Welcome to Ear Biscuits. I’m Rhett. And I’m Link. This week at the roundtable of dim lighting, we’re tackling the issue of self-promotion. The question is, how do we feel about self-promotion? There’s a lot of that, Oh, we never promote ourselves. We are constantly making stuff and then you gotta promote it. And I’m not, you know, I’m not apologizing for it. And I would say specifically, But there is a lot of psychology. Not just, I mean, we promote ourselves all the time, in our own work, in our own properties, right? Yeah. This is, we’re not gonna talk about that as much as we are gonna talk about when you’ve got to go on other people’s shows, make media appearances, have a media day, and promote yourself. Yeah, so we’re gonna pull back the curtain on what that’s like, what our experience is, what our raw assessment of that. It seems we have a negative view on it by the tone of our conversation at this point. It’s definitely mixed it’s definitely mixed. Because we’re just fresh off our Bleak Creek Conversations Tour. And we’re just fresh. We’re just fresh. I mean, look at us. All black, man. Look at this, look at these guys. Where are these guys going? I’m actually not that fresh, I’m a little bit jet lagged, you know. We’re recording this on a, what is it? What day is it, Tuesday? Tu-tu Tuesday. I feel better today. I got back Saturday night. You don’t feel like you bounced a little bit today? Nah, no. You went to the gym this morning, right? I did not go to the gym. See, that’s it. Going to the gym bounces you into the day. I thought about not going and you shoulda gone. You shoulda gone man ’cause I’m feeling good right now. I wanna fight somebody. I was gonna go yesterday. Sometimes I get that feeling I wanna fight somebody. I’m in that mood right now. Well, you’re not gonna get that from me. If you start fighting me, I’m just gonna roll into a ball. I’m kinda dressed like a boxer, ya know? Like he’s got a hoodie and like a hat. You’re just wearing a hoodie. Boxer’s wear hoodies. Yeah, they wear hoodies but, They do things like this. They wear sweatpants and they jog, They wear like, and they jump rope and stuff. When they come to the weigh in, they pull their hoodie over their hat. And sometimes they also have headphones on like this. I kinda feel like maybe I should get into that. Is it too, is it too late to get into that Logan Paul thing? I think that’s probably already happened by the time I think it happened. you’re hearing this. When fighters weigh in and they’re wearing headphones, doesn’t that, doesn’t that make ’em weigh more? Yeah, it’s when you wanna go up to the next level. Please count my headphones. No, you come, That’s illegal. you come to the weigh in like that and then you strip down into some colorful underpants. That’s the way I do it at least. So what I was trying to say was we are fresh off the Bleak Creek Conversations Tour. You know, for the past week prior to recording this episode, we’ve been touring, doing what you might think is just a book tour but we tried to make it really special and like we had the documentary of us going back to Buies Creek and then like making all the connections of how that ties into Bleak Creek. And we also released that on Good Mythical Morning so we’re basking in the public response to that which I’m very encouraged by. Oh yeah. But again, with the time change and the being on the road and a lot of flights and a lot of self-promotion, a lot of talking about yourself in other people’s places. So we’re gonna unpack what that experience is like. But coming back home to my place, like it means, it’s so important to me. Yep. You know? I just start thinking about, yeah I wanna be in my bed, I wanna be on my toilet, I wanna be on my couch. I wanna be in my backyard, I wanna be with my family and my dog, ya know? I’d start to thinking about it and I’d start pining for these things, especially when in self-promotion mode. Right. So we took yesterday off, we didn’t see or talk to each other. No. So let’s start there. Let’s start with our yesterdays. I had an interesting yesterday. Christy had a proposal for me. I was like, “Hey, let’s hang out.” Sent the kids off to school and she’s like, “Let’s go get a pedicure,” I’m like, “Okay.” Interesting. Anytime you’re paying somebody to like do something to you, I’m up for that. You know, a little self pampering. But what I forgot, Pedicures suck, man. I’ve had a pedicure once. I don’t like people touching my feet. And it was at the hotel we were staying at in, I think, like Cabo or something when Christy and I were down there. That’s the only time I’ve had one. And I’d forgotten that I decided at that time that I did not like pedicures and I didn’t want another one. Yep, that’s when I decided. I remembered that when I was getting this pedicure yesterday. Here’s the thing that I specifically remembered. It’s not just that, and I agree with you, I don’t like people, I don’t like people touching my feet. For the longest time, when I got a massage I would say, “Nix the feet.” I still say that. I don’t want the feet, you know, there’s like some tickling involved but here’s the thing for me. It brought back traumatic childhood memories. I was deathly afraid of my toenails being clipped. I certainly wouldn’t do it myself and my mom would, I would throw what I call a conniption. I would throw a tantrum and start, What age are you talking about? As young as I can remember. I mean, maybe four or five years old. But I think, I’m pretty sure it continued into at least like second grade, so after I knew you. I wouldn’t let, My stepdad Jimmy, mom had to call Jimmy and like grab my ankles and hold ’em down so that she could clip my toenails. Like, I was, What were you scared of? I was afraid of being cut and like bleeding happening. Man, I am really afraid of like trimming nails too short. That, woo, that’s like nails on a chalkboard to me. That doesn’t freak you out? You ever had a nail cut too short? Well, yeah. I mean, I don’t look forward to it. It hurts, it bleeds. I don’t have a phobia, And what makes it even worse is that then you have wait for like, for a week or so for it to grow out to the point where it doesn’t feel like, I just start to feel like the whole end of my finger’s gonna start nubbin’ off. I got nail problems. I mean, you see what’s happening there on those. See that, see how it detaches? Yeah, you gotta lot of white, white ends but it’s not like a french manicure. It’s psoriasis. See, you get psoriasis under your nail beds and the nail detaches. So this will go all the way down sometimes and then it’ll just go, Is that from, I thought you determined that was from diet? No, no, I’ve talked about it. I thought your diet would fix it. Well, my diet causes it to not be nearly as bad but yeah, I still have flare-ups. There’s none on this hand right now. But you can see, Do you have it on your toenails too? Not as much on my toenails but you can see, if I were to cut that down, that nail down to where it needs to be, there’s a lot of like fleshy part. That’s a normal, this is a normal person’s nail. Yeah, like the nail. The nail goes to the end of the finger. Yeah, that’s great. But that doesn’t