperfect tucking,

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Speaker 1: and just a general reluctance toward complete genderfuckery. Drag Race

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Speaker 1: has an emphasis on slogans and marketing based on individualism,

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Speaker 1: something that many collective drag communities resist while continuing to

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Speaker 1: like any reasonable person would, continuing to watch and enjoy

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Speaker 1: Drag Race anyways, because it's drag race. I cannot recommend

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Speaker 1: decolonized drag enough. It not only reframed the political nature

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Speaker 1: of drag for me and introduced me to a bunch

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Speaker 1: of incredible acts I wasn't familiar with, but it also

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Speaker 1: includes I think my favorite line in a book ever,

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Speaker 1: there is a hunger for critiques of colonialism at the club.

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Speaker 1: Wouldn't know, don't go to the club. But let's get

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Speaker 1: back to comedy. Drag in comedy is a very complicated topic,

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Speaker 1: the kind of comedy topic that will shock you and

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Speaker 1: how unfunny it can become. And obviously, my interpretation of

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Speaker 1: any of This is certainly not the final word, but

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Speaker 1: for the purposes of this episode, let's use the general

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Speaker 1: comedy rules of who's the target? Are we punching up?

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Speaker 1: Are we punching down? Because there are some drag characters

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Speaker 1: in comedy where the target of the joke appears to

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Speaker 1: be women or femmes, either a specific person or a

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Speaker 1: broader caricature by a sismile performer who did not perform

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Speaker 1: in drag. Outside of this, Monte p Ithon does this

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Speaker 1: a lot.

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Speaker 8: An ugly kind of violence is rife stalking the town. Yes,

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Speaker 8: gangs of old ladies attacking fit, defenseless young men.

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Speaker 1: On the other side, there are famous comedy drag characters

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Speaker 1: that are equally hyper feminine but are actually characters. It's

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Speaker 1: pretty commonly agreed on that the kids in the hall

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Speaker 1: were a sketch group that did drag a lot more

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Speaker 1: thoughtfully without ever sacrificing the funny. Here's Jocelyn, what would.

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Speaker 2: You say if aliens came down and tried to pick

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Speaker 2: us up?

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Speaker 1: Would they pay us in our own money?

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Speaker 8: No?

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Speaker 1: In alien money? No, I'm not fear without the game.

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Speaker 4: No.

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Speaker 1: Dave Foley, Oh my god, what a hotty And it

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Speaker 1: will come as no surprise that the kids in the

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Speaker 1: hall were a big influence on our subject this week.

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Speaker 1: The first drag character to make it big on YouTube,

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Speaker 1: and I'm happy to say, in my opinion, built his

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Speaker 1: character out with the big personalities associated with drag without

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Speaker 1: any contempt for his character or just women and fems

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Speaker 1: in general, that a lot of earlier Python style efforts

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Speaker 1: were more mean spirited and self conscious about.

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Speaker 2: So.

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Speaker 1: Drag had been a fixture in culture for centuries, with

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Speaker 1: a long and complicated history, but it hadn't yet cracked

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Speaker 1: the mainstream Internet by the mid two thousands. But a

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Speaker 1: full three years before Drag Race would debut, a character

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Speaker 1: would break through on what would be the biggest Internet

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Speaker 1: platform in the world. One day. In early two thousand

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Speaker 1: and six, YouTube was just starting to find its footing,

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Speaker 1: not as a dating site as it was originally intended,

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Speaker 1: but as a video uploading platform. It had its first

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Speaker 1: major viral hit in December two thousand and five, shortly

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Speaker 1: after its.

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Speaker 9: Launch, Placy Sunday check o through the late afternoon capell

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Speaker 9: just to see how it's doing.

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Speaker 7: Hollo, what a pause?

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Speaker 2: Sand Park, what's blacked in?

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Speaker 4: Did you want to say.

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Speaker 2: This?

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Speaker 1: Is almost a twenty year old sketch. You guys sorry

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Speaker 1: about that. This was a Lonely Island digital short starring

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Speaker 1: Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell that originally aired on SNL, and,

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Speaker 1: like a fair amount of early YouTube, the platform then

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Speaker 1: relied on broadcast institutions to prop up their site, where

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Speaker 1: users did not yet have the tools or the incentive

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Speaker 1: to upload content of their own. And just months after

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Speaker 1: Lazy Sunday, a character named Kelly came along an independently

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Speaker 1: produced sketch by Liam Kyle Sullivan.

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Speaker 2: Shut Up, duk skig, I'm gonna botslap yes, shat back.

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Speaker 1: Maybe you remember this video And if you're thinking no,

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Speaker 1: this other video I remember must have gone viral first.

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Speaker 1: Probably not. The only real contender and it would be

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Speaker 1: a hard tie is a video uploaded by comedian Jackson

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Speaker 1: Lapley called Evolution of Dance, a video so that Lapley

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Speaker 1: himself uploaded to the site in April two thousand and six.

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Speaker 1: And we'll leave it at that because I hope to

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Speaker 1: make an episode with him in the future. But that's

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Speaker 1: about it. Most of the early YouTube hits like.

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Speaker 8: Candy Candy, Mountain Chardy, Charlie, We're going to Candy.

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Speaker 2: Mountain, Josh m.

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Speaker 1: Some stay Dry and feel the paint. Wow, Chocolate Rain

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Speaker 1: two weeks in a row. Pretty amazing. All of these

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Speaker 1: clips came out at least a year after Shoes, and

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Speaker 1: the only reason that I can't tell you the exact

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Speaker 1: moment Shoes first became a hit on YouTube is because

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Speaker 1: its first upload no longer exists. The video first appeared

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Speaker 1: on the writer, director, and star's website early in the year,

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Speaker 1: after what he describes as months producing the video with

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Speaker 1: friends on the weekend and featuring a character that he

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Speaker 1: honed on comedy stages in Los Angeles between acting gigs.

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Speaker 1: That character was Kelly profoundly mid two thousands in her aesthetic,

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Speaker 1: wearing a blonde wig with bangs, fingerless gloves, nick black

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Speaker 1: rimmed glasses, a mini skirt, and a pleathor vest over

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Speaker 1: a pink T shirt that says super femme. This would

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Speaker 1: later be replaced with an iconic black T shirt that

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Speaker 1: simply says betch. The character is played by Liam, but

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Speaker 1: Liam is not a known entity at this time, so

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Speaker 1: to most fans of this video, it's not Liam, it's Kelly.

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Speaker 1: The most popular upload of Shoes now includes an opening

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Speaker 1: sketch that establishes a wider world of characters. Two conservative

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Speaker 1: New England parents with teenage twins, a boy they're obsessed with,

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Speaker 1: and Kelly, their daughter, who they demean at every opportunity.

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Speaker 1: But in the original video it cuts right to the chase.

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Speaker 1: A droning club beat kicks in after Kelly storms out

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Speaker 1: of the house.

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Speaker 2: Kelly, what are you gonna do with your life? I'm

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Speaker 2: going to get what I want?

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Speaker 1: And what does Kelly want?

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Speaker 3: Cheers? Cheers, cheers, Oh my god.

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Speaker 1: Cheers Liam Kyle Sullivan a k A. Kelly. Your sixteenth

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Speaker 1: Minute starts now.

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Speaker 7: Joy, stay get the Claim.

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Speaker 3: Sixty six.

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Speaker 1: Welcome back to sixteenth Minute, the podcast where we take

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Speaker 1: a look back at the internet's most famous characters of

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Speaker 1: the day and figure out how their moment changed their

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Speaker 1: lives and what it says about us and the Internet.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jamie Loftus, and I consider taking Taco

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Speaker 1: Bell up on their seven hundred dollars Vegas Dinner, marriage

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Speaker 1: and Elvis impersonator deal for two whole minutes this week,

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Speaker 1: before realizing my mom would literally break me in half

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Speaker 1: if I did that. And this week we're returning to

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Speaker 1: the mid two thousands to catch up with an Internet celebrity,

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Speaker 1: All Heimer, Liam Kyle Sullivan and Kelly. And while the

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Speaker 1: Internet had been around for some time, by the time

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Speaker 1: we met the gorgeous Frankenstein who is Kelly, the concept

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Speaker 1: of celebrity that began online was still very new, making

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Speaker 1: our girl nothing short of a pioneer. So come with

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Speaker 1: me if you dare to. Early two thousand and six,

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Speaker 1: the Pittsburgh Steelers win the Super Bowl. Go Yinsers. It's

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Speaker 1: the year that Junior Highs would be shaken to its

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Speaker 1: core by poor Borat Impressions and Liam Kyle Sullivan's character

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Speaker 1: Kelly became a star on YouTube, although Liam himself was

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Speaker 1: basically the last person to know because, as I said,

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Speaker 1: he didn't upload the Kelly video himself. So where did

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Speaker 1: this mysterious uploader? Rip Shoes and Liam's other massive viral

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Speaker 1: had from this year, muffins from Well, they downloaded it

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Speaker 1: from his website PSA to my listeners. Under twenty five,

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Speaker 1: there used to be this thing called websites. Children would

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Speaker 1: have to learn how to make them on a different

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Speaker 1: website called neopets dot com. Some of us still have.

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Speaker 1: I have an updated mine in two years, and that

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Speaker 1: was only because my diabolical ex agents wanted me to

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Speaker 1: take their names off of the site. At the time

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Speaker 1: Kelly went viral. Liam was kind of a technophobe. He

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Speaker 1: was born in nineteen seventy three and, like many Gen

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Speaker 1: xers with him, was punk rock skeptical of the Internet

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Speaker 1: for some time before it involuntarily changed his life. And

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Speaker 1: to be clear, so let me be clear, whoever uploaded

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Speaker 1: shoes to YouTube wasn't doing it in order to make

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Speaker 1: a quick buck before the creator could realize that he

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Speaker 1: could make that same quick buck himself. Liam actually really

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Speaker 1: encouraged people to download Shoes, Muffins and other videos.

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Speaker 10: Come to Pleasant Valley Road in Santa Rosa. Well, you

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Speaker 10: can have a warm picnic under the sun. It's always

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Speaker 10: a beautiful day here at Pleasant Valley Road in Santa Rosa.

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Speaker 1: Which I can tell you for sure because when I

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Speaker 1: visited his site on the way back Machine, clicking on

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Speaker 1: the Muffins sketch automatically downloaded it to my computer. He'd

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Speaker 1: first shown this sketch during his live shows because he

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Speaker 1: literally did not know that YouTube existed yet. And what's more,

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Speaker 1: there was no quick buck to be had on YouTube

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Speaker 1: in two thousand and six. Like so many moments in

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Speaker 1: this story, you'll find that it is very arguable that

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Speaker 1: Liam Kyle Sullivan went viral just a little suits because

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Speaker 1: this was not YouTube as we know it now. This

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Speaker 1: was over a year and a half before YouTube accounts

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Speaker 1: could monetize goddamn anything. It's months shy of Google's one

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Speaker 1: point sixty five billion acquisition of the platform in late

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Speaker 1: two thousand and six. There wasn't really a path for

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Speaker 1: virality yet at this time, because the site didn't financially

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Speaker 1: incentivize successful users to stay, and mainstream entertainment still viewed

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Speaker 1: web sensations as kind of entertainment second class citizens, although

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Speaker 1: it never stopped them from trying to do something. Here's

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Speaker 1: Kimmel in two thousand and seven.

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Speaker 4: We are back.

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Speaker 9: Patherine Bell is here with us. This song has been

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Speaker 9: covered by the likes of John may or Trey Coole,

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Speaker 9: has gotten more than four million views on YouTube blown,

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Speaker 9: and it easily gets my vote for Song in the

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Speaker 9: Summer from Minneapolis. Please welcome Tayzon Day with the song

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Speaker 9: Chocolate Rains and Tonight's Internet Talent Showcase.

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Speaker 1: But before we can get to what Liam did with

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Speaker 1: this unprecedented, nearly uncharted kind of success. Let's get to

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Speaker 1: know him a little better like all of our greatest artists,

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Speaker 1: and I'll say it people. Liam Kyle Sullivan grew up

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Speaker 1: in Massachusetts and went to a weird congregational church. By

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Speaker 1: all accounts, his childhood was really nice, although elements would

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Speaker 1: end up inspiring Kelly's family In his future work in Shoes,

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Speaker 1: Liam plays Kelly's father, Kelly's twin brother, and Kelly and

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Speaker 1: told me that he developed the exaggerated sibling dynamic based

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Speaker 1: on how his older sister was treated in comparison to

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Speaker 1: him when they were growing up. While they were similarly

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Speaker 1: good kids, didn't drink, didn't do anything, Liam remembers that

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Speaker 1: his sister had imposed rules and curfews that he never did,

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Speaker 1: an exaggerated fate that he would later assign to Kelly

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Speaker 1: in the sketches extended intro.

