EB 122: Our Honest Response to Your Feedback

(upbeat music) – Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I’m Link. – And I’m Rhett. This week at the round table of dim lighting we will be talking about the new Good Mythical Morning but more specifically the response we’ve gotten to the new Good Mythical Morning and how we, as creators, have been– – And as humans. – Taking. – Have been taking it. – Taking it. We’ve really been taking it right in the whoop. – In the ear. Here’s the, and spoiler alert. We haven’t been taking it that well. (laughing) No well, it’s an interesting thing. We’ll get into all of that but, well, we should just get into it. – Yeah, we are – But nothing. – going to get into all of that right now. – Well okay. So after a couple of episodes then, in a Good Mythical More, we had, we addressed some feedback on the show. Being longer. With four videos. With different things happening. It’s amazing how good I felt after recording that video but it wasn’t up yet and I was just giving, I just felt like I was honest and I was addressing some misconceptions and, you know, it’s something we’ve done before. And then when it comes out. Whenever something goes sideways that maybe we didn’t anticipate and we get negative feedback. If we like write along comment and explain ourselves or if we make a vlog or do like we did in Good Mythical More and explain ourselves that, we tend to get on the same page with the audience and in anticipation of that I actually felt better because I’m like oh gosh I just wish I could respond to all these comments. – But I think what we’re doing– – And I don’t, and I think. I don’t know if that, that didn’t put it to rest. So I think this is an opportunity for us to talk at length about it and even more episodes have come out and more comments have come in and the conversation continues so. – [Rhett] Well yeah I think we can– – It’s another data point. – We can put, you know. We can talk even more, I don’t wanna say candidly ’cause we talked very candidly in Good Mythical More but – Yeah. – I think we will talk a little bit more candidly in terms of like our feelings about it ’cause we haven’t talked about. We, legitimately just a second ago we were like, oh we gotta do an Ear Biscuit. And we were like well let’s just talk about how we’ve been processing this whole GMM thing and like the comments and how we’ve been dealing with it. The conversations we’ve been having. Because– – For a couple of minutes. – Yeah. – But then we were like no let’s just take this whole time and talk about it. – Yeah we thought we might just do the intro but we’re gonna do the whole thing. And so we haven’t planned what we’re going to say so, again, this is one of the great things about Ear Biscuits. I would hope from your perspective is that this is like a real-time processing of how this stuff, and of course we’re recording this about a week and a half or so before it’ll go up so who knows what’ll happen in the next week and a half. But this is where we’re processing Good Mythical Morning a week and a half into the new format, having gotten that much feedback from people. – And maybe let’s take a step back in order to set the table. I assume, as a listener, you’ve watched the episodes and you’ve even watched us give feedback in that Good Mythical More where we said our response to your comments or whatever, I think that’s what we called it or something very similar to that. But for many, so some of this is by way of review, but for many many months we’ve been planning the expansion of Good Mythical Morning without making an announcement about it. We knew, from the moment that we were going to dramatically change Good Mythical Morning, by making it longer and by breaking it up into segments, breaking the episode up into segments that it was a danger, we were in a danger zone. – Oh yeah. – You know because if it ain’t broke don’t fix it and you hear this in the comments. It’s like if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. I wasn’t asking for anything different. But we were convinced that we needed to expand the show. We needed to do something different with it. – Well more specifically ’cause I think this is. One of the things that will happen hopefully through this conversation is those of you who have asked specific questions about why, why did you guys do this. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it so why did you do it. We’re gonna answer that. Those of you who, many many different accusations about you guys obviously are just doing this for money and you guys didn’t address that in your Good Mythical More candid conversation so it wasn’t that candid ’cause you didn’t just come out and admit that you’re doing this for money. We’re gonna talk about that and address that directly. – We are, okay great. – And– – Again, we have no outline but yeah. – Yeah, ’cause I’ve been thinking specifically about those things. I didn’t know that we would get a response to our response that was that. It was like come on guys this is just obviously all about money. So I just wanna talk very candidly about exactly why we’re doing this and then like what it has been like to, to process. And first of all I’ll also just go ahead and say that we haven’t been, when you look at this mathematically speaking right. Let’s just say 500,000 people watch a video. Out of 500,000 people who watch a video a couple of thousand people comment. Out of a couple of thousand people who comment a couple hundred people say something negative. Actually vocalize, and that may be me being generous. It may be less than a hundred and then of course some people thumb those comments up or they reply to ’em. But if you just look at the percentage you’re talking about 500,000 people and you’re talking about around a hundred people who are vocalizing something negative on a video. From a percentage standpoint you’re still talking about a fraction of 1% of people who are vocalizing. So it is important for us to put those things into perspective. ‘Cause many of you have said very positive things and so I just wanna say upfront that first of all thank you for everybody who’s been very positive. We’re not asking you to be positive. Like that’s not why we do anything. We don’t get upset when we get negative comments and be like why are people so hard on us. Why can’t everybody just like everything that we do. No, we know the game that we’re playing. We’ve been playing it for 11 years, we make internet videos so we know that this is a two-way conversation and we know that our content is shaped by audience reaction. We’re very familiar with that. But I think you might be interested to hear how we process it and how we kind of balance the emotional toll that negativity takes on a creator’s work with the sort of challenge and opportunity that it presents. Because I think that is the job of every creator but especially people who create things on the internet. So I think there’s just a whole mindset that goes into this that’s kind of developed over a decade of doing this and there have been these big waves that have kind of crashed on us to help shape who we are and this is the latest wave. And we’re kind of in the midst of it crashing on us and I think it would be sort of an interesting picture to kind of break that down what it’s like to have the ocean crash into your face. – Well I think one thing is trying to identify and as we’re able to talk to each other. We’re able to help sort this out. In what is an emotional response and what is an unproductive response and what, you know. So I do think that there is a knee-jerk fear response in that, that we felt a handful of times or at least articulated to each other that is man, is this thing that we’ve built in this show, that has been successful, have we killed it. (Rhett laughs) You know we literally have, ask ourselves, that’s come up conversationally. And it’s not, it’s just us articulating the fear that that could be happening, you know. – And that’s a fear honestly that has always existed. With everything that we’ve done. But there’s more fear. – Well when you have one thing that has a thousand episodes and then you toy with it and then people say. After you released the first video you have people saying well you lost a subscriber. That first, you know, it’s like, the first response to that is an emotional one and it is a fear response. Oh my gosh! If that person said that how many other people are actually saying that. – And people go further than that. Some people qualify their commitment before they qualify, they express their dis-commitment. – I have been watching with my family for the past four years or since season X. – And now we are officially, as a family, departing from the fold. We are no longer going to watch Good Mythical Morning if this is what it has become. – And before– – Like literally the first day. – And before you– – Literally the first day. – And before you engage. Before we engage rationally with that we engage emotionally. Like the second you read that, especially when you’re scrolling through and your eyes stick to everything that could be your worst fear. – And just to give you a picture of how this happens. Just legitimately, literally how this happens, at least for me it’s last Monday morning. Waking up to my alarm at 6:30 and thinking for a second, you know I could just get up. The healthy thing would probably be to just get up, take a shower, eat breakfast, go to work and then like process people’s response. But of course we also had to make Good Mythical Morning that day right. – Mm hmm. – So the day that it released is a day that we were making – More of it. – more of it. – And we knew that we had to pore over the comments to see if there was any adjustments that we could make for what we were about to shoot. – And, and. Well so, what it was like for me is, as I didn’t get up. I rolled over because my alarm is my phone which is probably a mistake in and of itself and I didn’t do that for a while but then I went back to it. And so I, you know, I cut the alarm off and then I’m like oh