happen on any of my fingers anymore except that index finger because I’ve got nail problems. Well, I’m in there and it’s like, I had to start like doing some deep breathing techniques. I didn’t want to complain or like bolt out of there. I was like, maybe this is like therapeutic for me, like facing my fears. That’s not what the pedicure’s about though. I mean, I appreciate you Well, it was for me. trying to change I made it change your perspective. about that for me. But you’re supposed to enjoy it. I’m doing some like deep belly breathing and then on my big toe, apparently she, I wouldn’t say I have an ingrown toenail. But she did. It kind of goes in on the side and I had cut the thing a little too short so then she’s like digging in there, like trying to do some sort of operation and I’m like, oh gosh this is horrible. Does your wife enjoy it or does she enjoy the results? I think she enjoys it. Some people don’t mind There was a little bit of a leg massage. Some people don’t mind their feet being touched. I got over that. I don’t enjoy, like, the foot massage part of a massage just makes me laugh. I cannot just enjoy it. It feels, it either feels like it’s ticklish or it just feels incredibly uncomfortable but there’s no, it doesn’t feel soothing in any way. And trying not to laugh makes it more uncomfortable, right? ‘Cause then you’re kinda like squirming. ‘Cause you don’t wanna laugh. Like, why not just come out and laugh? Because laughter’s a nice release. Because then you just seem like the Joker. You don’t wanna do that, just laughing at awkward times. Well, no, I think they would understand that like, hey, it’s ticklish. They’ve encountered a ticklish person before? Yeah, so it’s not like they would think you’re demented or something. How do your toes look though? How do your nails look, great? Uh, good. They weren’t painted or anything. I would definitely, if I’m gonna take that much time for something, it’s definitely gotta be a massage next time. It can’t be the pedicure. Yeah. But I think there are people who like they never let anybody touch their toes. I said that backwards. They never touch their toes themselves, they only let other people do it. So it’s just like, “Oh, I don’t trim my nails. “Somebody does that for me.” You think that’s true? Uh, I think that’s gotta be the case. Yeah, I’d say a lot of people. Rich ladies. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Rich ladies don’t touch their toenails. They let other people do it. It’s hard to get down there and like really give it a detailed working. Um, I didn’t get a pedicure yesterday. What’d you get? Manicure? A manicure, yeah. You know, I did think about getting a manicure. I’m not gonna let any, I mean what are people gonna do with that. There’s nothing, there’s nothing they can do. Oh, they could do a lot. Shine it up. Trim it down. But, Tame, tame those cuticles. The unfortunate thing is that both of my kids were sick and had to stay home from school. Ooh. And so then Jessie was like, “Well, I mean I feel like we should stay here with ’em” and I’m like, “I feel like we should leave them to themselves.” Dad got a day off, he was thinking he was going to get to have a day date with his wife, Yeah. and so I still wanted that to happen. Sure. And she was like, “Well, what are they gonna eat?” I was like, “Well, there’s a kitchen.” You know, there’s a kitchen there, there’s food in there. How sick were they? Were they like bed-ridden or they were just like sniffles? They were like, it was a cold and maybe a little bit of a fever for Shepherd, so it was like ah, this wouldn’t be responsible, this would be irresponsible to let them go, To school, yeah. So did you leave ’em? Yeah, we left ’em. Did you win? Yeah and then Jessie, And when you came back, were they all right? They were still there. Yeah, so, good choice. I mean, Jessie would say things like, she told ’em, she said, “Okay, there’s some pasta, “there’s some pasta in the refrigerator that you can”, like some ravioli-type thing, you know? Okay. It’s in the fancy Italian section of the, I call it the fancy Italian section of the frozen, of the cold part of the grocery store where it’s like the pasta that isn’t frozen, it’s in that plastic thing Oh yeah. And you can throw it in there and boil it up then you feel a little bit more like a chef. All you did was boil some pasta. But it was never frozen, so it’s fresh. Yeah it was never frozen so it feels fancy. Yeah. It feels kinda like the Italian food version of a pedicure. Yeah, so you’re just throwing that at the kids. Well, they can make that. Locke can boil that and then Jessie’s like, “Well, what if he doesn’t turn the stove off?” I’m like, “Well, it’ll just be, you know, “it’ll be a stove that is on.” Because stove’s can be on, right? How long a stove is on doesn’t necessarily increase the danger, right? But the burner could be off but the gas could still be on. Then you gotta problem. That’s a problem but that’s kinda hard to do. Yeah. But I did text Locke and said, “Hey man, if you turn the stove on, “make sure you turn it off,” and he was like, “Okay.” And when you got home, what was burned? Nothing. Nothing was burned. That’s good. They had full bellies and, But what did you do? I went to a restaurant. Okay. Had a brunch-ish thing. Had a brunch. And then we went grocery shopping. Oh yeah. Now we’re to it. Yeah. Romance. I mean, I could spend a lotta time in Whole Foods. Really? Yeah. Yeah, Whole Foods is kinda like, there is a sense of discovery when you go there. Yeah. Unless you go there a lot. I don’t. I don’t, I don’t go there a lot. Yeah, so it’s kinda like, whoa, they got this fancy, they gotta lot of fancy crap. Well, And then it’s like, I wanted to come home and I wanted to grill something. Okay. And they just have, the meat section is just so impressive. The meat section? Have you seen the meat section No. in Whole Foods? I mean, it puts other meat sections to shame. I’m more of a like the weird beverage. They got weird beverages, yeah. And peanut butter spread sections. They got that too. What did you get? Chicken thighs. That doesn’t seem odd. No. Doesn’t seem very, There was a lot of things that I could’ve gotten that I couldn’t have gotten anywhere else. Like they had a giant, just a giant tomahawk steak. Oh yeah. Just I mean, That’s kind of intimidating. Just obscene. Like I don’t even know if it would fit on my grill. And don’t wanna mess that up. And um, You can’t go wrong with chicken thighs. But I do wanna get one of those at one point. Daddy cooks a tomahawk and then I just come in, holding it by the bone and let the family eat off of it like a giant meat drumstick. So then, you could rent like a cave. You could like all go into a cave, No, I wanna do it in the kitchen. You could wear like skins. You could show up with a big hunk of meat. And but no, I got chicken thighs. Man, chicken thighs. Can’t beat a good chicken thigh on the grill, man. I put some rub on ’em. Boneless? Skinless? No, I went bone in, skin on. Oh yeah. Even though I talked about getting boneless but Jessie was like, “No, no, you gotta get the bone in” and I understand why. It’s just a little, it’s a little nastier