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Speaker 2: Happy Birthday Twins A computer and a car. Thanks Mom

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Speaker 2: and Dad.

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Speaker 3: Kelly, go ahead and open your present.

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Speaker 1: How the how would you expect? Condamns It's a gigantic

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Speaker 1: toy dinosaur And before the needle drops for the beginning

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Speaker 1: of the song, Kelly's parents both call her fat and

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Speaker 1: Sluttie or Liam was a theater kid and went to

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Speaker 1: Emerson College in Boston, wisely dropping out after a year

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Speaker 1: like I should have, and that's because he was already

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Speaker 1: accomplishing what he was going to school to study. He

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Speaker 1: quickly started getting parts and became a fixture of the

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Speaker 1: Boston theater scene at the time, focusing on straight ahead theater.

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Speaker 1: I'm talking The Grapes of Wrath, A Midsummer Night's Dream,

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Speaker 1: the Threepenny Opera, all pretty heavy stuff. And after a

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Speaker 1: few years of that he did what all perfect people do.

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Speaker 1: He moved from Boston to Los Angeles, and by the

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Speaker 1: late nineteen nineties, Liam is a working actor trying to

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Speaker 1: build out a career for himself. He appears uncredited in

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Speaker 1: a nineteen ninety nine episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer,

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Speaker 1: also in Drag. He is in a Dick Wolf show

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Speaker 1: called Players question Mark. He's in a sun Dance indie,

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Speaker 1: and he's in a bunch of commercials for Guinness, e Trade, Dell,

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Speaker 1: and PlayStation. A very solid resume, but not exactly creatively

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Speaker 1: fulfilling in the way that playing al Jode in Boston

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Speaker 1: was so. Liam did what most actors who don't get

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Speaker 1: into recreational sports or Cooke do. He started taking comedy classes.

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Speaker 1: When I learned this, I realized that there were a

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Speaker 1: few things that I had made false assumptions about with

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Speaker 1: Liam before I met him for the first time. After

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Speaker 1: watching the Kelly sketch for years, I felt sure that

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Speaker 1: he had been doing comedy for years and years when

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Speaker 1: this sketch came out, And I also felt sure that

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Speaker 1: he'd done a lot of drag work. But neither of

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Speaker 1: these things were really true. The Kelly costume isn't winning

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Speaker 1: any drag race challenges anytime soon, but Liam embodies this

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Speaker 1: character fully to the point where he says he was

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Speaker 1: almost never recognized by his voice or appearance in public.

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Speaker 1: And as for comedy, that was something he began doing

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Speaker 1: around two thousand at the recommendation of a friend to

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Speaker 1: branch out a little bit, and he ended up falling

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Speaker 1: in love with sketch at the now shattered Acme Comedy

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Speaker 1: Theater in North Hollywood. So Kelly actually comes from his

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Speaker 1: serious training as an actor and his personal life experience,

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Speaker 1: and it's at Acme Comedy Theater that characters like Kelly

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Speaker 1: begin to take shape. By the early to mid two thousands,

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Speaker 1: he was performing and taking classes there regularly, leaving dramatic

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Speaker 1: stage work mostly behind, while taking on guest roles in

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Speaker 1: film and TV where they came what's your favorite early

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Speaker 1: Liam Kyle Sullivan role, Jamie Well, thanks for asking. That

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Speaker 1: would have to be the photographer in season five, episodes

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Speaker 1: thirteen and fourteen of Gilmour Girls, Wonderful.

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Speaker 2: There we are, Okay, everyone in just a little closer.

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Speaker 2: That's perfect.

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Speaker 1: Hold that good job, Liam. But if you asked Liam,

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Speaker 1: he was probably most excited about his first meaningful recurring

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Speaker 1: guest star role on TV, on ABC's hit comedy eight

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Speaker 1: Simple Rules. He made these appearances in two, two thousand

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Speaker 1: and four, and two thousand and five while he worked

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Speaker 1: on developing a solo sketch show simply titled a Liam Show.

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Speaker 1: On the side. The role on eight Simple Rules was

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Speaker 1: a big break after years of hustling, but he managed

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Speaker 1: to balance it with a Liam Show as he continued

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Speaker 1: to build out new characters, many of which would appear

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Speaker 1: later on his YouTube channel in some form. Obviously, one

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Speaker 1: of these characters was miss Kelly. So this all starts

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Speaker 1: as a stage show, the kind of sketch show that

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Speaker 1: involves a humid black box theater and running backstage to

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Speaker 1: change wigs while top forty music plays between characters. It's

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Speaker 1: a humble beginning many such cases, but what made the

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Speaker 1: difference was Liam's decision to start adding interstitial videos into

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Speaker 1: the show to help them flow a little better. And

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Speaker 1: Kelly was a popular enough character with his audience, and

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Speaker 1: he enjoyed playing the character enough so he decided to

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Speaker 1: make a video with her. We talk about it in

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Speaker 1: our interview in more detail, but here's how Liam described

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Speaker 1: the production of Shoes on his website in February two

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Speaker 1: thousand and six.

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Speaker 6: Then I had some ideas for funny short films. I

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Speaker 6: thought if I could borrow equipment and shoot them with

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Speaker 6: my friends, I could put them together and put up

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Speaker 6: a show and have a whole lot of fun doing it.

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Speaker 6: I called my friend Eduardosis Naros, and we made a

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Speaker 6: whole bunch and then I put them together, and here

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Speaker 6: I've got a show and a website. I write, produce,

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Speaker 6: and direct everything, but Eduardosis Naros and Rich Briglia have

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Speaker 6: helped a lot with cinematography and co directing. I also

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Speaker 6: edit everything myself. A bit of a control freak, yes,

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Speaker 6: but in my experience, collaboration with friends always makes a

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Speaker 6: better product, so I listened to my friend's ideas.

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Speaker 1: This text appears alongside a picture of a young Liam

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Speaker 1: reaching toward the camera with the caption area actor gropes

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Speaker 1: for career. Other stuff on this site includes the sale

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Speaker 1: of a comedy DVD question Mark he really was not

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Speaker 1: an Internet guy anyways. This dvd sold for ten dollars

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Speaker 1: and featured a collection of video sketches that he'd worked

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Speaker 1: on with friends over the past few years. Most of

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Speaker 1: these would eventually end up on YouTube as well. Titles

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Speaker 1: include Doctor Oulay, Sex Therapist, Fever, Bitch, Muffins, and wait,

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Speaker 1: hold on, Let's circle back to Muffins muffinss Okay, this

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Speaker 1: episode is mainly focused on Kelly and the phenomenon that

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Speaker 1: was the Shoes video, but we should take a quick

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Speaker 1: side quest to talk about Muffins because it was wildly

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Speaker 1: successful as well, and was also originally re uploaded to

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Speaker 1: a primitive YouTube by someone who had originally downloaded it

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Speaker 1: from Liam's website. The joke of Muffins is a little

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Speaker 1: more straightforward than Kelly Lore, but it does feature another

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Speaker 1: Liam drag character, one he says was loosely based on

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Speaker 1: his mom. Missus Cunningham is an eager, older homemaker in

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Speaker 1: a short gray wig, a pink mumu, and an apron

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Speaker 1: forcing a series of bespoke muffin experiments on her unwilling

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Speaker 1: test subject, her son Johnny.

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Speaker 2: What would you like for breakfast, Johnny? Muffins? That's right,

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Speaker 2: at Cunningham muffins.

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Speaker 3: We know that muffins make.

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Speaker 5: The best breakfast, so why not try all of exciting

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Speaker 5: new flavors.

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Speaker 1: A bunch of you were like, oh my god, I

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Speaker 1: remember that, Yes you do. So the meat of the

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Speaker 1: sketch is, and how weird and eventually sinister the muffin

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Speaker 1: flavors get For every fan of this sketch, everyone has

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Speaker 1: their favorite muffins. Here are mine, paper clip, nosepaper fire.

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Speaker 1: And at the end, you'll eat a muffin.

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Speaker 11: You'll eat it and like it.

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Speaker 1: God, describing the jokes and a sketch is so miserable.

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Speaker 1: Just go watch it. It's still up. It's good. The

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Speaker 1: premise is very simple, it's well written, William's performance is great,

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Speaker 1: and it's clearly independent. Filmed on a random day in

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Speaker 1: someone's crummy kitchen. Within a year or two of Muffins release,

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Speaker 1: there would be early YouTubers who would create similar, generally

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Speaker 1: less good comedy for YouTube and other platforms, but seeing

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Speaker 1: an independent sketch like Muffins or Shoes breakthrough at the time,

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Speaker 1: made by someone no one had heard of before, was

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Speaker 1: a pretty new concept. Keep in mind, the only other

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Speaker 1: sketch to have been super successful on YouTube at this

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Speaker 1: time had literally been on SNL. But in these sketches,

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Speaker 1: which are still Liam's most successful, a few consistent things

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Speaker 1: stand out. They're independently produced, they're dark but can be

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Speaker 1: enjoyed by anybody, they feature drag characters, and they were

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Speaker 1: not written and made with YouTube in mind. So let's

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Speaker 1: go back to Shoes and enjoy the glory of the

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Speaker 1: video itself. So we know the general setup, with Kelly

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Speaker 1: as this neglected, rebellious daughter and a middle class neighborhood

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Speaker 1: whose shoe shopping to stick it to her parents. But

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Speaker 1: the majority of the song is Kelly's shoe shopping with

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Speaker 1: her friends in multiple locations across LA, appraising.

437
00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:25,720
Speaker 4: Shoes like this bes rule facious sock, beacious rural facious sock.

438
00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:30,200
Speaker 1: The aesthetic here could not be more mid two thousands.

439
00:27:30,560 --> 00:27:33,680
Speaker 1: There's all of these, like quick zooms on Kelly's face.

440
00:27:33,960 --> 00:27:37,520
Speaker 1: The shots are very high exposure, high contrast of her

441
00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:41,359
Speaker 1: Doc Martin slamming the pavement of Melrose Avenue, and the

442
00:27:41,400 --> 00:27:44,880
Speaker 1: camera will often cut to her friends in similar hot

443
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:49,720
Speaker 1: topic waste chain, low rise khaki pants. Those were so uncomfortable.

444
00:27:50,080 --> 00:27:53,640
Speaker 1: It's this hyper feminine shopping montage. But the best part

445
00:27:54,040 --> 00:27:57,720
Speaker 1: is that it has no patience for men whatsoever.

446
00:27:58,480 --> 00:27:59,480
Speaker 3: I think you're shoes.

447
00:27:59,560 --> 00:27:59,919
Speaker 8: Shut up.

448
00:28:00,480 --> 00:28:02,480
Speaker 3: I think you have too many shoes. Shut up. I

449
00:28:02,560 --> 00:28:03,560
Speaker 3: think you have too many shoes.

450
00:28:03,600 --> 00:28:04,000
Speaker 8: Shut up.

451
00:28:04,440 --> 00:28:07,600
Speaker 3: I think you have too many shoes. Shut up. Stupid boy,

452
00:28:08,760 --> 00:28:13,520
Speaker 3: stupid boy. Let's get some shiites. Let's party.

453
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:18,720
Speaker 1: During this sequence, Kelly is literally stepping on men. She

454
00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:21,800
Speaker 1: steps on the camera at one point as a male

455
00:28:21,920 --> 00:28:25,520
Speaker 1: shoe salesman cowers in fear. And then we cut to

456
00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:28,800
Speaker 1: this huge pool party full of scene kids, and then

457
00:28:28,960 --> 00:28:32,120
Speaker 1: back to Kelly to put her parents into debt once

458
00:28:32,240 --> 00:28:32,800
Speaker 1: and for all.

459
00:28:33,280 --> 00:28:35,120
Speaker 3: These shoes are three hundred fucking dollars.

460
00:28:35,600 --> 00:28:39,280
Speaker 1: Let's get them, and as many remember. Kelly ends the

461
00:28:39,400 --> 00:28:42,600
Speaker 1: video by mouthing off to a snobby sales rep in

462
00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:44,680
Speaker 1: the most iconic way possible.

463
00:28:45,920 --> 00:28:48,880
Speaker 4: This style runs small I don't think you're gonna fat

464
00:28:49,240 --> 00:28:51,280
Speaker 4: I mean your fader kind of bag.

465
00:28:53,880 --> 00:28:56,120
Speaker 3: Oh oh.

466
00:28:57,600 --> 00:29:05,360
Speaker 4: Oh, by the way, fuck you fuckwuck.

467
00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 1: This whole sequence is intercut with random high exposure shots

468
00:29:12,360 --> 00:29:16,000
Speaker 1: of hot girls and leather bikinis with flaming fula hoops.

469
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:20,160
Speaker 1: It's a whole vibe. And sure, is this a very

470
00:29:20,320 --> 00:29:24,000
Speaker 1: two thousands Sex and the City parody way of describing

471
00:29:24,200 --> 00:29:28,880
Speaker 1: feminine liberation through shopping. Well, yeah, but that's the point.