here we go. And I tap in to that first video and I immediately see. The show has been up for about three and a half hours at 6:30 our time. And I immediately see just a very large percentage of dislikes. You know we typically would get, I don’t know. If I wake up and I see more than a hundred dislikes on something traditionally, by that point I know that something’s wrong. – Something’s wrong. – What did we do wrong? Did we say something? Are the cat lovers upset again? You know whatever we’ve done. – Because, and you say that because that’s what you saw this morning. – Right. – Like now all of the mythical beast cat lovers are just– – Not able to take a joke? – Decimated. – I won’t get into that right now. Guys I don’t wish harm upon cats I just think it’s funny to act like I do and get your responses. That’s for another discussion. – But then turns out it’s not. At this point in our emotional state it’s not funny to get those responses. – No it’s not. So, but I see the negativity and then I begin to look at the comments and interestingly the first thing that I see is a lot of people talking about the lighting and the color and the sound. I think you might be, a lot of comments were like guys, how in the world– – Would you think this is better? – How could you let this happen? How could this happen? How could you be so excited about something new and then it looks and sounds like this. You know. – That’s a good question. – It’s actually a really good question. But I will say that when my, this isn’t a defense it’s just an explanation. When something has so many moving parts and has changed so significantly on the back end in order to accommodate what we’re trying to accomplish there are things that, quite honestly, fall through the cracks and it may seem crazy that something like that would happen. I can honestly say that due to the schedule and the way that everything worked that we didn’t actually see what exactly it would look like before it went up. And I think that we got a lot of new team members and a lot of things happened and a lot of moving parts and not everyone really appreciated just how important it was for that first episode to look and feel exactly like what you’ve known and loved with GMM. We had kind of communicated that but I think that – It’s hard. – not everyone– – It’s hard for anybody to, we’ve experienced that. And we anticipated that experience but it was hard to convey that. – It’s like you’ve got a favorite dish. You’ve got a burger that’s made by a fast food chain in a very particular way and the special sauce tastes a very particular way and the burger is a certain way. And then all of a sudden you show up one day and they say the Big Mac, or whatever it is, is better. And you’re like, but you changed the fricking special sauce and the meat’s different now. This isn’t better. Why did you? Everyone loved it why are you changing it. All great legitimate questions. – But I think the answer is we changed a decent amount of the equipment that we use to make the burger but our aim was to make the same burger. – Yeah yeah yeah. – And we just didn’t. It was, I’ll just say it’s very hard to anticipate that some equipment changes would make the burger feel and taste and it be experienced that much different. – I think this is a good analogy– – And it’s so frustrating when it’s like, oh my gosh it’s like that is something we didn’t intentionally wanna change. And now it’s so, so much top of mine in the comments. It’s like, you know, at least it’s like we 100% agree and we’re fixing that as soon as we can. – Well and let me say that I think that the fast food restaurant analogy will hold up for a number of these aspects including the whole money thing which we’ll get to in a second but. It isn’t that we wanted to change the specialty burger. It’s that we wanted to introduce new menu items in addition to the burger. – Yeah. – And in order to do that we had to hire people and we had to establish new systems and initially the burger that you knew and loved was compromised. – Unintentionally. – Unintentionally. We learned a lot, we have learned a lot of lessons already. But just know that, in some of these. First of all the color has been updated. The color is still being tweaked. We’re still dialing things in. Again it’s new lights and it’s new cameras which ultimately are much better and I think can create a much better experience. Ultimately it’s 4K and not everybody watches in 4K I get that, but we’re kind of sort of future-proofing the show. But we’re continuing to tweak it so, especially that first part of the show gets back to that place where it’s like that’s the burger that I know and I love but now I’ve got these new menu items that have been added to it. That is the intention, that’s the plan. But we do acknowledge that that’s not exactly what happened. – The burger didn’t taste as good. – Yeah we did it. Listen. – Fact. – When we watched back the first couple of episodes we can, you guys think that you can see when we’re not comfortable or when there’s something that we’re thinking about. I actually saw a really interesting interview with John Lithgow talking about, I told you about this, but talking about getting ready to film Daddy’s Home 2 and how– – With Marky Mark and– – Will Ferrell. – Will Ferrell. – And Mel Gibson. And how they all lived together for like a week before the shooting of the movie to become comfortable with one another because, quote, you cannot make great comedy if you feel threatened. I thought that was so profound because I totally understood what he meant. In our career we’ve gotten into situations so many times, especially if you show up on a set somewhere and you’re like ah this is the first day working with this director, this is the first time working with this actor. Like, especially on like a Buddy System situation. We’re meeting somebody for the first time and then 15 minutes later we’re acting against them because we don’t operate at the budgets that are required to go have a camping trip with somebody for a week before you start production. Nor do we have the time. But I totally relate to that because if you feel any sort of discomfort or fear, and we were on this new set which is a lot like the old set but it’s new and there were new people. The same old people but now new people in addition to them filming us. – Everything you saw was supposed to look the same. Now it didn’t but– – But everything, everything we were seeing. – Everything we saw looked dramatically different and the day before we shot the first episode was the first day. We sat in the chairs most of the day and like tweaked through stuff. But at a certain point you just gotta do it man and it was, we weren’t as ready as I wanted to be. – Yeah, I mean– – And you never are. – Well in retro– – At a first day of anything. – In retrospect, and we talked about this. We told you guys a lot, we talked about this on tour quite a bit, that the combination of writing the book and then going on tour, finishing up Buddy System and, and then starting GMM 22. We call it GMM 22 ’cause it adds up to at least 22 minutes. This was too much for us ultimately in the way that all these things coincided because typically we were coming back from a trip, to Texas I believe, and we basically got back, had one day looking at the new set, and then shot the show. And that isn’t ideally how we would’ve done things, especially in retrospect when we look at ourselves and we’re like oh we just weren’t in a groove and we didn’t completely, we weren’t comfortable, we felt threatened. And that may be hard to understand for people who aren’t performers but you know how you act differently amongst friends and then strangers right. And there’s this comfort level that you, okay these people know me and they know, they appreciate me for who I am and I can be myself. – And I can mess up. – Those things, those things translate into performance. Especially with the type of show that we do which is designed to be sort of rooted in an authentic experience by us. – And you know what, I think a silver lining is that I think we really grew to appreciate one of the strengths. I cannot speak. We really grew to appreciate one of the strengths of our show which is honesty, you know. Again there’s a collective wisdom that we try to glean from the comments and when words like sincere, sincerity or sincere or honest or honesty come up in there it’s like okay. That’s something that I think we, we embodied but I think we are much more intimately acquainted with that being the cornerstone of what our show is. Like a level of honesty in our performance. That it’s actually performance may not even, it is a performance but it’s not, you know what I’m saying. It’s not actually 100% a performance. It’s like, it’s honest being, and it’s a real, there’s a real conversation. – Yeah. We’re being ourselves. – There’s real remarks. – We’re reacting in the moment. – And you know what we’re still, every second we shoot something I’m still thinking about can this be more honest. – Oh yeah. – Like because we want it to be funny. We want it to be great, we want it to be the best. We want it to be awesome. And you’re thinking about all these things and we’re trying a lot of different things in the different segments. It’s a funny thing to be thinking about am I being honest. – Yeah. – But it, that’s a nice by-product of this in terms of knowing that that’s a cornerstone of how we interact with our show. – Yeah. Let’s talk about why because I think that people could be still asking but why, why would you do this. We haven’t even talked about what we’re gonna say here. So, I mean, let me just start by saying that before any of this opportunity to do this expanded GMM came along Link and I were having discussions about when Good Myth, what’s the name of our show? Good Mythical Morning? – Good Mystical Morning. – Good Mystical Morning? When Good Mythical Morning would end. – Now that, it’s, you know. If we would’ve talked about what we were gonna talk about before we are now talking about it we probably would’ve talked