to eat ’cause of the dark meat and you get down right next to the bone and no matter how well you cooked it, it’s a little pink right next to the bone and you’re kinda like, “Did I cook this enough?” Oh. And you’re asking yourself that question. But no, I put some rub on ’em and then I cooked ’em on some hot coals, charcoal, then I put some barbecue sauce on at the end and let it caramelize a little bit, you know, blacken ’em up a little bit. Um hm. Also grilled some poblano peppers, Oh! along with them. The California ones. Fire-roasted poblanos. Cut those up, put in the middle of the table. You could have ’em along with your chicken. Everybody was happy with dad, at least for a little bit. Okay, that’s good. But your toes though. I mean, my toes were in shoes the whole time, nobody saw, I think your toes need work. I’ve seen ’em occasionally, those nails, I mean I think you really stand to benefit. It’s not a, It needs to be done. No, it’s not a lack of care. I– It has nothing to do with care, it’s genetics. Yeah. I could get, They can buff it and shape it, they can do something. I don’t know why. For who? Who would it be for? You? ‘Cause it’s not for me. I don’t care. I feel like the way your nails grow, they like grow up and out. No, they grow, they hug the end of the toe. They don’t grow out, they just go around the toes. That’s good. Maybe you never need to cut ’em then. Like a claw. It’s like your toes have a helmet if you let it keep growing. A little nail helmet. I keep ’em trimmed, for the most part. It’s just, That’s a real long ways for you. They’re just unsightly. To get down there to that toe. I don’t, to be honest with you, and this is probably sexist. I just don’t trust a man with good-lookin’ feet. Hm. You know, I just, I feel like he’s up to something. That explains why whenever we have an important meeting or interview you ask people to take off their shoes and socks. Right. And if it’s a man and he has like spectacular feet, I’m like, “You know, I don’t know. “I don’t know if I can trust you.” Yeah, that’s probably sexist. It’s probably multiple things. I’m just being honest. Speaking of being honest, I wanna be honest about what it’s like to do the self-promotion so we’re gonna get into that. Well, I think on the calendar we called it media day. The day in particular, we did a number of things but the day that I am thinking about in particular is Monday of this past week when were recording this, in which we had to In New York City. We had to get up. I’m just gonna give like an overview of the day and then we can get into the details. Okay. We had to get up, get dressed, go to The Today Show first? I think so, yeah. Then we had to go to Conde Nast, who owns Wired and Vanity Fair, do three videos with them, and then immediately go to The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. And then go directly from The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon to The Bleak Creek Conversations and that’s why we showed up at that particular show in our suits. When I say it like that, it doesn’t feel like it was a whole lot but it certainly felt like a whole lot at the time. Well, especially with the time change. I mean, it’s three hours difference so you’re having to get up, let’s just say three hours earlier than we normally would. I definitely had not yet adjusted yet. So that’s kinda, and it was the second or third day of having been on the time, you know, that’s when the jet lag really hits. So it was pretty difficult but I mean, you go on the Today Show. With all these, with the television shows, it’s true of Fallon, it’s true of the Today Show, and any other appearance like that, you do this pre-interview where you’re kinda talking to the producer in order to, you know, they know what you wanna promote. It’s like we’re talking to them about the novel so that they can find a touch point that works with their audience so they can ask us a question that then we can say something that’ll resonate. But then you also, you gotta try to get a funny story in there or like play a game. Apparently, you know, they’re throwing more and more things at guest appearances in order to get people to watch them. We can unpack that more but I think when we went to the Today Show and The Tonight Show, it’s like we kinda knew based on the pre-interview with the producers what it is we were gonna be doing. But I will say that that interview went, it was very short, but it went a lot, it actually wasn’t what we had been asked in the pre-interview, unlike Fallon, which we can get into in a second. Well, let’s back up a little bit and talk about thinking about what we were gonna wear because Okay . that was the first thing that happened. All right, we have this wonderful stylist, Kimmy Erin, who is the person who helps us figure out what we’re gonna wear when make these media appearances. If you think that we looked good on Jimmy Fallon, you can thank Kimmy Erin. Um hm. And she also put together these looks for the Today Show and then We had another day of stuff we needed to do. A Chicago thing, yeah. So I think that we have this, we’ve discussed this, we’re comfortable in two different modes typically, when it comes to what we’re wearing, and that is casual Whatever we would wear on Good Mythical Morning. Which is whatever we would wear on GMM. Which is basically what we would wear, you know, if I was just getting up and going about my day. Right. And then we have very dressed up, sharply dressed like we were on Fallon. Full suit, tie, socks that match, etc. I like to wear, it’s fun to get dressed up every now and again, especially when it’s something that’s important to us that you can be justified getting that fancy. Like being on the Tonight Show And a lot of people A lot of people take a different tack when they go on the Tonight Show. Saw Tyler Ninja. He went on the Tonight Show in a hoodie. He was dressed like I am right now. Like a boxer getting ready to weigh in. Let’s say a gamer. Yeah. He was dressed like a gamer. And so he was like, and everybody does a different thing. We’re like, “Nah,” I said, “we’re gonna dress up.” But there’s this what you might call a no man’s land for us which is this, would you call it business casual? It’s called the way we looked on the Today Show. So I had this like black jacket over a turtleneck and these tan pants and these black shoes. I would very rarely if ever choose to wear any of these things for myself, right? I mean, I thought you looked good in it. I mean, the pants that I wore were purple pants from a suit that I had but then I had this sweater, this like thin, very dressy, block pattern sweater that I wore with it. I thought yours was a little less. I actually would, I would wear that like on a nice date. But not really, not in L.A. There’s very few places where Yeah. you’d go on a nice date. Like you don’t go out, at least I don’t like go out for a date in L.A., even at a really nice restaurant, and like wear a blazer. Yeah. I don’t just like put a blazer on over stuff. That weird in between stage, I just can’t find a way to be comfortable. But for the Today Show, we were given that. We were given something in this middle