472
00:29:29,600 --> 00:29:33,800
Speaker 1: Kelly is a drag character that's commentary on oppression experienced

473
00:29:33,880 --> 00:29:37,000
Speaker 1: in white teens. Suburbia might not be the most radical

474
00:29:37,080 --> 00:29:39,640
Speaker 1: thing in the world, but it was really different for

475
00:29:39,760 --> 00:29:43,680
Speaker 1: this time during the Bush administration. It would be pretty

476
00:29:43,760 --> 00:29:47,160
Speaker 1: unlikely to see a character like Kelly become this prominent

477
00:29:47,560 --> 00:29:51,719
Speaker 1: by being supported by traditional media engines. And what's more,

478
00:29:51,880 --> 00:29:54,800
Speaker 1: you can't help but root for Kelly. Her parents treat

479
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:57,040
Speaker 1: her like shit, and so she puts them into credit

480
00:29:57,120 --> 00:30:01,800
Speaker 1: card debt. It's a recession era of fantasy. In decolonized drag,

481
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:06,120
Speaker 1: Koreem Kupchandani draws attention to a far more diverse group

482
00:30:06,200 --> 00:30:10,040
Speaker 1: of drag performers doing their equivalent of this, building out

483
00:30:10,120 --> 00:30:13,040
Speaker 1: the world of their drag characters by pulling from their

484
00:30:13,080 --> 00:30:16,480
Speaker 1: personal life, as Liam did from his New England childhood

485
00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:21,720
Speaker 1: with Kelly. And when Kelly and Shoes hits YouTube, it

486
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:26,680
Speaker 1: goes nuts. But Liam doesn't realize this right away. He's

487
00:30:26,720 --> 00:30:29,400
Speaker 1: staying on his normal actor grind, He's getting a bit

488
00:30:29,520 --> 00:30:32,920
Speaker 1: part on Alias, He's continuing to perform on stage at ACME.

489
00:30:33,720 --> 00:30:36,680
Speaker 1: The Internet is a part of his plan to grow

490
00:30:36,800 --> 00:30:41,200
Speaker 1: his career, but it's not the plan. And unlike today,

491
00:30:41,600 --> 00:30:43,600
Speaker 1: where the viral life of a video can rise and

492
00:30:43,720 --> 00:30:46,400
Speaker 1: fall in the space of a couple hours, it took

493
00:30:46,480 --> 00:30:49,640
Speaker 1: Shoes months to catch on when the pace of the

494
00:30:49,760 --> 00:30:54,560
Speaker 1: Internet was much slower. In Liam's recollection, it was weeks

495
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:58,240
Speaker 1: before he heard his videos had been both uploaded and

496
00:30:58,520 --> 00:31:02,200
Speaker 1: extremely successful on YouTube. And it only even heard of

497
00:31:02,280 --> 00:31:04,920
Speaker 1: the platform because someone he did comedy with had told

498
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:08,280
Speaker 1: him about it, and once he found out, he had

499
00:31:08,360 --> 00:31:11,240
Speaker 1: to figure out what to do about it. I have

500
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:13,800
Speaker 1: tried so hard to figure this out, but it is

501
00:31:14,200 --> 00:31:18,080
Speaker 1: unclear exactly when the first upload of Shoes disappeared or

502
00:31:18,560 --> 00:31:21,200
Speaker 1: how many views it had when it did. But the

503
00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:24,560
Speaker 1: primary upload of the video is now on Liam Kyle

504
00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:29,080
Speaker 1: Sullivan's channel, uploaded in April two thousand and six. His

505
00:31:29,280 --> 00:31:32,280
Speaker 1: upload of the shorter Shoes music video is made in

506
00:31:32,400 --> 00:31:35,800
Speaker 1: early May, and according to a Vice ten year retrospective

507
00:31:35,840 --> 00:31:39,200
Speaker 1: of the video from twenty sixteen, Liam wasn't convinced it

508
00:31:39,400 --> 00:31:43,800
Speaker 1: was big, big until that September, when the video was

509
00:31:43,840 --> 00:31:47,080
Speaker 1: featured on a Los Angeles early morning show called Good

510
00:31:47,240 --> 00:31:49,440
Speaker 1: Day LA shows.

511
00:31:49,520 --> 00:31:50,520
Speaker 3: Oh I got this is shoes.

512
00:31:50,520 --> 00:31:51,480
Speaker 11: This is my new favorite song.

513
00:31:51,560 --> 00:31:53,280
Speaker 3: Oh this shooz.

514
00:31:54,600 --> 00:31:56,880
Speaker 2: Cheoz Hello Kelly, why God cheers?

515
00:31:57,000 --> 00:31:58,640
Speaker 11: Oh my god, Kelly's drag quay.

516
00:31:58,840 --> 00:32:01,800
Speaker 3: Let's get some shit and she lives here. Some shit.

517
00:32:02,840 --> 00:32:07,800
Speaker 3: Let's get this shit pool, Let's get this shit shutally what?

518
00:32:08,600 --> 00:32:11,959
Speaker 1: And Liam was so excited about this that he actually

519
00:32:12,160 --> 00:32:16,080
Speaker 1: uploaded this clip himself, which was quickly followed by shout

520
00:32:16,120 --> 00:32:20,160
Speaker 1: outs on TRL and more and more press in the mainstream,

521
00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:23,560
Speaker 1: not just to say have you seen this video Shoes,

522
00:32:24,160 --> 00:32:27,000
Speaker 1: but just as much to say, have you heard of

523
00:32:27,080 --> 00:32:31,760
Speaker 1: this new thing called YouTube? And boy would we? Liam

524
00:32:31,800 --> 00:32:34,720
Speaker 1: seems to understand in the moment that in the short term,

525
00:32:35,160 --> 00:32:38,120
Speaker 1: his newly minded YouTube channel is where people are going

526
00:32:38,200 --> 00:32:40,680
Speaker 1: to go to see his work, and so he starts

527
00:32:40,720 --> 00:32:44,800
Speaker 1: planning to release new videos featuring Kelly. Was this always

528
00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:48,720
Speaker 1: the master plan. Turns out not really, he told Wece

529
00:32:48,800 --> 00:32:49,720
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen.

530
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:53,440
Speaker 6: I had written a bunch of songs and actually had

531
00:32:53,480 --> 00:32:56,200
Speaker 6: to be persuaded by my friend to shoot a video

532
00:32:56,320 --> 00:32:59,320
Speaker 6: for Shoes. But I had no idea I'd be doing

533
00:32:59,400 --> 00:33:01,720
Speaker 6: so many different things with her At some point, I

534
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:05,120
Speaker 6: was just throwing everything out there, like what else can

535
00:33:05,160 --> 00:33:05,920
Speaker 6: I do with Kelly?

536
00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:10,240
Speaker 1: Turns out a lot, but again keep in mind that

537
00:33:10,400 --> 00:33:13,640
Speaker 1: the trickle of viral content at this time worked much

538
00:33:14,400 --> 00:33:17,680
Speaker 1: much slower. Liam filled the space it took to produce

539
00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:21,680
Speaker 1: new Kelly videos by uploading his back catalog of sketches,

540
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:25,840
Speaker 1: including a re upload of Muffins and other videos that

541
00:33:25,960 --> 00:33:29,720
Speaker 1: it appeared on his DVD. In June two thousand and six,

542
00:33:30,080 --> 00:33:34,520
Speaker 1: Liam released an entire album of music from Kelly, including

543
00:33:34,640 --> 00:33:37,040
Speaker 1: a lot of hits that would later translate to future

544
00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:39,760
Speaker 1: music videos, like such as.

545
00:33:41,400 --> 00:33:42,480
Speaker 2: You Couldn't Do Him.

546
00:33:42,480 --> 00:33:45,400
Speaker 3: Persons Playing Up.

547
00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:49,840
Speaker 1: This one features major Kelly fan Margaret Show as I

548
00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:53,520
Speaker 1: Think a dominatrix. Liam would actually go on to tour

549
00:33:53,640 --> 00:33:56,200
Speaker 1: with her. As an opener shortly after the Shoes video

550
00:33:56,360 --> 00:33:59,600
Speaker 1: first blew up. Then there's no booty.

551
00:33:59,360 --> 00:34:02,080
Speaker 3: Calls about what he's saying. You want to get together.

552
00:34:02,240 --> 00:34:04,880
Speaker 3: I want you to comb overall dressed up and leather.

553
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:07,680
Speaker 2: They used to do back in out too, Give me.

554
00:34:07,800 --> 00:34:09,240
Speaker 3: Nice dreams, make me want to stream.

555
00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:12,080
Speaker 4: That's not happening again. That was back then, and now

556
00:34:12,080 --> 00:34:16,919
Speaker 4: I'm interested in bigger and batter men. Nobody coll Zach,

557
00:34:19,120 --> 00:34:23,280
Speaker 4: Nobody call Dach. That's not happening.

558
00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:27,640
Speaker 1: And I think most successfully, let me borrow that top.

559
00:34:28,280 --> 00:34:31,360
Speaker 3: Let me borrow that toss. Let me borrow that toss.

560
00:34:32,280 --> 00:34:35,319
Speaker 3: Let me borrow that toss. I want to borrow that top.

561
00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:39,439
Speaker 1: And while these hits didn't hit the heights that Shoes had,

562
00:34:39,920 --> 00:34:43,520
Speaker 1: they were all successful to the tune of millions of us.

563
00:34:44,040 --> 00:34:48,520
Speaker 1: And they also expand upon Kelly Lore. We meet more

564
00:34:48,600 --> 00:34:52,319
Speaker 1: members of her family, cleverly integrated by Liam from other

565
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:55,320
Speaker 1: characters that he did in his one man show, plus

566
00:34:55,520 --> 00:34:58,920
Speaker 1: a cool, hot vampire best friend named Heather, and for

567
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:03,160
Speaker 1: my money, in these future videos, Liam Hammer's down repeatedly

568
00:35:03,600 --> 00:35:07,920
Speaker 1: on the empowerment of Kelly's character. Even as the people

569
00:35:08,120 --> 00:35:12,720
Speaker 1: around Kelly continuously fail her, whether it's her strict parents,

570
00:35:13,040 --> 00:35:16,160
Speaker 1: asshole boyfriends, or girls who think they're better than her,

571
00:35:17,080 --> 00:35:21,480
Speaker 1: Kelly and her friends always have endless confidence in her.

572
00:35:22,200 --> 00:35:25,800
Speaker 1: It's never Oh my god, I'm so insecure. I'm a loser.

573
00:35:26,440 --> 00:35:30,680
Speaker 1: It's You've wronged me. I know it, and now I'm

574
00:35:30,719 --> 00:35:32,440
Speaker 1: gonna eat you for fucking dinner.

575
00:35:33,320 --> 00:35:39,680
Speaker 4: My acdient face powered and he plays with his RL.

576
00:35:41,080 --> 00:35:45,560
Speaker 2: I'm put in a game, and if I confused you,

577
00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:46,799
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have to lose.

578
00:35:46,880 --> 00:35:48,880
Speaker 4: You. Go back to first grade and get yourself a

579
00:35:48,920 --> 00:35:51,160
Speaker 4: blues clue. I don't even know what ever made me

580
00:35:51,320 --> 00:35:53,919
Speaker 4: chanse yet, but I could do better.

581
00:35:55,080 --> 00:35:57,680
Speaker 3: What are you saving it for? You're not even worrying it.

582
00:35:58,760 --> 00:35:59,759
Speaker 2: You're not gonna wear it.

583
00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:01,640
Speaker 3: Let me borrow it.

584
00:36:02,239 --> 00:36:05,680
Speaker 1: And while this round of viral Kelly videos released between

585
00:36:05,719 --> 00:36:08,280
Speaker 1: two thousand and six and two thousand and eight appealed

586
00:36:08,360 --> 00:36:11,080
Speaker 1: to really anyone who was remotely logged in at the time,

587
00:36:11,760 --> 00:36:15,239
Speaker 1: it seemed to appeal to kids quite a bit, I

588
00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:18,680
Speaker 1: think because Kelly was really funny, but she was also

589
00:36:19,120 --> 00:36:22,759
Speaker 1: really cool. You were never ever laughing at her the

590
00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:25,440
Speaker 1: way that you see punching down drag comedy that we

591
00:36:25,520 --> 00:36:30,520
Speaker 1: talked about earlier in this episode. She was awesome. YouTube

592
00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:34,520
Speaker 1: monetization would come around via their Infamous Partners program in

593
00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:37,720
Speaker 1: late two thousand and seven, but In the meantime, Liam

594
00:36:37,800 --> 00:36:40,480
Speaker 1: grew the character and made ends meet in other ways.