ourselves out of you saying what you just said. – Right. – Because I think– – And that’s why I didn’t tell you. – And no I think I ultimately would’ve said yeah, we should talk about it. I mean I just talked about honesty for the past couple of minutes. So I’m glad that you said it but again it makes me nervous that all of a sudden you’re nervous. Like what, you were thinking about, they were thinking about quitting Good Mythical Morning, or they’re thinking about quitting right now. I will tell you quitting is the furthest thing from my mind right now. – Oh of course. – But. – Because of what we’ve done. – Because of this, and that’s the exact reason why. – And let me qualify ’cause this is super-candid. So I remember over a year ago just starting the conversation and again this is most often gonna come from me because I – Right. – am always living in the next moment. – And I’m living in the security of something working. – Yeah and I, and so. I wanna talk about, we’re gonna get into all the money stuff and the why because I think it’s in our DNA right. So the reason that over a year ago I was initiating a conversation just saying I think we should set an end date. And I didn’t necessary throw out any times and it wasn’t months it was years. An end date for Good Mythical Morning because the nature of what we do and who we are is that we create and we evolve and we change and we embark on new challenges and that’s what we get off on, and that’s who we are. I know that people don’t wanna hear that and people are like but this show means this much to me and why would you abandon us and, you know, it’s tough. Because we do understand that what we do for some people is almost like a service. We’re like in the service industry of what we do in giving you guys something. But, I’ll be just quite honest and say that I’m not gonna do that at the expense of my personal sanity, at the expense of my family’s sanity or health. And also the reason that we started Good Mythical Morning is because it was a new thing, a new challenge to embark on and I do think that everything in life should have a beginning, middle and end and I don’t know when the end of anything that we’re doing is going to come but it’s just in our nature to say let’s not just let something just dwindle off into oblivion but let’s do something really really well for a certain amount of time and then when its time has come to end let’s end it and try something new. And I’ve always approached things, we’ve always approached things like that. I might initiate some of that but that doesn’t mean that’s not the way that you also approach things. – Yeah. – Sometimes you just might need to be talked into it but it’s in your nature as well. – Well I remember one of the main conversations we were having, and if you were to guess when this conversation happened, well I’m about to tell you so go ahead and get the guess in your mind. It was on the way back from Venice Beach after we were shooting the roller-skating scene from Buddy System season one. So we’re talking a year and a half ago guys that we were talking about how much longer. ‘Cause we had taken a break from Good Mythical Morning to shoot Buddy System and we were really enjoying doing it. It was like super-engaging for us. – It was like a new muscle, a new part of our brain was being challenged and awakened. – But we were talking about what we had to talk about going back to Good Mythical Morning. ‘Cause we had to have some preliminary discussions about what’s gonna, you know. The conversation we normally have, what’s gonna change. What do we want to bring to the table when we start shooting the next season? And the energy that we brought to it was I just don’t wanna talk about it. I don’t know if I wanna do it. We knew we were going to do it but we were just being honest about how excited we were to do it. And it was because it was going back to the same thing we had done so much and is it gonna really just be the same thing. How much stuff can we keep eating? – Yeah. – I mean, we specifically, we were talking about those things and– – And this actually speaks, just briefly, sidebar, it speaks to the criticism that a lot of people have had about Good Mythical Morning over the years. I see these comments kind of being filtered in with everything else that’s going on now. It’s like why don’t you guys go back to what the show was initially. Just two guys, two friends talking to each other. Well you guys, we’re way past that. We’ve been past that for a number of seasons and the very simple reaction to that is we didn’t wanna do that five times a week. That’s not what we wanted to do and we quickly ran out of stories to tell and things to talk about and needed things to do and that’s why – But I did. – the show became– – In that same conversation I proposed that, I was like not in the fall. But then let’s, in January, let’s go back and let’s just bare bones this thing and let’s make it something like that ’cause at least it’ll like shake us up and it’ll be, there’ll be no, it won’t be about anything that we do besides the thoughts in our mind and the words coming out of our mouth. By the way a lot of what we have then funneled into Ear Biscuits. – Yeah a lot. – And got excited about. So it’s not that we weren’t excited about having conversations like the one we’re having right now. But we talked about it. And then that was the conclusion. – But we also– – It was like yeah we can’t take a step backward like that. – But we also remembered what it was like to do that. – Right. – So, before we get into specifically the very specific catalyst that led to why we’re doing four videos a day and why do you see YouTube Originals. Everybody’s like what do I see YouTube Originals on every thumbnail. We’re gonna explain all that. But I just wanna, I wanna talk quickly about our trip to DC and how we went into the Air and Space Museum and we spent a lot of time at the Wright brothers exhibit and it just, a lot of things sort of like crystallized in my mind about how I wanted to explain what we do. Now let me just start right up top by saying that us comparing ourselves to the Wright brothers is inherently pretentious and that’s not what, I’m not saying that we’re doing anything as significant as building a plane. We’re not inventing a whole new industry. We’re just making internet videos which the ones that get the most views are the ones in which Link vomits okay. This is not sophisticated stuff. There’s nothing to be commended about. We’re just having a blast on the internet and we’ve found a loophole and we’re getting paid very well to do this. That’s just the honest truth. But we did play the Wright brothers at one point in an epic rap battle so we have some right. – And the first flight was in our home state. – It was so, even though they’re from Ohio and we know that the people of Ohio claim them but– – There’s a kindred spirit there. – They did it in North Carolina so screw you Ohio. – But yeah they have this room that walks you through what they were like as people and then the different stages of invention that led to the first powered plane. – In all the– – The first plane and it’s there guys. – The literal plane. All the things in this particular exhibit, I think the reason that it resonates so much with us is because you’ve got these two guys who are brothers who have known each other their whole lives which, that’s a great way to describe us. Either a married couple or brothers. More than friends. – What about married brothers? – Married brothers that’s us. Incestuous brothers. Oh that took a left turn. And also working on something that doesn’t have an incredible amount of outside influence or precedent right. So yes, so it’s just like two dudes in a room kind of batting things back and forth and constantly updating things and trying to make it better and having a goal in mind and just working and probably fighting a lot and arguing over that. It was just such a compelling story and then we saw the different iterations of flight and one of the first things that they ever did. Of course they were bicycle mechanics at first but then they went from, they moved on from being interested in bicycles to saying okay let’s figure this flight thing out and I’m sure they were incredible bicycle mechanics. And I’m sure that they were doing some incredible things in the world of bicycling. And I’m sure they had people who loved what they did with bicycles but they weren’t meant to just keep doing bicycles because it was in their nature to try to move to the airplane. And I’m sure that when they started experimenting with flight there were people who loved their bicycles who got very upset with them. Again, this is a pretentious analogy. I don’t think that what we’re doing is as significant as moving from bicycles to flight but just stick with me. – Stop being so pretentious. – And then when they got to this point where they actually, at one point they invented a kite that was a bi-wing kite that was up there on display in this museum. This is the beginning of them kind of figuring out gliding and just the power of a wing. Way before they got to propelled, you know an actual plane with a motor. – Steering, steering it. – Or yeah or steering, or a person on it. And I’m sure that kite was super-cool and I’m sure there were people who loved that kite and were like this is the coolest thing. You guys invented this awesome double-wing kite. In some ways, asking us to continue to make the exact same show, to make the exact same product in the exact same way that people like is like telling the Wright brothers to stop with the bicycle or to stop with the bi-wing. It’s in their nature to continue to iterate, to learn, to move, to do things that could potentially fail. I mean they took a huge risk when they stopped doing very very reliable business and started trying to do something that was pretty hair-brained and crazy and people could get hurt and people could fail and other people could beat ’em to it. But it wasn’t like they just started and said hey wouldn’t it be neat to make an