zone, the things that we ended up wearing. And we had a choice. I will say that we have a choice. So Kimmy comes in, she has a spread of different clothes, and so she’s going for this sort of updated, I would say elevated casual, little bit dressed up but little bit dressed down look for the Today Show, because if you look at what people wear on the Today Show, that’s what they wear. And so and also you’re thinking about, it’s funny because we have conversations with our publisher who says things like, “You know, mostly moms are gonna be watching “the Today Show at the hour that you’re going to be on, “the fourth hour of the Today Show, “and so we want you to impress moms.” Right. “And say something about the book “that would make them want to buy the book “for their teenager.” So then we picked out these outfits that we just described to you and then we packed ’em and then we’re like, we’re talking on the flight and we’re like, “Man, that’s”, we’re like fretting about these outfits. We’re like, “Man, I just don’t, “I just don’t feel comfortable”. And I’m saying things like, “You know, you’re jacket’s so big. “You’re already so big. “You make me look small. “Why you gotta wear this big-ass jacket “that makes me look even smaller?” And so like that’s my qualm and you’re like, “Well, I’m not even comfortable wearing this anyway.” We don’t have to talk about that but I think that’s in your mind. It is, yeah, it was my overthinking of the ensemble. But you’re like, “I don’t even want to wear this anyway. “I don’t feel like, it’s not us, “I don’t feel it’s comfortable.” It’s like all the stuff that you just said. And so then we tell Jenna. We’re like, “So, we’re thinking about not wearing “the clothes that Kimmy picked out. “We’re thinking about wearing the slightly less dressy clothes that she picked out for the Chicago thing on the Today Show. Yeah. So she’s like, “Okay, I’ll get those ready” and then we get a text from Stevie and Stevie’s like, “So I heard you guys are thinking “about not wearing the clothes that Kimmy picked out “for you for the Today Show.” That was like uh-oh, here we go. ‘Cause I could tell. Now this is, obviously we have an incredible relationship with Stevie and we’ve been working with her for, how many years has it been? Seven or eight years. And this is often the nature of our relationship. This is what we want her to do. In fact, when you wished her a happy birthday the other day, you said thank you for supporting us, Disagreeing. disagreeing with us and blankety-blank. Because she’s very good at what she does and she’s usually right. And so, she was like, “Well, I do think that you do want “this to be an elevated look, “you are trying to impress moms and I think that,” and she likes sends us the pictures, because once you get through in the wardrobe you take a picture of yourself, she’s like, “This is what you’re thinking about wearing “but this is what you could be wearing. “I think you should go with what you could be wearing.” And I’m like, she’s probably right but I just want to be comfortable and does it really matter anyway? Who’s gonna watch this? I started thinking things like this. I’m like, is going on this show and talking about this book for 45 seconds gonna make anybody buy it anyway? That’s the kinda thing I started thinking. It’s easy to start thinking that, especially when you start doing it. But yeah, I’m like, listen, okay, we ‘re not gonna die on this hill. Like Jenna brought these clothes. But then Jenna, so we had that conversation with Stevie and I was like, “Okay, we’ll keep talking about it.” Neither of us made a definitive decision. You got off of the text thread. I think you went to work out or something. You were like, “I’m not gonna talk about this now”. Yeah. So after some back and forth with Stevie, then I text Jenna. I’m like, “Okay, well we may wear the other clothes.” And she was like, “I thought you might say that “and I’ve already got them ready.” And then Yeah, she knows what’s up. And then she was like, ‘I agree that “that’s what you should wear.” So okay, Jenna and Stevie now both think that this is what we should be wearing to impress all the mom’s watching the Today Show in the fourth hour and so that’s what we did. We wore it. You know, and it’s all a game. So looking at this as like a case study, there’s two different ways you can look at this as a listener, I’m thinking. One is yeah, this is a game and maybe you can see how it gets, it can start to wear on you, ’cause it’s like, no pun intended, okay, I’m wearing something that I wouldn’t naturally wear, even on a date, but I’m doing it so that I can reach this perceived mom demographic. It’s like eh. But then, on the other hand it’s like, you’ve got somebody who’s bringing in like a spread of clothes and we just go in, you know, we’re trying all this stuff on and somebody makes us look elevated. Isn’t that fun, you know? And I mean it’s definitely fun to, and it is. I think both are true, ya know? Especially when you talk about the suits and like being able to like look your finest and go on the Tonight Show for not the first but I think the sixth time? Yeah. Ya know, that’s frickin’ awesome. So it’s like. No, it’s great. We’re not complaining. It’s just we think it’s amusing, the games that you have to play when it comes to marketing, you know? Well, I will say that in the moment, in the moment it is difficult for me to enjoy. Yeah. I am often, when that day, so I knew that day was coming, right? And I was like, okay, we’re gonna do the Today Show. By the way, for those of you who might be confused, if you were following along during the week that we, we’d recorded the Today Show but then it shot, it aired that Thursday or Friday so, but all this was done on the same day. I was thinking about that day and we have so little control in those situations. So like for every situation that we were going into, we’re not in control. We’re not hosting, we’re on somebody else’s show. Um hm. And I definitely don’t look forward to it. I actually start thinking about, I had these fantasies about being in my hotel room at the end of the night, going to bed. Yep. That is not necessarily a healthy way to see that day when you wake up in the morning and you’re thinking about, ah, I just wanna be back here going to bed because I’m anxious about the stuff that I have to do. And I don’t want to over blow it, it’s not a debilitating, it’s not like a true, it’s not like a anxiety disorder. I’m not like super uncomfortable, it’s just I have trouble getting myself to enjoy this. I’d rather be doing this on my own terms, ya know. But then, in the moment, especially depending on what it was, I think when we were on Fallon and we were performing a song that we had written when we were 14, I was legitimately having a good time, Yeah. at that point. Yeah, that was amazing. But for the Today Show, I mean, the morning shows are like zoos. I mean, it’s just like with all cages open. It’s just everybody’s going everywhere in cramped quarters and you’re being shoved here to wait and then come out here and then, oh, let’s meet the host and oh, there putting blindfolds on you and you’re eating a sandwich that they