595
00:36:40,920 --> 00:36:43,680
Speaker 1: One was touring his act through the country with Margaret

596
00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:47,359
Speaker 1: cho and Solo, appearing as himself and doing stand up

597
00:36:47,480 --> 00:36:51,040
Speaker 1: about being Kelly. Most of the clips from this tour

598
00:36:51,160 --> 00:36:53,880
Speaker 1: were uploaded by fans who attended back in two thousand

599
00:36:53,880 --> 00:36:57,080
Speaker 1: and seven and feature Liam talking about how becoming Kelly

600
00:36:57,440 --> 00:36:58,680
Speaker 1: made him a better man.

601
00:37:00,320 --> 00:37:02,920
Speaker 11: And so I was like, how do I do that?

602
00:37:03,120 --> 00:37:05,279
Speaker 12: And so it was it was a little struggle, But

603
00:37:05,719 --> 00:37:10,360
Speaker 12: the biggest struggle was finding women's clothes in the stores

604
00:37:10,400 --> 00:37:13,600
Speaker 12: because I had no fucking idea. One size in this

605
00:37:13,760 --> 00:37:16,120
Speaker 12: brand is a totally different size than this other brand.

606
00:37:17,440 --> 00:37:18,719
Speaker 11: What the fuck is up with that?

607
00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:23,960
Speaker 12: Somebody needs to like organize that shit. And then like everything, guys,

608
00:37:24,000 --> 00:37:26,520
Speaker 12: you know why women ask does this make me look fat?

609
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:28,520
Speaker 12: It's because everything you wear as a woman makes you

610
00:37:28,560 --> 00:37:31,920
Speaker 12: feel fat. It's like nothing comes in your size. Like

611
00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:33,759
Speaker 12: I go in and I was like, you know, I'm

612
00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:35,600
Speaker 12: a guy, but I'm not like huge or anything. And

613
00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:37,759
Speaker 12: I go when I say, oh, this is a nice

614
00:37:37,760 --> 00:37:40,800
Speaker 12: little top here, do you have this in a large?

615
00:37:40,880 --> 00:37:44,600
Speaker 12: And the girls like now, it's like fuck you, okay,

616
00:37:45,680 --> 00:37:48,400
Speaker 12: And so there's that, and then there's makeup, Like I

617
00:37:48,520 --> 00:37:50,640
Speaker 12: found out how fucking hard it is to do your

618
00:37:50,719 --> 00:37:53,560
Speaker 12: face in the mirror, and you know, guys, when you're like,

619
00:37:53,560 --> 00:37:55,440
Speaker 12: come on, honey, hurry up, it's time to go. What

620
00:37:55,520 --> 00:37:57,359
Speaker 12: the fuck's taking so long in the bathrooms because there's

621
00:37:57,360 --> 00:37:58,600
Speaker 12: a lot of fucking worm to do in that.

622
00:37:59,280 --> 00:38:02,120
Speaker 1: And while they're on the lower side of views. Liam

623
00:38:02,200 --> 00:38:05,480
Speaker 1: also made sketches with Kelly between music video releases that,

624
00:38:06,120 --> 00:38:10,080
Speaker 1: in retrospect are sort of reflecting on the experiences that

625
00:38:10,400 --> 00:38:13,440
Speaker 1: Liam was going through in real life while trying to

626
00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:17,280
Speaker 1: translate Kelly's online fame to a more traditional acting career.

627
00:38:18,200 --> 00:38:21,879
Speaker 1: In August two thousand and seven, he released Kelly's Hollywood Meeting,

628
00:38:22,320 --> 00:38:25,960
Speaker 1: where a series of identical looking white guy agents desperately

629
00:38:26,040 --> 00:38:29,160
Speaker 1: try to sign Kelly while having basically no idea what

630
00:38:29,280 --> 00:38:29,640
Speaker 1: she does.

631
00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:34,880
Speaker 4: You too, if everyone's too When you touch it.

632
00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:39,640
Speaker 11: Sinner, Jit said too. I went to Harvard. I have

633
00:38:39,800 --> 00:38:42,280
Speaker 11: you record deal crazy?

634
00:38:42,760 --> 00:38:43,680
Speaker 7: One billion Chinese?

635
00:38:43,719 --> 00:38:44,279
Speaker 3: What's that means?

636
00:38:44,360 --> 00:38:45,240
Speaker 2: Two billion shoes?

637
00:38:45,520 --> 00:38:46,520
Speaker 11: Right, Kelly?

638
00:38:46,560 --> 00:38:47,920
Speaker 2: I saw one set of footprints.

639
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:49,279
Speaker 9: Yeah, we're carrying him.

640
00:38:49,360 --> 00:38:52,759
Speaker 2: In the other hand, Christ was off making a campfire or.

641
00:38:52,800 --> 00:38:56,440
Speaker 1: Some gay Was that a young Chris Hardwick. No need

642
00:38:56,480 --> 00:38:57,839
Speaker 1: to look him up if you haven't heard of him.

643
00:38:57,880 --> 00:39:01,440
Speaker 1: He was canceled and acquired by Hurst Meeting. Yeah, no comments.

644
00:39:01,880 --> 00:39:03,440
Speaker 1: This sketch continues.

645
00:39:03,480 --> 00:39:08,200
Speaker 11: Kelly the Shoes video, the Shoes album. I mean it's

646
00:39:08,239 --> 00:39:11,080
Speaker 11: a no brainer. We've got to sign you. We need you,

647
00:39:11,640 --> 00:39:15,440
Speaker 11: we love you, we need you to be part of us.

648
00:39:15,840 --> 00:39:19,560
Speaker 11: We want to make money off of well, we want

649
00:39:19,600 --> 00:39:20,360
Speaker 11: to make money for you.

650
00:39:20,640 --> 00:39:23,719
Speaker 1: Let's get some uh huh so yeah. Liam seems to

651
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:26,320
Speaker 1: be poking at the fact that people were eager to

652
00:39:26,480 --> 00:39:29,759
Speaker 1: profit off of Kelly but didn't really know what to

653
00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:33,479
Speaker 1: do with her. In the sketch, the agents are trying

654
00:39:33,520 --> 00:39:36,920
Speaker 1: to get her to sell cereal called honey nuts chet bags,

655
00:39:37,480 --> 00:39:40,120
Speaker 1: and because Kelly takes shit from no one, she lets

656
00:39:40,200 --> 00:39:41,120
Speaker 1: these guys have it.

657
00:39:42,719 --> 00:39:45,239
Speaker 3: Why Ah.

658
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:48,320
Speaker 1: The video ends with a woman flipping off the camera

659
00:39:48,680 --> 00:39:51,480
Speaker 1: and a teaser for Kelly's new music video, let Me

660
00:39:51,560 --> 00:39:56,239
Speaker 1: Borrow That Top. The message is clear, Kelly isn't going

661
00:39:56,320 --> 00:40:00,600
Speaker 1: to sell out. Kelly is punk rock. Liam admitted in

662
00:40:00,640 --> 00:40:02,759
Speaker 1: an interview with People that came out this past week

663
00:40:03,160 --> 00:40:07,759
Speaker 1: that he doesn't really feel comfortable expressing anger, but Kelly does,

664
00:40:08,360 --> 00:40:09,759
Speaker 1: and that's empowering for him.

665
00:40:10,520 --> 00:40:13,880
Speaker 6: I get really uncomfortable with anger. It's hard for me

666
00:40:13,960 --> 00:40:16,800
Speaker 6: to express it because I just kind of get scary.

667
00:40:17,520 --> 00:40:20,840
Speaker 6: But when Kelly does it, there's something about it that connects,

668
00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:23,520
Speaker 6: because there's a lot of injustice in the world and

669
00:40:23,680 --> 00:40:24,759
Speaker 6: we've got to address it.

670
00:40:25,239 --> 00:40:27,560
Speaker 1: Around this time, he also stars in a short lived

671
00:40:27,640 --> 00:40:30,480
Speaker 1: VH one sitcom in two thousand and seven called I

672
00:40:30,640 --> 00:40:34,000
Speaker 1: Hate My Thirties, while continuing to upload to YouTube as

673
00:40:34,120 --> 00:40:38,560
Speaker 1: Kelly and himself with his other characters. The in between

674
00:40:38,680 --> 00:40:42,680
Speaker 1: videos are simpler by necessity, mostly tour promotion or fan

675
00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:48,000
Speaker 1: appreciation montages. The last major Kelly music video was released

676
00:40:48,160 --> 00:40:51,160
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight called where do you think

677
00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:54,560
Speaker 1: You're Going In That, where Kelly's mother calls out her

678
00:40:54,920 --> 00:41:04,040
Speaker 1: perfect hot topic outfit and incorrectly translated Chinese character tattoo, Excuse.

679
00:41:03,560 --> 00:41:09,480
Speaker 13: Me, where do you think you're going in that? You're

680
00:41:09,520 --> 00:41:14,440
Speaker 13: gonna march right upstairs. That's what you're gonna do, march it.

681
00:41:16,320 --> 00:41:19,120
Speaker 1: Kelly doesn't even speak in this one. It's just an

682
00:41:19,200 --> 00:41:23,480
Speaker 1: increasingly demented club beat of her mother's criticisms of her outfit,

683
00:41:24,080 --> 00:41:28,120
Speaker 1: while Kelly becomes increasingly glamorous and adored. It's what the

684
00:41:28,200 --> 00:41:32,439
Speaker 1: kids are now calling Recession Core, released during the two

685
00:41:32,440 --> 00:41:35,799
Speaker 1: thousand and eight recession. I'm not sure what's happening now.

686
00:41:35,920 --> 00:41:38,759
Speaker 1: I think it is not sure what to do during

687
00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:44,000
Speaker 1: the rise of fascism Core. Liam also wins a People's

688
00:41:44,080 --> 00:41:47,400
Speaker 1: Choice Award at this time for Shoes, over two years

689
00:41:47,600 --> 00:41:51,920
Speaker 1: after it came out in the category Best User Generated Video.

690
00:41:52,800 --> 00:41:55,200
Speaker 1: Should have e got it. But even if you're a

691
00:41:55,280 --> 00:41:59,919
Speaker 1: big fan of Kelly, which I consider myself to be, Shoes, Text, Mess,

692
00:42:00,239 --> 00:42:02,960
Speaker 1: Breakup and can I borrow that top are as big

693
00:42:03,000 --> 00:42:07,320
Speaker 1: as it got outside of the longtime fans. Make no mistake,

694
00:42:07,520 --> 00:42:12,640
Speaker 1: Kelly's legacy was absolutely cemented in YouTube Loor. Liam says

695
00:42:12,680 --> 00:42:15,520
Speaker 1: that he's been reached out to incessantly to recognize the

696
00:42:15,600 --> 00:42:19,000
Speaker 1: twenty year anniversary of YouTube recently, and that plenty of

697
00:42:19,080 --> 00:42:21,759
Speaker 1: people say watching his work is the first time they

698
00:42:21,840 --> 00:42:26,000
Speaker 1: remember watching YouTube at all. But because of how little

699
00:42:26,120 --> 00:42:29,920
Speaker 1: the media landscape understood the Internet at this time, Liam

700
00:42:30,000 --> 00:42:32,600
Speaker 1: never saw the profit that a creator would today with

701
00:42:32,640 --> 00:42:36,400
Speaker 1: an equal number of eyes and an equal number of eyes,

702
00:42:36,960 --> 00:42:42,760
Speaker 1: we're talking hundreds of millions of views is basically unheard

703
00:42:42,800 --> 00:42:46,719
Speaker 1: of today. It's no exaggeration to say that Liam at

704
00:42:46,800 --> 00:42:51,440
Speaker 1: his peak was commanding Walter Cronkite numbers, but at the

705
00:42:51,520 --> 00:42:56,399
Speaker 1: time those eyes were not perceived as having value. It's

706
00:42:56,480 --> 00:43:01,080
Speaker 1: fucked right. In retrospect, it makes me genuinely irritated how

707
00:43:01,160 --> 00:43:05,360
Speaker 1: it's YouTube that benefits from Liam's creativity while the system

708
00:43:05,480 --> 00:43:09,760
Speaker 1: that legitimized YouTube as a starmaker never nurtured his career

709
00:43:10,000 --> 00:43:13,120
Speaker 1: in the way he deserved. And this is a straight

710
00:43:13,239 --> 00:43:16,000
Speaker 1: white guy. Think of all of the people more marginalized

711
00:43:16,000 --> 00:43:19,239
Speaker 1: than Liam that never stood a chance at this. But

712
00:43:19,440 --> 00:43:24,359
Speaker 1: Kelly continued, as did Liam, posting primarily and most successfully

713
00:43:24,640 --> 00:43:27,680
Speaker 1: as his star character as well as his coterie of

714
00:43:27,800 --> 00:43:31,239
Speaker 1: other characters for the next five years or so, while

715
00:43:31,280 --> 00:43:35,320
Speaker 1: continuing to maintain his mainstream acting career. The most famous

716
00:43:35,360 --> 00:43:39,000
Speaker 1: non Kelly character he did was Aunt, Susan, Kelly's gay aunt,

717
00:43:39,080 --> 00:43:41,960
Speaker 1: who he released a second album as in two thousand

718
00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:45,560
Speaker 1: and nine titled Susan Walker's Greatest Tits.