airplane. That’s not how this whole thing works and I think if you’re a creative person I think you’ll relate to this. You can’t help but create and innovate. If you’re creative you’re not doing something to try to meet some nebulous goal. You’re not doing something to try to meet somebody’s expectations. No you’re literally doing it because you cannot help. The reason Good Mythical Morning has changed. The reason that we started Good Mythical Morning. The reason that we did Buddy System, the reason that we wrote the book, the reason that we did a tour the reason that we’re gonna do whatever we’re gonna do next year is because we can’t help it. We honestly can’t help it. That’s the starting point for everything that we do. It is in our DNA. We’re built to do this kind of thing and to create and innovate and we can’t stop it. – The difficult thing is when you fail. I mean, it was fascinating that once they, it was after they had patented the plane that they started meeting with people. Of course the first way to make money is through military exploits of a plane and they were doing a demonstration where they took a guy up who was a potential buyer from the military and they’re like flying him around and showing him the capabilities and they crash and kill the guy. – He died and Orville was very very seriously injured in that as well. – And thank goodness our failures are not life and death but to us, on an emotional level sometimes– – Sometimes they feel that way. – It’s been feeling that way every day for us because, well I won’t say every single day but I would say every day we shoot there’s at least something or that we’re trying something in a segment that is not what Good Mythical Morning has ever been. It’s something new that is experimental and sometimes before we do it we’re like we have to, we can’t film this if we don’t believe in it. We have to believe in it or it’s, it’ll never take off so to speak. – And why we believe in everything that we do we also firmly believe that not everything is going to work. – And some things we don’t believe in as whole-heartedly as other things and, you know, it’s difficult to give it your best and then when it’s done that’s the next point. You’re like that didn’t work. And we’re not at a point, because of the way we’ve committed in terms of production to like building these episodes, we can’t and, I mean, this is not ideal, but we can’t cut something. You know it’s like. So there’s a silver lining to putting something out that’s like, you know what, this is not our best work and it is, we’re still going to learn something. It can be argued that you learn a lot more from failure than from success but let me tell you, it’s hard. Last night Stevie sent a slack and she was like fans aren’t gonna like so and so, so and so segment. – After she saw it. – And we’re like, ’cause she saw it and we’re like. We already knew that. And then I’m like can we pull it. – Can’t pull it. – She’s like, can’t pull it. You know and it’s like– – So you put it out there and you learn your lesson. – We’re like why are we, now we’re inviting more critical feedback that we already know and that’s like walking into a burning building where there’s no one to rescue is what it feels like. This is just for our own pain. – Let’s come back to the whole, like, the way that we’re seeing the process of like throwing things out there and learning from them. – Okay okay. – ‘Cause I wanna continue with the story of like why because I still haven’t talked about money and I know everybody wants to hear about that. – Yeah we should, we should go back to that because. So we made the point that we’re, from a creative standpoint, we’re compelled to remain, we have to remain engaged. It’s what we talked about and it’s just how we work. – And when we say things as audacious, in some of your minds as, one day GMM will end, or we are having that conversation, it’s because we know that when it ends something else begins and that’s what we live for, right. And so, and there is a balance between wanting to do things that make audiences happy because it’s so amazing how like there’s people who do daily vlogs and then they stop and the people can love you so much and the day you change the thing that you’ve been giving them they become like a druggie who has suddenly been taken off of their supply. And they turn, we’d be the drug dealers in this analogy, and they suddenly hate the drug dealer. And so, I’ve seen it a million times how quickly an audience will turn on you and begin making all kinds of accusations about how you’ve gotten too Hollywood, you’ve lost focus, you’re not rooted anymore. You forgot who you are, you forgot where you came from. It’s all about the money. And just to begin just unloading judgment on you and it can be, it’s, you know, I love the relationship we have with the fans and I love the fact that we do take feedback and they have made all this possible. We couldn’t, two guys just hanging out in a room being funny with each other does not a job make unless there are people to watch them and then sell advertising against. That’s how this whole thing works. But it’s just, just to be completely honest, it just kind of sucks to know that the day that you take something away or you change something the avalanche starts and it was never about liking you it was about liking what you were being given. I know that there’s a lot of mythical beasts who, that’s not what it’s about at all and are gonna be supportive through everything and kind of get this. But there’s a lot of people out there who this is a very, this is a transactional relationship. We produce, they consume, and the moment we change what they consume they get very mad at the producer. And it’s just a reality, I’m not complaining. I’m not complaining about it at all. We signed up for this. It’s just an unfortunate reality of humanity that there is, it’s not a love relationship. It’s a consumer relationship. And the moment that it changes they become very angry consumers. I get it, it’s just an unfortunate reality. But let’s talk specifically about the money because I think those people who are levying this particular accusation that just be honest guys, you did this to get more ad revenue. Four times the videos, four times the ad revenue. I think that that is, I would venture to say that the people who have levied that accusation are A, not particularly creative people, and B definitely not business owners. It’s an interesting thing to run a creative business. When your business is to entertain people there are two things that you have to weigh constantly. The first that you have to weigh is are you creating something that is going to be received well. Like are you doing a good job creating the thing that you’re supposed to use to entertain people. But the second thing you have to ask, and you have to ask these questions in tandem at the same time every single time is, is this a financially responsible choice. So, and especially when you get to a place where we’re at right now where this isn’t just two guys, this is a corporation, has been a corporation for years. For like seven years but now it’s a place where a lot of people are working, a lot of people are depending on their livelihood. There’s dozens and dozens of people who work at Mythical Entertainment. We’re not just these dudes that come in and just say, on a whim, this is what we wanna do today guys. No, every decision we make weighs how our company and the people who work here are gonna be affected and frankly how our futures are gonna be affected and how my kids’ college education is gonna be affected and how my retirement is gonna be affected. And so we don’t make a decision that we don’t see as financially responsible. That doesn’t mean we don’t take risks. This whole thing was a risk. But yeah, so when you say this is all about the money I would say that it’s definitely not all about the money but we do believe that this was a wise financial decision in the long-term. But that wasn’t what motivated it because the creative is the first thing that gets us going and then we make sure that this decision is one that is financially responsible. But the specifics of the decision I think we should just explain. – Well and I, I would just say from a, I’ll explain from a business standpoint. The reason why Google and YouTube wants to invest in this is they have their interest and we have our interest. Now for them their interest is to attract sponsors and add investment into YouTube so they can make more money. Now, I’m not gonna say that’s their only interest. I’m not them. We’re still at a point in the industry where we’re trying to help potential sponsors understand that sponsoring internet content is just as valuable or, I would argue, more valuable than a television spot or radio spot or whatever other type of billboard spot that people are advertising in. Back of a bus bench spot. Whatever it is. And if you’ve just got these shareable videos like, internet videos, you know, the people with the money are just thinking well I’m not gonna, they just don’t quite get it yet. But if you start to say okay there is original programming. You understand that on Amazon, you understand that on Netflix now, advertiser. Well YouTube, this is YouTube talking, we also have that and we’re creating properties which have more engagement and is more, you have a more powerful opportunity to reach people with your ad here than in those places. But the thing that helps it click into place for them is if it’s a show. If it’s like a half hour show. And so that’s why they came to us with the opportunity to do it and– – They came to us at a time when– – Let me just say in our interest in responding to that was we want to continue to shape the landscape of internetainment. I would love to fast forward years from now and see that there are people coming up, creating content, that is seen as just as legitimate a form of entertainment as the way people think about Game of Thrones or any non-scripted show that is, Storage Wars or whatever’s going on in the world of