made . It’s like, we knew we were gonna do that and that was funny. And then we did the interview and it was we knew we were gonna get a couple of questions about the book. We get the first question, ’cause we wanna talk to the moms about the novel. You know, we got all dressed up for you, mom. You wanna hear about this novel? And so they ask you, “What’s the novel about?”, and you’re like sharing what the novel’s about. And then I’m like, okay, I know what my follow up is, just to kind of clarify what I think’s gonna resonate with the viewer. But I didn’t even have a chance to get that in because they move so quickly, you’re giving your answer about the brief synopsis of “The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek” and right on the heels of that she says, “You guys wanna play a game where we zoom in on food and you guess what it is?” I was like, “Whoa, okay, sure! So you know, I’ve heard Joe Rogan talk about this. It’s like being in a rock tumbler. Joe Rogan has talked about the fact that, he’s like, “I hate doing morning radio “and I don’t wanna do appearances and interviews “so I just have this podcast and I just tell people “that I’m gonna be somewhere and they come “to my shows and they sell out because”, and you know what? He can do that because he has the most popular podcast in the world. We can’t do that. If we just told you guys on GMM and Ear Biscuits about what we were doing, a lot less people would find out about it, so we don’t have the privilege of being able to make that but I understand the impulse because even the way podcasting in general. I mean obviously we don’t do interviews anymore but the way that everything is put into these really bite-sized pieces. Even when you’ve got a daily show like the Today Show, which I guess goes for, is it four hours every day? I don’t know, it’s at least four hours every day. Well, at least three but go ahead. ‘Cause we were in the fourth, they say we were in the fourth hour so it’s gotta be at least four hours, right? Yeah, that’s when they don’t worry about the news anymore and they start zooming in on pictures of Right, and so food. if you have got to talk and fill that time every single day, you would think this might be a place for a slightly slower paced, relaxed conversation about something but no, even in that, four hours of content, it’s gonna be, “What’s your book about?” You say one line and you say, “All right, let’s play a game where we zoom in on food.” Um hm. That’s just the nature of the medium. I’m not necessarily complaining about it but I’m just saying, you have to know that that is the environment you’re going into as opposed to when we made the appearance on the Dead Meat podcast and Pete Holmes’ podcast. Yeah. And the Books On The Subway podcast, which we did in New York. Basically any podcast. Any podcast. Any podcast you can be like, I’m gonna talk about this at my own pace and I’m gonna get to say the things that I wanna say about it. Which by the way, if you’re, I do recommend you listening to those podcasts. If you’re reading the novel right now and you’re into the details of it but you want a spoiler-free conversation, Dead Meat James podcast, Dead Meat podcast was a really fun discussion. Yeah, with James and Chelsea. And then similarly, spoiler-free podcast conversation on Books On A Subway, like a off the rails conversation. That one went places. So yeah. And then particularly for, You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes, two hours of talking about a lot of topics that, and you know using the book as a jumping off point, we talked about lots of things in the realm of faith that I don’t think we’ve ever talked about so if you’re interested in that, definitely check out our guest thing on Pete’s podcast. But yeah, when it comes to podcasting and that pacing, podcasting gives me hope because it is that conversational, drawn out, go in deep. I mean, what we’re doing right now is rewarding. It’s a rewarding experience for us and I’m just glad that people wanna listen, Well, I think there’s also an authenticity to the platform, not just given the fact But you could’ve dressed a little more elevated, I’m just saying. Exactly. So it’s like, why are we worrying about this pretense? As you listen to us talk about this, I’m sure, because you’ve chosen to listen to a podcast, you’ve chosen to make guys who make primarily internet videos a part of your entertainment landscape. If you’ve made that decision, then you probably have chosen that because you have a distaste for the traditional way things are done. You’re not watching the Today Show. You don’t wanna see these prepackaged clips that are moving at this ridiculous pace. You don’t wanna think about, oh those guys are dressed like that, not because it’s who they are but it’s who they think someone else wants them to be. I understand that that might be a huge turn off. We’re just kind of being really honest about the way that we’re talking about it because it is a game. When you go into someone else’s territory and your, the whole point is to be there to appeal to their audience so, very frankly, you can sell more books because you believe in what you created and you wanna be able to write more and you want this thing to break outside of your fan base, you kinda have to swallow some of those things. Well, you don’t have to but we have chosen to, without any shame, to swallow some of those things. But I would say that it is the more laid back, more authentic, new media appearances that are more fun. But you know, the traditional television media, you see how they’re being informed by the internet. It’s like your point about the Today Show was you’d think that by the fourth hour that they could stretch things out and get a little more conversational. Obviously that’s not the case because we’re sitting there like, quickly, I mean our segment was so short, even in the fourth hour. And we did so many things. If you don’t stop and zoom in on food, somebody’s gonna turn it to Good Morning America. Apparently. Right, is that the theory? Well, it really kinda mirrors what’s happening online in terms of click bait. Or I’ll say the way that even the Tonight Show and all the talk shows have to create content that then works on the internet, you know? I mean, we found ourselves in situations that were not that different than Good Mythical Morning because of how the landscape is changing. Perfect example, the next day we flew to Chicago and we were on the Windy City, I think is the name of the show, it’s like, I think it’s the ABC affiliate. Yeah, the Chicago In Chicago. version of the Today Show, basically, or Good Morning America. And you know, I think that’s actually airing today that we’re recording this. We never sat down and had an interview. We said a couple things about the novel, they held it up, they plugged it, but we played this game. What do they call it? I don’t know but it was Feel and Squeal, it was what we do Put your hand in a box and then you guess what it is your feeling. Now the night before, on the Tonight Show, the guest before us was Reese Witherspoon and when she first came out, she put her hand in a box and tried to figure