719
00:43:45,920 --> 00:43:48,200
Speaker 3: My Name is Susan Walker, Go Raiders.

720
00:43:48,160 --> 00:43:50,760
Speaker 1: I Don't Know. Into the twenty tens, the Kelly character

721
00:43:50,920 --> 00:43:53,719
Speaker 1: rolls with the times during a YouTube culture that was

722
00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:59,280
Speaker 1: becoming increasingly popular, algorithmically driven and relying more on search

723
00:43:59,320 --> 00:44:03,080
Speaker 1: engine optimstation then the weird ingenuity that introduced us to

724
00:44:03,160 --> 00:44:06,439
Speaker 1: her in the first place. During this era, we get

725
00:44:06,600 --> 00:44:11,120
Speaker 1: Kelly vlogs with the character taking questions to camera directly, Kelly,

726
00:44:11,200 --> 00:44:11,480
Speaker 1: what do you.

727
00:44:11,480 --> 00:44:15,000
Speaker 5: Think about Kim Kardashian while she's a hot batch? Kelly,

728
00:44:15,160 --> 00:44:19,080
Speaker 5: please talk about Cony Okay? I saw Cony twenty twelve,

729
00:44:20,360 --> 00:44:23,800
Speaker 5: and then I saw all the controversy and backlash against

730
00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:26,400
Speaker 5: this director who made it, and I was all, this

731
00:44:26,520 --> 00:44:28,680
Speaker 5: guy's just trying to help people in Africa.

732
00:44:29,360 --> 00:44:30,280
Speaker 3: What did you do today?

733
00:44:30,400 --> 00:44:32,000
Speaker 2: Bats lay off?

734
00:44:32,600 --> 00:44:34,719
Speaker 1: But by the time the last of these videos were

735
00:44:34,800 --> 00:44:39,239
Speaker 1: released in twenty twelve, YouTube had changed a lot. This

736
00:44:39,480 --> 00:44:42,520
Speaker 1: was a year where pewdie Pie and Jenna Marbles were

737
00:44:42,520 --> 00:44:45,800
Speaker 1: the most successful users on the platform, where being a

738
00:44:45,920 --> 00:44:49,520
Speaker 1: YouTuber was now considered a job, and where users now

739
00:44:49,600 --> 00:44:52,839
Speaker 1: needed to branch out to multiple different platforms in order

740
00:44:52,920 --> 00:44:56,360
Speaker 1: to fully thrive. And by this time, Liam was happily

741
00:44:56,440 --> 00:44:59,040
Speaker 1: married in a story that I'm going to let him

742
00:44:59,080 --> 00:45:02,200
Speaker 1: tell you because it is so great. He was starting

743
00:45:02,239 --> 00:45:05,279
Speaker 1: a family and behind the scenes was struggling with keeping

744
00:45:05,320 --> 00:45:07,920
Speaker 1: the character up during a version of YouTube that he

745
00:45:08,160 --> 00:45:11,959
Speaker 1: was somewhat less than enthusiastic about and so, while Liam

746
00:45:12,000 --> 00:45:14,959
Speaker 1: continued to post videos as other characters for a while.

747
00:45:15,080 --> 00:45:19,440
Speaker 1: After this, Kelly all but disappeared for a period of years,

748
00:45:19,960 --> 00:45:22,920
Speaker 1: and Liam pivoted to a series of full time jobs

749
00:45:23,000 --> 00:45:25,280
Speaker 1: with a skill that he wouldn't have had without Kelly,

750
00:45:25,880 --> 00:45:32,200
Speaker 1: video editing for the Internet, specifically working for the Fine Brothers, Nickelodeon,

751
00:45:32,520 --> 00:45:37,480
Speaker 1: and DeFi Media meaning honest trailers, smash, et cetera. Over

752
00:45:37,520 --> 00:45:41,240
Speaker 1: the next several years and things as Kelly are quiet

753
00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:45,239
Speaker 1: for a bit. YouTube, of course, grows into a behemoth

754
00:45:45,560 --> 00:45:48,560
Speaker 1: over the twenty tens, and by the tenth anniversary of

755
00:45:48,640 --> 00:45:52,880
Speaker 1: Shoes in twenty sixteen, the platform's modus operandi has shifted

756
00:45:53,080 --> 00:45:59,080
Speaker 1: to click baby headlines, vaguely radicalizing content, BuzzFeed video, and,

757
00:45:59,360 --> 00:46:03,320
Speaker 1: to Liam's benefit, content that got people nostalgic for the

758
00:46:03,480 --> 00:46:06,800
Speaker 1: early Internet. This is the year that Liam appeared on

759
00:46:06,920 --> 00:46:10,839
Speaker 1: the then Fine Brothers channel in a video called YouTubers

760
00:46:10,920 --> 00:46:15,399
Speaker 1: React to Shoes viral video classic, in which either now

761
00:46:15,520 --> 00:46:19,520
Speaker 1: canceled or niche YouTubers of your most notably Shane Dawson,

762
00:46:20,000 --> 00:46:23,320
Speaker 1: watched and reflected on the influenced Shoes had had on

763
00:46:23,480 --> 00:46:28,120
Speaker 1: the platform. In Liam's standalone videos, we get a clearer

764
00:46:28,200 --> 00:46:31,719
Speaker 1: idea of who he is ten years later, and really

765
00:46:32,040 --> 00:46:36,279
Speaker 1: who he's always been. A very thoughtful, sweet person who

766
00:46:36,400 --> 00:46:39,520
Speaker 1: is surprised that his creation has had such an impact

767
00:46:39,600 --> 00:46:40,080
Speaker 1: on people.

768
00:46:40,680 --> 00:46:43,320
Speaker 5: When I was looking at all the stuff that YouTube provides,

769
00:46:43,440 --> 00:46:45,480
Speaker 5: like you can look at who's watching and when they

770
00:46:45,520 --> 00:46:50,000
Speaker 5: stop watching, and with that in my head, I became

771
00:46:50,160 --> 00:46:57,680
Speaker 5: like an executive, thinking business rather than creative. I could

772
00:46:57,719 --> 00:47:01,080
Speaker 5: never really get back to that kind of like, all right, guys,

773
00:47:01,120 --> 00:47:02,640
Speaker 5: we're gonna make a video and it's cool.

774
00:47:02,719 --> 00:47:03,239
Speaker 3: It was all.

775
00:47:03,760 --> 00:47:05,320
Speaker 2: It became much more of a business.

776
00:47:05,640 --> 00:47:07,919
Speaker 5: So the YouTubers of this episode talked about this video

777
00:47:07,960 --> 00:47:10,360
Speaker 5: as being one of the most important in YouTube history,

778
00:47:10,800 --> 00:47:14,160
Speaker 5: and some specifically even mentioned how you inspired.

779
00:47:13,760 --> 00:47:15,560
Speaker 3: Them to do what they do on YouTube.

780
00:47:15,640 --> 00:47:22,800
Speaker 5: I mean, that's incredible. Ah wow, that's amazing.

781
00:47:23,480 --> 00:47:27,239
Speaker 1: It's so lovely seeing how Liam takes this in. But

782
00:47:27,560 --> 00:47:31,839
Speaker 1: he had his own relationship with the Kelly character, as

783
00:47:31,880 --> 00:47:34,719
Speaker 1: well as the stress and burnout that can come with

784
00:47:34,880 --> 00:47:39,520
Speaker 1: internet churn and the pressure of trying to make something happen.

785
00:47:40,600 --> 00:47:43,759
Speaker 1: While he and Kelly had a solid legacy, it had

786
00:47:43,840 --> 00:47:46,800
Speaker 1: never quite turned into the multi million dollar career that

787
00:47:46,920 --> 00:47:49,920
Speaker 1: we see today with YouTubers who are working with far

788
00:47:50,120 --> 00:47:52,840
Speaker 1: less cultural cloud and it was up to him to

789
00:47:52,920 --> 00:47:57,400
Speaker 1: process that. So for the moment, the character stayed inactive.

790
00:47:58,000 --> 00:48:00,719
Speaker 1: Kelly didn't return to YouTube until all the way in

791
00:48:00,880 --> 00:48:04,520
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, when she came back for a Lockdown theme

792
00:48:05,000 --> 00:48:06,440
Speaker 1: mask endorsement.

793
00:48:06,760 --> 00:48:10,959
Speaker 5: Let's wear a mask. Let's wear a mask. Yeah, Let's

794
00:48:11,000 --> 00:48:13,760
Speaker 5: wear a mask. Let's swear a Mask.

795
00:48:14,600 --> 00:48:17,720
Speaker 1: But aside from his few other Lockdown era live streams,

796
00:48:18,080 --> 00:48:21,120
Speaker 1: Kelly didn't really come back in earnest Liam and his

797
00:48:21,320 --> 00:48:24,600
Speaker 1: wife Elana had a second kid and continued on their

798
00:48:24,640 --> 00:48:27,920
Speaker 1: respective career paths. Liam went on to work for BuzzFeed

799
00:48:28,040 --> 00:48:31,400
Speaker 1: Video and is currently an editor for The Try Guys

800
00:48:31,480 --> 00:48:35,920
Speaker 1: fun Fact, but things changed last summer and Liam couldn't

801
00:48:35,920 --> 00:48:39,920
Speaker 1: stay away from Kelly any longer. Last year, Liam was

802
00:48:40,000 --> 00:48:43,480
Speaker 1: contacted by a Pride event in LA asking him to

803
00:48:43,600 --> 00:48:48,160
Speaker 1: perform as Kelly. He hadn't performed as her on stage,

804
00:48:48,400 --> 00:48:51,360
Speaker 1: or really much on stage at all for nearly a

805
00:48:51,480 --> 00:48:55,839
Speaker 1: decade at that point, but the event pushed because they

806
00:48:55,960 --> 00:49:00,799
Speaker 1: explained Kelly was a queer icon. After the better part

807
00:49:00,880 --> 00:49:05,560
Speaker 1: of two decades creating, accidentally becoming famous from and not

808
00:49:05,719 --> 00:49:09,480
Speaker 1: quite making a career of Kelly. Because of timing, Liam

809
00:49:09,600 --> 00:49:13,440
Speaker 1: suddenly saw his creation in a new way, not as

810
00:49:13,600 --> 00:49:17,320
Speaker 1: a vehicle, but as someone who really meant something to people,

811
00:49:17,920 --> 00:49:22,160
Speaker 1: including him. My conversation with Liam Kyle Sullivan. When we

812
00:49:22,239 --> 00:49:41,239
Speaker 1: come back, welcome back to sixteenth minute. I'll be at

813
00:49:41,239 --> 00:49:44,120
Speaker 1: the Liam show this Thursday in Los Angeles, will you?

814
00:49:45,320 --> 00:49:48,279
Speaker 1: Two weekends ago, Liam generously agreed to meet up with

815
00:49:48,360 --> 00:49:51,640
Speaker 1: me at the Lyric Hyperion Theater in LA The place

816
00:49:51,640 --> 00:49:54,360
Speaker 1: where he's currently building out his solo show about his

817
00:49:54,560 --> 00:49:59,120
Speaker 1: history with Kelly Featuring Kelly, is also where I've built

818
00:49:59,120 --> 00:50:01,400
Speaker 1: out most of my own shows over the years, and

819
00:50:01,480 --> 00:50:05,200
Speaker 1: somewhere I think a lot of really special stuff happens. Anyways,

820
00:50:05,280 --> 00:50:07,359
Speaker 1: this is an interview that we did in the Lyric

821
00:50:07,440 --> 00:50:11,200
Speaker 1: Hyperian Cafe. Though it does sound like that, but honestly,

822
00:50:11,400 --> 00:50:13,799
Speaker 1: I kind of like it. We're in a place where

823
00:50:13,840 --> 00:50:17,319
Speaker 1: both comfortable in we're drinking coffee, we're shooting the shit,

824
00:50:17,480 --> 00:50:20,600
Speaker 1: and we're being from New England. So this was a

825
00:50:20,640 --> 00:50:23,879
Speaker 1: pretty lengthy conversation. So I'll share the first part here

826
00:50:24,280 --> 00:50:26,480
Speaker 1: and we're going to air the rest in a second

827
00:50:26,560 --> 00:50:31,120
Speaker 1: part this Thursday. So consider this your invitation to an

828
00:50:31,239 --> 00:50:36,160
Speaker 1: informal sixteenth minute hang with Liam and Jamie Go Bruins.