non-scripted entertainment on cable television. – Storage Wars. – That was a big one a few years back right. We are excited about, again, as part of experimentation and helping to create things, that shaped the landscape and I think if we just kept making those short form videos it wasn’t gonna do what this could potential do in legitimately making Good Mythical Morning what most people, not just advertisers, would think of as a show and not just an internet video that comes out every day. – ‘Cause they came to us a time when, like I said, we were having conversations about well when is this gonna end like. Is this all that this show can ever be? And then right when we’re having those conversations YouTube comes along and says hey we’re looking to invest in some YouTube original programming that wouldn’t be behind the paywall like YouTube Red so people don’t have to pay for it. That’s never gonna happen with Good Mythical Morning. – That was a non-starter for us. – Yeah yeah Good Mythical Morning is the kind of show that will always be free. So this isn’t like, oh the first step and the next step is gonna be a YouTube Red show. No. Buddy System is the kind of show that is financed in a different way and has to be behind a paywall. Good Mythical Morning is not. But they came to us and said we want to help you guys make this show something bigger than it is. Something that will be even more a part of the cultural conversation. And I think this will answer some of your questions ’cause people are like well YouTube is making ’em do this. YouTube has changed the color. Somebody at YouTube said it should be yellow. No the interesting thing is that we are 100% in charge of the creative. We can’t do anything that they would be like okay well that’s gonna piss off an advertiser but we don’t do that anyway. We’d never, like we don’t do things that are questionable and controversial so that’s why advertisers have always had a home on our show. But they said we want to just give you guys the resources that you need to do the thing that you want to. So the whole four videos a day. Specifically what’s going in to each video. What we’re trying to do with each segment. What we’re going to continue to try to do. It’s all coming from us and our team. The team that has always been there. We’ve supplemented that team and we’ve brought in new people for more ideas but this is not a, YouTube is sitting there waiting for oh, change this, let’s make it sound different. Let’s make you guys sound like you’re further away because that’s what we’re about at YouTube. Let’s make it more yellow because yellow is the new YouTube. No guys, those were things that happened as a result of a lot of things happening at once and us kind of losing the ability to control every single element but we very quickly course-corrected some of those technical things. – But we’re the one who said, yeah so we dictated. All the creative in the show comes from us and our team. – The same way it has always been. – And we said yes to the opportunity because we wanted to develop the show, for all the reasons we talked about and just to make it add more to it. To add more sides to the fast food menu of Good Mythical Morning. Maybe even turn it into a sit-down restaurant experience. But– – To keep pushing it. – We wanted to, we knew we had to make them segments. The original assumption was well you’ll just have one long video. Well we did that, it’s called the Mythical Show, and we said your half hour of not having to click around on the internet. Well you know what? Turns out people wanted to click around on the internet. We were wrong. It was a lesson we learned that nothing reaches out when you have a big honking 22 minute to 30 minute video so we knew, almost as another non-starter, we couldn’t get in on this deal unless each segment– – Was its own video. – Was its own video and so– – We wanted people to be able to experience it the same way that you experience any video that’s about one thing but we wanted it to also be a show that you could watch together every single day. – So it had, I mean each segment had to be able to trend. It had to be able to be shareable and commentable and– – Yes again and I think– – And to work within the eco system of YouTube. Now the thing we ask from YouTube and that we’re still working on is let’s make these four videos plus one which is Good Mythical More, work in a way that doesn’t– – That feels more like a show. – That feels like a show and plays through like a show. – And those are product changes that are still being worked on. Just so you know like, so right now, we’ve got it set up so that you click on the green video and that puts you in order and sometimes that particular episode designation tool, that segment designation tool is not up and running because there’s a lot of things that has to happen. There’s technical things that are being worked out. Any time you’re innovating and trying something new sometimes you can find that you’re a little bit ahead of the technology. We’ve seen this a million different times. And that’s gonna be frustrating for your experience but it’s all gonna be worked out because we’re never gonna get there if don’t start getting there. You never get there unless you start going. But I think, it’s an interesting thing to talk about the comments that we’ve gotten about that like. People saying things like guys just put it in one video. Guys just put it in one video and then also post all the other videos on their own. Like the Avett Brothers say, people love to talk about things they don’t know about. People love to talk on things they don’t know about. One of my favorite lyrics. And we’re guilty of that a lot but YouTube commenters are very, especially guilty of that. People love to start offering their opinion. I actually saw one comment that was like you guys should do, he actually laid out like a schedule for how we should shoot our videos during the day like. Shoot a video then take an hour break then shoot another video then take an hour break. It’s like the audacity that people have to start giving suggestions as if we haven’t thought about a lot of these things, just is mind-boggling sometimes. I’m sorry to get frustrated about it but it’s just crazy. But specifically the people who have said make one long video, don’t split it up, are not stopping to consider exactly what Link just laid out like we know how YouTube works. We’ve been doing this for a very long time. We know if you put a video up that has a bunch of different things and isn’t about one thing, it doesn’t have nearly the reach that it could have because yes we do want it to get a lot of views and we do want it work and we do want it to be sustainable financially. That’s why we made the choices that we did and we’re up against some challenges with the product but those challenges will be overcome. But it’s just amazing to me how quickly people begin to throw out things and just. I would just encourage people to just be like why don’t I just stop and think like, maybe they’ve thought about this particular thing. Or maybe I should pose this as a question. – Well you can get frustrated with those comments but those are the ones that are easy to ignore. – You can ignore those ’cause there’s no truth in ’em. – So I just don’t think, I don’t think we should be dwelling on that. In order to shift the conversation I will say that question mark amount of time down the road. If we, if Good Mythical Morning, this new version of the show is not better than the old version then we have failed and that is on us. – Yeah of course. – The two of us. – And it’s definitely not guaranteed to work. – No now– – It’s a risk. – The tough thing is is, what’s gonna happen, how long’s it gonna take for us to figure it out enough. We say things, so that’s why we’re still in the scary place. And it’s weird because, well, we say things like well if we make the first video, what we call the A block, the first segment of the show. If we just give ’em basically the same experience as Good Mythical Mornings, this is what we talked about before. I think that’s coalesced more in our minds even since then, if it’s seven minutes and we’re getting complaints it’s like, well, we gotta make sure that we’re making. We need to make that first video the best video it can be and that should probably, they have an appetite for that to be a little longer than the shorter versions that we’re making sometimes. It’s weird ’cause we didn’t intentionally make ’em that short I don’t think, it just kinda happened. I think, actually I think we did. I think we’re like, the weird ways to open a cereal box we did three, – As opposed to four. – Before we would do four or five. And you know if we used to five and now we did three maybe we’ll do four. Those are reasonable tweaks that we’ll be making and I think, in the short term, we just have to make sure that like if we’re saying all right the first video’s gonna be basically the old GMM experience and then we’re adding the sides to your meal that you didn’t get before. Then it’s just a question of those other things that we’re adding, do you find yourself wanting those over time and if you don’t then that’s our problem and that is our challenge. It’s frustrating to get over the speed bumps of the transition of the technical stuff. The color, the sound and the stuff that you’ll never need to know about, about the back end of how things work now. So that you have the experience you want. But once you get through that it’s like are we actually gonna create a show that’s good. I mean, – Well I think– – is the second segment, is the third segment– – Well let me say that I think that, well two things. Number one I don’t think we’ve finished the money question. – Oh you wanna go back to that? All right so let’s pause my question, let’s go back to the money question. – ‘Cause I was leading up to something and you never let me get there. – All right yeah so– – ‘Cause I wanna adequately answer that ’cause people are gonna be like he’s still dodging the question. – So we wanna make money. I mean– – No