out what it is she was feeling. She played Feel and Squeal. Now I’m not saying that the Tonight Show and the Windy City have copied us in something we invented. I don’t even know if we invented it. I know that there was I know another, it was an idea that was waiting to happen. Vanity Fair did something called the Fear Box and it was very much the same thing we were doing with Feel and Squeal but, and who cares if it was before or after? It’s an obvious idea once you start thinking of let’s have guests do things. But that’s what everybody’s doing now. It’s like you find yourself in Chicago on a morning show and they’re playing the same thing that Fallon’s playing, the same thing that we’re playing. And not to mention on the Today Show, the whole zooming in on something and guessing what it is, well, we’ve done that as well. Again, this isn’t a, hey we did it first. We’re not saying we did it first but we make a show that is the pieces of the traditional shows that are designed to then be viral or to break out or to make it seem more fun, well, we have a show that is built primarily with those sensational things in Good Mythical Morning. And so the conversation that we started having, Yeah. was, and again, we talk about this all the time. While we’re traveling and while we’re supposed to be enjoying, hey, we gotta book that’s out and people are responding well to it and we get to go on the Today Show and we get to go on Fallon. We just continue, it’s our mode to just continue to work and to discuss and to figure out, what are we gonna do next? I actually have more fun doing that than not doing it so it’s fine but what we kept saying was, hmm, you know we’re constantly trying to innovate in lots of different ways but also within Good Mythical Morning, and it’s just like when you go to a, for lack of a better word, a local news show in Chicago, and they’re doing the thing that you do on your show, it’s kinda like when your mom got on Facebook and you were like, I don’t think Facebook is for me anymore. The thing that we started thinking is, all right, we gotta do something else. Now that they’re doing it for the moms, now we gotta do something new that they, they can copy that if they want but I kinda feel like the pressure to be like, all right, this has gotten all the way to this point. Let’s find something else. Which is a conversation we’re constantly having. We’re constantly trying to invent new things but Especially towards the end of a year when we’re starting to think strategically about what 2020 looks like. We’re just scratching the surface of that conversation. Yep. But when it comes to Good Mythical Morning, it’s like as we talked about with Ear Biscuits, evolve or die. And we don’t have the answers and so I actually, I’m at a pretty unsettled point because, Unsettled. I think we’ve started, Even with a fresh pedicure, you’re still unsettled. Uh yeah, sadly. Interesting. Because I think we’ve identified this challenge and we said, you know you read the tea leaves in the Windy City show and it’s like, if they’re doing what we’re doing, then we need to be doing something else. So it’s like, Hundred percent. So it’s like not knowing what that is and absolutely knowing that it’s not a big, drastic change that happens overnight, you know, the way that everything’s set up, the way that we produce Good Mythical Morning, it’s more like how do we continue to evolve? Not how do we drastically change what the show is. But even within that evolution, like knowing strategically what’s the long view. Identifying the problem but then not yet having the answers to me is an unsettling point and I think I feel a little bit more engaged in the challenge of it right now than I have over the past few years, I think, when it comes to Good Mythical Morning. Yeah, I agree with that. And it’s by no means not the only challenge that we’re facing. I mean, creatively there’s lot of things we’re trying to figure out. I think it was interesting that we’ve been having this conversation about innovation and then we go and basically every single appearance that we make. Also, let’s talk about the fact that we, I don’t know when those videos are gonna come out, the ones that we shot for Vanity Fair, but Well, just talk about ’em, it doesn’t matter. We did a lie detector thing, right? Well, we’ve already done a lie detector thing. We’ve done a lie detector thing on our our show and we’ve also done it With our moms but that’s not what you’re talking about. But we’ve done a lie detector thing for BuzzFeed, I think, like two years ago, right? And now we’re doing another lie detector thing with whatever outlet that was. Vanity Fair. And so I think it’s a funny video but you start to get this sense that everyone is doing the same, they’re seeing, they’re looking out, they’re seeing what works, and then they’re trying to do it. Some people just do it exactly the way that they’ve seen it done. And it works. Yeah. Until it stops working and so I think we have to be the ones to find the next things that we’re gonna try that other people will emulate. Well, and it’s a tall order. We have an incredible team and they’re coming up with things all the time. When I say we, I mean all of us as a team. I’m not just talking about the two of us. But I’m just saying that it’s, the question that is in my mind right now and I don’t know if I’m going to be able to articulate this way in a way that makes sense to even me or anyone else. Try it in Spanish. Meh, that would be even harder. That would be . Okay, you’ve proven your point. Hold on, think I just, That was French and Spanish. Yeah okay. is what you just did. Right, yeah, yeah. Well, France and Spain I didn’t mean to derail you. are close to each other. You said you didn’t know There are some people who probably speak frenish and I just did it. You said you didn’t know if you could articulate your point, and then I made it even more difficult, I’m sorry. Well, you specialize in that. Oh gosh. Pedicures and derailing. But the, It would of been funny if you’d have just ignored it when I said Spanish. I don’t know if to me it feels like it’s not just finding the next box to stick your hand in, right? What’s the next version of a box to stick your hand in? A box to stick your foot in? You know what I’m saying? Right. You can get really close to it but really what we’re talking about, we’re talking about a genre. We’re not talking, Yes. There’s evolution within a genre and then there’s the genre of, there’s an evolution of the genre. Evolution within the genre or evolution of the genre. Right, ’cause how, And you, ‘Cause you talk about food, you talk about us eating some much food on our show. You can find different ways to, no pun intended, slice it. That’s a genre. And you know, well, let’s eat things from different places. I specifically remember, we still do come up with some ideas, I specifically remember when the international food thing was Birthed? Birthed or pitched to us and it was like, “Hey, we’re gonna play a game where you guys eat something “from international fast food location around the world “and then you have to guess what country it comes from.” And then I was