829
00:50:37,800 --> 00:50:42,120
Speaker 5: My name is Liam Kyle Sullivan, and I'm known for

830
00:50:42,480 --> 00:50:46,879
Speaker 5: the Shoes and Muffins videos on YouTube that I made

831
00:50:47,320 --> 00:50:48,480
Speaker 5: almost twenty years ago.

832
00:50:49,680 --> 00:50:52,279
Speaker 1: That's that feels crazy for me. I can't imagine how.

833
00:50:54,000 --> 00:50:57,319
Speaker 5: Sometimes it's like it was yesterday and other times like yeah,

834
00:50:57,400 --> 00:50:58,239
Speaker 5: that feels about right.

835
00:50:58,480 --> 00:51:01,960
Speaker 1: Twenty years at the Lyric, which is where you're workshopping

836
00:51:02,080 --> 00:51:04,600
Speaker 1: your show, is this the first time you're talking extensively

837
00:51:04,760 --> 00:51:07,600
Speaker 1: about your life and like about Liam on stage and

838
00:51:07,680 --> 00:51:08,640
Speaker 1: like your connection to Kelly.

839
00:51:08,920 --> 00:51:09,120
Speaker 8: Yeah?

840
00:51:09,440 --> 00:51:12,759
Speaker 5: Well yeah, I think it was because last year you

841
00:51:13,000 --> 00:51:17,520
Speaker 5: got an invite to perform Kelly at a club downtown.

842
00:51:17,880 --> 00:51:21,040
Speaker 5: It was a show called What's My Age Again? Oh okay,

843
00:51:21,120 --> 00:51:23,759
Speaker 5: it's a nostalgia show. Nice at precinct.

844
00:51:24,000 --> 00:51:25,080
Speaker 2: I talk about it in the show.

845
00:51:25,200 --> 00:51:27,640
Speaker 5: I at first, I said, in my head, I said

846
00:51:27,760 --> 00:51:31,960
Speaker 5: no because I kind of, you know, closed that chapter

847
00:51:32,239 --> 00:51:34,600
Speaker 5: at least in my mind. I'd made one video during

848
00:51:34,719 --> 00:51:40,680
Speaker 5: the pandemic about masks, but I hadn't performed live as

849
00:51:40,840 --> 00:51:43,080
Speaker 5: Kelly in easily ten years.

850
00:51:43,120 --> 00:51:46,320
Speaker 1: I think was there like a specific decision made to

851
00:51:46,400 --> 00:51:48,240
Speaker 1: be like I'm done or it just sort of happened.

852
00:51:48,280 --> 00:51:49,400
Speaker 2: No, it just sort of happened.

853
00:51:49,520 --> 00:51:49,719
Speaker 1: Yeah.

854
00:51:50,160 --> 00:51:53,040
Speaker 5: I was hot for I don't know two three years,

855
00:51:53,360 --> 00:51:55,520
Speaker 5: and then by year five, I was like, oh, really

856
00:51:55,600 --> 00:51:59,319
Speaker 5: cooled off. And I wasn't able to parlay it Hi

857
00:51:59,400 --> 00:52:05,600
Speaker 5: Jake I into more, you know, traditional television or film success,

858
00:52:05,880 --> 00:52:08,680
Speaker 5: and I just couldn't keep up with how the landscape

859
00:52:08,719 --> 00:52:11,279
Speaker 5: had changed. She had to post so much, and I

860
00:52:11,400 --> 00:52:13,840
Speaker 5: was still kind of operating on the release of a

861
00:52:14,000 --> 00:52:17,040
Speaker 5: music video every six months or something like that. Right,

862
00:52:17,239 --> 00:52:19,279
Speaker 5: I was still in that mind frame, so I just

863
00:52:19,360 --> 00:52:22,440
Speaker 5: kind of stopped. And then when I got that email,

864
00:52:22,760 --> 00:52:25,759
Speaker 5: I was like, Wow, this is something I never thought

865
00:52:25,920 --> 00:52:26,720
Speaker 5: I would do again.

866
00:52:27,040 --> 00:52:28,400
Speaker 2: I ended up doing it.

867
00:52:29,239 --> 00:52:30,000
Speaker 1: How did it feel?

868
00:52:30,600 --> 00:52:33,759
Speaker 2: It felt amazing? It felt really good good.

869
00:52:34,200 --> 00:52:37,160
Speaker 5: There were so many people who I met who were

870
00:52:37,760 --> 00:52:41,239
Speaker 5: just really happy to meet me. And I was under

871
00:52:41,280 --> 00:52:44,279
Speaker 5: the impression that, you know, I was kind of like

872
00:52:44,520 --> 00:52:48,960
Speaker 5: old news, but people told me, no, I saw you

873
00:52:49,000 --> 00:52:52,840
Speaker 5: when I was like thirteen. It just inspired me, you know,

874
00:52:53,200 --> 00:52:56,400
Speaker 5: I thought maybe I could be a YouTuber or I

875
00:52:56,520 --> 00:52:57,240
Speaker 5: can do drag.

876
00:52:57,600 --> 00:53:00,560
Speaker 2: Even somebody told me it helped them to like out.

877
00:53:01,040 --> 00:53:04,640
Speaker 1: That's amazing, it's amazing, right, And I just felt so good.

878
00:53:04,680 --> 00:53:09,040
Speaker 5: About that, and I realized that I hadn't really engaged

879
00:53:09,480 --> 00:53:14,840
Speaker 5: with that audience because I was thirty two when I

880
00:53:14,880 --> 00:53:20,640
Speaker 5: made the video. Talking to kids online seemed inappropriate at

881
00:53:20,680 --> 00:53:20,960
Speaker 5: the time.

882
00:53:21,280 --> 00:53:25,520
Speaker 1: A lot of YouTubers don't seem to realize, well, yeah, but.

883
00:53:25,800 --> 00:53:27,919
Speaker 2: I think maybe times have changed a little.

884
00:53:27,920 --> 00:53:29,839
Speaker 5: I don't know, but at the time, it was new,

885
00:53:30,160 --> 00:53:32,920
Speaker 5: and so it just it seemed like, no, I'm not

886
00:53:33,000 --> 00:53:35,920
Speaker 5: going to engage with a thirteen year old online or

887
00:53:36,000 --> 00:53:37,279
Speaker 5: I didn't know how old people were.

888
00:53:37,480 --> 00:53:41,000
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'm so glad you had that experience at presume,

889
00:53:41,040 --> 00:53:43,520
Speaker 1: because it does feel like with the Internet, there like

890
00:53:43,600 --> 00:53:47,720
Speaker 1: there is like a different kind of attachment. It feels

891
00:53:47,800 --> 00:53:50,360
Speaker 1: weirdly closer. And I don't know why that is, but

892
00:53:50,440 --> 00:53:52,279
Speaker 1: I think, especially in the early days of.

893
00:53:52,320 --> 00:53:55,719
Speaker 5: YouTube, I think also there was no algorithm controlling what

894
00:53:55,840 --> 00:53:59,040
Speaker 5: you saw, right, so it felt more like I found this.

895
00:53:59,600 --> 00:54:02,080
Speaker 5: It was more like the music business used to be,

896
00:54:02,160 --> 00:54:05,400
Speaker 5: where you go and find records or find bands on

897
00:54:05,520 --> 00:54:07,719
Speaker 5: your own, and they felt so personal to you.

898
00:54:08,080 --> 00:54:08,319
Speaker 1: Yeah.

899
00:54:09,040 --> 00:54:11,960
Speaker 5: I think maybe that's part of it, because it was

900
00:54:12,120 --> 00:54:15,600
Speaker 5: new and corporations hadn't found it yet.

901
00:54:15,760 --> 00:54:17,920
Speaker 1: When I look back in YouTube history and it's like,

902
00:54:18,000 --> 00:54:20,040
Speaker 1: oh yeah, if you were on the for you page

903
00:54:20,239 --> 00:54:23,960
Speaker 1: anytime before twenty thirteen, it was because a person saw

904
00:54:24,080 --> 00:54:26,759
Speaker 1: your video and was like, this is amazing, and it

905
00:54:26,920 --> 00:54:29,479
Speaker 1: just feels like, you know, when a person sees your video,

906
00:54:29,560 --> 00:54:32,799
Speaker 1: there is no agenda other than this video is really good.

907
00:54:33,600 --> 00:54:37,400
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it felt a little like a meritocracy.

908
00:54:38,440 --> 00:54:40,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, what happened to that?

909
00:54:40,440 --> 00:54:41,480
Speaker 2: What happened.

910
00:54:43,440 --> 00:54:46,399
Speaker 1: Anyways? Precinct? Yeah, everythinct.

911
00:54:46,680 --> 00:54:49,640
Speaker 2: So that experience was so inspiring to me.

912
00:54:50,600 --> 00:54:53,080
Speaker 5: Then I thought, why don't I do a show like

913
00:54:53,200 --> 00:54:55,080
Speaker 5: go back to because I used to do live shows

914
00:54:55,080 --> 00:54:57,680
Speaker 5: all the time, right, I called them a Liam's show,

915
00:54:57,719 --> 00:55:00,399
Speaker 5: and I do sketches, I do short videos. That's where

916
00:55:00,440 --> 00:55:03,439
Speaker 5: I first started making videos was for my live show.

917
00:55:04,040 --> 00:55:07,960
Speaker 5: It wasn't for YouTube, and so because YouTube didn't exist.

918
00:55:08,440 --> 00:55:11,440
Speaker 5: But I thought, oh, let me try this again. And

919
00:55:11,880 --> 00:55:16,520
Speaker 5: this time instead of doing a bunch of characters and

920
00:55:17,000 --> 00:55:23,080
Speaker 5: like stand up stuff, I could do like like tell

921
00:55:23,160 --> 00:55:29,080
Speaker 5: my story. And it was challenging.

922
00:55:28,920 --> 00:55:33,160
Speaker 2: Because I talk about this in the show too.

923
00:55:33,560 --> 00:55:37,200
Speaker 5: When people know the Kelly character and shoes and then

924
00:55:37,200 --> 00:55:43,200
Speaker 5: they meet me, they're kind of like, huh, you're not slay.

925
00:55:43,840 --> 00:55:48,440
Speaker 5: You know, you're not fabulous or sassy and I'm like, no,

926
00:55:48,719 --> 00:55:50,920
Speaker 5: I'm not, but it's in there. So I don't know

927
00:55:50,920 --> 00:55:53,719
Speaker 5: if you ever saw a Team Wolf with Michael J.

928
00:55:53,880 --> 00:55:56,319
Speaker 5: Fox where he turns into a wolf and he's an

929
00:55:56,320 --> 00:55:59,239
Speaker 5: amazing basketball player, but when he's a human, you know,

930
00:55:59,320 --> 00:56:03,080
Speaker 5: he's just okay. Yeah, I'm kind of in that zone now.

931
00:56:03,120 --> 00:56:05,440
Speaker 5: I'm like, no, I want to play the game as

932
00:56:05,480 --> 00:56:06,279
Speaker 5: a human.

933
00:56:07,520 --> 00:56:10,760
Speaker 1: As myself, and then Kelly's your enterteen Wolf.

934
00:56:11,960 --> 00:56:13,160
Speaker 2: Kelly's my enterteen Wolf.

935
00:56:13,239 --> 00:56:13,439
Speaker 10: Yeah.

936
00:56:13,600 --> 00:56:16,520
Speaker 1: Now is it like about that period of your life?

937
00:56:16,600 --> 00:56:17,640
Speaker 1: Is it about your whole life?

938
00:56:18,680 --> 00:56:20,920
Speaker 2: I mean there's whole life stuff sprinkled in.

939
00:56:21,239 --> 00:56:24,200
Speaker 5: Like I talk about my mother and my father, my sister,

940
00:56:24,719 --> 00:56:29,239
Speaker 5: my friends, people who inspired me, some celebrities that I met,

941
00:56:29,560 --> 00:56:32,640
Speaker 5: the experience in the industry, and how unique it was

942
00:56:32,800 --> 00:56:35,560
Speaker 5: at that particular time. I talk a lot about that

943
00:56:35,840 --> 00:56:40,319
Speaker 5: and where I'm at now and how that experience last

944
00:56:40,400 --> 00:56:45,280
Speaker 5: year at Precinct was kind of a springboard for other gigs,

945
00:56:45,440 --> 00:56:48,200
Speaker 5: Like I'm glad that I can still do it. I

946
00:56:48,320 --> 00:56:54,160
Speaker 5: remember being scared to get on stage again with a microphone,

947
00:56:54,560 --> 00:56:57,880
Speaker 5: and you know, the music and the crowd is all

948
00:56:58,040 --> 00:57:01,440
Speaker 5: like pomped up, and I got there and I forgot

949
00:57:01,520 --> 00:57:03,800
Speaker 5: how to work a microphone, Like there was a little

950
00:57:03,840 --> 00:57:06,040
Speaker 5: on button and I completely forgot to turn it on

951
00:57:06,120 --> 00:57:07,040
Speaker 5: and I just started.