that’s not. In order to have a sustainable company that will outlive us we want it to be financially sustainable. To run a company of this size does take money so every decision that we make, we make sure that it is going to ultimately be a better financial decision than the previous decision. That does not motivate initial decisions. We said a long time ago, we sat down many years ago and said the only rule in this business is we never make a decision just for the money. We will never just do something just for the money. We are led by our creative inclinations but then you bet your butt that we’re going to take the best offer that we get. We go with the publisher that gives us the best deal. We go with the provider that gives us the best contract because we’re responsible business people and that’s just the way we operate. Also given that people will let us do what we wanna do creatively which is definitely the case with what we’re doing with YouTube. But I will say that we don’t go off to Calabasas and buy $7 million homes. That’s not how we operate, okay. There are YouTubers who do that. We’ve never lived a lifestyle that was like hey, let’s siphon as much money out of this company and hire as few people as possible so we can go be rich fat daddies. That isn’t how we operate, that’s not what we’re into. We make good money doing what we do but the vast majority of what we make we reinvest into this company, into other people and other ideas and more of our ideas, to try to do the next thing. And so while there’s no guarantee that this particular move will be more lucrative than if we had never done it. So it’s not like okay we made X amount of money and we’re making 10 X money by doing this or we’re making four X money. That is definitely not the case. If you look– – Well. – And it’s also a different structure and how all this is happening. – I just think– – Let me just finish my thought. – Finish your thought. – So it’s not like we’re gonna be making four times as much revenue by doing this. You can look at the numbers of how many views that we’re getting. We didn’t think oh we get a million and a half views on one segment every day. If we make four we’ll get six million views. We know that’s not how the internet works. We’re not getting as many views on any one segment as we would’ve gotten before. So that’s not why we’re doing what we’re doing. If this is successful we stand to make more money with this model than the other model but that isn’t the motivation for doing it and we take all that money and we reinvest it back into the company to continue to develop new ideas because that’s what we’re in this for. We’re not in it to buy $7 million homes we’re in it to make incredible things that will leave a legacy. That’s why we do what we do. – But I also don’t think it’s fair to be in a position where we’re defending our purchases. Or. – That’s true. – Or honestly critiquing how much other people pay for their houses. – No you’re right, you’re right. – So let’s not do that. I just don’t think. I just think that that– – I’m just saying there’s no evidence for saying you guys are all about money. There’s no tangible evidence in our lives. Even if– – But honestly. – You can care about money if you want to. – Well I feel like if somebody, you know, when you’re making an allusion to people spending X amount of dollars on their house in whatever place it is, I think our point is that I just don’t think you should scrutinize that. This is what I think. And we’ve talked about this. I just find it weird that, for the restaurant analogy that we’ve talked about, if you add something to the menu and then people show up at the restaurant and they say what are they doing adding something to the menu. They’re just trying to make more money. – Yeah yeah. – It’s like well, – It’s a ridiculous assertion. – Walk back to the chef and say I don’t appreciate you adding this thing to the menu for X, Y and Z reasons because you’re just doing it for the money. It’s like well if you want the new green beans pay for the green beans or not. And again – ‘Cause what if the chef– – These are not mythical beast like who are saying this they are like more of the casual commenter kind of thing but I just don’t want to, I just don’t wanna do to other creators what we don’t want people to do to us which is assess how you spend your money. – Hey listen. You can do, you can spend your money however you want to. I’m not judging anyone for buying a $7 million house I’m just saying that– – But we’re being judged– – That’s not like, to say that this is all about money. If I had a Lamborghini and a $7 million house you could be like okay, these guys are all about money. I don’t, you know. – But could you, I mean I don’t know. – I could say let’s not hire five more people and buy a Lamborghini yes, but that’s not what we do. We hire five more people. That’s just, that’s how we operate. I can’t fit in a Lamborghini anyway. But so the, but yeah it’s like making that accusation– – We’re putting something else on the menu. I don’t say why you would complain about that. – And you go back to the chef and you’re like– – You can complain about what the green beans taste like. – You can yeah but– – But don’t complain about putting green beans on the menu. – Well and it’s like going back there and complaining about new menu items and then the chef says but it’s in my heart to make chicken nuggets. It’s in my heart to add chicken nuggets to the menu and yes if the chicken nuggets sell well we’ll make more money and maybe we’ll be able to open another restaurant and that’s good for the economy and that’s good for you and that gives you more options and maybe a restaurant closer to you. – And by the way I wanna buy a Lamborghini. I mean okay, fine dude. – And these are accusations that are never levied at traditional celebrities. Let me just say that so like when people find out that some actor gets $10 million to make a movie they don’t say I’m not gonna go watch his work because he got paid $10 million to make that movie. I’m not in to this because this is all. Every movie that you watch the intention is for it to make money. Everything that you’re a fan of, with very very few exceptions the intention is to make money. If you’re supporting someone on Patreon you may say well why don’t you just do that. Why don’t people just pay you directly for what you’re doing? Well the reason that that person is asking you to pay is because the intention is to make money with it. Now it may not be the first intention. The first intention is probably to be creative or to make chicken nuggets or to do whatever. But ultimately they can’t sustain it and they can’t do it because we live in an economy. We live in a world where money is how we trade, it’s currency based. This isn’t a barter system. So because currency is involved these things have to be financially sustainable and I think a lot of these comments come from kids. Again I think a lot of comments come from kids who don’t understand economics and they definitely never run a business. I guarantee you that there’s not one person who owns a business who has made that accusation. But yeah– – And that’s why we should move on ’cause we’re getting worked up but it’s not– – I just think it’s, I think it’s worth saying because I saw the comment so many times and I took that one personally because, – Yeah. – If you tell me that the color’s off, yeah you’re right. If you tell me that the sound’s off, yeah you’re right. We’re working on it. You tell me that this particular segment isn’t funny, yeah you’re probably right because if you don’t think it’s funny, it’s not funny to you and we’re gonna try to keep being funny. But if you say something that’s just a bald face lie. – I know. – That just is especially upsetting. – I agree with that and I also have been upset. I guess I’m concerned and I just wanted to say that like, you listener right now are probably just as frustrated as we are, you know. – Yeah yeah yeah yeah. – It’s like, here’s the thing. Like we did that Vice interview. Within the hour of shooting the vlog where we responded to comments I’m like, I made the comment that during that thing I was like I didn’t know if I was gonna start crying. I just had that like, or if I was just angry or you know it’s just like when you get so frustrated you just like find yourself crying like an angry frustrated cry. And that’s what I described in the Vice interview and then I’m getting a lot of feedback on Twitter that people feel sorry for me. We’re verbally processing this thing but, I don’t know, I don’t want you guys to feel sorry for us. I also don’t want you to feel like we’re accusing you. I just want, you know, I just wanna be understood by the people who maybe aren’t even listening. So that’s the tough thing. – That’s a good point. – And maybe we never will be. – Yeah, we’re not gonna necessarily. This wasn’t about trying to change people’s minds. I mean maybe some people’s mind’s will get changed but– – We just wanna, I mean for what it’s worth we’re verbally processing our experiences as creators and I would like to move back to what I was saying about like what is our task and how are we interacting with that because it’s still a very emotional thing. – Well ’cause I think that this could be. I think the person who’s gonna benefit the most from this is any creative person who’s listening. This isn’t for the people who are just criticizing things just to criticize things. This is for the people who you’re gonna go and you’re gonna do something creative and you’re gonna be subjected to the same type of scrutiny that we have been subjected to by just being online creators and I mean hopefully something that we’ve said and something that we’ve offered will help give you some perspective and kind of help you keep going because, you know, it can be a difficult thing. Especially if you’re by yourself. – And I’m not trying to shut this thing down. I got more stuff to say so this is not the end. This morning, by way of another analogy which I don’t know my entire point so you can help