like, “Can we make it physical? “Like, what if we had a map and we threw darts at it and that was the way that you guessed?” And that became a format that no one else is doing, right? And then the shuffleboard thing, it was an answer to, “Hey, let’s guess when things came from “and what’s a fun way to interact physically “with the timeline?” And somebody was like, “Shuffleboard.” And so now we do that with shuffleboard. Yeah and then on our last tour, we started throwing axes. So I come back and I’m like now, in the same genre, in the same, we also call it a bucket of like guessing using some physical challenge and let’s do that with axes. Now we haven’t done that yet but we’re gonna do it. I’m just saying we’re gonna do it so if somebody does it before us or has already done it, I don’t know about it and we are gonna do it. It’s tough to keep up with who’s done what, that’s for sure, and there’s a lot of like convergent ideation on the internet, where you end up doing the same thing just because everyone is thinking, everyone is, this is what I’m trying to articulate in frenish is that everyone is ideating in the same landscape, kind of in the same ways and I think that, and I don’t know if we’re capable of it, let me just say, I don’t know if we’re capable of it and I don’t know if you can do it within GMM and not kill it but I think the challenge that we’re trying to approach is how do you level up the genre as opposed to just reinventing the wheel and just making it a little bit flashier of a wheel. Yeah, ’cause you look at That’s the conversation. ‘Cause you look at Fallon, how long can Fallon just have top notch celebrity guests come in and put their hands in things or drink things, the same stuff that we’re doing, he can probably do it a lot longer than we have because it’s a television institution. And as much as I’d like to think and maybe for some people, GMM is starting to feel like an internet institution, it’s like we cannot, we can’t rest on that, whether it’s true of false. I don’t know, it doesn’t matter to me at this point and you know, what matters is creating things that we’re excited about within the context of the show, if I’m just looking at the show, and that we also think will work, and that is a challenge. I mean, on one stop on the Bleak Creek Conversations, we would always answer questions from the audience that were tweeted at us and one question, let’s see, ’cause I’m trying to remember. I actually don’t remember the question but the answer was basically, why do we want to write a novel? And we talked about our passion for storytelling and once we had the opportunity then our excitement to mine our shared experiences and our friendship and like pour that into a novel. So much of it was about story though. But then the thing in my answer was there was another side benefit, something we didn’t anticipate, with saying yes to the huge project of writing a novel and that was it really got us back in touch with the roots of our friendship. Um hm. So yeah, we created that documentary in order to make the connection between the novel and our friendship in order to not just to sell the book but honestly that’s part of it. Yeah. But then it became such a important project, just the documentary part, I think it was so important to us to reconnect with our friendship that we wanted to make sure that not only ticket holders to the Conversation events but everyone who wanted to see it who’s a fan of ours could see it and that’s why we put it out as three episodes of Good Mythical Morning. As we’re recording this, we’re in the middle of the second day and we’re already seeing the response. I don’t know how may views it’ll end up getting. You know, I think Part One is doing doing pretty well. Here’s the ironic thing, right? This documentary of us going back to our childhood homes, and Part One is literally visiting the homes we grew up in, is not taking off as fast as a video that’s just about food, right? However, there are a lot of people who are voicing their opinions about it and saying, “I love seeing this kind of content from you, “I love when you guys get out into the world.” And obviously there is no world in which we turn Good Mythical Morning into that because I think even if you’ve never edited a video in your life, you probably have some appreciation for the fact that those documentary, the three part documentary was a lot harder to put together than an episode of Good Mythical Morning, like exponentially more time went into that. Sure, so that can’t become Good Mythical Morning and that’s not what’s on the table. Seeing the people’s response to it because it literally is taking, putting into the GMM flow something that’s completely unexpected and completely outside of the genre that we’ve established. I’m not saying we’re gonna move in that direction, I’m just saying that it shakes things up and it gets our minds working Well, I think, in a different way. One thing that we know it already did was, I hope this happened. I think that it reminded people that the reason why Good Mythical Morning works is because of the deeply rooted friendship. It’s not just about, what are they gonna eat and gag into a trashcan, ya know? And I found myself saying that in answering a question at the Conversations last week and then people started applauding. I mean, we didn’t talk about that with every stop but I think that it’s, Well the people who’ve made a decision to come to a Bleak Creek Conversation, that’s a very particular group of people. Sure. And those people are like, “Guys, I’m on board, “not just to watch you eat, “I’m on board because of who you are and your friendship.” And so we get that. But it’s an interesting dance, right? Because if you lean completely into that, we probably wouldn’t. Here’s the ironic thing. Again, now if I could speak Spanish or French, I’d be better at saying this but the ironic part of this is that because we’ve chosen to create Good Mythical Morning in a certain way that is designed to kind of go out there and take advantage of the way people’s online behavior on the platform of YouTube, the way the algorithm serves up videos and the way people click on things, the titles and the thumbnails and all that stuff that goes right into that point of decision of somebody clicking on the video. Because we’ve done that for seven years, 16 seasons, we then have the privilege to write a book, make a documentary, get people to buy the book, get people to watch the documentary, put it on a channel where you’ve built this momentum doing all these things. And finding the balance, I feel like, is the real, is what we’re trying. We’re trying to find the balance, that’s what we’re trying to achieve. And just to clarify, is it a balance between two things? What are those two things that you’re saying? I’m saying that you can’t just go completely on one side of the spectrum, which would be like, Confessional. Well, I was gonna go to the other side first. Okay. The I’m just trying to get you to click on a video, that’s all I want you to do is to just click on a video and I don’t care whether you are an existing fan or a new fan. I just want you to click on a video. And then