952
00:57:06,800 --> 00:57:07,719
Speaker 1: Talking that long.

953
00:57:07,800 --> 00:57:08,479
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah.

954
00:57:09,280 --> 00:57:10,879
Speaker 2: So then I was like, oh yeah, oh yeah, turn

955
00:57:10,920 --> 00:57:12,880
Speaker 2: it on. And people thought it was a bit like

956
00:57:13,000 --> 00:57:16,120
Speaker 2: that I was being funny, so I played it off

957
00:57:16,160 --> 00:57:18,040
Speaker 2: that way. The crowd was so warm.

958
00:57:18,760 --> 00:57:21,320
Speaker 5: They just bullied me, you know, they kept me up

959
00:57:21,520 --> 00:57:24,200
Speaker 5: and loving and like I could have fallen on my

960
00:57:24,280 --> 00:57:25,200
Speaker 5: face and they would have been.

961
00:57:25,160 --> 00:57:27,280
Speaker 2: Like, great, okay, it good to see you man.

962
00:57:27,600 --> 00:57:27,760
Speaker 4: You know.

963
00:57:27,960 --> 00:57:31,960
Speaker 5: Hearing people's stories was just like, oh my god, I

964
00:57:32,040 --> 00:57:34,640
Speaker 5: got to keep doing this, you know. And so I

965
00:57:35,360 --> 00:57:37,400
Speaker 5: went up to San Francisco. I booked a gig at

966
00:57:37,520 --> 00:57:40,880
Speaker 5: San Francisco Pride, which was amazing. People would tell me,

967
00:57:41,600 --> 00:57:42,440
Speaker 5: I hope you're getting your.

968
00:57:42,400 --> 00:57:45,880
Speaker 2: Flowers, you know, yeah, and it felt so good. I

969
00:57:45,960 --> 00:57:50,120
Speaker 2: was like, wow, okay, yeah, I'll take some flowers, thank you.

970
00:57:50,720 --> 00:57:53,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've earned them, and like finding them sort of

971
00:57:53,120 --> 00:57:54,880
Speaker 1: this new joy in it. That's amazing.

972
00:57:55,040 --> 00:57:56,360
Speaker 2: It's a total new joy.

973
00:57:56,680 --> 00:57:59,480
Speaker 5: Yeah, because for a while I felt really trapped by

974
00:57:59,560 --> 00:58:04,080
Speaker 5: it because when you're famous for something. Was it Taylor

975
00:58:04,160 --> 00:58:06,520
Speaker 5: Swift who said you'd kind of get frozen in that time,

976
00:58:06,760 --> 00:58:09,920
Speaker 5: like I couldn't seem to break out of it, right

977
00:58:09,960 --> 00:58:13,840
Speaker 5: I had, I had to keep doing it, and I

978
00:58:13,920 --> 00:58:16,200
Speaker 5: think it kind of made me feel like a robot,

979
00:58:16,680 --> 00:58:20,840
Speaker 5: like do the song and then go home, or do

980
00:58:21,280 --> 00:58:23,440
Speaker 5: you know, do something, Kelly, that's it.

981
00:58:23,840 --> 00:58:27,880
Speaker 2: And so I felt I'm not growing at all. I

982
00:58:28,000 --> 00:58:30,680
Speaker 2: feel a little like a little hackish, you know.

983
00:58:31,440 --> 00:58:48,120
Speaker 1: More with Liam Kyle Sullivan when we're back, Welcome back

984
00:58:48,120 --> 00:58:51,080
Speaker 1: to sixteenth minute. Here's more of my interview with Liam

985
00:58:51,200 --> 00:58:54,640
Speaker 1: Kyle Sullivan. I want to go back a little bit

986
00:58:54,720 --> 00:58:59,880
Speaker 1: to that first moment, so Kelly came out of your

987
00:59:00,280 --> 00:59:01,400
Speaker 1: live shows or.

988
00:59:01,960 --> 00:59:05,640
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was doing sketch comedy in the late nineties

989
00:59:05,640 --> 00:59:09,000
Speaker 5: early two thousands here in La I was with a

990
00:59:09,040 --> 00:59:13,440
Speaker 5: sketch group called Another Showcase Showdown with the Acne Comedy Theater.

991
00:59:13,760 --> 00:59:16,840
Speaker 5: I think sketch really helped me as a performer, because

992
00:59:17,240 --> 00:59:20,240
Speaker 5: before that I was doing like straight theater like I

993
00:59:20,280 --> 00:59:21,800
Speaker 5: would do in Boston.

994
00:59:22,600 --> 00:59:26,000
Speaker 1: Nicey, oh, I've got questions about Yeah, I've got questions

995
00:59:26,040 --> 00:59:27,919
Speaker 1: about mass jests. I've noticed her.

996
00:59:27,840 --> 00:59:29,560
Speaker 2: Hat oh yeah yeah, Fenway.

997
00:59:29,640 --> 00:59:29,840
Speaker 1: Yeah.

998
00:59:30,400 --> 00:59:33,600
Speaker 5: I would do plays and I did you know Shakespeare

999
00:59:33,720 --> 00:59:37,040
Speaker 5: and Bricked and Noel Coward and because that's what theaters

1000
00:59:37,080 --> 00:59:41,560
Speaker 5: were doing, and so that's where I auditioned, and luckily

1001
00:59:41,880 --> 00:59:45,520
Speaker 5: I got cast. But when I moved out here, I

1002
00:59:45,640 --> 00:59:47,760
Speaker 5: was like, okay, let me keep doing theater and that's

1003
00:59:47,760 --> 00:59:50,800
Speaker 5: what I knew, and I did some plays, but you know,

1004
00:59:50,880 --> 00:59:52,640
Speaker 5: I was like, well, I have to get into TV.

1005
00:59:52,800 --> 00:59:54,400
Speaker 5: I didn't move out here to just do theater.

1006
00:59:54,560 --> 00:59:54,720
Speaker 4: You know.

1007
00:59:54,840 --> 00:59:57,600
Speaker 2: I was doing showcases and stuff like that, and I

1008
00:59:57,760 --> 01:00:00,040
Speaker 2: was doing a play. I was doing The Missing.

1009
01:00:01,600 --> 01:00:04,600
Speaker 5: By Moliere and a friend of mine said, you know,

1010
01:00:04,800 --> 01:00:07,520
Speaker 5: you should look into sketch comedy because you're you're kind

1011
01:00:07,520 --> 01:00:09,480
Speaker 5: of out there like your characters.

1012
01:00:09,920 --> 01:00:12,080
Speaker 2: When you do something, you go balls to the wall.

1013
01:00:12,160 --> 01:00:13,680
Speaker 5: And I was like, yeah, that's how you're supposed to

1014
01:00:13,680 --> 01:00:16,520
Speaker 5: do it, right, And she's like, but I think I

1015
01:00:16,600 --> 01:00:18,440
Speaker 5: think sketch would really suit you.

1016
01:00:18,760 --> 01:00:19,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like okay.

1017
01:00:20,040 --> 01:00:22,200
Speaker 5: So that's when I found sketch and I was like, oh,

1018
01:00:22,840 --> 01:00:27,479
Speaker 5: improv sketch, you know, stand up. All that came later

1019
01:00:27,880 --> 01:00:30,320
Speaker 5: and I was like, oh, okay, this is really fun.

1020
01:00:30,320 --> 01:00:31,960
Speaker 5: I can write my own stuff. I didn't know I

1021
01:00:32,000 --> 01:00:32,480
Speaker 5: could do that.

1022
01:00:32,720 --> 01:00:34,400
Speaker 1: Well, it's like and you had the hardest part out

1023
01:00:34,400 --> 01:00:37,120
Speaker 1: of the way, where you already knew how to perform.

1024
01:00:37,000 --> 01:00:40,600
Speaker 5: And later when I found sketch, I branch out into

1025
01:00:40,680 --> 01:00:44,680
Speaker 5: playing women because I have, you know, kind of an

1026
01:00:44,720 --> 01:00:50,240
Speaker 5: effeminate I'm an effeminate heterosexual. I'll just say it, And

1027
01:00:50,400 --> 01:00:53,240
Speaker 5: so I leaned into that and I've I've found much

1028
01:00:53,360 --> 01:00:58,840
Speaker 5: more power in that and artistic freedom than trying to

1029
01:00:58,880 --> 01:01:01,760
Speaker 5: butcher up and parts that I would never get cast at.

1030
01:01:02,320 --> 01:01:04,080
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not going to play at Jock.

1031
01:01:04,560 --> 01:01:08,160
Speaker 1: Were you a comedy fan as a kid? Did you

1032
01:01:08,240 --> 01:01:09,320
Speaker 1: have like favorites as a kid.

1033
01:01:10,000 --> 01:01:12,520
Speaker 5: Yeah, I loved comedy. My sister and I used to

1034
01:01:12,560 --> 01:01:15,880
Speaker 5: wake up early to watch The Three Stooges because they

1035
01:01:15,920 --> 01:01:18,720
Speaker 5: came on at like six in the morning on Saturday mornings,

1036
01:01:18,880 --> 01:01:21,880
Speaker 5: I guess later SNL. We were one of the first

1037
01:01:22,520 --> 01:01:27,280
Speaker 5: families that I knew to get a VCR. My father

1038
01:01:27,480 --> 01:01:31,360
Speaker 5: was a he worked at Channel five WCVB.

1039
01:01:31,880 --> 01:01:32,600
Speaker 3: Oh.

1040
01:01:32,680 --> 01:01:34,880
Speaker 5: Yeah, he did editing and stuff, and he knew all

1041
01:01:34,920 --> 01:01:37,520
Speaker 5: that technology really well. He had to convince me to

1042
01:01:37,520 --> 01:01:39,880
Speaker 5: buy a computer really yeah.

1043
01:01:39,960 --> 01:01:40,160
Speaker 4: Wow.

1044
01:01:40,440 --> 01:01:44,000
Speaker 5: Back when I was like, you know, late twenties or whatever, Like,

1045
01:01:44,080 --> 01:01:47,880
Speaker 5: I didn't have email for a long time. Kids in

1046
01:01:47,960 --> 01:01:50,200
Speaker 5: the hall too, when I was a teenager. I loved

1047
01:01:50,280 --> 01:01:51,120
Speaker 5: kids in the hall.

1048
01:01:51,520 --> 01:01:54,600
Speaker 1: A very drag heavy sketch group, I mean a lot

1049
01:01:54,640 --> 01:01:55,480
Speaker 1: of yeah.

1050
01:01:55,480 --> 01:01:58,320
Speaker 5: Yeah, and they did it like it was not like

1051
01:01:58,400 --> 01:02:03,320
Speaker 5: they were playing a woman, yes, doing a glamorous thing.

1052
01:02:03,720 --> 01:02:06,560
Speaker 5: And that's how that informed me too. I got to

1053
01:02:06,680 --> 01:02:11,720
Speaker 5: meet Bruce McCullough, amazing, I'm going viral, and it was

1054
01:02:11,840 --> 01:02:15,280
Speaker 5: so cool to sit down with him and have a

1055
01:02:15,360 --> 01:02:17,960
Speaker 5: conversation like we were peers, Like he treated me like

1056
01:02:18,040 --> 01:02:21,000
Speaker 5: a peer, he called me brother. It was so great

1057
01:02:21,080 --> 01:02:24,280
Speaker 5: and nothing came of it, but there's just that one

1058
01:02:24,920 --> 01:02:27,920
Speaker 5: meeting was so you know how they say never meet

1059
01:02:27,920 --> 01:02:29,520
Speaker 5: your heroes, not always.

1060
01:02:29,720 --> 01:02:31,080
Speaker 2: He was wonderful, you.

1061
01:02:31,120 --> 01:02:33,320
Speaker 1: Know, Montifaison. It's like they do a lot of drag,

1062
01:02:33,400 --> 01:02:35,240
Speaker 1: but they're sort of making fun of women in the

1063
01:02:35,280 --> 01:02:37,320
Speaker 1: way that they do drag. Yeah, but the kids in

1064
01:02:37,360 --> 01:02:39,760
Speaker 1: the hall never were, and Kelly never.

1065
01:02:39,840 --> 01:02:41,960
Speaker 2: Was, Like it was just like this is just this

1066
01:02:42,160 --> 01:02:44,440
Speaker 2: is the character, and yeah, this is a real person.

1067
01:02:44,640 --> 01:02:44,880
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1068
01:02:45,160 --> 01:02:49,120
Speaker 5: I wanted so badly to make her look and act

1069
01:02:49,280 --> 01:02:51,920
Speaker 5: like a real person. I mean she's a little exaggerated,

1070
01:02:51,960 --> 01:02:58,200
Speaker 5: but just the look especially, and I remember getting comments.