me. You’re good with analogies. Each morning the older kids go to school and then I’m left with Lando to help him get ready by the time Christie comes back to then take Lando to school about the same time that I leave with you for work. So my job is to make sure that Lando is wearing clothes that match and that his hair is put together. – Not an easy task. – This morning I did that and, you know, he invites my input. He’s like Dad I’m gonna pick out the shirt and then you pick out the pants to go with it. He doesn’t like me to fix his hair but he’s gotten used to it. I go upstairs, I get ready, I come back down and like Christie’s taken him out the front door and I’m telling them bye for the day. And Lincoln, not Lincoln, Lando turns around, seven years old, and he looks at me, and he’s got this funny look on his face and he’s like, what you’re wearing doesn’t match. And it was these brown pants which I hardly ever wear ’cause I, literally I’d spent 10 minutes upstairs right before coming down trying to figure out what shirt, what the heck shirt goes with these pants. They look like pajama pants but they could also look like trousers that the Wright brothers would wear. I’m like, I can do this man. And I’m not wearing this shirt I’m wearing another shirt. A green button down. And then Christie’s like yeah. I would just wear like a monochrome shirt like a– – Like a black t-shirt with headphones on it. – Black t-shirt and maybe like your jean jacket. But when the seven year old, that my job is to make sure what he wears matches, to all of a sudden hear back from him that what I’m wearing doesn’t match. And he’s right. It’s tough to take. And you know, I think our audience may have bristled a little bit at one of the things that I think maybe I said in the vlog and More, when I said we don’t wanna just give you what you want we want to give you what you don’t know you want yet. And I just, I think it maybe, that may not have settled on some ears in the right way. I guess for me the point of the story is it’s difficult, because I do feel like you’re gonna, this is something new but you’re gonna like it. Not every single thing but the general trajectory of what we’re doing is gonna be good for you the viewer. And then when I feel like that’s our job. Our job is to come up with stuff that you didn’t know you wanted and give it to you. Not just keep giving you the same thing. Anybody can do that if it, you know. A lot of people do that. – Well– – But then to hear back from them no this is not what I wanted and this is how it should be is, I don’t know what the word is. Does it hurt, is it frustrating? – Well yeah it hurts, I mean it definitely hurts. I mean in some ways why creative people do creative things is for validation. I mean that’s just a fact of human nature as well. You know the reason that we started being funny in front of people is because when we were young and we were funny in front of people it made people like us. And there’s sort of this empty part of every comedian, every performer, that is looking to fill that hole inside of themselves with the response that they can get from an audience. It’s an imbalance, it’s like an imbalance in a battery. There’s a positive and a negative charge on each side and if that battery is completely balanced there’s no charge. So I think the imbalance within a performer is they’re constantly trying to balance it out and it actually is the engine that runs their whole system. And we’re no different. I mean we love it when we create something that we love but then that’s just like, that’s the opening salvo right. That’s the serve and then the volley back is the audience liking it just like we liked it. And then taking it and understanding it and appreciating it for all the reasons that we intended them to. That is the challenge of any creator whether you’re a painter, filmmaker or whatever. – And that’s what I what I was saying that– – When they just catch the ball. When they just catch the ball and say why the hell did you serve it like that? I’m not gonna volley that back to you. Why would you do that? You’re like oh that hurts. And you’re like but you don’t understand this is like a new kind of serve. And trust me everyone’s gonna be doing this serve in 10 years. And we really believe in this and we’re trying it out and it doesn’t always mean it’s going to work but we’re not going to stop just because the first person doesn’t hit it back. We’re gonna keep trying and keep trying and keep finessing it and updating it. – Well that’s the challenge that we’ve set up for ourselves that we signed up for. – If you keep serving – And now we’re in the middle of it. – the same way. If you keep serving it the same way they’re gonna get bored. – Oh yeah. – That’s the thing is that you don’t think you’re gonna get bored but people have a tendency to kind of come in to the world of being a mythical beast and then kind of leave. We meet people all the time. I would say the absolutely the most common thing, conversation that we have with people when we meet them in public is, I used to watch your videos all the time. It isn’t like, oh I’m a huge fan of this. It’s just like yeah, I used to watch your videos. We actually heard a guy the other day say my ex girlfriend used to watch your videos. He was like removing himself from it as far as he possibly could. But it doesn’t mean that– – My response was I’m sorry. – It doesn’t mean that you didn’t stop watching because we changed, some people may. But most people are just like, you know, it’s tough to stay committed to something for a long time. Actually the fact that we kind of evolve and change is one of the reasons that there’s people that have been around for a long time. – But our challenge right now is what I was saying. That we have to make this longer version of the show better than just the one segment show that it used to be. – Yeah the burger’s gotta be better. – And then the fries and the green beans have to be better– – There’s green beans at this fast food restaurant. That’s one thing that’s throwing me a little bit. – Yeah and it’s like– – They’re not fried? – Well we’ve some green beans already, you know, at the fast food restaurant and it’s like okay, are we gonna keep doing it. How long are we gonna keep making green beans? – That’s weird they’ve really lost themselves now that they got green beans. – It’s tough ’cause there’s stuff that’s gonna come out that, you know, we don’t have your response yet and we know it’s gonna be negative. But we decided to try it and we don’t expect you to act like you like it but I do feel this pressure like, okay, do we pull back and do we just. Like there was the episode with the cryozone like I’m so proud of that episode. I was like, I told you I was like I watched the whole thing before it went out and I’m like this is a crowd pleaser. There’s not one of these four segments, or Good Mythical More, that is not like anything we’ve done and I felt good. I felt good and then it came out and I was like the views are down. I’m hearing something’s wrong with the view count but then also people are loving the fact that we did something like back up plan where we went and we froze ourselves in this cryo tank and I’m like super proud of that that we’re able to bring that back. – Yeah. – And do, hopefully do more field pieces. And then we did like a Whopper Big Mac thing which is a totally new segment and it is shorter then anything we would’ve done. I know I’m getting in the weeds here. But my point is I’m very proud of that as a new type of video that we would not have made before but is still fun. Then we played a game which would normally have been a whole episode and it was just as good as any other game we’ve played at the desk. And then there was another thing that I can’t remember right now that wasn’t different than anything we’ve done before. And then I’m like, well we don’t wanna retreat back to that too soon ’cause then it’s just more of the same. It’s more, four of the same thing all in one day. – Yeah. – It’s like we have the ability now to do these things that you’re not gonna like but what we’re gonna get to is discovering the thing that we never would’ve gotten to. I think we approach creative endeavors a lot of times as like trying to unearth something. It’s in there, we just gotta find it and get it out. – Yeah we actually are doing this, nothing is planned to fail but we know that failure will be part of the plan. We are, everything that we put out there. Like we’ve already said this but we know that we’re gonna discover that something doesn’t work and then something new will work because that’s been sort of the method to our madness for all these years is trying things, failing. We failed so many times. The cool thing about this venture is that you got four, five videos a day if you count More, where you’ve got so much opportunity to kind of discover new things and– – But the risk is that people will, I guess the fear is that I looked at the five videos this morning and I clicked on the one that I liked the least and then I read those comments ’cause I was subconsciously fearful of people saying I’m out because I think it’s a ridiculous thing to say at such an early juncture in the evolution of the show. But at some point, if we keep getting those, then that becomes a problem. And so I’m prematurely scared that people are really gonna check out and give up on our show because we may do the thing just as great as we always have but we’re doing something that’s like embarrassing. – Well, I think this is what we signed up for. We don’t make these videos in a vacuum. We make them for an audience. The intention is for the audience to love everything but that is never going to be the case for them to love everything. But we want them to love the general direction and general effort and we want more people to be watching a year from now than were watching a year ago. And that’s what we’re trying to do. Now to answer just a couple of very specific things. People are like, why can’t you just make a, if you’re gonna do four times the videos