you’ve got the complete opposite end of the spectrum is like, I don’t care about the algorithm, I don’t care about the machine, I don’t care about the game. I just to want to be my unfiltered, authentic self. And I don’t care about schedule, I don’t care about how often we upload, I don’t care about it being a reliable thing that can be there every single day. It’s just this completely authentic, if I feel like it, I will make a video. That is a part of YouTube and there are people who are successful in that place. I couldn’t make a video for the past month, guys, because I’ve been doing X, Y, and Z. We don’t ever do that. We say, we probably shouldn’t have made videos for the past month because we’re doing X, Y, and Z but we still gave you 20 videos this month or 40 or whatever the number is. So yeah I don’t know exact, to bring it full circle back to self-promotion, right? Which is where this conversation started. I do think that whatever the answers end up being to these questions and what is striking a balance and how does that work. I will say that I am personally much more interested in and excited about that documentary going out to our audience and them being able to make the connection between, oh, this is the world you guys grew up in. Like you tweeted, “if you want to know “why we are who we are”, then watch this. Making that connection between us and then the work that we put out, right? Bleak Creek is a incredibly, deeply personal expression of our highest creative aspirations. Not only is it something that we feel great about, that we crafted it, but we feel great about the fact that it is so tied to who we are and I would much rather be able to do that on our terms. Being able to take that documentary and put it in place of a show where we usually just sit at a desk and do something, having the privilege to be able to do that, I’m much more excited about that exercise than I am going on somebody else’s show, wearing the right thing, saying the right thing, to get the right audience excited about the book. I’m gonna keep doing that. We’re gonna keep doing traditional promotions for the things that we need to do but what am I personally excited about? I’m excited about the medium that we have freedom in. Yeah. I mean, unfortunately the real choice before us, the thing that we’re wrestling with, it’s not a choice between do we promote on other people’s podcasts or do we make our own thing. Right. There’s not actually a dichotomy there. We’re gonna do both of those. Well I guess what just happened in this conversation was we kinda pulled back the curtain more on like where our minds are, you know, with our own content which again, that’s what we care so much about. Promotion’s always gonna be a part of that but we might be dressing a little more elevated than we would have expected. Maybe we’ll just go, next time let’s just go in long johns. Yeah, that would be, let’s just go in, Will they let us on? If the flaps are up. I don’t know what the conclusion to this conversation is. Like you said, we’ve let you in on a little, we’ve opened the flap of the front of our long johns and let you into this intimate conversation about the creative process. Way to make ’em feel great about it. Well, I want ’em to get out of it, you know? I don’t want ’em to get too, We’re opening the back flap now, you’re gonna exit. Go right out. But we got a rec. It’s my rec. Rec baby, rec baby, one, two, three, four. All right, fine, you know what? Why don’t I just turn the rec into self-promotion? Yeah, that would be appropriate. Well, I do think since you’ve listened this far on this Ear Biscuit, maybe you have an appetite to hear us talk more and more, so I would recommend those three podcasts we did. We’re proud of those conversations. If you’re really into, we talk about the novel in each of them, of course, we’re promoting that, but if you’re really into horror and like our thoughts on that. So horror is a hard word for me to say. Dead Meat James is a good one. If you’re into just like Rhett and Link in random, off the rails mode, the Books On A Subway, am I getting that right? Books On The Subway. Books On The Subway. And if you want an unfettered, into uncharted Rhett and Link conversation territory, because Pete Holmes loves to talk about faith and philosophy, so he gets into it and brings us along for the ride so we talk about lots of things in that two hour conversation on You Made It Weird so those are my three recs after all that, Wow, three recs. Yeah, I’m freely frickin’ promoting myself. No, you’re promoting three other people’s podcasts. Yeah, I am but I’m only promoting us on them. Right, but maybe they will get into those worlds, they’ll open up those flaps. See what’s inside those long johns, ya know? Pete’s got long johns too. I’m really interested, I’m really interested on what you thought about this conversation. Use #BLEAKCREEK and let us know. Whenever we talk about what we’re thinking about Good Mythical Morning, I start to get nervous because I get nervous that we’re making fans nervous because I know that there’s so many just like, hey this is part of my daily routine, and I don’t want there to be any inkling of anything that threatens that. And that’s not what we were talking about, We’re just choosing, But I do get nervous. We’re just, you know, just because mom and dad are in the kitchen having a little bit of a, like they’ve raised their voice a little bit, it doesn’t mean they’re getting divorced necessarily. Right, right. Okay? No, I think that we have, But if they do, it’s your fault. No. I think that this is an effort, well, Ear Biscuits has slowly evolved in itself, right? And has become a place that we’re just talking, it’s just two buds talking. In fact, that’s probably the biggest change that we’re gonna make in 2020. It’s gonna be Two Buds Talking, formerly knows as Ear Biscuits. That’s the first big announcement that we can make. No, we’re not gonna do that. No, nothing’s gonna change in a way, nothing’s being threatened, it’s just we’re letting you in. We’re letting you into the conversation a little bit. #BLEAKCREEK, that’s your way to engage. Oh yeah, because we don’t know what the timeline on this is but we are gonna do an episode where we do a spoiler-ridden, not a spoiler-free, but a spoiler-full discussion of the book for anyone who has read the book and so we’re gonna keep giving you some time to do that. Make notes of your questions or observations. Anything, it’s not just gonna be questions. And if you haven’t read the book, you don’t wanna read the book, I’m hearing that a lot, well, you can hear the book Yeah. on Audible. More self-promotion. Yeah, well, we wanna talk about it and we wanna talk about is as a family. Kids, come downstairs. Mom and Dad have something they want to discuss with you. It’s the book they wrote. To watch more Ear Biscuits, click on the playlist on the right. To watch the previous episode of Ear Biscuits, click on the playlist to the left. And don’t forget to click on the circular icon to subscribe. If you prefer to listen to this podcast, it’s available on all your favorite podcast platforms. Thanks for being your mythical best.