1071
01:02:57,800 --> 01:02:59,520
Speaker 2: Like are you a boy or a girl? And I

1072
01:02:59,600 --> 01:03:02,400
Speaker 2: was like, yeah, yes, yeah.

1073
01:03:02,280 --> 01:03:04,840
Speaker 5: Because I wanted people to kind of not see it

1074
01:03:04,960 --> 01:03:08,800
Speaker 5: as like, oh, here's some guy thinking he's making fun

1075
01:03:08,880 --> 01:03:10,000
Speaker 5: of women or something like that.

1076
01:03:10,520 --> 01:03:13,400
Speaker 2: That's not what I wanted and I never felt that way.

1077
01:03:13,440 --> 01:03:16,960
Speaker 1: Did you originally make these videos to be posted? Did

1078
01:03:17,000 --> 01:03:18,880
Speaker 1: you make them to be shown live?

1079
01:03:19,040 --> 01:03:19,080
Speaker 5: Like?

1080
01:03:19,120 --> 01:03:19,520
Speaker 1: How did that?

1081
01:03:19,720 --> 01:03:19,760
Speaker 5: Like?

1082
01:03:19,840 --> 01:03:22,240
Speaker 1: What made you decide to add in video elements?

1083
01:03:22,360 --> 01:03:25,880
Speaker 2: Well, I had been making short videos for my live show.

1084
01:03:25,960 --> 01:03:28,720
Speaker 5: So I would do like a character on stage with

1085
01:03:28,840 --> 01:03:32,680
Speaker 5: a monologue or a song, and then I'd show a

1086
01:03:32,800 --> 01:03:35,360
Speaker 5: video and go backstage and change as a new character

1087
01:03:35,440 --> 01:03:36,160
Speaker 5: and come back out.

1088
01:03:36,560 --> 01:03:37,400
Speaker 2: I had about an hour.

1089
01:03:37,560 --> 01:03:40,840
Speaker 5: Another aspect was, well, what about a film festival like

1090
01:03:41,000 --> 01:03:45,720
Speaker 5: slam Dance and so shoes did not get accepted.

1091
01:03:45,840 --> 01:03:51,080
Speaker 1: But wow, egg on their fucking face, right, No, no.

1092
01:03:52,120 --> 01:03:54,000
Speaker 2: And then I had a website.

1093
01:03:55,120 --> 01:03:58,840
Speaker 5: And I'd seen what Lonely Island had done, right, and

1094
01:03:58,960 --> 01:04:01,080
Speaker 5: I was like, oh, okay, so you make a website

1095
01:04:01,120 --> 01:04:03,440
Speaker 5: and you put videos up and then you invite industry

1096
01:04:03,560 --> 01:04:07,400
Speaker 5: to that somehow like was it was not a fully

1097
01:04:07,480 --> 01:04:08,880
Speaker 5: formed plan at all, right, but.

1098
01:04:08,960 --> 01:04:10,920
Speaker 1: Just kind of like an online portfolio kind of thing.

1099
01:04:11,120 --> 01:04:14,400
Speaker 5: Yeah, But it was also like, I want to create

1100
01:04:14,520 --> 01:04:22,080
Speaker 5: my own work, because that is a satisfying can be

1101
01:04:22,160 --> 01:04:26,000
Speaker 5: really fun. See it gets you working, even though you're

1102
01:04:26,040 --> 01:04:30,600
Speaker 5: not getting paid, you're working. So when you're working, you

1103
01:04:30,760 --> 01:04:34,200
Speaker 5: have a vibe right when you walk into someplace like

1104
01:04:34,280 --> 01:04:37,720
Speaker 5: an audition, that says, hey, I've got shit going on.

1105
01:04:38,160 --> 01:04:39,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, like this isn't my whole day.

1106
01:04:40,240 --> 01:04:43,800
Speaker 1: The video is taken from your website and uploaded to YouTube,

1107
01:04:44,120 --> 01:04:46,040
Speaker 1: not by you originally.

1108
01:04:45,920 --> 01:04:48,080
Speaker 2: Originally yeah wow. So how long did it.

1109
01:04:48,160 --> 01:04:51,200
Speaker 1: Take you to find out it was a there and

1110
01:04:51,480 --> 01:04:52,680
Speaker 1: be very popular?

1111
01:04:52,840 --> 01:04:54,360
Speaker 2: It took a month or so.

1112
01:04:54,600 --> 01:04:57,880
Speaker 5: Because now things go viral and they're kind of over

1113
01:04:58,240 --> 01:05:00,560
Speaker 5: like it takes maybe a day or a week or

1114
01:05:00,800 --> 01:05:02,040
Speaker 5: you know, very short time.

1115
01:05:03,000 --> 01:05:05,880
Speaker 2: But back then it was still.

1116
01:05:05,880 --> 01:05:10,400
Speaker 5: So new, like viral video didn't exist really, so it

1117
01:05:10,480 --> 01:05:13,200
Speaker 5: took people time to find things. You know. I think

1118
01:05:13,240 --> 01:05:16,080
Speaker 5: you had to like send a link via email. I

1119
01:05:16,240 --> 01:05:20,480
Speaker 5: heard about it word of mouth, wild Yeah, someone just

1120
01:05:20,600 --> 01:05:23,920
Speaker 5: told me in person, said do you know about this YouTube?

1121
01:05:23,960 --> 01:05:24,520
Speaker 2: You're on there?

1122
01:05:25,480 --> 01:05:27,960
Speaker 5: And so I made a channel I put my video up.

1123
01:05:28,360 --> 01:05:32,560
Speaker 5: So there were so many iterations, so the word of

1124
01:05:32,680 --> 01:05:36,160
Speaker 5: it out there. And Muffins too, I remember very specifically

1125
01:05:36,480 --> 01:05:39,440
Speaker 5: the one there was an upload of muffins that had

1126
01:05:39,560 --> 01:05:44,080
Speaker 5: thirty million views, and it was some other person who

1127
01:05:44,200 --> 01:05:44,400
Speaker 5: did it?

1128
01:05:45,000 --> 01:05:45,400
Speaker 1: Crazy?

1129
01:05:45,680 --> 01:05:46,320
Speaker 2: Isn't that crazy?

1130
01:05:46,680 --> 01:05:49,120
Speaker 1: What was your relationship with the internet?

1131
01:05:49,360 --> 01:05:53,040
Speaker 2: Like before all of this, I had no relationship whatsoever.

1132
01:05:54,080 --> 01:05:56,840
Speaker 5: So this like forces you to change that, right, Like

1133
01:05:57,080 --> 01:06:01,720
Speaker 5: oh yeah, I had to adapt myself. Yeah, even email

1134
01:06:02,400 --> 01:06:04,520
Speaker 5: you didn't want to days to get to back justice people.

1135
01:06:04,600 --> 01:06:06,400
Speaker 5: They'd be like, I just emailed just I'm like, I

1136
01:06:06,520 --> 01:06:10,560
Speaker 5: don't come on guys, because when you know, things started

1137
01:06:10,600 --> 01:06:13,800
Speaker 5: heating up for me. I kind of had to in

1138
01:06:13,880 --> 01:06:16,880
Speaker 5: those meetings that I got, kind of explain a little bit,

1139
01:06:17,480 --> 01:06:19,560
Speaker 5: like how I got to where I was, how I

1140
01:06:19,640 --> 01:06:20,600
Speaker 5: made it to this meeting.

1141
01:06:20,960 --> 01:06:24,080
Speaker 1: You've got eyes on you, but they're not on your account,

1142
01:06:24,240 --> 01:06:26,880
Speaker 1: Like what? Yeah? What was what did you first do?

1143
01:06:27,600 --> 01:06:33,680
Speaker 5: I mean my first reaction was excitement, Yeah, because I

1144
01:06:33,840 --> 01:06:36,840
Speaker 5: felt like this was a great thing.

1145
01:06:37,040 --> 01:06:40,880
Speaker 2: This was a showcase for me. People were seeing me.

1146
01:06:42,040 --> 01:06:46,720
Speaker 5: I was getting attention and maybe they would find their

1147
01:06:46,760 --> 01:06:48,960
Speaker 5: way back to my site and know who I was

1148
01:06:49,320 --> 01:06:55,160
Speaker 5: or I I loved it. I loved seeing that people

1149
01:06:55,360 --> 01:06:57,920
Speaker 5: liked my work. The fact that it was other people

1150
01:06:58,080 --> 01:07:01,840
Speaker 5: uploading it didn't even read as like oh hey wait.

1151
01:07:01,960 --> 01:07:03,920
Speaker 1: Right, because I wouldn't have been weird done Really, it

1152
01:07:04,040 --> 01:07:04,320
Speaker 1: wasn't it?

1153
01:07:04,440 --> 01:07:05,120
Speaker 2: Was the Revshare.

1154
01:07:05,360 --> 01:07:08,080
Speaker 5: It was like this underground thing, yeah, that the grown

1155
01:07:08,120 --> 01:07:10,439
Speaker 5: ups didn't know about yet, and it was really fun

1156
01:07:10,480 --> 01:07:10,880
Speaker 5: and cool.

1157
01:07:11,480 --> 01:07:15,720
Speaker 2: That's awesome. Yeah, I loved it. And only later when

1158
01:07:15,880 --> 01:07:22,400
Speaker 2: revshare became a thing did I realize what I'd missed out,

1159
01:07:22,800 --> 01:07:23,400
Speaker 2: Like if I'd.

1160
01:07:23,280 --> 01:07:25,960
Speaker 1: Waited a year or two, It's like, how could you

1161
01:07:26,040 --> 01:07:26,280
Speaker 1: have known?

1162
01:07:26,360 --> 01:07:28,360
Speaker 5: But how could I? Yeah, no one could predict the future,

1163
01:07:28,520 --> 01:07:31,200
Speaker 5: and I've stopped beating myself up about that. I talk

1164
01:07:31,240 --> 01:07:33,600
Speaker 5: about that in the show too, how I needed therapy.

1165
01:07:35,680 --> 01:07:38,280
Speaker 1: Thank you so much again to Liam. And if you're

1166
01:07:38,360 --> 01:07:40,960
Speaker 1: listening to this and are in the LA area the

1167
01:07:41,080 --> 01:07:44,080
Speaker 1: week this episode comes out, I will see you at

1168
01:07:44,120 --> 01:07:48,000
Speaker 1: the show on February twenty seventh. I am so excited.

1169
01:07:48,360 --> 01:07:50,640
Speaker 1: And Part two of this interview will be released on

1170
01:07:50,880 --> 01:07:55,040
Speaker 1: February twenty seventh, this Thursday, and you're gonna want to

1171
01:07:55,080 --> 01:07:57,360
Speaker 1: tune back in to hear how Liam and his wife

1172
01:07:57,400 --> 01:08:01,520
Speaker 1: Alana met. It's truly amazing. There's so much more I

1173
01:08:01,560 --> 01:08:04,760
Speaker 1: could say about Liam's work, about its effect on YouTube,

1174
01:08:05,040 --> 01:08:08,960
Speaker 1: about its effect on drag, about its very personal legacy

1175
01:08:09,240 --> 01:08:11,560
Speaker 1: for a lot of kids who are now adults, and

1176
01:08:11,720 --> 01:08:15,600
Speaker 1: remember Kelly as this cool punk rock, Fuck you Mom

1177
01:08:15,800 --> 01:08:20,320
Speaker 1: channel of early Internet anger. But honestly, I'm just so

1178
01:08:20,600 --> 01:08:24,920
Speaker 1: personally very inspired by Liam, not just by his creativity,

1179
01:08:25,360 --> 01:08:28,879
Speaker 1: but by his willingness to connect with his creation's legacy.

1180
01:08:29,439 --> 01:08:32,600
Speaker 1: And there's a lot more to come. See you Thursday.

1181
01:08:37,000 --> 01:08:39,640
Speaker 1: Sixteenth Minute is a production of fool Zone Media and

1182
01:08:39,760 --> 01:08:43,400
Speaker 1: iHeart Rodops. It is written, hosted, and produced by me

1183
01:08:43,640 --> 01:08:47,639
Speaker 1: Jamie Rostis. Our executive producers are Sophie Lichterman and Robert Evans.

1184
01:08:47,920 --> 01:08:52,000
Speaker 1: The amazing Ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor.

1185
01:08:52,600 --> 01:08:56,400
Speaker 1: Our theme song is by Sad thirteen. Voice acting is

1186
01:08:56,439 --> 01:08:59,439
Speaker 1: from Grant Crater and Pet. Shout outs to our dog

1187
01:08:59,520 --> 01:09:02,800
Speaker 1: producer Anderson, my cat's fleeing Casper, and my pet rock

1188
01:09:02,840 --> 01:09:08,680
Speaker 1: Bird who will outlive us all. Bye h