why not just make an episode, make four traditional episodes every single day. So it’s like four 10 minute videos. I don’t even feel like I should have to, I’ve seen that comment so many times. That’s not what we’re doing. We’re actually doing the shorter segments because there’s a lot of shorter formatted stuff that gives us an opportunity to experiment with segments and little field pieces and stuff that don’t work as longer videos but actually work better as shorter videos. So that’s why we’re doing that. And then people are like how long is this gonna go on, just a month or so. It’s gonna go on for at least months. It’s not going to end any time soon. We’re gonna continue to tweak it and make it better but we have every intention for this to be the new normal for Good Mythical Morning. We’re not saying that it’s not ever, again, if it doesn’t work it doesn’t work and we go back to what we used to do or something new. We don’t know what we’re gonna do but we don’t begin things knowing the end we just begin things and then we learn and we adjust. So that’s kind of where we’re at right now. – At the risk of doing something cheesy. I wanna read some lyrics. – Uh uh. Is it from a Merle Haggard song? – Actually it’s Eminem. – Oh gosh. – So this is gonna be a little weird. I was listening to the new Eminem song last night. Have you listened to it? – Yeah. – With Beyonce. ♪ I walk on water ♪ – I mean the dude’s kinda baring his soul here. I’m just gonna read it ’cause I think it, I just really related to it, where we are. And it’s interesting where the song ends so I’ll get to that but. “Why are expectations so high, is it the bar I set? “My arms I stretch but I can’t reach, a far cry from it. “Or it’s in my grasp but as soon as I grab, squeeze, “I lose my grip like the flying trapeze. “Into the dark I plummet, now the sky’s blackening “I know the mark’s high. “Butterflies rip apart my stomach.” So you got this dude who is the like the highest grossing artist in history. I think he’s got, there’s like some crazy stat that he’s like the bestselling artist ever. Jacob can you look that up, whatever it is, ’cause I don’t know how he’s beaten Michael Jackson but there’s some mind-blowing stat that I’m sure I’m getting wrong. But you talk about this guy, you know, talking about the expectations. Is it based for his next rhyme and the butterflies in his stomach, you know. I don’t know all the lyrics and it’s a little risky to just read Eminem lyrics blindly. I’ve only heard the song once but. “It’s the curse of the standard “that the first Mathers disc set. “Always in search of the verse that I haven’t spit yet. “Will this step just be another misstep “to tarnish whatever the legacy, “love or respect I’ve garnered. “The rhyme has to be perfect, the delivery flawless “and it always feel like I’m hitting the mark “till I go sit in the car, listen and pick it apart. “Like this is garbage. “God’s given me all this. “Still I feel no different regardless.” You know it’s, I definitely feel that way. It’s like we make this stuff and we try so hard and then it’s like, it’s just not as good as it used to be. – Well and here’s something that I think a lot of people, I hear people say this about people like Eminem who’ve got this and been around for a long time and have been really successful. It’s just like this guy’s got more money than God. He doesn’t need to work another day in his life. Why doesn’t this guy just sit out in his backyard and paint? – Right. – It’s like, the only person who would actually say that is a non-creative person. I truly don’t believe that anyone’s non-creative. We said in our book that everyone’s creative, it’s just that people don’t know it yet. It’s like people who say I don’t remember my dreams. Or people who say I don’t dream, you do dream you just don’t remember them. It’s some part of your brain you have to unlock. But I think that this accusation or this expectation that when somebody has seen some kind of success, that why are you sitting around, and this is not, we’re not anything like Eminem. Again we’re not the Wright brothers and we’re not Eminem. But the reason that he’s sitting there toiling over this bar that he set is because he never did it to be successful. He never did it for the money. He did it because he can’t help it. He’s in search of the next lyric. He’s in search of the next bar that he’s gonna spit. That’s what keeps any creator going is like, what is the next thing that we’re gonna do. What is the next thing that’s gonna connect? Are we ever gonna connect like we used to connect? That’s the fear that every single artist has. I think that when you’re doing it in a place that, the feedback is so immediate and so raw. It’s not the same for a guy like him because he’s not, you know, but because he’s so huge and so big the amount of feedback is just an avalanche of feedback. He can read a magazine and see what, we’re not in magazines so we can’t see what people think about us. – And– – The magazines, we just look at YouTube comments. – And he has to craft an album. I mean even in a world of single streaming he has to craft an album where it’s like I went away, I worked on this thing, I came back and I’m slapping it down on your counter. – And he can’t change it once it’s out there. – No. – That’s the luxury we have, we can change it. – What was the stat? – Best-selling hip hop artist in the world. Best-selling artist of the 2000s. Yep that’s what it was, I knew it. I knew it had to be related to some, yeah the 2000s. I mean he goes on. His third verse he gets even more specific about things that he’s done. And then he like turns his mind to like, when this is over, because it will be. It’s like, “As yesterday fades and the Dresden home “is burnt to the ground “and all that’s left of my house is lawn, “the crowds are gone and it’s time to wash out the blonde. “Sales decline, the curtain’s drawn, “they’re closing the set, I’m still poking my head out “from out behind, and everyone who has doubt remind “now take your best rhyme, out do it, “now do it a thousand times. “Now let ’em tell you the world no longer cares “or gives an F about your rhymes.” He’s basically saying all right, you’re gonna try it after me and the same thing’s gonna happen to you. “And as I grow out of sight, out of mind “I might go out of mine.” He might go crazy. “‘Cause how do I ever let this mike go without a fight, “when I made an effing tight-rope out of twine. “But when I do fall from these heights though, “I’ll be fine. “I won’t pout or cry of spiral down or whine. “But I’ll decide if it’s my final bow “this time around ’cause.” And then Beyonce sings. – Beyonce. – “‘Cause I’m only human just like you. “I’ve made my mistakes, oh if you only knew. “I don’t think you should believe in me the way you do “‘Cause I’m terrified to let you down. “Oh if I walked on water I would drown.” And then the very end he’s like, “‘Cause I’m just a man but as long as I got a mike “I’m God-like. “So me and you are not alike. “Bitch I wrote Stan.” And then at the end he’s like, I’m still fighting. – He goes right back into it. – He knows there’s gonna be an end but like, I feel like that’s like where we are. Very much engaged in a creative fight. I don’t think it’s a fight with commenters. I don’t think it’s a fight with critics. I don’t think it’s a fight with anybody’s feedback. I think it’s a fight with the creative goal that we set for ourselves. – It’s a fight with ourselves. – It’s a fight with a mountain that we have created. To say okay we are now gonna climb this hill and, so I really think that’s it. I don’t think it’s that we, you know, we get frustrated with people but and well, with comments. And feedback. But it’s ultimately, a lot of it taps into a fear that we’re not gonna be able to accomplish what we set out to accomplish and that may be embarrassing. Or it may be worse. It may put our livelihood or our kids or grandkids that we don’t even have yet, at least as far as I know, in jeopardy in some way. And it’s not a rational fear it’s an irrational fear. – Well it’s irrational but– – But it’s a fight that we’re, but the fight that we’re engaged in is creating something that’s going to express who we are, make money in the process and, you know, in a way that we’re not gonna apologize for to accomplish more of our creative vision. And we don’t know if we can accomplish it. – There’s no guarantee that it’s gonna work. When people say you guys just killed GMM maybe we have. I don’t believe that we have. We wouldn’t do this if we thought that that was what we were doing. That’s not why we made this decision. But the fact is is that there’s no guarantee that this is gonna work. We could have already peaked. Everything’s gonna be okay. It will be okay. But we’re not going to stop behaving the way that we’ve behaved all this time. We’re not gonna stop pushing and trying something new. We’re not gonna stop creating and we’re not gonna stop trying to make that next piece of content that’s gonna be better than the last one. That process is never gonna continue. Now we will, we are old. We’re gonna continue to get old and older and more out of touch and more irrelevant and then we’ll be like David Crosby’s latest album. Which I made Link listen to. David Crosby’s album called Sky Trails, I think. – We’re ending– – Do yourself a favor and go listen to that just as an example of where things could end up. – We love you guys, we appreciate your support. And yeah I think, but that’s not specifically what we’re asking for. I think we’re just, we appreciate you being along for the ride. – We don’t want your sympathy and we don’t want your sympathy likes and we don’t want your defense. This is just hey we wanna be authentic. That’s one of the things that we do on Ear Biscuits. And everything that we do, but especially here, there’s no script, there’s no plan. This is just very rawly what we’ve been thinking about and feeling and we wanted to share it with you guys. – But don’t worry about us. (laughing) – Yeah we’re gonna be just fine. – We’ll talk at you next week. (upbeat music)